Razele's ASM Hacks

[Archael]

Flee: Movement and Jump increases when you are critical

I like this, but there should be a counter to it or something. Perhaps if you've used an action while critical it doesn't function? IE, Action, then move, it wont function. Or Move, then Action would?

wtf

why does that one need a counter?

it'd be an incredibly weak movement skill in that proposed form, it needs no "counter" to make it even weaker

that's like suggesting that Dash needs a counter to it

that's the 2nd time you propose that something is overpowered / needs a "counter" on an ability that is obviously relatively weak as hell

you cannot grasp the true form of FFT balance

[Razele]

* Broken / stolen items can be bought back at Fur Shop

Rush/Charge: Increase physical attack damage by +X% for each panel moved this turn (I.E, if you move 4 panels and then attack, you'll do +4X% damage.)

The game doesn't store your original X,Y position after you moved.

Since I vaguely remember it being mentioned yet haven't encountered it myself, I was wondering if you possibly knew what sometimes causes Berserk AI with ranged weapons to get stuck behind certain aspects of terrain like trees? If you know why this is, then the follow-up question would be how to change it if so possible.

Never encounter this case. Could you give more detailed story about this "bug" ?
Berserk AI is rather stupid. It will try to attack everytime, even at 0% chance.
When they attack, they don't even check the height difference between the attacker and the target.
It happens to me with Zalmo at vanilla FFT. I berserked him, then stand at high terrain.
He still attack me with 0% chance.

Also, speaking of status-change, it's been awake, so forgive me if I already asked this, but is there a way to have the computer not completely ignore someone who has Death Sentence or Confusion afflicted on them?

Why you want AI to attack confused units and make them recover from confusion ?

About Death Sentence, isn't it wise decision to make AI ignore units that will be dead at 3 turn ?
The problems lies within Judo Outfit / Angel Ring. Cancel:Dead shouldn't cancel Death Sentence's Dead.
To prevent Death Sentence, you should equip Cancel:Death Sentence, not Cancel:Dead

Fly: Movement range increases with altitude

Seems to be nice, need a specific bonus and height condition though.

Flee: Movement and Jump increases when you are critical

Hmmm, it seems a bit unreliable. Maybe increase movement / jump based on %HP loss ?

Can you make it so that Berserk either becomes that PA% thing that was mentioned (without it making take up as much space as it would to give Berserk a finite duration) or make it so that it at least allows for (some) Reactions and Movements to be active?

I'll take a look at this after we finished movement ability buff.
It seems more people demanding status X to be limited by duration, not permanent.

[The Damned]

Why you want AI to attack confused units and make them recover from confusion ?

I wouldn't. I merely thought they might end up being related since the AI generally ignores people with both statuses.

As for wanting the AI to not ignore people in Death Sentence, keep in mind that I said completely ignore. I would be fine with the AI still mostly ignoring the afflicted as long as it checked for the whole "Cancel: Dead" immunity and/or killed them with OHKO if they were trying something, which I think it sometimes does (like mid-charge). I'll have to test this all this out, though that's a bit of a pain the ass on my new computer. (Stupid Vista.)

As for the Berserk thing, it's kind of annoying that the AI for it is that stupid. Hmmm...I wonder if there's some way to fix it through something related, like say that the Teleport thing being bounded by Jump now. Hmm...the whole targetting would probably rather complex, at least with the distance weapons.

Hmmm....

[Dokurider]

Never encounter this case. Could you give more detailed story about this "bug" ?
Berserk AI is rather stupid. It will try to attack everytime, even at 0% chance.
When they attack, they don't even check the height difference between the attacker and the target.
It happens to me with Zalmo at vanilla FFT. I berserked him, then stand at high terrain.
He still attack me with 0% chance.

By stuck, she meant that a Berserked Unit with a ranged weapon will keep shooting if they are behind a obstacle, regardless of being able to hit or not. If their target doesn't move out of range, they'll stay in the same place and keep shooting. Which is why I don't use Berserked Gunners or Crossbowmen.

Could you make it smarter?

[Dokurider]

Flee: Movement and Jump increases when you are critical

I like this, but there should be a counter to it or something. Perhaps if you've used an action while critical it doesn't function? IE, Action, then move, it wont function. Or Move, then Action would?

wtf

why does that one need a counter?

it'd be an incredibly weak movement skill in that proposed form, it needs no "counter" to make it even weaker

that's like suggesting that Dash needs a counter to it

that's the 2nd time you propose that something is overpowered / needs a "counter" on an ability that is obviously relatively weak as hell

you cannot grasp the true form of FFT balance

op dash is op

[Archael]

Berserk AI doesn't need to be "Smart"

there is no "bug"

you let a unit get zerked, it's going to act on it's own

it will be SO aggressive that it will even attack empty panels with 00% chance to hit because it thinks that it will get damage off

that's the entire point of Berserk

it doesn't need to be smarter

if you don't like your zerked unit going after the enemy like a furious zealot without regards to consequence (the whole point of zerk status in the first place), then bring protection vs zerk, or bring something that cures zerk

zerk doesn't need fixing

---------

Why you want AI to attack confused units and make them recover from confusion ?

because currently AI NEVER touches a confused unit, and that can be abused, because confusion doesn't wear off on it's own, and confused units sometimes do attack the enemy

for example:

X Character SSCC vs Adramelk

reset until Adramelk casts Loss

Adramelk will NOT attack the SSCC character because AI doesnt' wanna break Confu

Confused character will, eventually, kill Adramelk

so the fix would be to make AI start killing Confused units after a set number of turns, but don't make AI attack confused units right off the bat!

About Death Sentence, isn't it wise decision to make AI ignore units that will be dead at 3 turn ?
The problems lies within Judo Outfit / Angel Ring. Cancel:Dead shouldn't cancel Death Sentence's Dead.
To prevent Death Sentence, you should equip Cancel:Death Sentence, not Cancel:Dead

this is a perfect solution

well said

[Dokurider]

Berserk AI doesn't need to be "Smart"

there is no "bug"

you let a unit get zerked, it's going to act on it's own

it will be SO aggressive that it will even attack empty panels with 00% chance to hit because it thinks that it will get damage off

that's the entire point of Berserk

it doesn't need to be smarter

if you don't like your zerked unit going after the enemy like a furious zealot without regards to consequence (the whole point of zerk status in the first place), then bring protection vs zerk, or bring something that cures zerk

zerk doesn't need fixing

Or at least the curing part.

[Vanya]

so the fix would be to make AI start killing Confused units after a set number of turns, but don't make AI attack confused units right off the bat!

Disagree. The fix would be that once all enemies are confused the AI should start attacking them. That way if a unit comes out of confusion the enemy will go back to putting priority on those units, but not ignore the confused any more.

Berserk AI doesn't need to be "Smart"

there is no "bug"

you let a unit get zerked, it's going to act on it's own

it will be SO aggressive that it will even attack empty panels with 00% chance to hit because it thinks that it will get damage off

that's the entire point of Berserk

it doesn't need to be smarter

if you don't like your zerked unit going after the enemy like a furious zealot without regards to consequence (the whole point of zerk status in the first place), then bring protection vs zerk, or bring something that cures zerk

zerk doesn't need fixing

Don't really agree with this ,either. Rage makes you relentlessly aggressive, not stupid. An enraged person will tear through obstacles even to their own detriment, but they'll stop at nothing to get to the focus of that rage. So what might make sense is that they also gain the ability to ignore obstacles.

[Archael]

so the fix would be to make AI start killing Confused units after a set number of turns, but don't make AI attack confused units right off the bat!

Disagree. The fix would be that once all enemies are confused the AI should start attacking them. That way if a unit comes out of confusion the enemy will go back to putting priority on those units, but not ignore the confused any more.

that won't work

think about it

[Vanya]

What? I don't see a problem with it. It satisfies the AI not totally ignoring the confused units and it's easier to program a branching algorithm than it is to program a counting algorithm that has to account for each confused unit.

[tithin]

Flee: Movement and Jump increases when you are critical

I like this, but there should be a counter to it or something. Perhaps if you've used an action while critical it doesn't function? IE, Action, then move, it wont function. Or Move, then Action would?

wtf

why does that one need a counter?

it'd be an incredibly weak movement skill in that proposed form, it needs no "counter" to make it even weaker

that's like suggesting that Dash needs a counter to it

that's the 2nd time you propose that something is overpowered / needs a "counter" on an ability that is obviously relatively weak as hell

you cannot grasp the true form of FFT balance

Merely making a suggestion.  I dont remember stating that it was overpowered, though I do agree that perhaps I am overthinking it.

[Archael]

What? I don't see a problem with it. It satisfies the AI not totally ignoring the confused units and it's easier to program a branching algorithm than it is to program a counting algorithm that has to account for each confused unit.

once all enemies are confused the AI should start attacking them

Because your requirement is "once all enemies are confused"

and there will be plenty of situations where a confused unit will still be a threat to the AI, while there's still non-confused enemy units running around.

for example;

AI is facing 5 enemies. AI confuses one enemy. Under your rule, the AI will permanently ignore that confused unit because not all enemy units are confused. All the player has to do is sand-bag and let loose the Confused unit on the AI, similar to how you can do in vanilla.


Another:

AI is facing 2 enemies. AI confuses one, petrifies the other. AI will continue to ignore the confused unit while the confused unit kills the AI on it's off turns. (Not all enemy units are confused, the requirement isn't being met for Confused unit attacks to be enabled)


Another:

AI is facing 3 enemies. Player confuses one of it's own units, Petrifies another, let's the 3rd unit die in obscurity. Boom same problem as in vanilla. Immortal Confu unit that will slowly kill the AI.




The condition would have to be "Kill all remaining Confused units that are NOT: Dead, Petrified, Frogged, etc etc", which is problematic, because that is basically the same as "Kill all Confused units."

Ergo, vis-à-vis, concordantly, it won't work.

[Asmo X]

Don't really agree with this ,either. Rage makes you relentlessly aggressive, not stupid. An enraged person will tear through obstacles even to their own detriment, but they'll stop at nothing to get to the focus of that rage. So what might make sense is that they also gain the ability to ignore obstacles.

Can you please stop justifying things this way and start thinking about skills from a mechanical point of view?

[VincentCraven]

Hey Raz,

Do you happen to know how to change the player's starting inventory?

I believe it is customary for the player to start with one of each chemist item, and 2K money.  Personally, I'd like to have the player start with Katana, but a better hack for the community would be if we could start with nothing in the inventory.

[Razele]

X Character SSCC vs Adramelk

reset until Adramelk casts Loss

Adramelk will NOT attack the SSCC character because AI doesnt' wanna break Confu

Confused character will, eventually, kill Adramelk

so the fix would be to make AI start killing Confused units after a set number of turns, but don't make AI attack confused units right off the bat!

Yeah, I remember the Loss strategy from SSCC log.
I use it when I'm doing Oracle SSCC on Golgorand.
It's only viable when you're alone.

Setting counter on AI to un-ignore confused unit can be an option,
but the "easiest" fix maybe to make Confusion has CT, and expires after a few turn.

By stuck, she meant that a Berserked Unit with a ranged weapon will keep shooting if they are behind a obstacle, regardless of being able to hit or not. If their target doesn't move out of range, they'll stay in the same place and keep shooting. Which is why I don't use Berserked Gunners or Crossbowmen.

Could you make it smarter?

Free 150% attack power is already big, especially on ranged units with long weapon range like Gun or Bow.
Combine that long range (8) with 150% attack bonus, Attack UP, Power Sleeve + Bracer and smart AI. It's sick.
I guess that come with something that balance it, stupid AI.
Just use Instrument / Book to take advantage of Berserk.

Hey Raz,

Do you happen to know how to change the player's starting inventory?

I believe it is customary for the player to start with one of each chemist item, and 2K money. Personally, I'd like to have the player start with Katana, but a better hack for the community would be if we could start with nothing in the inventory.

I believe this one isn't too hard. I already found player's starting money.
I'll check the starting items.

[Vanya]

Don't really agree with this ,either. Rage makes you relentlessly aggressive, not stupid. An enraged person will tear through obstacles even to their own detriment, but they'll stop at nothing to get to the focus of that rage. So what might make sense is that they also gain the ability to ignore obstacles.

Can you please stop justifying things this way and start thinking about skills from a mechanical point of view?

No, because everyone that plays these hacks will not necessarily be looking at things that way. Just doing things from a mechanical point of view can easily lead to things that work great, but seem silly or even stupid to an average gamer who isn't thinking about, or is even aware of, the mechanics behind it. Maintaining an illusion of reality is important to good game design.

Another idea is to make the AI take obstacles into consideration and move accordingly. Or, just stop them from attacking once there are no target's in sight. (Obstacles do obscure line of sight.) These adjustments would be more difficult, but would make more sense than shooting arrows into a wall.

[Asmo X]

Heaven forbid we should come up with things that actually work properly.

I told you the problem with your method on the last page. Someone could just as easily make the opposite case and say that berserked units are characterised by mindlessness and ARE stupider. Either party could be construed as correct. So let's make shit work first and dress up the ideas later.

[Vanya]

Under your rule, the AI will permanently ignore that confused unit because not all enemy units are confused.

Well, that is already a problem, and you're right that my solution doesn't address it. But the request was for the AI to not totally ignore confu'd units. Which my solution does address.

AI is facing 2 enemies. AI confuses one, petrifies the other. AI will continue to ignore the confused unit while the confused unit kills the AI on it's off turns. (Not all enemy units are confused, the requirement isn't being met for Confused unit attacks to be enabled)

AI is facing 3 enemies. Player confuses one of it's own units, Petrifies another, let's the 3rd unit die in obscurity. Boom same problem as in vanilla. Immortal Confu unit that will slowly kill the AI.

I was under the impression that the AI already counts petrified enemies as dead, thus would automatically ignore them when checking for the total number of active units with confusion status.

The condition would have to be "Kill all remaining Confused units that are NOT: Dead, Petrified, Frogged, etc etc", which is problematic, because that is basically the same as "Kill all Confused units."

Ergo, vis-à-vis, concordantly, it won't work.

Depending on how the AI is programmed units that are normally ignored would continue to be ignored for the purposes of dealing with confusion. I suppose the best thing would be to make sure that any incapacitated units aren't counted as inactive.

So something like this:
If all active enemies are confused, treat confused enemies as non-confused enemies until such time that an active, non-confused enemy becomes present. Checking for an active enemy would be to check for enemies that do not have one of the following status; dead, petrify, charm, stop, crystal, jumping, invite, treasure, chicken, frog, or wall.
This way the AI should ignore confused units while more dangerous enemies are present on the battlefield, but not at any time that there are only confused units on the field

Once there are no confused enemies on the battlefield the AI should automatically revert to whatever way it normally treats the above mentioned incapacitating status.

[SentinalBlade]

I said in chat vanya; that while i do agree with you, your thinking ot much into this. the average player doesnt care about mechanics.

but the average player isnt going ot add ASM hacks to their patch.

If y ou use an ASM hack it needs to work properly, and smoothly, not with fancy dressup or aesthetic logic.

If i were programming a game from scratch, vanya id definatly mask a mechanic with alot of realism. but we are limited on space, and while ASM is potentially codeing in itself, you can do alot more alot easier if you using a real language. (ASM doesnt count as a language to me, because it is the basics and fundemants of all code, and is primarly managed for hacking purposes )

[Vanya]

Off topic: Actually, ASM is the language that this game was programmed in directly. It does very much count as a language, and ASM hacking is programing; just through different means.

The average player isn't going to be adding anything to any hack. I never said they would. I'm talking about how they will perceive the ASM hacks we put into our projects. If there isn't any thought given to some basic logic behind them they could end up being perceived as silly. Professional game designers don't just sit around and come up with things arbitrarily. They don't waste time with trying to dress up things. There are ideas behind things before they're programmed. At least that's what my game design and programming professors taught me in class.

I have no problem with being told there's a technical problem with my suggestions. However, I don't appreciate those (not you SB) that try to tell me how I should present my thoughts. There's nothing wrong with presenting some logic behind an idea you come up with. It's not a justification it's just an idea. If you don't like it, then too bad. Razele is making the ASM hacks, and no one is being forced to use any of them anyway.