Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote-HP and MP can only be 255 base, but the remaining stats can be 999. Odd design choice.
-Max growth rate for any stat is only 25.5. The 2800 is the max possible and that too because you've allowed Lv.100. If we had a growth rate of 99 then we'd be hitting the 9999 mark.

I don't think these are really issues...
Big numbers for big numbers' sake don't add anything to the game.

I think allowing HP to go higher like this is good only because it allows distinction between units that would have capped at say 1000ish and others that may go much higher, we don't need to inflate the HP all the way up to 9999.

That said, I think if I made a hack I'd rather make all numbers smaller.

Quote from: Leonarth on August 02, 2020, 03:49:01 pmIt does exist, all jobs have all animations

I apologize if that sounded rude, my intention was to say that I've come across a bug. I edited my post.

Quote from: Leonarth on August 02, 2020, 03:49:01 pmAlso, unrelated, but I did make the option to display up to 9999 hp, have you tested that yet?

Wow, it works! What more can I say, its awesome and I like it!!
All I have left is say is the problems vanilla has:
-HP and MP can only be 255 base, but the remaining stats can be 999. Odd design choice.
-Max growth rate for any stat is only 25.5. The 2800 is the max possible and that too because you've allowed Lv.100. If we had a growth rate of 99 then we'd be hitting the 9999 mark. Either way, it's great having 4 digits for HP.

Quote from: undefinedI understand the concern of having an inaccurate display

The display is much worse than you described, not only does it never show the mastered tag, it also does not have a bar and the ability name is always white, there is essentially no way to tell the ability isn't mastered.

I was thinking this could be done in a different way, instead of making the abilities have a 0AP cost, I'd give them a high cost, maybe 0xFF? This can then be checked when the item is equipped and the abilities would be mastered right there, instead of setting the equipped bit. I'm not sure I would add that to the engine hacks but I could make it for you, I guess.

Quote from: undefinedsupport for custom items was added one day?

Not sure what you mean by this, what is preventing you from adding more items?

Quotethe animation exist for Human thief but not for White mage and Archer.

It does exist, all jobs have all animations, what happened here is that even though this is an ability, it uses a weapon animation, and the new code is not prepared for that.

I assumed abilities that use weapon animations would just either have a special animation for it or just use the weapon animation getter, but apparently not.

Also, unrelated, but I did make the option to display up to 9999 hp, have you tested that yet?

Quoteability mastery issues

I was initially misreading this and thought you meant the functionality of "permanently learning an ability upon equipping" was very demanding to recreate. I understand the concern of having an inaccurate display (ability is mastered but doesn't show the tag), but in the four years since the hack has existed no one has shown interest in replicating the 0AP system for any other purpose.
I don't think going into extreme lengths to polish a system likely no one else will use is a good idea, and if this easy change you talk about recreates the vanilla interaction, I'm perfectly fine with missing the mastered tag next to learned abilities.
I'd be concerned with lack of visual distinction with abilities that can't actually be mastered, but these already have an empty AP bar next to them.

Plus, it won't impact jobs showing their "mastered" star or not, since none can master their combos and thus even in the current hack the star is impossible to obtain.

Since I don't know how familiar you are with the specifics- the whole point of using this is creating a scenario in which mundane abilities can be learned immediately upon getting the item, while also leaving some impossible to master due to no sources of AP existing in the game, effectively linking them to the item that grants them.

Quoterepointed text questions

Nice. I'm still surprised by the modularity of all this. Before I decide whether to keep it or not I'll take a look at the table and see how much I'd realistically have to add on it. I have my changes documented, but it still a lot of content to port over.

Furthermore, wouldn't breaking support for text changes now cause further issues down the line if say, support for custom items was added one day?

Also, please don't misunderstand. The engine hacks are by a long shot the base I would use if I was starting the hack today, I'm aware the few weirdnesses we're running into are caused by fankensteining it together with an already (questionably) hacked base- more than anything I'm surprised that they actually play so nice with all the changes, given that I've always prioritized end experience results and consistency over anything else.

Thanks for the detailed explanation btw, I'm currently stablishing a base I can trust to handle the content to come and it's very helpful to have this kind of docs to avoid pointless limitations. No yellow or stoned ahrimans as "secret endgame monsters", wow!

Quote from: Leonarth on August 02, 2020, 11:52:25 amKeep in mind the engine hacks are made to be used as a base, rather than be added on to an existing hack

I'm using them as an add-on. I make all the changes in the AIO/nightmare and then apply the engine hacks at the end. 

Quote from: Leonarth on August 02, 2020, 11:57:47 amWhich jobs did you use the ability with? Which ability was it? Which weapons did you try it with?

Human White mage - Staff - Bolt sword
Human Archer - Shortbow - Fire sword
Moogle Thief - Knife - Fire Sword (working)

I randomized again and now it's working for humans but not for Viera.
Viera White mage - Staff - Bolt sword
Human Thief - Knife - Bolt Sword (working)

Quote from: Leonarth on August 02, 2020, 11:57:47 amMore importantly, did you use the patch included with the randomizer? Or did you use the engine hacks?

I did not apply the .ups, just used the engine hacks.

Edit: I tested again on vanilla and my mod with the engine hacks, and no bugs were found. Somehow not with the randomizer, so maybe just ignore it.
I added some extra jobs for all the races in the unused slots. They have proper stats and sprites but no abilities similar to the Battle Queen. This may be causing the randomizer to have problems?

Edit 2: Tested more without the randomizer and found that the Human thief was fine but White mage and Archer got bugged.
FFTA_hack_Randomized.zip
FFTA_hack_Randomized_2.zip

QuoteI think that Humans are missing the animation.Moogles were fine.

Well, they literally have the same animation data so that's clearly not the issue.

Which jobs did you use the ability with? Which ability was it? Which weapons did you try it with?

More importantly, did you use the patch included with the randomizer? Or did you use the engine hacks?

The patch is only meant for people that don't know how to apply the engine hacks/can't be bothered, if you want your randomizer playthrough to be of any use for finding bugs you have to use the engine hacks.

Quoteit would be good to learn about it.

If you look at the animation template, it contains a very big list of pointers, such as "idle_front_pointer".
You can search for the label in your text editor "idle_front_pointer:" and it will get you to the data for that animation.

Once there you'll see, first of all, the ALIGN 4 and label, that's just setting the label for usage.
After that there's a "WORD X", where X is the number of frames the animation has.
Then you'll see a list of aFrame() macros, the a stands for animation.

The format of aFrame is define in Graphics Helpers, and if you go check that you'll see it's not entirely documented.
For the named stuff: tiles, oam, duration
Tiles is a relative offset (0x69B89C is added to it by the game when it reads it) to the graphics of the frame.
OAM is also a relative offset (but using 0x852E7C as a base instead), this time to the sprite data.
Finally, dureation is... the duration.
As for the other values, I know some of them just shift the whole thing up/down and left/right, others are more important, as they control stuff like when ability animations start and end, as well as loops. I kinda just copied vanilla for what to put on those, though, so it's not really all that well documented.

You'll also see aFrameV() macro definitions, those are the same as aFrame but without the relative offset adjusting for the tiles, these are meant to be used if you are translating frames directly from the game, so you can just copy the tile offset value from those instead of having to add 0x69B89C to them, and same for the oam.

Quotebar the missing mastery bit option for working with 0AP

I've been looking into this and it's honestly way more much work than I originally though...
This is going to be a lot of spaghetti so I'm not sure when or if it will get done.

Getting the mastered on equip to work is extremely easy and it'll work just fine in battle, what is hard is getting it to DISPLAY as mastered or not properly, in the learnt abilities tab. There are a ton of exception for 0 AP cost abilities, because of the item abilities and such.

QuoteThat said, I've run into not so much of an issue but a customization question:

That's because the text tables are repointed and/or reworked by the engine hacks, for easy expansion and such.
I believe those entries are part of the "Others" table.

If you don't like that you can find this line in the master hack installer
////////////////////////////////TEXT CHANGESand just delete everything from there up to
////////////////////////////////GRAPHIC CHANGESIt will probably break some stuff? But if you aren't using movement abilities are JP learning I think it should be fine.
You will get some errors from the master text installer but you can just go and comment those lines out.

Or if you don't have a ton of edited text entries, you can add them back in through the master text installer.

Keep in mind the engine hacks are made to be used as a base, rather than be added on to an existing hack, so it's really just natural that you'd find issues like that.
Happy to help, though.

Quote from: Leonarth on July 31, 2020, 01:55:00 pmSure, I didn't change anything about gameplay, this is only a display thing, like I said on my post.

It displays properly.

Also, awesome work on the animations. Every job can use Llednar's jump and Bangaa jump

I was using your randomizer on my mod and found that the humans bugged when using the Gladiator's elemental swords. The screen dimmed, the characters are still moving but the game froze. The same thing happens in vanilla if we give these skills to any other job, so I think that Humans are missing the animation.
Moogles were fine.