øAslickproductions.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=5f0fck550j2m4m2fpbtkj2vkm1&action=profile;u=14;area=showposts;start=450e:/My Web Sites/Slick Productions - FFIV Message Board/slickproductions.org/forum/index2c0d.htmlslickproductions.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=5f0fck550j2m4m2fpbtkj2vkm1&action=profile;area=showposts;u=14e:/My Web Sites/Slick Productions - FFIV Message Board/slickproductions.org/forum/index2c0d.html.zxмg^ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÈ0P.£üOKtext/htmlISO-8859-1gzip@øÕ£üÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿTue, 10 Mar 2020 16:30:31 GMT0ó°° ®0®P®€§²ð®ϼg^ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ©.£ü Show Posts - Pinkpuff

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451
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: February 04, 2014, 03:32:54 PM »
Confirmed. Investigating...

 :edit: Fixed. Uploaded.

452
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Grimoire LD's Notes, Patches, and Hacks (Combo Patch of other patches released!)
« on: February 02, 2014, 04:38:17 AM »
DISCLAIMER

Be sure to backup your ROM before saving with FF4kster; as efficient as we are at nailing bugs when they appear, it is by no means certain that using it will not cause something to go horribly horribly wrong, espeically if the ROM in question has been edited using any other tools. Depending on how it is that you're handling the whole Golbez thing on a fundamental level, FF4kster may be perfectly safe or it may be quite volatile.

Also be aware that when it saves, it saves everything, even if you've changed nothing. So if you've moved any data locations, they'll probably get messed up even if you didn't edit that data using FF4kster (assuming it didn't hang trying to read from where the program expected to see that data).

453
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: February 01, 2014, 09:40:54 AM »
Looks great so far! Thank you so much!

454
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 30, 2014, 05:09:56 AM »
Thanks very much LordGarmonde. That's part 1 done. Next I will have to remove those arrows and other symbols from the tiles that had them to begin with. Some of them are easy (the ones with "normal" counterparts) but as I recall there were some that only existed in symbolized form. For example, I'm pretty sure there are no closed town doors that didn't have any red marks on them.

Quote from: chillyfeez on January 30, 2014, 01:26:10 AM
Hey Pinkpuff - did it ever end up being possible to change whether FF4kster recognizes a monster as Lunar? I see that there is a "lunarmonsters.cfg" file, but it's blank.

Didn't realize that was still being packaged with the program! I doubt it will have any effect even if you change its contents.

Right now what it's doing is searching the lunar encounters list to see if that monster appears anywhere there. If it does, it will display as Lunar. If it doesn't, it won't. Unfortunately this has the side effect of lunar monsters that only appear via plot-triggered battles appear as non-lunar... But fear not! On my to-do list is to create a "toggle button" in the monster editor that will switch the display between lunar and non-lunar. I will stlil use the existing method to determine what its default display will be, but this way you will be able to view what any monster would look like if you were to drop it onto the moon as-is.

455
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 29, 2014, 03:18:29 PM »
There are also tiles with a red border, like the items hidden in grass and such. Anyway yeah I would certainly welcome the help if that's something you feel like doing... though I don't off hand have anything resembling such a list I'm afraid.

456
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 29, 2014, 10:02:12 AM »
That's what I used to make the bmp files as well, I just ripped them from FF4Tools and mass-converted the file format. But that's not what I mean.

I'm talking about, you know how there are some tiles with red arrows or boxes on them? Well those red arrows and boxes are part of the bmps themselves, not separate bmps with transparent backgrounds that are layered on top, which is what I would want. That means you can't just make arbitrary tiles appear as f.ex. warp tiles. I would need to manually go through and separate the red arrows from the tiles themselves and make separate transparent bmps with those arrows and boxes and such so that in the tile editor when you make a regular tile into a warp tile, it will appear as such with a red arrow indicating so.

457
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 29, 2014, 05:46:02 AM »
It sucks being so close and yet so far...  :sad:

I guess for now I will leave the map editor as is and come back to the tile editor later, hopefully armed with more info by then. Particularly for the tile editor itself I want to be able to dynamically overlap those red box/arrow indicators on the tiles that actually have them. Currently they're part of the bmp images themselves, but I would like the editor to visually reflect tiles that have had their warp/event/treasure/etc properties changed. I can go through and manually separate them using the bmp images but I don't want to have to do that if it's at all possible to read the tile graphics from the ROM, especially since that's something that in principle should be happening regardless.

In the meantime I have a bunch of stuff on my ff4kster to-do list that I can work on as time permits.

458
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 22, 2014, 03:28:54 AM »
No sweat,

Quote from: FF4.txt
A2000-A5FFF   (149E00-14DDFF)   Town Map Tile Formation Data (*4)
...

*4 -- Town Map Tile Formation Data, 2 bytes

0x0000         8x8 tile (0x00-0xFF)
0x0001:0...1   ?
0x0001:2-4      Palette Index
0x0001:5      Tile Priority (0 = behind character, 1 = in front of character)
0x0001:6      Flip tile horizontally
0x0001:7      Flip tile vertically

The priority is ignored for the sake of the editor (currently), and there are two mystery bits that may or may not have anying to do with it.

Judging by my code, bits 6 and 7 seem to be the opposite of what you'd expect; 0 = flip, 1 = leave alone (though it is entirely possible that the program is just reading in the graphics reversed to begin with or something)

Also worthy of note is that judging by the way my code is layed out it looks like it's all the top left corners of all the tiles, followed by all the top right corners of all the tiles followed by all the bottom left corners of all the tiles followed by all the bottom right corners of all the tiles so you can't just read along 16 bytes to get one tile.

459
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 21, 2014, 06:18:27 AM »
Ok thanks, now I know where to look.

 :edit: Try it now

460
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 21, 2014, 03:44:04 AM »
Quote from: Grimoire LD on January 20, 2014, 12:29:25 PM
Hmm, after working on a map for a good half-an hour or so things were going well, but while I was working on it though a strange "mini-map" like box opened up and I couldn't do anything anymore. I tried to hit escape to save my progress but the system crashed and I lost my work.

Any idea what might have caused this?

I'm afraid I don't! That is pretty alarming though! Can you (or anyone else) duplicate this? If we can figure out how to trigger it I'll be able to start hunting for the cause.

461
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: The Drawing Board
« on: January 19, 2014, 04:19:49 AM »
It's been a long time since I played 9 but I did enjoy it, and it is definitely one of the "few exceptions" I was thinking of when I qualified that comment.

462
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: January 19, 2014, 04:18:26 AM »
Both of those are good ideas but would be a bit of an undertaking. An "undo" feature would also be awesome but again, it's gonna be a fair bit of work.

Right now I just want to get the tile editor working, which can't happen until I get those Airship/Ship tileset offsets figured out and also figure out why the Giant tileset doesn't look quite like it should.

463
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: The Drawing Board
« on: January 18, 2014, 06:04:54 AM »
Quote from: LordGarmonde on January 18, 2014, 04:16:18 AM
I agree with this also in that it shouldn't be a 1-to-1 good/evil <--> light/dark But at the same time I do skew towards the traditionals and I look at it like the bias that people as a whole might carry in terms of predjudice - someone commits a crime - that makes him a criminal - but it doesn't define them - unless time after time opportunities to be anything otherwise are removed - then they go to crime full time. Sadly, that statement comes from a much less theoretical part of my brain and one that instead relies more on experience: I grew up in Springfield MA: 12th worst city in America (2011) - It is something that can be debated back and forth, and even I'm not set in stone, but there's definitely something to being curved by public perception and expectation.

I get what you mean, but someone who commits a crime is a criminal because that's the definition of the word 'criminal'. There's nothing in the definition of 'Dark Knight' or 'Paladin' that specifies anything about the character's behaviour. I mean, I know they don't have strict definitions or anything, but they're primarily game mechanic constructs more so than anything else; it's more a specification of what your skills and abilities are than what you do with them.

That said, I would certainly agree that certain skill sets are more appropriate/useful to certain kinds of tasks than others. If you're looking to protect people (especially specific people) you probably would want a Paladin. If you're looking to wipe out large armies of small mooks, then, unless they're undead, you probably would prefer a Dark Knight. So it's easy to see how someone might equate "protecting = good" and "killing = bad". But if the person/people you're protecting is/are villains, or the people you're wiping out are an evil invading army, then it's not so clear cut as that.

Just consider the trip to Ordeals vs. the trip back. On the way to the mountain, the DK just destroys everything. For me the twins often don't even get turns. You either fight big fat ravens/zuus which die instantly to Deathbringer, or you fight a bunch of little imps and porcupines which all die in one shot to dark wave. Once you get to the mountan though, then the DK is probably your least useful contributor. He can attack certain monsters, but for reduced damage, and in those zombie battles he's basically using bomb fragments or potions/ethers or parrying. Contrast that with the way back to town. Paladin just wrecks everything on the mountain, but when you get to the overworld, he can take out the little guys but very slowly one-by-one, so he's probably relying on the mages to take them out with their group attacks, and against the giant birds he just has to hack away at them for very modest amounts of damage, again probably relying on the mages for support.

Quote from: LordGarmonde on January 18, 2014, 04:16:18 AM
Quote from: chillyfeez on January 17, 2014, 09:19:00 AM
I guess it could just be that the rise of the barnonian Empire and the subsequent unpleasantness with Golbez is what instilled the notion that Dark=Evil. Seems like that kind of defeats what could be a good plot point in a potential Before-Years, though...


Also very true - and a bit of a nagging question I had: if Theodor became Golbez under Zemus' influence: where has he been the whole time of Cecil's maturity? Even taking Theodor as young (10-11?) That still leaves him ~15 years of 16+ adulthood that's a total ???? It also seems like Baron didn't turn that slowly just the guys showed up - killed the king, took over, and as quickly as possible started going for the Crystals - it seems a bit off to me

Agreed... it seems like the king being replaced is something that happened very close to the beginning of FF4; it does seem like it might be too short a timeframe to instill a predjudice in people. Definitely he's been training Dark Knights long before that. It could simply be an extrapolation of the kinds of things Dark Knights are good at and what goals those things are useful for accomplishing, e.g. killing things (particularly people, as in some FF games they have many human opponents as being weak to Dark/Poison), whereas Paladins are good at protecting people and destroying evil spirits and other such undead abominations.

Quote from: LordGarmonde on January 18, 2014, 04:16:18 AM
I preface this by saying my own immediate follow-up thought was "I probably wouldn't do it - but hmm..." What if instead of White/Black it's a little more like FF6 (which is funny to type - I actually don't like that aspect of the game at all) - But how I mean it is any Mage class can learn any spell - but obviously Palom's Black magic would work far more effectively than White. To have enough room we'd probably have to split magic into Basic/Advanced in place of White/Black.

Just a weird thought that came by - sort of an extension on a complaint I always had with weapons. Gandalf can use a sword - and so can anyone; they just might suck at it. Just like the above idea, not something I'd probably work towards here, but still want it out there.

Speaking only for myself, such a system wouldn't be my cup of tea. In fact it's one of the things that bothers me about a lot of the later Final Fantasy games (basically 6+, with a couple of exceptions). The characters are very "whitewashed"... that is to say, mostly the same with a few differences rather than mostly different with a few similarities. FF6 isn't quite so bad with it as some of the others, and it only really surfaces in the mid to late part of the game, but it always left a sort of bad taste in my mouth. Especially the ones where, literally, every character has access to every ability with, few exceptions like maybe limit breaks or something. I always preferred games where a character has a specific set of specialized skills which he or she does really well, and sucks at everything else. But that's why you have a party; each character's specialties make up for the shortcomings of the others (in a balanced party that is, though a specialized one can be fun as well, forcing you to find more creative ways around their weaknesses).

464
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: The Drawing Board
« on: January 17, 2014, 03:45:50 AM »
Quote from: Grimoire LD on January 16, 2014, 04:26:39 PM
Odin being a Paladin that turned into a Dark Knight is a very interesting thought. Dissidia did a good job with Cecil explaining why he is able to control both Dark and Light because neither is inherently good or evil. There is a Lot of mention of battle and war in the various descriptions about Baron in the Scenario Guide but no specific opponent. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Odin, due to his code of being a Paladin and devoting himself entirely to honor and justice became blind to the corruption at the court (it is interesting to see that Baron has no advisor like Fabul, Eblan, and presumably Damcyan had, I guess Baigan might count, but I saw him mainly as the Guard Leader, maybe with some influence in matters but not a major voice) before he was cast out of his own kingdom because of his own naivete. Perhaps his personal journey around the world could be to come up with a way of reclaiming his kingdom and while on this journey discovers that this code of being a Paladin, while meaning well, paralyzes one's ability to discern truth, and thus decides to don the armor of the Dark Knight in order to wrest his kingdom back from those who had taken it.

I defiintely prefer that kind of angle to the whole good/evil thing. I mean, in Final Fantasy in general, Paladin and Dark Knight are really just jobs; you can have good or evil of either. I mean, Cecil was the same good person when he was a Dark Knight that he was when he was a Paladin. I always saw it as more of a practical thing. How can you fight Golbez' monsters and undeads and such which are immune or resistant to dark when your weapons are all dark elemental? A lot of them are weak to holy though (or at least don't resist it) so a Paladin will be much more effective at that particular task. Likewise in FF Tactics, a lot of the villains are White Mages, Paladins or Holy Knights of some kind or other, but they're more evil then Cecil ever was (for that reason I thought it was very poetic that in War of the Lions they added a Dark Knight generic job but not Paladin).

Maybe the villains would be something similar, like a corrupt church or something; maybe Odin used to belong to it until he realized the corruption. Then he found that as a Paladin he had trouble damaging things with so much holy resistance so he needed to become a dark knight (though it wouldn't use quite those words in-game of course, just like it doesn't in FF4, but makes the gist of it obvious without sounding meta).

The Dark Wave attack even has a sort of self-sacrificial element to it, just like Cover. With Cover, you're sacrificing your own HP to save that of your allies. With Dark Wave you're sacrificing your own HP to deplete that of the enemies.

465
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: The Drawing Board
« on: January 16, 2014, 12:10:04 PM »
At first I always thought the King was training Dark Knights because he had been replaced by Cagnazzo but I think Cecil would have realized that something was up long ago if that were the case. From the in-game dialogue I get the impression that Cecil became a dark knight due, at least in part, to pressure from the king to do so. If so there's no way he wouldn't have seen through that disguise from the time he started training to the time he became fleet captain. So maybe for some reason Odin believes in "the dark sword" as a philosophy. He certainly looks like a dark knight, and has a dark-knight-ish ability.

I think it would be a cool poetic reversal if in the prequel, Odin started as a paladin and then for whatever reasons/pressures/events that happened, he became a dark knight!

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