Messages

391

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

« on: November 01, 2012, 01:32:42 AM »

Weapon elemental weaknesses from the Flame/Ice Armor sets still work like FF4... so it was "fixed" in FF4A.

I've noticed some odd fidgeting that Kain does when he's the middle character... and it usually happens after he jumps. I don't know what to make of that.

 
There is no monster chest for the Defender.... go figure.

Also, I found it really odd that putting the Bog Witch into Toad status causes her to be "difficult to target" (this is the 6 TinyToad battle version, where she is surrounded by the Toads). This occurs as well in FF4A... but it never happened in the SNES versions.

 
I never quite understood why Asura's "radius" was moved. Magic and physical attacks still look OK, but it's not centered at all, like the original.

392

Gaming Discussion / FF4 - The Failed Evolution of Rows

« on: November 01, 2012, 01:23:31 AM »

Subtitle: History of Squaresoft Port Failures

If anyone has read any of my FF4 specific threads about the "back row bit" which is aka "ignore row bit", then you should know where I'm going with this.

Background:
In the FF series, the row concept has been around for many iterations.
FF1 didn't really have them, but the order of your characters dictated the frequency of damage.
FF2-FF6 has them... I'm kinda unsure of FF7, but that's beyond the scope of this.

The general point of having a character in the back row is to allow them to take approximately half the damage they would normally absorb from the front row.
Usually this tradeoff would reduce the effectiveness of your offense, and relied on generally weaker weapons that tend to ignore row to dish decent damage.
Magic has always ignored rows (I'm sure there may be some exceptions to the rule, like FF6's added weapon magic).
In FF5, bows and whips were primarily geared for this (inherited from FF4 and prior) and FF6 had a small number of weapons in that category (Locke's Throwable Objects and many of Setzer's "Gambler" type weapons fall into that category).

In FF4 (possibly in some older FF, though not the first one), monsters also have rows.
It's specifically structured in that the backmost enemy is in the back row, thus requiring you do "plow" a hole or clear the front row of monsters to dish full damage to the monster in the back.
In the classic 3 Goblin + Swordrat scenario, you would need to clear probably 2 of the Goblins to make your way into the back row.
Otherwise, you will very likely trigger its nasty counterattack (though, using Kain to Jump onto the Swordrat is usually optimal).
*Insert screenshot here*

So, it's pretty logical and simple, assuming you can envision depth of the battlefield.
Fortunately, having the monster in the back row also reduces the physical damage it dealt to you... so if it were a really strong monster, it wouldn't be as threatening until you clear out the "bodyguards".

In FF5 and FF6, monster rows were removed... so you weren't restricted too much to attack enemies in the back of a formation... which kept things simple.

Unfortunately, simple was never developed...

So... what was wrong with the SNES versions...?

In the SNES versions, there is a generally beneficial bug that pretty much any character can take advantage of.
All you had to do was equip a back row compatible weapon, and suddenly, you would NEVER be penalized from attacking from the back row.

Considering that attacking from the back row reduced your hit rate aka accuracy by 50%...
And... attacking the back row of an enemy formation would also reduce your attack rate by 50%...
You would avoid the worst case scenario of having a cumulative effect of having 1/4 of your original accuracy!
Then again, there's a bug with Edge (and probably Yang) where the back row bit doesn't get set if the back row compatible weapon (boomerang) was put on the left hand.
Go figure on the coding.

The bug is beneficial... so what? Well, some of the weapons that were back row compatible, had a nasty side effect.
For instance, the Dwarf Axe NEVER induced critical hits.... same goes for Rydia's whips.

So... was this fixed in the WSC version???

The WSC version did a lot of work on redoing a lot of internal data. Naturally, bugs would occur. However, there's a ton of detrimental stuff that came out of it.

1) Targeting was messed up - For whatever reason, selecting the front-most target was not a guarantee.
The SNES version has zero problems addressing that issue. I guess someone had to futz with this.

2) Back row bit has zero meaning. Weapons that were normally designated to attack from the back row w/o problems completely suffered offensively.
Bows and Arrows were crippled by this, so the only capable archer was Rosa (due to the algorithms, Aim escaped some punishment).

Years later, there came to be a GBA port... that would solve the WSC problems right?

No. Many issues where inherited from the WSC port... but QA clearly didn't find the bugs the first time around.

FF4A Jap 1.0/US had only one notable change - the "removal" of back row for monsters.
It's OK I guess when that make the game closer to FF5+FF6, but, that doesn't resolve problem #2 from the WSC version.
Considering problem #1, you could argue that this issue was addressed... but that's not a real fix by modern standards.

A side effect of problem #1 of the WSC port manifested itself in this version. You could not target the new Master Flan monster.
In virtually every normal battle, you were able to target ANY monster on the field. Whether you could hit the monster was a different issue...
The Master Flan was some ninja exception to this rule. In order to actually target the monster, you could have to clear its "Flan barrier".
This wasn't very difficult though... but you could only imagine WTF they were thinking over there.

Fortunately, the back row weaponry issue was somewhat addressed in FF4A Jap 1.1/Euro version.
However, it's not a good fix. It made it so that ALL attacks from the back row did the same damage as the front row!
That is NOT A FIX. What was worse was that the Bow+Arrow did not benefit from this change... probably using a different code path.
Why oh why was this not bugtested properly???

Lucky for the Master Flan, you could target it in this version.
Great... one less neutered boss from a bug fix that technically shouldn't have been used in this manner in the first place!!!

I haven't played the PSP version yet... and I'll update this thread at some point.
I'll just say this... I await to see how you managed to fuck this up.

393

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: FF4A - Psycho Edward Bug and Explanation...

« on: October 30, 2012, 12:32:54 PM »

 
Small addendum to this bug.

IIRC, there were reports of Edward being targetable, when he's alone while under Berserk.

This is somewhat related to what I added regarding Hide status. The game will Auto-Unhide Edward when he's critical and alone. This isn't quite the same, but something in the game probably says "you can't have something attacking while hiding" which removes Hide status from Edward, allowing him to be targetable again.

394

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Hide Command

« on: October 30, 2012, 12:27:54 PM »

 
I forgot about a small portion of the Hide behavior.

If Edward is critical and is the only one left alive, using the Hide command or being in Hide status will be followed by the use of the Appear/Show command.
Apparently, the game will not let him be "the last hope" through outlasting the enemy (putting you in the worst possible situation) or being stuck in Auto-Hide mode (which would normally be the case when you follow his default Hide behavior).

He can hide all he wants when he's not critical.

This part of the behavior occurs in the SNES and GBA versions (probably includes PSP version as well).

395

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: React vs Elemental

« on: October 30, 2012, 12:02:34 PM »

It's the Spirit monster set, which I've already named.. not the racial type (the Ghost monster ironically is not classified as such). You can find the Spirit and Soul monsters on Mt. Hobs and Mt. Ordeals.. and the Ghost (Evil Dreamer) can be found at the Sylph's Cave.

The script is being read from their complete battle script, not from their counter script.

I was also specific that it was only caused by using the appropriate elemental spell.

Please try to reread what I wrote as some of the questions asked have been more or less addressed in my original post.

396

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

« on: October 30, 2012, 11:42:34 AM »

Hide is pretty similar to Jump, where targeting with physical attacks will be automatically redirected and magic attacks are supposed to automatically fail (single targeted magic) or subtract 1 from the target count (for multitargeted spells). Targeting him with healing will miss, so Sylph shouldn't really be the exception.

Edward doesn't return until you tell him to. He won't auto-hide when he is the only guy left, despite being critical.

Please read what I wrote about the Hide command... should be easy to find in the stickied post.

 
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=310.0 - with a small update

397

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: React vs Elemental

« on: October 29, 2012, 05:26:53 PM »

That's a counter reaction - a one time only response occurs to corresponding situation.

The difference between counter reactions and "react vs elemental" (I should name it better) is that the monster doesn't actually run a counter script (which is limited). The monster itself can run an entirely different script that runs at least once.

In a way, you could rewrite the counter script to set a few bits.... however the length of the reaction would be fixed, not random.

My suggestion is that you try out using lightning on the default machines (Beamer/MechSoldier) and see how many turns they spend killing each other. The # of times they do it is COMPLETELY random. You cannot write a counter script that causes such randomness... it would only be fixed/finite.

I would like to point out that it seems to specifically react to targeting... when it comes to "target random monster".

398

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

« on: October 29, 2012, 01:36:11 AM »

Some more bugs regarding the WSC version:

In the mini-battle before fighting Yang, you aren't supposed to get XP+Gold from the battle. Only the WSC version gives you that...

Yang gets a 99% hit rate when he has two claws - regardless of what those two claws are (remember the Fairy Claw has naturally some low accuracy, so it's impossible to get 99% when combined with an elemental claw). Another WSC specific bug...

"Modified" Spirit stat (after equipment bonuses/adjustments) are not factored into non-battle healing. Although these bonuses work in battle, they are not applied into the special healing algo used outside of battle. This applies to the WSC version AND FF4A US/Jap 1.0 versions. It appears to be fixed in FF4A Euro/Jap 1.1 versions.
This bug really is annoying, with a minor side benefit (when you're using the Minerva Robe and/or Cursed Ring).

Slumber Sword works like FF4A - which is where we know this started from...

Bard's Clothes (the armor Edward starts with) costs 700GP instead of 70GP.

Monster MP = HP/8 instead of HP/16 (this trend started in the WSC version, applied to FF4A and probably the PSP port as well).

Like weapons and shields, the other equipment is highlighted in battle... as if you could use/equip them. However, there is no method that I know that would allow you to switch any armor (non-shields) in battle. I wonder if they stole some code of a different port... like billions of FF1 ports...

 
Before I sleep... I needed to write this...
Dr. Lugae's Poison Gas in the WSC version only applies Poison status (no damage) to the characters. This also translates to FF4A. The SNES version dealt damage in addition to poison (although generally irrelevant damage).

Item drops are decided after each kill... I'm trying to recall how FF4A calculates it, but I know that the SNES version determines the drops at the end of battle.

Also... despite the music being rather inferior to the original... the WSC version retains the sound effects far better than FF4A (GBA)... pretty damn close to the SNES versions. Most notable sounds include the Legend Sword and the Icebrand.

 
Blood Lance has the same sound effect as the Legend Sword (or any Holy elemental sword for that matter).

I get the real feeling that the back row bug is still in full force in this game.

399

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / React vs Elemental

« on: October 26, 2012, 04:11:39 PM »

Note: This is not about counter attacks... rather it is about a special type of script that is run when an elemental spell is used.

These scripts are rarely used in the game and are rarely noticed.

AFAIK, these are the only monsters that use them:
Spirit series of monsters (Spirit, Soul, Ghost) - react vs Ice
Mech Soldier and Beamer (found only on the Giant or Giant-based levels) - react vs Lightning

I'm not aware of any other monsters at the moment, so feel free to add if I missed any.

One of the cool things about "freezing" the Spirit is that the code says that they "do nothing". Think about the logic of being able to freeze a spirit. It's simply immobile.
So, it was a fun idea of mine to use the IceRod's innate spell on the monsters on Mt. Hobs. It worked nice. They simply stopped attacking altogether.
However, this "feature" or scripted portion was removed in FF4WS (and subsequently FF4A, which probably applies to the PSP version too).

In the Giant, you were supposed to be able to "shock the machines" and make them go haywire (FF4:TAY has an example of that).
However, it was limited to two monsters... but they were a fairly common bunch.
The script is pretty simple... just randomly attack monsters (including themselves) with their designated attack (Beamers with their Beam attack, Machines with Fight).
It works... but they eventually revert back to attacking you. I'm not entirely sure if there's some sort of randomized test to see if they stop running that script,
but I'm leaning towards a limited number that is generated (between 1 and 5?) that they will continue to run the elemental script before running their normal script behavior.

This operates very differently from Charm/Confuse status, where the game checks for the current status before running the script. The monster is compelled to run the attack script even it is attacking itself... multiple times.

The major difference between FF4 SNES and FF4A (probably includes FF4WS and FF4PSP) is that the elemental reaction script is applied correctly to all monsters in FF4A...
In FF4 SNES, it is only applied to one monster that the script applies to. For instance, a 3 Mech Soldier + 2 Beamer group will usually just have the back-most Soldier being affected by the script.
Of course, this is par for the course when it comes to many FF4 scripting bugs.

400

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

« on: October 26, 2012, 02:16:57 PM »

Well, I'm sure there's more to be found. Kinda makes me wish someone translated this if not to make my life easier.

The Y-button config is interesting IMO. It really does remind me of BOF SNES version's ultra configurable system.

I'm pretty sure I'm using the latest emu from the SF site.

The "new Fabul desert" started in this version of the game.... not that it makes a big diff.

Also, battle statuses seem to be auto-determined (the battle monster set itself works like the SNES version, but I'm talking specifically about the preemptive strike/back attack/surprise status).

Hide works like FF4A, so I guess that's an upgrade.

I'll be grinding a bit on the peninsula of power for bit... :P

 
I swear, Bows+Arrows feel so crippled in this version. I'm pretty sure this is the version that added the Bow+Arrow bug (specifically the Back/Ignore Row attribute).
Aim didn't have this problem, but Aim fixes so many other lameness on its own.

401

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

« on: October 26, 2012, 09:41:32 AM »

I wonder if this is still in FF4:TAY.

402

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

« on: October 26, 2012, 12:09:19 AM »

Is there a recommended WSC emu that I should be using? Oswan is OK but feels a tad foreign despite being functional.

The first auto-battle enemies are not weak to Fire, thus dishing less damage.

At least the Status menu can get you to show the equipment....

 
Nice to know the WSC port was the first to remove the hidden item in Rosa's House.

I don't remember Titan's Quake to deal that much damage....

 
Sight's Overworld Map is introduced in this version (and very much needed by design).
"Targeting" sucks in this version as noted before.
I get the odd feeling that critical hit algo needs some work, or it's 2x the attack power in the WSC version.
Dashing with the B-button works in this version (not automatic).
Two buttons seem to do cool things - one goes to magic, the other goes to the item list (feels like BOF where you could do that).

 
It's either bad luck... or Tellah can't seem to use Recall vs the Octomammoth...
This is where the lame "reacting to physical attacks" and Miss! began (the Tellah-Spoony Bard forever sequence)

 
I've just noticed this... there is no desert area around the Antlion's Cave in the WS version (it is shown as a lighter ground area). This extended into FF4A US/Jap 1.0. There is supposed to be desert there, which is noticeable in FF4 and FF4A Euro/Jap 1.1.

The ghostlyish female monster in the Antlion's Cave... it has an odd visual when attacking, where only the upper half of the body seems to be attacking, instead of the whole body flashing.

 
The RNG doesn't seem to have issues (it must have something to do with the GBA itself, or whatever libs the idiot port users were using for RANDOMIZATION... which technically includes the Wii port since it's inheriting that trait).
Multitargeting characters seems to target a hiding Edward, despite it not being successful.
Yang's back row appearance in his auto-battle (regardless of the spare slot he starts in) started from the GBA port. The WS port does not have that happen.
Note: DS port seems to let you control Yang, PSP seems to use "dummy monsters" that don't attack (to keep Yang damage free).


Minor notes for Walkthrough:
Cecil @ level 13 for 3x Attack Multiplier, Rydia @ level 8 for 1x Defense Multiplier
Rydia @ level 12 for 5x Int Multiplier, 13 for Toad, Edward @ level 10 for 2x Attack Multiplier
Edward @ level 18 for 3x Attack + 2x Defense Multiplier for overkill, Yang @ level 14 for 3x Attack Multiplier

403

General Discussion / Re: NFL season (2012-2013) week 8

« on: October 25, 2012, 10:30:58 PM »

I don't think the Bears are that good... I do think the o-line of the Bears will eventually become the problem again... but more importantly I think Cutler is not really that guy to put the Bears over the top....

I do think the Bears will have the division, but as the Vikings are being tortured at the moment, I think the Packers may give the Vikings some trouble to take a Wild Card spot.

404

General Discussion / Re: NFL season (2012-2013) week 8

« on: October 25, 2012, 06:12:12 PM »

I'll just keep it short, since I need the time.

Week 7 scores:
Leno: 9-4
Me: 11-2

Week 8 schedule:

Great, we're heading into the midpoint now...

Buccaneers @ Vikings (Thursday)

Bucs

Panthers @ Bears

Bears

Chargers @ Browns

Chargers

Seahawks @ Lions

Seahawks

Patriots @ Rams

Pats

Dolphins @ Jets (division)

Dolphins

Falcons @ Eagles

Falcons

Redskinds @ Steelers

Steelers - Love the spelling! :P

Jaguars @ Packers

Packers

Colts @ Titans (division)

Colts

Raiders @ Chiefs (division)

Chiefs

Giants @ Cowboys (division)

Giants

Saints @ Broncos

Broncos - Shootout of some epic proportion.

49'ers @ Cardinals (division, Monday)

49ers

405

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

« on: October 21, 2012, 08:57:34 PM »

My guess is that a lot of these bugs usually are porting issues.

For instance, the back row bugs are easy to fix when you completely redo the data structure.

However, the auto-Cover code for DK Cecil is probably a result of trying to change a bit of the battle code. There's a shot that Paladin Cecil won't have auto-Cover...

In the GBA version, you can "revert" back to DK Cecil with cheats (using a Gameshark AFAIK). The game still recognizes him as Cecil, but even the DK Cecil profile is still part of the data storage (while you may still be grinding to level 99) and if they really wanted to, could write code to use him in some oddball scenario.

So, it shouldn't be surprising how these bugs are created at times....