Final Fantasy Hacktics

Is this at all possible?  Essentially changing all formulas so that they would be something like: (Atk-Def) x Weapon power, or (Mag-Mdef) x Spell power.
Not only that, but set every reaction skill to always activate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, this is my first first post! I love FFT greatly, and always wanted to tinker with it.  I doubt I could make something better than vanilla FFT, but I still want to try.

Edit: Thanks for all the help.

Anything is possible. But.. That would certainly be a hard one.
I'm not even sure how to do that one.

its possible if you're versed in ASM hacking, and atm the people around here who do know ASM have their own little pet projects.  

Otherwise, you at least have the option to do this:

- Implement the Brave to Fury hack found in FFTorgASM -- this treats Br to act like Fa.... a normal attack is Caster's Fury/100 * Recievers Fury/100 * WP * PA * some factor, for example - higher Br = more physical damage taken and more physical damage given

- Hex edit this hack:
Change reaction ability activation rate (v1). Note, this affects all reactive counter abilities.
BATTLE.BIN
0x12639C change 0x64 to 0xYY
The chance of a reaction to activate is (Br / YY).

Set YY to 01 and so long as someone isn't at 0 Br they'll have a 100% reaction rate.

Or:
Change the stat required to activate reactions (v1). Note, this affects all reactive counter abilities.
BATTLE.BIN
0x126398 change 0x24 to 0xYY
The list of what number corresponds to what stat is here: http://www.ffhacktics.com/wiki/Formula_Hacking (http://www.ffhacktics.com/wiki/Formula_Hacking).

Change their reaction rate to be tied to HP, CT, level, or any other parameter desired.

WELCOME TO FFH, WHERE ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.

Thank you!

I guess I better get to learning about ASM hacking then.

Step 1: Figure out what ASM means...

I really do hope all my FFT dreams do come true, though I doubt some of them would be feasible, like giving every single story character a unique sprite for every job, or being able to have 10 units available in one fight, or to implement races, or any number of things that seem like they would need an entirely new game for.  Still, with everything that can be changed, I am excited to see what I can make!

"like giving every single story character a unique sprite for every job"

All the special characters already have a unique sprite. Did you mean generics?

Step 1:
http://ffhacktics.com/tutorials.php?id=11 (http://ffhacktics.com/tutorials.php?id=11)
and/or:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1582&hilit=asm+tutorial (http://www.ffhacktics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1582&hilit=asm+tutorial)

Quotebeing able to have 10 units available in one fight

1) The max loadable from the formation is 5 people, sadly.
2) The max number of total units for most maps is 16.  A handful of maps are 12, dunno the exact list
3) The max number of sprites per battle is 9.  This is unchangeable due to VRAM limitations.
4) You can, on a battle by battle basis, input additional friendly characters as controllable guests.  If you break the sprite limit they look very poor, though.  But they do ACT fine.

Quoteraces

You can do 2, mechnically.  Since dancer and bard (or, rather jobs 6A and 6B or wtfever they are) are hard-coded to male/female only, you can make them available initially and then set all further jobs to have either pre-req and thus divide the job tree in two.  

glhf

I meant that Ramza would have 20 different sprites, one for each job, and Delita would have 20 different sprites, and Agrias, etc.

Quote from: "DaveSW"I meant that Ramza would have 20 different sprites, one for each job, and Delita would have 20 different sprites, and Agrias, etc.

That would be an awesome hack. I have thought about it before, but the more I do, the less possible it sounds. It would probably need an extended ISO, but even then I would not know how to do it.

Yeah, I wanted to make a hack without any generics, and without any unique classes, but with every character still unique in other ways, maybe have skillsets unique to a character, not a class, in addition to the standard class based skillsets.

That gives me a cool idea. Not giving the main character to change sprites exactly, but semi - main characters. For instance, if you made a patch, you could have all generics be the same general person, which could be rad, since he has a set name anyways (Can be changed). And along with changing his name, make all generic sprites based off of his look. This would make all Male sprites be rad. This would cause other problems, because all of the ENTD's that contain generics would need fixing. Also, making a few jobs un usable to Rad, would allow different sprites for entd's and missions. It could be done for Alicia and Lavian to, but the soldier office would need to be disabled, which I believe can be done through ASM.

Its quite possible if you make a SCC patch, just give all the generics a Ramza-happiness head swap. There you go. But that would totally destroy the entire game because you couldn't fight humans anymore except "special" ones like Gafgarion.

Edit: Actually an awesome idea would be to make either Lavian or Alicia "special", and have Rad and the other girl just have a different portrait or something. Or maybe all of them should be special, but once they become that, their icon won't change no matter what job they become, sadly.

That's why you leave some of the jobs out, like the un editable ones, for the battles.

Ok, a few new questions, I didn't think I would need to create a new thread, so here goes:

What CAN be edited about a Mime? Can they be given inherent reaction and support abilities?  Does changing their stat growth and multipliers actually work?  What about giving them status/elemental immunities?  

Also, is it possible to turn all monsters into the monsters/human commands, like Worker 8 and Reis?

Oh, the charge skillset, does it really need it's own type of skillset, or would say, charge +4 still work just fine if I gave it to another 'normal' skillset, ie, not mathskill, item, jump, elemental, etc.

I saw that it was possible to change Defend into a complete skillset, so I was wondering, is it possible to turn Defend into Item, and give it as an inherent support skill to every class? Would that work as easily as I hope, would their be a ton of bugs that I would have to deal with?

I would test all this myself, but my current computer for whatever reason cannot run a PSX emulator. (I have 3 copies of the game, and none of them work)  

All I know about mime is that the skills can not be changed, or the equip weapons. Not sure about stats.

QuoteAlso, is it possible to turn all monsters into the monsters/human commands, like Worker 8 and Reis?

Not sure what you mean. XD

Quote from: "DaveSW"Ok, a few new questions, I didn't think I would need to create a new thread, so here goes:

What CAN be edited about a Mime? Can they be given inherent reaction and support abilities?  Does changing their stat growth and multipliers actually work?  What about giving them status/elemental immunities?

Yes to all of the above.

Quote from: "DaveSW"Also, is it possible to turn all monsters into the monsters/human commands, like Worker 8 and Reis?

Yes to this as well. You have to change their skill sets though to default rather then monster. I think.

Quote from: "DaveSW"Oh, the charge skillset, does it really need it's own type of skillset, or would say, charge +4 still work just fine if I gave it to another 'normal' skillset, ie, not mathskill, item, jump, elemental, etc.

The charge skillset MUST be in the "charge" action menu. Otherwise it will not work. You can sort of do a pseudo of the skill set by using the formula PA*WP+Y and give it ct time and increase the power. but the ai tends to be a bit foolish with the ct time and will attempt to do the attack then move canceling the action.

Quote from: "DaveSW"I saw that it was possible to change Defend into a complete skillset, so I was wondering, is it possible to turn Defend into Item, and give it as an inherent support skill to every class? Would that work as easily as I hope, would their be a ton of bugs that I would have to deal with?

Through Zodiac's ARH I believe this is completely possible. I haven't played around with it however. You can check his thread here to find out more details:http://ffhacktics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=953&start=0

Thank you! Everyone here is so damn awesome!  
It is so much fun just tinkering with numbers, this is so cool.

Quote from: "DaveSW"Thank you! Everyone here is so damn awesome!  
It is so much fun just tinkering with numbers, this is so cool.

It was my dream to do all of this, then I found the site. Thanks for the compliment, even though it wasn't me who solved the problem

Ok, so new question.  I can't for the life of me find any of my copies of FFT, is ordering from Amazon the best way to go?  The only copies I have right now are on the PSP and PS3, and I don't feel like messing with either system.  Also, I can't seem to get a PSX emulator to run properly, is there some trick to it?  All of the other emulators run automatically...

I have so many ideas for things I want change, but my experience from editing FF6 tells me that I need to test everything, lest I cause a bug and can't find it.

Any way of getting it would be fine.
Though if you have an old games shop, that might be best.

As for the psx emulator.
I'd recommend ePSXe.

You'll need your psx bios, you can search google how to extract your bios to your computer.
It's not so hard.

And you'll need plugins. Easy enough to find, also. Just search something like epsxe plugins.

Ok. I got ePSXe to run, finally, and it turns out my copy of FFT was ferreted away by my 1-year-old son.  It still works, so now I can begin actually editing the game.  So, uh...  What do you guys recommend as the best way to test changes?  Should I just start a new game each time at 10X speed, or what?

Thanks again for all the help.  I always start off as a completely useless milksop, but give it a year, and I will be a major asset, I promise!

First make an ISO image, you don't want to be editing your disk. You can make different saves that are at different points in the game. If making  jobs and abilities, I would set all job requirements to Zero, and all abilities to free in jp cost. This will only be for the testing (Obviously).

Quote from: "DaveSW"Ok. I got ePSXe to run, finally, and it turns out my copy of FFT was ferreted away by my 1-year-old son.  It still works, so now I can begin actually editing the game.  So, uh...  What do you guys recommend as the best way to test changes?  Should I just start a new game each time at 10X speed, or what?

Thanks again for all the help.  I always start off as a completely useless milksop, but give it a year, and I will be a major asset, I promise!

depends on what you're changing.

most stuff in fftpatcher can be sharked in (I use the PEC plugin) so I can just load up a savestate, toggle the codes in, and I'm good to go.  It also lets me tweak on the fly via loadstating (assuming you savestate before you activate the codes) or overwrite a portion or another.  

For thicker stuff like hex edits, attack.out parameters, etc -- loadstating won't do much and you need to restart the game to see those changes.  But savefiles will be converted automatically so you don't need to fight at orbonne every single time

Quote from: "philsov"

Quote from: "DaveSW"Ok. I got ePSXe to run, finally, and it turns out my copy of FFT was ferreted away by my 1-year-old son.  It still works, so now I can begin actually editing the game.  So, uh...  What do you guys recommend as the best way to test changes?  Should I just start a new game each time at 10X speed, or what?

Thanks again for all the help.  I always start off as a completely useless milksop, but give it a year, and I will be a major asset, I promise!

depends on what you're changing.

most stuff in fftpatcher can be sharked in (I use the PEC plugin) so I can just load up a savestate, toggle the codes in, and I'm good to go.  It also lets me tweak on the fly via loadstating (assuming you savestate before you activate the codes) or overwrite a portion or another.  

For thicker stuff like hex edits, attack.out parameters, etc -- loadstating won't do much and you need to restart the game to see those changes.  But savefiles will be converted automatically so you don't need to fight at orbonne every single time

What converts save files? Is it the new patcher? I haven't been able to do that yet.

there's no conversion needed O.o

Say I input the Weapon Guard innate all ASM, and want to make sure its in game.  I can just load up the iso and then load up any previous save file.  the change will be there.

Quote from: "philsov"there's no conversion needed O.o

Say I input the Weapon Guard innate all ASM, and want to make sure its in game.  I can just load up the iso and then load up any previous save file.  the change will be there.

Oh, you meant your own save files. I thought you meant the patcher made files for you.

Thanks though~!

Ok, more questions,

First, I am assuming that it is best to just keep asking questions in this thread, instead of creating new ones, is this the best way to go about it?  

Second, I looked around, but couldn't find out how, if at all, is it possible to make certain skills come already learned?  I want to do this with every item skill, and change the chemist into a completely different class.

Third, is it appropriate in this forum to discuss the changes I want to do, and ask for ideas from others?  If so, what/where is the best way to do this?

Again, thank you all for your help.  This is so much fun, you guys rock.

Quote from: "DaveSW"Ok, more questions,

Lets see if I can help again! ^_^

Quote from: "DaveSW"First, I am assuming that it is best to just keep asking questions in this thread, instead of creating new ones, is this the best way to go about it?

I see nothing wrong with keeping one thread. Perhaps rename it though?

Quote from: "DaveSW"Second, I looked around, but couldn't find out how, if at all, is it possible to make certain skills come already learned?  I want to do this with every item skill, and change the chemist into a completely different class.

This I'm not sure about... I'd have to run some test to see if its possible. I don't think it is though. Perhaps someone else might know.

Quote from: "DaveSW"Third, is it appropriate in this forum to discuss the changes I want to do, and ask for ideas from others?  If so, what/where is the best way to do this?

There is a new projects forum where people go to post ideas, in particular you can create a new thread for the patch you are working on (assuming you are) or there is a thread there called "Patch Ideas" or something to that effect where you can post about your ideas.

Quote from: "DaveSW"Again, thank you all for your help.  This is so much fun, you guys rock.

Sorry I couldn't give you a full answer on the second one! But I hope I was able to assist you with the other two.

Ok, so now I'm working on my own personal patch, when I get better at this I plan to start my own major project, but for now, the simple stuff.

A few more questions:
1, it was mentioned that it is possible to rename this thread, how do I do that, and what should I rename it to? Something like, A total idiot asks a lot of questions?

2.  Interesting bug that occurred, randomly, the accuracy and Max HP displays will be reduced to a single digit, the accuracy display doesn't seem to change the actual accuracy, but the Max HP display does make it impossible to regain HP, and sometimes current HP will get set to the new max.  Is this fairly common?  I have a few ideas of what might be causing it, and am currently testing that, but if it is an already well known bug with a known cause, that would save a lot of time.

I don't know about the second question, but to rename a thread, you, the creator have to go to page 1 and find the very first post and hit the "Edit" button on the upper right in the box. Then just change the name and hit Submit. Done.

QuoteIs this fairly common?

Newp.  wtf did you do?

Quoteif at all, is it possible to make certain skills come already learned? I want to do this with every item skill, and change the chemist into a completely different class.

Every skill to learn needs an associated skillset.  There are a few ways for common things, like 0 JP cost with a 100% AI learn rate -- or giving enemy custom skillsets (anything in the lower half of the skillset list) which is a 100% auto-learn for all skills.  In the case of item, that's a bit trickier because it needs it own unique skillset since it draws from your item inventory.  If you wanted to combine Basic Skill with Battle Skill (e.g.) that'd be no big deal at all but item... not so much.  

There IS an Item Innate All ASM hack, which simply makes all units always have the item skillset equipped (though it is buggy if a unit also has the defend ability, 90% sure on that), which is worth persueing... but you still need to have a normal chemist with a normal item skillset to pull it off.  Imo you're better off consolidating something else to free up space, or working within the item skillset itself to get what you're going for.  For example, while Item is limited in the number of skills, you don't need antidote and soft and maidens kiss and yadda yadda yadda.  Just make remedy cheap and this nets you 5-ish Items to toy with -- though items themselves are sadly limited in function.

Philsov, is it possible to have Item innate all (without the asm hack, I'm talking about just putting it as one of the four innates from a job) and somehow having them all mastered? I guess like you said 100% chance to learn and 0 JP would do the trick, but would for example Ramza have then all the items at Gariland? I think it would be sorta cool to have everyone with Item, FFTA style or the main stream FF games style. Just want to know how to do it right. I have a feeling it would sort of work for Ramza, the instant he absorbs a crystal...

I... don't think those 4 innate slots work that way, but its worth a spin I guess.

I figured it was something to do with the ASM hacks.  I was messing around with all the ASM hacking options, and set innate Defend, Item, and Equip Change.  If they are buggy when used together, then I think I found my problem.  I gotta say though, I found that bug to be quite amusing, watching Gafgarion getting one-shotted by Viggs.  Made the second fight un-winnable though, as Ramza, Delita, and both my chemists died in one hit.

Ha, wait til you start playing around with the ATTACK.OUT. I changed the opening Orbonne praying scene to the Gariland fight, and it was sort of an auto battle, no battle formation screen, and I was in control of just 1 generic Squire with 0/1 HP and he was killed instantly because his turn never came around.

That sounds awesome.  


Right now I'm working on buffing up the chemist, giving him poison potions and the like.  So far, so good.  Just thinking about exactly to give him.  I'm going to try to implement the elemental demi items from FF12.  I think they were called fangs.  Should work just fine, I hope.

That reminds me, are there still constant updates to the FFTPatcher?  I would suggest changing the name of the Remove Status formula to Modify Status, as Remove is misleading.  Just nitpicking, I knew right away that wasn't what it really was, but not everyone would, hence why the change would be helpful.  I'm not being an asshole by suggesting that, am I?

Right now I'm working on a patch that mostly just rebalances the game, and makes use of all the awesome abilities that never get used.  Goal is to make every class save for the basic Squire to be viable, and part of that is giving every class the same growth stats.  I hate having to level in a given class when I don't want to actually use that class, and want to create a hack that requires absolutely zero grinding, so most skills have much lower JP costs.  I still plan on making it harder than vanilla FFT though.

Update:  Weirdness abounds, cant add elements to Potions, and X and Y are always 0 for weapons, I think.  I was hoping that changing the item type would change weapon power and hit% into X and Y... so far, turning daggers into attack items results in hitting the foe with rocks, and I don't know what, if any, damage formulas actually work.  Still, it is fun testing it out.  I just wish I had more free time...

No grinding is good, but if you lower the JP costs, the game might become easier due to the fact that you can buy the bigger and better spells & abilities quicker. Can you tell us how you actually did change knives/daggers into the rock animation? That sounds funny! I wanna try that sometime, maybe someone should really make a just "Throw Stone" patch, I wonder if anyone would play it though...?

The knife turning into one of the geomancer's rock spells was just a result of turning the dagger into a chemist item.  Fire ball turns into the haste animation, and Im sure every other item has a corresponding spell effect too.  

Lower JP costs is balanced by the fact that more abilities doesn't really translate to having a stronger character, just a more versatile one.  I plan on just outright killing mathskill, and replacing Calculators with Blue Mages.  As for everything else, learning Bahumut would only take 10 minutes of spamming Accumulate, instead of 20, for instance, so that doesn't make the game easier, just quicker.  Besides, lower JP costs mean that enemies have more skills too.

I plan to use the ASM hack that would cut XP in half. I already gave every class the same stat growths, so that I can level in whatever class I want without screwing the character, or being able to abuse the level down trick.  I think they are set to 5 for HP/MP, 50 for Speed, and 35 for PA/MA.  Really good, but with the XP gained cut in half, it ends up being around the same stats.  

I also plan on giving every class one or two innate abilities, and some classes I will probably change drastically.  I am quite fond of several of completed sprites available for download, so I was thinking about making use of those.  I know that I want to get rid of the mediator, as well as all 'utility' abilities, for the most part, as I would rather the game encourage you to always set up your party to be as effective as possible.  I plan on giving Ramza the mediator's most important skill, Invite, as it fits his character, (he is the one recruiting people, after all), but because it can be so effective, because it essentially the best death spell ever, I was thinking about giving it an mp cost.  I was thinking enough MP so that Ramza would have 1 use of it in the begining, and maybe enough MP for 10 castings a battle end-game.  I know I want to add a lot of skills to Ramza's base class, but I want them all to be eclectic, and none of them should really be that damaging.  Ideas would be appreciated.

Quote from: "DaveSW"turning daggers into attack items results in hitting the foe with rocks, and I don't know what, if any, damage formulas actually work.  Still, it is fun testing it out.  I just wish I had more free time...

Item's basically on its own little table. I can import a very limited number of formula into item (namely, anything which can stand its X and Y value to be zero), but that would only serve to diversify Item itself... which, might be fun to dick around with.  Afaik the only things that can actually be "items" are part of the original item set, so I again strongly advise consolidating the current ones to make room for the new ones.

Formulas that actually do work with Item in addition to the standard ones:

Thank you for that table! Very useful.  I do plan on just changing all of the single status recovery Items into attack items, but it is fun messing with everything else.  Seems like it just isn't possible to have an Item do 50% max HP damage with a flat 50% success rate, and elemental.  Oh well, I can settle for stone dust and doom clocks...  Though I do like the idea of throwing bombs that do 100 damage, and randomly cast Flare...

Any ways, some changes I plan on doing include giving the knight and thief more offensive abilities, turning calculators into blue mages, (suggested monster skills welcome), turning mediators into... something (nerfed assassins, maybe?), and overall, just making sure that every skill in every class is something that is worth using.  After all, if you are never going to bother using it, then why have it at all?

Oh, and I plan on re balancing monsters so that they are a lot better overall, and changing their stat growth so that MA based monster abilities would be balanced when cast by a Blue Mage.  Oh, and increasing monster's MP so that they can actually use the stronger Blue Mage skills.  (If I remember correctly, monsters never use MP, but still need the minimum amount in order to cast a spell, right?.)

Oh, I want to give Mimes a reaction skill, what do you suggest? I was thinking Damage Split, because it means the Mime is doing the exact same amount of damage to the enemy.

I'd recommend either damage split, counter flood, or both counter and counter magic.  Counter + Counter Magic is the most fitting, mime-wise, and it works against most skills from both ranged and melee.  But, that needs two innate slots to work so you'd need to sacrifice something (monster skill) to pull off.  Damage split or counter flood for the same reason -- they work against most skills.

I think Counter and Counter Magic works better. Counter Flood doesn't really make any sense to me, they are Mimes not Geomancers. Damage Split also is a fine choice, but Counter+Counter Magic just seems cooler. If you get rid of Monster Skill, just plug it as an innate on Squires or something like that.

@Philsov: Thanks for that table. It is really helpful, this will help us all in the long run!

More noobish questions:

I am in the process of turning Mediators into Assassins. Several Use Hand skills aren't appearing as usable in battle, but appear in the skill list as normal.  What am I doing wrong?

What is the easiest way to increase the amount of JP enemies have to spend on skills?

Thanks.

do you want them to be FORCED to USE more money to acquire individual skills? or did you want them to have more jp available? more jp available, use the ENTD to bump up their "jobs available" and set it to mime/calc or something like that.
if you want their skills to COST more, use the fftpatcher to make ALL skills cost more.

I've always loved the idea of a Blue Mage in FFT.  Here are some suggestions for Monster Skills I'd like to see.  Listed MP costs are just estimates, obviously.


I think this gives you a good variety of damage and status attacks as well as ease/difficulty to acquire.

Been a while, but I figure it is better to ask a new question in a an old thread then add more topics.

Spell guns.  Any way to change what 3 spells they each fire off?

Through ASM, yes.

Or, a slightly different way is to change what spells are in Fire/2/3's, Ice/2/3's, or Bolt/2/3's slots.

So, a Russian roulette gun that randomly casts Cure 4, the uber buff spell that Alma has, and Death is entirely possible, just by switching the spells in those slots?  Awesome.  Oh, and congrats on winning the Admin position, I would have voted, but I am a noob here.

The death spell actually won't actually use the formula correctly (it'll do damage like 100*WP) and, further, magic funs cannot use status magic.

Oh.  Damn.  Will cure still work correctly?  100 *WP would still be instant death on anything it hits though...  I figured it wouldn't ever miss, so that is just as broken.

I'm not certain about cure... I've never tested it.

Ok... So, any way to raise a monster's Magic Evade?  Would forcing monsters to equip mantles work?

Also, I was thinking of creating a FAQ that would answer all of these basic questions.  Would that be a good idea, or just a waste of time?

Yeah the only way to increase the magic evade would be to force a mantle on them through the entd which they would lose at the end of the battle.

I think creating a faq is always a good thing to help out users that are looking for answer, though, a search on the forums would generally answer most of the basic questions.

Ok, so what determines which piece of equipment gets targeted with break skills?

The spots are hardcoded, you can only,correctly, use the ones that were originally the break skills. I believe (I haven't tested) if you use a slot outside of the original ones, it won't do anything and will display a 00% chance of doing something.

I did some testing, looks like all break skills can share both break formulas. Changing one to the other works just fine.