I have been a huge fan of every Final Fantasy game, (Dirge of Cerberus not included :mad:). I have found myself always coming back to playing Tactics, and this seems like the best place for me to expand my experience of the game. I would like to learn how to hack some aspects of the game, but I will admit I am not the best with all things computer related. On the plus side I have a lot of downtime, despite college.
Most of the tools people would be interested in are SUPER easy to use. The only exception is if you want custom unit sprites, and only because showing the correct sprite in the unit list takes way more steps than it should. I'M GLARING AT YOU, SHISHI! You really don't need to be a CS major or anything to mod FFT. It's all Super Simple.
Welcome to FFH, where all your dreams come true!
That's reassuring, because my major is Environmental biology. What would be a good starter project? I definitely do not want to have a huge clutter of random tools, etc on my computer and no idea what to do with them.
The tools all come in a single package, really, so that can't be avoided without deleting what you know you'll never use.
FFTPatcher is the simplest of all tools, and really, quite self-explanatory to use. It lets you edit jobs and abilities, change how they behave, ability costs, job level requirements, and so on. And everything it does (with the exception of ENTDs*) can be output as a Gameshark code to use on console, should you so desire.
Shishi is a sprite replacement tool, which you can use to replace character sprites in game, or even use a custom title screen. Many many many custom sprites are available on our homepage (http://ffhacktics.com). Shishi saves all changes automatically, though, so be forewarned.
FFTactext is, as you may expect, a text editor of sorts. You can edit any standardized text in the game, such as job titles, ability names, item names, etc. This is useful if you've changed an ability in Patcher to be something completely different and don't want it to have that name anymore. Or if you hate the spell text of a certain ability.
OrgASM is a fairly easy to use ASM hack application tool. You put hacks in the same folder the program is run in, and choose which you wish to activate from a list. The descriptions of some hacks can be vague at times, but they say what they'll do succinctly, for the most part. This is, to the typical user, a simple 'yes, yes, no, yes, no, no' checklist of a tool. You may not even wish to use it.
The other tools are a lot more in-depth and typically only of use to people who want to get down and dirty.
* ENTDs are tables that pop up at set points in the story that say which characters will be loaded for a scene, if that character will join your party, if they will join as a guest, what their stats are, and that sort of thing. Most of them aren't accurately documented in the base Resources.zip, but most of the experienced users know what's what. The ENTDs usually go over the heads of beginners until they're more comfortable going through the program, but they're honestly not difficult to edit.
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OrgASM is a fairly easy to use ASM hack application tool. You put hacks in the same folder the program is run in, and choose which you wish to activate from a list. The descriptions of some hacks can be vague at times, but they say what they'll do succinctly, for the most part. This is, to the typical user, a simple 'yes, yes, no, yes, no, no' checklist of a tool. You may not even wish to use it.
The latest version of orgASM is not like that. It contains larger hacks that come with default values corresponding to the unmodified game and requires the user to read the descriptions of the hack to change given values to correspond to what they want.
Ah, good to know.