Final Fantasy Hacktics

I realized after someone contacted me from here that I had been evading this site thinking that one day I would get back to finish my mod but that isn't the case and I've been lying to myself. I feel like I lost the motivation to work on it and the excitement about learning new things from the game to try on. So, I hope everyone understands.

Anyone is allowed to use the mod as a base of their own project.

Good job on beating it, sorry for the delay. Yeah, the main issue of the mod is that I barely changed enemy formations so some might be harder than what should be expected and no idea how the mod works on the end game but I got a question for you.

Does Gil become a resource to manage with care toward the second continent or like in the original you get so much that you can spend shamelessly? I hope my changes fixed this but no idea.

Hey, to @Shokudaikiri Mitsutada yes, this a 'continuation' at least it was intended to be so as I was starting to mod FFTA2 and used his own as a base to learn and probably we have a similar feeling about how we wanted to play the game but with the time I changed so many things that it doesn't feel exactly as a continuation, and more like a reinterpretation of his work.

Crushatrice, now makes honor to its name? xD

The patch was designed to be played in hard I believe because the balance of enemies vs player, stats and such was giving a fair challenge in hard mode but not in normal one, however,  I've been told that people enjoyed in normal since I think mine might be even harder, not sure about it, with the last changes I didn't start a play-through.

To @Maistronom I think that error might mean you have used the wrong rom version to patch, it should be the (Usa) one. If it isn't that it might be the file ending with the wrong extension, it should be .xdelta

Update to help new modders to get easier access to additional information that it is spread all over:
-Can't find the links to spreadsheets but looking for them-

Compilation of links:

What weapons work with what classes/races in A2?

FFTA2 Level Scaling, Luso Requirement, and MP Regen help???

FFTA2: Invisible Status - Possibly Sprite-Related

FFTA2 Action replay assistant PDF. Names, Abilities, Jobs, Sprites, Help Text.

There you have it. However, the abilities aren't correctly listed I noticed this when I found a lot missing from the units that were supposed to have them when I used the ability editor.

I agree, the AI is awful. I wish they really used their skills effectively, that's why I was trying to learn ASM hacking before to get into change enemy formations in order to make my ambitious project better. Unfortunately I don't have that knowledge and I tried with hex editing. As you can see above I figured out some stuff and I tested in one battle solely, that should be included in the mod. Yellow wings mission is slightly tweaked in AI so that the mage don't get close to hit with their staff .-. -maybe I did more but I don't remember, it should be posted around maybe-. It remains far from your units to hit you with spells unless depleted then waits I believe. I could do similar changes to more battles but it feels so limited without actual ASM hack that it would be really annoying to try out every battle over and over just to get a slight improvement.

Sure. If you aren't using the debugger to mess with the code which is the ideal and most difficult way, there is a byte found in the public spreadsheet within Enemy Data to assign changes in AI. I'll show you:



These are my notations but they might not make sense, pretty much trial and error. If you find out something good I suggest you to reply and maybe I can update the FFTA2 Data topic if we sort out all of this. Oh, also the previous byte is the starting direction units face to:

a - b - c - d = empty?

byte e - f = Unit Position in map. f starts from Up Left side and E from Up Right side

byte g. Starting facing from 00 to 03

00 = south west, 01 = North west, 03 = North East, 04 = South East.

byte h. Movement related and AI.

FF = Free movement, default?
XX = Restricted movement?
01 = Ultra defensive behaviour, escape.
03 = Dreamhare, Beastmaster friends.
04 = Offensive looks for back. Don't buff self.
05 = Buffs and escapes.
06
07 - 08 - 09 = Freezes
0B = Black screen.
0C = Stilled. Attack. 0110
0D = Stilled in tile
0E = Uses MP until depletes, keeps good distance if ranged unit. Don't buff? Seems good for Mages.    01110
0F = Use ranged offensive and approach. Don't buff? First line role? Wendigo, paladin...
10 = Same shit than 11. Maybe just works with debuff or low accuracy ability to spam it.
11 = Debuffer?
14 = Stay in tile and attack within range. Klesta: 00  14 = Don't move and attack when in range.
16 = Neukhia, Raflessia
1A = Tomberry movement, one tile at a time. Tied to tile for the rest.
1B = Get close to the enemy (Three tiles per action) and do nothing or predetermined action.
1C = Don't act unless enemy within ability range, then use MP abilities. Never uses Attack. Usual in Ranger or Viking. 011100
1D = ?
1E = Stilled
20 = Used buff and remained same spot. Then Rewind. Neukhia behaviour.
21 = Buffer/Healer role? Sprite: 00  21 = White wind ability, healer behaviour?
24 = Did nothing, stay same tile.
25 = Buff and goes to corner.
26 = Attack to the first character? Cid first behaviour with Klesta.

Usability.

Offensive range without buff - 0E
Buff self = FF
Passive MP user = 1C

Eh, sorry I've been losing my motivation to keep working on the mod. Recently recovering a bit but not enough yet. The mod isn't 'completed' since every aspect can be subject to changes but I did an overhaul in stats, jobs, items, equipment, abilities, some graphics -can't remember anymore right now-... If I wasn't lazy to learn to hack in assembly I could do more cool and necessary stuff, but mainly what it is left is changing all enemy formations to make a refreshing experience and maybe add consistency in the walk. I'm lazy right now for this too, like I would need to replay the game and think on interesting combinations, not a thing that motivates me too much.

Enemy Formation is done at the start of any battle so it will not affect your game, same for modifications in descriptions or animations or even if I modify abilities.

However, if I do more modifications in stat growths they are not going to be reflected in the current stats since base is generated in character level 1 and growth during leveling up. But even so they would be minor changes unless I get feedback that some class has issues, which I don't think it will happen often. I used Reytai feedback and the experience of a veteran modder in another website to make the last touches. Could it happen? Of course, not a finished project and I need opinion from others to balance the classes.

Editing Graphics

I'm going to explain here I edited graphics in FFTA2. It is easier than it seems but for now I only found out how to do it with labels. Here we go:

1. Download Crystal Tile 2. It is a Chinese editor translated to English with different views, can edit hex and ASM as well, but I guess it's main characteristic is how supports editing graphics for different platforms. NDS included.

2. Open your FFTA2 rom and go to Tile Viewer then on the left side of the screen you'll see the properties. Use these:

Labels 1 -Under abilities-: 5010B08

bytejump: 0
scale: 200
width: 256
height: 304
Tile form: GBA 4bpp
Image pattern ObjH-1234

Maybe you will have to edit in GBA3 xbpp as well, since it seems there are two layers I had to edit but I didn't check if with just GBA 4bpp is enough.


----------------------------------------------

Labels 2 -Shop labels: 5019D48

bytejump: 0
scale: 200
width: 256
height: 304
Tile form: GBA3 Xbpp
Image pattern ObjH-1234



3. Once there you just have to Export Image, edit in your favourite program, Import Image in the same spot and double click. That way changes will save and your edited image will replace the one in the rom.

First, I'll start saying that the rebalance was more oriented to late game in my mind because even the vanilla game wasn't so bad in the early game it was later when your party outmatched enemies, so I don't expect the early work the way I thought but I hope later on does. Even so I might be wrong.

QuoteMP costs for some intial abilites are so high they can't be used, leaving some jobs with nothing to do.
For example, the beastmaster, having bestiary and chocobo song require so much MP, that at lvl 9 with its mp growth, it still can't use any of them.
Or divine aid, the paladin ability, my luso is lvl 10 with 86 MP and still can't use one of the first abilities available as a paladin.
The archer's black arrow also costs a lot of MP, and it being like the second ability available to the job (after focus), makes the archers have nothing to do but autoattack (or change jobs).
I imagine that further down the game, these costs will become not as important since probably all the units will have enough MP for the abilities, but it makes the early game feel a bit limited in jobs and actions.

Some abilities turned out to be better than I thought and they should not be available so soon. I'll replace them for one with a lower cost, but is not easy because in order to make Full MP. I can't expect all abilities being fully usable at the beginning but it should not be so limited. I'll work on that.

Concerning point 2:

Did you consider the stat base? I mean, the mod is designed so the initial election matters. If the base job of your unit is Black Mage, they are going to start with MP enough to throw one thunder. 100 MP - 99 MP = 1 MP then they recover 50 for 51 MP  and can't use magic that turn and they need to wait, but that's theory of level 1. Also they'll have a good Mgk stat base. This encourages you to recruit new units to make them fit in a different role that you might me lacking in your party.

Also I can assure you that a proper mage is going to deal more damage than any other unit since they got AoE, their Mgk growth is as high as those on Atk, elemental factor, they can get a lot of bonuses with passives and items, etc...

Regarding identity crisis I need to consider your observations. The Mgk growth on them was so they can be a springboard to either a physical class or magick class. Since if they have issues in either of them if you want a Fencer - Green Mage, you might encounter yourself with leveling really bad on Atk because of your choice. Yellow Mage gets strong Physical and Magick abilities. You will discover them eventually Since I can't make an attack scale with both Mgk/Atk, I try to give both to a class so they can take advantage of foes resistances, that makes them weaker but more flexible. However, I might give extra stats to those classes that lack in potential, not much since it could be exploited for extra gain.

Point 3: Items expensive is good news to me. Definitely, you don't need to get everything you unlock.

Point 4: Animist only one ability sucks, I need to check that.

Point 5: Kunais, are supposed to be now items in weapon section, because they are used to throw and do dmg.

To be honest, this kind of feedback makes me want to talk with you actively if you are okay with adding me to discord, feel free to add me or we can go to IRC here. If not it is alright as well.

My first incursion in editing graphics was a success:



As you can see I managed to edit the labels of the classes. It works perfect in the shop where you guys will see the proper labels of the renamed jobs on the list of equipment proficiency.



However, under the abilities of new jobs it seems I just edited one out of two layers and they overlap to be unintelligible. Edited: Fixed.

You are welcome to try! A vanilla fresh perspective of FFTA2 sounds great to detect things to improve. Also I hope you enjoy the changes so far, good luck in your replay!

Glad to see your mod posted. I got a question:

QuoteI played around a lot more with elemental reistances and weaknesses. I gave a lot of monsters elemental interactions that didn't exist before. I tried to keep things consistent across types; plant enemies are weak to fire but absorb water, winged enemies are weak to wind but resist earth, etc. In addition, player characters interact with the system now, too. Bangaa are weak to ice (due to being cold blooded), Gria are weak to wind (due to their wings), and Seeq resist ice (due to their thick blubber.) It's not Pokemon now, but I felt that the system was underutilized in the base game, and I feel playing around with elemental effects makes the game more interesting.

I released a patch when I got back to work on the mod with elemental weakness to playable races but I regretted and now I won't include it in the next one. Reason was that even when it seems the number of elements match very well with the races, I felt it could be easily exploited by jobs with abilities that hit all units or large areas. To solve this what are going to do? Or don't you think it will be an issue? I'm interested in your perspective.

QuoteThanks a bunch! Actual hex editing is outside my capabilities right now, but I'll take it as a chance to learn.

Hex editing is easy as hex. I'm terrible with puns but I mean that you just need the addresses of the offsets and change the value there to get a different outcome.

Download hex editor, open rom, Go to adresss, change byte there in hexadecimal and save.

Example.

Jackknife. Adresss - 0512B7C8 = 01 - 00 - 02 - 00 - 00...

01 is the weapon type standing for Knifes check the spreadsheet and you'll see 02 is the one for Swords, change it and your Jackknife will be listed as Sword instead.

02 is the name, the last 00 there is the element affinity for the weapon. Obviously we don't know what everything do but we are trying to find out. I'm specially interested in the right addresses to break Discounts because it is what it is stopping from balancing the gil economy. 

We got a spreadsheet of addresses that I'm not going to attach because mine is messy with notations of different explorations but you can find in the forum an updated one I think.

Quote- I want to make Hi-Potions and X-Potions more expensive. Does anybody know if there's a way to change their cost?

Check my post there with my findings -maybe I wasn't the only one but I didn't see a post about it-, I didn't find Item and Loot values in the spreadsheet but I found them in that address.

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=12244.0

Quote
- I've heard you can turn the Keeper job into a playable job? Because I have this idea for a new Gria job...
- I want to put Blue Magic abilities on weapons. I'd keep them learnable the old way and give them high AP costs, so there would still be a point to all the rigamarole, but as it stands acquiring Blue Magic is such a pain in the ass that it's not really worth it.

1. You can do it in the Job Editor making it available? I don't remember well I had a time where I tried to make new jobs with sprites inside but I let it for later on.
2. I thought of doing that recently and I felt it would be like breaking what made FF Blue Mage so unique but if I understand why you want to do it. Uncheck Already Mastered in Job Editor and add it in AP index for Hume and in text editor with a Max AP. Also uncheck Learnable or something in those abilities for monsters.

Glad to help.

1. I don't see an issue with the animations so if they soft-lock the game must be because you need to change something else. I'm using Chakra as an AoE ability with the radius of black magic. Make sure you have the flag of can Target Empty Tile checked, also that Target type is Normal.

2. I didn't touch Unique Jobs yet but it should be possible with the same animation. Just set All Units with Used with certain targets and in Valid target you can use either Ally, All or Foe.

3. Evasion yes, just make them perfect accuracy. Regarding Resistance, yeah, make them physical based xD Otherwise no, there is no known flag for it.

4. Mhm, I did too, my Tinker has a silence trap, AoE buffs to all allies, area or single target with the same animations.

5. Nope, you can do anything with them.

Check my mod if you need references. The editor is good but the list is quite obsolete it would help us a lot if we could update it because there are some properties or effects listed the wrong way. Like 0.2x current HP being 0.2x max user's HP. Just this is extremely confusing and sometimes you'll trip with bugs in your abilities, so test them all when you got time for it.

Some weapons cost 35k later on I think only discounts are stopping me from balancing with minor changes with the current prices but if I can not, only one solution I see is rising prices of high tier weapons so after the discounts they remain still fairly expensive.

I love the game as well, and I have to thank you as well for helping me to keep working on it and for your kind words. That said. I'm making a spreadsheet with the abilities of jobs next to the one with stat growths. Check it up if you need it.

What point are you of the game? Because I'm surprised decisions are still relevant, for a moment I thought it would scale out in no time and I was thinking in rising them.

From me, because I had that issue as well and I've been fixing the nightmare module so I can speed up changes with the editor. I recommend you to replace abilities as well since they don't cover some of unique jobs and stuff.

Feel welcome to ask whatever else you might need.

Soldier means their abilities aren't assigned to the proper job in equipment and AP 0 that you didn't assign race and free value in AP index to store progress. Probably the Soldier bug means you have been using Nightmare without the complete list of jobs. If you confirm this I can help you to solve it.

1. It was intended, and I noticed it made early missions easier, which might not be bad as part of a learning curve.

2. Yeah it does, but as you say I enjoyed doing Green Dominion with that tactical approach so for now I don't see the issue it will balance out.

3. It was my doing, that's the unarmed bonus that I distributed making some units even stronger than using weapons like White Monk, Master Monk and Ravager of Gria. The rest could be better than most weapons or just some weapons. That way an unit with weapon destroyed would not lose so much, but it can be a little weird in early game, I hope it works better in mid or late game if it doesn't I could lower some of them.

4. Alright I'll fix it.

5. Believe me, 36 Defense is not a lot. Actually Shortsword and Broadsword have almost the exact potential value, because of their cost is similar. If you mastered skills in both choice is just, doing more damage or get more defense. -I learnt about FFTA2 formulas and did tests before adding stats- They are supposed to be the lowest tier in Swords but Short seems slightly better, so I might reduce to equalized value which would be 30 Defense. Alright I'll fix it.

6. No I didn't, that's the vanilla AI that sucks, if I add them the behaviour of black mage in Yellow Wings they should start using Screech. I'll test and update if it is so. It also means that I should change behaviour of any other formation but that is gonna wait for 0.9.8 unless it is something specific like this one.

Right now I want to learn how to break the discounts of shops on clan titles it would be much easier to balance the shop but I'm not positive to it.