Messages

Yes, I temporarily changed my name to Searchbot.

Yup. Name changing seems to work.

Ditto to YYYY-MM-DD [TIME].

My thoughts on communal living (as a current student): It's hit and miss. I wouldn't say it's dangerous, rather unpredictable. Leases are a very poor measurement of a landlord's expectations (e.g. whether shoes, socks, or barefoot is allowed around the house; sending/receiving mail). One told me there was an AC when there actually wasn't. Another insisted on storing her personal belongings in my closet. I've had far better experiences renting rooms in houses with people my age and landlords who live elsewhere. I often hear the best reviews from a group of friends renting a whole house, but I haven't done that myself.

Also, contribute towards the open source community and demonstrate your skills through building your own tools. In fact, Atrius's editor is a great example of what an employer would love to see.

While we're blown away by hacking tools and the work and skill that goes into making them (thanks Atrius!!!), I don't expect all employers to approve of it (I could have sworn I heard that somewhere, but I can't find the specific reference. A quick web search did give some similar opinions.) My guess is some places won't overlook it, but others won't take it seriously. I'd expect bigger companies with infamous interviews (e.g. Google, Facebook) would be far more welcoming of that than random smaller companies. This is nothing but a hunch.

I have several updates to mention:

• GS1 rando code is now available on GitHub. If the exe doesn't work for you, you will have to use the source code to run the randomizer.
• GS1 updates were made thanks to feedback. The main things are randomizing psynergy in classes, adding utility psynergy to PCs as defaults (Growth, Whirlwind, Ply), some more options for equipment, shuffling PC stats, and Retreating in the overworld (works like Teleport from TLA).
• A beta version of GS2 TLA is up. I does the same things as GS1, but is quite a bit more interesting with the larger number of key items and the inclusion of tables. If the executable doesn't work for you, there are 3 demo patches available.

My primary focus now will be on cleaning up the GS TLA code and releasing that on GitHub. Once I do that, I'll consider it a full release (no longer a beta version).

Any feedback is welcome, especially thoughts and suggestions for randomizing enemies. I really would like to randomize them as much as possible, but they really would need stat modifications to do so, and there are no clear constraints to enforce how that works. I don't think I'll shuffle all items or town/cave locations until something can be sorted out with enemies.

GS1 randomizer and github
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=120
https://github.com/MarvinXLII/GS-Randomizer

GS2 randomizer (beta);
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=122

Thanks for playing and for the feedback. As it sounds like you had no urgent bugs, I think I'll keep focusing on GS2 at the moment. But don't worry. I'll include your suggestions in GS2 when applicable, and apply them to GS1 shortly after that release.

A few thoughts:

• I can include guaranteed equipping as an option.
• I've started rescaling class boost stats to deal with the OP default tri-elemental classes. Yay or nay? It's just a line function of the total elements, at least from what I can tell.
• I think I'll include lots of options for classes: element requirements, psynergy, boosts, levels, and whatever else. User picks what they want.
• What first comes to mind for psynergy movesets is completely random, random but grouped (e.g. if a class gets Ply, it also gets the other Plys), or swapped (e.g. Squire psynergy becomes Wind Seer psynergy). Any other ideas?
• For inaccessible classes, maybe I could write a new script for setting the class type and give each class a unique type (kind of like the class items in GS2). I'll look into that.
• Yeah, all-items is interesting but tricky. Let's get back to that when my TODO list dwindles.

Great!

Yeah, at the moment you will get Wind Seer/Ninja for Whirlwind/Gale before the cave, as well as Water Seer/Dragoon for Ply. It makes the default classes heavily biased, but I'm toying with some ideas for improving that. Whirlwind and Ply could be set as default psynergy, like Retreat and Move, or I could just add them to additional classes.

Thanks for post. It turned out to be a quick fix, so I posted an update. I tested this on seed 416416, and checked logs of about a dozen other seeds. Let me know if it works for you.

If you still have your save file, you can continue your playthrough. Just generate a new rom from scratch with the same seed and reset your classes by moving your djinn around.

[GS1]

I thought I'd start a thread on randomizers, as I recently released a randomizer for GS1 and I've made significant headway with GS2. This first post will probably become some form of documentation further down the road and edited as needed. Responses will be useful for bug reports and suggestions.

GS1:

• Djinn: Randomly swaps all 28 djinn.
• Summon requirements: This changes the element of set djinn required for each summon. For example, Boreas could require either 4 Venus djinn or 4 Jupiter djinn. It's possible to have no use for Mercury djinn.
• PC elements: This shuffles the initial element of the PCs, and you'll end up with one PC per element.
• Class requirements: This shuffles element requirements for each set of classes, and rescales requirements if necessary. For example, the Guard set of class requires 5 Mars elements, and will never need more than 5 total, even if it becomes a double or triple element class.
• Equippable weapons/armor: This changes who can equip what.
• Key Items: This randomly swaps key items in the game, ones that contain psynergy or are necessary for beating the game. Items include Catch Beads, Empty Bottle, Dragon's Eye, Orb of Force, Douse Drop, Frost Jewel, Lifting Gem, Boat Ticket, Anchor Charm, Mystic Draught, Cloak Ball, Halt Gem, Cell Key, Red Key, Carry Stone, and the Black Orb.
• Boss Drops: Either Kraken, Toadonpa, Storm Lizard or Deadbeard will drop a key item.
• Dialogue suppression: It suppresses most (not all) dialogue. It helps speed through cutscenes.

GS2:

The GS2 randomizer will do many similar things to GS1: djinn, summon requirements, class requirements, PC elements, and equippable weapons and armor. Some additional stuff:

• Key Items: Lash Pebble, Pound Cube, Scoop Gem, Healing Fungus, Laughing Fungus, Black Crystal, Cyclone Chip, Tremor Bit, Ruin Key, Sea God's Tear, Pretty Stone, Red Cloth, Milk, Li'l Turtle, Aquarius Stone, Burst Broach, Dancing Idol, Left Prong, Center Prong, Right Prong, Trident, Grind Stone, Shaman's Rod, Hover, Douse Drop, Frost Jewel, Carry Stone, Lifting Gem, Orb of Force, Magma Ball, Teleport Lapis, and Mars Star.
• Tablets: These can all be shuffled. For example, the Zagan tablet can teach Sheba Sand.
• Default psynergy: Mind Read (Sheba and Ivan) and Douse (Piers) can be swapped with tablet psynergy.
• Retreat: It can be used anywhere, primarily to prevent softlocks in the psynergy tablet rooms.
• Overworld Retreat: This work like Teleport, but lets you backtrack to any previously visited location on the overworld map.

At this point all of these have been setup and tested. I just need to do the logic for the key item and tablet randomizers, and then test it to ensure there are no softlocks. I think it'll take a few weeks, but my GS1 randomizer will help a lot with that (I think). That said, there's always a new bug to find.

Future work:

I think this really depends on feedback. A few things I'd like to try are shuffling weapon unleashes and scaling up the battle difficulty progressively. An all item randomizer might work for GS2 (way more difficult for GS1, unless I missed a table). We'll see how it goes.

Seems like everything is working now: Fizz, Vine, Corona and Hail. Plus all your help helped me figure out Flint:

Sprite:
0x0200db84 (same as Vine's)

Battle demo:
02009d1e (element)
02009e20 (djinn)
0x2009d28 (element)
0x2009d2a (djinn)

Join party:
0200a214 (element)
0200a216 (djinn)

Flags:
0x200e3fa
0x2008254

Thanks so much Fox!

Thanks! I'm still wrapping my head around all this stuff, but these examples will help a lot.

Interesting thing about Flint I found today. His sprite is determined by the djinn in Vine's location.

Thanks. I'll look into those. I'm still learning to make patches, plus I'm still cleaning up some other stuff. Best I hold off on the patch. Regardless, changing the address just using the editor resulted in the same problems. Here are the GS1 addresses I change:

Vine:
0x0200db84 Sprite
0x0200db86 Flag
0x02008064 Battle

Corona:
0x0200db9c Sprite
0x0200db9e Flag
0x020080b2 Battle

Hail:
0x0200dbb4 Sprite
0x0200dbb6 Flag
0x020080fa Battle

If you have any advice for Fizz, that would also help. I have no clue where to start. The Flint sprite is 0x200e3f8, with the flag right after. His event continues even after another djinn joins, but presumably other overworld fixes can help with that.

The other 23 djinn work well.

I'm new to this, so I tried this out for myself. I got the swaps working, but I noticed that after collecting Mud (in Chill's default location), Mud keeps appearing in random battles. Furthermore, if I collect Chill first (in Mud's default location) and go for Mud (in Chill's default location), Mud cannot be found. Am I missing something? I'm not sure the flag's are enough for the overworld.

I've been trying to swap djinn in Golden Sun, and I have the same problem with overworld encounters there too (Vine, Corona and Hail).