Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: celestialheathen on March 27, 2024, 08:50:47 pmSome suggestions I have: I finished the game around lvl 65, and by the end it still felt too easy. Maybe an optional hard mode patch in the future where story enemies match your lvl and more frequent appearance of advanced-job enemies (like samurai, calculator) during story mode; Some skills like Beowulf's Vengeance or Byblos's Manaflare seem overpowerful, even though they are situational; Some jobs like Geomancer and Orator still feel not worth the time even with better equipment choices.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm adding all these to my notes for consideration!

I'd love to do a Hard mode, just gotta think of the best way to do it without adding tons of work for myself. For example, I don't want to have maintain two separate patches - one for normal mode and one for hard mode (I used to do that for encounter unscaling, and it sucked having to make every change twice. Eventually I figured out a way to do it in ASM so that I'd only have to maintain one patch. Maybe there's a similar solution for Hard mode).

Some ideas I had:

* Add an extra unit or two to each battle, but somehow flag them to only show up on Hard mode (repurpose some unused flag to represent "hard mode only" unit)
* Increase all enemy unit levels by some value, like 2, in ASM (and adjust the XP formula accordingly so you don't just levelup faster)
* Reduce the number of units the player is allowed to take into each battle by 1.
* Some combination of all of the above.

Sorry, I've been away from this thread and the questions kept piling up!

Quote from: zefyx on February 12, 2024, 12:38:34 amI can't make it past the intro movie after inputting my birth date on Windows PC, I'm receiving blue screen Invalid Memory Access error. Any idea? I've already elected to ignore memory errors in PPSSPP.

There seems to be an alternate ISO floating around out there. Make sure your base ISO is the US version, and run it through a tool like hashcalc to make sure the hashes match the following:

MD5:    18d1169cefed2d5ed77a599694f2f871
SHA1:   5120ff66f78cfd31f6e90d8ef4be8200eca563f7
CRC32:  0d6a3d9f

Quote from: Paupau92 on January 22, 2024, 11:22:10 pmIf I may ask just one question, can you play rendezvous missions solo in this mod? And if not is it possible to play it with this mod by running 2 instances on 1 pc? Is the mod compatible with the lioeditor (I think that was it was called) to make multiplayer items able to be bought in the store (as well as tynar rouge)? Also, can I get more than 1 copy of the items so I dont have to use the lioneditor? And lastly, can I also min/max stats in this mod?

You can play multiplayer missions in this mod, yes (in multiplayer). Make sure both players are running the same version of the mod so you don't get out of sync. I think you can use two instances of PPSSPP, but I don't know how.

LionEditor (the save data editor) is compatible, and you can use it to put multiplayer items in your inventory or in the poachers' den (including multiple copies). Multiplayer items otherwise cannot be purchased in regular stores (which is why WOTL Tweak makes them all unique "discoverable" items in the campaign).

Stats can be min/maxed using levelup/leveldown tricks, yes. Using Onion Knight for leveldown will reduce the amount of stats lost, for further min/maxing. The next version (v2.60) though will make it so leveldown penalties are halved, so you can min/max quickly with any job.

Quote from: MiniEquine on December 20, 2023, 02:56:19 pmWith the optional mod that make the MP Regen act more like Tactics A2, I gave it an honest try but I think it needs additional help.

It totally does. The next version of the mod will have spellcasters start with 25% MP instead of zero to help with this. Also, even though the mod has gone through several rounds of buffing spellcasting, I agree it's _still_ too weak compared to physical attacks and have been considering even more buffs.

Give the attached xml a try in FFTorgASM!

DKnight_Unhardcode.xml

This should make the dark knight skills editable like any other skill. However, you will need to assign the boss teleport effect IDs to their new locations (the arithmeticks IDs). I put the proper IDs in the hack's description, but here it is again:


    FFTPATCHER EDITS REQUIRED:
    Since the Dark Knight attacks and Arithmeticks don't have the proper Effect IDs by default, you will need to add them:
   
    - 02D Sanguine Sword: Effect ID = 0AD (Shadowblade)
    - 08B Infernal Strike: Effect ID = 0AC (Duskblade)
    - 0DB Crushing Blow: Effect ID = 0F6 (Vengeance)
    - 0DC Abyssal Blade: Effect ID = 062 (Shockwave)
    - 19E Arithmeticks Target CT: Effect ID = 0E7 (Teleport 3: Send)
    - 19F Arithmeticks Target Level: Effect ID = 0E8 (Teleport 3: Arrive)
    - 1A0 Arithmeticks Target EXP: Effect ID = 0C0 (Summon Angel)
    - 1A1 Arithmeticks Target Height: Effect ID = 02B (Summon Demon)


Yes, it can be edited, with a little extra effort. Unfortunately these are hardcoded, but I wrote an ASM hack for FFTorgASM that unhardcodes them. I'll dig it up and post it here in a bit.

In the PS1 version, the end boss's teleport effects were assigned to unused ability IDs. The PSP version then used these same IDs for the Dark Knight attacks, but instead of doing something else for the end boss teleports, they left them there and hardcoded the effects for the new attacks. So when you edit the effects of the Dark Knight attacks, you are actually editing the effects the end boss teleports use.

The ASM I'm about to post moves the end boss teleport effects to the Arithmetics slots (which don't use their effects anyway) and unhardcodes the dark knight attacks, so you can edit them in FFTPatcher like anything else.

Quote from: Think0028 on November 23, 2023, 09:30:24 pmThe Poacher's Den still requires someone to have learned Poach, which... no one in my team has. I can manage to make it work still by ferrying between Goug and Warjilis until I have enough JP from errands, but it's a little annoying - any way you can remove the learning Poach requirement? Thanks!

Already done in the next version, but sorry it won't help you in your current situation!

Quote from: Furby on November 26, 2023, 11:46:31 amWould it be possible to modify the Rendezvous mechanic to allow for single player? I dove into your patch notes and like how you handled giving the Multiplayer items to the player, but I would still love to actually fight those battles!

Absolutely this is the number 1 thing I want for a future edition, but I'm not at all familiar with the code involved, so it may be awhile.

Quote from: LostPotential on November 27, 2023, 04:18:51 pmI'm sick with frustration at this point. Maybe I'm just too dumb to enjoy this. Doesn't matter either way I guess. Anyway good luck with your project and everything. I'm not longer holding my breath, or working bandaid fixes like pulling teeth, or getting my hopes up from off the floor again.

PM me here or on discord and I can help you get setup!

Quote from: Pop on November 18, 2023, 07:48:38 pmI've just started playing but i had a small thought about knight swords:

As is, the Durandal is kinda just a better version of Save the Queen and Ragnarok
I think it might be neat to mess around with a new attribute eg
Durandal - Regen (general tankiness, give it to Agrias  )
Valhalla - Initial Reraise (So you can die in battle)

Just so it has it's own personality; maybe make it a weapon for hybrids via MA boost or Faith status

These are good ideas. I've been doing this sort of thing on other equipment - giving them each a "reason" to exist. I might do something like this here.

Quote from: MiniEquine on November 23, 2023, 12:53:29 pmSince it sounds like you're working on the new version, do you know when that would come out?

Probably a matter of months. My todo list has gotten pretty low, but I'm still in the middle of the Aim/Charge revamp ASM (turning Aim+2 into "Blackout +2", etc.), and getting it to work with magic guns is very tricky. I'll also want to do a few playthroughs just in case I borked anything!

Quote from: Sharp on November 03, 2023, 06:39:02 pmThis is getting really off topic, let me know if you want to move this discussion elsewhere.

Lots of cool ideas that I've jotted down for the further future!

Quote from: Stephen on November 07, 2023, 08:23:09 amStarted replaying the game and got up to Lionel Castle at end of chapter 2 and said this is way too easy.  It was tainting the nostalgia.  I'm going to start over and try your patch.  I really like what I've read about your tweaks so far.

Thanks, and good luck! Note though that WOTL Tweak is actually a bit _easier_ in the early game than vanilla, but much harder in the later game.

Quote from: Holy2Tack on November 07, 2023, 09:33:12 amWould have to rebuild from source files in the zip, as using the patcher directly on this after the PPF has been applied garbles all the text and menus because of all the ASM additions. I'll see if I can get that working.

Check the "modding readme" inside the "Source" folder in the archive for step by step instructions. But yeah, if you're modding WOTL Tweak, you'll need to first make the FFTPatcher edits, then run it through Valhalla to apply the ASM changes. If you go in the other order, you'll get bugs.

Quote from: Stephen on November 07, 2023, 07:43:38 pmHas any consideration been given already to making Rush/Dash knockback more consistently

Yes, next edition they will have 100% knockback chance by default. If your target is a large creature or a boss creature, that drops to 50%, and if your target is defending, 0%.

Quote from: Stephen on November 08, 2023, 06:16:48 pmIs this compatible with the "Final Fantasy Tactics: Alternate Map Pack"?  Or any map packs?

I have no idea, I've never used map packs before so I don't know what using them entails or how it might interact poorly with the mod. The only thing I can think of for sure is WOTL Tweak changes all the treasure hunter items (but does not relocate the tiles), so maybe it's fine?

Quote from: IcePenguin on October 30, 2023, 06:32:47 amThese abilities you've listed, are they active abilities, or passive abilities that modify the main Jump ability?

They are all passive abilities that enhance Jump (similar to how the range-increasing abilities from vanilla work). So if you buy them all, you will have all the effects on a single jump - increased damage, bonus CT, HP/MP recovery, etc.

Quote from: Holy2Tack on November 01, 2023, 09:40:53 pmmy Steam Deck with PPSSPP standalone. It crashes on crystalization of an enemy. Testing it on my Windows laptop it doesn't happen. Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?

Interesting, I have no idea why it would work in one version of the emulator and not the other. This is probably something different than the famous crystalization crash, because I didn't use FFTacText for this. Maybe check if Debug -> Ignore illegal reads/writes is checked or unchecked on one or the other?

Quote from: Cleiton Santos on October 31, 2023, 12:03:33 pmDoes anyone happen to know how I can increase the Fury and Magick Boost skills to +2 instead of +1? I would also like to improve Faith Boost and Bravery Boost.

The next version of WOTL Tweak does this, and when I release it, I'll also release this is a standalone hack for FFTorgASM.

Quote from: Sharp on October 30, 2023, 01:21:57 am...are you doing something similar with Chemist, Archer, Geomancer, Ninja, or Calculator?

Archer is getting a revamp as well. Each Charge+ ability still functions the way it always has, but each is now getting a different secondary effect as well. For example, Charge +2 is now "Blackout +2", which functions as Charge +2 but also inflicts Blind.

I don't have similar plans for those other classes, but I can imagine Ninja working in basically the same way - adding abilities that passively enhance Throw, like increased range/damage, whatever.

Quote from: Sharp on October 30, 2023, 01:21:57 amThird, is it possible to affect rates for critical hit, knock back, spell activation, and status affection with passive abilities?

This is absolutely possible with ASM, yeah, and I've already done some similar things (affecting critical hit chance with status and with equipment; adding a new Reaction ability that prevents harmful status; increased status effect hit chance by default).

Re: "Missing" - that's a really good idea, I'll look into that!

Re: Orlandeau nerfs, no I'm pretty happy with his reduced skill list. That's the main thing that makes Agrias and Meliadoul *not* obsolete. Orlandeau has all their skills except for the best ones, which are exclusive to those characters (Divine Ruination for Agrias, Crush Weapon for Meliadoul).

Re: Dragoon, Ignore Elevation wouldn't enhance the Dragoon's Jump attacks, only the actual Jump+ abilities and equipment. So if you want the infinite jump (movement height), you'd be making a tradeoff for things that might actually improve your jump (attack).

Here's a preview of the new Dragoon changes (all subject to change as I playtest):

Base Jump attack changes - Jump attacks are nerfed by default:
* The bonus damage for using a spear has been reduced from +50% to +20%.
* The range is now based on your Jump attribute - 1 (so the default range is 3).
* Jump attacks are now slower by default (they cost a turn and a half instead of a turn), but only if you hit (a miss still only costs a turn).
* And the one buff on this list: they now work with damage increasing supports, like Doublehand (+60% damage in WOTL Tweak).

However, the Dragoon's skill list now allows you to increase the potency of jump attacks, up to and surpassing their original level of power:

          Jump Ability:           | Effect:
           - Angon                |  - Increase the Polearm damage bonus by (Jump x 5)%.
           - Lancet               |  - Recover (Jump + Magick)% damage dealt as HP and 1/4th of that as MP.
           - Unbound              |  - Jumping cures you of Poison, Oil, Slow, Immobilize, and Doom.
           - Wyrmkiller           |  - Jump has a chance to inflict Slow, Immobilize, or KO on Dragons/Hydras.
           - Long Jump            |  - Add +2 to Jump's horizontal range.
           - High Jump            |  - Add +2 to Jump's vertical range.
           - Quick Recovery       |  - Add (2 x Jump + Speed) bonus CT after landing (next turn comes sooner).
           - Jump Mastery         |  - A Polearm is no longer required to gain the damage bonus.

So if you buy all the skills and pump your Jump attribute up to the (new) maximum of 9 (instead of 7) your jump attack will be an absolute beast.

Quote from: IcePenguin on October 26, 2023, 01:59:01 amSuggestions:
Request:

Great minds think alike my friend - I've already done some of these suggestions. Per-suggestion replies below:

1 re: Agrias leaving the party - It's intentional that she stays on the formation screen because one of my other fixes (Guest characters are no longer "reset" when they join you for real) caused a new problem: If you left Agrias with subpar equipment (or nothing), then you may not be able to win the battle when she returns (since you fail if she's KO'd). Keeping her on the formation screen allows you to tweak her equipment if you encounter this situation (this is also why I keep Rapha on the screen before her rooftop battle).

2 re: Dragoon innate Ignore Elevation - Interesting idea. I actually think it makes less since in the next version though because of another change I made. The upcoming next version of WOTL Tweak revamps Dragoons so that their Jump attack is improved by their Jump score, so they actually have a reason to use the Jump+ abilities instead of Ignore Elevation. I actually like that the player has to make a choice now. (If I hadn't made this change, I'd agree with you that they should have Ignore Elevation innate, because it's a no-brainer)

3 re: Moving Soulbind to Dark Knight - it does make a lot of sense, because it's a "play with my HP" ability, so there's interesting gameplay potential. Hmmm. I already made a change to Soulbind because "halve all my damage" is pretty overpowered, so in the next release it no longer reduces your own damage (but still deals half back to your attacker). This makes it less interesting for the Dark Knight after all. I'll have to think on this. I think your suggestion here has more potential than my nerf, but it's still going to have a problem with balance.

4 re: Only Elixirs at the bottom of Midlight's Deep - this is intentional because I felt it was a bummer to get the best equipment on that floor but have nothing left to conquer with it. So now that you can have everything by the end of floor 9, all that's left is using it all against the final uber boss. I _could_ replace it with rare but not unique equipment though (like Ribbon, or maybe the four perfumes), to make it more satisfying.

5 re: Genji Gear as a sidequest reward - your complaint is that it's "free" after the Aliste quest, but from my perspective this isn't free - you need to discover and complete the side quest! It's a super late quest, and the genji armor just makes a ton of storyline sense (and mechanical sense) to be awarded here. I don't intend to make anything unique a required Steal, because then it becomes "missable" equipment, which is against one of the goals of the mod (no missable equipment or spells).

7 re: Orlandeau nerfs - I agree, I did go a bit too far, and this isn't the first time I've received this feedback. I'm gonna give him a slight boost in stats. Note though that he now starts with Dark Knight levels, and he has the best HP by far, so he can become an absolute killing machine (again) with Vehemence equipped while taking on not much risk.

8 re: Optional patch for changing treasure hunter tiles - Cool idea, but this is not easy at all to do. Since these locations are changed in FFTPatcher, I'd have to maintain two versions of the patch, updating and testing them both for every change. I actually used to do this with the Encounter Unscaling change until I found a way to do it with ASM, and I don't want to go back to that misery :-)

9 re: Optional patch to remove monster breeding - already done. I guess I forgot that there are breed-only monsters. I did add the three flavors of Pig to rare battles at Dorvaulder Marsh... if there are other breed-only monsters, I'll make sure to add them somewhere!

10 re: "Hunts" - I would absolutely love to make the Rendezvous missions into single player "hunts". Your thinking is completely aligned with mine. It's just a programming challenge and I've only scratched the surface on the multiplayer code.

Quote from: JioCrestfall on October 22, 2023, 10:44:08 amalmost finished with the main game and loved the journey all throughout but i gotta ask; are you going to modify the multiplayer battles too?

I have no plans for changing those battles, but heck, you never know. I might get bored some day (or someone may give me a compelling reason to make changes there?)

Quote from: IcePenguin on October 21, 2023, 02:13:09 pmI'm currently at the battle when the party saves Boco in the woods. Is it intended that Boco can't be controlled? It's not a huge deal, but just curious about it since guest characters are player-controlled now.

I've gone back and forth on Boco being controlled. It always felt weird to me when I had it turned on. I think because he's a monster, and he feels more like a "third faction" at that point, that it feels more appropriate to me that he's still AI controlled.

I realize there are similar arguments for Argath's first fight, but my fear was players would think the feature wasn't working if he wasn't controllable.

Quote from: IcePenguin on October 21, 2023, 02:13:09 pmHave you thought about implementing a manual "sort unit" feature? (being able to change unit number) Having a way to sort them manually, without having to hire generics to reserve specific numbered positions, would be incredible!

I would love to do this, and in fact Valhalla comes with a script that does this, but it's buggy. I've been slowly making my way through the Valhalla ASM to decipher it so I can write my own versions or fix them, so this is on my list, but not for the near future.

Interesting. I haven't seen that myself, but it's good to hear that fixing the slowdowns with FFTorgASM fixes it, because I'm switching from Valhalla's version to FFTorgASM's version for the next release of WOTL Tweak. So whatever this is, maybe it'll just go away!

Quote from: bugnomore on October 07, 2023, 07:26:18 amThank you for your patch, all the QOL are epic.
Do you plan on fixing the sounds to be on par with PSX?
And the biggest problem for me a native PSX player is the old English script of the PSP version is a very big headache, it would be fantastic if we could optionally switch to PSX script.

I'd love to fix the sounds, but even the very top FFT hackers don't have a plan of action for this, and it'd probably take emulator modifications for it to even be possible, I'm afraid.

As for the script, it'd be a massive undertaking, and I think I'm more likely to do a WOTL Tweak for PS1 than to port the PS1 script to PSP.

Quote from: Keelhaul Pete on September 26, 2023, 06:06:27 pmI didn't realize Poach needed to be assigned in order for the Poacher's Den to work. 🙃

It won't be required after the next release :-)

Thanks so much for the positive feedback! I love hearing that you like the mod so much.

Quote from: silenthill27 on September 20, 2023, 02:56:20 pmThe mod author must do something like this for a living because it just looks so...professional.

(Yes I do :-) )

Quote from: Crouching_Liger on July 19, 2023, 03:16:03 amIf I patch my rom now, will I be able to continue with my save or will I have to start a new a game?

If you are before Chapter 4, then the only issue you will see is your lists of purchased skills will change. This is because I reordered some of the skill lists, so the skills you purchased before may coincide with different skills on the list.

This goes for equipped skills too. For example, I reused JP Boost's slot for the new Combat Casting ability, so anyone who had JP Boost equipped will now have Combat Casting equipped, even if they haven't learned it yet. Just unequip the skill if you find yourself in that situation.

If you HAVE started chapter 4, you may not be able to gain all the multiplayer items and missables, because you might have already collected the treasure hunter tiles or sidequest rewards that changed.

Quote from: Jlandejr on July 19, 2023, 11:48:25 pmI did have a question - is there an easy way to see the changes that were made? I tried to look through the readme, but maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. I'm just curious where some of the rendezvous items are, and noticed that Nelveska has very different items. Anyways, thanks in advance!

There's a TON of documentation included so I don't blame anyone at all that doesn't find what they are looking for in there. I certainly don't expect everyone to read every word of it.

In the readme, Section E is the list of changes. Section F is the same list but with commentary and details for each change. You can also check the Spoilers folder, which has several files that detail things like where all the new treasure hunter pickups are!

Do me a favor, download a program called HashCalc, open it, point it to your vanilla (unpatched ISO), and tell me the values it spits out for MD5, SHA1, and CRC32?

Also, what collection of optional patches are you using?

Quote from: Ethan_Targaryen on July 02, 2023, 07:58:02 pmIs there a good resource to look at to get Valhalla running? I'm on Windows 11 and I'm having a hell of a time trying to get Valhalla to open let alone run.

Me too, and I can't remember what the magic step was to get it to run. I definitely installed multiple versions of python in the attempt though.