Final Fantasy XII

[Briareos]

I guess I'm still in 'old FF' mode!

A little off topic i know, but now I think of it, having everyone the same was pretty much the same way i played FFVII, the materia was the defining stuff, I just swapped that onto whoever was in the active party...

[112]

Thanks Revlob, i followed your advice and murdered the bithc yesterday in that Raithwell tomb! Now she's my bitch as an esper. Woo........ I had trouble inflicting any damage to her minions but the chaining has allowed me to rid them and focus on the main mother bitch herself (yes i hate her with a passion cos of her cheesy special that inflicts the much hated SAP!)

Had to stop after that, but im still a lil worried that chaining yah mists/quickenings is cheating, in that, if they are removed from me later in the game, my characters would be limited to melee attacks, Dont really have too many black magics mainly white.

Having said this i cant wait to go back to it! Best game ive played in ages......... ^_^

112

[revlob]

That's the thing really. I'm really enjoying this, but I'm not even convinced I know what I'm doing. I *think* I'm spending my LP properly, I *think* I'm managing my equipment properly, I *think* I know how to effectively battle... but it's all trial and error and seeing how it goes, for me.

A lot of people say the License system in XII is exactly the same as the Grid system from X. The chief argument being that in both systems, you can shape out roles for the characters as you like (Tidus/Vaan could be either a White Mage or a Knight-type, for example). This is especially true in the International version of X, which had a different Grid layout which better equiped players to move characters away from their suggested roles.

I felt the major flaw in the Sphere Grid system was that it was too easy to suddenly turn off the predefined Warrior/Mage/Theif/etc path and "waste" spheres on upgrades better spent later, once you started exploring multiple roles for characters. The grid was too big, too complex, and without a map, hard to navigate. On XII's License board, although panels are kept hidden, things make a lot more sense, because if you progress in one general direction, you'll soon get a feel for how to explore it and which paths are best suited to which roles.

When I first started playing XII I felt exactly the same way as you do; unsure as to whether I was making the best use of the board/equipment/skills. I'm going through this one without a strategy guide, and all the time I was afraid I'd miss Uber Skill X or Ultimate Weapon Y. Through only a little bit of trial and error, I began to understand the way it all worked, and now it all clicks into place. I think a lot of the game's mechanics have been designed to allow people to stumble in the beginnging, make poor choices, but learn from them and recover.

One of the nice things is that the game doesn't require a lot of investment to adjust your playstyle. If you find you've developed your party in a certain way but reach a point where you realise you could really do with a dedicated white mage, you don't have to backtrack around a Sphere Grid; just earn enough license points to unlock the first few white magick panels and maybe a bit of magic armour. It's about time RPGs stopped penalising players for not knowing the game mechanics inside-out before they starting playing.

[112]

I hear what you are saying Rev-lob, but when all the 200+ HP/500+HP is located at the end of one board its hard not to shift all yah characters in that direction to obtain it.

On a different note, what is the point of technicks if you have items and magic spells already? Ive hardly used them.

112

[revlob]

On a different note, what is the point of technicks if you have items and magic spells already? Ive hardly used them.

The technicks are mostly rubbish, but all have a few redeeming features; they ignore defence, meaning they can sometimes be useful to call upon when facing enemies you're not doing a lot of damage against.

The main disadvantage is that they are just too unreliable, as they will often miss and deal unpredictable amounts of damage, or some mobs will simply be totally immune to many of them (most bosses).

The only ones I use regularly are Charge, Libra, and Steal. 1000 Needles can be handy for a while if you get it as soon as you can, Telekinesis will be very useful when I get it, but most of the damage dealing ones are probably not worth looking at.

[toythatkills]

Telekinesis will be very useful when I get it

I thought that, but it's RUBBISH!

[saif]

Is there a way of making the techniks do more damge? I read the horology one is affected by the game clock somehow! Steal and Poach are useful but poach gives you no exp or LP! Didn't realise that and lost a lot of levels as a result i imagine.
I think it is pretty easy (so far for me anyway) to change your character styles as the LP needed for a lot of spells at the beginning is really small and LP can be easy to get - especially if you walk instead of teleporting.

[112]

Hah, i aint used teleport before, felt it wise to level up on me way to the next quest! Im such an LP whore! I want my characters to be rock 'ard basts! lol. So........ cant wait to play this again tonight! Havent been this excited about a game since Biohazard 2!

112

[revlob]

Is there a way of making the techniks do more damge? I read the horology one is affected by the game clock somehow!

I think the way Horology and Traveller work is they take the last digit (or last two digits?) of your game clock/walk counter, and the closer to 9/99 it is, the more damage they do. After you use them once, or if your last digit goes over 9 and back to 0, their damage resets, so you have to walk/wait some more for them to be any use.

Tried the Trickster hunt last night, got real pissed because I was doing well, then he uses something called "paling", which makes him immune to weapon damage, and for some reason he seemed to absorb fire/ice/lightning magick too! Damn cheek. Will try again tonight, maybe use some of the more obscure magick I've been avoiding.

[GordonJ]

Makes him immune to melee and magic damage, you just have to wait till they (it's two separate buffs) run out. So you end up just running about healing from all the choco meteors that he throws around before you can finish him off.

[sj33]

Question.

If, for example, I was in a boss battle and wanted all party members to get exp, could I swpa them in, let them hit nce, them swap them out? Does that divide experience more ways?

[revlob]

Fought it out like you said GordonJ, and spammed Curaja as much as I could. Eventually his buffs expired, so I finished Trickster off with a huge Quickening chain (got lucky, and pulled off my first Black Hole concurrence!).

Running out of level V marks, will have to move onto the VIs soon

[revlob]

If, for example, I was in a boss battle and wanted all party members to get exp, could I swpa them in, let them hit nce, them swap them out? Does that divide experience more ways?

I'm pretty sure only the characters in the active party the moment the enemy falls will be awarded with experience. So what you can do is do 95% of a boss fight with your best team, then swap in the weaker ones and hope they last out the remaining 5%.

[toythatkills]

Fairly sure you don't get EXP from bosses anyway

[Briareos]

Got my hands on the vanish magic yesterday, but what's the point? Enemies still seem to be able to see me?