Final Fantasy Hacktics

I've checked Raven's Spreadsheets and, as far as I can ascertain, you can change Ramza's skills, stats, equipment, level, zodiac sign, gender and even his stat growth but I didn't see anything about which skills he has already learned for the first battle.  Considering how much time I've already spent on looking for something trivial, I've decided to let it slide and use a ghetto fix instead.  I just hope I don't run into any other issues like this with the rest of the game.

I feel like I'm blind.  It took hours for me to finally find the thread for the FFTText Editor. One reason is because I searched for "FFT TextEditor" and "TextEditor" and only got 3 thread hits.  One of which happens to be this one.  I had forgotten how precise computers love to be.  This reminds me of my college days when a single, misplaced period caused 16 syntax errors.   Ahhh, memories...

Had to search manually.  When I finally found it, I felt even dumber because I had come across said thread several times beforehand and thought nothing of it due to looking for something else at the time.  Ran across some great tutorials about customizing sprites though!  Let's see how long it takes me to find those when I need them later!

As for quickedit, the reason I couldn't find it is because I was looking for a separate program feature with its own form, not a checked item on a list.  Turns out I was already using it.

I downloaded what I needed and added Xifanie's post to my favorites.  I'll see if Open Office can read spreadsheets tomorrow.  It's so late now, it could be considered early.

One question though.  Will this spreadsheet help me fix the issue of Ramza not having Night Blade learned in the first chapter 1 battle?  If not, just point me in the right direction, slap me on the butt and wish me luck!  I'm at the point where I've put so much time into this that anything less than perfection won't do!

Quote from: Jumza on June 07, 2016, 10:37:42 pm
It does! If you're using TacText make sure that you're editing all the relavent fields by using the QuickEdit function. It is the first 3. The 4th one is Delita in chapter 1.

I'm not sure what you mean by QuickEdit function.  Please don't tell me there's an easier way of doing what I've been doing for the past few days.  If so, these programs need some serious documentation.

Quote from: Jumza on June 07, 2016, 10:37:42 pm
The other part, yeah I was pretty sure that it was just the slot that gets the skill learned 100% at that point in the game but I wasn't completely sure. Why not just give Ramza those unique abilities instead of Delita? They don't share a skillset

The problem is, they share the skill, "Wish".  If I change Wish, I'll change it for everyone that uses Wish.  Strangely enough, I found that Ovelia has it in her skillset too but it doesn't appear in the game.  It may be possible to use it on her and have her learn it.

Quote from: Jumza on June 07, 2016, 09:49:22 am
If you're only changing Ramza the first 3 jobs (all named Squire) are him. (ch1 / ch2 and 3 / ch4)

The problem is the name and description fields don't follow a specific order.  In fact I found that, in battle, Ramza's job description is still that of a Squire, even though I've changed 4 entries to match the Dark Knight description.  I'm at a loss as to which squire field I need to adjust now.

Quote from: Jumza on June 07, 2016, 09:49:22 am
You might be out of luck, as I recall Ramza is hardcoded to learn Wish at the beginning of the game (if it's in his skillset), there is an excel sheet that you can use to edit that but... You said you don't have excel I think that putting the ability you want him to know on the slot that wish was in before should work? I'm not sure. You should try it!

I really can't change Wish because Delita uses it.  I double checked just to be sure and found that he uses it as a Holy Knight as well as a Squire.  I guess there's no avoiding Excel.  I'll see if I have any old copies hanging around from college days or something.  Any chance you know which specific spreadsheet I need to adjust?  I've seen a lot floating around and none mentioning anything remotely close to what I want to do.

1st Edit: I've taken a look at a spreadsheet which I think may allow me to do what I'm looking for and... yeah... Suddenly giving Delita Night Sword doesn't sound like a bad idea.  Better yet, I'll find a different skill to replace it with.  As for Knightfall, a simple solution hit me.  I can remove it from Ramza's Chapter 1 skillset.  It didn't show up in his skillset for the prelude so I doubt it'll show up learned for chapter 2 and 3.  By chapter 4, any player should have more than enough JP to learn it.  Hopefully all of this will work out okay.

2nd Edit:  Replaced Wish with Night Sword For Ramza and it didn't change anything.  It's still not available in the first chapter 1 battle.  Ironically, I replaced Wish with Chakra in Delita's skillset and he has it learned.  I ran the battle twice and he had it learned both times.  It's like this game is mocking me.

3rd Edit:  I think I've figured it out.  It appears that whatever skill is in the 6th position for Ramza is unlocked, regardless of what it is.  For Delita, his 2nd and 5th skill are always unlocked.  Now that I know how this is hard-coded, how do I go about fixing it?

So...  Guild Wars 2 dropped an expansion and I pretty much neglected this place.  I spent way too much time, energy and effort on that game.  Now I'm back and trying to pick up where I left off.

For starters, I'm keeping the Dark Knight name because I don't feel like changing several squire entries and praying that I happen to change the right one to Ebon Knight.  That's too much work for too little pay off.  On that same line of thought, so it trying to program the skills for War of the Lions into the PSX version.  Instead, I settled on creating new ones.

* Vengeance: Single target attack that does damage depending on missing HP.
  - A very high risk, high reward skill and non-elemental.

* Ebon Veil: PBAoE that turns nearby allies Invisible. Cost MP.
   - This will allow hit and run tactics.  It has a MP cost to keep it in balance and make Dark Sword worth using.

* Shadowfall: Line attack that may inflict Darkness.  Cost MP.
   - This has the longest reach but all it does is damage.  Again, MP cost to keep it balanced.

* Knightfall: Powerful PBAoE that may inflict Death Sentence.  Cost MP.
   - Very powerful attack but need to be surrounded for the best usage.  Very high MP cost.

I'm still ironing out a few minor quirks.  For instance, in the prelude battle, Ramza has Night Sword learned but, in Chapter 1, he has Knightfall learned instead.  I'm hoping that pasting the Chapter 2/3 version of Ramza over Chapter 1 will fix this.  If not, I'll need alternatives.  I don't want to use "Wish" as mentioned earlier in this thread as Delita uses it.  I'm trying to avoid spreadsheets too as I don't have Excel.

For Ebon Veil, I'm using the formula for applying minor boons [Hit_F(MA+X)%, NE] but it doesn't work 100% on party members, even though I've set X to 200.  I'm not sure if I should let that slide or use a different formula.  Any tips on this?

The reason I keep asking these questions is because there are so many things spread out all over the forums.  I've seen at least 2 Dark Knight Ramza sprite sheets but I don't know how many more there are.  I've heard that there are 2 skills that aren't used in the game but I can no longer find the thread, let alone the post, that stated what those skills are.  I've seen some tutorials for the fftpatcher but all the ones I've come across are at least 2 years old.  Don't even get me started on trying to find videos that show what all the skills look like.

There's this obsessive-compulsive aspect of mine that is screaming to consolidate the hell out of all this information!  I've been trying to fight it because I have a limited time to start my own business or rejoin the rat-race that is working for others.  I shouldn't be doing things that would detract from my goals...  But there is a reason why it's called a compulsion.

I was going to let this go as-is but I decide to go all the way with it since I've already changed so much.  I'm changing the project name from Dark Knight Ramza to Ebon Knight Ramza.  The reason being is, even in War of the Lions, I found the Dark Knight skills lacked variety.  While the first two will remain the same, I'm ditching the rest for more interesting abilities.  Other than that, there are several more things I want to modify before I call this patch truly complete.

- Even with replacing Ramza's unique Guts skills, I still need to know which skills aren't used by any character or AI because I need a few more slots.

- When fighting Gafgarion, I need him to know all the Ebon Knight skills.  Can this be done with FFTpatcher or do I need to tweak spreadsheets?

- What are all the "Dark Knight Ramza" sprites that have been made?  I'm hoping to have a good choice for chapter 4.

Quote from: Xifanie on October 11, 2015, 06:54:10 pm
Well, ignoring your Private Messages really doesn't help your case, which led you to repeated offense.

But you do have a point, ever since the registration agreement was implemented, you are the first person to ever point this out. Meaning, out of the 50 people or so I warned for double-posting, you are the only one to claim to have read the agreement. I just assumed that ex-admin X actually put it in there, but I guess he didn't. And it was bad for me to assume he did. Regardless, it's been updated.

Sorry for the trouble, and stop ignoring your PMs.

It's not that I was ignoring the private messages.  They just don't stick out.  Seriously.  The only reason I saw it was because I happen to check my email and see the warnings there.  Perhaps having the font's color change when a message is received or have the number blinking would help.

In other news, I actually finished the patch, did all the bug testing and even changed the quotes.  There's just a bit more hex hacking to do to have the first skill learned but I find that I changed the class too much to really call it a Dark Knight now.  I'll keep the patch but I'm already moving to another project.

Quote from: Toshiko on October 11, 2015, 05:55:44 pm
Crossplay, if the last reply in a topic is your own and it was made less than 24 hours ago, please edit your post to add what you were going to say rather than posting again.

Sorry for the aside, please resume normal activity.

Wait... What?  I didn't see anything in terms of service about waiting 24 hours before posting behind yourself.

Quote from: Jumza on October 11, 2015, 10:15:22 am
Go to the Animations tab of the FFTP, change your edited skills to the same code that appears on the right of a swordskill (like stasis sword or night sword or whatever, they should all be the same), then go to those skills in the abilities tab, you'll notice they have a box called Weapon Strike checked, check that on your edited skills.

You probably just saved me 2 hours to half a day of heartache just by telling me this.  Thank you so much!  I seriously doubt I would have found that on my own.

Quote from: Jumza on October 11, 2015, 10:15:22 am
I don't remember if it's the slot in the skillset itself, or if it's the actual slot the skill is in, but replacing Wish with Night Sword (by right clicking, then selecting Clone, then Paste Clone) in the abilities tab, and then setting that ability to the same spot Wish was in in Ramza's skillset should make him have it in the first battle. Even if you set other abilities to 0 JP and 100% to learn in his skillset, he won't have them because his beginning equipment and abilities are set somewhere other than the FFTPatcher. There is a spreadsheet to edit it, but you don't need it if you only want the one skill.

Considering that the challenge starts a few battles after the first, I'm going to let it go for now.  However, I'm sure someone's going to ask me for this patch later.  I'll have to ask for the spreadsheet then.  That why I'll know for sure that it's fixed.

Just tested it and the game didn't crash right away.  That's always a good thing.  The skills are working as intended but...  Well...  I gave crushing blow the vengeance formula and, at first, it showed that I wasn't going to do any damage when my hp was full.  Then i stepped forward and every enemy took a shot at me.  I only had 3hp left.  I used the skill then and the animation pretty much played out like I expected.  What I didn't expect was to one-shot 3 enemies with one skill.  It would have been 4 if I set the vertical distance higher.

Yup!  Time to swing the nerf bat!  Set learning jp to 500 and single target only.  Though I can see that skill pulling off some clutch saves!

My next issue is how to start with Night Sword learned.  It sucks to do the first chapter 1 battle without skills.

Quote from: nyzer on October 11, 2015, 01:44:08 am
Formula 2D - the one used by all of Agrias' abilities - has a 100% status chance upon hit if All or Nothing is selected. Any ability  that ONLY inflicts status will do so based on the ability's hit rate. Any remaining ability that inflicts status AND deals damage will inflict the status at a 1 in 5 rate. 2D will use the regular 20% chance if Separate is chosen as the infliction  method.

I checked Agrias' settings and she has Separate selected.  I went with that except for the last skill.  There doesn't seem to be an entry for slow on separate.  The best I've seen is all or none.  Since I don't want to mess with the game's values, I'll let it be.  Besides, it's only on the final skill.

Edit: I'm almost finish debugging the skills.  I'm having an odd problem with the last one.  When initiating it, Ramza punches instead of sticking his sword out.  The character animations match the other skills so I'm guessing, because I used spin fist as a base, the punch animation is hard-coded in.  I can barely see straight so I'll get some sleep and try fixing it tomorrow.

I still need to find where the skill quotes are as Ramza says, "no message" for all 3 new skills.  I'm not even sure where to be begin looking for that.

Thanks guys.  In all the times I've played, I've never noticed that Delita had Guts as a skillset in chapter 1.  What's even more sad is that I DID notice his job changed in all the other chapters.  Thanks to you, I have avoided turning him into a dark knight s well.  As hilarious as that would have been for the challenge, it would have been hell to fix.

From what I'm understanding, the damage formula for Vengeance has a hard-coded attribute that prevents status ailments.  I'm moving Stop to Abyssal Blade.

Speaking of which, Earth Slash's targeting and damage formula is way too powerful to base Abyssal Bade on so I'm modeling it more off of Lightning Stab.  I think I'll change the name too.  Obsidian... something.  Still working on it.

Another question about status infliction.  Is the percentage proc hard-coded or can it be changed?  I know there are attacks in game that are 100% while others are 20%.  I'd rather have the 20% on these attacks.

EDIT: Well, I just made the big changes and applied my first patch.  Going to test it now.  Wish me luck!

Yes, yes...  I know.  Every newbie asks for it.  I'll give you a moment to roll your eyes at me.

All done?  Good.  Now, here's the situation.

I want to do a Solo Class Challenge with the Dark Knight on the PSX version.  I tried using the Gameshark and, while that basically gave me what I wanted, I wasn't happy with the results.  In a nutshell, I changed Ramza into Gafgarion, learned all the skills and then changed his sprite back (because I knew I'd forget and get caught in a soft lock later).  This ended up with a video of me using Dark Sword over and over again while standing in place to boost my CT.  I won the battle but it's not exactly riveting gameplay.

I've decided to give the class 3 more skills based on the War of the Lions adaption.  I've looked up comparisons and have found some similarities.

Crushing Blow seems very similar to Templar's Vengeance.  I actually prefer Vengeance's damage effect so I'm willing to keep it.  I just need to turn the range down to 3 and the effect radius to 2.  The MP cost should stay as that gives me reason to use Night Blade and is the cost for the potential damage it can cause.  I also want to add a Stop proc to it and change the element to dark.

Abyssal Blade looks like the Monk's Shockwave.  I'm considering giving the class the monk's innate Brawler ability if the skill as-is isn't strong enough.  However, if I do that, I want to add self damage as well.  Naturally its element should be changed from earth to dark as well.

Unholy Sacrifice will be the tricky one.  Using Kotetsu would be the natural thing to do but I've done a stupid amount of research already and have found that Iaido skills are hard coded to use katanas.  Looking for a replacement, I've come across Death Cold/Ague.  I feel that will do the trick if I take its range down to 1, the effect to 3 and add an MP cost.  It already has slow so all I would need to do is change the element to dark.

And though I'm going to bang my head against the desk for this later, I want to give all these skills to Gafgarion as well, especially when he's an enemy.  It's only fair that he's just as good a Dark Knight as I am.

If all of that isn't too difficult, I'll consider changing animations so they all look like sword skills.  I also need to set jp costs as I don't want all my abilities available right away.  The challenge is getting them and choosing which is more important for what battle.  And, just for flavor, I would love to edit the quotes sometimes spoken when these skills are used.

Now the specific kind of help that I want is to be pointed in the right direction.  I know this is going to require making a patch as I am literally creating new skills.  I just need to know what tool is best to use, what existing skills can be replaced and not harm the game and how far can I go with editing skills to get the look that I want.  I also would like to know of some common pitfalls to avoid since I am doing this to Ramza's squire class.

EDIT: I ended up bumbling my way through things anyway as no one has replied yet.  I'm going to post my results in case anyone else is interested in doing what I'm doing.

First, FFTPatcher is one very robust skill but I hope there's a manual for it somewhere.  There are things I've heard of so I can tinker with them with little fear but others make no sense.

Since I'm replacing Ramza's core skills with Dark Knight ones, there's no need for his core skills anymore.  As such, I hope I can safely replace Yell, Cheer Up, Wish and Scream.  I'm not going to touch Ultima.  I have a feeling that would change it for all.

Found out that Delita's version of Guts uses Wish.  That skill isn't available.

I'm not sure why the Guts skillset is listed 4 times.  I know there's a version for chapter 1, chapters 2 & 3 and chapter 4.  Does chapter 3 get its own version?

I'll need help with the status infliction.  I don't know the difference between "all or nothing" and "separate".

Well, back to the lab again...