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Grimoire LD

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Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« on: July 28, 2014, 07:25:58 PM »
Hello everyone, I've been plugging this at romhacking.net for a while now, but I think I have enough completed at this point to start releasing demos of my work-in-progress hack of FFIV: Combat Boost!. This hack enhances the battle systems of the game in a major way (and also some things have been done outside of battle such as several (more like one...) new areas, changed treasures here and there, text changes to give hints to the new content (and all text in the training room being changed to give information on the hack.)

First and foremost this is a difficulty hack. You can use your new toys though to mitigate some of the difficulty, after all what good is a battle enhancement hack if the enemies are as pathetic as ever? Enemies also have their evasions properly added in. Evasions have been something touted in guides since the very early days of FFIV, but no version of the game actually used them because of an error (or intentional sabotage to turn off evasion by the programmers). When they are turned on they make a noticeable difference in the game play. Magic you'd never expect to miss, misses. Attacks can have some of their damage mitigated but moreso what evasion seems intended to do is prevent statuses from being applied nearly all the time. Also all custom Charm scripts have been removed and some are being used in other custom AI scripts. In my opinion it makes for a far more fulfilling journey.

To acquaint yourself with my basic changes if you have not already, please refer to this topic at romhacking.net...

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,17723.0.html

First: The hacks that are in place for this mod...

Bug Fixes

Enemy Evasion Fix
Enemy Magic Evasion Fix
Infinite Arrow Fix
99% Evasion through Immune Byte Fix
Lingering x4 Weakness through Immune Byte Fix

Custom Commands

Fight(Broken Calcify Weapon Routine) to Fight(Imbued Weapons)
Peep to Geomancy
Cry to Coat Hammer
Steal to Mug
Salve to (item)Lord
Dart to Draw Out(Katana Soul)l
Twin to Third Random Spell Twin
Aim to Barrage
Pray to Hunt
(Empty Space) to Hunt Rewards System
(Empty Space) to Hunt Rewards System +
Hide to Advnc (Advance)
Dark Wave to Dark Wave + Spell Cast (+Zombification)
Sing to Harp-Dependent Sing
(Empty Space) to Magic Weapons
Recall to Dragon Speak
Regen to Will Based Regen
Kick to No Armor-Improved Kick.
Gird to FFI Based Armor-Gird
Boast to Elemental Weapon
(Empty Space) to Seek Remastered

Custom Spell Routines

Healing Spells to Alchemy-Cure
Damaging Spells to Item Lore-Damage
Chillyfeez's Dispel to Aura
Count to Elemental Strike/Fancy Flourish
Protect to Spell Power Dependent Protect
Damage, Sap to Piercing Sight
Search to Taunt
Sylph to Battle Skill
Damage, Status (Unused) to Regen (Command)

Specialty
Auto-Hide to XX Armor = Dark Wave replacing Cover
Disabling Level+Shield Defense Multipliers
Chillyfeez's Run/ATB Show/Character Switch Hack (Will remove if asked.)

Secondly acknowledgements:

Thanks to Vivify93 for Project II which this uses completely as a base to build off of.
Thanks to Chillyfeez for help in hacking and for providing a couple of hacks.
Thanks to PinkPuff for an amazing editor which makes editing many crucial matters a relative breeze!
Thanks to JCE3000GT for the wonderful title screen and early testing.
Thanks to LordGaramonde for brainstorming some ideas.
Thanks to DeathLike2 who encouraged me to do this with his take on an FFIV Patch.

Now I cannot ignore the new accessory system. It is basic, but important. Lots of foes you will encounter will have drops consisting of these rare accessories. Gone are the days where you go to the armor store and pick up the Rune Armlets and Diamond Gauntlets, now you will need to be quite lucky or grind a little to get these items... some allies do start with some of them and this will be noted where it occurs.

Here are the stats of each accessory so you don't have to ponder about their use in-game...

Iron Gauntlets    - StarPndt (Star Pendant) - Resists Poison - 3 Magic Def. +3 Will
Gauntlets         - Glasses - Resists Blind - 2 Evade, 2 Magic Evade +3 Wisdom - Tellah 1st Encounter
Silver Gauntlets  - WhiteCpe (White Cape) - Resists Mute - 10 Evade, +3 Vit - Edge
Diamond Gauntlets - RubyRing - Resists Pig - 2 Magic Def, 3 Magic Evade, +3 Agi
Zeus Gauntlets    - Zeus (Zeus Gauntlets) - Resists Mini, 8 Defense, 0 Evade, 10 Str, 10 Vit
Dragon Gauntlets  - CroakRng (Croak Ring) - Resists Frog, 2 of each stat.
Crystal Gauntlets - Jeweled (Jeweled Ring) - Resists Petrify
Iron Ring         - Memento (Memento Ring) - Resists KO, +3 Str - Rydia 1st Encounter
Ruby Ring         - Peace (Peace Ring) - 3 Magic Def. 2 Magic Evade, Resists Charm, Berserk, +5 Vit - Edward
Silver Ring       - Insomnia (Insomnia Ring) - 5 Def, Resists Sleep
Strength Ring     - Germinas (Germinas Ring) - 9 Evasion, 9 Magic Evasion, Resists Stun
Rune Ring         - Blessed (Blessed Ring) - -10 Evasion, 10 Magic Defense, Resists Undead - FuSoYa
Crystal Ring      - Shining (Shining Gauntlet) - 6 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 6 Magic Evasion, +5 Str, Resist Dark
Protect Ring      - VampHntr (Vampire Hunter Gauntlets) - Resist Absorb, 5 Defense, 5 Evasion, 5 Magic Defense, 4 Magic Evasion, +5 Wisdom


A lot of this game I want to be the "element of surprise" whether an enemy does something you wouldn't expect it to, or a weapon being more useful than you may have originally thought. I will give a few hints to keep yourself alive, but be aware again that this is a difficulty hack...

Some tips...

1. DarkOmen is the Key to your success at the start. Without a healer Cecil and Kain will be taking some rather heavy blows but using DarkOmen will tear through these early foes in short order. You can pretty much stop expecting it to kill everything once you reach the Waterway. But don't expect it to be easy! Stock up on tonics and rest at the inn when need be. You will not be receiving much gil from early enemies here after all, but with some smarts and luck you should come out on top.

2. Stock up on Status Healing Items! Enemies as early as the SwordRat will inflict status ailments on you and this only intensifies as you progress. Remember there is no Esuna so you will have to use items or Tents to recover your statuses

3. Grind when you need to. All enemies have an interesting table of items, with each having a 1/32 chance of dropping a useful weapon, armor, or accessory so if you want to try and get those rare items, it won't be as annoying as it was originally and hopefully all battles (past the first part...) will feel like rewarding encounters. Also all enemies now have their 1/64 slot occupied by a Steal Item, that will be stolen with a specific item or Edge (who is not available)

4. Don't ignore the villagers! Some of the text here and there has been changed, but I imagine not many people here have played Vivify's Project II (which this is based on) it is encouraged that you visit the Training Room to get acquainted with all of the new skills and features.

5. The Power of Harps are Not to be underestimated. Harpsong is probably one of the most powerful skills allowing a patient party as much time as they need to overcome any obstacle with enough power boosting (Each use of Harpsong increases the power of the front by 5 and the singer by +5 as well). Paladin Cecil with a Harp is not a joke, but may at times be a necessity.

6. Be prepared for a Difficulty Spike when you make it back from Mt. Ordeals. I did not want the player to coast by with this magic heavy party as they normally would.

And with all of that out of the way, please enjoy this beta! Again, it is complete until right after the Dark Elf fights.

Note: I'm aware of some graphical silliness with some of the custom routines, but that's not quite my priority. Graphics have always been a bit of a sore spot for me.

(Sorry it had to be .rar'ed apparently it's too large in it's normal state by 6 bytes)

 :edit: 40 minutes in and I already noticed an error on my part. I accidentally put Mist Dragon's speed to be the same speed value as Baigan's Arms... making the battle nearly impossible. Sorry about that.


« Last Edit: December 28, 2014, 11:49:12 PM by Grimoire LD »
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chillyfeez

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up until Tower of Zot.
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2014, 08:04:07 PM »
Quote from: Grimoire LD on July 28, 2014, 07:25:58 PM
Chillyfeez's Run/ATB Show/Character Switch Hack (Will remove if asked.)

You mean if chillyfeez asks? Because my patches are there to be used - I'm thrilled if you want them to be part of your project!

Hope to test it out sometime soon!
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LordGarmonde

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up until Tower of Zot.
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2014, 02:08:29 AM »
Same here - it sounds awesome.

Quote from: Grimoire LD on July 28, 2014, 07:25:58 PM
40 minutes in and I already noticed an error on my part. I accidentally put Mist Dragon's speed to be the same speed value as Baigan's Arms... making the battle nearly impossible. Sorry about that.

That just put a picture in my head of Baigan shooting Mist Dragons out of his arms  :laugh:
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up until Tower of Zot.
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2014, 11:05:57 PM »
So in preparation of releasing v0.14 I've been replaying my mod to make sure everything is working right (after that OctoMamm fiasco I couldn't chance it without playing through myself) but I decided to do something a little different, I decided I would not stop and grind at all, that means no purposely looking for Dead Man Clothes or Gooey Axes to help me with the Dark Knight portion of the game (and Mt. Ordeals, oh boy!).

I normally grind to level 13 or 14 before fighting the Mist Dragon to make sure I'm prepared, I did not this time and fought what only was thrown at me. I handled the Mist Dragon with a very close call (Cecil dead, Kain down to 6 HP). Rydia with 80 HP allows her to survive much easier and I headed straight to the Waterway and she was Level 8 before meeting Tellah.

Everything was going smooth...ish, until I reached OctoMamm. At 31 Speed he gets maybe two to three turns on you and he has a guaranteed Paralysis... I then noticed the error with that and changed his speed down to 23 and gave him a different AI pattern (Fight, Fight, Entangle) it might not have Blink be as useful, but it does prevent everyone from being paralyzed at one time. The real difficulty is getting those first three hits, once you have those his speed drops down to manageable levels. I cast Regen, switched swords from Shadow to Dark (Shadow Sword uses Dark Omen sometimes which turns Cecil into a Zombie and can really throw off defense in a boss fight).

Next I sped through Antlion's Den, and finally realized how useful my Madhura Harp was (Edward's first harp in Combat Boost) since it deals x4 damage to spirits, and the Weepers in there are no joke. If they're alone they will cast a 700+ damage Holy, he can take them out in one blow at any level. Antlion was surprisingly difficult, I've been wondering if I need to change him at all, maybe something to make it a near necessity to use the Bardsong in some manner, but I think he's difficult enough, I do think that using the Madhura's Harp Protect might actually help a bit during it.

Next was Mt. Hobbs and MomBomb, with the changed strength of Level 1 Elemental Spells, characters were taking 80-160 damage from Fire1 from the Spirits, Souls, and MomBomb, MomBomb herself was a bit tricky to bring down to her next phase but I succeeded and a secret to defeating the rest of the bombs is to use a battle item. All battle items in FFIV:CB are immensely powerful (except StopTrap which has been nerfed since it lasts Forever now it has the same power as Stop.)

Yang was only Level 11 when we reached Fabul and I lost the Fabul Siege several times, Cecil would just take one too many hits (sometimes being hit by the undead Weepers who deal x2 Damage to Dark Knight Cecil because he is weak to the Dark Element, more on that later) and he was dead by the 3rd fight and Yang soon followed, so it was up to Edward tossing battle items every which way in a vain attempt to survive. We had just enough to do so.

without purposeful grinding I did not acquire a single rare item until I was in the area around Mysidia, then the rare items just raked in. I got a Traveler Knife and 10 Yoichi Arrows by the time I reached Mt. Ordeals.

Mt. Ordeals without a Gooey Axe or Thief Knife is Tough! First, one thing I need to mention is that Undead enemies use Dark Elemental attacks which Dark Knight Cecil is weak to due to the Dark Armor, so it's best to go up the mountain with nothing on. I gave Porom a Crossbow with Pearl Arrows and Palom used a FlameRod. It was rough going and I had to leave and heal several times (note: I do not consider that grinding as it was an earnest attempt to scale the mountain, just failing to do so, so it was best to cut losses and retreat rather than die)

Cecil was barely Level 20 when we made it to Milon. The first phase kind of threw me for a loop, I didn't expect it to be so difficult, but again a BombArm made short work of it winning this I got a Dead Man's Clothes, right on time to! Milon-Z is no joke!

I always thought I didn't change Milon-Z sufficiently enough, he has a new Fire-Counter  which is basic death in most respects. but I thought his basic attacks were a little too weak, I was wrong. He could deal anywhere from 30-80 Damage to the person wearing the Dead Man's Clothes and his critical hits could deal upwards to 160-200 to the person wearing the Dead Man's Clothes and his normal attacks would deal 100-380 damage including criticals. Curing Curse was a constant to assure anyone had a chance to survive. The real trick to this I've seen is not to be too defensive, he does not resist the Dark Sword, so Cecil can use that to its fullest give him Berserk and let him fight, Palom's magic at exactly Level 20 only did 500-600 damage to Milon-Z's 7000 HP pool and Tellah couldn't really get a good roll with Elemental Sword. But smart use of Blink and early use of Regen really helped out a lot, Cecil could deal 300-400 damage per hit since he was Berserked. It was difficult, but it was done.

By the time Cecil got off Mt. Ordeals he was Level 10 and by the return trip to Mysidia he was Level 12. By now I had acquired a second Traveler's Knife, a Thief's Knife and a couple of Battle Items from random battles, most importantly though I received the Master's Headband from a DeludImp on my way back, which will be great for Yang!  Then it was onto the Serpent Road...

The Serpent Road caused me a lot of problems with much higher level parties, but now I seem to know the tricks of the trade (tricks of my own trade, imagine that.) I used Piercing Sight on the Mindflayers and cast Aura on Cecil to deal higher damage to the Mindflayers because they are a Mage-type and Aura's second level of power (20 Wisdom) grants 4 damage to Mages) and stocked up on GaeaRobes (which now prevent Stun, by being "grounded" to the Earth). With the Mad Mages I used a similar strategy but also threw in Piercing Sight to deal +weakness damage to the Mad Mages. Finally the Serpent's were dealt with by efficient uses of Ice 3 and the Traveler's Knife, now equipped on Cecil due to their being Beast-type foes and the Traveler's Knife dealing x4 damage to Beasts.

And with that the Serpent Road was done which is where I currently am at.

Cecil is only Level 15, Porom is Level 20, Palom is 22, and Tellah is Level 25.

So far this "rushing things" has worked out, so I know that it is still possible, even in my mod so grinding is by no means mandatory but just fighting the battles as they come and retreating when things look bleak, work just fine.

Also the next post I will release v0.14 (which will be done tomorrow at Romhacking.net).


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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld
« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2014, 11:48:56 PM »
Here it is Final Fantasy IV: Combat Boost v0.14


For those who haven't been keeping up FFIV:Combat Boost is a patch which aims to change up the gameplay of FFIV with new abilities, new dungeons, some new sidequests, and an assortment of monsters which will force the player to adapt or die. You can read all about this below, or in the main topic at romhacking.net

From the last release here (I believe 0.03) the game has changed a fair amount. First of all the mod is complete up until your first trek into the Underworld, so don't go into the Underworld!

The newer version also fixes some balancing issues (some that were in the original game, some that I introduced) for instance Defense Multipliers are no longer acquired with every 16 Levels and Only Shieldbearers, instead they are from every 16 Agility and 8 Vitality.

There are four dragons in the Overworld, two on the world map and two in dungeons.

Several pieces of equipment have been changed or altered from their original function.

Four Chests are now in the Serpent Road.

Egregious Maps have been removed and some decor of places have been simplified for the purpose of conserving space for later map projects.

Cid's Hammers are much more powerful and with the addition of the Homing Machine and VampFang with the CoatWeapon ability you will be able to fight very effectively with him.

Uncurse Potion now also cures Stun and Sleep.

The Break Skills now work entirely differently, they have a charge time but deal significant damage to its target (even bosses!) and they hit much more often.

Bio now applies Poison correctly.

The StopTrap's power has been lowered to the power of normal Stop (10) because 50 was just stupidly too much and SilverStopwatch and GoldStopwatch have been changed to CobraUrn and HypnoBag. CobraUrn deals decent damage while poisoning all foes while HypnoBag deals good damage while putting all enemies to Sleep.

Tonics and Potions have had their powers lowered from the original patch (it was too much) and the Cure spells have had their power increased and thus have also had their MP increased. Also of note Level 1 and 2 spells have had an increase in power, making those early Spirits much more than pests but allowing the Mages to more effectively use their spells.

Gale now no longer will deal 1000's of damage when it hits you, but is still a very powerful spell to watch out for.

Poison and Gradual Petrify have had their timers change to occur more often. Poison looks at an ally's "Steal/Status Defense" and for enemies it looks at their Speed Modifier and for both add 4 to the timer (Instead of 14 like originally!) now but to compensate Poison only deals 1/8 of your Current HP rather than Max HP.

Gradual Petrify now uses the timer of Sleep and Paralysis, meaning that it will take three rounds of three rounds of Sleep/Paralysis to turn the player completely to stone.

I believe those are the most major updates, and here is the readme.

Final Fantasy IV: Combat Boost! Readme

If you'd like to try it out, please give me any feedback you may have.
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chillyfeez

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld
« Reply #5 on: December 28, 2014, 11:59:16 PM »
Well, I couldn't have done it, but I'm a gaming pansy.
Good to know it is at least possible for the stout of heart.
 :edit: that was a response to your playthrough notes.

Hey, did Dash work in that recent batch of User Options I patched in?
The ROM I copied onto my tablet to play still has broken Dash, but I may have just copied over the wrong ROM.
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2014, 12:35:22 AM »
Quote from: chillyfeez on December 28, 2014, 11:59:16 PM
Well, I couldn't have done it, but I'm a gaming pansy.
Good to know it is at least possible for the stout of heart.
 :edit: that was a response to your playthrough notes.

Hey, did Dash work in that recent batch of User Options I patched in?
The ROM I copied onto my tablet to play still has broken Dash, but I may have just copied over the wrong ROM.

Hmm, I'm afraid not, no. It works only when it wants to (which seems rare). I have no idea what could be causing this, but I didn't want to alarm you considering how much I've already bothered you about it.
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chillyfeez

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2014, 03:46:55 PM »
Weird. I'll look into it.
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2014, 04:31:59 PM »
So after several hours I finally defeated the Dark Dragon, wow, low-level and ill-equipped he does not mess around. I even began to rethink some of my design choices with him, but that was more due to carelessness on my part (I forgot to grab several statushealing items the first time around, so to keep true to the challenge, I ran from every fight and came back with a healthy supply of status potions and I was good to go). At this low level his attacks deal anywhere from 300-800 Critical included killing Tellah in one go, a continual Blink is Essential on Tellah if there's any hope for survival. Tellah, due to his high magic stats takes very little damage from Dark Breath where as the rest of the party is dealt anywhere from 250-580 by it, but his status combinations can get really messy.

He'll use Toad, Pig, and Doom in several patterns. Party Target - Pig is meant to be taken care of by Cid's ItemLord-DietFood or a reminder that Pig can be used Defensively in Tellah's Case. Yet it seemed he used Toad on the worst people, at the worst times. My initial plan was to go in and go on defense. Tellah would keep up Blinks and Cures, Cid would heal as necessary, Cecil would increase Yang's attack through many Protect Songs (which would also mitigate the damage the Dark Dragon did) and Yang was supposed to deal heavy damage with Focus... that was the plan...

The reality was a bit different.

Yang had elemental claws equipped and I forgot that the Dark Dragon was resistant to all elements. Also the Master's Headband which gave him incredible defense through Gird also prevents Confusion and Berserk, so I couldn't let him go on his own. After that plan failed several times, I changed tact.

I prepared Cecil for combat, gave him a Headband and Karate Gi instead of the MageHat and GaeaRobe (to mitigate the damage from Dark Breath)and the Madhura Harp (Protect) During the first part of the battle (what I call "preparation, where the Dark Elf throws weak-ish spells at you) I had him use that many times where Tellah prepared Blink and Regen on everyone. Then I changed from the Madhura Harp to the Legend Sword and let Cecil have at it dealing 1500-1700 damage per attack and though it was still a bit desperate, and I had to use several Tinctures (Ether1's) I finally managed victory.

My levels were...

Yang 27, Tellah 27, Cecil 25, Cid 23

I guess I'll try some of Eblan, I doubt I'll end up taking anything away though.
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chillyfeez

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2014, 04:55:50 PM »
I figured out the dash problem.
 :banonsmash:
Here's the long story:
After the initial release of User Options on RHDN, it came to light that - despite my initial efforts to the contrary - it was still possible for dash to get the game out of visual sync if L was pressed simultaneously with the D-Pad (or simultaneously with letting go of the D-Pad).
In order to fix that, I found a new place in ROM to jump to the Dash executing code, from a portion of code that only executes if the player is not in motion (instead of relying on a check within the code for whether the D-Pad is being pressed).
The actual Dash execution code remained the same, just the source from whence it jumps changed. As such, the command in ROM that the JSR replaces was the same command ("LDA $1700" to be exact) - if it had replaced a different command, I would have needed to change the Dash code, slightly but surely.
Anyway, when this change was initially patched into Combat Boost, the original jump was never removed, meaning the ROM executes the Dash code twice every cycle instead of once...
The implication of this is that, when you press L, Dash is turned on and off, all within a fraction of a second.
 :stfu:
*whew*

The fix is easy:
Open your ROM in Geiger's, and open the Hex editor.
Jump to $80C2 in ROM. It should read 20 59 FF (JSR $FF59)
Change it to read AD 00 17 (LDA $1700)
Save changes.
That should do it.

Sorry about that.
 :blush:
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2014, 05:46:36 PM »
That did the trick! Thanks Chillyfeez, looks like I now have Dash back! Good thing I waited to release the patch. Interesting to see that it acted that way because it was technically two routines both acting on one another.
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #11 on: December 29, 2014, 08:16:27 PM »
SPOILERS FOR EBLAN TREASURES AND STRATEGIES!!

Same levels as above

Alright, Eblan's first fight to get the Nitemare Sword actually went Really well, the battle is against 4 Skulls and  Stoneman I started off with a StopTrap, and using Fire Claws and the Legend Sword, along with a Fire 3, I made short work of the skeletons. The Stoneman went down in several Focuses from the Charm Claw (x4 Damage to Giants) and that was that.

Second Fight was a bit of a lark as well, but this item was purchasable elsewhere so the battle wasn't meant to be that tough, just a well used Feng Shui Rod made the BlackCat's helpless and the Lamia was never that dangerous as long as you've adequately planned ahead (with Headbands, since they resist Charm), she does have a lot of HP and no exploitable weaknesses though.

Third Fight was against the Mad Ogres, but I must have had a good roll or something, with the opening salvo I threw down another StopTrap, blinded them with the Nitemare Sword, (after a failed attempt at Mini) and Yang tore them to pieces with the Charm claw dealing upwards to 4000 damage a Focused strike at only Level 28 and dealing 7000 damage to one that was hit by Mini.

All in all this was much easier than I anticipated. I can't recall nerfing any of these foes, but it went by much smoother.

The testing is nearly complete. I just now need to go through the Tower of Zot and I can release this version.

Character Levels...

Tellah 28
Yang 28
Cecil 27
Cid 26
« Last Edit: December 29, 2014, 08:25:42 PM by Grimoire LD »
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2014, 01:03:34 AM »
Well, looks like I've made it as far as I could get without additional grinding, looks like Level 29 was not enough to beat the Magus Sisters, incidentally I was around 10 Levels higher in my original file with a lot more gear than what I could scrounge out of dungeons and they were still a challenge! But the Magus Sisters at 29 just appear to deal way too much damage to survive adequately. (Though I did come relatively close once, I beat one, but I ran out of Revives and that was a ticket to death.)
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2014, 07:50:22 PM »
So I've decided what I want to do with the Power Stone-Blacksmith set up.

For a reminder the Blacksmiths are replacing the Dancers fully because while amusing, they are not worth much. This does give me one more dance than there is dancers so I'll likely throw a Blacksmith into a town without a dancer, probably the Feymarch, might want him to make something special for Rydia (Since I have the Katana's covered)

 I knew I wanted to do something relatively beneficial but I couldn't be sure what, my mind hopped between making them forge better weapons and armor and then my mind caught up and I realized that FFIV isn't really set up that way by default and it may cheapen the experience if you turn an Ancient Sword into a Volt Sword and then you win a Volt Sword anyhow. I was also thinking of battle items, but that's what Hunt is mainly for and I didn't want to bite into its purpose. So I thought about it a bit more and realized that my hack only gives out Accessories in very sparse quantities but I then thought it through a little more and realized that it may be Too constrictive.

So the Blacksmith's still hold their original purpose of duplicating Katana's for Edge's Katana Soul command, but they now can also make accessories using a rare item called a "(Ring)Catalyst" (replaced the "???" event item. It may still have an event tied to it) and several power stones depending on the presumed usefulness of the accessory. Let me show you how this will work in pictures...











So as you can see, each town will be able to create its own accessory and no accessory is something a party member already comes with. Power Stones will be a bit more common (maybe Uncommon is the right term) currently they are the common drop from a select few enemies as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do but with their renewed importance they will be the uncommon drop of most enemies now.

The plan is for each dungeon to contain 1 Catalyst, to give the player some choice on what they want to use it on (or to just use the Catalyst on the overworld for an effect I haven't decided on yet.)

 :edit: I'm somewhat shocked that this all went through without a hitch, so these blacksmiths are prepared for when Edge arrives and they give their accessories just fine. I'm running out of text space all around, but I'll see what I can do.

In other news some dungeon maps have been lightly modified to hide the Catalysts in each dungeon, so don't expect to just run into it in where a chest would normally be. All in all though I don't think they're too difficult to find, it's mostly remembering where it seemed there would be treasure in the original game or if certain places were walkable on the map.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2015, 01:52:41 AM by Grimoire LD »
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Grimoire LD

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Re: Final Fantasy IV:Combat Boost! - Complete up till the Underworld (v0.14)
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2015, 05:23:15 PM »
So I've finalized what I want to do with the Overworld and it ended up becoming several references to FFI...

When you first get to the Underworld the ship will stall in that... thing that is at the bottom of the Overworld portal. Cid will notify the party that the Airship's Floatstone is broken and they will need to get out of the ship and look for some, noting that Floatstone is most commonly found in Agart's mountains and hopefully it's location in the Underworld shouldn't be the exception.

The first portion of the Underworld then will be a wide field like area with flowing rivers of lava, called the Northern Wastes there will be several treasures but since you can't return there *Yet* (A later patch would hopefully allow for Overworld editing and there will be a proper trigger back into it.) they won't be anything too great. Eventually you'll come across a small stone structure with a closed door. The objective then is to look for the switch that will open the door.

In this opened room you'll find a Crystal Room with the Dark Crystal and a lucky break of Floatstone. Now due to space limitations on text... for everything... I'll need to be careful how I approach this.

So far I have used all of my space in Bank 3 and Bank 1 and I feel I'm approaching the limit in Bank 2.

Cecil and Cid will react with surprise that they found the Dark Crystal and Floatstone and then you'll be transported back to the Airship and jump immediately to the Airships vs. Tanks scene and crash land again. Cid will be flummoxed but point out that at least they crashed near a castle.

Cecil will speak to King Giott about the state of the Dark Crystals, revealing that one was found in the north. Giott will know for certain then that Cecil and co. are allies (in the original game he assumes this when they ask about the Dark Crystals which never really made sense to me) and tells them that the one in the castle is safe and that the other two are out of Golbez's reach.

The Calbrena battle event is the same, but the Golbez battle is a little different. When he paralyzes the party the message, "Lost Dark Crystal!" will be displayed. That's the only change there and because they think Golbez is dead they don't bother to take the crystal back when he resurrects. In that way Golbez now has two of the crystals.

After this Giott tells the party that the other two crystals are in Gulg Volcano, due to the lava surrounding the place it is considered safe from the airships and the Sealed Cave which is well off alone.

The plan is still to retrieve the rest of the crystals from Babil. Events continue normally until when Cid rescues the party he mentions that Giott sent him to take the party and retrieve the Dark Crystal from the Gulg Volcano in fear that Golbez might soon have the technology to cross magma. So an automatic event occurs and Cid takes the party to Gulg Volcano which will be a new dungeon with Cid added to the party. At the bottom of the dungeon they'll discover that the Dark Crystal is already gone and that they've fallen into a trap. They escape from the volcano and see that the Dwarf Castle is surrounded, blocking their escape so they make for the Overworld and that's when the game picks up in the normal storyline.

So basically two new dungeons - Northern Wastes and Gulg Volcano each as a Dark Crystal location. Their purpose is to bring Cid back into the game for a couple more dungeons and tie up that loose story thread of "Where were the other two Dark Crystals?"

Does this sound like a workable premise? Does anyone have any other ideas that might work for the missing Dark Crystals?
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