Messages

2401

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Phoenix Hacks patches

« on: April 09, 2008, 02:40:02 PM »

Ok, here's some insight into the Googlepages problem:

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,6015.255.html

The bandwidth or page view limit for this site has been exceeded and the page cannot be viewed at this time. Once the site is below the limit, it will once again begin serving as normal.

2402

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

« on: April 09, 2008, 12:46:33 PM »

Some questions about the command...

1) What is the probability of the spells that are to be cast (if you can find out what that distribution is in FF4A, that would be a nice bonus  )?

2) The game selects one of the twins Wisdom stat to power the spell being cast, what is the probability for this setup?

3) Are there other random facts that should be known about this command?

2403

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Shadow Party Stats

« on: April 08, 2008, 09:44:25 PM »

Bab-il, not Zot.  Idiots on the zsnes boards draining your brain?

I admit it, it's shot. Time for 

2404

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Phoenix Hacks patches

« on: April 08, 2008, 07:49:05 PM »

Just a thought, but you should test the links first on your website first. On the other hand, IIRC, RDHN uses a script to download the file off the website. The problem there may be that Googlepages has one of those anti-file leeching scripts enabled and well that fucks up the system.

I would suggest you ask around for webpages with reliable file support and/or ask about the place hosting your files.

2405

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Shadow Party Stats

« on: April 08, 2008, 09:18:27 AM »

I think Cid was supposed to be there, but primarily to get out of the underground and leave after the Giant sequence.

You would have Kain for most of the underground though. It's interesting because the Tower of Zot is accessible (strangely enough) and that warp device that Rubicante used would be somewhat accessible.

Note, there is a section of the floor that you fight Rubicante on that is never normally accessible.. (although the behavior of that area is bugged)  it would be a prime candidate for Tower of Zot revisited v3.

2406

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Shadow Party Stats

« on: April 07, 2008, 10:29:59 PM »

But here's a little interesting tidbit for everyone: the information I've found says that Cid's stats are loaded into the second shadow data slot as well. This means that, at some point in development, he was intended to rejoin your party.

 

It's simple. He was to replace the $#*)($#*#$ing old man so he would completely own in the Giant.

Edit: The fact that Cid faces zero Mechs during his time with you makes zero sense.

2407

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Gird/Endure Behavior

« on: April 06, 2008, 02:01:18 PM »

1) Is this command's success rate determined by the spell's hit rate or not?

2) If it is dictated by the spell's hit rate, I assume it is affected by the slot 1 rule?

3) If is isn't dictated by the spell's hit rate, what's the success rate then?

I get the feeling it uses the spell's hit rate, since I've tested this spell's success by tweaking Yang's Will Power (which is what the spell is based on).

2408

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Shadow Party Stats

« on: April 05, 2008, 11:50:39 AM »

Rydia, Kain, Rosa, and Yang all have their equipment specified in the initial equipment bytes. Tellah does, too -- he comes back with slightly different equipment the second time: the first time he is equipped with a Staff and a Leather Robe, the second time he is equipped with a Staff, a Gaea Robe, and an IronRing. All of these work correctly with their initial equipment specification.

I forgot the details.. oh well. I blame the Staff for being useless and being only useful for the Scamaglione (undead version) battle.

The third instance of Tellah (after Mt. Ordeals) is the one with no specified equipment, but he keeps the same equipment he had in the second instance. My point was that this must be specially coded to work this way, since this is the only character instance where this happens.

No doubt there.

2409

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Shadow Party Stats

« on: April 05, 2008, 11:07:01 AM »

My guess is that either Tellah is being handled differently on Mt. Ordeals or that Tellah's shadowed info is still being stored away until that event completes.

Also, you would have to look into the "revised" equipment data that is being changed by the game... using Rosa or Yang under this instance is your best bet. Here are some reasons:

1) Young Rydia switches to Older Rydia profile.
2) Kain comes back fully equipped
3) Tellah comes back with the same equipment you first met him. This might be something you look into further.
4) Dark Knight Cecil switches to Paladin Cecil profile.

For Yang, he starts with a Leather Robe and a Claw. When he rejoins at Baron, he comes back with only a Leather Robe.
For Rosa, she starts with a full set of equipment. When she rejoins, she comes back with the Prisoner Robe only.

Both characters you may want to look into.

2410

Pandora's Box / Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?

« on: April 04, 2008, 09:16:50 AM »

It probably could be contained within the front-end, now that you mention it.  My issue is this: How would the end user know if the patch was made against a headered or unheadered ROM (unless the author told him)? My thinking is to simply store that information as a bit in the patch header, so that at patch-time the target addresses could be added/subtracted/left alone as needed.

My suggestion would involve port-specfic patches in a new file format, but not as part of the main patching format. This would deal with identifying all valid ROMs that should be valid for patching.. it would handle the minor, annoying, "user should not know/care" details such as the iNES header or the SNES header. Note that the detection is done by the app, and not by the format.

Putting any part of this in the main patching format is not a good idea, since it is supposed to be universal to all ROMs. The details have to be manipulated elsewhere. So basically you need to apply against two files... one for general patching and one for specific stuff/details. It's not elegent, but it should handle the agonizing issue better, w/o bloating up the spec.

2411

Pandora's Box / Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?

« on: April 04, 2008, 12:58:09 AM »

The SNES specific header stuff needs to be done in a separate program (IMO).. probably needing to run through a batch file (script).. or it could be in the form of a plugin, although, integrating it directly could be done, but it should not be part of the file format, only the application/frontend itself needs support.

The more annoying patches are the ones that directly remove a header from the file... 

2412

Pandora's Box / Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?

« on: April 03, 2008, 10:21:20 PM »

I was saying before, we need a better IPS, yes. Something tailored to the SNES would be fine. Header detection is easy for the SNES, and a patch format could easily be made to detect a header and create/apply a patch as if it was not there. A format that can handle multiple address widths is also quite easy (trying to keep with the non-complexity notion). And it really wouldn't be that hard to have a third function (create and apply being the first two)  for the potential new patch program: Merge/detect conflict. This could load 2 patches, and tell you whether they are in conflict *before* you've applied it.

OK, I'm speaking in theoretical right now, but I think it could easily be done.

I don't think the file format really needs to have that as part of it. Rather, a better solution is to write a specialized program that does the SNES header handling for you before (and perhaps after) running it through the patcher.

Certainly being able to ignore the CRC check is important in the patcher though.

2413

Gaming Discussion / Random Dual Orb 2 Notes...

« on: April 03, 2008, 02:19:34 PM »

To be revised and please ignore if you don't care.

Attack Base = Power/2
Defense Base = (Constitution+Agility)/4
Magic Base = (Spirit+Intelligence)/2
Hit Base = Agility/2
Evade Base = "It's Fixed You Goof"

--Edit--
Some more info...
Plarna: level * 50
Panacea: maxHP/ 4
Regen: maxHP / 8
Poison: maxHP / 16

--Edit--
Evolved Armor elemental properties:
Absorbs Darkness
Fire/Thunder/Wind/Water = damage * 1/2
Holy/Ice/Earth/Neutral = ??? (probably damage * 1/2)

Blaster elemental property: Lightning

Note: Ice Elemental != Water Elemental
MT = Multitargeted

Elemental Spells:
Holy: Holy Light (MT)
Darkness: Darkness Arrow
**Fire: Energy Bullet, Flame (MT)
Ice: Freeze
**Thunder: Electric Blast, Plasma (MT)
**Wind: Wind Cutter, Leaf Stream (MT)
**Water: Press Water, Gun Water (MT)
Earth: Stone Lance
Neutral: Nova (MT)

Plasma (MT) isn't totally Lightning... since Electric Blast can work against the Deadly (rabbit). It seems to be a hybrid of two elementals (perhaps, I could be wrong)... either to Earth (since both the Deadly (rabbit) and Original Gummy heal against it) or to Darkness (Deadly (rabbit) gets healed, but the Original Gummy is not.

Similar stuff occurs with Press Water and Gun Water vs the same enemies.

Note: It seems all the spells are considered distinct.

Dragoon elemental property: Darkness

Tiamat Blade and Wave Gun elemental property: Earth (?)

Edit: With even more info...

Gassa Robe:
Neutral = damage * 4/5
Earth = damage * 7/10
Energy Bolt = damage * 2/3
Fire/Water/Ice/Lightning/Wind = damage * 1/2

Magic Chain:
Lightning = damage * 3/2
Energy Bolt/Earth = damage * 3/4
Darkness/Neutral/Fire/Water/Ice/Wind = damage * 1/2

Distract Robe:
Darkness/Neutral/Fire/Energy Bolt/Water/Ice/Earth = damage * 1/2
wind = damage * 1/2 (leaf stream), 1/256 (wind cutter)
Lightning = damage * 1/10 (plasma), 1/256 (electric blast)

Guard Talisman:
+20 Magic
Earth = damage * 1/2
Neutral/Energy Bolt = damage * 1/3
Darkness/Fire/Water/Ice/Lightning/Wind = damage * 1/256

Serra Suit:
Neutral/Fire/Energy Bolt/Water/Ice/Lightning/Wind/Earth = damage * 1/2

Holy Plate (limited testing):
Absorbs Earth (?)
Lightning = damage * 9/10 (plasma)
Energy Bolt = damage * 2/3
Darkness/Fire/Ice = damage * 1/2
Neutral = damage * 1/4

Dragon Scale:
Absorbs Fire/Energy Bolt
Neutral = damage * 2/3
Ice = damage * 1/2

Guri Guard (limited testing):
Darkness = damage * 1/2
Energy Bolt = damage * 2/5
Fire/Water/Lightning/Wind = damage * 1/256

Protect Armor:
Lightning = damage * 3/5 (plasma), 1/2 (electric blast)

Guard Blazer:
Neutral = damage * 4/5
Earth = damage * 3/4

--Edit--
Updated with more magic resistance info.

Cure does not heal Taboo (Silence) status.

Magic Coat also boosts magic defense as part of boosting magic power (Magic is derived from one of the stats anyways, probably Intelligence).

Naijiri has a natural attack power of 80.

--Edit--
Bugs with the game:

Swapping weapons in battle resets all stat bonuses applied by spells.

Landing the airship north of Niisa will make you cry since you always move down when leaving Niisa. The surrounding area prevents you from getting back on the airship.

2414

Gaming Discussion / Re: FF4A Random Cuteness

« on: April 03, 2008, 07:24:02 AM »

I don't even have photochop skills. (Yes, I spelled it that way intentionally.)

2415

Gaming Discussion / Re: FF4A Random Cuteness

« on: April 02, 2008, 08:05:40 PM »

Young Rydia uses the little piggy/toad sprites as well.

Older Rydia does not though.