Final Fantasy Hacktics

Oh, good. I dont't have to wait for someone else to postlike I thought I would have. I hate double posting, so I was going to wait until otherwise to report in.

So far, I've logged in about an hour and a half in your patch, Lydyn--ePSXe says otherwise, though, since I have it sped it up to high hell AND frame-skipping. The patch is...interesting, though I haven't even gotten past Mandalia Plains since I was trying to get Gained JP UP and Move +1 AND Zougeiro Mage.

Speaking of Zougeiro Mage, I think that's my only major gripe with the patch so far: not being able to heal (outside of suicidal Wish) until you get Zougeiro Mage, which you won't have for at least the first two battles. Hell, I almost lost at Mandalia, twice, because Ramza has died and then almost crystallized twice. You might want to switch out all Items from the first Chapter, especially since Alchemist is the last obtainable class, and move all Mantles up so that you don't get Rushed to death, especially from behind.

My opinion on Rush is somewhat ambivalent: It's rather useful, but perhaps it's too useful for Squires, at least so early on. I mean, with Best compatibility, I'm pretty sure you can OHKO (and get OHKO'd by) the computer with Rush at Magic Gariland City, which means you're forced to pretty much have someone crystallize since you can't raise anyone until after Igros. (It's pretty difficult to slow down the battle when no one has any means of healing [without damaging themselves].)

Rush working with distance weapons like Crossbow also kind of weirds me out because, to paraphase Skip Sandwich, crossbows shouldn't gain more power by having their trigger hit really hard. (Longbows, yeah, but Guns and Crossbows, no.)

With regards to other "Basic Skill" (I'm also kind of annoyed at having to keep thread open to know what I'm actually using, but that's relatively minor), we talked about the Throw Stone already, though it seems like you boosted the damage anyway in the way that LastingDawn did. (Or at least I seem to be doing more damage than I remember ever doing with Throw Stone early on barring Accumulate BS.)

I would also like to mention that it seems rather pointless to make Heal have the Water Element when there's no way for it to be strengthened--at least, I'm assuming it's still 100% because I haven't had to use so far. Maybe you could make it so that it actually heals a bit too since that would help mitigate getting rushed down (horrible double pun not intended) while not allowing you to be as careless as items sometimes allow.

Outside of that, I haven't really done anything with the other classes yet.

However, I did notice, when I opened your patch with FFTPatcher see if the names have changed, that for Holy Wind and Holy Fire, you kept the AI Behavior as Target Allies and Learn on Hit, which I don't think you would want (or at least I assume you don't want since both do damage and both of those behaviors are left over from when they were Protect 2 and Shell 2).

I think that's it for now, outside me asking what I probably should have asked already: When do Lich monsters start showing up if I may know?


(P.S. With regards to Magic Gariland City Academy scene, the male Chemist-made-Squire changes back when turning his head to face Delita. The female Chemist looks like hodgepodge between female Chemist and male Samurai until she turns to move, which is when she transforms into her "appropriate" new sprite.

Also, now that I remembered it, you might want to get rid of Weapon Guard if everyone seems to have it Innate already. Defend would be a good replacement if you didn't mind moving it down.)

Yeah, I remember you (?) having this problem with assigning Dark to Demi or something similar. It's not surprising, just something I noted, especially since I felt that Throw Stone being Earth was a sensible decision on Lydyn's part and something that I would probably mimic.

Hmm...I was just playing around with my "Blood Suck" "patch" and discovered that apparently if you try to add an Element, like say Earth in your patch, to Throw Stone, it doesn't seem to take.

I'm not sure how to fix it if you want to, though thankfully it's not something major.

(If you're curious, I tested this by changing Throw Stone to Earth in FFTPatcher like you did and then making it so that Earth Clothes are available from the start. I used Throw Stone on Ramza with Earth Clothes on and he was predicted to take damage instead of being healed.)

I actually already knew that from what Lydyn had said, but he wasn't sure about Item, so I just decided to check out it for him.

I think I've thought of a way or two to circumvent it, but that takes testing on my (for some reason) sluggish desktop.

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Normal/<Default> EDIT: Okay, so making Item go to <Default> just causes the same problems for everyone. Maybe I have to make all Items to Normal then too....

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Normal/Normal EDIT: Damn. It seems like changing Items to Normal doesn't change a thing either. I was expecting it to pseudo-work except that Items wouldn't be taken out of the inventory like they're supposed to be.

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Normal/Item Inventory EDIT: Okay, so it seems that even if you change them to Normal, Items work normally as long as Item itself has Item Inventory attached to it. It still won't work as part of none Item Skillsets though, so I'm beginning to think the Unknown Boxes have something to do with it if there is anything in FFTPatcher at all.

(I didn't check to see if stock was affected like I should have.)

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Unknown EDIT: So unchecking that one box didn't work and the two other Unknown boxes near don't do exactly what I thought they would do in and of themselves apparently. Hmm...this will probably take longer than I want to do today since I want to clean my room.

Anyway, the only headway made after that (and before I took a nap) was double-checking Lasting Dawn's test (that Blood Suck can still be spread without A7 and that you can still un-Frog yourself with Frog after A8 has been deleted, even if you're giving Starting Status: Frog--I'm guessing Innate status prevent that though) and then messing around with a bit with the Vampire version of Blood Suck.

Interestingly enough, the Vampire version of Blood Suck isn't evadable like it says. It also doesn't add Blood Suck automatically like the formula says it should (since it uses the same formula as Blood Suck Blood Suck--perhaps I should just say Elmdor Blood Suck) and instance does the 25% chance thing like I remember, which interestingly enough makes it physically counterable.

I didn't check to see if the transmission rate was 100% like with Elmdor's Blood Suck, but I will probably do that tomorrow. (Maybe in another thread by then if so necessary.)

If you still need beta testers, Lydyn, then I should be available for awhile.

It depends on how far you would want me to go.

You could also just try to play around with % that A.I. learns things depending on what particular skillset you're using, though I'm sure you already know that.

Hmmm...I'm currently not at my desktop so I guess that isn't anything else to add outside of being more specific about that unfortunate Item instance:


When I tried to use Potion in my generic Squire's menu, it would flash red as if not in stock, even though I had 5~, and say that it had it would take a turn to activate instead of being instant like they are now.


I wonder what part of the code this calls on that we would have to replace/manipulate.


(Also, if anyone didn't know, apparently Panthers use their Cat Kick animations for Reaction animations that aren't physical Counters. [Or at least it did for Speed Save.] It's oddly cute.)

I guess I'll report what I found before I go to bed even though my findings are far from complete with regards to Blood Suck status, even though this technically isn't the correct thread for it.

For my first Test patch, I used human Blood Suck and let all Squires have it as well while being thoughtful enough for once to make Ramza and Ch. 1 guesses innately immune and making 108 Gems available from the start, cost 1 Gil, and give me broken stats. (Thank you Item Attribute.)

It seems like having to access to Blood Suck makes the afflicted act differently, as I vaguely remember in 1.0, on the Elmdor fight (a.k.a. the only time you ever run into Blood Suck in the entire game) that when infected you, your character would Teleport to move even if they didn't have Teleport and would try to attack someone ever turn that they were in range, even if they were on your team and already turned.

Well...with regards to enemies at the very first battle of the game (after the Prologue), they seemed to largely avoid going after each other after the initial bite--one of them bit the other again, but they largely avoided each other--and the Teleport aspect never happened.

It may be just be my faulty memory that those things actually occurred in 1.0, though.

Other than that, the only other Blood Suck thing I got to test was on monsters. I undid Chocobos, Panthers, and Goblins immunity to Blood Suck to see if monsters made immune to Blood Suck because it glitched them somehow...but all three took to Blood Suck and were able to Blood Suck me back, so I'm guessing it was just some throwaway thing that got added in since you never access to Blood Suck unless you have an Invited Vampire (Cat) and are standing next to it with Monster Skill.

Similarly, with Blood Suck being controlled now, battles seem to glitch a bit if you win by having the (remaining) units Blood Sucked as the enemy units don't disappear. This could be potentially hiliarious at Aldramelk and possibly game crashing at Bethla Garrison, but I'm not going to nearly that far.

I'll probably just switch to the Vampire version of Blood Suck next and see if that has any different effects. I'll maybe even try to edit the ENTD so that I have access to all types of monsters at Mandalia, but I doubt it.

(Oh, and since I was bugging Lydyn about it, I tested Item in another class, Squire in this case. It looks like Item is the same as Throw, Jump, and Draw Out: it simply won't work for other classes.

That's rather annoying considering what I wanted to do with my potential patch.)

Quote from: "LastingDawn"I have tested them and it appears to make no visible impact... a good theory, but it didn't seem to go through.

So basically the Blood Sucked people can still add Blood Suck to others and Frogged people can still un-Frog themselves with Black Magic even if both A7 and A8 are deleted? That's good to know.

I'm curious, though. Did you use the original Inflicted Status codes in FFTPatcher when testing them? Or did you already make changes and then test them?

I'm just asking to ask since I can't really think of anything that changes since I know the Blood Suck (Blood Suck) has 100% of adding Blood Suck and the Vampire one has only a 25% (IIRC, at least in 1.0), so I'm pretty sure that the former is what Blood Suckers use anyway.

Hmm...that makes me curious, though, about what would happen if you got rid of the human Blood Suck and used only the Vampire Blood Suck.

I guess I should test that out considering that I'm curious about another potential Blood Suck anomaly anyway.

(It's currently looking like I'll have ample time tonight.)

Quote from: "Voldemort7"You are both really slow individuals.

Guilty...as charged.

*Heat Drives Voldemort7*


Anyway, I completely forgot that Blood Sucked people use Blood Suck, probably because I usually try and avoid the status if I can. Same with Frog, of course.

I suppose that's a valid argument, though it seems like it would be rather easy to test out, which is what made me think that it was superfluous alongside the other repeat ones since no one has apparently tested out yet.

(To test it out, all you would have to do is get rid of A7 and A8, apply Blood Suck and Frog respectively, the former to others and the latter to yourself, and then see what happens.)

As for the stuff on the ability page, those are actually bad examples of superfluous code since almost ALL of those are necessary outside of the Crashes Game stuff (maybe). I'm a neophyte at coding, but even I know that a default state (the 00 on all the pages) is necessary.

As for other blanks spots on the ability page, I noticed rather easily the first time opening FFTPatcher that those are actually use for in-game cutscene actions like summoning Demons or Altima or whatever. The animations kind of tell you exactly what they're used for, so those are obviously not superfluous.

If I get the time tonight, I'll try and test out the A7 and A8 things myself since I was going to test out a few other things as well (if I get the time).

I'll see after I get back from the dentist.

Quote from: "Zozma"k, well this doesnt really belong here but...

skillsets A7 and A8
A7 has only the skill "Blood suck" and A8 has only the skill "Frog"

To mimic what Lydyn said and looking over it myself right now on FFTPatcher, they just seem like superfluous code since they're not even named and they're the only statuses that get they're own "skillsets".

A lot of the unnamed skillsets towards the end are just reproductions of skillets from the beginning like Dragoner's or Temple Knight's or a complete version of Fear. It's probably just more stuff that Square left in the game that didn't get used that they didn't delete since no one in his right mind would want to look at the code.  

Finally, considering the Blood Suck that Elmdor uses is doubtless named, meaning it's the 3F one, and considering that the Vampire (Cat) Blood Suck, the only other attack in the game able to cause Blood Suck at all, uses a different Inflict Status code than Elmdor's Blood Suck, Elmdor's cannot be the controller of the Vampire's.

(Besides, the whole separate existence of the Inflict Status codes in FFTPatcher makes this all more certain.)

Haha. I just spent about an hour and a half cataloging what goes where before seeing that Zodiac already did it; I forgot about that.

Anyway, it wasn't a total bust since it was a learning experience.

Oh, I guess there is one thing: 42 and 43 in the first post should be switched since Water Ball comes before Hell Ivy the statuses are listed in FFT Patcher as All Frog before All Stop.

Other than that, I didn't see any discrepancies.

I'm pretty sure that Charm enemies doesn't make take from or add to your various inventories since in the 11 Archer battle I had at Zirekile Falls, towards the end of the battle, one of the Charmed female Archers started to steal from the other and I didn't get any of the loot after I won.

Similarly, during my win run against Balk I (IIRC), one of my generics got Charmed for a bit and used an Elixir on someone, which came out of my inventory and not the computer's.

So, yeah, only Guests use your Items; Charmed enemies don't.

Quote from: "Zozma"if agrias is looking after ovelia then surely she and alma met for a short time

It's kinda nebulous. Agrias at least knows her by name given the conversation that happens right after you rescue Ovelia that Ramza listens in on, but other than that, it's possible for Agrias to not have ever met Alma face-to-face.

As for this patch, are you trying to make an actual game out of it or more just a "movie" like the Chronicles of Kanabarif?

I'm asking because for most of FFT, Alma's unconscious one way or another (politically during the first half and then physically during most of the second half) and is in a total of maybe three or four fights. (Zalmo I, presumably against Izlude before she gets captured, and then against both forms of Altima).

If FFTA was good for anything, then one of the few things it was good for was showing how incredibly broken Assassin is, especially once you give players control of it. I'm bringing this up because your Assassin is basically the FFTA Assassin and considering what storylines thing you would do in your patch and the superiority of FFT's AI to its bastard "counterpart", some battles may be impossible, even random ones, depending on the amount of Assassins.

(Please no one point out the MALPAN 1.3 DD battle.)

Templar is similarly looking broken, but only because Shock. Get rid of that and it should be good.

You would have to fix Oil's glitch before Grease Monkey became fully functional; as it stands right now, Oil, even in 1.3, doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

Other than that, it looks nice, but 10 classes might be too little. It all depends on what direction you go in and what battles there would be if you completely overhauling everything.

Quote from: "Zodiac"No chance, the evasion of weapon is calculated regardless of the existence of the weapon guard ability. It's simply calculated as any other evade (like shield  or mantle evasion).

The Weapon Guard ability becomes completely useless though.

That's most excellent then.

If that's the case, I'm curious then, though I'm sure you're busy with other things, I must ask if it also possible to make certain suppportive abilities Innate for everyone, like Defend or Equip Change?

Quote from: "Zodiac"+ Weapon Guard innate all

I know a lot of people wanted this, but I completely forgot about it until today lol.

I'm curious. I know this is a completely passive Reaction ability, like Abandon, but wouldn't this technically screw with other Reaction abilities if implimented and disable Reaction abilities for everyone except Monks/people that use their fists?


Regardless, great job on all this.