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FFT Death in FFTA and FFTA Ironman Mode [Release]

Started by Leonarth, September 17, 2018, 10:58:24 am

Leonarth

September 17, 2018, 10:58:24 am Last Edit: September 29, 2018, 09:37:41 am by Leonarth
This is a small patch I made, I decided to make a new topic for it instead of throwing it with my other stuff so people can see it more easily.

The patch is very simple in what it does, it makes all maps act like Jagds, there are two versions, one with judges and one without them, having no judges means no laws and no JP but it has nothing to do with permanent death so you can choose whatever you like the most.

There is another change, ending any battle in a loss is a Game Over, ending any battle with Marche dead is also a Game Over, on top of that, ending a battle while Montblanc is dead before the first Jagd is reached also results in a Game Over (Montblanc can die after/during the first Jagd, just not before it).



There is a third patch that only removes judges.

These patches do not use any freespace at the end of the rom, they instead replace unused events, this means they should be compatible with any FFTA mod that exists so far, the patching program might complain about the files not matching but that shouldn't be an issue, just disable/ignore the notification (tested with Grim Grimoire and NUPS).

Please, post any problems you find or any feedback you have in this thread.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Eternal

Well, I know what I'm going to be including in GG 2.0. Great work on this!
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

Bonesy

  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Bonesy#9386

Blunderpusse

That's certainly a nice feature. Makes it a bit more like Tactics Ogre and even the original FF Tactics.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
"You sure are a keen observer of the obvious, kupo!"

dck

Really cool, always meant to make a version of long night with this type of feature. Looking more into it however you really have to rebalance for lack of res abilities and generally slowing down the pace of fights a bit, since else itd either mean people just leave one guy alive on the enemy team while resurrecting party members before fight is over.
It's very interesting but i dont think it translates into particularly good gameplay since it removes that dimension of ability design altogether.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: adri#1824

Leonarth

The reason I made this patch is so people can play challenge runs properly, it might be true that it's too hard to balance for resurrection abilities but it's not my job to make sure people don't go out of their way to ruin the fun for themselves by prolonging the battle.

I'm also currently working on a version that has a time limit for resurrection, similar to FFT. That will probably play nicer with resurrection abilities, since standing around waiting for MP might not be fast enough to resurrect dead units and you can't wait until the end of the battle to do it either.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

dck

Ah, that's honestly a very good spin on it, definitely would make it play nicer without having the whole mechanic cut off.
Rereading the post I realize it comes off as if -you- had to change resurrection abilities, haha. That's far from what I meant, which is that the normal design of those abilities doesn't work well when put into a game mode where death of a unit is permanent if not fixed at some point in the battle.

Looking forward to the timed version for sure.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: adri#1824

Leonarth

Today is my birthday and I bring you guys a present: a new patch.

This patch is similar to the previous one, it adds permanent death, this one however does it in the style of FFT instead of the Jagd style, units that go down get a counter, just like undeads or the doom status, and when it reaches 0, the unit dies permanently.



Undead still work like they used to, mostly, they now have a chance to die when their counter ends, this can be easily changed following the instructions provided with the download. (The default chance is 50%)

There is also a list of jobs that can't die, this is meant to prevent things like boxes dying on you because that would be silly, you can check the full list on the file included with the download, as well as instructions on changing it if you want to.

There are units that are safe from dying, special characters (only while not player controlled!), bosses and judges (just in case).
These units will get the counter only if they are undead, and will always revive if they are undead.

The patch also adds a "new" game over condition: if Marche dies (the counter runs out), you will get a game over, if Montblanc dies you will also get a game over, but only if he dies before you reach the first Jagd map.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

dck

Bit late, but happy birthday!
I've been playing a bit with this and I ran into an odd quirk where I couldn't really tell what speed was being used to calculate how quickly dying units got their last turns: after looking into it for a bit it turns out it's their unmodified base speed (that is, "passing" the turn by being KO'd doesn't count as the units waiting, so it doesn't leave their counter halfway full like waiting normally would).

This is pretty reasonable and also how it works with zombified, KO'd units in the base game; but what isn't as obvious is that the units being KO'd will only affect their turn order if they had a temporary speed bonus like haste, so if the units had been waiting prior to their hp hitting zero (and particularly if they have a high speed difference to others) they might lose multiple turns at once, restricting a lot the time to revive them.
Again, happens with both mechanics, but a permadeath patch makes this have a lot more exposure so I figured it warranted an explanation.

This is the scenario I was testing that prompted the more in-depth research: https://my.mixtape.moe/vpcuqk.webm
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: adri#1824

Fallujah

Absolutely incredible work on this mod. Glad to see work is still being done on this game. I'd like to get into more assembly type stuff, do you have any links / tutorials that might be helpful to someone who is an experienced software developer, has some rom-hacking experience (none in ASM), and knows a fair amount of C.

I would love to make extensive hacks for this game. How long do ASM hacks similar to this one normally take to develop?

Thanks for the information.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Leonarth

When I start an ASM engine hack I usually start with some feature of the game as a base, in this case it was the undead unit revival counter and the already existing unit removing animation and routines, all I really had to do was combine these things.

Assuming you have something like that to start with and some documentation on the game already, it doesn't take that long, I worked on this engine hack for about 10 days, taking days off and dedicating days to testing too.

ASM was the first language I programmed in and I found it pretty easy to understand.
I'll send you a pm with some links you can take a look at if you want to get started.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Fallujah

Much appreciated.

I'll be looking through these over the next couple of days.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

abaddabaon

Awesome mod, the death mechanics kept putting me off from re-playing A2 for a long time until I saw this. As for coding, I know a bit of C++ and Python, how difficult is learning ASM?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Leonarth

As I said above, I found ASM really easy to understand and learn, there aren't that many instructions so there isn't really that much to learn to begin with, but if you are used to working high-level you may find yourself having to reinvent the wheel to do simple stuff like loops or case statements.

You can also program in C and get ASM from that but I've never tried it.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Diedrik

October 29, 2018, 01:00:41 pm #14 Last Edit: October 30, 2018, 12:25:31 pm by Diedrik
This patch is nigh mandatory in my opinion, this solves several of my main gripes with the game, both narratively and mechanically. I just tested the FFT style one, and it is pretty much perfect.

Something that I wanted to test to verify since it was not said in the thread yet, is the fact that if you win the battle before an ally's timer has run out, they are stabilized and you do not lose them. I am pleased to report that is indeed the case, and it handily solves the previously mentioned rez everyone before the end balance issue.

In the first fight the numbers tick down very quickly, but that is not nearly as much of an issue in the game proper. In the Muscamaloi fight, only the Fairy who I killed within two turns timed out before the end.

Edit: Be aware that it does not count down to 0 like in FFT, it is 1 then done.

Also, you could probably have it go ahead and not game over if Montblanc dies, if he is removed from the party he still appears in the relevant events for him. I have not tested him not being in the party upon reaching the first Jagd, if he is not, it will probably never register his death. I usually cut Montblanc from my party first thing nowadays. That said, it makes more narrative sense for it to game over if he dies before the first Jagd. Also, does his replacement cause a game over if they die?

How hard would it be to replace the floating numbers with an expanding blood pool under the character?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Leonarth

Montblanc being dead early on in the story leads to things like him joining back at level 1 only for story missions (he isn't even added to the party when this happens, you just have him for that one battle). He will also keep appearing in cutscenes which doesn't make much sense to me.

The game over check checks for the character ID of the unit so the replacement shouldn't cause a game over, you don't get a narrative replacement until after the first jagd anyway and by that point Montblanc being dead doesn't cause a game over so there shouldn't be any way to get problems with this.

As for the blood pool: There isn't much space left in VRAM and even if we had the space I would rather have a counter than a vague pool of blood that could also be covered by the sprites.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Diedrik

October 30, 2018, 03:07:06 pm #16 Last Edit: October 30, 2018, 07:59:13 pm by Diedrik
Indeed.

Does Montblanc's replacement not join your party?

Yeah, I definitely think a count down is a really good choice, less immersive though.

Is it possible to have the Judges disable the mechanic if present? Or even better be able to revert a bleeding out unit to the old downed state? Can that replace their ability to move bodies? Can we affect the range on that?

Is it possible to change which maps have judges appear?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Leonarth

I've never played with Montblanc dead so I don't really know how the replacement works, the important part is that there is no replacement for Montblanc before the first Jagd, which is what causes the issues if Montblanc dies before then.

Changing the Judge type for each mission is possible (and pretty easy) so I guess that could be checked to prevent the death countdown. I didn't think of this because adding the whole mechanic for it to only be used in three maps sounded like a waste, but I guess people could remove judges from specific missions if they wanted.

A "stabilized" condition (like the old KO) could be added too, there's a few unused bits for that, which could be used for the Judge stabilizing idea or for some spell.

As for Judges moving downed units, I don't know, the targeting would probably need changing if it doesn't normally target downed undead units, it sounds a bit pointless to me anyway since most of the time the Judge would be stabilizing everyone with no issues? Unless you kill a lot of people at once in which case you shouldn't be taking long to beat the map anyway.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Diedrik

October 31, 2018, 02:55:35 pm #18 Last Edit: November 10, 2018, 11:40:56 am by Diedrik
I would want judges to only appear in city encounters, and preferably even then only in missions where it would make sense for law enforcement to be present and not immediately apprehending one of the parties.
I want them to feel like Ministers of the Law, not eccentric omnipresent apathetic arbiters of minor details.

Could the potential Stabilization effect be added to other items too? Like Bandages? What if only stabilized units could be revived? That sounds like an interesting system, where the rush is to stabilize them, and reviving a unit is more costly in the turn economy.

When it comes to them moving bodies I mostly just want them to stop it. I think it does target downed undead units. I want judges to stabilize downed people, only when it is the judges turn, and I want them to never move another body again.

I think my biggest issue with the counters is that they take up a lot of screen real-estate. If we could shrink them or have them be lower down, that would be better, all in all though, they are pretty great as is. I do feel like there should maybe be a bit slower countdown easy mode option perhaps.

If we cannot remove MontBlanc, can we just have the countdown not apply to him? Like the guests in FFT.

I just got an idea that I think would be really awesome. When the countdown reaches the end, it should have a chance to do 1 of 4 things:
1. Unit dies
2. Countdown Starts Over
3. Unit Stabilizes
4. Unit revives in critical condition

It would lend more variability, and tension. The stabilize and revive options could revive and heal undead, maybe even level them up.

Could we get a buildfile release of the FFT one?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Leonarth

Sorry for the delay, I've been busy lately, I attached the buildfile version to this post.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown