Final Fantasy Hacktics

I am a complete newbie to formula hacking, but like most people I find the swordskills a bit overpowered, so I have been attempting to learn some minor asm hacking to get this much needed formula into my game.  I watched Xifanie's tutorials on how to use the FFT Hack Template, and got started from there. I tried adding in the /X later in the formula, after 'lw r2, 0x2D90(r2)' as well as an attempt at putting the command in after 'lbu r2, 0x0000(r2). All the 0's in the lbu command tell me that is almost for sure the wrong place for a div command. These 2 attempts ended in either the game freezing when i selected a target or glitched out damage prediction.

I even attempted saving it in the slot for formula 18. When I did this formula 18 froze the game, and for some reason the swordskills I kept as formula 2D even froze the game.. even though I did not change a thing on those skills or touch the formula. Not sure what that was about.

So I tried inserting the raw code for the Store PA and WP + Y routine with my div and mflo commands in... this version of the hack always ends in the game freezing when I go to select my target.


I find it hard to believe no one has modified formula 2D in some way similar to this.. considering the common opinion within this community is that the swordskills have always been overpowered.

We need more WP, PA formula hacks!

Please help.

edit: all attempts were made with a patched iso and then a fresh iso as well

The freezing is probably because you're corrupting the stack pointer (r29).  You're subtracting from it at the start of the routine (the first instruction is really "addiu r29, r29, -0x0018" and then not adding that 0x18 back at the end.  The solution is to insert "addiu r29, r29, 0x0018" at the end of your routine before the "jr r31" (or after it).

You are also inexplicably ending your routine after setting XA equal to PA.  What is this doing here?
0x80151140   jr r31   
0x80151144   nop

For efficiency's sake... you can set a register to 0x80190000 and then just keep using it as a base, i.e.:
lui r1, 0x8019          # r1 = 0x80190000
lw  r5, 0x2D94(r1)      # Keep using r1 as the base...
lbu r2, 0x3902(r1)
lbu r3, 0x38FA(r1)

You would only have to repeat the lui after a routine call (jal).

It also looks like you got your wires crossed here:

0x80151114   lui r4, 0x8019   
0x80151118   lbu r4, 0x0036(r4)   # Load Attacker's PA Loading from 0x80190036?
0x8015111C   lbu r5, 0x38F9(r5)   # Load Ability's X   Loading from (Attacker base pointer + 0x38F9)?

Hmm I did not notice this... using the formula 2D Dmg (PA*(WP+Y)) on the wiki, "addiu r29, r29, 0x0018" did not get transferred over using import code because on the wiki it says:
"27bd 0018 addiu r29,r29,0x 0018" instead of "27bd0018 addiu r29,r29,0x 0018"
Is that space there for a reason? Most of the formulas on the wiki seem to be like that, but not all. I guess it is not intended for this use is why.

The first "jr r31" is just from me diving in head first and not knowing enough.. it was copied over from the Store PA and WP + Y routine.
Everything is just copied over from the wiki. Started with formula 2D, replaced the "WP + Y as Y" routine with its actual code (https://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Store_PA_and_WP_%2B_Y (https://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Store_PA_and_WP_%2B_Y)) to divide it by X before the other routines.
The divide by X code was taken from formula 42:
lui r3,0x8019
lbu r3,0x38f9(r3)      Load Ability's X
 
div r2,r3
mflo r2        Damage / X

So if I can just keep using r1 as the base then you are telling me the code on the wiki is less efficient?
From what I could see on all the code, anything new loaded in used a new register.

I am confused by the wires crossed bit though.
This is taken directly from https://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Store_PA_and_WP_%2B_Y (https://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Store_PA_and_WP_%2B_Y).
lui r4, 0x8019
lbu r4, 0x0036(r4)  Load Attacker's PA

and loading ability X is 0x38f9 in all the other formulas from what I saw

It looked so easy with the spreadsheet.. to just insert Load Ability X and then divide by X, guess I have some more reading/browsing to do.

Quote from: Arimala on December 05, 2020, 07:50:50 amHmm I did not notice this... using the formula 2D Dmg (PA*(WP+Y)) on the wiki, "addiu r29, r29, 0x0018" did not get transferred over using import code because on the wiki it says:
"27bd 0018 addiu r29,r29,0x 0018" instead of "27bd0018 addiu r29,r29,0x 0018"
Is that space there for a reason? Most of the formulas on the wiki seem to be like that, but not all. I guess it is not intended for this use is why.

This is a mistake on the Wiki that stems from the way the formatting was done. 

To elaborate, if you use View Source to look at how the code is formatted on basically any of the Wiki pages, you should see that each line actually starts with a space.  This makes it so that the code formats the way we want it.

Generally when we put code on the Wiki, we're pasting it from a text file that doesn't have the spaces.  So, to add the spaces, there were times when a certain search/replace was done.  In this case, "0018" was replaced with " 0018" because the start of each line (the RAM address of the line) started with 0018.  That did create the leading spaces, but also the side effects you're seeing.

Quote from: Arimala on December 05, 2020, 07:50:50 amSo if I can just keep using r1 as the base then you are telling me the code on the wiki is less efficient?
From what I could see on all the code, anything new loaded in used a new register.

Yes, the code on the Wiki (the game's default code) is less efficient than it could be in many places, a product of the compiler they used.  In some cases, very much so.

Quote from: Arimala on December 05, 2020, 07:50:50 amI am confused by the wires crossed bit though.
This is taken directly from https://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Store_PA_and_WP_%2B_Y (https://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Store_PA_and_WP_%2B_Y).

Code Select Expand

lui r4, 0x8019
lbu r4, 0x0036(r4)  Load Attacker's PA


Those two lines don't appear in sequence without another manipulation of r4 first:

00185e5c: 3c048019 lui r4,0x8019
00185e60: 8c842d94 lw r4,0x2d94(r4)    # Load acting unit pointer (from 0x80192d94)

Then:

00185e74: 90840036 lbu r4,0x0036(r4)  # Load PA of acting unit (from acting unit pointer + 0x36)


Quote from: Arimala on December 05, 2020, 07:50:50 amand loading ability X is 0x38f9 in all the other formulas from what I saw

Ability X is stored at 0x801938f9.  What you're loading is 0x38f9 away from the acting unit's pointer. 
The acting unit's PA is stored 0x36 bytes away from its pointer, but you're instead loading from 0x80190036.

It should be more like this:
[0x80151114]  lbu r4, 0x0036(r5)  # Load PA of acting unit
[0x80151118]  lui r5, 0x8019
[0x8015111C]  lbu r5, 0x38F9(r5)  # Load Ability's X


And now it works! (although it is still using the inefficient method)
I kept the original code of the store PA and WP + Y routine to make sure I got it to work with X inserted in. I might go back and change it when I am not half asleep, but right now I am just happy it works.

I can use this to balance the sword skills and reconfigure a bunch of custom abilities I had paired with formulas that did not really match up.
Finally Cleave will work the way I originally wanted it to.

This might keep me motivated to continue digging into the world of asm.

Thanks a bunch here! I really appreciate the guidance and patience Glain.