Messages

2566

Gaming Discussion / Re: FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?

« on: March 19, 2008, 07:47:27 PM »

Weapons in general need to have stat effect tweaks.  Why don't more Rods and Staves give you better +INT/WIS?

I think the impact has more to do with when those weapons are given to you relative to the current progress in question. I think status effects or enemy type/race modifiers would be much more interesting...

I still don't quite understand why there is Charm Rod.. not a Charm Staff instead...

Go figure.

2567

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Darkness/Holy elemental attacks

« on: March 19, 2008, 07:40:13 PM »

I agree, and have always thought this behavior strange. I think I'll switch it in my hack, too. It makes sense to me for Dark Knights to be resistant to dark attacks and Paladins to be resistant to holy attacks. Maybe that's just the way my brain works, but I think I'll add that behavior in too (not that it makes that much difference in the overall game, but it's the principle of the thing). 

Agree with who?

This is one of the few games where having a complete set of elemental equipment is detrimental to self while under Charm...

Oh well...

2568

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Darkness/Holy elemental attacks

« on: March 19, 2008, 03:21:46 PM »

Personally, I just live with the fact that the name is what it is, depending on the game and its consistancy. A number of games do something along those lines...

The best alternative would simply just rename the equipment and/or swap the internal bits and item drops.

2569

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Darkness/Holy elemental attacks

« on: March 19, 2008, 02:54:59 PM »

While I don't disagree with the proposal of having Dark Cecil take more damage vs. Undead enemies (with the oddness of his armor being "Holy" resistant)...

To me...the logic of having a Dark Knight take Less damage vs. the Undead/Darkness-Weilding monsters makes sense, and at the same time being weak vs. Holy.

Likewise to have the Paladin weak vs. Darkness and strong vs. Holy...also seems to make sense.

This was the behavior I have written in the TODO for my next hack...

Having it the other way around would make for a more interesting twist...

Yes, but you would have a tough time explaining that Fire Shields being weak vs Fire. The whole design was probably original intended behavior. I know it's totally ironic that "Holy" attacks are favorable my projected Dark Knight's equipment set, but that's how the elemental property on equipment is behaving.

The intention was to make Cecil totally useless vs Undead to a significant degree (even critical hits won't save him).

2570

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Darkness/Holy elemental attacks

« on: March 19, 2008, 02:40:27 PM »

I never knew holy and dark worked like that, it makes sense though. Currently in my hack the dark knight gear resists dark because that just made sense to me, although I can't argue with your reasoning about making him weak to zombie attacks...hmm, his equipment might be getting an overhaul.

Well, both bits are set in FF4A primarily to get in Holy resistance, but Scan would have confused people and give them shock because that message that they are weak vs Darkness would confuse/scare the people (the same people who can't figure out why the Dark Elf hurts them 9999 damage).

2571

Game Modification Station / Re: Create a Bugfix Patch/Hack for All FF4 Versions?

« on: March 19, 2008, 09:06:49 AM »

That isn't as bad, since you can be gaining 10000+ EXP easy and perhaps intending to tweak the stats to the max...

But what good is tons of experience if you lose it all every time you swap the character out of the party?

Well, there's the idea to "make a choice and stick with it".. and/or add something in the routines that take the other characters stats into account.

2572

Gaming Discussion / FF4 Equipment Rebalancing?

« on: March 19, 2008, 09:05:48 AM »

Although this is strictly my opinion, I hope to give some insight into retweaking aspects of FF4 that seem horribly broken and unbalanced/useless.

I'll focus on specific aspects and work my way to others as I come up with ideas.

Bows+Arrows need the most restructuring.

Bows should focus more on tweaking the attack power.. the Arrows should be used to exploit weaknesses.

I haven't thought too much on the Bows.. but each upgrade should be like this.. a new bow should improve the attack power at least by 10 (internally, 20 points have to be increased) and the hit rate increases by 10% (this should be semi-viable for those not named Rosa).

Arrows need to be retweaked.. something along the lines like this (monsters probably have to be retweaked):
"Cursed" Arrows, 20 attack power, inflicts Curse (a tweak for Iron arrows specifically)
Holy Arrows, 10 attack power, Holy elemental, effective vs Spirits/Ghouls (most spirits are weak vs holy)
Fire Arrows, 10 attack power, Fire elemental, effective vs Undead (it would also work against the Milon Z/elemental version)
Ice Arrows, 10 attack power, Ice elemental, effective vs Insects/Reptiles (this is based on the Ice Rod)
Lightning Arrows, 10 attack power, Lightning elemental, effective vs Mechs
Darkness Arrows, 15 attack power, Darkness elemental, inflicts Darkness (this is part of a greater game tweak that would be necessary)
Mute/Silence Arrows, 15 attack power, effective vs Mages, inflicts Mute/Silence
Charm Arrows, 15 attack power, effective vs Giants, inflicts Charm
Artemis Arrows, 18 attack power, effective vs Dragons, inflicts Poison
Drain Arrows, 15 attack power, Drain elemental, effective vs "Undead" and Flan/Pudding (replacement for Poison Arrows)
Beast/Beastkiller Arrows, 8 attack power, effective vs all races except Flan/Pudding (replacement for Genji/Samurai/Yoichi Arrows)
Medusa arrows, 5 attack power, inflicts Stone

Edit: Arrow values retweaked and posting Bow stats...

Short Bow, 20 attack power (10 effective), 99% hit rate, Air elemental
CrossBow, 40 attack power (20 effective), 50% hit rate, Air elemental
Great Bow, 60 attack power (30 effective), 60% hit rate, Air elemental, +3 Str
Archer/Killer Bow, 90 attack power (45 effective), 65% hit rate, Air elemental, +5 Str
Elven Bow, 130 attack power (65 effective), 75% hit rate, Air elemental, effective vs mages, +5 Wis, +5 Str, casts Shell when used as an item
Samurai/Yoichi Bow, 180 attack power (90 effective), 70% hit rate, Air elemental, +10 Str, +10 Will, effective vs giants
Artemis Bow, 250 attack power (125 effective), 80% hit rate, Air elemental, effective vs dragons, +15 Str, +15 Agi, -15 Vit, +15 Wis, -15 Will

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Another Edit: The focus of the power goes to the bows.. the arrows have a lesser role although they have more impact early on.

The Short Bow is to be used early on.. for characters like Palom+Porom for Mt. Ordeals... while Rosa benefits from the CrossBow early on. The Great Bow will be handy during the Magnetic Cave run.. and the later Bows will become very viable for other characters.. particularly Rydia (and FuSoYa to a lesser extent) so they aren't doing as poorly.

The Artemis Bow gets the greatest boost, and gives Rosa competitive stats so she can keep the White Robe instead of having to use the Minerva Robe to be even remotely speedy.

2573

Game Modification Station / Re: Create a Bugfix Patch/Hack for All FF4 Versions?

« on: March 19, 2008, 08:33:15 AM »

I was fooling around with some event editing, and one of the commands is of course to add character X to your party. I hacked the event where you get the twinharp to also add Edward himself to your party. It worked, but all his stats were reset to their starting values. When I replaced the command from "add Edward" to "add Kain" he still had his levels.

I'm pretty sure the game keeps data for characters who are meant to rejoin you (such as Kain, Rydia, and even FuSoYa), but discards data for ones who are not (such as Edward and the twins).

That isn't as bad, since you can be gaining 10000+ EXP easy and perhaps intending to tweak the stats to the max...

2574

Game Modification Station / Re: Create a Bugfix Patch/Hack for All FF4 Versions?

« on: March 19, 2008, 07:38:29 AM »

That having been said, however, would something like that even be possible? The game only remembers data for certain characters after they leave your party. If you tried to re-add, say, Edward to the party, he'd lose all his levels.

AFAIK, the game continues to keep track of the characters that were introduced/added to the party. That's how FuSoYa's stats change after you met him since.

The game as far as I can tell doesn't do many, if any checks at the end of the game for the characters, other than Cecil (for obvious reasons). I personally have not tried any of the Game Genie codes that modify the character in a specific slot, but there are some that allow you to swap Young Rydia with Older Rydia.. and the game can't seem to tell the difference (FF4A plays a bit on that fact in Rydia's trial).

2575

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Darkness/Holy elemental attacks

« on: March 19, 2008, 01:59:44 AM »

Refer to this thread for the basis of what I'm going to say: http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=401.0

If the armor bit is set to have protection vs holy, you are weak against the Darkness elemental. If the armor bit is set to have protection vs Darkness, you are weak against Holy.

This new info explains why both bits are set in this instance.

This info will explain why the game engine isn't using this bit... enemies were meant to have elemental attacks. The problem with it was that if you were able to protection to both stats for magical reasons, it would hurt you for physical attacks, just like Ice+Fire equipment.

The entire Dark Knight's equipment was most likely meant to be resistant to Holy (this means he was weak vs Darkness), which also means extra pain vs Zombies (they were to attack with the Darkness elemental).. and that also probably meant that the Paladin's initial equipment was meant to be resistant to Darkness (which means weak vs Holy), making Cecil very resistant vs all of the undead at Mt. Ordeals, although all of the equipment has resistance vs Undead, so it's almost irrelevent. Then again, Holy attacks/spells would rape the Paladin...

It is the same logic that the Fire Shield has you weak vs Fire and resistant to Ice and the Ice Shield has you weak vs Ice and resistant to Fire.

This behavior is probably completely fixed in FF4A.

2576

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Elemental Reference Guide

« on: March 19, 2008, 01:51:02 AM »

New info will be posted in this thread: http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=259.0

2577

Final Fantasy IV Research & Development / Re: Dark Wave Command

« on: March 19, 2008, 01:45:38 AM »

Command is disabled when fists are used. It doesn't matter what weapon is equipped. That's the only major check done for this command (since Dark Knight Cecil has a 3 weapon list, they were lazy to code this better). This becomes readily apparent in Paladin's hack.

2578

Game Modification Station / Re: Create a Bugfix Patch/Hack for All FF4 Versions?

« on: March 19, 2008, 01:43:08 AM »

Stupid question, but what is the Adamant Armor bug? >.>

http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=230.0

I'm not surprised this game is in need of a bug fix patch. FF games are usually broken and/or incomplete.

FF5 is the least buggy game AFAIK. There are a few bugs.. some kinda gamebreaking (one Chemist's mix ignores Berserk status)... others kinda annoying silly (probably wasn't fixed in FF5A but eh Knives and Whips meant to use the Agility stat to increase damage).

Wasn't the developer's room removed in the original US version as well? Or am I "misremembering" again?

Yes. That and FF4ET.

Edit:

When the Adamant Armor is equipped, then deequiped on any member of the party, the character becomes weak against every basic elemental (Fire, Ice, Lightning) unless there are other elemental protection available.

It seems that there is a bit(s) that is forgotten to be turned off when the Adamant Armor is deequipped, and the characters end up being severly weakened.

You can also transfer this to a new game after resetting the game and the character that was equipped with the Adamant Armor previously will be weak.

I'm not sure if this applies to FF4A though.

This does not apply to the Glass Helmet since the Immune attribute does not even work with this piece of equipment.

I'm still shocked by that.

Shocked by what? Btw, I did make an error in the Glass Helmet.. the Immune attribute at least increases evade to 99%... and it doesn't create the negative effect that the Adamant Armor does, which is good.

2579

Game Modification Station / Create a Bugfix Patch/Hack for All FF4 Versions?

« on: March 19, 2008, 12:39:12 AM »

There seems to be a number of things to this game that needs some fixing.. and it may be worthwhile to do..

1) Add unused dialog to proper parts of the game. There is some dialog that you would think would be shown, but never shown because the game was most likely unfinished.
2) Fix the duplication bug (use FF4ET as a base).
3) Allow FF2US to use the FF4 Active option.
4) Add back in dummied weapons... perhaps adding a new script to trigger them.. like a script to check if all the vehicles surround Mysidia or Baron that some guy gives you the Assassin Knife... or adding the Hand Axe to a shop the town of Silveria/Mythril or to Cid's daughter as a gift or something.
5) Fix the Adamant Armor bug. 
6) Apply fix for Stop status in FF2 v1.0 that was applied to FF2 v1.1.
7) Readd all dummied commands...?
8) Fix one dummied command not ever enabled in FF4.
9) Fix back row bit bug.

A more radical hack though is modifying the battle system to take advantage of the other defensive stats (evade and magic evade)... which would make for battles where Cecil can actually miss...

Another radical hack would perhaps add something like FF4A's character switching system, since in theory it should work the same way... not required but a cool idea perhaps.

Thoughts, other ideas, and random objections?

2580

Gaming Discussion / Trading Defense For Stat Bonuses...

« on: March 18, 2008, 08:36:27 PM »

I've been an advocate of trading defense for stat boosts and evade as evidenced by these threads:
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=354.0
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=429.0

There are some obvious reasoning for that.

The values for each significant stat (attack power, defense, and magic defense) are important (though the magic defense stat is almost insignificant, followed by the defense stat to an extent), but multiplies have a greater influence since their impact determines the most to damage output.

Vitality in relation to every other stat is actually weak.. whereas all the other stats have some influence against the multipliers. Someone such as Yang would greatly benefit from a Headband+Karate/Kenpogi combo since that directly influences his attack multiplier stat. For someone such as Cid, sometimes it is a difficult decision, given that the multiplier barely moves for him since his Agility growth looks bad (but actually it is comparable to Yangs, except that Yang gets Agility boosting claws). If one were to expose this behavior in FF4A late game, it isn't as bad.. but early game, you may prefer to simply take less damage. It's an interesting decision to say the least, and one worth exploring if you have nothing better to do.

Late game, particularly if you plan to stat max past level 70), the emphasis on stats is reduced (pretty much all the final characters in FF4 can max the Agility stat, except for Rosa). Evade and Magic Evade (via the stat multipliers) becomes much more significant in reducing damage. These cause monsters such as the Behemoth or Red Dragon to simply miss you more often than not... and make the EvilMask look silly when Holy or Flare fail to hit you. It has a greater significance vs magic simply because magic defense is not that high, but if you were to evade some of the enemy's spell multiplier, you can easily lose 340-1200 points of damage vs Flare/Holy/Meteo attacks.. something that a slight magic defense bump doesn't magically fix.

Anyways, here's some other interesting examples of equipment choice:
Light (Paladin) Helmet vs Triangle (Gaea) Hat for Cecil..

Light Helmet stats:
7 defense, 0 evade, 2 magic defense, 1 magic evade, +3 Will, undead resistance

Triangle Hat stats:
3 defense, 7 evade, 5 magic defense, 5 magic evade, +3 Will, +3 Wis

It almost seems that a 4 defense difference is a lot... which is partially true. For the majority of time it is relavent, it's not a significant concern. The rest of the Paladin's initial equipment already covers undead resistance, and the Triangle Hat boosts a number of other things.. which allows Cecil during the "weakened" Dark Elf have a greater chance to completely avoiding his magic (he has a 1x spell multiplier in this state IIRC).

Here's another look at another equipment comparison...
Mithril (Silver) Helmet vs Priest (Wizard) Hat

Mithril Helmet:
8 defense, 0 evade, 2 magic defense, 2 magic evade, spirit resistance

Priest Hat:
5 defense, 8 evade, 7 magic defense, 7 magic evade, +5 Will, undead resistance

3 defense doesn't seem like that much, and that's true. However, the Priest Hat benefits Cecil is even greater this time around. Spirit resistance at the point of the game you can buy the equipment is practically irrelevent.. plus most likely Cecil has moved on from most of his Paladin equipment so the undead resistance will prove useful when it matters (not as significant, but there are a number of places where you have undead). Cecil at least becomes a semi-competant healing at this point.. so it's not that much of a hinderance.

Well.. here's a more compelling argument+comparison...

Diamond Armor vs Light (Sorceror) Robe

Diamond Armor:
19 defense, 0 evade, 4 magic defense, 2 magic evade, lightning resistance

Light Robe:
12 defense, 10 evade, 9 magic defense, 9 magic evade, +5 Wisdom, +5 Will, lightning resistance, undead resistance

7 defense is "probably" significant again, but the Light Robe has far more application.. since at this point of the game, those extra stat boosts would have boosted Cecil's magic defense multiplier a notch, plus given him some extra defense vs undead (then again, if you have the Priest Hat, it won't matter as much). These choices always become tougher, but the reality is what you prefer. The stat boosts are generally better at this point of the game, but you may have some difficulty measuring the difference.. so here's a very interesting argument...

When Kain leaves for the final time and comes back.. he comes with the Genji (Samurai) armor set. That set is realtively inferior IMO, for many reasons. The best armor equipment set IMO is the following:
Aegis Shield
Green Beret (Bandanna)
Diamond Armor
Power Wrist/Armlet (Strength Ring) / Giant (Zeus) Gloves is preferable...

Here's the benefits over the entire Genji Set
1) Resistance vs Mages
2) Resistance vs Petrify - useful vs Kary/Selene Guardian/Moon Goddess
3) Resistance vs Lightning
4) Lots of power boosts, useful for killing normal enemies and bosses
5) Massive evade boost

The Genji Set has only the defense and magic defense benefits.. but that's it. There's nothing amazing except that defense vs Behemoths is nice, but then again why would this matter if you don't use Blink to your advantage?

In sum, the tradeoffs listed here are worthy of note, and something to think about when playing the game (and hacks).