Topic: Creating an FFIV Randomizer

[Grimoire LD]

I love Roguelikes and random items given from chests (and preferably also from monsters, but that seems quite difficult to program) which is why I am a big fan of the FFV Ancient Cave Hack. I was thinking of making something similar to that for FFIV.

Preferably you would choose your starting party, then set off to random maps, collect random treasure, until you reached certain floor numbers where you would fight bosses. Now a clear and present problem would of course be "So I get the Crystal Sword at game start. Looks like I can just plow through the game." To limit this I plan on implementing a Saga-esque system of Item Durability.  Every weapon you pick up will be a x10 Quantity. So yes, you may get that first chest Crystal Sword, but you'll have to use it sparingly. And as seen recently I managed to fix the Infinite Arrow Bug so that will no longer be a portion of concern. The durability system is A: to prevent people from using only the higher end equipment they may find. B: Prevent people from staying in one area forever to grind.  C: Present a rationing system that was not present at all in the original.

Now this leaves Armor... If the RNG is set from 00-FF you may get Nothing (fine with that), Sort, TrashCans (not fine with those) and you may get Adamant Armor. Game Over. You win. So because great armor in the early game can really imbalance the game Armor of every sort will only be dropped by Monsters, which will ideally not have such a high randomness (as in you won't go from fighting Imps to Gargoyles). And every monster will have their Item Drop from 1 to 2 to increase the likelihood you'll have armor.

So far I have found the "Give Item" Routine and found a cursory 00-FF byte to use, but that's clearly not ideal. The x10 Quantity, the way to equip multiples of an item, the way to fix the Infinite Arrow Glitch. Setting up a room with all Party Members that deactivate when you take them with you (thereby preventing any duplicate party members) is an easy enough event sequence to build.

While Ancient Cave is a lot of fun there aren't that many dungeons and rooms represented. But I'm not even sure how I would go about making it so the maps chosen are valid or if the coordinates will be correct in FFIV. If I can't get that to work I might just have to go for a straight "Dungeon Adventure" (which was recently done for Zelda 64, that too is a very enjoyable hack.) Choose your party, all chests will be randomized. Monsters will drop Armors (possibly healing items as well if I can't get some CMP set up that checks between Items and Weapons). Dungeon Bosses will be at the end of their respective dungeons (Now I might be able to make events have random battles so when you reach the end of the Mist Cave you might not be fighting the Mist Dragon the only possibility). And clearly some classes will need rebalanced. Otherwise there are just some characters people will never use. Why use Dark Knight Cecil, Tellah, Porom, Cid, and Edward when you could use the normal Final Party (which is the best party it seems)?

These are my preliminary ideas, but they are far from perfect. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to proceed with anything I said above, or have any suggestions of their own?

[chillyfeez]

Sounds like a fun idea. What about putting a merchant in a few floors who sells potions/curatives (but monsters don't drop them)? It might introduce an extra challenge - can't grind too much for reasons already mentioned, but can only get truly healed by spending. Just an idea, take it or leave it.

Can we presume characters will have some sort of basic but fairly decent starting armor, or were you thinking naked?
You'd probably want to make monsters' status attacks (and armors' defense against them) more prominent than in the original game. This would give the player a reason to "switch down" at times. Works the other way too with weapons and monster status weaknesses.

Anyway, that's what comes to mind right away.

[Grimoire LD]

That's not a bad idea! I was struggling on how to use Merchants. I was thinking of also including random stores (FFV Ancient Cave does this as well) But like in that game you can kind of abuse that function by just reloading the store again and again. But a store that sells Curatives (and possibly stores that sell Battle Items) seems like a really good idea.

Characters will start out with gear dependent on them. Dark Knight Cecil will always start out with a full compliment of Shadow, but Kain will only start with Clothes and Spear, maybe an Iron Gauntlet as well. (only to offset the initial brokenness of Jump). Rydia will begin with basic Rod, Clothes, and Tiara (to balance her against Adult Rydia), Tellah, because of his inherent weaknesses, will start the game with a weapon that has pretty high durability (not sure exactly what yet), Sage's Robe, and a Rune Ring, Edward will begin with his normal starting equipment. Rosa will begin with 50 Iron Arrows and a Short-bow, along with Prisoner's Clothes (for the sleep prevention.) Yang will start with no Claws, but will begin with a Karate Robe. Palom will begin with an IceRod, Porom will begin with a Silver Staff normal clothes on them otherwise. Paladin Cecil will begin with Clothes and a weak Holy Elemental Sword. (likely change something else to make it). Cid starts with a Hammer but also Iron Armor and Silver Gauntlets (to help out his poor survivability), Adult Rydia will begin with a Whip and a Gaea Robe (and she'll start with the summons she would ordinarily have when she comes back, so she won't need to find some "Summon Scrolls" (events that will teach Rydia how to Call other Summons), Edge will start with weak knives and Clothes, I'm not sure what I'm doing with FuSoYa yet.

Your idea for monster status attacks and have armor more prominent is also a really good idea as it adds a bit of strategy that may have been lacking in some respects in the original game.