Did you bother with the games minor min/max element?

[Wolf Kanno]

For those who don't know, what type of equipment you wear affects your stats a little by mere fractions allowing you to get higher stats if you level up in end game gear since it directly correlates to how high the armor raises the stat naturally by just being equipped. So those who know about this, did you bother?

Personally, I never saw the point and it seems to me this was something that was more of a bug than anything but I just don't see the point since the best moves in the game have natural and easier to control modifiers to get maximum damage.

[Neptunia]

Last run-through I did, I ended up doing a lot more damage than in the past. don't know why thou. may have been due to getting some high end equips early on.

[Ergroilnin]

Never cared about this stuff and never will. The only FF I care about stats and min/max them is FFX.

[Rez09]

I learned about this a while ago, but I never cared enough to bother with it -- too little, too late, and too much effort. I just max Dragon's Crest and Thievery damage instead.

[Mo-Nercy]

Reminds me of Pokemon's EV points and I've never bothered with them either.

Having a powered up Dragon Crest or Thievery or Frog Drop, combined with Shock and Doomsday will destroy anything in the game including Ozma. There's not much point to making a concerted effort to level up with certain equipment when killing a dragon or two after stealing from them is going to benefit you more in the long run.

I wonder what would be the best way to take advantage of the stat bonuses though.. Would it be to just always ensure you've got the best equipment on by doing sidequests like the Chocographs as early as possible? Or would it be the speed through the game, avoiding too much levelling up until you get to the good stuff at the end?

[metagloria]

I never knew about this. I actually still don't know about this. But I'm a bit curious, because (aside from quasi-gamebreakers like Dragon's Crest etc.), relative to other FFs, your party seems a bit weak at endgame.

[Dat Matt]

I like the idea, but it's a lot of busywork for marginal reward in the end. It's like the Crystalarium in FF13-2. There are large nodes that you can assign specific classes to in order to boost stats, but in the end focusing on something like commando for all the big nodes only increases your max strength figure by like 25-30 in the end game, which is about 3%. It's a lot of work for not a lot of payoff.

[Ayen]

Yes. I'd change weapons and armor around to get the highest total of stats I could at the time. Couldn't tell you how efficient it was since it's been ages since the time I played where I didn't mess with it.

[Dat Matt]

Yes. I'd change weapons and armor around to get the highest total of stats I could at the time. Couldn't tell you how efficient it was since it's been ages since the time I played where I didn't mess with it.

It's not quite the same. Getting the best weapons and armour is one thing, but equipping certain items and leveling up with them offers different stat boosts permanently. A lot of hard work to do though.

[Pumpkin]

No not at all

[Karifean]

Me and my brother found out about it in the ~60s of our last playthrough. It was quite a bummer and one reason why we haven't replayed the game since. It really is a min/max-er's nightmare.

[Sephiroth]

I didn't know this was a secret to people. Earlier I thought this was a part of pretty much every RPG. Just a bit different.

(without Eiko-Marcus glitch, since that seems like cheating (and more importantly I am way too lazy to level Marcus to 99 manually and I would hate to stop in the middle so meh))

That has nothing to do with a glitch. You as a speedrunner should know what a glitch is and cheating means as glitches are used for those "fastest speedruns".

[Mirage]

I didn't know, but FF9 is probably one of the FFs I know the least about. At least out of the numbered series. Didn't like it all that much. In what way is it part of nearly every JRPG though?

[Ergroilnin]

Eh even though I just said I never will bother with this, it got me thinking and I am actually aiming for maxing the stats (without Eiko-Marcus glitch, since that seems like cheating (and more importantly I am way too lazy to level Marcus to 99 manually and I would hate to stop in the middle so meh))

Since I don't really crave new games it feels like a good idea to make a pre-strongest boss of the game save for each FF so I can actually battle them whenever I want to and I might as well start with my favorite FFIX.

[Rantz]

I've done it a few times just for the hell of it, though I never really went to extremes with it. I tried to avoid levelling as much as possible and tried to keep the most stat raising equipment on me when I did level up, but I didn't reset every time I accidentally levelled without the best equipment or anything. It can make quite a bit of difference in your endgame stats. And no, there is no reason anybody should ever need that to beat the game or the optional bosses. It's purely a masturbatory exercise.