Ramza and his quest as a Holy Knight [Editing Help]

[CodySpie]

Greetings Hacktics community! I stumbled across this Website while looking for ways to play Final Fantasy Tactics with a bit of creative freedom, I've been browsing topics, searching for patches and wondering around aimlessly as a guest for a few days now, and finally decided that I had best register!

Before I move to my issue, allow me to tell you a bit about myself,

My name is Cody and I'm 21 years old. I reside in the great white north on Ontario, CAN and you can find me with a controller in my hands, writing an article on the latest hot tech or tinkering with Website Design. I guess you could say I'm a "Jack of no trades"

Ever since I first played Final Fantasy Tactics I had one dream in mind - Make Ramza a Holy Knight, his father Balbanes was a Heavenly Knight so I felt disappointed when I discovered that Ramza would be unable to select a similar job. Thus my search for emulators and editing programs began.

I've been attempting to make Ramza a Holy Knight for the past few days, but haven't had any luck. I've tried using [PEC] but I'm left with the Job Title but Squire Skills and I've also tried using FFTPatcher, but have no idea how it works or how to use it. I joined the community to try and get a more hands on approach, a "Hacktics for Dummies" if you will  I'm very much a visual learner, so descriptive text and videos have always been a very successful approach. I figure a vast community such as this could point me in the right direction

Ideally, I'd like to have the Skillset and the Job title, but understanding that the Job Title is purely Aesthetic, it's no mandatory. I've tried searching about the forums, but the SMF search bar is far from a Google Search 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Kind Regards,
Cody

[Jumza]

I reside in the great white north on Ontario, CAN

Wheee! Same here

Anyway, let's get to business.

The way I would go about doing this is adding the Holy Knight abilities to Ramza's skillset. Open up your FFTPatcher and create a new PSX patch. Click the Skill Sets tab, and notice the 4 Guts Skillsets.


The first 3 are Ramza's skillsets. the first is Ch1 Ramza, second is Ch's 2 / 3, and the third is Ch4 Ramza.

Click on the skills that say "0000 <Nothing>" and find the Holy Knight skills you desire, whether it be the normal ones or adding in some other stuff that you'd also like to use.

It's important to note that when a skill is in Ramza's skillset it has to be in the same slot from chapter to chapter, otherwise it -will- be overwritten by some other skill that is in that slot.

In this Example, Learning 'Cure' in chapter 1 will give you the Cure skill, but in Chapter 2 the learned skill becomes 'Cheer Up' and Cure is not learned anymore.


So yeah, don't set it up like that.
A good way to avoid this is remembering that by Chapter 4 in Vanilla FFT, Ramza has gained 3 more skills. So add in additional skills to his first skillset at the 4'th "0000 <Nothing>", his second skillset at the 3rd "0000 <Nothing>" and then his last skillset right after Ultima.

So then you're done with that now, once you've added the skills you want click the PSX button on the top, then Patch ISO. Select an ISO file to make these changes to (back up your normal one so that you can copy / paste new ones at will) at the bottom and then hit OK.



Next part, Changing the Skillset name and Job Name!
Exciting stuff!

Open up FFTacText, which was included in the FFTPatcher suite thingy you probably downloaded to get FFTPatcher.

Click ISO and find your edited ISO file.

Now click Text (located next to ISO) and make sure that Quick Edit is selected.

Now click "Ability Descriptions" to open up a drop down box, find the "Job Names" option. The first  3 options (Squire, Squire, Squire) are again the 3 different Ramza's (because chapter 2 and 3 Ramza are identical). Change them to whatever you'd like! (Fun Fact: the 4th Squire is Delita's chapter 1 job ) They can also be different from eachother, so Chapter 1 Ramza could be Squire or Cadet, Chapter 2 could be Mercenary or Holy Knight or... Whatever your Canadian heart desires.

Next! Go back to that drop down box thingy, and find Skillset Names (you can also edit the description under, Skillset Description).
Find the 4 Guts again, and as usual the first 3 are indeed Ramza himself. Change them to whatever you want!

Great! Edit anything else you'd like or simply explore the programs now that you have an idea of what to do, then click ISO, Patch ISO, find your edited ISO and bam! Everything should be ready to play!

I hope this helps, happy hacking!

[CodySpie]

Hey Jumza, how about that ice storm?! 

I followed your directions to the tee, and even received a big "SUCCESS" window after applying my changes in FFTactext, I haven't tested it yet, but will edit my post with what I find! Thank you for all of your help

[Jumza]

It was pretty bad, power outages, falling ice everywhere, it's pretty cold too isn't it?

That's good I hope everything works out for you!

[CodySpie]

It was pretty bad, power outages, falling ice everywhere, it's pretty cold too isn't it?

That's good I hope everything works out for you!

Yep, I was out of power for a full 48 hours, but look at the bright side, it's suppose to be 0 in Southern Ontario Tomorrow!

Edit 1: The changes work perfectly! Ramza has all of the skills stored away and ready to learn, and Renaming skillsets and job names did wonders! I decided to go ahead and explore as you suggested and added new descriptions for the things I changed.

Edit 2: I browsed around and found some awesome looking Ramza sprites, so now he even looks the part! If anyone finds any neat sprites during their search here on the board, please send them my way!

[Myrmidon]

I'm also in Ontario.
I'm a nomad.
I live in a van.
You have no right to complain.  GRAWRG!

I have nothing useful to add to this thread.  Welcome, have fun, and there's plenty of people here willing to help you out if you need it - as you've already seen.

[Choto]

imo, the best alternate Ramza sprite is Twinees' version from JoT5:

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=9865.msg190655#msg190655

[CodySpie]

imo, the best alternate Ramza sprite is Twinees' version from JoT5:

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=9865.msg190655#msg190655

You're right, that is a really nice Sprite! I'm always in the market for more Knight-like sprites however I will add this to the collection! I've tried my hand at re-colouring some of the sprites I really enjoyed, but they don't save right and turn out to be a complete disaster when I preview them in ShishiSpriteEditor. (And I mean, a disaster, they don't even retain a human like shape, they just get all grainy and odd.) That and I'm color blind, so what may look awesome to me, may look horrible to others! 

Thanks for sharing Choto!

[Timbo]

Something more knightly? He's wearing a recolored version of Delita's Holy Knight outfit with a half cape. Jot5 Ramza is  beyond Knightly, he looks absolutely Lordly. The Chapter 2 version of him has the same outfit minus the beard. He's pretty boss looking.

[3lric]

The Chapter 2 version of him has the same outfit minus the beard. He's pretty boss looking.

Not sure where you got the info on that from but you are wrong. But I'm glad you like them.

[CodySpie]

Something more knightly? He's wearing a recolored version of Delita's Holy Knight outfit with a half cape. Jot5 Ramza is  beyond Knightly, he looks absolutely Lordly. The Chapter 2 version of him has the same outfit minus the beard. He's pretty boss looking.

I see what you mean! I can't remember where specifically on Hacktics I pulled this sprite, but I think it's my favorite by far! Very... distinguished. So massive thanks to the Author

[3lric]

Isn't that just Ramza's head on Aliste's body? Is the Palette even changed? O_o

[CodySpie]

Isn't that just Ramza's head on Aliste's body? Is the Palette even changed? O_o

It very well could be, Elric! I've been playing with the Palettes a little bit just to see how drastically I can change all of the different Elements, however I don't know the Origins of where this Sprite came from.

[3lric]

You should try Xifanies Palette Editor. It helps a lot with editing palettes without the risk of messing
Up the sprite itself

[Timbo]

Not sure where you got the info on that from but you are wrong. But I'm glad you like them.

Pardon me, I should have referred to him as Ramza Chapter 2/3 as shishi does. Which has nothing to do with Journey of the Five Chapter 2. So far this thread is full of me saying something wrong and Elric shooting it down.

[CodySpie]

You should try Xifanies Palette Editor. It helps a lot with editing palettes without the risk of messing
Up the sprite itself

Funny you mentioned! I ran across the program earlier today and started fiddling. It's a little tough for me to distinguish Palettes by color, so I've been fiddling with the RGB Value bars to see what color belongs to what part of the sprite. It's some pretty good fun!

Speaking of that, I requested a sprite over in the Spriters Section which could be made more interesting / awesome / tragic with the Power of Palette editing!