Messages

1411

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Initial Spell List

« on: January 24, 2009, 07:21:40 AM »

Ok, I have some idea how this works, but I need a better idea on the exact format...

Additionally, is the initial spell list initialized at the very beginning of the game?

1412

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: January 23, 2009, 04:06:56 PM »

I like the better and improved Officer-Soldier script.

Some item naming was redone.. tweaked the spell power of a small number of related spells.. but I'm very proud of the new boss code the most.

Eagles and Floateyes also have a different and much more meaningful counter.

 

I will get around to revamping Rydia's fight sequence... but all enemies around Kaipo have been tweaked.

1413

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Unused Attack Sequence Data (grouped or ungrouped)

« on: January 23, 2009, 10:28:12 AM »

It doesn't look to me that Group Attack Sequences 0x05 is not used... hmmm

1414

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: January 23, 2009, 09:16:16 AM »

:edit:2
WHY MUST EVERYTHING COUNTER-ATTACK?

It's hard to spice something up that didn't do anything special in the first place.

this is true.  the imps' new ability makes for some interesting battles very early on. 

I will see what I can do to add some nicer counters than a straight out Fight... and these will be significantly more... threatening.

1415

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Unused Attack Sequence Data (grouped or ungrouped)

« on: January 23, 2009, 08:17:17 AM »

I'm not sure if I will be able to update this as often as I'd like, but I found this to be amusing..

Attacks using Fatal are few and few in between...

Attack Sequence Data that uses this..

0x0A - pick any random target or character (?!) and use Fatal (sounds like an early version of Roulette)
0x0E - pick any random enemy and use Fatal (used for the Floateye+Red Eye monsters)
0x1E - just cast Fatal (on any character, used for the Tinymage's Charm script)
0x6C - used in a spell sequence that follows Fire2, Psych, and Drain (not used in anything at all I believe)

0x0E and 0x1E is used, but the rest doesn't seem to be used at all... actively anyways..

Grouped Attack Sequence Data matching up with (excludes all known used scripts)
0x0A -> 0x3E, that would be interesting to use... a random death attack.. (although, it's seems to be the "do nothing" for the Lunar Subterrane battles)
0x0E -> 0x79, I don't think that's used for anything... and it's written wrong as far as I can tell (on second checking, this is used for the Blue Dragon, another Lunar Subterrane monster)


Also, it seems that Leviathan's attack sequence has something that never gets executed.. hmm

1416

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: January 22, 2009, 08:32:09 PM »

:edit:2
WHY MUST EVERYTHING COUNTER-ATTACK?

It's hard to spice something up that didn't do anything special in the first place.

[spoiler]cecil really isn't doing much of anything during battle, anymore...[/spoiler]

He's still useful, the issue is only compounded by the fact that Kain does look better initially, but that solves itself quickly anyways.

1417

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: January 22, 2009, 05:43:40 PM »

Ok, this will always be a beta until I've gotten every part done..

v0.10 - initial version
Reworked all monsters up to and including the Mist Dragon (but before the area about Mist-Kaipo).

Mist Dragon is revamped.. enough to make you wish you brought a few more potions.

If there are any issues, bugs, balancing, or otherwise... please let me know.

Oh yes.. this is to be patched against FF2US v1.1 with a header.

1418

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

« on: January 21, 2009, 11:14:01 PM »

Let me see if I can help clear it up. I renamed that little section at the top "Conditions Encoded Data", because it's the actual data that determines the conditions.

The Attack Sequence Groups are in two byte sets, like you said; for example, "If charmed, do such-and-such." The "if charmed" part is condition 01 -- that actual data that determines that is in the Conditions Encoded Data section.

The conditions are encoded in four bytes. Condition 00 is just FF FF FF FF (i.e. "nothing"). Condition 01 (the "if charmed" one) is 00 17 01 08. According to the guide I patched together, that means, "If 17's status byte 01 is status 08...". Since the character/enemy 17 is above 16, the value is 17 -1 = 16. 16 corresponds to "self", as seen in the Enemy Attack Sequences document. Status byte 01 is:

Code: [Select]

Byte Bit Text Notes
---- --- ---- -----
01: 7   Curse
6   Float
5   Paralyze
4   Sleep
3   Charm
2   Berserk
1   Petrify 2/3 petrified
0   D 1/3 petrified

Status 08 of this byte, when done in binary (08 = 00001000) corresponds to Charm. So, the translation is, "If self is charmed..." If you changed that 08 to 10 (in binary: 00010000), then the status would correspond to Sleep, and the condition would be, "If self is sleeping..."

Does all that make sense? Is that what you were asking?

Yes. I'm not entirely able to make head or tails of a number of these, but it would be of great help if the conditions and the internal settings follow each other in the docs, so I can visualize something more creative for them. It's much easier to decypher with examples.. although I don't think I'll use this information in the immediate future...

Although, I wonder if scripts that test sleep/paralysis status will follow its script.. because that opens a huge can of worms... addtionally that would explain a number of the phenomenom on the GBA port (in other words, the original code was already set up for FF4A's Zeromus EG specialized status scripts).

1419

Game Modification Station / New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: January 21, 2009, 12:42:09 PM »

The title of the hack is to be determined, but frankly that's not important to me... some preliminary hack titles that I came up with are the following:
It's Palom's Fault
One Twin Too Many
Clone Wars (yea yea, it's a spoof of Star Wars)

There are some goals in this hack... I'm serious.

1) Exploit the battle engine features - Despite having a more modern GBA port (which has its own sets of disasterous bugs), the game has a lot of potential to exploit different aspects such as elemental attacks and whatnot. By exploiting more of what is known now, you could say this game could be more advanced than its SNES counterparts (well, maybe).

2) Redo unused stuff - I believe JCE's FF3US hack had the right idea. Revamping a number of equipment and spells that are underused will get the treatment it deserves.

3) Fun - I shouldn't have to explain this.

Some things to expect.. despite the changes:

1) No new treasure/map/dungeons - I'm not putting any effort into that. In fact, I'm not wasting any time on it. All the good stuff will be found through grinding and stealing.

2) Better random encounters - No, I'm not going to reduce/change the monster encounter rates. There will be a number of different monsters, but those happen to be "clones". These guys will always drop something much more useful than what you can buy in the stores. However, these battles will be harder than normal encounters and you do have the option to be a great big chicken and run away. Most of the monsters will remain the same, but their battle scripts will be revamped to something a bit more complex than "just fight". Monsters in general will have a more useful drop list. Besides, bosses will be obviously harder.

3) Wall/Reflect is learned at level 99. Since I'm fully aware that Reflect breaks counter scripts in this game, that is the first to go. Subsequently, there will be spell list changes. There will be no access to the items that cast Reflect/Wall (I may consider changing those items altogether).

4) Text/graphics changes are not a priority. I would love help in that area, but regardless of where the effort will go into making this a more fun game, the focus of this game is the gameplay.. not the text. I will give credit as appropriate, and anyone interested is welcome to make those changes in a separate patch.. but I have absolutely zero interest in modifying that myself. Discussions on what random/intended scripts are welcome... it would amuse me if anything.. but of relative importance are the in-battle messages that will certainly need testing (it has to be written with the battle scripts, so it does matter to an extent).

Story Background: Somewhere in some old library in Mysidia, Palom goofs off as usual and finds some magically sealed book that he's not supposed to open. Well, he manages to open the book anyways, and now Zeromus has the ability to make clones of every character that joins you in the game. Now, Cecil's additional challenge is to keep the peace and kick their asses in addition to whatever he has to do.

Important note: This is not a "hardtype" hack IMO. After writing a document about the game, I personally don't think it would be hard if people used their brains. Above all else, I do not give a damn to idiots who think the original game is hard. For those that understand the game mechanics well enough, this hack will not need massive grinding.. it requires a brain and its ability to "connect the dots". Of course grinding will make things easier, but on the other hand.. I have some creative ideas to make boss battles more interesting and make grinding less important.

Other random things I haven't considered or thought about, please let me know. I will allow beta testing by anyone for feedback (primarily bugs), but a release will only occur as I reach Zeromus... if I get that far into this. I suspect this will take a year, give or take sanity time. However, that's not an ETA or a completion % that is definitive. Asking me when the damned thing is done is not tolerated.

1420

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Attack Sequence Duplication

« on: January 20, 2009, 10:39:36 PM »

I guess this is worth mentioning but I'm doing this step for myself since I plan on doing major tinkering with the battle script sets.. the issue is finding the space and looking over the battle scripts, there is a ton of duplication being done and I'm really thinking about reclaiming some of it via documentation, so I can do more.

So.. I'll be updating this post as I'm trying to dissect some of these issues...

Non-Lunar Subterrane/Bahamut Cave scripts:
0x00 = 0x38,  0x7E, 0x7F, 0xE0
0x08 = 0xD2
0x17 = 0x2D
0x6D = 0xA4, 0xF2


Lunar Subterrane/Bahamut Cave scripts:
0x3E = 0x41
0x03 = 0x09, 0x12, 0x1D, 0x53
0x0A = 0x15, 0x2E
0x10 = 0x34
0x29 = 0x4F

1421

Game Modification Station / Re: Crazy FF4 Hack Idea

« on: January 20, 2009, 08:25:01 PM »

The game isn't programmed to finish the Jump if that's executed as a counter... which is pretty hilarious, but then again Jump has its own sets of problems, and will prevent it from being useful (it's really that buggy if I hadn't explored a lot of that in detail).

1422

Game Modification Station / Re: Crazy FF4 Hack Idea

« on: January 20, 2009, 03:10:05 AM »

Here's a simple idea for the hack... I'll end up scrapping this version, but the idea behind it is pretty solid for me.

Look ma, no hands!

1423

Game Modification Station / Re: Crazy FF4 Hack Idea

« on: January 19, 2009, 11:18:37 PM »

Ok.. I'll make a proof of concept hack/test and see how this goes for you guys.

1424

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

« on: January 19, 2009, 11:26:11 AM »

 

This is worth a bump since I'm totally lost.

The attack sequences I get.. they are linked to a condition index (if charmed, execute script bleh) and whatnot.

I don't quite get the enemy condition index.. the list is understandable, but the stuff before that doesn't quite make sense to me.

Enemy Condition Indices (76900-76AFF)

[first byte of attack group sets]


00xxyyzz = if xx's status byte yy is status zz
01xx00yy = if xx's HP is less than [index yy of HP table at 76200]
020000xx = if condition flag is xx
020001xx = if reflex flag is xx
03xx0100 = if character xx is dead
040001xx = if enemy xx is dead
050000xx = if current enemy set is Overworld xx
050001xx = if current enemy set is Underground/Moon xx
06000000 = if only enemy type alive
07xxyyzz = if xx does command yy with element zz (00 = any)
08xxyyzz = ?? duplicated 07?
09000000 = ??
0A000000 = if HP damage
0B000000 = if only enemy alive
   Note: for character/enemy xx, values above 16 are xx-1

I kinda get that, but then again, I really don't. There seems to be something I'm totally missing.

1425

General Discussion / NFL OT Rule Idea

« on: January 18, 2009, 01:16:43 AM »

I'd rather not repeat the obvious reason why it sucks (or trying to weigh in on the "your defense has to make a play argument", but I've thought about this and I believe my idea actually makes the process more fair..

Here's a few options..
1) Run the full 15 minutes of OT. Whoever has the highest score wins. In the regular season, a tie score would be a tie. If there is a tie after the OT time in the postseason... I have an awesome idea... both sides have to run the 2 point conversion play and take turns. Whoever messes this up loses (when both teams have taken their turn). This is based off the hockey "shootout" idea.

The only real negative is how one could mess with the clock and injury related issues.

2) Both teams are able to run 1 (but preferably 2) possesions. In the regular season, a tie score would be a tie. If there is a tie after the possesion(s), then we go to running the 2 point conversion. The fundamental idea is kinda based loosely on college football OT rules, except college football OT rules are actually stupid (except for the 2 point conversion try starting at the 3rd OT). Rather than allow the clock to dictate stuff (except the play clock, which might need to be adjusted), the teams are allowed to play in fairer terms. There will still be a focus for special teams (you can still do the crazy onside kick if you want) and health should be less of an issue.. and the clock can't be manipulated for another team's favor. This process will still allow 4th quarter FG wins or extended clock killing drivers in the 2nd half... so this should help both parties out...