Final Fantasy Hacktics

First, hello everyone (first post, and it's a doozy!).  I've been a fan of Tactics since it came out, oh so long ago.  I'd come back to it every now and then, play through it, get bored, then shelve it for a few years, only to come back to it.  I just recently learned of this project through gamefaqs, and it really has breathed new life into this old chestnut.  Many, many thanks for everyone's hard work.

So I recently applied the patch, and after messing around with the patcher, I've decided to revamp the game to my own liking (on top of v1.2, that is).  I'm not clear on everything yet--namely battle.bin and the ENTD files.  But using the patcher I've been successful at making some changes and adding a few things to the 1.2 patch (namely, I fixed the Ninjas having Cure and Calculators having CT.  After that it was a simple matter of messing around).  Anyway, after playing the game for 15 years or however long, I'm pretty tired of the same old classes, same old skillsets, etc.  So I'm going to TRY to change the classes without making things way overpowered.  I'd like any suggestions anyone might have balance wise.

First, I'm giving everyone innate GJPU, but I'm going to raise the level reqs.  Apparently, higher reqs=harder AI enemies, so that's a good thing.

All special classes (Holy Knight, Heaven, Hell Knights, etc) will be getting Accumulate.  I HATED having to get Agrias or whoever all the way up to Dancer or Bard before I could have something quick and easy to gain JP.  And Dancing or Singing still takes too long for my taste.

Class Changes
This is where I'm going to do the most.  I'm bored of Knights, Archers that I never use, Time Mages, Oracles, Mediators--the dumb classes that just get rushed through to get to something better (in my experience anyway).

Ramza
Yes, I'm giving him holy/dark sword skills.  I know a lot of people think it's cheesy and cheap.  Well, you might be right, but with the nerf they got in 1.2 it won't be so bad.  This way I can change Agrias to something else.  I'm thinking I'll give him Stasis, Lighting Stab, Dark and Night Sword.  I don't want to go too crazy with it.  I'll probably leave chapter 1 ramza alone, give chatper 2/3 ramza stasis sword and Night sword, then chapter 4 give him the rest.  I'm going to remove Scream (and all Brave/Faith boosting magic), and Dash, and probably replace all the lame reaction and support abilites for slightly better ones (monster talk instead of skill, to go with Invitation, for one thing).

Squire
Adding Speed Break.  So I don't have to keep someone as a Knight or with Battle Skill while they're leveling.

Chemist
Probably keep Chemists just as they are.

Knight
Going to change into a Paladin.  I think I'll remove the weapon and armor break skills and replace them with Cure, Cure 2, Raise, and Esuna.  I'll up their MA, MP, and MA growth slightly, and give them back robes.  If I can, I'm going to change the sprite to Weigraf's, but that's an ENTD thing I think, which I don't understand how to do yet.

Archer
Charge 6-20 will be removed (like anyone ever used them anyway).  Adding in Leg and Arm aim.  Other than that, I can't come up with anything.  I thought about giving them some White magic (ala FF4's Rosa) but with Knights getting it too...maybe that would be too much.

Monk
Allowing them to wear helmets (stupid that they can't IMO).  Also adding a +1 vertical to Chakra and Revive.  Might lower HP growth if helmets makes them too 'tanky'.  Removing Hamedo.

Thief
Fiddling with the idea of giving them innate 2 swords.  In their present form they're next to useless (IMO)--just good for speed.  I would just learn Move 2, and let someone learn all the thief skills, and let it go at that.  This would make them a little more viable until Ninjas are playable (well, until their equipment is playable).

Geomancer
Oh if only I could change the formula to make the spell 'type' determined by the TARGET'S hex, not the caster's.  Oh well.  Other than that, I think I'll keep the class as is, maybe lower JP costs for the spells.

Lancer
No more jump.  I'm going to give him the Knight's 4 leftover Break skills, increase movement by 1, remove innate ignore height (if they even have it, not sure if they do or not).  I want Lancers to be the main tank class.  Might give them innate Maintenance (unless somoene convinces me it's a bad idea).  Going to take Protect and Shell from Priests and give it to them.  

Samurai
Like the 1.3 patch version suggests, (if I can) I'll change Draw Out to PA instead of MA.  Going to up their speed and movement by 1.  Leaving innate 2 hands.

Ninja
Giving them Innate Throw Item (they can throw shurikens, axes, and dictionaries, but not a pheonix down??).  Going to leave them alone other than that, it's a good class as is.

Casters
I always hated how magic is so broken down in this game.  So, I'm going to combine White Magic with Time Magic, and Black Magic with Yin Yang Magic.  There are MANY spells in all four sets I've never once cast (other than to see the graphic).  A few off the top of my head are Protect and Shell 2, Fire, Ice, Bolt 4, and practically all the Time and Oracle magic except for a few important spells, (haste, slow, paralyze, sleep).  I'll add the spells I want and toss the ones I know I'll never use.

As far as Summoners and Mediators go--I haven't decided yet.  I'd like to make Calculators a Blue Mage class, and give them access to some monster skills (this will take a lot of trial and error, as I don't know which ones are super OP and which ones just suck).  I'll probably change Summoners to an Ultimate Magic class, and give them stuff like Flare, Holy, Meteor, Ultima.  Mediators I have no idea yet--but I AM going to remove all Brave and Faith boosting spells.  Maybe I'll change them into something like 1.2's calculator, a Red Mage.

Dancers, Bards, and Mimes
No ideas here yet.  I only ever used Bards and Dancers for the special classes that join that don't have Accumulate.  And I never use Mimes (never really saw the point).  I'll have to think about what to do with them and do something later.

Special Classes
So far, all I've really determine is I want them all to have Accumulate.  Agrias I need to change, since I won't need a Holy Swordsmen now that Ramza can fill that role.  Kinda the same with Mustadio and Archers.  Cid I never use (he's WAAAAY too cheap).  Maybe I'll make him a Dancer for shits and giggles.  Honestly I don't plan on using any of these guys, I like my generic parties, but maybe if inspiration hits I'll change them up.  It would be nice to actually USE Rafa or Malak for a change.

Well, I think that's a good start.  Some reaction, support, and movement skills will need to be changed, moved, etc.  But I'll have to decide on those after I get all the main class abilities where I like them.  Please, feel free to critique the hell out of this, I really just wanted a nice list for myself so when I get home I can apply all these changes.

Does anyone see anything that won't work?  I concerned with things like, if I take away all of a summoners magic and replace it with the crazy stuff, will they still use it?  Everything I've read points to they will, but I'd just like to make sure.

Also, what happens if I say, (I'm not going to, just an example) prevented Knights from wearing armor?  Will the scripted fights still have knights in plate mail, or will they come in naked?  This is another ENTD thing I'm thinking.

Well anyway, this twenty page term paper has gotten long enough I think.  Please, tell me if any of this seems way overpowered, or if I'm setting myself up for a total ass beating from the AI.  I want to have fun, but I don't want to be God mode, nor do I want the AI to be.

And oh yeah, Wiegraf + Berserk= lawl.  I'm taking that permanent berserk off of diamond armor.  Althought it DID make the first phase of the Velius fight a cake walk (but stage two, on the other hand.  Halfway through the fight Velius picked up a crystal, and got back 800 hp.  I eventually drained all his MP, and he started petrifying people--that was a damn long fight, took 20 minutes.  But it was a lot of fun).

Not sure if Arm/Leg Aim will work in the Charge skillset. Someone had trouble making break skills and stuff work in the Jump skillset before as well ... it's likely there's code in places for Jump, Draw Out/Sword Spirit, and Charge ...

Otherwise, it actually looks like you setting it up for you to win pretty easily as far as I can see - especially with Ramza with Sword skills and the like.

ENTD are the event changes ... if you look at my signature, you can take yourself over to my guides and learn how to patch ENTD files. Also, for the knights, it depends ... a lot of battles have <Random> so if you take armor away from knights, it'll give them robes or nothing if they can't wear anything but armor. Some battles have specific equipment though.

I can see why Jump would be a problem, since it doesn't bring up a list of abilities.  I guess I'll try it and see.

And honestly, Ramza with sword skills isn't that bad is it?  I mean, what's the difference if you use Agrias?  Or Cid for that matter.  He might be a little faster and stronger than she is, but other than that I don't see the difference.  Like I said, I'll probably change her job completly, or more likely just not use her.  Besides, I'm just one of those people that's always thought he should have them anyway.  I mean hell, if Delita can learn them by chapter 2, why not Ramza?  And besides--Guts sucks.  There I said it.  Yeah Yell and Scream are nice, but other than that...I'm a level 99 Savior of the World---THROW STONE!  BOOYA!  I'd rather have the equpiment and growth options and have a useful skill set--or at least a fun one.

I've actually been playing with an overpowered Ramza in 1.2, added Holy Sword, Dark Sword, and Chakra--and yeah it was a little much.  But sometimes I wonder if I would've been able to win some fights without them, damn random battles have 500 hp monsters at level 30, level 25 knights have 400 hp--it's almost an equalizer.

A doozy of changes for a first post. I agree with Lydyn about the power boost for Team A, but really do what you want. Go for it. Making the the changes will show you what's a good change and what's a bad one.

And good point about the monster talk to accent invitation. Never thought of that.

Edit: I think that if you use the reasoning of Delita learning the sword skills as well, it would be cool to see him have access to the Night skills in Chap. 2, due to his work with Gaf, and then slowly learn the Holy skills from Agrias in Chap. 3 & 4.

Ok, let me pick your brain while I've got you here Lydyn on these ENTD files.  There are 4--I assume they each correspond to a chapter?  Seems pretty cut and dry, just save them in the patcher and apply them to the correct folder in the .iso?  Will the patcher prompt me to save the file once I leave the ENTD tab, or will it leave that to me?  I think I can figure out what everything there does, with a little trial and error, but figuring out the technical stuff is the hard part (took me forever to get the patch to work).  

And what does battle.bin change?  I see it mentioned a lot but nothing on what it contains, or how to even open it.

Equalizer? Well, I'll have to admit I disagree... Stasis sword can easily do 100+ damage by around then and it's only five turns to kill them. Only possible threat would really be the Red Chocobo or the Hydras in the Deep Dungeon to me.

Then again, I've never played v1.2 so maybe they made the monsters that much tougher or something. Still, just the way you're setting things up and how the AI works, it seems to be giving you more of an advantage then you already had.

Just like giving all special characters Accumulate. Not a bad idea in of itself, but that skill can be overpowered with a Holy Knight if you take the time to invest in it. You can always argue with my patch that my Knight classes have accumulate, but you also need to take ~30 levels of a character's life to even unlock it. :(

Let's see... well, you said something about always berserk on Diamond armor? That's just strange. Why in the world would someone even consider that? Maybe on something like a rare armor, but Diamond? Heh... v1.2 is already a bit strange to me (I've only ever skimmed it).

Yeah, also... well, depends if you want others playing this or not. If you don't, you might as well toss the special characters out and forget about them, but if you want others trying this ... I'd suggest redoing Cid's class rather than just leaving him overpowered.

- - - - -

On the ENTD files. I'm going to assume you read my guides... which should've explained it, but here's a bullet-guide for you;

• Open FFT Patcher
• Open your patch
• Go to the ENTD tab
• Make whatever changes you want to it
• File -> Generate ENTD Files
• It'll ask you what folder you want to put them in. For simplicity, put it in the FFT Patcher/ENTD Files folder. If you haven't made it yet, do so and select it.
• Open CD Mage
• Open the FFT ISO image file
• Open your battle folder
• Find "ENTD1.ENT," "ENTD2.ENT," ENTD3.ENT," and "ENTD4.ENT."
• Right-click on ENTD1.ENT and select import
• Go to FFT Patcher/ENTD Files folder and select ENTD1.ENT
• Repeat the two steps above for ENTD2.ENT, ENTD3.ENT, and ENTD4.ENT
• Close CD Mage
• Run FFT ISO

The BATTLE.BIN is located in the same place as the SCUS_941.21 file and can be patched in the same exact way as the SCUS_941.21 file. You patch it whenever you change the GFX (Special Effect, graphics effects; the images you see when a skill launches, like the night sword) for an ability. For example, changing Night Sword to look like Stasis Sword.

This is all on the assumption you're playing the PSX version and not the PSP Remake of Final Fantasy Tactics.

The one thing you are doing that I don't like is taking away Jump from Lancers. Jump & Lancers are one.
And the fact I've been a Kain fan since FF2/4.

Quote from: "Kenshin72"The one thing you are doing that I don't like is taking away Jump from Lancers. Jump & Lancers are one.

He can't anyways, it won't work.

Yeah 1.2 is kinda weird in some aspects.  Diamond Armor has Berserk attached to it, which like I said, doesn't work--especially in the Wiegraf/Velius fight.  And the monsters really are tougher.  The very first random battle I got into, I almost didn't survive, the enemies were so strong--I might have even died, and had to reload.

As for being too easy, I have an idea about that.  If I increase the JP required for jobs, that means that the AI classes SHOULD have more abilites (as I understand it, from another poster here).  So if I raise the requirements for classes, it should make them stronger.  Also, Knights (who seem to be in every fight) should be more difficult to beat and more useful to their team thanks to having White Magic (if the AI picks the spells up, anyway).

But yeah, 1.2 increases the difficulty by itself, I think because of the HP/MP buffs armor gets.  And the random battles with uber monsters.  I think this will level the playing field a little--but I won't know until I get it all set up and test it a bit.

And you're right, I'm not going to just leave the special classes as they are--I'll change them up once I figure out what I want to do with them.  Accumulate can be cheesed, you're right--but honestly, what can't?  I find that to keep this game moderatly challenging, you HAVE to use a little restraint.  Otherwise you could just make 3 Calculators, a Ninja with Knight Swords, and a TG Cid and win every fight in two rounds.  Other than Ramza, do you think any other changes are gamebreaking or just too much?  Two Sword Thieves or Innate Throw Item Ninjas?  What about my Blue Mage and Summoner ideas?

About Charge.  Ok, so adding snipe skills won't work.  What if I gave Archers the Snipe skillset, took away seal evil, and added into it Charge 1-5?  Think that would work?  I'm already going to have to replace Jump with something to make my Lancer idea work, might as well change Charge if I have to.

And don't forget, while I'm giving myself all these cool things, the AI should get them all too--but I'll have to see if they can figure them out.  My hope is that Knights with white magic will be a lot harder to kill, Archers will actually be a threat with Don't Move/Act, Lancers are going to be godly, and the Casters too.  Hopefully--I'd rather not have to go through each battle in the ENTD....

And thanks for clarifying the ENTD and battle.bin.  I did read your guide and I just wanted to make sure I understood everything.  You might want to add that list to your guide post, it's very clear and concise

Quote from: "adouchebag"Yeah 1.2 is kinda weird in some aspects.  Diamond Armor has Berserk attached to it, which like I said, doesn't work--especially in the Wiegraf/Velius fight.  And the monsters really are tougher.  The very first random battle I got into, I almost didn't survive, the enemies were so strong--I might have even died, and had to reload.

As for being too easy, I have an idea about that.  If I increase the JP required for jobs, that means that the AI classes SHOULD have more abilites (as I understand it, from another poster here).  So if I raise the requirements for classes, it should make them stronger.  Also, Knights (who seem to be in every fight) should be more difficult to beat and more useful to their team thanks to having White Magic (if the AI picks the spells up, anyway).

But yeah, 1.2 increases the difficulty by itself, I think because of the HP/MP buffs armor gets.  And the random battles with uber monsters.  I think this will level the playing field a little--but I won't know until I get it all set up and test it a bit.

Yeah, all right. Well, I've never played v1.2, but I can imagine. If I hadn't made Chocobos the way they are now (I brought them more towards the traditional image, as in being support/cowardly types - only yellow though), I would've without a doubt died many times at the beginning of the game.

Quote from: "adouchebag"And you're right, I'm not going to just leave the special classes as they are--I'll change them up once I figure out what I want to do with them.  Accumulate can be cheesed, you're right--but honestly, what can't?  I find that to keep this game moderatly challenging, you HAVE to use a little restraint.  Otherwise you could just make 3 Calculators, a Ninja with Knight Swords, and a TG Cid and win every fight in two rounds.  Other than Ramza, do you think any other changes are gamebreaking or just too much?  Two Sword Thieves or Innate Throw Item Ninjas?  What about my Blue Mage and Summoner ideas?

Theives with two swords isn't all that bad and throw item on a ninja? I wouldn't consider that, that bad either... Blue Mage isn't a bad idea, it's been talked about in the VK patch, especially if you can get it so he learns when hit by the skills. Only thing I can see wrong with the Summoner, especially the enemy without adding Short Charge in the ENTD files, is that you could practically kill them before they got a single spell off. Maybe edit a lot of the 'uber' spells to do less damage, but bump the speed up and mess with the MP costs.

Quote from: "adouchebag"About Charge.  Ok, so adding snipe skills won't work.  What if I gave Archers the Snipe skillset, took away seal evil, and added into it Charge 1-5?  Think that would work?  I'm already going to have to replace Jump with something to make my Lancer idea work, might as well change Charge if I have to.

I'll take an educated guess and say no here. If you look at the Action Menus tab, you'll see Charge and Jump are set as such, so chances are changing them will not do anything. You could probably try and use the skill, but it'd glitch or not do anything at all but use your action up.

Also note if you change any of the skillsets, for example changing the Lancer skillset to Battle Skills, will glitch everything up. If you take a glance at my Heavenly Chaos topic in New Projects, you'll see that I tried giving Dancer's the Chaos skillset, but despite me learning skills 1, 2, 3, and 4, in battle I suddenly and only only use skills 5, 6, and like 8. That's mainly the reason why Lancers can't be changed right now, along with Archers. Calculators, however, can be... so...

Quote from: "adouchebag"And don't forget, while I'm giving myself all these cool things, the AI should get them all too--but I'll have to see if they can figure them out.  My hope is that Knights with white magic will be a lot harder to kill, Archers will actually be a threat with Don't Move/Act, Lancers are going to be godly, and the Casters too.  Hopefully--I'd rather not have to go through each battle in the ENTD....

You might have to. Simply because even with an even playing field, if the enemy can't use things like Short Charge, Half of MP, Two Swords, etc, it's always going to be easier (in my opinion anyways). They're not nearly as smart and you have to remember that curing yourself takes a turn and even moving 3-4 spaces away, leaves you open for more damage. Unless you give the enemy knights some advantage and a considerable MA boost (also think about the fact you want their MA lower than a mage class, by at least .5 times like if a wizard had 20 at level 99, I'd only give him 15 at the very maximum - though I'd go lower still) and some way to stay away from damage easier, it'll still be easy.

Quote from: "adouchebag"And thanks for clarifying the ENTD and battle.bin.  I did read your guide and I just wanted to make sure I understood everything.  You might want to add that list to your guide post, it's very clear and concise

Good idea. ^^

Lydyn, he can change the jump skillset's menu to a normal one.

Whoever, no way you can get charges and normal type of skills in the same skillset douche. Those skills aren't just plain normal, as Math Skills are.

He can? Hm, the other person must've been trying to get Jump + Other skill in the same skillset then.

I'm working on the thing right now, I changed Lancer's Jump skillset to....

Talk skill.

But I have a more immediate question.  I'm going with the true Blue Mage idea, and I have a question about Chance to Learn.

If Learn on Hit is active, that means if you get hit with the spell and survive, you have an x% chance to learn the spell yes?  Or does it mean the NPC in question has an x% chance to HAVE the spell?  Or both?

Also, the way it 'should' work as it is now, the abilities won't be listed in the skill list screen.  If I make them all a JP cost, my guess is they will show up, but you'll have to spend JP on buying them--but only after you get hit with them?  I don't know, now that I've typed it out it doesn't seem like it will work.  I'd hate to have all the spells he can learn be a mystery, but it might be unavoidable.  I'll try it with one and see what happens.  I just don't want to make it impossible for monsters to have the spells I'm trying to learn lol.

Chances to Learn governs what the percent chance to learn if you're hit and survive (if the box is checked), the chances of the enemy having that spell/ability, and the chances of being able to learn it from a dropped crystal - as I understand it.

And chances are his spells with be a mystery, like the Zodiac summon, sorry. But if you edit the monster skills, you don't have to worry about them suddenly not knowing it though - I think ... I hope.

Well I was going to give them all like an 80% chance to learn, but decided to stick with 100% since that's the way blue magic has always worked.

He's done, btw, tell me what you think:

Choco Cure
Choco Esuna
Self Destruct
Blaster
Blood Suck (Not Elmdor's--maybe it should be?)
Odd Soundwave
Thunder Soul
Wind Soul
Giga Flare
Dark Holy
Bio
Bio 2
Bio 3
Nanoflare
Grand Cross
Nightmare

The Bios are going to be luck based heh.  There's 3 different Bio 1 and 3s, and four different Bio 2s.  Nanoflare and Grand Cross I don't even know what they do...but they sounded cool.

I made him a Fighter Class--almost identical to Ramza until I figure out how strong he is.  Sword and Armor, no robes--monster magic doesn't have an MP cost, so the spells should all be free.  The reason i'm making him a warrior type is so he'll be useful before he learns anything, and just to test him out, as I said.

I'm going to change the job reqs for Calculators to second level, and put my uber magic summoner top tier (Holy, Flare, Death, Frog, Meteor, and Ultima--the crappy Ramza version).

Man, I hope all this crap I'm doing works...it's gonna be a mess to rip it all apart if it doesn't.  maybe I better quit while I'm ahead and try it out.

Grand Cross inflicts tons of status effects with a 100% chance, and Nanoflare's a better version of Gigaflare (low vertical range, effect of 2, lots of non-elemental damage based on MA).

Giga Flare
Dark Holy
Bio
Bio 2
Bio 3
Nanoflare
Grand Cross
Nightmare

All these are going to be really rare though. Gigaflare doesn't come into play into you fight demons basically, same as with Dark Holy. The Bios, those are hard to survive period as it is anyways ... Nanoflare is pretty darn rare too and is normally only with the higher up demons... Nightmare.. I don't know. The Impure King casts that basically and I'm not sure if your inflicted it's counted as 'surviving' it and he won't cast it unless he can inflict it on you (it's 100% of infliction, by the way unless you're immune to Death Sentence and Sleep).

Grand Gross doesn't appear until you fight Altima, Arch Angel version which is the final-final boss so that's almost pointless to even put there unless you give someone else that abilitly.

I'm actually surprised, things are working out better than I thought, most everything i did seems to work fine, with no problems.

And I'll swap out most of those listed spells.  I just checked them out, and the Lucavi spells, Bio, Dark Holy, have an MP cost, which I would rather avoid.  Should've checked I guess.  But it seems that the class works--but that was with a Calculator that had already learned most of the slots I stuck in there, so he had most everything.  I need to try him out fresh.

I need 7 monster skills.  What are some good ones?

How about

Wave Around
Hurricane
Dark Whisper
Bad Breath
Fire, Ice, Bolt Breath?

Well, keep the Blood Suck one the Vampire's version, so it's not overpowered... and dealing with vampires is annoying anyways.

Um...

• Goblin Punch ([Caster Current HP - Caster Max HP] [PA + 35]% )
• Feather Bomb (MA * 2 Damage, 3 range)
• Flame/Ice/Thunder Breath (From Dragons)
• Wave Around
• Small Bomb (MA * 4) or Bad Breath (100%, 0 vertical, 2 range, seperate; Petrify, Darkness, Confusion, Silence, Oil, Frog, Poison)
• Sudden Cry (Behemoths)

I wouldn't do Dark Whisper, as it's a Monster Skill for the highest version of Hydras, so the chances of ever seeing it is slim to none. Same for Hurricane, only it's a Monster Skill for King Behemoths I think.

That's good, I'd like one to be harder to get.

Just invite a Hydra and wait a few days--I forgot to mention, I gave the blue mages innate Monster Skill, for easy spell learning.

That's going to be insanely hard to get, heh ... especially if all the monsters are as tough as you say they are. Timats only appear in the Deep Dungeon and the final battle with Balk.

The forumla for Dark Whisper is also MA * ([MA + 1] / 2]. So on a wizard like MA, the damage would be around 231 ... that's with 21 MA. Personally, I wouldn't even attempt learning that. Not worth the trouble. (Timats do roughly 325 damage with 25 MA and I do suppose it casts randomly 5 times like the Heaven/Hell Knight's skills.)

I might also mention that Sudden Cry isn't a calk walk to learn either. It's not often used and there's only 1-2 places to encounter Behemoths on random battles.

Sudden Cry: PA * ([PA + 2] / 2); Has a chance to add; Dead

I'm about to test him out--going to try to learn choco cure in chapter 1.

I'm actually excited to see how it works. ^^ Though you'd need to trap the dang thing for Cure. xD

I just realized I forgot to turn off 'Learned with JP' so I had all the skills already listed at 0 cost heh.  NOW I'm trying it--give me some time to get the job levels.

It works EXACTLY like it's supposed to.

BUT that 'affected by' is really finicky.  I finally got the damn chocobo to heal my blue mage, who was at full HP.  Didn't learn the spell.  After I hurt him and the chocobo cast it again, bingo.

MIIIGHT have to replace chocobo esuna--unless using my own monsters works.

I can't believe it actually worked.  If only the list weren't blank, but oh well.

There's a pretty glaring flaw however.  I had to boost the blue mage's MA multiplier into the stratosphere to make the magic halfway decent--up to 200.  My level 4 guy had level 8 magic and choco cure only did 30 hp on himself.  And I was playing around with the high level one, and the spells all kinda sucked--low hit rates and low damage.  I might innate magic attack up and concentrate to improve on that, but they're kinda bleh.  I'll have to play through from the beginning with one to see how he pans out.  

But that MA multiplier is insane--and imagine putting my uber mage skill set in there?  Super high level flares, holys.  Blue Mage might have to be an honor system kinda thing  

Or modify the monsters to have lower ma multipliers and make their spells stronger. It would be a lot of work, but that's what I'm thinking of doing.

I agree with Vanya on this one.

All this talk of Blue Mages, I can see why everyone wants one. Maybe there should be a 'Blue Mage Cooperative'.

First task: Discuss ease of implementation. Conclusion: ...Moot, since we're all fumbling around in the dark.  

Another option to lessen the game editing you might need to do is to set up a Blue party. In a test bed patch make 5 different generic classes into blue mage classes that each have a different set off monster skills (already learned for this test) and see which ones already naturally work well without editing. Then you can pick between the ones of those you can see the player being able to learn easily (leaving a few super powers for those rare instances, of course). That way you have a cream of the crop Blue Mage.

Just keep Blue Mage MA a little less or equal to Black Mage and give them innate Magic Attack Boost. You can then also give them very low mp if you kept the Monster abilites useable without magic. That way they won't be godly magic casters simply because they have no mp to use.

That's a really good idea.  I doubt Black Mage's MA is high enough, even with innate magic up, to make the class viable however.  His magic stat has to be HIIIIGH.

But, if I give them like 0 MP, and make them only able to wear armor and helmets, it would make it VERY difficult to cast any other magic.  I'll have to leave MA multiplier ungodly high, but I can make MP and MA growth super low to compensate.  Well, I guess MA growth will still have to be kinda high, so he can keep up with everyone else's stat gains.

Now I just need to figure out which abilities are worth having.

Well, thanks for everyone's help and suggestions, here's what I've done so far.

And remember, this is all on top of the 1.2 patch.

Squire-Added Speed Break

Chemist-No changes

Knight-Removed Weapon/Armor Breaks--replaced with Cure, Cure 2, Esuna, Raise.  Increased MA and MP.  Lowered AP and HP.  Lowered MP and MA growth.  Innate Arrow Guard

Archer-Charge replaced with Snipe.  Added Charge 1-5, Ignore Height, Equip Gun.  Innate Ignore Height.

Priest-Added time magic and removed some useless white magic.  Innate Regenerator

Wizard-Added Yin Yang magic, replaced useless black magic.  Innate Counter Magic

Time Mage-Now 'Red Mage.'  Added mid level attack and cure spells, can equip swords.  Innate Absorb MP Used.  Also gave Dark Holy spell at 500 JP.

Calculator-Now Blue Mage.  Innate Concentrate, Magic Att Up, and Monster Skill.  Abilities listed above.

Oracles and Mediators-Removed (they now require level 8 mimes to unlock)

Thief-Innate Two Swords.  Innate Secret Hunt.

Monk-Added hats.  Added Vertical +1 to Chakra and Revive.  Innate Defense up

Lancer-Can equip swords and knight swords.  Jump replaced with weapon/armor break, Protect, Shell, and Regen.  Innate Maintenance and Weapon Guard.  Added A Save, Defense Up, Move HP up.

Geomancer-No changes (1.2 added innate move on lava).

Summoner-Now Uber Mage.  Removed summons (I'm going to put one or two back in) replaced with Holy, Flare, Meteor, Death, and Frog.  Innate Short Charge, Half MP.

Samurai-1.2 Innate 2 Hands

Ninja-Added Innate Throw Item.

Bard, Dancer, Mime-No changes.

All of the abilites that I restricted access to (Oracle and Mediator) I tried to replace in the remaining jobs appropriatley.  Archers have Equip Gun, Lancers have Defense Up, etc.  

I increased every classes base move by 1.

You should really test Archers out, but I don't think having Charge and Snipe skills in the same set will work, just like Jump and Break skills won't work together.

Also the classes you added innate reaction abilities too, there's a bit of a glitch there. Let's say I take my wizard (who has innate Counter Magic) and equip Counter Tackle on him. Well, all is fine and dandy until you get into battle ... all of sudden my wizard has Counter Magic equiped and Counter Tackle is no where to be seen.. so, the problem being I can't use any reactions but Counter Magic now.

The snipe skillset works--at least I'm almost positive it does.  I took an Archer into a fight last night with my chapter 4 game, but don't think I ever had him do anything.  Leg, Arm aim and all the charges did show up though, so I'm fairly positive it will work.  My low level game I just started has high enough levels to use one, so I'll be trying him out.

I didn't know about the innate reaction glitch, I'll try it out too.

I have also found another problem.  Like I said, I replaced the Jump skillset of Lancers with the Talk Skill skillset.  Well, there's a problem--in order to have access to any abilities I've learned in Talk Skill, the Job has to have already UNLOCKED mediators.  However, the Snipe skillset is available, I guess because it counts as a Squire class.  So I'll probably end up putting everything I have in Talk skill and putting it in a skillset I don't plan on using--namely Truth or Un-Truth.

Yeah, just because things show up doesn't mean they'll work. You need to be picky about testing and test about everything you can think of - meaning in this case, actually using both Leg & Arm Aim and at least one charge.

Also, I'd like you to take a look at these three screenshots;

(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t28/Lydyn_Whirlwind/FFTChaos2.jpg)

(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t28/Lydyn_Whirlwind/FFTChaos1.jpg)

(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t28/Lydyn_Whirlwind/FFTChaos3.jpg)

You may have not noticed on your archer, but changing skillsets to a different one, will normally glitch and mess things up as you can see. In this example I changed Dancer to have Chaos as her skillset, but from what I learned outside of battle differed from what I could use inside of battle. I strongly suggest testing this out with a new archer only buying one of the skills and seeing what appears in battle. If it works for you, great, I'm just trying to help since this glitch with changing skillsets has happened to several (or all) people so far.

Yes indeed, I saw that problem in your choas post.  Have you considered the Choas set, being a monster skillset I believe, acts as a monster skill set when entering battle--aka, it chooses what abilities are available to it based on availability percentage?  I don't know how far along you've come since that OP, but consider using Snipe or a Holy Sword set, something a human NPC would use.

My Archer didn't seem to have that problem, but like I said I don't think I ever actually fired a shot with him.  I didn't have time to test much last night, it took me all day to change everything around and by the time I tested the blue mage out, it was bed time  

I have an Archer ready to go, first thing I'll do when I get home is fix my Lancer problem by changing the skillset he uses from talk skill to Truth (or I might make my Knight's skillset Truth, and give Lancers Battle Skill, haven't decided yet).  Then I'll bust him out and try some attacks.  I also need to test what you said about reaction innate abilities, I'll try giving my priest counter tackle and see if what you described happens to me.

I have an ENTD question--I looked through that tab, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it.  My question is, which line determines the sprites for the generic classes?  Like I said, I wanted to change the Knight Sprite to Wiegraf.

Yeah, just test things out, that's all I'm asking ... just so you know what works and doesn't, so you're not playing along and find out half way through a tough battle something doesn't work right. (I'm using the original Sing & Dance skillsets by the way, since Bard & Dancer don't exist in my patch, so it's safe to use.)

As for the ENTD question ... changing generic job sprites has absolutly nothing to do with the ENTD tab. ENTD files are used to change sprite sets, like making Gafgarion look like Larg or something silly like that ... but it wouldn't change Gafgarion's sprite to Larg's, just switching sprite sets.

For changing In battle and Formation generic (or special) sprites, look at my guides.

You were right about everything thanks.

And I know what the reason behind that skills glitch.  In my case, I replaced both jump and charge with hero--aka squire--classes.  The character in question had 5 of 5 squire abilities learned, and when I changed to Archer I taught her one thing, but she had the first five snipe abilities learned in battle.

When I switched Ramza into archer, he had the first, second, fourth, and sixth guts abilities learned, and he also had the same four archer levels learned.  But I have an idea how to get around it.

Well, before I say something, did Charge work as well as the Aim skills? Did you test that out?

And my question is, why replace them? Why don't you just edit Jump and Charge with what you want? I'm not sure I follow the reason for going through all this trouble.

Because you said that Jump and Charge glitched if you changed them.  

QuoteNot sure if Arm/Leg Aim will work in the Charge skillset. Someone had trouble making break skills and stuff work in the Jump skillset before as well ... it's likely there's code in places for Jump, Draw Out/Sword Spirit, and Charge ...

Quote from: "Zodiac"Lydyn, he can change the jump skillset's menu to a normal one.

However, no way you can get charges and normal type of skills in the same skillset douche. Those skills aren't just plain normal, as Math Skills are.

Zodiac clarified that about a page and half ago, hehe. ^^ So, I was wrong, you can change them. You just can't mix Charge & Normal skills (i.e. Charge and Aim skills) or Jump & Normal skills according to him.

Well I could've not done this with Lancers then, just removed all the Jump skills and replace with what I've got, but IMO archers suck and don't need charge 6-10 so...we're about to find out if my idea worked

Also I was wondering, what did you do to increase the enemy levels in your mod?  Change everyone manually?

EDIT: Well, my idea didn't work.

Quote from: "Lydyn"

Quote from: "Zodiac"Lydyn, he can change the jump skillset's menu to a normal one.

However, no way you can get charges and normal type of skills in the same skillset douche. Those skills aren't just plain normal, as Math Skills are.

Zodiac clarified that about a page and half ago, hehe. ^^ So, I was wrong, you can change them. You just can't mix Charge & Normal skills (i.e. Charge and Aim skills) or Jump & Normal skills according to him.

Actually, I think what he means is you can go to the Action menus tab and change what kind of menu each skill set uses. So you can take Jump or Charge and set them to 'normal' and they'll function like any normal skill set, but the skills for those sets would have to be switched out as they would no longer function. I already tested it too.

You're saying the same exact thing, really, just with different wording and more details, Vanya.

Yep, thanks guys.

New Archer: Arm and Leg Aim, Power, Mind, and Speed Break.

Knights lose all breaks.  In addition to the white magic I gave them, they will now have Holy Sword Split Punch, Innocent and Despair from Beowulf, and Persuade.

... why would a Paladin have the ability to turn someone into the undead? Don't Paladins kind of fight undead?

I know, but what else could I do?  Besides, if you turn them undead then you can kill them with cure spells

Honestly, I couldn't come up with much else--so he's not EXACTLY a Paladin, he's the 'everybody's a dirty sneaky bastard' Final Fantasy Tactics version of a Paladin.

/sigh you're right, I'm going to change it...

Persuade it is.

Haha. Well, if you really want my imput, give me a few minutes and I'll give you a good ability/spell/whatever to use ... if you really want, I can create a new ability just for him from a monster skill and give you all the steps. ^^

Oh, or not... just saw your edit.

Is there a chart or a list or something that tells you what all the formulas do for abilities, items, that kind of thing?  Because I don't really know what the difference would be if i changed a cure spell from 01 to 11 ya know?  

01 is the attack forumla and 11 is blank... it's right there for you to read, so I'm a bit confused here.

Patcher version 0.168?

That's an old version my friend. The newest one is like ... 0.238 or something. No, sorry, it's 0.236; right here (http://code.google.com/p/lioneditor/downloads/list).

http://auritech.fantopolis.com/viewtopic.php?p=3409#3409

Wow, thanks for both of those, they will help a lot.

I'm in the middle of changing all the scripted fights levels to 254, so they'll keep up with me the way monsters do.  Should make things REALLY hard--like Velius /shudder.

Oh my Blue Mage just got Self Destruct...I can't WAIT to blow him up.  (And...his class learns Dragon Spirit lol).

Quote from: "adouchebag"Wow, thanks for both of those, they will help a lot.

I'm in the middle of changing all the scripted fights levels to 254, so they'll keep up with me the way monsters do.  Should make things REALLY hard--like Velius /shudder.

Oh my Blue Mage just got Self Destruct...I can't WAIT to blow him up.  (And...his class learns Dragon Spirit lol).

Glad to be of some help, but what do you mean 254? :P

No no, 254 in the old version of the patcher I was using is just Party Level Random I think it's called in this one--so everyone I fight will be like a level higher than me, it's going to be great!  Every scripted fight, no matter if I'm level 5 or 99 will actually be challenging now, even with my overpowered crap.

Party Level - Random is when they take your highest level party member and subtract 0-5 levels... so ... no, they wouldn't be a higher level.

Oh, you're right, I thought Ramza was level 5 in the test fight--but he was 6.  Still, he's always higher level than everyone else, so it'll be close enough--and a lot better than being 20 levels higher than everyone else too  

Yep, it's one way to do it ... there's only one problem you may run into. If you level way above what you're supposed to be, like say 50 by Dorter Trade City, all the enemies will have things like Crystal Helmets and Wizard Rods. >.<

Riddle me this.

Blue Mage Self Destructs with 107 HP.  Blue Mage dies.  Target takes 12 damage.  Whaaaa?

Quote from: "adouchebag"Riddle me this.

Blue Mage Self Destructs with 107 HP.  Blue Mage dies.  Target takes 12 damage.  Whaaaa?

...

...

ROFL ...

I'm sorry, that's just awesome. Man, I wish that happened to me, lol ... I'd be laughing so much. xD Ahhh... that's awesome. I know why though.
Here's the forumla;

Target Damage = (Caster's Max HP - Caster's Current HP), Caster HP = 0

Obviously your Blue Mage only lost 12 HP before blowing himself to smitherens.

Ahhhhh, I see....

Could I change it so that the damage equals the casters max HP?  I'm not sure if I ever saw a formula for that....  I'll check again.

Doesn't look like it, oh well.  I always thought the bombs blew themselves up when they were low HP just because they were about to die...now I see the real reason.

Well, you could, but then you wouldn't die ... and therefore Bombs would never die ... >.< So, I can give you a good one, but I really suggest against it unless you want bombs using it a bunch of times against you without dying.

Also a note, I don't think there's a forumla that deals your maximum HP, only the damage you've taken or the damage the target has taken OR the target's max MP.

Yeah I saw those, no it's fine now that I know how to use it.

Wow, Dorter was fun.  Three archers with Ignore Height, the Knight rez'ed a dead black mage.  Next up....Monks.  WITH HATS zomg!

Hehe, sounds fun. I'd be inclined to try it once I get v0.14 out. I'm enjoying the Innate Gained EXP-UP on mine, that allows me to put Altima at level 99 and yet I don't have to grind levels so much ...

When I played Dorter, I got to fight Wizards that killed me in one spell. >.< Along with an archer that couldn't miss... fun, fun. Though the raise sounds a little more fun, but not by much. I know when I fought my Zalmo, he kept raising his stupid knights and monks... good thing I had Dispel Magic too otherwise his Magic Berrier would've been annoying.

Wow, Monks with hats and move HP up handed me my ass on a plate.  Not to mention the 3 Knights running around raising everyone I killed, or curing them.

I actually had to go and remove hats from monks, it just made them too powerful.  After that it was still challenging, but I managed to win the fight--thanks to my Blue Mage.  Self Destruct on the last two Monks FTW.

Thieve's Fort wasn't too bad, Meliadoul kept raising the white mages, and the thieves with two swords took out Algus in round one lol.  But it actually wasn't too bad.  So far things are shaping up nicely, this afternoon we'll see how Wiegraf goes--and Algus with his platoon of knights *eep*.

Really? My monks have Move HP-Up as well ... giving them.. what? +20 HP can't be that bad, can it?  

When there's 3 Knights casting cure and raise, and an archer with ignore height two shotting your chemist, it is.  Plus, their gear and levels were higher than they would normally be at this point, so yeah, they were brutal.  And it would've only gotten worse, with attack up headgear and bonus hp.

Oh yeah, you're running into the equipment glitch with having Party Level - Random everywhere. Well, not a glitch, but... equipment is set to appear at certian levels, like seeing Crystal Helmets at level 27.

So, since you have all story battles set to Party Level - Random, just like random battles, you could be looking at seeing Crystal helmets as soon as you reach level ~28 anywhere. This means, if you were level 28 at Dorter, you could've easily ran into the knight having this helmet which adds +120 HP. >.<

Personally, I think that's a bit much ... but that's your choice. I just set all my story battles to increase by +2 levels each battle, so it's controlled (I readjusted all the item levels) and yet you fight 95+ enemies by the end of the game.

Actually I like the idea--it will make having a thief that much more useful the whole game, rather than for a few key fights like Elmdor, Gaffy, Balk.  Plus, it will almost be necessary since NPC gear will probably outrun what I can buy in shops--I guess that depends on how much I level.  But that's another reason I like this setup, I can just play the battles as they come, and not have to worry about spending 45 minutes with one speed broken chocobo while I accumulate 50 times.  I'm hoping it will make the game play like it SHOULD have--I can fight in random encounters if they come up, but I won't have to.

Well, as long as you enjoy it I suppose. Let me know if any other problems come up.

Well, I just finished changing a bunch of text, Time Mages are now Red Mages, Calculators are now Blue Mages, etc.  Still at work but I doubt I missed anything.  Changed their skillsets too, and even the descriptions.

I finished the first chapter without much trouble.  And it's a good thing I gave Ramza Dark Sword, or I think I'd still be fighting some of those fights with a bunch of Knights.  I'm still not sure if the games actually hard enough, however.  The fights have been pretty easy, but I'm still only level 12 or so--it will be interesting to see how much trouble some fights are a little later, when NPCs start getting better gear.

Thieves are a pain now.  Two swords, high speed, the ability to charm or steal--it's rough.  And I'm really excited to see a Lancer in action, but that's not going to be till chapter 3.  I might go through the ENTD again and replace some Knights with Lancers, since they've kinda taken the Knights jobs.

I might tone down Ramza a bit too.  Or lightning stab.  Such an OP ability, it makes some of the fights easy.  But like I said, I think if I didn't have LS, Night and Dark sword, these fights would be a lot harder--maybe too hard.  I'll need to do some harder fights to see if he needs a nerf or not though.  Right now it's still pretty early, I'm hoping later I won't be one shoting wizards and preists with him.  But if he still proves to be too uber later, I'll probably lower is PA multiplyer, or lower the damage on Holy Sword skills themselves.  I'm hoping that taking all the Brave boosting spells out of the game will make it more challenging too.

I raised the level reqs again on jobs, which will hopefully make the NPCs stronger.  I've got summoners coming up soon too, very interested to see what they're like.  I decided to give them Fire, Ice, and Bolt 4 in addition to their other abilities.  They should be devestating (if they have enough MP for more than one spell.  Even with innate half MP, they'll need a lot).

But I'm having fun.  I'm running into one problem however--now that I've got all these new classes, I don't want to play the old ones .

Yeah, changing Knights will something else is definitely a good thing. Something I'm thinking of doing in my v0.15 patch (since v0.14 is nearly finished, mainly waiting for Vanya's Lightning Sprite).

I agree with more testing on the Sword Skills. Another option you can do ontop of adding them, is making them avaiable in only Chapter 2 & 3, and Chapter 4, so by the time he gets them, the enemies are harder than they are now. Dark Sword sounds like plenty for Chapter 1, from what I'm reading - though I suggest toning down it's 500 JP cost and bumping the Night Sword's 100 JP cost (I put this at 600 myself). If you're worried about Gafgarion not having Night Sword, just go through all the ENTD files and make sure all his versions have at least level 5+ in his Base class (of course, he won't get the Wizard's Black Magic in Chapter 2, but he rarely uses it anyways).

I'm interested to hear about the Summoners myself. Meteor alone will cost them 35 MP, which is a nice chuck of MP. I remember casting Golem without Half of MP was always an iffy choice since it took 40 MP. Though I'm sure the AI will have no problem casting it. ;)

Oh, and how's the Blue Mage working out for you?

Maybe I'll add Chakra in as a Summoner ability.

So far the Blue Mage is working out fine, but I haven't used him too much.  I changed the formula on Choco Cure, to make it sort of a cure 2.5 spell, so it should be much stronger.

I'm still torn on what to do with the damage magic however.  It's going to be weak, but since none of it has an MP cost that will almost make up for it.  I was looking for a good forumula to replace monster magic with, but came up empty--MA*Y is going to have to stay.  He's got an MA multiplyer of 200 I think, plus innate Magic attack up, so I really won't know how useful it's going to be until later--but he works like a charm.  His PA isn't terrible powerful, and I only allow him to wear helmets and armor, so he can't boost his MP any, but can use rods and staves so that when he's got more magic he can rely on it more, rather than physical attacks.  At present, my Blue Mage has 3 mp so there's no chance of cheesing him by giving him black magic too.  Draw Out is still a problem, I might just change the formula to holy sword skills, and tone the Y down.  But I like him, he's gonna be cool.

Oh, and I changed the monster skill sets on a lot of higher end monster, to make the more powerful spells easier to get.

Sounds like it might work. Not how I'd do it, but it works none-the-less, or I hope it does.

Umm, have a question.

How to I apply the text changes I've made?  I've got the .ffttext file all ready to go, but the readme nor any of the guides I've looked at mention how to apply the changes.  Do I need to save each one, and if so, what name should I use?  Does it matter?  I'm confused....

In the bottom right-hand corner of the TacText editor it has a list of the files that can be patched for each section. If you click on a file in that box and then hit the button it'll bring up a dialogue box for you to choose the file to patch.

So I should patch the .iso like normal, save a new cd image file, and then selected the files in THAT new image file?

Does it save automatically or what?

First, you have to extract all the files that appear in the dropbox in the Text Editor, like WORLD.BIN, BATTLE.BIN, ATTACK.OUT, etc. Then go through each section you've edited (like WORLD.BIN for example) and look to the lower-right hand side. You'll see you can select WORLD.BIN in this example... do so, and then click "Save to selected file" and find the WORLD.BIN you extract and double-click it.

A warning, however, the Text Editor is still very much in the Beta phase. I'd strongly suggest avoiding saving any changes what-so-ever to the WORLD.BIN (I just used it as an example), and be very careful with the BATTLE.BIN file. I've had little to no trouble with BATTLE.BIN, but others have reported bugs and glitches with it. Also, keep in mind the byte length of each file and only go 5-10 bytes over the original file at maximum, though I strongly suggest trying to keep the same exact byte length as before.

(I need to make a guide for this as well. )

This might make a good addition to your tutorial thread, Lyndyn.

So whatever changes I made that would've fallen under world.bin aren't going to show up?  I can live with that.

Well I didn't do something right, nothing has changed.

Oh wait...do I need to do this for every LINE i change?

Like if I change the description for Battle Skill, do I need to do this while battle skill is selected under atchelp?  And then again under helpmenu?  Etc?

Yes, you need to edit every instance, but again the WORLD.BIN will glitch. Sure, things will show up, but things such as Job Descriptions getting messed up, Job Names getting mixed around, Names and Descriptions on the Job Wheel getting mixed and mashed will happen.

When I edited my WORLD.BIN, suddenly my Squire on the Job Wheel had the Priest Description and I had to do a lot of editing to just make sure Squire stayed named Squire. >.<

Fujin: RAGE!!

.iso is saving now, here's hoping....

All that work for nothing.

Event folder was read only....  Trying again.

Well, it worked.  But I have to start a whole new game for the changes to take effect....

Wow that was sooo funny.  Agrias had Blue magic in the Orbonne fight--ALL of it.  She used two giga flares and a dark whisper--it was awesome lol.