Topic: FFIV bug list?

[Imzogelmo]

Does anyone have a list of bugs for FFIV? I'd like to see a comprehensive listing of known ones, as it would be cool to see and also give me something to work on when FFVI is not on the brain.

[Deathlike2]

Just search the board, and compile a list. I can't remember them all offhand.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I'd say the most critical is the back row bug, actually all bugs relating to the weapon bits. They're never unset, so if you equip a long range weapon that character will always have a long range attack. The only weapon bit that I know is unset properly is metallic.


Some others, these are also annoying but I'd say the weapon bits are the most broken thing in the game:

• Poison resistance doesn't work.
• The immune property gives 99% evasion.
• The item duplication trick.
• The anyone can equip shields trick.
• "Infinite" arrows when a character only has one remaining and only gets one turn per battle.

Minor cosmetic things:

• Some reflected spells use the wrong palettes.
• The dancing dagger spell uses the wrong palette - I already fixed this.
• Both shurikens use the Shuriken's palette when thrown.

A non-bug that could be modified to help hackers:

• Weakness overrules resistance/absorption for physical attacks. This usually benefits the player, Yang can equip a FireClaw and an IceClaw and attack an IceBeast or FlameDog and damage them even though one of the elements would usually heal them. The problem comes when enemies are given physical attacks, which the game supports but never uses normally, a character wearing the Dragoon armor is now weak against both fire and ice when attacked physically because it resists both. Fire resistance in FF4 implies ice weakness, ice resistance fire weakness, holy resistance dark weakness, and dark resistance holy weakness. You can see how this would cause a problem when you give an enemy one of those elements to attack with and you should be able to resist it yet end up weak against it. The DS version has enemies using physical attacks so they fixed it for that and it didn't cause any real problems, only my claw example above won't work anymore.

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I'm sure there are more than this, I just can't remember any off-hand. There are also some very minor ones I didn't list because they don't seem worth fixing at all, like the one I posted the other day about shifting characters around after someone leaves and saving to get an incorrect sprite on the map.

[Deathlike2]

I'd say the most critical is the back row bug, actually all bugs relating to the weapon bits. They're never unset, so if you equip a long range weapon that character will always have a long range attack. The only weapon bit that I know is unset properly is metallic.

There's also the no-critical hit property that doesn't get unset.

The immune property gives 99% evasion.

I don't call it a bug.. given that the Glass Hat/Helmet isn't worth a damn otherwise... though it makes the Adamant Armor insanely more powerful than intended.

Then there's the Immune Property+Elemental Bug where removing equipment with said property will then be weak vs the elementals.

There's the monsters don't react to Reflected spells bug.. where counters are not executed.

Also, there's the Stop+Sleep/Paralysis/Gradual Petrification bug.

Oh, there's the obvious Sylph costs no MP bug.

There are probably a few others I can't think off the top of my head.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I don't call it a bug.. given that the Glass Hat/Helmet isn't worth a damn otherwise... though it makes the Adamant Armor insanely more powerful than intended.

How is it not a bug? If they wanted the mask to give 99% evasion they would have given it 99% evasion the normal way. I seems far more likely to me that it was supposed to function like absorb does on the Cursed ring and make it so you're immune to anything your armor resists.

Also, there's the Stop+Sleep/Paralysis/Gradual Petrification bug.

A fix for this would be nice for FF4, but there's little point in making a FF2us 1.0 fix as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, there's the obvious Sylph costs no MP bug.

Ack, yeah, I meant to put that on my list and forgot to.

[Deathlike2]

I don't call it a bug.. given that the Glass Hat/Helmet isn't worth a damn otherwise... though it makes the Adamant Armor insanely more powerful than intended.

How is it not a bug? If they wanted the mask to give 99% evasion they would have given it 99% evasion the normal way. I seems far more likely to me that it was supposed to function like absorb does on the Cursed ring and make it so you're immune to anything your armor resists.

The Glass Hat would be more useless than it currently is w/o this behavior. I presume the Immune property was supposed to be attached to existing resistances, but that would require some reworking in the first place before I consider any nerf.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I'll concede that it may have been intended to grant physical immunity as well, but it just seems unlikely to me given how easily they could have done that by simply giving it 99% evasion in the first place. Maybe I'm a bit biased because the current way the immune property works makes it absolutely useless for how I'd like to use it in my hack.

Actually, Imzo, if you're looking for some hack-only "fixes," killing the evasion for immune would obviously be very useful but I have another suggestion: Make absorb work as immune does now and only apply to the piece of equipment it's set on. This would break the cursed ring in the normal game but it definitely gives hacks the ability to have more interesting armor. Right now absorb is dangerous to use because of how easily it can make a character absorb every element with the right equipment combinations.

[Deathlike2]

It is worth pointing out that the Immune property on monsters works the same way with your armor (not sure about a Glass Hat+Protect Ring combo, but I believe it won't work like the Adamant Armor anyways). IIRC, monsters don't critical hit to boot.

[Deathlike2]

The item duplication trick.

That's fixed in FF4ET if that wasn't already mentioned.

There's the Life2 trick.. then there's a bug involving the Avenger I think with the item lists.. and IIRC, JCE had a bug with the Big Chocobo..

There's also the monster healing bug with the Magus Sisters, where the targeting includes the dead units.

Oh yes, and there's a nice whole section I've written about the Avenger Sword itself.

[Imzogelmo]

As for fixes, I'd be interested in doing genuine fixes first, and hack/rarely-seen "fixes" second. I'd need to study the ROM and RAM a lot to figure out exactly where these bugs are in code, but anything  game-breakingly easy (or hard) that is buggy would certainly be worth checking.

If someone has a well-written bug guide or something that they could point me to, or would like to turn this thread into such, that would be very helpful indeed.

[Dragonsbrethren]

No such guide exists, this thread will have to do, just let us know what details you need.

[Deathlike2]

If someone has a well-written bug guide or something that they could point me to,

That doesn't exist. If you want certain bugs elaborated upon, I could probably do that.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Imzo, this should help with testing the weapon bits:

http://dragonsbrethren.slickproductions.org/files/ff4/weaponbittest.zip

Patch it to a headered copy of FF2us 1.1 and use the included SRAM to skip the intro. The patch sets all eight bits on the Darkness sword and makes it available in the pot outside Baron's inn. The Shadow sword you start with only has metallic set, which is removed properly.

[I.S.T.]

Question about the weapon bits. I take it that lasts even after saving and turning the game off?

I ask because I'm not entirely certain due to tiredness.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Yeah, once those bits are set on a character they're on for the rest of the game.