Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[chillyfeez]

You mean Jinn... Haven't done the Shadow Dragon tutorial yet!

[Grimoire LD]

Yes, but the instructions for actually getting the... yeah you're right I meant Jinn. I think I jumped the gun on that one, hehe.

[Pinkpuff]

Ok the version on the Time Cave has been updated.

Trapped treasures now display "Formation 449" or whatever and will only allow you to select a formation in the correct range.

The "Pointer 1" and "Pointer 2" of spell animations are now labelled "Sequence" and "Effect", respectively, and their values have labels based on the information posted in this thread. The labels are contained in config files ("config/sequences.dat" and "config/effects.dat") so they should be easy to change as new information is presented.

[Grimoire LD]

Ah! You didn't mention you included the Auto-Battles! Fantastic! How much space is allotted to those? I added some more instructions to the script and saw no issues in being carried out. All that needs is the "Only this character must be present" or "This character should stay out of battle" code I found a while back. (though since that doesn't necessarily deal completely with auto-battles maybe it would go elsewhere?) Oh, and Golbez's auto-battle information. I have a feeling it will be closeby the original code, but not immediately next to it. I already have a proper search point to find them...

"389A-???? Autobattle script for second character." Thanks to the Tower of Bab-il Docs. I'll see if I can''t find those later today.

Spell Animations look to be properly ordered, no errors to be seen in those, good work in implementing them.

Ah right, and a quick question about the "Start of Magic..." in the editor. Is that referring to their formulaic properties as well? I found in the Magic code not too long ago how the game decides what kind of magic it is and how to take it into accordance when casting spells. In addition to that is also the starting point of when the game looks at Wisdom or Will to decide what powers a certain magic. I wasn't certain if the editor includes that information as well or was in some old notes I may have missed.

[Grimoire LD]

Here's a neat little addition that should be a very simple addition to the editor. How the game decides if the character is Yang and how to process Damage from Fight.

The code surrounding it is in my other thread, quite a bit was revealed within. But for the purposes of the editor this should suffice...

In LoRom/HiRom...

$03/9B0D   C9 00   CMP #$06   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Is it Yang's ID?

This is the check for which character is considered to have special considerations when it comes to weapons.

But you could really link this special behavior to anything...

$03/9B06   A0 01 00   LDY #$0001   A:0001   X:FFFF   Y:0024   P:eNvMxdizc - Load 1 into Y.
$03/9B09   B1 80   LDA ($80),y[$7E:2001]   A:0001   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdizc - Load Slot's ID.
$03/9B0B   29 0F   AND #$0F   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Get rid of negatives?
$03/9B0D   C9 00   CMP #$06   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Is it Yang's ID?
$03/9B0F   D0 03   BNE $03    [$9B14]   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZC - If not branch to 039B14.

You could have it look at specific weapons, different armors, etc.

[Pinkpuff]

Ah! You didn't mention you included the Auto-Battles! Fantastic!

Yeah! I was working on those a while back but got stuck on some details like Golbez etc. so I can't recall off hand how robust or stable that component is at the moment.

How much space is allotted to those?

Not sure off hand, I'm at school right this minute so I'll have to check later but my guess is it just bleeds into whatever is after it... I have a tendency to be lazy with that kind of thing 

I added some more instructions to the script and saw no issues in being carried out. All that needs is the "Only this character must be present" or "This character should stay out of battle" code I found a while back. (though since that doesn't necessarily deal completely with auto-battles maybe it would go elsewhere?) Oh, and Golbez's auto-battle information. I have a feeling it will be closeby the original code, but not immediately next to it. I already have a proper search point to find them...

"389A-???? Autobattle script for second character." Thanks to the Tower of Bab-il Docs. I'll see if I can''t find those later today.

Awesome! I'll look into adding those when I have an opportunity.

Spell Animations look to be properly ordered, no errors to be seen in those, good work in implementing them.

My pleasure! Good work in compiling them for me 

Ah right, and a quick question about the "Start of Magic..." in the editor. Is that referring to their formulaic properties as well? I found in the Magic code not too long ago how the game decides what kind of magic it is and how to take it into accordance when casting spells. In addition to that is also the starting point of when the game looks at Wisdom or Will to decide what powers a certain magic. I wasn't certain if the editor includes that information as well or was in some old notes I may have missed.

I can't recall off hand what addresses that changes. I'll look into the code sometime in the next couple of days and let you know.

Here's a neat little addition that should be a very simple addition to the editor. How the game decides if the character is Yang and how to process Damage from Fight.

The code surrounding it is in my other thread, quite a bit was revealed within. But for the purposes of the editor this should suffice...

In LoRom/HiRom...

$03/9B0D   C9 00   CMP #$06   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Is it Yang's ID?

This is the check for which character is considered to have special considerations when it comes to weapons.

But you could really link this special behavior to anything...

$03/9B06   A0 01 00   LDY #$0001   A:0001   X:FFFF   Y:0024   P:eNvMxdizc - Load 1 into Y.
$03/9B09   B1 80   LDA ($80),y[$7E:2001]   A:0001   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdizc - Load Slot's ID.
$03/9B0B   29 0F   AND #$0F   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Get rid of negatives?
$03/9B0D   C9 00   CMP #$06   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Is it Yang's ID?
$03/9B0F   D0 03   BNE $03    [$9B14]   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZC - If not branch to 039B14.

You could have it look at specific weapons, different armors, etc.

Ok so if I understand correctly, what you're talking about here is "which character has martial arts"? What address do I change in the ROM for that? And how does it relate to specific weapons and armors?

[Grimoire LD]

Yeah! I was working on those a while back but got stuck on some details like Golbez etc. so I can't recall off hand how robust or stable that component is at the moment.

As far as I could tell it seemed fully stable to me, I suspect that only that particular formation calls a second AI component. But I might be wrong.

I can't recall off hand what addresses that changes. I'll look into the code sometime in the next couple of days and let you know.

Thanks. Though I can probably just test it and see how it works...

Yeah, I think the hack that Phoenix made only changes the animation for the spells and doesn't touch upon their formulaic basis.

Here's a neat little addition that should be a very simple addition to the editor. How the game decides if the character is Yang and how to process Damage from Fight.

The code surrounding it is in my other thread, quite a bit was revealed within. But for the purposes of the editor this should suffice...

In LoRom/HiRom...

$03/9B0D   C9 00   CMP #$06   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Is it Yang's ID?

This is the check for which character is considered to have special considerations when it comes to weapons.

But you could really link this special behavior to anything...

$03/9B06   A0 01 00   LDY #$0001   A:0001   X:FFFF   Y:0024   P:eNvMxdizc - Load 1 into Y.
$03/9B09   B1 80   LDA ($80),y[$7E:2001]   A:0001   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdizc - Load Slot's ID.
$03/9B0B   29 0F   AND #$0F   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Get rid of negatives?
$03/9B0D   C9 06   CMP #$06   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZc - Is it Yang's ID?
$03/9B0F   D0 03   BNE $03    [$9B14]   A:0000   X:FFFF   Y:0001   P:envMxdiZC - If not branch to 039B14.

You could have it look at specific weapons, different armors, etc.

Ok so if I understand correctly, what you're talking about here is "which character has martial arts"? What address do I change in the ROM for that? And how does it relate to specific weapons and armors?

FFIV is a pretty small game and most sequences of bytes that contain relevant information are normally only held once or twice in the coding.  (Granted I screwed up above and instead used my slightly modified code that was there for testing purpose. the C9 00 should be C9 06)

This is located in a 1.1 Rom at 19B06.

Now I've explained this before, but its worth reiterating... a lot of these dealings have very simple to change attributes in this case case it's this...

Code: [Select]

$03/9B06 A0 01 00 LDY #$0001 A:0001 X:FFFF Y:0024 P:eNvMxdizc - Load 1 into Y.
$03/9B09 B1 80 LDA ($80),y[$7E:2001] A:0001 X:FFFF Y:0001 P:envMxdizc - Load Slot's ID.

The 1 loaded into Y loads the data 7E2001 which is Class ID. By changing the 01 to say 30, 31, or 32 (Armor, Helmet, or Gauntlet) and then look for a specific Equipment Piece, freely chosen by the player.

Code: [Select]

$03/9B0B 29 0F AND #$0F A:0000 X:FFFF Y:0001 P:envMxdiZc - Get rid of negatives?
$03/9B0D C9 06 CMP #$06 A:0000 X:FFFF Y:0001 P:envMxdiZc - Is it Yang's ID?
$03/9B0F D0 03 BNE $03    [$9B14] A:0000 X:FFFF Y:0001 P:envMxdiZC - If not branch to 039B14.

C9 06 is pretty blatant but here is where you use the values changed above, you can even make a range of equipment type you want for this.

D0 03 is fully malleable, and can be used as a Lesser/Higher range. By changing it to 90 (BCC) for Below the CMP and B0 for Above the CMP to branch. For example....

Say I wanted to make it look at the Right Hand...

http://rb.thundaga.com/tob/record.txt

Thanks to Yousei's old notes I would just do this then...

Code: [Select]

$03/9B06 A0 33 00 LDY #$0033 A:0001 X:FFFF Y:0024 P:eNvMxdizc - Load 33 into Y (Corresponding to Right Hand Equipment)
$03/9B09 B1 80 LDA ($80),y[$7E:2033] A:0001 X:FFFF Y:0033 P:envMxdizc - Load Right Hand Equipment into A.
$03/9B0B EA NOP A:0016 X:FFFF Y:0033 P:envMxdizc - Null
$03/9B0C EA NOP A:0016 X:FFFF Y:0033 P:envMxdizc - Null (The original "subtract" is detrimental for this.)
$03/9B0D C9 06 CMP #$06 A:0016 X:FFFF Y:0033 P:envMxdizc - Is it CatClaw or Below?
$03/9B0F B0 03 BCS $03    [$9B14] A:0016 X:FFFF Y:0033 P:envMxdizC - If higher than CatClawsbranch to 039B14.
(This would also have the added effect of Kain, if not wearing a shield, to have Martial Arts)

That kind of modification however may be difficult to incorporate into the editor. Though I do believe that there is room for places where the Stat Record can be changed, which I've written at length in my hacking and notes thread.

Boast for one could really use some easy modification in the editor, as can Cry. With the ability to change other stats with them.

Many of the Commands may be edited Freely now. What should power DarkWave's sacrifice? Improving Steal's Hit Rate, Changing what Item Slot (00-03) would Steal take from, Changing the hit rates (and the spell slots themselves) for Comet and Flare for Twin. Sing's Frog Song and what would activate the conditions for Frog Song, and even more. A lot of that isn't too complicated to put into the editor in time, I would imagine, but if you'd like me to find the ROM offsets for many of these, I could do that as well.

[Pinkpuff]

Version on the Time Cave has been updated. Now actor names match up correctly in battle and the range of out-of-battle usable spells has been added to the "features" editor.

Boast for one could really use some easy modification in the editor, as can Cry. With the ability to change other stats with them.

Many of the Commands may be edited Freely now. What should power DarkWave's sacrifice? Improving Steal's Hit Rate, Changing what Item Slot (00-03) would Steal take from, Changing the hit rates (and the spell slots themselves) for Comet and Flare for Twin. Sing's Frog Song and what would activate the conditions for Frog Song, and even more. A lot of that isn't too complicated to put into the editor in time, I would imagine, but if you'd like me to find the ROM offsets for many of these, I could do that as well.

That would be most helpful! Ideally what would be easiest for me to work with is some kind of organized, itemized table or list of bullet points that say what addresses to change to what values to get what effects/outcomes on the different commands.

Example:

• Steal
  
  • Hit rate: 0xXXXXX
  • Item slot: 0xYYYYY: Which item slot to steal from (00: common, 01: uncommon, 02: rare, 03: mythic)

[Grimoire LD]

Wonderful! I'll pick it up now.

Names look to be in perfect working order...

And spell ranges work optimally as well! Now if only Float were before Sight so we could remove that useless spell for good, eh well...

For things like Boast and Cry you should probably refer to the Tower-of-Babil docs explanation for stats.

For example...

Boast (Click on Boast, edit attributes) two options.

One shows Amount to Increase (default 16) second option would be Character Stat that you could probably use a direct copy of the stats from http://rb.thundaga.com/tob/record.txt
(Things to include though is...

2D-2F  unknown

Which are now known as...

2D - Critical Hit chance
2E - Critical Hit Bonus Damage
2F - ?Steal Prevention?

So for default, Boast would read...

Boast - Modified Wisdom - 16

ROM...
0x1ECD0   BD 17 20   LDA $2017,x[$7E:2017]   A:0010   X:0000   Y:0000   P:envMxdiZc - Load User's Modified Wisdom.
0x1ECD3 69 10   ADC #$10   A:0012   X:0000   Y:0000   P:envMxdizc - Add 10 (in hex) to it.


So if someone wants to change Modified Wisdom to Critical Hit Chance for instance...

They would scroll through Edit Attributes until they hit the Critical Hit Chance spot (2D the 20 portion of the address likely should not be touched.) and they change  the amount from 16 to 5.

Cry is a little more special case, there's a reason for that. Instead of having a default number that the game reads to subtract from the monster's Steal Prevention, it instead uses the user's steal prevention and divides it by 2 and effects all monsters through that. So say the player wants to make Cry (sort of, likely not as broken) like it is in FFIV DS (divides enemies Defense by 2)

You could do this...

Default
(Choices)
Cry - Attribute to use /2 - Attribute to effect
         Steal Prevention   -   Steal Prevention
           (202F)                         (202F)

In ROM...

0x1ECF2 BD 2F 20 LDA $202F,x[$7E:202F]   A:0010   X:0000   Y:0000   P:envMxdiZc - Load User's Steal Prevention

0x1ED0B   BD 2F 20   LDA $202F,x[$7E:22AF]   A:0000   X:0280   Y:0000   P:envMxdizC - Load Monster's Steal Prevention.

The reason these are the exact same is because coding in between targets the monster slots explicitly. You could change Cry into another Boast like command or have it effect the entire party, but that would involve some actions  that could not easily be handled by the editor. For now this should suffice.

So I want to change Cry into a form of FFIV DS's version of Cry...

Cry - Attribute to use /2           -      Attribute to Subtract.
         Physical Attack Multiplier  -  Physical Defense Multiplier
           (201B)                                       (2028)


Steal is a bit... trickier to explain, but I see what you mean there. I'll include all of the usable information that could easily be added to the editor.

First, before I got to the easily changeable attributes of it, it is best to go over how Steal is actually formulated...

50 + Level - Target's Steal Prevention = Amount that will be tested against a Random Number (which seems like it can range from 1-255.) - If the end value is over 100 it is an automatic success.

Now from this description we can change... Base Amount to steal, the stat used to determine bonus success and the stat that decreases the amount from success

Now as how this would look in the editor...

Default
(Choices)
Sneak - Edit Formula - Edit Item Slot

Default Hit Rate + Caster Attribute   -    Target's  Attribute
           50                      Level                  Steal Prevention
                                    (2682)                       (272F)
Item Slot
Normal-00

0x1E3F0 - A9 32   LDA #$32   A:0035   X:0000   Y:0000   P:envMxdizc - Load 32 into A (50)
0x1E3F2 - 6D 82 26   ADC $2682  [$7E:2682]   A:0032   X:0000   Y:0000   P:envMxdizc - + Caster's Level.

0x1E3F6 - ED 2F 27   SBC $272F  [$7E:272F]   A:003C   X:0000   Y:0000   P:envMxdizC - - Target's Steal Prevention.

At this point it is worth explaining the difference between Stat Records and Caster/Target records... When mostly any command in FFIV is used, in most cases the stats are copied into...
7E2680 - The Caster's Stats
7E2700 - The Target's Stats.

All this means is that you would need to make a separate index for the stat records that normally start at 00 and make another that starts at 80.

And finally the Item Slot is at...

0x1E456 - BF00 9F0E - Change the 00 to any digit from 00-03 to receive that rank of item when you use Sneak.

Now... say I wanted to make a more Steal-heavy hack and that actual equipment could be earned by stealing and only from stealing...

Sneak - Edit Formula - Edit Item Slot

Default Hit Rate + Caster Attribute   -    Target's  Attribute
           65              Modified  Agility                 Level
                                  (2695)                         (272F)
Item Slot
Mythic-03

And there you go. That's just for a start though. I'm going to stop here for now to see if I'm on the right track for how you want to go about this. If you have any trouble implementing this or understanding the underlying portions of it, please let me know and I will try to fit it to make it easier to work with.

[Grimoire LD]

Here's something I posted in another topic, but it bears re-iterating...

This is the Event to Play at New Game, so you won't have to cannibalize the normal event every single time you want to test something in a quick manner.
8081 in LoROM (Thank you Dragonsbrethren for the lead in the default items topic)

$00/8081   A9 10   LDA #$10   A:0081   X:21E0   Y:00F0   P:eNVMxdizC - Add 10 to A (Starting Events)
$00/8083   20 63 DF   JSR $DF63  [$00:DF63]   A:0010   X:21E0   Y:00F0   P:enVMxdizC - Jump to Subroutine (Event Dealings)

In Rom this is at...

281 - A9 10 - Starting Event.

This is Exceptionally useful when testing your hack and you don't want to have to rebuild your event library every single time you want to play a normal game. So you no longer need to destroy the main event and (granted there's a Load Map command within) can start the game from any point.

[Pinkpuff]

And spell ranges work optimally as well! Now if only Float were before Sight so we could remove that useless spell for good, eh well...

I know right? If only there were a way to shuffle around the pointers for what spells had what out-of-battle effects so we could just clump the ones we wanted to keep together and just crop the rest off by narrowing the range...

I for one would be quite happy to dump all those form changing spells for example (maybe keep Frog or something) in favor of more interesting things. Maybe a Demi spell that uses the HP fraction function or heck Haste 2 or Slow 2 or something. This game doesn't even have something as simple as a "Blind" spell... would much rather Blind than Sight 

And there you go. That's just for a start though. I'm going to stop here for now to see if I'm on the right track for how you want to go about this. If you have any trouble implementing this or understanding the underlying portions of it, please let me know and I will try to fit it to make it easier to work with.

I understand it so far I think. What I was kinda hoping for though is more of a formatting thing. Think of me as like a "nutty professor"; I'm pretty smart, I can usually understand things, but I'm incredibly forgetful. "What stat did 1C mean again? What address do I go to again for Cry's stat reference? I forgot... D:  ...But wait! There's a convenient list of all those things and what they do posted by my most helpful and wonderful friends over at the slickproductions.org forums!" If you were that nutty professor, what would you love to be able to see when you got there? Here's what I'm picturing based on what you mentioned so far:

Boast

Increases Stat by Amount:

• Stat: 1ECD1
  
  • xx: ...
  • 16:Modified Vitality
  • 17:Modified Wisdom
  • 18:Modified Will
  • yy: ...
  • (This is a common list and I know where to go to find it so you wouldn't need to write this all out, this is just for example purposes)
• Amount: 1ECD4

Cry

Sets Write Stat to half the value of Read Stat:

• Read Stat: 1ECF3
• Write Stat: 1ED0C

Steal

If a random number from 1 to 255 < Base + Bonus Stat - Penalty Stat then steal target's Slot item.

• Base: 1E3F1
• Bonus Stat: 1E3F3
• Penalty Stat: 1E3F7
• Slot: 1E457
  
  • 00: Common
  • 01: Uncommon
  • 02: Rare
  • 03: Mythic

Command X

Brief explanation of what it does, highlighting editable features:

• Feature name: ROM address
  
  • hex: effect/meaning

Make sense?

Also don't worry too much about how it would/should look in the editor. Unless you have specific requests, let me worry about the interface.

In any case thanks so much this is great! Again progress will likely be slow as I'm still in the thick of school and such but I'll be poking around with it here and there no doubt.

[Grimoire LD]

I'll have to poke around and look for those pointers eventually. So far I've had little luck with it, other than finding what seems to cause the events to occur, it still did not make the Sight effect into anything else.

Ah, I understand what you want now, only one correction though...

Cry

Sets Write Stat to half the value of Read Stat:

Should be...

Subtracts Write Stat from half the value of Read Stat:

On the topic of statuses... the only thing that inflicts Blind for the party in the Entire game are the Blind Arrows and by the time you get them there are better options to use, its sort of ridiculous.

Now I did locate how the Out-of-battle Status Healings Items work, not the spells yet, with that knowledge finding the spells status checks (Toad, Pig, Esuna, Float) should not be too difficult to find.

[Grimoire LD]

Hmm, I think I may have noticed a glitch with the auto-battles in the editor. Only the FuSoYa/Golbez ones mind you. At the end of FuSoYa's Zemus battle script White is shown when it should Twin instead. The Zeromus Battle has FuSoYa's second action being Dispel, but that wouldn't make much sense. These oddities also seem to screw up Golbez as well who doesn't use his proper script to end the battles.

[Pinkpuff]

Is this something that's being reflected in the actual game? Or is it just the editor displaying the information incorrectly? Like, if I save a ROM with FF4kster will FuSoYa now cast Dispel on Zemus instead of Double Meteor?

[Grimoire LD]

It is indeed reflected, because he never uses Twin to make Zemus die per script, it goes on forever. This also effects Golbez's AI Script in a strange way, causing him to use blank spells or no spells, but he will never use the Crystal on Zeromus.