Final Fantasy IX: Alternate Fantasy

[Tirlititi]

Hi there!

Final Fantasy IX: Alternate Fantasy is a mod aiming to increase the difficulty and, above all, to give a new fresh experience of FF9 for those who already know the game well.
In the new version you can also recruit Beatrix in the party.

Download link:

┌────────────────────────────┐
§ Alternate Fantasy v5.2[www.hiveworkshop.com] §
├───────────────────────────┬┘
§ Version 'Beatrix-only'[www.hiveworkshop.com] §
└───────────────────────────┘

Use only 1 of the links above (the full AF contains the Beatrix modifications).

You need to have installed either the Moguri mod or the Memoria Engine modifier to use it.
Once you have downloaded the .zip, extract all the files, move the mod folder into the game's folder and then register the mod by writing "AlternateFantasy" (or "BeatrixMod" if you use the "Beatrix-only" version) inside the file "Memoria.ini" of the game's folder, in the section "[Mod] FolderNames" (see the Readme for more precise instructions).

Note that, for now, Alternate Fantasy must have 'priority' over the Moguri mod if you use both of them. That means you need to register "AlternateFantasy" BEFORE "MoguriFiles" in the Memoria.ini, like the following:

FolderNames = "AlternateFantasy", "MoguriFiles"

(The order of the optional "MoguriSoundtrack" and "MoguriVideo" don't matter.)

Once installed, do NOT tick the "Check for updates" option because it will download an older version of (a part of) the mod. Wait for the modder Albeoris to update his tool before using that option (I'll remove this warning when he does).

Since v5.1, the source files of the mod are included directly inside the mod's archive, and not separatly, since they don't take much space. The source files of the Beatrix mod are packed with the main mod because they share some in common.

The mod fully works in any of the official languages of the game (English, Japanese, German, French, Spanish and Italian).

What are the modifications?

A lot of them. Most are gameplay related but a few of them are also about the screenplay. There are two kinds of scenario-related changes:
1) A few dialogs that were suppressed during the game's development are put back in this mod. It includes the dialogs from the "Hidden Dialogs" patch plus a few others for which only the texts were kept.
2) As Beatrix can be permanently recruited after getting the airship (optional), cutscenes are changed from this point onward to include Beatrix in them.

Here is a list of the dialogs suppressed by the developpers and put back:
• Extra dialog between Puck and Vivi over Alexandria's roofs, unmissable
• A small line in the ATE "Time To Escape", missable
• An extended dialog between Steiner and Morrid, unmissable
• An extra ATE in Cleyra's cathedral, missable
• A few lines in Pinnacle Rocks, after the first meeting with Ramuh, unmissable
• An extra minigame in the occupied Linblum Castle, unmissable
• A couple of lines in the base level of the occupied Linblum Castle, unmissable
• An extra minigame when controlling Vivi in Alexandria for the 2nd time, missable

Also, there are 4 new bosses that can be fought at the end of the game.
For that, speak to Hades after defeating Lich and obtaining a Pumice: he will challenge you with new fights.
• The 3 Black Waltzes fighting together
• The 2nd opus of Tantarian, available only if you defeated it in Alexandria's Castle
• Meltigemini, with pieces of real twins inside
• The 4 Guardians fighting together

And Excalibur II can now be acquired by two different methods:
1) Reach and beat Hades in less than 14 hours,
2) Get all the collectable treasures of the game (there are 3 little mistakes allowed) to obtain the highest treasure rank.
Including a few Mimics, that makes 404 unique treasures to find.
The list is the same as in vanilla (for the locations at least) and can be found in this topic[gamefaqs.gamespot.com].


Gameplay-wise, there are a lot of changes. The battle system has been reworked, always with the aim of having more balanced mechanics and open to diverse strategies.

Here is a list of these changes: it is more or less written in decreasing order of importance, which allows you to stop reading whenever you don't want to know any more.


List of abilities (spreadsheet)[drive.google.com]

In particular:
• Some abilities are short-ranged, meaning that they are influenced by the character's row [in vanilla, only the attack command is] and back attacks. They also can't be used against out-of-range enemies.
• Some abilities can deal critical strikes [in vanilla, only the attack command can], which doubles their damage.
• Some abilities use the properties of the character's weapon, which includes its element (if the ability has an element, both are taken into account) [in vanilla, only No Mercy, Stock Break and Shock does that], the bonus given by killer abilities and the weapon's status if the supporting ability Add Status is enabled [in vanilla, only the attack command does that].

• With Bandit enabled, stealing all the 4 items of an enemy cannot take more than 10 attempts:
The super-common item is stolen at the 1st attempt,
The common item is stolen for sure after 1 unsuccessful steal,
The rare item is stolen for sure after 2 other unsuccessful steals,
The super-rare item is stolen for sure after 3 other unsuccessful steals.
When Master Thief is also enabled, only 1 unsuccessful steal can be done between each successful steals (so all the items are stolen after 7 attempts maximum), and the most rare items have the priority.
When Bandit is not enabled and the first steal's random check fails, the counter of unsuccessful steals is not increased [as in vanilla, the first random check is "Random(0, Caster's level + spirit - 1) ≥ Random(0, Target's level - 1)" ; this check is bypassed by Bandit].
Zidane can still steal items with luck, in which case the counter of unsuccessful steals neither increase or reset.

• The trance of any ally can be manually triggered using Zidane's Transcend skill provided that the gauge is already at 50% at least.
• Added a double-cast-like trance to Beatrix.
• Scan cannot miss anymore [in vanilla, it misses against most bosses and several special enemies],
• Summons are special for 3 reasons:
1) As in Vanilla, their power increases with the number of jewels that you own (except for Odin for which it is a penalty), up to a +49 bonus [+99 in vanilla],
2) Their power increases each time you cast them, up to 50 times for a bonus of +50,
3) The first time you cast a summon in a battle, it gets priority over the other commands: it is summoned before the other commands in queue, even if the ATB gauge was filled after. When Dagger and Eiko are both in the battle, summons get priority once for both of them.
• Stellar Circle 5 and Meo Twister increase the critical rate on the enemies, adding a 33% chance to the default critical chance (non cumulative).
• Gravity damage are now effective against all the enemies, including bosses. Their power is divided by 4 against bosses [in vanilla, Gravity spells always miss on most bosses].

Note that some weapons get a special power bonus with the Attack command (thief swords and knight swords are empowered by spirit, rackets are empowered by speed and Save The Queen is empowered by level). As in vanilla, this bonus only applies when using the Attack command.

Supporting Abilities

Auto-Shell, Auto-Protect and Cheat Fate (immunes against Doom) are added to several characters.
Bright Eyes, Restore HP and Reflectx2 are removed.
Accuracy+ now immunes against Blind [in vanilla, physical attacks cannot miss with Accuracy+ even under Blind, the only effect of which is then to remove the character's evasion against enemy attacks].
Protect Girls triggers anytime [in vanilla, it triggers only under 50% of Max HP].
Cover triggers under 50% of Max HP [in vanilla, it triggers only under 17% of Max HP (yellow HP)].

The way that most damage modifiers work has changed:
• When accumulated, the damage bonuses give +50%, +100%, +125%, +150%, +162%, +175%, etc... (the theoretical limit is a bonus of +200%, which is 3 times the base power),
• For Steiner's trance, these bonuses are doubled to +100%, +200%, +250%, +300%, +325%, +350%, etc... [in vanilla, Steiner's attack command gets a +200% bonus instead of the usual +50% given by Trance; it is not the case anymore],
• The damage penalties cancel damage bonuses,
• If there are more damage penalties than bonuses, the damage are halved that many times.
Damage bonuses include Killer abilities, elemental equipment boosts, target's elemental weaknesses, Berserk or Trance, target's Sleep, target's Mini, back attack, special supporting abilities (High Jump, Concentrate, Power Throw) and MP Attack (Attack command only).
Damage penalties include Mini (for most of magic attacks), short-ranged attacks from back row, multi-targeting a spell that can be single-target, target's elemental resistances, target's defend, target's shell or protect.
Critical strikes (damage x2), summon short forms (damage x0.67) and physical attacks under Mini (damage drastically lowered) are not concerned by the above.
[In vanilla, the damage are multiplied by 1.5 for each bonus instead, except that killer abilities, elemental boosts, weaknesses and resistances are applied no more than once each.]

Fixed Return Magic non working on Necron or behaving differently than in the PSX version of the game (multi-target spells are now multi-target returned).

Statuses

The duration and speed of statuses has been reworked.
They are now independant of the fighter's spirit, except for Doom and Gradual Petrify (the more spirit you have, the longer it takes).
Haste and Slow respectively decreases and increases the status duration and respectively speed up and slow down the ticks of Poison, Venom and Regen.
[In vanilla, the more spirit you have, the longer statuses last, except for Doom and Gradual Petrify that are running faster with higher spirit. The ticks of Regen are also faster while the ticks of Poison and Venom are slower.]

Float gives a +30% evasion bonus against physical attacks if the attacker doesn't float.
Remedies cure Poison, Venom, Silence, Blind, Stop, Mini, Gradual Petrify, Confuse, Heat and Freeze [in vanilla, it doesn't cure Confuse, Heat and Freeze].
Phoenix Pinions cure Doom (they also cost and sell cheaper).
Vanish is efficient against more attacks (all the short-ranged physical attacks).
Defending protects against many negative statuses: Silence, Blind, Confuse, Berserk, Sleep, Heat, Freeze and Gradual Petrify.
Confuse triggers a back attack bonus half of the time [in vanilla, only back attacks at the start of battles and running away can trigger a back attack bonus].

Poison and Doom can now be inflicted to several bosses.
For Poison, the damage per tick on bosses is 1/64 of Max HP instead of 1/16.
For Doom, a boss doesn't die at the end of the countdown but looses 1/5 of its Max HP instead.

Heat and Freeze last only a short time. Freeze lasts 1.5 times longer than Heat.
Vanish and Sleep last longer.
The ticks of venom are 1.5 times slower than the ticks of Regen or Poison [in vanilla, they are 2 times slower].

Steiner's Break abilities can be used against bosses but are less effective [in vanilla, they are just as effective as usual]:
• Power/Magic Break: bring to 80% of the boss's normal stat, instead of 67%.
• Armor/Mental Break: bring to 67% of the boss's normal stat, instead of 50%.
These can be used again if the enemy somehow changes its stat through a special ability.

Enemies

Reasonably increased the stats of enemies and made them harder through their AI.
The Max MP of the enemies have been drastically lowered in order to get emptied in a decent amount of time through MP damage.

Changes to the party's abilities reflect on the enemies' abilities.
More statuses are inflicted by enemy attacks and spells.
More abilities can be critical strikes, especially the physical attacks [in vanilla, a non-missable physical attack, like Ark's Boomerang, doesn't have critical] or the breaths.

The class of several enemies has been changed. Enemies are not automatically "birds" as soon as they are floating or flying, and there are more "humanoids".
Classification is less restricted by gameplay constraints [in vanilla, a few bosses are not "stone" or "zombie" despite the evidence because it would mean a free win; it is no longer the case].

Ragtime Mouse's questions are modified.
Quina may eat humanoids [in vanilla, they are non edible, like most bosses].

Miscellaneous

A few chests have a changed content. In particular:
• The Dragon's Hair and the Kain Lance are switched, making Dragon's Hair only available in late game,
• The Tiger Racket is only available after the return of the mist and seeing a cutscene with Quan (this specific optional cutscene is thus delayed),
• Several Hammers can be obtained; Hammers can be used by Vivi, Eiko and Dagger to improve their strength,
• Several acclaimed prices in Treno's Auction House have a delayed availability (Dark Matter in particular).

The elemental weakness given by pieces of equipment are now given in their description [in vanilla, they are hidden].
The Cotton Robe money trick was removed (they sell a bit less).
A couple of weapons can be used by several characters (for instance, Dagger can use the... dagger).
The ultimate weapons give a big boost to main characteristics (Strength, Magic, Speed and Spirit).
A few minigames have been tweaked.


Note about the version "Beatrix-only"

That version is meant to provide additional content without changing the difficulty or the gameplay of the vanilla (non-modded) game. It includes:
- Recruitable Beatrix (with cutscenes, abilities, trance etc.),
- Hidden scenes cut by the devs,
- The optional stuff that Hades offers (4 extra bosses and their rewards; the extra bosses are slightly easier since they inflict less statuses, but their damage and HP are the same as in the main version of the mod),
- Thunder Slash fix (that's the only non-optional gameplay aspect I kept in that version).


Enjoy !

[authenticmaniac]

Originally posted by Daeoc:

Originally posted by authenticmaniac:

Boi I wasn't thinking that way, if you want it just ask. No need to be rude about it to me.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6zrXNQ9YLiiaTZMc211MnAtTVU

Guess I read it wrong, sorry, and thanks for sharing.

I have no idea how you read it wrong, I was only sharing my own changes. It's alright though, you're are welcome!

And to anyone else who likes my changes you are also welcome!

[pulsedrivedaylen]

Originally posted by authenticmaniac:

Originally posted by Daeoc:

Guess I read it wrong, sorry, and thanks for sharing.

I have no idea how you read it wrong, I was only sharing my own changes. It's alright though, you're are welcome!

And to anyone else who likes my changes you are also welcome!

sounds really interesting! thanks :D

[authenticmaniac]

Originally posted by pulsedrivedaylen:

Originally posted by authenticmaniac:

sounds really interesting! thanks :D

You're welcome! I'm glad it does, more fun when you can be creative with the HW.

[TehMighty]

I've been trying to use the HD Backgrounds mod with your mod, but it doesnt seem to work.

It worked at the first part, until I got to the crash in Evil Forest, The part where it shows Zidane on the ground, and looks over the burning ship, Zidane isn't there. Then i just get a black screen.

I can still go into the menu, Equip, use items, all that stuff, but as soon as I exit its just a black screen.

Same thing happens when i get out of the Forest. As soon as i get out to the World Map, it works. Then when I go into the Ice Cavern, its a black screen again.

Tried using your CSharp file, and using HW and importing your Mod, and changing the Macro, as well. Same result.

Any ideas?

[Tirlititi]

That's strange. Judging by the fact your mixed mod works for some fields, I would say that maybe one of your p0data1X.bin files is corrupted ; try downloading it again (verify that the HD mod alone has the same bug before).

A black screen when arriving to a field means a corrupted background file to me, but I may be wrong.

[TehMighty]

Originally posted by Tirlititi:

That's strange. Judging by the fact your mixed mod works for some fields, I would say that maybe one of your p0data1X.bin files is corrupted ; try downloading it again (verify that the HD mod alone has the same bug before).

A black screen when arriving to a field means a corrupted background file to me, but I may be wrong.

So, it turns out you were right. All I had to do was redownload(which is a pain in the ass with my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ internet) and reimport the HD mod files... lol

Thanks Dude!

[⛧ Nirvana ⛧]

I don't suppose that there is anyway of adding spells and abilities rather than replacing them? I recently stumbled upon your Hades Workshop tool and am enjoying what I see so far, but I have always been more into adding in content rather than changing things up myself C: I am particularly interested in tweaking the game to allow for Marcus, Blank and Cinna to become permanent characters! Never did like temporary ones ><...

[Tirlititi]

No indeed, there's no way to adding spells and abilities unfortunatly.

The technical reason is that there are 192 spells and 64 supporting skills and the sum of these numbers has to be 256 so it can be represented with one byte of data. Increasing these numbers would require to change the file formats of a bunch of binary files (plus modifying the engine to accept them). It won't happen anytime soon.

There is another limit that is the total number of abilities present in the commands. I think that this limit can be increased more easily but it needs some work in my end anyway.

In any case, there are a tips for bypassing these limits:
- For spells, there are a bunch of unused slots near the end of the list. You can use them freely.
- For supporting abilities, there's the last slot that is unused ; defining the effect of supporting abilities is possible though not trivial at all. See there for an explanation about the auto-statuses and anti-statuses (which are maybe the easiest to implement/modify).
- For command slots, you can remove the few spells from the unused "Magic" commands near the end of the list and you can also select one of the "Seiken" command and link it to the other "Seiken". That allows you to add freely 7 spells in any other command. You can use these "Magic" commands if you need a whole new one. I think that you shouldn't use the very last command of the list (IIRC, it is specially handled by the engine like a kind of counter-attack).

Also you can add a few things, like dialogs or enemy spells, by right-clicking on them.

[⛧ Nirvana ⛧]

Originally posted by Tirlititi:

No indeed, there's no way to adding spells and abilities unfortunatly.

The technical reason is that there are 192 spells and 64 supporting skills and the sum of these numbers has to be 256 so it can be represented with one byte of data. Increasing these numbers would require to change the file formats of a bunch of binary files (plus modifying the engine to accept them). It won't happen anytime soon.

There is another limit that is the total number of abilities present in the commands. I think that this limit can be increased more easily but it needs some work in my end anyway.

In any case, there are a tips for bypassing these limits:
- For spells, there are a bunch of unused slots near the end of the list. You can use them freely.
- For supporting abilities, there's the last slot that is unused ; defining the effect of supporting abilities is possible though not trivial at all. See there for an explanation about the auto-statuses and anti-statuses (which are maybe the easiest to implement/modify).
- For command slots, you can remove the few spells from the unused "Magic" commands near the end of the list and you can also select one of the "Seiken" command and link it to the other "Seiken". That allows you to add freely 7 spells in any other command. You can use these "Magic" commands if you need a whole new one. I think that you shouldn't use the very last command of the list (IIRC, it is specially handled by the engine like a kind of counter-attack).

Also you can add a few things, like dialogs or enemy spells, by right-clicking on them.

I figured it had to do with byte limitations, which seems to be the case for a lot of these old games, have to maintain integrity of the data so that the game itself will still run xDD Hopefully in the future we will be able to crack these games wide open to allow for whole new forms of mods. I would love to have whole new options, abilities and even menus. This should prove possible at some point considering most of these games handle various aspects through scripts which have basic 'append' functions! Regardless, thank you for your response and all the effort you have put into your project so far! It is stuff like this and the farplane RTE for FFX that keep me coming back to these old games and recognizing why they are easily some of the best and most fun RPGs ever xDDD

[Leif]

Ever since I first played the game, I've wanted to use Beatrix in my pary. Thanks for giving me that oppertunity.

[⛧ Nirvana ⛧]

Actually, that reminds me...any chance to use the hades workshop to make Marcus and Blank permanent party members similar to how you did with Beatrix? I was planning on having Blank be an alternative to Amarant with Flair abilities and simply rework some of steiner's swords to fit with the theme. Blank was easily my favorite member of Tantalus :) I am also quite curious as to why his[and Marcus'] sword attack sound is different from Steiner's in this version when the PS1 version used the same sound effect, it is a little bizarre, but not the only bizarre choice in sound change in the PC version I guess.

[Tirlititi]

@Koala: You're welcome :)
I think that was a dream of a handful of people ^^

@Alice N Chains: Beatrix has the advantage of having a character slot only for her. You can swap forth and back between Blank and Amarant indeed, but they will have to share a few things (their level, most likely, and maybe their equipement). Also, you need to edit some field scripts.

To replace Amarant by Blank, you need to go in the "Environment -> Fields" panel, search the fields where you are given the choice of your party (Hildagarde 3, Invincible, Desert Palace's Sanctum, Ipsen's entrance....) and change the script there.

For enabling Blank, it's those lines:

SetPartyReserve( 1215 )
SetCharacterData( 11, 0, 255, 21, 12 )

For re-enabling Amarant, it's these:

SetPartyReserve( 255 )
SetCharacterData( 7, 0, 255, 5, 7 )

Most likely, you need to add those lines before the instruction "Party" which allows the player to change the party. It can be in different functions.
For example, it's in the function "Sailor_SpeakBTN" in the Hildagarde 3 field since you can change the party by speaking to the sailor. It's in the function "Zidane_19" in Ipsen's entrance field because you're given the choice in a cutscene and Zidane is the last one to speak/act before the menu pops up. Sometimes it's in the "Main_Loop" function because that function manages the cutscenes in several fields...
Anyway, once you spotted the "Party" instruction, you can write the lines above above it (sic).

You can also write a little dialog to ask whether the player prefers Amarant or Blank in the "Texts" panel. It can be something like that:

[STRT=0,0][IMME]Crew Member
“Who?”
[CHOO][MOVE=18,0]Amarant...
[MOVE=18,0]Blank ofc!

(The text opcode "IMME" displays the text instantatly, "CHOO" starts a multiple choice and "MOVE" is for the caret to be moved on the right for the choice hand.)

And then you use that dialog in scripts with something like:

WindowSync( 0, 128, DialogID )
if ( GetDialogChoice==0 ) {    // "Amarant..." is chosen
    SetPartyReserve( 255 )
    SetCharacterData( 7, 0, 255, 5, 7 )
} else if ( GetDialogChoice==1 ) {      // "Blank ofc!" is chosen
    SetPartyReserve( 1215 )
    SetCharacterData( 11, 0, 255, 21, 12 )
}

NOTE: If you want Blank to use Amarant's abilities, you can either copy them into Blank's commands or you can also change the last argument in the "SetCharacterData" line (use 7 instead of 12, or select the good one in the menu on the right).

I plan to make some video or write some tutorial for all that kind of stuff eventually. I need to do a couple of things before though.

[⛧ Nirvana ⛧]

Originally posted by Tirlititi:

@Koala: You're welcome :)
I think that was a dream of a handful of people ^^

@Alice N Chains: Beatrix has the advantage of having a character slot only for her. You can swap forth and back between Blank and Amarant indeed, but they will have to share a few things (their level, most likely, and maybe their equipement). Also, you need to edit some field scripts.

To replace Amarant by Blank, you need to go in the "Environment -> Fields" panel, search the fields where you are given the choice of your party (Hildagarde 3, Invincible, Desert Palace's Sanctum, Ipsen's entrance....) and change the script there.

For enabling Blank, it's those lines:

SetPartyReserve( 1215 )
SetCharacterData( 11, 0, 255, 21, 12 )

For re-enabling Amarant, it's these:

SetPartyReserve( 255 )
SetCharacterData( 7, 0, 255, 5, 7 )

Most likely, you need to add those lines before the instruction "Party" which allows the player to change the party. It can be in different functions.
For example, it's in the function "Sailor_SpeakBTN" in the Hildagarde 3 field since you can change the party by speaking to the sailor. It's in the function "Zidane_19" in Ipsen's entrance field because you're given the choice in a cutscene and Zidane is the last one to speak/act before the menu pops up. Sometimes it's in the "Main_Loop" function because that function manages the cutscenes in several fields...
Anyway, once you spotted the "Party" instruction, you can write the lines above above it (sic).

You can also write a little dialog to ask whether the player prefers Amarant or Blank in the "Texts" panel. It can be something like that:

[STRT=0,0][IMME]Crew Member
“Who?”
[CHOO][MOVE=18,0]Amarant...
[MOVE=18,0]Blank ofc!

(The text opcode "IMME" displays the text instantatly, "CHOO" starts a multiple choice and "MOVE" is for the caret to be moved on the right for the choice hand.)

And then you use that dialog in scripts with something like:

WindowSync( 0, 128, DialogID )
if ( GetDialogChoice==0 ) {    // "Amarant..." is chosen
    SetPartyReserve( 255 )
    SetCharacterData( 7, 0, 255, 5, 7 )
} else if ( GetDialogChoice==1 ) {      // "Blank ofc!" is chosen
    SetPartyReserve( 1215 )
    SetCharacterData( 11, 0, 255, 21, 12 )
}

NOTE: If you want Blank to use Amarant's abilities, you can either copy them into Blank's commands or you can also change the last argument in the "SetCharacterData" line (use 7 instead of 12, or select the good one in the menu on the right).

I plan to make some video or write some tutorial for all that kind of stuff eventually. I need to do a couple of things before though.

Thank you so much!! I will definitely screencap this and use the explanation as a reference later when I want to implement an alternation between Blank & Amarant or Marcus & Eiko. This is really, really helpful! :D I would definitely love to see videos and tutorials from you in the future!

I am actually currently planning on reworking some aspects of the game for my own version of FF IX, mainly tweaking the weapons to all have unique abilities[avoiding multiple weapons having "flee" for instance] and since there is very little room for adding abilities, I plan on replacing mostly useless ones with new ones both in the game's spell registry/DB and for the characters themselves. To accomplish this, I plan on removing certain inane abilities such as fiend type bonus ones[EX: Man Eater, Beast Killer, etc.] and instead changing to be a part of the passive abilities on certain weapons[EX: Iron Sword does bonus damage to Human type enemies, if this is possible to figure out and accomplish of course xD]. That way they are not removed from the game and still an option, but not taking up so much of the ability database. I plan on having this in conjunction with a rework of the weapon and armor system similar to FF X's methodology: All armor and Weapons will provide the same base ATTK or DEF, etc. attribute, while the rest will rely on the character's accomodating stat value[STRENGTH, SPIRIT, etc] and shall balance this by reworking the level and stat gains for each character. Are there any particular functions[such as the weapon/armor damage formula?] I should take note of? I am not particularly familiar with how the game calculates the damage formula for most of the armor and weapons, aside from the obvious fact that "Spirit Bonus" means to convey that that stat attribute will be taken into effect.

Of course, alot of this isn't quite possible at the moment, but I am hoping of getting a breakthrough in the future! x)

[⛧ Nirvana ⛧]

Though I do need to know the limit for how techniques can be fitted into a spell/skill menu! xDD I might consider replacing the standard "steal", "jump", etc. commands with an addition skill menu similar to how Steiner's is set up.

As well as potential key map for the enemy abilities to possibly turn into ally abilities x3

Will keep looking into this stuff myself as best I can of course! C:

[pulsedrivedaylen]

Originally posted by Alice N Chains:

Originally posted by Tirlititi:

@Koala: You're welcome :)
I think that was a dream of a handful of people ^^

@Alice N Chains: Beatrix has the advantage of having a character slot only for her. You can swap forth and back between Blank and Amarant indeed, but they will have to share a few things (their level, most likely, and maybe their equipement). Also, you need to edit some field scripts.

To replace Amarant by Blank, you need to go in the "Environment -> Fields" panel, search the fields where you are given the choice of your party (Hildagarde 3, Invincible, Desert Palace's Sanctum, Ipsen's entrance....) and change the script there.

For enabling Blank, it's those lines:

SetPartyReserve( 1215 )
SetCharacterData( 11, 0, 255, 21, 12 )

For re-enabling Amarant, it's these:

SetPartyReserve( 255 )
SetCharacterData( 7, 0, 255, 5, 7 )

Most likely, you need to add those lines before the instruction "Party" which allows the player to change the party. It can be in different functions.
For example, it's in the function "Sailor_SpeakBTN" in the Hildagarde 3 field since you can change the party by speaking to the sailor. It's in the function "Zidane_19" in Ipsen's entrance field because you're given the choice in a cutscene and Zidane is the last one to speak/act before the menu pops up. Sometimes it's in the "Main_Loop" function because that function manages the cutscenes in several fields...
Anyway, once you spotted the "Party" instruction, you can write the lines above above it (sic).

You can also write a little dialog to ask whether the player prefers Amarant or Blank in the "Texts" panel. It can be something like that:

[STRT=0,0][IMME]Crew Member
“Who?”
[CHOO][MOVE=18,0]Amarant...
[MOVE=18,0]Blank ofc!

(The text opcode "IMME" displays the text instantatly, "CHOO" starts a multiple choice and "MOVE" is for the caret to be moved on the right for the choice hand.)

And then you use that dialog in scripts with something like:

WindowSync( 0, 128, DialogID )
if ( GetDialogChoice==0 ) {    // "Amarant..." is chosen
    SetPartyReserve( 255 )
    SetCharacterData( 7, 0, 255, 5, 7 )
} else if ( GetDialogChoice==1 ) {      // "Blank ofc!" is chosen
    SetPartyReserve( 1215 )
    SetCharacterData( 11, 0, 255, 21, 12 )
}

NOTE: If you want Blank to use Amarant's abilities, you can either copy them into Blank's commands or you can also change the last argument in the "SetCharacterData" line (use 7 instead of 12, or select the good one in the menu on the right).

I plan to make some video or write some tutorial for all that kind of stuff eventually. I need to do a couple of things before though.

Thank you so much!! I will definitely screencap this and use the explanation as a reference later when I want to implement an alternation between Blank & Amarant or Marcus & Eiko. This is really, really helpful! :D I would definitely love to see videos and tutorials from you in the future!

I am actually currently planning on reworking some aspects of the game for my own version of FF IX, mainly tweaking the weapons to all have unique abilities[avoiding multiple weapons having "flee" for instance] and since there is very little room for adding abilities, I plan on replacing mostly useless ones with new ones both in the game's spell registry/DB and for the characters themselves. To accomplish this, I plan on removing certain inane abilities such as fiend type bonus ones[EX: Man Eater, Beast Killer, etc.] and instead changing to be a part of the passive abilities on certain weapons[EX: Iron Sword does bonus damage to Human type enemies, if this is possible to figure out and accomplish of course xD]. That way they are not removed from the game and still an option, but not taking up so much of the ability database. I plan on having this in conjunction with a rework of the weapon and armor system similar to FF X's methodology: All armor and Weapons will provide the same base ATTK or DEF, etc. attribute, while the rest will rely on the character's accomodating stat value[STRENGTH, SPIRIT, etc] and shall balance this by reworking the level and stat gains for each character. Are there any particular functions[such as the weapon/armor damage formula?] I should take note of? I am not particularly familiar with how the game calculates the damage formula for most of the armor and weapons, aside from the obvious fact that "Spirit Bonus" means to convey that that stat attribute will be taken into effect.

Of course, alot of this isn't quite possible at the moment, but I am hoping of getting a breakthrough in the future! x)

that sounds amazing. looking forward to it!