Question about TLA (Monster Loadouts)

[VanishMantle]

Is there a way to change the what mob parties/loadouts on a given section or map of the game?

I was wondering because I am not sure if some the mob parties/loadouts are share between some maps and I have specific changes i would like to implement to only certain sections of the game as well as add new random encounters to certain areas.

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Hm. That feature is not currently in the editor, so you would likely have to grab a Hex Editor.

I once located two databasse that link how battles are connected to maps. However, I should summarize a few things:

1.) Rooms are assigned battle collections. (Not viewable or editable in editor yet.)
2.) Battle collections list which enemy groups are possible. (Not viewable or editable in editor yet.)
3.) Enemy Groups are assigned enemies. (Viewable and editable in the editor.)

(From http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=135.45)

From what we know, this database assigns maps their battle collections which can be based on storybook flags and door numbers. (Storybook flags and door numbers can be omitted by using FFFF, though.)


(From http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=135.msg14704#msg14704)

These are the battle collections, as I call them, you can assign 8 groups to each map. Not to mention that in this data, you would be able to edit the likelihood a battle would occur, (You could even disable battles in a map.) As well as changing which of the battle groups are more likely to be encountered than the others.

[Rolina]

Is there a way to manipulate encounter frequency for certain groups, or is it just a flat RNG?  I think it'd be cool if we could make a stronger group that appears less often...

[VanishMantle]

@ Teawater: You are like a sage or something man. This helps a lot. I need to get into hex more but i have been fairly lazy. This is off topic but would editing treasure chests be the same deal as well?

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Is there a way to manipulate encounter frequency for certain groups, or is it just a flat RNG?  I think it'd be cool if we could make a stronger group that appears less often...

I think that is what the last 8 bytes in that red box are for. I have a feeling a better name for what I call "Battle Collections" might be "Encounters Table"? Hm.. Not sure... I never gave a name to the table that associates maps to these, so... Hm.. I'm sorry that I'm not good with naming tables and stuff...

@Treasure Chests: You are in luck, as I already have a topic that explains how Treasure Chests work. http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2002.0

[Rolina]

If we could make one encounter in an area very rare, then we could have 'area bosses' of sorts.  It should only apply to areas that don't have story or treasure bosses, though - otherwise it's just being mean.

[VanishMantle]

@ Rolina: I was thinking the same thing. I have been hard at work, working on a hard type mod for TLA in the same fashion as the one i made for Golden Sun. But I was wondering about editing monster parties on a given map because then I could do some interesting things with bosses that way.

@ Teawater: Thanks for the link to the topic. I suppose I need to use the search function more on the forums so I don't make dupe threads and such.

[Misery]

This part of the editor's enemies section lets you edit all enemy, djinn and boss encounters in the game. You can change which enemies appear, how many of them there are, and how they are placed. I don't think there are any shared maps. I'm not sure if you're all talking about something completely different since nobody has mentioned it yet, but to me it sounds like this is exactly what you're looking for.

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Please take a look at this for me, will you:



The red box represents an entry. But I want to point to you the next THREE entries. They assign the same battle collection (x38)to the following maps: x94, x95, x96

So obviously, it is very easy to tell they are shared.

From what I gather from VanishMantle's first post, is that he wanted to separate which battles are possible between maps, and that is not possible in the editor, yet. And if it helps, he also wanted to add new encounters. But you can only have a maximum of eight at one time.

[VanishMantle]

Teawater's spot on with this. I am aware of group editing in the editor. I had to use it a lot without a search function (it got aggravating trying to find specific mobs in that long list), but back to my point. Since i want to make anemos sanctum home to a ton of super bosses you randomly encounter i can't make all the ones i want to make just going off what the editor gives me since then all the fights in anemos are shared and may be shared on other maps. It makes it hard to really pull off something like that.

@ Teawater: Is there a comprehensive list of the map values in hex or does the editor already displays these?

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

The editor should display these.  Check the Map Editor's list of maps. Don't forget to convert between decimal and hexadecimal.

Ofcourse, you could also check the debug menu in the game . (Using Code 03001238:01, and Pressing B+Start.

Do note that the memory viewer tutorials weren't based off the first entry, so you should probably scroll up to find the first ones, as well. (Atleast for battle collections, since doing an equation like:  battle_collection * x1C  might help you locate what you want faster.)

[Misery]

Teawater's spot on with this. I am aware of group editing in the editor. I had to use it a lot without a search function (it got aggravating trying to find specific mobs in that long list), but back to my point. Since i want to make anemos sanctum home to a ton of super bosses you randomly encounter i can't make all the ones i want to make just going off what the editor gives me since then all the fights in anemos are shared and may be shared on other maps. It makes it hard to really pull off something like that.

Ah, sorry about that then. I reread your first post several times, but I wasn't sure what you meant with it. But then I guess you got your answer already, and you can add more variety to certain areas pretty easily if you're willing to shuffle battles around a bit and have shared encounters in some other areas... unless you figure out some way to add more battle collections.

@Teawater: Sorry, I never really looked at your first post. I've read it now, and I'm glad I did - that's some pretty useful info.

[VanishMantle]

Teawater's spot on with this. I am aware of group editing in the editor. I had to use it a lot without a search function (it got aggravating trying to find specific mobs in that long list), but back to my point. Since i want to make anemos sanctum home to a ton of super bosses you randomly encounter i can't make all the ones i want to make just going off what the editor gives me since then all the fights in anemos are shared and may be shared on other maps. It makes it hard to really pull off something like that.

Ah, sorry about that then. I reread your first post several times, but I wasn't sure what you meant with it. But then I guess you got your answer already, and you can add more variety to certain areas pretty easily if you're willing to shuffle battles around a bit and have shared encounters in some other areas... unless you figure out some way to add more battle collections.

@Teawater: Sorry, I never really looked at your first post. I've read it now, and I'm glad I did - that's some pretty useful info.

There seem to be a number of groups that aren't being used in the games data. I think somewhere around 20-40 on a rough estimate, which be more than enough to accommodated my needs

@Teawater: As far as the hex values go how would i be able to to tell which battles are being called to which set of battles?

[Misery]

Yeah, I noticed there are some unused indexes for enemy groups, but I meant battle collections, the data determining which groups you encounter. Since every map has its own pointer to a battle collection I'm guessing you could just change it to point to wherever there's free space, but you'd have to enter all the data by hand in a hex editor if you want new collections. Should be easy enough since Teawater already detailed the format, but I guess bringing up the hex editor can be a hassle if you're not used to it.

As for your question, I think I can answer that too. Look at the second image posted in this topic. Out of the numbers marked red, each pair of bytes form a value that should correspond to an enemy group index (I'm assuming, still haven't tried this).

[Rolina]

Out of curiosity, is there something in the data to determine other things about that enemy group, like the battle music and "battle swirl" effect?  It'd be interesting if we could make an area boss in the truest sense of the world, with a modified battle intro and different battle music...

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Battle music is talked about here:  http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=1418.msg28617#msg28617

I suppose that's what you want?

As for the battle swirly effect, I haven't looked that up, yet.

[Rolina]

Er, Teawater, I asked that here because we're talking about this specific data.  I'm not certain if the music is triggered by the same data here, or if that thread's talking about some other flag the game looks for.  Just pointing me at that topic, when to be bluntly honest, I can't even tell if it answered my question or not, isn't very helpful.

[Salanewt]

There is a high chance that the monster groups per room and battle music are both handled by completely different functions, and the monster loadout data has nothing to do with music itself. However, that link does go to a post with the information that you are asking about. 100% confirmed too, thanks to the Kibombo Serpent battle that I'm having right now. The information in that post should allow you to define which song plays during a given battle, which may also be defined itself. Very helpful too, if I may say so myself. It even says that it is a database in the post, but meh.

[Rolina]

So it is linked to the monster group's data?

[Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas]

Reviewing my post, and reading this:

0aab, where a is the random battle groups number, and b is the random battle 0-7.

You could have confirmed that music can be assigned to a random battle listed in battle collections. (That is, if I remember correctly.)

Anyway, how music is set to battles is its own separate database, soo....