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511
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: FFIV Job System (Culmination of all of our works and hacks)
« on: April 27, 2015, 11:00:43 AM »
I've been thinking about the quandary you've got about making the right characters appear during events, and I think I've got a solution.

Just a warning: It will require the use of 19 NPCs from each list (Overworld and Underworld/Moon).

So, first, an explanation of how I did what I did in TfW...

In vanilla FFIIUS, when you enter any location (that is, place that might contain NPCs - anywhere but a world map), the game runs the following 12 times (once for each possible NPC):
Code: [Select]
$00/BEE3 BF 00 83 13 LDA $138300,x[$13:8300];Load NPC ID into A
$00/BEE7 20 B7 C0    JSR $C0B7  [$00:C0B7]  ;Jump to routine that loads all of the pertinent details of that NPC
Now, in TfW, I only have one variable NPC ("Your Hired Help"), which may be any one of seven NPCs. To illustrate, this is a snippet of my FF4kster config file:
Code: [Select]
245 No Hired Party!!!
246 Hired Ninja!!!
247 Hired W Mage!!!
248 Hired B Mage!!!
249 Hired Dragoon!!!
250 Hired Bard!!!
251 Mog!!!
252 Heart Bubble !!!
253 Mysidia White Mage praying
254 Mysidia Black Mage praying
255 Your Hired Help!!!("!!!" signals an NPC I've used, and lets me know during the editing process that I should leave that one alone)

Here, we're concerned with NPCs 245-251, and 255.
So, instead of the above code from vanilla, when a player in TfW enters a location, the game runs the following:
Code: [Select]
$00/BEE3 22 B0 8D 14 JSL $148DB0[$14:8DB0]  ;jump to custom
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
$14/8DB0 BF 00 83 13 LDA $138300,x[$13:8AFD];load NPC ID
$14/8DB4 C9 FF       CMP #$FF               
$14/8DB6 D0 35       BNE $35    [$8DED]     ;if not FF, branch to end
$14/8DB8 AD 99 12    LDA $1299  [$00:1299]  ;otherwise, load "hired help" logging flags
$14/8DBB C9 20       CMP #$20               
$14/8DBD D0 04       BNE $04    [$8DC3]     
$14/8DBF A9 FB       LDA #$FB               ;if flag 205 is set, load Mog
$14/8DC1 80 2A       BRA $2A    [$8DED]     
$14/8DC3 C9 10       CMP #$10               
$14/8DC5 D0 04       BNE $04    [$8DCB]     
$14/8DC7 A9 FA       LDA #$FA               ;if flag 204 is set, load Avon
$14/8DC9 80 22       BRA $22    [$8DED]     
$14/8DCB C9 08       CMP #$08               
$14/8DCD D0 04       BNE $04    [$8DD3]     
$14/8DCF A9 F9       LDA #$F9               ;if flag 203 is set, load Lando
$14/8DD1 80 1A       BRA $1A    [$8DED]     
$14/8DD3 C9 04       CMP #$04               
$14/8DD5 D0 04       BNE $04    [$8DDB]     
$14/8DD7 A9 F8       LDA #$F8               ;if flag 202 is set, load Cinna
$14/8DD9 80 12       BRA $12    [$8DED]     
$14/8DDB C9 02       CMP #$02               
$14/8DDD D0 04       BNE $04    [$8DE3]     
$14/8DDF A9 F7       LDA #$F7               ;if flag 201 is set, load Ruby
$14/8DE1 80 0A       BRA $0A    [$8DED]     
$14/8DE3 C9 01       CMP #$01               
$14/8DE5 D0 04       BNE $04    [$8DEB]     
$14/8DE7 A9 F6       LDA #$F6               ;if flag 200 is set, load Blank
$14/8DE9 80 02       BRA $02    [$8DED]     
$14/8DEB A9 F5       LDA #$F5               ;otherwise, load "nobody"
$14/8DED 6B          RTL                   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
$00/BEE7 20 B7 C0    JSR $C0B7  [$00:C0B7]  ;Jump to routine that loads all of the pertinent details of that NPC
There's also this:
Code: [Select]
$00/BE6F BF 00 83 13 LDA $138300,x[$13:8300]
Which deals specifically with loading NPC images when exiting the menu screen back to gameplay. This also needs to be changed to JSL $148DB0, or else when you exit the menu, "hired" NPCs will have the right palette, but will use the main character's sprite instead of their own.


So that's how I did it in my project.
For this one, it'll take more NPCs, but the amount of custom code will be about the same (possibly a bit less).

As I said, you'll need to use 19 NPCs per set to make this work.
They will be known as:
Character in Slot 2
Character in Slot 3
Character in Slot 4
Character in Slot 5
"nobody"
DK Cecil
Kain
C Rydia
Tellah
Edward
Rosa
Yang
Palom
Porom
P Cecil
Cid
Edge
FuSoYa
A Rydia

Assuming that you're using the Shadow party hack for this project, I would suggest using NPCs FC-FF (252-255) as "Character in Slot (2-5)," NPCs EA-F7 (235-247) for "nobody" through FuSoYa, and 251 for A Rydia. Rydia being separated from the rest will make the coding a little more efficient. You'll see why...

So, you'll need a JSL to custom in the same two places - $BEE3 and $BE6F.
Your custom assembly will look like this:
Code: [Select]
BF 00 83 13 LDA $138300,x ;Load NPC ID
C9 FF CMP #$FC ;is it "character in Slot (something)?"
90 18 BCC $18 ;if not, skip to end
38 SEC
E9 FC SBC #$FC ;subtract FC from A
C2 20 REP #$20
0A ASL A
0A ASL A
0A ASL A
0A ASL A
0A ASL A
0A ASL A ;multiply result by 0x40
DA PHX ;stack X
AA TAX ;Transfer A to X
7B TDC
EB XBA
E2 20 SEP #$20 ;clear A and set it back to 8-bits
BD 40 10 LDA $1040,x ;Load Character ID into A
18 CLC
69 EA ADC #$EA ;Add 0xEA to A, making it the value of the appropriate NPC
FA PLX ;pull X back off the stack
6B RTL
Doing all that should make it so that NPC FC will always be the character in slot 2 (and nobody if there is no character there), FD will always be the character in slot 3, and so on.

You'll probably also want to rewrite the "change charcter graphic to XX" event code so that it always changes character graphic to that of the character in slot 1 (why not, since the possible party variations make it essentially worthless anyway). You'd have to rework any scene that calls for the character graphic to be that of a particular character, but you'll probably have to do that anyway in this hack.

I think that should do it!

512
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: April 27, 2015, 08:13:55 AM »
Quote from: Pinkpuff on April 27, 2015, 05:12:27 AM
New WIP version uploaded:
  • When you start the program now you will notice it itemized everything it's reading as it reads the rom. This way, if it hangs for some reason, people can give more useful bug reports than "I tried to load it and just got a black screen"
Sweet! Maybe I'll finally be able to figure out exactly what I did to my ROM that made it incompatible with modern FF4kster.

513
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 26, 2015, 08:27:26 PM »
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
"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.

Quote
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.

514
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 26, 2015, 01:32:48 PM »
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.

Quote
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!

515
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 26, 2015, 02:00:53 AM »
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.

516
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 26, 2015, 12:06:20 AM »
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.


517
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 25, 2015, 09:45:17 PM »
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.

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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:

Quote
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.

518
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4
« on: April 25, 2015, 10:58:02 AM »
Hey PinkPuff, I have sort of an abstract question about FF4kster behavior that I figure might be worth asking you before I attempt to do what I want to try doing.

I want to make two different events draw from the same event data, but from different starting points.

So, for an entirely hypothetical example... let's say I wanted to make two events that call the Mist Dragon battle. We'll call them Event 01 and Event 02 for the sake of this example.

Event 01 (the normal Mist Dragon battle event) looks like this:
Code: [Select]
D8              Toggle music fade
F8 8D           Show bank 1 message 18D with Yes/No box
EF 02           Show bank 2 message 02 starting from pointer ??
FB 47           Play sound effect 47
FD 07           Play visual effect 07
FB 00           Play sound effect 00
EC DE           Fight battle with enemy set DE
F2 0D           Set event flag 0D
FA 25           Play song 25
FF              END
FA 00           Play song 00
C2              Main Character: move down
FA 25           Play song 25
FF              END

Event 02 would remove the choice to turn away from the event, but would otherwise be the same, and therefore would look like this:
Code: [Select]
EF 02           Show bank 2 message 02 starting from pointer ??
FB 47           Play sound effect 47
FD 07           Play visual effect 07
FB 00           Play sound effect 00
EC DE           Fight battle with enemy set DE
F2 0D           Set event flag 0D
FA 25           Play song 25
FF              END
Because those strings of event data are identical (for the portion that is event 02), the game should, in theory, work just fine if I simply change the pointer for event 02 to point to that location within event 01 (that's a statement, not a question).

The question is, how will FF4kster react to a manual pointer change like this? I imagine everything will be fine as long as I don't edit events in FF4kster after that, but what if I do? will FF4kster look through all of my event data and come up with its best guess as to what location within event data to point? And if so, given the unorthodox method employed, will it likely guess wrong?

It's really all just theoretical at this point, but this might be something I'd be doing for my hack if you think it wouldn't cause more problems than it's worth.

519
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 25, 2015, 10:25:40 AM »
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

520
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 24, 2015, 02:18:04 PM »
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:

521
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 24, 2015, 09:46:08 AM »
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.

522
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 23, 2015, 08:35:39 PM »
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

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:

523
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 23, 2015, 07:30:37 PM »
Quote from: JCE3000GT on April 23, 2015, 02:44:42 PM
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).

524
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 22, 2015, 03:08:36 PM »
Quote from: JCE3000GT on April 22, 2015, 12:20:46 PM
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?

525
Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Final Fantasy II: A Threat from Within (The Preview)
« on: April 22, 2015, 11:02:49 AM »
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!

What do you guys think?

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