And the writing continues

[owlmoose]

I got a last-minute tap to write a backup gift for ff_exchange, and it is now posted! "Political Considerations", a story about Ashe and Balthier and how they might manage to negotiate something of a life together, written for the lovely lassarina.

Five thousand words, the bulk of which were written in three days. And now there are other stories crowding my brain, waiting patiently, and not so patiently, to come out. Not just FFXII stories either, although there are certainly a share of those. I do suspect that this story single-handedly doubles the totally number of words I've written for FFXII. I suppose it's time to admit that I might actually be in this fandom, instead of just lurking around at the edges of it....

Comments

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I look forward to hearing what you think of it!

For the most part, you can do whatever you want with the character development, but they do start out with different base stats. You *can* turn one of the characters with lower base magick stats into a mage, but they'll never be quite as good at it as someone who has a higher base magick. Same for melee damage, playing tank, etc. Penelo and Vaan both have high base magick stats, but Vaan is both tougher and quicker, so you would be well served to take Penelo down the mage path. (The white mage/black mage distinction is pretty much non-existent.) But the differences are subtle. And I definitely recommend giving everyone the basic curative and elemental magicks -- you get a lot more flexibility that way. Running out of license points isn't a huge issue, especially once you really get going, and if you're having fun with the grinding parts of the game.)

The quickenings are *very* useful, and you should give everyone the maximum of three as soon as it's feasible. I'd say it's even worth it to give them licenses they can't use yet to get to the quickenings, once you have some LP to burn.

Any character who joins the party as anything other than a guest is going to be a long-term member eventually (although people do come and go a little bit at first), so feel free to develop everyone. Guests are completely run by the AI, so you couldn't develop them even if you wanted to. I hear you on FFIV taking away a character just as you had them all shiny and nice. (Or changing their character class and dropping them back to level zero...) You'll miss some of the guests when they're gone, but at least you won't have put hours of time and effort into making them buff.

Keep the teleport stones, sell most everything else. Monsters drop loot instead of gil, so selling loot is the primary way you make money. Once in awhile you'll get an item from an NPC that goes into your loot inventory that shouldn't be sold, but it's almost always clear from context which things those are. The first time I played, I held onto almost everything because I kept waiting for some sort of item synthesis shop to manifest, but as far as I know, there's nothing like that in the game.

My other suggestion is to do hunts when you can. Not non-stop, and don't take on anything way harder than you can handle, but you can start with lower-level hunts as soon as you have a stable party. The first time I played, we didn't really start hunting until we were almost done, and the rewards we earned for the earlier hunts were clearly tailored for a much lower level party.

Feel free to ask more questions if you want. :)

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice :) It was perfect! I cleared out the Giza Plains area since I wrote my comment. I am always amused by RPG's recursive chore-boy stuff.... Vaan wants to get into the palace so I'll talk to this guy in Lowtown.... he says I need a sunstone so I go to the nomad village.... they say I have to find the missing boy.... I find the missing boy and he says I have to find all the dark crystals.... after a while it's like, I'm doing what again? Fortunately, it's just an excuse to run around, beat up on things, level up and look at pretty scenery, all of which is fun.

Here's a question: will I still have access to Rabanastre for a while? There are things like a hunt out in the western area that I don't think I'm ready for yet, but I wonder if I go to the palace whether new events will occur and I never get to come back to do the hunt. I'm guessing I will get to come back, I just wasn't sure; sometimes you have to do sidequests before proceeding with the main quest or they are gone forever.

Right now I have a bunch of gil and a bit of LP, Penelo especially has a ton, but I'm still waiting for anything worth spending it all on! I don't want to spend LP when I don't have any of the items it unlocks for me yet. I did get them both basic white and black magery and cleaned out the magic shop's shelves.

I'm off for a few days tomorrow, but I'll get back to it when I come back.... thanks again!

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Once you get into the palace, the game goes on rails for awhile. But the rails take you back to Rabanastre, and everything will still be waiting for you. If there are any hunts or other optional sidequests that disappear at any point in the game, I don't know what they are. And -- despite what I said about not waiting too long to get started on hunts -- you'll be better equipped for them after the palace.

I think I had more fun grinding in this game than in any other I've played: getting to choose your battles, the pretty scenery, the flexibility of the battle system, racking up impressively long chains. I hope future FFs are more like this one.

You're welcome, and any time! Now that I'm working on the second time through, I feel like I have much better advice to give.

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

Well, I just got done with all the rails after going into the palace and am back at Rabanastre. All my new friends have left me. I went immediately and took care of the Thextera I had postponed fighting before, and then went off to the Clan headquarters and got showered with praise for all the things I'd killed. So I've got that going for me.

I'm definitely having a good time. It pushes the right buttons for me to enjoy an RPG — story is fun enough, but also the combat is enjoyable, and even things like equipment management I am into. On some RPGs I've tried I just charge through the story and don't pause to notice what I'm equipping because I'm not interested. But on FFXII I spent a half hour or so at a merchant's somewhere in the dungeon, carefully spending gil and allocating LP for the 3 characters I had at that point. If I'm happy to sometimes spend time with the story and sometimes running around buying equipment and sometimes go grind monsters, then the whole experience is better. And either I leveled up a little more than expected at the beginning or I'm just paying a lot of attention to the combat, but all fights have been very easy, even bosses.

I do like Balthier. And Vaan, well, he's the sort of character that can be very annoying in these sorts of stories, so I'm happy that he manages not to bother me at all. :)

Will probably run around town a bit more, maybe do some mark hunting, before I let the story take me wherever's next...

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have another question! I did something or other and now there's a FORGOTTEN GRIMOIRE for 18000 gil in the Bazaar listings. I only have like 7000 gil and I was going to spend it on weapons and spells and stuff. Do you think it's worthwhile spending a lot of time grinding hyenas or whatever to be able to afford that thing as soon as possible? I was inclined to leave it alone for now, but maybe it's super useful?

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

The Grimoires (there are multiple and will slowly show up over time -- those and the other bazaar items are triggered by selling certain amounts of loot) increase drops by monsters/ They are definitely worth picking up, although there's a balancing act with upgrading weapons/spells/etc. One tip: if you get back onto the rails of the plot, the next dungeon will be a much better place to grind out money than Giza or the Estersand.

Glad you are having fun! I am very fond of Balthier myself. (This was my only FF12 icon for a long time.) I like Vaan, too, although I am known to have a fairly high tolerance for the "every-kid" characters common to Final Fantasy games (Tidus, for example, who I always liked a lot). I think the game does a pretty good job of ramping up the battles at a reasonable pace -- once you get past the first few, the bosses are a challenge, but mostly not so hard as to be super-frustrating.