Double Promotions

[shroudening]

Sorry, I just realized that I posted this in the wrong forum. If someone could move it to Hacking Questions, that would be great...

Currently I've been fooling around with a FE8 rom, trying to make some awesome promotion paths. I am trying to figure out how to create double promotions, similar to class promotions in Radiant dawn, but incorporating branching promotions.

My first thoughts on trying to do this is promoting a non-promoted unit into a non-promoted unit, and then promoting the non-promoted unit into the promoted unit. I do not plan on using any monsters, so I have extra classes to work with.

So here's an example: Class(Replaced Class)

__________________________________---> Trooper(Ranger)

________________----> Hunter(Bael)---> Falconer(Entombed)

Archer(Revenant)

________________----> Sniper(Archer)--> Marksman(Sniper)

The next problem that I can think of is promotion items. The easiest way I can see that fixed however, is the use of Master Seals, which I will use in place of specific promotion items. (Unless I can somehow make two different promotion items: one for first promotion and the other for final promotion..)

I know there is a feature that allows you to change whether the unit is promoted or not, however when I tested it out, the unit(Sniper) couldn't promote at level 10 with a master seal. I am mainly using the Nightmare modules Class Editor, and Promotion Branch Editor (made by SpyroDi). I'm also using the Chapter Unit editors, Character editors, and FEditor.

Any thoughts?

Edited March 18, 2010 by Isaac55

[Tables]

As far as I remember, you should set 1st tier and 2nd tier to be unpromoted, then set the 3rd tier to be 'already promoted'. Then you probably want to change the class power of either 1st tiers or 2nd tiers up/down, so the experience gain decreases after promotion. Then you probably want to make another promotion item over an old one, such as 'Master Crown' or something.

As for the promotion paths, there should be a Nightmare module for making promotion paths. Set all of the 1st-2nd tier promotions in it, and set it's code to the Master Seal promotion, then make all of the 2nd-3rd tier promotions in the next one and set it to Master Crown (or whatever) promotion.

Also, just remember that SS isn't very long, and getting into 3rd tiers might be tricky.

[Chocolate Kitty]

You might have an issue with class stats, you have to make them balanced or it will seem off. I think its a good idea, though my try at double promotions was a disater because of the slayer ability and the fact that in FE8 there aren't than many people. If you did it in FE7 or FE6, you would have more people to promote and such.

[Narga_Rocks]

Sorry, I just realized that I posted this in the wrong forum. If someone could move it to Hacking Questions, that would be great...

Okay. Moving now.

[shroudening]

As far as I remember, you should set 1st tier and 2nd tier to be unpromoted, then set the 3rd tier to be 'already promoted'.

My first thoughts on trying to do this is promoting a non-promoted unit into a non-promoted unit, and then promoting the non-promoted unit into the promoted unit. I do not plan on using any monsters, so I have extra classes to work with.

So basically I'm doing it correctly.

Then you probably want to change the class power of either 1st tiers or 2nd tiers up/down, so the experience gain decreases after promotion. Then you probably want to make another promotion item over an old one, such as 'Master Crown' or something.

Is there a nightmare module for that?

Also, just remember that SS isn't very long, and getting into 3rd tiers might be tricky.

Is there any way to change how much experience you gain? If I could make it so that you get more exp out of every enemy, the extra 20 levels wouldn't be too hard to obtain.

At the very least, FE8 has the interactive map where you can train your units if you really have to.

You might have an issue with class stats, you have to make them balanced or it will seem off. I think its a good idea, though my try at double promotions was a disater because of the slayer ability and the fact that in FE8 there aren't than many people. If you did it in FE7 or FE6, you would have more people to promote and such.

What is the problem with the Slayer ability?

Yeah, I might run into problems like that. However, since the game isn't split up for the entire game, like in radiant dawn, I don't require multiple people of the same class. So instead of having three swordmasters like Zihark, Mia, and Lucia in RD, I would only need to include one of that class because I would have him the entire time. I'm sure I could figure out how to do it.

I'm going to make another attempt to get this to work tonight.

Edited March 18, 2010 by Isaac55

[Shin Kishuna]

I know there is a feature that allows you to change whether the unit is promoted or not, however when I tested it out, the unit(Sniper) couldn't promote at level 10 with a master seal. I am mainly using the Nightmare modules Class Editor, and Promotion Branch Editor (made by SpyroDi). I'm also using the Chapter Unit editors, Character editors, and FEditor.

I don't know if you've solved this already, but if you haven't, this is what I did. To test things out, I wanted Cavaliers to promote to either Mage Knights or Great Knights, and then Mage Knights into Wyvern Lords (Just as a test). I slapped a Knight Crest and Master Seal on Franz with Chapter 1's Unit editor, then moved to the Promotion Branch Editor. Switched the Paladin option for Cavaliers with the Mage Knight. Pulling down the Mage Knight promotion options (of which there are, of course, none) I put Ranger (Or Forrest Knight) and Wyvern Lord (or Dragon Master).

Hacked Franz's level to 10. Promoted him to Mage Knight fine, though there was a graphical error and it doesn't show him promoting. Anyways, haxx'd him in game to level 10 again, and of course the Master Seal doesn't work. Went back into Nightmare, and opened up ''Promotion Item Editor'' as well as ''Custom Promotion Pointer Editor''. In ''CPPE'', I selected ''Mage Knight'' in the first dropdown, and filled all the others with ''Nothing''. Next, the hex/address thingy above the Class select was copied, ''0x8E70200''. Lastly, I switched back to the promotion item editor, found Master Seal, and and input the above address into ''Promotion Pointer''. After that, Franz promoted from Mage Knight to Wyvern Lord. =)

Now, I'm a total newb to all this stuff, so I have NO idea if anything I did edited other promotion items, other classes, etc. So be cautious I suppose. Also, excuse my lack of proper terminology, still gettin' used to it all. And since this crap is long, if you've already figured it out I'll edit it to a smaller size. ;D

Edited March 19, 2010 by Shin Kishuna

[shroudening]

I don't know if you've solved this already, but if you haven't, this is what I did. To test things out, I wanted Cavaliers to promote to either Mage Knights or Great Knights, and then Mage Knights into Wyvern Lords (Just as a test). I slapped a Knight Crest and Master Seal on Franz with Chapter 1's Unit editor, then moved to the Promotion Branch Editor. Switched the Paladin option for Cavaliers with the Mage Knight. Pulling down the Mage Knight promotion options (of which there are, of course, none) I put Ranger (Or Forrest Knight) and Wyvern Lord (or Dragon Master).

Hacked Franz's level to 10. Promoted him to Mage Knight fine, though there was a graphical error and it doesn't show him promoting.

That happens when there is not a battle sprite for the class depending on the equipped item. If you were to hack Franz's weapon levels to allow him to wield anima magic, it would show mage knight on the promotion screen.

Anyways, haxx'd him in game to level 10 again, and of course the Master Seal doesn't work. Went back into Nightmare, and opened up ''Promotion Item Editor'' as well as ''Custom Promotion Pointer Editor''. In ''CPPE'', I selected ''Mage Knight'' in the first dropdown, and filled all the others with ''Nothing''. Next, the hex/address thingy above the Class select was copied, ''0x8E70200''. Lastly, I switched back to the promotion item editor, found Master Seal, and and input the above address into ''Promotion Pointer''. After that, Franz promoted from Mage Knight to Wyvern Lord. =)

That might be what I need to know. I haven't been using the Promotion Pointer Editor. Thanks for telling me.

[Shin Kishuna]

That happens when there is not a battle sprite for the class depending on the equipped item. If you were to hack Franz's weapon levels to allow him to wield anima magic, it would show mage knight on the promotion screen.

That might be what I need to know. I haven't been using the Promotion Pointer Editor. Thanks for telling me.

Ah, now that I think about it, I've heard that before. Thanks, I'll go try that out.

Sure thing. Let me know if anything goes wrong. I get the feeling that in the course of just trying to ''get the job done'', my sloppy work might've messed something up. Hopefully it didn't, but again I honestly have no idea. XD

Good luck to ya.

[Chocolate Kitty]

the master crown thing can be easily fixed in nightmare, as well as editing all promotion items. Also, in FE8, the heaven seal is present, just not used, so you could use that. The probelm with the slayer ability is that when a bishop fights a unit that was once a monster, the bishop will get the special boost. I don't know how to change that effect.

[bunny: spider bitten]

To be fair, you can use the double EXP mod written up(with credit to the creator, of course) to speed up the leveling. Increase opposing levels to match and you should be able to make more of a push to getting 60 levels.

Not that I get the point of this, though. At the end of the day, with no skills, this is liable to just make it more of a drag OR cheapen the effect of levels.

Edited March 22, 2010 by bunny: Now with Pancakes

[Tables]

Hmm, if you speed up levelling, I also recommend you cut growth rates down. Getting lots of +1/+2 levels is about the same as getting a few +3s, right?

[MasterJP28]

I did the same thing til I got bored of it. I took out the promotion items completely and used then as +1 to two stats. Like Hero Crest gave +1 str and +1 skl. Then, like some else said, I used the Heaven Seal as the other promotion item. Skills are gonna be a bitch cause I have no clue how they work in nightmare other than Lithality Summon and something else I can't remember. I also used some of the unused characters like faceless Nate and the nameless bandit. Made Nate have Innes portrait with blue clothes and green hair and gave him generic palletes that match, he was an archer. The Bandit got a name from one of the other bosses and I made them join as part of enemy renforcment but as allies. That's all I can think of now.

Promtion Pointer, Promotion Item, Promotion Branch, Chapter Unit, Character, Item, and Class editors made these possible.

[Aleph]

Skills are hardcoded and the patch I made to change that has a bug in the arena that NL supposedly fixed, but no one has applied both the patch and the fix at once to confirm that.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Xeld

[MasterJP28]

Skills are hardcoded and the patch I made to change that has a bug in the arena that NL supposedly fixed, but no one has applied both the patch and the fix at once to confirm that.

How does that patch work exactly? Regular hex table hacking is kinda hard, for a noob like me. Nightmare, credit goes to you guys for it, really is simple and easy to do minor hacks. The only hex table hacking I ever used was for changing animation palletes with the SNES pallete changer.

[Aleph]

The hack works by removing the hardcoded values for which classes can use which skills and then replaces the code in that area with code that checks tables that are also part of the patch which are much more easily edited. The tables however allocate bits rather than entire bytes for whether it is "true or false" that a particular class has the relevant skill, so even people who knew how to apply the patch and where to go to edit which classes had which skills had trouble using it because no one could make sense of binary.

And I wrote the patch straight in hexadecimal (i.e. I reprogrammed the game by typing the code values in a hex editor) so there isn't any source code to edit to potentially add NL's fix to the patch's issue. And it was done like 4 years ago, so the code is hideous anyway.

If you absolutely want to toy with it regardless, a readme and the patch can be found

in here

in the directory

Hextator's Doc/Fire Emblem Series/#FE 8/Skill Editing

[Trueblade]

This looks interesting... and rather dead, too. If you could get double promotions to work well, I would very much like to see that.

[Deliriyum]

If you were to do this, I would move the level cap to 15 so there aren't too many levels, then I would make 1st tier caps 15, then 20, then full caps for each tier, respectively.

[Crimson Red]

tl;dr

What exactly is the problem with doing this?

If it's the "if I have 3 tiers but there are only 2 bytes for palettes so 2 of the tiers have to share the EXACT same character palette in order for the palettes to show up right on all 3 classes" issue, then good luck, because I haven't found another solution.