Board of Slick
Library of the Ancients => Final Fantasy IV Research & Development => Topic started by: chillyfeez on February 22, 2014, 10:46:19 AM
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Well, at long last, here it is!
This is the playable preview for my hack, Final Fantasy IV: A Threat from Within.
Not much explanation is needed for the story, because the preview has a lot of exposition.
Apply the linked patch to a clean, headered FF2US v 1.1 ROM and have fun!
FFII: A Threat from Within (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcNzh3ajBTT3lFcnc/edit?usp=sharing)
(btw - I've never shared a file using Google Drive, but the patch is too big to post here. Did this link work?)
Now, even this preview is not a completely finished product. Every time I would fix one little thing, something else cropped up that I wanted to fix, so it sort of turned into a neverending spiral. Eventually, I had to get to a point where I was at least satisfied enough that I could let other people test it out.
That being said, here are a list of known issues with the preview, separated into two categories: Things that NEED to be fixed eventually, and Things I am not convinced I'm fully satisfied with...
NEEDS to be fixed:
-The Title Screen - I don't really know how/if it's possible to change this fully. I want to keep the "Final Fantasy II" Logo, but I want to add words beneath. My assumption is that much of the black screen is the same tile repeated over and over again. Anybody have any thoughts/knowledge about this?
-The revolving earth in the intro - somehow, the earth got screwed up. It's been like this as long as I can remember, and I've never touched it (not on purpose anyway). It's not a big deal, but it's a very noticeable cosmetic issue that occurs, literally, in the first minute of the game. And again, I don't know how to fix this.
-If you use ZSNES, like I do, for your recreational (read: non-hacking) emulation, don't create a save (.srm) file. For some reason, ZSNES freezes if there is a saved game. Save states seem to work fine. Also, SNES9X works fine with regular save files. Weird.
-Learning Ninja spells at level-up: In order to accommodate the different types of magic in the game, I had to change "Call" into "Jutsu" (Ninja magic), so that "Ninja" could be "Beast." As a result, Ninja spells don't seem to be appearing in their spell sets when learned at level-up. It doesn't affect gameplay in the preview much... Ninja spells kinda suck anyway, but it's definitely something that must be fixed eventually. Grimoire LD, didn't you find something recently that regulates how the game knows where to put learned spells, and more importantly how to turn that off?
-Mog's (The Mime, or "CopyCat" in this game) "Copy" ability (not to be confused with Mime) produces some strange results when used on a party member. It's intended to be used only on enemies, so eventually, I plan to rewrite the command to simply return a "Nothing Happened" if used on allies. Just haven't gotten to it yet.
-Kunai: I rewrote the "Dart" command to account for weapon elements (more on this later), specifically so that I could introduce a new throwing weapon, the elemental Kunai. One problem - when they're thrown, they look like fists. Anyone have any insight on how to change the look of a thrown weapon?
-Jinn: The boss at the end of the first (and only, here) chapter, Jinn, is not a final product. I created him before I learned how to manipulate "Special" sizes, and as such he does not change form during the battle. It'll be pretty obvious at which point this will eventually happen. Again, just haven't gotten to it yet.
-Twin: Rydia and Blank (the hired ninja) use FuSoYa and Golbez's character slots, respectively. As such, they are drawn into the Twin command if they're in the party. For Rydia, it's not a big deal because in the real game she'll never be in the party with Palom and Porom, but Blank is another story. Here's one for you again, Grimoire. I tried to look at your disassembly and notes for Twin, but there's so much! do you recall if you found out where the game defaults to Golbez and FuSoYa for Twin casting? I'd love to just shut that off completely. An eventual rewrite is also planned (I have a vague theory) that will incorporate a white magic-style Twin spell in the mix, but first I have to fix the real buggy issue...
Not as Important:
-Saved game files (using SNES9X) don't properly display the character's HP. This is bizarre, and does not affect the actual game at all, but I have no idea why it's happening.
-Not all of Kella's (the Blue Mage) Beast skills are available in the preview, partly because not all of them are finished products. There will eventually be 18 (... I think). In the preview, she starts with 9 and can learn 5 (... I think) more.
-There's no Shadow party in the preview, so stats will be reset when you switch out a party member. In the real game, Palom, Porom, Usrula, Kella and Mog will all have shadow slots (and Ceodore will use Mog's once or twice before Mog becomes available).
-Regarding the rewritten Dart command... The elemental part was necessary, mostly because of how I plan for it to trigger enemy reactions (you'll see some of that in the preview), but I'm not sure I'm 100% satisfied with it. I think it might be too weak. I haven't decided yet. What do you think?
So anyway, there you go!
Help on any of the above issues would be appreciated (and will earn a special place in the credits, of course).
Let me know if you discover any bugs/issues not listed here.
Suggestions will be considered. Of course, feasibility with my plot outline and whether something can actually be done are factors there.
:edit: New version linked above 3/4/12
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This sounds incredible! I will definitely try this out as soon as I can! as for your queries...
Your Google Drive works fine as a download, no worries there.
1.-Learning Ninja spells at level-up: In order to accommodate the different types of magic in the game, I had to change "Call" into "Jutsu" (Ninja magic), so that "Ninja" could be "Beast." As a result, Ninja spells don't seem to be appearing in their spell sets when learned at level-up. It doesn't affect gameplay in the preview much... Ninja spells kinda suck anyway, but it's definitely something that must be fixed eventually. Grimoire LD, didn't you find something recently that regulates how the game knows where to put learned spells, and more importantly how to turn that off?
I'll take a quick peek in FF4kster to see if my idea is correct... Hmm, strange. It doesn't open in FF4kster
Hmm... something must have gone wrong with the patching... odd. Maybe it wasn't a clean rom I patched it to? Ah, there we go. Alright then now let's see...
Yep, as I thought. You still have the Jutsu command on the Call Spellset rather than the Black Spellset, which is where everything past the Summons is written to (which on closer reading is what you just said). To change it so that All spells past Imp are written to Call you will want to change...
$03/F16C C9 42 CMP #$42 A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - Is it Flood or Greater? (Interesting, I guess you can by default put Comet and Flare in the Summon Spellbook without issue)
$03/F16E B0 F5 BCS $F5 [$F165] A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - Is so branch back 03F165. (Black Magic spellbook input)
To...
$03/F16C C9 42 CMP #$48 A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - Is it Dummy or Greater? (Rod's Attack, follows right after Ninjutsu)
$03/F16E B0 F5 BCS $F5 [$F165] A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - If so branch back to 03F165 - Black Magic Spellbook input.
And That should fix that problem.
Hey neat! you got Dart to have Elemental! How did you manage that out of curiosity? As far as I could tell the elemental of the thrown weapon was nowhere to be found in data. I thought thrown Weapons looked as the graphic for them did?
2) Yes, Golbez and FuSoYa checks are long before the rest of the Twin's Routine. The only issue you might find is they will Only cast that single spell, unless you change it. You could Easily have the FuSoYa replacement cast the "Failed" spell in the Twin's normal routine by branching to that, changing the message to a spell (very simple) and changing it so that this piece of code is never accessed by the FF failure.
$03/E56E BD 00 20 LDA $2000,x[$7E:2080] A:0000 X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdiZc - Load Character 1's Character ID into A.
$03/E571 29 1F AND #$1F A:0089 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - Get rid of 80.
$03/E573 C9 13 CMP #$13 A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdizc - Is it FuSoYa?
$03/E575 F0 04 BEQ $04 [$E57B] A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - If so branch to 03E57B.
$03/E577 C9 15 CMP #$15 A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - Is it Golbez?
$03/E579 D0 04 BNE $04 [$E57F] A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - If not branch to 03E57F.
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$03/E57B A9 5E LDA #$5E A:0015 X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdiZC - Load W. Meteo
$03/E57D 80 19 BRA $19 [$E598] A:005E X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdizC - Branch Always to 03E598.
Now off to try the game itself!
Very nice wordless intro!
Oh you gave Eblan the "Within the Giant" Theme. How neat!
The introduction of the Job Cards made be absolutely giddy!
Ah, the first character you play is a Ninja. I'll go ahead and make that fix and see if it does the trick.
Haha! Oh, you nailed Edge's character perfectly! That pause between the first message the next is very well timed.
Eblan looks to be more based on FFIV:TAY, very nice choice.
Hah! Furio has green eyes! A nice subtle touch, to I assume his mother's side.
Ah, very interesting use of the loss of the Crystal's power. FFIV seems to say that Troia without the Crystal would become a desert and Tellah says something to a similar vein in the DS version. So it is curious to see what the effects of a world that can no longer rely on its Crystals for balance will end up being.
Oh ho! You surely do make exploring worthwhile. I wonder how difficult the start of the game would be without this...
I love the variety of this weapon store.
Gah, oh man... I *think* I'll save my Job Card for now.
(Out on the Field) Any plans to use a different kind of Stealing System? I mean, it seems that since you've put Steal in that you would want it to be semi-useful in some regard. Stealing the first obtaininable item on an enemy is often not very helpful.
Oh hey! Is that the Twins of the Moon theme from FFIX?!
Haha! Good work with that dancer NPC, even gave her a bit of character by having her flip around several times in surprise if you say no.
Oh! Almost left without grinding Gil for the Claw.
I'm not sure why it says B2F when you enter Eblan Castle, I'm sure you'll fix that easily enough.
Nice boat ride sequence.
Hah! That was some pretty neat event animation there in Agart!
Oh wait, you did change Steal! I just Stole Ice Kunai from an Imp! No wait... that's all I can steal from him. Hmm... I guess this is a special Imp then.
Hmm, also I can't appear to use Ice Kunai from Dart...
Ah yes, it is a special Imp. (Checks FF4kster breezes through the Item List as not to spoil himself) Now that is strange, I can clearly see they are marked as Throwable but... Oh! It might have something to do with them being Stolen. So they can't "actually" be used in the first battle they are obtained. I will need to clarify that. Also you are right. the weapon itself has a different Sprite than what is being displayed... I might have to take a deeper look at that.
Yep, that's all it was. An interesting caveat...
Is that a new Bird Sprite I spot? Very nice attention to detail!
Just a note. It's name is still "Dummy".
Whoa! 72 Damage! To the Backrow I go.
Oh my heavens, a Mage...!
He used an attack called 2000 Needles and I instantly died. Hah. Alright. I think I might need some preparation before trying that one again...
(Steals 10 Cure1s, Steal's 10 Ice Kunai) I fight a story Bomb... it uses Explode... which Petrifies me... and I lose. Hmm, okay.
Ah, so you made it so you can't leave Agart until you ?win? That is rather interesting, and I like the extra bit of animation put into that specific message.
So if I try to fight the Mage I will be 2000 Needled, and if I go to fight the Bomb I will be petrified... let's see if the two keys from the Imp and Cockatrice work. First key works, second one does not... hmm...
Maybe I should grind until I learn some Jutsu. Or not... 13 seems high enough. If not, I'll have to rethink some things.
Alright, the Bomb didn't have much HP to him... maybe that Petrification was intended?
Looks like 3 of the 4 keys don't work... seems I have to beat the Mage. And with three attacks, of over 150 Damage he used 2K needles and instantly killed me... alright then. Looks like I might need to pick up that Ninja with the Job Card.
Heh, if you refuse the sick dancer on the Agart side, she'll say "Not enough GP!" I'm not sure if that's intended. Though it might be.
Oh, the Ninja comes with a Karate gear, eh? That might make the difference....
That sells for a hefty 2000 GP! But... it might be too valuable to give up.
Um... in one battle against an Imp, Black went to Level 24 and the Exp to his net level jumped 75062. He didn't gain any stats though. I take it this is because he's using Edge's default TNL?
Hmm... it seems the game might have glitched here. In talking with the Imp, after I beat him, he didn't actually disappear. His sprite did, yes. But his collision is still there in the grass and talking to him makes the battle happen again and give another key.
4 Hits, it would have taken me alone to kill the Mage, *sigh...* ah well.
Hired Guns from REMA? Oh, that does sound interesting.
Hmm, it said "Flames extinguished..." but then he still did a highly powerful fire attack. Maybe it's not As powerful as it would be otherwise? Hmm, I'm not sure what using the Ice Kunai does now, since Jinn still seems to act as if his flames have not been extinguished.
I see now. You use it when he says "The heat is on!!"
That was an interesting boss battle. And I wonder how difficult it would be without stealing the Ice Kunai, so I stand corrected. It is Very worthwhile to steal, at least for this section.
Oh! What a nice reward for completing the demo!
I will post my thoughts on that in a separate post. This demo was short, but it was extremely sweet! You set up a great air of character, atmosphere, and mystery that I cannot wait to see what the next part looks like!
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SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T COMPLETED THE DEMO!!
Character Descriptions - Ceodore using both White Magic and the Dark Sword, eh? That's rather neat I am curious to see how that will play out.
Dark Holy! Is that a reference to FFT? Dark Holy was always one of my favorite spell names.
Rydia will be even older? She would already be 44 (58 in actuality because the official bio somewhere says that she has matured to 16) by the normal flow of time alone.
Plead, hmm? That's a neat idea for a skill! And a nice reference to TAY.
Kella - Um... a little absurd, but alright.
Oh? You modified Avenger's properties to apply to more than one weapon, eh?
Ursula - Oh? She won't be getting Chakra or Tenketsu? Or are there just no more command slots left?
Palom/Porom - Even here you've put in that little touch of effort that shows. Palom and Porom would both be 50 so I guess these new sprites suit them well enough.
Blank: Quick Hit sounds rather neat!
Cinna: FFIX references abound! Mages have Aim, eh? An interesting idea to be sure.
Avon: Invincibility! That is too cool!
You have a great set-up here. Let's start with...
Ceodore -
Ceodore's face could use a little adjustment, but it was a good attempt.
Rydia -
Hmm, good work in aging her. It looks fairly legitimate.
Any particular reason Rydia can equip Claws? Or just a spur of the moment sort of thing?
Kella -
You did a fantastic job on Kella's portrait!
Mog -
You did an incredible job porting FFVI's portrait of Mog into FFIV and you even properly removed the previous guest. Good work!
Ursula -
Something looks a little off in Ursula's portrait... maybe the hair is a little too close to skin tone?
Whoops! Just realized that kicked Ceodore out of the party, heh.
Kella's sprite looks pretty good in battle!
Ursula's sprite could use a little work though.
Mog, looks like he stepped right out of FFVI, awesome.
Hmm, targeting in some of the new formations seem a bit askewed. I know your pain in that regard... in the end I had to use existing formations and just replace enemies already in them.
Looks like Copy and Mime are working great.
Roc using Aero2, eh? I imagine that's a Blue Magic that might have been learned has she not been killed by it...
Hmm, what is TimeBomb, supposed to do?
I can't seem to get the Limit Skills to work. Even with save-state abuse they just don't seem to happen.
Is BigGuard just Protect or is it actually Protect and Shell?
Oh, in Ceodore's Dark Waveanimation you put the Sword! That's really neat.
Oh I see! It happens automatically when they're put into critical! I thought it was, Fight is used. Alright then.
Oh hey! That's how you learn Blue Magic. After the spell is used you target the enemy that used it. Quite intuitive.
Looks like all those fours Limit Skill's work.
Hmm, Palom and Porom's portraits could use a bit of work, good try though. That said, I love their sprites in battle! Porom's is just Faris in a Dancer's outfit, but it fits and Palom's looks like he's wearing Tellah's robes. Over all those are really good.
Hmm, I can't recall what Furio's Skill Attack was supposed to be. From here it just looked like a normal attack.
Phoenix works great! Very well done in that!
Oh, I see what you mean now by Rydia. Yes, she is used in the Twin Casting and I assume the same will be true for Blank.. .hm...
Oh that is a neat animation for Plague!
Um... for the past 10 battles or so, Palom's used Plague immediately at the start of the fight when his turn came up. Now either that's some stupidly good luck, or something is wrong there.
Cure-Z seems pretty good.
Alright, that's this team tested.
(Sight changed to Scan) That's actually the most reasonable change of Sight I think I've seen.
Attack Barrage is definitely interesting...
I like the efforts taken to make Avon look different from Edward, shorter hair for instance, it works.
Ouch... Salve still seems useless, and for some reason he doesn't actually have Item, is that intended?
Um... Avon's Invincibility never wore off.
Oh, I forgot to comment on Avon's picture. It looks great! The difference between Edward and him is slight, but very noticeable.
"Play a slow one, Avon" "License to Ill?" Haha! That is too good! I think Avon will probably be one of my favorite characters.
Interesting. It took a while to get his fourth song to show up, but when it did it was Charm, so wow. Yes you did make Sing into a Very useful skill. Instant death on all foes, or Virus, or Slow, or Charm? It is all fantastic!
Ah right, Quick Hit is Furio/Blank's limit skill... suggestion might be to give Furio his own Limit Break, mainly because he's one of the main characters (and it seems it's his story we'll be following)
Ruby's portrait looks pretty good! Ah, Faris's White Mage Sprite, I wasn't expecting that, I'll say. Neat special animation though. I think that one is custom.
Can't go wrong with a traditional black mage, but that portrait is Terrifying! Haha!
Is Cinna a custom job? I don't recall a Black Mage looking similar to that in FFV at all. He looks great!
Cactuar, eh? You even put new monster sprites in battle? Great work!
Haha! You had to put a spoiler room, didn't you? Grr... Now I need to fight the temptation to read anything beyond the first part that I just read....
Whoa! That is quite a "sidequest" for an interesting "reward".
Gah, I regret reading too much, I didn't realize that "Would you like to hear more about the meaning of the game's title?" would imply so much... spoilering!
And that will do it! So far I Really like what I see. So much potential, so much variety. I absolutely love every bit of it!
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At work, so not a lot of time to respond.
The bomb and mage were not supposed to be like that. I made a last minute speed adjustment that must have screwed up their AI somehow. I'll fix that.
The cockatrice was called Dummy on purpose. It's a wink wink nod nod to those who know the summon was dummied out in the US game.
The level up of Blank is a known issue I forgot to mention. I have a patch of the proper level up data, but I have to fine tune it, so level-ups in general will be off.
Jinn should say "now I'm really mad" if you ice him too early, which would put him straight into "heat is on" mode. Did that not happen?
"Not enough GP" was on purpose, too. You'll get a feel for my sense of humor as you play.
Those are the quick answers. More later. Thanks for the feedback!
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On Jinn: I think that's what actually might have been happening. I hadn't taken notice of that. Very clever! It's not so cut and dry then in that regard.
Oh! Of course, I can't believe I didn't think about that for the Cockatrice, haha!
Do you know how to actually move level-up data? I had thought we were stuck at the starting levels for characters because of the TNL table screwing everything up?
:edit: I forgot to mention that the fix for Ninja Magic to be put into the Call Menu works. As evidenced by Furio learning Smoke at Level 15.
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chillyfeez, send me an instant message on what you had in mind for the title screen and I may be able to help you out.
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Ok, let's see what I can answer here...
To change it so that All spells past Imp are written to Call you will want to change...
$03/F16C C9 42 CMP #$42 A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - Is it Flood or Greater? (Interesting, I guess you can by default put Comet and Flare in the Summon Spellbook without issue)
$03/F16E B0 F5 BCS $F5 [$F165] A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - Is so branch back 03F165. (Black Magic spellbook input)
To...
$03/F16C C9 42 CMP #$48 A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - Is it Dummy or Greater? (Rod's Attack, follows right after Ninjutsu)
$03/F16E B0 F5 BCS $F5 [$F165] A:0001 X:0100 Y:1A35 P:envMxdIzC - If so branch back to 03F165 - Black Magic Spellbook input.
And That should fix that problem.
Thanks!
Hey neat! you got Dart to have Elemental! How did you manage that out of curiosity? As far as I could tell the elemental of the thrown weapon was nowhere to be found in data. I thought thrown Weapons looked as the graphic for them did?
I rewrote the execution portion of the command. I'll post the code in a later post, but basically, it puts the thrown weapon into the "caster stats" copy, puts the weapon element in same, changes hit rate to 100%, adds weapon power to modified strength then sets that as attack power, takes out back row status (if applicable), then jumps to the attack routine
Oh you gave Eblan the "Within the Giant" Theme. How neat!
It was always my favorite music in FFIV, so I had to use it prominently. It also contrasts with the intro music well (name of which escapes me - I think ofit as FuSoYa's theme)
Hah! Furio has green eyes! A nice subtle touch, to I assume his mother's side.
Had I already spoiled that bit somewhere? Or did you just assume? It's not supposed to be a big mystery, but it will be possible to play through without that ever being revealed.
I'm planning a few of those, btw, choices the player can make that affect minor bits of gameplay but not the overall outcome of the game.
Gah, oh man... I *think* I'll save my Job Card for now.
... and in future versions, you'll actually lose it when you use it.
(Out on the Field) Any plans to use a different kind of Stealing System? I mean, it seems that since you've put Steal in that you would want it to be semi-useful in some regard. Stealing the first obtaininable item on an enemy is often not very helpful.
Yes... stealing will be important... hopefully like it is in IX. Though I still have to devise a way for it to be not abusable... maybe automatically change the monster's item bit to 0 upon success? I'll try a few ideas out, I think.
Oh hey! Is that the Twins of the Moon theme from FFIX?!
I assume you mean the seaport music. It's not meant to be, but now that you mention it... I knew it sounded somewhat familiar.
I'm not sure why it says B2F when you enter Eblan Castle, I'm sure you'll fix that easily enough.
Oversight. I'll fix it.
Nice boat ride sequence.
Each initial trip will show the whole distance traveled. Subsequent trips to the same location will show only the arrival.
Hmm, also I can't appear to use Ice Kunai from Dart...
Ah yes, it is a special Imp. (Checks FF4kster breezes through the Item List as not to spoil himself) Now that is strange, I can clearly see they are marked as Throwable but... Oh! It might have something to do with them being Stolen. So they can't "actually" be used in the first battle they are obtained. I will need to clarify that. Also you are right. the weapon itself has a different Sprite than what is being displayed... I might have to take a deeper look at that.
Yep, that's all it was. An interesting caveat...
Yes, I'm at peace with that as a reality. If you have one already, then you can use them. If not, then you have to wait.
Is that a new Bird Sprite I spot? Very nice attention to detail!
Taken from FFVI!
Ah, so you made it so you can't leave Agart until you ?win? That is rather interesting, and I like the extra bit of animation put into that specific message.
Yeah, I figure it's early enough that it's ok if you lose and have to start over...
Looks like 3 of the 4 keys don't work... seems I have to beat the Mage.
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec is a reference to FFVIII ;)
Hmm... it seems the game might have glitched here. In talking with the Imp, after I beat him, he didn't actually disappear. His sprite did, yes. But his collision is still there in the grass and talking to him makes the battle happen again and give another key.
Yeah... it doesn't always happen, but it happens sometimes, with any of those four minibosses. I might have to make them "fly away" instead of disappearing...
Hired Guns from REMA? Oh, that does sound interesting.
Yeah... I think of REMA sort of like FFVIII's SEED
That was an interesting boss battle. And I wonder how difficult it would be without stealing the Ice Kunai, so I stand corrected. It is Very worthwhile to steal, at least for this section.
You can use the IceShard that you pick up in a chest in Eblan (that's the ice magic item - I don't know what its common name is, because I've never played any non SNES american version of the original) to cool Jinn off. It should be possible to beat himusing only that,but you'll get pretty beat up in the process.
Oh! What a nice reward for completing the demo!
What is?
Thanks so much for all the feedback... now on to your next post...
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Dark Holy! Is that a reference to FFT? Dark Holy was always one of my favorite spell names.
I think it's used in FFVII also, by monsters but not party members.
Rydia will be even older? She would already be 44 (58 in actuality because the official bio somewhere says that she has matured to 16) by the normal flow of time alone.
Yeah, like Tellah old
Kella - Um... a little absurd, but alright.
Hey, I like Kella! You just think the idea of Leonora and Dark Elf getting together is far fetched? I promise I'll do my best to make it not completely ridiculous. Actually, before I ever watched HCBailley's TAY LP, the plan was always for Kella to be the offspring of an Epopt and the Dark Elf, so the existence of Leonora was kind of serendipity.
Oh? You modified Avenger's properties to apply to more than one weapon, eh?
Ok, I haven't tested it yet, but I'm sure I can make it work... if my theory proves wrong, well... I'll have to give the idea the axe, I guess!
Ursula - Oh? She won't be getting Chakra or Tenketsu? Or are there just no more command slots left?
Yeah... she'll be a kickass enough fighter without any other abilities. Again, not ideal, but I'm at peace with it.
Blank: Quick Hit sounds rather neat!
It's not, really. That's by design. I needed balance between the different characters, so since Ninjas are in most respects going to be among the more useful party members, their Limit skill is one of the lamest.
Cinna: FFIX references abound! Mages have Aim, eh? An interesting idea to be sure.
Cinna, Blank, Ruby and Avon are all taken from FFIX. Avon was originally going to be "Will," as in, The Bard. Then I realized, Lord Avon is FFIX's version of Shakespeare, so... there you go!
Avon: Invincibility! That is too cool!
Probably my favorite, though maybe a bit cheap (even when it terminates like it's supposed to)
Ceodore -
Ceodore's face could use a little adjustment, but it was a good attempt.
I'm not a huge fan of some of the portraits... Ceo and Ursula specifically... these were ported as best as I could from TAY. So was Porom, but she came out much better.
Any particular reason Rydia can equip Claws? Or just a spur of the moment sort of thing?
Oversight. Will fix.
You did a fantastic job on Kella's portrait!
Kella and Cinna's portraits were freehand, and are easily the best ones I made, imho. Kella's a hottie in general.
Whoops! Just realized that kicked Ceodore out of the party, heh.
Just for the purpose of this demo, Ceo and Rydia bump each other out. In the actual game, they WILL be in the party at the same time, but Ursula, Kella, Palom and Porom won't at that time. I had to manage party size a bit differently for the demo.
Kella's sprite looks pretty good in battle!
Rydia was largely used as the base for her battle sprites
Ursula's sprite could use a little work though.
She's Yang with a blonde wig and a dress. I kinda like it that way, I think.
Hmm, targeting in some of the new formations seem a bit askewed. I know your pain in that regard... in the end I had to use existing formations and just replace enemies already in them.
Not sure I know what you're saying here?
Looks like Copy and Mime are working great.
Mime works perfectly. For a laugh, see what happens if you use "Copy" on Furio after he throws an ice kunai. You'll see why the command needs to be tweaked so it won't work on allies.
In general, though, Mog is my proudest creation. Mime and his limit break work exactly as I envisioned them!
Roc using Aero2, eh? I imagine that's a Blue Magic that might have been learned has she not been killed by it...
The idea behind the training rooms was you'd have to level up a bit inthe first one before you can really survive the second... OR, you can "Learn" 2K Ndl from the cactuar and grind on cactuars after that ;)
Hmm, what is TimeBomb, supposed to do?
Ha-ha! Glad you asked! It's based on FFVI's Step Mine. Since FFIV doesn't count steps, it's damage based on the amount of time spent playing.
Is BigGuard just Protect or is it actually Protect and Shell?
Both. What's that unused spell subroutine that just jumps to two other subroutines? I used that.
Hmm, Palom and Porom's portraits could use a bit of work, good try though. That said, I love their sprites in battle! Porom's is just Faris in a Dancer's outfit, but it fits and Palom's looks like he's wearing Tellah's robes. Over all those are really good.
I'm... satisfied with their portraits. If anything, Porom might be a little too youthfully pretty for mid-forties... I'd fix Ceo and Ursula before Palom and Porom.
Um... for the past 10 battles or so, Palom's used Plague immediately at the start of the fight when his turn came up. Now either that's some stupidly good luck, or something is wrong there.
Well, no limit system is entirely unabusable, I guess... what's happening there is, because Plague kills the enemies right away, Palom ends the battle with the same HP, so limit conditions are still in effect at the beginning of the next battle. In the event Plague doesn't kill all enemies, he wouldn't use it a second time in the same battle.
(Sight changed to Scan) That's actually the most reasonable change of Sight I think I've seen.
Oh yeah, forgot I did that.
Ouch... Salve still seems useless, and for some reason he doesn't actually have Item, is that intended?
Yeah,I think I'm going to use your mod for salve. No item command was a mistake.
Um... Avon's Invincibility never wore off.
That shouldn't happen. I've tested it. Will have to investigate, I guess.
Ah right, Quick Hit is Furio/Blank's limit skill... suggestion might be to give Furio his own Limit Break, mainly because he's one of the main characters (and it seems it's his story we'll be following)
See above about balance.
Is Cinna a custom job? I don't recall a Black Mage looking similar to that in FFV at all. He looks great!
He's from FFV... I think he might be Bartz with a "haircut."
Cactuar, eh? You even put new monster sprites in battle? Great work!
I don't plan a whole lot of that, but I had to have Cactuars, because I had to have a thousand needle blue magic. Interesting story about that... there's also 10k needles. It's not in the demo but you can hack it in. The thousand needles formula is spell power x 500... except fr some reason it doesn't work for spell power 1 or 2 (500 or 1000 damage), which is why it's 2k Needles and not 1k needles. Yet again, not ideal, but I'm happy enough that I have no plan to fix it.
Oh, a bit more on Blue Magic... the eventual plan will be that the spells only cost 1-5 MP, but Kella will have very low max MP. Is there any good reason for this? Not especially. I thought it might be a nice way to set the really strong spells apart from the weaker ones...
Whoa! That is quite a "sidequest" for an interesting "reward".
You mean the Rydia thing? It's not really a sidequest per se. It's a forced choice the player has to make with real implications. Sorta like in FFX-2. Yes, there are lots of nods to other FF games in this hack.
Gah, I regret reading too much, I didn't realize that "Would you like to hear more about the meaning of the game's title?" would imply so much... spoilering!
Can't say Spoilingway didn't warn you! Did you give in to reading the rest?
Again, thanks for all the feedback and help!
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Had I already spoiled that bit somewhere? Or did you just assume? It's not supposed to be a big mystery, but it will be possible to play through without that ever being revealed.
I'm planning a few of those, btw, choices the player can make that affect minor bits of gameplay but not the overall outcome of the game.
I assumed (because Rydia and Edge are a cute couple and FFIV:TAY seemed to imply that they would finally actually have some sort of relationship.) mainly because of the bright green eyes (same as Rydia's) Which I have to say for an SNES game it is very impressive that you gave clues to the character's parentage purely based on graphics alone.
Yes... stealing will be important... hopefully like it is in IX. Though I still have to devise a way for it to be not abusable... maybe automatically change the monster's item bit to 0 upon success? I'll try a few ideas out, I think.
That is the most valid option. The A6 byte does seem to hold the character or enemy that is being targeted I think. That is almost definitely the way to make the change to their stats stick.
Oh! What a nice reward for completing the demo!
What is?
Haha! The ability to test out the rest of the characters! That is a fantastic incentive to complete the story segment of the demo.
Hey, I like Kella! You just think the idea of Leonora and Dark Elf getting together is far fetched? I promise I'll do my best to make it not completely ridiculous. Actually, before I ever watched HCBailley's TAY LP, the plan was always for Kella to be the offspring of an Epopt and the Dark Elf, so the existence of Leonora was kind of serendipity.
Heh, it's just I'm a large supporter of Leonora/Palom. The two are such an adorable couple. But with Palom being... him. I could see how Leonora would grow tired of him with time. Overall it's a good idea, I am curious though to know what will make Leonora find a common soul in "YOU NO TAKE CRYSTAL!!" Dark Elf.
Oh? You modified Avenger's properties to apply to more than one weapon, eh?
Ok, I haven't tested it yet, but I'm sure I can make it work... if my theory proves wrong, well... I'll have to give the idea the axe, I guess!
If nothing else you can always take the original checks and make it jump to code with available space.
Yeah... she'll be a kickass enough fighter without any other abilities. Again, not ideal, but I'm at peace with it.
I take it most of the free command slots when into setting up the Limit Breaks then?
Cinna, Blank, Ruby and Avon are all taken from FFIX. Avon was originally going to be "Will," as in, The Bard. Then I realized, Lord Avon is FFIX's version of Shakespeare, so... there you go!
Haha! That is very clever, you kept the reference to Shakespeare intact and you also added more of the FFIX flair that the guests have.
Avon: Invincibility! That is too cool!
Probably my favorite, though maybe a bit cheap (even when it terminates like it's supposed to)
Would dividing it to make it last as long as his Level /2 or even /4 make it a bit more fair?
Hmm, targeting in some of the new formations seem a bit askewed. I know your pain in that regard... in the end I had to use existing formations and just replace enemies already in them.
Not sure I know what you're saying here?
For the new formations that you set up in the Training Room, the targeting is rather strange. pressing left will take you down to the next foe and pressing up will take you left, etc, etc. It seems to deal something with arrangements which we're not 100% sure on how that works yet.
Mime works perfectly. For a laugh, see what happens if you use "Copy" on Furio after he throws an ice kunai. You'll see why the command needs to be tweaked so it won't work on allies.
In general, though, Mog is my proudest creation. Mime and his limit break work exactly as I envisioned them!
Hmm, it cast a Dummy Heal spell, likely from the Silver Staff if I had to guess.
Hmm, what is TimeBomb, supposed to do?
Ha-ha! Glad you asked! It's based on FFVI's Step Mine. Since FFIV doesn't count steps, it's damage based on the amount of time spent playing.
Wow! That's very impressive! But doesn't it allow abuse by running up the clock? Or is there some kind of Level portion to the formula?
Is BigGuard just Protect or is it actually Protect and Shell?
Both. What's that unused spell subroutine that just jumps to two other subroutines? I used that.
A good use of it! i think I used mine for the Regen spell jump... yep, looks like it was just Regen.
I'm... satisfied with their portraits. If anything, Porom might be a little too youthfully pretty for mid-forties... I'd fix Ceo and Ursula before Palom and Porom.
Yesterday I began thinking that I missed what Palom's portrait (and sprite) is referencing. He's a Black Wizard from FFI! I can't believe I missed that on first glance, but I do have to agree, it is thematically fitting.
Ouch... Salve still seems useless, and for some reason he doesn't actually have Item, is that intended?
Yeah,I think I'm going to use your mod for salve. No item command was a mistake.
That would be quite the honor. Your mod has the potential to become quite well-spread and well known as being the only FFIV Mod that completely changes... everything. My scaled back Combat Boost patch that I am working on is just that. A Combat Boost, new equipment, new commands, a more challenging experience, but still follows the same story of FFIV.
Cactuar, eh? You even put new monster sprites in battle? Great work!
I don't plan a whole lot of that, but I had to have Cactuars, because I had to have a thousand needle blue magic. Interesting story about that... there's also 10k needles. It's not in the demo but you can hack it in. The thousand needles formula is spell power x 500... except fr some reason it doesn't work for spell power 1 or 2 (500 or 1000 damage), which is why it's 2k Needles and not 1k needles. Yet again, not ideal, but I'm happy enough that I have no plan to fix it.
That is strange. Is the coding for the routine somewhat askewed? I find it odd that it wouldn't work for 500 and 1000 damage..
Oh, a bit more on Blue Magic... the eventual plan will be that the spells only cost 1-5 MP, but Kella will have very low max MP. Is there any good reason for this? Not especially. I thought it might be a nice way to set the really strong spells apart from the weaker ones...
It makes her even more unique and sets her further apart from her Blue Mage inspiration. I think that's a good idea.
Whoa! That is quite a "sidequest" for an interesting "reward".
You mean the Rydia thing? It's not really a sidequest per se. It's a forced choice the player has to make with real implications. Sorta like in FFX-2. Yes, there are lots of nods to other FF games in this hack.
Oh no, I was referring to the "port side" side quest. It is 100% fitting for a son of Edge. Though what you are doing with Rydia sounds great. It gives the quest sort of a Tactics Ogre like feel to it in some respects. Where one choice there may influence another here.
Gah, I regret reading too much, I didn't realize that "Would you like to hear more about the meaning of the game's title?" would imply so much... spoilering!
Can't say Spoilingway didn't warn you! Did you give in to reading the rest?
Again, thanks for all the feedback and help!
Yeah, yeah I did. Mainly because the lead-in questions sound so innocent.
"Wanna hear some juicy gossip about Rydia?" Okay, that one I should have been leery of. The others though...
"Would you like to hear about the meaning of the game's title?" And...
"I bet you're VERY interested in knowing about Kella, the only brand new party member!" I didn't expect all of That from just wanting to learn a little about Kella.
All in all though, yes the room is called "Spoiler Room" so I should have just been aware of that. Overall it's not so bad. Because though I know sort of what's going to occur, I feel that the part of a plot is the journey and the reason, not just knowing the end-result.
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Heh, it's just I'm a large supporter of Leonora/Palom. The two are such an adorable couple. But with Palom being... him. I could see how Leonora would grow tired of him with time. Overall it's a good idea, I am curious though to know what will make Leonora find a common soul in "YOU NO TAKE CRYSTAL!!" Dark Elf.
I get it, you're Team Jacob. Sorry, that was eggregious but I couldn't resist.
I was thinking, without a crystal to obsess over, maybe Dark Elf chills out a bit. Think Smeagol if The One Ring was destroyed but he lived.
Also, remember he wa a bit more articulate in TAY than in the original story. It clearly will take a bit of tweaking, but that's what I'm working with.
(Re: berserk weapons)
If nothing else you can always take the original checks and make it jump to code with available space.
The plan is... so in battle the game checks each equipped weapon, then does a BEQ if holding Avenger. My idea is, make all the berserk weapons at the beginning of the list, and BCC from the highest berserk weapon. I'm pretty sure that will work...
I take it most of the free command slots when into setting up the Limit Breaks then?
Yeah... one side effect of my limit system is that it uses up almost every little bit of command space.
Ursula has a great limit to balance that out a bit... think of Furio, Ceo, Kella, Ursula and, say, Lando all attacking in succession.
Avon: Invincibility! That is too cool!
Would dividing it to make it last as long as his Level /2 or even /4 make it a bit more fair?
Maybe so, but then it practically does nothing if he's level 15 or so... that's easy enough to tweak though, so we'll see how it shakes out.
For the new formations that you set up in the Training Room, the targeting is rather strange. pressing left will take you down to the next foe and pressing up will take you left, etc, etc. It seems to deal something with arrangements which we're not 100% sure on how that works yet.
Ah, gotcha. Yeah... wonder why that is? Good to know about swapping monsters in existing formations, though.
(Re copying Dart)
Hmm, it cast a Dummy Heal spell, likely from the Silver Staff if I had to guess.
Because it's meant to be used on monsters, it will jump to fight if $2052,x = 00, or will jump to magic casting if 2052,x = 01-A6 (or so, don't remember the exact highest spell) but dart populates 2052,x, but not with the magic subroutine. That's what causes the weird behavior. Anyway, I'll fix that eventually.
Wow! That's very impressive! But doesn't it allow abuse by running up the clock? Or is there some kind of Level portion to the formula?
FFIV's clock runs on four bytes, believe it or not, and Time Bomb only references the middle two. After something like 30 hours, the damage will drop back to single digits.
That would be quite the honor. Your mod has the potential to become quite well-spread and well known as being the only FFIV Mod that completely changes... everything. My scaled back Combat Boost patch that I am working on is just that. A Combat Boost, new equipment, new commands, a more challenging experience, but still follows the same story of FFIV.
I'm excited to see you think it has that potential. Of course at the rate I'm going, a finished product may still be years away... oof.
That is strange. Is the coding for the routine somewhat askewed? I find it odd that it wouldn't work for 500 and 1000 damage..
Yeah, I can't even begin to imagine why it's happening. Even more frustrating, earlier experiments with it (since lost) were working fine.
:wtf:
Oh no, I was referring to the "port side" side quest. It is 100% fitting for a son of Edge. Though what you are doing with Rydia sounds great. It gives the quest sort of a Tactics Ogre like feel to it in some respects. Where one choice there may influence another here.
Ah, the ladies of Ill repute... I do love sidequests, and acquiring Mog will be a big one, too. There will also be something with "the last black chocobo," but I haven't decided what to do with that idea yet.
Yeah, yeah I did. Mainly because the lead-in questions sound so innocent.
"Wanna hear some juicy gossip about Rydia?" Okay, that one I should have been leery of. The others though...
"Would you like to hear about the meaning of the game's title?" And...
"I bet you're VERY interested in knowing about Kella, the only brand new party member!" I didn't expect all of That from just wanting to learn a little about Kella.
All in all though, yes the room is called "Spoiler Room" so I should have just been aware of that. Overall it's not so bad. Because though I know sort of what's going to occur, I feel that the part of a plot is the journey and the reason, not just knowing the end-result.
Sorry... I guess I should have warned you more sternly. I wanted feedback from you (and damn did you deliver), but the price of that is definitely your innocense to the game's secrets. Thanks for being a good sport about it. I'll do my best to be more straightforward about the risks of reading on in the future.
So I have the day off tomorrow and I'm home alone all day
(http://www.avatars101.com/avatars/Movies/DF2481C8831D375523FE0A6663403AD0/HomeAloneAHHH.gif)
So I should be able to smooth out some of those edges and realease a Preview v0.2
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I get it, you're Team Jacob. Sorry, that was eggregious but I couldn't resist.
I was thinking, without a crystal to obsess over, maybe Dark Elf chills out a bit. Think Smeagol if The One Ring was destroyed but he lived.
Also, remember he wa a bit more articulate in TAY than in the original story. It clearly will take a bit of tweaking, but that's what I'm working with.
Well I felt it was a pretty obvious conclusion. Considering that Palom abandons his own Sage training to train Leonora and Leonora gives up becoming an Epopt to journey the world with Palom. As I said though Palom is still a bit of a sarcastic smart-aleck. I could see his nature possibly eventually driving Leonora away.
The plan is... so in battle the game checks each equipped weapon, then does a BEQ if holding Avenger. My idea is, make all the berserk weapons at the beginning of the list, and BCC from the highest berserk weapon. I'm pretty sure that will work...
Actually... I *think* there might be a way to have it look not at what weapon is being held, but another matter all together. If you have the weapon also apply Berserk on those it hits you can have the original check (which would logically come right before the CMP's) change it to look at the Status to inflict and if it reads that the status it applies will be Berserk, than that weapon will also inflict Berserk on the user. In that way you won't be confined to an index.
I'm excited to see you think it has that potential. Of course at the rate I'm going, a finished product may still be years away... oof.
You know the saying "good things come to those who wait." You have your ideas all set up and the battle system, seemingly solidified. Now the part comes to building events.
Ah, the ladies of Ill repute... I do love sidequests, and acquiring Mog will be a big one, too. There will also be something with "the last black chocobo," but I haven't decided what to do with that idea yet.
I love sidequests as well. FFIV is sadly lacking in them in a meaningful sense. I've managed to include one in Combat Boost in the Daughters of Artemis, which is as basic of a sidequest as you can get. When you use Hunt on a decently high leveled enemy you can get the (1/16 chance depending on the level of the enemy) Hunter's Key which allows you access to a secret shop in the former "Troia Cafe"'s" upstairs. That place has been changed to the Daughters of Artemis. A group of cultish defenders of Troia who worship Artemis as Goddess of the Hunt. By fighting really high level enemies and using Hunt you have the chance to get an Artemis Key (1/24) which allows you into the Inner Sanctum of the Daughters of Artemis where you can purchase the best equipment in the game (some unique) for Rosa (for extraordinarily high prices) and buy another Artemis Key should you not have enough money at that moment.
...I guess the nature and concept of Dragon Speech can also be considered a side-quest though.
Sorry... I guess I should have warned you more sternly. I wanted feedback from you (and damn did you deliver), but the price of that is definitely your innocense to the game's secrets. Thanks for being a good sport about it. I'll do my best to be more straightforward about the risks of reading on in the future.
So I have the day off tomorrow and I'm home alone all day
(http://www.avatars101.com/avatars/Movies/DF2481C8831D375523FE0A6663403AD0/HomeAloneAHHH.gif)
So I should be able to smooth out some of those edges and realease a Preview v0.2
No problem. I'm just glad my feedback is somewhat helpful. Smooth out the "Edges", a non-intentional pun, but still pretty humorous. I wouldn't mind giving it another go when its fixed up and ready to go.
Though now I have a few questions...
How are you putting new sprites, palette and all into the game? Last I checked this was a highly complicated procedure, but it looks like you have it down pat!
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If he has it down pat maybe chillyfeez can help us out Grimoire. LOL
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Palettes are not so complicated when you use SNESPal, as long as you know where the palettes are located
Spriting, on the other hand, is an extremely complicated and even moreso time consuming process. I spent the better part of a month just putting the characters' images together - which is exactly why I ended up with some I am not completely fond of.
I'll explain my process with some pictures soon.
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Posted the steps of my spriting process to the Apropos of Nothing topic:
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1905.msg20549#msg20549
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You have your work cut out for you my friend. This is not an enviable task by any means, however it's not as arduous or as painstaking as I thought it would be and with a bit of effort I guess anyone can really do it, but at the amount you've done it I imagine that you've grown quite skilled with it!
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I was looking at Blank's level up table and I remembered what the issue is there.
The problem is, he uses DK Cecil's job slot and level up data, but Golbez's Actor and Character slot. This was the workaround to ensure he wouldn't have the same name as Ceo, who uses P Cecil's spot (as I recall, DK Cecil and P Cecil must have the same name, unless that was just a since-fixed bug in earlier versions of FF4kster).
Anyway, an unintended side effect of this is that Blank... is not fully compatible with FF4kster.
In some respects, that fact's just a minor inconvenience - to add him into the party, you simply "add DK Cecil," but to remove him, you have to "Remove Golbez," which is not an available option in FF4kster. So, I make the event remove DK Cecil, then edit it by hand in my hex editor. A sliver tedious, but no big deal.
For level up data, though, Blank is an ungodly nightmare. FF4kster can write his level up data just fine. Problem is, it can't read his level up data. So any time I edit any part of the ROM with FF4kster, his level up table gets screwed up again. Of course, now that I know this, and I am much better at all of this than I was when I first started this hack, I know I can fix his data once, then just make a patch that can be applied when needed. But I've gotta find the time (and motivation) to sit down and fix his level up data one more time - probably the most tedious FFIV hacking task in existence imho.
The good news is, that's the only issue with level up data. It seems, in my experience, that TNL only gets screwed up if you try to make a character begin at a level earlier than they normally would. My characters' level up tables all start at the same level or later. ...Unless there's an issue I haven't discovered yet...
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The good news is, that's the only issue with level up data. It seems, in my experience, that TNL only gets screwed up if you try to make a character begin at a level earlier than they normally would. My characters' level up tables all start at the same level or later. ...Unless there's an issue I haven't discovered yet...
I'd imagine you'd be safe staying over the original minimums.
This is another reason I need to get my a** in gear and finish the formulaic replacement. I did mange to settle on extrapolated TNL values for those who are missing some due to starting level. It would, however, require some decent recoding in the game to reference them as needed and it would likely present a problem with FF4kster - but maybe not; in the editor it does list every character with rows or zeroes, so it might be able to figure it out.
The problem I have finishing up the formula replacement is one of accuracy. I can't satisfy myself to be close enough over the whole range and for all the characters. Now I'm giving thought to just storing a table from Level 1 - 69 that has the average TNL value accross all characters and then finding the best formula to calculate how far off and given character is. It's just not where my head is at moment; hopefully soon though because I can see where it can be used to escape problems like the above.
TNL Table - Extrapolated for All Characters:
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1911.msg20136#msg20136
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Quick update on progress (because v 0.2 is taking longer that originally planned)...
I've fixed all of the bugs Grimoire LD pointed out, except I haven't looked into Avon's invincibility not ending yet. I'm sure that will be a relatively quick fix, though, as it'sworked just fine in previous tests.
Oh, also, still trying to figure out the best course of action to deal with the occasional Agart minibosses not truly deactivating bug...
Additionally, fixed the level-up spell learning.
JCE3000GT made a title screen for me. Interestingly enough, when I patched that in the mysterious save game HP display bug stopped happening. Not sure if that was an intentional easter egg he threw in there...
Turns out, there WAS a since-corrected issue with FF4kster that caused DKnight and Paladin slots to have the same name. So now Blank fully uses DK Cecil's slot, which means:
-no need for a level-up workaround patch. All levelups work fine now.
-no more problems with Twincasting. Rydia will still get drawn in if she's in the party, but in the actual game she never will be.
What's been taking so long is the rest of my hacked Twin command. I've figured out (pretty sure) a way to allow it to use white or black-type spells, player's choice, without sacrificing the randomness factor.
Essentially, I cut out the Golbez/FuSoYa checks in the spell chooser, then did the following (I'll post an actual disassembly soon):
-set register Y to 0000
-load caster's enemy targeting byte
-if not 00, skip ahead
-if 00, set register Y to 0015 (15 is the difference between spell numbers of flare and w.meteo)
-RNG
-if RN = FF, normal fail routine
-if RN is over 40, skip ahead
-if RN is less than 40, +1 to register Y
-transfer Y to A
-add 40 to A
-rest of routine as normal
Also, changed the targeting options to split enemy/ally (defaults to enemy), replaced Comet with W.Meteo, and replaced W.Meteo and the dummy that follows it with a powerful cure spell ("W.Cure") and a target-all heal spell ("Esuna") respectively.
The result: if the player chooses to target one or all enemies, the game randomly chooses spell 40 or 41 (W.Meteo or Flare). If the player targets one or all allies, the game picks between 5E and 5F (W.Cure or Esuna).
I had planned to finish all of that yesterday, but then I accidentally spent the whole day investigating spell AV code (trying to write a unique image for W.Cure to visually distinguish it from Cure 4 and Cure Z). Not a significant amount of success there, though I discovered a few interesting things that on their own are no help. I may cut my losses for now in the interest of getting an updated patch out there.
So that's where I'm at right now, in case anyone was wondering.
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So my altered Twin routine works like a charm!
As above, the targeting (at 9FFD3) was changed from 60 to 70, so that the player can target one/all enemies/allies.
Also, the following spells were changed:
40 WMeteo (formerly Comet)
5E Esuna (formerly W.Meteo, now the same as Heal, except it can target all allies)
5F W.Cure (formerly the Dummy used - I think - by the Rod, now a really strong Cure spell)
The coding changes are thus:
Original (thanks Grimoire LD):
$03/E56E BD 00 20 LDA $2000,x[$7E:2080] A:0000 X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdiZc - Load Character 1's Character ID into A.
$03/E571 29 1F AND #$1F A:0089 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - -80? to A?
$03/E573 C9 13 CMP #$13 A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdizc - (Palom and Porom are 08 and 09, not 13 and 15, I have no ide... FuSoYa and Golbez.) Is it FuSoYa?
$03/E575 F0 04 BEQ $04 [$E57B] A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - If so branch to 03E57B.
$03/E577 C9 15 CMP #$15 A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - Is it Golbez?
$03/E579 D0 04 BNE $04 [$E57F] A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - If not branch to 03E57F.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$03/E57B A9 5E LDA #$5E A:0015 X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdiZC - Load W. Meteo
$03/E57D 80 19 BRA $19 [$E598] A:005E X:0080 Y:0005 P:envMxdizC - Branch Always to 03E598.
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$03/E57F 20 93 85 JSR $8593 [$03:8593] A:0009 X:0080 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - Jump to Subroutine (where random number seems to be generated)
$03/E582 C9 FF CMP #$FF A:008F X:0011 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizC - Was it FF (or higher)?
$03/E584 90 08 BCC $08 [$E58E] A:008F X:0011 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - If not, branch to 03E58E.
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$03/E586 A9 11 LDA #$11 A:00FF X:0033 Y:0007 P:envMxdiZC- Load x11 into A. (Failed Message)
$03/E588 8D CA 34 STA $34CA [$7E:34CA] A:0011 X:001B Y:0005 P:envMxdizC - Store A in 7E34CA (Battle Message Area)
$03/E58B 4C A6 85 JMP $85A6 [$03:85A6] A:0011 X:001B Y:0005 P:envMxdizC - Jump to Subroutine which leads out of the Routine all together.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$03/E58E C9 40 CMP #$40 A:008F X:0011 Y:0005 P:eNvMxdizc - Is it less than 40?
$03/E590 90 04 BCC $04 [$E596] A:008F X:0011 Y:0005 P:envMxdizC - If so, branch to 03E596.
$03/E592 A9 41 LDA #$41 A:008F X:0011 Y:0005 P:envMxdizC - Load Flare into A.
$03/E594 80 02 BRA $02 [$E598] A:0041 X:0011 Y:0005 P:envMxdizC - Branch Always to 03E598.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$03/E596 A9 40 LDA #$40 A:0024 X:0064 Y:0007 P:eNvMxdizc - Load Comet
New code:
$03/E56E 5A PHY ;In case the current value of Y is significant
$03/E56F A0 00 00 LDY #$0000 ;Set Y to 0000
$03/E572 BD 53 20 LDA $2053,x[$7E:2053] ;Load caster's enemy targeting byte
$03/E575 D0 03 BNE $03 [$E57A] ;if it is not zero, skip the next op
$03/E577 A0 1E 00 LDY #$001E ;otherwise, load 001E into Y
$03/E57A EA NOP
$03/E57B EA NOP
$03/E57C EA NOP
$03/E57D EA NOP
$03/E57E EA NOP ;space filler, placed here specifically in case other parts of the Twin routine rely on the proper position of the fail routine
$03/E57F 20 93 85 JSR $8593 [$03:8593] ;Random number generator
$03/E582 C9 FF CMP #$FF
$03/E584 90 08 BCC $08 [$E58E] ;If random number is less than FF, skip ahead
$03/E586 A9 11 LDA #$11
$03/E588 8D CA 34 STA $34CA [$7E:34CA]
$03/E58B 4C A6 85 JMP $85A6 [$03:85A6] ;otherwise, show "failed" message and end routine
$03/E58E C9 40 CMP #$40
$03/E590 90 01 BCC $01 [$E593] ;If random number is less than 40, skip the next op
$03/E592 C8 INY ;+1 to Y
$03/E593 98 TYA ;Transfer Y to A
$03/E594 7A PLY ;Set Y back to whatever it was before we started
$03/E595 18 CLC
$03/E596 69 40 ADC #$40 ;Add 40 to A
Voila!
Now, for those who might be interested in using this in their own hacks, beware, this takes out the special consideration for which spell to use if the caster is Golbez or FuSoYa... which means there's a chance they will cast Flare on Zemus. At the very least, this would require a slight alteration of dialogue ("Use the Meteo!" Then they cast Flare?).
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Glad to hear everything is working! And I have to say the idea to use targeting is a lot better of an idea than my own haphazard method. Though I am curious... when Porom initiates the Twincast and you target allies, does it hit all allies or will it only hit Palom? That problem is what continues to confound me.
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I just tested... seems to work as planned.
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Hmm, where was Porom positioned? Because if she was in the middle of the party (first slot) she is "tied" with Palom in the "superior"/"inferior" twin issue goes.
If she's not in the middle slot and it works fine maybe its something I didn't account for in my original hack.
Also do you happen to know where the Level Up Tables are in 1.1? I can't seem to locate the document with info. on those.
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I tested with her in slots 1 and 5 and it works fine, though palom may have been in slot 1 when porom was in 5, if that would make any difference...
Regarding level up data... I think it's the same regardless of version - 7B700 (pointers) and 7B728 (data)
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Updated patch linked in the original post.
Still need to patch in Grimoire LD's version of Salve, as well as update the credits. Both will happen soon.
Regarding the Agart minibosses - now they don't disappear, they just say "don't hurt me!" After you defeat them. I tried a couple of different fixes, but nothing else solved the problem of the phantom minibosses. This was my least favorite option, but at least it works smoothly now.
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Thank you very much Chillyfeez! That might explain why I was having trouble pinpointing it. I forget exactly where FFII v1.1 offsets begin to differ from v1.0.
I think the Twin issue is something I may have inadvertently created with subpar hacking. No matter. I'll likely borrow some of what you did here then for an upgraded Twincast command.
Ah well, it might show that Furio is of a merciful sort to even spare the lives of monsters in his actions so I guess it works in a character development sort of manner, in that respect. My time will be crunched until Tuesday, but I'll make sure to give this a try then!
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UPDATE
You're absolutely right, Grimoire. I think this was actually a case of subpar testing on my part...
:isuck:
Porom won't use Twin on all party members unless she's in slot 1.
:lame:
:edit: OK, I figured out why my tests worked fine. Porom will target all party members as long as she is in an earlier slot than Palom. So if she's in slot 2 and Palom's in slot 3 through 5, no problem. The dominant twin bug happens if Palom is in an earlier slot. It's one of those things that is bothersome, but I think I can (grudgingly) live with. Maybe someday I'll investigate the matter more, but I've got too many other things I want to work on right now.
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Alright, I put on my supercool trench coat and Neo shades for this one...
(http://leviathyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/neo.jpg)
I made a fix for the Dominant Twin problem.
Mind you, this is very specific to my hack, but the principle can transfer to other work as well.
Essentially, this gives Porom a new command (also called "Twin") that forces Palom to use Twin immediately, using targeting specified by Porom's command.
For my hack, I took over Boast (the last unused command), and had to squeeze the code into a bunch of different empty spaces (thereby using up just about every last bit of the 30000 block).
Here's the disassembly. Excuse the jumps - they were necessary to work around code that can't be moved at this point.
$03/EAC3 A2 00 00 LDX #$0000
$03/EAC6 BD 01 20 LDA $2001,x
$03/EAC9 29 0F AND #$0F
$03/EACB C9 07 CMP #$07 ;Check if Palom is in slot 1
$03/EACD F0 0D BEQ $0D
$03/EACF C2 20 REP #$20
$03/EAD1 8A TXA
$03/EAD2 18 CLC
$03/EAD3 69 80 00 ADC #$0080
$03/EAD6 AA TAX
$03/EAD7 7B TDC
$03/EAD8 E2 20 SEP #$20
$03/EADA 80 EA BRA $EA ;If not, check if Palom is in slot 2, and so on until he's found
$03/EADC A9 10 LDA #$10
$03/EADE 9D 51 20 STA $2051,x ;Store Twin (the real command) into Palom's next action
$03/EAE1 4C 58 F2 JMP $F258 ;(jump)
-----------------------------------------------
$03/F258 C2 20 REP #$20
$03/F25A AD D3 26 LDA $26D3
$03/F25D 9D 53 20 STA $2053,x ;Copy Porom's Target (enemy AND Ally) into Palom's target
$03/F260 8A TXA ;Move Palom's slot ID to A
$03/F261 4A LSR A
$03/F262 4A LSR A
$03/F263 4A LSR A
$03/F264 4A LSR A
$03/F265 4A LSR A
$03/F266 4A LSR A
$03/F267 4A LSR A ;Shift A to the right 7 times, changing it into the true representation of Palom's slot number (result will be 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4)
$03/F268 AA TAX ;Transfer A back to X
$03/F269 7B TDC
$03/F26A E2 20 SEP #$20
$03/F26C E0 00 00 CPX #$0000
$03/F26F F0 06 BEQ $06
$03/F271 18 CLC
$03/F272 69 15 ADC #$15
$03/F274 CA DEX
$03/F275 80 F5 BRA $F5 ;Essentially, multiply Palom's slot number by 0x15
$03/F277 AA TAX ;Then store the result in X
$03/F278 9E 07 2A STZ $2A07,x ;Make Palom's wait time 00
$03/F27B A9 08 LDA #$08 ;Make Palom automatically perform the action in his Next Action byte (Which is now Twin)
$03/F27D 4C F5 FF JMP $FFF5 ;(jump)
-----------------------------------------------
$03/FFF5 9D 09 2A STA $2A09,x ;Make Palom perform action in his Next Action byte (continued)
$03/FFF8 EE 0A 39 INC $390A ;Set the byte that makes changes to the "wait time" table stick
$03/FFFB CE C4 33 DEC $33C4 ;Decrease the AV code by 01 (this replaces Boast, which is one higher than Twin)
$03/FFFE 60 RTS ;Return
An added bonus to this - the real Twin command (the one Palom has) can be used on one/all enemies allies but defaults to the enemy side; Porom's Twin command can too, but defaults to the Ally side (implying that Palom prefers the offensive but Porom prefers the restorative.
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I also spliced Grimoire LD's Salve command into my hack, but I made a very slight change...
The BCS $36 at 03/E303 - I changed it to BCS $E6.
What this does is, if the item is above the last usable battle item (Heal potion), instead of returning a "failed" message, it moves on to check the next item. So now, Avon will Salve the first usable item in the party's inventory.
Latest version linked on the first post. Now including:
-Final revisions to Twin command
-Updated Salve command
-Updated credits sequence
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Your change to Salve is pretty good! I might have to borrow that as well.
Alright then, looks like its time for a second go through. As this is a second playthrough you can probably expect a bit shorter response.
And there we go... with no extra training and without a Ninja assistant I managed to defeat Jinn at Level 11. I stole 20 Cure 1's from the enemies and 20 Ice Kunai from the Imp. It took a while but I managed to bring down Jinn without incident.
Looks like the new Twincast is working optimally. I've seen Esuna and W. Cure as well as Flare and W.Meteo.
Salve appears to be working correctly and even better than before.
Hmm, Avon's invincibility still seems to last forever... ah well. Looks like a welcome update in any case!
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What the crap with Avon. I'd have sworn I fixed that. Maybe I somehow ended up making the Twin changes on a ROM that was pre-Invincibility fix?
Well, I'll have to go back and fix that again. I'm working inventory late tonight, so maybe tomorrow. Glad to see everything else seems to be in order.
I think it's kinda cool that you're coming up with ways to bork my game, btw. In some bizarre sense it makes the game more similar to the original.
Putting this demo out has re-sparked my enthusiasm for this hack. I keep coming up with little bits and pieces that I want to work in. I have to re-do Jinn so he has his sprite change (and of course fix invincibility), but then I'm going to get back to writing more of the story. In chapter two you have the option of hiring Ruby or Cinna to help out. Bet you can't guess where the next REMA mission will take Furio!
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I do love the story of mercenary forces (hence why my actual attempt at a mod for FFT was FFT:Mercenaries) it's also a neat reference to SEED. I might not care much for the execution of FFVIII's story but I enjoyed the concept of it at any length.
I love challenge runs (as evidenced by my own mod) and I appreciate that its still possible to have them here. I am glad to hear that you're already planning future parts to it. Let's see... an optional White Mage or Black Mage, but not The White Mage or Black Mage of FFIV so I'm going to guess either Baron (with their White and Black Magic Classrooms) or possibly Kaipo as it's Tellah's hometown (well Mysidia is technically his birth place but he lived for many years in Kaipo)
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Oh, sorry, that was meant to be rhetorical. It's Mysidia.
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Believe it or not, I have been continuing to work on this. Slowly but surely.
Of course, as I learn new stuff, I have to include new stuff, so the progress of making a new demo version is slow going.
That being said, it's no secret that I just spent some time working with title screens, so of course I had to apply what I learned from that process to my own hack.
Here it is! (https://youtu.be/izIvDaMCuzw)
What do you guys think?
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Whoa. That is pretty nifty Chillyfeez, the font used for a Threat from Within looks a little... off, but other than that the scrolling effect, the faded in credits and the sword glow was excellent! I am always glad to see the fruits of labor displayed in full.
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Wow very nice! I like it.
Let me know if you want me to do another font chillyfeez. :)
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Wow very nice! I like it.
Let me know if you want me to do another font chillyfeez. :)
That would be great. Pixel artistry is not my strong suit as I've said before. This was actually a 1:1 copy of a font from MS Word, but I had to use 10 point font in order for it to fit in the space you originally used, and the ten point font stretched into a bigger space does look a little wonky.
I want it to be written in a cursive-style font so that the letter-by-letter fade gives some semblence of the effect of it being handwritten across the screen.
I don't know how feasible a better font is in light of that request and the space restrictions... What do you think?
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I will need to look in to this. I've got 1,000's of fonts so maybe I've got some that will work with the space allowed.
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I will need to look in to this. I've got 1,000's of fonts so maybe I've got some that will work with the space allowed.
Cool. Would it help to have a copy of the ROM as it is now?
I mean, I used pretty much the exact same space that you used for the original. Except I had to use one of the few tiles you dummied out for quite literally one pixel (at the very end of the n).
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Yea shoot that over to me. I will play around with it to find a good looking font. :)
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Well, it's not as polished a demo as the one released a little over a year ago, but I've been eager to get something out, so here:
Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within v 0.3 beta (http://Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within v 0.3 beta)
This includes all of the changes I made, including but not limited to: significant updates to the Limit system, chocobo catching (although the final prize doesn't exist yet), the (pretty much) full second chapter, and of course the new title screen.
If anybody wants to play through and let me know what they think, I definitely appreciate the feedback. Full play through of what I've done so far will likely take 1.5 hours or so, and there are definitely some bugs I haven't ironed out yet...
:edit:
Oh, yeah. This should be applied to a clean, unheadered (which is new for me) 1.1 ROM.
:edit: 2
Link target removed. See below for new file.
:isuck:
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Excellent! I am always eager to play another update to A Threat from Within! I'll post my thoughts on it as I go along and compare it to the first demo and see how things have changed (hopefully Avon's invincibility Limit wears off now, hehe)
Hmm, still looks as if the Sun is glitched and the Earth is still missing an enormous chunk of it. I don't recall the colors being messed up last time however. Might be faulty memory.
Oh ho! I love this new opening! The battle with Edge idea is rather neat and stealing from him seems to net a ?rare? item and it even evokes a reaction from Edge himself! Nice touch!
And... I think I noticed a glitch, a rather game breaking one I should say... after the first turn, or the first time you take an action and your turn comes up again, or you go to one menu, leave, and try to enter another in the battle the game softlocks. Period. I know the ROM is unheadered because I tried applying it to a headered rom and the game wouldn't load and I am certain it's 1.1, any idea what might be happening there?
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Hmm... I put this patch up a bit hastily. I wonder if I forgot to apply my FF4kster Battle Breaking fix patch before I put this up...
Unfortunately, I'm on my way to work now, but I will look into it.
The glitchy sun is suspicious, but the glitchy earth is something I still haven't figured out how to fix.
So, okay, I'll work out the battle issue (probably easy) and resend the patch within a day.
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No worries mate take your time!
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Well, starting at 7:30 PM today, I'm on vacation for a week (and not going away this time), so time is something of which I will have plenty. Especially if it continues to snow here in Upstate new York like it did yesterday and today...
:lame:
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Yes, it was just as I thought. I forgot to apply my "FF4kster Battle Correction" patch before putting this out.
So, problems with the glitchy sun and battles softlocking fixed.
This should work:
Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within v 0.3.1 beta (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcYmw1anF0dzBxdlU/edit?usp=docslist_api)
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SPOILERS FOR THE GAME! DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED!!
Looks like we're on a roll!
Alright, the sun is fixed and the opening battle is rather interesting, ends after a few turns, the player is never in any real danger so it seems the objective is to steal the Emerald from Edge, since I somewhat doubt you get anything else (though I could be wrong and you may get a different treasure for actually defeating him.)
The Emerald is an interesting accessory, it gives 1 Magic Defense, 9? Magical Evasion and 3 Wisdom. I do not know if it prevents any ailments though. It is a good tradeoff for the Magic Evasion over the pure Defense.
Hmm, this looks to be running an older version of User Options, with the MaxATB and HP being in the Options instead of Active/Wait and the Change command is still present instead of Cache.
67 Year old Edge is still wise-cracking and I love that about his character.
Interestingly the Run hack isn't present at all.
That Big Chocobo conversation is rather interesting, actually a bit nuanced. I like it! I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when you do ride a Chocobo and return to him.
Short Sword is still in its original location, that should make combat a veritable breeze for a while.
Also I forgot to mention I like the little touches as well, such as the little girl moving quickly to symbolize youth and the old man on the other side moving slowly to symbolize age.
I've said before I like the equipment draw from the shop.
Hmm, even with the Shadow Party Hack you plan on resetting the levels of the Mercenaries that join the team?
BUG: ...Um... I went down the stairs in the Hiring Room and was warped several times until I was placed in the upper corner of Baron, I know exactly what happened, but invalid warps always lead there. But it is strange in the first place.
Hmm, the Imps and Imp Captains seem to barely be able to hit me. Is there Accuracy still down to 55% or something like that? That would leave with with a 15% chance to actually hit Furio.
BUG: The graphics for Change and Parry are a little bit screwed up at the top.
BUG:? When you refuse the kisser at the Agart Port she says "Not enough GP.". I can't think that's intended.
Ah, I see you've got your Steal hack working appropriately. You can only steal one Ice ?Dart? from the Imps now.
Good change of the NPC's to lines instead of battles when you talk to them again.
Oh, I see you haven't switched your "Look for this character's Stats" on the Save Screen yet. I have the way to do that in my note topic somewhere recent-ish.
Hmm, the new enemy Old Tree seems a bit interesting, I don't know what TimeBomb does, but it only dealt about 16-20 damage.
I love the greater array of enemies on the World Map, Turtles, Bats, Old Trees all add a flair the original game is missing at times.
Hmm, I think the Bombs may have been made more difficult, with the seeming intention to prevent players from soloing the area, it can still be done but requires a bit of level grinding to roughly Level 14.
Imp Hit, which I don't recall from the last version doesn't appear to do anything.
The way to deal with Dummy is still to stick to the back row.
Though you've renamed the keys inside of the event you never renamed them outside of it. The items still go by their FFVIII reference names.
Everything (aside from Imps) deals quite a bit more damage, which is good.
Looks like you still have the Elemental Darts throwing Arms, I also have the fix for that in my topic somewhere.
It deals with the items you've replaced as memory serves.
Hmm, it seems for Ifrit you have to wait a couple of seconds after he turns on the heat for him to be weak to Ice, while before that it will still extinguish the flames, it won't deal double damage, very risky move to play.
Oh I like this new "LIMIT BREAK!" notice when one is available, a very nice touch! Even changing Fight to LIMIT.
Whew, another close bout with Ifrit, you really need to steal all of those Ice Darts to survive alone otherwise Burn will murder you. I could only steal 3 because the Bomb's HP is such that he will kill you if you do not attack him continually.
Looks like Agart is now open for conversation! Another nice character touch with the lady mentioning a Dwarven cousin. Nice use of FFIV lore.
ChainMail at the store, eh? A new armor, I wonder if it's worth the money? Stealth Dagger? That's new, I'll have to pick that up as well.
Raises Agility by 3, not a bad deal! Especially if you haven't leveled up enough to earn that 1 extra point of Agility for the Attack Multiplier.
What an interesting piece of Armor! Chainmail raises your Strength and Vitality by 5 while lowering the other stats. This will be good in a couple of levels and might actually be able to be manipulated with another Stealth Knife to offset the loss of Speed. I'll try it out. It does lower overall Evasion though.
"Our Boring One-Moon Sky" Haha! Nice touch!
I wonder if Corio is onto something... does this hint at an expanded Underworld? It is the Threat from Within after all.
Oh hey! The next event happens at the Agart Inn! I like the Dwarf drinking with a fellow man at the bar.
REMA, as I said before is a really neat concept, I don't think we've been told what it stand for yet, but I do like that you literally get "GP Bag" for completing the mission.
Ah! Secret treasure behind the bar! I literally just stumbled into the wall! Nice little reward, nothing too grand, but worth the find.
Ah, is the Enemy Level Up Patch in effect? I noticed some earlier foes are taking a bit longer to take out? Oh! Could this be the reason I was having a bit of trouble soloing?
I am loving this set up for the next chapter, strange weather from Mt. Ordeals, the House of Wishes being a literal government institution, it's all very well thought out.
Edge's concern about Jinn/Ifrit is great characterization and Furio's expression with it is amusing.
70 Damage from a SwordRat! I love the Enemy Level Up Patch!
Oh right... you can buy Ice Darts from the Eblan Weapon shop, haha! That would be a good investment.
Hmm, does REMA stand for Refurbished-Eblan-Mercenary-Association? Hmm... may need to think about that a bit more.
Good use of NPC appearance the interconnected ports is an interesting way to get around.
"Not very talkative give her a kiss!" (Muted, not even told by the game) Hilarious!
Whoa, how did you manage that Thunderstrike every few seconds in Mysidia? That is neat!
Well... I guess I better "Get my mission before I hire help!"
And I better "Proceed to the Houses of Wishes first."
"Crazy witch who stole my treasure, last seen running into trees!" Interesting, I wonder if that means anything... or if it's just a playful nod to the original.
Ah, Royal Eblana Mercenary Army. That makes sense. Did Edge mention that at the start and I just forgot?
May I say your characterization for Palom and Porom as joint Elders of Mysidia is Spot on! I especially loved Palom struggling to carry the Iron Boots.
"We don't posess the physical strength..." should be "possess"
Interesting philosophical lore on the nature of White and Black Magic, one coming from the Sun, the other the Moon.
Whoa, the Moogles were Oppressed by the Lunarians? ...Interesting...
Frozen, Burning, and Coral Rings, if this is like FFV each will allow me to resist or absorb the appropriate magic, but a bit too costly for me at the moment. I like that the Black Mage even references their use.
I am glad to see that you're using Dark and Light not as good and evil, and you've made this explicit. Nice touch, even Zeromus absorbs Holy after all and his true form is revealed by using a Dark Crystal.
Ah hah... so you can buy Job Cards now and you were not kidding about them being costly!
Ah? Mages have a shard spellbook? An interesting idea.
Oh man, things just opened up so much with the ability to purchase one of three units, but I'll have to take a break, play a bit of FF:Record Keeper, get dinner, and then I will get back to this. I am loving this Even More than I originally did! I cannot wait to see what awaits me next!
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It's worth mentioning that I had originally intended on smoothing out some rough edges before releasing this patch, but I couldn't wait. Your bug-finding will probably end up being more help than me trying to do it on my own...
The Emerald... I have a big plan for this seemingly not-so-special but one of a kind item. It's also no mistake that it can be sold for (at this stage in the game) a lot of GP.
It is supposed to be not extremely easy to steal the Emerald, so if you got it early, then I either need to adjust that, or you were very lucky.
The battle with Edge, other than that, is just for show. I thought it was a fun way to introduce Furio. Notice that, now, one doesn't find out that he is Edge's son for sure until a few lines into their dialogue. I purposely did a similar thing with "The House of Wishes," not letting on immediately the identity of the new Elder(s).
Re: User Options... I kind of hate my version of dashing. It never worked as intended, so I thus far have left it out. That's subject to change, though... I actually forgot to change the Max HP/ATB in the menu. It can also be toggled with select. Change to Cache was created specifically for this hack, but I haven't gotten around to applying it yet. Details, details...
The shadow hack is actually not present in this game. I don't intend on changing the availability of characters and/or how they're switched from my original plan, and I kind of like the concept of hired characters that you can keep or lose forever, a la FFT. So, that sort of renders the shadow hack unneeded...
Oops.. I'm working on an as-yet unfinished beginner's hall. I guess I put the staircase in a bit prematurely. Sorry bout that.
I think the super-weak imps and imp caps are due to the level-up hack combined with solo Furio at level 10. They should get tougher as your party gets stronger.
The Change and Parry thing... Something I did caused that and I don't know exactly what. I don't know how to fix it, but it's entirely cosmetic and not so offensive that it takes much priority at the moment... I'm going with "known bug" for now.
The Agart kissing girl saying "not enough GP" is done on purpose. I don't want them all to say the same thing when rejected and... She is a member of "the oldest profession." The object was to be somewhat suggestive and funny without being blatantly dirty.
Oh, I see you haven't switched your "Look for this character's Stats" on the Save Screen yet. I have the way to do that in my note topic somewhere recent-ish.
I thought so. Something I'll get to, um, eventually.
TimeBomb is a blue magic, and my version of Step Mine. Since FFIV doesn't count steps, I needed to figure something else out, so it deals damage proportionate to the amount of time on the game clock.
ImpHit, also blue magic. It deals 1 damage if your level is higher than your opponent, and if your level is lower, it deals more damage depending on the difference (close to 9999 if ypou are level 10 and your opponent is 99). This makes it, as a player spell, useless against anything but bosses in this game, but will make imps late in the game have a fun "desperation attack," as this is what an imp uses when he is the last monster in battle.
Oops again about renaming the keys...
:isuck:
Looks like you still have the Elemental Darts throwing Arms, I also have the fix for that in my topic somewhere.
MY HERO! I can't tell you how vexed I've been by that one.
Actually, Ifrit's always weak to ice. The kunai just aren't very strong. I've been toying with the idea of making them slightly stronger, but I don't want to overdo it.
The game also has made available two IceShards (my name for the ice version of FireBomb/Lit-Bolt) by now - one in Eblan Castle and one slightly more hidden. They do considerably more damage to Ifrit.
I'm very happy with how the Limit system has evolved. When you're in critical condition, there's a 25% chance of getting a limit break. Each character can limit only once per battle, and unlike the original system, it does not carry over (remember how Palom could be an unstoppable juggernaut under the old system?).
Did you happen to read all of Corio's books? One of my favorite bits of comedy in the game is embedded there...
The aim with the available equipment in Agart was that the player (unless having grinded quite a bit) would likely be able to afford one but not both of those nifty pieces of equipment... Also buying them pretty much makes you have to wait to get an elemental ring or a new Job Card (though I think I still haven't put in the part where hiring help actually takes away the job card... That makes testing things work nicely, but obviously takes out some of the intended challenge). I want impactful player choices to be a significant part of this game... I think that will be much more obvious for you by the time you get to the end of the Mysidia chapter. :)
One of the first things Edge says out of battle is, "You're now a full fledged member of the Royal Eblana Mercenary Army." I don't mean for it to be an oddly mysterious acronym like SEED (Sorceress Edea's... Extra-special Do-gooders?).
The thunderstrike in Mysidia is done through very complicated custom assembly, so I'm glad you like it. When you're in Mysidia, and the "finished Mt Ordeals" flag is not set, the game checks the smallest time-counting byte every so often (off the top of my head, I don't remember how often). If the lower nibble of that byte ANDs true with 03, then the game runs a "lightning flash" event. Fortuitously, it even works when a dialogue box is open!
There totally is a crazy old witch. Except I think I need to fix her battle script, so she will be way too easy to beat if you find her.
Re: possess... Well, maybe if PinkPuff would hurry up and put a spell checker into FF4kster...
(that was a joke, PinkPuff, don't be mad at me)
There's a pretty specific reason why moogles were oppressed by the Lunarians, which ties into the light/dark mythos I'm using, and it all has a great deal to do with the primary conflict, too.
I have a big, complicated story to tell here. It's going to be fun for me to get it all out.
Keep it coming! This is all helping me out quite a bit.
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Here's an odd little glitch (doubt it's a glitch more of an oversight) when you sleep at Agart inn the Fabul music plays when you wake up. I assume you meant for that to be Town music.
It's worth mentioning that I had originally intended on smoothing out some rough edges before releasing this patch, but I couldn't wait. Your bug-finding will probably end up being more help than me trying to do it on my own...
The Emerald... I have a big plan for this seemingly not-so-special but one of a kind item. It's also no mistake that it can be sold for (at this stage in the game) a lot of GP.
It is supposed to be not extremely easy to steal the Emerald, so if you got it early, then I either need to adjust that, or you were very lucky.
The battle with Edge, other than that, is just for show. I thought it was a fun way to introduce Furio. Notice that, now, one doesn't find out that he is Edge's son for sure until a few lines into their dialogue. I purposely did a similar thing with "The House of Wishes," not letting on immediately the identity of the new Elder(s).
Oh? I guess I'll hang onto it then. I didn't think I was so lucky since everytime I fought the battle I had gotten it. I like how you introduced the House of Wishes you presented it as a place of importance and respect and in so doing you portrayed Palom and Porom's entrance as very befitting.
Re: User Options... I kind of hate my version of dashing. It never worked as intended, so I thus far have left it out. That's subject to change, though... I actually forgot to change the Max HP/ATB in the menu. It can also be toggled with select. Change to Cache was created specifically for this hack, but I haven't gotten around to applying it yet. Details, details...
The shadow hack is actually not present in this game. I don't intend on changing the availability of characters and/or how they're switched from my original plan, and I kind of like the concept of hired characters that you can keep or lose forever, a la FFT. So, that sort of renders the shadow hack unneeded...
I see what you mean, but at the same time you have a fairly large cast. Also if I'm not mistaken you can only hire One Mercenary, right? To have them all separated in this manner makes them a little difficult to choose which one, someone may save their Job Card until they reach Baron for a Dragoon, and don't want to invest 7000 GP in another Job Card, especially if they inadvertently grow attached to the Ninja or the Mages, and I imagine the Bard will be all the way in Damcyan. But I'm sure you've thought of this much more than I have.
Oops.. I'm working on an as-yet unfinished beginner's hall. I guess I put the staircase in a bit prematurely. Sorry bout that.
I think the super-weak imps and imp caps are due to the level-up hack combined with solo Furio at level 10. They should get tougher as your party gets stronger.
The Change and Parry thing... Something I did caused that and I don't know exactly what. I don't know how to fix it, but it's entirely cosmetic and not so offensive that it takes much priority at the moment... I'm going with "known bug" for now.
The Agart kissing girl saying "not enough GP" is done on purpose. I don't want them all to say the same thing when rejected and... She is a member of "the oldest
profession." The object was to be somewhat suggestive and funny without being blatantly dirty.
Haha, I see. I thought because there wasn't a question mark or anything it seemed a little matter-of-fact. The Beginner's Hall is a good idea.
Oh, I see you haven't switched your "Look for this character's Stats" on the Save Screen yet. I have the way to do that in my note topic somewhere recent-ish.
I thought so. Something I'll get to, um, eventually.
TimeBomb is a blue magic, and my version of Step Mine. Since FFIV doesn't count steps, I needed to figure something else out, so it deals damage proportionate to the amount of time on the game clock.
ImpHit, also blue magic. It deals 1 damage if your level is higher than your opponent, and if your level is lower, it deals more damage depending on the difference (close to 9999 if ypou are level 10 and your opponent is 99). This makes it, as a player spell, useless against anything but bosses in this game, but will make imps late in the game have a fun "desperation attack," as this is what an imp uses when he is the last monster in battle.
Ah, that is a rather neat idea. Yes. I think I recall asking about Time Bomb before now that I think about it, heh.
Looks like you still have the Elemental Darts throwing Arms, I also have the fix for that in my topic somewhere.
MY HERO! I can't tell you how vexed I've been by that one.
Actually, Ifrit's always weak to ice. The kunai just aren't very strong. I've been toying with the idea of making them slightly stronger, but I don't want to overdo it.
The game also has made available two IceShards (my name for the ice version of FireBomb/Lit-Bolt) by now - one in Eblan Castle and one slightly more hidden. They do considerably more damage to Ifrit.
[/quote]
They dealt roughly 200-400 damage for me. Which wasn't terrible, but wasn't the best but I imagine they're related to how much HP the player has in the first place as it was in FFIV.
I'll get the notes about the Throw...
Wait a second, you changed Throw's Routine didn't you?
$02/C118 AD 80 35 LDA $3580 [$7E:3580] A:00C0 X:0020 Y:000A P:envMxdiZC - Load Thrown Item into A.
$02/C11B C9 41 CMP #$41 A:0023 X:0020 Y:000A P:envMxdizC - Is it Ninja Shuriken?
$02/C11D F0 04 BEQ $04 [$C123] A:0023 X:0020 Y:000A P:eNvMxdizc - If so, unique branch.
$02/C11F C9 40 CMP #$40 A:0023 X:0020 Y:000A P:eNvMxdizc - Is it Shuriken?
$02/C121 D0 09 BNE $09 [$C12C] A:0023 X:0020 Y:000A P:eNvMxdizc - If not, branch past.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$02/C123 A9 40 LDA #$40 A:0011 X:0020 Y:000A P:envMxdizc - Load 40 into A.
$02/C125 85 50 STA $50 [$00:0050] A:0011 X:0020 Y:000A P:envMxdizc - Store A into 50.
$02/C127 64 51 STZ $51 [$00:0051] A:0011 X:0020 Y:000A P:envMxdizc - Store Zero in 51.
$02/C129 4C C8 CF JMP $CFC8 [$02:CFC8] A:0011 X:0020 Y:000A P:envMxdizc - Jump elsewhere
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$02/C12C A9 11 LDA #$11 A:0023 X:0020 Y:000A P:eNvMxdizc - Load 11 into A.
$02/C12E 20 6D D9 JSR $D96D [$02:D96D] A:0011 X:0020 Y:000A P:envMxdizc - Jump to Subroutine (Weapon Graphics)
I don't think in your new Throw Routine that you saved the Thrown Weapon to 3580 which is one of the first things the original Routine does. All you would have to do is add that back in and everything should work properly.
I'm very happy with how the Limit system has evolved. When you're in critical condition, there's a 25% chance of getting a limit break. Each character can limit only once per battle, and unlike the original system, it does not carry over (remember how Palom could be an unstoppable juggernaut under the old system?).
Yes, that was a bit of a mess. I really like the new system so much better.
Did you happen to read all of Corio's books? One of my favorite bits of comedy in the game is embedded there...
I did not originally, mainly because FFIV doesn't normally use the second part of a bookshelf outside of the Feymarch Library. I rather like that response from the female attendant, the jumping animation coupled with the exact same response from talking to her normally does have a lot of humor to it. Good work.
The aim with the available equipment in Agart was that the player (unless having grinded quite a bit) would likely be able to afford one but not both of those nifty pieces of equipment... Also buying them pretty much makes you have to wait to get an elemental ring or a new Job Card (though I think I still haven't put in the part where hiring help actually takes away the job card... That makes testing things work nicely, but obviously takes out some of the intended challenge). I want impactful player choices to be a significant part of this game... I think that will be much more obvious for you by the time you get to the end of the Mysidia chapter. :)
And that is a great way to go about it! I like shop choices actually Being choices and not just "buy everything!" I tried to do a similar thing with Combat Boost, but then again in Combat Boost all of the really good equipment is found from battle.
One of the first things Edge says out of battle is, "You're now a full fledged member of the Royal Eblana Mercenary Army." I don't mean for it to be an oddly mysterious acronym like SEED (Sorceress Edea's... Extra-special Do-gooders?).
I must have missed that everytime and I'm normally pretty good with text, heh.
The thunderstrike in Mysidia is done through very complicated custom assembly, so I'm glad you like it. When you're in Mysidia, and the "finished Mt Ordeals" flag is not set, the game checks the smallest time-counting byte every so often (off the top of my head, I don't remember how often). If the lower nibble of that byte ANDs true with 03, then the game runs a "lightning flash" event. Fortuitously, it even works when a dialogue box is open!
That is So cool! I would love to see what else you could do with that, I bet you could even throw in random Toggle tints since the mages did mention a variety of crazy weather effects.
There totally is a crazy old witch. Except I think I need to fix her battle script, so she will be way too easy to beat if you find her.
Re: possess... Well, maybe if PinkPuff would hurry up and put a spell checker into FF4kster...
(that was a joke, PinkPuff, don't be mad at me)
There's a pretty specific reason why moogles were oppressed by the Lunarians, which ties into the light/dark mythos I'm using, and it all has a great deal to do with the primary conflict, too.
I have a big, complicated story to tell here. It's going to be fun for me to get it all out.
Keep it coming! This is all helping me out quite a bit.
Ah? Is she intended to be the same as the dancer lady who turned the party into Pigs in FFIV?
Ah so Moogles are a large part of the backstory? That's reasonable enough, looking forward to seeing where that goes.
I think I'll go and get a Black Mage with my Job Card.
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Huh... I guess I always playtest resting in Agart with the volume off. Thanks for that.
The Emerald's significance won't reveal itself for a very long time. Without giving too much aeway, it can be traded for a much better item about midway through the game, but I'm hoping that a relatively low percentage of players own it at that time on the first play through. Ideally, it takes a few attempts at stealing to actually get it, so those with little patience will give up, and because there is a time limit on the battle, it is possible to miss it entirely. The sale price is supposed to be tempting as well.
I plan for Job Cards to occasionally show up as rewards from boss battles, and the nature of the ship travel system makes it pretty easy to backtrack to hire a mercenary from a previous location... Except Damcyan has no port, but Avon is (sort of...) the last mercenary you can obtain, so by that time you may have a better handle on who you want to keep around.
Maybe Jinn should drop a Job Card, so right off the bat the player will know that they aren't completely locked in to any one choice...
Aha! What a simple solution to my Throw problem. Thank you for that.
The bandit witch isn't specifically intended to be the same as the Mysidia dancer, but if that's how she comes across, that's completely fine. She's just a semi secret, optional monster who yields a pretty nice prize if you can beat her (and like I said, I need to fix her battle script I think, so you can definitely beat her right now).
Moogles aren't necessarily a large part of the backstory. It'll be possible to play through the game without ever seeing mention of moogles. But their absence in previous FFIV games ties directly into the backstory.
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Huh... I guess I always playtest resting in Agart with the volume off. Thanks for that.
The Emerald's significance won't reveal itself for a very long time. Without giving too much aeway, it can be traded for a much better item about midway through the game, but I'm hoping that a relatively low percentage of players own it at that time on the first play through. Ideally, it takes a few attempts at stealing to actually get it, so those with little patience will give up, and because there is a time limit on the battle, it is possible to miss it entirely. The sale price is supposed to be tempting as well.
I plan for Job Cards to occasionally show up as rewards from boss battles, and the nature of the ship travel system makes it pretty easy to backtrack to hire a mercenary from a previous location... Except Damcyan has no port, but Avon is (sort of...) the last mercenary you can obtain, so by that time you may have a better handle on who you want to keep around.
Maybe Jinn should drop a Job Card, so right off the bat the player will know that they aren't completely locked in to any one choice...
Aha! What a simple solution to my Throw problem. Thank you for that.
The bandit witch isn't specifically intended to be the same as the Mysidia dancer, but if that's how she comes across, that's completely fine. She's just a semi secret, optional monster who yields a pretty nice prize if you can beat her (and like I said, I need to fix her battle script I think, so you can definitely beat her right now).
Moogles aren't necessarily a large part of the backstory. It'll be possible to play through the game without ever seeing mention of moogles. But their absence in previous FFIV games ties directly into the backstory.
I now have a Black Mage and this is an interesting class, they come with 99 Darkness Arrows, which is an unusual utility. It gives a nearly guaranteed Blind which is an item most people would ignore in the normal game. And Aim which is very well thought out for them. It gives them a real means of offense aside from Spell when dealing with flying creatures.
I like the idea of Jinn dropping a Job Card. But I am concerned over one aspect though... people will eventually be able to kill their Party Level Average if they abuse the system and get a Level 15 Mercenary, kill them, and leave them dead, hence throwing off all encounters from thereon out, if I'm not mistaken.
Oh, a slight oversight, if you're main character isn't Furio there is no delay between the dialogue and the character switching back to Furio when interacting with the Raven boss, so the palette is askewed. A slight pause buffer should get rid of that.
Now the first boss of Mt. Ordeals is odd. Float, then Aero a couple of times, then Quake... but you're Floating so... why Quake? I guess when someone dies they wouldn't have Float anymore when revived (I think) so it might be for that.
All in all he wasn't too difficult to beat, Aero was frequent but only did 10-25 damage each time and because we were Floating Quake never struck and his physical attack was pathetic dealing 8 at most. I imagine he was really fast to accentuate the Iron Boots.
These Mt. Ordeals Zombies do not fool around dealing 50-75 damage from the backrow! Revenants are not to be taken lightly!
Wow, Ambushed by 7 of them, thankfully I made it out fine.
What an interesting event that Rockfall was, does that mean you took a one-frame sprite and turned it into a Rock Formation tile sprite? Again, another fine little detail.
Wow, was I just struck by lightning for going to a specific spot? I'll... keep that in mind.
Oh ho! Again, I must praise your use of characterization, Shiva, Ramuh, and Ifrit are given hardly any characterization in FFIV, but you've done a great job here with them, they act high-and-mighty and speak in formal tones and it works very well. I especially loved the banter between Shiva and Ramuh on Ifrit's failure.
And it looks as if I'm given a choice here? Well, honestly my resources are out so I don't think I stand much of a chance and since they spoke of a famine, I imagine whatever their plan is, it's going to take a while (it would make sense for a Wise character like Ramuh to play the long game, instead of outright attack like Ifrit tried.) So let's head back to town and report. After all we did promise Edge we'd be more careful.
Is Shiva's sprite new? Or is she a recolored dancer? I can't quite tell.
And I barely survived my trek down, I came ill prepared and ran out of Cure potions just as I reached the top and then Cinna died without a way to bring him back, so I had to run until I felt safe enough to fight enemies on the way back to Mysidia.
So Palom and Porom have joined the team!
You've done something rather smart here, you've given Palom and Porom many more spells than the two mercenary Black Mage/White Mage, but you've given them more MP to use all together. Interesting idea. So now let's head back to the top of Mt. Ordeals!
Ah, Blind as a Spell, I somewhat imagine it replaced Sight.
Whoa, fighting Shiva and Indra at the same time, this could get dicey!
Indra has a disappointing physical attack damage of... 2.
Wow. Shiva Psych's all of your MP away!
Indra cures himself with Cure 2 of... 50. This is because enemy Magic Defense is factored into the healing done by Cure, I imagine it was to make it so defeating the Undead with Cure wasn't so simple... but the end result is that it becomes nearly worthless to cast Healing magic on the Undead until Cure 4 and when enemy's go to use Cure spells on themselves... well 50 Recovery happens. That may be something we want to look into down the line. I imagine it's part of the Cure routine.
Does Indra have really low Spell Power? His Lit 1 deals 20 damage to Furio and 1 to the Mages. Eventually the "Storm Rages!" and he deals a fair amount of damage to one character who he hit with Lit 1 (A nice touch of the randomness of Lightning, by the way) and a full group Lit-2.
Shiva can survive maybe three to four Fire2's from Palom. Not remarkable.
Does Sight actually do something in this? It targets a foe in battle, but it doesn't appear to work. Then again that foe was Indra, is Sight the new Scan... because that makes a lot of sense if it is.
What was great about Indra was what seemed to be an extremely high Magic Defense, hence his original plan of dealing with Mysidia without Furio's help would have been a success. A brilliant way to tie in-game mechanics with the overall story.
Ah, looks like a shadowy figure that looks a bit like Cecil is in league with the Eidolons, this looks to be a rather intriguing plot. I am loving it so far! But this looks to be where the demo ends then? Edge doesn't take the GP Bag this time around.
I would honestly suggest sending this to Mato to play on his stream to drum up some attention for this because This is shaping up to be an amazing project. It's not retelling FFIV like myself and PinkPuff are doing, this is going far beyond that.
I may have noticed some spelling errors in the chapter end there, but it kind of zoomed past me a little too quickly to tell for certain.
Still need to find the Bandit Witch, I'll take a closer look around Mysidia (then around the forests?)
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Re:cheating the average party level down... I guess you're right, but bosses' levels never decrease, so the hope is that in the end, the player finds it more advantageous to have a living mercenary on the team. Also, remember that exp take is also affected by the adjustment. But hey, if you find ways to exploit loopholes in the system... Power to you. I for one have abused the hell out of the vanish/x-zone trick in ffvi.
The Raven miniboss is a bit of a WIP. Eventually, I will settle on an idea for a readily a available float-cancelling item or spell. As an offensive tool, it will make floating things vulnerable to quake, and as a defensive tool it will protect floating things from air elemental attacks. Whatever I finally decide on for this will be available to the player by this point, and Raven's Quake will sort of be a punishment for using it.
I keep edging the Ordeals monsters' difficulty down, but I don't want to go too far. The problem you had with your resources being drained by the time you got to the top is exactly the plan. The fight with Shiva and Indra isn't extremely difficult, but is made more so if you are low on reserves. In a way, this kind of mirrors the villains' plot to take down Mysidia.
Shiva is indeed just a recolored dancer, but her palette is custom made. Indra is a modified (Mysidian) Elder, also with a custom palette.
What did you think of that battle? Seems like maybe it was a bit too easy for you?
If the player kills Indra first, the battle with Shiva is supposed to be pretty punishing... Possibly impossible. But I don't want the alternative to be a complete snap, either. I thought it was kind of a fun idea that when you attack Indra, he counters by buffering Shiva, thus making it harder to knock her off. Maybe what I should do is actually make her mostly dormant unless Indra is killed first, and make Indra's attacks hit a bit harder, so she seems like the less imposing of the two until it's too late?
Also, regarding the "storm raging," this only occurs after Shiva is killed, and depending on how long it takes to kill her, the storm can rage harder. Indra's normal AI routine is pretty long and sets a flag at the end. If, when Shiva is killed, that flag is set, the "storm raging" casts twice as many lit-1 spells before lit-2. You'll know you've reached the end of his cycle if he casts White Wind (which also makes things tougher, because unless you're attacking him instead of Shiva, it will restore both of them to full HP).
Also, challenging the Eidolons without Palom and Porom leads to an entirely different battle, as well as entirely different scenes. This is the first of what I have been calling "epic choices." Whether you report back to P/P before or after challenging the Eidolons not only impacts how that scene plays out, but also creates ripples, the effects of which will be felt later.
I'm particularly interested in what you think about the difficulty balance. I don't want it to be as hard as Combat Boost on the whole, but I don't want it to be "Easy Type" either. Are there ways you can think of to make the overall challenge more uniform?
I'm really happy with the way the "mysterious figure talking to Indra" scene came out, but I am wary of telling too much with it. I may take out the lightning flash at the end of the scene. What I want is for observant, seasoned FFIV fans to see that it is definitely a member of the Harvey family (but which one?...), but it will play just as well to people who don't notice the character's shape.
I'm a little worried about the prospect of giving this project too much exposure too early on. The going, as you know, is pretty slow. If it's well received, then I feel like there might be a lot of pressure to crank more game out, and I don't want to sacrifice quality.
I was thinking once what you've seen so far is all polished up, I would start a thread in RHDN's personal projects page, being sure to let folks know that progress would be slow and steady. I think Airikita's "Zelda's Eternal Youth" thread is a good role model for the kind of thing I'd want to put out there... Except with an actual playable demo WIP.
And if Mato happens upon it at that point and decides to play it for all the world to see... Well, I think that would be nice.
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I started a second playthrough on the thought that you'll be receiving another Job Card from Jinn, but I'll be sticking with the Ninja this run. I think I have a plan to make short work of Shiva without magic...
The first area was rather easy, no additional grinding so the enemies didn't boost their own stats accordingly.
I bought two FireClaws, 10 Fire Darts, and went on.
So I happened to go to Mt. Ordeals without talking to Palom and Porom to see what would happen and I like that wind-blowing back effect even the blur when you hit the side. Good work! If it were the original FFIV I'm sure it would have been a text box that said "The wind is blowing too strong to proceed."
Finally caught a Chocobo! Well... it's a Chocobo, but now I can report back to the Big Chocobo to see what happens.
Ah? Something about "keeping better company?" Is this for a sidequest, perhaps? And what are the specifics of it? "Company it keeps" seems a bit vague...
Hmm, does the Raven have high Physical Evasion? I noticed that my x4 Multipliers only seemed to be dealing anywhere from 40-80 damage to it? Maybe he just had really high Defense but when the Black Mage used Aim on it, it dealt the appropriate 60-70 damage. Interesting incentive for their inclusion in that fight then by the way. Or is he resistant to Fire? If so, smart move since mostly everything on the mountain is weak to Fire (aside from Spirit/Souls)
Ah, hey. Spirit/Souls drop Fire Darts, neat!
Uh... when Blank reached Level 17 he gained like... 300 HP, was that intended? Also... the Exp to his next level is 90200. I think you may have forgotten to change that from a default setting, or something?
Hmm, just noticed in the 7th Station of Mt. Ordeals there's a random floating tile sprite in the upper right corner of the map.
Also I take it there's no way to get that treasure? Or... would you have to wait to defeat Indra and Shiva to get said treasure? (Which means never activating the boulder falling event in the first place?)
I'll check that out on my White Mage run so don't spoil it for me please, hehe.
I would love to know the ASM you used to display the optional party member.
Oh... Oh, if you go to fight them with just Edge alone it's only Indra (throws the FireClaws away) Welp, that was a waste, I may need to descend the mountains to pick up some more effective weapons.
Creams dealt with, with a Firebomb.
...Fire Darts deal 1 damage to Indra.
Uh... Thunder deals 500-700 damage to the Party, I guess I better get that Coral Ring, eh?
Ah, Gravirty from Lilith, eh? A nice touch. A Dark Spell for a normally dark oriented creature. Bizarrely though outside of Float no enemy has inflicted any status yet.
BUG: Before I forget Bats use Drain on themselves, resulting in... nothing. I think you meant to switch the targeting.
Oh hey! The Coral Ring raises Agility by 3! Very nice! (Lightning-Fast, yeah I see where you were going with that)
Most importantly though it gives Blank that crucial 16 Agility to get him a 4th Attack Multiplier (granted the Stealth Knives could do that as well) It also raises Evasion by 10 and gives more defense than the IronRing a superior item in all respects.
Furio's Level 17 works correctly thankfully.
Ah, the Rings give you Elemental Absorption, yeah Indra's not even going to stand a chance.
Interestingly when you fight him alone he's the one with very high Physical Defense, for this run I'll have to pool my weapons onto just one Ninja. His damage jumps from 15-40 to 100-170.
A Cure1 for beating Indra, haha! Is that a bit of a mistake?
I love this scene or Palom and Porom reprimanding Furio for going against orders and even to accompany him back to Edge.
But... that appears to be the end of the demo. I now have two save files with both paths taken and very different party makeup and set-up. This game has good versatility!
Re:cheating the average party level down... I guess you're right, but bosses' levels never decrease, so the hope is that in the end, the player finds it more advantageous to have a living mercenary on the team. Also, remember that exp take is also affected by the adjustment. But hey, if you find ways to exploit loopholes in the system... Power to you. I for one have abused the hell out of the vanish/x-zone trick in ffvi.
Ah, I had forgotten that you prevent bosses from ever decreasing. I remember now that was one of the hallmarks of the newer version.
The Raven miniboss is a bit of a WIP. Eventually, I will settle on an idea for a readily a available float-cancelling item or spell. As an offensive tool, it will make floating things vulnerable to quake, and as a defensive tool it will protect floating things from air elemental attacks. Whatever I finally decide on for this will be available to the player by this point, and Raven's Quake will sort of be a punishment for using it.
I thought that Float was going to let Aero deal more damage to me (sort of a double combo for what I imagine will be a Blue Magic and Float will be a White Magic)
I keep edging the Ordeals monsters' difficulty down, but I don't want to go too far. The problem you had with your resources being drained by the time you got to the top is exactly the plan. The fight with Shiva and Indra isn't extremely difficult, but is made more so if you are low on reserves. In a way, this kind of mirrors the villains' plot to take down Mysidia.
Believe me they are Perfect where they are, a less than prepared person will face some difficulty, but if they come in with their wits about them they should be able to take advantage of a party's innate abilities to deal with it (Ninja - FireClaw, Black Mage - FlameRod/Fire1, White Mage - White Arrows). So you set it up perfectly!
Shiva is indeed just a recolored dancer, but her palette is custom made. Indra is a modified (Mysidian) Elder, also with a custom palette.
What did you think of that battle? Seems like maybe it was a bit too easy for you?
If the player kills Indra first, the battle with Shiva is supposed to be pretty punishing... Possibly impossible. But I don't want the alternative to be a complete snap, either. I thought it was kind of a fun idea that when you attack Indra, he counters by buffering Shiva, thus making it harder to knock her off. Maybe what I should do is actually make her mostly dormant unless Indra is killed first, and make Indra's attacks hit a bit harder, so she seems like the less imposing of the two until it's too late?
Also, regarding the "storm raging," this only occurs after Shiva is killed, and depending on how long it takes to kill her, the storm can rage harder. Indra's normal AI routine is pretty long and sets a flag at the end. If, when Shiva is killed, that flag is set, the "storm raging" casts twice as many lit-1 spells before lit-2. You'll know you've reached the end of his cycle if he casts White Wind (which also makes things tougher, because unless you're attacking him instead of Shiva, it will restore both of them to full HP).
Indra, because of his magic immunity-ish is very difficult to take down whereas Shiva is obviously weak to Fire, so several Fire2's and she's down. I'm not sure how viable defeating Indra before Shiva really is. I'll try it in my next go around with the White Mage though, then I'll give you my thoughts on it. I did not see him reach the end of his cycle though since he never cast White Wind.
Also, challenging the Eidolons without Palom and Porom leads to an entirely different battle, as well as entirely different scenes. This is the first of what I have been calling "epic choices." Whether you report back to P/P before or after challenging the Eidolons not only impacts how that scene plays out, but also creates ripples, the effects of which will be felt later.
I'm particularly interested in what you think about the difficulty balance. I don't want it to be as hard as Combat Boost on the whole, but I don't want it to be "Easy Type" either. Are there ways you can think of to make the overall challenge more uniform?
I'm really happy with the way the "mysterious figure talking to Indra" scene came out, but I am wary of telling too much with it. I may take out the lightning flash at the end of the scene. What I want is for observant, seasoned FFIV fans to see that it is definitely a member of the Harvey family (but which one?...), but it will play just as well to people who don't notice the character's shape.
Ah, I didn't even noticed the lightning flash revealing anything really. And I like to think I'm rather observant.
The difficulty for the most part is perfect for the point in the game. The four mini-bosses in Agart can be tricky, without knowing how to deal with Jinn he is rather difficult. The normal enemies on the World Map though, aside from the Old Trees seem like fodder, but that may be the intention. Mt. Ordeals is a great step up and shows just what's in store. The Elemental Rings though may make it a bit too easy though as fighting Indra alone with two Coral Rings was a belated conclusion.
I'm a little worried about the prospect of giving this project too much exposure too early on. The going, as you know, is pretty slow. If it's well received, then I feel like there might be a lot of pressure to crank more game out, and I don't want to sacrifice quality.
I was thinking once what you've seen so far is all polished up, I would start a thread in RHDN's personal projects page, being sure to let folks know that progress would be slow and steady. I think Airikita's "Zelda's Eternal Youth" thread is a good role model for the kind of thing I'd want to put out there... Except with an actual playable demo WIP.
And if Mato happens upon it at that point and decides to play it for all the world to see... Well, I think that would be nice.
You make a very good point. I'm sort of regretting releasing Combat Boost in the state I had originally as well, so you're probably right. I would like to see more people play this though and get their opinion.
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You may not have noticed this, but chocobos can run on shorelines in this. This ability will grant players access to locations they couldn't go otherwise (none of which really exist yet). Funny enough, I think they're also able to run over the rocks in the water (a scrapped idea that I haven't fixed yet). I don't recommend going to the cave of Eblan, though, as that was not intended.
They keep the company of monsters until you catch them, of which the Big Chocobo does not approve. The larger sidequest is to catch a lot of chocobos (to which Fats alludes when he asks you to catch more). The continuing incentive is normally inaccessible treasure, and the final prize is part of a larger optional sidequest. Chocobos will gain speed as you level up, making them much harder to catch (that's the plan, anyway), but one character who shows up later also has a special affinity with chocobos, making them very easy to catch (for a specific, story-driven reason).
It's curious that Raven was seemingly weaker against Cinna's Aim than Furio/Blank's attacks. That's not intended. I'm okay with the effect in this instance, but I should probably figure out why so as to be able to avoid the same thing happening when I don't want it to.
You can also steal fire darts from the spirits and souls, and Cure1 potions from the skeletons. Both of these function as motivation to take Blank up the mountain. Though I don't intend for there to be a "right" choice of hired help, ever.
That single tile of mountain floating in the corner of the 7th station is kind of a mystery to me. It's not always there, and I really don't know what causes it's appearance and disappearance.
There is in fact a way to get the treasure blocked by the boulder - oh, by the way, yes, it's an NPC that replaces the Ball/Guillotine that hangs over Rosa in Zot - In your first runthrough, you've already missed it (until quite a bit later, anyway). You can still get it in your second playthrough. It's nothing too special. An Ether, I think.
Indra's Cream buddies aren't intended to be too difficult to beat, though if you used the one FireBomb you've gotten thus far in desperation against a 7-undead group or something, you'll regret it. Unless you've got Cinna, I guess...
The Cure1 as a reward for defeating Indra is just a Dummy until I decide on an appropriate award.
That bit about Blank's level-up is certainly wrong. I'll have to look into that. I don't recall exactly, but I think he was supposed to have the exact same level up table as Furio.
I think the Bats' AI is just a copy of the original Cave Bats', actually. I do remember seeing some type of Bat in original FFIV using Drain on itself, which would appear to heal for a small amount of HP. Or maybe not, I might be imagining that. Anyway, easy enough to fix.
There will eventually be status anomalies to deal with, but the very early stages of the game focus more on elemental properties.
Whenever I want the hired help to appear as an NPC, I use NPC #FF. Then I rewired the NPC loading routine to run a special subroutine every time the game loads NPC FF. Depending on which mercenary is in the party, a different event flag is set. When the game is told to load NPC FF, it checks the event flags to figure out which NPC to load instead. At some places, I intend for the player to be able to have brief interactions with the Hired help, who will say different things depending on who they are.
The elemental rings each provide a bonus to a particular (and considerably appropriate) stat: lightning-agility, fire-strength, ice-vitality.
They should probably be a bit more expensive... maybe 10000 GP each, so the player would really have to work for them, basically to the point of being cost-prohibitive this early on.
Ah, I didn't even noticed the lightning flash revealing anything really. And I like to think I'm rather observant.
What I mean is, you mentioned that it appeared to be Cecil. unless something has gone wrong, the scene should take place over a black background, meaning the shadowy figure is invisible unless the lightning flashes.
I'd like more opinions, too, but I want to polish this up before I seek them out. Combat Boost has been received pretty well in general on RHDN by those who have played it, but if you look at other FFIV projects there (PII and Namingway), those guys have to wade through a veritable sea of nitpicky bullcrap to find the few gems of actual constructive criticism. As always, yours is very much appreciated!
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You may not have noticed this, but chocobos can run on shorelines in this. This ability will grant players access to locations they couldn't go otherwise (none of which really exist yet). Funny enough, I think they're also able to run over the rocks in the water (a scrapped idea that I haven't fixed yet). I don't recommend going to the cave of Eblan, though, as that was not intended.
They keep the company of monsters until you catch them, of which the Big Chocobo does not approve. The larger sidequest is to catch a lot of chocobos (to which Fats alludes when he asks you to catch more). The continuing incentive is normally inaccessible treasure, and the final prize is part of a larger optional sidequest. Chocobos will gain speed as you level up, making them much harder to catch (that's the plan, anyway), but one character who shows up later also has a special affinity with chocobos, making them very easy to catch (for a specific, story-driven reason).
I had noticed that, I had thought that was the way to access the Bandit Witch somehow. I was wrong, I still haven't found her.
It's curious that Raven was seemingly weaker against Cinna's Aim than Furio/Blank's attacks. That's not intended. I'm okay with the effect in this instance, but I should probably figure out why so as to be able to avoid the same thing happening when I don't want it to.
I had thought it was because of the Raven's Evasion. Is Evasion not implemented in this?
You can also steal fire darts from the spirits and souls, and Cure1 potions from the skeletons. Both of these function as motivation to take Blank up the mountain. Though I don't intend for there to be a "right" choice of hired help, ever.
I did not realize that. I knew about Cure1 because most enemies can have Cure1 stolen.
That single tile of mountain floating in the corner of the 7th station is kind of a mystery to me. It's not always there, and I really don't know what causes it's appearance and disappearance.
Really? That is all kinds of strange.
There is in fact a way to get the treasure blocked by the boulder - oh, by the way, yes, it's an NPC that replaces the Ball/Guillotine that hangs over Rosa in Zot - In your first runthrough, you've already missed it (until quite a bit later, anyway). You can still get it in your second playthrough. It's nothing too special. An Ether, I think.
Heh, I'll check it out in this White Mage run then.
Indra's Cream buddies aren't intended to be too difficult to beat, though if you used the one FireBomb you've gotten thus far in desperation against a 7-undead group or something, you'll regret it. Unless you've got Cinna, I guess...
That is true... at first I thought that leaving the Creams alive may have prevented Indra from using Thunder. I did not appear to be correct.
The Cure1 as a reward for defeating Indra is just a Dummy until I decide on an appropriate award.
That makes sense.
That bit about Blank's level-up is certainly wrong. I'll have to look into that. I don't recall exactly, but I think he was supposed to have the exact same level up table as Furio.
I noticed the two are different, mainly Blank never gains that last 1 Agility to gain an Attack Multiplier whereas Furio gets it by then.
I think the Bats' AI is just a copy of the original Cave Bats', actually. I do remember seeing some type of Bat in original FFIV using Drain on itself, which would appear to heal for a small amount of HP. Or maybe not, I might be imagining that. Anyway, easy enough to fix.
I believe you are confusing Drain for Absorb, in Threat from Within they use Drain on themselves which does nothing, when Absorb is what they normally use to heal 10% of their HP.
There will eventually be status anomalies to deal with, but the very early stages of the game focus more on elemental properties.
That's not a bad plan, it eases the player into it.
Whenever I want the hired help to appear as an NPC, I use NPC #FF. Then I rewired the NPC loading routine to run a special subroutine every time the game loads NPC FF. Depending on which mercenary is in the party, a different event flag is set. When the game is told to load NPC FF, it checks the event flags to figure out which NPC to load instead. At some places, I intend for the player to be able to have brief interactions with the Hired help, who will say different things depending on who they are.
I may need to ask for some help on that. I already have the Different Party Arrangements through Event Flags working fine for the Custom Event Instruction. But getting them to appear is another matter all together, I was hoping to learn a bit through the "Display Character Graphic" which is literally "search through the five slots. Load whichever slot it says to do so". Not very mod friendly.
The elemental rings each provide a bonus to a particular (and considerably appropriate) stat: lightning-agility, fire-strength, ice-vitality.
They should probably be a bit more expensive... maybe 10000 GP each, so the player would really have to work for them, basically to the point of being cost-prohibitive this early on.
I would agree to that, but Indra is seemingly impossible to beat with just two people without the Coral Rings, (his Thunder deals 400-700 damage) where he just becomes a joke, never able to strike the party. Unless I missed some means to quell the storm. Which is fully possible.
Ah, as for Shiva, I had a thought while at work today, why not have her cast Stop on Palom when Fire Magic is used on her? That would provide a disincentive to using Fire, but still make it possible to utilize.
What I mean is, you mentioned that it appeared to be Cecil. unless something has gone wrong, the scene should take place over a black background, meaning the shadowy figure is invisible unless the lightning flashes.
Oh, I was referring just to silhouette which shows up against the black background... was that not intended?
I'd like more opinions, too, but I want to polish this up before I seek them out. Combat Boost has been received pretty well in general on RHDN by those who have played it, but if you look at other FFIV projects there (PII and Namingway), those guys have to wade through a veritable sea of nitpicky bullcrap to find the few gems of actual constructive criticism. As always, yours is very much appreciated!
That is true. Well I think Combat Boost gets a bit of a free pass because it is a difficulty hack and it scares away a lot of the sort of people that would be nitpicky (like that fellow who continually bugs Vivify to change basic things just because he wants it to be done), but because Threat from Within has a wider appeal... it is probably more susceptible to the silly complaints of overzealous fans.
You're in the right here. Well, I do hope my feedback is somewhat useful at least.
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I had not realized that you had to talk to the little girl in Agart to even start the Moogle Lore chain, how interesting.
Oh! I see, I found the witch, I don't want to reveal it though. All I have to say is I Love finding secrets like that, it gives a real sense of exploration.
And... she uses Ice-2 and kills the party in three rounds. Well... if I come with a Frozen Ring I should be fine. Rather nice use of a hidden chest tile, by the way...
Or her less than 120 HP is her real weakness, not her AI Script... I somewhat imagine that's a cause of the Level Up Patch. The Witch I believe is a Level 30-ish foe so being truncated down to less than 15 probably murdered her stats.
Oh hey! That is a nice reward! I wonder if Indra might be susceptible to it...
Does Lilith not have that great of Spell Power? She tried to cast Sleep and Charm, failing in both occurrences, granted she may have been trying to cast Charm on Furio who has the Headband.
I'm fighting Indra again, this time without killing the Creams, he does have a different AI pattern, so the secret is not to kill the Creams it seems, hah. I thought I tried that before... he'll cast Armor/Shell again and again, but for some reason they don't often appear to work, probably because of that same "calculate Magic Defense" silliness the game uses for enemies when those sorts of spells are cast.
Interesting... Slow (possibly any spell) makes him use Wall on an Ally.
Haha! I see what you're supposed to do, very clever. He'll cast Wall and then he'll bounce those buffs off himself (or his allies) onto you.
Well, using this to my advantage he never proceeded in the "Clouds Gather" pattern as he continually tried to buff his friends after being struck and though he made it through his AI to cast White Wind his HP was far too low to make any difference. A couple more attacks and he was down.
...You were correct. An Ether1 was behind the boulder event. I guess it's nice.
And now back down the mountain to see what happens if you defeat Indra first.
:edit: Oh the battle plays out very differently, he has the same AI he has as when he's with the Creams so he'll try to (and much more successfully) apply Armor and Shell, but he'll also cast Wall haphazardly when hit by magic so he casts Wall on Shiva then can't get through and Protect/Shell and goes down in 3-4 Bio/Viruses.
Oh... Oh I see, Shiva eventually stops playing Nice, even goes into a second pose.
Her Ice-3 is survivable, but just so. It killed Palom and Porom but left Furio and the White Mage still standing so I was able to revive Porom and go from there, her speed seems to have been shot to pieces by repeated slows, even though she does counterattack with Slow on every hit and Psych when magic is used against her (that is a very dangerous counterattack actually, I was not aware that was the cause)
It took a bit longer and was much more intense, but when you take out Indra before Shiva (and he casts Wall on her bouncing off the protection spells) it becomes much deadlier.
Ah there's the error... "Another great struggle for your survival." Unless there's some hidden backstory about the Twins protecting Furio specifically, I imagine that was meant to be Our survival.
I don't think I've said it yet, but these "Epic Choices" are one of the Best ideas I've heard of for any kind of RPG Hack, especially Final Fantasy which ordinarily only has one set storyline. Don't forget I did turn the broken Event Instruction into "If battle was lost Skip to next event" if you wanted to base any future choices on the outcome of a specific battle. That hack should also give you the means to have the variable mercenary say and do different things.
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Some of the following may be redundant. I keep trying to respond, and every time I get to the "preview" of my response, you've written more :)
I guess I did fix the witch's AI. If I make her a Boss, that will fix her level-down problem...
She was actually the original inspiration of the elemental rings for sale, BTW.
I have not implemented the fix to broken evasion (not that I'm against it, just haven't done it), which makes the whole Aim thing pretty mysterious.
I knew about Cure1 because most enemies can have Cure1 stolen.
That won't be true in the final product of TfW. While Cure1 will be the most common, many normal foes will yield tools that make a little bit more sense. Elemental darts will be a pretty common drop, actually.
Does Lilith not have that great of Spell Power? She tried to cast Sleep and Charm, failing in both occurrences, granted she may have been trying to cast Charm on Furio who has the Headband
It might partly have to do with the level-up hack. Problem is, if I make her able to hit you at all before you have the twins, she hits almost too well when you do have the twins. I think.
at first I thought that leaving the Creams alive may have prevented Indra from using Thunder. I did not appear to be correct.
Indra actually is the same exact monster - even runs the same AI script - so I'm not really sure why you had such disparate experiences with him with and without the twins. While he is tougher without the twins because of his speed, I can't think of any reason why his thunder would be stronger.
Your description of your most recent encounter shows me that his AI is working properly, though.
I believe you are confusing Drain for Absorb, in Threat from Within they use Drain on themselves which does nothing, when Absorb is what they normally use to heal 10% of their HP.
You know what? I think I may have done away with Absorb in favor of one of my custom blue magics. I probably didn't pay very close attention to what it does and (based on the name) assumed it was a drain-type attack, so when I war "repairing" the Bat script, I just stuck Drain where Absorb was.
D'oh.
Oh well, like I said, easy fix.
I may need to ask for some help on that. I already have the Different Party Arrangements through Event Flags working fine for the Custom Event Instruction. But getting them to appear is another matter all together, I was hoping to learn a bit through the "Display Character Graphic" which is literally "search through the five slots. Load whichever slot it says to do so". Not very mod friendly.
Sure, it's not really complicated assembly, just a matter of changing the right piece of ROM. Not at all related to the "change character graphic" event instruction, though.
Ah, as for Shiva, I had a thought while at work today, why not have her cast Stop on Palom when Fire Magic is used on her? That would provide a disincentive to using Fire, but still make it possible to utilize.
Not a bad idea, but the problem is getting her to target the caster of the fire spell. Cinna has fire magic, too, as do Blank and Furio if your level is high enough... Not to mention the fact that, if you don't face Shiva on Mt Ordeals, she will turn up later, at a time when you don't have the twins at all. Monster AI allows you to target a specific character, but does not allow a counter attack to target the original offender.
Question: When you faced Shiva, did her Psych not serve to inhibit a magical onslaught? That was definitely part of the plan going into it.
Oh, I was referring just to silhouette which shows up against the black background... was that not intended?
I need some clarification here, because this is really important to me...
On my TV, you can't see "the shadowy figure's" silhouette except when the lightning flashes. All other times, it's a black palette NPC against a black background and therefore invisible. If it doesn't come across as such for you, then I'll need to make an adjustment.
I don't think I've said it yet, but these "Epic Choices" are one of the Best ideas I've heard of for any kind of RPG Hack, especially Final Fantasy which ordinarily only has one set storyline. Don't forget I did turn the broken Event Instruction into "If battle was lost Skip to next event" if you wanted to base any future choices on the outcome of a specific battle. That hack should also give you the means to have the variable mercenary say and do different things.
Epic choices were actually inspired, of all things, by the otherwise a ridiculous FFX-II. At one point, you have to choose sides in that game, and all subsequent events play oiut differently as a result. TfW won't be quite as heavily impacted by the Epic Choices, but that is where I got the idea.
Yeah, I am a big fan of your recent event instructions and I do intend to implement that one. All of the current events were scripted before you did that, but it's in my sights for everything I'll have to do down the road.
"Another great struggle for your survival."
I mean "our" as in, the entire world's survival. Acknowledging the fact that the events of FFIV and TAY have already threatened the planet's survival.
I'm open to a suggestion on rewording that so the meaning is clear.
Well, I do hope my feedback is somewhat useful at least
Oh, definitely. The things you're giving me here are showing me exactly what I need to work on before I get this to the point where it's clean enough to put up for larger consumption.
From you, I know I'm getting the opinions of someone who both is as big a fan of FFIV as I am, and completely appreciates the amount of work that goes into a project like this. Doesn't hurt that you're also more detail-observant than I tend to be, too.
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Some of the following may be redundant. I keep trying to respond, and every time I get to the "preview" of my response, you've written more :)
I guess I did fix the witch's AI. If I make her a Boss, that will fix her level-down problem...
She was actually the original inspiration of the elemental rings for sale, BTW.
That makes a lot of sense, yes I do think the price of the Elemental Rings should be raised by a fair amount, I fear they might marginalize difficulty otherwise.
I have not implemented the fix to broken evasion (not that I'm against it, just haven't done it), which makes the whole Aim thing pretty mysterious.
I'm wondering if it had something to do with Claws, I believe I had Furio equipped with a FireClaw at the time instead of another sword which seems to give highly variable amounts of damage. Since this time I had the Mute Dagger and the Stealth Knife and was dealing pretty good damage.
That won't be true in the final product of TfW. While Cure1 will be the most common, many normal foes will yield tools that make a little bit more sense. Elemental darts will be a pretty common drop, actually.
That is actually rather good to know.
It might partly have to do with the level-up hack. Problem is, if I make her able to hit you at all before you have the twins, she hits almost too well when you do have the twins. I think.
I did not run into any Liliths on my way back up with them, so I can't quite say.
Indra actually is the same exact monster - even runs the same AI script - so I'm not really sure why you had such disparate experiences with him with and without the twins. While he is tougher without the twins because of his speed, I can't think of any reason why his thunder would be stronger.
Your description of your most recent encounter shows me that his AI is working properly, though.
At this point I think I'm misremembering. I may not have actually tried to leave the Creams alive while fighting Indra.
Sure, it's not really complicated assembly, just a matter of changing the right piece of ROM. Not at all related to the "change character graphic" event instruction, though.
Could it be applied to more than one character? If you can set up a scheme to have those NPC slots load whatever is in the corresponding slots, you could save a bit of NPC Room and not have to plan for every occurrence of a party member.
Not a bad idea, but the problem is getting her to target the caster of the fire spell. Cinna has fire magic, too, as do Blank and Furio if your level is high enough... Not to mention the fact that, if you don't face Shiva on Mt Ordeals, she will turn up later, at a time when you don't have the twins at all. Monster AI allows you to target a specific character, but does not allow a counter attack to target the original offender.
Question: When you faced Shiva, did her Psych not serve to inhibit a magical onslaught? That was definitely part of the plan going into it.
The first time I fought her I swear she only cast it once and it did cause a lot of problems since it was on Porom, but I didn't recall her casting it after that. With this though it was clear Psych was her magic counter. So nevermind, I think Psych is a good deterrent.
On my TV, you can't see "the shadowy figure's" silhouette except when the lightning flashes. All other times, it's a black palette NPC against a black background and therefore invisible. If it doesn't come across as such for you, then I'll need to make an adjustment.
The silhouette in Geiger's shows up as a black silhouette against a grayish-black background and the silhouette is darker than the background itself.
Epic choices were actually inspired, of all things, by the otherwise a ridiculous FFX-II. At one point, you have to choose sides in that game, and all subsequent events play oiut differently as a result. TfW won't be quite as heavily impacted by the Epic Choices, but that is where I got the idea.
Yeah, I am a big fan of your recent event instructions and I do intend to implement that one. All of the current events were scripted before you did that, but it's in my sights for everything I'll have to do down the road.
Haha! I had hoped you were going to say something like Tactics Ogre (where it also has end of chapter large choices to make that have great effects completely changing the course of the story in many cases.) but I guess FFX-2 is as good as any inspiration I suppose.
I mean "our" as in, the entire world's survival. Acknowledging the fact that the events of FFIV and TAY have already threatened the planet's survival.
I'm open to a suggestion on rewording that so the meaning is clear.
Indeed... but you have "your" not "our". Which either makes Palom and Porom as feeling that they're the designated protectors of the world (which could also make sense). While "our" is a shared undertaking.
From you, I know I'm getting the opinions of someone who both is as big a fan of FFIV as I am, and completely appreciates the amount of work that goes into a project like this. Doesn't hurt that you're also more detail-observant than I tend to be, too.
I don't know if I'd say I'm more detail-observant. Only that when I'm testing a mod or a hack, I try to explore every possibility to show the creator's trust in me to test their work was not misplaced. (Within reason. of course)
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Oh yes Chillyfeez, I noticed when you learn a spell in TfW it just says "Learned Spell." I imagine this was done for the same reason that was giving me problems earlier...
It display Eight letter spell names past a certain index (why is beyond me. The player could not have been planned to learn them at any point) and so your spell names became garbled.
I found the fix, if that was indeed why you changed it...
$02/A542 C9 48 CMP #$48 A:0084 X:7506 Y:0010
Just change that to... pretty much anything above your player spells, not that it matters that much, the game Should never load enemy spells in the first place in that box.
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Oh, good. Thanks for that.
So, I'm going through my list of things I want to polish up (thanks in no small part to your notes).
Just wanted to report that your fix for Thrown weapon graphics works like a charm. The custom Kunai image is showing up as intended. Right palette and everything!
:edit:
I'd also like to report how sad I am that I'm now at 777 posts, but the images aren't working, so I don't get the Lucky 7 graphic
:bah:
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So I had a good idea for the "float cancelling" item.
It's the Lead Shoes. Instead of being a "key item" type of thing, which originally did not show up in the inventory, it's a usable item in battle. Palom and Porom will give you one, but they will also be for sale in the Mysidia item shop (which isn't accessible until you get the boots from them anyway, so that won't mess with the story).
I also worked in some code that makes any floating battle participant automatically weak to the Air element. Which, silly enough, was not the case by default (it just so happens that most flying monsters have the "weak to air" bit set).
This little subroutine replaces the normal weakness (not "very" weakness) check opcode:
$03/E395 AD 04 27 LDA $2704 [$00:2704];Load Status Byte 2
$03/E398 29 40 AND #$40 ;Check if floating
$03/E39A F0 05 BEQ $05 [$E3A1] ;If not, skip the following
$03/E39C 4A LSR A ;Divide A by 2 (making it 20, the value the weakness byte would be if target was weak to air)
$03/E39D 0D 20 27 ORA $2720 [$00:2720];Combine "20" with target's existing weakness byte
$03/E3A0 60 RTS
$03/E3A1 AD 20 27 LDA $2720 [$00:2720];Load target's weakness byte
$03/E3A4 60 RTS
Between the Lead Shoes and the Float spell, the player now has control over a target's weakness to Air and vulnerability to Earth.
Obviously, this gives reason to the Raven miniboss casting Float at the beginning of the battle, and casting Quake in the middle, as was the original plan for this battle script.
That will make the Raven battle quite a bit trickier, so I'll have to playtest and possibly adjust its stats a bit now...
:edit:
Oh, Grimoire, I was going through my notes from your recent playtesting and I discovered something you asked that I never answered (had to confirm first)
Yes, Sight, when used in battle, is the new Scan. I always thought it was pretty stupid that they were two separate spells, since the original Sight has no use in battle. The spell space formerly used by Scan is now one of the three Holy spells. My White Magic list has Holy1, Holy2 and Holy3, giving White Mages a bit more of an offensive toolkit, and still keeping in line with the lore I'm employing in my story.
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That is Really neat! I am glad to see that concept worked out. It really makes Aero into its own unique and powerful status, especially if you allow Float to be cast on enemies for a powerful combo attack. I am also glad that you got rid of that idiotic (is the enemy weak to Air? Then they're flying and avoiding Quake) check that FFIV does for some bizarre reason. What if I don't Want Birds weak to all Arrows and Spears, game? Eh, well at least you've dealt with this issue fully.
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Just got Threat rom Within set up on my PSP. That title screen looks amazing! And the option to have the ATB show up at the start of battle is very handy.
I'm going to get more into it later, but I just had to stop what I was doing for a moment to do a couple fights and see how it looked off PSP. It looks awesome. :finger:
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Great, Bahamut ZERO! I'll be interested to hear your feedback (good and bad - don't hold back).
Some changes have been made since Grimoire's recent play testing, but I haven't put a new patch out. I'm slowly but surely tackling everything Grimoire found.
A word of warning - don't go down the staircase in the Eblan Barracks. It will eventually lead to a training room that doesn't exist yet, so right now it leads to getting stuck in the northwest corner of Baron Town...
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Woah, this is some pretty crazy stuff! I've gotten to Mt Ordeals so far. Got iced by Shiva, but I'm pretty low leveled from just running to see what happens next haha.
First off, let me say that it runs great off of Snes9x for PSP! Here are some highlights of my playthrough So far(possible Spoilers):
1) I like how the opening events flow together, showing the ending of events of FF4. At first I was waiting for it to start before hitting a button and realizing the telescope visual was playing.
2) It's refreshing to start off as ninja rather than a Dark Knight. Ability to steal in the first fight? Sign me up!
3) Being able to hire a 2nd ninja for more looting fun? Oh boy! At this point I came across the staircase you mentioned.
4) Is that new music I hear at the docks?? I had no idea that was possible, if so!
5) Woah, boat travel!
6) I noticed the Eeny Meeny Miney Mo keys were really named after the song from FF8. I actually like the nod to FF8 a bit more lol.
7)Chocobos in the wild - simply awesome. Haven't caught one quite yet, but soon. Soon.
8) The text box that displays when Palom and Porom join is blank.
9) Sweet mother of jesus, I can run around as a Black Mage. Your hireling system kicks ass.
10) Enjoying the tough boss battles.
That about somes it up at the moment. I'll be hitting it up again later tonight,
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1) I like how the opening events flow together, showing the ending of events of FF4. At first I was waiting for it to start before hitting a button and realizing the telescope visual was playing.
Would you say that the long wait at the beginning is confusing? I know it will be for a first-time player playing with the volume down, but I'm hoping the bell sound will serve to clue folks in that, yes, something is happening...
2) It's refreshing to start off as ninja rather than a Dark Knight. Ability to steal in the first fight? Sign me up!
3) Being able to hire a 2nd ninja for more looting fun? Oh boy! At this point I came across the staircase you mentioned.
Stealing will be a key element to acquiring some of the more rare equipment, too, as in ffix. I've altered the Steal ("pray I do not alter it any further" sorry, I couldn't help myself) routine so that when you steal from a boss once, all subsequent steals from them will yield cure potions.
4) Is that new music I hear at the docks?? I had no idea that was possible, if so!
Well, I figured out how. I wrote a tutorial about it, most of which can be found here (http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1801.msg18134#msg18134).
It is an extremely complicated process, though. Ya gotta really want it...
6) I noticed the Eeny Meeny Miney Mo keys were really named after the song from FF8. I actually like the nod to FF8 a bit more lol.
Yeah... That's a remnant of half-changed info.
The original plan was Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec, but I had two reports from play testers who were completely flummoxed by the reference. Which, on its own, would have been fine with me, but then it came to light that the second player to report that was deaf. He literally had not heard and could not ever hear Liberi Fatali. Well, I don't want to ostricise players needlessly, so I changed to the more universal Eenie Meenie Miney Moe.
8) The text box that displays when Palom and Porom join is blank.
Hmm. That's the first I've heard of that. I'll have to see if it holds true for my ROM...
I've gotten to Mt Ordeals so far. Got iced by Shiva, but I'm pretty low leveled from just running to see what happens next haha.
So you chose to follow orders, huh? FYI, you can challenge the Eidolons without Palom and Porom, too, and the resulting battles and events play out very differently. When all is said and done, TfW will have at least two - possibly more - of these "epic choices."
You didn't say anything about it, so I'm wondering... Did you get a Limit Break yet?
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Would you say that the long wait at the beginning is confusing? I know it will be for a first-time player playing with the volume down, but I'm hoping the bell sound will serve to clue folks in that, yes, something is happening...
It was a little confusing for a second, yes, but the bell sound did clue me in. Since I was playing it first off of a PSP, I was thinking "Oh man, please don't be one of the scant few roms that won't play on this" before I noticed the music playing.
Stealing will be a key element to acquiring some of the more rare equipment, too, as in ffix. I've altered the Steal ("pray I do not alter it any further" sorry, I couldn't help myself) routine so that when you steal from a boss once, all subsequent steals from them will yield cure potions.
Right on! i like how you have it set up, as the first thing I tried to do was spam Steal for Emeralds. Got a half dozen free cure1's though, which is nice right out of the gate in itself. :P
Well, I figured out how. I wrote a tutorial about it, most of which can be found here.
It is an extremely complicated process, though. Ya gotta really want it...
Ah, I see. In that case I'll bookmark the link and dive into that when I get a little farther along in my project. There's a couple tracks I woldn't mind replacing, lol.
So you chose to follow orders, huh? FYI, you can challenge the Eidolons without Palom and Porom, too, and the resulting battles and events play out very differently. When all is said and done, TfW will have at least two - possibly more - of these "epic choices."
You didn't say anything about it, so I'm wondering... Did you get a Limit Break yet?
Haha yeah, my first time I chose to try to fight them off alone, followed by a reaming by Indra and his pals due to being unprepared (I should've brought a Black Mage with me instead of a healer). Afterwards I checked the arc for following the orders, and liked the thought of going back with a small army of magic users. Though, now that I think about it, I might go grab a new ninja and do some looting! Well, maybe after running around as a Black MAge, since I've wanted to do that in FF4 since I was a kid lmao.
No, I've yet see a Limit Break in action. But I can't wait to see one!
A couple comments/questions:
1) Didn't mention it yet, but I really like the work you've put into the character sprites/in battle sprites. Porom's OW sprite looks pretty much spot on for how she looks in TAY. And nice use of FF5 battle sprites! It made we want to try copy/posting
a Red Mage over Edward in my project, which failed hilariously, as well make me further appreciate the work you've done.
2) Is Furio's OW sprite seperate from Edge's sprite?
3) Your Epic Choices system is... Epic! It reminds me of the freedom of choice when playing Chrono Cross. I wish FF4 had done this in few spots, like say in Fabul.
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Heh... I cheated with a lot of OW and battle sprites. I don't really fancy myself much of a sprite artist. Porom is actually a palette swapped Rosa with a new hairstyle ;) Palom is all original, and while he's far from perfect, at least he's mine. You can't see her yet in this demo, but Kella the blue mage is the most exemplary of my triumphs and failures at sprite art. Her OW sprites are borderline stick figure, her battle sprites are OK, though they are largely stolen from Rydia, and her portrait is drop-dead gorgeous (uh, you know, for a 16-bit picture of a cartoonish face).
Yes, Furio's sprite is altered slightly, for a very specific reason.. Which has already been spoiled if you read back far enough in this thread.
To get a limit break, hang out in "critical" status for a while. There's a 25% chance every time your turn comes up when you're critical. You can defer with X if you want to try to force the issue. most characters have a unique limit skill (though Furio's and Blank's are the same, as are Palom and Porom and Black and White mages, respectively).
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Awesome, can't wait to get a glimpse of Kella down the line! I love the uniqueness that the editing of sprites can give to a project. I'm hoping there's a moogle or two to see in the demo. :D
Been leveling/looting to be ready to take on indra/Shiva. Haven't really bothered fighting them yet, mainly because I like slaughtering random hordes of mobs fot items.
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You may wanna keep in mind the fact that monsters get stronger as you do. Once your average party level is more than 3\2 that of Shiva and Indra, they will get faster and stronger with more HP.
Kella won't show up until much later in the game... She's sorta the "adult Rydia" of this game (not to be confused with Adult Rydia, who is sorta the "Tellah" of this game).
And I'm sorry to say that moogles are even further down the line...
If you really want to see them, you can check out the (full) first demo I released, which is this game up to the battle with Jinn, then a character-testing area that allows you to play around with all playable characters. Some of the battle mechanics were still in the development phase at the time, so it plays slightly differently, but it'll be the only way to play as Avon (the hireling Bard), Ursula, Kella and Mog for quite a while (everybody else will show up by the next major demo release).
The link is in the first post on this thread (click back to the beginning of page 1). Unlike this more recent patch, the first demo patch should be applied to an UNheadered ROM.
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I have to say something about Kella, it makes no sense that she's the offspring of Leonora and The Dark Elf, because 1, the Dark Elf is dead, and 2, she looks nothing like either of them.
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1) he was dead after the first FFIV but then came back in TAY, so...
2) her portrait has greyish skin and black eyes to suggest the monstrous lineage, aside from that, the resemblance to Leonora wasn't that important to me. She's dead, so it's up to the player's imagination how she would have looked in this particular episode... She's never been fully rendered in 16-bit graphics to my knowledge.
In general, I expected to get push back on the concept of any love story at all between Leonora and D Elf... Especially from "Palonora" shippers.
Until such time that I get to that part of the story, you'll just have to sit tight and trust that I will handle it well enough to work. The relationship, however, is nonnegotiable.
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But that wasn't the Dark Elf in The After Years, that was his spirit. And besides, even if he somehow WAS alive there, the Maenad kinda annihilated him.
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Elf_(Final_Fantasy_IV)#Final_Fantasy_IV:_The_After_Years
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You're splitting hairs.
What's more, the wiki article you linked contains conflicting information on the subject:
The spirit of the Dark Elf still resides in the Crystal Chamber of the Lodestone Cavern. It attacks Palom and Leonora when they enter the chamber to escape the Mysterious Girl...
The Dark Elf returns in The After Years, and is defeated by the Mysterious Girl after transforming into the Dark Dragon.
The version of the story I'm going with is that DE can revive himself an unknown amount of times. Or more accurately, I don't care about this particular detail enough for it to be discussed at all.
The end.
If you are that repulsed by the idea, you are more then welcome to not play my hack, but as I've said, I am not changing this essential element of my story. I'm sorry.
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I'm not particularly repulsed by the idea (other than the fact that it's borderline bestiality). It's just that there are a couple of wholes in your story. (Seeing as she has cat ears and a tail, while neither Leonora nor the Dark Elf have either of those.) Also, I don't know what kind of fanfiction is going through your head and I seriously don't want to. (God knows I can relate, seeing as I pair Maka and Asura from Soul Eater.) :laugh:
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Well, I disagree that there are plot holes that are worth considering, but whatever.
As far as your implication that I am imagining some steamy sex scene between Leonora and the Dark Elf... The supposition suggests a misunderstanding about how the story will be told and how the idea came about.
There is already an official game in the Final Fantasy series that actually depicts a sexual relationship between a human and a monster - I am speaking about Maduin and Madonna - and my story will not even come close to anything as suggestive as that. This hack will be every bit as G-rated as the original US release of "FFII." There will be mention of the fact that Leonora and the Dark Elf fell in love, and there will be the existence of Kella as a product of their relationship, but that's it. As I've mentioned, Leonora is dead in this story, so you'll have to make up the details of conception for yourself.
The truth about the genesis of the idea of Kella is that she started out with a concept of a character, and the details were built around that. I didn't even know The After Years existed, let alone Leonora's character, when I thought her up.
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I never said anything about you imagining some steamy action between the two. XD
I was implying some sort of cheesy love story. Fanfiction isn't always about sex y'know. XD
And you have a point there, albeit Maduin is an Esper not a monster but close enough.
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Admittedly, the cat ears and tail are there to invoke a very specific animanga concept that - my understanding is - appeals to a particular lonelyboy sensibility of a fairly large portion of fans of the genre (not to downplay how much of a geek I am, but believe it or not, I can't stand manga and I've never watched anime, unless Avatar: The Last Airbender counts). In my mind, though, they're costume pieces, not body parts.
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I guess that makes sense. Also, allow me to recommend some anime that I enjoy: Sword Art Online, Soul Eater, Space Dandy, Black Lagoon, Danmachi, and Hellsing Ultimate.
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So I'm working on the next scene, a boss battle that takes place on the ship as it sails back to Eblan from Mysidia (after the battle with Shiva and Indra on Mt. Ordeals).
I got a little bored midway through writing the event so I decided to have some fun.
This is obviously not what will happen in the final product, but I had to document this, because it made me giggle like a child.
Hopefully it will do the same for you.
Let's Get Kraken! (https://youtu.be/DPsphDG9CLE)
:laugh:
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Haha! Wow, that did come out of nowhere, you must have been quite bored to turn the event into that.
All in all though the event is looking great and you even went through the extra effort of making the Ship Tileset usable! Great work!
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Yea shoot that over to me. I will play around with it to find a good looking font. :)
I haven't forgot! Just been swamped at work. :(
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Yea shoot that over to me. I will play around with it to find a good looking font. :)
I haven't forgot! Just been swamped at work. :(
No worries, man. Get to it when you get to it.
What I have now works for what it is.
I'm probably still at least a year away from having a "final" product.
Haha! Wow, that did come out of nowhere, you must have been quite bored to turn the event into that.
All in all though the event is looking great and you even went through the extra effort of making the Ship Tileset usable! Great work!
Yeah, I had already done some work on the dock tiles way back before tileset editing was available in FF4kster, but this scene gets to be considerably more playable - as opposed to being primarily a cut scene - thanks to FF4kster's capabilities (duh, how many times have I said that before?). I really enjoy the fact that I could put treasure in some of the barrels.
The actual boss battle came out really nice, too. I had a bit of a time making it a fair challenge both with and without Palom and Porom in the party, since depending on the player's epic choice they may or may not be along at this point in the game.
I worked in a little fix that evens out the playing field, though.
Kinda dreading starting the next chapter... It's going to be a massive amount of work, because it will take the player to Baron town, Baron castle, Mist by way of the cave, Kaipo by way of a new dungeon (that I will have to build from scratch), Damcyan (which I will pretty much have to build from scratch) by way of the watery pass, then finally the Antlion cave.
Oddly enough, writing all the location dialogue is probably going to be the worst part... Maybe I'll just start off doing it like Pinkpuff did for Unprecedented Crisis, and work the townsfolk's lines in little by little.
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Demo update!
Barring any major flubs that may crop up, this is the version that I plan to put up on the RHDN board for (hopefully) a larger playtesting pool.
New in this version:
- Training Room - finally something to see down those stairs in the Eblan Barracks, and some cool stuff goes on there...
- Kraken Battle - following the events in Mysidia/Mt. Ordeals, a sea monster attacks the ship as it sails back to Eblan, and it's Furio and company to the rescue (no dance number this time - sorry)!
- Demo actually "ends" (but you have the option to continue walking around)
- Various bug fixes and clean-ups thanks to previous play testing
Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within version 0.3.2b (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcWkN4MG9iakJxUWM/edit?usp=docslist_api)
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I've been working on making the Dwarf Tank a driveable vehicle.
It'll still be a while before the game takes the player underground, but when it finally happens, it will be by way of an abandoned Bab-il. At the base of the tower, the heroes will find a disused tank from the original conflict. I've got it working, but there are still some details to iron out. Essentially, I'm trying to decide where the tank will be able to travel. The way I see it, it should have mobility that the player does not have on foot. I'm considering making it capable of traveling over the plateau tiles. Only problem with that is that it looks kind of silly, because the tank just rolls flatly onto what should be a separate elevation. I might be able to make the elevation increase slightly on a conditional basis but it would be a lot of work... I'm also toying with the idea of not having any extra mobility, but making "no encounters" the only benefit of driving the tank. I had this cool idea that the monsters on the Underworld map could be near impossible to defeat without weapons purchased/found underground (which could be accomplished by way of creature types, higher defense, and the "immunity" element).
Anyway, that's what I've been working on. I am picking away at the foundation for chapter 3, but it's slow going. There's a fundamental change I had to make to Baron castle for the purpose of the story. That's done now. Still lots to do, though...
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I've been working on making the Dwarf Tank a driveable vehicle.
It'll still be a while before the game takes the player underground, but when it finally happens, it will be by way of an abandoned Bab-il. At the base of the tower, the heroes will find a disused tank from the original conflict. I've got it working, but there are still some details to iron out. Essentially, I'm trying to decide where the tank will be able to travel. The way I see it, it should have mobility that the player does not have on foot. I'm considering making it capable of traveling over the plateau tiles. Only problem with that is that it looks kind of silly, because the tank just rolls flatly onto what should be a separate elevation. I might be able to make the elevation increase slightly on a conditional basis but it would be a lot of work... I'm also toying with the idea of not having any extra mobility, but making "no encounters" the only benefit of driving the tank. I had this cool idea that the monsters on the Underworld map could be near impossible to defeat without weapons purchased/found underground (which could be accomplished by way of creature types, higher defense, and the "immunity" element).
Anyway, that's what I've been working on. I am picking away at the foundation for chapter 3, but it's slow going. There's a fundamental change I had to make to Baron castle for the purpose of the story. That's done now. Still lots to do, though...
The Dwarf Tank idea is rather awesome all around. I would suggest taking one of the town tiles in the Underworld and turning that into a new sort of rough tile that's not quite stairs, but could be enough to show the player that a Tank could drive up it while feet could not scale it. Getting to the Underground through Babil is also a neat change of pace.
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I would suggest taking one of the town tiles in the Underworld and turning that into a new sort of rough tile that's not quite stairs, but could be enough to show the player that a Tank could drive up it while feet could not scale it.
That's a good idea. I wonder if there are appropriate image tiles to use, though, or enough space to create something custom.
Getting to the Underground through Babil is also a neat change of pace.
Well, while the crater near Agart remains open, there are no airships that work at the onset of my game (but - spoiler alert - Luca's working on it down there), so they have to get down there somehow. I have big plans about redoing the tile graphics in the tower to be grown over with vines and cracking to suggest that the place is not functional anymore (sorta like ffv ruins).
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I wonder if there are appropriate image tiles to use, though, or enough space to create something custom.
... Oh, right - I'm not using the top of the tower of Bab-il. That'll be at least four graphic tiles that can be reappropriated.
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Eureka!
I can't believe it was actually this easy...
The reason the Earth visuals in my Moon Flies Off visual effect weren't displaying properly is that the graphics for the spinning Earth are drawn from a bank of RAM (7E:8000-7E:B400 or so) that is written during the Mysidian Legend IN SPACE visual effect.
In vanilla FFIV, the Moon Flies Off effect never happens until the IN SPACE happens first, and since the game doesn't use this block of RAM in between the two, it doesn't bother to rewrite it before the Moon Flies Off effect runs.
In fact, it's the routine that writes this huge block of RAM that is what causes the long pause before the IN SPACE effect actually begins to run (that's the long pause you were talking about, Bahamut ZERO, so no - unfortunately that cannot be shortened unless you want your spinning earth to look weird).
So for my purposes, it's an easy fix... Instead of the Moon through the Telescope effect that I was using in my opening events, I'll run the IN SPACE effect... blank out the text, and shorten the amount of time the effect plays (which can be done by only changing one byte).
And voila! It works like a charm!
This has been an issue that's plagued me for quite literally years, and it's finally solved!
:banonsmash:
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Congrats on figuring that out, Chillfeez!
In fact, it's the routine that writes this huge block of RAM that is what causes the long pause before the IN SPACE effect actually begins to run (that's the long pause you were talking about, Bahamut ZERO, so no - unfortunately that cannot be shortened unless you want your spinning earth to look weird).
It's alright, I've grown to like that pause haha.
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Since I know your hack is kinda parody, you might be interested in this, though: I figured out while working on Pinkpuff's one-moon issue that changing just one byte in the orbiting routine makes the planets orbit in a really wacky wobbly fashion. There really wouldn't be any serious use for it, but watching it made me laugh out loud. I don't have the info handy at the moment, but if that's something you'd be interested, I can dig it up again...
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That definitly interests me! It would give my intro the epic/funny mixture I'm looking for, and make for a fun afternoon messing around with it. XD
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ok, the commands to mess with are:
$13/E56D BD 00 20 LDA $2000,x
$13/E110 7D 00 20 ADC $2000,x
$13/E580 BD 40 20 LDA $2040,x
and
$13/E118 7D 40 20 ADC $2040,x
Basically, these commands determine the position of each planet (and moon) depending on some constantly-rotating data in the 7E:2000 area of RAM.
Each planet's data has a relative location in this bank, separated by an increment (x).
So, for the first planet, x=00, and the game looks at 7E:2000. For the second planet, x=2, and the same command makes the game look at 7E:2002. Then x=4 and the game looks at 7E:2004, and so on in that fashion.
The trick is to take away the indexing...
That is, instead of
LDA $2000,xit'll just say
LDA $2000
or, instead of
ADC $2000,xit'll say
ADC $2000
So for every planet, the game just looks at the data that is supposed to be used for the first planet.
I'm not sure why, but the result is wobbly orbits.
In order to change the indexed LDA into a normal (non-indexed) LDA, just change the BD to AD.
so, for example
$13/E56D AD 00 20 LDA $2000
And to change an indexed ADC into a normal ADC, change the 7D into 6D.
so, for example
$13/E110 6D 00 20 ADC $2000
Try playing around with these commands and see what kind of fun you can have.
you can also change the "2000's" into "2002," "2004," "2040," "2042," etc.
2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2040, 2042, 2044, 2046 and 2048 are all accessed by these routines so changing any instance of 2000 or 2040 to any of these values will produce different orbiting results.
These offsets are all in LoROM, by the way. You can play with a live ROM by opening it in Geiger's SNES 9X Debugger, viewing the IN SPACE visual effect, then use the emulator's hex viewer to view/change the assembly at those offsets.
Does that make sense?
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These offsets are all in LoROM, by the way. You can play with a live ROM by opening it in Geiger's SNES 9X Debugger, viewing the IN SPACE visual effect, then use the emulator's hex viewer to view/change the assembly at those offsets.
Does that make sense?
Wow, I should have replied to this post first. Yes, that makes total sense! I'll start having some fun with this here in a bit. Thank you!
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*sigh*
so I finally get somebody showing interest for TfW on RHDN, and it ends up being this:
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,19749.0.html
These comments on the board in addition to four PMs saying basically the same thing... Like s/he is mortally offended by the notion that I would implement a system that discourages cheating. And I'm trying to explain this is not supposed to be a difficulty mod! Part of why I want play testers is to ensure that the game isn't too difficult for people who don't cheat!
Gotta love it...
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Bah! What idiocy... at least the other people there are clearly defending your choices, and I fully agree with your decisions as well.
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That's true, and it looks like s/he finally gave in and played "the right way."
And, as they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
The thread has over 100 more hits since s/he started posting.
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I have just read the thread on RHDN, this look like really promising. :happy:
I'll sure give the demo a try once I complete my final exams (in about a week). Out of curiosity, how did you managed the monster leveling up? I'm trying to implement this in my FF3us hack along with 3 games difficulties. I have already figured out how I'll do the game difficulty system. But for monster leveling up, does their stats are multiplied (or an addition made on them) when the battle start depending on the average level of all your characters (or party)?
nice work again!
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It's a bunch of calculations that all happen at the time the monster stats are loaded from ROM into RAM. First, it determines the average level of your party, pretty straightforward (though as you may know, calculating an average using SNES's math capabilities is anything but straightforward). Then, it compares the average party level against the individual monster's level, and determines a difference ratio. Then it multiplies all stats except magic power and speed by the difference ratio. Then it multiplies speed by the difference ratio and takes the average of the original speed stat and the adjusted speed stat and makes that the final speed stat. Magic power is not adjusted at all (don't remember exactly why).
The difference ratio is saved until the end of the battle to adjust exp award, too.
Some (but maybe not all) of the assembly can be found on this thread:
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1940.msg20858#msg20858
It went through several prototype phases before Grimoire LD and I settled on something we agreed was appropriate.
I'm sure the system wouldn't work exactly the same for FFIIIUS, but some of that might be at least useful to you...
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I personally enjoy the direction you're going with this. It's a very kickass experience of what I've played so far (which I'm sure is just a tiny niblet of the full package) so keep doing you're doing.
But since you're on the subject of monster leveling, I have a few questions about how you have monsters level with the party:
1:Do the routines go off of the current party's LVs, or do they also take characters in the shadow in account as well?
2:Does it play well with Shadow Mod?
3:Say I fight a LV 6 Imp with a level 60 party that gave max experience (65535 I believe). Would your routine skip the experince adjustment in this case, or break all of reality and adjust it past that limit? I'm sure it's the first, but hey, I'm curious haha.
4:Why is the sky blue?
I've been thinking of implementing this (with your permission, of course) to better set up how I'm doing battles.
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At one point, Grimoire and I were kicking around an idea for a mod that combined a bunch of our stuff, which included using both the level-up and shadow mods.
I don't think they are inherently compatible, but I do think that I concocted a fix...
Now, whether I still have the fix... That's another question.
The max exp gained remains 65535. I've never delved into the (I'm sure, very) exciting world of breaking the two-byte limit on numbers... And I don't think I really ever want to try. Thinking about that kind of makes me nauseous...
Anyway, my mods are free to use as you like... But I can't guarantee compatability.
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Ah, in that case I'll backup my project before I try it and see how it all goes. It'll be fun seeing how it reacts with the mixture of your's and Grimoire's mods that are already there lol.
And I don't blame you for not ever wanting to try breaking the EXP cap. 65535 is high enough.
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I noticed in the demo that the ninja jumping event in the castle stops your character until the action queue is completed. Is that a limitation of the FF4 event code?
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Yeah, it is...
In FFIV, normal NPC movement is limited to walking in random directions. The only way to make the one ninja repeadly attack the other ninja was to put in a bunch of event triggers, and in FFIV the player gives up control during events (except control over text windows, of course. I tried to make that event quick enough that it didn't really interfere with gameplay. I know, it's still a little annoying. You start trying to memorize where the trigger spots are so you can make it not happen, and will even take four extra steps to avoid them.
But, it's only the training room, so I don't see it as a big deal.
Incidentally, if you opt not to steal the "epic choices" guy's treasure, those ninja jumping events will stop when he finally gets around to rewarding you for your patience.
Originally, I just had the jumping ninja running back and forth between the two spaces in front of the "limit break" guy, but that plan would invariably screw up his position when you ran the Limit Break tutorial event - he would either end up inside the wall or on top of the other guy. So I went with Plan B.
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It's a bunch of calculations that all happen at the time the monster stats are loaded from ROM into RAM. First, it determines the average level of your party, pretty straightforward (though as you may know, calculating an average using SNES's math capabilities is anything but straightforward). Then, it compares the average party level against the individual monster's level, and determines a difference ratio. Then it multiplies all stats except magic power and speed by the difference ratio. Then it multiplies speed by the difference ratio and takes the average of the original speed stat and the adjusted speed stat and makes that the final speed stat. Magic power is not adjusted at all (don't remember exactly why).
I was able to calculate the APL and modified APL in FF6. However I struggle with the last part of your method. I'm taking the same formulas as you right now but this is just for testing purpose.
Let's say my APL is 18, then modified APL is 12. My monster has a level of 8. If we do (12 * 100) / 8, it equals 160h. Now what does the multiplying function do exactly? If my monster has an attack of 32, does it do (20h * 160h) / 100h ? This would give a result of 44, which is a +12 increase for a 10 levels difference between the monster and the party.
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You're exactly right about how the multiplication works. It's probably important to note that this hack also involves a lot of base stat/level adjustments to work right. What's nice is that once you've found a good balance, if you want to make a monster generally easier or harder, all you have to do is adjust their base level up (for easier) or down (for harder). I don't know exactly how things work in FFVI, but in IV, the only thing that a monster's level impacts is how difficult it is to steal from it. With VI, at the very least, I imagine you'll have to deal with the unreliability of level-based lore magic...
Actually, now that I think about it, isn't there a monster ability in VI that lowers player level for the duration of the battle? Maybe I'm just making that up. It's been awhile since I played the whole thing through.
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Actually, now that I think about it, isn't there a monster ability in VI that lowers player level for the duration of the battle? Maybe I'm just making that up. It's been awhile since I played the whole thing through.
Yes. Dischord is a lore that that halves the level of the target. It is used by 6 or 7 enemies and works on every enemies except if they are immune to death. There are some spell like flare star also that use the level as a multiplier. I'll need to figure out what I'll do with those and tweak if necessary. I don't see much downsides of using this system except maybe the lower chance to steal enemies at a high level (success rate = (50 + stealer level - monster level)/128). Still this will require a playthough and lots of adjustments to monster stats like you said...
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So I've been getting sidetracked from the main game again, working lil goodies in there for later use.
This time, I developed an on-screen timer that counts down. The timer appears when flag 128 is set and disappears when flag 136 is set.
Click to watch the video! (https://youtu.be/KDfSAD07WF4)
If you're wondering why Tellah is in the video, I haven't actually worked it into TfW yet. I knew this would take a lot of assembly, and I didn't want to mess up my hack before I knew it was going to work. Also, this only shows the timer in action. I haven't worked in anything yet that actually sets the time (that 4:00 was set by hand) nor anything that happens when the timer reaches zero. Still, the hardest part of it has been realized!
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Oh man! That Is So Cool!!! That is awesome, Chillyfeez! Now we can finally have "Escape" scenarios in FFIV like they have in every FF past FFIV. That is fantastic, I cannot wait to see your added functionality for this, down the line!
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Ah, yes, escape scenarios... This does provide the possibility for one of those, doesn't it?
I don't (yet) have any plans for an escape scenario, but I may be able to work one in down the road...
Actually, as I'm typing this I just realized that I was planning on an escape scenario, the original concept of which did not have a timer, but now it absolutely can!
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This time, I developed an on-screen timer that counts down. The timer appears when flag 128 is set and disappears when flag 136 is set.
That is pretty neat! I'm unsure what those flags are but is there in FFII unused event commands? You could turn one into a timer command that with an argument as the time in minutes.
I guess a bigger challenge is also to have the timer in battle and resume it after the battle.
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Yeah, I don't think the timer will actually appear in battle. As you probably noticed, I hijacked the routine that displays location names in order to make the timer appear (but location names still display fine). I'm not sure I'm quite up to the level of writing my own routines for drawing custom windows... It shouldn't be a problem to make the timer run in the background during battles, though. I have the countdown rigged as part of the normal timekeeping routine, and while there's a separate routine for timekeeping in battle, locations, and on the menu screen, it shouldn't be too tough to implement the countdown in all of them (I already have it set up to work in the menu screen). I could probably make it so that, when there's an active countdown, pausing the battle displays the amount of time left instead of the word "PAUSE."
As for unused event commands, technically, the game has over a hundred of them, as long as you don't need parameters. There's an event command we call "visual effect," because it's the one responsible for things like "Red Wings bombing Damcyan," "Opening the Package in Mist," and "circle of stars at a healing pot," but there are other things it does that aren't visual at all, like removing one from the location stack, and setting the coordinates of the ship outside of Fabul. Anyway, there exists the possibility to have as many as 256 of these, and by default there are less than 100. Shouldn't be too hard to make one of them "Load 5:00 into the timer."
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Holy crap, tha's amazing! Good work man.
And yeah, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use one of the unused "visual" event commands to load up some time on that epic Timer.
:offtopic: - I find it funny how many non-visual commands are in the "Call Visual Effect" command. When I was adding a quick rest function it took me awhile to realize that "Toggle Music Fade" only calls for the fading out of music, while "Call Visual Effect" contained the command to fade it back in, haha.
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I find it funny how many non-visual commands are in the "Call Visual Effect" command. When I was adding a quick rest function it took me awhile to realize that "Toggle Music Fade" only calls for the fading out of music, while "Call Visual Effect" contained the command to fade it back in, haha.
Holycrap, seriously?!
I've been trying to figure that out forever!
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Making progress...
I got the mechanincs all down, now I just have to make the trial actally difficult.
Chocobo Time Trial 1 (https://youtu.be/Xgsuis3qR0Q)
Believe it or not, there is a sequence that runs when time runs out, but I made four videos and I just kept winning.
So, obviously I have to figure out how to make this more of a challege. I worked in a way that you can get a "power up" speed boost, but as of now it's not needed...
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Making progress...
I got the mechanincs all down, now I just have to make the trial actally difficult.
Chocobo Time Trial 1 (https://youtu.be/Xgsuis3qR0Q)
Believe it or not, there is a sequence that runs when time runs out, but I made four videos and I just kept winning.
So, obviously I have to figure out how to make this more of a challege. I worked in a way that you can get a "power up" speed boost, but as of now it's not needed...
What an intriguing concept! You not only made good use of your timer, but you also hacked in a character graphic that is not of a party member and designated as the party lead and did this all outside of the world map! Not only that but you also threw in some good obstacles, I am looking forward to see what else you accomplish with this fascinating side project here! Will this be connected to the Chocobo Catching mini-quest?
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Yeah, making the character graphic a chocobo took about as much hacking as all the rest of this. The image stays if you push R, too. It's all dependent on a flag. There's a lot of flag usage in this. I already talked about how setting flags makes the timer appear and disappear, there's eight flags devoted to determining how much time appears on the timer (there can be 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 minutes), there's another flag that can be set to make an "Escape Scenario" instead of a Time Trial - that is, when time runs out, it's Game Over instead of just losing the trial. Actually, now that I think of it, I'll probably only need one big chunk of time (20 or 30 minutes) for an escape scenario. Maybe the rest of the time choices should all be under two minutes. If this particular trial was 45 seconds, that would probably solve the problem with it being too easy.
It's definitely going to be connected to chocobo catching. I haven't decided on the full details yet. I'd like for it to be relatively easy to gain access to the chocobo time trials, but with the player still needing to do some work. The last prize for chocobo catching comes at 100, so maybe after 30 or so you get to race. My other thought, though, was to put a solitary forest tile at the edge of that lake west of Toroia (the one in the mountains with the waterfall). Of course if I did that, then you'd need the black chocobo to get there, and that was going to be the prize for 100.
At any rate, I have close to a million and a half years to figure that all out because this was, of course, yet another sidetrack from actual story progression...
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I find it funny how many non-visual commands are in the "Call Visual Effect" command. When I was adding a quick rest function it took me awhile to realize that "Toggle Music Fade" only calls for the fading out of music, while "Call Visual Effect" contained the command to fade it back in, haha.
Holycrap, seriously?!
I've been trying to figure that out forever!
Yeah, it's the visual right before the "Kill all actors but Paladin Cecil, who goes to 1" and "Giant of Babil Exploding" commands. I spent half the day trying to do different workarounds for what I was working on before realizing it was hidden in there.
(Just now saw this reply lol)
And oh my God, you've essentially hacked chocobo racing into FF4!
At any rate, I have close to a million and a half years to figure that all out because this was, of course, yet another sidetrack from actual story progression...
Glad I'm not the only one easily sidetracked! Though, at least when you get sidetracked, entirely new (to FF4 especially) experimences are created. I usually end up playing with graphics or FF4kster for half the afternoon when I get sidetracked haha.
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Just a quick update, because I haven't been extremely active on the board lately...
I have been working on TfW pretty constantly. If you played the most recent demo release, then you know that the next stop is Baron enroute to Damcyan with a planned stop in Mist.
At this point, the trip to Baron has been written, as has the Baron Port kissing girl. She's a fun one. You don't get a status ailment from her, you get a funny, silly scene instead.
I've also got all of Baron Town set up.
The Dragoon Training Hall has replaced the old Training room. It's all new, and that's where you can hire Lando.
Cid's house is now Mid's house. Not much happens there for the time being, but there's a hint that Mid might be important down the road.
The Baron Inn is home to another fun scene (which is just filler) and first introduces Mil Espinas Fermented Agave Nectar (that is, G-rated tequila), which will eventually segue into a sidequest involving a certain familiar monster :wink:
The Baron area also features the first secret chocobo treasure cave.
I've made a significant change to the architecture of Baron Castle, but I haven't set up all of the events and NPCs yet. That's the next step. There's still quite a bit to do there, but the stuff I've done up to this point looks really nice and I'm very happy with the way things are progressing. Once Baron Castle is all set, I could make another patch to put up. There won't be any new enemies to fight yet, but the trip to Baron will put a bunch of new gameplay in, plus some plot advancement and access to Ceodore.
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If everything goes according to my plan, I'll be putting up an update to the demo tomorrow.
I've got the kingdom of Baron all set up - that is, the full town and every part of the castle that will be accessible for the time being. The castle involved some pretty significant event work, including another epic choice which sort of blossomed out of nowhere thanks to Grimoire's flag-based event script hack. I've said it before and will say it again, that thing is going to be a key player in making this game a much richer experience!
Where we're at now, you'll have the ability to explore Baron Town and Castle, hire a Dragoon, and recruit Ceodore. You'll also be able to explore the Misty Cave, but not actually exit through to the other side - and no boss battle there, but the monster formations have been changed from vanilla to accommodate the different time in the game that you travel there.
The Highwind Pass, a new mountain dungeon that serves as a bridge between Baron and Kaipo won't be explorable, but you will be able to see the entrance.
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If everything goes according to my plan, I'll be putting up an update to the demo tomorrow.
I've got the kingdom of Baron all set up - that is, the full town and every part of the castle that will be accessible for the time being. The castle involved some pretty significant event work, including another epic choice which sort of blossomed out of nowhere thanks to Grimoire's flag-based event script hack. I've said it before and will say it again, that thing is going to be a key player in making this game a much richer experience!
Where we're at now, you'll have the ability to explore Baron Town and Castle, hire a Dragoon, and recruit Ceodore. You'll also be able to explore the Misty Cave, but not actually exit through to the other side - and no boss battle there, but the monster formations have been changed from vanilla to accommodate the different time in the game that you travel there.
The Highwind Pass, a new mountain dungeon that serves as a bridge between Baron and Kaipo won't be explorable, but you will be able to see the entrance.
This all sounds fantastic! School starts again tomorrow, but I will have to check this out as soon as I can. I especially like the idea of a new dungeon between Baron and Kaipo (I always surmised there may have been a makeshift way to Kaipo from Baron through that waterfall in the north leading to the basin and across the short stretch of mountains. I had assumed this may have been the path that Rosa took to reach Kaipo).
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Here it is.
This should work with any in progress game that was saved before the Tentacle battle.
If you played that part already and don't have a save from before, sorry for the inconvenience...
Apply to a clean, unheadered 1.1 ROM.
As always, feedback is encouraged and appreciated!
FFII:aTfW v0.4.1b (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcYmFXb3FLbnZ4UE0/view?usp=docslist_api)
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Minor Update:
- Removed a mysterious trigger in Mysidia near the entrance hat caused a warp to somewhere in the Underworld.
- Changed Ceo's starting stats to Level 15 (With all applicable stat upgrades)
- Changed Ceo's Starting Weapon to Steel Sword instead of Shadow Sword
- Made Dark (Wave) skill only available when a Dark Sword is equipped.
Version 0.4.2b (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcbzNIaHptVVF0YXc/view?usp=sharing)
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Hey, I'm trying out this hack, but I'm getting stuck early on. When I try to leave the throne room of Eblan I'm blocked by an invisible thing. When I interact with it this dialogue box shows up:
(http://puu.sh/jX33a/e9d2384034.png)
Dialogue box shows: Furio: I'm back, Pop!/Mission accomplished!
An event flag gone wrong, I assume? I'm using a fresh unheadered 1.1 ROM with SNES9x 1.53.
Edit: Ah, but leaving and reentering the throne room via the secret treasure room makes that blockage disappear. Well at least I can continue on from this point.
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Huh... I wonder if I've ever tried to leave in the beginning without hitting the treasure room first. I'll have to investigate that.
Thanks for the report!
Let me know any other feedback you've got - good, bad, whatever. It's all helpful and appreciated!
:edit:
I haven't had a chance to look into it yet, but I've been thinking about it, and it's probably an NPC issue, not a trigger issue.
Since the player has the ability to have any one of six hired party members at any given time, there are some locations that have an NPC assigned, usually inactive, whose visage changes depending on which hired member is in the party. At the beginning of the game, you have no hired help, so that NPC is "invisible." Somewhere in that event script, though, I must have activated the NPC, so there would be an invisible body standing there that you can talk to, which goes back to its inactive state when you exit and reenter the room.
That's my theory, anyway. If that's it, it should be a simple fix.
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Just finished the initial Agart sequence and made it back to Eblan. Some thoughts:
-Edge reacting to using Steal is a nice touch.
-As is the slight modifications to Eblan to make it look more like a place people might live in.
-The ninjas sparring in the training room was a pleasant surprise, I didn't know you could do that sort of event.
-When I ran into Chocobos in the forests, I was confused initially on what to do with them, and tried killing them for exp.
Eventually I hit on using a Firebomb to bypass their magic defence, which is how I discovered that you're supposed to kill all enemies except the Chocobo.
-Neat feature, allowing Choobos to cross rough terrain. I assume the Agart chocobo is just a demonstration of this.
-The Cockatrice lookalike in Agart is called Dummy. Not intended I assume?
-Jinn battle was basic, but it's the first boss battle so it kinda has to be. It was cool that stealing Ice darts and Ice Shards from enemies was rewarded in being able to take him out more easily.
-Furio's (in-battle) all-red ensemble could use a secondary color IMO. It's hard to make out what his clothes are supposed to look like, as opposed to eg. the Ninja recruit's getup.
-I like the idea behind the temporary recruit system...it lets you experiment with party members of varying abilities without having to write around them in plot.
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When Porom isn't looking, Palom writes pamphlets about himself:
(http://puu.sh/jY9vk/f86bc3f4af.png)
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Just finished the initial Agart sequence and made it back to Eblan. Some thoughts:
-Edge reacting to using Steal is a nice touch.
Thanks. Something got screwed up in the AI, and he's only supposed to say that the first time you steal, but fixing that is fairly low on my list of priorities
-As is the slight modifications to Eblan to make it look more like a place people might live in.
-The ninjas sparring in the training room was a pleasant surprise, I didn't know you could do that sort of event.
What tells NPCs to speak is generally one of two events, event 01 ("Show First Message") and event 02 ("Show Second Message"). So I just made another such event, "make the ninjas spar, then show first message." It's a bit of a waste of an event, but Grimoire's conditional event script hack will save me more than enough to make up for it.
-When I ran into Chocobos in the forests, I was confused initially on what to do with them, and tried killing them for exp.
Eventually I hit on using a Firebomb to bypass their magic defence, which is how I discovered that you're supposed to kill all enemies except the Chocobo.
The fat chocobo in Eblan is supposed to tell you about that. Did you talk to it? If so, did it just say too much that it got lost in the mix? Or did you skip talking to it because you thought it served the same purpose as the original ffiv fat chocobo?
-Neat feature, allowing Choobos to cross rough terrain. I assume the Agart chocobo is just a demonstration of this.
The chocobo encounter is just a low-chance (but higher in forests) random encounter, actually. It serves no purpose in Agart, really, but later on you will be able to access some bonus caves only by riding a chocobo (like in ffvii). I don't know if you've been following some of my more recent experimental progress, but I've also worked out a way to have a chocobo time trial mini-game, which will become available in one of the next updates.
-The Cockatrice lookalike in Agart is called Dummy. Not intended I assume?
It is intended, though it's probably a stupid inside joke that isn't worth the trouble. In FFIIUS, the cockatrice summon spell was inexplicably made unavailable. The spell still exists in the game's engine, though, and like many dummied-out details is actually called "Dummy." It's a joke that probably only a handful of FFIV hackers would get, and the truth is that when Grimoire also assumed it was a mistake I probably should have changed it.
:blush:
-Jinn battle was basic, but it's the first boss battle so it kinda has to be. It was cool that stealing Ice darts and Ice Shards from enemies was rewarded in being able to take him out more easily.
Yeah, Jinn is easy on purpose. As a matter of fact, his Blaze spell, if you saw it, is really a fire-element gravity spell, so it can't even kill you. Later bosses will definitely be tougher. The difficulty jumps significantly on the next mission. Appropriate difficulty is my absolute biggest concerns, though. For all the faults in its battle system, I think FFIV actually got difficulty exactly right, so I feel like I'd be doing it a disservice if I made this hack too easy or too hard.
-Furio's (in-battle) all-red ensemble could use a secondary color IMO. It's hard to make out what his clothes are supposed to look like, as opposed to eg. the Ninja recruit's getup.
Without giving too much away (I hope), there is a reason for his lack of color diversity. He has an optional costume change much later in the game that would introduce more colors into the mix.
-I like the idea behind the temporary recruit system...it lets you experiment with party members of varying abilities without having to write around them in plot.
My hope is that the game will be of fairly equal difficulty regardless of who you hire. Due to the nature of the "shadow party," there's a limit to the amount of inactive character storage, so hired help lose all data when they're dismissed, but the mages will get to keep their spell books
When Porom isn't looking, Palom writes pamphlets about himself
Haha. I can't stop chuckling abut this since I read it last night. I've been working on refining my FF4kster config files to help avoid this type of thing, but there's clearly still some work to do on that front.
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Yeah I skipped the Fat Chocobo, I thought he was for storage only like usual. But since Chocobos are an optional feature I think it's alright if they're potentially missable.
What emulator do you use to play FF II? Both ZSNES and SNES9x's latest releases give me issues with text boxes; ZSNES cuts away the lower border, and SNES9x sometimes omits the bottom line of text.
I also ask this because attempting to leave Mysidia takes me back to the House of Prayers, and I'm wondering if this is just me or what.
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I actually have a hack that turns the "Change" command in the menu screen (not the one in battle) into "Cache," which gives the player access to the backup storage at whim. I just haven't put that into my project yet. Once that's available, it should be more obvious that that is not what the fat chocobo is there for.
I usually use Geiger's SNES 9X debugger for my play testing because it allows me to fix things on the fly. It's a little troubling that you're also experiencing that last line getting cut off thing. I had convinced myself it was just my computer being stupid. Guess I'll have to look into that, and hope it's just a messed up decreasing x-register or something.
The leaving Mysidia thing is probably a trigger issue. I took the exit triggers out in favor of "return" tiles, thinking it wouldn't matter because I got rid of the serpent road, but maybe I forgot about some other reason those were there.
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This update should fix the trigger issue in Mysidia. You can now exit the town instead of being teleported back to the house of wishes.
Also, for anyone who has made it that far, the demo no longer ends at the end of the Misty Cave. Now you can enter thee town of Mist, though there's nothing to do there but talk to some old people.
I haven't changed the treasures in Rydia's house yet, so if you want an authentic experience, don't open those chests.
Version 0.4.3b (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcTkMtTHR3al85MXc/view?usp=docslist_api)
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New update available!
Lots more to do in the game now...
- Baron Town and Castle are fully explorable - lots of fun NPCs. The "kissing girl" at the Baron seaport is a hoot.
- Mist Cave fully explorable - the encounters have been updated to reflect the later stage of game (vs original ffiv). The cave itself is really nothing new. I haven't changed the treasures. I might not at all. There's a new version of a certain familiar Boss Monster, though...
- Mist Town fully explorable - it's a sleepy little town compared to all the others so far. That's mostly story-driven, though...
- LOTS of new story scenes - probably about 5-10 minutes worth of required event alone. There's an epic choice in there, too
- Enter the new dungeon, Highwind Pass - not close to fully explorable yet, but at least you can go in now...
- New characters available - Ceodore, Lando (the hired dragoon) and Rydia join the fray. Rydia joins at level 50, so this creates some interesting challenges in light of monsters leveling up
- New side-stuff to uncover - mostly chocobo related... Without giving too much away immediately, the chocobo time trials are now available!
I played v0.5.0 through and then did some bug fixing, but I haven't played 0.5.1 through fully yet, so anyone who plays, do feel free to show me what I inevitably missed. I think this should be compatible with previous saves. I think...
FFIV: A Threat From Within (Demo v0.5.1) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcZ3JaRGZOTTRaMTA/view?usp=docslist_api)
Apply to a clean, unheadered final Fantasy II (US) v1.1 ROM
Oh, props to Bahamut ZERO for his new design of Rydia. She looks awesome!
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I am finally prepared for these projects which means I should have a bit of time to play around here again (I hope I won't be too rusty!) and what better way to come back then to actually play the newest demo of Threat from Within! While I'm busy for the weekend I will get to it this Sunday.
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Woohoo!
Looking forward to your feedback. I'm not quite sure where you left off the last time you played, but if your save won't work, let me know, I may be able to tell you which flags to turn on/off in order to make whatever's next accessible.
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Was the Edge tutorial battle length increased (or given a set goal?) I noticed that it didn't end as soon as I recall it before. (Since I don't recall Edge ever using Burn.) I also have to note I like the expanded backstory on the Chocobos. When you originally set it up it seemed a bit wordy and out of universe, but this new setup fits perfectly with the arranged storyline and the Big Chocobo's mission.
The idea of the Fat Chocobo being a "national treasure!" works really well with Edge's greediness, haha!
Oh ho! Looks like you have Cache working now. That bag graphic is nice!
So the Training Room is complete in this version, let's give it a look over..
I love the dialogue on the old man who explain the Experience and Enemy Level Up Systems. This is also enhanced by the Clock on the wall.
Moogle Enthusiasts? This must relate back to the Mog Sidequest you were talking about a while back.
So you've implemented in the terrain based encounters now as well? Neat!
By "enemy leaders" he's referring to Bosses, I imagine? Or are there some encounters that have a leader with one-time steal rare items as well?
The Limit Skill tutorial is rather neat, good work great use of sprite animations.
Party might forget whose turn it is? What does that mean?
Well I pressed every part of the wall I could, but I couldn't find a way to open that secret door. I may have to look a little more acrefully.
Hmm, new enemies in Agart this time around (well I mean, "new" as in a greater variety. Can even steal FireBombs from the SandMen, hah.
You can steal Cure2 from the Larvas... is that intended?
Hmm, Imp Hit didn't actually seem to deal any damage.
That new Kunai graphic looks great!
The fight with Ifrit felt like it took a bit longer than it did last time. I'm currently seeing if it's still possible to solo, and while it is difficult now that you can't grind to overpower the enemies, it is doable in Agart. (Also selling the Emerald ring might help, but I'm not so...) The Bomb without two levels under your belt is instant death from Explode without doubt though. It took a couple of tries to get through it all.
One weird thing that happened during the fight with Ifrit though, when I stole from him the game stopped displaying its message box. The message boxes were still working but not for Steal.
Ah, that's the reason why... It seems like he has a guaranteed Job Card drop. Interesting, I never knew it didn't display the message.
Well, about time to call it for now, I 'll get back to it soon though.
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I wasn't going to ask you specifically to start from the beginning again, but admittedly, I'm glad you did :)
Was the Edge tutorial battle length increased (or given a set goal?) I noticed that it didn't end as soon as I recall it before. (Since I don't recall Edge ever using Burn.)
He uses burn if you don't use Fight within the first three (or four?) turns. It's always been that way. Then you have three or four more turns until the battle ends. Basically, you have a limited amount of time to get the one-chance-only Emerald ring. It's not a difficult steal, but not a guarantee, and if you're not trying from the beginning, you might miss it.
I also have to note I like the expanded backstory on the Chocobos. When you originally set it up it seemed a bit wordy and out of universe, but this new setup fits perfectly with the arranged storyline and the Big Chocobo's mission.
The idea of the Fat Chocobo being a "national treasure!" works really well with Edge's greediness, haha!
I kind of wish I had made his greediness a bigger part of the story because of all of the off-handed references, but I also kinda like that it's just a part of his personality casually peppered into the story.
Oh ho! Looks like you have Cache working now. That bag graphic is nice!
I finally got to the point in playing through where I needed more space in my inventory, so it seemed like a good time to finally put cache in. The bag graphic was actually quite an ordeal... As I've said many times before, I'm no pixel artist, and finding a stock 32x32, 8-color backpack graphic online was no small feat. Then there was figuring out how to replace the fat chocobo there... And the fact that it has a different message when called from the world map vs. Being called from a location map.
Sheesh...
I like the result, though. Glad you approve :)
So the Training Room is complete in this version, let's give it a look over..
I love the dialogue on the old man who explain the Experience and Enemy Level Up Systems. This is also enhanced by the Clock on the wall.
Thanks for noticing. That was exactly the intention!
Moogle Enthusiasts? This must relate back to the Mog Sidequest you were talking about a while back.
I actually haven't put moogle enthusiasts into Baron or Mist yet, because the availability of the moogle side quest is still so far off, but the intention is exactly the same as it's ever been...
So you've implemented in the terrain based encounters now as well? Neat!
They've been there for a while, actually, but the opportunity to explore multiple terrains in the world map has been minimal until very recently.
By "enemy leaders" he's referring to Bosses, I imagine? Or are there some encounters that have a leader with one-time steal rare items as well?
No, it's bosses, but saying "bosses" in the context of the game breaks the fourth wall a bit, I think...
The Limit Skill tutorial is rather neat, good work great use of sprite animations.
Thanks! I struggled with figuring out how to make the "limit victim" constantly "attack" so that that little interaction made sense.
Party might forget whose turn it is? What does that mean?
I discovered through quite a bit of play testing that using x to defer a lot can occasionally expose a bug that makes characters defer when you don't want them to. Mostly this happens when you're trying to spam the limit breaks. Honest players will see it rarely at most. It's just a warning that it's a thing that might happen if you abuse it.
Well I pressed every part of the wall I could, but I couldn't find a way to open that secret door. I may have to look a little more acrefully.
Huh... There must be some way to get in there...
;)
Hmm, new enemies in Agart this time around (well I mean, "new" as in a greater variety. Can even steal FireBombs from the SandMen, hah.
I guess I didn't mention yet that I did adjust the stuff that can be stolen from monsters. Also, a successful steal now yields the third item in the steal table, thus allowing for more incentive to steal from regular monsters but still allowing them to give a rare drop.
You can steal Cure2 from the Larvas... is that intended?
Yup. They're pretty rare this early n, and you pretty much have to steal from everyone (or know ahead of time) to figure that out.
Hmm, Imp Hit didn't actually seem to deal any damage.
It doesn't have 100% accuracy, but if it lands at this point in the game, it can make things pretty tough. Heh... Just wait til you have Rydia and you're facing Imp Caps!
That new Kunai graphic looks great!
Thanks for pointing out why it wasn't working before!
The fight with Ifrit felt like it took a bit longer than it did last time. I'm currently seeing if it's still possible to solo, and while it is difficult now that you can't grind to overpower the enemies, it is doable in Agart. (Also selling the Emerald ring might help, but I'm not so...) The Bomb without two levels under your belt is instant death from Explode without doubt though. It took a couple of tries to get through it all.
Yeah... I've never tried to solo, but I imagine it's possible if you spam stealing appropriately. It would definitely make battles like the bomb miniboss tougher, but remember that explode deals damage equal to the caster's current HP, so hit first, then steal would be the better strategy, I'd say.
As for selling the Emerald ring... That's exactly the scruple I want the player to face. I mean, it is a terrible piece of equipment, but it sells for, what, 5000 GP? But you only get one. Ever. It does have a purpose down the road. That's a promise.
I did increase Jinn's HP a bit. With two characters, it should require three "cool downs"before it's over. Unless you spend too much time trying to steal...
One weird thing that happened during the fight with Ifrit though, when I stole from him the game stopped displaying its message box. The message boxes were still working but not for Steal.
Ah, that's the reason why... It seems like he has a guaranteed Job Card drop. Interesting, I never knew it didn't display the message.
Me neither. I was confused about that, too, but in the end it was more important to show the player that Job Cards are expensive but not impossible to come by. I want players to feel free to explore the benefits of different hired characters.
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Oh boy, Rydia's finally in the mix! Yeah, definitely starting a new game, being as it's been awhile since I've played. :happy:
I'll give feedback as I go through, of course!
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Alright, back to it now. I picked up a Stealth Dagger, Fireclaw, and Chainmail, then I was out of money, though the smart thing to do would be to pick up two Stealth Daggers to offset the Agility loss and maintain the 4 Attack Multipliers. But ah well, I'll get the money soon enough.
Took out the Witch, again in one hit. (Is her level adjusted far too high, hence why she dies in one hit?)
It took numerous tries but I managed to beat the Raven at Level 16 solo. I used up my Cure2's against Ifrit already and I bought 20 Cures (along with the Cures I already had from stealing, etc) before I left Mysidia, I saw the Lead Shoes, but left them there. I assume that Aero only hits while floating. The Raven's physical attack is nothing special so when it went into it's Attack/Quake/Attack phase I could heal up nicely before rejoining the fight.
Well since this is a solo run obviously Furio wouldn't go to get help.
Made it to the top of the mountain, but we'll see if anything can really be done with my admittedly scarce supplies against Ramuh.
Cure Z? Yikes! Can't say I recalled him having that before! I guess it forces a confrontation instead of leaving the two Cream alive.
Well, Level 18 so time to head back to Mysidia to pick up a Coral Ring.
So, picked up a Coral Ring, another Stealth Dagger and some FireBombs, I may have it now.
With two Stealth Daggers and the Chainmail I should have another Attack Multiplier to make up for the loss of Agility and gain of Strength.
I forgot that the Coral Ring gave three Agility, meaning I didn't need to buy that other Stealth Dagger, ah well. It might be useful in reaching the 32 though.
Ramuh is down, again you can't really lose against him if you have the Coral Ring equipped.
Now onto check out the new stuff!
At Level 20 Furio learns Pin, very nice!
I see the silhouette is much cleaner now, as in it's only there when the Lightning strikes, not sure if you did anything for it or if it's just the emulator change.
Imp Capn's are definitely tougher than before!
Still an Ether 1 in that normally blocked off chest, bah.
"King Edge is *and* old friend."
Now onto the new content!
Oh man! You did an amazing job with this Ship layout, it's so nice to actually move on the ship instead of going through everything.
Goggles, eh? Well, I have the money. Sounds like they'll prevent Blind.
Just realized I may have wanted to pick up a Thunder Claw, ah well.
I loved this boss fight! Clearly it's not intended to be fought alone, but after some planning it was doable. I needed to keep my multipliers so though I bought the Goggles I didn't equip them. I also stocked up on Heals and Cure2's. During the first two phases I struck the first one when I could and just stayed blinded, then with the Second Phase I learned clearly not to attack unless I want to be Cursed, this was the time to use Heal (after it used Venom) and Cure2 to get back in. I got lucky against the Binding one but was Paralyzed several times. I could fight the fifth phase that has weak defense and nothing special but a decently powerful attack when it leaves and recover with the Sixth Phase, using plenty of Heals to cure Blindness time and time again. All in all it was a great fight! I managed to get it to retreat on either the third or fourth phase cycle.
Now to see what Edge says and call it a day.
A fantastic scenario piece here. Palom and Porom's reactions were all rather genuine and the use of "The Lunarians" theme to explain history was extremely well founded. So off to Baron to meet with Cecil, then to Mist to meet with Rydia and Damcyan to see Edward then? Looking forward to it!
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Alright, back to it now. I picked up a Stealth Dagger, Fireclaw, and Chainmail, then I was out of money, though the smart thing to do would be to pick up two Stealth Daggers to offset the Agility loss and maintain the 4 Attack Multipliers. But ah well, I'll get the money soon enough.
I usually skip the chainmail altogether, but I've also never tried to solo...
Took out the Witch, again in one hit. (Is her level adjusted far too high, hence why she dies in one hit?)
... I completely forgot to fix her. She's supposed to be virtually impossible without a frost ring, but I'm also not sure the reward is worth the effort/cost that would require. Though a frost ring in your back pocket could be its own reward...
It took numerous tries but I managed to beat the Raven at Level 16 solo. I used up my Cure2's against Ifrit already and I bought 20 Cures (along with the Cures I already had from stealing, etc)
Cure2s can be stolen from: Larva, Imp Cap, Ghoul - all of which can be found for farming before reaching Raven (I may be mistaken about Ghouls, but the other two for sure).
before I left Mysidia, I saw the Lead Shoes, but left them there. I assume that Aero only hits while floating. The Raven's physical attack is nothing special so when it went into it's Attack/Quake/Attack phase I could heal up nicely before rejoining the fight.
Actually, Aero still hits if you're on the ground, but its damage increases if you're floating. I changed the weakness check a bit so anything floating is weak to air. Of course, the trick is that if you use the lead shoes, you will definitely get killed by quake. That's just kind of an obnoxious middle finger to players who don't save frequently...
Well since this is a solo run obviously Furio wouldn't go to get help.
Made it to the top of the mountain, but we'll see if anything can really be done with my admittedly scarce supplies against Ramuh.
Cure Z? Yikes! Can't say I recalled him having that before! I guess it forces a confrontation instead of leaving the two Cream alive.
I think it was originally Cure2, which didn't work because WIS, then I think I changed it to White Wind. Honestly not sure why that one got the axe... Maybe you knocked him down too quickly once and it ended up only healing a couple hundred? Anyway, yeah, the point is to make you kill Indra last, so, mission accomplished.
Well, Level 18 so time to head back to Mysidia to pick up a Coral Ring.
So, picked up a Coral Ring, another Stealth Dagger and some FireBombs, I may have it now.
With two Stealth Daggers and the Chainmail I should have another Attack Multiplier to make up for the loss of Agility and gain of Strength.
I forgot that the Coral Ring gave three Agility, meaning I didn't need to buy that other Stealth Dagger, ah well. It might be useful in reaching the 32 though.
Ramuh is down, again you can't really lose against him if you have the Coral Ring equipped.
... Yeah. How do you feel about that? Is the Coral Ring expensive enough that that's OK? I don't want this to be super-hard like Combat Boost, but I don't want it to be stupid easy either.
Now onto check out the new stuff!
At Level 20 Furio learns Pin, very nice!
Heh, in all my playthroughs so far, I've yet to reach lv 20 with Furio.
I see the silhouette is much cleaner now, as in it's only there when the Lightning strikes, not sure if you did anything for it or if it's just the emulator change.
I made the backgrounds and the "pitch black" character palettes both true black. The consequence of which is that Furio semi-disappears when walking through secret passages, but, meh.
Imp Capn's are definitely tougher than before!
Yes, they benefit significantly from the level-up hack. The 3-imp, 1-imp cap battles can be a little tricky once your APL is higher, since most players will slaughter the imps, leaving Cap'n alone to use ImpHit, which likewise gets stronger as your level gets higher!
Still an Ether 1 in that normally blocked off chest, bah.
Mmm, yeah. Not sure what to put in there. Maybe an Elixir? I never use elixirs, really, but I feel like they're always good for the odd hard-to-get treasure...
"King Edge is *and* old friend."
Oops. Thanks.
Now onto the new content!
Oh man! You did an amazing job with this Ship layout, it's so nice to actually move on the ship instead of going through everything.
Thanks! I really want to have some other use for the ship tileset, but I'm not sure I will. Another one or two battles on the ship might be the best we get...
Goggles, eh? Well, I have the money. Sounds like they'll prevent Blind.
Yup. They're also just a good helmet at this stage in the game. And everyone can use them.
Just realized I may have wanted to pick up a Thunder Claw, ah well.
It probably would help, but isn't necessary.
I loved this boss fight! Clearly it's not intended to be fought alone, but after some planning it was doable.
If you solo'ed Indra, then don't you have Palom and Porom? Or did you kill them?
I needed to keep my multipliers so though I bought the Goggles I didn't equip them. I also stocked up on Heals and Cure2's. During the first two phases I struck the first one when I could and just stayed blinded, then with the Second Phase I learned clearly not to attack unless I want to be Cursed, this was the time to use Heal (after it used Venom) and Cure2 to get back in.
Interesting strategy. It only counters "Fight" with curse, though, so you can chuck some Lit kunai during that phase, or Aim if you happen to have a Wizard (black magic is OK, too).
I got lucky against the Binding one but was Paralyzed several times. I could fight the fifth phase that has weak defense and nothing special but a decently powerful attack when it leaves and recover with the Sixth Phase, using plenty of Heals to cure Blindness time and time again. All in all it was a great fight! I managed to get it to retreat on either the third or fourth phase cycle.
It will always retreat after the third or fourth cycle. Each time it changes form, the condition flag increases. When it hits a certain number, it retreats.
So simply keeping yourself alive is enough to survive that battle. It is possible to defeat the tentacle. It doesn't give Exp or GP, but there is an awesome prize. Might not be possible to do solo, though, and there is a trick in the AI to keep you from taking the (maybe) obvious easy way out.
Now to see what Edge says and call it a day.
A fantastic scenario piece here. Palom and Porom's reactions were all rather genuine and the use of "The Lunarians" theme to explain history was extremely well founded.
Beginning with the ship scene, I think, I started to noticeably improve my ability to pace story scenes. Reporting the Mysidia mission... I honestly don't know what I would have done without the conditional event script hack. I guess I would have made two different events, and somewhere in the middle of the game I would have just run out of events entirely! Interesting side note here: If you take Palom and Porom up Ordeals to fight Shiva and Indra, you actually get a cut of the GP reward... A couple thousand for your successful mission.
So off to Baron to meet with Cecil, then to Mist to meet with Rydia and Damcyan to see Edward then? Looking forward to it!
Sounds easy enough. Those are all great people who should be totally willing to help make your trip easier, right? ;)
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I usually skip the chainmail altogether, but I've also never tried to solo...
Well even in a normal playthrough the Chainmail with two Stealth Knives (or a Stealth Knife and a Coral Ring) can easily give another Attack Multiplier as well as needed Defense for the often soft Ninja.
... I completely forgot to fix her. She's supposed to be virtually impossible without a frost ring, but I'm also not sure the reward is worth the effort/cost that would require. Though a frost ring in your back pocket could be its own reward...
I like the sound of that. The Mute Knife is really good if you're going in with a Black Mage though so it seems worth it in that regard.
Cure2s can be stolen from: Larva, Imp Cap, Ghoul - all of which can be found for farming before reaching Raven (I may be mistaken about Ghouls, but the other two for sure).
You can also buy them at Mysidia. I didn't run into Larva outside the Agart Siege however.
Actually, Aero still hits if you're on the ground, but its damage increases if you're floating. I changed the weakness check a bit so anything floating is weak to air. Of course, the trick is that if you use the lead shoes, you will definitely get killed by quake. That's just kind of an obnoxious middle finger to players who don't save frequently...
Ah, I thought it was more of a "scare" to keep the player floating that the Quake would deal less damage compared to the combined Aero's.
I think it was originally Cure2, which didn't work because WIS, then I think I changed it to White Wind. Honestly not sure why that one got the axe... Maybe you knocked him down too quickly once and it ended up only healing a couple hundred? Anyway, yeah, the point is to make you kill Indra last, so, mission accomplished.
I think that was the issue with White Wind, I do recall he had that in an earlier version.
... Yeah. How do you feel about that? Is the Coral Ring expensive enough that that's OK? I don't want this to be super-hard like Combat Boost, but I don't want it to be stupid easy either.
I think a Boss should always have a method of damaging the party. I've done a little bit of research on Ramuh through the FF series and it seems while his attacks are predominantly Thunder he has had two other attacks. One is Judgement Staff, which is just as it sounds, attacking with his staff, may want to give it one ailment or another. In FFV he casts Mini in battle so I could see his physical attack inflicting that. And the other one is Chaotic Strike which apparently deals heavy damage and stuns a foe. I would personally only let him use that one if there's another character in the party. Of note in FFVI he also imparts Poison in his Magicite. Maybe give him Venom as well?
Mmm, yeah. Not sure what to put in there. Maybe an Elixir? I never use elixirs, really, but I feel like they're always good for the odd hard-to-get treasure...
Hmm, I noticed that you can steal the Thunder Rod from Ramuh (and the Mute Dagger is made for them than it is Furio). Maybe a White Mage Staff of some sort in that chest to balance out the bonus for the Black Mage?
Thanks! I really want to have some other use for the ship tileset, but I'm not sure I will. Another one or two battles on the ship might be the best we get...
Hmm, if there is any more map room to spare and if the scenario allows it why not add in a Naval battle? This was an idea I was kicking around for Combat Boost at one point to play with the party of Cecil, Yang, Edward, and Rydia one last time. One of the bonus dungeons in FFIV:TAY has an example of a Boat filled map.
If you solo'ed Indra, then don't you have Palom and Porom? Or did you kill them?
To keep it true solo, I KO'ed them both before the events.
Interesting strategy. It only counters "Fight" with curse, though, so you can chuck some Lit kunai during that phase, or Aim if you happen to have a Wizard (black magic is OK, too).
Speaking of such was the formula on Throw changed? I noticed that I was dealing only 90-140 damage with them as my Level should should have been allowing me to deal much more.
It will always retreat after the third or fourth cycle. Each time it changes form, the condition flag increases. When it hits a certain number, it retreats.
So simply keeping yourself alive is enough to survive that battle. It is possible to defeat the tentacle. It doesn't give Exp or GP, but there is an awesome prize. Might not be possible to do solo, though, and there is a trick in the AI to keep you from taking the (maybe) obvious easy way out.
Ah, was unaware of that. With a real party I'll have to try and beat that sometime.
Beginning with the ship scene, I think, I started to noticeably improve my ability to pace story scenes. Reporting the Mysidia mission... I honestly don't know what I would have done without the conditional event script hack. I guess I would have made two different events, and somewhere in the middle of the game I would have just run out of events entirely! Interesting side note here: If you take Palom and Porom up Ordeals to fight Shiva and Indra, you actually get a cut of the GP reward... A couple thousand for your successful mission.
I am glad my conditional event script hack came in handy. I think I noticed that as well in the Agart mission where you got some GP for that as well. I think your pacing has been pretty fantastic thus far all around. I love this build up personally.
Alright! So let's get back to it. I'm rather limited in time today so I might not find a clean stopping point.
Hmm, on the way to Baron I saw a cave next to a river which seems inaccessible without a Chocobo, hmm...
Heh, interesting subversion in Baron's Seaport with the other Kissing Girls.
Now into Baron proper...
Ah, the Dragoon Training Hall, somehow the Red does differentiate them quite a bit from Kain, good thinking.
Seems as if the Underground Waterway is gone now.
Whoa, Cure3 and JobCards! Did not expect that from the Baron Item Shop. Unfortunately I somehow have exactly 0 GP.
I like the new sign in the Baron Inn, works well to the Dragoon's renewed importance.
The bar is actually... well a bar, everyone aside from that one guard appears to be rather wasted. The Bartender is even talking about drinks instead of local gossip!
I do find it a little odd that Ceodore's name has been changed to just "Ceo". Or is it more of a nickname? If I'm not mistaken he should be pushing about exactly 40 by now.
Shadow Sword, Steel Sword, and Wind Lance, none of which Furio can equip. Moving on then.
Seems as if you sealed off the backway to the treasures behind the counters, but did add a pot with a Cure 2.
The new inhabitants of Rosa's house are pretty fun.
Ah, so Cid and Kain have passed away, that is a bit sad, but it is understandable it has been 40 Years, Cid alone would have been pushing 100.
Well as is customary I'll first go and try to break the plot by heading to Mist first.
Hmm, such little Exp. from the OldTrees.
Looks like you sealed Mist off, good consistency check.
Well I just found the secret in the Baron Training Hall, I was just going up to it to inspect it, heh. Some good stuff there, especially if you have a Dragoon.
I don't know what's going on with the right wall though, some of the tiles look out of place and there's a glitchy looking stairwell far off to the right. Is that intended?
Highwind Pass hmm? A fitting name for the mountain that Kain and Ceodore scaled.
Hehe, the Dragoon quick warp out of the room is rather cute.
Baron Castle sure is inviting now.
I love the new Magic Classroom where both the Black and White Mages get to test spells on the player now.
King Cecil is so liberal he lets total strangers sleep in his bed!
The Throne Room is just beyond this door? Did Baron go through some interior modeling?
Aww, this graveyard area speaks well to a character's personality being shown through actions. The silence is also perfectly fitting, well done. Did not realize that Rosa had also passed away since the lady that mentioned it only said she was ill. I am surprised there's no grave for the original King Baron.
Hmm, a secret path in the Graveyard. No idea how to get to that grass patch though, maybe I can't yet? Did manage to get the Elixir on the otherside, maybe this one is more just to taunt the player?
I like the elaborate entrance into Baron Castle.
Whoa, searching around the moat I ended up in a secret room. May be plot related as there is no entry beyond it.
Now that is interesting about Ceodore learning to use the Dark Sword. In the original FFIII the class that was to become the Dark Knight (at the time called Mystic Knight) could use the Dark Sword but had access to low level White Magic.
Ah, looks like that secret room I found looks to have 4 treasures in it if the Training Room is indeed connected to it.
Those soldiers lied, the Throne Room is still in the same place it ever was.
Haha! The guard wanting to be a Bard then starting to play Edward's Theme is great.
Ah, another Epic Decision to listen to Ceodore or to go to Mist to meet Rydia? Well this is the oft-reckless, pay no attention to anyone play through so time to barge in... after I save.
Oh, nothing happens. Ceodore just tells Edge not to bother Cecil. Or... what was the other option again? I just saved so I can't really check, maybe to go back to Edge?
Ah, maybe I misunderstood the syntax and Furio was saying that he needed to go to Mist regardless.
Well, I'm out of time for the day. I did not expect to spend so long in just Baron alone! Great work making it seem almost brand new!
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I'm at work on lunch right now, so I don't have time to respond to everything, but just in case you get the chance to play again, here's the important part. The epic choice is:
1) try to convince Ceo to let you talk to Cecil, or
2) continue on to Mist to see Rydia
now let's see what else is here...
You can also buy them at Mysidia. I didn't run into Larva outside the Agart Siege however.
There's a small desert north of Eblan. Larva can be found there pretty easily. I expect the price of Cure2s would prohibit buying too many of them in Mysidia at that stage in the game.
I think a Boss should always have a method of damaging the party. I've done a little bit of research on Ramuh through the FF series and it seems while his attacks are predominantly Thunder he has had two other attacks. One is Judgement Staff, which is just as it sounds, attacking with his staff, may want to give it one ailment or another. In FFV he casts Mini in battle so I could see his physical attack inflicting that. And the other one is Chaotic Strike which apparently deals heavy damage and stuns a foe. I would personally only let him use that one if there's another character in the party. Of note in FFVI he also imparts Poison in his Magicite. Maybe give him Venom as well?
Good insights. Thatnk you, I will definitely use some of that to rewrite his AI a bit.
Hmm, I noticed that you can steal the Thunder Rod from Ramuh (and the Mute Dagger is made for them than it is Furio). Maybe a White Mage Staff of some sort in that chest to balance out the bonus for the Black Mage?
Also good. To this point I don't think there's been much incentive to use poor Ruby.
Hmm, if there is any more map room to spare and if the scenario allows it why not add in a Naval battle? This was an idea I was kicking around for Combat Boost at one point to play with the party of Cecil, Yang, Edward, and Rydia one last time. One of the bonus dungeons in FFIV:TAY has an example of a Boat filled map.
That's a fun idea, but it's not really in the cards. The kingdoms are going to remain relatively distant from the conflict in this story.
OK, I gotta go now. More later!
:edit:
Speaking of such was the formula on Throw changed? I noticed that I was dealing only 90-140 damage with them as my Level should should have been allowing me to deal much more.
Yes. The whole pint of doing so was to allow for elemental consideration. Throw, essentially, runs the fight routine, using the thrown weapon as the equipped weapon, with 255 attack %.
Seems as if the Underground Waterway is gone now.
Yup. Gone, and not coming back. I mean, how many times are you going to let undesirables sneak into your castle before realizing that the not-so-secret passageway is a bad idea? Besides, as you noted, King Cecil is pretty liberal. If you never get locked put of the front door, you'll never have to sneak in through the back.
Whoa, Cure3 and JobCards! Did not expect that from the Baron Item Shop. Unfortunately I somehow have exactly 0 GP.
It will be possible to complete this game with Ceo being the closest thing to a healer in your party (and I think he only goes up to Cure2), so it was necessary to make the cure potions relatively available, even if they're cost prohibitive at this juncture.
Job Cards, while expensive, also were not intended to be rare. By the time you get to Damcyan, you'll have access to all of the hired guns (except the secret one), and I don't want the player to be afraid to experiment with different party builds.
I like the new sign in the Baron Inn, works well to the Dragoon's renewed importance.
They're not looking for dancers anymore... Speaking of which, did you make the connection that the drunken dragoon is the "boyfriend" that the not-kissing-girl is waiting for by the fountain?
The bar is actually... well a bar, everyone aside from that one guard appears to be rather wasted. The Bartender is even talking about drinks instead of local gossip!
Mil Espinas Fermented Agave Nectar, just imported from Kaipo. By the way, the actual way that they make tequila is by fermenting a mixture of water and agave nectar. So they're drinking tequila, without me actually saying so in so many words. Also, an agave is a cactus. And "Mil Espinas" is Spanish for, literally, "one thousand needles." A new side quest will become available surrounding all of this info once the game gets up to Kaipo...
I do find it a little odd that Ceodore's name has been changed to just "Ceo". Or is it more of a nickname? If I'm not mistaken he should be pushing about exactly 40 by now.
His age depends a bit on what version of TAY you use for reference, and I tend to figure for the one that puts him closer to 36 or so. Anyway, the name change came primarily from the six character name limit. I guess I could have gone with "Ceodor,"which would be OK, since his name is a combination of Cecil and Theodor (Golbez), except TAY firmly sets his name with an E at the end, so I shortened it to Ceo.
If you haven't noticed yet, Ceo will be portrayed as a troubled soul. He's the human embodiment of "A Threat from Within," as he struggles with the light/dark struggle within himself, and has difficulty dealing with the loss of several loved ones. Anyway, to me, that kind of makes some sense of a conscious change of his name from one that combines those of his father and uncle to simply, Ceo. But it won't ever be explained exactly like that in the game.
Shadow Sword, Steel Sword, and Wind Lance, none of which Furio can equip. Moving on then.
The next several equipment shops you visit will primarily sell equipment that makes some contextual sense. So, Baron trains knights and dragoons, thus they sell swords, spears and heavy armor.
Seems as if you sealed off the backway to the treasures behind the counters, but did add a pot with a Cure 2.
Yeah, for a place that is widely regarded as the strongest military power on earth, Baron sure is big on getting raided and pillaged, huh?
Well I just found the secret in the Baron Training Hall, I was just going up to it to inspect it, heh. Some good stuff there, especially if you have a Dragoon.
If you hire Lando and then talk to all of the NPCs in the training hall, one of them will actually tell you about it.
I don't know what's going on with the right wall though, some of the tiles look out of place and there's a glitchy looking stairwell far off to the right. Is that intended?
Um, no. Definitely not. I'll have to look into that...
Highwind Pass hmm? A fitting name for the mountain that Kain and Ceodore scaled.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the real reason there's no ancient waterway.
I love the new Magic Classroom where both the Black and White Mages get to test spells on the player now.
King Cecil is so liberal he lets total strangers sleep in his bed!
The reason the black mage poisons you is actually to lead the player to realize that you can sleep in Cecil's bed. That fact is sort of semi-important.
The Throne Room is just beyond this door? Did Baron go through some interior modeling?
As a matter of fact, those guards always said that. I didn't change them at all.
Aww, this graveyard area speaks well to a character's personality being shown through actions. The silence is also perfectly fitting, well done. Did not realize that Rosa had also passed away since the lady that mentioned it only said she was ill. I am surprised there's no grave for the original King Baron.
I tried to imply that with what the old lady says. I wanted it to be like a thing that she couldn't bear to utter. But anyway, yeah, Rosa's dead. That's supposed to be the sort of straw that broke Ceo's back.
As far as King Baron goes... Do we even know where his body is? I think Kainazzo might have eaten it. The fact that Cecil tore down the tower where Odin's soul rested is both story-significant and developer-convenient, though. Rydia's Limit skill is Phoenix, which replaces Odin entirely. So Odin will not appear in this game at all.
Hmm, a secret path in the Graveyard. No idea how to get to that grass patch though, maybe I can't yet? Did manage to get the Elixir on the otherside, maybe this one is more just to taunt the player?
There's just the Elixir. And a little passage to give you fits :)
I like the elaborate entrance into Baron Castle.
Not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about the guards hopping and spinning?
Whoa, searching around the moat I ended up in a secret room. May be plot related as there is no entry beyond it.
It will be a long time before the room beyond that point is accessible.
Now that is interesting about Ceodore learning to use the Dark Sword. In the original FFIII the class that was to become the Dark Knight (at the time called Mystic Knight) could use the Dark Sword but had access to low level White Magic.
It jives with the mythos of this game, too. Dark energy is Lunar, and Ceo is part Lunarian, but also inherited white magic from Rosa.
So anyway, yeah, your choice now is to try to convince Ceo to let you talk to Cecil, or to go onward to Mist.
I just thought of something. There's one boss left that you haven't fought yet. The way you're playing... It might be completely impossible. You will have acquired a new character by that point, and as having that character is not optional, the game presumes you will be using that character. I will be, shall we say, extremely impressed if you manage to win with only Furio.
I mean, by all means, try. But... Fair warning...
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Yes. The whole pint of doing so was to allow for elemental consideration. Throw, essentially, runs the fight routine, using the thrown weapon as the equipped weapon, with 255 attack %.
That's a neat idea! Good thinking.
They're not looking for dancers anymore... Speaking of which, did you make the connection that the drunken dragoon is the "boyfriend" that the not-kissing-girl is waiting for by the fountain?
Yep, considering the guard across from the table says it, hehe.
I
His age depends a bit on what version of TAY you use for reference, and I tend to figure for the one that puts him closer to 36 or so. Anyway, the name change came primarily from the six character name limit. I guess I could have gone with "Ceodor,"which would be OK, since his name is a combination of Cecil and Theodor (Golbez), except TAY firmly sets his name with an E at the end, so I shortened it to Ceo.
If you haven't noticed yet, Ceo will be portrayed as a troubled soul. He's the human embodiment of "A Threat from Within," as he struggles with the light/dark struggle within himself, and has difficulty dealing with the loss of several loved ones. Anyway, to me, that kind of makes some sense of a conscious change of his name from one that combines those of his father and uncle to simply, Ceo. But it won't ever be explained exactly like that in the game.
I like that thinking since TAY doesn't really finish his character arc, this seems like a good chance to explore it.
I like the elaborate entrance into Baron Castle.
Not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about the guards hopping and spinning?
Yeah, I'm referring to the guards joyful entrance.
So anyway, yeah, your choice now is to try to convince Ceo to let you talk to Cecil, or to go onward to Mist.
I just thought of something. There's one boss left that you haven't fought yet. The way you're playing... It might be completely impossible. You will have acquired a new character by that point, and as having that character is not optional, the game presumes you will be using that character. I will be, shall we say, extremely impressed if you manage to win with only Furio.
I mean, by all means, try. But... Fair warning...
I'll give it a shot, hehe.
Hmm, unless I screwed something up Furio doesn't convince Ceodore and that plot line is left hanging for now. Maybe it will have some impact later...?
Oh! Oh, I see. I'm glad I tried that option. Heh.
Ceo: "...you're not going to *reamin* here!"
Furio's line of "Huh?!" to Ceodore. Is that a reference to TAY, where Ceodore often says that exact phrase?
But... since that line gets you Ceodore. I should try to tackle this without that path. By the way I really liked the back and forth between Furio and Ceodore. Furio comes off as intelligent and willful throughout it using reason to make his points.
Let's head for Mist alone!
I guess you have to at least talk to Ceodore, it makes sense.
Mist Cave's enemies were a bit challenging. Forget about fighting Basilisks, they can Stone Furio and that's that for me. I liked that you could steal FireBombs from Jelly's yet they were immune to Fire, heh. Weepers were also an interesting set of foes, though if Furio didn't get First Strike it was time to run, lest you be put to sleep forever.
Interesting bit of foreshadowing at the end of the Mist Cave.
Now onto Mist!
I liked the oddity of the two shopkeepers. It's the little touches that count.
Oh? Is that Cuore outside of Rydia's House?
No, Cuore is in the Fireplace, where all budding ?teenagers hang out? I wonder who the other green haired woman is outside of the home than?
Great work on the sprites by the way!
Looks like you approached Rydia's portrait in a very different style than it was in earlier demos. It looks quite close to the new sprite! Well done!
The conversation again felt rather natural, I enjoyed Rydia's little quip about Furio's name and the way he realized it. And Cuore's "Idiotic..." line is very reminiscent of the Maenad. So many great references you're put in this.
Looks like Rydia still has a full compliment of Black Magic.
Oh my goodness! That battle sprite is fantastic and it looks as if it is fully custom made! Great work!
Well. I unfortunately have to call it here... but I do see some obvious difficulties ahead with a Level 50 Character increasing the Level Average to a Ton!
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Hmm, unless I screwed something up Furio doesn't convince Ceodore and that plot line is left hanging for now. Maybe it will have some impact later...?
Oh! Oh, I see. I'm glad I tried that option. Heh.
So you figured out that you have to talk to him a bunch of times? How about the sleeping in Cecil's bed thing? Do you think you would have figured it out if I hadn't hinted at it?
Furio's line of "Huh?!" to Ceodore. Is that a reference to TAY, where Ceodore often says that exact phrase?
Yup. Ceo actually says it quite a bit, but I thought it was appropriate in the midst of a confrontation between the two of them that Furio gets a "huh" in there.
I just realized that without a hired party member, you missed the part where Ceo grabs him/her out of bed and throws him/her across the room and down the stairs.
But... since that line gets you Ceodore. I should try to tackle this without that path. By the way I really liked the back and forth between Furio and Ceodore. Furio comes off as intelligent and willful throughout it using reason to make his points.
The only problem with that scene is that it's optional, and without it you miss significant character development for both Ceo and Furio.
Oh? Is that Cuore outside of Rydia's House?
No, Cuore is in the Fireplace, where all budding ?teenagers hang out? I wonder who the other green haired woman is outside of the home than?
The lady outside Rydia's house uses Cuore's palette, I think. Mist is sort of a dying-out village, with Cuore being the only child raised there since Rydia. Sort of an easy way to make it so that Rydia is really the only significant thing about the town. There's really no need to keep going there. So since all the townspeople are old ladies or old men, I hade to use Cuore's palette so they didn't all look identical...
Anyway, I'm sure you tried to find the treasure in Rydia's fireplace before you went to talk to her. The treasure's still there. Cuore is literally blocking the way until after the event. So maybe she's not hanging out in the fireplace like all the cool teenagers do - maybe she's maintaining the treasure room, or something...
Oh my goodness! That battle sprite is fantastic and it looks as if it is fully custom made! Great work!
I can't take credit for any of Rydia's sprites. I consulted only. The pixel work was Bahamut ZERO. I agree, they're fantastic - especially the battle sprites.
but I do see some obvious difficulties ahead with a Level 50 Character increasing the Level Average to a Ton!
Yeah, the baddies won't be messing around, now... Looking forward to the next leg of your journey. You're pretty close to the end of the demo now.
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Hmm, unless I screwed something up Furio doesn't convince Ceodore and that plot line is left hanging for now. Maybe it will have some impact later...?
Oh! Oh, I see. I'm glad I tried that option. Heh.
So you figured out that you have to talk to him a bunch of times? How about the sleeping in Cecil's bed thing? Do you think you would have figured it out if I hadn't hinted at it?
I got to the point where he just kept saying "Leave me alone." it was only a last ditch effort (since I thought you were alluding to Baron Castle becoming a non-escape zone at some point and the necessity to use that as a healing spot) to think to sleep in Cecil's bed there. Since you have to at least talk to Ceodore in the Outer Court, it may be more pertinent to have Furio decide his choice there since regardless he makes some effort to talk to Ceodore regardless of the path chosen.
I just realized that without a hired party member, you missed the part where Ceo grabs him/her out of bed and throws him/her across the room and down the stairs.
That's... pretty harsh. I'll have to take a look at that next go around.
The only problem with that scene is that it's optional, and without it you miss significant character development for both Ceo and Furio.
It would seem so, yes.
Anyway, I'm sure you tried to find the treasure in Rydia's fireplace before you went to talk to her. The treasure's still there. Cuore is literally blocking the way until after the event. So maybe she's not hanging out in the fireplace like all the cool teenagers do - maybe she's maintaining the treasure room, or something...
Ah, FireBombs, hmm? I'll keep that in mind.
I can't take credit for any of Rydia's sprites. I consulted only. The pixel work was Bahamut ZERO. I agree, they're fantastic - especially the battle sprites.
Well done Bahamut ZERO, yes your spriting work is quite something, especially in FFIV where everything's not as cut and dry as it is for say... FFVI's spriting processes.
Let's see if I can make it to the end...
Oh neat, you changed the text for all of the NPC's in Mist with Rydia in the party. I especially liked the old man who mentioned that Rydia is making her mother proud, nice throwback.
Interesting, it seems as if you can't go back to Mist once you've gone back into the Mist Cave, and try to leave it repeats the scene where Furio and Rydia both sense something. Intended, but interesting all the same.
Hmm, the Mist Dragon casts "Holy1" which doesn't seem to have any graphics at the moment.
Oh... oh, this may be impossible as you said. 2500 damage from Holy2 isn't going to be shrugged off. I did manage to steal the Dragon Claw though.
Yes, unfortunately it is impossible without Rydia. Ah well I'll keep her alive then.
Alright, let's move everyone to the backrow and go from there.
Armadillo? Was not expecting that here. Trying to conserve Rydia's life so running away from everything for the most part.
Interesting the Dragon Claw is actually Bad against the Mist Dragon, I am going to assume that it's Holy Elemental and so is the Mist Dragon.
This would also be a great place for the Whip since magic is ineffective. Once you get past the initial magic phase the Mist Dragon doesn't seem that difficult.
I'm surprised you still have the tutorial messages still in the battle. I'd think those would be one of the most pertinent things to repurpose.
It took a rather long time, but I finally managed to take out the Mist Dragon. 10009 Exp as the reward, yikes!
Alright! Now it's time to meet with Cecil.
Loving this scene so far, I especially liked the subtle movement of Cecil sitting back into his throne with the delayed backward movement, nice touch.
Cecil's line of thought about the leader of the Eidolons is some really creative thinking, actually examining the situation with possibilities.
Cecil mentioning the events of TAY is an interesting plot device and feeling that Ceodore is going through that same struggle, thereby alleviating his worries about Ceodore works well to the narrative.
And that seems to be it for this run. Other than not getting a Chocobo (seems nigh impossible to do with a solo) did I explore the story to it's fullest potential at this point?
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I got to the point where he just kept saying "Leave me alone." it was only a last ditch effort (since I thought you were alluding to Baron Castle becoming a non-escape zone at some point and the necessity to use that as a healing spot) to think to sleep in Cecil's bed there. Since you have to at least talk to Ceodore in the Outer Court, it may be more pertinent to have Furio decide his choice there since regardless he makes some effort to talk to Ceodore regardless of the path chosen.
Oh, no, after the first encounter in "the shrinking hallway," you can continue on towards Mist if you want.
The only problem with that scene is that it's optional, and without it you miss significant character development for both Ceo and Furio.
It would seem so, yes.
Hopefully Ceo has enough characterization without it. I think he will...
Anyway, I'm sure you tried to find the treasure in Rydia's fireplace before you went to talk to her. The treasure's still there. Cuore is literally blocking the way until after the event. So maybe she's not hanging out in the fireplace like all the cool teenagers do - maybe she's maintaining the treasure room, or something...
Ah, FireBombs, hmm? I'll keep that in mind.
Notice Rydia's hiding what could be considered the exact stuff that destroyed her village and killed her mother. That's more of a characterization move than anything else. But if Ceo is in the party, that sword comes in real handy against the Mist Dragon...
Interesting, it seems as if you can't go back to Mist once you've gone back into the Mist Cave, and try to leave it repeats the scene where Furio and Rydia both sense something. Intended, but interesting all the same.
It was an oversight, originally. I meant to have the event end on the trigger tile, but as there's no save point in the cave, you can't get stuck in there, so I'm OK leaving it as-is.
Hmm, the Mist Dragon casts "Holy1" which doesn't seem to have any graphics at the moment.
Right. Thanks for the reminder. It uses the "rod" spell animation currently, which I found out the hard way doesn't work against the party. Meant to change it but forgot.
Oh... oh, this may be impossible as you said. 2500 damage from Holy2 isn't going to be shrugged off. I did manage to steal the Dragon Claw though.
Yes, unfortunately it is impossible without Rydia. Ah well I'll keep her alive then.
Sorry to disappoint you...
Armadillo? Was not expecting that here. Trying to conserve Rydia's life so running away from everything for the most part.
Funny in ffiv how you always get the rare encounters when you're not trying. The armadillos have high HP (for this point in the game), but aren't a major threat otherwise. They have a great steal for a party that has Ceo and/or Lando.
Interesting the Dragon Claw is actually Bad against the Mist Dragon, I am going to assume that it's Holy Elemental and so is the Mist Dragon.
You guessed it. I like that, since having Ceo at this stage is probably the less likely possibility, you are rewarded for it by having a character who is tailor-made for the second stage of this battle.
This would also be a great place for the Whip since magic is ineffective. Once you get past the initial magic phase the Mist Dragon doesn't seem that difficult.
There is a good reason the Mist weapons dealer suggests it specifically. ;)
I'm surprised you still have the tutorial messages still in the battle. I'd think those would be one of the most pertinent things to repurpose.
You're probably right. I haven't needed them yet, but they're probably more annoying than helpful.
It took a rather long time, but I finally managed to take out the Mist Dragon. 10009 Exp as the reward, yikes!
Well, I'm assuming most players will have 3 or 4 party members for this battle, so 2-3000 exp each seemed appropriate. You will start to see some exp rewards jump in general pretty soon to normalize the APL a bit with Rydia in the party.
Alright! Now it's time to meet with Cecil.
Loving this scene so far, I especially liked the subtle movement of Cecil sitting back into his throne with the delayed backward movement, nice touch.
Cecil's line of thought about the leader of the Eidolons is some really creative thinking, actually examining the situation with possibilities.
Cecil mentioning the events of TAY is an interesting plot device and feeling that Ceodore is going through that same struggle, thereby alleviating his worries about Ceodore works well to the narrative.
I've spent a lot of time concocting this story, so it's good to hear the subtleties are coming across.
And that seems to be it for this run. Other than not getting a Chocobo (seems nigh impossible to do with a solo) did I explore the story to it's fullest potential at this point?
Did you actually go into the Highwind Pass? If so, then yup, that's it. There is a rare chocobo encounter in desert terrain that is two imps and a choc. That might be possible in solo mode, but definitely much easier with friends...
Besides telling you that it is possible, I'm going to withhold how to find the chocobo time trials, because it's important to me to know just how difficult that is. I don't want it to be impossible, but I don't want for it to slap the player in the face, either...
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Alright, been playing the latest demo. Here's some impressions and notes I took while playing.
The Emerald Ring sells for 20,000 gold! It probably doesn't have any other use in this demo, so off to the market it goes.
..And now I've already spent 10,000 of that on Short katanas and IceShards. Well now Furio has a respectable Attack. The Cache command on the menu is really slick; well done on that. It's too bad you can't combine the sizes of the two inventories, but it does put a limit on what you can take into battle so there are some decisions to be made by the player later in the game.
I'm going to go through the game using hirelings, so let's see how good Eblan's ninja is. That secret door in the training room downstairs is maddening. I can't figure out how to open it! I did manage to steal the guard's treasure though, that was nice. Off to Agart now...
Huh, the Eagles and Cockatrices carry Life medicine. Very useful!
There's something wonky going on with Eagles. I encountered a Cockatrice/2x Eagle group, and the Eagles got one turn to Furio's nine. Makes it very easy to stock up on Lifes.
On to Agart itself, and of course we have to steal from everyting. The first encounter was a group of Larvas, so I reduced them to one Larva and stole a few Cure2s for the road.
Wow, you really can steal FireBombs from Sandmen. I'll take five, thank you. Good thing I never bothered buying any. Strange thing is that the minibosses only has a single elemental dart to steal, a much weaker item. All these good items do teach you to try stealing from every enemy. That's much better than the vanilla game where the items you got from stealing were usually nothing to care about.
Jinn fight seems pretty similar to before. Furio attacked and the ninja tossed Ice darts, and that kept him locked down. The second time he heated up/I cooled him down, Jinn used Burn anyway. Probably just a counterattack?
I had enough money left over to buy one of each Claw, the Chain Mail and two Stealth Daggers for the ninja. There's something to be said for the freedom to experiment that a 20,000G cash infusion gives you!
Hm, the Change and Parry command boxes in battle have garbled graphics over them.
Went to Mysidia and bought two LeadShoes, plus a Coral and Burning Ring. I'm really glad I sold the Emerald ring, I might not have had the patience to grind out the money for these things. Huh, and the Burning Ring gives Str and Vit bonuses; now the Ninja has 5 attack multipliers.
Hm, you can hire a Black Mage or a Whit Mage at Mysidia...think I'll stick with the Ninja for now though, I'm finally starting to run out of money and it's likely Palom and Porom will join at some point.
Now I'm looking in the woods for that 'witch'. The 4 Bat encounter has some overlap with the Bats' graphics. Turtles seem to be very feeble, they only deal 1-4 damage. Also found a Chocobo, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere you can go with them here.
Later I realize that maybe the note meant the trees INSIDE of Mysidia...yep, there's a secret passage.
Goodness, I stole an Ether from the Witch and she flattened Furio with an 800 damage Ice-2! That's one way to discourage farming, for sure. Good thing she dies in one hit. Let's move on to Mt.Ordeals...
I have to say, the SNES soundfont really does justice to the Mt.Ordeals theme. Makes it sound majestic almost.
The Raven battle is pretty easy with two party members. Furio opens up with a FireBomb to slay the Cockatrices and then we just attack. Aero only does 50-80 damage to my 2-man party so it's no threat. Its physical attack is even worse, it only does in the nieghbourhood of 10 damage. Probably could have beat this fight without any healing, but repeated Aeros brought Furio to 100 HP, making him pause to heal once.
I think I'll leave off there. It's been fun so far! Might want to look into some of the monster stats, a lot of monsters were total pushovers.
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Thanks for the feedback. A general response to anything about difficulty level: this is probably the part I'm most concerned with, partly because I am a wimpy grinder as a player and therefore have very little idea what appropriate difficulty is, and partly because the monster level-up mod can sometimes make monster difficulty a little unpredictable. This is definitely something that I will tinker with continually for non-boss monsters. With respect to Bosses, specific feedback is always appreciated. As I've said before, my goal with this is pretty much a middling difficulty level.
Alright, been playing the latest demo. Here's some impressions and notes I took while playing.
The Emerald Ring sells for 20,000 gold! It probably doesn't have any other use in this demo, so off to the market it goes.
Selling the Emerald ring is kind of an epic choice. It will have a very specific purpose much later in the game and is a one-time only draw, but I want the sale price to be tantalizing at the beginning of the game. That being said, I think 20000 was a mistake. I think I was thinking 5000-7500.
..And now I've already spent 10,000 of that on Short katanas and IceShards. Well now Furio has a respectable Attack. The Cache command on the menu is really slick; well done on that. It's too bad you can't combine the sizes of the two inventories, but it does put a limit on what you can take into battle so there are some decisions to be made by the player later in the game.
I'm going to go through the game using hirelings, so let's see how good Eblan's ninja is. That secret door in the training room downstairs is maddening. I can't figure out how to open it! I did manage to steal the guard's treasure though, that was nice. Off to Agart now...
You can't get through that door in this demo...
SPOILER ALERT
If you steal that treasure, you'll never be able to open the door
Huh, the Eagles and Cockatrices carry Life medicine. Very useful!
There's something wonky going on with Eagles. I encountered a Cockatrice/2x Eagle group, and the Eagles got one turn to Furio's nine. Makes it very easy to stock up on Lifes.
It's the level-up mod. Monsters are pushovers very early on...
On to Agart itself, and of course we have to steal from everyting. The first encounter was a group of Larvas, so I reduced them to one Larva and stole a few Cure2s for the road.
Wow, you really can steal FireBombs from Sandmen. I'll take five, thank you. Good thing I never bothered buying any. Strange thing is that the minibosses only has a single elemental dart to steal, a much weaker item.
That's specifically for fighting Jinn, in case you don't have any other ice stuff yet...
All these good items do teach you to try stealing from every enemy. That's much better than the vanilla game where the items you got from stealing were usually nothing to care about.
Agree. Glad you feel the change is positive. I'm going for a stealing system not unlike ffix, for the most part...
Jinn fight seems pretty similar to before. Furio attacked and the ninja tossed Ice darts, and that kept him locked down. The second time he heated up/I cooled him down, Jinn used Burn anyway. Probably just a counterattack?
I don't think he changed at all since your last play. The burn thing happens every once in a while. Burn is part of the normal AI routine, but the form change is a reaction, so it is possible for him to be "charging" a Burn, then get "cooled off," but still execute the Burn. At any rate, Burn is nothing compared to the Fire2 that follows it...
I had enough money left over to buy one of each Claw, the Chain Mail and two Stealth Daggers for the ninja. There's something to be said for the freedom to experiment that a 20,000G cash infusion gives you!
Hm, the Change and Parry command boxes in battle have garbled graphics over them.
Yeah, I don't know exactly what caused that, but fixing it is extremely low on the list of priorities for now.
Went to Mysidia and bought two LeadShoes, plus a Coral and Burning Ring. I'm really glad I sold the Emerald ring, I might not have had the patience to grind out the money for these things. Huh, and the Burning Ring gives Str and Vit bonuses; now the Ninja has 5 attack multipliers.
Still trying to decide if stat boosts are a good idea for those elemental rings.
Hm, you can hire a Black Mage or a Whit Mage at Mysidia...think I'll stick with the Ninja for now though, I'm finally starting to run out of money and it's likely Palom and Porom will join at some point.
They will, but not for very long any time soon. Permanent access to them isn't available in this demo.
Now I'm looking in the woods for that 'witch'. The 4 Bat encounter has some overlap with the Bats' graphics.
I noticed that too. I think I took that formation straight from vanilla...
Turtles seem to be very feeble, they only deal 1-4 damage. Also found a Chocobo, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere you can go with them here.
Yeah, they aren't particularly useful until the next chapter, though if you happen to catch one on the way to or from Ordeals, it can be a nice fast-forward.
Later I realize that maybe the note meant the trees INSIDE of Mysidia...yep, there's a secret passage.
Mwa-ha-ha
Goodness, I stole an Ether from the Witch and she flattened Furio with an 800 damage Ice-2! That's one way to discourage farming, for sure.
Mwa-ha-ha
Good thing she dies in one hit.
... Another oversight.
Let's move on to Mt.Ordeals...
I have to say, the SNES soundfont really does justice to the Mt.Ordeals theme. Makes it sound majestic almost.
The Raven battle is pretty easy with two party members. Furio opens up with a FireBomb to slay the Cockatrices and then we just attack. Aero only does 50-80 damage to my 2-man party so it's no threat. Its physical attack is even worse, it only does in the nieghbourhood of 10 damage. Probably could have beat this fight without any healing, but repeated Aeros brought Furio to 100 HP, making him pause to heal once.
I think I'll leave off there. It's been fun so far! Might want to look into some of the monster stats, a lot of monsters were total pushovers.
Valuable feedback.
Thanks!
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I don't know, 20,000G for the Emerald Ring is large enough to make the player suspect that it has some hidden use. If it had a more ho-hum sale price they're more likely to think it's nothing more than a Gil rewad for stealing from Edge. That's how I see it at least.
You can't get through that door in this demo... (spoilers)
Ha! I like it. He does talk about how your choices affect things.
Stat boosts for the elemental rings are fine; they aren't huge boosts and it helps to give you a reason to use one other than for its elemental properties.
The Raven fight isn't that hard so long as you have a few Cure2s and maybe a multi-target option, since his pattern is very simple and none of his attacks do major damage by themselves. I can see it being tougher if all you have is Cure1 potions, it might be tough to outpace the repeated Aeros. He is only the second boss and you can buy Cure2s if you haven't stolen any, so I think he's at a reasonable level of difficulty.
I played ahead a little bit and got to the first epic choice (and chose to return to Mysidia, since I see Grimoire LD did the opposite). I'll progress some more and report back.
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I'm back at it. Strange that one of the chests is blocked off by a falling rock. Perhaps if I had waited to go after it until after I defeated Indra/Shiva, the path wouldn't get blocked. Oh well, too late now!
The monsters on Mt.Ordeals aren't that tough, you can mostly hold down A to win. Furio with the Mute Knife and Fire Claws OHKOs most things.
(http://puu.sh/lfveK/9b1d7532c8.png)
Cut-off on the save point text sometimes.
Liliths have Ether1s for stealing! Sure beats spending 10K on them at the store. Their Gravity counter only does a little bit of damage.
I also triggered Furio's Limit Break, but it just seemed to be a regular physical attack?
Anyway, at the summit we see Indra and Shiva plotting...well, it sounds like we have a couple of weeks at least, so let's go back and report.
Now we have Palom and Porom! Those are some funky portraits. I pick up a Flame Rod for Palom, a Cure staff for Porom and Gaea stuff for them both. A Frozen Ring sounds like a good idea here too.
Back to the summit. Indra's dialogue makes him sound prett casual about the whole "exterminate all humans" thing. I wonder whether the higher authority he mentions is Bahamut or a new character.
So, the battle begins against Indra and Shiva. I tried this boss battle twice, because the first time I gave the Twins the Mute Knife and elemental rings, only for them to leave the party immediately, so I reloaded and didn't give them anything good.
This is a strange fight. Casting magic on Indra causes him to use Reflect on Shiva, so doing that a few times lets you put up Reflect on your whole party. His Armor counter to physicals often ends up bouncing off of Shiva too. Pretty soon you can have 3-4 party members with Reflect up, so the bosses's spells don't do any damage. Anyway, I focused on Indra first, except for Furio who attacked Shiva with Fire Claws. He went down pretty quick to Palom's Bios, and Shiva didn't do too much afterwards - Palom bounced 1000-damage Fire2s off of himself to get around her Reflect, and that put an end to her pretty quickly. It looks like she gets a super move ready after a certain amount of time, but she didn't get any farther than changing her sprite.
Haha, I like Furio puffing his chest about being smart enough to go back and get the twins, like he wasn't perfectly willing to do the exact opposite!
Hmm, that silhouette definitely looks like Bahamut...I'm sure our trip to Eblan will be short and uneventful.
Oh no, a monster is attacking the ship! But hold on, I need to loot everything and haggle for Cure2s first. I appreciate Furio's faster movement here, it's a nice change from his usual ambling.
The tentacle boss was interesting. It seemed to be weak to Thunder, so after a bit of experimenting I had Furio attack with the Mute Knife/Thunder Claws while the ninja threw thunder darts or healed. The boss changed forms several times, but apart from a nasty one that used Hex and Venom it was pretty tame; both party members had Goggles so we didn't have to pause to cure Blindness at least. Managed to kill it in its Drain phase for a reward of 1999 gil and... a Scourge whip? Sounds like we might recruit Rydia at some point.
Oh, I guess we will! I like this scene with Edge, it shows how he's matured over the years. The story's shaping up pretty well now, I'm interested to see what happens next Off to Baron, then. Or rather off to the places around Baron, since that's surely where the plot will advance. I poked my head in the Highwind pass, got a Game Over from a Basilisk Stoning both party members when I tried to get it alone, then stole some Lit-Bolts from a Weeper.
A Chocobo with three monsters? Hm, the only way to capture this one is to use a magic item. Let's see where we can go...aha, down in the south there's a cave. A Feather Ring? ...It gives +15 Agility!? Wow, it was worth coming here.
So, there's enemies from Zot here as random encounters. They all die in one hit (heck, the Puppets die on their own!), but they're worth oodles of Gil and EXP. You can also steal Silence Staffs from the Marions, who do nothing but fail to cast Call.
That's enough wandering, let's head back to Baron and recruit a Dragoon. Though having done that, I feel like I'm trading down. The Dragoon joins at Level 15, has much lower HP than the Ninja did, and can't equip the elemental rings. Hopefully Baron sells some good stuff for him.
Talking to the yellow dragoon with Lando in your party points you to a secret room. Very clever! Lots of good stuff there including a Drain Spear, The -10 penalty to all stats is very punishing when none of his stats break 20, but maybe it'll come in handy at higher levels.
I sold some Silence staves I stole up for 60,000 Gil. That should last a while...
The secret passages in the equipment shop are gone, but the chests remain. Now they silently taunt you from across the counter. What's up with the Steel Sword? It's much weaker than the Wind Lance and only gives +3 to Will. Regardless, now with the Wind Spear he's up to a healthy 61 Attack.
Love the old lady's reaction to going into her house. Furio clearly has no respect for other people's privacy. It's cool to see how Baron has changed with Cid's old house, the inn, and just how people around town are acting.
Most important of all - I'm glad to see the inns, bushes and ponds of Baron have been restocked with treasure for kleptomaniac protagonists to pilfer.
The guards just let you into the castle? I wasn't expecting that.
Huh, Cid's subordinates are still alive? They must be getting on in years if they're the same guys.
The graveyard area is very touching; the silence is a perfect choice here.
Hah, the guard who wants to move to Damcyan changing the music is a nice touch. It looks like Grimoire LD covered everything else there is to see in the castle, so it's time to meet Ceodore.
So they know each other already...that makes sense. Wow, Ceo is really stonewalling here, not even letting Furio deliver the letter. We're not going to slink away meekly from that...well we will to save, but after that we'll go and try again.
I'll take a break, but will get back to this soon.
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I'm back at it. Strange that one of the chests is blocked off by a falling rock. Perhaps if I had waited to go after it until after I defeated Indra/Shiva, the path wouldn't get blocked. Oh well, too late now!
Palom can blow the rock away with his own lightning bolt. Right now there's only an Ether there, so you didn't miss much.
The monsters on Mt.Ordeals aren't that tough, you can mostly hold down A to win. Furio with the Mute Knife and Fire Claws OHKOs most things.
I think it was a bad idea to make elemental claws so available this early on. I think they will be removed from the Eblan shop in the next version.
(http://puu.sh/lfveK/9b1d7532c8.png)
Cut-off on the save point text sometimes.
An unfortunate side effect of the mod that allows me to show the dialogue window on the bottom half of the screen is that the fourth line in the first scroll of any message often gets cut off. The easy fix is to simply put in line breaks (four lines in subsequent scrolls work just fine in long messages). The save point is one that I missed. So, thanks!
Liliths have Ether1s for stealing! Sure beats spending 10K on them at the store. Their Gravity counter only does a little bit of damage.
I don't want Ethers to be as tough to come by as they were in original ffiv, but I suppose Lilith should be able to kill you instead of all the asymptotal damage...
I also triggered Furio's Limit Break, but it just seemed to be a regular physical attack?
Hard to see, but it also has the effect of slow on the target monster and haste on the whole party. If you use the ATB meter, you can sometimes see a change.
It's easily the least interesting of all the limit skills, though.
Anyway, at the summit we see Indra and Shiva plotting...well, it sounds like we have a couple of weeks at least, so let's go back and report.
Now we have Palom and Porom! Those are some funky portraits.
Porom was my attempt to port the portrait from TAY to SNES. I don't love it, but it's not fantastic. Palom is original. Also not great, but it's grown on me. Pixel art is nit my strong suit.
I pick up a Flame Rod for Palom, a Cure staff for Porom and Gaea stuff for them both. A Frozen Ring sounds like a good idea here too.
Back to the summit. Indra's dialogue makes him sound prett casual about the whole "exterminate all humans" thing.
Ffiv's eidolons never had much of a bond with most humans...
I wonder whether the higher authority he mentions is Bahamut or a new character.
... No comment for now. Some people on this forum know already. I can tell you if you really wanna know.
So, the battle begins against Indra and Shiva. I tried this boss battle twice, because the first time I gave the Twins the Mute Knife and elemental rings, only for them to leave the party immediately, so I reloaded and didn't give them anything good.
This is a strange fight. Casting magic on Indra causes him to use Reflect on Shiva, so doing that a few times lets you put up Reflect on your whole party. His Armor counter to physicals often ends up bouncing off of Shiva too. Pretty soon you can have 3-4 party members with Reflect up, so the bosses's spells don't do any damage. Anyway, I focused on Indra first, except for Furio who attacked Shiva with Fire Claws. He went down pretty quick to Palom's Bios, and Shiva didn't do too much afterwards - Palom bounced 1000-damage Fire2s off of himself to get around her Reflect, and that put an end to her pretty quickly. It looks like she gets a super move ready after a certain amount of time, but she didn't get any farther than changing her sprite.
Hmm... Casting reflect as a reaction = bad idea. Good note.
Haha, I like Furio puffing his chest about being smart enough to go back and get the twins, like he wasn't perfectly willing to do the exact opposite!
Hmm, that silhouette definitely looks like Bahamut...I'm sure our trip to Eblan will be short and uneventful.
Oh no, a monster is attacking the ship! But hold on, I need to loot everything and haggle for Cure2s first. I appreciate Furio's faster movement here, it's a nice change from his usual ambling.
The tentacle boss was interesting. It seemed to be weak to Thunder, so after a bit of experimenting I had Furio attack with the Mute Knife/Thunder Claws while the ninja threw thunder darts or healed. The boss changed forms several times, but apart from a nasty one that used Hex and Venom it was pretty tame; both party members had Goggles so we didn't have to pause to cure Blindness at least. Managed to kill it in its Drain phase for a reward of 1999 gil and... a Scourge whip? Sounds like we might recruit Rydia at some point.
Again, elemental claws available too soon. Tentacle retreats if you take too long, but he never had a chance against you.
Oh, I guess we will! I like this scene with Edge, it shows how he's matured over the years. The story's shaping up pretty well now, I'm interested to see what happens next Off to Baron, then. Or rather off to the places around Baron, since that's surely where the plot will advance. I poked my head in the Highwind pass, got a Game Over from a Basilisk Stoning both party members when I tried to get it alone, then stole some Lit-Bolts from a Weeper.
A Chocobo with three monsters? Hm, the only way to capture this one is to use a magic item. Let's see where we can go...aha, down in the south there's a cave. A Feather Ring? ...It gives +15 Agility!? Wow, it was worth coming here.
So, there's enemies from Zot here as random encounters. They all die in one hit (heck, the Puppets die on their own!), but they're worth oodles of Gil and EXP. You can also steal Silence Staffs from the Marions, who do nothing but fail to cast Call.
Ah, meant to turn off encounters in that cave. Those silence staffs should have never happened...
That's enough wandering, let's head back to Baron and recruit a Dragoon. Though having done that, I feel like I'm trading down. The Dragoon joins at Level 15, has much lower HP than the Ninja did, and can't equip the elemental rings. Hopefully Baron sells some good stuff for him.
Can't equip the elemental rings? Can't remember if I did that on purpose...
Talking to the yellow dragoon with Lando in your party points you to a secret room. Very clever! Lots of good stuff there including a Drain Spear, The -10 penalty to all stats is very punishing when none of his stats break 20, but maybe it'll come in handy at higher levels.
I sold some Silence staves I stole up for 60,000 Gil. That should last a while...
D'oh!
The secret passages in the equipment shop are gone, but the chests remain. Now they silently taunt you from across the counter. What's up with the Steel Sword? It's much weaker than the Wind Lance and only gives +3 to Will. Regardless, now with the Wind Spear he's up to a healthy 61 Attack.
Love the old lady's reaction to going into her house. Furio clearly has no respect for other people's privacy. It's cool to see how Baron has changed with Cid's old house, the inn, and just how people around town are acting.
Most important of all - I'm glad to see the inns, bushes and ponds of Baron have been restocked with treasure for kleptomaniac protagonists to pilfer.
The guards just let you into the castle? I wasn't expecting that.
Huh, Cid's subordinates are still alive? They must be getting on in years if they're the same guys.
I think they're new guys...
The graveyard area is very touching; the silence is a perfect choice here.
Hah, the guard who wants to move to Damcyan changing the music is a nice touch. It looks like Grimoire LD covered everything else there is to see in the castle, so it's time to meet Ceodore.
So they know each other already...that makes sense. Wow, Ceo is really stonewalling here, not even letting Furio deliver the letter. We're not going to slink away meekly from that...well we will to save, but after that we'll go and try again.
I'll take a break, but will get back to this soon.
Cool. Keep it coming!
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Welp, the board ate my reply. I'll just narrow this down to the most pertinent thoughts:
-Meeting Rydia was funny and well written. Cuore I didn't care for, but robot-speak and TAY are two things I don't like so maybe it's just me.
-Mist Dragon battle is a little confusing, but much less complicated than it first appears. Blast her with Lit3 twice and the rest of the battle is just physical attacks, although she's fast enough that she can switch to mist form in between you selecting Attack and the character actually attacking. This battle could use something more IMO. I saw that she can apparently use magic, but all I saw were two Mutes before the physical phase came in.
I had a lot of fun with the demo! I'll keep an eye on this space for future progress.
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I'm not a huge fan of TAY, either, but I can't make something that is intended to be a sequel to FFIV and completely deny its place in the canon. That's kinda how the maenads speak, so that's how she speaks. But she's going to be an extremely small character anyway, so I can lice with you not liking her.
Re:the mist dragon battle - I almost didn't put it in there at all, but it seemed like if the eidolons were attacking humans, and Furio and rydia were trekking out specifically to stop them, they should probably have to face her as they pass through her cave. I am open to suggestions of how to liven the battle up.
Glad you mostly enjoyed it. Thanks again for your feedback.
Having caught a chocobo, did you happen to realize that the chocobo time trials are available to you? Go back and talk to the fat chocobo, then enter the cave in the Highwind Pass if you wanna try it out.
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I hadn't figured out the time trials, no. I'll give it a try.
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I composed a new song, tentatively the Highwind Pass theme...
https://youtu.be/BYVcWW7hI3U
Thoughts?
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Any chance you could save an spc file of the song playing and post it up? I only ask because my ancient internet refuses to load Youtube. :lame:
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Here's a patch that replaces the Main Title Theme (Crystal Room music) with the new song, so it will play right on startup. That's not what I'll be replacing in TfW - it's just for demo purposes.
Apply to an unheadered 1.1 ROM.
If it's possible to save to an spc file, that is not something I've learned how to do.
:blush:
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Here's a patch that replaces the Main Title Theme (Crystal Room music) with the new song, so it will play right on startup. That's not what I'll be replacing in TfW - it's just for demo purposes.
Apply to an unheadered 1.1 ROM.
If it's possible to save to an spc file, that is not something I've learned how to do.
:blush:
I like that melody! Nice use of xylophone.
Also, you can save an spc file by going to File - Save Other - Save SPC Data in Snes9x. That's how I made the spc files for the overworld arrangements I posted in the SPC Creations thread. :banonsmash:
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...huh. I wonder if I could have made my life, like, 1000 times easier if I had known that when I was researching the game's music engine.
I think the inspirations for this song were the ice cavern in ffix and the cave/dungeon music from FFT. I was originally worried that it wasn't interesting enough. It doesn't sound much like what I originally composed in midi, because ffiv's instrument samples are terrible. I think it came out interesting enough, though. The timpani is my favorite part, I think. I don't know about the harp part (the really quiet one). That was originally composed as a French horn, which ffiv doesn't even have. Thought I could maybe substitute trumpet, but that sounds terrible.
Anyway, there you have it...
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I found the Chocobo time trial. The way it's hidden in the Highwind Pass was a good use of invisible tiles. I tried out the race too; it's cute, and impressive that you coded it in FF4's engine, but I got stuck on the last stretch before the end; there's a black chocobo in your way on a one-tile-wide strip and no way to get past him or force him past the bridge.
The new Highwind Pass theme sounds good, especially the xylophone, but the instrument that comes in at 0:35 sounds a little weak and indistinct. It sounds better at 0:57, so the instrument itself could probably be made to work.
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Re: the black chocobo on the one tile-wide strip - you have to wait until he goes all the way south. There's one tile south of the bridge you're coming from. when he gets there you can walk past. You can also push him along as he moves north - NPCs walk faster if you push them. Just make sure to get out of his way as he heads south again so he can make it to that one important tile.
Re: the instrument at :35 and :57 - I think that's the harp I was talking about in my last post. I really wish ffiv had a French horn...
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...huh. I wonder if I could have made my life, like, 1000 times easier if I had known that when I was researching the game's music engine.
I think the inspirations for this song were the ice cavern in ffix and the cave/dungeon music from FFT. I was originally worried that it wasn't interesting enough. It doesn't sound much like what I originally composed in midi, because ffiv's instrument samples are terrible. I think it came out interesting enough, though. The timpani is my favorite part, I think. I don't know about the harp part (the really quiet one). That was originally composed as a French horn, which ffiv doesn't even have. Thought I could maybe substitute trumpet, but that sounds terrible.
Anyway, there you have it...
Sucks to hear that the trumpet wouldn't make a good substitute. I was about to suggest perhaps having two trumpet tracks at relative octaves to try to imitate the sound you're looking for.
ffiv's instrument samples are terrible
I'll agree with ya there! I mean, there are a number of ones that are pretty great (Strings 1. Harp, Organ) but there are more than a few I've been researching on how to replace like Strings 2, Black Chocobo whistle, one of the pianos, etc. If I ever figure out what the hell I'm doing and make some progress on it, I'll definitely see about getting some French Horn action happening haha.
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Sucks to hear that the trumpet wouldn't make a good substitute. I was about to suggest perhaps having two trumpet tracks at relative octaves to try to imitate the sound you're looking for.
Might be worth a try. As it is, I have exactly one unused track, and having two tracks play the same music in different octaves uses minimal ROM space.
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I particularly like the arpeggio bit at 1:20.
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That is quite a fun little song, fantastic work Chillyfeez!
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I'm posting this mostly because the forum's been so quiet of late.
I'm very close to releasing a new version with a completed Highwind Pass.
This is a going to be a really fun, unique dungeon.
The mountaintop area (three-plus screens worth) is completely magic-sealed. No magic abilities can be used in battle or from the menu (magical weapons and items still work in battle).
There's an optional boss who may or may not be there depending on an earlier epic choice, and the end boss should be an interesting challenge.
Plus the new music, and the mountaintop is a snow-dungeon, which is mostly lacking in FFIV, as Grimoire LD once observed.
I just have to put together the "exit" map (the last area after the final boss), which I should be able to get done this weekend, and it will be ready for release.
I'm hoping there are some willing play testers out there because I'm really pretty fond of this one!
:cycle:
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I'll be able to try this out on Sunday. I'm always looking forward to updates on projects!
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So here it is!
In addition to the complete Highwind Pass dungeon, the entire demo has received some balance updates based on the feedback from Grimoire's and Kea's most recent playthroughs (back in the fall... I think?).
*Elemental claws are no longer available from the beginning of the game. As a matter of fact, short of a few rare steals claws are not around at all. You'll have to wait until you get to Fabul to buy them.
*Most bosses have received some stat and/or AI updates
*That chest on Mt. Ordeals, the one that gets blocked by the boulder, now contains a really nice prize for a white wizard to use, but you have to beat a really tough monster to get it
*instead of Firebombs, Lit-Bolts, and IceShards being strewn all about and for sale in most shops, they are now only just rare treasure finds. Because their damage is based on the user's HP, Lv. 50 Rydia was just blowing monsters away with them. It was kinda ridiculous. Some shops will sell Flame, Flood and Blitz scrolls, which use a weakened form of the Ninja spells on the entire enemy party, and some monsters will drop (or can have stolen from them) Bomb-Arms, N.Winds, and ZeusRages, which use a weakened form of Fire2, Ice-2 and Lit-2 on a single enemy.
Some screenshots, which I have because I'm putting this update up on RHDN, too:
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview016.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview017.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview018.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview019.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview015.png)
Final Fantasy IV: A Threat from Within (v 0.6.0) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcMU5YbEthdkV0Mzg/view?usp=docslist_api)
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Nice, I'll try out the new update soon. Probably from the beginning again to see how it plays now.
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How interesting! So many changes...
I'm really looking forward to trying this once I've had a break from my own project. Am I the only one who doesn't feel like playing and hacking the game simultaneously? Don't want to be consumed entirely by it! :whoa:
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Oh, totally, Gedankenschild.
I spend so much time play testing my own stuff that I generally don't play any games these days. Except mobile games, but that doesn't really count.
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It's the same for me, I rarely play long games anymore...usually just Downwell or something bite-sized like that.
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I've been playing some older PC games from GOG recently, but my hacking project is always on hold during that. These older games never take as much time as newer RPGs. I really wanna replay Final Fantasy XII at some point and collect all the rare stuff... :whoa:
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You know, I never got through XII. It was the first one that I ever played but did not finish.
The Gambit system, I think, sounded much cooler on paper than it actually was when it played out. It ended up taking twice as much prep time as FFT, but then the battles were so much less engaging. All because - what - we decided we would try to gain a larger fan base while alienating the one we already had by abandoning ATB?
:wtf:
Now that I've been getting a taste of its story through FFRK, though, part of me is tempted to go back and give it another whirl.
Maybe in 2055 when I finally finish making TfW...
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When I saw the first screenshots of XII I was prepared to hate it. I don't care about MMORPGs and it looked like it tried to be one.
Didn't play it until about 2009 and totally loved every second of it! It's become one of my favorites actually. It's funny, this is the game that fans of classic FF games are supposed to hate because it finally destroyed what the series was all about. Wasn't true for me at all. Finished it twice and am so looking forward to playing the English patched Zodiac Job System version! :childish:
You know, releasing games episodically seems to be the thing nowadays. Insofar you're doing what everybody does.
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I have a love/hate relationship with FFXII. I loved doing the hunts and how well it pulled off that mix of FFTA and traditional FF...
But at the same time, it's somewhat annoying as hell for me. I remember going through one of the tomb dungeons in the storyline to get the legendary sword thinking to myself "Sweet, a badass weapon to help me carry myself onward to the next town!" just to find a merchant directly outside of said temple selling weapons that were 5-15 points stronger.
The Gambit system, while cool in it's own right, eventually kills the fun once you realize that you can set up your characters to completely auto-pilot kill (mostly) everything you run into. I mean, it feels REALLY rewarding whenyou first get that insane setup you prefer using, but the gameplay basiacally drops down to the level of:
1) walking
2) Oh shit monsters! Nvm, they're dead now (or you are lol)
3) more walking
Ranting aside though... still fun. Especially when the playthrough is spaced out.
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You know, releasing games episodically seems to be the thing nowadays. Insofar you're doing what everybody does.
Yeah, that's kind of how I was hoping people would treat it, since it's taking so long to do. Problem is, I really have no way of knowing if/how many people are playing it. Sometimes I really wish Google Drive would have a feature that tells me how many times a file I share has been downloaded. But anytime I get bogged down in those thoughts, I try to remind myself that I'm really doing this for myself first and foremost, and if it hapooens to please other people along the way that's just kind of a bonus.
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So I spent two solid days writing custom code that causes walking NPCs that also have the "march in place" bit set to always turn right (when they can't go straight), so I can make a guy chasing a girl at the cafe in Kaipo.
It's little details like this that make this darn hack take so long...
:omg:
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Haha! Well I hope it gets put to even better use. It sounds like it could be used for patrols (but then we'd need to have events that start when the NPC is touched, rather than interacted with which I imagine could be more than tricky)
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Yeah, between that and making a separate floor tile that NPCs can't walk on (as mentioned in BZ's thread), I'm sure I can come up with some other fun uses for this...
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Well, last time I tried this (about a week ago or so) I only got to Agart before wiping and realizing I forgot to save so I got discouraged. I'll be more careful this time and actually pick up mercenaries.
I like the addition of Ninja "scrolls" in the Item Shop, allows the player some early elemental magic at a cost.
Oh I see, Imp Hit does actually work properly. Is it based on Level like FFV? Or is it just a low% chance of working?
Geez, I can't believe it took me this long to realize that the four minions of Ifrit are the optional summons of FFIV! It makes the Roc's name as "Dummy" make Perfect sense.
I like the idea of the Ninja Limit Break, but I feel it needs some graphical indication of some kind. Otherwise it does just seem like a normal attack despite it hasting everyone and slowing the foe.
Whoa, stole a couple of Bomb-Arms from the Water Bugs! While not very useful against Ifrit they would definitely be useful against Shiva.
This does remind me, I really wish we could find a way to make the colors from events stay after the menu is accessed but as the screen seems to be redrawn that may be a bit much to ask for.
Ice Kunai seemed more effective than Ifrit than they had in previous versions. All in all it felt like the battle was more fast paced. The inability to get infinite Ice Kunai from the Summons makes him a trickier foe to deal with, a very well planned first boss.
I noticed that Corio's telescope is still standing. I assume that will not be in the final version and those tiles will be put to something else that isn't a one screen telescope?
Um... when you talk to the Innkeeper in Agart he asks "Do you have permission?" Yes/No get the same result of "He drinks me under the table, but he's a good guy." which is speech from another NPC in the Inn. I am not sure if this is new or has been here since the start.
This run I think I will go 2x Ninja all the way through obeying orders as they come up.
I just noticed that this kid in Agart talks about joining REMA. The only muscle of it we see in the game is Furio. Do we ever meet any of the other leaders or soldiers of REMA?
Oh man, I have to say playing through this again makes me fall in love with your style of writing every single time. Also, not sure if I said this a long time ago but I just realized that Palom's change of appearance even from FF4:TAY is a reference to FFI's Black Wizard class. Neat!
The Elemental Rings are still around, hmm? I thought they were going to be moved? Then again I may be thinking of something else all together.
Seems as if the Witch was updated. With an automatic back-attack she deals around 3400 damage with Ice-2 and uses some nasty statuses. It would appear as if the Frozen Ring is a nigh necessity to beat her now.
Well, I sold the RubyRing, a Tent, a Dagger, and two Bomb-Arms to buy the Frozen Ring and indeed it worked great against her. Here's a fun little "pro-strategy", if you go in with the Mute status from the Mute Gal you can't be hit with Bind.
Onto Mt. Ordeals! Two Ninjas should be an interesting trek. No Claws to help along the way this time though.
Well! Looks as if the Weak to Air - Float status is working properly!
It seems like the Raven's Quake spell isn't 100% Accurate, thank goodness!
The Raven is definitely much tougher, at Level 16 for Blank and 13 for Furio I ended up losing. Another case of Mute preventing a Status, thus it became tougher to keep the person on the ground alive. Ultimately it's better to take the heavier Wind damage instead of risking the insta-kill Quake.
Getting up to the Summit if you actually fight battles feels like a proper journey, using a good amount of supplies along the way.
Was the Cure Rod always this expensive? Maybe it has an upgraded effect if it costs this much.
Wow, the Cure Rod is indeed, good. 400+ HP Heal!
I also picked up a Coral Ring with the last bit of my money.
On the way back to Mt. Ordeals I ran into two FloatEyes that were dealing upwards of 160-200 damage, they gave me 20 GP and 70 Exp. Balancing these things in a dynamic level up system must be a nightmare I imagine.
Yikes! Did I make a mess of that battle. I attacked Ramuh consistently as he powered up Shiva and he even got through a Cure-Z once. Second time around I took him out and was left with a vastly powerful Shiva. Northern Cross killed everyone but the Frozen Ring wearer Blank, down to 2 Life Potions I used one on Palom and Porom. Palom dealt a bit more damage with Fire-2 while Porom healed him once, using the Ether 1's as it happened. Blank was dealing 1 damage to Shiva at this point, then I remembered I had a Bomb-Arm that I hadn't sold and exactly 4 Fire Kunai. The Frozen Ring does make you nigh invulnerable for that section of the fight, but at 1 damage it seemed like it was going to be a while before it would be over. But with the last throw of a Fire Kunai, it was lights out for Shiva!
4000 Gil... may as well pick up the Burning Ring for good measure.
Um... when the Sailor heals the party, he brought back Furio with 0 HP. Talking to him again brought his HP to full. May that deal something with the order of commands are in the event? I imagine it's probably "Heal HP" than "Remove Status" instead of vice versa.
Hmm, what do Goggles do anyhow? I'm sure I asked this before... likely prevent Blind, but that doesn't seem worth the trade off of Wisdom/Will for the Gaea Hat or the Strength loss on the Headband.
I should've bought more Heals, I forgot how Status heavy this fight becomes.
Is it realistically possible to defeat the Tentacles without Palom and Porom? I recall you mentioning that you get a rather nice reward if you do beat the Tentacles rather than having them retreat.
A slight oversight perhaps, you still have the GP Bag after delivering it to Edge once you get back from Mysidia.
I never did get into that cave in Baron, I should see if I can't catch a Chocobo, though it's getting rather late tonight so I'll get Ceodore and resume tomorrow.
I love the Dragoon Hall, I know I said it last time, but it bears repeating. It feels like a legitimate piece of FFIV lore.
Ahem...! Uh, you might want to take a look at this...
EDIT: Is running into Imps supposed to happen in the Town of Baron? Every step on the grass is a battle with 3 Imps.
Last time I played I must not have gone into Cid's old place. I rather like this characterization for Mid and judging by his wife's speech it seems he may be important later on.
Unless I endure 60+ Battles on the way there I can't really get the treasure behind Baron, ah well. It's not a big loss.
Heh, that Dragoon saying "want to play cards?" reminded me of Triple Triad, I can imagine how difficult that would be to program into FFIV, hehe.
I forgot how brutal Ceodore was by throwing your partner down the stairs!
So I picked up a full compliment of the Shadow equipment, the penalty of the Darkness Armor seems a bit extreme. Considering how important Agility is in this game in particular having that reduced by 5 as well makes the armor nigh unusable because it would undoubtedly cause the loss of an Attack Multiplier in addition it has the same defense as the Iron Armor. Now unless it has some resistances or something I'm unaware of, as of now I can't see the use of it.
Well that's truly enough for tonight! I''ll finish this run tomorrow.
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Woof - definitely some unintended bugs there...
Agart Innkeeper
Being Muted should not provide immunity to other statuses. I thought I "fixed" that aspect of ffiv for this hack...
But Raven's Quake should hit 100%
You're probably right about the sailor's healing
Edge should remove the GP bag
There surely should not be encounters in Baron. Noe even sure how that happened...
I will have to look at the stat boinuses/penalties of the dark equipment. They shouldn't be so significant.
:edit: oh, and the pots instead of water.
All of those were unintentional and are first on the list of things to fix.
Everything else I will have to address later. Gotta get ready for work now.
Always a pleasure to watch your playthroughs!
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Well, last time I tried this (about a week ago or so) I only got to Agart before wiping and realizing I forgot to save so I got discouraged. I'll be more careful this time and actually pick up mercenaries.
I like the addition of Ninja "scrolls" in the Item Shop, allows the player some early elemental magic at a cost.
At some point, I'll set down and put in an actual scroll icon. I won't be using tails at all, so that was an easy placeholder.
Oh I see, Imp Hit does actually work properly. Is it based on Level like FFV? Or is it just a low% chance of working?
It's based on the difference between caster's level and target level, meaning it will consistently do medium fdamage when used on the player. When Kella gets to acquire it later on, it will pretty much only be useful on bosses, because they don't level down.
Geez, I can't believe it took me this long to realize that the four minions of Ifrit are the optional summons of FFIV! It makes the Roc's name as "Dummy" make Perfect sense.
Um, wow... Welcome to the party ;)
I like the idea of the Ninja Limit Break, but I feel it needs some graphical indication of some kind. Otherwise it does just seem like a normal attack despite it hasting everyone and slowing the foe.
Good point. Suggestions about what to do with it?
Whoa, stole a couple of Bomb-Arms from the Water Bugs! While not very useful against Ifrit they would definitely be useful against Shiva.
I actually finally just changed the encounters in Agart. Those water bugs won't be there anymore. They were never intended to be permanent. You'll only get to fight the low-level grasslands Overworld monsters in Agart.
This does remind me, I really wish we could find a way to make the colors from events stay after the menu is accessed but as the screen seems to be redrawn that may be a bit much to ask for.
Agree, but I can't wrap my head around the logistics of how we could make that work. NIR do I really understand what makes the screen red to begin with.
Ice Kunai seemed more effective than Ifrit than they had in previous versions. All in all it felt like the battle was more fast paced. The inability to get infinite Ice Kunai from the Summons makes him a trickier foe to deal with, a very well planned first boss.
Yeah, I upped the power of the kunai a bit. The strength didn't really carry over well once you start fighting tougher baddies.
I noticed that Corio's telescope is still standing. I assume that will not be in the final version and those tiles will be put to something else that isn't a one screen telescope?
You know, I'm sure that was my original intention, hence the line, "the telescope's been dismantled," but so far I haven't needed those tiles for anything. A bridge to cross when I come to it, I guess...
Um... when you talk to the Innkeeper in Agart he asks "Do you have permission?" Yes/No get the same result of "He drinks me under the table, but he's a good guy." which is speech from another NPC in the Inn. I am not sure if this is new or has been here since the start.
This run I think I will go 2x Ninja all the way through obeying orders as they come up.
I just noticed that this kid in Agart talks about joining REMA. The only muscle of it we see in the game is Furio. Do we ever meet any of the other leaders or soldiers of REMA?
In the Eblan training room, but that's about it. By the time you're done in Mysidia, I think Edge has determined that the state of affairs is too serious to send regular-old mercenaries out, but it's not really addressed formally.
Oh man, I have to say playing through this again makes me fall in love with your style of writing every single time. Also, not sure if I said this a long time ago but I just realized that Palom's change of appearance even from FF4:TAY is a reference to FFI's Black Wizard class. Neat!
The Elemental Rings are still around, hmm? I thought they were going to be moved? Then again I may be thinking of something else all together.
You and I talked about it, and the decision was that as long as elemental monsters still had a chance to kill the player, then their presence was passable... The situation will be under ongoing review, though...
Seems as if the Witch was updated. With an automatic back-attack she deals around 3400 damage with Ice-2 and uses some nasty statuses. It would appear as if the Frozen Ring is a nigh necessity to beat her now.
Well, I sold the RubyRing, a Tent, a Dagger, and two Bomb-Arms to buy the Frozen Ring and indeed it worked great against her. Here's a fun little "pro-strategy", if you go in with the Mute status from the Mute Gal you can't be hit with Bind.
Onto Mt. Ordeals! Two Ninjas should be an interesting trek. No Claws to help along the way this time though.
Well! Looks as if the Weak to Air - Float status is working properly!
It seems like the Raven's Quake spell isn't 100% Accurate, thank goodness!
The Raven is definitely much tougher, at Level 16 for Blank and 13 for Furio I ended up losing. Another case of Mute preventing a Status, thus it became tougher to keep the person on the ground alive. Ultimately it's better to take the heavier Wind damage instead of risking the insta-kill Quake.
All of the above should be addressed with the mute-immunity problem...
Getting up to the Summit if you actually fight battles feels like a proper journey, using a good amount of supplies along the way.
Was the Cure Rod always this expensive? Maybe it has an upgraded effect if it costs this much.
Wow, the Cure Rod is indeed, good. 400+ HP Heal!
There's a free one on the Highwind Pass that will be nearly essential to survival
I also picked up a Coral Ring with the last bit of my money.
On the way back to Mt. Ordeals I ran into two FloatEyes that were dealing upwards of 160-200 damage, they gave me 20 GP and 70 Exp. Balancing these things in a dynamic level up system must be a nightmare I imagine.
Yeah. I'm not 100% happy with the exp distribution of leveled-up "weak" monsters, but by the time you gain a few levels, you are also fighting more monsters with better rewards, so they're really only there for the challenge.
Yikes! Did I make a mess of that battle. I attacked Ramuh consistently as he powered up Shiva and he even got through a Cure-Z once. Second time around I took him out and was left with a vastly powerful Shiva. Northern Cross killed everyone but the Frozen Ring wearer Blank, down to 2 Life Potions I used one on Palom and Porom. Palom dealt a bit more damage with Fire-2 while Porom healed him once, using the Ether 1's as it happened. Blank was dealing 1 damage to Shiva at this point, then I remembered I had a Bomb-Arm that I hadn't sold and exactly 4 Fire Kunai. The Frozen Ring does make you nigh invulnerable for that section of the fight, but at 1 damage it seemed like it was going to be a while before it would be over. But with the last throw of a Fire Kunai, it was lights out for Shiva!
It's meant to nudge you in the direction of taking out Shiva first, but I'm glad it's still possible the other way around
4000 Gil... may as well pick up the Burning Ring for good measure.
Um... when the Sailor heals the party, he brought back Furio with 0 HP. Talking to him again brought his HP to full. May that deal something with the order of commands are in the event? I imagine it's probably "Heal HP" than "Remove Status" instead of vice versa.
Hmm, what do Goggles do anyhow? I'm sure I asked this before... likely prevent Blind, but that doesn't seem worth the trade off of Wisdom/Will for the Gaea Hat or the Strength loss on the Headband.
Well, unless I've erred, you only have one headband. And this is a status-heavy battle...
I should've bought more Heals, I forgot how Status heavy this fight becomes.
Is it realistically possible to defeat the Tentacles without Palom and Porom? I recall you mentioning that you get a rather nice reward if you do beat the Tentacles rather than having them retreat.
Yes. As a matter of fact, P/P provide very little benefit beyond healing. The tentacles use an invisible full-cure ehren hit by Palom's magic. The real key is a strong non-Palom lightning assault.
A slight oversight perhaps, you still have the GP Bag after delivering it to Edge once you get back from Mysidia.
I never did get into that cave in Baron, I should see if I can't catch a Chocobo, though it's getting rather late tonight so I'll get Ceodore and resume tomorrow.
Hands-down the best prize you can find in the game up to that point.
I love the Dragoon Hall, I know I said it last time, but it bears repeating. It feels like a legitimate piece of FFIV lore.
Ahem...! Uh, you might want to take a look at this...
EDIT: Is running into Imps supposed to happen in the Town of Baron? Every step on the grass is a battle with 3 Imps.
Last time I played I must not have gone into Cid's old place. I rather like this characterization for Mid and judging by his wife's speech it seems he may be important later on.
Unless I endure 60+ Battles on the way there I can't really get the treasure behind Baron, ah well. It's not a big loss.
Heh, that Dragoon saying "want to play cards?" reminded me of Triple Triad, I can imagine how difficult that would be to program into FFIV, hehe.
It's my dream to eventually put in a card game, but the full version 1 has to be completed first. The ROM will almost definitely need to be expanded, which would break FF4kster compatibility.
Even still, I have no plans or ideas how I would make it work...
I forgot how brutal Ceodore was by throwing your partner down the stairs!
He does show shades of a tender side up on the Highwind Pass, but mostly he's meant to be kind of an asshole. Sort of I'm!portant to the story, as I think you know.
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Good point. Suggestions about what to do with it?
Hmm, maybe a graphics call of Haste on the party and Slow on the enemy? Or perhaps a Lit-1 graphic hitting the party to show higher speed? It's a difficult thing to show since it's a dual effect in a system that doesn't naturally use such things.
You and I talked about it, and the decision was that as long as elemental monsters still had a chance to kill the player, then their presence was passable... The situation will be under ongoing review, though...
That's true and as the game has gone on I've seen where these rings seem all but essential to access some side content or to defeat bosses that you aren't meant to defeat in such manners. It's fair for now then.
Well, unless I've erred, you only have one headband. And this is a status-heavy battle...
Not if you have Blank, that gives you two Headbands, heh. Blind isn't really the problem in that fight I feel. Curse is the issue at hand. Blind is moderately irritating but Curse is a "Heal Now or Die!" sort of status. It also doesn't provide much defense in any measure. Against the Gaea Hat and the Headband it seems difficult to justify its purchase.
Yes. As a matter of fact, P/P provide very little benefit beyond healing. The tentacles use an invisible full-cure ehren hit by Palom's magic. The real key is a strong non-Palom lightning assault.
With Thunder Kunai only and Lit Arrows, I assume? I'm not sure I agree with an invisible full-heal in this case, especially since there's no indication that Black Magic isn't doing anything. Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to just give them high magic defense that Palom couldn't break through indicating to the player that this plan of action can't work?
It's my dream to eventually put in a card game, but the full version 1 has to be completed first. The ROM will almost definitely need to be expanded, which would break FF4kster compatibility.
Even still, I have no plans or ideas how I would make it work...
I do wish that we could somehow change FF4kster to look at offsets rather than see what the whole rom is doing at a given time. It may be something to ask PinkPuff about down the line. I am all for mini-games in FFIV. Even with some creative thinking you could make some mini-games out of the battle system.
He does show shades of a tender side up on the Highwind Pass, but mostly he's meant to be kind of an asshole. Sort of I'm!portant to the story, as I think you know.
It's sort of refreshing to have a hero character who second-guesses the party's every move instead of blindly following along.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wow, you're able to steal Cure3's from Armadillo's in Mist Cave? Not sure if that's an oversight or reward for exploration.
It may be a glitch ZSNES, but the Mist Cave's Mist is over top the cave's graphics so it's literally a wall of mist, granted that can be easily dealt with through getting rid of that background layer.
I forgot to mention that I really like the Dark Wave animation you used for Ceodore, looks great!
This is my first time reaching Rydia with Ceodore, I rather like his addition in the dialogue and the clear idea that he prefers being called "Ceo" over "Ceodore". Nice touch!
After Ceodore says "But-!" Rydia says "Don't worry aout me."
Well, I barely survived the fight with the Mist Dragon. Am I wrong, or can you not hit it physically At All anymore? I noticed you can hit it physically while it's Mist but that has a really nasty counter attack and rather low damage for the effort. I did manage to steal the Dragon Claws though, so that will be nice. Only Rydia and Furio were left alive at the end there.
So Highwind Pass is now completable? Perfect! I'll give my full review of that in short order. First I better pick up some items though. I ran out of Life Potions in the battle with the Mist Dragon.
It seems like enemies have been much better balanced despite Rydia heavily increasing the party's level average the enemies are still reasonable to fight.
After about 15 minutes of fast-forwarding I finally caught a Chocobo! So I'll be able to see what this cave is. I'm still not sure on the wisdom of having the Chocobo be so rare, but maybe I just got really unlucky. That would have easily been 45 minutes to an hour in real time though.
...And that would be why Chocobo are so rare in these parts. 15 Speed from the Feather Ring, goodness gracious!
Hah, Chocobos can travel over the Shallows, that's likely going to be important later.
Jump Points in Highwind Pass, hmm? Neat idea.
This is an impressive map you put together here, it really shows the detail of the underwater basin map tiles!
Hmm, I assume there is no way to reach that outcropping just to the North of the cave entrance is there?
Oh hey, new music and new tileset to make the mountain Icy, nice touch!
That battle background looks great! I especially love the pink sunset.
Wow, Ice Claws from Leopards! Nice Steal indeed.
Wait a second here... how did you break one of the overriding commandments of FFIV? Thou Shalt Have the Main Character in the middle of the screen at all times? NPC versions of Furio for each screen? That's going pretty far for a cinematic effect!
And that's the game... killed by the Grenade.
I wasn't sure about this music before, but now that I see how it's being used it fits very well!
New plan give the Feather Ring to Rydia so she can hit the Grenade before it explodes.
Hmm, a FireBomb, a nice enough prize for the effort it takes with a little planning.
Another Grenade another party wipe...
So the Ghost Knight used "Absorb" which started to petrify one of my Party Members.
Well, Level 20 so Furio now has Pin, that will be useful. Did you plan on doing anything with Smoke? I'm sure you're aware it's entirely useless.
Ah great! Another Cure Staff. I did forget to take mine off of Porom when she left anyhow.
Finally, a Save Point!
You even added an icy background for in caves, it looks wonderful!
That Snow Dragon does not fool around, but he does have Ether2's to Steal. Let's get the Frozen Ring back on Rydia then.
A new sword for Ceodore, neat. But... the name "Broadsword" is a bit misleading. Broadswords in FF are normally the first weapon one gets. Since this raises Vitality and Will by 5 it should probably have something more fitting like "Knight" or "Blessed" or something of that ken.
Well! Running into Kain out of nowhere was unexpected! Considering he's dead and all.
Hmm, Kain's attacking animation looks strange, not so much Kain himself, but the Deathbringer is a fair distance away from him when he swings it... the wrong way. Also the delay between Kain landing and attacking afterwards seems a bit extreme.
Oh I see, that delay automatically is killing every living party member that's not Ceodore.
Alright, so it's not a Cecil-to-Paladin sort of deal you are expected to win...
Seems as if I'll need to put the Feather Ring on Ceodore to even keep up with Kain. This actually is a rather powerful combo with the Darkness Armor since it gives him some much needed Attack Multipliers without losing one.
We'll see if Vitality is worth the drop though.
Ah, you can inflict Blind on Kain! Nice usage of Status!
While the fight is a great idea I wonder if Kain has a little too much HP, once you inflict Blind the fight is all but a foregone conclusion and that delay in some of Kain's actions really hurts the flow of it all. Granted my Ceodore was only Level 17, maybe it's different at higher levels.
All in all, an interesting concept. I am curious if we will find out more of who would be raising the ghosts of the dead to fight on their behalf.
Ah, FFII SNES with your amazingly obvious secret passages. Probably the reason there's nothing too ground breaking in that cache.
So, that's the end of the demo. A fantastic new addition! I really liked the dungeon, but a few oddities here...
The pictures above showed another battle with Shiva along with Rydia mentioning something about her magic. Were these beta plans and had to be changed as the story demanded, or are they just not fully implemented yet?
I enjoyed all of the new content and found it to be moderately challenging all throughout!
I will be addressing your new post in an edit, but I'll post this for now.
EDIT: Post addressed!
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At some point, I'll set down and put in an actual scroll icon. I won't be using tails at all, so that was an easy placeholder.
I just happened to read this while tweaking my font up a bit, so if you want I could take a crack at making one for you.
I also found a workaround for the flickering pixels when a textbox is drawn at the bottom of the screen! Basically it's from there being pixels on the top horizontal row of a letter.
Since FF4's font letters/numbers always leave the bottom row of a letter's tile filled with the transparent color, just drag them all down one row and pow; no more flickering when looking at a bottom positioned textbox in SNESx9!
:edit: screenshot added to show the absence of flickering. :)
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Good point. Suggestions about what to do with it?
Hmm, maybe a graphics call of Haste on the party and Slow on the enemy? Or perhaps a Lit-1 graphic hitting the party to show higher speed? It's a difficult thing to show since it's a dual effect in a system that doesn't naturally use such things.
Yeah, I'll have to look back through your notes about magic-imbued weapons to refresh my memory on how to make spell and attack animation effects together, then give some thought to a proper spell animation.
You and I talked about it, and the decision was that as long as elemental monsters still had a chance to kill the player, then their presence was passable... The situation will be under ongoing review, though...
That's true and as the game has gone on I've seen where these rings seem all but essential to access some side content or to defeat bosses that you aren't meant to defeat in such manners. It's fair for now then.
Well, unless I've erred, you only have one headband. And this is a status-heavy battle...
Not if you have Blank, that gives you two Headbands, heh. Blind isn't really the problem in that fight I feel. Curse is the issue at hand. Blind is moderately irritating but Curse is a "Heal Now or Die!" sort of status. It also doesn't provide much defense in any measure. Against the Gaea Hat and the Headband it seems difficult to justify its purchase.
Yeah... Furio is supposed to only have access to a leather cap unless you hire Blank, thus only one headband. If you started with or in some other way acquired a second one, that's a mistake. Regarding Curse against the tentacles, it doesn't happen if you refrain from using Fight on the second form (you can still dart, etc).
Yes. As a matter of fact, P/P provide very little benefit beyond healing. The tentacles use an invisible full-cure ehren hit by Palom's magic. The real key is a strong non-Palom lightning assault.
With Thunder Kunai only and Lit Arrows, I assume? I'm not sure I agree with an invisible full-heal in this case, especially since there's no indication that Black Magic isn't doing anything. Wouldn't it have been more reasonable to just give them high magic defense that Palom couldn't break through indicating to the player that this plan of action can't work?
It's kind of a "guide dang it," I admit, but given the once-only really cool prize, and the fact that all you need to do is outlast the tentacles to survive, I'm happy with it.
I find Cinna to be the best hired companion against the tentacles, as his lit spells still work.
That's also why it can't have high magic defense, I want Palom and Porom to be of little help, but not your hired sidekick. Never tried the battle with Ruby, but I can vouch for the possibility of beating the boss with a Furio/Blank party and a Furio/Cinna party.
It's my dream to eventually put in a card game, but the full version 1 has to be completed first. The ROM will almost definitely need to be expanded, which would break FF4kster compatibility.
Even still, I have no plans or ideas how I would make it work...
I do wish that we could somehow change FF4kster to look at offsets rather than see what the whole rom is doing at a given time. It may be something to ask PinkPuff about down the line. I am all for mini-games in FFIV. Even with some creative thinking you could make some mini-games out of the battle system.
He does show shades of a tender side up on the Highwind Pass, but mostly he's meant to be kind of an asshole. Sort of I'm!portant to the story, as I think you know.
It's sort of refreshing to have a hero character who second-guesses the party's every move instead of blindly following along.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wow, you're able to steal Cure3's from Armadillo's in Mist Cave? Not sure if that's an oversight or reward for exploration.
I... Can't remember. But Armadillos are the rare encounter, so I think we'll keep it.
It may be a glitch ZSNES, but the Mist Cave's Mist is over top the cave's graphics so it's literally a wall of mist, granted that can be easily dealt with through getting rid of that background layer.
I think it's an emulator thing. I had the same issue using SNES9X, then I pressed some button, which didn't make the mist go away, but did indeed make it transparent.
I forgot to mention that I really like the Dark Wave animation you used for Ceodore, looks great!
This is my first time reaching Rydia with Ceodore, I rather like his addition in the dialogue and the clear idea that he prefers being called "Ceo" over "Ceodore". Nice touch!
After Ceodore says "But-!" Rydia says "Don't worry aout me."
Oops. Putting that on the list
Well, I barely survived the fight with the Mist Dragon. Am I wrong, or can you not hit it physically At All anymore? I noticed you can hit it physically while it's Mist but that has a really nasty counter attack and rather low damage for the effort. I did manage to steal the Dragon Claws though, so that will be nice. Only Rydia and Furio were left alive at the end there.
Physical attacks should work fine against dragon form. She should also be impervious to magic once she first takes dragon form. If that's not what happens, then something is wrong.
So Highwind Pass is now completable? Perfect! I'll give my full review of that in short order. First I better pick up some items though. I ran out of Life Potions in the battle with the Mist Dragon.
It seems like enemies have been much better balanced despite Rydia heavily increasing the party's level average the enemies are still reasonable to fight.
After about 15 minutes of fast-forwarding I finally caught a Chocobo! So I'll be able to see what this cave is. I'm still not sure on the wisdom of having the Chocobo be so rare, but maybe I just got really unlucky. That would have easily been 45 minutes to an hour in real time though.
Did you know they're more plentiful in forests? About a 20% encounter rate. Fat Chocobo does say that. The easiest catch, though, is in the desert, where you face a chocobo and a single basilisk, who won't use petrify because of the chocobo.
...And that would be why Chocobo are so rare in these parts. 15 Speed from the Feather Ring, goodness gracious!
Hah, Chocobos can travel over the Shallows, that's likely going to be important later.
Jump Points in Highwind Pass, hmm? Neat idea.
This is an impressive map you put together here, it really shows the detail of the underwater basin map tiles!
Hmm, I assume there is no way to reach that outcropping just to the North of the cave entrance is there?
Well... Did you go back and talk to the Fat Chocobo after you caught a chocobo?
Oh hey, new music and new tileset to make the mountain Icy, nice touch!
That battle background looks great! I especially love the pink sunset.
Wow, Ice Claws from Leopards! Nice Steal indeed.
No more ice-weak bosses for a good long while, so at this point I figured it was OK
Wait a second here... how did you break one of the overriding commandments of FFIV? Thou Shalt Have the Main Character in the middle of the screen at all times? NPC versions of Furio for each screen? That's going pretty far for a cinematic effect!
Not just a Furio NPC on each screen, but custom ASM that forces him to your position every time you get to a jump point. To quote John Hammond in Jurassic Park, "we've spared no expense."
And that's the game... killed by the Grenade.
I wasn't sure about this music before, but now that I see how it's being used it fits very well!
New plan give the Feather Ring to Rydia so she can hit the Grenade before it explodes.
Hmm, a FireBomb, a nice enough prize for the effort it takes with a little planning.
Another Grenade another party wipe...
I might have forgotten to adjust the grenades to make them tough-but-reasonable. If you blitz them with attacks you should be able to survive the basically-inevitable (at your current level) explosion. Clearly that's not the case. Sorry...
So the Ghost Knight used "Absorb" which started to petrify one of my Party Members.
Mistake. I don't think they're supposed to do anything but fight and be undead, but I also don't remember ever writing their AI.
Whoops...
Well, Level 20 so Furio now has Pin, that will be useful. Did you plan on doing anything with Smoke? I'm sure you're aware it's entirely useless.
Um, well, I plan to take it out, but I still don't know what to put in there. Maybe I'll just nix it altogether...
Ah great! Another Cure Staff. I did forget to take mine off of Porom when she left anyhow.
Finally, a Save Point!
You even added an icy background for in caves, it looks wonderful!
That Snow Dragon does not fool around, but he does have Ether2's to Steal. Let's get the Frozen Ring back on Rydia then.
A new sword for Ceodore, neat. But... the name "Broadsword" is a bit misleading. Broadswords in FF are normally the first weapon one gets. Since this raises Vitality and Will by 5 it should probably have something more fitting like "Knight" or "Blessed" or something of that ken.
Maybe "knight," but definitely not "blessed." It's mostly just supposed to be a sword that is stronger than "steel," but not dark like "darkness."
Well! Running into Kain out of nowhere was unexpected! Considering he's dead and all.
Hmm, Kain's attacking animation looks strange, not so much Kain himself, but the Deathbringer is a fair distance away from him when he swings it... the wrong way.
Yeah, I have to research character battles a bit when I get the time. Eventually I want to make him swing a spear (and with his hand, not with the air five feet in front of him)
Also the delay between Kain landing and attacking afterwards seems a bit extreme.
Oh I see, that delay automatically is killing every living party member that's not Ceodore.
Alright, so it's not a Cecil-to-Paladin sort of deal you are expected to win...
Seems as if I'll need to put the Feather Ring on Ceodore to even keep up with Kain. This actually is a rather powerful combo with the Darkness Armor since it gives him some much needed Attack Multipliers without losing one.
We'll see if Vitality is worth the drop though.
Ah, you can inflict Blind on Kain! Nice usage of Status!
While the fight is a great idea I wonder if Kain has a little too much HP, once you inflict Blind the fight is all but a foregone conclusion and that delay in some of Kain's actions really hurts the flow of it all. Granted my Ceodore was only Level 17, maybe it's different at higher levels.
Did you know Ceo can use the cure staff? That's one important piece here. Kain has to have high HP because it is possible for Rydia to get off two elemental 3 spells before she dies. If he had less than 8000 HP or so, she would have the potential to sabotage the whole thing. Super powerful Rydia has been a huge challenge in creating this hack. I'll be really relieved once she leaves, which unfortunately doesn't happen for a good while still.
All in all, an interesting concept. I am curious if we will find out more of who would be raising the ghosts of the dead to fight on their behalf.
Oh, it's really Kain. His spirit inhabits the Pass that bears his name. It's his legacy. And he really is warning Ceo that some bad things will happen if they continue on. Of course, Kain is also a flawed character and doesn't always see the best way to achieve the greater good. None of this is explained, by the way, it's just how I conceptualize it. In the end, it's just an interesting boss fight and a nice scene. Works well to keep you scratching your head about what kind of guy Ceo really is, too.
Ah, FFII SNES with your amazingly obvious secret passages. Probably the reason there's nothing too ground breaking in that cache.
So, that's the end of the demo. A fantastic new addition! I really liked the dungeon, but a few oddities here...
The pictures above showed another battle with Shiva along with Rydia mentioning something about her magic. Were these beta plans and had to be changed as the story demanded, or are they just not fully implemented yet?
OK, something went seriously wrong here. Clearly you were able to use magic throughout the Highwind Pass, hence your reliance on Rydia despite not having won the Scourge whip from the tentacles.
When you get to the first snowy screen in the dungeon, there should be a conversation where all the characters notice that their magic is being blocked. That same event turns on the flag that blocks magic use, both in and out of battle. I will have to look into why that event never took place.
Regarding the Shiva battle, it's still there, but only if you make the choice on Mt Ordeals that does not result in fighting her there. If you defeat Shiva on the Highwind Pass, it breaks the magic seal, but, then you'll never be able to acquire the Shiva summon later on if/when Furio becomes the Mystic. It's one epic choice early on that functions as a linchpin for a lot of things.
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At some point, I'll set down and put in an actual scroll icon. I won't be using tails at all, so that was an easy placeholder.
I just happened to read this while tweaking my font up a bit, so if you want I could take a crack at making one for you.
I also found a workaround for the flickering pixels when a textbox is drawn at the bottom of the screen! Basically it's from there being pixels on the top horizontal row of a letter.
Since FF4's font letters/numbers always leave the bottom row of a letter's tile filled with the transparent color, just drag them all down one row and pow; no more flickering when looking at a bottom positioned textbox in SNESx9!
:edit: screenshot added to show the absence of flickering. :)
BZ, that's a fantastic find - nice work!
And yeah, if you want to cook up a scroll icon, I'll definitely use it.
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Yeah... Furio is supposed to only have access to a leather cap unless you hire Blank, thus only one headband. If you started with or in some other way acquired a second one, that's a mistake. Regarding Curse against the tentacles, it doesn't happen if you refrain from using Fight on the second form (you can still dart, etc).
That's important to keep in mind. But as for Furio he started with a Headband for me. If he hadn't than the Goggles would have been a better option all around.
It's kind of a "guide dang it," I admit, but given the once-only really cool prize, and the fact that all you need to do is outlast the tentacles to survive, I'm happy with it.
I find Cinna to be the best hired companion against the tentacles, as his lit spells still work.
That's also why it can't have high magic defense, I want Palom and Porom to be of little help, but not your hired sidekick. Never tried the battle with Ruby, but I can vouch for the possibility of beating the boss with a Furio/Blank party and a Furio/Cinna party.
That is admittedly difficult to conceptualize why one Mage's magic would work and the other's would heal the being. Unless maybe the monster was expecting to run into the Twins hence why they are mostly useless against it.
Physical attacks should work fine against dragon form. She should also be impervious to magic once she first takes dragon form. If that's not what happens, then something is wrong.
She seemed to be impervious to both Physical and Magical when she was in her Dragon form. She could be hit by Physical Attacks in her Mist form which brought a counter attack.
Did you know they're more plentiful in forests? About a 20% encounter rate. Fat Chocobo does say that. The easiest catch, though, is in the desert, where you face a chocobo and a single basilisk, who won't use petrify because of the chocobo.
I expected that there were more in the forest, but I couldn't beat the two Old Trees before the Chocobo got a turn and ran away.
Well... Did you go back and talk to the Fat Chocobo after you caught a chocobo?
That completely skipped my mind! Thankfully I had a save right outside the Highwind Pass.
Not just a Furio NPC on each screen, but custom ASM that forces him to your position every time you get to a jump point. To quote John Hammond in Jurassic Park, "we've spared no expense."
That's a really impressive piece of work then!
I might have forgotten to adjust the grenades to make them tough-but-reasonable. If you blitz them with attacks you should be able to survive the basically-inevitable (at your current level) explosion. Clearly that's not the case. Sorry...[/quote]
My Levels were around 18-20. Furio and Blank could hardly get in an attack each before it Self-Destructed dealing 1600 to all of my party members. Heaven knows how I would have survived it if the Magic seal you mention later had been put up.
Um, well, I plan to take it out, but I still don't know what to put in there. Maybe I'll just nix it altogether...
Maybe have it Poison all foes or something? It could give it some utility and Poison is an underused status all together in FFIV.
Yeah, I have to research character battles a bit when I get the time. Eventually I want to make him swing a spear (and with his hand, not with the air five feet in front of him)
Don't forget I put together a lot of that information, I believe in my thread. I'll check for it...
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1883.msg22449#msg22449
Did you know Ceo can use the cure staff? That's one important piece here. Kain has to have high HP because it is possible for Rydia to get off two elemental 3 spells before she dies. If he had less than 8000 HP or so, she would have the potential to sabotage the whole thing. Super powerful Rydia has been a huge challenge in creating this hack. I'll be really relieved once she leaves, which unfortunately doesn't happen for a good while still.
Hmm, why not have Kain be Invincible until the rest of the party is dead? That way you wouldn't have to worry about that and the fight wouldn't go on forever. Instead of that "kill everyone" effect taking up a fair amount of time, you could put in some custom ASM to assure that if anyone dies in that battle they become Zombified, thereby preventing revival.
Oh, it's really Kain. His spirit inhabits the Pass that bears his name. It's his legacy. And he really is warning Ceo that some bad things will happen if they continue on. Of course, Kain is also a flawed character and doesn't always see the best way to achieve the greater good. None of this is explained, by the way, it's just how I conceptualize it. In the end, it's just an interesting boss fight and a nice scene. Works well to keep you scratching your head about what kind of guy Ceo really is, too.
Maybe I'm not recalling right but doesn't Kain say something like "Ceo, stop the..." and then trails off? A more concrete warning to two of his former allies may be called for.
OK, something went seriously wrong here. Clearly you were able to use magic throughout the Highwind Pass, hence your reliance on Rydia despite not having won the Scourge whip from the tentacles.
When you get to the first snowy screen in the dungeon, there should be a conversation where all the characters notice that their magic is being blocked. That same event turns on the flag that blocks magic use, both in and out of battle. I will have to look into why that event never took place.
Regarding the Shiva battle, it's still there, but only if you make the choice on Mt Ordeals that does not result in fighting her there. If you defeat Shiva on the Highwind Pass, it breaks the magic seal, but, then you'll never be able to acquire the Shiva summon later on if/when Furio becomes the Mystic. It's one epic choice early on that functions as a linchpin for a lot of things.
Yikes! Did look like something broke down there. Interesting use of the Epic Choice system! I'll need to keep an eye out for that when I tackle it with another mercenary. Though is the seal not activating because the Shiva battle has already happened on Mt. Ordeals?
Alright! So interesting way of showing the way to the Chocobo Haven! A nice bit of lore and items strewn about. I'll try out the time trials for myself and see how they go.
600 GP, a fair price considering the prizes.
So if I understand this right your Chocobo count is dependent on Region and the more Chocobos you have saved, the more rewards open up at the Time Trials?
Well I lost the first time, but there's some neat things in play here already! The hidden Speed Power-up is a great idea! I'm wondering if there's anything more that can be down with that concept for this?
Some shortcuts I found the second time around, awesome. Managed to win and got 2nd Place prize (Cure3) with 7 seconds left. Wondering how much time left on the clock is needed to get 1st?
Whew! 26 Seconds left on the clock! That was an amazing run! I got an Ether 2 for that! That's not even on the prize list!
This is such a great idea and I cannot wait to see more things like this implemented!
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Palom's magic works against the tentacles, it's just impossible to kill them if you use it. The full cure is completely invisible to the player. It's the one that Zeromus uses. So there's no need to explain why Palom's magic doesn't work.
I clearly did not do enough play testing before I put this patch up. Sorry that this run made more of a guinea pig of you than a tester. I promise to always play through the full thing once before I release any more updates.
As for the chocobo trials... Essentially, the more chocobos you catch, the better the prizes are, with four tiers altogether - the highest being for 100+ chocobos caught. As it stands now, it's the same course, just better prizes, but theatre's no reason I can't make things slightly harder for the higher tiers. I just haven't done it yet. There will be one entirely separate course that will only be available if you catch 100 chocobos and get the black chocobo. But that's way down the road.
So tell me... How in the world did you finish with 27 seconds left?! The best I've ever done is 8 seconds left. I'm pretty sure the assembly doesn't even figure 27 is possible, hence you obtaining an "impossible" reward. There's always a bit of chance involved, but you can get the top prize as long as you finish with at least six seconds left. Clearly I also need to work in a fix that prevents overflow if people are way too good at the game!
Regarding Kain... Those are good ideas. Does the zombie bit prevent revival in ffiv? I know revival kills a "living" zombie if it's not immune to KO, but I didn't know it would prevent the revival of a "dead" zombie. And it shouldn't be too hard to make him start off invincible... I think I will try that out. The long pause bugged me, too, but I was resigned to it.
I didn't know you had done a lot of research on character battles. I will have to read over your notes.
He should say:
Ceo...
... Listen to me.
You must not let them go on.
The results may be...
...catastrophic...
And he is right. There will be some bad stuff that wouldn't have happened if they turned back, but mostly it's just one of those events that takes place in a video game that doesn't fully make sense, but you (hopefully) accept it because deep down, you knew there had to be a boss there.
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I got a really lucky race, every Chocobo moved out of my way at the exact right time after I picked up the Speed Up, and I obviously used the shortcut to shave off a couple of seconds.
Zombie bit does indeed prevent Revive. Remember Dark Omen in Combat Boost? That turns Cecil into a Zombie and makes him unrevivable because the game looks to Kill the Unit rather than Revive, even if they're already dead.
As for Kain's lines I misread what "let them go on" meant. I thought it was referring to letting the Eidolons go on with their plans (hence my skewed memory on what he had said). I didn't think for a second it was referring to the party. I do like the foreboding sense of that much more now, I had believed it was the generic "Stop bad guys, or bad things will happen..." but now knowing that it's "You must all turn back to prevent catastrophe" is much more powerful.
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Ah, so maybe I'll change it to "you must turn back... Or the results may be... Catastrophic."
That will hopefully avoid confusion there.
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I like that, while it loses the otherness which Ceodore represents, (hence the original reference to "them" I imagine) it's difficult to phrase otherwise without sounding ambiguous. Though if you can think of a way to include this sense that Kain has more faith in Ceodore than in Rydia and Furio (which again, I assume from the original "cannot let them go on") that could be worth a look.
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Mmmm... Also a good point. Well, I'll think on it a bit. Obviously I have more pressing matters to attend to first, anyway.
Thanks for the insights.
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So, I don't get encounters in Baron or pots where there should be water...
Is it possible you patched an already-edited ROM?
Also,
Darkness Armor
Def: 11
EV/M.Def/M.EV: 0
Str: +5
Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: -5
Resistant to Dark element
Iron Armor
Def: 8
M.Def: 2
Ev/M.Ev: 0
Str/Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: 0
You understand the benefits/drawbacks of stat bonuses/penalties better than I do. Does that not make Darkness armor worth having?
:edit:
Eh, I just compared... At level 18, Ceo gets one attack point, attack multiplier remains the same, loses a defense multiplier, loses a magic defense multiplier, loses two magic defense points, loses two magic defense percentage points, and obviously would be slower with the Darkness armor equipped vs. the Iron armor.
So, yeah, maybe what I'll do is go +3 str, 0 everything else.
Jeez, I had Grenade's speed set to 28-31. That is way higher than intended.
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So, I don't get encounters in Baron or pots where there should be water...
Is it possible you patched an already-edited ROM?
That is a very real possibility. I had recalled that pot glitch a long time ago in one of my test roms, but I had thought I used a clean rom? I guess not. Thankfully that (and maybe the Highwind events not activating right) seemed to be the only issue.
Also,
Darkness Armor
Def: 11
EV/M.Def/M.EV: 0
Str: +5
Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: -5
Resistant to Dark element
Iron Armor
Def: 8
M.Def: 2
Ev/M.Ev: 0
Str/Agi/Vit/Wis/Will: 0
You understand the benefits/drawbacks of stat bonuses/penalties better than I do. Does that not make Darkness armor worth having?
:edit:
Eh, I just compared... At level 18, Ceo gets one attack point, attack multiplier remains the same, loses a defense multiplier, loses a magic defense multiplier, loses two magic defense points, loses two magic defense percentage points, and obviously would be slower with the Darkness armor equipped vs. the Iron armor.
So, yeah, maybe what I'll do is go +3 str, 0 everything else.
Jeez, I had Grenade's speed set to 28-31. That is way higher than intended.
I do wish we could find a way to make FFIV less stringent with its Bonus Stat system. That you Have to have it be +3/0, +5/0 +5/-5, +5/-10, +10/0, +10/-10, +15/0, +15/-15 seems far too constricting. I know Kea did something like this for FFIV Advance, but that has a lot more free space than FFIV does. Granted I have marked several enormous open spaces in the ROM that might accommodate a more open bonus system.
Also yes, seems like Grenade's initial speed wasn't altered, hehe.
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I figured out the Highwind events thing. The event only runs if "magic-proof Highwind pass" and "defeated Shiva" flags are both clear, but if you defeat Shiva on Ordeals, then "defeated Shiva" gets set. There needs to be separate flags for "defeated Shiva on mt. Ordeals" and "defeated Shiva on Highwind pass."
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Does something happen if you do not fight Shiva at all? Or does something block you until you actually face her?
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She's entirely optional even if she does show up. She'll block access to the sword in the treasure chest in that cave, but in the long run that's not a big deal. The game will force you to traverse the Highwind Pass at least two more times, so it may be nice to have her magic seal broken, but as previously discussed, you'll lose the chance to gain her as a summon if you beat her. It's a choice with no real right answer.
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Found out something pretty neat while randomly scrolling through my FF4 project in a hex editor with no table file loaded.
7FC0-7FD5 in an unheadered rom will take you to the "FINAL FANTASY 2" text that displays when you load the rom on a typical emulator. Turns out there's some space to add some more text in (not a lot of it, but there is some). There's juust enough space there to make it say FF2:Threat From Within. :)
Yes, this is practically useless info. Still, I find it neat that this text is editable, and thought I'd oughtta share.
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I've seen that before but never played with it. Good to know!
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So I'm trying to play through, and I realize that the fight with Indra (and not Shiva) is basically impossible. Or I'm just not very good at this game. Gonna have to look into the AI for that one...
Aside from that, things are looking good so far.
:edit:
Impossible without a thunder ring, that is. Still, that's a problem.
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So, as I mentioned in another thread, I've been working on some stuff for the Octomamm battle, which will be (probably) at the end of the next release.
Here's a video of what it'll be like (https://youtu.be/M_3SsXsSAOw)
There are still a couple of minor details to iron out - mostly AI related - but you can get the picture anyway.
If you're wondering why Rydia and Cinna don't cast magic once all of the tentacles are defeated, it's because doing so causes Octomamm to regenerate all six tentacles (with reduced HP, but still...). I kinda wanted to show that, but I didn't want the video to run too long.
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I'm this close to releasing the next episode. I just need to play it through first to make sure I didn't screw anything up.
Hopefully this weekend.
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OK, so I just finished my play through.
Jeez, what am I gonna do when this thing gets close to being full-length?!
I noticed a couple of things I wanna take care of before putting the patch up. Nothing game-breaking, but I figure if I'm willing to fix things, I should be willing to polish them too...
:bored:
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Glad to hear everything's coming along nicely, man!
Also, since I just offered to Rodimus the other night on RHDN: If you'd like to use any of the graphics I've been porting/making I'd be more than happy to share what I've got and get done in the future.
I mean, I'm sure you probably don't want to use any of the enemies I've edited, but if you wanna use anything else feel free to let me know.
Which reminds me... I'm an ass and haven't done the ninja scroll icon I promised you yet. :lame:
Is there a particular style you want for it? By that I mean do you want it looking like an open scroll (like someone reading it), or would you rather like it to be unopened (first thought that comes to mind are the scroll pickups from Mystical Ninja)?
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No worries. I certainly wasn't in any hurry for it.
I was thinking along the lines of the Mystical Ninja-style, but I understand it's a small space to work with and really only two colors, so whatever you can do I'd appreciate.
I've been considering whether to use any of the graphics stuff you've done. I'm kinda torn because I really like some of it, but I don't want things to stand in the way of feeling like a sequel to the original game. I was thinking maybe I would pick and choose a few things that could be pasted into the ROM to make certain elements seem "modernized" or "updated," seeing as it's supposed to take place 40 years later.
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No worries. I certainly wasn't in any hurry for it.
I was thinking along the lines of the Mystical Ninja-style, but I understand it's a small space to work with and really only two colors, so whatever you can do I'd appreciate.
Ah, okay! I'll load up a Mystical Ninja rom and use that scroll icon as a reference then.
I've been considering whether to use any of the graphics stuff you've done. I'm kinda torn because I really like some of it, but I don't want things to stand in the way of feeling like a sequel to the original game. I was thinking maybe I would pick and choose a few things that could be pasted into the ROM to make certain elements seem "modernized" or "updated," seeing as it's supposed to take place 40 years later.
That's definitely understandable. If you want I can send you a copy of my project with a save file so you can walk around and see the graphics in action. Screenshots only do so much justice lol.
As for certain elements being modernized or updated, what kind of things do you have in mind? Seeing as I'm constantly thinking up different ideas but haven't gotten to them due to lazyness/working on other stuff, there's always a chance what you're wanting is also something I've been meaning to do but haven't been motivated to sit down and get it done yet. :cycle:
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Well, here it is - the next "episode."
Final Fantasy IV: A Threat from Within v0.7.0 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzRWRbtm4qwcWGh6cF8wdVRsVUk/view?usp=drivesdk)
As usual, apply the patch to a clean, unheadered copy if FFIIUS v1.1.
Not much story progression happens here, but there's a new town (Kaipo), a new dungeon (The Watery Pass), a new boss (Octomamm) and a new sidequest (Cactuar hunting).
Some screenies...
The Kaipo Bard School
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/TfWv07/Threat%20Preview025.png)
Cactuar Sidequest
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/TfWv07/Threat%20Preview024.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/TfWv07/Threat%20Preview026.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/TfWv07/Threat%20Preview027.png)
Battling Octomamm
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/TfWv07/Threat%20Preview029.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/TfWv07/Threat%20Preview030.png)
Feedback is always appreciated!
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Woah, nice spritework on the bard NPC! It's nice see them walking around with their harps.
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Heh - he's actually not walking around with the harp. I switched the harp tile to a "walk behind" and put a non-walking bard on that spot. In an event similar to the original's dancing girls, he'll play a song for you if you talk to him.
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Ahhh, I see. very clever!
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So if you've been following the game's story so far, then you know that Furio and crew are enroute to Damcyan to protect it from Titan. So, along the lines of the random lightning flashes in Mysidia, I rigged random earthquakes into the vicinity of Damcyan.
The quakes will only trigger when you're in the general vicinity of Damcyan, as well as within Damcyan Castle, the Antlion Cave, and the west station of Mt. Hobbs. And of course they're flag-dependent, so once Titan is defeated they'll stop.
The video also offers a sneak peak of the repairs and renovations I made to Damcyan castle.
Enjoy.
https://youtu.be/btZbuXTm0x4
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Another video of an earthquake inside Damcyan Castle. This is a modified version of the visual effect that used to shrink the hallway in Baron.
This particular quake will have a specific purpose in the story, but I won't give it away right now. Thus video is just to show off the work I've been doing.
https://youtu.be/gol6yvKLXKk
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It's starting to sound like armageddon's on the horizon! I really dig the direction this hack's going.
I started over again the other night due to not playing it in ages (haven't touched FF4 in general in a while, but I'm jumping back in) and re-realized you replaced the fat chocobo on the item storage menu with a nifty bag! How'd you do that?
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It was somewhat complicated as I recall... I couldn't just change the sprites because Fatty is still an NPC in the game, so I think what I did was set a breakpoint to when the game reads the beginning of the first sprite, then traced it back to wherever it specifies to begin there and replaced that with a new location, where I had drawn in those new sprites (which were copied off of some stock image I found online - fun anecdote, I was originally considering using Dora the Explorer's Backpack, but couldn't find a suitable image).
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Hey, guys, I could use some outside opinions on a small matter...
Now that I'm at a point where the player can finally hire a Bard, I'm making some adjustments to the Sing command.
The possible outcomes are now:
- (1/8 chance) Fail
- (1/4 chance) Slow
- (1/4 chance) Charm
- (3/8 chance) A spell that depends on which weapon is equipped
Now, for the dependent result, it will be something relatively weak, like mute or blind, if any non-harp weapon is equipped. Each harp (and there will be five altogether) will allow the bard to cast a specific spell. My working list is:
Sleep
Stop
Death
Virus
Flare (like the Twins' spell)
Sleep will be the Dreamer harp, the one the Bard comes equipped with. Flare will be the Ultimate harp (no name as yet).
So my question is, with respect to the remaining three songs/spells, in what order should they become available? What's the order of usefulness of these spells?
Or should I swap one or more of these out with something different?
Also, does anybody have any good ideas for names for these harps?
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Hmm I'd say go with Virus/Stop/Death for the ordering.
Couple names off the top o' my head:
Halting
Deadly
Sickly
(Harp symbol) of Fate
Chronos (or Cronos or h/e it's spelled)
Infected
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Ooh, I like Chronos/Cronos for the Stop harp!
Fate is pretty good, too (for Death).
I like the term "infected," too, though I also like the sound of "sickly strings." I'll have to mull that one over.
You're probably right about the order, though Death, remember, won't work on Bosses or the undead...
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What about targeting? Will a single or multiple enemies be targeted by the spells? :hmm:
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Multiple. That's one of the advantages of Sing (in my hack, at least). The spell is picked at (semi-) random, but it costs no MP and affects all enemies.
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I almost never used Stop in the original game, but it can be very helpful. I'm thinking of the treasure chests with monsters in Eblan. The monsters are way too strong for you when you get the airship. But when you throw an item casting Stop on all enemies at them, you can easily win. :D
So it depends a lot on how susceptible the enemies are to it.
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Yeah, I never used stop either, or any support magic, really, but that doesn't mean I don't think they could be useful. What's nice about Stop is that it's not a status that can be resisted, so no one monster is more immune to it than any other. In theory then, an AOE stop ability would be pretty useful in tough dungeons - more so than AOE Death, because often high level monsters (and zombie types always) are immune to instant KO.
In other news, piggybacking on the item description expansion I worked on for Rodimus Primal, I worked a new feature into item descriptions for TfW - equipment descriptions!
The final product will show:
For normal weapons: Attack power, cast spell, all stat adjustments
For thrown weapons (stars, darts): "Thrown weapon," attack power
For Bows: "Used with arrows," attack power (TfW won't have any bows that adjust stats)
For arrows: "Used with bow," attack power
For berserk weapons (TfW will have 3 or 4): Attack power, "Adds Berserk," all stat adjustments
For defensive equipment: Defense power, Magic Defense power, all stat adjustments
I have all of that working except the stat adjustments so far. Some screenshots:
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview033.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview034.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview032.png)
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/Threat%20Preview031.png)
And, yeah, it's actually reading the info from the equipment, so if I change the equipment, the description will automatically adjust.
That little black box is where the stat adjustments will start. I haven't written the code for that yet, and I expect that it's going to be kind of a bear, based on how the stat adjustment system works, but it's gonna be so cool once it's all done.
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In other news, piggybacking on the item description expansion I worked on for Rodimus Primal, I worked a new feature into item descriptions for TfW - equipment descriptions!
The final product will show:
For normal weapons: Attack power, cast spell, all stat adjustments
For thrown weapons (stars, darts): "Thrown weapon," attack power
For Bows: "Used with arrows," attack power (TfW won't have any bows that adjust stats)
For arrows: "Used with bow," attack power
For berserk weapons (TfW will have 3 or 4): Attack power, "Adds Berserk," all stat adjustments
For defensive equipment: Defense power, Magic Defense power, all stat adjustments
That is freakin AMAZING!! :omg:
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Why are all of you gods and wizards?
This is amazing work.
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Got it all working! It was a bit complicated making the stat bonuses work, and I had to create some squish tiles for the express purpose of making Str, Agi and Vit fit on one line, but the results are sooooo satisfying!
Here's a video of the descriptions in action (https://youtu.be/mKXhlxPgvLA)
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*Mind explodes*
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Awesome! :omg:
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Awesome work there as always chillyfeez!
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Hey chillyfeez, is it your birthday? The forum says so.
Happy birthday! :cookie:
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It is. Thanks, Gedankenschild!
I turned old today.
Where does it say that, btw? I don't think it's ever told me when one of you has a birthday...
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Happy birthday chillyfeez!
I think you must enter your birthday date in your profile in order others to see when you have a birthday.
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When there's a birthday it shows up in the info center part on the main page.
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Oh, OK. I hardly ever look at the forum's main page, I usually just click on my bookmark for FFIV.
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Happy birthday man!!
EDIT: Got a WIP of a scroll icon in the works. Meant to do this ages ago, but got sidetracked by town edits and other projects, so sorry for the wait. :isuck:
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Oh, great. I love the first one.
Thanks!
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Whoah what a nice font on the attached picture Bahamut ZERO! Is it the actual font used in the game?
If so do you know its dimension? Does it fit in a tile?
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Whoah what a nice font on the attached picture Bahamut ZERO! Is it the actual font used in the game?
If so do you know its dimension? Does it fit in a tile?
Thanks for the kind words! No, it's not the original game's font, it's a heavily (and I mean HEAVILY) tweaked Tecmo Secret of the Stars font, with the numbers being ports from Final Fantasy Legend III. It's what I'm using for my project. :D
Since I don't want to be an ass and throw up a screens of my project in chillyfeez's thread, I'll be, uh, less of an ass and and throw up some pics of it in action in TFW instead. :wink:
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Since I don't want to be an ass and throw up a screens of my project in chillyfeez's thread, I'll be, uh, less of an ass and and throw up some pics of it in action in TFW instead. :wink:
LOL
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So, as I'm working on this project, the notion has been steadily creeping up on me... And I think it's about to hit critical mass: I'm running out of room!
It hit me hard just recently as I used up the last bit of space in dialogue bank 3, which is tiny anyway. But as I transferred some larger messages in bank 3 to bank 1, I started noticing that in bank 1, I'm already up to message 195. Then I looked in the ROM at the amount of space left in Bank 1 - ~800 (h) bytes. And in case you're wondering, the game is, at most, 1/3 complete.
...yeah...
If I polled the folks over at RHDN about the issue, I know exactly what I'd get: expand the ROM. Duh. But you all know as well as I do that doing so would break FF4kster compatibility, which is unacceptable.
So... I think I devised a feasible plan. I'm gonna take a page out of the PS1-era playbook and make the game several "discs." When I wrap up the chapter I'm currently working on, I'll have the last event set a specific flag that indicates "switch to disc 2." (Or Part 2, whatever). Then I'll put a constant check in the program loop for that flag. If it's set, the game will automatically jump to a routine that tells the player "you've completed part 1. Please begin part 2." Obviously Part 2 would have a similar check, which would tell the player "you haven't completed part 1 yet." The messages would instruct the player to read the hack's readme file for instructions on managing the multiple parts (how to rename the save file, where to put the files so that the emulator can find them properly), so that hopefully most lay players would still be able to enjoy the game.
And that would give me the freedom to use as much dialogue as I need to and not really worry about space consequences. Not that this has been an issue yet, but I've been a tad worried about the amount of events I'm using, too, and this would put my mind at ease there as well.
Any thoughts on all this?
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I like the sound of a "Multiple Disc" style setup. It would give you a massive amount of freedom when it comes to dialogues,events, even changing up enemy formations a bit if you want.
Plus as an added bonus, if you go this route it pretty much makes it damn near impossible for someone to make TFW repros later down the line. Win win!
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I like the sound of a "Multiple Disc" style setup. It would give you a massive amount of freedom when it comes to dialogues,events, even changing up enemy formations a bit if you want.
Plus as an added bonus, if you go this route it pretty much makes it damn near impossible for someone to make TFW repros later down the line. Win win!
Hmmm... Does anybody here ever use flash carts? Would this prevent flash cart play? I don't care if folks can't make repros, but it would be bad in my mind if this made it impossible to play on original hardware at all.
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The messages would instruct the player to read the hack's readme file for instructions on managing the multiple parts (how to rename the save file, where to put the files so that the emulator can find them properly), so that hopefully most lay players would still be able to enjoy the game.
That will be terrible from player perspective and will greatly reduce the number of possible users ..
Why dont you put all the content on 'Disk 2, 3,..' in the expansion. This way no need for warning, a player will have no need to read 'readme' and the ROM itself will keep current layout. Think of the expansion as an external hard-drive :D
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No, I think you're misunderstanding me. ROM expansion is expressly not an option, because doing so would break FF4kster compatibility.
FF4kster makes so many aspects of editing FF4 so convenient that it's worth going out of my way to figure out ways around ROM expansion.
I was thinking, though, there's no reason to make it necessary to rename things. Patching programs (LIPS, in particular, but I think it's universally true) maintain the original filename, so the player would simply have to apply the next patch when it came time to do so. That sort of answers my flash cart question, too.
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Correct me if I I got it wrong, but your idea is to do edit with FF4kster keeping the ROM size (and layout compatible with FF4kster). Lets call it MasterROM. Then save different parts of the ROM in external files (.ips or something). When the time for 'Disk 2' come, the user should stop, apply patches for 'disk 2' and run the ROM.
My idea is:
Do the same till you make the external files. Do the same for 'disk 3',...
When you have all externals, simply put them in a new ExtendedROM that contain MasterROM + expansion containing all the external files. Its Win-Win situation: user plays on Extended (no stop), you edit content on Master (FF4kster OK).
There is one problem:
when the time for disk change comes, you will have to write a routine, that transfer bytes from Extended -> Normal. I dont think with your knowledge this will be a hard task. If bytes are sequential this is really just few byte asm code. The catch is you must copy ROM -> ROM. I hope emulators dont check for 'read only' memory protection ...
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OK, I thought maybe that's what you were getting at. Yeah, that would work, I guess.
I wouldn't have to recopy the entire ROM, just the data that changes depending on the "disc," which would all be catalogued in the IPS file anyway.
Yeah, I guess that's probably the better way to go.
Too bad, I was starting to hatch ambitious plans to re-draw the graphics in the castle shot from the prologue ("the crystal was shedding its light silently") to be a different picture to show at each disc change. That would have been fun, but you're right - playability probably takes priority here.
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If you tell me the size of the expanded rom I can give you a hacked FF4kster that detects your rom specifically ^_^
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Oh. Um. Well, that would make things pretty convenient. I wouldn't have asked you for something like that, but if you're offering...
I'll have to fix my Overworld triggers, too, because some of them are technically invalid and my unwillingness to spend time fixing them has forced me to continue using an older version of FF4kster up to this point, but really that's just a "me" thing.
Yeah, lemme take a couple of days to figure all this out and I will get back to you with a file size.
:childish:
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So now that PinkPuff has given me an avenue for ROM expansion, I'm tapping into some of the stuff I wouldn't have been able to do before.
As previously stated, there will be some built-in "Disc Changes" throughout the game. Thanks to the ROM expansion (and Squall's suggestion as to how to handle it), the following banks of data will be reset three or four times throughout the game, at specific points (the first one is coming soon, after the Titan battle, I think):
-Enemy Experience Given (small but noticeable adjustments up - monsters get harder as the player levels up, so it's only right they should offer more EXP)
-Dialogue Bank 1
-Dialogue Bank 3 (These will enable me to not worry about dialogue space at all)
-Dialogue Bank 2 (This will enable me to have townspeople change their text without making major adjustments to their speech algorithms)
-Event Calls (there are only 86 of these, and I've used around 50 so far. Don't have to worry about running out of these now!)
-Location Triggers (This will allow different event calls to result from the same trigger points, and will also enable me to have progress-dependent treasure chests, a la FFVI!)
In addition to all of that, I now have more freedom to tweak various pieces of game mechanics that I would have gone without doing before for fear of space limitations.
Example: Avon, the hired Bard, is now better at using items than the rest of the characters.
I had already improved the Salve command so that, instead of just using one Cure1 item to cast the Cure1 spell on all party members, now he is able to split any single-target item among all targets (works for healing and attack items).
Now, I've also made adjustments to the damage calculation formula, so when Avon uses the Item command, the Damage/Healing output is equal to (Normal Damage/Healing output * Avon's Level) / 10; and when he uses the Salve command, the Damage/Healing output is equal to (Normal Damage/Healing output * Avon's Level) / 4, then the result is divided among the entire target party. This allows Avon to keep Cure1 potions somewhat relevant for most of the early portion of the game, keep Cure2 potions relevant for at least the first half of the game, and keep Cure3 potions a viable option for pretty much the whole game (they heal one character for 9999 beginning at level 58 or so).
For those interested in seeing how it all works, when the regular damage formula would load the damage into the X register, TfW will instead run the following subroutine:
$20/8000 AD 81 26 LDA $2681 [$00:2681] Load user's ID
$20/8003 29 0F AND #$0F
$20/8005 C9 04 CMP #$04 Is it Avon?
$20/8007 F0 05 BEQ $05 [$800E] If it IS Avon, skip to 800E
---------------------------------------------
$20/8009 7B TDC
$20/800A AE 41 39 LDX $3941 [$00:3941]
$20/800D 6B RTL Otherwise use normal damage/healing output
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
$20/800E AD 42 39 LDA $3942 [$00:3942] Load upper byte of Damage/Healing output
$20/8011 30 07 BMI $07 [$801A] If bit 7 is set, skip to 801A*
$20/8013 09 80 ORA #$80
$20/8015 8D 42 39 STA $3942 [$00:3942] Otherwise set bit 7*
$20/8018 80 EF BRA $EF [$8009] And jump back to 8009
---------------------------------------------
$20/801A AD 42 39 LDA $3942 [$00:3942] Load upper byte of Damage/Healing output
$20/801D 29 7F AND #$7F
$20/801F 8D 42 39 STA $3942 [$00:3942] Clear bit 7*
$20/8022 AD D1 26 LDA $26D1 [$00:26D1] Load Avon's Command used
$20/8025 C9 0A CMP #$0A Is it Salve?
$20/8027 F0 09 BEQ $09 [$8032] If so skip to 8032
$20/8029 C9 01 CMP #$01 Is it Item?
$20/802B D0 DC BNE $DC [$8009] If not jump back to 8009
---------------------------------------------
$20/802D A2 0A 00 LDX #$000A Load 000A into X
$20/8030 80 03 BRA $03 [$8035] Skip to 8035
---------------------------------------------
$20/8032 A2 04 00 LDX #$0004 Load 0004 into X
---------------------------------------------
$20/8035 AD 82 26 LDA $2682 [$00:2682] Load Avon's Level
$20/8038 85 E8 STA $E8 [$00:06E8] Store in E8
$20/803A C2 20 REP #$20
$20/803C AD 41 39 LDA $3941 [$00:3941] Load Damage/Healing output
$20/803F 20 5D 80 JSR $805D [$00:805D] E8 (2-byte) = Avon's Level * Damage/Healing output
$20/8042 A5 E8 LDA $E8 [$00:06E8] Load result
$20/8044 20 7C 80 JSR $807C [$00:807C] Divide by X
$20/8047 AA TAX Transfer result to X
$20/8048 7B TDC Clear A
$20/8049 E2 20 SEP #$20 Set A to 8-bits
$20/804B 6B RTL End
*NOTE: For some reason, this subroutine always runs twice - playing with the uppermost bit here (which isn't set for healing until after the routine runs) keeps the calculations from running twice.
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Genius idea, chillyfeez-san! That would also make a perfect chemist class. I wonder if it's possible to have items usable to this character exclusively. Like how it works in FF3j. (If I am remembering that right... might also be FF5?)
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That's kind of a fun idea, actually, Swordmaster.
There certainly are a lot of usable items in the game that I was planning on just leaving out, but maybe I can use them that way.
I think when I was writing the Salve command I came across the part of the code that determines usability of items in the inventory. I could probably put in a check for user:Avon for a specified range and make that a possibility.
I don't think I'll do that now, but it will likely be something I'll look into down the road.
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I know I've been gone for a very long time, but I stop in from time to time to see progress. That you managed to expand the rom while not breaking all of the tools in the progress is very impressive and I am really glad to see that you plan on using this new space in your next updates. I likely won't be able to help at all in the foreseeable future (job+college...), but I do enjoy seeing the progress made.
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Nice to hear from you anyway, Grimoire.
A lot of the credit goes to Pinkpuff for making me a hacked version of FF4kster that skips the ROM size check at startup.
Progress is slow but steady on the overall project. You know me, I see somebody looking for ASM hacking help in their own FFIV project and I'm like, "Ooooh, me! Me! I can do that!" and before you know it I've spent the week not working on my own stuff. I maintain that it's for the greater good, though, as it a) allows other people to make quality FFIV hacks thus keeping the game itself relevant in the hacking community and b) keeps my own idea engine fresh so that whenever I finally finish this thing I'll be proud of what I've created.
And then there's the stuff I have to do simply to keep everything organized, like this:
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/AI%20Spreadsheet.jpg)
This spreadsheet keeps track of all of the AI indices, conditions and scripts I've used already and allows me to type in a number at the top of the appropriate column and returns a number in a bright red box representing how many times that number appears in that column, because too many times now I've put monster AI all together only to find out later that I accidentally wrote over that of a different monster. This will help me keep all of that straight, but also that was my whole day yesterday.
:bored:
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I'm glad that PinkPuff agreed to make a custom build, because this will give you so much freedom and skip dealing with trivial things like "how much space I have" or "where to allocate something".
chillyfeez I will be glad to help you, but let me be clear what can be in your disposal:
- I know nothing about FF4 (hopefully some of the things are similar to FF5)
- I'm not art person - graphics, music, level design, story,..
- I can read code, but writing is meh (I was fluent in the past on 6502, but haven't done this in years)
- I can make utilities (applications) for Windows, that can help do things - like automating tasks, prototyping (a model of what can become real feature in the project), ... Things here are limited only by imagination :D
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Wow, squall, I think that could be awesome.
Most of those things you said you can't/don't do I have no need for anyway.
Regarding utilities: one thing comes to mind that I always wished I had...
A few years ago I spent some time studying the music engine and I learned, mostly, how to write custom songs. Now, I'm no Uematsu, not by a long shot but if you've played any of the TfW demos, or have paid close attention to the stuff I've posted here before, then you know I have written two songs that are in the game.
I'd like to put more new music into the game - a combination of original pieces and at least one ported in from FFVI, but the process takes FOREVER.
What I'm getting at is, if you could make a utility that either
A) works like a midi sequencer, but generates output in FFIV's SPC format,
or
B) converts existing midi files into FFIV's SPC format
that would be absolutely amazing.
I can provide documentation of my research of the game's music engine. I'm typing this on my tablet, but after I post I'll move to the computer and attach the file.
:edit: file attached
Each SPC sequence has the following components:
-song header (mostly info about where each track starts)
-track headers (info at the beginning of each track that determines instrument, starting octave, tempo, various other stuff)
-the actual notes themselves
I'd primarily be looking for something that can convert the notes to the right format - that's what takes the longest - but if you think you could make something that automates the whole process, even better. And I think I'd actually prefer something that generates its own file that I could copy and paste into the ROM via hex editor. That way I wouldn't have to worry about the length of the song until it was fully written.
If I'm completely off base about what you were offering, by the way, that's fine. This was going to be a quick reply that obviously turned into something really long.
:blush:
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Hey chillyfeez, that is exactly what I was offering, that I could be most useful :D
Just to be sure that we are on the same page, you need a tool that:
- easily enter the music data (notes and all commands)
- uses couple of tracks for above
- export data in a raw SPC700 format
- (optional) if possible, play the music, to test before using it in a ROM
- (optional) writing the output directly to FF4 ROM (no need for copy/paste, hex editors,..)
- (optional) import of data from FF4 ROM
In order to accomplish the goals, I need:
- what format commands will use? Obviously notes will use the simple forms like, C, C#,... What about the rest? (table with all 256 commands)
- how do you imagine the tracks go? - horizontally or vertically? Most editors that I have seen use vertical flow, but horizontal seems more natural
- exact specification of what to be exported and what format
- playing music would require external program. That would mean export in SPC file format. Can you find the spec of that format?
Since you are very creative person, if you have in mind a design of how the application would look, please draw a simple outline
P.S. Since we probably will have many things to settle in the beginning, maybe it will be easier to use a chat-like means. If so details on PM please :)
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Hey chillyfeez, that is exactly what I was offering, that I could be most useful :D
Yay! :happy:
Just to be sure that we are on the same page, you need a tool that:
- easily enter the music data (notes and all commands)
Yup
- uses couple of tracks for above
Not quite sure what you mean by that?
- export data in a raw SPC700 format
- (optional) if possible, play the music, to test before using it in a ROM
- (optional) writing the output directly to FF4 ROM (no need for copy/paste, hex editors,..)
- (optional) import of data from FF4 ROM
Yup, as long as those things seem possible
In order to accomplish the goals, I need:
- what format commands will use? Obviously notes will use the simple forms like, C, C#,... What about the rest? (table with all 256 commands)
- how do you imagine the tracks go? - horizontally or vertically? Most editors that I have seen use vertical flow, but horizontal seems more natural
- exact specification of what to be exported and what format
Let me get some stuff together to answer these questions. I think I can cut some of the fluff out of that document and turn it into a list of what would actually need to be used and put together a bit of a concept of how.
That all might take me some time, so if I don't do it quickly, it's not because I've forgotten. ;)
- playing music would require external program. That would mean export in SPC file format. Can you find the spec of that format?
Honestly, I wouldn't know where to start looking. The only experience I have with video game music is hacking songs in FFIV. I know Geiger's has an SPC dump option, but I've never even tried using it. But previewing music would just be an extra bonus feature anyway, so maybe we can come back to this at a later date...
Since you are very creative person, if you have in mind a design of how the application would look, please draw a simple outline
I'll think about that a bit...
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Let me get some stuff together to answer these questions. I think I can cut some of the fluff out of that document and turn it into a list of what would actually need to be used and put together a bit of a concept of how.
I'm not sure what is your experience with that sort of things, but let me share mine and hopefully it will be useful for you:
In the past programs similar to what you want to create were called Trackers - Mod Tracker, Impulse Tracker, Scream Tracker:
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/55qkDX7y9Ic/maxresdefault.jpg)
They all share the base idea - you have instruments & a script of the song. Instruments have their info (name, who made the sample,..) and the samples. The script (I dont know a better word) of the song consist of notes & commands arranged in tracks. Then they were grouped in chunks called patterns. And there was info what pattern on what channel to play.
From what I see our task would be a simplified version:
- we need to have list of instruments names, but the rest is 'embedded' in FF4
- the main focus will be on the 'script' part - we will have up to 8 tracks, no patterns. For each track we will enter notes or commands. Thats why we need a table of how commands will be entered. Also as you can see on the picture, the flow is vertical
- initially we will have no Play, no nice graphics effects. But if we want to do it later on we will have to extract samples from FF4.
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That pic reminds me of a DOS program I played around with way back in the day. I think it was called Cubic Player. It made midi files sound really awesome. That was way before mp3s. Although I remember downloading mp2s around that time. ...I feel old now.
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Hehe, I was downloading MOD, ST3, IT, XM, ... files. They were much shorter then mp3 with much worst quality. :D
BTW what was your first PC you used Swordmaster?
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I don't know what's more awesome - the fact you now have an absurd amount of wiggle room to do what you want, or the fact there might possibly be an FFIV music hacking tool down the line!
Well, I'm a little more excited about the music tool given how tedious it is to do that by hand (I've tried a number of times but failed horribly outside of changing tempos and instrument selections), but still! Amazing progress all around I'd say!
Also, if you still wanted to use your "change disc" art screen idea, you could always implement it as a "Part 2" chapter screen with some background art showing some epic scene from Part 2, or Part 3 respectively whenever the routine to swap data occurs (that is, if the data swaps are 1 time occurrences after pivotal points in the story)
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Hehe, I was downloading MOD, ST3, IT, XM, ... files. They were much shorter then mp3 with much worst quality. :D
BTW what was your first PC you used Swordmaster?
I remember those! I found a lot of them on rpgamer.com, back in its early days. It used to be called "The Unofficial Squaresoft Homepage". And, they sounded much better than just plain old midi files.
My first PC was a 486 SX, 300MB hard drive, 24MB of RAM (a lot at the time), an impossibly heavy full tower case, and only MSDOS. I later borrowed a Windows 3.11 disk to install, but the knowledge I gained from playing around with DOS (mostly trying to get games to work) was invaluable. What about you?
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I had a Tandy 1000 back in the 80s. I think I got it in '88.
It had MS DOS, but it also had this special Tandy GUI which was like a low-res version of windows.
Anyway, back on topic...
Squall, this is a mock-up of what I envision the UI to look like:
(http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/22/01/115500122/photos/undefined/MusicEditorUI.jpg)
The "song info" is a few commands that are always at the beginning of track 1.
Track info, with the exception of the track number, appears at the beginning of every track.
Aside from loops and GoTos, that would really be all the commands needed, as pretty much everything else doesn't really do anything as far as I can tell, or at least not anything useful.
I imagine the track # to be a drop-down box, where the user selects a track, and the program changes what's being displayed as appropriate.
In a perfect world, "view as" would also be a drop-down, and the user could select anything between 1/64 and 1.
The red bars represent notes being played on the track, and their length represents the duration of each note. Empty space would be automatically filled by rests of the appropriate duration.
The viewable field would be one octave, but the user would be able to scroll up or down into different octaves (and the program would insert octave up/octavbe down commands as needed).
Somehow notation would need to be available for loop points. I don't know exactly what that would look like - maybe a blue bar marking the beginning of a loop and a green marking the end? But there would also have to be a way of telling the program how many times to loop (as this is done with every loop point).
The GoTos would also require some figuring out. Since they really are used primarily to determine if the track repreats or not, I guess there could be another box in track info that says "Repeat to" and then the user enters a measure and beat into the field, leaving it blank for "no repeat."
I don't know... Does that seem like something that could be done?
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My first PC was a 486 SX, 300MB hard drive, 24MB of RAM (a lot at the time), an impossibly heavy full tower case, and only MSDOS. I later borrowed a Windows 3.11 disk to install, but the knowledge I gained from playing around with DOS (mostly trying to get games to work) was invaluable. What about you?
Whoah, what a coincidence, the first PC that I bought was 486SX too :wink: 486DX was so expensive compare to SX ... probably like i5 vs i7 today. Regardless I was able to play DOOM 2. I was thinking: whoah it so realistic (sweat memories) ... Thats funny because few days ago I finished Doom2016 and you can play the Doom2 inside and I was thinking: How much graphics had improved over the years...
Squall, this is a mock-up of what I envision the UI to look like:
Hehe, I said you are very creative person and you didn't disappoint me :whoa: very clean, intuitive, stylish! I wish you work for us and make the design for new projects :D
Unfortunately, there are few problems that I have to address:
- as far as I understood, the game allows you to mix commands and notes. This design would allow only a 'header' with commands and then notes only. I'm not musician, but I guess you may want to change the volume, tempo,... during the song
- changing octaves would require to 'record' when they are changed. That is a source of numerous edit problems - when you shift is it after the last entered note or you have to add some sort of markers of where the change starts. Also when generating the hex, what commands should I use - relative (E1/E2) or absolute (DA)
- what you see on screen is very small fraction of the song. For real songs I guess that will be enormous scrolling left and right, which is very tiresome for the eye and concentration. Add to that octave change visualization ...
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Also, how do you distinguish a note that's held for four units of time from four notes each played for one unit of time in rapid succession? Like a whole note versus four quarter notes (all the same note/pitch) with no rests in between?
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I was working today, to make a prototype of the core functionality of the tool:
(http://www.bwass.org/bucket/FF_SPC - Screenshot.png)
It uses text based input in order to generate the data for SPC. Idea is simple - each line is a command (or note) with appropriate number of parameters. For now the numbers are decimal, but I can easily change that. So far I have implemented all commands up to $E2 and $F0 and $F2. To most of the commands I have used appropriate name, but some I left without, so instead of name you can just enter the hex number of it - like D4. Actually I added a hint of named commands and those that I left unnamed.
How it works:
You may enter a single command and hit [Enter] or 'ADD'. In 'Track preview' you will see how that will be visualized and in 'Hex Preview' you can see the raw dump of what each command will generate.
I even added a 'script' of a song - each line is a command with the same syntax, but I have added an extra command - comment '//'. If you hit 'COMPILE' you will see the whole script as it will be visualized and the raw dump of the whole script.
Improvements:
As I said this is just a prototype - to show a possible way to enter commands, one way of visualization and possible raw (hex dump). There is room for many improvments. Please download and play with the tool and share you thoughts.
Download Application (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9eDezdHI7RWZXc2cjQxM3Z2M3c/view?usp=sharing)
P.S. chillyfeez do you think its better to make a new thread about that tool or you prefer to stay here?
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I have a fair amount to contribute to this discussion, but I don't have the time right now.
But great to see that you got something going already, Squall!
Yeah, there should probably be a unique thread for this utility at this point.
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I have a fair amount to contribute to this discussion, but I don't have the time right now.
I'm eager to hear what you think after playing with the tool for a while. That is true for everybody that keep an eye on the thread.
TBH as I said I'm not art person, but while coding this tool today, suddenly a music spark made me want to put couple of notes of one of the two songs I can play on piano. Unfortunately the tool disability to play it clouded the spark :D
Anyway I will be away in next 4 days. I hope in mean time there will be plenty of comments and suggestions. So in Monday if we have a clean vision of what to do, a new dedicated thread will emerge.
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Just quick update:
Although there is no new info here, we worked hard with chillyfeez to define project parameters. All the latest you can find in a new dedicated thread on the music editor - click (http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,22795.0.html)
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Is this game completed yet and if not has there been any new updates since the part where you are at Kapio?
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The game is definitely not complete. The most recent alpha release technically ends at the end of the watery pass, but if you've been to kaipo then you've played that release.
I haven't quit working on it, but admittedly it's been a bit of a while since I've done work on it. Production typically slows in late fall/early winter because I work retail, but I sort of am experiencing a shortage of inspiration. Or motivation. Or something, I'm not sure. I will get back to it, hopefully soon, and I'll let you know here when I do.
The next "chapter" sees the party travel to damcyan, then the antlion cave, then all the way back to baron on foot, so there's a lot to write, and it's about half done at this point.
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Hi everybody.
Yeah, so... Been awhile.
I've taken possibly more than a year off from ROM hacking. I got somewhat obsessed with stupid Final Fantasy freemium mobile games for a bit, but I'm pretty sure that phase is over.
Anyway, I'm ready to get back into this.
I have a l.o.t. of work to do. I tried to play through my most recent WIP ROM a while ago and am less than happy with the difficulty level.
As you may know if you'd been following the project, the idea is that the game would play out differently depending on the player's decisions during certain "epic choice" events, but the idea was that it should still be playable regardless of the choice. Well, (spoiler alert, sorta) I discovered that the Kraken tentacle fight (on the ship after Mysidia) is damn near impossible without Palom and Porom in the party. And that's a big problem. Big enough that I'm considering COMPLETELY reworking the monster level-up system, or even getting rid of it entirely if I can't make it work the way I'd like it to. The ROM expansion I was able to employ thanks to the custom version of FF4kster PinkPuff made for me gives me the freedom to either rework the system (even as in-depth as giving every monster several sets of stats depending on the average party level... Possible though not preferable as this would take a really long time to implement), or still play with the difficulty in all areas throughout the game depending on progress (making different encounter sets in the same locations will be pretty simple with the wealth of space I've acquired by expanding the ROM). Regardless of how I procede, though, this process will be pretty intense.
Good news, I finally figured out how I'm going to work through a pretty big plot point that had been giving me fits for a while, which will enable me to continue fleshing out the story progression. Unfortunately, the game is going to force the player to traverse back and forth through the Highwind Pass and the Watery Pass three times in a row, which may inspire flashbacks of (IMHO) the worst part about playing TAY, but the experience should differ slightly each time because the party will never be the same... I can't go into much detail there. Hopefully it doesn't get too monotonous, but what comes after that should hopefully be rewarding enough that it feels worth it in the end. Sorry for being vague...
Anyway, long story short - I think I'm back and I'm excited to get to work!
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YES YES GET RID OF THE MONSTER LEVEL UP SYSTEM KILL IT!!!!
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Well, even if I do get rid of it, Max, I'd still put an anti-cheating device into the ROM, so don't get your hopes up too high.
:laugh:
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Good to have you back! Though I myself am too swamped right now to do much hacking...
I'll second the suggestion to drop monster level scaling - I've never seen any such system that wasn't broken in some way, or else made leveling up pointless. Even making Agility (or even all five main stats) independent of level would be a neater solution.
edit: I do like the idea of multiple encounter sets for the same area. Wizardry 8 did something similar, where each area had a minimum and maximum level based on the party's average level, and would scale the encounter compositions only within that range. So if an area had a level 12-15 range, the encounters wouldn't get any tougher for a party past level 15, nor any weaker for a party below 12.
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Well, I disagree with the notion that it hasn't ever been done right. For all its faults (and there were many), I thought FFVIII nailed it. The monsters scaled appropriately to the party's level, and higher level monsters yielded higher level magics, so grinding wasn't pointless at all.
But that being said, my system definitely did not nail it.
You raise an interesting idea though, Kea. I was thinking of using different encounter sets based on story progress, but based on party level is a fun idea, too. It's something to think about, for sure.
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Anyway, long story short - I think I'm back and I'm excited to get to work!
Heeeyyyy chillyfeez, welcome back!!!
I'm glad that PinkPuff made a modification so you can expand the ROM. That will open a whole new universe of things you can do!
Edit:
Which game did you play for a year?
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Thanks, Squall!
I got into FFRK about two years ago, but I managed to successfully balance that with some hacking still. Then I got into FFBE, which really had me hooked at first because it presents itself more as a linear, plot driven game. But for the last couple of months, I found that I was much more interested in pulling new characters and wasting LOTS of time trying to (but usually failing) get the best ones. So I went on a two week vacation in October and had limited access to wifi at the time, and therefore didn't get to play. When I got back home, I realized that I really didn't miss being able to play FFBE, so that was that.
Anywho, I just finished removing the Monster level-up system from TfW. It was a pretty tedious process, but now that's all done. Of course, now I have to adjust all of the monsters in the game to an appropriate difficulty level. Many of them had their base stats turned WAY down because it was assumed that the player's level would be higher, so they would in turn be stronger. This'll probably be a considerable process, because I'll have to actually play through each section of the game several times in order to make the proper adjustments. Some of them - like Imps for example - I can probably just copy the stats from Vanilla, but there are a lot of monsters that I created from the ground up that will take more work.
Meanwhile, now that I'm back into the swing of things, my mind (as it does) keeps wandering into other innovations I'd like to try. I've long had this dream of completely hacking the Namingway routine to change it into a "PHS" (to borrow the term from FFVII) system. I imagine this would be extraordinarily complicated, but at the same time it could be a really fun exercise. No promises that I'll make any significant headway with that little diversion anytime soon, but the more I think about it the more infectious the idea becomes.
:hmm:
:cycle:
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Hehe I 've played FFBE before, then stopped because its too demanding. Recently I started again but with slow paste :) Funny this week is FF4 but I think only monsters from it ... Currently I hit rank 60 with Lightning, Refia, Luneth, Cecil, Dark Fina and Exdeath as my top chars (I stopped when Dark Fina debuted). What about you?
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Yeah, I still get the Facebook notifications, so I know they're doing the four fiends from FFIV. I'm fighting the urge to play again.
I think I stopped at rank 112 or so.
I have Orlandeau and Dark Fina (both serendipitous pulls) as probably my top two. But I also have several other 5* bases, including Emperor (from FF1? Or 2? Or 3?) And Mercenary Ramza and Lightning. I have three or four Veritas of the Earth and a couple other 4* base Veritas (earth is the only one I use). I have two Agriases with leveled-up abilities so I can super-chain with Orlandeau...
Like I said, I was spending WAY too much time playing the dang thing.
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Rank 112 ... woah you really did spent sometime with the game :D
I just hope you didn't spend money on it too :P
Ahh Orlandeau ... like 2-3 months before I stopped, there was constantly: Orlandeau is coming ... SOON. He is the OP on JP. ou should consider yourself lucky ... Before Orlandeau, Noctis was the last OP, I tried so hard to get it without luck :(
Anyway is it ok to add me as friend? My ID is 130.643.482, nick Squall. I could use a well developed char :laugh:
BTW I play on PC trough Nox, not on phone or real Android device, but that should not be a problem.
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Yeah, I'll add you. I don't play anymore, so I won't be changing my party leader in order to best fit the events. Who do you want me to have up, Orlandeau?
My username is "c.feez."
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Whoever is the most developed :D
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OK, done. I'll keep Orlandeau up. He's overall probably more useful than Dark Fina. My Dark Fina is probably stronger relative to the field of Dark Finas out there than My Orlandeau is, but his 943 attack power is still awesome enough in most situations.
Oh, and I'm rank 120, BTW. Better than I thought.
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All done, TYVM chillyfeez!
952 Attack - very impressive! Personally I don't see why it was consider OP - no AoE, no upgradable skills.
P.S. Do you keep your account in Telegram? I tryed to reach you there (so we don't flood this thread) but it says: Deleted Account
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All done, TYVM chillyfeez!
952 Attack - very impressive! Personally I don't see why it was consider OP - no AoE, no upgradable skills.
He has a very high base power, can use both Katanas and Large Swords (which generally have the highest attack power, as well as +50% attack power abilities that are pretty easy to acquire), and his most powerful move reduces the opponent's light resistance, which couples well with the easily-obtained Excalibur.
He doesn't have an AoE move, but for the toughest bosses AoE tends to be overrated, and if you need AoE his limit skill is, and he has an innate high tide. He's also a capable stat debuffer, especially if you got his Crush Helm during his debut event.
P.S. Do you keep your account in Telegram? I tryed to reach you there (so we don't flood this thread) but it says: Deleted Account
I didn't delete it, but I only ever used it to communicate with you, so if they delete unused accounts, that might have happened. I'll look into it at some point soon.
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The more I play through TfW, the more I get bothered by the ally hiring system.
The original idea was that by the time the player is able to visit all hiring locations freely, there would be incentive to change allies every once in a while - even if just to keep things fresh. The problem with that, though, is that the starting level of these allies would be prohibitive of this practice. Why would I want to hire a lv 15 ninja when I've spent all this time getting my black mage up to lv 60?
So I thought of a relatively easy solution to this issue - make the hired ally start at a level that is appropriate based on the player's progress. With my expanded ROM, I have plenty of space to construct a starting stat table for every hireable character.
The only part of this I'm hung up on is how to determine the starting level of the hired ally. I'd welcome input from anyone reading this...
1) match (or base upon) Furio's level
2) match (or base upon) average party level
3) base entirely upon game/story progress
4) some other way I haven't considered
5) match the level of the hired ally currently in the party, unless there is no current hired ally, in which case fall back on another of option 1-4.
Neither 1, 2 or 3 is perfect. 1) stands to be abused - player could kill off all other characters, grind Furio way up, then hire a super ally. 2) gets dicey specifically when Rydia is in the party, as she joins at level 50. 3) stands to punish the player needlessly for grinding. 5) is probably the best, but it's also the biggest pain to program, and then I'd still have to figure out which method to fall back on if there is no current hired ally.
Any thoughts?
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As a regular player - I would prefer 2. It will be natural thing from my current experience.
Just in general thoughts:
- abusing things is OK. To abuse - you must understand well how things works and order them for your benefits. The fact that you understand and are clever enough to use in your advantage is enough for me to be rewarded with some easy tricks.
- 5 is easily abused as 1
- 3 and 5 seems too complicate to make any justice to program.
- a possible 4: variations of 2 - get the highest or the lowest level of the party
My personal advice - pick one that is easy to make (luckily 2 seems simple enough). When all things are done and you still think: "this is a wrong" - implement another option, just don't stop and waste time for it (now) :D
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My personal advice - pick one that is easy to make (luckily 2 seems simple enough). When all things are done and you still think: "this is a wrong" - implement another option, just don't stop and waste time for it (now) :D
You're right - I'm over-thinking the matter. Just pick a way and if it doesn't seem right down the road, fix it then.
Thanks!
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Hey chillyfeez, since you can expand the ROM now, and the first post seems outdated, maybe some kind of update info will give more light on whats going on :D
- What is your goal (of the project)
- What is current state
- What are you working atm...
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Sure, okay...
So the story concept hasn't ever changed. There were details - how to get from Major Plot Point A to B - that I didn't plan ahead of time. I actually think the dialogue ends up better and more natural because of this. When I'm writing a scene, I know the gyst of what's going to happen, but all of the actual lines are written on the fly. The downside to that, though, was that I was maxing out quickly on dialogue space. That's the big problem that was resolved by expanding the ROM, but I didn't need an entire extra MB of ROM for dialogue, so I sat down and figured out which other sections of data could benefit from periodic refreshment. The following sets of data will change over a few times in the game depending on story progress (a flag in RAM will be set that tells the ROM to now reference an entirely separate location in ROM for the data in question):
-Dialogue bank 1 (including pointers)
-Dialogue bank 2 (including pointers)
-Dialogue bank 3 (including pointers)
-Event data
-Trigger data (meaning some chests will contain different treasures depending on when they're opened, like in FFVI)
But I'm also toying with some other ideas...
-now that I've done away with the relative monster scaling, another possibility could be different sets of monster data. So (for example), Imps don't ever get to be super-powerful, but maybe they get a few hundred more HP and an attack that can deal a couple hundred HP damage. I could also have the Exp tables change at the same time.
-I might create a second set of location map data, so that towns might be slightly different when you revisit them. I'm not exactly sure how I would use this, but it creates a lot of possibilities.
-This is a new but very intriguing idea - I have the ability to create separate sets of character starting data and even image data. Originally, Rydia was going to be the only temporary playable character, but by doing this I could include, say, Luca and Cuore as temporary characters as well (both were planned into the story, but only as NPCs)
I haven't actually gotten back to working on story progression yet. Before I get to that I have to rebalance all of the existing monsters in the game thus far, since their stats will be static now. As far as the story's progress, I'm actually pretty close to a place that could be a stopping point for the end of a chapter, so depending on how long it takes me to get through the rebalancing it's possible I'll be able to roll out another release pretty soon.
I don't get to work on the project as frequently as I was a couple of years ago. I got a promotion at work this year, which means my work schedule is more similar to that of normal people's jobs (it's still big box retail, though, so still not anything close to 9-5 M-F). What that means for my life, though, is that I get to hang out with my wife more, but I am alone in the house less, and alone in the house is when I do most of my serious ROM hacking. Rest assured, though, I am still committed to this project.
Since my brain always seems to need a hacking side-gig, though, I've also been researching the workings of the Namingway screen. I think there really is a possibility that I could hack it into a PHS system. I really have no idea what I would do with that, but I feel like it might be a fun patch to release to the world for other people to use in their own hacks, maybe. I donno, maybe I could find a use for it in TfW, too. I do plan on having a fair amount of final party fluidity for the player. We'll see, I guess...
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I might create a second set of location map data, so that towns might be slightly different when you revisit them. I'm not exactly sure how I would use this, but it creates a lot of possibilities
Yes, while reading what you try to accomplish, I think that way will be easiest, yet giving you much more freedom. The reason for that is:
- you don't need code to change things on the fly.
- also changing with code could be quite limiting too (from authors perspective), because you must code to see the results. Its like creating a picture on the fly - its always easier, convenient and better to paint it with a good edit tool :)
- if you need more the 2 periods, you can use more then 1 copy
FF5 uses this trick for places that permanently change - like meteor hitting an island and it vanish - 2 different maps with before and after meteor's hit.
P.S. What is 'Namingway screen'?
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The 'namingway screen' is the ffiv character name change system. In order to change Cecil's name to (the much-more appropriate) "Fart," you talk to Namingway, and a new screen opens up in which you select which character to rename, then input the new name.
Since name changing in FF games is a fun but ultimately useless luxury (either partially or completely removed from all games past IX), I've had a dream about replacing it with a system that allows easy party changes. I'm not sure if you were around in this community yet a few years ago when I was working on a "shadow party hack" that would allow the game to save the data of all characters that leave the game (instead of only having five slots for character saving), but it was something I worked on for a long while. I had gotten it to work, but I was never really fully happy with it, which is why it's not implemented in TfW (same reason the dash toggle from User Options isn't used). Part of the reason I wasn't happy with it is that the system it uses to control level growth when characters are not in the party is enormously complicated and doesn't work properly 100% of the time (if a character is supposed to gain 90 levels while not in the party, sometimes they'll only come back having gained 80 levels,but then they level up ten times after their first battle, which feels hacky). But the other "problem" was that even with free access to all of the characters, there was no system for easy swapping in and out. I think Grimoire LD had tried a system in which all of the characters hang out in the Big Whale after the Giant of Bab-il and you added and removed each one by talking to them. But again, after much more streamlined systems in all titles beyond V, this lacks the user-friendliness you want in a good mod.
So... That's what I've been playing around with.
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Woah, glad to see you back, Chillyfeez! Nice to hear you're still making progress on TFW.
Since my brain always seems to need a hacking side-gig, though, I've also been researching the workings of the Namingway screen. I think there really is a possibility that I could hack it into a PHS system.
Aaaand my mind's been blown within 5 minutes of checking in on this forum for the first time in what feels like ages.
But the other "problem" was that even with free access to all of the characters, there was no system for easy swapping in and out. I think Grimoire LD had tried a system in which all of the characters hang out in the Big Whale after the Giant of Bab-il and you added and removed each one by talking to them. But again, after much more streamlined systems in all titles beyond V, this lacks the user-friendliness you want in a good mod.
Yeah, recycling the Namingway screen sounds a LOT more streamlined. I went the Grimoire route, then tweaked the save point event to the allow the player to transfer to a map where all the npc's chill, sort of like the End of Time in Chrono Trigger. Currently it uses:
*12 events, for 11 characters plus an event for dumping your party for changing characters and solo Cecil runs
*11 NPCs
*11+ flags, to control which characters are available for swapping
*5 MORE flags, to attempt tracking how many characters are currently in your party
*Extreme abuse of the conditional branch mod :yabin:
So many dancers were harmed in the making of that setup.. :sleep:
Speaking of the Shadow party mod, the other day I realized that editing a character's starting stats and/or stat gains in FF4kster resets their shadow slot to it's original, vanilla counterpart. Do you happen to have any notes on where the shadow slots are set so I can manually fix the pointers via hex editor?
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Hey, BZ!
From the online Final Fantasy 4 Reference Book (http://rb.thundaga.com):
Shadow Party Data (http://rb.thundaga.com/chars/shadow_party.txt)
I still have a lot of research to do before I can start actually hacking the Namingway screen - I figured out how to remove the alphabet from the entry box, but that's the easy part. Now I have to research the regular menu screen to figure out how character portraits are drawn. Since I don't really know much about graphics processing, this will be a much longer process and will involve a lot of trial-and-error assembly copying. Once I get that down, though, I'm pretty confident I can get the actual character switching process coded pretty easily, though I'm not sure how much ROM space will be needed for all of it. Anyway, once I have something worth actually showing off, I'll start a dedicated thread for that.
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Sheesh... Spent all morning sifting through graphics code trying to find useful nuggets. I forgot how complicated this crap is...
Maybe I should table the PHS idea for a bit...
:lame:
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Indeed, sometimes too complicated :D
I wonder, since you are going to work intensively with graphic, do you know the Prerequisites (http://slickproductions.org/slickwiki/index.php/Squall:FF5_Monster_Graphics) ?
I know it may sound awkward, but if you know the basics, then you can more easily understand the code. If not don't hesitate to ask questions.
It took me couple of days reading SNES PPU's document, reading examples, before I can say I know all the Prerequisites. The truth is, if it wasn't for a simple explanation of samurai_goroh on how palettes were stored internally it could take me loooong time ... Its really crucial to understand how things work internally, then you will understand why the ASM code looks so complicated :)
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Oh, so you understand this to some extent, Squall?
I definitely don't have a working knowledge of most of the things listed there.
The only document I've ever found about SNES graphics is this one (https://emu-docs.org/Super%20NES/General/snesdoc.html), and I'm pretty sure the author of that assumes some base knowledge that I do not have.
I'm not against reading up in order to learn what I need to know, but if you could direct me to the proper resources, that would be awesome.
:edit:
Looking again at that document I linked... I think it probably has a lot of useful information, but what it lacks (that I need in order to understand) is concrete examples. I'm sure I could learn how this stuff works if someone demonstrated for me.
:blits:
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I'm not against reading up in order to learn what I need to know, but if you could direct me to the proper resources, that would be awesome.
This document is good. The problem is (as with most of the documents I've read) it is good to use as reference (Help) rather step by step tutorial.
OK lets forget all technical details and start from a scratch:
I. Mode
Modern or old all graphic system use a mode in which to display whatever we see on the screen. Some cards have only 1 mode, but most, more then 1. Think of SNES PPU as a graphic card that you plug in your computer.
1. So what is a video mode? Its a sum of number of characteristics:
- Resolution: usually defined in pixels - how long and wide is our screen (in pixels)
- Max number of colors that could be simultaneously seen on the screen
- BPP: Bits per pixels - how many bits we need to define the color of the screen
- Video Memory: the mode dictate how to interpret the memory in order to compose the screen
- many other things like layers, buffers, graphical objects (like Sprites), ...
2. Types of Modes:
2.1. Depend on how video memory is interpreted.
- Bit-planes - the video memory contain the color for each pixel. Modern cards use primary 1 plane of bits, which is very easy to ASM. Unfortunately almost all of the old cards use more then 1 plane to organize bits for a pixels. I'm sure there was a hardware need for that, but its quite complicated to manage this in ASM. For now I'm not going to delve in this, but will mention that SNES uses 4 planes.
- Tile based - the main video memory contain index of a tile rather raw pixels. That s pretty much as text mode in DOS/Linux - the video memory contain ASCII (or other pages) index of letters and there is a separate place that hold the definition of each letter. In SNES is the same but is called Tile.
2.2. Depending on how color is stored:
- True Color - each color contain the necessary bits for R/G/B components. In SNES its 5-5-5 - meaning 5 bits for each component
- Palette based - each color is an index into predefined palette of colors (defined in their absolute RGB value)
:edit:
3 OK that was theory, what about some examples?
Mode is more abstract, so not many operation could be done:
- We can set desired mode (0..7). Usually this is one of the first things in the initialization code.
- Normal resolution is 256x240 (PAL) or 256x224 (NTSC) with 50/60Hz. We can't set the frequency, but we can read it. We can set V resolution.
$2105 (W): bit 2-0 BG Screen Mode
$2133 (W): bit 2 - BG V-Direction Display (0=224 Lines, 1=239 Lines) (for NTSC/PAL)
$213F (R): bit 4 - Frame Rate (0=NTSC/60Hz, 1=PAL/50Hz)
* In SNES Mode 0-6 are all Tile based, Mode 7 is bit-planes. All modes use palettes to designate the color.
** For specifics like resolution and BPP better check documents.
So what do you think that for a start? Is it easy to chew or is too technical? Do we need to delve in more or thats enough? Next will be layer, palette, tile, ,...
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I think I understand that - on a conceptual basis, anyway. I'm not really sure how I apply that knowledge when writing ASM to actually display an image, but maybe you just haven't gotten to that part yet?
One question: when I'm working with a screen that already exists (in this case, the Namingway screen), which already contains visual elements that I ultimately want to keep (windows, some text, the 4BPP character battle sprites lined up along the top of the screen, the finger), is the current mode then already defined? Or do I need to define a different video mode for every different type (or layer?) Of image on screen? Or maybe I might have to set a different mode in order to display image data that didn't already exist in some form?
Wait - is it plausible that I could hack the code that normally is used to display the 32x32 Namingway image in order to display the character portraits that I want?
Maybe I should stop trying to find a quick fix and just sit back and digest your tutorial?
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is the current mode then already defined?
Yes, its defined. Pretty much if you see something on the screen - a mode is set. So if you want to use it and edit - you must find what mode that is. I had a tool - you make a save-state and then load it in that tool - it can tell you plenty of things about PPU.
But its not written in stone ... you can use another mode if you prefer, but most likely it will be a LOT of work.
Wait - is it plausible that I could hack the code that normally is used to display the 32x32 Namingway image in order to display the character portraits that I want?
Sure you can easily change the 32x32 image to whatever you want - you need to change the building tiles (that include palette, maybe some attributes)
I'm not really sure how I apply that knowledge when writing ASM to actually display an image, but maybe you just haven't gotten to that part yet?
Hehe displaying an image is the cherry of the cake, it require many things to know (take into account). We will come there ... soon :D
P.S. If I use terms that you not know, or you have some intuitive understanding - we can go in details.
As hacker you usually try to hack - edit things. But if you have the full picture in mind you can discard what have been done and make it from the scratch. This will give you all the freedom to do what you want the way you want it :D
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I researched the routine that "draws" Namingway a bit. Using the disassembly in conjunction with that document I was able to see how the routine enters the sprite (or "tile?") Data into VRAM, but I haven't found yet how it then takes that data and arranges it and places it on screen. This is important information for my purposes because:
A) even though Namingway and the portraits are both 32x32 pixels, Namingway seems to be an arrangement of four 16x16 tiles in a 2x2 formation
AABB
AABB
CCDD
CCDDand the portraits are a straight 32x32
AAAA
BBBB
CCCC
DDDDI'm probably using the wrong words, but hopefully those diagrams better explain what I mean.
B) that's not where I want my 32x32 images to appear, so I'll need to find and change the assembly that designates the x,y location of the image(s) in question.
Anyway, having you explain how it all works definitely will be helpful!
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Patience, patience my young padwan :D
OK since you are so eager ... its hard to tell is it a sprite or layer. If you see:
STA $2101 ; bits 5-7 contain the dimension of a sprite 1-mean 32x32 sprite build by 8x8 tiles
Then for sure it uses sprites. Keep in mind that regardless, you image 32x32 is build by 4x4 tiles, each 8x8 pixels, not 16x16 pixels
B) that's not where I want my 32x32 images to appear, so I'll need to find and change the assembly that designates the x,y location of the image(s) in question.
if you see instructions like STA $2118 - that is writing to video memory. If you see reading like LDA $2139 - that is reading from video. $2116 is the address in the video that you read/write. All addresses are 16 bit and are used to set/get values for small things. For large usually DMA/HDMA is used.
To change where X,Y you must convert X,Y in video memory address and then write it in $2116. If you want to change x+1, the address must be increased by 2. Also x+1 mean 8 pixels to the right :D
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Ok. There is only one instance of STA $2101 in the entire Namingway loading routine, but if I alter the value written to 2101 it messes up Namingway, the character battle sprites, and the finger cursor. So I guess that means those are all sprites (I was already pretty sure the characters and the finger were)?
To change where X,Y you must convert X,Y in video memory address and then write it in $2116. If you want to change x+1, the address must be increased by 2. Also x+1 mean 8 pixels to the right :D
Ok, so... The routine writes 4600 to $2116, and I can see the Namingway image data gets written to $8C00 (4600 * 2), but it doesn't seem like increasing that 4600 by 2 shifts the image to the right... is it definitely the value written to 2116 that I would need to change?
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Please don't alter the $2101, just read the value written there, particularly bits 5-7 (sets Sprite size).
Post the code here, so we can delve in details. Keep in mind that reading/writing to video could be auto-incremented. So even if you have initial value in the address ($2116), if you have some read/writes ($2118/$2139) after initialization and the code you are looking, the address has been already changed! Besides as I said the transfer could be done trough DMA/HDMA ... it all depends.
You know what? Lets do something else:
- Download vSNES (the tool I've talk about)
- Make sure you use zSNES as emulator. Load the ROM and when the namingway screen pops up - make a savestate
- Send me or attach here that savestate
* You can check for yourself many things in vSNES - like what mode you use, layers, tiles, sprites,...
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Hey, Squall - I made a new thread for this project (http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=2418.0). Let's continue the discussion there, OK?