Final Fantasy Hacktics

Great findings, very valuable post.

Some text is compressed, what I did when hex-editing text is just set up an ahk table where a keypress equals hex for that character so I could just type the descriptions directly.
If memory serves there's a table for the compressed text equivalents somewhere in the forum as well, and your options are to either switch to it and type using that when dealing with compressed stuff- or just change the start of the string to the one uncompressed text uses, which will let you just use the same table for everything (though of course it'll take more space than compressed itself.)

Someone actually likes the Forest Ranger! This might be the first time I've gotten feedback on it other than friends of mine saying that bow nu mou is weird so they're steering clear of it, haha.

Your thoughts on red mage are very interesting. I'm not sure how I never thought about simply making their melee magical when it would've been such an obvious choice- I guess that them being phys/magic hybrids is kinda neat, but I never really saw it playing very well. I never really saw myself in situations where I was setting up gaze attacks either, which imo were the weakest part of both this and Dream Strider, even despite Addle and Sleep+ being pretty good status to inflict.

I guess looking back a lot more movesets than I remembered were affected by the ability limit we used to have. There's no real reason to be re-using monster skills on jobs like these other than whoops no slots lol.

QuoteI just would like more options at the start aside from relying solely on mages with robes and silence or disable.

I completely agree, but it's curious to me how differently people perceive options early on. I've had a number of people swear up and down that the game is actually unplayable without a Zealot in your team. Others make Onion Knight tanks to bait enemies to swing (and miss) at them, others have Duelists and Snipers and say that without being able to daze enemies it's impossible to play.
Dragoon I agree that is kinda overpowered since Wyrmtamer has too much range, but at the same time it's a counter job, so it seems like it should be able to handle dragons more efficiently than others. It also doesn't do much when no dragons are on the field.

I think the speed choices were good, but I agree it needs more granularity. If you want to sacrifice something like boots or an accessory offer to make your heavy armor guy move in the robe bracket, there's no real reason you shouldn't have that option. Or to guarantee that your robe guy moves faster than other robe users.

I believe Leo's changes to the inventory let us add more items, so seeing that I don't barely use artifacts at all, it'd probably be a good idea using some of those as new accessories etc. That used to be a problem before since you couldn't render artifact sprites in the inventory screen properly, but I believe that is also no longer an issue? I haven't been active in a while so I forget some details.

Thanks for the feedback and happy you're enjoying the mod!

> steal shoes altough I dont know what it removed to allow it.

The usual way in which shoes were made stealable before was just making them accessories and having them be stolen with the usual Steal: Accessory skill, so it doesn't remove anything. I think at some point someone implemented it better so you could target shoes specifically with a Steal: Shoes skill? Not sure off the top of my head where that was.

Very happy to see kai still hard at work after so long!

I thought that was explained in the OP somewhere but basically it's because speed is given by armor type. Light armor units go first, medium second and heavy go last.

EDIT: Didn't realize to explain further but- this means if your unit isn't wearing any body armor they'll effectively have no speed.

Quote from: FlamingZelda on November 14, 2021, 04:39:43 pmThey're not broken, they're just totally inaccurate. Subdue for example used to deal 1-12 dmg, now it does a weak strike and stuns an enemy for a turn. I'm just gonna have to release a txt file alongside my hack which gives all the jobs' abilities and growth rates alongside an updated job tree.

Basically, if you want to use the buildfile for Leo's engine hacks you'll need to also install its text modification features as well- this will make it so you have to also use these text modification features to handle any further text changes your hack needs as well; there might be a few very small changes that don't depend on the text installer, but for most stuff it's a requirement.

Afaik there's no released text editor that just writes to the rom directly (though iirc one exists), but the way I did all the custom text in mine was just writing over existing entries directly in a hex editor. It's surprisingly lenient (you can make follow-up textboxes and stuff) so long as you have some stuff to cannibalize like removed laws, cards or whatever.

Still, I would never recommend doing this- it's simply incompatible with Leo's engine hacks and they are by far the biggest leap in hacking development since AiO came around.

This is, incidentally, the one largest change left in my own hack stalling progress for lack of putting time to learn using it.

Haha, I'd probably stop playing as well if that happened to me and I had no immediate backup, don't worry. Stuff like that was very rough around the edges in the available version since there was no simple way of making allies player-controllable back then or skipping the tutorial.

As implied, it has a long since been changed into Montblanc (and all allies) being controllable by the player, though before that there was a period of time with an option to skip the intro altogether.

If you do give it a shot feel free to post your thoughts, it's good to have a wider view on how people see the game even if it's not in active development at the moment.

I'd say the start of it is rather unbalanced due to a few quirks in magic units being worse off due to not having their character-specific growths at level 1, as well as the attack formula getting very out of hand again at the very late game and dumbing down physical classes.

This is a project that isn't as much forgotten as it is in hiatus, and there's still a good chunk of will to finish it so as always feedback is appreciated. Not many of the plans above have been implemented in a way that is set in stone so hearing about people's experiences can help shape them.

Personally I have to say I never found it very hard, but I'm hyperaware of the tools available and the value of things like daze etc.

Also fun fact, I found out a few days ago that Tessa above never found the weapon for Enthusiasm because it's not actually available in the game and that friend of mine who played with it apparently did so only in a run with a preset team I gave the testers that had everything pre-learned. Whoops!

QuoteBindsnipe is 20% more damage

Just to further clarify this, the actual increase in damage from one to another (ignoring the actual attack part) is 33%. If you were doing 100 damage per shot with the previous weapon, the new one on the same target will do 159 due to having the extra 20 attack and higher multiplier.

Weapon damage scaling in this game is beyond ridiculous.

True, not to mention it's pretty easy to just change the accuracy formula on the effect itself to be whatever the modder wants.

From what you pasted there yeah the location is the right one, that said I've never seen Leonarth's engine changes affect the only MP hack I've ever run (the no MP regen one).

Hey kai, glad to see someone is sticking with modding

I tried that 25% starting MP you mention at some point and it did work for me- maybe the hack has already had its MP regen changed with AiO before?
If that's the case you can restore it back to normal by modding a vanilla file, comparing the resulting file to vanilla in a hex editor (one with a function to actually compare and find differences). From there you can see what AiO actually changes and revert it in your hack.

Multiple instances of applying a status, doing damage or whatever will all be calculated separately, yeah. That said I don't recommend doing it with damage since animations only play the first instance of damage dealt.

You have to use the updated Engine Hacks from https://github.com/LeonarthCG/FFTA_Engine_Hacks instead of the provided .ups; that file is from Feb 2019, so not really maintained and more of a showcase than anything else. The issues with Gladiator elemental swords were reported and fixed a few months ago.

https://discord.gg/WcNx9uY

Here you go.

Hi!
It's kinda funny that when people talk about the mod it's always in very long posts/DMs, though I always take it as the mod being fun enough to warrant that attention instead of something negative, haha!

The issues you bring up with stats are interesting:
It's hard to judge how jobs perform because weapon damage is extremely overpowered, the damage formula (which is horrendous) takes main weapon + equipment atk bonus as a total for both its damage multiplier and flat bonus. On top of any weapon, it's possible to stack 30+ atk bonus with just shop items- this yields almost 2x more damage than intended for some weapon types.
Meanwhile magic just has its base ability power and additions are just that, additive. It makes focused power users match up with weapons (a little) due to sheer numbers, but hybrids fall flat because the numbers are smaller. Point of this is, stats need to be looked at when this damage formula changes to be just atk - def = dmg.

On that topic still, bulk has already been increased with higher HP minimums. Under a certain amount units just don't function well and Zealots really don't need to have over 3x the HP of Shamans. Defense might actually be hilariously overtuned after conversion to a no-multiplier weapon damage formula, so in general everything will be tinkered with.

Different speed spots for races within their tier is cool and I don't think I ever tried it. A simple base speed of 1(Bangaa, Nu mou), 2(Hume, Viera) and 3(Moogles) wouldn't change overall turn amounts but would let plate Moogles act before plate Bangaas/Humes, for example.

Now tying this into your comments for jobs. The reason they all cover different stat niches is that when I started the mod almost everything was limited. Jobs, races, abilities, effects.
That's no longer the case. With the newer options a very resourceful developer has been putting together it's possible to add unreasonably large amounts of unique jobs, abilities and more.

This enables not only more custom units, but also to reintroduce any job that has been cut and to port some from A2 that would work well.
I probably won't bring back some old jobs without a good idea behind them, but the potential for expanding the job pool is enough that stat growths don't need to massively define what an unit can or can't do.

Now regarding the direct job comments:

White Monk
Gladiator turned monk hits hard but it doesn't really have the MP to make any use either Iron Will or most of the abilities.
Question is, does it need to? I guess not because it can apply 350 base attack twice in one Fight command.
That sounds like an argument for shifting some of the job's damage into the weapon itself; can't be done with the current formula but with a new one it definitely could.

Paladin
Paladin definitely needs a few more identity-defining abilities. Prayer and Saint Cross are cool but it could use merging Cover and Defend to make a 4th holy ability.

Duelist
The new job most work went into and one of my favourites too. Looking back it really didn't need ranged disables with the already strong kit, not damaging ones at that

Shaman/Ele
I found their offensive/MP focused growths work pretty well. They're getting more HP with the stat revision but I like being able to competently whack people in melee as well as their unique options at 0 MP.
I also like that Shaman's massive range acts like an Illusionist-lite, rewarding positioning (maybe too much); Ele on the other hand needs more unique ability design since I just don't like her 0 MP abilities all being inconsistent damage spikes.

Hunter
Hunter is in a weird spot but it needs a serious revamp rather than dying, Capture can be moved to an item, now that we can make proper Item abilities that actually use them up. As a whole though, Monsters are very dangerous and I think should have a few more counters, not less.

New class
I do have a planned Viera/Nu mou job similar to your description for when Spellblades are put in the game, so no worries there!

Racial uniqueness
I initially didn't like Nu mou being just "the magic boys", same as I didn't like Bangaa being "the tough lads"- that said, now we have tools enough to expand on ways they can use their stronger stats without dabbling into archetypes that spread them too thin.

The original Sage will definitely come back (without cutting Professor) and with those, Alch is getting seriously changed to avoid overlap.
Dream Walker suffered from being limited in ability slots, as it was sharing them with monsters. Ranger was... Experimental? It's not bad, but it will be flavored differently in the future.

On the Bangaa side, I know the power based abilities have a very rough start and it will be looked at. It was kind of intended for Dragoons to only develop breath damage with investment, but they might become closer to tankier Shamans since they also have a good set of rather long range abilities.

Also that ranged/melee fighter idea isn't bad at all. I wouldn't kill Defender (probably) as I want more Bangaa overall since they have the lowest job count. It might be 2h guns or something else instead of bows, but still worth keeping in mind.

Cultist
Pretty sure the uploaded version has the Cultist with unbuffed Dark Pact/Sever Link. Ritual is different as well, though all in all the job might still need touch ups as well. The list in OP is updated if you wanna check this stuff.

Gunner
The whole meme with guns is that they're 1h weapons and thus can be dual wielded. Didn't actually make their ambidex available in current patch though!

Firebreather
E N T H U S I A S M
I really like this job because a friend of mine was really pissed that I'd waste a job making it themed on one element. One run after release he actually tried it and it's his staple ever since lmao.

Paragon
Currently her only change is having a higher AoE Swallowtail. I think it's ok for her to be simpler, but I really want to get a heavy armor only Viera that can stand out as something different altogether.

Red Mage
So I had an idea of giving her unlearnable Doublecast, but I just don't think other abilities should be balanced around RM casting them twice. I never considered giving her Doublecast as a basic ability from the start, but I definitely will try it.
Also I've hated the fullscreen attacks since forever anyway, so they can prob just all get thrown away and replaced with direct, no AoE abilities as suggested. Good ideas all around!

1/2 MP!
It was literally the first thing I ever had reported as OP and I never remembered to gut it in some way. It really has no room in the MP-tight battle design so something will be done.

That's about it, also heres a tl;dr for the current goals and WIPs for the mod:

Redo descriptions so they work in the new system.
Repoint abilities for every race.
Repoint ability effects.
Repoint ability animations.
Redo stats according to new formula.
Finish worldwyrm.
Re-add/design/import 4 jobs for Bangaa and 3 for non-Humes.
Replace abilities unnecessarily repeated through sets.
Move away from 0 AP system to JP learning.
Balance for cheaper abilities found in items that require you own the item to learn them, as well as always available but more expensive ones that you can work towards over time.
Also account for new jobs without worsening item bloat.
Delete JP cost from Combos.
Increase Combo participant bonus to compensate for JP bonus loss.
Continue development past Mateus.

Also, I'm open to suggestions as for what job concepts people would like to see covered/returning. I've always just done it on my own due to all the constraints but given the extra freedom it's not bad to have a few more ideas. Just writing this post was already good for getting a good overview of things to work on.

Haha, for sure. I'm also convinced the elemental shots only work for more than single target because they  just reused the basic elemental spells and made them call weapon use animation first.

There's a few more like that but I don't remember specifics, didn't even remember zombify does undisplayed damage in vanilla since mine just KO's and applies undead on the target.

@rrs_kai
Idk if you've ever opened long night to see what effects are like, but a lot of them are changed into different things and combine targeting methods like that- just mentioning in case there's more mixes you haven't tried before. The AIO effect display for long night is completely misleading.

Afaik both of those are ally targeting, I could never find any difference between them or at least none I can recall.

And yeah pretty sure I have some formations with allied monsters and AI targets them with sidewinder just fine.

@Dual-Wielding Ninja
Things like that would be amazing for sure, but currently ability animation editing is very obtuse outside of changing casting animations with some level of freedom.
From what I learned from Leonarth, ability animation is handled with a lot of shared code that draws the specifics of each animation. I understood it as something that's basically hardcoded for each ability without being able to make our own yet.

This is probably more relevant to kai since he's dealt with animation limits too but, if an animation template ever became available in the distant future...
Man just imagine, I've had to cuck the looks of so many abilities because of being unable to adjust others to display damage or replay the effect on all targets, governing sprite animations played on cast/hit reaction, etc. There's a lot you could do if given freedom over the particles already ingame, and that's not even accounting for how an EA system might be able to load external images to use as well.

But anyway that's all conjecture, afaik there's currently nothing that can be done even for simple changes like that monster sprite coming down on target, it's all 100% vanilla animations with fancy casting customization at most.

Man, this really makes me wish we had a better way to share small details than the forums, I completed the missing info from the targeting and effect lists on the nightmare modules like 3 years ago when I made the bulk of my abilities.
Never thought to mention the ally targeting stuff because it seemed clear to me, but sucks to hear you restricted ability design based off of that , the vanilla options are limited enough as it is without adding extra ones on top.

Great application with the morpher stuff, I tried morphing other targets before but it was prior to Leonarth's change so they stay morphed, tl;dr they looked really silly so I didn't care.

I wonder if monster targeting can be made to include morphed units, that would make it more fair to use monster stats since you'd expose yourself to more abilities like sidewinder etc.

There's a FFTA room in the hacktics discord but it's basically empty and a single room would be pretty bad for organizing information in a legible and easily updateable way.
I think a dedicated disc could help out a lot too, there's a lot of valuable info spread across dozens of random threads and new development options are hard to communicate to people interested in making FFTA mods.

QuoteI only changed how the game builds the item command list and such

Cool, was misunderstanding that. Didn't actually think about logistics of differentiating item counts from MP and I'm not used to consider these options when planning ability sets, but I guess with job&race customization learnable ITEM abilities are also a thing.

I wanted to avoid bloating the ITEM command itself for everyone else, if making new consumable-related ability sets. I guess that's a complete non-issue when you can just define under what conditions the abilities themselves would be available.

Perfect, thanks for the answers.