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FFTA2 overhaul mod (v0.21)

Started by chocolatemoose, June 26, 2020, 04:07:17 pm

chocolatemoose

Thanks to Zeke's help, v0.15 is live - the Templar's unlock requirements are now 2 White Monk abilities (changed from 2 Bishop).

@Zeke_Aileron I looked through the hex code for the Bishop's abilities and, while they're at different offsets from vanilla, they have the correct AP hexes, so I think there's something different going on here.

Zeke_Aileron

Quote from: chocolatemoose on August 19, 2020, 11:22:50 pmI looked through the hex code for the Bishop's abilities and, while they're at different offsets from vanilla, they have the correct AP hexes, so I think there's something different going on here.

Yeah, that's why i said it's hard for me to understand what you did to mess that up lol....
 :thisisfine:
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: Zeke Aileron™#0606

chocolatemoose

Update: v0.16 is out.

Changelog:

  • Lowered the Price of the Brilliant Therobo to 5K (down from I forget but it was at least 5x as expensive) because you have to purchase it to progress the story
  • Changed the animation on Evasive Maneuvers (Buccaneer) from Inner Calm to Advice since the former was soft-locking the game
  • Removed Dual Wield from Buccaneers since it was soft-locking the game (I guess Seeq can't dual wield after all)
  • Added Unscarred and Dragonheart to Buccaneers
  • Added Blood Price to Dark Knights, removed Dragonheart

SoloCross

For future reference, only humes and viera have the animations that let them dual wield (and use certain parivir skills, namely Hoarfrost/Skyfury/Shimmering/Lifethread Blade)
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

chocolatemoose

Quote from: SoloCross on August 21, 2020, 08:18:27 pmFor future reference, only humes and viera have the animations that let them dual wield (and use certain parivir skills, namely Hoarfrost/Skyfury/Shimmering/Lifethread Blade)

Thanks for this. I moved Hoarfrost/Skyfury/Shimmering blade to the Viera, so those are safe, but I moved Lifethread Blade to the Seeq. If it fails, I'll replace the animation.

chocolatemoose

Updated to 0.17. Fixed the Lifethread Blade softlock problem, per @SoloCross's feedback, by changing the animation to Shadow Shade Tome.

chocolatemoose

Updated to 0.18.

Changed the animation for Stormbringer EX and Devil's Due (previously Grand Cross) because it was freezing the game.

Also couldn't get Stormbringer EX to work as previously intended (deal 2x damage and deal all allies 10% of max HP damage), so changed it to deal 3x damage and reduce the user's HP to 1.

chocolatemoose

Despite successfully testing the animation change for Stormbringer EX on DeSmuME on PC, it still froze on DraStic on Android.

Updated to 0.19 with a new animation (Apocalypse), which I've seen work successfully on a different job.

Hope this one does the trick - if not I'll try something new.

chocolatemoose

Updated to 0.20 - for some reason Illua's Dimensional Rift crashed the game on my DraStic emulator (I didn't touch the ability). I replaced the animation with Stardust, which seems to have fixed the problem.

chocolatemoose

Updated to 0.21.

Tried to fix some issues with the Warlock's Prime not being removed when they use their abilities.

Also a couple height difference fixes to the Moogle Knight's abilities.

Removed the Seer's Kirin to try and free up a race hex for Zam!

witchofdread

likely a nooby question but how do i install this?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

chocolatemoose

Quote from: witchofdread on November 05, 2020, 05:52:11 pmlikely a nooby question but how do i install this?

Have a copy of the vanilla rom (you'll have to find that yourself, they can't be posted here), download the patch and use a program to apply the patch. Not at my pc at the moment but I think the program is tsukuyomi. You should be able to find it on rhdn.

witchofdread

with the stat growth changes do you have a chart or any documentation showing the new stat growths for each class?

thanks,
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

yo9975kevin

I remembered playing this mod an year ago and signed up in this forum just now because I want to say thank you for the effort being put in this mod. I really like this mod, can even say it's my favourite one. Haven't heard of any news for an year but still hoping for it. Be sure to let us know if you're back one day!
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

chocolatemoose

Quote from: yo9975kevin on March 02, 2022, 03:37:58 pmI remembered playing this mod an year ago and signed up in this forum just now because I want to say thank you for the effort being put in this mod. I really like this mod, can even say it's my favourite one. Haven't heard of any news for an year but still hoping for it. Be sure to let us know if you're back one day!

Thank you! There's a lot that I tried to do and fell short of, both in capabilities and things that are just totally not working (I can't play through the final boss quest without my emulator crashing), but I think it's a good start.

I decided to play the game all the way through to get a sense for balance, but got bored after completing most of the quests and never bothered to level my entire party to 99 to see how the balance played out with an evenly-leveled party at high levels. I've documented about a dozen defects that I think I can fix, or should at least investigate, but never got around to doing so.

If you have any feedback, don't hesitate to to post it.

ScarletMagi

Hi chocolatemoose. After trying a few other ffta2 mods and not really clicking with their handling of MP and other things, I've found your mod (even though it wasn't listed in the pinned thread) and I must say I quite like your approach to balance!

A pity about the bugs on Bishop and Alchemist, unable to learn abilities, with the jobs showing as "Mastered". I can see a third bangaa class that I haven't unlocked is also affected.

I'm not personally a fan of the concept changes on the jobs (space mage, beastmaster>geomancer, mistwalker, merchant, etc) since I believe even if left as their original concepts they could have been balanced out (while potentially getting different weapons or skillsets if needed), but then again, that's personal taste whether or not certain game concepts should stay closer to vanilla in a mod like this.

I did still have some frustrations that I have with vanilla in the early game. For example the nu mou getting "stuck" with no abilities to learn early on and just 2/3 jobs available for some time, while others all have some jobs and/or equipment combination that will let them keep learning abilities and switch jobs around. I would prefer a better selection of abilities to choose at the very start of the game, and easier requirements to unlock some initial advanced jobs (just to have a selection of like at least 4 or 5 jobs that are easily available early for every race).
Money also feels a little tight early on (and I imagine, as usual, it'll feel infinite later on), so I would prefer an "exponential" growth on equipment prices, with early equips being very cheap, mid equipment prices being still kinda cheap, and then later stuff and endgame stuff getting immensely expensive kinda suddenly.
Feel free to ignore all these "I would prefer", I know they are not objectively better solutions, just personal preferences.

I might wait before playing more, hoping you will at some point get the time to work on this again and potentially find a fix for the jobs that can't learn skills.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

chocolatemoose

Thanks for trying out the mod!

My difficulty with the Alchemist was around the Mirror Items skill set. If there were more race ability slots I could add regular skills, but I tried to repurpose the Mirror Item subskills into regular ones and couldn't get it working. The other bugged Bangaa class is the Cannoneer. However, I have a feeling that even if you could use the class the abilities would still be bugged :P I wish I could fix these bugs, but they're really beyond me. Everything I know about FFTA2 modding is contained in this thread.

With regard to your point about feeling stuck with early Nu Mous, I hope that they're slightly less stuck than vanilla if only because the vanilla Beastmaster is useless for 99% of the game and the Geomancer class at least gives you some damage options. However, when taken in conjunction with running out of space for the Alchemist, I wonder if a better option is simply to kill a class (i.e. give it no abilities) and make the remaining classes more useful. Another option is to just change the class unlock requirements. I didn't give this too much thought, but it doesn't sound unreasonable to lower the Time Mage requirements from 5 Black Mage abilities to 3 or something similar.

I played through most of the game on the mod (think I got to ~250 missions or so) and money stayed tight the whole way through. Not sure if that's your cup of tea, but it's what I was going for to add another constraint to stomping the game.

As a balance note, I should switch the mod Green Mage job (earth/wind/water magic) to the Viera and the Mistwalker job to the Gria. Problem is that by the time you unlock the Green Mage on the Gria 2/3 of the skills are already powercrept.

dwajio

Hey just wanted to say, I've started playing your mod for the past few days and having a great time.

This is my first tactics mod I've tried for any of the series' offerings.

My only criticism I have at the moment that makes planning a little bit difficult, I'm not sure if this has been noted previously.

When shopping for new weapons based on skills, it seems that the old class names are retained from within the shop, having to use your guide, for example Hunter -> Beastmaster I believe it is, the skills noted for each weapon are listed as the previous vanilla names. Not a huge complaint as I can just use the fitting room to see what each unit can equip, but it can be a little bit of a headache. Skipped a lot of opportunity to purchase a new weapon for my unit because I thought I hadn't unlocked that class yet.

Besides that, I'm loving the edge of cost vs gil amounts acquired progressively through the story, making my decisions feel like they're more impactful rather than an endless collection of new weapons.

Great stuff.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

Jomojo

Hey is there a list of the stat growths for this mod anywhere?
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

chocolatemoose

Quote from: Jomojo on December 21, 2022, 05:54:14 pmHey is there a list of the stat growths for this mod anywhere?

Do you have Lennart's job editor? If so, you can open the file to review the stat growths.