Final Fantasy Hacktics

Hi guys, I just wanted to make a note of something here that took me about a month to troubleshoot and figure out.

Ability slot "00B8 - Infernal Strike" pulls double duty in the game. The ability data (ie - range, MP, formula) applies to Infernal Strike, but Infernal Strike's animation will always copy whatever you have in slot "00A4 - Duskblade". So if you change the animation for Duskblade, that will copy over to Infernal Strike. The animation slot for 00B8 is listed as "0C0 - Summon Angel", and it is the animation that Ultima uses for her movement. If you change this animation, the final battle will softlock when Ultima tries to move. From what I can tell, it's waiting to display the HP/MP damage, but since that value is null, it can't complete the animation.

The animation copying happens also with "002D - Sanguine Sword". That ability will use whatever you set as the animation for "00A5 - Shadowblade". The animation for 002D is "11F". I have not noticed any adverse effects from changing this, but to be safe you should probably leave it alone.

To use: download this zip file and paste it into the same folder as FFTPatcher, FFTactext, etc.

This contains XML files that add damage formulas for the PSP-exclusive Dark Knight abilities, and ENTD titles for all of the story scenes, including the PSP exclusive ones. It is based off of Elric's names from the PSX version, with names updated to their PSP spellings.

Final Fantasy Tactics was made in 1997, and remains one of the best Tactical Roleplaying Games on the market. In 2007, it was remade for the PSP and ported to IOS/Android. In 2017, this project was created to try to make a better FFT experience. Everything about the game, from concept art to battle data, was examined to see what hints were left of original design choices. Several themes started to "emerge" from this investigation. FFT: Emergence is the result of this exploration.

Here is a high-level overview of the changes:
  * The Job progression has been re-organized to be more intuitive and sensible. For example, Lancers are gained from training Knights, not Thieves.
  * There are 49 new abilities to learn. 19 were previously enemy-only, and 30 new abilities were created by removing duplicates between classes.
  * Magick charge time and damage formulas have been tweaked to bring mages into balance.
  * Faith is no longer used in Attack and Healing Magick.
  * Many job classes have been tweaked. The following classes were completely redesigned:
      - Soldier (aka Knight) - Given the original Archer ability to charge attacks
      - Archer - Able to inflict statuses through special arrows
      - Cleric, Wizard, Enchanter, and Mystic (aka White Mage, Black Mage, Time Mage, & Oracle) have all shuffled spells around to allow for deeper specialization within each job class.
      - Magus (aka Dark Knight) - redesigned to be an armor-wearing mage class with access to 8 spells previously reserved for enemies.
  * Every special character has been modified. The biggest changes are:
      - Ramza. Slowly becomes a Dark Knight over the course of the story, able to learn the Dark Sword techniques from fighting against Gaffgarion
      - Mustadio. Gains all of the "Sap" abilities, so he can reduce enemies's Power, Magic, Speed, and MP.
      - Beowulf. Swapped spell animations with the Mystics to give his class more personality. Does not require swords to cast his spells.
      - Luso. Given a unique class consisting of the Astral Magicks.
  * Every storyline battle has been tweaked to give players a greater variety of enemies and a smoother difficulty curve.
  * Many items and weapons have been updated.
  * And, of course, the animation slowdown has been removed.

Taken in total, FFT: Emergence offers new gameplay possibilities while still retaining the theme and feel of the old classic. With a difficulty level similar to the original game, any player can pick this up with confidence.

Quick question, just for confirmation. I'm now at the end of my playthrough, and I've been looking to see if there are any maps in the game that have a water depth of 3, thus triggering the Waterbreathing ability. To my knowledge, there are none. Has anyone else looked into this to determine if Waterbreathing is, in fact, dummied content?

Note: Bethla Sluice is the place I thought I would find this, but it jumps straight from depth of 2 (Swim) to depth of 4 (No Ability).

I recognize that the answer is probably no to this, since I've been searching around FFTPatcher for a few weeks. However, just to put my mind to rest so I can move on, I will ask it here in case anyone has come across the same question.

There are formulas for increasing PA (Focus) and Speed (Tailwind), but there isn't a corresponding formula to increase MA. However, that DOES exist in the game's code, since the support ability "Magick Boost" uses it. Is the formula hidden somewhere (like in formulas 6B-FF), where I could apply it to an action ability, or is this a lost cause without ASM?

This is an observation question, based on your experiences.

I am switching some spells to be non-faith based. In order to do that, I've taken 65 as an average faith level. So to figure out the spell's power, I've changed the formula to DMG_(MA*Y), and then dropped the base power by the formula: Power*0.65*0.65. So, for example, Fire would go from 14 to 5.

Have you had to answer/playtest this before? If so, what formula did you use? Is 65 a good average number, or am I being too generous?

Hello all. I've been doing quite a bit of re-arrangement of abilities between classes, and there are 2 cases that have eluded me with Speechcraft.

1. I moved "Tailwind" to Orators/Mediators. It works on monsters, even when Beast Tongue is not equipped.
2. I moved "Stall" to Time Mages. It does not work on monsters when Beast Tongue isn't equipped.

I would assume that Earplug/Finger Guard would affect Stall on the Time Mages, but not Tailwind on the Orators, but haven't tested it yet.

So what determines whether or not a skill is considered "Speechcraft"? It is obviously not the skill's presence in the Speechcraft skillset. Is it more hardcoding?

Hi guys. In my hack, I've replaced the Bag family with Fell Swords. I've done some graphical replacement so the Fell Swords are recolors of the Knight Swords (black, gray, and red) within the menus. However, within battle, the game still displays the generic sword graphic instead of the special Knight Swords. Does anyone know how to make the in-battle graphic change?

Basic question on WotL modding. I have been able to use FFTactext .457 to rename skills and job classes. The changes are reflected in the game, no problem. Everything works until an enemy crystalizes. Then, about 50% of the time, the game will crash. I'm playing FFT:WotL with the animation fix on an actual PSP. FFTPatcher changes do not crash the game, just FFTactext. Any ideas from more experienced members as to why this might be crashing?

Things I've tried:
1. I thought it might be the ability names or the job names, so I made the smallest possible change, changing the name "Wezelf" to "Wedge". This still crashed the game.

My hack is complete except for the ability names.

Okay, question. I've noticed that the skillsets seem to be tied pretty tightly to their jobs, at least for the generics. Archers MUST have Charge/Aim, Knights MUST have Swordplay/Arts of War. If you switch the two of them, here's what happens. I'll use Knights (AoW) and Archers (Aim) for example.

Knights are able to utilize Aim skills, and Archers are able to use AoW. No problems so far. Knights, however, cannot LEARN Aim Skills. The skill slots default to the Archer class. So if I purchase Skill #1 from the Archers (in this case, Rend Helm), it will activate Skill #1 for the Knights (Aim +1). The Aim skillset is forever tied to the Archers.

Is there any way to change this association? If the answer is "Yes for PSX, no for WotL", please let me know.

I am fairly new to this scene, so I apologize if this has been asked before. When opening up a WotL patch in FFTPatcher, there is an extra row below Onion Knight that reads "Unknown". Does this map to a job slot? If so, does anyone know which slot? I have a vision for what I am trying to do, and it would be awesome to have one more slot to work with!

This is my first post here. Let me just say that I am amazed at this community. I had no idea it existed before a month ago, and you guys have done so much work that it's really easy for a newbie to get started. I've read a lot of the forum posts, but there are a few answers I couldn't readily find.

Preamble (context - expand to read):


QUESTION 1: Changing Ramza's class in Chapter 3
After killing Gaffgarion, I would like Ramza to take up the mantle, as it were, and become a Dark Knight. I've identified the in-game story sequence where Ramza changes from his chapter 2/3 form into his Chapter 4 form. I have it as hex address #137 (Orlandu Musing [Zeltennia]). I would LIKE to change it to event #128 (Arrival at Orbonne), so he changes at the beginning of Chapter 3. If I mark "Join After Event" on #128, is it going to change Ramza to Chapter 4 form, or is there a hardcoded value I'm not seeing that will result in a second Ramza joining my party?

(PS: I've also identified that the following cutscenes will need the chapter 4 sprite: 129,12A, 12C, 12D, 131, 132, 135, 136)

QUESTION 2: Editing Bio/Biora/Bioga
With the PSP version, I run into some certain challenges. First, due to hardcoded values, I need to create a class. Ramza is going to be the sole Dark Knight, so my current plan is to change the Dark Knight class to the Calculator. This allows me to keep Calculator in the game, but it will inherit the 20 kill hidden value. I plan to make it so that the requirements for Calculator are very high. Then, with the current Calculator slot, I'm going to create a Red Mage. This will be a battle mage that casts water/earth/wind spells, but also has a new spell, Refresh/Refreshaga, that will heal MP by spending HP. Anyway, the second problem with the PSP is that frickin' Balthier took up all of the empty ability slots with Plunder.

My solution for this is to have only one copy of Bio/Biora/Bioga, with all status effects randomly added. This frees up 7 slots. I can also free up 2 more by editing Sanguine Sword and Infernal Strike, since they're duplicates. This is good, since by my count I only need 7 slots. Again, I just need to check if there are hardcoded values associated to the Bio family that I am unaware of. It seemed like really odd coding when I looked at it.

QUESTION 3: Inserting Formulas
I have determined 2 formulas that I need to insert in order to make this idea a reality. Problem is, I can't figure out how to do it. Can anyone help?
These are the 2 I need added:
(Slot 18) HealMP_(MA*Y) DmgCas_(X) NS NE
(Slot 19) Heal_(CasMaxMP*X/Y) DmgCas_(CasMaxMP/Y) Hit_(100%) NS NE

Then, I'd also like to edit the following (Chant) to change the numbers to variables.
3C Heal_(CasMaxHP*Y/X) DmgCas_(CasMaxHP/X) Hit_(100%) NS NE

Thanks in advance for all the help.