ALMA allows for adding HP and MP to Shields, Weapons, etc. along with some basic manipulation of Support Abilities. Pokeytax also already found the code to modify to manipulate where R/S/M can be equipped and such.
FDC's Formula Hack, when completed, will be relocated a lot of flags between boxes in FFTPatcher to allow you to have a pretty solid amount of customization with Reaction Triggers. There's a drop down in FFTPatcher that's supposed to allow you to toggle things to any R/S/M slot... but as far as I know, it currently doesn't work.
As for your propositions, I disagree with a large number, but I'll work from a coding perspective instead of a design one. Having X-Save skills modify value based on damage would be doable, but you'd need to set HP bounds and perform a loop to get the value, etc. You can already modify these with very basic hex editing that possibly could be incorporated into FFTPatcher in the form of drop menus. In fact, one of Pokeytax's older hacks allows for pretty fluid modding of all the X-Save abilities, though the boost values themselves remain constant. Auto-X R/S/M are also easily doable by using ALMA then disabling the R/S/M's actual code if you want them, the latter being one of the things Pokeytax is working on. FDC's working on MP Switch allowing overflow damage and on a Return Status Reaction.
Reflect... is actually not in any way intended to interact with the Reflect status. The code for it that exists is actually similar to Counter Magic - in fact, like a Magic Hamedo, ignoring their spell and sending it back at them. Square likely stopped coding it when realizing both how retarded this is and how Counter Magic already fills almost the exact same role without being dumb. Though, if you want Auto-Reflect, pop on some ALMA.
Finger Guard - FDC's Formula Hack will be including a Talk Skill flag, though in the final version it won't be compatible with MultiHit, Draw Out, Geomancy, and a couple other random things for technical reasons not related to those skills' current hardcoding.
It's hard to comment on your Movement stuff because you constantly bring up things like FFMaster's Flee that are themselves questionable. Though, Ignore Height and Teleport 2 can technically be tossed since you can easily just give units that use those incredible Move and Jump. Your thought with Walk on Water is essentially what I'm doing to it, dumping Any Ground and Any Weather on it (for the most part), creating a single ability that's essentially Float without the Floating.
Really, unless you want to make all Movement abilities incredibly situational and based on the current battle (meh), they're very niche, which is why I switched to a double Support structure a long time ago, because I hate situational garbage.
(Damn. I wanted to be the first respond, but I just had to go for that walk, to the bank and then get distracted by Syfy and
Predator: The Musical. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlicWUDf5MM&feature=channel_video_title) Sadface.)
While it's...noble to want to make everything useful and I'm sure is something that most of us have considered at least few times, some things just have to die for one reason or another, whether its due to being overpowered POS that can't be "fixed" for generics or just being too weak.
Let's look at your suggestions--I must admit that I'm surprised you didn't do any comments for the supports given that some of them are clearly overpowered:
1.
X-Save: MA-Save, (P)A-Save and Speed Save are quite powerful as they are; Speed Save is quite overpowered as it is. Your suggested changes to all three makes them even more able to be abused. Hell, your suggested change to Speed Save possibly adding
2 or 3 speed is broken. Your solution to Critical Quick is the current (necessary) solution to Speed Save, actually.
2.
Sunken State and Caution: I don't think they're quite as useless as you say they are. They just don't matter much when 2HKO and OHKOing units is so easy as it is like a lot of these skills.
3.
Dragon Spirit: I'd argue that it's overpowered since anyone that will use it pretty much will always have healing. Otherwise, people would just use the crutch that is Angel Ring.
4.
Regenerator: I'd argue that Auto-Regen would be overpowered, especially in the Reaction ability slot.
5.
MP Restore: A "Blood Magic" solution is indeed pretty elegant, though it makes it even more advantageous for spell-casters to whore Equip Armor, which is already the most useful Equip skill.
6.
HP Restore: Yeah, it's likely one of those abilities that just has to die. The "critical only Reactions" tend to be troublesome as a whole.
7.
Meatbone Slash and Damage Split: Considering that Damage Split is already overpowered, I don't see why you want to make a "Damage Split Lite".
8.
Counter Magic and Absorb Used MP: I could see combining them just because Absorb Used MP is kind of useless. A Runic ability seems like it would be a bit much, though, if Hamedo is any example.
9.
Counter Tackle: Yeah, what it reacts to is directly tied to Dash's slot. As such, it's the easiest the Reaction ability to change.
10.
Gilgame Heart: Yes, I think it's beyond saving since either it's stupidly underpowered or, if you reverse its abilities to have it affect Gil instead of HP, it becomes the most broken reaction in the game, even past MP Switch and Hamedo.
11.
Distribute: Then you'll like my Chocobos (maybe).
12.
MP Switch: MP Switch is just broken in general. Ethers, Chakra and Move-MP Up just make it worse.
13.
Weapon Guard: Here is something else we disagree on. There's no reason that bare-handed units should benefit from Weapon Guard, especially if those barehanded units are Monks. (Bastards.) Weapon breaking/stealing, if you keep it around, should be a valid tactic and it's not like Shields don't exist. If you want to take out things with your bare fists from the get go, then you should have to risk getting your face bashed in more than other units.
14.
Finger Guard: There already is a "Talk Skill" flag in a way: formula 2A. Finger Guard reacts to that (and only that) IIRC, which is how I'm trying to buff Finger Guard myself.
15.
Abandon: Lol, what? Abandon is pretty stupid as it is, especially since it should be a Support anyway. Its essentially "EVADE UP", where the "UP" is 100% compared to the 25% or 33% that other UP abilities do. It would have to be lowered to 50% and even then that might still be too much.
16.
Catch and Arrow Guard: I can see combining Arrow Guard and Catch, though I'm sure some might argue that Arrow Guard already blocks too much (especially if you allow it to block gun shots as well), but given how narrow Catch is.... Having it Catch Items would only help Undead and would otherwise make it more useless to generics.
17.
Hamedo: Preempting attacks, even if it didn't "replace" them, would still be overpowered, especially since the AI can't see reactions. So there would still be nothing stopping you from slapping it on a unit and have that unit continually be "bait" by having it perpetually maintain the lowest amount of health, which glass cannons already tend to do.
18.
Equip Armor: Perhaps the only Equip skill that comes close to being "overpowered". I've admittedly been somewhat tempted to either get rid of it entirely or have Helms be separate, but the latter doesn't seem to solve very much or make much sense. I think part of the reason it might seem so overpowered compared to the other Equip skills is because it's the only equip skill to allow the equipping of two different equipment pieces and there's a large HP disparity among physical units and magical classes that this becomes a "necessary" solution when you're not forced to use Short Charge for a spell-casting mage.
19.
Half of MP: Honestly, I think this needs to reduce by less than half since it's rather silly with some magical abilities, though it might not exactly be overpowered just because spell-casters tend to be underwhelming still without Short Charge or Magic Attack UP. In fact, it only tends to be a problem innately, so maybe it's fine.
20.
(Magic) Attack UP and (Magic) Defend UP: I'd argue that they need to increase or decrease damage by the same amount rather than the Defend UP abilities being superior to the Attack UP ones. There are surely some people who would argue this differently, though.
21.
Concentrate: Arguably overpowered, at least with innate Martial Arts, Two Swords and/or Two Hands around.
22.
Martial Arts: Needs to die a horrible death.
23.
Two Hands and Two Swords: Need to not be basically "double your attack damage" supports.
24.
Monster Skill: It is completely useless with what we can affect with FFTPatcher, especially with the ARH around now to allow us to make abilities Critical only among other things.
25.
Teleport and Teleport 2: We don't
need it for monsters, really, since just giving them extremely high move would essentially solve the same thing in almost all cases. (Although that does allow us to make Teleport 2 entirely different now that I realize it....)
26.
Ignore Height: Hunh. For some reason, I never really realized here either that giving a unit extremely high Jump would suffice on most maps. Hmm...I suppose I can just kill it entirely since Fly obviates it entirely.
27.
Float (movement): As much as I like Float, it's actually not needed on monsters since you just give all of them Innate Float status and there's only one map with freaking Lava on it.
28.
Terrain Abilities: Any improvements to these are easier said than done, especially since they involve actual map tile interaction, which is still extremely difficult/tedious, if not impossible, to affect at present. With ALMA, though Move on Lava can easily become a "Fireeater" ability, though that's more a Support than a Movement.
29.
Water Terrain Abilities: Less problematic to affect given that, outside of Move Underwater, they all have uses beyond the name change. With regards to Cannot Enter Water, you can potentially use ALMA to just make sure that the monsters you don't want able to move in water can get an ability that has Cannot Enter Water attached to it. That wouldn't waste an inherent ability slot; you could do the same for Move on Lava, actually.
30.
Move +X and Jump +X Abilities: Honestly, besides Move +1, you can probably kill all of these since Move +2 and Move +3 obviate Move +1 completely and both Fly and Ignore Height just murder all the Jump +X abilities. Hell, Jump +1 dies miserable death to Auto-Float as well.
31.
Silent Walk and Move-Find Item: IIRC, Move-Find Item already allows you to ignore traps. It's actually not all that bad as it is.
32.
Move-Get EXP and Move-Get JP: Eh, I guess I could see combining these with Move-Find Item, though that might actually cause some people to want to use Move-Find Item even less.
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 11, 2011, 09:17:40 pm
FDC's Formula Hack, when completed, will be relocated a lot of flags between boxes in FFTPatcher to allow you to have a pretty solid amount of customization with Reaction Triggers. There's a drop down in FFTPatcher that's supposed to allow you to toggle things to any R/S/M slot... but as far as I know, it currently doesn't work.
Yeah, it doesn't work, unfortunately. You can toggle it, but like Ignore Attack, it doesn't change anything at present.
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 11, 2011, 09:17:40 pmFDC's working on MP Switch allowing overflow damage and on a Return Status Reaction.
That's good to know.
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 11, 2011, 09:17:40 pmReflect... is actually not in any way intended to interact with the Reflect status. The code for it that exists is actually similar to Counter Magic - in fact, like a Magic Hamedo, ignoring their spell and sending it back at them. Square likely stopped coding it when realizing both how retarded this is and how Counter Magic already fills almost the exact same role without being dumb.
Haha! Really? That's what Reflect is supposed to be? Magic Hamedo? Good to see that sometimes even Square can realize something is busted.
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 11, 2011, 09:17:40 pmFinger Guard - FDC's Formula Hack will be including a Talk Skill flag, though in the final version it won't be compatible with MultiHit, Draw Out, Geomancy, and a couple other random things for technical reasons not related to those skills' current hardcoding.
Also good to know.
I'm trying to make abilities moddable to any R/S/M slot when possible, and even moddable to any byte value when possible. I can see value in assigning MFI to, say, Chemists or Monster Talk to Ramza and then scrapping the dedicated slot for something else. I'll go through the supports when fdc is done (although crud like Gained Exp-Up is already done).
The terrain related movement abilities are coded ridiculously though, I know a lot of it is animation but jeez!
How does Counter Tackle work, exactly? Has anyone experimented with changing what's in the Dash slot much? I'm guessing it's limited to targeting that enemy, but if it could be cloned or something that might be a useful way to provide some customization to reactions. I'm not sure what the formula hack will provide to Reactions either.
Actually, jump +X can be useful. FFM has a formula hack for Jump that makes the jump stat affect it.
*facepalms*
I really need to fucking proofread things.
Quote from: Zaen on March 12, 2011, 10:30:19 am
Actually, jump +X can be useful. FFM has a formula hack for Jump that makes the jump stat affect it.
Eh, I'm aware of its existence, but I'd rather stick with Spears strengthening Jump, personally. Besides, all that does is make Ignore Height even more useless while at the same time meaning that you have to be absolutely use that you don't use the "ghetto" Ignore Height solution since other Jump will start doing absurd damage.
Quote from: pokeytax on March 12, 2011, 08:46:37 amHow does Counter Tackle work, exactly? Has anyone experimented with changing what's in the Dash slot much? I'm guessing it's limited to targeting that enemy, but if it could be cloned or something that might be a useful way to provide some customization to reactions. I'm not sure what the formula hack will provide to Reactions either.
I'm pretty sure it does
exactly whatever is in the Dash slot does, but when I messed around with it somewhat extensively like a year ago, it was all just targeting the enemy.
However, I'm certain it doesn't have to target
that enemy given Eternal's "Thor's Wrath" reaction in his patch. I was under the impression that it used the Counter Tackle reaction slot, so perhaps it would indeed be quite useful for trying to emulate.
But, hey, I don't know anything about coding still, so I'm probably just rambling again....
It uses whatever's in Dash's slot, and on counter, if the enemy can be targetted by that attack, it'll use it, even if it's not one panel away (to my knowledge).
Bump for new stuff, check out the text document. All the movement abilities that I think are worth keeping are reorganized, and a bunch of new ideas are thrown in. I'd love some feedback on those ones.
Description of support effects is halfway done, but the ideas for them are almost done. Ditto reactions.
FWI, there's a lot of tl;dr on my part in this thread. Beware.
EDIT
More R/S/M ideas, this time from Ogre Battle - March of the Black Queen and Tactics Ogre - the Knight of Lodis.
*Beastmaster
**Add (x) PA to all monsters within (y) squares.
(look up more effects from those games)