Final Fantasy Hacktics

No, I can honestly say I haven't seen that. That was a really sweet video. Can I assume that she said yes?

Yeah, if you could help me learn some even editing that's the biggest thing that's got me worried. I want this to be playable, and fairly short which is why I was thinking only 5 or 6 maps. I appreciate the assistance Elric. I'm on a work computer right now, so I can't do much work on it, but assuming I have access to pen and paper, is there anything I should get started on now? A script, plans for the abilities and stats, anything else?

This is a break room computer though, so I won't be able to get back here for a few hours.

Oh, and thank you so much for the help Elric.

Edit: that email doesnt work. Deleted it.

Hello all! At first I was hesitant posting this, but I've had excellent success with everyone being friendly in the Help! forum, and this is an idea I've been stewing over in my head for a while. A bit of backstory: I've been with a lovely lady, whom shall be referred to as Amorillo, for about 2 1/2 years. I've been ready to tie the knot for quite a while, but I just haven't found the perfect way to propose. I've considered romantic dinners, getaways to foreign lands, even proposing in a castle (Did you know Kentucky has a freaking castle in it? I didn't!). But none of them seemed genuine. I felt like I could do something that came from the heart. Something special. I've been inspired by a certain video on the internet for a long time but didn't feel like I'd be able to live up to something that amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_HMLvLB7b0

Well, I've considered it long and hard, and I decided I want to do something that great. Better even. I want to create a scenario in Final Fantasy Tactics, maybe a total of 5 or 6 maps (more or less if needed), detailing the adventures of our DnD characters while seperated from the group. After seeing all the wonderful things Jot5 has done with cutscenes, spriting, and story, I think this is the perfect way to do it. Of course I'm not planning on doing anything as large, expansive, or grand as Jot5, but it certainly inspired me to try my hand.

Of course, I don't really know what I'm doing. I can make the characters. I think I'd do a damn fine job of recreating our respective characters' stats and abilities. I'm looking forward to that. I could write the story as well. But I don't know how to make sprites or portraits, and I especially don't know how to make events. ASM hacking frightens me. It's not that I think I can't learn it, but I feel like I would probably need someone to really sit down and be willing to teach me. I have a friend who's an incredible artist who's volunteered to do the sprite and protrait work if she's given the tools, so I might try learning the tools and passing the information onto her, unless there's an easier way to do that.

I'm sorry for rambling. This whole prospect makes me nervous on a lot of levels. Any help, from anyone would be most appreciated. I don't know what information anyone would need before diving into this project, but I'd be more than willing to provide it. 

I have a quick question, and apologies if it hasn't been answered yet. All of the animations in the game are amazing. Stinger feels like Dante's stinger, I when snake hides it genuinely looks like something Snake would do, however, there's one animation that has stood out and bugged me for a while: Whirlwind Blade. Is there any particular reason that Link doesn't spin during it? It's just so iconic. I feel like the animation chosen doesn't do the move justice. Especially after seeing the sword turtle thing (name escapes me) spin. That animation right there would honestly be amazing in itself.

The patch is incredible, and I love basically everything about this. This isn't even a nitpick, just a curiosity I had.

That was a typo. I had meant magic scale with weapons. Although the static weapons mods goes give me some interesting ideas. I think I may toy around with that idea a bit. I wonder how many interesting weapons you'd be able to make out of that, and I wonder if there are any classes you could create to take advantage of the unique changes. That's for another thread though. 

Oh, that was an excellent find! The spells scale pretty well. I should probably bump the damage on them a bit from where I've got them now though. Right now they're doing (in total) about the power of a 2.5 spell, and I feel like they should do more since they're single target. But a great find, and one I certainly appreciate you pointing out. Thank you!

You know, a thought occurs. Another way to go about doing this might be to try and make weapons scale off of weapons as well, and tweak the rods and staff values. That would probably be easier in the long run instead of trying to do an overhaul of the game's formulas. *Disclaimer: I know nothing about balance, but am merely trying to offer another way to look at things*

Also consider me subscribed to this school of thought. I'd love for your spells to scale in a way more similar to FFTA, in that even basic spells late game where useful. I agree that the early spells are so negligible late game, and it's a shame.

Yep. That's what I ended up doing. Not great on maths, but single target, hits 1-3 times, formula for Diamond Sword (the ability, not the weapon). What would be a sufficient MP cost for that? 32? In that realm? Figured I'd make 3 versions for the 3 Fire/Ice/Bolt and set the JP cost at 600 with a prohibitive MP cost so it couldn't be used early game.

Oh, and slightly unrelated to this, but I'm planning on replacing the Materia Blade with a low level spear. But I can't get the damned thing to show up in shops no matter how hard I try. Any ideas on what could be causing that? I notice that all my shops are unchecked in the item's stats after I patch and come back to it, so it looks like those just aren't being applied. Am I doing something obviously wrong?

That's a good point, and an interesting solution. I think I'd prefer something a bit more traditional myself. I think I'll keep the spell list as it is now, but make some unique, high MP/CT capstone abilities. How difficult would it be to make the truth skills roll 2-2 times instead of 1-6? I'm on my phone so FFTHacker isn't available to me. Thinking of setting up some faux-doublecast spells at a high MP cost as their capstone niche.

Yeah you raise a good point. I agree that they should be weaker than any specialists out there, but I would like them to stay relevant throughout the game. I suppose they really wouldn't be that bad with a nice secondary like draw out. I still can't help but think Red Magic itself is just a poor man's summon. Then again they have comparatively high overall base stats, so I guess it's a fine tradeoff at the end of the day. I guess they're alright. Nothing to complain about, do you think a capstone ability would be good? Something for them to call their own?

Not sure if this is the correct board but I'm trying to create a good Red Mage in vanilla. I replaced the Calculator class, and gave it tier 1 and 2 fire/bolt/ice/cure. I also gave it raise, blind, and sleep. It's got abandon, short charge (to emulate doublecast as closely as I can think of) and move-Mp up. Stat wise it's essentially the love child of a thief and oracle, minus the thief's speed. Equips are knives, swords, rods, and staffs. Also hats, clothes, and robes. It seems like it's okay thusfar, but I can see it quickly falling off towards the latter half of the game. Has anyone else had luck making a solid Red Mage in the past?

Oh man that just made things infinitely easier! However, I changed Math Skill to <Default> and patched it but it's still not operating correctly. When I opened it back in FFTPatcher, it was back to Mathmatics! Every time I try changing it it just goes back to that. I'm at quite the loss now.

But on the upside I did get those ASM hacks applied. That got me going. Thank you so much!

Edit: I thought I found the problem. I wasn't checking Action Menu when applying the patch, but even after checking that box it still doesn't seem to change Math Skill.

Edit2: Just tested this with Charge as well. It stays in aim. I can't seem to get any of the changes in the action menu to actually apply. Any idea what causes this? I haven't been able to find anyone else that has the same problem.

Edit3: Okay, apparently the changes go through on a clean ISO. This is getting to be very strange.

Edit4: Finally, FINALLY figured out what happened. Apparently if you have the calculator's skillset set as something else (In this case Truth), then FFTPatcher will just outright refuse to change the action command for anything, even Aim or Draw Out for some weird reason. Anyway I changed ti back to Math Skill and presto! It works again! That may be something worth documenting for the future.

Anyway everything works perfectly now. Thanks for the help!!!

No, that's fine. I think...I have probably hit my first honest to goodness roadblock. ASM hacking is leaps and bounds over my head. I've read the tutorials, and I'm trying to follow along, but I just can't grip what they're saying. I did find your generic ability fix, but I have no idea how to apply it. This is really daunting.

Been working on making a glorious Red Mage for the better part of 7 hours now, quite tired. Just want to ask a quick question before going to sleep: I found out the hard way that Generic Jobs have to use their respective Generic Skillset. This means I get the joy of trying to fix my previous mistake of changing Calculator's Math Skill to guest Rafa's Truth (The one with only 2 skills in it) and editing that skillset. My question is this: What happens when you replace Math Skill, well, skills with regular skills like fire and cure? Will it work as intended, or blow up in my face? For the record since there are no enemy Calculators (that I know of), I decided to turn Calc into my generic Red Mage, but it hasn't been working out as intended. For instance Ramza knows Protect, Cure, and Fire, but in battle the only spell he knows is Fire2. I'm just nervous about changing Math Skill and completely fubaring my ISO and having to start from scratch with that god awful sprite changing process.

Edit: Okay, so I figured out that Math Skill just flat out doesn't work with it's abilities replaced, which is what I figured would happen. Um, suggestions on how to salvage this doomed voyage? I've already replaced the calc sprites with Red Mage sprites, (male and female), edited the descriptions and names of the job and Truth. I'm more or less at a loss on what direction to take this now save starting from scratch, and I really, really don't want to do that.

Nah, I figured it out. I got confused/scared when I first opened the files and it wasn't Red Mage. I never really thought that if they had been Red Mage then I wouldn't need to go through more work. After a couple more hours I finally got it working!

Well that explains that. However I'm trying to follow the guide to changing battle formation sprites, and when I open the UNIT and WILDFACE images in FFTEVGRP after pulling them out with CDMage it still shows up as vanilla Calc. Am I missing something?

So I'm trying to add a custom sprite into the game. (The Red Mage sprites on this very site.) And I click IMPORT.BMP, import it into the job I want (Calculator), and then after that I absolutely, positively, cannot figure out how to patch the damn thing into the game. There are, like, no options at all. I've been working on this for the last 3 hours, and no amount of google searches has found anything yet. Can someone please provide this simple answer? I would be forever indebted to you.

Edit: Even the tutorial I found assumes you know that much. It's like I can't win lol...