Is Auto-Battle possible?

Does anyone know how possible or plausible an auto-battle function is? Even a very simplistic one that when you turn it on chooses the last item your memory cursor was at, and possibly turns up the speed to the battle? The Final Fantasy Dimensions auto-battle is a clear example of this.

It seems like it would require ASM hacking, but I was curious if you all thought this would be an extremely difficult thing to accomplish, or is it something on the easier side of ASM hacking.

I have no clue how to achieve this but I would say with caution that it would be very hard to achieve. You gotta find a way to implement a way to select auto-battle, whether it's by a menu selection or a button pressed. Next you gotta somehow make the A button press automatically in the code, assuming the cursor option is on memory. If not you gotta trigger by code the memory option. Next you gotta plan the case where you ran out of MP to cast a spell or you run out of the item you were using. Pretty heavy ASM coding in my opinion...

I figured it was a difficult venture, but also figured you guys would know better due to experience. I was hoping at the least there was some way to modify a spell such as Berserk and have it simply auto-select whatever you did last in battle. Anyways, thank you for the reply!

Well, Inside the colisseum the game chooses commands for you.

If you could implement the code for all battles in the game...

Well, Inside the colisseum the game chooses commands for you.
If you could implement the code for all battles in the game...

This is more a random fight than a usual auto-battle. Some commands are also excluded from this such as Items. And you would need to somehow adapt the code to multiples party members.

But you know what, if I could have a command that sets even one character to fight as if in the colosseum, that would be close enough to auto-battle to me. Or even if we could modify a spell, such as Berserk, such as when cast, you now auto-battle as if in the colosseum. In fact, that would be more entertaining to me than auto-battle in a game such as Final Fantasy Dimensions, because you don't know what your character is going to do.

If you had a spell that could apply both Charm and Confuse status at the same time it might have that effect. It wouldn't work on characters resistant to Confuse though.

If you had a spell that could apply both Charm and Confuse status at the same time it might have that effect. It wouldn't work on characters resistant to Confuse though.

Wouldn't these attacks have a chance to target your party? Then again, even if so, I suppose you could make confuse not target your party.

However, this does give me an idea. Berserk as is creates a list of commands your character can use from this list:
Mug, Jump, Rage, Magitek, and Attack (attack is in twice, or once if you don't have an attack command, I think).
If we can change this list, we could change a command that few characters will utilize (mug, jump or rage) for one more characters have (magic is the key one I am thinking about adding in, definitely NOT item). If this would work, this would be an interesting auto-battle alternative to me, and the damage increase would compensate for loss of my character's actions. Plus, you could cast the spell on one character to have them auto-battle while controlling the rest if you so desire, or have it hit your whole party to just watch and see what happens. I believe that berserk only increases physical damage, but I think we could add this to magic as well.

As it turns out, all attacks are targeted properly for Charm + Confuse. Attacks can't hit your party, and healing spells can't hit the enemy. However, unless you changed it so that Muddle cannot be dispelled by attacks, it wouldn't be very useful (one hit and your character is just on Charm status, attacking your party). This would probably mean that you'd have to replace Muddle entirely, as it would be too broken to use normally. The other disadvantage is that I doubt you could apply Charm through a relic, so an auto-battle relic wouldn't work this way like it would with Berserk. And you might not be able to increase damage like with Berserk to make it potentially useful (and not just save you the effort of putting in commands).

The main advantage of Charm + Confuse is that your characters are able to use special attacks like Lore or Steal as well as magic/fight. It would give more variety.

I'll have to organize my notes a bit, but if you're interested I can show how to permanently set all battles to behave like Colosseum battles. It's pretty simple, but some (fixable) issues come up when you do so.

Character commands are selected at random and many commands are excluded. It's not too hard to include some of the excluded commands, but some commands have no code that tells them how to behave if automatically selected. Slot, Throw or Item, for example.

Also, there are some issues with Zombie being overridden by Colosseum regarding which commands are available.

For it to be selectable by menu option or button press in-battle is a different beast. You'd have to interrupt the code that switches on Colosseum style battle and add in a check for a free bit somewhere, and then either recode the Options menu to have a setting for that bit, or have a check for button press in battle that sets the bit. Sadly, controller input and menu stuff is beyond my knowledge at this point.

EDIT: Oh, and it's pretty simple to change or add to which commands are allowed under Berserk. The commands would work the same way as in the Colosseum. Only problem is, the same commands are allowed under Zombie.
EDIT2: I accidentally listed the offsets as changed by Assassin's Auto Swordless Runic patch. Added the original code below.

With Auto Swordless Runic fix applied:

Code:

(Data - commands allowed when Berserked/Zombied)

C2/04C8: 41  (Fight, Capture)
C2/04C9: 00  (none)
C2/04CA: 41  (Rage, Jump)
C2/04CB: 20  (MagiTek)


(Data - commands allowed when Muddled/Charmed/Colosseum brawling)

C2/04D0: ED  (Fight, Magic, Morph, Steal, Capture, SwdTech)
C2/04D1: 3E  (Tools, Blitz, Runic, Lore, Sketch)
C2/04D2: DD  (Rage, Mimic, Dance, Row, Jump, X-Magic)
C2/04D3: 2D  (GP Rain, Health, Shock, MagiTek)

Without Auto Swordless Runic patch:

Code:

(Data - commands allowed when Muddled/Charmed/Colosseum brawling)

C2/04D0: ED  (Fight, Magic, Morph, Steal, Capture, SwdTech)
C2/04D1: 3E  (Tools, Blitz, Runic, Lore, Sketch)
C2/04D2: DD  (Rage, Mimic, Dance, Row, Jump, X-Magic)
C2/04D3: 2D  (GP Rain, Health, Shock, MagiTek)

(in other words: Item, Revert, Throw, Control, Slot, Leap, Def., Summon, and Possess
are excluded)

(Data - commands allowed when Berserked/Zombied)

C2/04D4: 41  (Fight, Capture)
C2/04D5: 00  (none)
C2/04D6: 41  (Rage, Jump)
C2/04D7: 20  (MagiTek)

Change the Berserk/Zombie bytes to be the same as Muddled/Charmed/Colosseum. Enjoy your Ultima-casting Zombies.