So, I wanted to modify Geomancers a bit. I've always loved the class, but disliked how...weak, it is (Speaking subjectively, of course). Well, I did a bit of updating, and now I have Elementals that are unique, with different effect areas, damage modifiers, etcetera, but I don't want them tied to topography, and for them to utilize MP instead. I got the mp bit figured out, but how exactly do I work around them being tied to the topography? I tried moving the elementals into a different skillset and giving that skillset to Geomancers, but it's capped at four abilities, regardless of how many I have learned, and those four abilities are always the first four in the list, whether or not I've learned them yet. I also tried changing Elemental's Action Menu from "Elements" to "Default" and that displays the whole list, but suddenly the skills are limited to one panel in range, no effect area, and 0% chance to hit.
Any advice? It would be greatly appreciated...I'm kinda tearing my hair out here, so to speak. Or should I just give this up as a Fool's errand and just up the Y value of Elementals to make them stronger? >_< *Sigh* Anyway, thank you, in advance! I'm also sorry if this has been brought up before.
Make sure all the Geomancy spells are set to normal type, then go to the "Action Menus" tab and set Elemental to <Default> instead of Elements. That *should* work, but I haven't tested it. Let me know if it does.
Geomancy spells are default "normal" type. I tried it, again, just to be sure, it fails in the same way. Each spell has a range of one panel, zero percent chance to hit, no effect area. Possibly changing the type to something other than "normal"? Any suggestions?
You'll need to make completely new skills and put them in those blank spots. Geomancy does not work, as far as I know, when not linked to topography. So just duplicate all the attributes, including the effect animation, and it will look exactly the same (though you will charge it like it was magic first).
Simply changing the skillset type from Elements to default makes them do absolutely nothing, so I believe that's the only way around that.
Make new skills huh? How would one give them the same graphic as the legit geomancy abilities? Please be aware that I'm fairly new to the patcher, and changing around graphics/palettes/what have you is not something I've experimented with. Creating blanks to have the same formula/mp cost/etcetera I can do, but I don't know how to make them look the same, or name them.
I DO know this one! There's a pull-down list under the AI box marked "Effect:". just pick out the animation from that list.
But... for the skillset with four moves... which current skillset are you adding to?
Vanya, thanks for the tip! I'll try that right now. ^_^
LastingDawn, I tried it with a ton of different skillsets from Yin-Yang Magic to skillset 80 (blank) (and several other "blank" skillsets) and I also tried adding to dimension magic. They all got capped at four.
Edit: I see no such box. We are both on the same page here, right? FFTPatcher? Because I don't see any "Effect" box, aside from the area of effect under the "Attributes" section.
Interesting... what character are you trying to assign these too?
I believe she said it was Geomancer.
Just a generic, everyone would have access.
Edit: Yup, geomancer.
Edit of Edit: Oh, and I'm a girl, by the way.
How odd... it is a normal class... hmm.. The only thing I can think of is that Geomancers are in some way highly special case, therefore the rules only give them four skills, though that seems rather ridiculous... they aren't monsters after all...
Just a theory, and this is most likely complete bollox, but what if if the skill box won't expand due to the fact that Elementals are not recognized as ordinary skills? I.E. they don't register with the game as belonging in a viewable skillset. If so, how could I change that? Like I said though, just a theory. I like the idea of just creating new abilities and naming them, but I don't know how. >_<
Well if that is the case, normally the box plain won't open, it will be blanked out, since you "lack the neccessities" for it. But you've obviously tried to switch this to other skillsets and that didnt work. As far as my experience goes it is skillset, not class (type's another thing altogether...) that depends on what skillset, box and the like will appear as. Though there's another way to do this, a bit more complicated though...
If you switch the sprites of Lancer and Geomancer (not even sure if that's possible due to size limits...) you should be able to place the Jump skill perfectly fine on the Geomancer and use any skillset for your custom Geomancer. Of course that's a last resort kind of move, a bit of work.
I'll give that a shot, if all else fails. Putting some hard work into this is not something I mind at all. I've been at this patch for a good 4-5 days solid, already, creating, testing, modding, etcetera. *giggles* It's coming along fairly well, still needs full testing though, of course.
Well as you see there is plenty of room for ideas, once it advances a considerable amount you may want to post your patch for others to test, or just keeping such for updates.
I may just. I'm not sure if I want to post it, certainly not yet. It needs a lot more work still. For instance, I turned Bards into Sorcerers and Dancers into Assassins, but both skillsets need nerfing heavily. That's low on my priority list as of now because I'm not an uber-gamer, don't intend to take advantage of them, and the patch is only meant for my eyes, so far. (To note, I never, ever, use calculators in my normal run-throughs of FFT, aside from their RSM stuff, sometimes.)
Edit!: I think I know what happened/what's wrong. I don't even have FFTacText, or shishi sprite editor...I must have gotten a shortened version of FFTPatcher or something because those things weren't included, but according to the site now, they are. @_@ Well, I'm going to download this different set of editing stuff from the site and see what's up.
Edit of Edit: Oh my goodness. This one has so much...MORE to it. >_< I must have been using quite an out of date version.
Most sites to this day hosts the 1st of 2nd version released of FFTPatcher, this is really, really terrible.
It certainly set me back a fair amount of work. >_< Oh well. ^_^
Edit: Well, regarding the original problem, it seems that Geomancy spells are intrinsically linked with the topography. Every attempt by me to change that has been met with failure. I created an entire new set of moves, emulating the geomancy abilities precisely, added them to a different skillset, and the same limit of four happened, plus the moves were glitched. I also tried them in the regular "Elemental" skill set, still glitched, still limited to four. I put the abilities (not the created ones, the legit ones) on a different class (Oracle) to see if the same thing would happen, and yes, once more it was limited to four. It seems that Geomancy is as of now un-editable in any major way, but please, PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong. For now I'm just going to return it to normal.
When you made the duplicate skills what skill set did you put them in and what job did you use the skill set with?
The thing I want to make sure of is that you aren't trying to use a skill set with a job other than the one it was originally intended for. For example the only skill set that the Black Mage job can use without glitching is Black Magic. Only monsters seem to ba able to use skill sets interchangably.
That's very good to know, thank you...As for the custom skillset, I can't remember. >_< I was doing the changes at around 3:00 - 5:00 in the morning, and forgot to create a change/test log. I'm pretty sure I did have the custom skillset under number 11 "Elemental" though, replacing all the regular moves with the custom ones. I'll try it again though, because I set it to "Default" but forgot to test it being "Elementals" in the Action Menus. Hurray exhaustive testing. T_T;
Edit: As expected, the custom skillset with an unmodded Action Menu ("Elements") Resulted in "No moves learned for this topography" as was expected. Placing it under Default yields the usual result of one panel range, no effect, 0% chance to hit. And since placing it under any other skillset and giving it to Geomancer results in failure, I'm almost at a loss. I'm going to give the skillset to Oracle now under Yin-Yang Magic, and see if that works, and if so I'll just have to change some names and swap their sprites. Not so hard. Right? *laughs, sighing at the same time.*
Edit 2: Well then. >_< That seems to have worked. At least, it's not automatically giving me four moves I haven't learned yet. I'll continue testing...Live and learn, I s'pose.
Edit again: Yup, that worked. ...I feel stoopid now. *smacks her own forehead, laughing a bit.* Well, Geomancer works. Oracle is broken now. So, I'm going to turn Calculator into Oracle, basically eliminating one class from the overall job tree. Oh well. I've always hated Calcs. (Though I'd prefer turning it into a Red Mage...but *shrug*)
Glad it finally, sorta, worked out. =)
Thanks. *rubs her head, smiling, sighing* Ah...ouch...My poor brain. Now I'm trying to figure out all the sprite stuff. Editing, changing things up, etcetera. Need to swap Geomancer and Oracle sprites. Probably going to download that Red Mage sprite for my Calc and mingle Red Magic with Oracle stuff. (Will lose a bit of Yin Yang in the process, but...Oh well.) Wish me luck, I suppose. *giggles*
Good Luck!
And you may end up having to make modifications to Oracle and Geomancer to make them fit in one another's .SPR files.
More Luck to you!
...
You're gonna need it.
No major modifications were required to make Onmyo_M and _W fit into Fusui_M and _W, just a little truncation and a little "pad with zeros". I'm going to switch things back though, buff Geomancers a little in a different way, because I can't figure out how to successfully replace Formation Screen sprites. I took a look at Lydyn's guide, but it didn't work. Not the way it's written, at least. I decided to try swapping Onmyo and Fusui instead of replacing just Bard as he said (which didn't work) and that...Kinda worked. Except the colors were all messed up. >_< I'm really inept when it comes to sprites.
Edit: Oh, and thank you! *curtsies* ^_^
The padding with zeros is ok, but be careful with the truncation, cause it *could* cause problems.
Well, like I said, I just switched things back. Over all, this has been very much a learning experience, but it wasn't worth it to lose Oracle, as spiffy as the new moves were for Geomancers. I'll post some information about my patch, eventually. Probably. Or something.
Thank you for the warning. ^_^
though i'm new here, i've been doing my fair share of hacking for a while. as for the OP's question, the reason you've been getting capped at four moves is because every time you alter a skill set that is not a base job's, perhaps due to pre-programmed skill set size or something, the altered skill set become linked to your base job.
NOTE: by 'moves' and 'skills' i am talking about action abilities; S/R/M work fine regardless of anything
since you're using a generic, the base job has four skills and thus when you learn its first skill, you'll be able to know the altered skill set's first move. if you only learn the third move (in this case, dash), then you'll only know the third skill in the altered skill set.
since there are only four moves in the generic's base job's skill set, then the only way you be able to learn all of the altered skill set's moves is to:
A. master the base job (not sure, but i really think this'll do it)
B. add more skills to the base job and learn them all (sure-fire method)
hope that helped
Thank you very much! *curtsies* I had already figured out the whole capped at four moves thing, and ways around it, but I didn't realize it was because it was defaulting to the base job. That's very useful information! *nods nods, giggling* So once again, thank you.