Library of the Ancients => Final Fantasy IV Research & Development => Topic started by: Phoenix on February 13, 2008, 05:11:24 PM
Title: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on February 13, 2008, 05:11:24 PM
This is the last battle command I intend to test. Using this uses one Potion, and seems to restore between 10 and 20 HP. It will fail if you use it with just one Potion left, but will still consume the Potion. (Don't know if that's the intended behavior or not, but it seems buggy to me. If it was fixed in FF4A it was probably a bug, otherwise it was might have been intended.)
If you have multiple groups of Potions, it starts with the group highest up on your list. However, it will consume two Potions, one from the highest group and one from the second highest. So if you have two groups of one Potion each, it will not only fail, but consume both Potions. Another reason it seems buggy to me.
Does anyone have anything to add to this? Does the HP recovery ever increase in FF4A? (I've never played it, which is why I don't know anything about it.)
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on February 13, 2008, 05:18:34 PM
If you are using a potion, and split it, that's what it is.
Since the command itself isn't powered by level or any particular stat, the effective power is constant. Worse is that the effect is consistant regardless of the number of targets that it successfully hits.
The command is consistant in both SNES and GBA versions.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on February 13, 2008, 05:52:18 PM
:bah: Useless...it seems like there's so many useless commands in FF4. They all need to be rebalanced, if we can figure out the data for them. I'll be working on it...
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on February 13, 2008, 06:00:26 PM
:bah: Useless...it seems like there's so many useless commands in FF4. They all need to be rebalanced, if we can figure out the data for them. I'll be working on it...
This is one of the rare instances that I would say that those commands being removed for FF2 US wasn't completely a dumb idea. Only Dark Wave needs to be kept.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Pinkpuff on February 13, 2008, 08:35:11 PM
Split would be cool if he could split any item. Split Phoenix Down, Remedy, or X-Potion would certainly have their uses.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Dragonsbrethren on February 14, 2008, 03:25:12 PM
I always liked the Spirit Wave command that FuSuYa had (regen). It just wasn't powerful enough.
I think I was more pissed at the "waste" of a command it was... until the GBA version. He's not stuck on doing essentially next to nothing.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on February 15, 2008, 05:54:04 PM
I think Spirit Wave / Regen was intended to be stronger...or someone really didn't think things through. (80 HP recovery, when you're near the end of the game? I mean, come on.) But, Deathlike2's comment made me think about the GBA version and how it was changed, and I realized I had just found the Battle Command Speed Data (posted in http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=290.0 (http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=290.0)). I thought I might be able to change it, but when I looked at it, Regen was a value of 00, so no help there.
However, I was also playing around with the data that comes right after that (it's from A00A8-A01F6) and it had an effect on commands as well, mostly on speed of execution or length of duration. I blanked out the first two lines and Regen was effected, so I guessed and checked until I narrowed it down to the fourth byte (data: 82 81 00 8A). Changing 8A to 00 makes FuSoYa cast Regen only once, and he's able to act on his next turn. It only seems to work once a battle, though, so the second time it doesn't recover anything, but it still only takes one turn.
So, I might be on to something in changing its behavior! I'll keep working on it and let you know.
Edit: I played around with the values, and it seems like 00-81 don't do anything. 82 restores HP once, 83 twice, and so on. However, sometimes two values in a row restore HP the same number of times. Not sure what's affecting that . . . but at least the behavior of Regen is at least a little bit changeable now.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: HHIPDragonFox on February 16, 2008, 02:38:48 AM
Split would be cool if he could split any item. Split Phoenix Down, Remedy, or X-Potion would certainly have their uses.
20 04 64 02 00 80 = Cure Potion (79934 - headered) ^-Member/Party Selectibility & Casting Time. 00-1F time reference: every 00,20,40,60,80,A0,C0,E0. ^---00= NonSelectable-Single -Start on Only one Ally(Caster?), 20= Selectable Ally/Enemy-Single -Start on Ally, ^---40= NonSelectable-Multiple-Start on Only Ally(All), 60= Selectable Ally/Enemy-Single/Mulitple-Start on Ally, ^---80= NonSelectable-Single -Start on Only One Enemy, A0= Selectable Ally/Enemy-Single -Start on Enemy, ^---C0= NonSelectable-Multiple-Start on Only Enemy, E0= Selectable Ally/Enemy-Single/Multiple-Start on Enemy.
By changing the 20 to 60 you now can do selectable on ally/enemy, start on single ally, can do multiple targets. I believe the Commands work that way too, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on February 21, 2008, 03:34:16 PM
Small Update: This command is not reflectable.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on February 29, 2008, 05:49:14 PM
Ok, here's some actual useful info.
Cure1 has a Spell Power of 8. The Base Spell Power that I could derive is also 8, so therefore the healing done by the potion is 64 to 96.
Medicine does split targeting, but ignores the number of targets... so you divide by 5.
Therefore, the healing done to any target is between 12 and 19 (remember to truncate).
Done with the useless command... for now anyways.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 13, 2008, 06:55:30 PM
Figured out a way to make this command less useless: switch the powers of the Potion with the Hi-Potion or X-Potion, or just make the Potion super-powered. You'd have to change all the item drops/steals for the enemies, as well as the shops and chests and things, but it should make Medicine more powerful. A lot of work for one command, but at least it wouldn't be totally useless.
Keep in mind this is theoretical, I haven't tried it at this point.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 13, 2008, 07:18:47 PM
Figured out a way to make this command less useless: switch the powers of the Potion with the Hi-Potion or X-Potion, or just make the Potion super-powered. You'd have to change all the item drops/steals for the enemies, as well as the shops and chests and things, but it should make Medicine more powerful. A lot of work for one command, but at least it wouldn't be totally useless.
Keep in mind this is theoretical, I haven't tried it at this point.
Well, the command explicitly uses the item data (I doubt it would simply be fixed). If you look over how the command is interpreted (which will most likely reference the Potion), you can probably swap it with your item of choice or manipulate it to use the item menu and check against items that are strictly single ally targeted and go from there.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 13, 2008, 08:00:46 PM
Yeah, that would be the easier way, once I figure out the subroutines.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Entroper on March 14, 2008, 06:44:20 AM
Imagine the horror of not knowing how this command works, and using it repeatedly vs. the Antlion (where Edward is otherwise quite useless), and eventually seeing the command greyed out during the battle at Fabul Castle. You need some healing anyway, so you go to your inventory to use a potion, which you have plenty of... except... you don't, because you've used them all. :wtf: :omg: :bah: :lame:
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 14, 2008, 07:05:43 AM
Hehe...that's why it always pays to read the manual. :wink:
:banonsmash:
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 14, 2008, 09:09:53 AM
Imagine the horror of not knowing how this command works, and using it repeatedly vs. the Antlion (where Edward is otherwise quite useless), and eventually seeing the command greyed out during the battle at Fabul Castle. You need some healing anyway, so you go to your inventory to use a potion, which you have plenty of... except... you don't, because you've used them all. :wtf: :omg: :bah: :lame:
AFAIK, the Medicine command doesn't implode... hehehe.
The command is still selectable, but the game gives you a message instead telling you that you don't have enough potions...
I dunno, it may be useful to someone... even though I hate this command to death.
:lame: :wtf:
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Entroper on March 14, 2008, 09:45:44 AM
Yeah, I guess I got that message instead of the greyed out command. Same horrifying experience. :)
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 21, 2008, 06:48:00 AM
In my journey to fix the multi-Life behavior, I stumbled across Edward's Medicine subroutine. Now that I'm a bit more experienced with reading the ASM data, it was easy to pick out the item number used and figure out how to change it. So, goodbye useless Medicine command! Here's the data you need to change (FF2us ROM with header):
1E4D3 Value of CE (Potion) -> This is the item that the subroutine checks against and subtracts 1 of, if there's enough (FF4j: 1E4EB) 1E51D Value of CE -> This is the item effect to use. Replacing it with CF makes it a split Hi-Potion, D0 a split X-Potion, and so on (FF4j: 1E535) 1E528 Value of CE -> This is the item visual effect to use; it corresponds with the item number (FF4j: 1E540)
So, for consistency with the original game I recommend leaving the first value and changing the second and third to CF, so that it just ups the HP recovery. This makes the command more useful, but not overpowered. Or, just change all of it and go crazy. :happy: Post any tests or interesting finds here.
Also, I already tried Phoenix Downs -- they exhibit the same behavior as all other Life spells, so don't bother. Still working on a fix...
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 21, 2008, 08:02:14 AM
Speak of the devil.. and I referenced this post yesterday. :wtf:
It would be worthwhile to tweak this command.. instead of doing the hard split that it does (always item power * spell multiplier * variation / 5).. it should factor in the number of live targets instead.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 21, 2008, 08:33:53 AM
I think it'd be a bit more difficult to add that check in, but I'll look into it when I have time.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Paladin on March 22, 2008, 11:39:05 AM
That's a cool find Phoenix!
That medicine command just got more useful... :cycle:
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 22, 2008, 11:42:22 AM
Just make sure of one thing.. High Potions better be sold or :banonsmash:
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 22, 2008, 06:45:12 PM
That's why I recommend only changing the second/third values. The first value does the check and subtracts one from that item -- so if you set it to Potion, then it will use one Potion, but have the effects of a Hi-Potion. So it ups the recovery without changing what item is used. That way it's like using a Potion on everyone at the same time.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 22, 2008, 06:54:35 PM
So tired... I kinda missed while reading that. Oh well.. now it's actually remotely useful... a weakish-Tellah Cure3 isn't bad for healing.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Paladin on March 23, 2008, 02:34:21 AM
I just set it up in my current project this afternoon. I did it just as Phoenix had suggested, left Cure1 as the check, but it "really" uses Cure3, and I even changed the animation/GFX to Cure3...so it looks more like Bannon's "Health" command :tongue: :banonsmash:
Works like a champ...does about 350 points ea. in a party of 5. A little overpowered for when Eddie's in the party...but not bad for giving it to Cid (or anyone else) later on... Actually I had considered giving Edward the Pray command since it's so useless, and giving the Medicine command to Rosa (after Zot) based on those numbers...
Works well with Cid after Caignazzio in baron, since Cecil's Cura spell is weak and Tellah has crap stats and no MP...Cid actually turns out to be a healer for the time he's with, especially while his levels are low... and it's not terribly overpowered at that point... When Rosa is back after Zot, you can bump him out to the front row for the short time you have left with him (if you level him up like I do) and let Rosa take her anointed place as healer-in-chief.
The only drawback I see is you just have to decide to waste your money to keep Cid stocked with Cure1...which are cheap. However for added challenge it might actually make sense to set it to consume Cure2 since that's more expensive, and then add it to the shop lists so you can actually buy some in like Kaipo. Either that or bump it back down to Cure2...
Fun to play with in any case. Again, awsome find Phoenix.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 23, 2008, 09:47:09 AM
Wouldn't it be a bit more viable to make a custom potion, rather than using the existing potion? There you can manipulate/control the item's spell multiplier for your own purposes.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 23, 2008, 05:03:56 PM
Quote
Again, awsome find Phoenix.
Thank you. :happy:
Quote
Wouldn't it be a bit more viable to make a custom potion, rather than using the existing potion? There you can manipulate/control the item's spell multiplier for your own purposes.
Yeah, or at least tweak one of the Potions power levels to what you want. For me, the split Cure2/Hi-Potion level works well, although Cure3/X-Potion does work well for the time that Paladin suggests.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Paladin on March 24, 2008, 08:30:02 AM
It was too overpowered with Cure3 in my first dry run-through of the early portion of the game with it.
I have Edward and Rosa with the Pray command to begin with.
Then Cid has Medicine when he joins and Rosa's Pray is swapped with Medicine when she joins in Zot...
The reason I went this route, currently, is rather than the command becoming useless later on in the game, like Pray,...it actually serves a purpose throughout most of the game.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 24, 2008, 08:42:26 AM
This may sound like an odd thought.. but if you had that ability to do that, it would be awesome.
I'm not sure if either sound easy or viable (it probably is viable, but difficult/annoying to do I suspect).
What you would do is either one of the following:
Create a duplicate command that executes almost the same thing... swap them in as appropriate via the event code.
or
Manipulate the command's behavior via event code. After a specific event occurs, you tell the command to use different values to use instead. This would also require quite a bit of tweaking, but it would probably cut down on the space used to trigger the behavior.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Paladin on March 24, 2008, 01:16:45 PM
Those are definately good ideas...
It might be possible to configure the dummied command ($15) or even Pray itself to use the Medicine command's code. Or...it might be possible to duplicate the medicine command's code into some empty space except using a stronger curative item and then map it to either the dummy command or Pray...that way you could work with two versions of the same Medicine command.
Swapping them when a character joins or rejoins is easy since each character instance has a hard coded command set. However swapping the commands based on an event is beyond my skill set at current. I'm not fluent enough with the ASM code to know what I'm doing there to create that kind of behavior, and I don't see any stock event codes in the event srcript that change (adds/removes) battle commands.
I think the trouble would be exactly that, each character's command set is based on the hard values in the ROM (they're not saved in the save file (or if they are they aren't used), when you load a save it appears that the game looks up each character's battle commands based on the character's instance and the hard data). Essentially you'd need to change those values in the ROM during execution (I don't think that's possible), or make the game somehow save the data and recall it from the battery file, using only the ROM data as "start up" data.
Even the game itself "forces" Tellah to somehow auto-rejoin the party on Mt. Ordeals to do away with his recall command. There's actually a third instance of his character. The first two have the Recall command the third doesn't...
Unless I'm totally wrong on this (which I'll admit is possible)...but it seems like a pretty expert hack if it can be done. It would be killer sweet to do though.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Lenophis on March 24, 2008, 01:56:51 PM
I gotta say, nice job on that patch. :happy:
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 24, 2008, 02:25:53 PM
Even the game itself "forces" Tellah to somehow auto-rejoin the party on Mt. Ordeals to do away with his recall command. There's actually a third instance of his character. The first two have the Recall command the third doesn't...
It seems to me that if you are able to decypher that behavior, you should be able to allow "a version" of an existing character to rejoin via some script/event data handling.
Refer to this thread - http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=444.0
I think what Pinkpuff described in that thread is a "join" command that uses the "original state" of the character. My contention is that data is stored away in SRAM, which is updated with all the characters data, even if they leave the group permanently. It simply requires that data to be accessed via some event script of some sort that the game is anticipating or expected. It would have to access the character, and create a "newer" instance of an existing character, which would explain Kain's new equipment when he comes back and/or Tellah's command removal, but keeping his existing armor.
I hope that's an explaination worth diving into by others...
Mind you, this may bleed into :offtopic:
I didn't think this thread would be this long (and I hate this command).
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Pinkpuff on March 24, 2008, 02:47:02 PM
Quote
I think what Pinkpuff described in that thread is a "join" command that uses the "original state" of the character. My contention is that data is stored away in SRAM, which is updated with all the characters data, even if they leave the group permanently. It simply requires that data to be accessed via some event script of some sort that the game is anticipating or expected. It would have to access the character, and create a "newer" instance of an existing character, which would explain Kain's new equipment when he comes back and/or Tellah's command removal, but keeping his existing armor.
The Tower of Bab-Il documents describe something called a "shadow party" in RAM:
Known RAM locations outside of battle ===================================== 1000-113F Party data. Data for each member is 40 bytes long. 1140-127F Shadow party data. Data for each member is 40 bytes long.
I'm pretty sure the "shadow party" refers to the data for characters who left your party but will be returning. Notice that there is the same amount of space set aside for the shadow party as there is for the actual party; enough for five members. This would be consistent with the hypothesis that the game only stores the data for those that will be returning (Kain, Rosa, Tellah, Rydia, Yang) and discards the rest.
This means that if you want a character to rejoin without returning to their starting stats, that character must be one of those five.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 24, 2008, 03:17:33 PM
I think you can find creative ways of making that data happen... give me a moment to map it all out.
Edit: Here's the order in which the characters are removed, and readded (but it doesn't included initial introduction).
If we're clever and figure out how to modify the shadow RAM, we could simply try to fit in 4 characters out of 5 in FF4A to swap in/out of the party. What would be required though is to not include FuSoYa and create a new copy of him for the Zemus battle.
That would be how it could be done. Edward is probably the best candidate to "kill off" since he's part of the cap casualty. If you can manipulate the latter 4, you can certainly keep them around IMO.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 24, 2008, 08:03:12 PM
Quote
Create a duplicate command that executes almost the same thing... swap them in as appropriate via the event code.
This wouldn't be a difficult change, and I'm planning on doing it in my hack. You can simply copy the ASM code for a command, then tweak it and reassign it to one of the useless commands. I'm going to get rid of Peep and probably Cry, and make them into something useful, as well as write a new command for the dummied one.
Quote
Manipulate the command's behavior via event code. After a specific event occurs, you tell the command to use different values to use instead.
This would be more difficult, but I don't think impossible. We know other things work like this (the magnetic battles in the Magnus Cave, or the map loader which switches the hole to the underground), but I don't know at all how you'd get the game to check for this when it loaded characters. So, I'd stick with the first change if you're going to try anything.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 25, 2008, 03:13:42 AM
Quote
Even the game itself "forces" Tellah to somehow auto-rejoin the party on Mt. Ordeals to do away with his recall command. There's actually a third instance of his character. The first two have the Recall command the third doesn't...
This seems to be the easiest way to do it. Every time a character joins, there's a set of five battle commands for them, so you can just add the modified battle command that you'd need. This would require tweaking the commands like I said in my last post, but it seems the most doable by far.
Using the shadow party data to switch party members in and out is something I've considered trying to implement, but I haven't thought much about it because it's far off for me. The problem with this is any event dialog would need to have certain party members in to seem natural -- there's no "if...then" statements in events, so the same people always speak and move in the same ways. For example, you'd end up with Rosa saying something during an event, but if she's not in your party, it seems a bit crazy. So the switching option would either have to be at the very end (after all the events are finished) or you'd have to change the events so only the main character (e.g. Cecil) was speaking during events, which is kind of boring.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 27, 2008, 07:51:45 AM
I'm not even sure why this command gets attention, when Pray could be beefed up to use Cure2/Cure3 instead (the Cure3 version to have an increased hit/success rate and used later). Replace Sing with this and Edward sucks less (his Will Power sucks early game to be viable, but can be maxed out late game).
Also, if you still plan on wanting Edward, why not evict Tellah from this Shadow RAM? It's not like him gaining levels dramatically improves him at any point of the game... so creating a new instance of the character might not be so bad.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Dragonsbrethren on March 27, 2008, 11:45:25 AM
So the switching option would either have to be at the very end (after all the events are finished) or you'd have to change the events so only the main character (e.g. Cecil) was speaking during events, which is kind of boring.
I abandoned the concept (Actually prior to FF4a doing the same thing I planned) for that very reason.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on March 29, 2008, 05:47:06 AM
Quote
I'm not even sure why this command gets attention, when Pray could be beefed up to use Cure2/Cure3 instead (the Cure3 version to have an increased hit/success rate and used later). Replace Sing with this and Edward sucks less (his Will Power sucks early game to be viable, but can be maxed out late game).
I've given this command consideration because I'm changing all the characters in my hack, and wanted to get rid of all the useless commands. Also, I've looked at the Pray subroutine, and will post my findings as soon as I have time.
Quote
I abandoned the concept (Actually prior to FF4a doing the same thing I planned) for that very reason.
I'm still considering doing it at the end of my hack, we'll see if I can get it implemented.
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Deathlike2 on March 29, 2008, 12:53:50 PM
I'm not even sure why this command gets attention, when Pray could be beefed up to use Cure2/Cure3 instead (the Cure3 version to have an increased hit/success rate and used later). Replace Sing with this and Edward sucks less (his Will Power sucks early game to be viable, but can be maxed out late game).
I've given this command consideration because I'm changing all the characters in my hack, and wanted to get rid of all the useless commands. Also, I've looked at the Pray subroutine, and will post my findings as soon as I have time.
I didn't say the Medicine command couldn't be improved.. but I've never thought it that useful since it doesn't scale (unless you didn't want it to scale). At least it is an improvement over the near-useless original...
Title: Re: "Heal/Medicine" Command
Post by: Phoenix on April 05, 2008, 10:51:09 AM
Regarding the shadow party data:
Pinkpuff is right, it holds the characters who have left the party but will be rejoining. I've created a thread to compile information on this data here: