Messages

1711

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / FF4A - Lightbringer and others

« on: October 18, 2008, 05:51:22 AM »

I can't seem to find the old thread, but if someone finds it, please merge the threads.

The FF4A specfic weaponry: Lightbringer, Fiery Hammer, and Abel's Lance all have a chance to cast a spell, particularly when the attack command is used. The frequency of the spell casting is unknown (I believe Abel's Lance depends moreso on Kain vs target's level, but I could be wrong).

The spell cast is powered by the respective stats that normally power the magic. The status of the character does not matter as the spell is cast independantly of the attacker's current status. However, Blind is the only impactful status that actually affects the magic damage dealt.

1712

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Jump Command

« on: October 18, 2008, 05:16:59 AM »

I forgot to mention the Ancient Sword (and often forgotten Mute Knife/Mage Masher) in my quick list.

Monsters tend to die from Jump anyways and the weapons that inflict statuses are often not equipped at the points in time to notice such behavior.

 
Almost forgot about the Piggy's Stick...

Here's some reference pics..

Double Jump in action:


Status afflicted:


It's the only damned enemy in the Lunar Ruins that would survive the attack and would get affected by Piggy:


 
Oh yeah, there's also the Assassin Dagger too..

1713

Gaming Discussion / Re: FF4A European Font Replacement Bugs

« on: October 18, 2008, 04:59:13 AM »

A reference pic for the sake of having it:

1714

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Steal/Sneak Command

« on: October 18, 2008, 04:23:36 AM »

Stealing from an enemy that never drops an item is possible. The item generally is a potion because it is the default item/drop list.

The most notable monster obviously is Zeromus, who never drops an item, but you can always steal a Dark Matter (or Elixir in FF2/FF4ET) from it.

This may be a good method of creating a hack with only "steal only" items.

1715

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Jump Command

« on: October 18, 2008, 04:03:02 AM »

Jump/Double Jump doesn't allow the special ability of Abel's Lance to work. It seems to be attached to the Attack command.

1716

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Steal/Sneak Command

« on: October 18, 2008, 03:57:14 AM »

 

I should've integrated some older post about steal...

In the SNES version, if a target always drops an item (100% drop), Edge cannot steal the item and no message appears.

If the GBA version, if a boss target always drops an item (100% drop), Edge cannot steal the item. A message appears here noting failure but doesn't penalize you. The programmer/dev room is where the always drop bit is used for 1 monster, and you can steal that monster's item.

1717

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Power Command

« on: October 18, 2008, 03:28:26 AM »

If Yang is wielding a claw that inflicts a status (and the monster doesn't die from the attack), it can/will be inflicted by the weapon (barring status resistance).

1718

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Jump Command

« on: October 18, 2008, 03:27:09 AM »

 

It is worth pointing out that if the weapon wielded by Kain inflicts a status (Slumber Sword, Poison Axe), Jump/Double Jump will inflict it (assuming the target doesn't die from the attack in the first place and the target's not resistant to the status).

1719

Gaming Discussion / FF4A - Brachioraidos: Not Innovative Enough

« on: October 17, 2008, 10:39:08 PM »

So, I did poke holes at Zeromus EG, and for good reason.. here's the other monster that I simply don't fear.

One of the major series of attacks this monster does is a tricast attack off Reflect status. Ordinarily, this attack on pretty much any character with elemental absorb (and resistance) is pretty much a killer since the monster has an insane magic stat. However, the monster itself is not a threat once you realize that 3 particular characters with elemental absorb are nearly invincible in a solo combat type of match.

1) Cecil - Caesar's Plate, a lesser known aspect of this armor is Holy protection, which seems kinda useless since a small number of enemies use it (Protophase, Wicked Mask, Zeromus and this monster uses it). So, if for any silly reason that Holy from the Lightbringer is reflected back onto Cecil.. a Hero Shield combination makes him virtually invincible.

2) Rydia - Rainbow Robe, a robe that provides all the magic resistance a mage needs is epic.. plus the Dragon's Whisker will make mince meat of of the Brachioraidos. Why use a summon that makes that beast even meaner? Quake's quite handy too.

3) Edward - Vishnu Vest... that might be the only thing that gives Edward a decided edge of many other guys since it has the same resistances the Rainbow Robe has, which is amazing considering of his lack of useful commands (even Chant sucks IMO). Pair him with a working Loki's Lute (Euro version only) or the Apollo's Harp, and you don't even have to abuse the lame "Psycho Edward" bug.

Besides, there are a few other characters that are truly handy, like Kain with his overpowered Abel's Lance which Tornado relies on level to execute frequently. Since the boss is at level 85 naturally, it's easy to harvest those overpowered Hero Shields when you really want them.

1720

Gaming Discussion / FF4A - A Small Look Into Zeromus EG

« on: October 17, 2008, 10:20:52 PM »

Maybe it's just me but the guy was overrated the first time I fought the guy... I don't have the whole battle script memorized by heart, but the bulk of stuff the guy does really really sucks.

Big Bang is the fun-favorite leadoff..
Then you have Whirl aka 100% working monster Tornado.. which is only insta-death to one after being inflicted by HP Leak (Big Bang)
There's a dualcast Toad and Mini.. which is interesting because Toad allows Mini to succeed automatically (unless there is stat resistance involved)
Somewhere is a monster Earthquake, followed by monster Thunder, and monster Flame...
Then there's some dualcast Osmose and dualcast Drain.. which is a joke..

When the monster reaches some HP level.. it was like 12000-16000 HP or something, it does a few different things.. one of the attacks include Big Wave and monster Tornado...

So, it boils down to a few lethal attacks... the rest is a joke. Let's look at a few of these attacks..

It's worth pointing out that the boss has a 12x spell multiplier.

Earthquake, Thunder, and Flame nearly always induce healing for those that have a Hero Shield.. because both Thunder and Flame induce 2x 9999 healing most of the time, so Earthquake tends to be a non-factor, but even if it succeeds, it's not very lethal (especially if the characters have a baseline of 40 magic defense). Flame are resisted, you only take an additional (combined) 1/5 of the target's MaxHP damage... which is not very lethal if you have resistance to both elementals.. and it still doesn't quite hurt enough if you aren't resistant to the elementals (1/4 + 1/5 = 9/20), almost 1/2 of the target's HP.. still not truly lethal enough.

The Big Wave and Tornado attack isn't very threatening either, unless you manage to be a douchebag and heal Zeromus EG up by letting Absorb do more healing than damage.. additionally, Tornado will become a factor in annihilating you then. However, it's not even threatening when the actions are triggered under 20000 HP or so, so the worst case is always 1000 damage plus 1/4 of your max HP. Seriously, did they not really try being creative here?

In sum, Zeromus EG is a joke if you bring the right equipment with the right people to just bitchslap Zeromus. Whoever thought FF4A was designed well needs to be shot.

1721

Gaming Discussion / Re: FF4A European Font Replacement Bugs

« on: October 17, 2008, 09:42:42 PM »

Mega

The only description at the moment that seems poor is the Twin Stars, where the '.' is at the edge of the window.

1722

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: FF2/4/4ET Immune attribute/Adamant Armor Bug

« on: October 16, 2008, 05:22:09 PM »

Mega 

Some relevent info...

Due to how Ice/Fire resistance works on armor, the bug increases the damage output to 4x instead of 2x as if the Weak+ attribute was applied. Lightning will take only 2x damage. Both magical and physical elemental hits are affected.

I suspect if the Immune attribute was applied to Holy and Darkness elementals, they would exhibit the same behavior as well.

1723

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spells Needing More Analysis

« on: October 15, 2008, 07:09:15 PM »

Hmm.. I wasn't actually paying attention to the battle script of the ToadLady/Bog Witch. I thought she multitargeted everyone with Toad, but that isn't the case. A TinyToad under Charm status does that...

However, I came to the conclusion that spells with a "status" multiplier also limit the magic defense multiplier to 1 at the same time. That would explain the effectiveness of a multitargeted Charm spell that is cast by the Zemus Mind. Your magic evasion at that point is above 33% or so, so 2 or 3 characters tend to be under Charm status.. which kinda works out. Those that have no magic defense multiplier won't have theirs increased...

 

Note: Would it still be appropriate to call the bit the "status" multiplier, even though not all spells fall into that catagory? I was kinda thinking to rename it the "solo" multiplier.

1724

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: FF4 Algo - Input Requested

« on: October 15, 2008, 04:26:56 AM »

Here's an update.. I think I need to revise the new section (remove a few entries probably)...

Feedback please.

1725

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Spells Needing More Analysis

« on: October 14, 2008, 04:53:35 PM »

There are a number of spells that need to be looked into further, which seem to behave differently from the norm (making my algo look shaky at times, but they look like the exception, rather than the rule).

The standard behavior for most status inducing spells involve the following:

1) If the spell fails at the hit rate level, it fails altogether... regardless of targeting.

2) There is a status priority to follow..  like you can't inflict Charm status to a target that's already in Toad status.

However, as I did a little digging, there are spells that are the exception.

Toad/Piggy/Mini - FF4A Specific

In FF4, status priorities took precedent.. you couldn't inflict Mini or Piggy status on targets that had Toad status.

In FF4A, this behavior is ignored as you can inflict all 3 statuses in any order you wish.


Toad/Piggy/Mini - any version

I was doing some Toad testing with the ToadLady/Bog Witch. It's peculiar in FF4 that she has a very high magic stat.. good enough to hit 100% of the time.. but it doesn't quite do that. Toad status removes any semblence of magic evasion.. but Toad relies on its hit rate to succeed! So, I figure there's a behavioral difference...

Status spells seem to behave differently by who the caster is... monster or character.

For a character, success primarily runs through the spell hit rate plus associated bonuses via Wisdom or Will Power. It doesn't matter if it is single or multi-targeted.

For a monster, single targeted status spells are generally a non-issue.. it follows the standard magic algo. For multi-targeted status spells.. the formula seems to operate more like this...

Spell Hit Rate = Base Spell Hit Rate + (Spell stat/2)/# of targets  (* Slot 1 bonus, if applicable)

This would explain the ToadLady/Bog Witch better.. including Zemus's Mind.

The ToadLady's success is tested against each target... probably against a magic defense multiplier of 1... (since it has the status multiplier bit set)..

Her success looks like this..

Spell Hit Rate = 50 + (223/2)/5 * 5/4 = 90% hit rate -  the number should be lower... hmmm

For Zemus's Mind (for multitargeted Charm)..

Spell Hit Rate = 65 + (99/2))/5 * 5/4 = 92% hit rate

Of course, this needs to be looked into further... hence the thread title.

Sleep - All Versions

Other than the major difference between the SNES and GBA versions is the level factor for the Slumber Sword... occasionally this spell doesn't hit all the targets... I wonder how that level check is applied... You can occasionally see this spell hit all targets but 1 late game.. whereas early game, the spell doesn't quite hit every target.

Stone/Break - FF4A only

This seems to exhibit the same issue Sleep does in that aspect that it doesn't always hit all the targets, even when the spell succeeds. I doubt there's a level check for this spell in the first place.

I should get around into taking pictures of Sleep and Stone/Break.. but it's rather curious it hasn't been looked into further.

 

Fixed a few descriptions.