Final Fantasy Hacktics

MediaFire FULL Download

Random Battles, how do they work, right?

Well, thanks to Xifanie providing me with some documentation and a trip to McDonald's for some delicious coffee, even you, dear user, can now know exactly how Random Battles actually work, and edit them to your liking!  This tool even allows editing of Deep Dungeon Random Battles!  Saving and Loading uses the same logic as my ATTACK.OUT Editor Special Awesome, allowing .XML files to be saved and loaded from the included .XML Directory and custom-named WLDCORE.BINs loaded from the included .BIN Directory.




How it works:

• "Random Battle Location" is the dot on the map in which a Random Battle can occur in.  This includes the 19 "Green Dot" locations from the main game as well as the ten floors of the Deep Dungeon.


• "Battle Index" is what is more colloquially called the "direction" the battle is engaged from.  Each location has data for three different directions, even if that dot has less than three possible approaching points.


• "Squad ID" is which Squadron in the ATTACK.OUT is loaded for this random battle.  NOTE: Only Squadrons 0200 to 02FF are valid.


• "Path Battle Appears On" is the path along the world map Ramza much approach the location from to trigger this random battle.


• "Variable to Unlock" is the variable which controls when Random Battles unlock.  By default, this is the Shop Progression Variable.  This can be changed for individual locations or changed globally via the "Set Global Values" button.


• "ENTDs" are the 8 potential ENTDs each Index can load.  By default, Vanilla uses doubles in each of these entries to give each ENTD a 25% chance of loading.  The only time this behavior is changed is when what have been dubbed "Rare" battles were utilized.  Adjusting which ENTDs are available allows for adjusting how common or rare each formation is.  NOTE:  Only ENTDs 0001 to 00FF are valid.


• "Battle Set" 1-4 is the data for the four instances of progression allocated to each Random Battle Index.  "Variable Max" is the max value the progression variable can contain before it moves on to the next set.  The checkboxes determine which ENTDs are allowed into the randomization process.  "Encounter %" adjusts the exact encounter rate for that Set while it is active.  The different aspects of the Battle Sets can be adjusted via the "Set Global Values" button.

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Hijacking Ravens thread to upload my Unofficial EasyVent 2.1 update. 2.1 is the same as 2.0, but it fixes issues in a couple events that weren't setup correctly in 2.0, such as the mid-bttle dialogue with Balk and Ramza in the battle right before the end of the game. This also adds all the FFT - The Lion War events to the folder already created for it in 2.0, as they were always supposed to be there, but were not ready when 2.0 was released. This includes the TLW TEST.EVT file as well, and a few typo fixes in the readme.

You can download the UNOFFICIAL EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.1 from the attachment at the bottom of this post (reupload by RetroTypes)

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If this is your first time using EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.0, please download the full program.  Legacy versions (1.91 and previous) are no longer supported.  If you already have a copy of EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.0 but an update has been released, simply download the updater and apply it to your copy of EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.0, overwriting all files where applicable. 

When you want something done more right, it's best to take three years off to code an autistic MMO then re-do it yourself in a day.  Welcome to EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.0!  While this shares the name of EasyVent Editor Super Perfect with another program of similar purpose by some defunct bastard named RavenOfRazgriz, this entirely-new tool shares nothing in common with it aside from the concept.  EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.0 will bring the latest and greatest in event editing, including many features designed explicitly for managing large projects and managing multiple projects at once.



Features Included:

• User-created directories for storing events in, with a number of starter directories to get started with.
• Compilations in both event and TEST.EVT format of both Vanilla FFT and FFT: Complete provided stock, with write protections to prevent them accidentally being saved over.  Good for the aspiring event editor who wants easy access to initial files.
• Saving and Loading Events from any number of user diirectories, with error-checking to catch incorrect commands.  Automatically concatenates a decimal value to the title of your event based on its Offset() to help keep things organized.  Has multiple protections to keep your events saved and prevent data loss or accidental overwrites.
• Compile to any .EVT file stored in the .EVT Directory folder.  .EVTs can be given unique names for easy organization without issue.  No more managing TEST.EVTs by hand!
• Compile to any savestate stored in the root folder of EasyVent Editor Super Perfect - with no need to fuss with offsets, editing CONFIG.INI, etc., everything needed is done by the program itself.
• Compile any directory of event files to any .EVT file stored in the .EVT Directory folder.  WARNING: This can take about 10 minutes to perform with a full list of 500 events.
• Decompile entire .EVT files to any chosen user directory for parsing.
• Compile and Decompile in War of the Lions Mode for PSP users.
• Right-Click menu for Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, Find (+Replace), Undo, and Redo.
• Many keyboard shortcuts for keyboard-oriented users.
• Batch Offset Writer for editing the offsets of many events at once based on a name signifier.  Good if you need to rearrange many events at once.  Also supports War of the Lions Mode.
• Instruction Viewer that allows for easy viewing of any help file for event commands.
• Map Viewer for easily finding where your units need to be placed during events.
• Camera Instruction Generator and SpriteMove Instruction Generator for easy generation of complex commands.
• CONFIG.INI is the same as used in Xifanie's Event Compiler/Decompiler and is stored in the root folder.  All updates can be applied manually by the end user to this CONFIG.INI.  Event command parameters and help files are stored in root\Resources\Source Files\Event Instruction List\.  Any changes to commands must also be made in the matching event instruction text file to ensure the error-checking functions properly.  All can be handled by end-user to prevent program going out of date.
• Fully supports the Event Instruction Upgrade Hack, a copy of which is packaged with the program.  While it is not mandatory to use, it is recommended.

Stuff Missing:

• No more Auto-Complete.  Sorry, Jon!

More details can be found in the included README.txt file.  Bugtested only by myself.  Post bugs and they'll be fixed whenever I get around to them based on urgency.  Enjoy, you filthy animals.

*2.0 is a vital update.  Anyone using this please download this new version and get a fresh BATTLE.BIN and WORLD.BIN, the old one had several errors.

See: Title. 

With a program I made to generate a LOT of 00s and a bit of help from Xifanie and the FFHackics Wiki to be sure I didn't fuck it up, I've created a fairly large XML file that literally just nops out all the Kanji Space for each Character Graphics and Character Lengths in both WORLD.BIN and BATTLE.BIN, allowing you to see exactly what free and safe space there is on the ISO for making and placing ASM hacks.

This should also make things like identifying hack conflicts much, much easier since there won't be a bunch of garbage Kanji around. 

If anyone notice an error when using this, let me know, they should be pretty easy to fix.

MediaFire FULL Download

ATTACK.OUT Editor Special Awesome is now completed and released!  This powerful tool is capable of modifying the scenario data in ATTACK.OUT, without any fuss with unknown values or mucking with constant importation of exportation of ATTACK.OUT via the use of .XML application.  (It still, however, does support directly loading from and saving to a .OUT if this is the user's preference!)  Easily edits both Scenario data and Squadron data!  Much like EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.0, this program is designed with managing multiple, large projects, and with the needs of those seeking to do large-scale edits of the ATTACK.OUT, in mind.

NOTE: If you're a user simply looking to modify the Vanilla game, the program boots with Vanilla pre-sets, so you can load it and get to work without any fuss!



WARNING: When flagging as Squadron as "Upper Level", all members of that squadron must be capable of spawning on an Upper Level.  (Eg the bridge in Zirekile Falls or the overpass in Golgorand Execution Site.)  Units not capable of spawning on an Upper Level WILL NOT BE SPAWNED.  This is the behavior of the Upper Level Flag itself and not something I can do anything about, so be warned.

Features Included:

• RELEASE version now handles both scenarios and squadrons!
• Copy and Paste Scenarios/Squadrons between indexes in ATTACK.OUT via keyboard or right click!
• Load from and save to .XMLs stored in the .XML Directory folder, then apply with FFT OrgASM.
• Load any .OUT file stored in the .OUT Directory.  No more ATTACK.OUT DUMP.txt!
• Save to any .OUT file stored in the .OUT Directory.  Perfect for people who prefer not fussing with .XML!
• No Unknown variables!

Stuff Missing:

• NONE.

I figure the first Chapter's been out long enough to warrant this.  NOTE: If you decide to ask your own question, know I will not tell you anything about the story that isn't already revealed, will not give you any gameplay advice that isn't already listed here, etc. I will only be answering questions related to the design aspects of various parts of Journey of the Five and the kinds of thought processes that went into them.  While my main involvement originally in Journey of the Five was gameplay, I eventually ended up doing a lot of everything so I can offer a lot of insight as long as it follows the above criteria.  Now, onto the "FAQ" part of this OP:

This concept is silly, and you're all silly!

Yeah we know and we don't care, and that's not a question.

How much of this game is actually edited?

Basically all of it.  Firstly, and most obvious as soon as you press the New Game button - the story has been obviously completely rewritten and all the spritework completely redone, setting the game as a sequel to the original FFT we know and love.  This would include a new, fully-functioning World Map to explore as well, allowing you to battle and grind to your heart's content.  Every Description, Help Text, etc. has pretty much all been edited in some way.  The Brave Story has been retooled to follow the Journey of the Five storyline, some unused menu entries have been adapted to create the "Letters, Journals" section where you can learn much about the gap of time between the original game and Journey of the Five, etc.  Obviously, like any FFT mod, this also applies to items, Jobs, stat growths and multipliers, available skills, ASM-related thingamabobbers, and even some things other patches don't touch like the raw stats of monsters themselves along with the effects and interactions of various Status Ailments.  There is also now a more expansive sidequest system (Marks) which will become more prominent as the game progresses.

Help!  I can't seem to unlock more jobs but Base and Chemist!  What do I do?

All Jobs in Journey of the Five require Levels in at least two or more Jobs to unlock.  In this case, the second Job "tier" requires 3 Base 2 Chemist for Knight and Ranger (physical Jobs) and 2 Base 3 Chemist for Priest and Wizard (magical Jobs).   As far as unlocking Jobs beyond that, you're on your own, good luck.  If you're wondering why we chose to make the Job tree this way, there's two answers:

1. AI.
2. To force players to make use of Chemists.

This is important because we know most people will want to run around in the unique Jobs of the Five, but the lack of new Jobs should quickly be a hint that they need to change to Chemist for a while.  This way, the player (you) will be guaranteed to have enough JP in Chemist to at least buy basic Item skills (Potion, Ether, Phoenix Down, Sapling) and in turn will have a much easier time in Chapter 1.

Why does everything always become Crystals?  I want that asshole's Bow Gun!

This originally started as a technical quirk of one of the ASMs we used, and we had intended to fix for the actual release.  However, we found that for various reasons, the game just played better with the 100% Crystal drop rate.  Many Journey of the Five-specific quirks such as the slower JP gain were easily addressed by simply making Crystals more common to ensure the player always had a basic set of skills, and it added more to the strategy and comeback-elements of fights by always having Crystals pop up for the player or enemy to grab.  It also meshed well with the "loot" system of Journey of the Five where every enemy in every fight already drops you an item upon winning - so not being able to get a random Treasure Chest here or there wasn't particularly a bad thing outside of making it impossible to Treasure Chest farm random battles for gear.

Why is the difficulty higher than Vanilla?

Because, we wanted a game that was more reminiscent of a NES or SNES era RPG (I think the Japanese release FFV would be a good example but my memory escapes me at the moment), and we wanted a game that would challenge fans of the original game in ways beyond just adjusting to the new content.  A few fights (namely end-Chapter bosses, a handful of optional battles, etc.) dip into the "Nintendo Hard" area, but this patch is ultimately designed to be playable on a Console once some ASM quirks are worked out, so there will never intentionally be anything that rates "Kaizo Hard" on the difficulty scale or require mass resets + RNG abuse to complete.

Wow, Gil is a lot harder to get! I can't afford Phoenix Downs!  Why?!

Honestly, we're encouraging you to stop between battles and "grind" (or at bare minimum, fight any random encounters you run into naturally on your quest), because the design of the game expects you to have fought more than the bare minimum battles.  If you're skipping all random encounters, you are intentionally making the game more difficult on yourself and your ability to equip your party or keep up with the enemy's skills will reflect that.  Fighting random encounters will not only reward you with (some) Gil, but also a number of consumables equal to the number of enemies you battled against.  Fighting what appears to be a large and complex random battle (the one at Bariaus Hill North should be well known by now) may take a while, but it will offer tons in terms of monetary and consumable rewards as well as plenty of EXP, JP, and Crystals for your characters.  Yes, this means you will be rewarded in random battles directly based on the fight's difficulty, assuming you can win without using tons of Items in the first place.  Which is kind of a small caveat to this - we're also trying to encourage you to explore other means of playing the game beyond "Item, win.", which was a very easy way to beat the original game.  Many "good" things in the original were altered simply to make you look over your in-game tactics and knowledge of the game in general, so you can adapt yourself and have an experience that's actually different from the original game.

Why doesn't X Member of the Five have Y Ability?  He totally should!  This is stupid, you're stupid!

There's actually a short answer to this - FFT has very limited design space, and to make each character feel unique as the Five should, they had to be boiled down to the 'essence' of their character.  (Design space, for those wondering, is a term that simply means how much new and different content can be made before things overlap.  FFT is actually far shorter on this than you'd imagine because it's honestly a very simple game on a mechanical level.)  Basically, we had to pick a particular game or incarnation of that character (when applicable), then further narrow it down to what truly makes that character 'feel' like that character.

For example, Dante is based on his Devil May Cry 3 incarnation where you would choose one 'Devil Style' and are stuck with it for most of the level unless you visit a Goddess Statue.  In the case of Journey of the Five, you "choose" your Devil Style by setting Dante's equipped weapon, and can't get access to Equip Change because Dante can't change his Devil Style mid-battle.  Whereas Link, while he has many weapons known to him such as the Bomb, Boomerang, etc., the thing that truly makes him 'Link' is his great ability to make use of whatever items his current environment give him access to and switch between them on the fly in a tough situation.  This is why Link not only gets Equip Change, but his primary Job gets it innate as well as a learnable Support Ability on top of the ability to use most items without restriction.  Snake focuses on his 'sneaking' skills (Hide, Smoke Break, Sleeper Hold, etc.) but doesn't really get any damage-based skills such as CQC moves or a grenade because this would both not mesh with the majority of his skillset (where Snake is mostly a status-dealer), and would cause a lot of overlap with both generic Jobs and other members of the Five.  Other skillsets such as Martial Arts can make up for Snake's lack of damage-based CQC similarly to how they make up for weaknesses other members of the Five have.  Cloud and Ramza are mostly as you'd expect them to be from Vanilla since there's not as much for them to overlap with, though Cloud lost Cherry Blossom because it's stupid and Ramza lost Throw Stone and Dash because they no longer fit in with his Job, gaining a healing spell instead.

Will you be posting a Master Guide of all the changes in Journey of the Five?

No.  We're designing this as if it's an actual separate game from FFT and not just a mod, so we neither intend to or have reason to give a precise changelog that lays out exactly how everything works for the player.  Part of the fun of exploring a new game is the discovery of awesome skills, combos, etc. and this is intended to be no different.

Well, there's your FAQ.

Yes, there it is.  If you have something to ask that isn't covered here, feel free to ask, and if it doesn't violate anything I said above I MIGHT answer it.  But I promise nothing.

(NOTE: Current Version is Journey of the Five - Chapter 1 v1.97e, so make sure you're up to date!)



It's finally released!  The first Chapter in an epic story, pitting the most unlikely of forces both with and against each other to prevent the fabric of the entire multiverse from unraveling!

Enter the expansive land of Ivalice and join Ramza Beoulve and his younger sister Alma Beoulve as they cope with the less-than-favorable aftermath of both the Lion War and their own personal war against the Zodiac Beasts and their leader, the Bloody Angel Altima.  Forced into hiding, Ramza, under the assumed name Drake Seymour is reunited with one of the strangest of his previous companions - Cloud Strife, who Ramza met on his previous adventure after powering some kind of dimensional-forwarding device with one of the retrieved Zodiac Stones and calling him from his own world.  Though Cloud was returned to his own space after Altima's defeat due to reactions from the Zodiac Stones, he has returned to Ivalice through some unknown power - and this time he's not alone!

Joining Ramza and Cloud on their quest to unravel the mystery behind the powers distorting Ivalice and find a way home will be the pointy-earred warrior Link, the espionage expert known to most as Solid Snake, and the charismatic devil hunter Dante.  As the reality of Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear, Devil May Cry, and many others begins to unravel and create a perfect storm of chaos within Ivalice, will these Five Knights be able solve the mystery of their summoning, vanquish whatever evil has befallen the land, and return to their own worlds?

DOWNLOAD JOURNEY OF THE FIVE - CHAPTER 1 TODAY AND BEGIN YOUR SEARCH FOR THE ANSWER TO THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE!

Featuring a completely new quest, a battle system that's been rebuilt from the ground up, an entire new library of sprites, and much more, Journey of the Five is an experience not to be missed out on by any Final Fantasy Tactics fan or Strategy RPG fan in general!

Lately we've been getting many people asking questions regarding FFTPatcher, which is great - but many of them are related in one way or another, and trying to use the Search Function to try and find answers can be difficult at times because of how word-specific it can be and how large the forum is overall.

In light of this, please post all questions related to FFTPatcher errors here (This includes ENTD setup, Ability Setup, Job Setup, etc.) and we'll answer your question as soon as we can.  This will help people have a nice "hub" to look to when using FFTPatcher as well.

This thread only has two rules:

1. It must be directly related to a basic function of FFTPatcher.

2. Please, please, please post a screenshot(s) of the current setup of your Job, Ability, ENTD, or whatever is giving you trouble.  It is very hard to troubleshoot FFTPatcher without seeing exactly what you currently have set up because some of the oddest mistakes can result in errors.  Many are fairly easy to fix, but this will save us the inevitable step where you ask a question and we ask you to post a screenshot before being able to help you anyway.

Other than that, fire away.

(Deleting and reposting the thread it needed some serious updating, but I couldn't edit it myself for some reason and was not dealing with that. I also reorganized things slightly.)

Here are Links to old Stickied threads, useful programs, hacking resources, etc. to ensure they don't fall into the depths.  If you feel something is missing, just post here.

DO NOT ASK FOR HELP HERE. INSTEAD GO HERE!
Help! Section

LOOKING FOR A HOW-TO ON DOING THINGS? GO HERE!
Tutorial Index

LOOKING FOR WHERE TO FIND LOTS OF INFORMATION AND REFERENCE MATERIALS? GO HERE!
FFHackticks Wiki

ASM Hacking Resources:
ASM Starter Kit
MassHexASM - Alternative to Renegade64
LEDecoder - Little Endian Decoder
ASM Collective BATTLE.BIN Map
Terrain Data
Hex Discoveries on Status Effects

Users' ASM Hacking Threads:
Xifanie's ASM hacks
Pride's ASM hacks
Razele's ASM hack
formerdeathcorps' ASM hacks
Nates1984's ASM hacks
FFMaster's ASM hacks
pokeytax's ASM hacks
Rfh's ASM hacks
Choto's ASM hacks
Glain's ASM hacks
Archaemic's WotL ASM hacks

Programs, Spreadsheets, Other Utilities:
FFTPatcher Suite .482
Status and Item Consolidation Patch
War of the Lions Slowdown Removal Patch
LvlSim - Character Growth Checking Program
Palette Editor
Raven's FFT OrgASM XML Generator
Raven's Spreadsheet Shoppe
Raven's Utilities Shoppe
Editing World Events & Drawing
Editing Game Events, World Events & Battle Conditions
Raven's EasyVent Editor Super Perfect 2.0
Raven's ATTACK.OUT Editor Special Awesome BETA
ARH: Ability Requirement Hack
Extend Party Roster Hack (20 units)
ALMA: Ability-Linked Multiplier Attributes
RAD: Forty Job Classes

Graphics/Effects Threads:
Change Opening Video
Item Graphics charts
Complete spritesheets
Monster Animations
Effects videos
Dinosaur's animations
Converting Weapon Catagories by Ashiel

Other Important Threads
Birthday Listings
Generic Jobs Editing, Skillset Limitations
FFTPatcher Editing Mechanics
Speed Growths Balancing

If you notice a Tutorial is missing for something you're trying to do, post here and inquire about getting one made by people who know how to do it, or about making one yourself.  While I can't promise every request will be fulfilled, we won't know if there's something more we can be explaining via Tutorial if no one asks.

You can find Links to most helpful Tutorials on FFH through this thread.  Just find the category you need help with and see if there's a Tutorial that can fill your needs.  If not, ask and search around, that Tutorial you need may have just escaped my grasp.

Guidelines:

Post if you notice a key Tutorial is missing from this list and link to that Tutorial so I can add it.  Post if you notice a Tutorial here is inaccurate or out of date and link to that Tutorial so I can remove it.  Otherwise, don't post in this thread.

"HELP!" Tutorials:

"Things I Wish I Knew Starting Out" by Shrikesnest
Want to mod FFT, but have no idea where to start? by RetroTypes

ASM Tutorials:

Let's ASM Hack with Xifanie!
Hex Editing Stuff & Basic Tutorial by Vanya
ASM Tutorial 2 by formerdeathcorps
Glain's ASM learning segment #1 by Glain
Pokey's ASM Tutorial Part #0 by Pokeytax
ASM Lessons with LastingDawn and Xifanie

Event Editing Tutorials:

ATTACK.OUT Battle Event Conditionals Tutorial by RavenOfRazgriz
Event Editing 101 by Elric
Event Command Walkthrough by Nyzer
How to reassign Event Slots by Xifanie
Event Editing directly to a savestate (pSXfin only) by Xifanie
What to do about Arazlam's speech by mucus

Graphics Editing Tutorials:

Running map2gl and Ganesha Duplicate Function by Elric
Lighting up the Deep Dungeon maps by Nyzer
FFT Spriting (detailed video tutorial) by Lijj
Step by step on how I make Portraits by Twinees
Importing Custom Formation Sprites and Portraits [Warning! Image Heavy Post!] by Celdia
Editing Effects' Palette and Graphic by Xifanie
Modifying Spell Effects [Warning! Image Heavy Post!] by Celdia
Item Icon Editing by Celdia
Converting Weapon Catagories by Ashiel
Basic Franken-Spriting Tutorial by CONMAN
Editing FRAME.BIN with BigManStan
Editing Weapon Graphics Tutorial by RetroTypes

Fixing Emulation Errors Tutorials:

FFT in pixel perfect resolution! by Lijj
no black map settings using ePSXe by Mando
How to set up and run a PSX emulator on Macintosh computers. by Pierce
Getting pSX 1.13 to work on Linux

ISO Patching Tutorials:

How to Patch an ISO with a .ppf File
How to create a proper .ppf patch for your mod by Xifanie
How to format a hack for FFT OrgASM by Pokeytax

Miscellaneous Tutorials:

Editing Bar Rumor Locations & Activating Variables by Elric
Editing Bravestory Biography Entries by Darth Futuza
Complete noob's guide to ripping sound effects while in game by Bowser Koopa
Adding a custom unit to The Lion War (Image-heavy post!) by Nyzer

What The "New Project Ideas" Section Is For:

Threads discussing Project and Project Ideas that you, yourself, are interested in pursuing.  If you are merely doing an "Interest Check" for a Project Idea or are just posting some to see if another person might be interested in making it, use the shiny and new Patch Ideas Proposal Thread.  If you are merely looking for feedback on Job or Skillset Ideas, suggesting Job or Skillset Ideas, etc. without them being related to an existing New Project Idea, use the Jobs and Etc. Proposal Thread.  If what you're looking to post doesn't seem to fit as a New Project Idea and doesn't fit in the scope of the above two threads, feel free to post and ask what to do with it so I can clarify it for you then clarify the rules so it doesn't get mixed up again.

Guidelines:

-> Interest Checks and ideas you don't intend to personally pursue belong in the Patch Ideas Proposal Thread.

-> Job Concepts and other related ideas not directly related to an existing New Project Idea belong in the Jobs and Etc. Proposal Thread

-> Project Ideas you intend to work on yourself can be posted here.  For a New Project Idea, there is no rule about how much work needs to be shown in order to qualify, but know that you'll get more interest by having showing more concrete work, ideas, and work ethics than you will by not.  Once you've reached the level of being able to display some serious work (demo videos, playable demos, other such work that entails you've begin working on something that's actually a game and not a design document) contact myself, Elric, or another Moderator or Admin and we will see about getting your project upgraded to a Progressing Patch.

-> Understand that making a Patch is a lot of work.  I recommend reading this fairly harsh reality check from Asmo X about that topic.  Even something as simple as what we consider a "Vanilla Mod" here (that is, rebalancing the original game with minimal other changes) can be a lot of work depending on what you intend to do, and it can be very monotonous work - larger, more complex patches just become even more work as you add more onto them.  It can take a lot of effort and dedication to get things done, but once you've released something other people can play, it's one of the best feelings there is as a game designer.  Just be aware of what you're getting yourself into and start with an idea that's within your abilities to complete.  Patch design can be a long and often lonely road, as people will tend to only help those who show they're capable of creating progress on their own.  If you can get help, that's great - but don't expect it (at least, hands on help) as a privilege just because you posted a New Project Idea, it's something that's earned through hard work and dedication.  In short, work on ideas you know you can complete by yourself if worst comes to worst, and don't get discouraged by how much work things can be at times - it's well worth the work once you complete your project and other people are playing the game that you made.

What Goes Here:

This thread is specifically for suggesting ideas that you personally don't intend to pursue or don't know how to pursue, but think would be cool to pursue.  If you do not intend to actively work on the Project Idea and are just posting it to see if others might be interested in pursuing it, post it here, do not make a new thread.  Making New Project Ideas threads is reserved for ideas the topic creator will be trying to pursue themselves.  The old "Patch Proposals/Ideas Thread" can be found in the Old Project Ideas Archive here.  Note that this thread is Archived, meaning that (obviously) it is old and that it may contain information that is no longer accurate, but it can still be useful in finding Patch Idea discussions that may aide you in figuring out exactly what you want to do with your own Patch.

Guidelines:

Pretty simple.  If you intend to actually work on the idea yourself, you're in the wrong thread.  Go make your own thread detailing your idea and what progress you've made so far.  If you simply want to post something like "Someone should make a Halo FFT Patch", but do not intend to or do not know how to make such a patch yourself, that goes here.  You can also use this thread as an Interest Check thread if you want.  For example, "Would anyone here be interested in playing a Halo FFT Patch if I began working on one?"  Note that even for an Interest Check, it is common not to get feedback until you've made something to show to people, so don't immediately get discouraged if replies are sparse early on.  It's a hard road to prove you're worth people's attention, and it can be discouraging, but work and show you're working and likely to finish the project you've started and help will eventually come to you.

What Goes Here:

This thread is specifically for suggesting ideas for or asking for help with the design of specific Jobs, Skillsets, and Skills.  If you have a Job (or Jobs) you think would be cool, or would like help with designing a Job, but that Job is not associated with an existing project, use this thread to ask for help with it.  Do not make a new thread for this purpose.  The original "Job & Skill Proposals/Idea Thread" can be found in the Old Project Ideas Archive here.  Note that this thread is Archived, meaning that (obviously) it is old and that it may contain information that is no longer accurate, but it can still be a wealth of ideas for the aspiring Patcher looking for new Job ideas.

Guidelines:

This should be simple enough.  Post your Job, Skillset, or Skill concept here, along with any information you have for it so far (stats, existing skills, innate abilities, etc. pending on it being a Job, Skillset, or Skill), and what you would like help with on it. If you're looking for help on finishing a Job concept off, the more information you can give, the better the feedback you can get.  If you're just looking to post Job ideas here as a resource for others to use, that's fine too.

This thread's for containing miscellaneous spreadsheet utilities I make for myself and decide to publish that don't relate to ASM hacks or otherwise modifying the ISO.

Right now, the only entry I have here is my Mass Stat Calculator, which does what it says on the tin - it lets you input your Level 1 Raws for Male, Female, Monster, then input your C and M values for each job class, and it will output the stats of that class at Level 10, Level 35, Level 50, and Level 99 so you can see how straight-leveled classes balance against each other at three of the more key points in the game.  (Those being AI-battle accepted strength, ~End Chapter 4 strength, and Max Level Strength, assuming an averagely played generic game.)  This information is good for a lot of things, especially AI-stat balance and monster balance.  It comes with Vanilla Defaults as all my workbooks do, so you can quickly see how well Vanilla (didn't) balance itself out at each point in the game, see growth trends by having every class' information directly adjacent to each other, etc.  Now compatible with every Job in the game.  Special Jobs now all have Gender toggles. You must enter the final Multipliers for Zodiac HP and MP to get the correct value though - for example, Queklain's HP multiplier in FFTPatcher is 50, but because he comes with ??? and has his multipliers modified by a factor of 10 in-game, you must enter his HPM as 500 in Mass Stat Calculator to get the value he'll actually have in-game.

After making this, I found it invaluable in finding balance issues I would've easily overlooked otherwise, so hopefully you'll all do the same.

NOTE, if for some reason this spreadsheet "breaks" and you get something like "Err:502" on your stat table and you're not doing something dumb like dividing by 0, go to the Big Sheet 'O Guts tab, find the Job/Stat combo that's errored out, then go to Column AJ.  Column AK should be the bugged column, and merely dragging the contents of AJ into AK should fix AK and all columns after it.  This doesn't happen often but I've had it happen a couple times so if it happens to you, this is how to fix it.

http://www.dlsite.com/eng/work/=/product_id/RE091090.html

...There are no words I can use to describe this game.  It is literally just the best game ever.  If you want a game that's completely fucking insane and hilarious, just try this one.  There's a free trial play in the description and the full game costs under 6 bucks, and it's well worth it.

Just... trust me on this one.

(Many months back, CT5Holy wrote the AI Team Building Guide,  This is an updated version that aims to be more accurate and detailed.  While written with FFT: Arena in mind, most general information should be applicable to any FFT AI Tournament.  This Guide will have two sections, one for basic tips and AI help, and one for more in-depth ones.)

If you're new to FFT: Arena or AI Battling in general, this thread will help you better understand the AI and what goes into making a successful team.  For the Rules on making teams in FFT: Arena, Gear, Abilities, Stats, etc, you can check the Master Guide, which should always be up-to-date.  Don't worry about those until after you've read the Basic Team-Building Tips and Basic AI-Behavior Tips sections, though.

Basic Team-Building Tips

0. Observe other teams through the many videos of AI battles, here and elsewhere.  Even if they're not FFT: Arena videos, they'll give you a good glimpse into how the AI functions at least a basic appreciation of how to build good and not-so-good teams of various battle styles.  While the skills, classes, stats, etc. can all be different between Vanilla, Arena, and the many other FFT patches out there, core game concepts are universal.  Knowing your core game concepts is a key step in being good in any AI-Battle situation, and is what the "Basic" sections of this guide focus on.

1. Pick a plan, and stick to it.  Make sure every unit fills a role without being dead weight, and make sure you don't put too much importance on any one unit.  A team that can support each other well will do better than a team of four "good" standalone units.  You don't need any sort of involved concept, nor do you need stick to a basic rubric like Physical-Magical-Status-Healer, but you do need synergy among your team.  A team that isn't well-focused and can't support each other well is usually bound to fail.  Don't worry about having a full Primary/Secondary/Reaction/Support/Movement loadout on every unit, because this is secondary to ensuring the unit does what you need it to do.  There are many ways to give a team synergy, such as Elemental Absorption, Ability Combos (Zombie + Seal Evil or many others), screen-wide skills such as the Lore skillset being used to heal small values and trigger one's own Save or Up Reactions.  It doesn't need to be complicated like that, though - a simple team that does damage and keeps itself alive is fine too when done correctly.  Some concepts are definitely a lot more involved than others, but once you've chosen one you feel can be successful, stick close and don't stray too far from it.  That's the best way to ensure its success.

2. Don't give your units abilities they don't need to fulfill their roles, and don't feel forced to spend all your JP if your units all do what you need them to and still have some left over.  This is very much a part of the previous tip, but in reverse.  If the AI has skills you don't need it to have, you run the risk of it wasting turns on it at inopportune times and losing easily won games.  It's good to cover as many bases and flaws as possible on your team, but don't extend beyond your comfort zone to do so.  Cover too much, you begin losing to stuff you should beat because you lose focus.  The AI isn't a player like you - more options isn't always good.  Similarly, as I'll detail below, more Move and more Speed also isn't always good.  Constructing a team for the AI to use is far different from constructing a team for yourself or another player to use.  Remember this at all times.

3. You'll want some form of healing and resurrection on most teams you make.  Not every unit needs it, but its usually a good idea for 2 units (and almost required that at least 1 unit) carry some form of it, even if it's just a Phoenix Down.   Murphy's Law - everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and the ability to recover and revive is your answer to that.  Make sure you keep this revival on a unit that's not likely to die early, either - especially if you only run one or two units capable of revival.  Being able to raise things is no good if the things casting your Raise Dead skills are the first things to kick the bucket.

4. Speed is important, as should be obvious.  More turns means more Tempo, which wins games.  The AI knows this, hence why Haste is one of its top priorities when its either idle or looking to cast a positive Status.  However, don't forget your other stats - if you don't have the MP to use your skills, or the PA/MA to do relevant damage, or the HP to live long enough to even see those additional turns, then getting more turns than the opponent is obviously not worth a lot.  This is why it's important to balance how much Speed you want to add with your other stats.  A 9 Speed unit that's constantly threatening is usually better than a 12 Speed unit that barely jabs for 70 damage and can easily go ignored.  An important note here is the concept of Speed Synching, or making sure your Speed is well-balanced between the individual units on your team.  If one unit runs forth before the rest, it'll likely die far too removed to be revived and spell curtains for the remainder of your team.  For that reason, a team with four 8 Speed units is usually better than a team with one 12 Speed unit and three 8 Speed ones. 

4.5. A note that specifically applies to FFT: Arena - Haste only boosts Speed by 25% and lasts for 32 CT, while Slow reduces Speed by 50% and lasts 24 CT.  This means that, unless you're running an uber-Speed setup to begin with (12+ post-ger Speed), Haste will only give you 2 Speed, and past 12 will only give you 3 Speed.  Slow, meanwhile, will undercut Speed by at least 4 no matter the target, leaving anything hit with Slow at 4-5 Speed for the most part.  Considering Speed changes are far more noticeable going down than up, this makes Slow very, very powerful when used correctly.  Haste is still powerful itself, because the difference between 8 and 10 Speed is very noticeable, but it's not a mandate for every team running 8-9 Speed, and units already running appreciable Speed (10+ base) are probably best off foregoing it entirely unless it's just something you can get without going out of your way.

5. Similar to Speed, Move is obviously important, for similar reasons.  The less turns you spend idly Moving into range, the more turns you get performing relevant actions and the more Tempo you gain.  Again like Speed, though, max Move isn't always good the way it is in single player, since the unit's other stats still need to be sufficiently fleshed out or their extra Move means little.  High Move also means your squad can become quickly divided, even if properly synched, so there's the risk of a unit going down and being unable to be revived before its permanent demise.  It also runs the same risk as Speed in that a team with one 6 Move unit and three 3 Move units is generally going to be worse than a team of four 3 Move units - the unit with 6 Move is essentially getting two-to-one turns to Move when compared to its allies, allowing it to make contact long before the rest of its team and get killed long before the rest come into range.  Move Synching, while not as important as Speed Synching, is still important to a team's success, so at least be sure the Move differences between units on the same team isn't too great.

6. If you're having trouble figuring out how strong or weak something is, WinCalc.exe is your bestest best friend in the whole world ever.  I mean it.  Outside of Critical Hits, nothing about FFT's damage is randomized outside of skills explicitly made to be so.  It's very easy to number-crunch your expected damage or hit rate in literally any and every possible situation in a matter of seconds.  Just remember that FFT always rounds a number down when a fraction appears (outside of Short Charge, which rounds up), and that with Protect/Shell/Attack UP/Magic Attack UP/etc, its your primary PA or MA factor that is multiplied against, not the final value.  The Arena-custom Supports Overwhelm and Unyielding (along with Fury/Faith) affect the final damage value instead, but they're the exception, not the rule.  Numbers are scary at first, yes, but FFT is fairly simple about them.  Even if you don't do the math "right", what you end up with should be close enough to give you the right idea.

7. Arguably, this is the most important tip.  Remember that sometimes you just need to get lucky to win.  This is important to know, important to remember, and important to accept as something that is perfectly fine.  No team is flawless, and as stated many times before, trying to extend too much and cover too many flaws will just make it cave in on itself.  The important thing is being aware of your team's weaknesses, and knowing which you can and cannot cover.  When interpreted in its broadest sense, this tip is true of almost every competitive game in existence.  Even the best player needs a little bit of luck.  Sometimes you don't get that luck, or your opponent does, and you lose.  It sucks.  That's when you examine your team, figure out whether there's something you can do to remove the need for luck in that kind of a matchup without weakening it in other areas.  If you can't, you can't, and it's a bad matchup.  You do what you can and just hope to be the one who gets lucky next time.  This goes right back to focusing on your strategy.

Basic AI-Behavior Tips

1. The AI is quirky, and has a tiny bit of randomness to it.  It'll usually use the best skill in its arsenal, and is very smart about knowing how to use many skills you'd expect it to be dumb with, such as MP Destruction.  The AI isn't "stupid" so much in that it merely has a different set of priorities than a player does.  Like I said though, it is quirky and has a very mild bit of randomness.  If you're using a status-based unit, such as with Talk Skill, and it decides it wants to do damage on a specific turn, and all it has is a 4 WP Knife for damage options, it'll run up and stab a bitch instead of using Mimic Daravon.  Even if the unit isn't geared for damage, remember the AI will sometimes do things like this when deciding what to do to an opponent.  This means that emaciating a unit's DPS won't cause it to spam non-damage skills all of the time, so you'll want your units able to do some kind of damage, even if it's only 80 or so. 

2.  Self-preservation is top priority.  People seem to misinterpret this as "healing/revival is top priority", but this is actually not true.  If a unit is going to kill the Acting unit, and the Acting unit can disable or kill the enemy before the enemy can kill it (such as with a Short Charge Paralyze), it will do that instead of casting Raise on a dead ally or healing itself, if the healing will not allow it to live through the skill.  If it is in Critical and there is a dead ally within range, it will heal itself instead of Raising the dead ally.  If the AI heals itself, it will always Move away from enemy units, even if moving past them would place it in range to Raise a fallen ally on the following turn.  If the AI heals an ally, however, it'll still be willing to move forward, as long as the recipient of the healing skill was not the casting unit. The AI does not pay attention to the Crystal Counter (3/2/1/0), but does pay attention to turn order on dead units.  If it has the choice of reviving multiple units, it will go for the one that will reach 100 CT first.  It will, however, prioritize both preservation of self and allies over the death of enemies, unless that enemy is the final enemy on the map and they have the DPS to kill it in a single attack.  Units with the Reraise status are generally treated as lower priority when healing, and won't be revived because the AI sees wasting a turn on making a unit get up that was going to get up anyway as a waste.

3. The AI will always use both its Move and Act command if possible, with rare exception.  Idle Acts will be used to cast things like Haste, Accumulate, etc. and the AI will usually Move away from an enemy unit after attacking if it attacked before Moving.

4. MP restoration is based on both the other things the AI can do at the time, and how important it feels the target's MP-requiring skills are.  Powerful skills like Flare and Slow Dance will usually see the AI using skills like Chakra and Ether to replenish MP, but if the AI views the target's skills as unimportant, it won't replenish MP, regardless of how important the skill may actually be to the current situation.  The same is true of some Status-healing, such as whether or not the AI decides healing Silence is worthwhile. This is part of the reason Move-MP UP (and in Arena's case, sometimes MP Restore) is such a staple on MP-using units in AI tournaments, even more than in the single player game, on top of the obvious bit of it being MP restoration without performing Actions.  The AI will still usually use skills such as Ether correctly, and whether it decides something as being worthwhile or not is at least partially based on the team its fighting.  I've had situations, for example, where my units are Silenced but the enemy is immune to most of the skills in my Talk Skill set - so the AI just won't cure Silence until something changes, which can be both a blessing and a curse depending on the situation.

5. The AI views most buffs as things to apply when a unit is somewhat damaged, as a form of light-medium healing.   Reraise, Protect, Shell, etc. will get applied not at full HP, but when damaged and in need of a light heal (or in need of a large heal, if one isn't available), or sometimes when the AI is idle and has no better Act to perform, though the latter is not guaranteed.  Haste, Transparent, and Wall are seen as proactive buffs that the AI will try to apply when it doesn't need to kill something.  In Haste's case, it knows Speed is good, so it tries to keep itself and allies Hasted when possible.  In the case of Transparent and Wall, it thinks these statuses make it invisible / invincible respectively, and will use them proactively as it sees those statuses as the best means to keep the party alive.  In Vanilla, applying these proactively is impossible, and in most mods, it is either also impossible, or the statuses are altered in some way to make the above no longer true, so be careful when making a team that can use one or both of these statuses proactively.  (In Arena's case, the skill Carbuncle comes to mind as a proactive source of Transparent.)  When buffing a unit, though, the AI is generally smart on knowing which buffs are most important.  Sometimes, it'll do something odd, like add Protect over Reraise, or add Shell instead of Protect if Protect is better for the situation and it has both, but those are similar to point 1.  Just make sure the AI can only access the buffs you need it to access and this behavior should be well minimized.

6.  If it has a choice between two enemy units, the AI will prioritize units with the lower Current HP, decided by its raw value.  This means that a 250/250 Priest will be targeted over a 300/450 Knight, because its Current HP or 250 is less than the Knight's Current HP of 450, despite the fact the Knight is technically at "less" HP in terms of a percent (100% HP Priest v 66.6% HP Knight.)  Going back to my point on keeping revival on units least likely to die, keep this in mind.  You probably don't want your primary revival on units with low Max HP unless they have something like Defense UP to compensate.  You can also use this trait of the AI offensively - if you want the enemy AI to ignore certain units on your squad, make them have higher Max HP and have it so that both that unit and a unit with lower Max HP enters the enemy combat range at roughly the same time.

7.  There are several things the AI cannot understand properly.  Firstly, it cannot properly compute Haste when it calculates the turn order, in respect to CT-bearing Spells like Flare.  This is another large part as to why Haste is so gamebreaking in single-player.  It also cannot properly compute when the Lancer's Jump skill will land, meaning it'll sometimes kill-steal from an allied Jumping unit.  It also cannot tell what Reactions a unit has equipped and what the result of triggering said Reaction would be.  For someone whose played through Vanilla FFT, this is probably the one thing on this list they've noticed if they've noticed nothing else in this entire Basic AI-Behavior section.  If I've forgotten one or two things, I'll edit them in later, but these three are the most important.

Having a hard time formatting your hacks to be used with FFT OrgASM and have no clue what the fuck to do?

Nay, I say.  Just download this simple application and input the data for the ASM you're trying to use into it, and it'll output an XML file that OrgASM can process.  If you place it in the same folder as your FFT OrgASM, it'll even ask you if you want to run OrgASM immediately upon closing as a convenience feature.  The default location options should be enough to cover just about any existing hack you'd use OrgASM for, but I can easily update them if needed and the app will accept your own custom locations, though it'll give you a warning to verify it's what you want.  It also has more editing windows a button-press away if you're trying to OrgASM-up a large hack - up to 25 fields!  If someone makes a hack that needs more than 25 fields... first, bless them, then let me know so I can update this with more fields, since it's pretty easy.

Use and enjoy, broskis.  It'll concatenate each hack you add to the end of your My Hacks.xml, so don't worry about overwriting anything when using this!

Download the Latest Version Here!  (Mediafire Mirror)

Because when you want something done right, sometimes it's best to do it yourself.  This is EasyVent Super Perfect!  While it shares a name with ffta707's now-abandoned EasyVent tool, the application itself doesn't actually share anything in common with it besides the concept.  EasyVent Super Perfect will bring you the latest and greatest in Event Editing ease to date with both features intended for the ne'er-arriving EasyVent 4 and some an insane amount that I added myself.  

Features Included:

• Index of every Event by Event Offset, now with Event Script and name listed as well.  This allows you to use the Open Event button to load any pre-existing Event directly into your editing window.  Now includes proper Open/Save Windows instead of the ComboBoxes I was using previously, meaning you can now name your Event and all kinds of other stuff.  The Event files are held in the various "____ Event Directory" folders included with the program.  All the default Directories aside from the Custom Event Directory are safe from being overwritten, so you can use them as source Directories as you please.  Naming support for styles other than EVT_DEC_SCR YourName was dropped, however now you have full freedom to give your Events names and Multi-Compile them even with their names as long as they follow the aforementioned EVT_DEC_SCR format.  Now also supports CTRL+A, CTRL+F, and more for even easier Event Editing and a full usurption of Notepad.


• Index of every Event Command by ID and Name, as per FFH's front page.  When one is chosen from the drop-down list, its automatically added to your editing window at your cursor's location, and a help listing is displayed to the right of your editing window to help you use the command with as much ease as possible.  Commands added to your editing window also now have a consistent and easy to understand notation of what goes into each data field to further help you understand and remember what they do and how they work.


• Index of every Map by Map Name and ID.  This allows you to see a top-down preview of every map, with X/Y Coordinates and N/E/S/W labeled as per the list on FFH's front page.  Now with a second box that allows you to switch between a bird's-eye view and four dynamic views!  The "corner" referred to in the names of the dynamic views refers to what the cardinal direction of the bottom-left corner is, if it wasn't obvious.  These maps are located in the "Map List" folder included with the program, so you can feel free to mark them up in Paint or something if you want to remember where certain things are!


• Button-press Compiling and Decompiling of TEST.EVT.  Place the TEST.EVT you wish to edit in the External Program Hub folder included with the program, and when you're done your event, press Save, then press Compile Event, and EasyVent Super Perfect will run Xifanie's Event Compiler directly, no need to leave the window!  If you wish to decompile, click Decompile TEST.EVT and it'll do the same with her decompiler!  Starting with v1.3 and onward, I've even begun including a Vanilla TEST.EVT and Vanilla decompiled PSX Events to help people get started.  Starting with v1.4, you can Compile entire Directories, and Decompile will automatically output both a PSX Events.txt and a PSX Events Folder, the folder of which can be Compiled from, among other crazy shit.


• Comprehensive Error-Checking before Compiling and Saving Events, as of v1.8, and buffed heavily in v1.9!  The program will now search for commas, parentheses, x's, french braces, line length, etc. to ensure your Event is correct before Compiling.  You'll be allowed to Save after a warning if you encounter an error, but not Compile until all errors are removed.  If you have an input error in your commands (such as using +00X for a +TIMER), you'll get the name of the command that's errored, which line it's on, and which argument is wrong, allowing for incredibly precise error-checking.  This logic also works on the Multi-Compiler, and now has its logic enhanced to interact with it properly.

Notes:

• You must keep the main program and its source files inside the EasyVent Editor Super Perfect v1.8 folder as I've organized them, or the program won't be able to find its source files and will display errors.  As of v1.2 onward, however, you can make your own Event Directories, as long as you follow the same organizational pattern.

To-Do List:

• Make comments (statements preceded by //) green, must debug Lirmont's code...


• FAR FUTURE - add options that allow for ATTACK.OUT editing, potentially, but probably not.

Download and enjoy, kids.  Report errors and I'll fix them as soon as I can.

Thanks To, in No Particular Order:

• Celdia, for taking and resizing all the Map Screenshots.


• ffta707, for the original EasyVent.  Though that program in this no actual relation, the concept and many of this program's ideas were only thought of while trying to upgrade EasyVent 3.


• Pokeytax, for making me adamant enough that this'd be better than a Spreadsheet to actually get off my lazy ass and make it.


• Cheetah, for giving me a pile of ideas I'm surprised I didn't think of myself that'll up the customizability and ease-of-use of this tool.


• Xifanie, for making the original Event Compiler and Event Decompiler this is built on top of.  How I didn't think to thank her before now, I have no goddamn idea.


• Elric42, for doing a fantastic Job in helping me identify several commands and pointing out tons of Help file errors.


• Lirmont, for providing me with code examples for several of the more recent features, either directly or indirectly.

As most of you may or may not know, I've been working on a patch that reorganizes the entirety of FFT into chronological order with better organization of Sidequests/etc, which should make the game far easier to mod in terms of Event Editing, compared to the slapdash organization method the game is in naturally.  I've already finished the majority of this project - the main hurdle that's been left for a long time now is a portion of the ATTACK.OUT, because it's a very tedious job that was already finished once but was lost in one of Pride's laptop crashes.  This is what I need help with - remaking that lost ATTACK.OUT, then there's very little left to do before I can just compile and release a version 1.0 of this.

To put it simply, I just can't do it - it's too much for me, I lack the attention span, and I'm busy with many other projects, mostly other hacking tools like an Event Editor.  The idea's simple.  I've already got exactly what I need incredibly explicitly written out in a notepad, I just need someone(s) to take what I wrote and plug it through the ATTACK.OUT Editor onto my ATTACK.OUT.  Literally just look at Field A on Notepad, change Field A on ATTACK.OUT Editor to that.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.  Just download it, do what you can, reupload it and say where you stopped at, as I doubt a single person will want to do the entire thing.  Everything needed is included in the download.  Many advanced thanks for anyone who actually bothers to help. 

Currently, up through offset 060 is complete.

You have a Spell on your character, "Lightning Cure."  It is a Lightning Element Spell that restores the target's HP by 10.  Your current target is Weak: Lightning.  Should your Spell heal for 20, deal 10 damage, or deal 20 damage?

Repercussions of this question:

"Pisco Demon" monster with Weak: Lightning would be healed 20 HP if first is chosen, dealt 10 damage if second is chosen, dealt 20 damage if third is chosen.

Human "Carl" with an Ice Shield would be healed 20 HP if first is chosen, dealt 10 damage if second is chosen, dealt 20 damage if third is chosen.  If Human "Carl" also gains Absorb: Lightning somehow, there would be no difference if first is chosen and would heal 20 in both the remaining scenarios through the Weak plus Absorb stack.  (An alternate solution is to have Absorb and Weak merely reverse functions if "deal 10 damage" is chosen - so Absorbing the healing spell will result in double the effect, and being Weak to it will result in reversing it to damage, but this is neither here nor there.)

Which of these makes more sense from both a gameplay and a design standpoint and why?  Note that you can change your vote on this poll at any time, though it will close within the week.

New topic as my change to all screenshots means I can consolidate everything easily into one thread.  I'll also be more heavily-abbreviating my changes list now that I have a far better idea of what I want to do.  

Regardless, for any newcomers - welcome to Final Fantasy Tactics: Redesign, which seeks to rebuild much of the combat engine from the ground up, increasing strategy, difficulty, and possible gear combinations for a far more engaging experience for veterans of the original game.  The mantra is simple complexity - every individual piece is trimmed to its simplest terms, and how those pieces combine defines the depth and strategy of the game.  Hopefully, the execution of this will match my vision of it, as my vision is great, and hopefully you'll all enjoy a game that seeks to be both difficult and have its own identity once I can compile everything into something playable.

Changelog:

Level cap is now 50 from 99.  All units have Attack, Charge +1, Charge +2, Charge +4, Defend innately instead of just Attack.  Through tricky use of Formula and many other things, the AI will be made more fierce - ready to give the player a far greater challenge than in Vanilla without any behind the scenes "gifts" to help them.

Brave and Faith becomes Fury and Will - Fury adds a multiplier to every physical attack (including Weapon Attacks) based on the user and target's Fury, and Will does the same with magic, both having a +30 constant [(CasX+30)*(TarX+30)/10000] to ensure damage doesn't fall too low.  Every skill is governed by one of these two stats.  (Attack is always governed by Fury sans with Magic Guns and the like, Skills use Fury_ or Will_ to note which they are affected by.)

Reactions are no longer Brave based and Weapon/Skill Procs are no longer randomized - they will activate 100% of the time.  This makes low Fury far less damning and even attractive, and means procs are now things that can be built around strategically.  Obviously, the luck element lost here will be at least somewhat made up for elsewhere.

Movement Abilities removed - you now get two Support Abilities, consisting of what used to be both Support and Movement along with removals/additions.  This should add an entirely new level of depth to character customization, when combined with the bevvy of new Support Abilities.

Damage has been controlled - no more oneshot fests.  Weapon Power has been heavily reigned in, the Fist formula has been made less abusive, etc.  While you can still make plenty powerful units which can still go CRUNCH on other units built for DPS, defense is now also a pretty viable tactic.  Stat Growth has been flattened, but this shouldn't be too noticeable in game between stat variance and each class having unique multipliers.

Unit CT always resets to 00 on Turn End, regardless of Wait Only, Move Only, Act Only, Move and Act, etc.  Movement / Jump / Speed has also seen heavy reductions - you can still make highly mobile units, but they'll cost you adequately in power and speed now.  Evasion is now also calculated at full value on front, half value on either side, no value on back for all types except A-EV, which still functions as in Vanilla.

Gear has been rebuilt from the ground-up.  While classes are reminiscent of the original on the outside, they've also been rebuilt from the ground-up internally.  Elements have been made more distinct - all Lightning attacks share similar traits, etc.  All forms of Elemental Parity have been removed, and mastering Elements can be key to combat, though plenty of Element-free routes still exist.  There are now 7 elements more evenly spread throughout the game - Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Holy, Dark.  Statuses have been similarly rebuilt from the ground up for all intents and purposes.

Monsters and Special Classes are the next things to tackle on my WIP list.  I'll likely be adding more of both counts in addition to huge revamps of what we've already got.  Artistic changes such as Sprites and Animations will occur later, as will plot-related edits which will likely get their own Patch from the basic gameplay mod.  As for space left for new stuff?  There's 20 Weapon Slots, at least 5 Shield Slots, a bevvy of Helmet/Hat/Armor/Clothes Slots, and 4 Job Slots up for grabs if anyone thinks there's something that this sorely needs.  The main notes are that things cannot be very "gimmicky" outside of a couple gear exceptions (no gimmicky Generic Jobs, though), and that if I add more classes, they'd very specifically need to be 1 Physical, 1 Magical, and 2 Mixed Jobs to maintain a balance, with the Magical job likely being heavy armored.  Outside of new suggestions, thoughts on the current design logs are much appreciated, and questions can be easily answered.  Once FDC's Formula Hack is out, I can probably start compiling a gameplay beta, as Formula and some misc things are the main missing cogs in my machine.

(Spoiler tags contain all current notes on Jobs/Skills/Equipment - IMAGE HEAVY.)

Quote14:30   Pokeytax: Eternal, you have the Saintly Robe unflagged as "Body" in Patcher
14:30   RavenOfRazgriz: ...
14:30   Eternal248: Oh.
14:30   Eternal248 coughs.
14:30   RavenOfRazgriz face in hands
14:30   Eternal248: Nothing to see here folks.
14:30   RavenOfRazgriz: Derpy Hooves
14:30   Eternal248:
14:30   RavenOfRazgriz: Y U SO DERP
14:30   Eternal248: Sorry Pokeytax.
14:30   Eternal248: Hey Shade, guess what.
14:30   RavenOfRazgriz: I bet the Muramasa's flagged as a baseball cap too.
14:30   Eternal248: Muramasa isn't labelled a Weapon either.
14:31   Shade: What?
14:31   Eternal248: Which is why it's displaying as 0 WP.
14:31   Eternal248: It's not flagged as a Weapon.
14:31   secondadvent: failternal
14:32   Shade: pretty much fail all around
14:32   NinjaWeazel: Eternal. :[ I am dissapoint.
14:32   Kalas: Hahahahahahaha
14:32   Eternal248: Hey, mistakes happen!
14:32   Kalas: Lede is a floating pink dot
14:32   secondadvent: you fail at failing
14:32   Kalas: I'm laughing my ass off
14:32   Eternal248: A -dangerous- pink dot.
14:32   RavenOfRazgriz: How the fuck do you fail at taking something flagged as a Weapon and flagging it as a Weapon.
14:32   secondadvent: skill
14:32   Eternal248: ^
14:32   RavenOfRazgriz: Y U SO DERP.

Y U SO DERP.

Does anyone know how to modify a unit's raw stats?

I'm looking to change the raw MP of every unit in the game.

Gender    initial HPP          initial MPP
----
Male      (491,520..524,287)   (458,752..491,519)
Female    (458,752..491,519)   (491,520..524,287)
Monster   (573,440..622,591)   (573,440..622,591)

I want to go with something like this, maybe fudging the Female HPP and Male MMP values down some.  How would I go about doing this?

Ramza has silly Pre-Raw Stat stuff too, I know, so I imagine making him conform to this setup would be extra annoying.

I get the feeling how to do this is probably lying around somewhere but hell if I can find it.

How does a poor ass like me get one? My laptop became spontaneously fucked and I can't even safe Mode or factory reset it. It just hangs at the point anything related to Windows 7 should be booting up. What research I was able to do all points to me needing a boot disk or something which I have no clue how to get unless I get lucky enough to be able to burn one. Any fingers pointing me the right direction or giving me a good alternate solution are much appreciated. Sorry if post looks like unformatted shit, posting from a crappy old ass cell phone.

BUGFIX - A LOT OF SHIT.  SERIOUSLY USE THE NEWSPEADSHEETS

NEW NEW-ISH - New Starting Inventory Editor based on work from Chotokukyan.  Basically this rewrites the routine that determines the player's starting inventory to use proper Item IDs, unique Quantity values for each, and ups the amount of items the Starting Inventory can contain to 24.  Otherwise this is just a bugfix release.

STILL TECHNICALLY "NEW" - Status, Terrain, and Multiplier Workbook - Contains Status Coloration Rewrite, Terrain Data Editor, and Multiplier Editor, made possible with the help of Secondadvent, Choto, and FDC. Yeah.  These are things now.  With the Status Coloration Rewrite, you can freely modify the visual effect (sprite size and coloration) of up to 16 different statuses with this.  Obviously this doesn't affect how the status will modify the gameplay end of things, but this will make a nice compliment to any ASM that modifies a status effect already, allowing you to change its visual to match.  The Terrain Data Editor allows you to change the Movement Costs of various terrains, which statuses they inflict (or remove!), and which Ability is defined as that Terrain's Geomancy command for the Elemental command and Counter Flood Reaction Ability.  It also lets you determine Movement speed for various Movement skills such as Fly, Teleport, etc. - so you can do things like make Teleport/Fly require 2 Move per tile to get across the battlefield.  However, this only affects Move : 1 Tile cost ratio, secondary effects such as Teleport's, well, Teleporting, Swim's ability to act in Depth 2 water, etc. are all defined somewhere else and will require separate ASM hacks if you want to modify them further.  The Multiplier Editor gives you free reign over Zodiac Compat, the various UPs in the game, Martial Arts, Protect, Shell, etc. with a X/128 system allowing nearly any value.  They also all affect the Final Damage Output, meaning no superfluous rounding.  Oil isn't in this update because the currently included Element Rewrite doesn't allow for adjusting its boosting value or affected Elements anywhere I can find that also allowed for the other, more important functions given here as well.

Other Updates: The Weapon XA Rewrite was updated with Choto's help!  Abilities using 01 Weapon, 02 Weapon, etc. (basically everything except 03 WP*WP) can now input a Y value to boost that skill's damage by, following the same concept as the Charge skillset's boost, which gives for better damage scaling that the format used by Holy Sword, and allows you to more realistically emulate the Charge skillset with non-Charge skills.  The WORLD_MAP_1.00 Workbook Xifanie made a long time ago has also been added to the Game Progression Workbook Compilation for my own convenience and for completion's sake - damn thing can be hard to find if you don't know where to look otherwise.  It also now exports an XML like all my other Workbooks.

When you're done editing each Workbook set, go to the "XML" tab.  Take the info there, and paste everything from there into a Notepad file.  Then, save it as a .XML file and place it in the same folder as your favorite version of FFT OrgASM.  These hacks should appear among the ones listed there, allowing you to quickly and painlessly apply them without even knowing what a Hex Editor is.

Currently, my workbooks contain the following:

* - New!
& - Updated!

Quote"Item Workbook Compilation":
&- Weapon Battle Sprites and Palettes Editor (By me, information researched by Cheetah, Vanya, RandMuadDib.)
&*- Player Starting Inventory Editor (By me, research by formerdeathcorps, rewrite of routine by Chotokukyan.)
- Unrestricted Equip X and Gender Equips ASM (By Secondadvent.)
&- Weapon XA Rewrite ASM (Originally by FDC, rewritten by Pride, updated by Choto.)
- Weapon Proc Rate ASM (By Pride.  Spreadsheet updated to a v1.5 version Pride made himself)
- Critical Hit Rate ASM (By Secondadvent, also covers monster jobs.)

"Job and Skillset Workbook Compilation":
- Generic Skillset Fix (By Xifanie.)
&- Pre-Raw Stat Editor (By me, information documented by Razele, newer info documented by secondadvent.)
- Job Defense Boost ASM (By Pride, original spreadsheet by Pokeytax, bugfixes by me.)
- UWEntries Editor (By Glain, included because I added it for a personal version and didn't feel like un-adding it.)

"Game Progression Workbook Compilation":
- ATTACK.OUT Battle Event Conditionals Editor (Original Spreadsheet 100% by Xifanie, all I did was trim some code and make it output an XML file.)
*- WORLD MAP 1.00 Editor (Original Spreadsheet 100% by Xifanie, all I did was make it outport to XML.)

*"Status, Terrain, and Multiplier Workbook Compilation":
*- Status Coloration Rewrite (ASM work by Secondadvent, Spreadsheet by me, full explanation inside.)
*- Terrain Data Editor (Research by Pokeytax and Choto, Spreadsheet by me, full explanation inside.)
*- Multiplier Editor Rewrite (ASM work by FDC, Chotokukyan, and others, Spreadsheet by me, explanation inside.)

For a quick overview on how each Spreadsheet works:

Quote
"Item Workbook Compilation":

- Weapon Battle Sprites and Palettes Editor:  Use the graphics at the top of the spreadsheet to input which sprite you want in the Weapon Graphic Column.  To find what the palettes of weapons and shwooshes look like, open WEP1.SPR and WEP2.SPR in ShiShi, respectively, and cycle through their 16 palettes.

- Chotokukyan's Rewritten Player Starting Inventory Editor: Changes the start-of-game inventory of the player (IE, Potions / Phoenix Downs / etc.)  It can add any Item to the player's Inventory at the start of the game, for up to a total of 24 "beginning" Inventory items and a unique Quantity value for each.

- Unrestricted Equip X and Gender Equips ASM:  Columns are Equip Functions and Male/Female.  Rows are Gear Types.  Use non-0 values to fill in the functions as you want them, same as the Store Inventory Editor.

- Weapon Formula ASM: This allows you to, using drop down windows, change the formula of any weapon type to any existing Weapon Formula in FFT.  It also fixes various "Gun Glitches" and other related things.  This does not allow you to change the formula of a weapon type to one that does not already exist - you'll need to go in and edit the hack yourself for that.  See here for details.  However, it does include four new Formula - PA*(Brave/100)*Naked_PA, STAT1*STAT2, STAT1*CONST, and STAT1*STAT2/CONST*STAT3. It also modifies the rather bad original Vanilla Random Damage Formula to (PA/2...PA*3/2)*WP.

- Weapon Proc Rate ASM: Enter the desired Proc Rate for each weapon (in Hex) going down the Row, and if desired, enter a Gear Type/Item ID for an Item that can double Proc Rate.

- Critical Hit Rate ASM: Enter the desired Critical Rate for each weapon (in Hex) going down the Row, and if desired, enter a Gear Type/Item ID below the Output field for an Item that can double Proc Rate.  Above the Row, enter the *divisor* for the Critical Hit Rate you want, in Hex.  (It's defaulted at 100, so you really shouldn't need to touch it.)

"Job and Character Workbook Compilation":

- Generic Skillset Fix: This "Fix" causes Skillsets to copy the properties of other skillsets, for the purposes of things such as dodging the hardcoding of Throw/Jump/Etc.  Just enter the Hex ID of the Skillset you want to mime in the Row, or FF if you want it to work normally.  I mostly added this because I know some people have trouble using this hack without a guide for anything other than the defaults Xifanie set it to on her page, when it's really good for so much more.

- Pre-Raw Stat Editor: This allows you to edit several things.  The first is Ramza's starting Gear, Gender, Brave/Faith, Level (which will affect Soldier Office recruitment level) PA, MA, SP, HP, MP, and variance in each.  The second thing it'll allow you to edit is the base stats (HP/MP/SP/PA/MA) and variance for each the Male, Female, and Monster Genders.  By "base stats" I mean the Level 1 stats of any unit of that Gender regardless of Job when equipped with no gear.  This allows you control of the gap between Males and Females, allows you to add randomness to human stats or remove it from monster stats, etc. with ease pending needs.  Now has a preview of the converted Raw Stats on the bottom half of the sheet, which can then be used to calculate growths over time with a program such as LvlSim.  Also includes miscellaneous functions like setting the modified HP/MP raw stat divisor for ???-flagged units.  Because this is a divisor, making it smaller will increase the HP/MP gain, and making it larger will decrease it.

- Job Defense Boost ASM: This allows you to give every Job without exception it's own innate Defense and Magic Defense damage reduction percent.  The percent is set in the spreadsheet as XX/FF, and to make a skill become affected by either, you set the AI DEFUP and AI MDEFUP flags in FFTPatcher.  The original spreadsheet work was by Pokeytax, hence why the layout is different from what my spreadsheets usually used.  I fixed a number of bugs, added some instructions, and did some miscellaneous things to it though to make it work for OpenOffice users, and included it here for completion's sake with Pride's permission.

- UWEntries Editor Sheet by Glain: Allows you to edit which Jobs are associated with which WLDFACE/etc entries.  Pretty simple, really.  It's included here mostly because I added it to my personal copy of my workbooks that I keep as a base for ease of use, but if he doesn't want it included in my workbook set, I'll remove it.  :v

"Game Progression Workbook Compilation":

- ATTACK.OUT Battle Event Conditionals Editor:  A rather amazing spreadsheet originally made by Xifanie, allowing you to edit in-battle triggers for events.  All I did was edit out unnecessary code to make editing easier and allow it to create an XML file for use with FFT OrgASM.  For a Tutorial on how to actually use this spreadsheet, I made a handy one here.

- WORLD MAP 1.00 Editor: Another amazing spreadsheet originally made by Xifanie, allowing you to edit triggers, line draw commands, etc. for the World Map.  All I've done to it is allow it to export to XML in the same manner used by all my other workbooks for use with FFT OrgASM.

- ATTACK.OUT Map, Music, Squad, Etc. Editor:  Sets the Map/Music/Squad Formations/etc. loaded by the game for each corresponding event.  Drop-down boxes make this incredibly easy to handle, unlike its GUI counterpart.  Currently incomplete and missing default settings.

"Status and Multiplier Workbook Compilation"

- Status Coloration Rewrite: Allows you to edit which statuses apply which kinds of colorations to a target, such as Oil's gunking, Poison's green hue, etc. for up to 16 different status effects.  It also allows you to make two status affects that modify the sprite size of thet afflicted unit, modifying its width and height independently in increments of 6.25%.  Note that these are all visual effects, and you'll still need to use other ASMs/etc to actually modify how any status affects gameplay.  Also includes an optional ASM to remove the "Stop" visual from Dark/Evil Looking.

- Terrain Data Editor: Allows you to edit the Move cost of various terrains and which status each terrain inflicts when you stop movement on it.  It also allows you to control which Ability ID is tied to each piece of Terrain as its Geomancy/Counter Flood command.  More details inside, but it's quite robust for what it is.

- Multiplier Editor: Allows you to edit most of the various ability multipliers in the game with a highly accurate X/128 system that applies to that skill's final damage, removing XA rounding.  This includes all the UP skills, Two Hands, Martial Arts, Protect, Shell, Haste, Slow, and Zodiac Compatibility. Oil is still missing but will hopefully be included in a later update.

Last time on Curse of the Viper! - the Desert Cobras went to Canada, Ms. Florance Vie Silette turned out to be an E.F.F. traitor, the remaining COOOOBRRRAAAAAS got their shit pushed it by a man named Lieutenant Rolfe and subsequently by an unknown Black Beast of a Mobile Suit.  Now, having returned to California Base, the Desert Cobra Squadron has been promoted to the Cobra Corps., but with a catch!  Due to their fiasco out in Canada, the stand-in commander is forcing them to play a simulated game of Capture the Flag against an unknown enemy Mobile Suit team without even showing them a preview of the map, and failure to adequately win the scenario will result in termination of the Cobra Corps. and court marshalling of the entire squadron, including the newbie members that were just assigned to them!  Will the COOOOBRRRAAAAAAS be able to defeat their unknown enemy at Capture the Flag, or will they get fragged and tossed aside like worthless pilots?  Find out next time, on Curse of the Viper Z!






----------RPG Background and Overview----------

"Curse of the Viper" is a tactical Forum-based RPG set in the universe of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, in the year 0079 of the Universal Century, where mankind has moved its burgeoning population into tubular space colonies.  A war has been raging between the Earth Federation (E.F.S.F.) and the Principality of Zeon (Zeon) since January 1st of 0079, where Zeon's controlling power - the Zabi Family, began waging a war for independence against the E.F.S.F.  Eight months have past since the war began, and after many atrocities from both sides - including nuclear arms and dropping inhabited colonies onto the Earth, which has destroyed a large section of Australia - over half of humankind's population has been lost, and the Antartic Treaty was signed, prohibiting the use of these tactics for the remainder of the war.  The Zeon faction has gained a leg up in the war with the mass production of their latest weapon - the Mobile Suit - a humanoid work-horse robot measuring about 18 meters in height. Due to Minovski Particles that have made most forms of radar useless during combat, the power of these Mobile Suits in close to mid range combat has been a deciding factor for the 8 months that have passed in the war thus far.  This is all the background history of the Mobile Suit Gundam series you will need to know in order to participate effectively in this RPG.

Players who join the fight will be under the flag of the Principality of Zeon, fighting to win the "Spacenoids" freedom from the oppressive rule of the Earth Federation.  Specifically, they will be fighting in a Mobile Suit Squadron known as the Desert Cobras, an experimental operations team under the command of Atrius Schliend, a cold and methodical man who seeks to achieve the mission above all else.  In terms of gameplay, Atrius Schliend is the GM-controlled squadron leader who will give instructions on how to complete key objectives and help the players stay alive and complete the mission.  However, most turn-by-turn tactics will be left up to the players to decide, with Atrius' movements being decided based on the tactics the players have chosen.  While he is powerful (especially in the early game as you are learning how to play), he is still human - if you play too poorly, he cannot ensure your victory, and he can die.  Remember this is a tactical, teamwork based RPG - no matter how good you are, you're not superhuman, you're not Shinji Ikari, you're not the Megazord, etc.  Keep this in mind.  While there is the potential of characters ejecting from their Mobile Suits upon defeat, a character who dies is lost forever, and that player will need to create a new one, and will not be able to rejoin the game until the next time the Squadron is resupplied.

----------Joining the RPG----------

To join, fill out the below form for your Pilot:

-Name:
-Gender: (Male/Female)
-Age: (15-65)
-Birth Place: (See Maps)
-Appearance / Clothing:
-History / Background:
-Combat Style:

Simple?  No?  Let me give you an example to show you how simple it really is.

Example of Character Creation:

QuoteName: Atrius Schliend
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Birth Place: Taklamakan Desert, original birth place unknown.

Appearance / Clothing: He has darkened skin from a life in the desert, and straight, unruly hair grown out to the base of his neck.  He's commonly seen wearing a thick, tan trench coat, a faded green shirt, and a pair of semi-torn up brown jeans.

History / Background: He was a desert mercenary, living an almost tribal life after an ill-fated childhood.  He rarely talks outside of battle, so little is known about him beyond what they forced him to put on the paperwork to join.  Why an earthling like him has joined the Principality of Zeon against his own kind is unknown. While participating in several early space skirmishes against the E.F.S.F. before being reassigned to Earth, he shot down several enemy battleships using a unique pattern of Bazooka fire said to be like the jaws of a viper quickly closing on their prey.  This is what has earned him his combat title, "The Viper."

Combat Style: A distance fighter, akin to a Sniper.  Specializes in Speed and Long Range.

----------Birth Place Resources----------

Space Colonies - Click to View:
Side 1
Side 2
Side 3 (Zeon Homeland)
Side 4
Side 5
Side 6 (Neutral Territory)
Side 7 (E.F.S.F. Territory)

World Map - Click to View:
-Erm... it's Earth.  Figure it out.

----------Combat and Battle Pane Explanations----------

All combat will be explained in "Battle Panes", a sort of freeze frame or ongoing novelization of each turn as it happens.  The description of each Battle Pane will be the full summary of all the actions taken, the reactions from the enemy, and a situation to work out of for the current Battle Pane.  The map will be presented to the players in the form of an image, that will be painstakingly made by me in Photoshop, showing the locations of the player units, all known enemy units, and giving the players a good idea of what the terrain looks like.  This overview will be updated with each Battle Pane, and should be easy to follow.

During each Battle Pane, a character is allowed a default of 5 Actions that he or she can perform, and also allowed to do things such as communicate over comm-channels, which do not require Actions to perform.  An action is considered things such as:

1. Moving.
2. Switching weapons.
3. Attacking with the equipped weapon.
4. Reloading the equipped weapon.

Note that the concept of Actions is open-ended.  While these are basic ones, what you can actually do during combat is limited only by your imagination.  You can also perform "Combo Actions", which require two Actions but allow you two combine two simple movements into one "Action."  These would be things such as strafing and firing the weapon simultaneously, etc., and again are fully open-ended.

After firing your weapon, next to the action you perform it in, you should note how much ammo is left in your weapon. For weapons such as Machine Guns that have variable fire rates, you should note how much ammo you shot, as well. This saves me tons of work.

When moving in a Mobile Suit, you should remember that there is no distance cap per action.  However, moving farther in a single action will delay how long it takes for your next action to trigger (as should be logical, since moving farther takes longer).  Note that there are also 3 types of Movement - Standard Movement, Booster Dashing, and Booster Jumping. Standard Movement is standard - walking or running with the Mobile Suit.  Boost Dashing is a quick dash using the boosters (duh) that quickly propels you up to four spaces, unless the machine specifies otherwise. However, a Boost Dashing takes a moment to begin, making it risky in close quarters, and the higher speed makes it far harder to turn and weave. It is  great for evasive maneuvers such as strafing but weaker for crossing larger sections of the map.  Booster Jumping is a type of movement only available on Earth and maps with gravity - put simply, the main boosters are used to launch the unit airborne until the end of the Battle Pane.  This has many obvious advantages, but takes the longest to initiate and can only be used a set number of times between resupplies, so it must be used sparingly.

----------Terrain Explanations----------

There are several different base terrains that combat can take place in.  While each map will have its own features and obstacles to overcome, all maps will follow one of the four following baselines:

Space Combat: This is a 360* battle, set in the void of space.  Enemies can come at you from all sides, and you have to be aware in order to survive.  This type of combat does not affect how your Mobile Suit operates aside from it not being on solid ground.

Lunar Combat: This is a ground-based battle with a twist. The low gravity forces you to fight as if on earth, and doubles the maximum high attainable by your Mobile Suit's boosting system.  The ease of Mobile Suits to stay airborne in this terrain combined with the usually large amounts of outcroppings to hide behind will generally lead to a plethora of unique situations and strategical opportunities.  It is not uncommon for a Mobile Suit that Booster Jumps in these conditions to stay airborne for multiple Battle Panes if it jumps high enough, allowing for pseudo-air combat.

Surface Combat: Combat on Earth. This is basic combat under the normal pull of the earth's gravity.  This combat type has no negative effects on your Mobile Suit, aside from being weighed down by gravity.  Air combat is possible in this terrain, but Mobile Suits not specifically designed for flight on Earth will fall back to the ground at the end of the Battle Pane.

Undersea Combat: This is the hardest type of combat to be engaged in.  Pilots that are not acclimated to this type of combat are far weaker under these conditions.  All non-amphibious Mobile Suits are also far slower and suffer HP drain underwater.  Depending on the type of Mobile Suit being piloted, this type of battle will resemble either a Space battle or a Surface battle, creating interesting dynamics that leave Amphibious suits at a heavy advantage.

----------Range Explanations----------

There are several different combat ranges. These include Proximal, Short, Medium, Long, and Extreme.  The effect these ranges have on combat depends on the terrain.

Proximal: A melee attack.  This range is unaffected by environment.  In game terms, this Range is 1 Square anywhere around the unit, including diagonally.

Close: Close range, but not close enough for a Proximal weapon to cause damage. This range is unaffected by environment. In game terms, this Range is 3 Squares in a diamond around the unit.

Medium: An average combat distance that most weapons function at. This is the same as Long range when located in [Space] and [Lunar] environments, due to the lowered gravity. In game terms, this Range is 4-12 Squares in a diamond around the unit.

Long: A far range that only certain weapons can function at. This is the same as Medium range when located in [Space] and [Lunar] environments, due to the lowered gravity. In game terms, this Range is 13-20 Squares in a diamond around the unit.

Extreme: A range for [Space] and [Lunar] battles only, that can only be attained by battleship cannons and beam rifles. These weapons can hit units far beyond the normal range of weapons.


----------Mobile Suit and Weapon Selection----------

Obviously, this is a mecha based tactical RPG, so we need mecha.  When initially joining, each player will have 300 points at their disposal, with which to "buy" a starting machine and a gear loadout.  These points carry over, and are used for changing or upgrading mechas, changing weapons, etc., so there is benefit to being stingy.  However, being too stingy can get you and possibly the whole party killed - so be sure you're confident in your loadout.

The Zaku series of Zeon Mobile Suits use a "Clamp" based system to hold things such as weapons and ammunition on their machines, in addition to what is held normally in either hand.  See the bottom-right supplementary image of the Zaku I (click!) for an example of clamps in action.  Since that picture should say all that needs to be said, let's move on to the meat - our mechs and our guns.  Click the name of each mecha or gun for a visual.  It should be noted that all weapons besides the Heat Hawk and Knuckle Shield can be doublehanded to increase accuracy, so you may not want to fill both of your Mobile Suit's hands with weapons.  You must also have a suitable empty clamp or hand to place a weapon on/into when changing between weapons, else the weapon being switched from will be dropped, so keep this in mind as well. Info on available Mobile Suits, Weapons, and Upgrades can be found here.

Example of Mobile Suit Selection:

Quote[Character Info Here.]

MS-06C Zaku II Early Production Type

Cost: 180 points.

HP: 40
Speed: 12
Armor: 12
Booster Speed: 25
Booster Jump Fuel: 2
Clamp Count: 3
Clamp Locations: 1 on the side of each hip, 1 under the booster pack.
Special Properties:
--Shield Right: Right Shoulder Armor can be used as a Shield.
--Spike Left: Left Shoulder Armor can be used as a spiked ramming instrument against enemy Mobile Suits.
Usability:
[Space/Lunar/Surface/Undersea]

Built in Armaments:
None.

Right Hand: 280mm Bazooka - Cost: 70 points.
Left Hand: None - Doublehanding 280mm Bazooka.
Clamp Equipment:
--Right Hip Clamp: 105mm Machine Gun - Cost: 50 points.
--Left Hip Clamp: None.
--Back Hip Clamp: None.

Total Cost: 300 Points.

I'm making a separate thread for my Job Discussions now because, despite my best efforts to scrounge every character I could while still maintaining highly detailed notes, I hit the character limit.  The Damned will surely mock me now.

For those not in-the-know, this thread is for discussion of the various Jobs that will appear in Final Fantasy Tactics: Redesign I intend to list many "returning" Special Jobs and Monsters in addition to the Generic Jobs once I've sorted those out, hence why I decided to make a second thread instead of hijacking some other post in my main thread.  For a quick overview, each Generic Job has a specific role and/or focus it conforms to in terms of stats, skills, etc., so redundant skills are minimized and very niche and situational Jobs like Necromancer are disfavored.  I still have 3 empty Job slots though for anyone who would like to submit some sort of idea now that the breakdowns for most of the Jobs I've already planned have been revealed.

Opening Notes

Unless otherwise specified, any formula involving WP and/or with "Weapon Range" set also has "Weapon Strike" set, meaning it strikes twice with Two Swords.

Classes follow a 2 Reaction, 2 Support Skill setup as closely as possible.  Reactions and Supports that a typical Final Fantasy Tactics may regard as "weak" on the Vanilla game are intentionally placed on early Jobs to encourage use and explore their new potential from skillset and mechanical changes.  Currently unused Reactions and Supports are:



For those looking to actually compute out stats, remember that Growths are:

HP - 10
MP - 10
PA - 50
MA - 50
SP - 255

Squire
Basic, technically mixed class with low stats but an unrivaled equipment pool. Contains basic combat skills and a variety of Fury, Will, and CT augmenting perservering skills focused around the user, making it a great buffing skillset.



Empty Job Slot 1
Currently Unused.  Feel free to suggest something!

Empty Job Slot 2
Currently Unused.  Feel free to suggest something!



Ranger (Archer)
Mixed class with no slant, using Bows and Crossbows with Shields. This class is swift, its most defining skills being magic-based elemental weapon strikes and the powerful Oil Bomb.



Monk
Physical based class with affinity to fisticuffs. It focuses on physical Wind and Earth skills, mixing damage and healing to be an all-around solid unit despite its inability to equip any form of headgear.



Priest (White Mage)
Magical based class focused on healing and buffing, touting decent health and the second highest mana pool. Its skill pool is the only one to contain such a wide spread of healing and supporting skills, and Holy Element allows their effectiveness to be further boosted.



Wizard (Black Mage)
Magical based class focused on raw, single-target damage. Modifications to the Will mechanic make tiered spells unnecessary, so this version contains a unique spell of each of the six offensive elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Dark) along with the Non-Elemental Flare Spell.



Dimensionalist (Time Mage)
Magical based class focused on distorting turn order and movement ability. It also contains weak, Non-Elemental damage spells that cover a large area the highest Speed of the Spellcasters, making its skillset one of two that is great for anti-sandbagging.



Summoner
Magical based class focused on both support and damage that covers obscene ranges, often the entire screen, and spanning most Elements.  Actual output is some of the lowest of any skillset, as its main draw is culminative damage/healing/buffing over an extreme area instead of large damage on one or two targets.



Thief
Physical based class that fights with either a pair of Daggers or a Crossbow and Shield. Focus is using swiftness to debuff the enemy via a combination of gear theft and status, as well as using the Mug command to help keep the team coffers buffered.



Empty Job Slot 3
Currently Unused.  Feel free to suggest something!

Oracle
Magical based class with some physical competence. Highest HP among casters, to the point it can function as a tanking, frontline mage.  Uses single-target status magic to debuff enemies in a menagerie of ways before taking them on toe-to-toe.



Dragoon (Lancer)
Physical based class that focuses on armor and high speed over power. Carries a large number of defensive weapon-based techniques as well as the health-sapping Lancet skill, making it a great choice for a proper tank unit.



Samurai
Mixed class with no slant, containing some of the highest physical and magical output among generic classes at the cost of most other stats. Skillset is based on the A2 Parivir, wielding physical-based weapon skills across most of the games elements, dealing above-normal damage and often carrying status.



Ninja
Physical based class that can carry magic well with the help of Spell Edges. Uses Will-based "magic" sourcing physical power and self-buffs that better help killing opponents. Unique in that combining it with Equip Heavy Blade and Monkeygrip allows it to use double Katana, a scary trait given Katana's high base WP, powerful beneficial effects, and solid evasion.



Knight
Physical based class with high power and HP, but low mobility and speed. Can also make an effective tank, though its skillset consists only of weapon-based debuffs that shatter positive status or gear as well as the Shatter Leg skill, allowing it to keep enemies in range and debuff them to helpless levels and outlast them via superior HP.



Animalist (Blue Mage)
Mixed class with a slant to magic power. Able to equip an odd menagerie of weapons in Swords, Sticks, and Guns, it can only learn skills by being on the wrong end of them.  One skill can be learned from each of the 16 primary monster breeds, giving it the largest primary skillset of any unit in the game.



Mime
Your typical FFT Mime with shuffled innates and slightly different stats.

Introducing - Final Fantasy Tactics: Redesign.

What is this?  

This is my other, once secret, "serious" project that is being developed in parallel to the (in)famous Final Fantasy Tactics - Special Power Rangers Edition. In fact, these two projects will be sharing the same basic game engine for a number of reasons I won't get into here.  Originally, this post was never to come until a full, four-Chapter demo was ready to be released, but recent steps in Assembly knowledge combined with the aforementioned infamous project have all but assured this will be completed, so I have no problems with announcing this project relatively early.

(Don't think that because I call this "serious" that Power Rangers won't be amazing as fuck.  Ohhh, I have plans for that which will break almost everyone's expectations, I'm quite sure...)

What will this project feature?  What's so "Redesign"ed about it?

...Pretty much everything, honestly. I'll give a quick notation of each new mechanic below.  It should be noted that this patch seeks for a large amount of "fair" difficulty - it may be gruelingly hard sometimes, but this will be achieved with as few instances of the AI having special gifts as possible.  It also seeks for balance, removing as many exploits as possible and rebalancing all classes and the game's entire scaling and damage curve.









I'm not sure when you can expect a demo on this.  Once FDC's Formula Hack is complete, assembling most of this project will be trivial outside of text and ENTD editing as most of the design-level work is already done, though finishing a playable version of the Power Rangers mod will likely come first.  Them sharing the same basic engine though will make finishing both projects easy once the basic ability and text changes are complete.

I have finished sheets for a lot of the older R999 sprites once I put 5 minutes of color correction work into them. (A lot of the ones that look 99% done are done but have palettes mixed up so some pieces aren't visible.)

Once I fix that I was going to try and mangle portraits together for them since a lot of them are just headswaps with some edits and I know all the materials from first hand experience, but I'm pretty incompetent.  I can always do the color correction and get a base portrait mangled together though and give it to someone competent to make it look presentable if anyone's interested in doing that.  It wouldn't be more than a night of work if there's someone willing to add the polish if I do the grunt.  (Phantom, Hunters, Gladiators, and I think a few others can be 100%'d easily like this.)  

The others like the Hermits I think would be a bit harder to complete since the sheets weren't 100%, but they're still definitely worth completing.  If someone's going to do the polishing, I'm more than willing to do the grunting, sex jokes notwithstanding.

Male Cadet looks like a decent if simple concept, but I agree with Cheetah that the individual parts need some polishing now that you've got a working concept in mind.