Topic: FF2/4/4A Monster Resistances

[Dragonsbrethren]

In FF2us 1.1 it has it's absorb and lightning properties back...must've been a mistake when they took them away. I just updated my previous posts to clarify that I was referring to 1.0.

[Deathlike2]

Pictures time! Will edit as I upload pics on dialup.

FF4ET:





FF2 v1.0





FF2 v1.1





FF4





Done uploading. As you can see, the drain damage is consistant on all SNES versions.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Just for fun, the correct name for that monster in Easy Type is Lady Peach/Peach Lady. All three of those ghosts are named after fruit for some reason, Weeper/Leshy is Lady Plum and Screamer is Lady Cherry. Is there some reference I'm missing or were the developers just hungry for fruit the day they came up with those?

Edit: Just saw your edit. So the damage is the same in 1.0 and 1.1? Back to it not making any sense then, I thought we had figured it out.

[Deathlike2]

Someone was bored, that's for sure. The pics explain themselves... almost anyways.

[Deathlike2]

Well, FF2 US v1.0 was buggy enough to have a revision... 

In any case, it almost makes sense to me... but that doesn't imply protection against Weak though... 

I'd swear you need some sort kind of  "shrugs" icon...

[Pinkpuff]

It looks like the only version in which she is weak to drain is FF4ET. Maybe that's the one with the bug and the rest are correct.

[Deathlike2]

It looks like the only version in which she is weak to drain is FF4ET. Maybe that's the one with the bug and the rest are correct.

What???

The monster is strong against Drain across the board. She's taking 1/2 damage because of it.

[Dragonsbrethren]

If you haven't figured this out yet, spirits have a built-in resistance to drain, I tested on my last playthrough.

[Deathlike2]

If you haven't figured this out yet, spirits have a built-in resistance to drain, I tested on my last playthrough.

That's not entirely correct. The Weeper monster (from the Antlion's Cave) is not resistant to the Drain/Blood weaponry. Only the absorb attribute is at play.

There's also the Ghost Knight from the Tower of Babil (upper section via Cave Eblana). It isn't resistant to the Drain/Blood weaponry.

[Dragonsbrethren]

There's also the Ghost Knight from the Tower of Babil (upper section via Cave Eblana). It isn't resistant to the Drain/Blood weaponry.

Yes it is, that's what I tested on. I was playing the PSX version if it makes any difference.

[Deathlike2]

There's also the Ghost Knight from the Tower of Babil (upper section via Cave Eblana). It isn't resistant to the Drain/Blood weaponry.

Yes it is, that's what I tested on. I was playing the PSX version if it makes any difference.

AFAIK, it has been said that subtle changes were made. My spirit info is consistant with all the SNES versions and the GBA version.

[Phoenix]

FF2us 1.0 doesn't have absorb set, so if it behaves the same way in that then the flag can't be the cause, as much sense as it makes.

FF2us 1.0 does have the absorb flag set. I just stepped through all the differences between the 1.0 and 1.1, and all but four changes are in the 18000-20000 range. I'm not sure why your version didn't have the Grudger absorbing lightning.

If you haven't figured this out yet, spirits have a built-in resistance to drain, I tested on my last playthrough.

That's not entirely correct. The Weeper monster (from the Antlion's Cave) is not resistant to the Drain/Blood weaponry. Only the absorb attribute is at play.

In relation to the discussion on whether or not spirits have resistance to Drain: I tested it, and for FF2us at least spirits are not resistant to Drain-elemental. I'm pretty sure this is the same for all versions. In reference to the Grudger: it isn't actually a spirit-type monster at all. It has no type (verified within the hex data).

Deathlike2 was right about the real reason the Grudger resists Drain-elemental weapons: it's because it has the drain/absorb flag set on their elemental defenses. The absorb flag only works for elementals lower than itself (fire/ice/lightning/dark/holy/spears&arrows). So the game is reading that flag as a "drain-resistant" defense. Two other spirit-type monsters (Spirit and Soul) have this flag set as well, which makes it seem like spirits are resistant. However, the Weeper is a spirit-type monster but has no absorption, which is why it isn't resistant to Drain-elemental weapons.

Here's some fun facts that I discovered while testing this. There are only five spirit monsters in the entire game: Weeper (16), Spirit (22), Hooligan (27), Soul (2E), and BladeMan (4E). Other enemies that you might think are spirit monsters (Grudger (3E), Screamer (4A), Ghost (54), Breath (80), Mind (83)) are not. The Grudger, Screamer, and Ghost are probably oversites, considering that they match the graphic template for the other spirit monsters. I always thought Breath and Mind were, but I guess that could have been just me. I'm not sure why the Hooligan is included . . . the other matching graphic template (Gargoyle) is a reptile, which seems more appropriate. The Screamer is actually classified as a machine and a giant, which I'm pretty sure is a mistake. Most of the other enemy types, if they had them, seemed to fit.

[Deathlike2]

I'm not sure where you are getting the Dragon part from.. the FF4 editor released on the zyrothgar's website is a bit buggy and totally messes up displaying (and occasionally editing) enemy data.

[Phoenix]

I use a Mac, so I don't use any editors. I only read the hex data. However, for my information on enemy type I was using the Tower of Bab-il document on enemy data. I had checked most of them against the internal values in the ROM, but I didn't for the Weeper's and Mombomb's, which turned out to be errors in the document. So you're right, the Weeper is only a spirit, and Mombomb has no enemy type (and is instead weak to dark). So, that's good, at least there aren't mistakes there. I'll edit my original post to reflect this.

[Deathlike2]

I don't recall any non-obvious stuff in the monster data... a bunch of the Tower of Bab-il docs refer with Undead/Mechs as invulnerable to status changes, but that simply is not the case. It just happens that most undead tends to have resistance to poison/death and most mechs have resistances to everything. Those docs are a nice baseline, but it's always worth rechecking what stuff means if there's an inconsistancy.