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Simple hardmode patch?

Started by Kaijyuu, April 24, 2014, 09:14:58 pm

Kaijyuu

I beat FFT with a challenge run recently and am thirsting for more. A quick glance around the forum has a ton of patches, but all of them change too much.

Anyone have a very simple hardmode patch lying around? Really I'm wanting nothing more than ENTD changes. I'd do it myself but that would lose the surprise.
  • Modding version: PSX

Ashiel

Well I don't have a hardmode patch specifically, but if you wanted to make one yourself it wouldn't be difficult. The biggest thing I've seen that contributes to making the vanilla game harder is just slashing (and by slashing, I mean murdering) the costs of abilities. In my current patch that I'm working on (and seems to be working very well, as I'm having a friend of mine who's never played FFT playtest it) the cost of all of the skills have been reduces by at least 1/2 JP and in many cases even cheaper. Average cost of skills now is probably about 150 JP / skill for most classes, with a few major ones being 300-500 JP. Nothing is higher than that.

This means that when the AI is generating enemies to do battle with the enemies can afford far more abilities. For example, you'll see the NPCs using a wider variety of spells / skills, and often use more effective hybrid options as well. In addition increasing the amount of JP needed to reach the next job level, and/or increasing the prerequisites for jobs also results in NPCs with more abilities (because it increases their JP pool to spend).

So you could make your own patch. Just get a FFT ISO (I ripped mine from the disk using MagicISO a while back), FFT Patcher Suite, then change the JP costs and/or the Job Levels/Requirements as you desire. When you're happy with it, just click PSX->Patch ISO, choose your ISO, and voila.

A side-effect of massively discounting JP costs is that the game also becomes less grind-y, which could make the story battles more difficult since you're less inclined to spend hours leveling to get your job points to get the skills you want to play with, which in turn means that you're far less likely to outlevel the story battles unless you're trying to.

Kaijyuu

Ah, I was planning to give everyone gained JP up innate but if it helps the AI to get more stuff by halving ability costs instead, I think I'll do that.

And again I could certainly do this myself, but I'd like a bit of surprise. I want to go into a battle and get totally blindsided by a new, creative enemy formation.

I was hoping someone had a full game ENTD edit lying around on their hard drive or something. I know this forum tends to focus on much larger scale projects, so I don't expect such a thing to be commonly posted.
  • Modding version: PSX

Ashiel

Oh I see. Well I can say firsthand that just having enemies using more abilities can change battles in big ways. Especially with their various support abilities thrown into the mix. That said, if ENTD differences are what you're looking for, then that could be a bit bigger. Hm, maybe sometime this week I can sit down and make a quick patch to shake up your game a bit. I could always use the practice, right?

No promises though. The future has a weird way of being so nebulous, so if I can find the time then I will. If not, maybe later.  :roll:

You never know though. Maybe someone will come along and drop off a patch for you that's everything you wanted. (^_^)

Kaijyuu

Well if you do that'd be great, but yeah I'm not demanding anything. Thank you~
  • Modding version: PSX

Ashiel

Quote from: Kaijyuu on April 28, 2014, 07:31:40 pm
Well if you do that'd be great, but yeah I'm not demanding anything. Thank you~
No problem. It's fun and it'd be good practice for my mod as well. I've currently been working on a project since I found this site a few days ago and I've got a friend of mine playtesting it for me. So far the feedback has been quite positive, though he is convinced that the Execution Site battle in Chapter II is impossible (I was watching him attempting it when he was on his laptop at my place and I'm pretty sure it's not impossible, he just needs a little more practice I think).

I'm not sure my patch is for everyone though. It changes a lot of stuff in the game. Knights and Archers are drastically different (Knights function more like Mustadio in that they deliver painful status ailments through weapons with good success rates; while archers essentially do not exist anymore, with everything about them changed to a new Beastmaster class which is a versatile support class that combines aspects of a mage and a martial, learns monster skills by experiencing them, and has innate train, secret hunt, and monster skill). Thieves got buffed in their steal rates in huge ways (a 60% chance to steal is about average) and take the knight's place as "the equipment removal guy", while also having innate Concentrate (making them reliable damage dealers). Mages got their spell list shaved and expanded at the same time. All the attack spells were split into a lesser and greater version (Fire 1 / Fire 2), and Earth, Wind, and Water spells were added to their arsenal (so now they really are the masters of elemental magics). They also have a AoE poison cloud, Frog, and Dark Holy (a darkness elemental originally used only by some NPCs). White Mages received a similar treatment (they have fewer spells but the ones they have are great at what they do).

Meanwhile, classes were made more versatile in equipment selection. Squires can equip shields, bows, and x-bows. Knights can equip bows, x-bows, and polearms. Beastmasters (archers) can equip swords and polearms. Monk can equip robes. Priests can equip rods and flails. Wizards can equip staffs. Time Mages can equip rods. Thieves can equip bows and x-bows. Geomancers can equip rods, staffs, flails, bows, and x-bows. Lancer can equip swords, knight swords, bows, and x-bows. Samurai can equip bows, x-bows, and polearms. Ninja can equip bows and x-bows.

The game feels both familiar and comfortable, but it's definitely a lot different from the original vanilla. Especially since a lot of story battles have NPCs who are given randomized gear, so you frequently find surprises like squires wielding bows/x-bows, or running into groups of knights and beastmasters wielding spears and shields.