I have a few things I want to look into doing and I wasn't sure if I should make a different topic for each or just put them all in one topic. Please let me know and I'll gladly change things.
Anyway, I'm looking for help on the following subjects. I'm not exactly looking for just the solution (though I would be grateful for it), I would like to know how each step of the solution was made so I could apply it to other, similar things. If someone would like to simply point to a guide(s) that tells me what I need to know, that would be fine, too.
:v/: 1) I like how WotL has the bonus battles with Algus returning. I'd like to add him to one of the undead battles in the PSX game. From what I've seen, it should just be a matter of creating a class with Undead innate and then assigning Algus's sprites to it, but I want to know if there's more to it than that.
2) I know this will be tricky, but I'd like to add a Turn Undead ability for Priests. So I need to know how to add (or replace) an ability, add a formula (I'd like it to hit only undead Faith% of the time and reduce the target's Brave by MA+Y), and set it so the Priest is in standard casting animation while the enemies hit have the effect of Holy Explosion (I'm not looking to add new animations at this point).
3) Is it possible to make Class Evasion apply to both physical and magical attacks?
:v/: 4) FFTPatcher has the Dark Knight abilities from WotL available in the abilities list. Am I able to just add them to a job's ability list or would additional hacking be needed?
:v/: 5) Is there a way to make the Charge attacks target a unit and only work when a bow, crossbow, or gun is equipped?
Quote from: Krendall on February 06, 2014, 08:52:32 pm
I have a few things I want to look into doing and I wasn't sure if I should make a different topic for each or just put them all in one topic. Please let me know and I'll gladly change things.
Anyway, I'm looking for help on the following subjects. I'm not exactly looking for just the solution (though I would be grateful for it), I would like to know how each step of the solution was made so I could apply it to other, similar things. If someone would like to simply point to a guide(s) that tells me what I need to know, that would be fine, too.
1) I like how WotL has the bonus battles with Algus returning. I'd like to add him to one of the undead battles in the PSX game. From what I've seen, it should just be a matter of creating a class with Undead innate and then assigning Algus's sprites to it, but I want to know if there's more to it than that.
2) I know this will be tricky, but I'd like to add a Turn Undead ability for Priests. So I need to know how to add (or replace) an ability, add a formula (I'd like it to hit only undead Faith% of the time and reduce the target's Brave by MA+Y), and set it so the Priest is in standard casting animation while the enemies hit have the effect of Holy Explosion (I'm not looking to add new animations at this point).
3) Is it possible to make Class Evasion apply to both physical and magical attacks?
4) FFTPatcher has the Dark Knight abilities from WotL available in the abilities list. Am I able to just add them to a job's ability list or would additional hacking be needed?
5) Is there a way to make the Charge attacks target a unit and only work when a bow, crossbow, or gun is equipped?
1) I already did this, look up FFT - The Lion War. It'll be out soon, and no you cannot simply add this stuff, there is no extra event space in Vanilla, we had to rearrange everything
several times to get everything to fit.
4) No, there is not ability space for this AND Dark Knight uses stuff that the PSX version doesn't have, like that cone shaped attack
Quote from: Elric on February 06, 2014, 09:51:46 pm
1) I already did this, look up FFT - The Lion War. It'll be out soon, and no you cannot simply add this stuff, there is no extra event space in Vanilla, we had to rearrange everything
several times to get everything to fit.
No, you misunderstood. I'm not looking to create an event, I just want to replace one of the undead units in a battle (like, say, Yuguo Woods) with an undead Algus.
Quote from: Elric on February 06, 2014, 09:51:46 pm
4) No, there is not ability space for this AND Dark Knight uses stuff that the PSX version doesn't have, like that cone shaped attack
I kinda figured this, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
Quote from: Krendall on February 06, 2014, 10:05:42 pm
No, you misunderstood. I'm not looking to create an event, I just want to replace one of the undead units in a battle (like, say, Yuguo Woods) with an undead Algus.
As long as you;
don't pass the sprite limit.
find sprite space in shishi.
make a new skillset and give it to Algus, (he uses someone else skillset with a unique name, like every other extra boss in WotL)
Quote from: Elric on February 06, 2014, 10:14:10 pm
As long as you;
don't pass the sprite limit.
find sprite space in shishi.
make a new skillset and give it to Algus, (he uses someone else skillset with a unique name, like every other extra boss in WotL)
What do you mean by find sprite space in shishi? Algus' sprites already exist in the game. Can't I just use those?
I assumed you'd be using the Algus Undead Knight sprite from WotL.
Quote from: Krendall on February 06, 2014, 10:05:42 pm
No, you misunderstood. I'm not looking to create an event, I just want to replace one of the undead units in a battle (like, say, Yuguo Woods) with an undead Algus.
The Algus in the game is not undead.
Yes, you can use that, but it will just look like normal Algus lol.
Quote from: Elric on February 06, 2014, 10:55:50 pm
I assumed you'd be using the Algus Undead Knight sprite from WotL.
The Algus in the game is not undead.
Yes, you can use that, but it will just look like normal Algus lol.
Well, I plan to make him floating and transparent like the other undead units you encounter in those stages. That's why I need to create a new job so I can set those all as innate.
Anyway, can I chose any blank job in FFTPatcher to do this or are there certain ones that cause problems?
Elric isn't quite right here. Since you plan on replacing the Undead Humans you can insert Undead Algus' sprite via shishi. You could also replace the unused 3a or 3b job and inser your Algus sprite over thier corresponding unused Celia or Lettie slot in shishi.
I like how I mentioned him finding space in shishi AND that undead Algus shares a previously
used skillset and somehow I'm " not quite right" even though I did that exact thing for TLW. LOL
Okay, let me explain how I thought setting this up would work, and someone please tell me what and why it won't work (unless it does, of course).
1) In FFTPatcher, under the Jobs tab, pick a blank job (3A was suggested and it is blank, so that works), make it's base skillset 1F (Algus' special Squire class), and make sure it has Undead, Transparent, and Float as innate attributes (as well as immunity to Invite and appropriate weapons & armor).
2) In the ENTD tab, go to the encounter I want him to appear in (say, Yuguo Woods 01AE) and replace an existing unit (such as one of the Wizards) by using Algus' Sprite Set (07) and set his job to 3A.
I'm not looking to add or alter any sprites at this point. I'm content to just have the purple glow from Undead and the Transparent effect.
BTW, I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being difficult, because I'm not trying to be. I'm trying to understand every how and why of the game's mechanics so I know what I'm doing when I try to do any fancy stuff.
Basically yes... But as I keep saying, that is the wrong skillset if you want an undead knight version. In WoTL he has a Job named
Death Knight, it uses skillset 27 Dark Sword.
I was really just looking for confirmation if adding a special job to an existing sprite set and then adding that to a battle was that simple, and it sounds like it is. Besides, it looks like "Deathknight" Algus had the same abilities as Gaffgarion, so if I want that I'll set 3A's default skill set to Dark Sword (20).
Yes, I know he won't have the same sprites as WotL. Maybe I'll work on that later, but I'm not too concerned about that right now.
Thank you for your help on this, though.
This reminds me that I had once considered creating undead/evil pallets for various special characters. I mean why take up precious sprite space when you could give everyone gray/green skin and different colored clothes. While facing against a team of doppelgängers is cliché it's still fun. Or say turning the deep dungeon into an actual underworld.
2) Formula hacks require ASM. Otherwise you can use the existing ones to get as close as possible to what you want. For the animation copy the flags in the animations tab in FFTP from an ability that does what you want. Change the effect to holy explosion
3) Yes but it requires some ASM. Shouldn't be too hard of a hack.
5) I'm assuming you mean follow the target unit once you start charging. The problem is if they move out of weapon range in the meantime. Since the charge abilities don't have those flags present in FFTP, it means it's hardcoded somewhere. Sooo... probly not. However you could use the ARH (ability requirement hack) to put the restriction of projectile weapons only.
Quote from: Choto on February 09, 2014, 08:55:37 am
2) Formula hacks require ASM. Otherwise you can use the existing ones to get as close as possible to what you want. For the animation copy the flags in the animations tab in FFTP from an ability that does what you want. Change the effect to holy explosion
3) Yes but it requires some ASM. Shouldn't be too hard of a hack.
5) I'm assuming you mean follow the target unit once you start charging. The problem is if they move out of weapon range in the meantime. Since the charge abilities don't have those flags present in FFTP, it means it's hardcoded somewhere. Sooo... probly not. However you could use the ARH (ability requirement hack) to put the restriction of projectile weapons only.
2) & 3) I know they would require ASM hacking. I'm looking for help on how to figure out just what I need to do. Any of the guides I found weren't much help.
5) Crud, I was afraid of that. And I know about the ARH, but if the ability doesn't follow the target there's no real point.
The formula hack would be a bit involved... but completely doable. I would attempt this one last and I can explain more in depth what to do. It's hard for me to explain what to do without knowing where you are at in your desire/progress in learning ASM in general.
The class evade hack would be pretty simple. The code would literally be as simple as "load character's class evade" --> "store character's class evade". The only trick is that you need to jump to free space, which is one of the basics of asm hacking, not too tough at all.
Did you ever try to finish that Weapon Guard hack? That one will be the simplest to start with since I laid it out.
Quote from: Choto on February 09, 2014, 11:24:17 pmDid you ever try to finish that Weapon Guard hack? That one will be the simplest to start with since I laid it out.
I haven't yet. Part of it is because I'd been working on other things and also because, well, I was confused by the first step of renaming an ability. Yes, I'm total moron, I know. Looking at it further, I'm still not sure how exactly to set it. Looking at the Battle Stats on the WIKI and the code you gave me, it looks like I would want to use:
lbu r2, 0x0092(r4)
nop
andi r2, r2, 0x0010
That points to a blank spot in the Support Abilities list. I think I've even found the slot in FFTPatcher (01E1), but I'm still not sure how to make it work like Weapon Guard. Also, will this guarantee it's not overridden by other Reaction Abilities?
Basically what that routine from which I took those commands does this:
Check if unit has weapon guard
Skip next section if not
*perform weapon guard functionality*
So whatever support ability you put in there will have the effects of weapon guard. And you correctly set the command up to function with a blank ability. Now you just put that ability in a skillset so it's learnable/equipable.
The andi 0x0010 command means it checks for ONLY the 0x10 flag. So if any other values are present, they'll be removed. This is how it checks for only that one support ability.
Seems like you're getting it, it just takes alot more learning. As you learn though light bulbs go off and it makes learning more much easier. The beginning is the hardest part :P Don't feel dumb if you can't do something that seems simple. Everybody starts with 0 knowledge. Ask Celdia, I didn't know my ass from FFTPatcher when I first started.
Quote from: Krendall on February 07, 2014, 07:55:08 am
Well, I plan to make him floating and transparent like the other undead units you encounter in those stages. That's why I need to create a new job so I can set those all as innate.
Anyway, can I chose any blank job in FFTPatcher to do this or are there certain ones that cause problems?
you may want to give the job dark/evil looking status as well to make the sprite look different.
Quote from: Choto on February 10, 2014, 10:05:16 pm
Now you just put that ability in a skillset so it's learnable/equipable.
I'm not quite sure how to do this step here. For starters, do I just use FFTactext to name the ability, or are there more steps? Also, was I correct that 01E1 on the Abilities tab in FFTPatcher corresponds to the same blank ability? If not, how do I set it up in a skillset?
Also, I didn't realize that I was basically remapping where Weapon Guard is checked. I thought I would have to clone it as a Support ability that just did the same function. I didn't realize that checking for specific abilities was part of the ASM script like that.
Quote from: Lockeadon on February 11, 2014, 10:16:53 am
you may want to give the job dark/evil looking status as well to make the sprite look different.
I was thinking of that, too, thanks. The weird thing is, I don't want him to stand out too much, if that makes any sense. I kinda think it's more amusing to have Aglus' ghost show up with no explanation and the characters don't even acknowledge him as anything more than just another enemy to fight. Yeah, I hate the bastard that much.
Quote from: Krendall on February 11, 2014, 06:55:54 pm
I'm not quite sure how to do this step here. For starters, do I just use FFTactext to name the ability, or are there more steps? Also, was I correct that 01E1 on the Abilities tab in FFTPatcher corresponds to the same blank ability? If not, how do I set it up in a skillset?
for this part just add in in fftpatcher to whichever skillset you assigned to the job, under the skillset editor. and yes you need to name it with fftactext and give it a description/help text if you want it to appear properly in the list. as to which ability it equates to i'm not sure about that. i dont remember numbers well. i'm sure choto will know though :)
Also, I didn't realize that I was basically remapping where Weapon Guard is checked. I thought I would have to clone it as a Support ability that just did the same function. I didn't realize that checking for specific abilities was part of the ASM script like that.
asm is weird at first but you get used to it.
I was thinking of that, too, thanks. The weird thing is, I don't want him to stand out too much, if that makes any sense. I kinda think it's more amusing to have Aglus' ghost show up with no explanation and the characters don't even acknowledge him as anything more than just another enemy to fight. Yeah, I hate the bastard that much.
i hate him too... him and that asshole who raped rafa >.>
So there are two things. Tactext is for editing the Text of the game only. FFTPatcher is basically a giant hex editor that changes functionality. So you would need to:
-Rename that blank ability to Weapon Guard
-Add that blank ability to the desired skillset via FFTPatcher
-Apply your ASM hack
And you should be good to go. It seems like you're figuring things out correctly, if you keep at it I'm sure you'll get there. Keep reading the wealth of information on the forums and try some editing. We're always happy to help people that help themselves =)
I tried it and I've had a couple problems.
First, when I try to name the ability in TacText, I get the error "DTE for OPEN.LZW has failed. The ISO has NOT been modified."
Second, when I tried applying the ability in the game, every physical attack came up with a 0% chance to hit and all physical attacks deal no damage nor do they trigger any kind of reaction (the attacked character just stands there). This happened to everyone, not just people with the new Weapon Guard equipped.
Here is the patch I used:
<Patch name="Support ability 01E1 is Weapon Guard">
<Location file="BATTLE_BIN" offset="11dfac">
90820092
00000000
30420010
</Location>
</Patch>
Quote from: Krendall on February 12, 2014, 06:28:21 pm
I tried it and I've had a couple problems.
First, when I try to name the ability in TacText, I get the error "DTE for OPEN.LZW has failed. The ISO has NOT been modified."
When you are finished making your edits. Save the Tactext file itself. Close Tactext. Reopen and load the Tactext file, then choose to patch it to your
iso (don't actually load the iso the second time you open it)
Quote from: Elric on February 12, 2014, 06:39:50 pm
When you are finished making your edits. Save the Tactext file itself. Close Tactext. Reopen and load the Tactext file, then choose to patch it to your
iso (don't actually load the iso the second time you open it)
Thanks, that got TacText to work. So now why does the ASM patch cause all physical attacks to not work? FFTPatcher has a box marked "Ability ID", do I need to change that to match the original Weapon Guard?
the hex that you have is backwards. The playstation processor uses something called "little endian" byte order. This means that XXYYWWZZ should really be ZZWWYYXX
So each 4 byte string of hex is a command:
92008290 <--> lbu r2,0x0092(r4)
00000000 <--> nop
30420010 <--> andi r2,r2,0x0010
if the byte order isn't reversed, then:
90820092 <--> lbu r0,-0x7d70(r16)
00000000 <--> nop
10004230 <--> beq r0,r0,0x000108cc
Did you use MasshexASM? If so, make sure the little endian box is checked. So the patch should look like this:
<Patch name="Support ability 01E1 is Weapon Guard">
<Location file="BATTLE_BIN" offset="11dfac">
92008290
00000000
10004230
</Location>
</Patch>
*growing pains*. One way to check the hacks that you make and see /where/ it's messing up is by using a debugger. Psxrel has a debugger in it. You set a breakpoint to the address that you're writing to and it will stop the game when it reaches that address and you can take a look at what code was applied. Then you can step through each command individually to see what effect it had. It's actually really useful for learning because you can see exactly what the commands did to the values in the registers. Pokeytax shows how to use a debugger here: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=7937.0
I'd say about 80% of hacks that I make don't work initially and I have to step through them with the debugger to see where the error is. It's just the nature of the beast.
Ah, okay, I was going to ask what that Little Endian box meant. The good news is the game is functioning normally now. The bad news is the ability doesn't seem to be doing anything. I try a normal physical attack from the front and it's only calculating class and shield evade, but not weapon. So either it's not working or it's not being calculated for the chance-to-hit display.
Also, just to be clear, what I want is to be able to stack Weapon Guard with any other Reaction Skill. Will this patch alone do that or would there be even more I have to do? If not, couldn't I just set Weapon Guard as an innate skill for every class?
The proper way to diagnose this is with psxrel, a debugger. Here are possible problems i can think of:
-are you sure the support ability is equipped and matches the one we configured the hack for?
-Are there any other conditions in battle that would prevent the target from using weapon guard? (don't act, in water, status?)
-Are you mistaking the weapon guard for another type of evade?
try downloading psxrel and set an execute breakpoing for 0x184f9c. then you can step through each command by pressing F7. If it gets by the beq command, then it should be applying >_> You can reference Pokeytax's ASM tutorial for some debugger info. You can find the debugger here: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=9608.0
Here's what I'm getting from the break point until it hits a beq line each time I press F7. Sorry, but I'm really not sure if it's getting by it or not (I read Pokeytax's thread and it didn't help much here).
00184f9c: lui r4,0x8019 3c048019 ...<
00184fa0: lw r4,0x2d98(r4) 8c842d98 .-..
00184fa4: addiu r29,r29,0xffe8 27bdffe8 ...'
00184fa8: sw r31,0x0010(r29) afbf0010 ....
00184fac: lbu r2,0x0092(r4) 90820092 ....
00184fb0: nop 00000000 ....
00184fb4: andi r2,r2,0x0010 30420010 ..B0
00184fb8: beq r2,r0,0x00184fcc 10400004 ..@.
From what I understand, nop usually means it didn't work, but I don't know if passing through it like it did is normal or not.
I'm just glad you gave it a shot instead of saying "F it". :P
nop doesn't do anything, it's just a blank command that has no effect. It does serve a purpose but you don't need to worry about that now.Here's what the game is doing:
00184fac: lbu r2,0x0092(r4) 90820092 ---- Load active Support abilities
00184fb0: nop 00000000
00184fb4: andi r2,r2,0x0010 30420010 ---Check if Ability Active
00184fb8: beq r2,r0,0x00184fcc 10400004 ----Branch (skip) if not
If you watch the registers, you can look at r2 and see what's loaded in. If you equipped the correct ability r2 should be 0x00000010 after the load command
Then the and command is a masker. Bytes are made up of 8 bits which are as follows:
0x80 0x08
0x40 0x04
0x20 0x02
0x10 0x01
If you add these together you can produce all the numbers in between. the andi r2, r2, 0x10 command is masking the byte off except for the 0x10 bit. So after the andi command, r2 will be 0x00000010 if that flag was present, or 0x000000000 otherwise. This is how it checks for ONLY weapon guard. The beq command is "branch if equal". Since r0 is always 0, you're really doing "branch if equal to zero".
So it seems like when you hit the beq command, it's jumping to that address, 0x00184fcc? That means the support ability isn't present on the unit that you're attacking. Make sure you equip that 0x1E1 ability on your target.
Does that all make sense? On a positive note your hack was applied nicely :)
It's definitely equipped on the target and that's definitely the right ability since it shows up in the Support abilities on the job.
Alright, at the break point the r2 value is 80188b64, then when it reaches 0x184fb0: nop it becomes 00000000 and stays there for the rest of the steps.
A slightly off-topic question, but is there a difference between psxrel and psxfin? They seem like the same emulator with the same debugging options.
I'm not sure, I've never used psxfin.
So when it loads your support abilities, it's not seeing that 0x1E1 is active. I don't think there's any hardcoding associated with that blank support ability, but to be sure I would set the hack up to check for a different support ability and see if it works. Or you could set 0x1E1 innate for whatever job your target is and run the breakpoint again to see what happens. If the ability is equipped idk why it's not storing that the unit has the ability active.
psxrel : pSX release
psxfin : pSX final
I ―think― the rel version is as up to date, but to be safe, you might want to go with the final version.
Is it possible there's more hard-coding to Weapon Guard that we aren't addressing?
Either way, I think I want to put this on hold for now and look into adding formulas. Do you know which guide(s) talk about that kind of thing?
Nope, that's the only hardcoding... Can you post a save-state of you with the ability equipped at the world map? Then I can see exactly what's acting dumb...
Glain's tutorial is here: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=8408.0
He touches on formula hacking. he goes through little code snippets and tells you what the code is doing, which is probably good for you to see just starting out. once you get passed understanding commands you feel alot better.
Here's the save state and thanks for the link.
Ahh now that clears things up. Check out the picture I posted. In the disassembly you can see at 0x184fac there is the old vanilla code. This means the hack wasn't applied correctly. Post the patch your using and we'll check the offsets. Also be aware that if you patch something and then load a save-state, it will overwrite your patch. So to test you have to load up the game the long way.
If you look at the memory window, I've posted a portion of Ramza's Unit Data corresponding to http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Battle_Stats
If you start at the top left corner (0x00) and then go down 9 and over 2, you'll be at byte 0x92. Here we can see that it's 0x10 so the support ability is active on the unit. Just gotta get that code patched.
Here's the .xml file I used to apply the patch. I used the offsets you told me to use, so I'm not sure why things aren't working.
Hi, Krendall. There hasn't been any activity in this thread for some time, and I was wondering if you ever had any luck implementing your "Turn Undead" ability. I was hoping to do something similar (old school FF Dia), but I have no idea how to modify formulas, and was hoping for some direction.