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Hmm, I was planning on lowering the base stats and the stat growth in general, but adding a negative esper effect would be handy, too. I'm not entirely sure how the "character-specific" spells would work, since I would need to get rid of a normal spell in order to make room for the new ones, wouldn't I? It WOULD be a really cool thing, though. I once thought of doing something similar with character-specific armor teaching spells, but decided against it for the same reason. I don't like the idea of having like 10 blank slots in the magic menu of each character. The idea of an esper teaching abilities is quite new and innovative. I'm not sure how you'd work it for characters with like...Slot or Dance or Morph as their abilities, though. I think I'd like to keep the present esper system, to an extent. I definitely like the idea of negative stat growth. I'm not so sure about the character-specific thing, though.

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If you're up for some slightly heavy assembly hacking...

I'm not sure if you know or not, but I don't know assembly. I thought I had told you before. I was learning at one point, but I got cramped on time. Pretty much, any ASM hacking would need to be done by you or T6L, since I can't do it myself at the moment.

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Is PJ

Quote (Caesar @ 9th June 2005 17:43)

I'm not sure if you know or not, but I don't know assembly. I thought I had told you before. I was learning at one point, but I got cramped on time. Pretty much, any ASM hacking would need to be done by you or T6L, since I can't do it myself at the moment.

Statement, problem, solution.

A fine post indeed, my good man.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I take it that means you would be willing to help?

Edit

Sorry, Relm, I posted all through your post and therefore didn't see it until now. A hack with all the colors of characters changed would not be difficult at all...no knowledge of hacking is necessary, just a good editor. Therefore, I am not a big fan of such projects. In the process of making Cecil, Edge, etc. in this hack, though, several colors of the others characters needed to be changed. For example, Gau, Banon, Relm, and Kefka I think all have blue hair, due to FuSoYa's palette.

Edit

RuneLancer, of course you've been helping me whenever I need it. That's what friends do. I don't expect you to be a full-time developer, just to help me when I need some serious ASM work done (e.g. a certain ammo, the esper situation, maybe some plans I have in the future regarding a certain omnislash and/or KotR.

Let's just keep editing back and forth since my PM box fills quickly and I don't want to PM, yet I don't want to have pages upon pages of just us talking back and forth.

This post has been edited by Caesar on 9th June 2005 23:48

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Is PJ

Quote (Caesar @ 9th June 2005 18:33)

I take it that means you would be willing to help?

Isn't that what I've been doing all along whenever you ran into a snag?

Unless you meant as a full-time developper, in which case I'm not. Got my own project to worry about. *Points down to his sig.*

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I like the Ultmate Weapon Esper idea,but in FF8 Odin joined you, but coukd not be summoned, he just came in randomly at the beginning of a battle and sliced your enemies. Could you do that with Bahamut?

Possibly. This would require ASM, and I already feel guilty asking what I have from those who do the ASM for my hack *cough* Silverlance *cough*. Plus, if I made Ultima Weapon an esper, that means I could have him use it during the fight with him (therefore, saving me a spell I would've had to replace).

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Is PJ

*Nods and pretends he understood that*
OK. Ultimate Weapon might be replacing Doom Gaze, you say? It's the most suitable place for him, but how well can you train wthout using the airship.

Quote (Caesar @ 11th June 2005 16:31)

Possibly. This would require ASM, and I already feel guilty asking what I have from those who do the ASM for my hack *cough* Silverlance *cough*.

Hey man, don't sweat it. Now that I'm working full time on my game (yay, sprite support works! ^-^) I don't get to do ROM hacking as much as I used to. It's a good way for me to keep my skills from rusting, and in any event, falls outside of what I usually do (ie, hunting for uncharted assembly or structures.) So it's fun.

In fact, I thought about how that could be implanted and it seems more or less easy to do. Just generate a random value between 0 and 255 in C1 (which handles the "main" battle loop) and BEQ to a small bit of code that'll gently scamper over to the code that handles the use of espers. It could be done. The hard part would be jumping to the right sections.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

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*Nods and pretends he understood that*
OK. Ultimate Weapon might be replacing Doom Gaze, you say? It's the most suitable place for him, but how well can you train wthout using the airship.

I'll make it so that you can run from him, if you're not prepared to face him. He will be, after all, the most difficult of all the weapon battles (hey, you're getting an ultima-teaching esper from him...what do you expect?). It is going to be one heck of a battle, I'll tell you that much. Looks like the battles will be looking like this, in order of least to most difficult:
Sapphire-->Diamond-->Emerald-->Ruby-->Ultima

Silverlance, if you really want to give it a try, I'll implement it in the hack. Honestly, though, I could go either way. If you make him randomly appear, awesome, if not, awesome. Ummm...just out of curiosity, would you still be able to equip him so you can learn Ultima and Flare, or is he just like Odin is in FFVIII? If he IS equippable, is there a way to make him uncastable? I'm just wondering what your method will allow and what it won't allow.

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Is PJ

Quote (Caesar @ 11th June 2005 17:10)

Ummm...just out of curiosity, would you still be able to equip him so you can learn Ultima and Flare, or is he just like Odin is in FFVIII? If he IS equippable, is there a way to make him uncastable? I'm just wondering what your method will allow and what it won't allow.

Well, since all's I'd be doing is calling the code that run the spell of whatever ID he'd be, I doubt it would have any impact on the esper itself. So you should be safe.

Basically, what I have in mind is just shooting a spell of ID 'x' at the opposition on a 1/256 chance every round. Which isn't anything too complicated, mechanics wise.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Shweet ideas.. and thankee for the help, Silverlance. You + Ceasar + everyone else working on this = great peeps.

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Uwao. aooh! I'm Gau!
I'm your friend!
Let's travel together!

Quote (Wind God Gau @ 11th June 2005 18:08)

Shweet ideas.. and thankee for the help, Silverlance. You + Ceasar + everyone else working on this = great peeps.

Meh, I'm just hunting about for interesting challenges and taking care of the naughty bits when Caesar needs help with stuff. The ideas and design are all his, as it pretty much everything else. If anyone deserves praise, it's him for seeing this thing through to the end (at least, from the looks of it, he doesn't seem any ready to drop this project halfway through ) Few people complete a project when they start it, and what he's done so far is more than just impressive: it's practically ROM hacking history in the making.

I kinda feel like the wizzened old man the party runs into occasionally when they're unsure where to go that later gets killed by the main villain, awakening some unknown power in the main character. >"<

...Well crap. You'd better avenge my death good, Caesar!! Rip that main villain a new one!

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

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I kinda feel like the wizzened old man the party runs into occasionally when they're unsure where to go that later gets killed by the main villain, awakening some unknown power in the main character. >"<

Hahaha...what a line. Don't worry, though...as long as you're on the team with the Penguin (as long as he has the full set of equipment on him), you can't lose. Besides, I haven't programmed the main boss yet, and everybody knows that Final Kefka can't kill ANYTHING. So until I make the new one, you're safe.

Thanks for the praise, once again. I don't care whether this "makes history" or "becomes immortalized" or anything like that. Heck, I don't even care if anybody outside of the few who posted here even play it. As long as I finish it, I'm a happy camper.

Edit

Wow...finally got to a point in my game where I can actually test run Ultimate Weapon in his natural environment. There were no savestates available for fighting Doom Gaze, so I had to play all the way there. Let me test some things at least. Anyways, his stats are set, his special attack is set, and his AI is located and cleared, so tomorrow I will do some serious coding and finish him up. Either that, or I'll keep playing so I can actually fight him with a decent party (not Celes, Edgar, Sabin, and Setzer...).

This post has been edited by Caesar on 12th June 2005 04:57

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Is PJ

Will Ultimate weapon be stronger than you...Caesar in the game i mean?

I haven't figured that out yet. I'm thinking that after you beat all 5 WEAPONs, not only will you have all the penguin equipment, but I'll also give you an item called "Invitation" or something. You use it and automatically enter a battle with me, Caesar. The battle event would use the Colosseum background, since that is most suitable for me. Therefore, it only makes sense that I be stronger than all the WEAPONs. I have no idea what I might drop after you slay me, but that's not an issue since nobody will slay me.

I'm not exactly sure how much stronger I am going to make myself. As of now, the strategy you need to defeat is quite extensive. I am not hard because I'm strong, nor because I'm fast or immune to all attacks at some point. I made myself after myself: I use incredible combinations of attacks that require a lot of preparation to counter. Ultimate Weapon, on the other hand, will prolly just be your typical boss; strong attacks, decent counters, nothing too tricky. He's really strong, but not too bad. I'm much worse.

I remember The 6th Lime posting here regarding the battle with Caesar once. He said that he was absolutely destroyed...somethign along the lines of: "Wow...he took all four of my characters, poisoned, down to 1 HP and confused them. I didn't get a chance to deal any more damage".

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Is PJ

Since he's an optional challenge, you could just set it so you could win another invitation? To the same battle of course.

I could, I suppose, but once you figure out the strategy to defeat me, I'm not too difficult at all. Figuring it out is the hard part, though. If I didn't drop anything but another Invitation (no exp, no gold, no other items), then there is no point in doing it again, yet if I did reward something in addition to the Invitation, the system could be abused. I could make APOCALYPSE AMMO stealable or droppable from me, so it would be worth the time.

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Is PJ

Idea. Just for an enemy, and not a powerful one, but a really fun one to fight. Ready?
Graphic: Gau, only with different colors. Waaaay different.
Name: Uag.
Stats: Equal to Gaus.
Encountered: On Veldt.
Attacks: None.
Item Drops: Rare ammo. Dont know which type.
Steals: Dried meat.

... Okee, it's not that good, but anyway... camoflaged BUMP!

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Uwao. aooh! I'm Gau!
I'm your friend!
Let's travel together!

Update: Beta Ultimate Weapon is finished. I just have to perfect the counters he has, maybe add some more devious attacks, and I am still yet to create Ultima Beam, his amazing attack. I DO know what I will do for it, though. It is going to be absolute hell. That, and the fact that he uses it every 2-3 turns makes it even worse.

I just test ran the battle...it is very difficult, yet easily doable. If he connects, you die. That's all there is to it. His magic power isn't even that high, but the attacks themselves are incredible. At one point, there is a possibility of being hit with Flare Star and Dark Holy in a single turn, followed by Nuclear the next turn and then Ultima Beam. Though this is possible, its liklihood is like (1/81), so don't worry about it. If you do face it, though, look out and pray for mercy. No really, it's a tough battle, even without Ultima Beam and his counterattack from hell. I have to share this...I developed this by accident at first, but later kept a modified version. I was testing a counter, so after every turn, one would be added to this imaginary variable, and when it reached three or more, he cast Ultima. Well, I forgot to add the code that cleared the variable after he used Ultima, so he ended up countering with Ultima after every hit. Well, I fixed it, but kept a worse version: for the last 130,000 of HP, he will counterattack, with Ultima, the person who hit him. Good luck with that bastard.

Edit

Anybody have any ideas for what UltimaBeam should look like? That is the missing componant in this battle. Once I finish its animation, he's done.

This post has been edited by Caesar on 13th June 2005 22:43

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Is PJ

The massive flux of random ideas is what got this thread closed in the first place. I think it would be a good idea to give ideas that are more directed towards Caesar's needs.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Ultima Beam's graphics, hmm? Well... y'know the electrical MagiTek beam? Turn that blue. And make it bigger.

Edit

Ooh, even better idea! Why not make it use a dark blue version of the Alexander Laser?

This post has been edited by Wind God Gau on 14th June 2005 14:58

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Uwao. aooh! I'm Gau!
I'm your friend!
Let's travel together!

Alexander's laser was my first instinct, but then I remember all the problems that causes. There's a glitch in the ending, but I COULD use just the beam and then create another explosion or something. Bolt Beam doesn't exist anymore...I sorta used its graphics to make a custom animation. I'll see what I can do with the laser.

Edit

Alright, I have an Ultima Beam for now. It is subject to change, but I am satisfied with it for now. It is basically Ultima with the L.? Pearl balls dropping beforehand. Palette swap, of course. I wanted to keep Ultima since it IS Ultima Beam. Umm...the Alexander beam wasn't working, nor was Atomic Ray, Tek Laser or the other good beams in the game, and I didn't want to make a custom one, so there you have it.

This post has been edited by Caesar on 14th June 2005 20:21

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Is PJ

That looks awesome!!!!!! I'm assuming one of it's other attacks is Doom? or Doom- Counter or whatever its called.

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Wow...finally got to a point in my game where I can actually test run Ultimate Weapon in his natural environment. There were no savestates available for fighting Doom Gaze, so I had to play all the way there.

Is that why all your characters are about to be slaughtered by Ultima beam?

Wow, hack production is nearing it's one year anniversary. Just shows how much your dedicated to your work. I cant believe you guys' abilities. This is gonna go down in hack history. Anyways, can't wait til it's done.

Now for an idea,

Once you beat Caesar, the prize should be something like a super helmet. It would boost all your stats by 125, and then you'd actually stand a chance against that robot monster you made a while back(the one whos impossible to beat, uses proto armor sprite)

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Ff7 current game progress:Just finished the underwater reactor, on to rocket town!

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Once you beat Caesar, the prize should be something like a super helmet. It would boost all your stats by 125, and then you'd actually stand a chance against that robot monster you made a while back(the one whos impossible to beat, uses proto armor sprite)

After you defeat each weapon, you claim one piece of the fabled Penguin equipment. It's like Imp equipment, except Penguin, sinec Imp no longer exists. This set of equipment is absolutely godly...you pretty much can't die with it equipped, so I hardly doubt that a super helmet would be necessary. Is the robot monster you refer to Warmech? Warmech is very beatable as is...there's only one difficult thing about him and that's multi-targetted attacks. Pretty much, if you use them you lose.

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Wow...finally got to a point in my game where I can actually test run Ultimate Weapon in his natural environment. There were no savestates available for fighting Doom Gaze, so I had to play all the way there.

Is that why all your characters are about to be slaughtered by Ultima beam?

Haha, pretty much. Although, you can't really die from Ultima Beam...it just puts you in a very difficult situation.

Okay, so I guess everybody deserves an update. Ever sicne I made Nuclear, Warmech's special attack (which just happens to make an appearance in the Ultima Weapon battle...), I vowed to make a custom animation for it...something unbelievable. Well, I have been working on that recently. It will be modelled after the Nuclear from Dawn of Souls, if anybody has ever played that, except mine will be better since I'm Caesar.

/end ego boost

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Is PJ

Do any of your new bosses have speech stuff at the beginning and/ir end? Like Atma Weapon and Atma. T'would be cool.

I was considering doing that for a few bosses, myself being one of them. It is definitely possible, depending on how much space I have to program their AI. For the battle with Caesar, I was going to have the message "system failure!" appear before he reset the game, but I figured that would be too mean of a thing to do, so I didn't.

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Is PJ

I seem to remember something in this topic (may be a different one, im just too lazy to look), where a boss would reset, not just the game, but destroy all of that file. Is that what you meant? System failure? Or just soft reset?

I remember something similar somewhere, too, but it might've just been when I was joking with my friends about it. I'm pretty sure that I DID glitch the code pretty bad once, and I remember having one less file in my folder after I used the attack, but the specific reset attack that I meant in my last post was the simple "reset the game" attack. I'm not mean enough to erase someone's save file or delete one of their files on the computer with the attack.

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Is PJ

Whoopsie.
What's left to be finished then? I don't suppose you've got the Diamond and Sapphire Sprites yet?