Offensively Useless Treasures

[Rad Bromance]

Is it just me or, is this the one Final Fantasy game where 90% of the entire game's chests (or pots) contain useless and utterly underwhelming treasure?

I've been replaying the game, doing all the stuff I never did before, trying to do everything the game has to offer, and I've been getting all the chest, including ones you have to stray on a long out of the way path to get...only for said chest to contain 96 gil, or a potion, or a piece of armor that became useless hours before the chest was accessible.

I mean I'm having a blast doing all the extra stuff but GEEZ what were the developers thinking when choosing what to put in these chests!?!?

[Wolf Kanno]

I believe they were trying to recreate the Item Find from Tactics as you usually have a possibility to obtain four different items per chest not counting gil. Looking at the guides charts for the treasure chests is a bit exasperating... This is one of the few elements of the game I can honestly say I really hated.

[PuPu]

The reason is because a lot of these chests respawn, that's why the treasures they contain usually suck.

The amount of gil that's in each chest if the chest decides to give you gil is random, I think.

[Quindiana Jones]

They expect you to get your riches from loot, unlike other FF games where most of it is from chests.

[Moon Rabbits]

Most treasure chests are randomly generated in XII, arent they?

[PuPu]

Treasure chests are determined by a number of things:

Chance of appearing on the map
Chance of containing Gil (amount of Gil is a random number in a range of numbers, say 200-500)
Chance of containing 1st Item (common)*
Chance of containing 2nd Item (rare)*
Whether or not they respawn

*The 1st and 2nd Item of a treasure chest changes when equipped with Diamond Armlet.

The Henne Mines treasure chest with the Zodiac Spear has the following:

10%
90%
90%
10%
No

To get the Zodiac Spear, the probability is (0.1) x (0.1) x (0.1)

(Probability of Chest appearing) x (Probability that the chest will contain an item and not Gil) x (Probability that the item is the 2nd item, the ZS)

[Raistlin]

Most of the chests have a "good" item you can find in it, but there might only be a 20% chance of actually getting it. It can be incredibly frustrating, especially for certain important items. The mechanics for the chests in FFXII were just obnoxious and should be burned so no game can ever use them ever again.

[Karifean]

Chance of containing 1st Item (common)*
Chance of containing 2nd Item (rare)*

To be precise, each treasure chest has four possible items:

50% Chance for Item 1 if Diamond Armlet is not equipped.
50% Chance for Item 2 if Diamond Armlet is not equipped.
90% Chance for Item 3 if Diamond Armlet is equipped.
10% Chance for Item 4 if Diamond Armlet is equipped.

So whenever you equip Diamond Armlet, the items will (probably) change and the new %-chances are always 9:1. Some treasures, however, have the same items as Item 1, 2, 3 and 4. For example, there is one non-respawning chest before Giruvegan, which has the Estanguished Shield as all 4 items possibilities and 0% Gil Chance - ergo you will always receive ES, no matter what.

[ANGRYWOLF]

one of the game's bad points.

There are about 4 or 4 treasures you can get that are of particular value.The zodiac spear from the mines, ribbon from either the cerobi steppes or from the red chocobo and a suit of armor from the nechrol..I think that silly flaming horse drops it.Getting those items is very hard as the percentages are against you.

Ths silly game has a lot of frustrations.

[Coronet]

I noticed FF12 did this too which I hated. Treasure chest with 10g? AWESOME! (not)

I didn't notice that FF13 was that bad compared to 12 in that sense.

[Breine]

I kinda like the randomly generated chests in FFXII. Never really had a problem with it, to be honest.

They expect you to get your riches from loot, unlike other FF games where most of it is from chests.

I like this about the game.

[Jiro]

If it wasn't for my obsessive need to open every chest I see (it was really hard to ignore the Zodiac Spear ones) then I wouldn't have bothered with them. I cannot recall ever getting something half way decent.

[Karifean]

Yes, the fact that you mustn't open certain chests to get the most powerful weapon in the game is unforgivable. What's the reward for being cautious and keeping your eyes open for treasures? You can hardly get the best weapon in the game anymore. Great. I just don't get it - why isn't there any hint at all that you mustn't open these chests. A player who likes not to miss any treasures will probably never even know about Zodiac Spear (unless they look it up).

[Xaven]

I can't say I've minded the treasure system of FFXII. More specifically, I don't miss the set treasures of past games. I think throwing probability into play makes things a bit more realistic and not so horribly predictable--that is, knowing where every good chest is in advance and what you need from it.

I suppose I like things open-ended.

Yes, the fact that you mustn't open certain chests to get the most powerful weapon in the game is unforgivable. What's the reward for being cautious and keeping your eyes open for treasures? You can hardly get the best weapon in the game anymore. Great. I just don't get it - why isn't there any hint at all that you mustn't open these chests. A player who likes not to miss any treasures will probably never even know about Zodiac Spear (unless they look it up).

That's not really the issue being discussed. And correct, not a soul would know the specific way to get the Zodiac Spear without the strategy guide, which the developers would love for you to buy, as is the case with any video game. :)

[Shin Gouken]

Is it just me or, is this the one Final Fantasy game where 90% of the entire game's chests (or pots) contain useless and utterly underwhelming treasure?

I've been replaying the game, doing all the stuff I never did before, trying to do everything the game has to offer, and I've been getting all the chest, including ones you have to stray on a long out of the way path to get...only for said chest to contain 96 gil, or a potion, or a piece of armor that became useless hours before the chest was accessible.

I mean I'm having a blast doing all the extra stuff but GEEZ what were the developers thinking when choosing what to put in these chests!?!?

I like the system personally. Chests in FFXII, as a rule, are worthless and almost never offer anything incredable. The diamond armlet however makes things much more interesting. Circle round the Cerobi Stepp opening treasures with a diamond armlett equipped. You'll rack up tonnes of gil and aquire some very nice items.

In fairness, there are a number of set chests which do offer a nice piece of equipment or a nice weapon. As for the Zodiac spear, people act as if this is the first stunt FF have pulled like this. I remember a sword called excalibur mkII in FFIX that was equally impossible to aquire without a guide