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Generic Jobs Editing, Skillset Limitations

Started by R999, March 26, 2010, 09:06:50 pm

R999

March 26, 2010, 09:06:50 pm Last Edit: January 04, 2011, 04:41:14 am by Eternal248
For quick reference,

Jobs good for editing,


  • Knight

  • Archer - Change Action Menu to <Default>. No reported problems so far.

  • Monk - Cannot use Martial Arts.

  • White Mage

  • Black Mage

  • Time Mage

  • Summoner

  • Thief

  • Oracle

  • Mediator -  Cannot use Monster Talk.

  • Bard - Male only.

  • Dancer - Female only.

  • Calculator - though, only suitable for single target effects. **Dramatically delayed AoE special effects (see video below)**


Jobs NOT suitable for editing (all of them require changing Action Menu to <Default>)


  • Squire - Their JP/Learned table = all special jobs' JP table. If a  Squire has N abilities, the special jobs will show a maximum of N abilities. Special units can never learn abilities from the generic Squire job slot.

  • Chemist  - All skills become 00% and Weapon Range. Cannot learn Throw Item.

  • Geomancer - All skills become 00% and Weapon Range.

  • Lancer - All skills become 00% and Weapon Range. Cannot use Equip Spear.

  • Samurai - All skills become Range-3 AoE r1-v0 60% inflict Regen.

  • Ninja - All skills become 00% and Weapon Range. Also, Ninjas cannot use Duo Wield.

  • Mime


Note About Remapping Skillsets

As I have discovered in the same thread:http://www.ffhacktics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4853, remapping a new skillset to generic jobs can cause unexpected glitches, such as missing Abilities during battle. This is not 100% concrete though, as I have not tested for this bug on a freshly started out new game (which I plan to be doing in the near future).

Screenshots for the bug described,

Skills learned.


Skills actually available for use.


Update: It might be that the game treats the non-generic Skillsets as Special jobs, whose JP table would always correspond to that of the Squire's. What this means is that it maybe possible to foolproof this system by letting the Squire having as many skills as needed for the job that gets its Job number changed. For example, if your Squire skillset has N skills, then any special job or generic jobs that have their job number changed into a special job will display a maximum of N skills in battle, assuming you don't have <Nothing> slots in that skillset (the game will fool you in the formation screen, what's actually available is different than in battle). But keep in mind if you do this, the abilities of the corresponding job must be learned via the Squire;ie if the Squire has 7/10 abilities learned, the corresponding job will have 7/10 of its abilities learned. Please also note that the formation screen will not display this correctly.

Update 2: Found some visual bugs from foolproofing around these traps via the Squire method (by forcing all Squire skills learned at 100% starting, and all Special jobs) and making sure that the Squire (and all Special jobs) having at least N number of abilities, where N is the maximum number of abilities that the generic job has (the one where you changed the skillset pointer). Click Show below to see some visual bugs that would arise from this.

Quoting Wrong Person





Now, the opposite problem in the formation/status screen.

Status Menu of Abilities Learned



Actual Abilities Available







What Does This Mean?

If your project involves anything more than 12 new generic jobs (and provided that you follow the restrictions noted above), you can forget about it until a solution is available. You can get 13 if you mess with Math Skills, which has a very annoying bug for special effects (see video).


Why This Thread?

The purpose of this thread is to gather around workarounds (if any) for modifying player accessible generic jobs, as well as to note the things to beware of when replacing a generic job completely (for example, Monks are hardcoded to not accept Martial Arts).




Below are my testing reports when testing some of the above jobs, which had originally been posted in a thread in the Help section.


15 Math Skills - Major delay for special effects bug



Here it is, video explains all. Basically, the wait time for special effect speed is dramatically slower than usual, especially noticeable for AoE effects. Indeed this bug is present in 1.3 as well (as I have checked with the Sage). I don't think there would be huge problems if you don't use AoE effects, but other than that, it seems to be pretty stable (at least from what I can tell from playing 1.3). By the way, I even tested it with that "Draw Mana" skill having Math Skills flagged, and unflagged, with same results. Update: It seems the Rafa/Malak like skills does not have any delay. So it's not entirely hopeless.


14 Throw - All abilities 00% and weapon range (same as Lancer).




13 Draw Out - All abilities are overriden to 60% Regen and range-3 AoE radius-1 vert-0.



Another Samurai bug. This is the quote when any of the skills is cast, notice the clearly wrong portrait.



11 Geomancy - 00% success skills + weapon range (same issue as with Lancers).





06 Item - 00% + Weapon Range all





By the way, even the AI does not have access to the skills. Please contribute your findings in here as well.

formerdeathcorps

I'd put calculator in the "can modify" pile since you technically can modify it.  Wrong/slowed visual/sound effects are merely a nuisance compared to some of the other problems noted.

Workaround strategies:
1. Make the unit class function as something reliant on only the attack button.  This is especially true for mime, which is hard-coded not to accept skills, but could easily be made true for lancer or the any other of the above.  Onion Knight, anyone?
2. Make the unit class mastered only by spillover JP.  Observe that giving one of the unmodifiable unit classes any skillset other than their own causes them to instantly master all the action abilities so if the level is high enough, you effectively "learned" everything in the skillset already by virtue of getting enough spillover JP as to have bought the unit class' skills normally.
3. Make a physical unit class out of calculator, if you really care that much about the animations.
4. If you want to have monks learn martial arts manually, just switch all the attacks of monk with the skillset of another unit class and then change all the corresponding ENTDs and sprites.  The only caveat is that the new unit class now can't learn martial arts (so a mage like wizard or time mage is preferred to knight).
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

R999

^ good recommendations. Although I am pretty sure that problems would still arise if you were to change the job number.

Oh I should note that it is totally cool to make the Calculator into a Malak/Rafa like job. I tried testing with those skills, and they don't have delays (unless set to non-random AoE).

formerdeathcorps

The point is to not change the job number.

Ex:
If monk knows A, B, and C in skillset 01 and summoner knows D, E, and F in skillset 02, then the swap makes "monk" (now properly called summoner) have D, E, and F in skillset 01 and "summoner" (now properly called monk) have A, B, and C in skillset 02.

EDIT:
Geomancer and lancer can instantly master all the action abilities of any skillset except their own (though safety should demand you use empty or player-obtainable skillsets rather than enemy ones).  I know samurai and mime are not like this and I suspect the same is true of the others on that list (chemist and ninja).  I suspect this is because geomancer and lancer are technically only capable of performing 1 action.
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

Timbo

Quote from: "formerdeathcorps"The point is to not change the job number.

Ex:
If monk knows A, B, and C in skillset 01 and summoner knows D, E, and F in skillset 02, then the swap makes "monk" (now properly called summoner) have D, E, and F in skillset 01 and "summoner" (now properly called monk) have A, B, and C in skillset 02.

Um, I'm confused, are you for or against doing this?
  • Modding version: PSX
  • Discord username: Timbo

formerdeathcorps

Quote from: "Jack of All Trades"
Quote from: "formerdeathcorps"The point is to not change the job number.

Ex:
If monk knows A, B, and C in skillset 01 and summoner knows D, E, and F in skillset 02, then the swap makes "monk" (now properly called summoner) have D, E, and F in skillset 01 and "summoner" (now properly called monk) have A, B, and C in skillset 02.

Um, I'm confused, are you for or against doing this?

This isn't a for/against issue; I'm just trying to explain how I did it while managing to avoid the common traps involved.
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

Timbo

Fantastic news.  I had the same idea about switching it out with the squire.

Quote from: "R999"[li]Calculator - ***Dramatically delayed AoE special effects (see video below) **[/list]

Also, I just want to clarify, is this all just AoE special effects or any special effects.  It seems that all of the Thief and Squires are single target.  Would these skills work fine in the mathset then?
  • Modding version: PSX
  • Discord username: Timbo


Timbo

  • Knight - Cannot use Equip Sword, Equip Shield, Equip Armor.
  • Archer - > Change Action Menu to <Default>. No reported problems so far. Cannot use Equip Bow.
  • Monk - Cannot use Martial Arts.
  • Mediator -  Cannot learn Monster Talk, cannot use Equip Gun.

There is one more work around for these guys that nobody has mentioned that I think might work.  It's so simple that mentioning it feels a bit redundant.  However, its probably worth mentioning for benefit of newbies like myself.  

If creating a new job over top of one of the above jobs.  Just be sure that the new job has the innate abilities of the old job.  So, lets say you want to replace the mediator job with something else.  Just make sure that whatever job you replace it with can use guns and talk to monsters innately.  So if you want to replace the Monk with another job, just make sure that said job is kung fu appropriate.
  • Modding version: PSX
  • Discord username: Timbo

formerdeathcorps

Or you could do the opposite.  Create a job so averse to the support ability (like summoner and martial arts) that having the support ability on the new job makes no sense.

EDIT: I just tested this.  The only forced non-equips for support abilities are:
Throw Item (Ch)
Monster Talk (Me)
Martial Arts (Mk)
Two Swords (Nj)

Nothing else.  The equip abilities can be used on their base classes, although it is foolish to do so.

EDIT 2: Just tested mime and chemist.  If you use their base skillsets, mime won't appear with 18 Mimic.  However, if 18 mimic is set to the skillset of any other unit class, that new unit class will be able to see his moves in battle, but the moment he tries to use them, all damage calculations cease.  If you use chemist, the same 0% weapon attack glitch appears (and it is indeed an attack that mime tries to mime, but fails to do so).

However, both job classes readily admit a non-generic skillset with the same auto-learn pattern described on other unit classes.  In fact, when used on mime, he pays no MP, which is great for an elite unit class.

EDIT 3: Just tested samurai and ninja with special skillsets.  They work as auto-learned abilities and they too, must pay MP.

(Note, when I mean special skillset, I mean any non-generic skillset that has default for its action menu.)
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

R999

March 27, 2010, 03:47:12 am #10 Last Edit: March 27, 2010, 03:57:28 am by R999
^ I have reflected the changes. I have also included the "Chemist" test - as you might expect, it was a failure too.

As for changing the Dragoon's job number, I haven't had the kind of success that you had:

Only 3/10 skills were learned, all had 100% Learn Rate, this is fresh unit made from ENTD.



The job number used here is 50. My guess that your Lancer automatically had their job mastered probably has something to do with that particular character itself. Try to load a fresh character off of ENTD and refrain from testing with your pre-existing characters. Learn rate for all abilities are set to 100%, 3 JP.

Also, another related problem (quite serious) is that the Dragoon job completely disappears off of the formation screen in battle (at least it is for me) when the skillset for it is changed from 12 Jump to 50 [empty].

I have another guess on why only 3 skills were learned. I believe it has something to do with the Squire class, looking at it now, it also has 3 skills learned there. Going by this pattern, could it be that your Dragoon or other jobs might have mastered the Squire base job?

formerdeathcorps

I'm starting to suspect the problem is 0 JP moves.  Try giving them a non-zero JP attacks.
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

R999

March 27, 2010, 03:54:46 am #12 Last Edit: March 27, 2010, 04:27:10 am by R999
I made sure of that by making all abilities costing from 1-5 JP for all jobs. You mean I should change them to 0 JP? I will give that a try.

edit: Every other job that I have tested with having 100% Learn + 5 JP cost lets the AI created units have 100% of the abilities learned.

formerdeathcorps

No, I meant that you shouldn't have the attacks cost 0 JP.  They should always cost normal amounts (at least 100).

If my next suggestion doesn't work, we must have different ISOs or something.  Try going from your formation screen instead of assigning it via ENTD.  The ENTD is known to create problems (like causing units to learn attacks via JP on attacks with learn via JP unchecked and similar such bugs).  To make sure previous learned EXP isn't the issue, load an early game file where no one unlocked lancer, change the job requirements to nothing, and then test your makeshift class in a random/story battle by not learning anything in the lancer skillset (or whatever number you assigned to it) while subbing lancer.  You should be able to use all assigned attacks.
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

R999

I don't believe ENTD is the problem.

To further investigate the issue, I turned fresh new unit into a Dragoon(job requirements all set to 0), here's the results.
(The ISO that I have been testing on is pretty fresh, the editing here is barebones.)


Formation Screen, nothing learned.




Battle status screen, stuff I learned manually.




Abilities actually available. See missing skills?




And it turns out that my previous Theory about the Squire job is incorrect. I had learned all 5 Squire abilities for this character manually and I am still only seeing 4 abilities available when in battle.

I think it is your save file that is having problems. Perhaps the characters have corrupted JP tables. I would advise you try testing on a new solider from the office.



By the way, which [empty] skill-set were you using for the Dragoon? and how many abilities have you assigned to this skill set? I was testing on Skill-Set [50 Empty], with Action Menu <Default> (of course). I am willing to give your setup a try.

formerdeathcorps

March 27, 2010, 04:33:03 am #15 Last Edit: March 27, 2010, 04:42:14 am by formerdeathcorps
I tried 41 All Magic, 47 All Magic, 48 All Magic, and 50 with 41 All Magic pasted over on both the first attack and the 16th.  In my actual hack, I have 6 skills in the formerly empty skillset 54.  No issue on any of them, even with your Soldier Office suggestion (which I just tested).  Each time, the amount of skills in the new skillset is less than that of lancer, but in the case of 50, is clearly more than the original skillset (which was empty).

I really don't know what's wrong.  Maybe you shouldn't fill the job class to the brim with skills?  Try having less than what lancer's 12 had.  I'd also do another check that you didn't flag any of your attacks as equip sword.  Attacks flagged like that won't show up, obviously if you aren't using a sword.  Another check: make sure 12 and whatever skillset you are testing are at default.
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

R999

March 27, 2010, 04:39:55 am #16 Last Edit: March 27, 2010, 05:52:33 pm by R999
Well, the job only had 10 skills.


I need more information, such as the exact abilities (their IDs) that you  have used. Character level, JP, Squire skills learned, etc. I'll try to duplicate your setup and see if it works on my end. None of them were flagged with Equipd Sword. And the exact same skills work, on another skillset, such as the Calculator, Archer, and Ramza1's.

formerdeathcorps

If you have equip sword for some skills in a job class alongside skills that don't require swords, and your unit does not equip a sword, you will not see the attacks that require the sword, but your skillset will not be grayed out.  Same is true for require materia blade.  Also, lancer has 12 skills, not 10 in vanilla.

But technicalities aside:
1. From a 1.3 file.  Agrias (1E class; 28 skillset) with Time Mage having unlocked lancer at level 4 but with nothing in the job class learned.  Agrias is a level 5 Time Mage with nothing learned.  Lancer is set to 50, which has for the 16th slot quake and nothing else.  She has the first two or three swordskills learned in her base class.
2. From an earlier save file version of my personal patch run on vanilla modified only for lancer.  Bought a female squire from the soldier's shop (she is level 1 in squire and chemist--learned dash and equip change, potion, and one of the chemist skills, I'm not sure).  Set lancer to no prerequisite as 48 All Magic (Kletian's skillset).  When lancer is set as secondary, all her skills display in battle, though she obviously can't use any of them because of MP restraints.
I have more, but I don't remember them as exactly.  I'll post my results of 1 and 2 as main classes.

Lastly, your image displayed 457's FFTPatcher in colors virtually the inverse of me (white panel background, blue selection, black text; I have gray panel background, colorless selection except when making choices, and black text).  Could this be an OS difference?

BIG EDIT:

We've been looking at two separate halves of the same problem.  No wonder why we think we're investigating two different worlds.
I think I figured this out.

1. All non-generic skillsets are treated as that of a squire somewhere in the code (probably WORLD.BIN or SCUS_92_US.BIN).  This means that your mastery of any non-generic skillset when it is the designated skillset number of your current class (generic or not) is determined by your mastery of the unit class that equals squire (which may be holy knight, engineer, etc).  For example, if you master the 4th attack of squire (heal), you automatically master the 4th attack of all non-generic skillset numbers if that skillset number corresponds to that of your current class (that is why every special unit class can be set to any non-generic skillset number without issue).  In theory, changing any vanilla skillset to any non-generic skillset will incur this problem, regardless of what the unit class was like in vanilla.
2. All generic skillsets that were originally fixed in vanilla (like lancer or ninja) reference their own special attacks in the code.  Much of it is not modified by what any given individual attack in their skillset has as flagged (hence why draw out never takes MP costs regardless of whether you flag it or not, or why geomancy or draw out cannot be made unaffected by mime or silence by simply removing the mimic and silence flags).  Switching to a non-generic skillset results in Case 1.
3. All generic skillsets with <default> in vanilla treated their current job's skillset number in the way squire was treated in Case 1.  If the default skillset becomes to a non-generic skillsets, Case 1 also applies here.
4. If a non-generic skillset is set as a secondary, it will be automatically mastered regardless of the skills learned in squire or whatever job that references the specified non-generic skillset.
5. As a logical consequence, if you want to foolproof this system, squire should have as many skills as the unit class whose skillset you are switching with the most skills.  You should not leave spaces with <nothing>, as this is treated as an extra attack.  Note that no unit class can have duplicated skills in his skillset; all duplicates will not be learned.  Similarly, whatever unit class you are creating this way should have prerequisites in squire.  IN fact, switching squire out for a unit class that naturally has many skills (like white mage, assuming all your subsequent switches for generic unit class skillsets are of mages) might be helpful.
The destruction of the will is the rape of the mind.
The dogmas of every era are nothing but the fantasies of those in power; their dreams are our waking nightmares.

Timbo

So, I hate to sound like a broken record but I never got an answer from earlier, does the Mathset get the slowdown only when using area attacks with special effects or is it any attack with special effects, like throw stone or steal heart?
  • Modding version: PSX
  • Discord username: Timbo

R999

March 27, 2010, 12:19:07 pm #19 Last Edit: March 27, 2010, 11:16:06 pm by R999
@Jack, single target effects does not have slow downs for the Math set.

@formerdc, I see now --looks like I wasn't totally wrong about the Squire earlier. I am also willing to bet that if your Agrias's primary is Lancer, she would not have all of the skills available. Actually, even setting it as a secondary does not guarantee that all of the skills would be available (as I have reported previously).

I wonder if the Squire theory really works as it should. But then, there will always be instances when the player does not have all of the Squire skills learned. Now that you mentioned about the <Nothing> slots, it is starting to make sense.  Update: I have tested that if the Squire's skillsets has all <Nothing>, the special jobs would end up being empty (in my case, the swapped Lancer job number with job 50 displaying 0 skills available in battle, and battle only. Everything looks fine in the formation screen).

Aside from the special skills not behaving properly, I can also add that changing Geomany skills is also impossible. Setting Random Attack = true does nothing; it will always hit on all panels in effect. Changing the formula also does nothing; they are always hardcoded with the same formula. Update: Philsov seems to have been able to change the formula correctly. The ones that I have tested with (like 5E) does not work.

On an related note, I just realized that replacing the Squire is probably out of the question unless you absolutely don't want any special jobs in the game. Duplicating any of the Chemists' functions is also impossible so these two slots should probably never be touched. Setting the Squire's job number to that of Chemist also gives the "missing skill" behavior. Finally (and obviously) If you make the Squire into a White Mage job or any other job, the special jobs would automatically not have access to it.


Now, I wonder  if there is a way to turn a special job into a Generic one.


edit: PM me a screenshot of your FFTPatcher. I am using v0457