[Updated] Creating "equipment" in FE7/FE8

[Deltre]

[spoiler=OP]Hey there everyone, just wanted to take a quick second to introduce myself before getting to the heart of the matter here. I've been lurking these forums for the past few months now trying to learn the ropes of this hacking business and I had to say the community here has been an absolutely awesome help to someone like me who could barely change growth rates way back when in the pre-Nightmare days. Kudos to all of you for all this great work. Anyways, on to the idea and even an idea for a possible implementation. That's where I'd like to hear from you wizards out there, because I've only really just started to look at ASM and my idea could be total bollocks for all I know.

So somewhere along the way while browsing around the forums doing research for an FE8 difficulty hack I'm trying to make, I came across Venno's Passive Stat Boosts hack. I was thinking, with some creative use of this little gem you might be able to create different pieces of equipment (shields, armors, helmets, whatever) to use in game a la Final Fantasy Tactics. Now for those who aren't familiar with the hack, as best I can tell, his hack tells the game to run a search of the characters' inventory for Weapon Ability 3 0x80 and load the boosts designated by the stat boost pointer of the item, kind of like the Starsphere from FE3. If we use the non-stacking version of this patch (tells the game to quit looking for ability bit 0x80 after it finds one instance), couldn't you just tack on another routine to the end of the first to search for another ability byte? So instead of Weapon Ability 3 0x80, just have it search for another unused bit like 0x20 or 0x40, and (if my theory is sound) you'd have multiple "equipment slots" that would interact with each other but not with themselves. I'm not sure how feasible this last one is, but you could even go one step further and add an "Is this Item Usable?" check to the whole routine, and lock certain armors to certain classes/characters based on if they can or cannot use the item.

I think a fully realized system like this would be amazing for a game like FE8 that features branched class promotions, skills, etc. It would add more impact on how the player chooses to promote each unit beyond a possible weapon type and what are in many cases negligible stat differences, as well as serve as a way to indirectly nerf some of the more traditionally OP classes without just tanking their stats. Paladins might have a worse equipment draw than a General, for example. Not even to mention all the creative things you'd be able to do with enemy placements and all the dickish things I already have planned for mine if this is even remotely possible. I think it'd be refreshing to say the least, and that's what we're here for right? Experiencing the games we love (or sometimes love to hate depending on the RNG that day) in a refreshing way.

I'd love to hear some input on this idea from someone who know more about this stuff than I do. For what it's worth, I took a crack at adding the second search into Venno's original code myself using what I could piece together from a couple different ASM hacks to see if I'm just spouting nonsense here, but for whatever reason I can't seem to get the original hack to work much less my own attempt at it. It's originally for use with Camtech's assembly patcher but I can't find a link anywhere, and I can't seem to call it with ASMC OFFSET+1 either. I've tried (on a clean file), but VBA just hangs on a white screen before the logos so I dunno ¯\(°_o)/¯ Even then, I wouldn't know where to begin on a "Can X Unit use this Item" check. It'd be a cool thing to see fully realized though.

[spoiler=Working Equipment]

So after giving it a good look I actually came up with something that works. Much to my surprise, it doesn't even seem like it broke anything either! Basically, I ran a manual check on each individual item slot instead of looping through the inventory automatically. Then it's just a matter of manually ending the item check after we find a valid stat bonus pointer and in the end it looks like we might actually have a winner. It's a good start at least, but honestly I only got that far because Venno already did most of the heavy lifting. It still needs another routine to check for another 'equipment slot' (can probably do this) and ideally a usability check (less confident). I *think* that your idea of multiple flags on one item should work as I have it now, assuming I get that second routine in there. This is literally the first thing I've ever done with ASM so take that with a grain of salt. It's a cool idea though, I hadn't even considered that. Oh, and it still calculates the Equipped Weapon Boost separately, so there are no compatibility issues there (the Steel Sword is where the -2 SPD on Seth is coming from).

Is there anything I could reference out there for a usability check? Probably not gonna magically figure that out on my own haha.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Deltre

[Tequila]

Short answer, yes.

Long answer:

I'm not entirely sure I understand how exactly you want all these items to interact with each other. You could certainly lock them to specific classes; it's just a matter of how you want to go about doing it and whether there's room. I dunno about Camtech's patcher, but if you stop by the FEU discord (http://feuniverse.us/t/feu-discord-server/1480) someone there can probably help you out with assembling and/or modifying venno's hack.

[Deltre]

Short answer, yes.

Long answer:

I'm not entirely sure I understand how exactly you want all these items to interact with each other. You could certainly lock them to specific classes; it's just a matter of how you want to go about doing it and whether there's room. I dunno about Camtech's patcher, but if you stop by the FEU discord (http://feuniverse.us/t/feu-discord-server/1480) someone there can probably help you out with assembling and/or modifying venno's hack.

Thanks for the fast reply. Sorry if I wasn't clear about how they would interact. Basically, I want the game to load only one item from each ability bit the routine will search for. So if it loads an item with Weapon Ability 3 0x80, it won't load any other item with 0x80, but will instead search again, this time for Weapon Ability 3 0x40 and use the same process. Assuming that would work, it should just be a matter of assigning 0x80 or 0x40 in Nightmare to determine what will and will not interact. That way in a completed hack you won't end up with silly gameplay options like Eirka wearing 4 sets of armor or something. As far as locking them, I noticed another hack of Vennos that allowed for array based weapon locks. I'm thinking it should be pretty simple with that and a bit messing around in Nightmare, assuming the hacks are compatible.

[CT075]

the link to my patcher can be found here, although I can't promise it's up-to-date

[Lamia]

all that would need to be done, if you have multiple 'equipment' areas, is to simply make separate routines for each weapon ability flag

making them not stack with their own flag, however, may require some work (the post I found mentions only unstackable stat boosts a la FE4 rings, not the items themselves?) however it would also allow for equipment that uses 'multiple' areas

like say, a robe that would take up the top and bottom 'slots', you could give it both the top and bottom flags at the same time so you could not 'wear' something lower in the inventory of either type, just as a side note anyway

an FE that utilizes equipment in this fashion is a neat idea but it would probably need to be a pretty serious project

Edited July 16, 2016 by Lamia

[Deltre]

the link to my patcher can be found here, although I can't promise it's up-to-date

Thanks man, it worked perfectly.

all that would need to be done, if you have multiple 'equipment' areas, is to simply make separate routines for each weapon ability flag

making them not stack with their own flag, however, may require some work (the post I found mentions only unstackable stat boosts a la FE4 rings, not the items themselves?) however it would also allow for equipment that uses 'multiple' areas

like say, a robe that would take up the top and bottom 'slots', you could give it both the top and bottom flags at the same time so you could not 'wear' something lower in the inventory of either type, just as a side note anyway

an FE that utilizes equipment in this fashion is a neat idea but it would probably need to be a pretty serious project

[spoiler=spoilers]

So after giving it a good look I actually came up with something that works. Much to my surprise, it doesn't even seem like it broke anything either! Basically, I ran a manual check on each individual item slot instead of looping through the inventory automatically. Then it's just a matter of manually ending the item check after we find a valid stat bonus pointer and in the end it looks like we might actually have a winner. It's a good start at least, but honestly I only got that far because Venno already did most of the heavy lifting. It still needs another routine to check for another 'equipment slot' (can probably do this) and ideally a usability check (less confident). I *think* that your idea of multiple flags on one item should work as I have it now, assuming I get that second routine in there. This is literally the first thing I've ever done with ASM so take that with a grain of salt. It's a cool idea though, I hadn't even considered that. Oh, and it still calculates the Equipped Weapon Boost separately, so there are no compatibility issues there (the Steel Sword is where the -2 SPD on Seth is coming from).

Is there anything I could reference out there for a usability check? Probably not gonna magically figure that out on my own haha.

[Tequila]

In FE8, there's a weapon usability check at 16574 and a staff one at 167A4. They check basic things (proper weapon ranks, weapon locks, status nibble, that kind of thing).

My only issue with this is a matter of inventory space, but I guess that's a good thing: should the player take multiple weapons, or armor, or healing items? Lookin' good so far; just don't go too overboard with different pieces :P.

[Deltre]

In FE8, there's a weapon usability check at 16574 and a staff one at 167A4. They check basic things (proper weapon ranks, weapon locks, status nibble, that kind of thing).

My only issue with this is a matter of inventory space, but I guess that's a good thing: should the player take multiple weapons, or armor, or healing items? Lookin' good so far; just don't go too overboard with different pieces :P.

Haha yeah, that was exactly my thinking in regards to inventory. I'm doing a difficulty hack so in that sense it's a good thing :p thanks for the info, I'll definitely have to give that a look when I'm feeling motivated. Shouldn't be too bad I think, I'm only planning on two separate 'slots' for mine. I gotta say looking back on it I'm really surprised there wasn't anything like this in vanilla FE8. It feels like such a natural extension especially considering IS already took so much inspiration from Gaiden, ya know?