Messages

576

Archive / Re: Removing the Back Row modifier from the damage calculation method ?

« on: 2008-12-07 16:32:36 »

Thanks for replying, NFITC1 

Let's just hope that Akari, if he knows how to do this, sees this topic and has both the time and the will to reply. I guess that Terrence Fergusson might also have the knowledge since he wrote the awesome Battle/Party/Enemy Mechanics FAQs, but I'm not sure if he's still visiting this message board. Anyway, I'll do my "ElectroMag" idea if I still don't know how to edit the algorithm, when I'm heavily editing the scene files in the near future. I could always make a new version of my mod later, anyway.

I've tried to get Squall78's attention about integrating a Attack Data editor into Hojo, but he either hasn't noticed or isn't interested.

Maybe you're interested, after you're done with the magnificent Wall Market ? 
It's true that such an editor would be convenient if it was part of a more complete scene editor, but as of now, I'd be very happy with just a stand-alone Attack Data editor.

577

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-12-07 13:05:27 »

Hi, maybe I'm wrong but you forgot about one attack and it's Odin's Gaunge Lance. Sors if I said something silly, I'm noob afterall!

It's there. It's attack ID #97.

578

Archive / Removing the Back Row modifier from the damage calculation method ?

« on: 2008-12-07 08:38:08 »

Does anyone know how to do this ? Allow me to explain why I need this change.

In my mod, each character has his own defence stat, but the row system kinda kills this variety (for many reasons - be it because a high defence character in the back row would be overkill, because a mage in the back would suffer even less damage than a warrior in the front, or because a back attack or pincer attack would have the potential to be an instant game-over in a team of mages).

I've looked through all the attack data modifiers, but sadly, there is no real "long-range" modifier I could add to all enemies' physical attacks (there is a "short range", by adding 20h in the targeting information, but even without doing this, the enemies' attacks are far from being real long-ranged physical attacks anyway ; as row data takes precedence over this value).

I've thought about a lot of ways to get around this (in order to keep my game balanced), and I came to this conclusion :

- Either I find a way to alter the physical damage algorithm to remove the back row check, or
- I give all enemies' attacks HellRider's ElectroMag Rod effect. Meaning that their attacks will change the target's row with each hit. And because your characters will change rows a lot of times during a battle, a player will stop bothering to change them (or chances are (s)he will waste numerous turns to stay in the back).

I could go with the latter, but it involves micro-managing the 256 scene files with a hex editor. And this is a pain (where is the Attack Data editor when you need it ?  I would make it myself, but sadly, I have no knowledge of these things). The former would not only be the faster way, but it would also allow physical damage to be constant at all times.

Thanks in advance for the help.

579

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-12-05 23:42:45 »

On a more general note: I really hate to say this, but the mistake that Armorvil made with his kernel is the exact thing WallMarket was made to prevent. He's a smart guy. I'm not saying anything to the contrary. The fact that he can put the kernel BACK into a PSX disc image (I still can't get that to work ) means he knows what he's doing. I built WallMarket to read a kernel that fits the parameters of the original kernel. That was...disrupted. With the headers in range of the data it works fine. Basically, don't edit the contents outside of WM if you can help it. You can still play with KERNEL.BIN2 and KERNEL.BIN3 and recompile those since WM doesn't touch them (.....yet ).

Hey, thanks ! 
But it's not really complicated, actually. There is a really cool freeware called CDMage, and with it you can extract any file from an image, and import it back in (as long as the modified file doesn't exceed the original's length, or it will truncate it). Now you know my secret 

580

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-12-05 18:18:57 »

I noticed two bugs. Let me explain.

I'm editing the PSX Kernel, and I'm always struggling for size, as in order to insert the modified kernel back into the ISO, it has to be smaller or equal in size to the original.
My last changes made the Kernel size go over the limit, so I decided to "delete" some descriptions by placing numerous FFh in their places. This is because, after the gzip compression, a bunch of FFh together save a lot of space.

I first tried to do this by using Wall Market : I headed into the materia tab, selected a materia, and erased its description. It seemed to work for the first materias (the "pluses" ones), but the ones below wouldn't let me delete their descriptions : the update and ok buttons wouldn't do anything. That's the first bug.

The second bug occured after I used a hex editor. I inserted FFh all over Kernel15.bin (the materia descriptions, because which FF7 veteran needs them ?), and all that was left to do was to recompile the Kernel archive. I decided to use Wall Market for this. Thus, I tried to load my Kernel files into Wall Market, and here is what I got (my windows xp version is the french one) :

Code: [Select]

System.IndexOutOfRangeException: L'index se trouve en dehors des limites du tableau.
   à WallMarket.Form1.FF7Names(Byte[] NameArray, Byte NameIndex)
   à WallMarket.Form1.Load_Materia_Desc(String KERNEL15)
   à WallMarket.Form1.Open_KERNEL(Char kernel)
   à WallMarket.Form1.OpenKERNELBINToolStripMenuItem_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   à WallMarket.Form1.Form1_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   à System.EventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()
   à System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
   à System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   à System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
I have the same error message when I try to load into WallMarket this KERNEL.BIN after I recreated it with a GZIP MS-DOS command, by the way. And the problem doesn't come from the Kernel file, as it works great in-game.

A fix would be highly appreciated, as now my "corrupted" kernel can't be loaded into Wall Market anymore  

581

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-12-04 20:26:30 »

I haven't heard from my testers that anything is going wrong that I haven't already fixed. In case something IS wrong, let me know.

apart from the PSX mode crashing the game? unless you got a different tester to me. in which case nevermind

*downloads new release*

Wall Market sure doesn't make my PSX version crash. But I'm using the US NTSC version, so this may be the reason.

582

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-12-02 09:32:12 »

dual drain crashes the game

It's normal. For the dual status effect to work correctly, both "Dual" and "Dual drain" must be checked or the game crashes. Wall Market has nothing to do with it.

583

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-12-01 19:17:54 »

Sorry for not replying earlier - but yes, I can test Wall Market 1.1 on the PSX version if you like 

584

Archive / Re: An update to the HOJO utility ?

« on: 2008-11-27 17:58:57 »

Yeah, I know. I don't think this is a problem, though.

585

Archive / An update to the HOJO utility ?

« on: 2008-11-27 17:28:35 »

In case Squall reads this, I have an idea that would ease the work of all wannabe modders (myself included ) :
Below "misc", in an enemy's tab, you can see an enemy's abilities and even rename them. This is great, but what would be even better, I think, would be the possibility to double-click on them or something in order to modify these abilities.
You don't even need to make it look good : I can imagine a new window with the attack data's 28 bytes listed, in hex (kudos to Akari and NFITC1 for the new info, by the way ) so one wouldn't need to unpack the archive, use a hex editor, and repack the file just to change a value.

Just tossing an idea, there

586

Archive / Re: [Solved: Ignore this] Simple Monster Editor

« on: 2008-10-21 20:05:03 »

Yeah, I wish such an editor could be made for FFVII. I'll try to contact him to see if he's interested in FFVII modding.

587

Archive / Re: [Solved: Ignore this] Simple Monster Editor

« on: 2008-10-21 19:08:10 »

I would be especially interested in an AI editor that was n00b-friendly; I know that Scene Edit has something along the lines of an AI editor but it is hard to understand for people with no programming experience (like me).

Yeah, I feel the same. And not only that, but SceneEdit doesn't save any changes, yet. I think that LordJ made a really cool monster's AI editor for FFVI (FFIIIus) that is really easy to understand. It's a multi-editor, named FF3USME.

588

Archive / Re: [Solved: Ignore this] Simple Monster Editor

« on: 2008-10-20 13:52:06 »

I, for one, would really be interested in an "enemy attacks" editor. Right now, modifying the power and/or attributes of an enemy's ability is annoying and time-consuming. Even a hex-editor-like function added in a tool like Hojo would be cool, since Hojo bypasses the need to unpack and repack the SCENE.BIN archive.

589

Archive / Re: Changing the prices of things in shops

« on: 2008-10-12 14:41:18 »

Yeah, thanks
I managed to find this shortly after I asked.

But did you find the byte responsible for the 70x multiplicator, if the materia becomes a mastered one ? I'd like to change it to a 3x or 4x ...

590

Archive / Re: Changing the prices of things in shops

« on: 2008-10-12 13:30:50 »

Wow, great work figuring this out !

On the PSX version, this data is located in the SHOPMENU.MNU file. Your topic gave me the urge to do some research, and I figured out where the prices for items are located.
In this PSX file, the items' prices are located at offset 0x6854.
The price for Potion is there and is comprised of two bytes : 32 00 (50 gil). Then, two bytes after this one (I don't know what those 2 bytes are used for, they are always 00 00), there is the price for the next item (Hi-Potion) : 2C 01 (300 gils). Then, we have 00 00 again, 02 00 (the price for the X-Potions), 00 00, DC 05 for the price of Ethers, etc...

If you want to find out at which offset in the PC version (in FF7.exe) this data is stored, just search for these bytes in your hex editor :

32 00 00 00 2C 01 00 00 02 00 00 00 DC 05 00 00 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 ...

The items are listed in the same order as in the kernel.

On a side note, could you give me a list of bytes in the area where you found the ALL materia's cost, LKM ? It would allow me to search for them in the SHOPMENU.MNU file

EDIT : Never mind about me asking about a series of bytes to find the materia's prices. I found it. After the items, there are a bunch of 00s and then there are the weapons' prices (starting with Cloud's, etc). Maybe the armor's prices are in there too. Then there are a bunch of FFs and we get the materia's prices - once again in the kernel's order (meaning that it starts with MP Plus, HP Plus, Speed Plus, Magic Plus, etc).

What I would like to find though, is the byte responsible for a mastered materia's price. The price for a mastered materia is 70 x its initial price, and it's way too high IMO.

591

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-10-09 16:00:26 »

You can edit text with Teioh:

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=6385.0

Great utility ! I just tried it... ...and it won't work
That's because I'm modding the PSX game, so there is no KERNEL2.BIN file...
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to hex-edit again.

Wow! That's an excellent find! I was wondering what that Unused was really for. It seems that the "Unused" flags the character as being in Dual, but the "Dual" actually does the HP draining. So "Unused" will be renamed to "Dual" and the "Dual" will be renamed to "DualHP" and will require that "Dual be checked.

You're welcome 
I'm not the one who figured this out, though.

592

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2008-10-09 13:42:02 »

This is seriously awesome. Thank you very much for making this !

Something I just noticed : in the Attack tab, the "Unused" box in the status field should really be "Dual" - because if you only check the already existing Dual box, the spell will make the game crash.
The Dual status works fine as long as those two boxes are checked.

Also, would it be possible to add a text editor ? I'm gonna have to rename lots of stuff (items, armors, weapons, accessories and materias) as well as to edit some descriptions - but hex-editing is a pain...

593

Archive / Re: help a noob w/ text editing weapon stats

« on: 2008-09-25 21:46:10 »

on a side note, before the status effect list was posted, i used 20 for death instead of 00 because i saw it listed in hojo after death in the elements drop down list. and it worked, some enemies would drop before enough damage was done to kill them. im gonna use the 00 one and see if theres any difference.

I noticed that 10h and 20h also work for Death, while testing. 06h and 16h will also have the same effect than 26h, for example.

23h: Deals %damage based on the target's CurrHP. I think Weapon Attack is the percentage (10h=50%, 20h=100%, etc)
24h: Deals %damage based on the target's MaxHP.

For these attacks, each 1h represents 1/32 of the current/total HP, so 1Eh would, like Supernova, take off 15/16 of the HP; 1Fh would, like Sephiroth's "cut" attack in the final battle, take off 31/32 of the HP.

Thanks for expanding on this
By the way, if you find a way to make a weapon restore HP or MP, please let me know! ^^

594

Archive / Re: help a noob w/ text editing weapon stats

« on: 2008-09-25 19:04:14 »

I think that the "Everyone's Grudge" attack doesn't work because it is based on the target's number of kills, not the user's number of kills. Since none of the enemies have any kills under their belt, it will always deal 0 damage. It fails for much the same reason as the Aire Tam Storm attack fails. Try attacking one of you allies with this.

Ahhh, I'm too lazy to test this right now, but I bet you're right. It's logical.

595

Archive / Re: help a noob w/ text editing weapon stats

« on: 2008-09-25 17:43:54 »

Cool ! All I tested was the absorb HP/MP one (doesn't work).

I ran quite a lot of tests today, regarding the byte at 0x02 for the type of damage / attack modifier.

Here is a quick recap of what we already know, and what I've discovered. All of these work :

00h: Inflict the weapon's status on characters without doing damage. Miss enemies.
11h: Deals physical damage
22h: Deals magical damage
23h: Deals %damage based on the target's CurrHP. I think Weapon Attack is the percentage (10h=50%, 20h=100%, etc)
24h: Deals %damage based on the target's MaxHP.
26h: Deals constant damage (Magic Hammer, 1000 Needles, ...). 01h = 20 HP/MP.
28h: Fully recovers the target's HP/MP (Mog Dance).
29h: Always deals 1 damage (?).
60h: Damage = attacker's current HP (White Wind)
61h: Damage = MaxHP - CurrHP (the ? enemy skill)
68h: Random Damage (Dice)
69h: Damage = number of times the party escaped (Chocobuckle).
6Bh: Damage = (hours played * 100) + minutes played (Time Damage)
6Dh: It's Aire Tam Storm's damage calculation method, meaning that it always deals 0 damage since enemies can't equip materias 
96h: Damage = approx. 1/2 attacker's current HP

...And one I'm not sure about :

6Ch: It's Everyone's Grudge damage calculation method, but it doesn't seem to work, as even after killing some enemies, your weapon still deals 0 damage. I didn't check if it takes into account the number of deaths in the player's party, though. Thanks to anyone who can test this.

Most of the others don't seem to work or to be interesting. I'm too lazy to list the Ultimate Weapons' special effects ; they're in the wiki anyways.

596

Archive / Re: help a noob w/ text editing weapon stats

« on: 2008-09-25 11:19:51 »

Well, I tested this and aside from 0x0001 that does make the weapon target MP instead of HP, the others do not work. All I get are missed (critical) attacks.

Still, it's a nice find, indeed

597

Archive / Re: help a noob w/ text editing weapon stats

« on: 2008-09-24 13:29:14 »

I see. Both 00h and 02h are sleep? I thought 00h was death, but I haven't tested it.

Urgh, it was a typo 
00h indeed is death.

598

Archive / Re: help a noob w/ text editing weapon stats

« on: 2008-09-24 08:33:18 »

Thanks

Unfortunately I don't know anything about the status attack; in attack data there are four bytes for status changes, so this must work differently (and it seems that none of the weapons use it). Maybe you could experiment with it and see what happens. There are 31 statuses in the game, so you could try putting in values from 00 to 1e and seeing what happens: maybe something, maybe nothing.

Yeah, I already tested them and made a quick video based on my discoveries.

status bits in the weapon data :

00: Death
01: Near Death
02: Sleep
03: Poison
04: Sadness
05: Fury
06: Confu
07: Silence
08: Haste
09: Slow
0A: Stop
0B: Frog
0C: Small
0D: Slow Numb
0E: Petrify
0F: Regen
10: Barrier
11: M.Barrier

It looks like the other status effects don't work, though.

599

Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2008-09-23 18:37:18 »

@Armorvil

I found attack data for limit breaks in MENU\LIMTMENU.MNU on one of my PSX discs.

Ooohhh, thank you very much my friend ! You're a genius

As a side note, the SCENE.BIN and KERNEL.BIN you provide are way too big to fit in a PSX iso, gjoerulv. I think I can free some space by deleting the spells and materia descriptions in the kernel.bin10 and kernel.bin15 to make the kernel usable, but do you know of any way to free some space in the scene file ? Is there some kind of data one can freely delete without wrecking havoc ?

600

Releases / gjoerulv's "Hardcore" mod

« on: 2008-09-23 09:07:38 »

A quick question, where is the data for limit breaks? Kernel.bin1 has a few of them, but not all of them.

Update: I found limit break attack data in ff7.exe, and managed to edit it without the game blowing up.

Quick question : do you know what the equivalent to ff7.exe be, in the Playstation iso ? I tried looking for this data in the SCUS_941.63, but to no avail.