Final Fantasy Hacktics

Sorry to bump this, but the link to the "Edit BONUS.BIN.rar" is leading to a "not found" error.

This is a mod I've been working on mostly just for fun. While a lot of mods like to take the overpowered jobs and abilities and make them more even with the others, my general goal is to overpower everything. What, exactly, that means for each job, I don't know yet.

SOME CHANGES

• Calculator is changed to Blue Mage. While abilities can currently be gained by JP, this is just to make testing easier. They eventually will all be "Learn on Hit."
• Priests have been altered, inspired by their Dungeons & Dragons counterparts. They can equip heavy armor, shields, and use non-bladed weapons.
• Magic names use the current naming style. For example, Fire 2 is now Fira. Other ability names have been altered depending on personal preference between Japanese, PSX, or PSP names. Also, obviously mistranslated ability names have been fixed (Face Up is now Faith Up).
• Misspelled monster names have been corrected (Mindflare is now Mindflayer).
• Job levels require more JP, while abilities require much less JP.
• Enemies in story battles now level scale.
• Enemy units, as well as recruited special units, have potentially all abilities learned. Other than in specific battles, all set abilities are random.
• Player has control of Guest units.
• Stats and stat growth for jobs have been tweaked.

TO DO

• Going through the game text to keep altered names consistent.
• Test and adjust changes to stats.
• Finish adjustments to story battles (I'm currently in the middle of Chapter 2).
• Deciding what to do with Archers.
• Make other changes that come to mind.

FFT Power Mod.ppf

Thanks to the workbooks I found how to edit Ramza's starting level, stats, and equipment. I searched the site, but one thing I couldn't find was anything related to having jobs unlocked for Ramza by default (or recruited soldiers, for that matter). Is there a way to change this, like the "Jobs Unlocked" option on the ENTD editor?

I've been thinking of adding a Thief support ability: Backstab. What I'm thinking is whenever the person attacks the back of an enemy, or when the person is invisible, the attack is an automatic critical. I know the game checks where an attack is coming from (for shields and/or Parry), so is this possible?

I'm having a hard time figuring out what some ability attributes do and searching hasn't helped.

• What does "Top-Down Target" do? I've seen I referenced, but I haven't found an explanation on what it does.
• What is the difference between "Force Self-Target" and "Auto Target"?
• I see "Weapon Range" checked in the bottom list, but "Use Weapon Range" is not checked in the top-left list. Why is that?
• What does "Vertical Threshold" do? Every ability already seems to be limited by the "Vertical" value.

I'm not sure which hack or which version of FFT you're talking about (I assume PSX given the emulator name), but I would suggest trying different emulators first. I've played different self-made hacks using PSX (yes, there is an emulator with that name), ePSXe, and RetroArch.

If the game runs on a different emulator, then the problem is with Duckstation. Contact its developers for help.

If the game won't run on any emulator and it's a pre-made hack, check that you patched it correctly. If that doesn't help, contact the person who made the hack.

If it's your own hack, double-check your changes and make sure nothing in the code is messed up.

I am working on using FFTPatcher on an ISO of War of the Lions. I had previously applied the WotL Tweak patch, primarily to remove the slowdown issues. After applying some of the changes I made with FFTPatcher, I found the slowdown came back. Is there a way I can use FFTPatcher without losing the slowdown fix?

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out. I just have to reapply the slowdown patch with FFTorgASM.

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.

Here's the save state and thanks for the link.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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?

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: 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: 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?

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.

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.

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.