Final Fantasy Hacktics

Does this formula still require monster talk to hit monsters?

I know this is old but I just tested timtool on Windows 10 and it works great.

I just wanted to let you know that the Alternate Permadeath Hack conflicts with the Sound Test Hack. Is there any way you could change that?

Since monsters have such limited versatility, would it be overpowered to give them all non-charge?

Quote from: nyzer on November 12, 2016, 03:48:01 pm
Overall, you shouldn't change things for the sake of change. "Dorter, Trade City" works just fine; there's no reason to replace it with Merchant.

Then, using the sword skills as an example - I can see why you might want to remove "punch" from the skill names (it's being done with a sword after all), but why are the changes so extensive? There's nothing wrong with Stasis Sword, especially considering it procs Stop. Why change Lightning Stab to Lightning Thrust?

You're on track to one of the major problems with the WotL translation - they changed a lot of things just for the sake of change. Even if something sounds slightly better to you after the change, it's still going to be ridiculously jarring to the people who played the original. I mean, people hated the change from Aeris to Aerith, and that's a much smaller one.

For a counter example, Stigma Magic to Purify makes sense, and is worth the change.

Finally - looking at your monk and swordskill changes, it looks like you're setting up names that have nothing to do with either translation. If you really have to fix a bad FFT name, changing it so far away from the FFT name - use the WotL one. Neither FFT nor WotL players are going to recognize "Surge Attack", and that's not a good thing.

I agree that changes should not be made for the sake of change. However, one of the goals of this patch is to eliminate awkwardly translated elements of the original release. So, I'll be changing the port and merchant cities back to trade cities.

As far as the monk and swordskills are considered, those extensive name changes are based on the literal translation from the Japanese text they are based upon. Here are the literal translations of the original moves.

Spin Fist = Reverse Spinning Fist
Repeating Fist = Continuous Fist
Secret Fist = Concealed Fist
Wave Fist = Wave Motion Strike
Earth Slash = Earth Fury Slash
Stigma Magic = Stoma Arts
Revive = Resurrection
Stasis Sword = Unmoving Lightless Sword   
Split Punch = Chaotic Life-Severing Killing Strike
Crush Punch = North Star Bone-Crushing Strike
Lightning Stab = Peerless Lightning-Flash Thrust
Holy Explosion = Holy Light Explosive Break
Shellbust Stab = Strong Armor-Piercing Point Thrust
Blastar Punch = Starry Heaven Bombing Strike
Hellcry Punch = Hades Terror Scream Strike
Icewolf Bite = Biting Ice Wolf Break

The problem with Final Fantasy Tactics is the same with most early rpg releases. The English translation and localization is generally rushed and usually only given one or two quick passes.

While I myself am not bilingual I am at least vaguely familiar with how translation works. It's not enough to simply literally translate one language to the next. It has to be localized as well or else you can end up with nonsense.

Let's look at Secret Fist. It's translated from 秘孔拳 or Hikōken. If you toss it into a literal translator you'll probably get a phrase similar to Secret Hole Punches. The closest literal localization is Concealed Fist; so its meaning is lost. Most of the western world however is very familiar with the Wuxia concept of dim mak or death touch as it's more commonly known.

While my new goals include not changing things just for the sake of change, after reading the literal translations for most of the abilities, the original release's leave me wanting, particularly the sword skills. Also, if I just left everything the same this wouldn't be much of a translation.

That said, I welcome any and all suggestions, especially if you speak English and Japanese, Chinese, or both.

In my current draft I've kept all of the original Location save one. Though, I've changed some of their embellishments. Now instead of names like "Dorter Trade City" you'll see names like "Dorter, Merchant City", Warjilis, Port City", and "Goug, Clockwork City". I would be willing to drop the embellishments in favor of the original ones if people are interested in that. Originally, I elected to keep Sal Ghidos in favor of Zarghidas because it creates sense of greater cultural diversity in Ivalice, and Midlight's Deep in favor of the deep dungeon because I liked it better. That said, before the original post, I'd all ready reversed my decision about the Deep Dungeon and after reading your post I'll be reversing my decision on Zarghidas as well.

For the most part I've been basing my decisions on naming conventions based on comparing the literal translation from the Final Fantasy Wiki, running them through both Bing and Google's translators, web searching the original text, and then localizing them myself. The hardest things to localize were the monk's abilities and the swordskills and I would welcome some criticism.

Monk Skills

Spinning Fist became Spinning Back Fist
Repeating Fist became Pummel
Wave Fist became Surge Attack
Secret Fist became Death Touch
Stigma Magic became Purify


Sword Skills

Stasis Sword became Unwavering Blade
Split Punch became Life-Severing Strike (after begrudingly letting go of Parting Strike)
Crush Punch became North Star Strike
Lightning Stab became Lightning Thrust
Holy Explosion became Heavenly Blast
Shellbust Stab became Shellbust Thrust
Blastar Punch became Starburst Strike
Hellcry Punch became Hellscream Strike (though I'm very much open to Hellcry Strike)
Icewolf Bite became Biting Icewolf Break

As some of you know, my current project is implementing a new script for Final Fantasy Tactics. It's based off of an alternate translation that aims fix the wonkiness of the original script without going over the top with faux-Shakespearean dialogue. Basically, I'm trying to clean it up and class it up a bit.

Patch Goals

  1. Implement a new script that improves upon the original without the flagrant overembellishments and errors of War of the Lions.
  2. Update naming conventions to current Final Fantasy standards.
  3. Provide a patch that can be used as a base for other patches.
  4. Avoid change just for the sake of change.

Unfortunately, because I don't know ASM, I'm faced with some limitations regarding naming conventions. I can choose between Vanilla's FRAME.bin & WLDTEX.tm2 or the lengths of names used in War of the Lions. I chose the latter, which means that the game will have current Final Fantasy status effect names but in exchange a couple locations names had to be shortened. For example Murond Holy Place became St. Murond, Bethla Garrison became Fort Bethla, and Bariaus Valley became Bariaus Vale.

The thing I'm struggling with is how to separate the iconic from the nostalgic. Obviously lines like " l i t t l e  m o n e y" have to go and lines like "Blame yourself or God" need to stay but naming conventions make things feel a little trickier. While I guarantee almost everyone prefers Algus to Argath, Rad to Ladd, and Magic to Magicks, there are probably other names that are more contested like Balbanes to Barbaneth, Malak to Marach, Barinten to Barrington, or Aeris to Aerith godsakes. Which is why I'm asking for feedback.

Are there any if WotL naming conventions that you prefer?

Click here for reference:http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Tactics/Translations

One thing I've noticed is there are a lot of Weapon Strike and Oil Fixes. I'm not sure which ones to use. Would anyone care to make a suggestion?

I want to delete hair adornments and create a new type of headgear? Where are the "Item Type" graphics located and how can I edit them?

These are great! I'll use that Dolbodar map for sure. Once upon a time Xifanie gave me some map files that were supposed to turn on the lights in the Deep Dungeon but they didn't work. You should consider looking into that.

Well said.

Quote from: Enoch on October 14, 2016, 05:00:27 pm
The update sounds like it has a lot of interesting changes that will be fun to explore.

I'm not sure if anything can be done, but one other thing I noticed when I was playing recently that seemed like a bug concerns enemies in the Deep Dungeon who were previously allied with the player. They're able to trigger exits for the player's team.

For example, on one of the first Deep Dungeon levels (maybe the first), Algus was among the enemies. While Algus was moving around, he landed on the trigger square and kindly opened up the next level for my people.

I bet changing his Unit ID would fix the problem.

I continue to be impressed with your creativity and your ability to reinvent the wheel. Bravo sir.

With Regards to the changes:

Ramza: I've done similar things with Ramza's skills in my personal patches but nothing this intricate or organized. Making him an onion knight as well is icing on a very tasty cake.

Monsters: Again, I've done something similar to this in the past. I've made sure that each monster family had a specific function with a minor variation between specific monsters. You've taken this idea to it's extreme and it's brilliant.

Deep Dungeon: Your changes to the deep dungeon are flavorful and fun. Bringing back the unique items without having to search around for them in the dark is much more fun.

I had planned to release a different vanilla patch with many of the same mechanical changes that included a new translation. Rather, than going back to the drawing board, I'm going to discontinue the mechanical changes altogether and solely focus on the translation. Personally, I believe KO is the definitive vanilla FFT experience. Great work.

Quote from: BleuVII on October 09, 2016, 04:10:07 pm
Holy Crikes guys! Aren't we all here because we love the same game? I have never, in my life, seen such animosity in a group where everyone is gathered because of a common interest.

So let's just state two things clearly:
(1) I like the WotL script. I played the original FFT back when I was in high school and college, and I found the story hard to follow. I don't have examples of mistranslations except for spell names because I haven't PLAYED the PSX version in over a decade. I just have memories, accurate or not, where I sat staring at the screen saying, "Huh. I bet that actually sounded good in Japanese." When I played the WotL script, I found it stylistic, nuanced, and immersive. You can disagree with me on this. I have nothing to prove.

(2) I'm not planning on learning ASM for this project. I have great respect for those of you that do it, but aside from the one thing that I started this topic about, the rest of my vision is accomplished without it. I have nothing against it; it's just a level of immersion that is outside the current scope of my project plan. You guys would look at this and consider it a lesser project, and you would be right on that. I'm not TRYING to make Journey of the Five. I'm trying to rebalance the vanilla version. If I try to make everything absolutely perfect, I'm never going to finish it.

I am glad you have pointed me towards the patches that add in the WotL script, and that added the WotL events in the game. I am looking into those to see if I can use a combination of the two to go back to the PSX version, because I really would like to use more of the tools that you have here without the headaches of the PSP version. WHEN I AM DONE WITH MY OWN PERSONAL PLAYTHROUGH, WHICH I AM DOING ON FRIGGIN PSP BECAUSE I'M ALREADY FRIGGIN FINISHED WITH IT AND 25% OF THE WAY THROUGH THE GAME, I will do the cleanup on my project and port the changes to the PSX version.

Finally, as someone who is here because of a common, shared interest, I have realized in reading back through this thread that your mind equates board games with things like Monopoly, Candy Land, and Sorry, which is why you think experience in one field has nothing to do with the other. Most designers these days look at those games the same way a modern developer looks at Pac-Man and Donkey Kong... the place where it all started, but not something to emulate. Almost a quarter of us got into modern board games BECAUSE of either FFT or Fire Emblem. If nothing else, just look up Krosmaster Arena and Pixel Tactics. Neither are my games, so this isn't self-promotion, but both games were made by people who love Tactical JRPGs, and it shines through in every card.

I will agree that people are very sensitive about their love of the original version and that some of the more important members of the community tend to single out and humiliate members of the community that don't see things their way. However, for the most part, they are right. The original version is far superior to the WotL version and when you add in all of the work that has been put into the original version from this community there really isn't a comparison. The only thing I actually disagree with them on is that I believe the original translation is inferior to the WotL translation. I will however admit that both translations suck and that which version is best comes down to a matter of personal preference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherub

The traditional cherubim were not winged babies.

Personally, I like Mist and Sap

Quote from: Xifanie on June 17, 2016, 10:19:27 am
I don't know, if it weren't for the story, I wouldn't give a damn about FFT. Look at Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, awesome game, SRPG as well, but the battle system is minimal and the battles are easy. Why would I care? The story is awesome and cute and emotional. So I really have to strongly disagree on the whole "gameplay comes before story".

This.

Quote from: Emmy on June 16, 2016, 10:07:19 pm
If you're wanting to change that, you'll still need to learn basics of eventing because every place where people talk requires new text.  Adding new side quests would also require learning eventing.

I am fully aware that this is event editing at it's most basic level. This is precisely why I'm doing it. I've made good patches before, but I've never made a great patch. I can't find time to take on a massive project and dedicate countless hours of my life to this. That time doesn't belong to me, it belongs to my children. I can however, take on smaller more incremental projects with smaller learning curves like the one I'm doing that add to my slowly growing list of skills.

I don't like to practice just for the sake of practice. If I'm going to dedicate a large block of my time, I need something to show for it. A translation patch is just that, it's a beginning primer to event editing that has actual value. Adding a little bit more to it will actually force me to spread my wings a bit and when that's done, I'll have a much better concept of what you can do with event editing and how much planning it would take to do bigger and bigger projects. Ideally, I would continue to expand upon this patch but that's too far down the road for me to plan.

This is an elementary attempt at learning how to make events. However, I'm not going to plan a whole game around event editing before leaning the basics. I don't like wasted effort. Editing the script and existing stuff comes first. Once that's done I plan to modify a few existing events in small ways to set up one or two new side events in chapter 3 or 4 depending on whether I have to move everything around to do so. Nothing grandiose.

However, once TLW is out, I'll probably merge my patch with it and start adding in more substantial side quests and such since that patch will fully restructure the game's events and set me up for success. Again, since the plan is to improve the existing game, I'd rather create incremental changes over time.

Furthermore, I know exactly what I plan to do. However, it would probably be best to get some basic information people's likes and dislikes about the game before i waste all of my effort going in the wrong direction. Just let me be clear, this isn't the announce my project thread. I probably won't do that until it's complete.

The big idea here is adding a new, not WotL, translation that won't divide the community. All the other stuff is secondary.

Quote from: Xifanie on June 16, 2016, 08:06:16 pm
Yay! Another vanilla mod! We really needed that.

Based on the number of negative interactions we've had over the years, I feel like it's a safe bet that you're trolling me. Don't you realize that bullying makes you look bad? As the head of this community a poor reflection on you hurts everyone and drives people away.

Furthermore sarcasm doesn't work with text. It requires tone of voice, body language, or an emoji at the very least. That said, if I'm wrong I'll gladly apologize for misinterpreting your intent, because there is nothing I'd like more than for our petty squabbling to end and eventually be replaced by a genuine friendship.