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Creating new spell effects

Started by Mion Sonozaki, 16, February, 2015, 11:12:00 AM

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Mion Sonozaki

Thread for documenting and discussing the creation of new spell effects, and modification of old spell effects.

My own personal wish list:
- Modifiers to Elemental Power
- Stun to decrease attack by 50% temporarily instead of immobilizing the foe

Relevant: http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2067.msg41674#msg41674
Quote
Base success rates (assigned in the function at 080B0514):
080B0660 - 70% (12/13 - Def debuffs)
080B0664 - 75% (16/17 - eRes debuffs)
080B0668 - 30% (22 - Charm)
080B066C - 45% (24 - Sleep)
080B0670 - 55% (18/19 - Poison/Venom, 25 - Seal)
080B0674 - 25% (26 - Haunt)
080B0678 - 20% (27 - Instant Death)
080B067C - 65% (20 - Delusion, HP Drain)
080B0680 - 35% (21 - Confuse, 34 - HP to 1)
080B0684 - Flat 60% (56 - Revive to 50%)
080B0688 - Flat 90% (57 - Revive to 80%)
080B068C - Flat 70% (73 - Revive to 60%)
080B0690 - 60% (8/9 - Attack debuffs, 28 - Curse, 32 - PP Drain, 80 - Curse)
080B0694 - 50% (35 - May ignore 50% of Def)
080B0698 - 40% (23 - Stun, 85 - Stun)
080B069C - Flat 100% (Def buffs, eRes buffs, Regen, Reflect, Break... seems to be the default for anything that either shouldn't fail or has its success rate calculated differently)

Salanewt

It really depends on what you want the ailment to do; some would be substantially easier than others, and then you also have the issue with effect graphics (like the "ZZZs" when asleep), which seems to be set up in a way that makes adding more graphics to the rotation a tad trickier.

That being said, elemental power boosts work a bit weird in GS. The game will update them and play an animation if it recognizes that your ePow levels are wrong, like when using a summon (to boost them) or save game data with abnormal stats during/after a character's turn. Additionally, it will play a different animation if a djinni is set at the end of the turn and do something similar with recalculating those stats. These would have to be modified a bit to take new RAM values into account, since they would just update the eStats again and then the effects wouldn't work. Downside with that is the limited space you have in character RAM to add a lot of stuff, since a lot of the values are already used for other ailments and such; depending on how you want the boosts to work, you may need anywhere from 1-8 bytes for both raising and lowering it. In my opinion, it wouldn't be worth the effort if summons can still provide ePow boosts because they can already do that and more (as can gear), and lowering ePow would be silly when you can just boost your resistance with a universal buff effect (or fix it via summon, if a battle lasts long enough for either you or the enemy to use one reliably).

As for paralysis, one may have to play around with battle formulas to do that. I wouldn't expect it to be too hard though, since Caledor set up something marginally related with the PP multiplier. I think one would have to add a little code in the main portion of the formula stuff, and then add a little more in the added damage/multiplier sections so the formulas can use it. Oh, and this person would also have to alter the "can't act if confuse/charm/sleep/stun" check that is elsewhere in the code. I can't remember where that is without looking at the document, but I'll either double check that or take a look at my prototype confuse/charm code to figure it out later. Might not be the greatest idea if defence buffs are still in the game and delude can lower overall accuracy, but it could work well against enemies or something. Although, I wonder if either an agility modifier or an equipment curse-like effect might be better... Ah well.


And now for something a little different, but I kind of like the idea of tweaking delusion a bit to make it both stronger and persistent. Basically, my idea is the following: delusion can reduce physical attack accuracy (not spells; bind is better at limiting those), but the counter for the effect goes up rather than down. Getting inflicted sets the counter to 1, and then it will go up by one every turn until it caps at something like 5-10. Every point in the counter reduces your accuracy by about 10%-20%, and the only way to cure it would be to either use restore/elixir/other healing ability or go to an inn (or die I guess). Another cool thing about this is that the chance for luck to cure it in the lower levels could still apply, but will decrease the longer you have it rather than increase. Eventually luck would be unable to cure it. This is more of an old effect with newer mechanics I guess, but I have to say I rather like the idea. Might make a patch to experiment with this later, but I'd want to confirm some of the details first.

Thinking about that, I guess bind could be reworked with a similar mechanic. Maybe stun too. Might have to think about those ones some more though. Would be even better if they had minor effects on the overworld too.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Rolina

Off chance a poison for PP would be doable?  Or perhaps something that lowers the accuracy of abilities so that they're not auto-hit anymore?

Salanewt

PP Poison: Most likely with some work, but the way the current poison value works is it's basically a multiplier for poison damage (caps at 2 in the overworld). 0 = no poison, 1 = 10% (or a set 5% in the field), and 2 = venom values. I can't remember if there's enough room to fit it in as an entirely new ailment or if you would have to double up, but doubling up could be a viable solution in this case given that poison/venom effectively cap at x0A (10 in decimal) yet has an entire byte to work with. Downside is it may be tricky to add a graphic like some of the other ailments have though, so actually having an indicator showing that a character is inflicted with it might actually be harder than implementing the effect. Never tried though, so I can't be too sure.

As for the accuracy thing, I'm pretty sure you would have to change how accuracy works in general. Accuracy is only a thing with certain attack/action types and/or formulas, and one would have to add the mechanic to other attack/action and/or formula types to do it. The downside is it could be more work than it's worth, unless you're fine with scrapping seal/bind or something. Might be possible to tweak it so a PP requirement of 0 is required instead, but I don't know. I haven't really looked into accuracy stuff before, so Fox may be able to explain this one better.
Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?

Misery

Oh right, I've been meaning to ask this - how would one go about creating a duplicate of an existing effect? That would be useful for creating abilities with different success rates for the same ailment. I have a feeling it shouldn't be that hard to do.

Salanewt

Oh yeah, that actually wouldn't be hard to do at all. Ability effects are all basically organized in a pointer list (with a couple exceptions), so all you would need to do is duplicate the pointer and assign a different success rate to it. That's how bind/seal does it for the spell vs. djinni effects, and there's a similar thing with the multi-target delusion effect as well. The only thing to keep in mind is that you would have to move the pointer list if you want to actually increase the total amount of effects, but then it may not be fully compatible with the editor.

The list is at #08121510, starting with ability effect #0 if memory serves me correctly. However you assign success rates will depend on whether or not you use the patch or some other hack.

Oh yeah baby, £ me harder.

Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Adepts stronger.

Yoshi's Lighthouse is a hacking website in progress. Why not check it out if you like Yoshi or the Mario & Luigi games?