FFTPatcher Blank & Unknown Research

[formerdeathcorps]

Bumping this with some guesses.

Status effects guesses derived by comparisons (I haven't tested these and I suspect 1, 5, and 6 can be switched until I know more):
Unknown 1: Unit will not return to squad?
Unknown 2: Ends on beginning of player's next AT
Unknown 3: Activates on end of player's AT
Unknown 4: Canceled by damage
Unknown 5: Cannot be reversed
Unknown 6: Panel can be stepped on?
Unknown 7:
Unknown 8:
Unknown 9: Affects (in the general sense) stats (accuracy, move, ability to act/cast, damage output)
Unknown 11:

[Vanya]

Interesting.
I think testing should begin with 2, 3 & 4 since they would be easy to verify.

[formerdeathcorps]

I'll have to retract 9.  Removing it from blind has no effect on accuracy or AI behavior (at least from what I can observe).

[R999]

Previous outdated comment:

spoiler

I was FINALLY able to get the stupid AI to use a skill to absorb mana (like Spell Absorb) when he is actually out of mana (instead of using it as an offensive casting interrupt.  When he is in range of using a Normal Attack. Tested with a skillset that has a mana absorb skill, an attack skill that costs mana, and a healing skill that costs mana. I even made his job to give 1 PA multiplier and PA Growth = 200. With no weapon equipped... this guy still rather use a basic attack over his mana absorb skill, which lets him do a full screen attack that does huge amounts of damage, or heal himself to 100% HP.

Anyway, the trick is to have the first two flags after Learn on Hit? to be checked. The first flag we already know -- lets the AI actually use the skill. The second flag is usually reserved for special Self Target and Defensive abilities, like Golem, Moogle, Kiyomori, Murasame, etc. Looking in FFTPatcher, I see that Spell Absorb, Dark Sword, Ethers... etc do not have this checked. I have tested with all of these skills and the only thing he'll remotely use is Ether (usually to restore an ally's mana). Rarely uses Dark Sword or Spell Absorb when he has 0 mana. I wonder if having this flag checked will improve their performance in a mana-less situation.

As for exactly what does the flag stand for I'll never know. It's not very consistent and is almost never used outside of Summon and Samurai, and a few misc skills like Ramza's Scream. The only thing I know is that it probably gives the AI extra stuff to check for, mostly for defensive purposes. But at least I know now that this flag isn't exclusive to self-target skills.

Oh and I discovered another rediculously stupid feature of the AI. They never check for the target's PA or MA when they break stats. I haven't found a way to fix this yet. Tested with giving him only one skill that does nothing but break 20PA, 100% hit. He just spams this all day --on the same target-- rather than doing something actually useful.


edit: I believe the AI unknown flag that is immediately above Random Hits tells the AI to check cast time. Not fully confirmed but I'll try to test it out.


edit: There has to be something else. When the AI switches target he will use Dark Sword instead of the new mana absorb spell that I gave him, which is made far more superior to Dark Sword (Dark Sword gives him 22MP, the new spell gives him over 500MP). He chooses Dark Sword on certain targets... why? Both spells cost 0 MP to cast.

edit: Ok so I spent another couple of hours testing this.... and guess what? The stupid AI reverts back to his stupid --I don't care about MP-- mode. I have no idea why would this happen. It's not just about switching targets this time. It's a 1 v 1 and he absolutely refuses to use his MP Absorb spell once he's in the "Don't care about MP" loop. I have tested with the AI both in Critical and Non-Critical conditions as well. Same result. This means for a boss that relies on MP impossible to make correctly. He'll have to have spells that require 0 MP cost no matter what. I give up on this but if someone else wants to tackle this I'll be glad to help out.


I give up. You FAIL to steal MP, you @&$*@&$@. Even when you have only TWO skills to choose from.


Update: I got the AI to absorb MP again. Strange behavior. Here's the settings for the skill for future reference. Judging from the looks of these flags, it looks almost identical to Spell Absorb. I tested with the AI1 off (the flag below Undead Reverse), which is suppose to tell the AI to check the cast times, and the result becomes "don't care about MP". I am now suspecting that this might just be a random behavior, that's predetermined from the start of a battle.

spoiler

[formerdeathcorps]

R999, from personal experience and from battle videos, it seems that AI priorities roughly correspond to something like:

Tier 1: Removing Golem
Tier 2: HP Healing
Tier 3: Incapacitating Status Effects (Charm, Weapon Break, Petrify, PA/MA Break) or HP Damage (including armor break, which counts since it reduces current HP)
Tier 4: MP Damage
Tier 5: MP Healing (since relatively few units use MP in the original)

As for that second flag, I've already said this in the post you made in the help section.  It's just the behavior flag that determines whether the AI will know that a given spell can't affect enemies.  Thus, you shouldn't give it to (an unmodified) spell absorb (or he'll have problems targeting enemies).

[R999]

@formerdeathcorps,

Oops I must have missed that post you made. But I can confirm that that is not the case with regards to the second flag. The AI will still cast it on enemies even if checked (in fact, more so than unchecked).


In that list of priorities you have made, my "tester" job class only has access to two skills, one lets him do massive damage that costs MP, and one that steals a ton of MP off of a single target. He has almost nonexistent PA and does not carry a weapon. And he prioritizes attacking with bare fists over actually thinking about MP at all. I gave him Spell Absorb and Dark Sword as well (unmodified versions) along with the new spell absorb. He rather attack instead. Weird huh? In fact, I have seen him doing this consistently over and over and over. My tester job has high HP and innate Regen so he will never die from these 10 damage attacks. After watching them for 30 minutes they are both doing this (I put them in a 1v1 setting). Just attack and attack.


edit: I noticed something really cool today. You know the Holy Sword skillset in 1.3 are set to Evadeable right? Well, the way it works in 1.3 is, the AI will never use any of these Holy Sword skills unless they are out of range of their normal attacks, or if they can use an AoE. This is wrong by design. The AI should instead of closing in range, but try to stay as far away as possible and attack with Lightning Stab etc, just like how they used to in Vanilla FFT. I managed to get them to do just this, by removing all Shield/Mantle items off of their targets. There must be a corresponding flag that can change this behavior. Maybe there's an AI flag that controls whether to tell the AI to close in range or stay far away from their target. Or that there's a flag that tells the AI to check for evasion behavior differently.

[R999]

Tested Unknown 4: Canceled by damage. Not true. Damnit. I thought it would be the case since only Confuse, Sleep and Charm share this attribute. I was trying to create a new Charm (cloned) status, but failed miserably. By the way, what does the Order do for the status effects? Is it the order applied? Like Applying Haste first and Slow second?

And, to my sincere disappointment, I think none of the flags do anything with the AI breaking Confuse/Sleep/Charm. I have tested applying the same flags from Confusion to Dark/Evil looking, the AI will always attack the targets with the status effect.

[formerdeathcorps]

Is it the order applied? Like Applying Haste first and Slow second?

The negative status effects are always applied last.

I was trying to create a new Charm (cloned) status, but failed miserably.

I'm willing to bet these 16 flags are just the tip of the iceberg considering the behavior of each status effect.  For example, a unit with auto-berserk will not lose player control until he takes damage from the enemy.  Similarly, you retain control of your units when they start with invite (and they do not desert you; I'm willing to bet the same is true with charm).  It's likely that these effects only work if they are received (since an initially charmed unit in a 3 player battle has no default player to support).  From what I hear from other testers (I don't remember who or which topic it was), a unit who receives invite from enemies (after you change the flag in FFTPatcher to allow it) will desert you, but you still retain control of him and your battle will not end until the invited unit is defeated.  Furthermore, if you check the wiki, you'll find a section on status effects.  Some status effects have CT counters and others don't, but without ASM, you can't add change which status effects will have timers.  In other words, you can modify poison to last only 5 CT, 60 CT, or 0 CT (which means it never ends), but you can't constrain confuse or dark/evil looking to some fixed CT.  Try mixing some of these flags with the enemy actually casting these spells on you.

[Skip Sandwich]

I wonder, what would happen if you had an ally unit that was set to AI control that was then invited by the enemy? Under normal circumstances you'd still control the unit, but you'd need to kill him to win the battle, but if the unit were under AI control, would they then turn on you? (as if charmed)

also, @R999

I think that particular flag doesn't control if a status CAN be canceled by hit, but just informs the AI that attacking that target will cancel status (not the AI is smart about doing that anyway, from how easy it is to get units with jump to kill their sleeping allies attempting to break sleep.)

[R999]

Thanks for the explanation guys. Today I just found an awesome way for the AI to break Charm/Confuse/Sleep. It's actually no secret though I am sure you'll know it too -- Give them Throw Stone. They love using this to break those status. I tested it they actually use it consistently. It might have to do with the conditions I gave them though (2 v 1 scenario, Barius Hill map).

As far as Status Effects flags go, I am thinking that it's probably best not to touch anything there. I wanted to add a new very short duration Don't Act status (uncurable by design). But at least it seems impossible for now. Makes me wonder if anyone was able to create any kind of new status effects at all (Assembly code hacking aside).

[formerdeathcorps]

The AI will always use their lowest damage skill to break charm/sleep/confuse on their own units.  It's just that they won't target your units if your units have those status effects unless they're going for a KO.

[R999]

The AI will always use their lowest damage skill to break charm/sleep/confuse on their own units.  It's just that they won't target your units if your units have those status effects unless they're going for a KO.

This makes sense to me, by design anyway. But if I actually remove Throw Stone, they are much less likely to not break the Confuse/Charm. I suppose that Death Sentence is still the biggest problem where the player can actually abuse.

[formerdeathcorps]

That's because there's probably code that predicts how much damage you're capable of.  If the AI calculates that throwing a shuriken on his unit for 100 damage + your units' attacks will finish that unit, the AI probably won't do it.

[formerdeathcorps]

Going to bump this.

I figured out how range works.
If you have nothing checked, you must have greater than 3 range to attack and for each 2 height panels you are above your enemy, you will gain +1 range (just like a bow), but your damage is still limited to 1v3 unless you are equipping a gun or longbow.
Checking slashing sets maximum range to 1.
Checking lunging sets maximum range to 2 vertical.
Checking direct causes units in the way to get hurt, but you not to gain the range bonus.
Checking arc causes you to hit units 2 squares away if you aim at the third square behind them (projectile has arced trajectory).

EDIT:
The slots are fixed.  IN other words, if I modify leather helmet into a body slot item, even if I remove "head" to flag "body", I can still only equip the new item in the head slot.

[formerdeathcorps]

Bumping this yet again.

I figured out Unknown 7th (Slot 12) under the status tab.  This determines whether or not an negative status effect is dispelled from a chocobo when you mount the bird (provided that you can mount the chocobo when it is inflicted with this status effect).
However, I suspect there's another function in the game that references these very same tabs because you can't mount berserked chocobos but berserk has this flag checked as well.  Removing this flag from poison causes poison not to be removed from chocobos, so I'm sure it's correct, but I don't think it's the intended purpose of this flag.

[Xifanie]

why not? seems perfectly legit to me as the Immortal status protection is the 15th bit. I noticed a similar pattern for the surrounding bits and I didn't know what they could've been. Not all of them are used by the game though.

[R999]

From what I have tested today, Haste is always applied AFTER Slow (in a spell that gives Haste+Slow). Since they both can't stack on top of eachother, everyone will only have Haste (since Slow is cancelled by Haste). So the units affected will have Haste and not Slow. Now I am not sure if changing the "Order" in patcher will change this.

[Vanya]

Is there really any foreseeable circumstance where anyone would WANT to apply slow and haste?

BTW, is there confirmation for the 15th bit chocobo thing?

[R999]

1. ^ It's a rare scenario, but I had this idea before: a spell that is intended to cast Haste on the caster and Slow on the others(by making caster immune to slow), making a dramatic difference in effective speed.

2. ^ yes formerdeathcorps has confirmed it.

[formerdeathcorps]

A couple more discoveries:

1. Dead status kills the undead unless they are specifically immune to dead.
2. Cancel dead status has no effect on the undead, whether alive or fallen.
3. What DOES affect the undead and overrides the above are % HP healing, drain, or the wizard death formula (0E--no other % HP damage formula does this).  The effect of each is always reversed against the undead.  Thus, raise2 kills the undead not because it cancels dead status but because it heals for 100% HP, while death heals the undead for 100% HP because it deals 100% HP damage, not because it procs dead.
4. On its own, undead does allow anyone to absorb darkness elemental or allow anyone to become weak against holy.  That is a function of the undead race (skeletons and ghouls).
5. The trigger for counter is enemy is blade grasp flag + enemy is in range.  Aerostar was right in labeling attacks as "countergraspable".
6. Weapon formulas 00, 01, 02, and 05 function exactly the same except that 02 allows you to proc a spell.
7. Checking weapon strike means the if you use any of the above formulas and your weapon uses any of the above formulas, you will deal damage equal to the elemental damage of your weapon (if it is elemental).  Observe that guns use weapon formula 03 and 04 and thus should never be paired with any of the above weapon formulas unless weapon strike is unchecked.  Unchecking weapon strike will make the system assume you are dealing fist damage.
8. Every formula that references WP also references the elemental of your weapon unless the formula is NS (because it heals or drains blood).  I'm not sure if the ASM fix to holy sword also applies to formula 63 (SP*WP).  For these formulas, if you are barefisted, WP = 0.