Final Fantasy Hacktics

Only 4 of a job's action abilities are generally good/useful. The others are/become redundant as the player gets to the end game. If all the abilities were good, then the job is too powerful/overused.
So, I had this idea tried to reduce the abilities to 4 per job (a few got 5) to make each job unique. Although it can be even more fine-tuned, I'm quite happy with my test and here is a spreadsheet. Even the three black/white mages are different now.

There is another advantage. The game has many unused slots, which we can now be used for custom classes with a few custom skills.

The tab is named "Less Skills".
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MjqOJdqyY_1azzn9dQikp5GXCB3QTM0INVOgfDwc8ro/edit?usp=sharing]

If I find some time, I'll make a patch for this. Please let me know your thoughts.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 13, 2020, 06:44:35 pmOkay, so first, on repointing:

I understand the concept.
I don't understand the math.
Where can I get the Race IDs?

Quote from: Leonarth on July 13, 2020, 06:44:35 pmAbout the sidenote:This would cause the problem of outright just not working.

Oh right, the race for items was labelled as [ALL] in the AIO. I mistook it for an all purpose class.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 13, 2020, 06:44:35 pmSo tldr: There is no outplaying the races' ability lists short of writing your own code for it. A whole lot of code.

...sigh

Quote from: Leonarth on July 13, 2020, 04:38:28 pmit's included in the engine hacks, unless you go out of your way to remove it.

I've only changed the ROMBuildfile.event. Good to know that it's present.

Quote from: slempi on July 13, 2020, 05:28:50 pmMontblanc has never been one of my strongest characters before... will give some feedback if you want after I've gotten further.

I have tried many classes for Montblanc, the most recent test made him a Nu Mou similar to Cid being a Bangaa in FFTA2. I'm still not sure what's best for him.
Take your time and have fun, report if you find any bugs.

Quote from: PowerOfKaishin on July 13, 2020, 11:23:48 pmI can't find a full changelog though. The google drive only goes back to 1.05.

That's my fault. I deleted the old version of the game two years ago, then redid everything and changed the mod's name.

Quote from: PowerOfKaishin on July 13, 2020, 11:23:48 pmAlso, what if all growths were static and independent of class? That way you don't have to worry about screwing characters up and can play much more freely,

It's bad because all the enemies would be similar. Fighting a White Mage and Fighter would feel the same.

Quote from: PowerOfKaishin on July 13, 2020, 11:23:48 pmespecially with someone like Marche

This is why I've streamlined the base stats and greatly increased the story mission's AP reward. By the time you reach the first boss fight, Marche should be in your desired class. Tell me if this did not happen.
Also, I've not changed how the shop upgrades work. So, if you just participate in 20 battles, you'll have access to the full shop.

Quote from: SqueakyChair on July 13, 2020, 01:19:58 pmIf you got time, can you explain a bit your design philosophies and objectives with this mod as per the latest version?

I have one: To make it better than the base game. Aim is Better, not Different.

Quote from: SqueakyChair on July 13, 2020, 01:19:58 pmpossible for you to create a version of this mod without the Mission Item Fix hardcoded into it?

ItemFix came first and Revisited was built on top. It would take a lot of effort to undo, I do not advise you try the endeavor.

Quote from: SqueakyChair on July 13, 2020, 01:19:58 pmor is it integral to your overall design philosophy

Not really. I just made the ItemFix because I had an issue with the base game's inventory management; it's very easy to mess up. Because ItemFix is an improvement, it stayed.

Quote from: SqueakyChair on July 13, 2020, 01:19:58 pmI also like the increased difficulty

The next update is the one for difficulty and boss fights.

Quote from: SqueakyChair on July 13, 2020, 01:19:58 pmI tweaked it a bit to my tastes. I hope you don't mind 

This is what hacking is all about. Hope you could implement your changes.

Quote from: SqueakyChair on July 13, 2020, 01:19:58 pmFFTA Hacking to Suit My Own Tastes - A To-Do List (1st Jan 2020 update)

1. 1.06 had them; 1.061 removed; they will back with the next update. Leonarth fixed a bug found by Mobo.
2. I advise you to use the latest version. 1.0 is too old and I plant to remove it soon.
3. Too tedious.
4. Again, I advise you not to attempt this endeavor.
5. A Thundrake is in Roda Dragons and a Goblin is in Antlions.
6. They are already twice or more then base game. And they go even higher. You also get 2x insignia, which means 4x AP.
7. Nice suggestion, I do not how to implement it.
8. Level scaling is present as an optional patch.
9. 1.06 had it; 1.061 does not; the next update will have it.
10. Raising level cap only increased the grinding. Instead I chose to increase HP growths.
11. I did not notice improvement. Correct me if it is significant.
12. Famfirt gives you a Cinquedea. Just hold out on the "Wanted! Diaghilev Godeye" mission.

Thanks a lot for playing, your review and your time. Much appreciated

double posted by mistake
Edit: Could a mod please delete this post

Quote from: mobo on July 13, 2020, 01:34:17 ambit curious kai if you can add a feature like in Pokemon where everyone in party earns exp even they didnt went out for battle but instead of exp the feature gives AP for everyone thats if the Individual Missions/Battle/etc succeeded. Thanks in advance for the work.

Leonarth made an experimental hack here and from what I've tested

What it does:
---All party members get mission AP except those who go out on dispatch
---All newly learned abilities are correctly displayed in the mission summary screen
---Cosmetic bug: A generic soldier briefs every mission summary

What it doesn't:
---Dispatch missions only give AP to the dispatched unit
---Clan battles only give AP to participating members

I did not implement this because I could not test it extensively.

Leonarth also made a hack which makes JP be used for abilities instead of AP and it was included with the previous versions. Then I encountered some cases where the hundredth digit of the stored JP would reset. So, I did not include it afterwards.

What my mod already has:
---Reduced ability AP costs
---Story missions give a lot of AP
---You even get 2 insignias as you progress through game. If an insignia is taken to a battle, it doubles your mission AP reward. Two of them means x4 AP for any mission.

Quote from: slempi on July 13, 2020, 04:15:12 amThis mod seems pretty good, it's a real shame I can only use 4 party members in battles. Makes building and grinding your entire party a lot more tedious and slow. I would definitely play this mod, if I could use 6 members instead.

I created FFTA:Revisited after my other mod MissionItemFix, which makes the story missions give awesome rewards. To balance this I make the story missions harder.

I did the same thing to side-missions. The Tourney battles, Shadow clan, and other end game missions are more difficult. I tried to balance the remaining side-missions, but it was taking too long. There just aren't that many unique enemy combinations to spread across 100 or so side-missions, you will see repetitions even if I put a lot of time into it.
So, I took Eternal's idea from FFTA:GG and reduced the party member count. The enemies are easy but you don't have a full party. Difficulty increased moderately and it saved me a lot of time.

If any side mission is a bit difficult, then just try after sometime. The enemy levels do not change.
For example, Prof in Trouble. It was already notorious for being difficult in the base game because:
---Undead with Drain-Touch are quite challenging early game
---On top of that you had keep Auggie alive, else you fail the mission
In this mod, however, Auggie is more than capable of defeating them, it's you who must survive long enough.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 12, 2020, 01:03:44 pmIn "\Engine Hacks\jobAndRaceCustomization\data.event" look for the 0 terminated list under the label "newItemJobs", jobs in that list always have Item. By default the list only contains the ID for the Alchemist.

So, I just add the class BYTEs to the list?

What about hiding?
If I make every class have ITEM, do I just comment out the whole "hiding" portion of the code?

Quote from: Leonarth on July 12, 2020, 01:09:31 pmIf you repoint the lists then you can have 0xFF unique abilities for each race, if you don't then races will be forced to share abilities for no reason.

I will wait for your reply.

Side note:
I have an idea inspired from the Totema's secondary skill set "Magestorm". What if we just create one list and categorize it as [ALL]. We can add this to any class as a secondary skill set. Would this cause any problems?

Quote from: Leonarth on July 12, 2020, 07:17:53 amTo repoint something you want to copy the data for it, place it in freespace and edit the old pointer so that it points to the new location, if you wait a day or two I can get some free time and make an example with actual offsets.

I want to add more monster classes. So, I would need a new pointer for each monster race, correct?
Thanks for looking into this. All your effort could go to waste if I make the monster boring.

The monster pointers end before the special classes. So, I wanted to use special/totema skills for monsters. Only thing I would need to do is to change the addresses.
Also, why should we not use the skills of another race?

Quote from: Leonarth on July 12, 2020, 07:19:35 amWhy do you need them to show up as support abilities?

I misunderstood.
You were speaking of adding an icon to display a name, correct?
I was thinking we could give the item's passive abilities to classes, like you did in the movement abilities.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 12, 2020, 07:19:35 amDunno. I don't use AIO.

Darthatron made the AIO very user-friendly.
You use a modified Event-Assembler, right? How much more complex is it to use?

Another question:
Sephiran found that we can give ITEM to all playable classes and not just the alchemist.
Change the bytes at 0x080C8232 to 2B 28 00 DC
This works on the base game, but not after I apply any of your hacks.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 09, 2020, 08:17:11 amyou could assign these shoes and other items with special "fake" abilities for "fake" jobs, to have their passive effect show up on the ability list.

How do I get them to show up as support abilities in the AIO?

Quote from: Leonarth on July 09, 2020, 08:17:11 amOkay, everything should be fixed now.

Thanks Leonarth.
I like the snowball fight and the intro scene, but Quick Start is so good for testing.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 11, 2020, 07:48:29 pmvieraRedMageAbilities fix.

Oh, you've fixed the cure issue; that's nice.
No matter what ability to gave to the RedMage's first slot from the AIO, Cure would overwrite it in vanilla.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 11, 2020, 07:48:29 pmWhat you want is to extend the original list, so you would repoint it and add new abilities to the end of it.

I understand this.
If I just extend the current list forward, it goes into into the next race's list. How do I re-point?

Quote from: Linkuser on July 11, 2020, 12:59:18 pmhow to actually apply/save the changes once I've made them to the file.

-1- Open Nightmare/Nightmare2
-2- On the File menu, select Open ROM
-3- On the Modules menu, select Load Modules...
-4- Make your changes and hit ENTER. An asterisk(*) appears on the window name indicating that something has changed
-5- On the File menu, select Save ROM or hit Ctrl+S to save your changes

Hope it helped.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 11, 2020, 08:36:51 amThat's a pretty weird quirk... Never would have I expected that.
Glad you found a solution though.

Me too. Biskmatar and Li-Grim's second ability-only class slots can now be used.

Do you how to add abilities?

The abilities for classes are present one after another. Human abilities, then Bangaa, Nu Mou...Monsters and finally specials. But in the AIO the "Start" address restarts at 1 for every new race.

For example, the Official has only one ability picked from address 8D. I wanted more, so I gave a range of 87 to 8D.
After 8E Bangaa abilities start. So, a Human can have bangaa skill added but the Bangaa race restarts at 1. So how does one go back if he wanted human abilities added to a bangaa skill set?
I ask this because I found some good monster sprites and job names, but am unable to add new abilities. Is there a free space that can be used to add new abilities without messing anything else?

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 05:29:49 pmNo it can't? You even showed it in your pictures. Totemas look wrong because there's only one special palette slot.

You're right, the game can only handle one. Tested; each of the totema has a unique palette.

(Maybe I'm just imagining... but the first time I tried a map with Adremmelech and Mateus, the game actually loaded both, this is why I added Famfirt)

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 05:29:49 pmThis doesn't have anything to do with anything.

You're right, the issue is not the game, the AIO seems to default to the first name if it is a name shared by many classes.

The solution was oddly simple:
-1-Make your changes
-2-Move your selection to a class without a shared name
-3-Hit Save.

Quote from: sudir1 on July 10, 2020, 10:05:18 amI'm going to try this...
Thanks for the hard work its_kai !

Thank you!
Have fun playing, report if you find any bugs.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 05:45:24 pmIf you are curious, Ritz has 0x51 and Shara has 0x55.

Yes I am, thanks for these.

Quote from: mobo on July 07, 2020, 10:24:38 amtbh I like the mod you made, Moogles with Double Sword skill is quite interesting.

That idea is from Eternal's FFTA:GG, its not mine.

Quote from: mobo on July 07, 2020, 10:24:38 amidk if the game will allow it but base on the Montblanc as a Morpher I think its possible

I just meant Montblanc could use all the Nu Mou classes without the game freezing

Quote from: mobo on July 07, 2020, 10:24:38 amBut idk in what job should the skill be added, if in Black Mage Humans and Nu Mous will be affected same as in Time Mage Nu Mous will become more powerful.

I actually want to add Half-MP moogles because all the other races get it, even Bangaa. Problem is that moogles only have 5 support abilities by default. I like replacing one support ability with another support ability because it saves me a lot of time that I would need to spend adjusting the enemies on maps and missions.

Not sure about doublecast.

Thanks for your feedback.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 10:07:09 amI don't know what this means.

By ability screen, I meant the screen that appears when we press R on any item.
Game freezes when we press R on those three boots, even on vanilla with mentioned hacks enabled.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 10:07:09 amYou need to make a new save if you disable jobAndRaceCustomization, I can't really be sure of what you did or didn't do, I can't offer support for everything, if you touch something outside of the configuration options then anything could happen.
Marche and Montblanc are using the blank jobs you were asking about in the other topic.

I took a vanilla ROM, commented out jobAndRaceCustomization in _MasterHackInstaller, and enabled these hacks:
-intro scene skip
-manual party member sorting
-stealable shoes
-morpher looks like monster

I did not do anything to Marche and Montblanc, their classes just became blank. The other 4 party members are fine.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 09:57:47 amAnyway, if anything it's safer to do it with the blank ones.

There were 5 blank [ALL] but all of them had the skill set Item. This probably means its giving item command to all 5 races. I think its better to leave these.
There are a few

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 09:57:47 amIf I remember correctly the only thing they actually read from these classes is the unarmed attack value?

You're right. I found 3 blank ones that only have Unarmed Power and Aggressiveness values. Marche and Montblanc take values the class that they are currently in. So, who is using these three?

Quote from: Leonarth on July 07, 2020, 09:57:47 amTotemas use special palettes, there can only be one special palette at a time.
As to why they default to the same sprite when you save, no clue.

The game is able to handle two totema on a map, but not three though.

I thought it defaulted to the first totema because all five of them have the same name.
For example, white mage starts with the race name [HMN] White Mage