Messages

2506

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spell ASM Finds

« on: May 09, 2008, 07:25:11 PM »

With Loki’s Lute?

Well that’s really very nice, Deathlike, but I’m still wondering why you said earlier that he was a “P.O.S.” against Zeromus.

His other options suck. By comparison to the other characters who are designated fighters, he's below average (weaker than Yang), though I guess that's better than everyone else that's primarily a spellcaster (including Rosa, Rydia, Palom, and Porom).

I forgot to mention that Loki's Lute doesn't expose Flan/Pudding.. oh well.

2507

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Status Attribute Peculiarities

« on: May 09, 2008, 07:18:57 PM »

How so?

I always assumed that the party-targeted versions of Quake and Meteo were distinct spells, since their targeting is forced for the player.

All targeting is supposed to be reversed, if their default targeting is the enemy, it targets the characters and vice versa.

For Quake, it works as intended in the SNES versions. A charmed Rydia/Palom's Quake (and Meteor) targets your guys. FF4A doesn't retarget Quake.

2508

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Equipment Changes from FF4j to FF2us

« on: May 09, 2008, 12:54:49 PM »

I'm working on the equipment changes for my hack, and I was curious as to what the equipment changes were from FF4j to FF2us, so I looked into the hex values. Here's the differences:

Lunar Staff: Casts "Dispel" in FF4j, casts nothing in FF2us
Defense Sword: Casts "Protect" in FF4j, casts nothing in FF2us
Murasame: Casts "Protect" in FF4j, casts nothing in FF2us
Elven Bow: Casts "Shell" in FF4j, casts nothing in FF2us

You could do a more thorough one than I did for FF4ET if you want. I already knew of that.

These spells are not available for FF4ET, but the items casting these are still actively available.

Ogre Axe: Attack % is bumped from 19% in FF4j to 35% in FF2us

This was never originally meant to be the Icebrand replacement.

Dreamer Harp: Not a long range weapon in FF4j
Charm Harp: Not a long range weapon in FF4j

My quick check of FF4ET agrees with this data, except the hit rate was boosted. Now I understand this weapon's plight. I thought it was imagined that the hit rate was poor, but apparently the data doesn't agree.  So I did a quick check of FF4A's data and the only back row compatible harp was Loki's Lute. This weapon is crippled when the back row bit is not set.

Crystal Helm: Not strong vs. Undead in FF4j

That's a curious difference in the Crystal set. Then again, undead monsters are harmless late game. This bit is also not set in FF4A. The Ribbon is still the best armor in that slot anyways.

Black Robe: Wisdom+5 in FF4j, Will+5 in FF2us

I'm not sure what the programmers were thinking on that last change. The Black Robe, enhancing White Magic Power?   

Will+5 is used for Rydia in FF4ET.

You know, it may be related to the Cure2 spell in the FF2US data for Rydia. If FF4/4ET mirrors that, then it may have been in the original plans. Otherwise, it would have been FF2/4ET specific plans that fell through.

2509

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spell ASM Finds

« on: May 09, 2008, 12:46:07 PM »

 

If you max out his stats, he is guarenteed to do 9999 to any enemy race type, even if they have 254 armor.

2510

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: A Look Into Cagnazzo...

« on: May 09, 2008, 12:29:23 PM »

So monsters do have multipliers and evasion stats that are normally ignored, or …?

Mostly for evasion and magic evasion.

On the note regarding Palom and Tella: is the intelligence stat really that inconsequential in magic damage? It’s FF1 all over again … 

It's significant, but for magic, the power of the spell and magic defense has a greater impact. Meteor has full reign of it, but it takes too damn long to cast, so the Flare (but moreso Mega Flare) option is still pretty reliable. However, this will never cause consistant 9999 damage on Behemoths.

2511

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Commands Worth Looking Into?

« on: May 09, 2008, 12:25:28 PM »

It would've been nice to access Wisdom over 99, given that some monsters have more than that initially (as freakish as that sounds). See Leshy/Weeper.

2512

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Status Attribute Peculiarities

« on: May 09, 2008, 12:23:36 PM »

As far as I can tell, Meteor and Holy are prevented from be selected while under Charm status in FF4A.

Quake targeting under Charm is a major screwup by the FF4A devs.

2513

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spell ASM Finds

« on: May 07, 2008, 09:21:54 PM »

And.. WTF?!?!?!?!? I thought Shell would be useful. Edward in FF4A now looks like a POS vs Zeromus. Mind you, he is very capable if you max out his stats.. (I should run the numbers at some point).

Wait, the numbers and the Zeromus thing aren’t common knowledge? I read that on a Japanese fan site ages ago.

Besides, if Gilly has the Harmonious Ring, you must’ve already beaten Zeromus. Also, he’s far from a P.O.S., with or without it …

Eh?

Edward has always been underrated (his Harp attacks have been more than useful), but also underpowered (every command is useless IMO).

2514

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: "Sing" Command

« on: May 07, 2008, 06:14:50 PM »

A quick look of THE command list thread says no. The status ones have more impact anyways.

2515

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: "Sing" Command

« on: May 07, 2008, 05:51:18 PM »

It's probably lazy coding for the most part, but the behavior is consistant with two handed weapons.

It would be nice to know what disables certain commands.. I've gotten around to documenting a number of them, but there's probably some obscure ones that I've missed.

2516

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spell ASM Finds

« on: May 07, 2008, 05:47:52 PM »

So, you're saying Cure4 cures MP when the damage is that significant eh? Seems relatively useless then, especially when they consume 0 MP anyways, but it is interesting nonetheless.

It explains why Asura died one time after using Cure4 on herself...a berserked Edge finished her off shortly afterwards.

2517

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Random Lesser Known Facts

« on: May 06, 2008, 06:51:51 PM »

Bah, the lightning message seems to be lightning and HP triggered (like 1/16 or 1/8 of the remaining HP is left).

Edit: Hmmm, it is utter randomness when lightning randomly kills Odin...

2518

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Spell ASM Finds

« on: May 06, 2008, 05:46:27 PM »

Cure4/Curaja - It doesn't appear to do max healing as it should at times. It seems to heal up to 2^14 or 16384 (or so). Any more damage taken there, healing automatically fails (whatever numbers that are produced is a lie  ). When healing is above 9999, the "healing" done is whatever that number is minus or mod 9999. It should be looked into further.

Not tested in FF4A yet, but that's what is happening in the SNES version anyways.

Edit: FF4A's Curaja only heals up to 9999.

2519

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: A Look Into Cagnazzo...

« on: May 06, 2008, 01:48:36 PM »

Ah... now I understand it better.

In normal battles, the game totally ignores the defense and magic defense multipliers of the monsters.

If a boss battle sets the defense or magic defense of the monster, the multipliers+evade or magic evade of the stats are adhered to.

Consider Barbariccia...

In her normal form, her defense is 0x 0, 0%. She simply can't evade a thing.

In her twisty hair form, her defense becomes 4x 4, 45%. She actually does evade a number of attacks (very noticable when you reach that point normally). Although Aim sets her evade to 0... which technically gives Rosa an edge... but a useless one at that.

2520

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Old Battle Engine Bug...

« on: May 06, 2008, 12:06:55 PM »

Are there any other instances of battle scripts altering enemy stats during a battle …?

Many.. I'll post them later when I get the chance.

The best representation of it is the Octomammoth. For every 1/8 of its HP lost, its Agility changes (and slows the monster down as a result).

Barbariccia's original spin form (in the Tower of Zot) makes herself immune to any magic, which would have made "the old man" useless anyways.

Having said that, Protes and Shell work perfectly fine, so you’d think this would too.

Dude, this is the same game that took until the Euro version to fix the Yang HP growth bug or the Poison resistance bug.

It probably matters little in the scheme of things, anyway, since Caggy has multi-Boast’d Thundara to deal with by this point.

Believe it or not, Tellah's Thundaga is far stronger than Palom's maxed out Thundara. A maxed out Palom with Quake would do better.

Palom with Thundara:

(64 (base magic damage) * 2 (weakness multiplier) - 48 (magic defense)) * 25 (spell multiplier) = 2000 damage minimum

Tellah with Thundaga (using Change Rod and Wizard's Hat from Mysidia):

(256 (base magic damage) * 2 (weakness multiplier) - 48 (magic defense)) * 7 (spell multiplier) = 3248 damage minimum

Even if you use Tellah's default equipment (with no stat boosts), it is still better than Palom's best...

(256 (base magic damage) * 2 (weakness multiplier) - 48 (magic defense)) * 5 (spell multiplier) = 2320 damage minimum

Edit: It's not a battle engine bug, but apparently I forgot that the game uses tables for pretty much everything (attack, defense, magic defense, and agility) except monster Magic Power.