I was thinking of creating a Job tree in which only specific types of jobs could gain only specific classes and not branch into other ones. I saw Xifanie's Upgraded Soldier office and realized there might be someway to make this work.That seems simple enough, have them require one of their own class and their corresponding partnered class and 8 out all the classes that they could never reach therefore making it impossible to get to a Job Tree not meant for them. However my issue then comes to the fact that Squire and Chemist are base jobs. I want my Generics to follow specific trees. I would also like my Special Characters to follow those specific trees which would best suit them. I am not sure if I am at an impasse here, since I am only in the conceptualization phase, haven't tested anything AT ALL!.
So for example...
I would like The Squire and Chemist Classes to Branch out to their own Tree. The Archer and Thief Classes to their own and the White and Black Mage Classes to their own. Having Three Trees in total. However, since the base classes for all of the Special Character types is Squire. How could I make it so that their Base class let's Say Beowulf who is a Mystic Knight/Templar fall into the Mage Class Tree, without access to the Squire/Chemist-Archer/Thief Class tree? Is this even possible with the Special Characters or would they be beholden to only the Squire/Chemist path?
So I thought maybe I can make it so that all the Special classes are beholden to the Squire/Chemist tree and one other to suit them so that their "Special-ness" comes out? However this defeats the purpose of what I want and that is to make Generics something people would want to have!! And the Squire/Chemist Tree would also have access to those other classes.... SIGH
Anyway, if there is a way to make it so that the Special Classes aren't so special, other than nerfing them? Or is this something Hard coded into the game that makes the Squire base special which cannot be surpassed?
I guess that would mean that all of the Special classes would only be beholden to the Squire/Chemist path... hmmm and then my Generics would be something that the Specials could never achieve making them that more invaluable! Oh geez I just spoke in a circle with that one. Either way! Does anyone know of an ASM hack or a work around?
That... is actually a really good question. I'm not sure how much hardcoding is involved in making special jobs always replace Squire, but potentially, it could be a relatively small hack. It may well be possible to make each special job replace a different job in the tree entirely. No idea how difficult, but barring deeply hardcoded muck, it may be both very doable and very interesting. One of the best ideas I've seen for an ASM hack that didn't come from Xifanie herself in some time.
Seriously, this is some IZJS shit, right here. I like it!
I'm really curious about looking into this...
Balthier's special job could replace Thief
Holy/Dark/Divine Knight could replace Knight
Astrologist could replace Calculator
And it wouldn't be "squire be gone" all the time anymore. Plus who doesn't want Agrias with Accumulate early game?
I can already foresee annoying difficulties for such a hack, but I think it would be worthwhile to make.
Replacing the whole job tree for different sets of characters would be a whole other thing though, 100 times as much work, and you'd be too limited in terms of sprites anyway (UNIT.BIN doesn't allow many characters, generics alone take half the space).
Thanks, haha.
Yeah, so basically if there is a way to make it so that people can change or rather assign Special characters to potential Tree Starters. This would create for a whole range of diversity. I have been considering a patch doing this but go one step further, I would need this basic function though for it to take effect to how I would like it. Shhhhh It's kind of a secret for now :cool:
Certainly can be done although the main difficulty is that most of this will be done in World BIN which lacks documentation when compared to Battle BIN or SCUS.
Not sure the best way since there's far, far more experienced ASM hackers here than me but one way I can think of doing this is through a combination of RAD3 and a new hack (probably bolted onto RAD3). A check would need to be made on the base class, if it replaces non-Squire class then force Squire to be available and assign the base class in place of the non-Squire class. You'd have to do that by doing a check vs. static data contained within your hack. That'd also require setting it up in RAD3 to "Share with" the class you wish it to replace (otherwise its level would be linked with Squire).
RAD3? ...Why? RAD3 is just meant to be "fun". It's extremely broken and not stable for a proper mod in any way, so I really don't understand the point of building the hack around that...
And this is what I accomplish when I lack documentation. Someone has to figure shit out to write documentation. I figure shit out if I don't have documentation. Problem solved.
(This version is buggy, it just doesn't remember which current job is set on the job wheel, so I obviously need a new approach, but it's otherwise working and it wasn't all that much trouble)
I'm going to play cheerleader here and say that this is an awesome idea for a hack and I hope to see it reach fruition.
It always bugged me, too, having a completely unrelated class replace squire.
I haven't worked on it in 2 days, but I also haven't hit a wall. What the hack currently does: allow forbidding any job, and replace any generic job for a special job.
AFAIK, I'm completely done with the world map portion, and edited the ENTD unit generation routine to forbid unlocking skills/skillsets/jobs based on another hack... which is kinda necessary at this point.
Since the hack allows forbidding jobs, I have to make sure ENTD units will meet the same restrictions. Therefore, I created a hack that allows setting all the job levels using the "unknown" job in FFTPatcher. For example, you could create a unit with lvl 2 squire, lvl 2 chemist, lvl 8 knight, lvl 2 wizard, lvl 7 time mage, while setting monk and priest to lvl 0 so that the unit doesn't equip skillsets/R/S/M related to those jobs.
What's left? "Special" job skillsets in battle. Normally it checks if the skillset matches the first, base job's skillset, and will use the base job's skill unlocked flags. So I have to make it scan through all the possible jobs and compare skillsets. It shouldn't be that hard but still gotta do it. I think I'll be done after that? Hopefully AI won't mess with me.
Wow Xif that is awesome. Thank you for putting in the effort. I am eternally grateful for all your hard work.
I'm not going to make my own topic yet, but I'm just asking before releasing an incomplete hack. >>
I forgot for a week about the JP gain routine, and since that hack needs to alter a lot of stuff, I figured I'd ask if anyone can think of something else that would need to be altered... I'm posting my progress at the same time
Legend:
[indent=2]
No progress
In progress
Completed (AFAIK)[/indent]
- Job wheel displayed jobs, removed jobs, job levels and job descriptions
- Formation status screen displayed jobs & removed jobs
- Formation status screen displayed JP & learn(ed) flags (includes learning new abilities)
- Formation screen setting proper Skillset/R/S/M of altered job wheel
- ENTD Generated units with custom job levels all around (job level 0 means the job is flagged as not unlocked and won't set skillset/R/S/M of that job or learn anything from them)
- Battle status screen displayed jobs & removed jobs
- Battle status screen displayed JP & learned flags
- Battle skillsets using the proper "ability learned" flags; "Mastered" for skillsets that don't match any of that unit's jobs' skillsets
- AI using the proper skills
- Unit List status screen displayed jobs & removed jobs
- Unit List status screen displayed JP & learned flags
- JP Gain (and spillover JP)
- BUG: Mime's replacement is not automatically mastered on the world map
- BUG: Mime does not appear replaced in the unit's status (both field and Unit List)
[/hblock]
I was going to ask about Mime, but I figured it wouldn't even be worth it to include it in your patch because of all the complications it brings to the table.