Messages

586

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Monster Formations Used In Chests

« on: May 15, 2011, 06:10:55 PM »

I'm sure DB could send that over to you.

zythrofar's editors still have some bugs... the newer one has item corruption and has issues saving monster resistance data (well, even the older one had that, and arguably in a worse off scenario).

587

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Appearance/Sprite ID offset

« on: May 15, 2011, 06:04:11 PM »

Phoenix has a hack that dealt with modifying the Medicine command... determining what item it consumed and I "think" the spell power of the item that was used. I believe it also documented the graphics... but I'm unsure. That would be a quick fix but it would only be useful for only one item.

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/386/

However, there are obvious limitations, such as no versatility and no scaling (items have limited scaling unless you are using an HP based attack).

588

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Appearance/Sprite ID offset

« on: May 15, 2011, 05:46:46 PM »

The weapon part is "easy". Setting the properties of a weapon to display X magic for Y spell has been documented. The hard part is actually hacking the throw command to produce the correct visual... probably based on the item slot #. If it doesn't have a throw graphic (and audio), it won't look correct. I know there's a thread on throw graphics... but that would be a more complicated process I'd bet.

I'm sure if you could find the Crystal's item # relatively close to Cecil's character ID # reference, that would make it significantly easier for you.....

589

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Appearance/Sprite ID offset

« on: May 15, 2011, 05:32:46 PM »

I believe the item list sections off stuff (items, weapons, armor are in their own areas), but it couldn't hurt to try I guess.

I don't think you can make items that are not weapons to "throw" w/o doing some ASM hacking. You could do either one of the following...

1) Hack the item command to be usable for particular characters, so that they can use specific items like Paladin Cecil and the Crystal.

2) Hack the throw command to be able to "throw" special items that execute a magic effect. This may be tricky, but remember that "throwing" weapons that are equipped has the same effect as using the item-weapon behavior (it shares the item command after all). Perhaps this may give you some ideas to work with.

590

Pandora's Box / Re: Suggestions

« on: May 14, 2011, 01:48:29 PM »

Here's a complicated suggestion, but I think it would be most appropriate given what has been provided before.

If any of you have not played Seiken Densetsu 3, well, you should go play it. One of the more interesting features of SD3 is when you have the God Beasts quest. The bosses and monsters in the areas that they are in to increase in level (with appropriate related stat changes) as soon as a god beast dies.

A similar concept could be accomplished in here... increasing the monster's levels and stats (probably using some sort of multiplier or table) when events are accomplished. These could be in the form or getting another character back or killing a boss, such as the 8 dragons, or even treasure chests like the Gem Box/Soul of Thalmasa. In that way, you can allow for going in any direction you would want to (like in CT... and a CT hack would stand to gain a lot from this concept) w/o forcing a particular/linear route and still manage something useful.

However, accomplishing this would most likely expand the monster bits (to either have certain monsters opt in/out of this system or have a degree of scaling from this method). So, it would be possible to run the Tower of Kefka with the bare minimum of 4 characters but also become scale to be harder when the whole complement of characters and other things are accomplished.

591

Pandora's Box / Re: ff6 hp patch

« on: May 14, 2011, 01:36:17 PM »

I'm not entirely sure what the request is in the first place...

592

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: May 10, 2011, 12:08:15 AM »

I had not bothered to change the formations that the game uses for the battle, so all I did was simply change the monsters that were in said formation. Remember that there are 3 monster groups, one which is a pair of the same thing (Imp Capt/Weeper/Waterhag)... which wasn't exactly the scary. The challenge is to remember why you needed the girls in the party.

The trick to the General is to put him to sleep.. which was the original goal in the normal game. Charm status does nothing for him as his battle script ignores it.

There are some bugs with Berserk and hide status in FF4A... I'm not surprised if that happened in FF4 in the first place (but it's hard to expose by design).

The Cursed Shield is kind of like the Cursed Ring, but is a lot more useful..

Specs:
+5 STR, -5 AGI, VIT, WIS, WILL
0 defense, magic defense, magic evasion
resists all racial monster types
is a shield (so you can retain the defense multiplier that is based on level)
absorbs elementals (requires elementals to resist, like the ice/fire armor, behaving like the Cursed Ring)
"resists" monsters that can "drain" your HP via physical attacks (drain magic ignores the drain elemental, believe it or not)
can be equipped by everyone except Yang and Edge

It's a lot more useful than the Cursed Ring by design (the Cursed Ring will be tweaked anyways and will not be obsolete).

593

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: May 05, 2011, 05:19:41 PM »

The dungeon however was rather interesting. I Love how useful you have made Edward in this hack and I have noticed this going forward. Charm/Sleep wth a near 100% hit rate on his weapons makes him a perfect support character. Cecil is powerful, but he's no longer invincible, you actually need to watch what you do with him.

Well, in the original, he was already this good (well, I gave him a little crack). People hate his offensive output when that is not his primary role...

As an aside... I thought I read somewhere in this forum that the chance to apply status ailments is purely based on Agility. If such is the case why would the Harps with Edward's game start agility have their Status hit nearly 100% of the time?

Agility has a major factor for sure... to what extent I don't know. Rydia at level 70+ paralyzes more enemies than when you get her back (at around level 26-35 or so). Although this strange behavior is best represented by the Slumber Sword's sleep magic... which operates differently than most status effect attacks.

Though the Weeper enemies were surprisingly brutal. A nice touch there. Normal hit can cause Toad, Spell cast will result in Piggy and a physical attack will result in Mini. It was a rough time defeating them and as far as I'm aware they don't drop anything spectacular.

I believe they primarily dropped status healing items.

Training Rosa to Level 15 before we ascend Mt. Hobbs. I went in and wasted a good amount of my White arrows not thinking, then decided it would likely be best to grind for another Silver Ring for Rosa. Even got the Thunder Rod at the end of the battle which yielded it. So now I have each of the Elemental Rods. I like that you made them available so early in this hack, it really shows their usefulness and versatility.

Well, the problem was that the Rods themselves are not really versatile initially (I believe JCE's hack dealt something along those lines, but I'm not sure). If the weapons had the same staying power as they did in FF5 or FF6, then they wouldn't need to be tweaked... but they do.

Went back onto the mountain and trained Rosa up to 14 currently and snagged the Roc and Bomb summons while I was at it. The Lamia Harp is a Godsend here, if you're not careful against the Cockatrice's and you whittle them down without thinking you may be looking at a gameover. The Bombs and friends are similarly nasty with Fission dealing upwards to 100 damage at times (though I think that's based on how much HP they have remaining) and Explode nearly outright killing a member of the team.

One thing about the Harps... they are epic in FF2, but not so much in FF4 (FF4ET only increased its hit rate IIRC) because they don't have the back row bit (so, Edward tended to miss his targets off the bat).

The Bombs were meant get your attention... and they kinda did in the original, but it took too long to execute... so I had decided to accelerate this behavior. Fission is definitely based on the caster's HP like Explode (and you only see it used by like the chest monster in the Giant).

I had a rather strange glitch happen to me when I accidentally used Hide as Edward, when he came back I could select the blank spot beneath Item. Used a savestate, tried it out, nothing seemed to happen, except Edward's turns seemed to stop coming up in that battle. Reloaded and continued on.

That bug was in the original game... not a result of the hack. The Show part of the Hide command doesn't quite check the list... since the Medicine command was removed this behavior manifests itself.

594

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: May 05, 2011, 04:12:05 PM »

I had thought since Magic Fists was in White Magic that it would have been powered by Will? If it's in White Magic and powered by Wisdom... does that mean that Holy's damage in the end is powered by Wisdom and not Will as well? I never thought about that.

Any magic slotted in the first 24 slots (after the no-spell slot) are considered White Magic (by the spell animation) and depend on Will Power. Everything else is Wisdom based.

And Cloths now have 3 Agility on them? Wish I would have taken notice... I trekked back to Kaipo while grinding didn't see any change to their Magic Evasion and sold them right back. Well with the Hovercraft it'll be easy to pick some up then.

Most poor defensive armor will have boosts whereas the solid stuff usually won't get additional help.

Though as for the original boss Octomamm... I recall Lit doing upwards to 105-150 damage depending on whether Rydia or Tellah cast the spell. Even against this guy at the early goings he dealt 70 or so damage, but was hit with that massive Thunder attack.

I did some math on this once, but here's the quick breakdown.

Octomammoth has 25 magic defense.

Tellah has 16 Wisdom by default, so that means having a magic multiplier of 5 (= 16/4 + 1).

Lit-1 has a spell power of 16. Since the squid has a weakness to lightning, then Lit-1 has an effective spell power of 32.

(32-25) * 5 = 35 (worst case scenario)

(32*1.5 - 25) * 5 = 115 (best case scenario)

(32*1.25 - 25) * 5 = 75 (average case)

Comparing this to Chocobo should be a slam dunk... since the summon has a spell power of 40.

Without doing the math, you can figure out that Tellah is/has/always will be worse than Rydia.

All in all, back on track, just about to face the Antlion and see if he's any more difficult than I recall him from my first time through.

Did you get as far as Fabul the first time around? Man... I have to get around to redoing one monster (for the Land of Summoned Monsters) and thinking one adding another...

595

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: May 05, 2011, 08:54:13 AM »

Tip: Tellah is not worth gaining levels for. Gaining levels for Rydia is worth your time outside. It helps a lot if you grind Cecil solo before getting Rydia (if possible)

Likely would have been a good idea. Really the SandHag's against Rydia and Cecil should be nothing with the IceRod and Rydia's Ice1. Killing off Tellah would likely be a better option, true.

Like the original, it served no purpose to gain Tellah's levels... although in this hack, there is an incentive (but, you're better off when he's not actively in the party for a bit).

Chocobo is a better solution. It has a stronger magic power base. Rydia needs to be @ level 15... she'll then have a chance to evade Drain (Rydia gets the magic defense multiplier). At some point Chocobo won't be an option, so you are better off trying to get Rydia to straight up heal.

It does roughly 75-150 Damage, which is admittedly pretty good against this guy. Once he finishes his tentacle loss though it deals 30-80 at most.

Cecil needs the levels. If his attack multiplier doesn't get where it needs to be (somewhere around level 15 or above), then it's not going to be pretty.

Hmm, well he's currently Level 17 but if he tries to strike him early in the fight he will always deal a resounding 1 damage, only when he's at that final form can he deal some to him.

I may have forgotten somewhere that the defensive/magical stats had changed in a CT-like fashion (like those monsters that change from physical<->magical)

Did you at least pick up some Healing Staffs from the Zombies? That is supposed to make the healing-damage issue bearable. Also, Silver Rings are the common drops from the TinyMages. That will help out in the magic evasion... Also... did you remember to buy the Cloth? There's a tradeoff that's probably worth taking.

Cloths have better Magic Evasion than the Leather? I did not know this. Nor did I manage to procure any Silver Rings from the Tiny Mages, probably just unlucky when it came to that. Though yes, I do have 2 Cure staves and without them I would say outright this battle is impossible, but thanks to them you can easily match him blow for blow, only trouble is at the current time it ends up in an infinite stalemate.

Cloths have to same stats for the most part (0 magic defense/magic evasion), but give you +3 Agility. I believe you can forgo 1 magic defense point + 1 magic evasion percentage for this.

Here's another thought... the original Octomammoth reacts to change from taking damage.. so you could arguably skip many steps or advance the monster's state by dealing crap for damage. The same concept applies here. The idea is to deal as much damage as you possibly can before he reaches his final state. I get the feeling you may be advancing the monster too quickly.

That is what I was doing at first, yes. But it is only 12 hits or so before he reaches his final stage, with an ineffective sword and a continual drain on every hit I am lucky to maintain a measure of damage before we reach the end of it. Though taking your advice into effect may lend me some help.

Sorry if it sounded as if I was ranting before, probably was a little steamed. For the life of me I do not recall having any trouble with this guy before and its that which vexes me.

  Sometimes I have to remember that an RPG is sometimes just... an RPG. A Level 19 Cecil and Level 17 Rydia both did remarkably better. Chocobo in the early stages of the fight was dealing upwards to 200 damage and when the end part came a Bacchus Wine on Cecil and he was dealing minimum of 75 and upwards to 305 non critical (strangely enough I didn't get any criticals) It took some time but eventually Cecil's raw power overtook his immense healing and it was over and done with. Phew, that was a trip. Maybe he doesn't need nerfed after all.

I forgot what my projected Cecil's level had to be... it was like 16-17 (when you got an attack multiplier increase in addition to a defense multiplier due to being @ level 16). It was probably like level 17 (to match Tellah's starting HP). If there is some frustration about a boss, I suggest you analyze it since the battle script is fixed in a sense. Unlike FF5/FF6 where there is some RNG work at play, nothing like this happens in FF4.

Also, Magic Fists is supposed to bridge the gap between the level 1 elementals and Chocobo so you can pick and choose the spell of choice for your own amusement... (it's the same spell that's used in the Rod, so it should be better when powered by Wisdom).

BTW, the Lightning attack by the boss is designed to tell you that Lightning was pointless vs the original boss. His magic defense originally is so damn high, Tellah barely makes a dent whenever he casts Lit-1... which can be a blessing or penalty...

596

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: May 04, 2011, 11:59:51 PM »

Alright, taking another crack at this. Leveling up outside of the caves is nearly unbearable, the most Exp. there is to be had is 100 for the three characters and the battles themselves take upwards to a minute due to what nees to be done.

Tip: Tellah is not worth gaining levels for. Gaining levels for Rydia is worth your time outside. It helps a lot if you grind Cecil solo before getting Rydia (if possible)

Cecil is currently at 17 and Rydia at 14. Now I've gone back to fighting OctoVamp. Things I've learned...

Only when you first start the fight (and whittle down his arms) will he not counterattack Everything with Drain (but Lit which he counterattacks with several deadly Lits himself than a Drain). Though at that time the only things that can even pretend to damage him are Magic Fists and the Shadow sword (strangely enough) everything else does 1 Damage and ordinarily ends in a bad counterattack.

Chocobo is a better solution. It has a stronger magic power base. Rydia needs to be @ level 15... she'll then have a chance to evade Drain (Rydia gets the magic defense multiplier). At some point Chocobo won't be an option, so you are better off trying to get Rydia to straight up heal.

When you've "whittled him down" is when the fight is basically lost. With Blink on everyone he can't easily get through physical attacks but that doesn't matter when everything you do is met with Drain.

With the Darkness Sword Cecil does 53-100 damage to him, which is drained back up for anywhere from 80-120 damage. So Bacchus Wine is a necessity. When applied Cecil does anywhere from 70-205 damage, (205 being crits and the like) but the drains still seem to make that a largely futile effort.

Cecil needs the levels. If his attack multiplier doesn't get where it needs to be (somewhere around level 15 or above), then it's not going to be pretty.

And why is it exactly that Cecil continues to miss so much against this guy? As far as I'm aware the Darkness Sword's Accuracy is still pretty good and I saw that weird move that OctoMammoth does when you get rid of all of his Tentacles but it doesn't seem to do anything, just to be safe I used Eyedrops and a UniHorn, but to no avail. Why exactly at this point in the battle is OctoVamp this untouchable?

Instead of making the monster "get worse" (moving slower), it gets better. The monster gets increasing defensive + agility stats as you change it, minimalizing the damage you are dealing to it. It also gets evasion.. the same stuff used by Cagnazzo (shell mode) + Valvalis (spin mode) in their battle scripts.

As I said before, I made it much further than this once upon a time and had little qualms with this particular part. Are you certain this fellow is acting as intended? Or am I just missing something so simple?

As I've said before... the earlier version has a greater magic multiplier (2) with the default Drain magic power (64). The current version has a weaker magic multiplier (1) with the FF4ET Drain magic power (80). I'm pretty sure that this more current version had been "nerfed" unless there's some other fact that I had not considered. I could nerf the Drain hit rate if that were the issue, but that would be as far as I'd go with that.

  I'd probably need to recall which older version had the older stats... to be sure.

Did you at least pick up some Healing Staffs from the Zombies? That is supposed to make the healing-damage issue bearable. Also, Silver Rings are the common drops from the TinyMages. That will help out in the magic evasion... Also... did you remember to buy the Cloth? There's a tradeoff that's probably worth taking.

 
Here's another thought... the original Octomammoth reacts to change from taking damage.. so you could arguably skip many steps or advance the monster's state by dealing crap for damage. The same concept applies here. The idea is to deal as much damage as you possibly can before he reaches his final state. I get the feeling you may be advancing the monster too quickly.

597

Game Modification Station / Re: New FF4 Hack Announcement

« on: May 04, 2011, 09:08:01 PM »

Regular monsters won't murder you unless you're careless and/or not paying attention to detail. Bosses are meant to not suck... and grinding is certainly promoted but if you play on what you know, you shouldn't need to grind "as much".

Although, I guess I could create an easier version of the hack.. that wouldn't be the priority though.

Goblins have 106HP IIRC, so it will take some time to kill, but you will be rewarded. Most monsters will have increased drop rates of 25% to compensate and bosses will drop items at a 100% rate unless they have been set to drop nothing... (I'm not entirely sure what causes that). Items are better and/or re-purposed so that should counter balance the boost in difficulty.

598

General Discussion / Re: Gamefaqs + eternal stupidity

« on: May 03, 2011, 11:55:58 PM »

Maneater + Enhancer :D

599

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spell/Item visual effect

« on: May 01, 2011, 10:42:07 PM »

Think of the "black magic" statement is the default result. Everything else has to be checked otherwise.

The only code that I'm aware of that involves the spell icons is Phoenix's spell learning code. I would assume that he may have bound the animation and Will Power stat to White Magic as well, but you'd have to see....

600

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spell/Item visual effect

« on: May 01, 2011, 06:57:57 PM »

It's probably a range check. Here's the basic idea (in C psuedocode)

Code: [Select]

if spell # < 24
 use white magic animation
else if spell # between (49 and 63)
 use summon animation
else
 use black magic animation