Modding the Crystarium

[MJB]

Do you enjoy playing Final Fantasy XIII, but...
- Wish your favorite character had that one skill he/she was missing
- You like Sazh, but his stats are weak and it just doesn't make him a good party member
- Wondered why Lightning, as a soldier, has the second lowest hit points of everyone
- Was annoyed with all those Strength nodes Vanille has in the upper levels of the ravager crystarium
- Would like to make the game harder by reducing some of the stats

If so, I've been working on a utility that will allow you to edit the crystarium for any of the characters. You can change the value of the strength, magic or HP nodes, swap abilities, convert nodes from one type into another, adjust the CP cost or even give new abilities to characters.
If you have any interest, let me know. Hopefully I'll have something ready to post in a week or two if there is any interest. What I have now works, but has a few bugs yet that need to be fixed along with a more automated method to modify the game files and some general cleanup.

The link below is an in-game screenshot that shows an example of what can be done with this utility. It is the beginning of Lightning's commando crystarium. In this picture, the selected node was originally a Strength +4 and is now a Magic +20 and the CP was lowered from 60 to 10. The next node, an HP node, was increased from +15 to +100. Following the branch, what was an HP +15 is now an ability, and not even one normally assigned to Lightning, but Hope's Last Resort followed by an Accessory which was formerly the ability Lifesiphon. So just about anything is possible, although not necessarily recommended. Hopefully the link works.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1782214174

[ehs03y3ol]

Yeah, it maybe not has usage for now, but with some work and more modding, it can be a good tool for doing custom characters and hybrid formations. It sounds totally interesting!.

[NijiBashira]

Yo that's pretty cool ! I made a Crystarium mod myself two years ago, but I had to set up very bizarre automation (which was very tedious, but thankfully not as much as editing values manually) to change the values. I even wanted to create such an utilitary, but lacked the time and motivation.

I did a lot of experiments with the crystarium tho, and there'd be a lot of limitations to either implement or at least warn against. You can add me on Discord (NijiBashira#7292) if you'd like to discuss them (and maybe more modding stuff.)

Also

Originally posted by MJB:

- You like Sazh, but his stats are weak and it just doesn't make him a good party member

For a large chunk of the main game, Sazh is an excellent party member despite his low base offensive stats, and an absolute beast if you give him the right upgraded weapons, as some of his weapons have very high stats to compensate. However, for him to be a force to be reckoned with, Sazh needs to be manually controlled :
- His Blitz is extremely strong even against single enemies, largely compensation for his lower Strength, making him a strong COM.
- Cold Blood is an amazing chaining tool, and the RAV AI's faults affect no character as much as Sazh, making manual input invaluable for his RAV.
- His SYN has offensive buffs, and is the only source of Haste for a long time. Manual input also allows way more specific priority buffing, making fights much faster.

[Odinsknight101]

Sazh.. bad.. Nuh uh!
https://xboxclips.com/OdinsKnight101/4ef5e540-17b2-40e7-b174-b4037780a296

[MJB]

Your probably right about Sazh. After being required to use him early in the game and thinking that battles were more difficult than they should have been, I never really had him as a party member often enough to learn how to utilize him effectively.

[Odinsknight101]

Also to be fair... I have taken many Journeys through this game.

[tiornys]

My first time playing the game, the early Sazh/Vanille sections were my least favorite sections. The second time through--when I had learned to appreciate the power of stacked buffs and debuffs--those sections became my favorite of the two-character sections. It's easy to underestimate Sazh.

[Mikasa Ackerman]

does this fully work ? i really would love to play with modified crystarium for early game

[MJB]

Almost. I'm trying to get something uploaded later today or tomorrow. It does use Microsoft Excel, so you will need to have that installed. Hopefully that won't be a problem. I had a number of reasons to use Excel, none of them great, but it was better than my alternatives and was an easy way to implement a GUI.

[MJB]

I've uploaded the initial version to NexusMods[www.nexusmods.com]. As mentioned earlier, this is an Excel workbook so you will need to have MS Excel loaded on you PC. You will also have to download the FF13Tool (instructions in the workbook) to be able to extract the game files as I have not included them due to potential licensing concerns. If you have any questions or problems let me know. I expect there are a few bugs lingering in the code.

[Mikasa Ackerman]

Originally posted by MJB:

I've uploaded the initial version to NexusMods[www.nexusmods.com]. As mentioned earlier, this is an Excel workbook so you will need to have MS Excel loaded on you PC. You will also have to download the FF13Tool (instructions in the workbook) to be able to extract the game files as I have not included them due to potential licensing concerns. If you have any questions or problems let me know. I expect there are a few bugs lingering in the code.

why do you need excel loaded ? just having it on your pc isnt enough ?
ill try it tomorrow

[MJB]

Perhaps I should have said "installed" rather than loaded. You just need the software.

[MJB]

I should mention that this only works with the English version of the game, but that's only because the code specifies those game files. You can modify the VBA to change that.

[TheSauseMan]

Originally posted by MJB:

I should mention that this only works with the English version of the game, but that's only because the code specifies those game files. You can modify the VBA to change that.

@MJB
Thank you very much for this mod! The following is a link to a very detail explanation on the limitations of what each character can and cannot learn while using this mod. At the bottom there is a TLDR showing what can be added to each character without breaking the game. As I very much enjoyed using this mod I figured I would give back to the community this way because I wish I could mod games like this but I dont have the background. Thanks again to the creator, I will be using this for each run I do in this for years to come!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LJ1Sr8PiXU1aoWWOZcpfSMRNkfgLUMX5/view?usp=sharing