Topics

1

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Terence's Party Mechanic FAQ is wrong ?!

« on: 2011-06-21 22:58:17 »

If you don't know what it is, check out GameFaqs' FAQ section of FFVII PSX. His great FAQs detailing the game mechanics are in there.

Here is the reason for this topic's creation. In the Party Mechanics FAQ, HP Plus section, Terence says this :

Notes:
  The maximum additional HP that can be gained through Materia is +100%
  Extra HP Plus Materia over this will only help balance out extra negative
    percentage modifiers

In my mod, for balancing purposes, I decreased the characters' MaxHP. At level 99, no one has more than approx. 1500 HP. The thing is, HP Pluses materia do stack. In my mod, you can easily reach 9000 HP, if not more, with enough mastered HP Pluses. So, either the mechanics are different in the PC version, or he's wrong. Can anyone confirm that they also stack in the PSX version ?

Also, I created a Super HP Plus materia. At level 1, it has the same effect as a mastered HP Plus : HP + 50%. The other levels are :

Level 2 : HP +100%
Level 3 : HP +150%
Level 4 : HP +200%
Level 5 : HP +250%

It works great, and stacks with the other HP Pluses, of course (it will take ages to master ). I was wondering if I could do the same with the EXP Plus and Gil Plus materias (ie. give them more levels)... ...But in Wall Market, their bonuses are displayed differently from HP Plus.

Looking at Exp Plus, for instance, we can see its data :

Level 1 : 24 (exp +50%)
Level 2 : 32 (exp +100%)

So, apparently, 16 means no change (=100%), 8 means half experience (-50% ...so yeah, I guess you could create a materia that would prevent you from gaining exp), 24 is +50%, and 32 means double experience. Since Terence says the maximum bonus to Exp Gain is an additional 100% (+200% total), would it work if I inserted 40 as the modifier for level 3, so exp could be +150%, and insert 48 as the modifier for level 4, so exp gets to +200% ?... ...And couldn't it go even higher ? What's the maximum value for this field, actually ? Something tells me it's FFh, or in other words 255 - so experience could potentially get to +1593,75% ?... ...And is it the same for Gil Plus ?

2

General Discussion / With or without Event-editing ?

« on: 2011-06-13 09:12:35 »

I'm in some sort of dilemna, here.

I started my project (which is some kind of hard mode, with many tweaks) with no event-editing in mind. The reasons are :

- I felt it wasn't really needed. There already are optional bosses (20+) in random battles in places you wouldn't normally visit (such as the beach near Midgar).

- The original's FIELD is not (too) broken, so why fix it.

- Easier installation of the mod since there will only be changes to FF7.exe (SHOP and LIMITMENU.MNU), SCENE.BIN, and KERNEL.BIN/KERNEL2.BIN.

- More stability for the game. No risk to have a "woops, something very bad happened !" crash when playing, because of a faulty event rewrite.

- Easier creation of the PSX patch, too.

- Earlier release of the mod.

...But I'm not sure if this is the "right" move. Field-editing would allow me to add "monster-in-a-box" battles, to fight NPCs, to make NPCs finally useful by handing the party items/gils/materia, to create new shops, to make a Save-Screen pop up before a boss battle (when there are no save points around, like before GI Nattak), and to make some events actually useful (like, earning some things by making Don Corneo choose Cloud or Aeris, in the Wall Market events, etc), ...

I'd like to know what you guys think. Hack7 and Makou Reactor allowing me to insert the same field editing in both the psx and the pc versions, it could be interesting. But that means more installation trouble and development time. Especially since I already designed it all without event-editing in mind (making more items available to the player means the possibility to destroy the balance I've been working on). But I'm OCD about making the best possible mod, and the better mod would be the one that adds modifications to the events. I really can't decide. Your thoughts ?

EDIT:

With the help of Tyrant_Wave from the GameFaqs message board, I decided to go with "no field editing" for now. I'll release the complete mod that way, then think about implementing field editing in a possible revision. We'll see.

3

General Discussion / Making an undead immune to Instant-Death (FFVII) ?

« on: 2011-06-01 19:56:49 »

The case of Gi Nattak is well known, I think. This boss absorbs Restorative and is immune to the Death status, but it will still die if you use the Life spell / a Phoenix Down on it. I wonder if there is some way to fix this... ...I tried to make it "absorb" the Death status, among other things, but none of my efforts proved useful. The boss always dies when Life is thrown its way.

Any idea ? I'd like to have Zombie bosses that can't be insta-killed. Through AI, maybe ?

4

Completely Unrelated / Time for some cardio workouts

« on: 2011-05-27 22:07:05 »

Check this out :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkD9LwDBWW0

Looks easy enough, but I just tried it, and god, I didn't expect to be this out of shape.  Basically, after the first series of 10 squat thrusts + 10 mountain climbers + 10 squat jumps, I couldn't jump anymore. There was just no way I could get my feet off the ground. Laughed out loud at how pitiful that was. Those took me +2 minutes, and 10 minutes later, I still haven't recovered.

Gotta try again tomorrow to see if I can do better. Come on you should try, they say it's good for your heart

5

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Turned Poison into Disease through AI, but...

« on: 2011-05-16 23:29:18 »

I gave the Poison status the "Disease" effect from FFXII. In other words, when under Poison, the character's MaxHP becomes the character's CurrentHP. The consequence is, you can't restore HP to a character under Poison, anymore.

To do this, I added this script to the characters' General Counter AI scripts :

Code: [Select]

02 2060
00 4003
80
70 001B
12 2060
13 4180
80
02 2060
03 4160
80
90

It's working great, except that when Poison is finally cured, the character's maxHP doesn't return to normal. It won't continue decreasing as the character's currentHP decreases, but it won't be his original max either (until the battle is over, of course). Here is an example :

Cloud has full (2500) HP. A Bio spell is sent his way, hits him for 800 damage and poisons him. Cloud's HP is now 1700. Poison damage triggers (70), and HP is now at 1630. Tifa uses Cure2 on him. Useless : his HP stays at 1630. Cid uses an Antidote and Cloud is cured. Enemy attacks Cloud and deals 200 damage. Cloud has now 1430 HP. Tifa uses Cure2 on Cloud. Efficiency is +1500 HP, but Cloud's HP only increases to 1630 (the last maxHP the AI registered).

How can I make it, so that Tifa's final Cure2 brings him back to 2500 HP ? (there is also a disturbing little side-effect : when Poisoned, Cloud's HP increases or decreases as soon as someone or something decides to alter it - not after the attack/healing ocurred... ...but it's not so big a problem and I don't think there's a fix)

6

Completely Unrelated / Tron : the Legacy...

« on: 2011-05-12 17:05:17 »

...or "how to waste two hours of your life". My brother called me telling me "you have to watch it", and I just did. And, oh man, what a bore. Sure, the pictures are pretty, with nice music sometimes, but the storyline... ...It's not the first time my brother makes me watch a movie like this. I also had to sit through Transformers and the horribly-bad-but-critically-acclaimed Avatar. Next time he asks me to watch a movie, someone please remind me to tell him to fuck off.

No originality, cheesy stories with no depth, manichean plots & characters... ...blargh. If these kinds of all-style-but-no-substance movies are your thing go ahead, but if more "evolved" cinematography is what you're looking for, don't watch it. You've been warned.

7

Completely Unrelated / My computer is dead

« on: 2011-05-08 10:05:13 »

I think. It's quite funny really, because I'm often the one who makes fun of those guys who work on projects, and suddenly their comp goes "poof". Like "of course your computer fried and you lost all your data ; these kinds of things happen so often".

Fortunately for me, I saw it coming and I made back-ups. Often. The latest backup I made was yesterday evening, in my external hard-drive. So the mod is essentially fine. Also, perhaps I can fix the problem... Right now my computer won't start and I can't even access set up (screen is frozen on the first screen, where you can see your RAM total, and there's a weird sound going on). I'm going to open the UC... ...The problem may have to do with a HDD that appeared to be broken (these days, before my desktop appeared, windows would always scan the disk and tell me files were corrupted... ...I even formated it to no avail).

So yeah, I'm forced to put my work on hold (and if you're wondering, I'm typing this with my ipod). My mod being perhaps 90% done, it would have been a shame if I had to quit now. Still, I need my computer ;_;

EDIT:

I was right : the old HDD was at cause. I got rid of it, and it's working fine now
Once again, I was too quick at yelling "Bwaahh, it doesn't work!". Bad habits die hard.

8

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Cait Sith's and Vincent's Initial Data

« on: 2011-04-28 11:12:00 »

I was playing around with my hex editor, and found the address for their initial data inside FF7.exe. So I thought I'd share the info with everyone.

Cait Sith's is at offset 0x520c10, while Vincent's is at offset 0x520c94.

If you want to edit them (to alter their starting stats, equipment, materia, ...), you can use the Wiki Savemap, "Table 2 : Character Record" section.

Some addresses :

Cait Sith's Level : 0x520c11 (1 byte)
Cait Sith's CurrentHP : 0x520c3c (2 bytes)
Cait Sith's Base HP :  0x520c3e (2 bytes)
Cait Sith's Current MP : 0x520c40 (2 bytes)
Cait Sith's Base MP : 0x520c42 (2 bytes)
Cait Sith's stats* : 0x520c12 (1 byte each)
Cait Sith's weapon : 0x520c2c (1 byte)
Cait Sith's armor : 0x520c2d (1 byte)
Cait Sith's accessory : 0x520c2e (1 byte)
Materia on his weapon : 0x520c50 (4 bytes for each materia slot - first byte is the materia ID, and the next 3 bytes are its AP)
Materia on his armor : 0x520c70

Vincent's Level : 0x520c95 (1 byte)
Vincent's CurrentHP : 0x520cc0 (2 bytes)
Vincent's Base HP :  0x520cc2 (2 bytes)
Vincent's Current MP : 0x520cc4 (2 bytes)
Vincent's Base MP : 0x520cc6 (2 bytes)
Vincent's stats* : 0x520c96 (1 byte each)
Vincent's weapon : 0x520cb0 (1 byte)
Vincent's armor : 0x520cb1 (1 byte)
Vincent's accessory : 0x520cb2 (1 byte)
Materia on his weapon : 0x520cd4 (4 bytes for each materia slot - first byte is the materia ID, and the next 3 bytes are its AP)
Materia on his armor : 0x520cf4

* Stats are listed in this order : strength, vitality, magic, spirit, dexterity, luck.

---

I'm glad to finally be able to change their starting equipment ^^ (to find the right value, you can check out the equipment's ID in Wall Market, and convert it to hex)

On a related note, it would be nice if the next Wall Market could load those addresses in FF7.exe. Beats having to use a hex editor 

9

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF7 AI question again...

« on: 2011-04-25 11:04:42 »

Anyone knows which byte(s) to change to make an enemy multi-target a magic spell (like Fire, Sleep, Dispel, ...) instead of single target ? I hope it is as simple as changing one or two bytes, but when I compared Safer Sephiroth's AI (IIRC the guy multi-targets DeSpell) with another monster that single-targets (almost all of them =\), their scripts were so different it wasn't funny.

Any help would be appreciated

10

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / The Berserk Attacks ? (FFVII)

« on: 2011-04-05 17:39:01 »

It's been bothering me for a while, now. All enemies have a designated Berserk attack, but it seems the data that tells an enemy which attack to use when under Berserk, isn't in Scene.bin.

For example, the enemy 2-Faced that you encounter in the Corel Prison can be put under Berserk, but doesn't have a designated Berserk attack - according to Terence's FAQ. The FAQ mentions that if you Berserk 2-Faced, this enemy will try to use a non-existent attack, and since this attack's data is entirely made of FFs, it ends up costing 65535 MP. Too many for 2-Faced to use. For someone who knows about FFVII's mechanics this makes sense, but...

...The thing is : this blank attack in *not* in 2-Faced's list of attacks. Normally, these dummied attacks are just blank spots, and exist in the enemies' animation list (Dual Horn and its 3rd physical attack comes to mind). The fact that 2-Faced looks for an attack Proud Clod doesn't list, for its Berserk attack, makes no sense to me.

I feel that we need infos on Berserk attacks - if only just to fix 2-Faced and a few other foes (Doorbull, Guardian, Manhole, X-Cannon, and Helletic Hojo's right arm). And sure, it's easy to fix this by making those enemies immune against Berserk, but I'd be interesting in knowing the inner workings behind this (not to mention the fact that I'd like to change some Berserk attacks, in my mod).

EDIT:

Never mind, I figured it out just after posting the thread (one of my bad habits, you might say -_-) ...

The Berserk attack is just the first ability in the Manipulate attack list. Since most enemies that aren't manipulable have a blank attack listed in the first slot, it explains the behavior of 2-Faced and the others. So yeah, the Berserk attacks indeed are in scene.bin, but I won't edit my first paragraph in this topic. I'll leave it for posterity, as a reminder of my own stupidity and me jumping to conclusions

11

General Discussion / Renaming a status effect ?

« on: 2011-03-18 20:41:52 »

I'd like to rename Dual into Seizure, so that when you're inflicted by Dual, you actually read the name 'Seizure' in battle. Logic told me that I could do that with Wall Market, in the Battle Text tab, but status effects are nowhere to be found

Any idea ?

12

General Discussion / The bug with Guard System's Quick Machinegun

« on: 2011-03-13 12:53:01 »

This enemy has a double Machine Gun attack. This is how it goes : it first fires twice, then the target has two impact animations, and finally the damage is displayed twice. Still, you only lose the HP from one hit - not two.

It's easily fixable with Proud Clod, though. You just have to give it an additionnal effect of '0', and insert '2' in the Effect Modifier so you effectively take the damage twice.

No, the reason why I bring the subject is because this combo really interests me. I'd love for some enemies that also use Machine Guns to also attack twice in the same way, in my mod. But the problem is, I can't reproduce this behavior. In Proud Clod, this Machine Gun attack has the same data as all the other ones. The only thing that differs is its Attack ID (02DE instead of 0110), but I don't think it has any relevance.

So my question is, where is the data that tells the enemy to attack twice in such a way ? (and it's not even "attacking twice", as seen in Terence's Enemy Mechanics FAQ - it actually attacks only once but the game faultly displays the damage twice). I also don't think Quick Machinegun's  AI is at cause, because if it was, the attack would work correctly and your character would suffer from both attacks (not to mention it would behave differently : you'd have the first firing animation, the first impact on the target, the damage display, then the second firing animation, the second impact, and the second damage display) ...

Any insight would be appreciated 

13

Troubleshooting / Random crash involving Cid's Hyper Jump

« on: 2011-03-03 14:06:55 »

It's weird. Sometimes, when using Cid's limit Hyper Jump, just as his spear hits the ground and the flashy graphical effects appear, FF7.exe crashes with the "Oops, something very bad happened" message. And it doesn't happen 100% of the time.

I tried to look at the crash.dmp file myself, but when I open so big a file with a text viewer, the program eventually crashes. Not to mention the fact that I don't even know where to look...

So I desperately need Aali's or someone else's help. Here are my app.log and crash.dmp, compressed in a nice ~5 MB rar (I had no idea the compression would work so well - from 86.6 MB to 5 MB is really impressive) :

http://www.mediafire.com/file/l37602bva7qlcaq/crash.rar

Any help in understanding what happens would be greatly appreciated !

And to those who can see something with just the app.log and don't want to download the compressed file, here it is :

Code: [Select]

INFO: FF7/FF8 OpenGL driver version 0.7.8b
INFO: Auto-detected version: FF7 1.02 US English
INFO: ATI Technologies Inc. Radeon X1950 Pro 2.1.7278 Release
INFO: OpenGL 2.0 support detected
INFO: Found swap_control extension
INFO: Max texture size: 4096x4096
INFO: Original resolution 640x480, window size 1024x1024, output resolution 1024x1024, internal resolution 1280x1440
INFO: FBO extension detected, using fast scaling/postprocessing path
INFO: Fragment shader(s) linked, vertex shader(s) linked.
 
INFO: FFMpeg movie player plugin loaded
INFO: FFMpeg version SVN-r21874, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
LOCK UNLOCK TEST
MATRIX INITIALIZE
INITIALIZE DD/D3D END
initializing sound...
creating dsound primary buffer
reading audio file
loading static sounds
sound initialized
INITIALIZING MIDI...
selecting device 0:Synthé. SW table de sons GS Mic, mid=1, pid=102,
midi data type: GENERAL MIDI
using midi data file: E:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\Data\midi\midi.lgp
midiOutGetVolume returned: ffffffff
MIDI INITIALIZED
set music volume: 127
MIDI set volume: 127
100% of 127 = 127
set music volume: 127
MIDI set master volume: 100
MIDI set volume: 127
100% of 127 = 127
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
START OF CREDITS!!!
INFO: I:\FF7\Movies\eidoslogo.avi; truemotion2/pcm_u8 320x240, 15.000000 FPS, duration: 10.133333, frames: 152
set music volume trans: 127->0, step=60
MIDI set volume trans: 127->0; step=60
MIDI stop - OK
MIDI stop - OK
END OF CREDITS!!!
Entering MAIN
set music volume: 127
MIDI set volume: 127
100% of 127 = 127
Exiting MAIN
START OF MENU SYSTEM!!!
END OF MENU SYSTEM!!!
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
-=-=[START OF WORLD MAP!!!]=-=-
stop_sound
MIDI set volume: 127
100% of 127 = 127
cross play music: 0
set music volume trans: 127->0, step=4
MIDI cross fade: 13, time: 4
MIDI set volume trans: 15->127; step=4
MIDI set volume: 127
100% of 127 = 127
MIDI play: 13
reading midi file: TA.mid
current volume: 127
MIDI is playing SUCCESSFULLY!!!
set music volume: 127
-=-=[END OF WORLD MAP!!!]=-=-
START OF MENU SYSTEM!!!
END OF MENU SYSTEM!!!
-=-=[START OF WORLD MAP!!!]=-=-
MIDI play: 7
reading midi file: BAT.mid
current volume: 127
MIDI is playing SUCCESSFULLY!!!
stop_sound
-=-=[END OF WORLD MAP!!!]=-=-
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
Entering FRAME_INITIALIZE SWIRL
Exitting FRAME_INITIALIZE SWIRL
Swirl sound_effect1
stop_sound
End of Swirl sound_effect1
Entering FRAME_QUIT SWIRL
Exitting FRAME_QUIT SWIRL
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
[BATTLE] Entering FRAME_INITIALIZE
[BATTLE] Scene# 164
[BATTLE] Exitting FRAME_INITIALIZE
INFO: 24-bit PNG loaded (E:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\/textures/Limit/limit/jo_b03_00.png); this is slow, please convert to 32-bit
INFO: 24-bit PNG loaded (E:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\/textures/Spells/eskill/jo_b04_00.png); this is slow, please convert to 32-bit
[BATTLE] Begin main battle loop
[BATTLE] End of current battle
[BATTLE] Begin end battle stuff
MIDI play: 46
reading midi file: FAN2.mid
current volume: 127
MIDI is playing SUCCESSFULLY!!!
stop_sound
[BATTLE] Entering FRAME_QUIT
[BATTLE] endof battle.
[BATTLE] Exitting FRAME_QUIT
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
START OF MENU SYSTEM!!!
END OF MENU SYSTEM!!!
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
-=-=[START OF WORLD MAP!!!]=-=-
stop_sound
MIDI set volume: 127
100% of 127 = 127
cross play music: 0
set music volume trans: 127->0, step=4
MIDI cross fade: 13, time: 4
MIDI set volume trans: 127->15; step=2
MIDI set volume: 15
100% of 15 = 15
MIDI play: 13
reading midi file: TA.mid
current volume: 15
MIDI set volume trans: 15->127; step=2
MIDI set volume: 127
100% of 127 = 127
MIDI is playing SUCCESSFULLY!!!
set music volume: 127
stop_sound
MIDI play: 7
reading midi file: BAT.mid
current volume: 127
MIDI is playing SUCCESSFULLY!!!
stop_sound
-=-=[END OF WORLD MAP!!!]=-=-
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
Entering FRAME_INITIALIZE SWIRL
Exitting FRAME_INITIALIZE SWIRL
Swirl sound_effect1
stop_sound
End of Swirl sound_effect1
Entering FRAME_QUIT SWIRL
Exitting FRAME_QUIT SWIRL
Entering MAIN
Exiting MAIN
[BATTLE] Entering FRAME_INITIALIZE
[BATTLE] Scene# 174
[BATTLE] Exitting FRAME_INITIALIZE
[BATTLE] Begin main battle loop
WM_CLOSE
[BATTLE] Entering FRAME_QUIT
[BATTLE] endof battle.
[BATTLE] Exitting FRAME_QUIT
Field Quit
MIDI stop - OK
resetting MIDI driver volume - OK
UNINITIALIZE DD

It doesn't seem to be updated each time I launch the game, though (not sure if it should be).

And on a side note, I noticed this mention for the "casting" graphical effets : INFO: 24-bit PNG loaded (E:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\/textures/Limit/limit/jo_b03_00.png); this is slow, please convert to 32-bit. I'd love to make the PNGs faster to read, but have no idea how to convert a PNG from 24 to 32 bits. When I open it with a picture editor (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or Paint Tool Sai), the only bit-related infos I have state that the pngs have a 8 bits color-depth, not a 24 bits one. Could someone please enlighten me ?

EDIT:

Oops, I should have searched : looks like everyone has that problem. Links :

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=7387.msg90025#msg90025
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=4277.msg57934#msg57934

Oh well, I guess I'll have to refrain from using this limit against CMD: Grand Horn after all.

14

Troubleshooting / Crash at the play in the Event Square (Gold Saucer)

« on: 2011-02-09 13:50:24 »

The game crashes just as it starts the stupid & mandatory little show in Event Square (you know ; with the evil dragon king, the king, etc). After the very first dialog boxes, and before Alfred-Cloud appears, I always get the message "Oops, something very bad happened"...

Screenshot :



I also tried to revert my char.lgp and flevel.lgp files to their original counterparts, to no avail. Another annoying thing is that I can't give you my APP.LOG, because it looks like Aali's custom driver doesn't create it anymore (I made the mistake of deleting it once -_-). The crash.dmp file is still being generated though - so I made it available for anyone to download here (91.55 MB):

http://www.mediafire.com/?72tswh84tzncugm

Thanks in advance to whoever can help.

15

Completely Unrelated / You're american, so you fear nothing

« on: 2010-12-11 09:05:03 »

The girl who sings the opening song of the Tom Sawyer anime (that I watched when I was a kid) told me :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbo-hFs6cI8

Translation of the lyrics :

Tom Sawyer, it's America - the symbol of freedom.
He was born on the shores of the Mississipi,
Tom Sawyer is for all of us a friend.

He's always ready to go on adventures
With his good friends.
He fears nothing,
He's an american.
He likes school,
Especially when it's far away from him.

Tom Sawyer, it's America,
For all those who like truth.
He know the wonders
That you find in forests
Paths, rivers and old dirt roads.

He has fabulous items in his pockets
He always takes with him.
Three pieces of strings
Some rocks and wood
He shares with his friends.

Even though I'm not american, I love this song xD I wonder : if this anime was also aired in the US, are the lyrics the same ?

16

General Discussion / Adding more elemental reactions to FFVII ?

« on: 2010-11-24 19:45:50 »

I briefly mentionned this in another topic. My question is : would it be possible to add more elemental reactions, than the 4 existing one ?

They are : absorb, nullify (0 damage), halve (50% damage), and weak (200% damage).

I'd love to be able to make our characters reduce an element to 25% or 12,5% damage, for example. Also, I noticed you can't make a character weak against an element, and this is something that would be interesting (with my new idea of a main physical element and a main magical element, one could imagine Aeris reducing magic by at least 50%, while being weak against physical attacks).

Likewise, I'd love to give enemies a "super weakness" to a particular element. IE, making it suffer 300% or 400% damage from it.

Alternatively, I *could* do without it if the characters' maximum stat was 510 (512?), instead of the usual 255. It would allow me to give a wider range of effect to the starting stats, some characters starting the game with already 255 in Spirit or Vitality. Actually, now that I think about it, could an AI code for the characters tell them to always have the full Dragon Force effect, even after being revived during a battle ?

EDIT:

Also, would it be possible for the game to take into accounts all elements of an attack in the damage calculation ? Like, if an enemy that is both weak against Fire and Ice would take triple damage from Kjata (and not just double) ?... ...I guess the answer is "yes, if you know what you're doing", but it would be great if someone who had the knowledge, time and dedication could make this into a reality. Throwing the idea around, anyway.

17

Releases / [FF7PC-98/PSX] The FFVII AV mod (2010-11-22 Demo)

« on: 2010-11-12 22:59:14 »

For a description of what this mod does, see the replies below.

The demo is for the whole Midgar section of the game - so it ends as soon as you reach the world map.

Here is the download link (72.6MB) for the PC version. Scroll further down for a link for the PSX version.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1u016l6744zd8kg

And straight from the readme contained in this rar archive :

-Installation instructions (for PC) :
--------------------------

1) Copy your SCENE.BIN, KERNEL.BIN, KERNEL2.BIN, FF7.EXE and FLEVEL.LGP files in the folder you extracted this archive to.

2) Double-click "apply scene patch.bat"

3) Double-click "apply kernel patch.bat"

4) Double-click "apply kernel2 patch.bat"

5) Double-click "apply ff7exe patch.bat"

6) Double-click "apply flevel patch.bat"

Now, the files sceneav.bin, kernelav.bin, kernel2av.bin, ff7av.exe and flevelav.lgp have been created.
Those are the files containing the mod. (EDIT: if one of these hasn't been created, that means that the program overwrited the file you put in directly. So, if for example, you can't find ff7av.exe, that means that the ff7.exe you put in this directory became the modified one). 

7) Rename or move your original SCENE.BIN, KERNEL.BIN, KERNEL2.BIN, FF7.EXE and FLEVEL.LGP files - so you have backups of them.

8 ) If one or all of the files : sceneav.bin, kernelav.bin, kernel2av.bin, ff7av.exe and flevelav.lgp have been created, rename them to scene.bin, kernel.bin, kernel2.bin, ff7.exe and flevel.lgp.
Now, put them back into their respective folder, in \Program Files\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII\

9) Play the game!

-How to uninstall
---------------

Either delete / move or rename the modded files, and put the originals back in their place.


-Credits
--------

The entire Qhimm community. Sorry, I'm too lazy to type the name of all the people who helped me a bunch (and there are many!) at the moment, but I'll be sure to mention each person in the final readme (the one that will come with the complete mod).

Any feedback is appreciated

EDIT:

And here is the demo for the PSX version :

http://www.mediafire.com/?g5a3e93ugqxzrr5

I encountered some issues while testing it, though. Because of hardware limitations, you can't use Water on all enemies anymore, or the game would crash. To keep you from crashing your game by mistake, Water can only target a single enemy, now. Also, since the enemy spells table is different from the PC version, I couldn't use the same animations for the new spells. Water 1 is unchanged (the "Water Gun" animation still works), but no wind animation seemed to work for the Aero spells. Thus, I temporarily left them with the Demi animations... ...If you read me KM, I'd like to know how you managed to make your Aero spell with the Sand Storm animation (among others) on the PSX version. I'm at a loss, here...

EDIT2:

ZekuMusashi and WingedMasamune (on GameFaqs) told me their games crash with the new psx patch, so link removed for now. I'm in the process of creating a new, working one.

EDIT3:

New PSX patch created. It also works with the xdelta patcher (after all, it works great that way), so you'll have to use CDMage to replace the old scene.bin, kernel.bin, mds7pb_1.dat, limtmenu.mnu and shopmenu.mnu with the new ones.

18

Completely Unrelated / I lost my PSP, and...

« on: 2010-11-10 19:59:44 »

OK, here is the story : normally, everyday before going to work, I take the bag that holds my PSP with me, so I can entertain myself with it during the day (especially while eating, at 12). But today, when I took the bag, I had the horribly bad surprise of noticing that the PSP compartment was open & empty. I looked everywhere in my house, but nothing. Impossible to find it. Needless to say, I went to work without it.

So, tonight, I started to search everywhere, and tried to recall what previously happened to it. Yesterday evening, I waited in my car and I played Brigandine, while a friend of mine went to do some errands. Then, as she came back in the car, I put the PSP away, and she handed me her bag so I could also put it away. Then I drove her back home, went into my house, put the PSP bag on my desk, and used my computer until maybe 2 am, before I went to bed.

Here is the thing though : when my friend handed me her bag, it interrupted me in my sequence of action of putting the PSP away. For this reason I indeed put the thing into the bag where it belongs, but forgot to close the zipper. So, as I left my car, I didn't notice the PSP fell from the bag and ended its course into the wet evening grass.

To give you an idea, I live in a quiet and small residential area, near a school, so lots of kids walk in front of my house everyday. So, when I finally realized what happened to my PSP (tonight), I was absolutely certain that some kid saw it and took it.

Anyways, just to be sure, I had to go outside and check it out. And amazingly, the PSP was still there, at 10 pm ! It spent 24 hours lying in the grass in front of my house (and near the pavement), and no one stole it. Unbelievable.

I just took it home, and cleaned it. It's very wet, with some dirt located in the L and R buttons, and I hope it still works. I cleaned what I can, but I'm not going to put it on just yet (this would be asking to finish it, IMO) - I think I'll just wait 2 or 3 days before trying to turn it on - but I'd like to know what you would do. This thing (I have the fat one) seems quite water-tight and tough, so I have good hopes of it still functionning. At least, the Memory-stick seems all right.

19

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / How to make Pillar Reno always attack Cloud first ?

« on: 2010-10-10 20:19:18 »

You know, with his Pyramid thing... It can obviously be done through AI-editing, but I can't figure out how to do it. Tried reading NFITC1's tutorials dozens of times, but it didn't help Too complicated for me to grasp, I guess. I can edit easy stuff like what magics / attacks enemies do, but changing targets is another matter entirely. I can't even recognize the line(s) (ie. the opcode(s) & argument(s)) that take care of targeting.

So I'm here, creating this thread. The question is in the title. I noticed that Reno, on top of the Sector 7 pillar, has three pyramid attacks. And I made it so that the Pyramid enemy only appears, when a particular pyramid attack connects (the one that targets Cloud). That is because nasty glitches occur, when there are more than one Pyramid enemy at a time. And unfortunately for my mod, sometimes, Reno never uses his Pyramid on Cloud - making this boss fight a complete joke. But when the Pyramid appears, the fun starts (I don't want to reveal too much to keep the surprise intact ).

I want this damn Turk to always target Cloud at the beginning of the battle (just before he says "try and break it if you can"). Please help an AI-illiterate guy !

20

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Red XIII's Lunatic High special effect (Def% increases)

« on: 2010-07-26 21:20:07 »

Lunatic High is a Limit skill that casts Haste on all party members, and increases Red XIII's Def% by 50 multiplied by the number of living party members. This is mentioned in Terence Fergusson's Party Mechanics FAQ.

With this knowledge in mind, I thought at first that the byte responsible for this increase of evasion was additionnal effect #16 (in both Wall Market and Libre). The one labeled as "Gives party members status []?". Since Haste is given to the characters the "normal" way, I assumed that the description given by NFITC1 and Bosola was somehow wrong. Besides, my logic told me that it should work in the same way as additionnal effects #15 (=Hero Drink) and #1C (Dragon Force), meaning that the effect modifier of 150 (that you can find under Libre's Lunatic High effects) was to increase a certain stat by 50%. Which Lunatic High does, if you overlook the bug that makes Red XIII benefit from the other characters' bonuses.

So I thought "hey, why not create a magic/enemy skill, in my mod, to annihilate an enemy's Evade stat ?". So I decided to test my idea by giving the Fire spell this #16 additionnal effect, and by putting 1 as its modifier. Logic told me it would decrease an enemy's evade by 99% - good enough, I thought.

Then, I proceeded to give a random enemy an evade stat of 255 with Hojo, and I launched the game. Fought the enemy, couldn't physically hit it of course, and casted Fire on it. To my big surprise, the monster was as hard to hit as before, though. Unless I'm very unlucky to miss an enemy that has only 2 or 3 Evasion points 10 times in a row, that means that both my logic and my assumptions were wrong (what did you expect ?  ). And now, I gotta apologize to Bosola and NFITC1, for doubting their comments about effect #16 in their utilities  ^^;.

So, all this means that something else gives Red XIII's evasion bonuses, in Lunatic High. Any idea what it is ?

21

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / How to make enemies die like bosses ?

« on: 2010-07-16 18:07:14 »

Yeah... ...Because the bosses of my mod sometimes die like normal enemies (since some of them originally were normal enemies) and it's quite anticlimactic.

I tried to look for the answer by myself, even with my poor notions of AI-related things. I noticed that the Hundred Gunner enemy has a Death-counter script, so I tried to paste it into the new boss'. No results. The funny thing is : Jenova BIRTH, for example, doesn't have a Death-Counter script. Heck, it doesn't have any counter scripts, only a Pre-Battle and a Main one.

With this in mind, I thought "hey, maybe I'll find something in the Formation tab instead", so I went there. But no, I found no difference with a random battle : the flags are often identical, and the Formation AI is empty.

Besides, in Terence Fergusson's Enemy Mechanics FAQ, in a boss's script, it never says something like :

Code: [Select]

AI: Counter - Death
   Die like a boss
{
   Remove Self
}
Only :

Code: [Select]

AI: Counter - Death
{
   Remove Self
}
Maybe I'm still thinking too much with FFVI's AI code in mind, I don't know. Anyway, I'm lost. Really lost. I hope this is doable. Did Gjoerulv manage to make his new bosses die like bosses ? I played it (and loved it), but I don't remember how they disappear.

22

General Discussion / Criticize the party's stats in my mod

« on: 2010-07-13 10:17:44 »

Hi there ! I'm working on a mod, and I decided to ask for your opinion about the characters' HP/MP/Strength/Vitality/Magic/Spirit/Dexterity/Luck at level 99.

Here is what I came up with :

Name of char: HP at level 99 / MP at level 99

CLOUD:      8600 / 700
BARRET:     9999 / 216
TIFA:         6966 / 520
AERITH:     3844 / 999
REDXIII:    7654 / 432
YUFFIE:      4610 / 870
CAIT SITH: 6790 / 700
VINCENT:   5470 / 747
CID :          9200 / 324

Name of char: Strength / Vitality / Magic / Spirit / Dexterity / Luck

* NOTE: those are the base, as well as the level 99 stats. In my mod, leveling up doesn't increase them. To improve them, you have to use the sources you steal from the enemies*
                 STR   VIT   MAG  SPR  DX  LCK
CLOUD :     150 / 150 / 150 / 150 / 25 / 16
BARRET:     200 / 200 /   0 /    0 / 25 / 15
TIFA:         150 /   50 /  50 / 150/ 25 / 16
AERITH:       0 /     0 / 200 / 200/ 25 / 16
REDXIII:    100 /  50 / 150 /  50 / 50 / 17
YUFFIE:       50 /    0 / 150 / 100/ 50 / 17
CID:          200 / 150 /  50 /    0 / 25 / 15
CAIT SITH:   50 / 100 / 100 /200/  25 / 16
VINCENT:   100/    50 / 150 / 150/ 25 / 16

And here are the equipment / passive abilities that are character-specific :

CLOUD:  Deals Lightning damage, absorbs Lightning, repels Death & Death Sentence, and nullify damage from Firearms.

BARRET: Deals Earth damage, absorbs Earth, repels Petrify & Gradual Petrify, and nullify damage from Impacts (punches, kicks, blunt weapons, etc).

TIFA: Deals Holy damage, absorbs Holy, repels Sleep & Slow and  nullify damage from Lasers.

AERITH: Halves Magical and Physical elements, auto Barrier/MBarrier.

RED XIII: Deals Fire damage, absorbs Fire, repels Berserk & Frog, auto Haste

YUFFIE: Deals Water damage, absorbs Water, repels Stop & Paralysis, auto Haste

CAIT SITH: Deals Ice damage, absorbs Ice, repels Silence & Mini, auto Reflect

*NOTE: Healing spells can't be reflected anymore, so there is no drawback to Auto-Reflect*

VINCENT: Deals Dark damage, absorbs Dark, repels Poison & Dual, auto Reflect

*NOTE : I separated the Poison element from the Poison status with this new Dark element. That way, if you block the Poison status, you can still take damage from Bio spells. This also works if you absorb Dark : Bio would heal you, but you can still be poisoned*

Correction : Actually no, if someone nullifies or absorbs the element of an attack, and if this attack is supposed to give a status ailment, that status will never be triggered. Bummer.

CID: Deals Wind damage, absorbs Wind, repels Confusion & Blindness, nullify Slashes (attacks from swords, spears, fangs, claws, ...).

Obviously, I did this to further differentiate each character. So, if for example, you can't beat a boss that uses powerful water attacks and likes to use Stop, you might want to use Yuffie. Same with a sword that would rip you a new one : Cid would be your best bet. Oh, and enemies nullifying or absorbing a certain element should be rare. I don't want the player to feel screwed if, say, he ends up fighting a Bomb with Red XIII.

I'm designing the game in a way, that if you play battles with the 'wrong' team, 'wrong' equipment and 'wrong' materia combinations, it will be harder but never impossible. That way, you can still play through the game with your favorite team. I don't want the player to experience many game-overs, I want him to have fun.

Your thoughts ?

EDIT:

I forgot to add the characters' evasion and magic evasion :

Cloud: evade = 15 / m.evade =  5
Barret: evade =  0 / m.evade =  0
Tifa:    evade = 25 / m.evade = 15
Aerith: evade = 35 / m.evade = 35
Red:    evade = 30 / m.evade = 10
Yuffie: evade = 45 / m.evade = 20
Cait:    evade = 15 / m.evade = 18
Vince:  evade = 20 / m.evade = 25
Cid:     evade =   7 / m.evade =   2

EDIT2:

Updated Cloud's MP, Magic and Spirit, as well as Barret and Cid's MP.

23

General Discussion / Implementing the Hero Drink / Dragon Force bonuses in a mod

« on: 2010-07-11 21:06:24 »

I don't like the way the devs implemented these bonuses, in FFVII. It's way too easy to take advantage of them.

The Hero Drink raises one character's Attack, Magic Attack, Defence and Magic Defense by 30% every time you use it. Combined with the W-Item glitch, this is completely broken. Same thing with the Dragon Force (that raises Defence and Magic Defence by 50%)... ...If you have a character with 255 def, casting two Dragon Forces on him will almost make him immune to non-piercing physical attacks (512 blocking 100% of the damage, I'll let you guess how much 510 would block...).

There is always the possibility to completely remove the abilities, but I'm trying to find ways to still implement this function without breaking the game. My first question : can these boosts be removed, in battle ? If a character gets KO'ed, petrified or whatever, after being healed, would he still have them ? If yes, then that sucks.

I've thought about making a Defence Break magic, instead. You know, these abilities in other Final Fantasies that reduce an enemy's defence or magic defence. It's possible with Dragon Force's effect. I can create a spell called Defence Break (that would lower both Def and MDef), by using Additionnal Effects 1C in WallMarket, and input a number below 100 in the Effect Modifier. I think 85 would be nice. Higher and it wouldn't be interesting without casting the spell too many times (it would get boring quickly), and lower would make the spell too powerful (casting the spell one or two times so the enemy's Def and MDef become 0 ?... ...Oh yeah !). But it would once again end up being abusable, just like Dragon Force. Every player would start a boss battle by having all characters cast Defence Break until the enemy's def is zero... Not only that, but there would be no way to cure it (afaik), if the enemy used it on you.

Can you imagine an enemy spell with Hero Drink's effect, that would lower your Str, Def, Mag and MDef ? That would be insanely annoying.

I'd like to know what you guys think (by the way NFITC1, if you're reading this, WallMarket's description for additionnal effects 15 and 1C is wrong. Both say "Raise base damage and defence by (100-[]%) ([] not to exceed 200)", when 15 should say something like "Raise str/def/mag/mdef by (100-[]%)..." and 1C "Raise def and mdef by (100-[]%)...")

24

General Discussion / Final Fantasy VII turned into Doom (editing battle camera)

« on: 2010-07-08 23:30:30 »

I'm working on my own difficulty mod (which also changes a lot of things, but it's a little too early to talk about IMO), and I decided to rework some battles' camera angles, thanks to Proud Clod.

So, I made this one. 2 MPs appeared !!

I always loved over the shoulder cameras, especially in RPGs. Makes you right into the action ! ...Sadly, with three characters in the team, close-ups will be difficult to implement. I will try to be creative, and post my findings here (if I do find some...).

Anyways, if you like this camera angle and want it in your game, type this in PrC's formation editor (select the formation you're looking for, and it's the first line under "camera positions") :

00A0  FD50  0AA0 0000 FDA0 0000

Obviously though, if you want all battle formations, in all scenes, to have this camera angle, then you'll have to type this approx. 1,000 times But I wouldn't do that - with more than one character, chances are it would look ugly.

25

General Discussion / Editing the characters' growth HP and MP curves

« on: 2010-07-04 23:05:35 »

Here are the HP and MP I'd like my characters to have when they reach level 99 :

Barret : ~9999 HP, ~100 MP
Cid : ~9200 HP, ~200 MP
Cloud : ~8500 HP, ~300 MP
Red XIII : ~7700 HP, ~400 MP
Tifa : ~7000 HP, ~500 MP
Cait Sith : ~6300 HP, ~600 MP
Vincent : ~5500 HP, ~700 MP
Yuffie : ~4800 HP, ~800 MP
Aerith : ~4000 HP, ~999 MP

With Wall Market, this is possible. There are enough growth curves so I could choose the ones I like. The only problem is that the curves most of the time aren't straight lines. Let's take Aerith's HP growth, for example :

I noticed that curve #30 is the best there is, for her. But the problem is, the curve goes up a lot at the beginning, and slows down afterwards. Consequently, her HP growth is very high from lv 1 to lv 14. So, when she reaches lv 14, she has ~1250 HP. Let's compare her with the other characters at lv 14, shall we ?

Cloud : 1014 HP
Barret : 1279 HP
Tifa : 970 HP
Red XIII : 950 HP
Yuffie : 1118 HP (!)
Cait Sith : 1850 HP (ridiculous...)
Vincent : 1950 HP (we got a winner)
Cid : 1143 HP

See the problem ?... ...If I'm balancing all characters' HP and MP growth, this is to bypass this kind of aberration. Aeris should never come close to Barret's HP, and "magicians" like Vincent and Cait Sith should never become such HP monsters. Of course after some time, this problem disappears since their growths slow down, but it's highly annoying.

I guess I could start the game with everyone at level 50+, so you'd never witness such atrocity, but I noticed that Wall Market allows one to edit the growth curves. Most excellent, since it would allow me to create perfect straight lines for each character. The problem is, it looks like this :



Does anyone know how this works ?

EDIT:

Okay guys, I figured it out. Sorry for creating once again a topic before putting my ass in gear, but like before, I really thought I could never understand it by myself. And it turned out I was wrong, once again.

You see, each of those lines is a curve. And what I had to modify were the bytes in the G columns. In G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7 and G8, enter the same value. The higher the value, the higher the line will climb (and the more HP/MP/whatever the character will gain at level up). For example, putting 12 in all those columns, for curve #29, creates a straight line that allows Barret to reach 108 MP at level 99.
As for the B columns, my guess is they're for the min values - so they shouldn't be very important.

Sorry again for creating a new topic so fast...

EDIT :

Apparently, the B columns are more important than that. It's also important to enter the same value in them.