Do you define roles?

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Galaxia

Chocobo Breeder
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Gil
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Hey everyone.

Was wondering how people play FFXII.
Do you set your chars so there all pretty much equal?
Do you have chars playing set roles?

If you do which chars do what?
 
LOL! No, I don't give all the characters unique roles, since IMO it was a bit of a mistake not to make them unique in the first place. I pretty much just bought 6 sets of the same weapons and armour and handed one out to everyone...
 
Well, I always had Balthier as my main, since he's ridiculously sexy. but he was a fighter who I gave guns and swords to sometimes. besides that, being the RPG-role-biased person I am, I had all the guys on the offense and every female doing healing work. Except Penelo, she was always fighting next to Vaan,who, for some reason, did more healing than she did XD
 
There is no uniqueness in this game as far as characters go except the fact some hit harder with magic, some hit harder with ranged, some hit harder with melee.

So I tried to establish roles, so usually I would have Penelo and Ashe as magic attack users. I would use Fran and Balthier as my ranged. Finally I would have Vaan and Basche as my melee. It usually was fine. I used them all pretty much every battle, unless of course I had quickenings ready.
 
Is it just me or did Basch seem to be really awful at fighting?
Granted, I had gambits on most of the time, but still, the guy lagged behind everyone ALL THE TIME....not speed-wise, but just didn't seem as strong.
 
I know what you mean. In all my playthroughs I've experienced that, but not just with Basch. The same happened with Balthier and Vaan too, even when EVERYONE had the same level/licenses and equipment. That's the reason I only use the girls, cause they seem to hit MUCH harder with me...
 
I did... Coz I felt that if I didn't then everybody would merge into crapness and have nothing seperating any of the characters from each other.

Basch and Ashe were my heavy sword wielders...

Vaan used smaller shorts and daggers (if I remember correctly that they were in the game).

Fran I always kept with a bow, to act as a ranger. To me the rangers were crucial, more so than the "tanks" with the sword.

Balthier was my second ranger, this time with his gun.

I experimented with Penelo and gave her a spear or lance so make her a stronger fighter, and also looked pretty kool. She became quite powerful, better than Basch and the other close combats...


It worked out quite well really. The rangers would be the people I "control" most of the time, and I'd shoot at the enemy then run away as the rest of my guys close in on the enemy and attack it to stop it chasing, then I'd stand from a distance and pick it off while they slashed it.

That was my general practice... And part of the reason why I did it. Other than that it was to keep the characters with some sort of identity.. If I gave them ALL swords then I'd care for the characters less. I'd rather have them unique in some aspects, even if it is only weapons and tactical use.
 
In general, everyone's stats are pretty similar, so you could essentially use anyone for any role. Seeing as how there are 3 active party members, I would always use 1 heavy-hitter, 1 who hits not as hard and 1 mage. Basch and Balthier had the highest strength stats, so I made them heavy-hitters. I made Penelo and Fran mages because of their magic stats which made Vaan and Ashe the mid-hitters.

I tend to be very structural when I play, so I always kept it this way and had the 3 together. So that meant that Basch and Balthier never fought in the same party because they played the same role and the same for the others of the same roles. Every now and again I would swap Fran and Ashe, as Ashe's magic is pretty high too.

I would give my heavy-hitters the strongest weapon (Tournesol and Zodiac Spear when I get them) and make them the party leader, so I always had a good look at the enemy and it's attacks. I would give the mage a gun usually (Formalhaut) to keep them out of the heat of battle to act as a healer. I would give the mid-hitters something like a Masamune and get them into the action as well. Naturally as you might imagine, I give the heavy-hitters the heavy armor, the mid-hitters the light armor and the mages the mage armor to bolster their stats to be favorable for their role in battle.

I know it's not necessary to do this as structurally as I do, but I like it because its a lot less to think about.
 
For me it goes like this:

My main party contains Ashe,Penelo and Vaan.
Why I chose them?
Ashe is usually the leader and I control,simply because I felt she is meant to be a leader since she's also a princess trying to save her kingdom and she goes through all those dangers.I usually equip her with the strongest weapons and armors,except for hammers.
I chose Penelo simply cause I happened to like her.I do choose my characters based on my fondness towards them,even if they are weak that won't hold me back from having them in my party which in this case isn't so,since you have all these variations of weapons to choose and the abilities you teach them is up to you.
Then it's Vaan,I don't really have a specific reason to why I use them.Maybe because I've used him all the way from the beginning and I've gotten emotionaly close to him?That could be the case.

As for the rest,they are for back-up purposes.Like when I fight a boss with my main party and they die,I have the second one to revive them and heal them since their MP points are full,or choose to fight with them at first,and weaken the enemy and then revive the old party for the last blow.(using items this time to revive them)
 
I made Basch the tank, so he had lots of defense/strength/HP boosting equipment. This meant I didn't have to control him or worry about him.

Ashe I made a Warrior Mage, with more emphasis towards being a Mage, so she could deal high magical damage, but still take care of herself physically.

I also made Fran a Warrior Mage, but this time with more emphasis towards physical strength, so I still had a tank of sorts should Basch not be in the party.

Penelo I just made an all out Mage. And this made her ridiculously powerful, I found. I often made her the party leader, since I don't trust magic with gambits.

Vaan and Balthier I just made into Basch clones, and although I trained them up so all 6 were on the same level, I only really used the other 4.
 
Well, I found out that just giving everyone the strongest armor and weapons was quite effective, so I didn't define roles. I rarely used offensive magic, and in my case Basch and Balthier dealt a lot of damage with their melee attacks. I rarely found stats making any profound difference in combat. Everyone could just go and beat the hell out of the enemies while keeping themselves healed and buffed. My party was Ashe, Balthier, and Basch. It just felt right because I like these characters a lot.
 
My main party actually consists of Vaan, Fran and Ashe. Vaan and Fran I use as close up fighters while Ashe is equiped with a ranged weapon and is the healer of the group.

I keep Vaan as the party leader pretty much all the time except if I switch him out with another member then I make the leader Fran. I actually like her better as a leader then Vaan or Ashe to be honest. Balthier was first equiped with ranged weapons like Ashe, like a gun or bow but then I switched it up and gave him a sword.

My main healers are Panelo and Ashe, while everyone else I just go full force into battles which and usually kick some major butt.

I try to keep my characters unique since I don't want them all to be the same, my strongest hitters though are Fran and Vaan with Ashe as the strongest Ranged fighter. I don't really use Balthier, Basch or Panelo that much, they are more my back party so they are at lower levels then my main three.

But I'm still able to get the job done. But I do try to give them all unique roles, keyword try =P
 
I just had everyone learn the same thing, just as I did in FFVI - they all had similar armor, weapons - just different summons. My main tanks were Vaan and Basch though, best mage types were Fran and Pennelo.
 
I assigned the characters semi-roles. My main party all ended up learning the same abilities, but I used certain characters to do certain things.

I gave Ashe a White Mage role, her main purpose was to buff, heal and throw in an attack if she had any spare time. Basch & Vaan were both physical attackers. I made Vaan a tank/damage receiver and I made Basch a quick hitter. I kept Balthier as a ranged attacker. Fran was another ranged attacker/Black Mage. I didn't really use Penelo at all so I never assigned her a role.

However, having said that I only really used Vaan, Basch and Ashe. I only used Balthier and Fran if I needed ranged attacks and as I said before I never used Penelo.
 
There's no real point defining roles. By the time you've levelled up enough, you have enough liscence points to buy the licences you need.

I just bought the best of everything for my main party (Balthier, Ashe and Basch - 3 most important characters) and gave their previous equipment to my secondary party.

In my first play-through, however, I made Ashe a white mage, made Vaan and Balthier thieves, Basch a knight, Penelo a green mage and Fran a black/arcane mage
 
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I sorta just made them equal, but I used Penelo and Vaan as my magic attackers, and I found that Penelo (she was my favorite! :D) tended to get more double and triple hits with the pole type weapons, so that's what she used, along with Time magic and Green magic to keep herself nice and beefed up! :) I really liked Balthier and Fran too, but I leveled all of my characters equally so really anyone could do anything. I used Vaan as a thief a lot too. But really again, I could use anyone for anything :D
 
My main party consists of Fran as the leader, Vaan and Balthier as the other two members. Vaan is my axe/sledge hammer user while I have Fran using weapons from the great swords (currently a Ragnarok ) and Bows. And Balthier is purely my ranged weapons guy, I did have him as my party leader but last couple of times I did, I got nosebleeds (not kidding). I have Vaan and Balthier with their gambits set so that they heal HP and status problems while they are not attacking the enemy.

My back-up party is mainly if my main party is wiped out and I need to revive them.
 
Nope, i try to make all of my characters equal. So that way i don't have to worry about setting each of them to do different things. I can just make one command and they all do it.
 
Nope, i try to make all of my characters equal. So that way i don't have to worry about setting each of them to do different things. I can just make one command and they all do it.
 
I always start out with the INTENTION of defining rolls , but it rarely happens, everyone just ends up in similar and weapons too, While Im starting off Il have people learn different stuff on the LB, but that's only coz I want access to as much as I can until I can max it all out later anyway
 
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