Final Fantasy Hacktics

The vast majority of my testing is using other engine hacks because I was doing it at the same time as building a team of gladiators to test 6 ignore heights at once. Speaking of which I think jump + 1 and ignore height should be swapped, because right now the gladiator has ignore height, and the dragoon has jump + 1.

Okay, well it is definitely broken at the moment, my units do not trigger it at all, and all enemy units trigger it for everything, I have checked a few enemies that have triggered for abilities they should be able to learn, and it does not show up in their known ability list. The only changes are the 00 00 at the address you gave me, and setting all of the playable skills to trigger learning in the AIO.

Enemy units also trigger themselves, such as a soldier using first aid, and subsequently learning first aid.

Yeah, every person I have tested it on in the randomizer has had it affect their jump stat for some reason, hopefully that hint helps you figure it out, I will try to get a bangaa to test it in a non-randomized game.

Edit: Still no Bangaa Gladiator yet, but I just saw a human soldier learn SwarmStrike in non-rando, which is unexpected, I thought that was a Viera only ability in vanilla.

Is that percentage adjustable at all, and also does it require the skill to successfully hit you?

Thank you very much for the guides.

It is very cool, however none of my units have learned anything yet, and the enemy learn rate seems to be pretty high, between ~40 ~60 percent just from a gut guess.
Also I have seen enemies learn skills from themselves, such as a soldier who cast shell on him and his mates and learned shell from it.
Also apparently auto-regen works like critical-quick, it calls on the Kirin ability. I know because a thief reacted to freeze blink with auto-regen, and learned Kirin.

The learn rate difference might still just be that I use more skills than most enemies, but it still seems a little odd that I have learned none at all despite going up against a handful of dedicated spell casters, like the Ice Flans and the Ice Wizard, etcetera. One of the Ice Flans learned fire, and I was really hoping he would be able to use it, but sadly he perished first.

Getting Draw weapon to not check if you have a weapon first is pretty much the final step in the full equipment versatility I am looking for. Being able to equip armor would be cool, but far less important than changing weapons mid battle.

If we could get NPCs to use pheonix down and revive every once in awhile, that would be pretty awesome.

The next patch I think I will try to focus on is tweaking your FFT Death a little in order to allow for stabilization, etcetera. I am still pretty lost on assembly though. If you could point me in the direction of like beginner's guide or a definition list that would be great. If I get that down I would also like npcs to be able to use bandages to stabilize their comrades as well some day.

The stat change from Ignore Height on my 3 human characters:
Black Mage  2 to 0
Soldier        2 to 8
White Mage 2 to 6

Second battle he was in, my black mage could now move, the Soldier could not. I tried restarting the same battle, but with placed the units in a different order, and in different places, same result. The more I have tested the less theories I have.

Testing the version before the one that required that hotfix, I have found that a moogle animist on height 7 attacking a target on height 9 with a silver sword has the no animation ergo disappearing problem.

I will update now, and retry in case you already fixed that issue.

Edit: After updating it did not do the disappearing thing, it used the new default animation case of standing. So good error catch, funny that it specifically says it will not do that in this instance on the change log. But yeah, apparently attacking with a height difference is an unplanned case.

Additionally, the game no longer softlocks when pulling up the learning menu on guest characters, the learning menu is empty, but can be backed out of.

Edit again: I have a black mage with ignore height who fails to spawn any blue movement tiles when he attempts to move, rendering him immobile.

By underlay I mean it displays behind the unit instead of in front of them.

Stop could be signified by a status bubble, it is essentially indistinguishable from the combination of don't act and don't move.

A morale/valor variable would be of no value at the moment, but  it could be useful for other things later, such as tying unarmed attack to it like in FFT, or adjusting AI by tying aggression or perceived HP to it. It could also be used to adjust the trigger rate for things like reflex and strikeback, making them less broken. The nuance afforded to FFT by their brave, faith, and morale systems were pretty amazing.
I suppose the engine hack part is pretty much already done by your one bit abilities, the only other part that would need something as intensive as what you have been doing is displaying the valor/morale value.

Edit: Something I forgot to ask earlier:
Are we able to add things to the item command?
Can we make Draw weapon not require you to not have a weapon?
It is a little sad that there is no equip change equivalent like in FFT, framing a character around stealing your opponents equipment and using it yourself is a pretty interesting mechanic.

A minor niggle, how hard would it be to swap the rumors and missions options in the pub? When I wanna go fast I go there specifically for missions, and most especially not for rumors.

P.S. I got my blue mage style learning patch completed and have been testing it in the randomizer, not very far in, but so far it appears to be working well, that said none of my units have learned any techniques yet, but a lot of my opponents have, which is kind of interesting, and makes me want a combat recruitment option even more. Thanks for isolating that address for me.

If we can make recruited units start with abilities (Which they probably should have in vanilla since they start in advanced classes), what you could do is just remove the job unlock requirements so no jobs can be unlocked, and give them 1 random ability.
Thereby giving them access to learn from the job it comes from.

This would also automatically create tiered values for the characters, a bottom tier character would be one that start with an ability that is in their starting job, thus not having a second job to pull from, a mid tier character would have their starting job, and access to one more, and higher tier characters would start with an ability that is in multiple jobs thus giving them access to 3 or more jobs.

In that case any interest in messing with Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis for GBA at some point?

Okay, thank you for looking into that, one of the unused ones might be the best choice, do you know if the status clearing happens on death, or every turn?

Can we draw status effect info as an underlay? Or will it always display as an overlay?

Yeah, using Git should make things simpler, I have updated the link in the pinned topic so the master installer goes there. I will test the new update to see if guests still have the ability menu issue. Thanks.

The discussion in the randomizer topic made me think of the 3 things I think I would want to use the extra space from 1bit abilities for:
1. Custom Character names
2. The ability to disable and enable characters changing sprite sets on job change
3. A morale/brave variable that other things could hook into

I also just thought of a hack that should be pretty simple that I think would make a big difference for some people, disabling the idle walking animation. Making it so characters just stand there when not moving or acting. I know that quirk of the genre has turned off many people I have encouraged to try it throughout the years.

A harder one that I thoguht of in the middle of typing that one, how hard would it be to draw a character's weapon and/or shield on them during battle?

Would it be possible to have two characters occupy the same space? Such as allowing someone to stand on top of a body, or place traps at their location, etcetera? Also, can we make new characters mid battle for the aforementioned traps? I think would be interesting if you could stand on difficult terrain/bodies, but it lowers your evasion and increases your chance of getting knocked back.

How is this idea for the collectable generics, disable job changing, and only allow them to use two classes, their starting class, and 1 randomly selected other class from their race.
That would render them pretty unique I think. You might run into a handful of viera white mages, but their secondary class options are all likely to be different.

I have not yet familiarized myself with your class unlock and lock out system though, so I am not sure how easy this would be to determine during run time.

When you add the encounter randomizer, I would like a no equipment type limit option, I am currently playing with a patch that divorces equipment from class, so it would be pretty cool to see illusionists spawn with great bows, etcetera.

Sad that you do not expect to ever get into FFTA2, your improvements to FFTA have uplifted the series immensely for me.

Quote from: Leonarth on February 06, 2019, 02:26:29 pm
Wouldn't lowering base movement to 3 help with that? What about outright preventing a (walking) unit from standing directly behind an enemy unit if they started their turn in front of them?

I would rather not decrease the available movement, I think the latter option would actually work pretty satisfactory, and would give spears a realistic edge over sword fighters.

Yeah I figured the other one is outside the scope of what FFTA is comfortable doing. Speaking of exploiting statuses to achieve new mechanics, if you are downed does it clear your statuses, and/or does it display them? I was debating using the immobilized status to track whether you have been stabilized in the FFT Death system, since bandages cure that by default anyway.

Quote from: Leonarth on February 06, 2019, 02:15:39 pm
I think this might be related to a bug I already fixed and will no longer exist in the next update but I'll doublecheck.

I just double checked, and it arises with a non-randomized JP Skill Purchase rom as well.

Quote from: Leonarth on February 06, 2019, 02:15:39 pm
Would you guys like to see challenge run options like that added in? Or maybe released as external engine hacks?

I would definitely like to see challenge run options like that added. I really like the catch 'em all vibe. Could make for an interesting external engine hack, but if I were to pick one it would definitely be an option in the randomizer.

Would it be possible to randomize the character's race after they have been added to the party so that their job and what other jobs they can use as a secondary are separate? I think that would really enhance the catch-em all vibe, even if abilities are not randomized.

The other thing I like about that is that characters would have a pseudo-unique appearance.

Quote from: Leonarth on February 06, 2019, 02:15:39 pm
random growths are an option I would like to add in the future but I think melee damage isn't really important enough to justify adding an option for it.

I am a huge fan of unarmed being feasible in games, but unfortunately you could not really figure out who is good at it without just making everybody punch stuff. Also, does the unarmed damage grow when leveling with a high unarmed class? I feel like it should. I know I would like it if it was part of the stat randomization, but I agree that most other people would probably not notice or care.

There would be no non-tedious way to tell if a class has recieved more physical or magical skills, and have their stats favor that is there?

On the topic of ExL's suggestion:
So if I am understanding that suggestion right, it is that the behavior would change to this?:
1. Move - Attack > turn ends
2. Attack > turn ends
3. Attack - Move > turn ends (Only possible if cunning equipped)
If so, I am not sure if I would like the default behavior to be changed to that. Or rather, I feel like that is the sort of thing that should be unlocked permanently for a character, rather than having to be equipped instead of other movement options. And/or should be available much earlier than other movement options.
Would definitely be cool to see, but not sure if I would want it to be bundled with the movement skills. The rest give more access to existing functionality, or add functionality, whereas this one removes it, in a somewhat interesting way.

On the topic of changing movement mechanics there are two things that I think would be really interesting, but both would probably much more work.
1. Decreasing the ability to circle enemies in some manner, that is one of the primary weaknesses of FFT, the best option was often to circle to the back of your enemy to attack, so it resulted in some battled where two people were just constantly walking around eachother. One solution is more subtle, remove the facing accuracy system, and instead have it be based on how many opponents they are adjacent to.
2. Make movement into an action, and then let you do two actions. That way you can sprint by using movement twice, or double down on your DPS by attacking twice. Adding defense as an option for everyone that could boost your damage reduction or evasion, or both, would also improve this system. I think the base hit chance should be higher in this case to incentivize using defense, and make concentrate less mandatory. Attacking twice without defending would be similar in effect to reckless swing in D&D, where you have higher damage potential, but anyone attacking you also does. It might make sense to have attacking twice outright decrease your defense/evasion, in order to make it riskier than moving and attacking.

We cannot use the yes/no from the naming menu for the skip option can we? Oh, also are you still planning to add custom names for NPCs?

How hard would it be to flip the guest bit on an actor mid battle? Is that something that is only read while spawning characters?

Works great. The previous one made a rom that had some trouble running on one of my mobile emulators, but this one does not have that issue.

Unrelated bug I found due to the randomizer, opening a guest's skill learning menu causes the game to softlock.

I think you should put your explanation of shuffle versus randomize in the readme, the one you put here for me is more clear I think.

Thanks for adding the filename thing, I know that will be much more convenient for me.

The randomizer almost makes me wish there was a way to just have every recruit have a randomized set of skills just to themselves. The variety of the characters out of the gate is amazing.

Is the stat growth and unarmed damage also randomized?

Edit: I have an animist who's reaction ability is counter magic, and the beret says it will let him use it before he learns it, but it does not let him do that.

I am not quite sure what the differences are between shuffling and randomizing abilities. Is it that randomized abilities cannot land in their original job?

Also when I tried it with the full JP skill purchase set installed it said that the rom was too big.

Could we get it to append the seed to the end of the file name if the return seed option is checked?

Making terrain maps reminds me, are you still working on custom maps? I feel like some of your testing ones are a lot more interesting tactically than many of the default ones.

Quote from: Leonarth on February 02, 2019, 07:14:45 pm
Just to be clear, teleport works the same as vanilla, the other description of how teleport would work is just an idea and would probably be a different ability.

Yeah, definitely. Having a few teleport variants would actually be really cool.

Quote from: Leonarth on February 02, 2019, 07:14:45 pm
I haven't seen any event that deals with a yes/no condition yet, events are a pretty undeveloped thing so this would actually be pretty hard to do. I'll keep it in mind for the future but don't expect anything on it anytime soon.

I know some of the clan challenge encounters give you a Join "" or Engage option. Which is essentially a two option choice. In fact all of the ones I have seen would still flow well if the options were replaced with yes or no.

Quote from: Leonarth on January 30, 2019, 05:03:01 pm
I don't understand your assigning abilities idea. I don't know what you mean.
Maybe you mean a job that can choose up to X abilities from any other job and use them or something like that? Because that would need to be saved in some way, it would also need a completely new menu, this would be pretty hard for what sounds like an extremely specific feature.

Pretty much, I would not worry about it. It is just a feature that I think would be pretty interesting in an ability based tactics game, instead of having characters be a class, having them select a limited loadout of skills from the classes they have trained in.

Quote from: Leonarth on January 30, 2019, 05:03:01 pm
It's not a "not yet" thing, there's just no good way to do this.
There isn't one routine that gets the support/reaction/combo ability, each routine that needs them gets them on its own, this means that to make a passive abilities system were the user could just change a byte on a table to give a job an ability I would need to edit possibly over 100 routines. I'm not going to do that.
What can be done is add specific passives in, but each one would need to be programmed individually. Then there would be a list of jobs that get this passive, instead of jobs having a table of what passive they get. So, for example there could be a passive that changes the unarmed damage formula for a specific list of jobs.
There's also the issue of overlapping effects, what would happen if a unit had Counter but also Absorb MP? Or if a unit had Doublehand but also Monkeygrip? The game is not made to handle that.

I see, there are two things that I was thinking of here. One is having the Blue Mage learning be innate to all classes, and use it as an alternate overlapping method of learning skills. Along with other possibilities if this was something we could easily accomplish.
And the other is precisely the overlapping issue, one of the really interesting things about Worker 8 in FFT is that he had Hamedo, and Counter. He would use counter if Hamedo (Which is essentially strikeback) failed.

Very nice, happy to see more movement abilities. An interesting take on teleport, which would probably cooperate with the AI is to make it randomize your move stat per turn.

Thank you for fixing retreats.

Not sure if I would actually want the file level fixed. If you are playing a generics only run, it would make sense to have it list the first character's level instead of Marche's.

Does this include the new animations, and the weapon animation expansion?

Oh, also how hard would it be to add a skip intro yes/no? That way the decision could be made on a per run basis rather than at the patching level.

That makes sense. I would definitely like to have the options for them there.
Two new options I would like, though I do not know how popular they would be: toggling whether the countdown is visible, and the option for everyone to have a revival chance like the undead. Would be especially cool if you could specify the percentage of revival for both normal and undead in the buildfile.

The Job and Race Customization has a few subfolders that are not in the latest Skill Purchase, such as the fixed animations. I am assuming though that the one currently in Skill Purchase is outdated and inactive, waiting for your next update to remerge them.
Sounds awesome, I am very excited.

True, but I meant assigning abilities in game. I was thinking basically having a handful of dummy abilities and then replacing the data for them with the data of the selected ability on the learning menu.

Thanks, those are pretty good ideas. I definitely would like more access Alchemist style options. It also reminds me, do we have any access to innate passives yet?

Thanks.

Okay thanks. Good to know we have plenty of space to work with.

Duh, sorry I did not see that line. I did not see the toggle in the Buildfile, so I just assumed it was not in yet.

The Race and Customization in the JP Skill Purchase is not as up to date right? It does not appear to have the animation work done yet. Can I just copy paste the updated one from the release thread into it in order to update it?

How hard would it be to make a class that could select skills from other classes in the skill learning menu? Also, can we have racial skills that can be used no matter what class you are?

Edit: I just looked with a bit more depth at the engine hacks folder, and it looks like it includes the Ironman and FFT Death hacks, can we get options for that in the buildfile as well?

Editedit: Can we enable retreat as an option in the no judges?