Final Fantasy Hacktics

I found this post again because I wondered about job level 0. Bumping because I think it should get more attention. Some of the findings are fascinating, some are useful, and some are both. I'm speaking as a person who forgot all of the information here.

For example, you can turn off Ramza's gender flags (may need an ASM hack) and allow him both Bard and Dancer, or the ultimate Dancing Bard. Or do it for another special character. Doing it for a generic will result in oddities in sprite and portrait.

I didn't test at the time whether gendered equipment is inclusive or exclusive.

As far as I know, continued development on FFTPatcher (if any) will be at the GitHub repo. Bug reports should probably go on the bug tracker there.

Quote from: Xifanie on March 23, 2018, 06:21:26 pm...if you don't care about Arena, why do you care about knowing this?

It's a hint to whether there's something to learn from them.

Quote from: Xifanie on March 21, 2018, 06:21:49 pm
The second video you posted is WotL.

The first video you posted is on ePSXe, using a modified version of FFT: Arena. I made the original mod, but unfortunately, I did not keep any of the source material. Thus, to my knowledge, that's all there was to work from.
However, judging from that video, it looks like someone was able to reverse some parts into vanilla after all. But to my knowledge, this was never published/shared on FFHacktics... so I don't know what to tell you...

I'm not familiar with Arena. How can you tell that it's using Arena as the base?

QuoteAnd the last piece of the puzzle is just a plugin that allows playing simultaneously. No idea what it is though. Of course, you're supposed to let the other player control their own units, even though all characters are controlled with Controller #1.

I believe it's just screen-sharing software that allows remote inputs.

It looks like there's a convoluted setup for the remote inputs. The players seem to be scrolling through the On-Screen Keyboard buttons, rather than directly pressing them. I think they are using the mouse to click on the OSK. So that's Mouse -> OSK -> Keyboard -> Gamepad -> Game.

Not really. I doubt there are many here who are using the mobile versions, since this is a hacking site, and those two versions don't have modding tools. Thus, there won't be many people thinking about them.

Most of the structure is probably described within Lion Editor. One would need to figure out how to map the PSP version's structure to one of the other two apps, and look at other features. Unfortunately, LIOS Editor's source code wasn't provided (which may be a license violation, but there's not much anyone can do about it now).

This may require samples of FFTSAVE.BIN.

You should first ensure that you are able to get it working without the modding. That is, use a clean image of FFT and stick it through the converter.

I believe you should remove the rumor that starts the quest. Look into event editing.

If you can't edit the Axe formula (I bet Xif's sheet lets you do it for PSX), you can also change the formula for each and every axe (using FFTPatcher, Items tab). That might modify some other things, though. In particular, you may lose element, status infliction, or evade, depending on which formula you use.

If on PSX, look through the FFTorgASM list to see whether the Axe formula is already hacked for you.

A hex editor is just a program that lets you edit a file as if it were text. Since code and data is all stored in files, this lets you edit code and data.

In this case, you are trying to edit data. You need to learn where in the file the data in question is (the "address" of the data), and then go to it (usually using Ctrl+G, or search through the editor's menus, to bring up the "Go To" dialog). You then make your changes, save, and test.

\begin{necropost}

I just discovered how powerful the debugger's evaluator is, and added what I found to the wiki. It should help anyone looking to use the conditional breakpoint feature, as well as anyone who uses the debugger at all.
http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Psxfin#Value_syntax
Feel free to add more examples as you build them.

I found the function names by using a hex editor and finding the section where the names are stored, using the known name `read_long`. As far as I can tell, the syntax has never been documented this thoroughly, since the full list of function names doesn't show up on Google in the context of pSX.

\end{necropost}

QuoteSure, the AI will still set equip crossbow and use a sword, but this kind of thing's chance is either calculated into a battle's difficulty or overwritten altogether with manually set R/S/M's.

Speaking of which, you can add Equip X skills as innates to prevent them from being equipped by random generation. Equip Sword and Equip Shield on Geomancer, for example. But don't actually do that for Geomancer, because other innates want those slots and there aren't many enemy Geomancers.

QuoteMany vanilla late-game builds involve a strong Reis, not sure why small stat nerfs are a surprise.

Only because her stat growths are a little more optimal than generics. Neither her skillset nor her job are useful enough to make it into her good builds, and that's an issue.

QuoteBlack Magic has 12 elemental spells, which now all have different speeds, MP costs, and power so you can cast a spell of your liking, where you want it, at the power you need it, without hitting your allies as often.

The range of elemental spells you actually want to use are limited at any given time. You don't need to use high-end spells in the early game, and you can't use high-end spells in the late game due to charge time unless Short Charge is a staple.

QuoteWe're talking about a 1% increase in hit chances if they had +1 MA. Sure, every bit helps, but it's not crucial one way or the other. They already have better hit chances on everything except invite.

I'm actually asking why Gun is the exception.

There's no need to roll more than once.

r = roll(1, lv)
if r < 13: return Potion
if r < 26: return Phoenix Down
if r < 50: return White Robe
return Feather Mantle

Your way won't work correctly anyway. If your first roll is 1/50, your next roll needs to be out of 49 (because it already has a 49/50x multiplier).

QuoteMany classes have free abilities that cost 0 JP to learn, often for abilities that are either core to the jobs playstyle (Haste, Cure, etc.) or not very useful to begin with (Any Weather, Gilgame heart, etc.).

Did you also up the active ones to 100% Learn so that enemies will always have them? And put the useless R/S/M at 0% so enemies won't accidentally equip them.

I like the idea of 100% 0 JP for basic skills.

QuoteCloud and especially Orlandu are nerfed up the Yin-Yang, along with Reis and Worker 8.

Nerfing Cloud, Reis, and Worker 8? What?

QuoteRafa and Malak reworked, with consistent faith-based spells.

You made them slightly-stronger Black Mages??

If you want to rethink Rafalak, I have patches for:
- Un-Truth uses PA instead of MA. (Still magical.)
- Rando-spells always do max number of hits.
- Un-Truth Faith/Innocent bugfix.
- Truth uses Faith. (Still quadratic.) (Evil hack using nonlocal jump. I don't know why you'd want to use this anyway.)

QuoteRafa's spells are a bit weaker than Malak's

Did you take Rafa's female +25% MA into account when judging which spells are stronger?

QuoteThese ASM hacks were used:

Consider the "Sets the title screens default option from New Game to Continue" hack from Xif.

QuoteSummons can miss and hit allies, but are faster and some a bit cheaper.

How is Summon prevented from being a stronger, faster Black Magic? Its minor weakness was its MP cost.

QuoteGeomancer - Magic Defense UP, Any Ground

Why does it need MD Up? And what about Move on Lava?

QuoteFaster and more mobile to compensate for skillset's lack of versatility.

QuoteLancer - Ignore Height, Concentrate

Both are strong abilities, and don't seem necessary. Concentrate only applies to their Attack, since Jump ignores evasion. Why were these abilities added? Lancer is a one-trick pony, but that one trick is very good, and "kill stuff" is central to the game.

QuoteAll Mythril equips except for the gun give +1 MA.

Why not Gun? Talk Skill uses MA.

QuoteBlaze/Glacier guns swapped.

Blaze/Glacial Gun were not swapped in translation.

(You may also want to base text edits on that patch.)

I tried to map them, failed for most, barely for some. The quotes might be from the Japanese translation of the movie, and that might not be a faithful translation. I don't know how I'd get a Japanese Apocalypse Now.

For what it's worth, it's possible to Learn On Hit from Counter Magic (though I don't think Vanilla has any Learn On Hits that can be Counter Magic'd).

Here's the code.
http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Learn_on_hit_1

Hey, wanna properly transcribe the Apocalypse Now quotes?

I found out through this video that the Deep Dungeons are based on Apocalypse Now, and through Wikia that they have descriptions which look like quotes from the movie.

The descriptions are found under Menu/Options Help, in "WLDHELP.LZW/3. Menu/Options Help", items 144-153.

HORROR's in-game description:

QuoteIt's impossible to describe horror. But one may be able to know it if one tells quietly...

Movie quote from WikiQuote:

QuoteIt's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on April 22, 2017, 12:44:55 pm
That's how I broke Xifanie's Soldier Office Upgrade.  I pretty much just started pressing all the buttons and within 30 minutes it started screaming I AM ERROR.

There's a technical term for that!

No but for real, good QA people are good.

Quote from: Rfh on April 30, 2017, 09:13:51 pmBut it doesn't happen with a convergent infinite degree polynomial, like Taylor series.

Polynomials by definition have finitely many terms. If it's "infinite degree", it's a convergent power series. In fact, e^x is described by a convergent power series.

Quoteit's defined as a recurrence relation: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Stat_growth_(Tactics)) so we cannot talk about a quadratic formula in terms of Lv

Being a recurrence relation doesn't prevent it from being polynomial.

In fact, FFT stat growth is linear.
MA_lv = MA_1 * (lv + MAC) / (1 + MAC)

Not just roughly linear, but actually linear even with rounding, because the bonus per level is constant as long as you don't change jobs.

Yeah, quadratic.

For Wave Fist, the formula is (PA+2)/2 * PA (ignoring rounding). Multiplying it out gives 1/2*PA^2 + PA. Solving using THE quadratic formula gives roots at 0 and -2 PA, which are unreachable in-game.

Exponential is much, much faster than any polynomial. An exponential growth rate would make every +1 PA turn into a constant multiplicative factor in damage.

Not sure what to call Geomancy, which is (approximately) a second-order polynomial in two variables, but without any squared terms.

Quote from: Aiolon on April 17, 2017, 10:11:23 pmas for the other thing im the kind of person that pulls its hair trying to understand ASM, im no ASMer and if i wanted to do it i would probably lose interest right away even if it means changing 1 or 2  things knowing myself that would take months to do.

ASM hacking is not (necessarily) programming. Depending on how well the relevant section of code is documented on the wiki, it can be very low in technical requirements.

For example, I wanted to change Malak's formula to use PA instead of MA. I found the Un-Truth formula (through the Formulas page), found the Wave Fist formula, and saw notes in both saying that that's where MA/PA were loaded. All I had to do was replace one line of ASM with another.

(Then I tested it, realized that I misunderstood the FFTorgASM format, and had to write code to reverse everything. I was editing the XML file directly rather than using the more modern tools available, so you shouldn't have to worry about that.)

Quotewhithout a higher job the RNG decides the level of the job. i have tested this and i found lots of inconsistencies with the units being same level, same job but with diferent job level and thus diferent abilities learned.

Are you sure? Maybe it's an unknown effect of spillover JP, such as "enemies get spillover JP from enemies" or "enemies get spillover JP from player units".