Messages

1366

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: February 05, 2009, 06:20:12 PM »

I'm very happy with the changes to the monsters on Mt. Ordeals.. and sebsequently the monsters on Mt. Hobs (lots of readjusting going on).

I'd never thought that this would go so well.

1367

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / FF2/FF4ET - Show Command Makes Missing Command "Show" Up

« on: February 05, 2009, 11:59:36 AM »

I had originally thought it was a bug introduced by JCE's hack (my bad), but it's actually a clear oversight by the guys who made the changes.

After Hide and Show are used, a bank command slot seems to be "selectable" and it causes the character (in this case, Edward) to be "stuck" if that blank command is selected.

This is an issue with the battle menu code when coming out of hiding, where it isn't updated to allow for only 4 commands (or whatever commands that are listed) to be selectable.

FF2US:


FF4ET:


This affects both versions of FF2US and FF4ET.

1368

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Spirits Not Immune to Death Attacks

« on: February 05, 2009, 11:21:23 AM »

Despite having immunity to Death spells, it's not immune to physical attacks that apply Death status.

Undead and Machines are not affected by this.

1369

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Status Priorities... Only For Spells

« on: February 05, 2009, 10:37:56 AM »

From observation and testing on my hack, I've found that status priorities are not applied for physical attacks.

I found that I was able to inflict a monster with Darkness (with my modified Darkness blade), and then later apply Charm status (Charm Harp) to the same monster.

It seems that status afflictions do have a separate working system for this purpose.

1370

General Discussion / Re: The generic "we did something to the forum that broke it" thread

« on: February 05, 2009, 10:32:04 AM »

 

Oh wait, nothing's broken yet. 

1371

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Forced Spell Multitargeting To Characters

« on: February 05, 2009, 10:29:33 AM »

When any spell is forced to be multitargeted and it targets the characters, the damage dealt is always 1/5 the possible damage (in other words, the split damage modifier is always 5).

This explains why the Medicine command behaves the way it does and how enemy magic is dealt to your characters.

If the Medicine command had optional targeting (one target/targeting everyone option) instead of forced targeting, Medicine would heal better.

In the Elementals battle, if Rubicante casts his Fire2/Fire3/Glare attack onto 2 to 4 living targets, it would be the same as having all 5 characters be alive for the attack.
The split damage is always fixed at 5, despite the number of possible targets on the field (except for the solo character). An improvement on this would be to count the characters on the field (minus those that are in Jump or Hide status) and readjust damage accordingly.

 
However, unlike Medicine, when there is only one target, the split damage is reverted back to single targeted damage, just like the rest of the FF SNES series.

1372

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Monster-Character Commands

« on: February 05, 2009, 10:23:17 AM »

I'll eventually compile a full list, but a number of commands do seem to work, and yet not work..

Hopefully, I'll update it with complete info, but here's what I've found out.

Fight - Uses the Deathbringer/Black Sword animation
Dark Wave - obviously works, no HP penalty applied
Jump - works fine, but don't use it for a counter, or for a back attack as the animation is fixed for the normal battle stance
Remember - it seems to work, middle character acts out attack but no visual spell confirmation is used until you see HP/status changes
Sing - game freezes
Medicine - this works with the middle character and the healing heals your characters (which means it targets the enemies by default...), but is factored against magic defense
Build Up - the monster ends up doing nothing and stuck at it...
Kick - works obviously
Twin - monster is stuck... if twins are involved, they go into twin casting mode until a twin is unable to cast the spell (well, the twins are never able to cast the spell in the first place)
Strengthen/Boast - it does work, but the middle character is in the special attack stance instead of the enemy character
Hide - Hide action is acted with the middle character, but then everyone simply dies (I'm serious)
Pray - this works with the middle character and the healing heals your characters (enemies targeted by default) and is factored against magic defense...
Aim - doesn't work.... it had promise too  
Cry - it probably works... but it doesn't ever quite make sense to use this... middle character is used for animation
Endure - it works, but it targets one random character by default...
Cover - it works.. middle character acts but it starts forcing Cecil to cover others that are targeted by this... I think Off would actually do the opposite...
Peep - it works... middle character acts and operates exactly like the spell w/o the graphics
Throw/Dart - it won't allow you to target your characters... but amazing you can redirect it to let the enemy kill itself, with no animation (the damage algo is applied to a non-existance weapon power of 0)
Sneak/Steal - you can't steal from characters, but you can let the enemy target itself to get freakish-self-stealing....
Spirit Wave - doesn't work, monster script is stuck


Note: Only the middle character seems to act out the action, and if there is no character there, no visual confirmation is executed...

1373

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Invincibility

« on: February 05, 2009, 10:13:22 AM »

It's worth discussing why this exists and it's worth trying to correct some issues upon finding this info.

Obviously, there is a spell to add/remove invincibility to the entire monster group... this provides invincibility to all physical, magical, and other attacks

Additionally, it is possible to start a monster group with invincibility to magic, by initially setting their magic defense to 255.

However, initially setting 255 defense to regular monsters doesn't work.. it has to be applied via the defense setting command (think Barbariccia and Cagnazzo).

1374

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: FF2 Battle Script That's Different Than FF4

« on: February 04, 2009, 11:30:36 AM »

Ok, I think I now understand it better, but your doc needs to be improved.

All info assumes a headered ROM.

0x76900 is where the condition data lies.. which is fine. However, it's really just the "building blocks" to the complex conditions. These 2-byte sets make up a condition.

0x76800 is where the complex conditions are built. Multiple conditions can be combined here. FF terminates the complex condition. That is where you build off that condition list which has been documented in detail.

It's actually unfortunate that there isn't a lot of space to add onto existing conditions.. rather, space has to be made. Plenty of space can be had if say some of the lamer conditions get removed (pretty much Rubicant's fire-reviving counter script is a good start).  I should be able to improve on stuff based on this knowledge.

1375

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: February 02, 2009, 06:03:13 PM »

In honor of the Super Bowl total score... this should be a whopper of changes (well, not really, but relatively speaking).

I have managed to make the Battle at Fabul... pretty damn long...

Changes have been made up to that point... there's no need to start all over.

I'm very proud of the changes... and they will very likely freak someone out.. or piss them off. Whatever... 

Some HP fixing was done to the monsters in the Antlion's Cave though...

1376

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: February 01, 2009, 02:27:43 PM »

I should have something after the Super Bowl...

The number of changes starting on Mt. Hobs to the Fabul battle will be a "fun nightmare". You'll know the meaning of heal fast and heal often.

I do have plans to address the lame "Cecil covers everyone" trick... it's not going to work... and it doesn't involve removing the Cover command.

 

I'll have to test the changes myself...

1377

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: January 31, 2009, 02:01:14 PM »

It should be fine.. I am not making any new starting changes (although, I'm still iffy to add the Antidote spell to Cecil, but that's nothing in the grand scheme of things).

1378

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: January 31, 2009, 12:06:47 PM »

I wished I could do better with the monsters in the Antlion Cave, but I think the Antlion is an improvement.

Some tweaks were made to the event battles... the fun is in the surprise.

Obligatory screenshots:

Weak against Darkness... so what?


Attack renaming probably borders on excessive:


Damage adjusting has yet to border on anything insane yet:


Monster adjustments have reached up to getting Rosa... Mt. Hobs is next.

1379

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: "Sing" Command

« on: January 31, 2009, 07:23:02 AM »

I didn't notice this before, but it is worth pointing out.

The actual difference between the SNES and GBA versions of this command is that the SNES version bothers to adhere to Edward's status when determining whether he is able to cast the spell. The GBA version ignores the status of Edward, which allows him to cast whatever spell Sing/Chant may provide even while as a Pig for instance...

1380

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Counter and Needle

« on: January 31, 2009, 07:01:11 AM »

Mega 

Blind does affect both spells. I'm not entirely sure how to derive the hit rate.. but it seems that the hit rate is based on the attacker's hit rate, not the spell's hit rate. This is not normally noticable since all of the monsters that use them have 99% hit rates.

 

Upon further research... it uses the same hit rate bonus formula as the attacker's hit rate (level/4)