Hey guys, help me not suck at FFTA.

MundaneSoul

So I finally got this game (the first one) through Goozex and I love it, but I feel like I'm in way over my head. After the first fifteen missions or so, I feel like I'm doing it wrong.

My characters attacks are not particularly strong, I'm constantly out of money from trying to buy new weapons and armor yet still never have enough to get everybody the things I want, and I feel like I have to leave underpowered equipment on so I can learn the abilities off of them, which leaves me giving and receiving less damage then I'd like.

I feel like I need to be grinding but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that in this game - even with the side missions I seem to be less powerful than I'd like. Also, I'm not sure if I should be trying to use all of these people I'm recruiting or just picking a group of them and making them really damn strong.

Also, how do I keep from failing dispatch missions?

Any general advice you can give will be much appreciated as well.

Guide me. This game is awesome and I want to not suck at it.

Sheep

GBA or DS?

MundaneSoul

The first one. GBA.

Xenogears of Bore

This is how all Tactics games start.

Keep playing, you'll unlock more weapons that do more damage, and get more abilities that work together to give you more options.

Just playing the game is the grind. Do all of the non story missions you can stomach before doing the next story mission and you'll find that you are well armed after a few hours.

MundaneSoul

If I fail a dispatch mission, do I get to try it again at some point?

ASimPerson

Yes

captaink

If you feel underpowered, you might want to focus on a small group of guys. Have a look at a class chart and see what you want to go for.

Classes that I like: Ninja, Fighter, Summoner, Elementalist, Black Mage, Dragoon, Gunner, Juggler, Gladiator.

For dispatch missions, I think it's based on class and level. Some classes are more suited, and a higher level always helps. They do different actions when you put them out for dispatches, this indicates their probability of success. Kneeling: low Standing: 50/50 Jumping: High

Shorn Scrotum Man

My favorite setup to play through the game:

Fighter/Ninja (the main kid)
Blackmage/Animist (monteblanc)
Paladin/Fighter
White Mage/Blue Mage
Elementalist/Red Mage
White Mage/Black Mage/Beastmaster (only to help set up the Blue Mage)

Dragoons are good too, I'm just not terribly impressed with the rest of the Banga classes.

Just grind through as many of the non-essential missions as you can before you take story missions. Keep in mind classes with heals can heal themselves every turn for xp even if they can't attack or something.

Once the clan wars start grind xp like a mofo and you'll be good!

urahonky

My tactic is to normally get the guys come to ME, rather than me going to them. Sure in the beginning it's a waiting game, but if you cast protect and/or haste on your guys you should be okay. Once they get over to you, focus on one at a time. Starting with a white mage/summoner/black mage. That way they can't destroy your team.

captaink

Oh and later once you can kit them out, Assassins fucking rule. Snipers are good too.

YesNoMu

An awesome starter class is the Archer. Give them a Nail Bow, and Aim:Arm everybody on the field. It gets even better when you get the Target Bow for Concentration.

Another important job is the Thief. You ought to be stealing almost everything you can off of the bad guys. Once you get either the Cinquedea (for Steal:Ability) or Swordbreaker (for Steal:Weapon), you can break the game wide open. With Steal:Ability especially, your humes and moogles won't ever need AP again. Note especially enemies with Item as their sub-ability-- they can equip new weapons after you've stolen something, making them close to an endless weapon factory. This is the only way (besides placing the map) to get some of the really powerful weapons.

Assassins are the "I win" class (especially with Concentration), so have one or more Viera head down that circuitous path. In TA1, it has probably the best stat growth in the game, so level even your mages as Assassins if you can.

Later on, Red Mage/Summoners are the king, for doublecasted summons. But you won't get there for a while.

YesNoMu

Oh, and screw Montblanc. Moogles make terrible mages. Kill him off in a Jagd if you feel like it.

Pretty much the only moogles you'll want are a Juggler/Thief and a Gunner/Mog Knight.

captaink

Yeah moogle mages are a dead end. Go for Nu Mou casters.

Brodo Faggins

Once you get the ninja swords that grant dual-wield, the game becomes a joke.

Xenogears of Bore

THe real way to not suck at FFTA involves spending ten or so hours doing that same dispatch mission over and over again to get steal:weapon before the third mission.

MundaneSoul

So I guess it would be wise not to even bother hanging on to a weapon/armor to learn an ability unless it's one I plan on using regularly, right?

Some strange completionist part of me has had me doing this so far.

urahonky

Well it's good to learn as many skills as you can, as that unlocks other classes. But until you get the hang of the game, stick with stuff that does the most damage/offers the most defense.

Darmak

It's been awhile since I played but go ahead and grab as many abilities as you can (though get the ones you think you'll use more often first) since it can't hurt to have more options. You never know when a particular ability may come in handy.

Hmmm, this has gotten me wanting to play again. Should I just pick up the second one instead? Is it any good?

edit: urahonky beat me with the advice, heh.

urahonky

The 2nd one is really good, and if you liked the first you'd like the second. I just can't seem to play my DS anymore.

Darmak

Why can't you play your DS? Is it broken, or do you just not have the urge?

Also, thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out.

urahonky

Darmak wrote: »

Why can't you play your DS? Is it broken, or do you just not have the urge?

Also, thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out.

It feels so much smaller than the PSP, and the D-Pad feels really warn out on it. Like I have to press extra hard or it doesn't register that I'm pressing it. That and the ABXY buttons are pretty loose.

I just don't want to buy a new one, but I may not be able to hold out till the DS2 or whatever.

Zampano

YesNoMu wrote: »

Oh, and screw Montblanc. Moogles make terrible mages. Kill him off in a Jagd if you feel like it.

Pretty much the only moogles you'll want are a Juggler/Thief and a Gunner/Mog Knight.

However, those three classes alone (Juggler, Gunner and Mog Knight) alone justify having a Moogle in your party. Gunners have insane attack range and can inflict statuses like Charm and Stop from practically anywhere on the map without needing EP, and Jugglers can Quicken and Stop without EP as well. The draw of having a Mog Knight is so you can load up a Gunner with Ultima Charge and hit anyone on the battlefield with 300 points of damage.

There's definite merit in having a Moogle in your party. There's no need to get rid of Montblanc when you can transform him into a sniping murder machine.

Another Suggestion: get a Sage. They are easily the most powerful magic class in the game. They are amazing.

YesNoMu

Oh, right, I forgot! Fighters and White Monks! Air Render (Atomos Blade/Kaiser Knuckles) is a fantastic early-game move, you'll kill everybody.

And if you're really a serious completionist, capture the goblins and a thunderdrake asap. They're only in nonrepeatable missions, so you can miss out on them.

If you don't care about getting all the monsters, don't worry, your Morpher won't even notice the difference. Flans are where the money's at anyway.

YesNoMu

Eh, sages aren't as good as a simple BM/WM. Geomancy + XXXaga pretty much wipes the floor with anything.

And Montblanc is tainted by his start as a BM. Of course you don't have to kill him (there's no need at all to optimize stats), I just find him kinda annoying in this game. He's alright in FFXII though.

Plus, if you kill him,

Ezel takes his place in story cutscenes. Ezel's way cooler than Montblanc.

Zampano

Tainted as a BM? He's, like, level 3. There's no reason why you can't properly reshape him.

Also, was Geomancy available in the original Tactics Advance? I know it's dynamite in FFTA2.

YesNoMu

Tainted, I say! Tainted!

yeah, I guess there's no need to kill him if you don't want to

And yeah, Geomancy rocked socks in TA1 too. The BM wasn't changed at all, I believe.

Cervetus

The problem I had when I was first playing FFT and FFTA was that I was too used to the idea of always going up, but really you just want to get classes you're happy with and stick with them.

Captain K

Just like in the original FFT there are a myriad of ways to make your party obscenely overpowered.

For example, I think there's an Assassin ability that guarantees a 1-hit KO. It's been awhile since I've played the game, but by the time I got to that point I was pretty much raping my way through every fight, because that ability didn't seem particularly out of place compared to the insane shit every single character could do.

Take everyone's advice here--if you've got the patience to do several non-story battles between each story battle, your party will quickly outpace the power level of the enemies. You might come up against another tough hurdle when you get to the story battles near the very end of the game (they're quite difficult) but you should be able to cruise through most of them. Just get in the habit of checking the forbidden actions for each fight and you'll be on autopilot in no time.

NerfThatMan

Damage>MP on my main character is how I won the game. Ninja with Dual Wield/Blue Mage is pretty cheese.

Zampano

Assassins have two abilities that can take an enemy unit out of battle right out. They can KO with Last Breath or they can use Rockseal to Petrify their target. The gimmick is that if you give them the Archer's Concentrate ability, the percentages of these attacks shoots up like into the 70% range.

Captain K

Zampano wrote: »

Assassins have two abilities that can take an enemy unit out of battle right out. They can KO with Last Breath or they can use Rockseal to Petrify their target. The gimmick is that if you give them the Archer's Concentrate ability, the percentages of these attacks shoots up like into the 70% range.

ooooh I think I did that with my Assassin

that shit is super cheap



but what's the point of a SRPG, if not to take advantage of the game in as many ways as possible? :P

Kelor

Also, incase you didn't get the manual with it you learn abilities from weapons and armor. I didn't realise this till about half way through my first playthrough.

Captain K

Kelor wrote: »

Also, incase you didn't get the manual with it you learn abilities from weapons and armor. I didn't realise this till about half way through my first playthrough.

Yep, it works just like Final Fantasy 9, and it's one of my favorite character advancement schemes in any of Squeenix's games. You get to choose which direction to develop the character from a wealth of options, but the options are limited by the character's class, so you don't end up with a half-dozen functionally similar guys differentiated only by their sprites.

Pata

Take the time to learn Blue Magic.

It'll serve you well.

Blue Magic is, I think, one of two sources of healing magic that doesn't break the "No Holy" law too.

Cervetus

Captain K wrote: »

Kelor wrote: »

Also, incase you didn't get the manual with it you learn abilities from weapons and armor. I didn't realise this till about half way through my first playthrough.

Yep, it works just like Final Fantasy 9, and it's one of my favorite character advancement schemes in any of Squeenix's games. You get to choose which direction to develop the character from a wealth of options, but the options are limited by the character's class, so you don't end up with a half-dozen functionally similar guys differentiated only by their sprites.

I hate it though. Suddenly your monster badass is holding a starting sword so he can learn a basic ability, and any time they're holding a weapon for an ability they don't know they won't learn anything.

YesNoMu

Huh? When you equip an item, you can use its power right away. Once you've mastered it, you've got it forever.

Like the cap'n, I also love this system. I don't have to worry about my starting whatever being a loser-- I can give them Badass Weapon that teaches Badass Skill, and have them be badass right away. Plus, it appeals to my inner OCD collector to have one of every item.

Compare to most RPGs, where an inferior weapon has no reason to stay in your inventory. Weapons feel unique here, and in TA2 even have a bit of character and color (love the item descriptions).

SaraLuna

make any humans or bangaa you have into fighters and give them air render asap. it's incredibly strong when you first get it and stays viable until 1/3 - 1/2 way through the game. By that point you should have your viera assassin death squad moving along nicely, a nu mou magic user that wrecks shit aoe style, and those air render guys are ready to be dual wielding monsters.

Cervetus

YesNoMu wrote: »

Huh? When you equip an item, you can use its power right away. Once you've mastered it, you've got it forever.

Yes, but I mean as you're learning it you have to keep that crappy weapon equipped.

Also it limits the amount of characters who can learn a certain ability (or completely different abilities as the weapon might turn out to do) by how many of that item you have.

And for the record I'm OCD too and kept 1 of every item in FFT.

SaraLuna

I mean, there wasn't really a reason to sell any of the weapons anyway. keeping them was the only logical thing to do

YesNoMu

Cervetus wrote: »

YesNoMu wrote: »

Huh? When you equip an item, you can use its power right away. Once you've mastered it, you've got it forever.

Yes, but I mean as you're learning it you have to keep that crappy weapon equipped.

Also it limits the amount of characters who can learn a certain ability (or completely different abilities as the weapon might turn out to do) by how many of that item you have.

And for the record I'm OCD too and kept 1 of every item in FFT.

Eh. You're right, but it just doesn't bother me much. I think it's OK that beginners use the less effective weapons while they're learning the basic skills of the job.

It kinda sucks when multiple people want the same weapon, but there's usually something else they could learn too. Again, didn't really bug me, ymmv.

SaraLuna

In ffta, I never had a problam finding something new for people to learn while waiting for the sword with the 'ideal' ability on it.

It does kinda suck in A2 though when you don't even get items with more skills for starting classes until several hours into the game.