Wild Arms XF for PSP

[Atos]

Hi, I would just like to say that I'm new to programming much less tactical strategy games so I'm not sure if I'm asking the right questions. What I basically want to do is gain the bigger picture of how far I can mod a PSP TRPG and as for the specifics, I guess I'll just have to read the rest of the forums here for the answers.

This idea was inspired when I first discovered the PSP 1.3 patch from the PSP Gfaqs message board and I remember reading Voldemort's or another person asking why bother using the 1.3 patch if you're just going to cheat and since I used to cheat the PS version of FFT, I remember saying to myself how the reason I wanted  to cheat the v 1.3 patch was because it still would have been more kickass to be cheating against an intelligent ai. (It didn't hurt that I empathized with the plot of Delita being kickass after seeing the 1st Chapter Videos made by Voldemort when I remember getting bored with vanilla FFT after seeing how useless Delita was as an ai.)

I'm not sure if this would make sense to a modder, but one of the favorite things I would do as a cheating gamer was to cheat a game so that I could enjoy a game at a more casual rate and in turn transform it into a more gameplay-centric bishoujo game and one of the most favorite things I wanted to discover was how the game developers would in turn cheat back on your own experiences or do the reverse and actually make the game enjoyable to both cheaters and non-cheaters.

Some examples of the latter are:
-Me getting screwed in Azure Dreams after giving myself God Mode only to find out that nearing the end of the game, I was either supposed to lose to an ally turned enemy or I gave the ally 9999 hp so it would have took an eternity to kill him.

-Me getting the quick ending in Tales of Destiny after the developers made the "haha" decision to allow a near unbeatable enemy to be killed thus resulting in a "secret" ending.

Some examples of the former:
-An editor in the simulation game World of Mixed Martial Arts which allows a player to tweak several settings in their game including giving them near infinite amount of cash thus removing the micro management side of things. Instead of the game becoming less fun, I find it became one of my favorite "complicated turned casual" games to go back to as the lack of micromanagement turned the game into an interactive ProgressQuest with MMA fighters.

-An option in the seek and find Woman's Murder Club which allowed you to literally skip the puzzles thus turning the game into a more barebones seek and find game which didn't take away the fun at all because it allowed you to get a headache trying to figure out the puzzle until you get tired and move on. The bonus to this, is that it also punishes the player by not revealling how the puzzles were solved.

Anyway, I moved on and the thought never occured to me until I received a psp that allowed for playing with roms. (I still have no idea how it was done to allow for isos to play with the psp other than reading something about a "dumper" and some old firmware.)

Anyways, the opportunity finally got me to look for several reviews on PSP TRPGs because even though I'm not a tactical player, I found the genre to contain many of the most innovative gameplay mechanics and plots I've seen. It didn't hurt that the genre was often times the most fun to cheat with too though I don't know of a cheating device for the PSP. (Saiyuki, Tenchi Muyo SRPG for Snes, Hoshigami, Kartia, Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle, Suikoden TRPG mechanic, Vanguard Bandits, Parasite Eve, Vandal Hearts, etc.)

This lead me to this game after reading MidiPChan's review of it:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/psp/re ... 23347.html

...and after trying the game, all I had to say was that this was the game that made me consider modding because the developers really took into account cheaters here by turning the game into something that could be cheated through level grinding but at the same impossible to cheat through level grinding.

I'm not sure if this would make sense to someone who hasn't played the game but basically as far as the first chapter of the game went (the part of the game I've played) 99% of the time, you needed to do something other than kill all the enemies and the beauty of it is that in many of these levels, there were also ways to accomplish these but almost impossible to do without a decent tactic combined with an extremely high level. In fact, I didn't even know of these choices until I read one of the walkthroughs.

Unfortunately this is what also makes the game nearly unbeatable to many without level grinding or pre-cognitive tactics. The stage where I was stuck on (playing without a walkthrough) for ex. required such extreme pre-cognition of the battlefield area as well as all the current available classes and items that even with a walkthrough, the tactic was absolutely daunting at most and even more unfortunate news is that I've read in the forums that it seems these kind of scenarios taper off as the game goes on and all the classes are unlocked so what I basically want to do or if there's someone lucky enough to answer my request is to have a mod of the game that allows more leniency and thus more structural freedom in the early games and to impose such tactical rigidity in the later chapters in case these types of scenarios taper off as the game moves along.

[Archael]

No, cheat all you want but don't ask other ppl for help in cheating.


If you can't beat a game how it is designed, thats your problem, not the games.


The game doesn't adapt for you, you adapt to the game.

Also, this is off-topic. This site is for FFT project discussion only.

[Atos]

I'm sorry. I haven't heard of any other PSP TRPG modding community so I thought this was the right place to ask.

We'll have to agree to disagree on cheating. I think when people post or visit a discussion board, they are in one way or the other looking for help in some kind, be they a cheat or advise.

Often times, I think people who cheat just lean towards the extreme side of help. Many times not even to bypass how the game was designed, but only to bypass only the flaws of the game to them but since they don't have a full 360 degree view of every aspect of the game they just pick their poison.

Even FFT is guilty of this, there are many points where you need a pre-emptive set of skills through grinding which destroys the plot immersion especially later on when there are many surprise attacks. Other times, tactics rely on having fought the opponent before and knowing what each could do thus removing a fearsome unknown aspect of a boss into a tank generic that just needs to be wittled down.

I am just referring to vanilla FFT though. Boy, seeing how well the ai has improved in the Youtube series you made really made me gain a lot of respect to my opponents.

Ex. Through Algus Charging + 20 Delita, it not only emphasized how much he hated him from a plot perspective but how Algus just wasn't a generic with a special sprite.

[Archael]

1.3 utilizes the exact same AI as vanilla FFT. FFT's AI never needed much changing.

I suggest you

1) Inform yourself better

2) Find a Wild Arms community to talk about Wild Arms mods

[Atos]

Well, I'm sorry. Like I said, I'm not a modder so I don't know whether I'm using the right terms but if not the AI than obviously something different has changed that made the ai look more intelligent.

There's no way the default ai sandbags as good as the ones seen in your video series. Gafgarion was hurt in the first battle for goodness sake! and you had to focus fire on Wiegraf and Miluda because the ai kept hounding you even when the tempo was going your way.

Remember Barius Valley when you had to save Agrias and you had that one enemy who basically was screwed and even decided to charm one of your characters? It's rare for the ai to do that with vanilla FFT so forgive me for assuming that that wasn't just an ai tweak on the patcher's part.

As for informing myself better, that's why I registered here and are you serious? A Wild Arms modding community? Do you realize how unbelievably far apart the name recognition of the two games are? We're talking not only a PSP game here but a PSP FINAL FANTASY game that's also THE most well reknowned TRPG for so long that also had a patch based on a remake based on a patch that was from the then popular PS version against a series that's not only not as popular but wasn't well known for TRPGs that made it's reputation from consoles until this incarnation.

Look, if I had some modding skills and weren't starting from scratch maybe I have a chance but I'm not. You might as well just have told me to go away and it would have been less rude.

[Xifanie]

To a certain extent, I'd recommend hacking if you like the engine. Whoever, it is a pain in the ass to modify the game's code and if you want to heavily modify it, definitely go for coding your own game.

[Archael]

not trying to be rude

its just how I write / talk im very direct

well yes the 1.3 ai is the same

I promise you

its just in 1.3 the AI has access to better things and more JP and better r/s/m, thats all

FFT ai is amazing it just never had stuff to use before 1.3


and again, im not trying to be rude, but this site is FFT only

you will spend your time better looking for a wild arms site

talk to zodiac, the site owner.. this site is for FFT modding only

[Atos]

Oh ok, sorry for the misunderstanding. I guess I'll just settle for something else. Maybe look for a guide on coding from scratch.