Final Fantasy Hacktics

Fascinating work. The implications about unit creation and MP regeneration are interesting. This means that there's likely a variable for each unit that's created that indicates what their base MP regeneration is at. It could be possible to modify this variable. I think I'm gonna try to track it down!

I myself am just starting to wade into hex editing, but a lot of it is very overwhelming and I don't even know how to begin to start. I've seen some tutorials, but they seem to be for people who don't know how hex addresses work in the first place. I'm having problems determining what "the next step" is in the learning process. Furthermore, the idea of ASM hacks seem interesting (and I've worked with ASM before but for much different things and that was a long time ago); can anyone point me in the right direction for how to get started with that? Rooting through the tools seems to be good for a start, but I don't know where to go from there.

I'm more interested in DS hacking than GBA, so both are relevant to me. 

Quote from: Ethereal Embrace on February 21, 2013, 07:01:37 pm
(a bunch of awesome stuff concerning the numbers behind FFTA2's spellcasting)

Wicked info. I beat FFTA2 to 100% completion at least five times and that's just how unfamiliar I am with any spell that ends in -a or -ga; it's so not worth it, and this basically spells out that I missed nothing.

The Fighter's Backdraft ability is a sad joke, only learned in the name of getting the little Mastery star. Soldier A-Abilities are a total joke too, they exist solely to be a pitstop to a "real" class.

I've been sitting down myself trying to analyze the Parivir, and ultimately he suffers from two major problems.
- Geomancy exists. Seriously, try a Geomancy Parivir: Everything everyone says about them is true, they're insane.
- Flair ability debuffs are amazing.

Flair abilities really aren't that great. They do as much damage as a dual wielding attack; even if you dual wield, it only takes the damage of the "primary" weapon into account. Their ability to debuff is nice, but a Sniper/Spellblade can do that from across the map (this will lead into an eventual Blood Price discussion if I follow that rabbit hole); they might not debuff for as much damage as a Parivir can, but still. Anyhow, I think the real answer is that Geomancy needs to go. Black Mages suffer, admittedly, but they really suffer because any decent black magic requires downing an Ether turn 1, sitting around like a fool, borked MP screwery (Let's equip Absorb MP and get the Blood Price Summoner to doublecast Kirin) that really isn't worth it, et cetera.

The debuffs used by Flair are very reliable and potent. Tackling that is a hard question, and I think they need to be put next to the Spellblade to see what's acceptable. Is the Spellblade acceptable? (Again, outside of Blood Price, which is bananas.)

The worst problem with the balancing of the game isn't that any one A-Ability on it's own is bad. Hell, a Red Mage with Doublecast is nice, but if we're talking a "pure" Red Mage in a vacuum, it's not living terror. It's when the classes start to stack with each other that the insanity comes out - the Red Mage/Summoner is the real problem. Someone on the FFTA/FFTA2 design team looked at Calculators and thought yeah, more of this, this is totally acceptable.

I think that classes really need to be looked at each as their own beast. What role does X class serve on a tactical sense? There's a lot of classes that don't have any real role other than to fill space, be a gimmick, or do something badly that another class can do well, and there's other classes that if you're not using them you're a fool.

Maybe this is getting kind of tangenty.

I'm also messing around with FFTA2 hacking. One thing you might want to consider - I LOVE your monster changes. On my to do list is making Limit Glove work when in a critical state at all. Rockbeast AI is kind of stupid and loves charging in to try Limit Glove when it won't work.