PvP Patch v4.0 Focused: Practice Mode and Quality of Life Updates

The 4th version of the PvP Patch has a ton of new features and enhancements that ultimately strive to improve your Final Fantasy Tactics multiplayer and single-player experience. This focused article and future ones will hone in on certain major changes so that you can be better informed before the massive changelog is released on patch day.

Practice Mode

The new Practice Mode feature is a rewrite of all the random encounters in Araguay Woods to serve as the best place to practice your new team against NPC teams that are built in mind of the Standard format (previously known as Starter). You can encounter 8 different teams, each led by a unique character that follows the same ruleset convention used in Standard – these fights are a challenge and can down your team if you aren’t careful!

Let’s take a look at each enemy team and how you can encounter them:

  • West (from Dorter)
    • Rapha – Chemist, Archer, Thief, Geomancer
    • Delita – Dragoon, Onion Knight, Chemist, Archer
    • Agrias – Time Mage, Knight, Dragoon, Summoner
    • Mustadio – Dark Knight, Samurai, White Mage, Mime
  • East (from Fort Besselat)
    • Construct 8 – Bard, Dancer, Dragoon, Monk
    • Cloud – Geomancer, Squire, Archer, Black Mage
    • Valmafra – Orator, Dark Knight, Mystic, Thief
    • Meliadoul – Archer, Geomancer, Ninja, Bard
  • Special Encounter (regardless of direction)
    • Alma, Marach, Reis, Beowulf, and Luso
Araguay Woods is the new home of Practice Mode, 8 different, guaranteed encounters based on Standard

Quality of Life Updates

There are several new additions to the game systems and combat improvements to help with the general “feel” and interaction of Final Fantasy Tactics. A huge shout-out to Tzepish for many of these new changes being integrated into the PvP Patch! Let’s take a deeper dive into each key change:

Unique Characters can now be Renamed at the Warrior’s Guild

In PvP Patch version 3, the feature of being able to rename your generic characters, Ramza, and Construct 8 was well received and added an extra uniqueness to your team. This is being expanded in version 4, where you can now rename any character, including unique characters. Let your imagination run wild, but keep in mind to not be offensive!

Iaido Abilities and Unholy Sacrifice Now Display Their Damage and Status in the Damage Preview

One new addition is that Iaido’s damaging abilities and Darkness’s Unholy Sacrifice will now display their damage and status infliction instead of previously displaying a “00%” hit rate. Note that while this now does show the damage dealt, this value is based on the caster’s mitigation sources and modifiers and their status immunities, so this isn’t 100% reflective of what type of damage or status that can be dealt. As a reminder, always use the Help menu and the “Calc” field to properly figure out how much damage your unit can deal for accuracy.

Muramasa now has a 19% chance to inflict Confuse where it previously had a chance to inflict Doom.

Midlight’s Deep’s Maps Brightness Improved!

Yes, you can venture forth into the Midlight’s Deep maps (also known as Deep Dungeon from PSX FFT) against another player with some lighting! This is still a work in progress, and one of the hopeful goals in the future is to have the brightness at maximum or near it. For now, these maps are now playable in Melee mode. Note, that this change does not affect the campaign’s Midlight’s Deep maps – this solely affects Melee currently.

You can now see Midlight’s Deep’s multiplayer maps – though this is still a WIP

Campaign’s First Encounter, Orbonne Monastery – Improved

Though the Tactics League PvP Patch is designed in mind for multiplayer content, the enemies in the first story battle now have their equipment set to Random, meaning that the game will now decide the best options based on the gear’s “level.” This change was made because of feedback where people were interested in the PvP Patch but wanted to try it in the campaign, but came across the first battle’s enemies with endgame gear! As a reminder, this change is to help the prospect of playing with the PvP Patch in the story, but the patch is still not balanced for campaign, so progress at your own risk.

PvP Patch v4.0 Beta will be released on March 12, 2024. Be sure to join the Tactics League Discord for a heads start on the update and be a part of our growing community!

by Tactics League Article, PvE, PvP, Updates