Xif's Fixes (ASM Hacks & Spreadsheets)

[Vanya]

I don't see the benefit in giving transparent a time limit. If you want to win a battle you have to attack eventually. So what if someone CAN sit there hiding for the entire fight? Why would someone want to in the first place?

[LastingDawn]

So they can assassinate the enemy, completely destroying the point of formation's important.

[Vanya]

If you can have a character that can kill in one hit it makes the formation just as useless anyway. I could understand if they could attack at will while invisible. Maybe it's more useful than I've given it credit for.

[LastingDawn]

If you have a full team of invisible people, and move over to... let's say Rofel in 1.3, you could kill him with the people you surrounded him with.

[Vanya]

Sounds like either the players are too strong, or Rofel is too weak. Messing with the invis mechanic sounds like more trouble than it's worth when you can just make the boss character stronger.

[LastingDawn]

If the boss has 999 HP (which human Rofel would have...) and you surround him with four units, to hurt him roughly 250 on each swing, he goes down, without a fight. Why retool the whole game, when you could just get rid of that status?

[The Damned]

I think you're missing the point with regards to primarily messing around with Transparent so that the AI can take advantage of it as well and not be abused by it, Vanya.

Let's not turn this into another relatively pointless Fury debate, shall we?

[LastingDawn]

True, true. I forgot this was the ASM thread... it's also because the AI can't take advantage of invisibility.

[The Damned]

While we on the subject, though, outside of the obvious attempts at fixing Transparent (and Oil) and making Wall usable, I would also say that, somewhere done the line, it would be helpful to try and "fix" the way that the AI reacts to Death Sentence and Confusion.

I'd rather have Death Sentence be usable than have to pseudo-remove it like in 1.3.

[Vanya]

I think you're missing the point with regards to primarily messing around with Transparent so that the AI can take advantage of it as well and not be abused by it, Vanya.

No. I get that. Fixing the AI to use invis and then fixing invis so the player can't see anything at all is a great idea. It's the idea of placing a time limit on it that I don't agree with. But, you're right. This is an ASM discussion.

Here's some ideas:
*How about rigging jump, throw & draw out so that they can be accessed from within another skillset?
(And maybe geomancy, too.)
*An important one to benefit the community is to fix generics so they can use the jump, throw, geomancy & draw out skillsets after they've been modified.

[Zozma]

it seems like it would be easier to make it so you always miss someone in transparent status as opposed to making that unit completely invisible on the enemy side.

id assume it would be way more complicated to find a way to mask not only the unit. but also to hide its actions and location when they get a turn as opposed to simply making anything physical miss untill that unit takes an action.

that might not be exactly what you guys are getting at but i think it might be a good idea. the ai should automatically use it properly, trying to hit the unit with spells instead of physical attacks etc... or maybe the ai would still be stupid i donno....

[Gamesoul Master]

That sort-of touches on a good idea... fixes to make the AI think more like a human player. Hitting a transparent unit with a magic spell is a good example of this. Patches like that would eliminate most of the need to over-power enemies just to make a battle more difficult. I'll try to post some more suggestions for this when I can think of them (just woke up, still sort-of tired... ).

[Zozma]

I know its not really a request section but....

if someone could change the "please eat" formula (thats the one that causes crystal right?) into:

IF Undead & Monster => crystalize

is that way too complicated...?

[Skip Sandwich]

I'd rather please eat replaced with a formula that adds a status to the user and performs either healing or damage (preferably healing, so we have a supportive 'self-destruct' option, like something that kills the user but heals all allies on the field)

[Gamesoul Master]

Zozma, normally Limit requires the Materia Blade, and to tell this the game uses a boolean, which is named "Materia Blade" in FFTPatcher,  changing the code allows changing what item is required to allow the use of those skills.

I've long been pondering this, trying to figure out exactly what you're saying (as there really isn't an explanation of anything here beyond the basic fact that the game is checking a Boolean value).

What I'd like to know is how exactly is this Boolean value set? Does the action of equipping the Materia Blade set "Materia Blade" to TRUE, or does something else do it? And since the variable is Boolean, it obviously isn't storing the location of an item (which I would've considered the only simple way to allow only *one* item to "be" the Materia Blade). So what is actually causing the single item limit? I'm rather figuring that the answer to my first question will answer this second question, but if not, I'm definitely curious about both.

[Vanya]

I imagine there is a routine that checks if skills have the "Materia Blade" boolean set to true before it is used; probably part of the menu routine. The boolean value is set in the game's code to a specific item ID. We know this because Zodiac already figured out the address for it, which we can edit to any item we choose. Al the items in the game have a specific ID, probably based on a table or the order their data is defined in. ^_^

[Archael]

It's the idea of placing a time limit on it that I don't agree with.

there is no point  in having a status with such power have no time duration

too abuseable

you need to play more FFT (both vanilla and 1.3 when setiemson and secret cothes had perma trans) if you do not see the uber broken-ness that is infinite duration invis


it should get a time limit just like haste, protect, shell, hell, even more so than them, because it's more powerful than them all

tl;dr: you're wrong

[Gamesoul Master]

@Vanya: You know, I couldn't remember why I stopped worrying about this, and just now I remembered. After reading the first post again (which is what I did last time), I realized that the boolean he was talking about is simply the one already known in the editor, and what he *actually* discovered was the address that holds the ID of the item that will allow that boolean to be set to TRUE. Sorry for my complete brain lapse there (I went back to thinking he discovered the boolean value, not an actual address holding a hex value).

Only way I could see Transparent being alright without a time limit is if the computer could actually "see" you, and the status ignores physical attacks (and possibly increased damage from magic attacks, though not necessary since the status is meant to be beneficial and not simply a double-edged blade). Then in that case, if the computer somehow doesn't have anybody with magic attacks, it would be poor strategy on the computer's part... lol.

All in all, I think that Transparent simply needs to be completely unbroken so that a person could do whatever they want with it (ignore attacks, set time limits, etc). Then there wouldn't be arguments like this so much... lol. But of course, no need for me to request that... the whole community would love for something like that to happen...

... ... ... I had an actual request to contribute to this thread with, but now I've forgotten it. I'll come back as soon as I remember it... lol.

[Vanya]

Yeah. That's more on less what I would shoot for. Make it like the transparent status in FF6.
Just giving it a CT seems like a bit of a cop-out.

I'd be satisfied if it just prevented physical attacks from hitting & had the 100% hit for the effected unit removed.

It would be complete if it could force 100% hit on incoming spells.

[Archael]

A Transparent that the computer can target (they can already use it so that's not a problem) with 32 CT is the best solution!


which means player and AI will use it to gain Concentrate for their next attack

that's it


done deal!