It's all coming back to me...

[tekmansam]

I have started to get back into hacking after many years.  I never got very far the first time around, and now I remember why.  This game's code is a mess.  Just fiddling around in the patcher, it is blaringly obvious how disorganized the original developers were.  There is no organic or logical flow to any of the layout for jobs/abilities/etc.  Part of me just wants to delete it all and build it back up from the ground, but that would create a LOT more work for me in the long run, as I would have to literally go back through every bit of text, every battle, every NPC.... anyone have any thoughts on this subject, or am I alone in my OCD on this one?

[3lric]

You are just stating what we've known for many years, problem is, you are too new to know why you can't just do this as easily as you'd think. I mean, we did this for Jot5, since everything is custom, but Xif made a ton of tools and stuff to break the hardcoding to do so for Jot5. Using FFTPatcher, Tactext, etc isn't hacking. It's using a user friendly GUI to make edits to abilities, skillset and ENTDs and such.

I get that you say the games "code" is a mess, but you aren't even looking at the coding... :/

'Hacking' is stuff like ASM or making new programs for people to use. FFTPatcher stuff is literally the easiest stuff you can edit here and it's what everyone that joins does.

This is not meant to discourage, just stating that, yes, we've seen this complaint before, but none of those people ever did anything about it either. And I don't mod vanilla, as I think vanilla is just fine as it is (and most of the actual hackers feel the same).

Also I'm moving this topic to the Help Section, for several reasons.
1) This is the hacking board and you aren't hacking anything
2) The hacking board isn't for questions on organizing things, this is for people to get help on ASM work or other things pertaining to hacking FFT.

If you have an 'IDEA' post it in one of the stickied threads in the New Project Ideas section.

Thank you

[Xifanie]

Lots of words coming from a man who has no clue what he's talking about. I was barely awake when I started reading this topic, and I thought that by coding, you obviously meant ASM. How the hell can you tell anything from a game's coding from edit fields, checkboxes and dropbown boxes? What the fuck makes you say FFTPatcher data was "disorganized"?

I'm trying to understand the purpose of this topic. All I've seen you do is throw a bunch of dumb excuses as to why you gave up modding FFT. Stop lying to yourself.

It wasn't because of your OCD,
It wasn't because of the game's coding,
It was because you were either lazy or didn't give a damn.

Hopefully that has changed, otherwise the story will just repeat itself.

[Emmy]

The code is disorganized in a few ways, but it's nowhere near the worst I've seen.  If anything, it looks like the game was rushed and a lot of stuff was either cut or not implemented as well as it could have been.  And new modders are fortunate because of all the good tools and documented code in this game, since it's MUCH easier to start if you don't have to make tools/document anything yourself.

If you are serious about making a mod, there's nothing wrong with taking a good look at abilities, jobs, etc; deciding what you want to cut, and building from the ground up.  In any case, even a patcher mod takes a decent amount of work.