Topics

31

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / All Event Offset For Acquired Spells

« on: October 01, 2010, 05:46:06 PM »

I'm struggling a bit to finish my hack and part of the problem is that I keep forgetting where the offsets are for the events to add spells into the list.

It would be greatly appreciated if someone can put an entire list down:

A quick list:

Rydia - Fire1 @ Mt. Hobs
Tellah - Various Magic @ Mt. Ordeals
Rosa - Exit @ Tower of Zot
Rydia - Various Magic @ Dwarf Castle
Edge - Flood and Blitz @ Rubicante/Upper Tower of Babil
Rydia - Asura
Rydia - Leviathan
Rydia - Odin
Rydia - Sylph (both instances need to be accounted for[?], the Spoon and non-Spoon versions)
Rydia - Bahamut

If there is any of them I have missed, please add it in.

32

Game Modification Station / Adding FF4 Ninja and Summon Magic

« on: October 01, 2010, 05:29:26 PM »

Before I start, I don't plan to use Phoenix's hack that allows adding spells based on the leading spell character.

Based on JCE's hack of FF4, does Ninja Magic allow for adding Black Magic naturally? Additionally, does the game allow "learning" the key basic Ninja spells via levels? (Flame, Flood, and Blitz)

There's no way to add in new summon spells through the spell learning list, correct?

33

Gaming Discussion / Understanding Osmose

« on: September 02, 2010, 12:22:03 PM »

I'm not sure if it had been mentioned anywhere (or if I've even inquired about it before).

It's very obvious what it does, and how powerful it is.

However, it is very curious as to how it operates with Gogo when he Mimics a character casting that spell.

IIRC, if Gogo does not have a magic or equivalent command, Osmose occasionally does not recover his MP (assuming there is MP to recover from the target and Gogo) when mimicing that spell from another character.

Someone care to explain this away?

34

General Discussion / PSU Xploded!

« on: August 04, 2010, 12:14:45 AM »

I was trying to put in a different CD/DVD drive into a working comp.. and when I plugged it with a different power connection after switching out the drives... it exploded.

The system is nothing worth speaking about (it's a P2), but I was wondering what could be had for around $50 and cover 300-400 Watts of power with one of the 80 Plus certified stuff... and it has to be a reasonable brand name I guess.

This PSU will be used for an alternative backup if one of the main comps have their PSU explode...

Optional: More power and/or detachability/modular and/or something better than plan old 80 Plus...

35

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Anyone seen this bug?

« on: March 30, 2010, 08:58:01 AM »

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=929937&topic=54120573

I don't think I've ever seen it in FF4A, but most certainly in all of the SNES versions.

36

Gaming Discussion / Crystal Armor vs White Robe

« on: January 20, 2010, 06:23:42 PM »

Hopefully this brings me back to modding the game, but I doubt it... but it's worth a discussion.

I did try this once before, and I forget if it worked out (I did this on the real console), but I never looked into it deeply.

Here's some baseline stats for your reference:

Crystal Armor/Crystal Mail
--------------------------
Defense Power: 25
Evade Rate: 0
Magic Defense: 10
Magic Evasion: 6
Stat Modifiers: +3 Will
Elemental: n/a
Status Immunity: Toad, Mini, Piggy, Silence/Mute, Blind/Silence, Berserk
Resistant Against: Undead
Metallic: No
Equipped By: Paladin Cecil
Value: 10
Notes: This is found in a treasure chest filled with monsters in the Lunar
Subterrane.

White Robe
----------
Defense Power: 18
Evade Rate: 10
Magic Defense: 10
Magic Evasion: 6
Stat Modifiers: +15 Will
Elemental: n/a
Status Immunity: Blind/Darkness
Resistant Against: Spirits/Ghouls, Undead
Metallic: No
Equipped By: Young Rydia, Tellah, Rosa, Porom, Paladin Cecil, FuSoYa
Value: 10
Notes: This is not really a great upgrade for Rosa, particularly when it comes
to Magic Evasion.

I have long argued that the Minerva/Heroine Robe was better for Rosa than the White Robe.

I've long held the belief that evasion in this game is far more important than raw defense (not that having both is a bad thing), so when it comes to heavy armor like the Diamond Armor (defense) vs the Sorcerer/Light Robe (evasion, magic defense, magic evasion, stats), it's not as bad as one would think.

I believe Cecil is best served with this armor... not only will he have the ability to do better healing early on, he will be more effective at evading AND the most important aspect is that he is not immune to Berserk status. The other resistances can easily be covered with a Ribbon anyhow.

37

General Discussion / I Hate Flash

« on: January 01, 2010, 12:59:52 PM »

I spent a lot of time cleaning up crap on my hard drive, but older copies of Flash was a bitch to get rid of.
I'm talking about previously installed versions, not the installers.

The Flash uninstaller is the most useless POS when it comes to finding older versions. If anything, I would allow Flash uninstallers to search all hard drives for all old copies of itself for removal, but no, it's retarded.

So, I ended up finding Unlocker to do the dirty deed. Luckily I didn't need something like Process Explorer to unload the damn crap...

For the plugin that makes browsers implode and have shitty ass interfaces on many different websites (and ads especially), they are lucky that hulu doesn't suck and that they are FINALLY getting some sort of hardware acceleration that is sorely needed from their slow ass software.

38

Game Modification Station / FF4 Battle Scripting Tips

« on: December 17, 2009, 06:00:15 PM »

I'm not sure how this will apply to FF4A (noone has decoded that stuff yet, so I can't comment on the feasibility there), but this should help people try to work against an archaic system.

Despite being relatively archaic, the battle script system can be modded to react to a number of commands (like Steal/Sneak). This is very similar to FF6 where this is a common occurrence. You would have to specifically modify the list of counter/reaction list for this to work.

Another feature is that you can have enemies run special scripts due to the current status. FF4A definitely takes advantage of this (I'm not sure FF6 or FF5 does them in their scripts). So if a monster has Mute/Silence status, it could use an attack that ignores said status... like making a TinyMage to use the MomBomb's Explode spell while under Mute.

One of the unfortunate limitations of the system is that you can only have one attack per counter. It is impossible for example to execute the double hit as a counter. There are a few ways to work around this...

Cagnazzo's battle script involved modifying a variable that starts to trigger a different battle script sequence... now this can lend to a host of things...
1) The appearance of a specific enemy can trigger a different battle sequence altogether. This is "different" from having solo enemy or single group formations... For instance, I've written it so that the presence of the IceBeast would change the battle script run by a Chimera. In fact, if you wanted to, you could run a fixed-mix of counters that a monster can run.

If you have spent any time with the Soldier-Officer battle script (the save Rydia boss battle), the "Provoke" spell as I call it can allow you to do really cool things. In the battle, it is used to tell the Soldiers to attack. The Soldier's counter script "responds" to the Provoke spell, thus making them attack. I've played around with this extensively, to the point where a monster in a particular formation (specifically its current group) would run a specific counter attack. For example, if a monster is in group 1, it would Fight, but if the same monster is in group 2, it would cast some spell of sorts. This will require some tweaking of the counter code (it is easily moddable as said before) and it would increase the # of attacks possible by a monster group, w/o having to tweak around with the monster's speed/agility.

I may have forgotten a few things, but these are worth looking into in trying to expand a system which is ultimately very predictable, but you can get very creative in a very predictable system.

39

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Why Zeromus's Bio/Virus Always Works

« on: October 30, 2009, 03:37:22 PM »

This didn't dawn on me until I experimented with damage+status attacks further.

It seems that if a spell has a status attached to it AND targets every character, it will ALWAYS have a spell multiplier of at least 1 AFTER even after the spell multiplier reduction due to the magic defense multiplier.

It's related to why Dr. Lugae is always able to distribute Poison to all targets (excluding the fact that Poison resistance is not working properly in the SNES versions).

As an aside, you can apply other statuses just fine with this property, particularly Piggy, Toad, and Mini, to continue to set those statuses on the targets, instead of the normal reversion process that usually occurs.

 
Added new stuff clarifying about how the spell multiplier is involved.

Note:  It's different in FF4A Euro/Jap 1.1 version where poison resistance prevent spells like Poison or the Dr. Lugeie's Poison Gas attack to fail altogether.

40

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / FF2/4/ET Bug: Reset and Start New Game Doesn't "Forget"

« on: October 10, 2009, 06:29:51 PM »

I had forgotten this bug for a while, but it's worth noting.

If you've  selected a game, then proceed to reset the game, and then start a new game, not all of the data in reset/cleared out for the new game.

I'm not sure if this is entirely connected to Gamefaqs users having trouble in the failure to execute the Golbez event where he burns the bridge at the Tower of Babil.

It is most notable if your loaded save file has a person with the Adamant Armor equipped... it will become visibly obvious with Kain and/or Cecil.
When you play a new game, fight the Mist Dragon and make it use its ColdMist (ice elemental) counter when it is in Mist form.
You will see that the person that had equipped the Adamant Armor in the save file would take a lot more damage than normal.

It would be worth checking out how a game that has gotten though the Lunar Subterrane would be different than a normal game (seeing if any event bits have not be reset).

I assume that this bug would also occur when the whole group dies instead of resetting the game. I don't think the New Game function makes sure all the proper bits are reset.

41

General Discussion / Minnesota: Metrodome and Where is Leno?

« on: October 06, 2009, 12:18:42 AM »

I'm sure the real final game of the Twins season (game 163) will be awesome, but that and the Vikings win (ugh) has been pretty exciting stuff in Minnesota.

However, where art thou Leno?

42

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Screwing With The Golbez-Rydia Battle

« on: September 12, 2009, 10:45:09 AM »

Inspired by some moron's stupid insistence on Gamefaqs...

If you take advantage of the Mysidia Dancer to inflict Piggy on you, you could use that in the Golbez-Rydia battle, where Hold Gas/Cursed Aura does not work on you, thereby allowing you the chance to revive characters before Rydia shows up.

The only thing I'm not aware of is any possible healing before the battle....

43

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Mist Dragon's Image...

« on: September 09, 2009, 10:40:12 PM »

So, I've said before about how Image is applied to the dead.. although that's useless technically, but it is a visual bug.

In my new finding, it is applied to Kain while jumping and Edward while hiding...

Some pics:


Image (1) is still applied:

44

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Sylph Heals A Hiding Edward

« on: September 09, 2009, 10:03:14 PM »

This affects FF4A, but probably also FF4 (although it would not normally be possible).

It's a very simple test. Sylph as we know heals everyone based on the damage dealt and the # of targets on the field.

Normally, healing in general excludes those that are hidden (Edward) and those that are jumping (Kain), not just the dead.

Apparently Edward is able to be healed while hidden...

Some pics:


See Edward was healed?!?!


 

Killed the stupid "Share this Image on Twitter!!!!111" garbage ImageShack now loves to attach to your images now. Thankfully, they're currently doing it by just adding another image tag to the bbcode; they're not actually appending that crap to your images (yet, I'm sure that's next). -DKK

45

General Discussion & Support / Mystic Quest general discussion

« on: August 14, 2009, 05:32:28 PM »

I haven't tested your hack, and I'll get around to it at some point, but there's some worthy things of note that I recall when using your editor.

1) HP scales with damage dealing - I don't know why, but it does.

2) Last digits of the HP changes the counter the enemy makes, I think - This allows you to add counters to monsters that didn't have them in the first place.

Things worth investigating:

1) Why is wind+water weaknesses/resistance tied to Thunder? It is not actively represented in game, but it is implied though usage and the enemies.

2) Make enemy HP tied to level. That would require a dramatic rewrite of the monster HP system, but it would create the ultimate hardtype.

3) Find out why the last version of Phoebe casts Aero on random enemies (not weak against Aero) while on Auto.

4) The only really random damage component in the game is how Drain affects Phoebe's special shield (the damage she absorbs)... why is this the case?