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FFVI: Divergent Paths

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I have made it to the stage where I am doing a full playthrough of the World of Balance to make sure everything works through that point in the game. Then I will release a WIP patch exclusively to this forum. I just finished the Snowfield Battle in Narshe, and it has been going well so far. Here's a couple of teaser notes.

* Banon the Mediator works SO WELL! Giving him "Control" as his command really plays into his characterization. From a gameplay standpoint, him being able to single out the strong enemies and control them makes it so that you will never miss "Health". Also, you FEEL Banon's frustration when Gau joins the party, as Gau's random attacks keep breaking his control over enemies.
* Taking away the AutoCrossbow in the first 4 hours of the game also makes Edgar more dynamic. In the absence of being able to damage all enemies at once, you have to think creatively about your use of the NoiseBlaster and Bio Blaster. This gives you a reason to actually equip a weapon to Edgar.
* Gau learning Rages after seeing an enemy once gives you a ton of incentive for keeping him in the party, even when you wouldn't normally do so.
* Celes having Jump also works well. It turns her into an effective back-row healer who can also take 2 turns to deal out a fair amount of damage when needed.
* I haven't completed the Genji Glove restriction patch yet, but I've been playing as it if were in place. That, plus the evade bug fix, make choosing equipment setup in your party quite interesting and strategic. (Okay... Sabin can't use the Gauntlet, but Cyan can't use the Genji Glove. Edgar can use both, but he'll spend half his turns using Tools. Hmmm...)

But probably the biggest surprise has been that I don't need to re-balance the game after dropping random encounter rates by 25%. Instead, 4 hours in, my characters are only 1 level behind where they are on my normal playthroughs. It's been just enough to add some teeth to the battles, but not to drastically change the difficulty. Dungeons, in turn, are far less plodding. The only bad thing so far has been that Terra doesn't gain ANY levels during her scenario. I'm going to have to figure out what to do about that. One solution is to double the experience on the Rizopas battle, but I need to check to see if the Veldt flag is already set at that point. If it is, then there is NO experience from Rizopas. The other, far more complex solution, is to put a Save Point and random battles in the Serpent Trench caves. I'm still undecided.


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FFVI: Divergent Paths (Completed) - a complete storyline and gameplay hack of FF6 that adds Leo as a playable character
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#52
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Found this place when I looked you up for your Divergent Paths hack.

What you're doing here sounds amazing.  I do have a few questions, though.

Surprised  Do you have plans to give Relm a natural magic learnset?  She's the only character with latent magical ability who doesn't begin with magic, or learn any magic on her own (Strago forgot his basic spells, but maintained his Lores).  I saw somebody made a patch that gives her a learnset like Terra and Celes, with an emphasis on bolt spells to round out the elemental triangle.  Adding a third character with magic would also make esperless runs more interesting, as well as draw a parallel to the warring triad.

Kappa! In the patch notes for your "Everybody Rides Chocobos" patch, you mentioned an incompatibility with the graphics editor because you repointed some sprites.  Is that going to be a thing in this patch?  Or did you change your mind on that?  I couldn't tell by what you said over there.
I was debating some graphic tweaks for personal use once your patch releases (such as changing Imp to Pig, as the status is very similar to the FF4 one), and I'm wondering if existing tools will prohibit it.

Finger This isn't really a question, but I quite like the premise of Banon being buried while only mostly dead, and then being swallowed by the zone eater to become Gogo.  My memory's a bit foggy, but isn't the island with the zone eater near where he was buried, too?  What a neat idea.

Sad Finally, I'm curious how your changes with Morph are going.  Is it making Terra more fun to use in the party?  I had wondered if maybe replacing it with the Magitek menu would be more appropriate (making her a walking war tank).


You don't have to answer any of these questions.  I just wanted to show my enthusiasm for your work.
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#53
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(12-13-2018, 04:34 PM)C-Dude Wrote: Finger This isn't really a question, but I quite like the premise of Banon being buried while only mostly dead, and then being swallowed by the zone eater to become Gogo.  My memory's a bit foggy, but isn't the island with the zone eater near where he was buried, too?  What a neat idea.

Banon was never even confirmed dead or alive by the time of the World of Ruin. His fate was 100% unknown.


If you ever feel useless, just remember that Umaro has an MP stat.
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#54
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(12-13-2018, 07:10 PM)Scorcher Wrote:
(12-13-2018, 04:34 PM)C-Dude Wrote: Finger This isn't really a question, but I quite like the premise of Banon being buried while only mostly dead, and then being swallowed by the zone eater to become Gogo.  My memory's a bit foggy, but isn't the island with the zone eater near where he was buried, too?  What a neat idea.

Banon was never even confirmed dead or alive by the time of the World of Ruin. His fate was 100% unknown.

Sorry, I should have been more specific.  I meant Thamasa's position relative to the Zone Eater's island (Triangle Island) in the World of Ruin, since PowerPanda said that the plot in this hack was rewritten to make Banon's death the emotional event in the Thamasa attack (as Leo is going to survive the betrayal).
My memory was flawed, though.  I just checked maps for both worlds.  While there's naught but water between Thamasa and Triangle Island in the World of Balance, the distance between them is massive.  It only gets further in the World of Ruin, too... unless you go south instead of north.
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Thanks for the interest. Progress has been stalled on this project in the last 3 months. I got working on my Genji Glove Item Bit hack, and the Morphenomenal hack, got stuck on both, realized I was burned out on hacking, and took an enforced break to go play some video games rather than make them for a little while. Let me answer your questions though.

(12-13-2018, 04:34 PM)C-Dude Wrote: Surprised  Do you have plans to give Relm a natural magic learnset?  She's the only character with latent magical ability who doesn't begin with magic, or learn any magic on her own (Strago forgot his basic spells, but maintained his Lores).  I saw somebody made a patch that gives her a learnset like Terra and Celes, with an emphasis on bolt spells to round out the elemental triangle.  Adding a third character with magic would also make esperless runs more interesting, as well as draw a parallel to the warring triad.
It's a possibility, but by the point in the story you get Relm, all of your other characters already know 20+ spells. A character with natural magic is not really needed at that point unless you're doing a specialized run. I think it's more likely that I will use an event command present in the MMMMMagic hack to give her some starting magic: Bolt, Bolt 2, Cure, Cure 2, Life, and a status spell or two.

(12-13-2018, 04:34 PM)C-Dude Wrote: Kappa! In the patch notes for your "Everybody Rides Chocobos" patch, you mentioned an incompatibility with the graphics editor because you repointed some sprites.  Is that going to be a thing in this patch?  Or did you change your mind on that?  I couldn't tell by what you said over there.
I was debating some graphic tweaks for personal use once your patch releases (such as changing Imp to Pig, as the status is very similar to the FF4 one), and I'm wondering if existing tools will prohibit it.
The graphics incompatibility is simply because the starting and ending hex addresses are different for 6 of the sprites. If you check the notes on "Everybody Gets a Chocobo", it includes a link to a Youtube video that shows you how to replace one of the affected sprite sheets. You'll have to import it into a clean rom, then copy the hex over to the modified rom with a hex editor. I included the hex addresses of each spritesheet to make it as easy as possible.

(12-13-2018, 04:34 PM)C-Dude Wrote: Finger This isn't really a question, but I quite like the premise of Banon being buried while only mostly dead, and then being swallowed by the zone eater to become Gogo.  My memory's a bit foggy, but isn't the island with the zone eater near where he was buried, too?  What a neat idea.
To answer the earlier discussion, yes, Banon dies in Thamasa in this hack, and is buried in the grave. Prior to that, we get a short scene where the espers whom Kefka has just turned into Magicite transfer their remaining power to Banon in desperation, turning him from a weakling into a serious threat. Yuma transforms into the Illumina and the Paladin Shield. Banon gains X-Fight, X-Magic (and, by temporarily borrowing Gogo's magic list, also learns every spell that any of your characters knows), and a Ribbon, making him immune to Kefka's poison spells. It gives Banon the shock-and-awe factor of Leo from the original game. When Banon dies, the Paladin Shield becomes the Cursed Shield, and is added to your inventory. If you break that curse and transform it back into the Paladin Shield, then re-visit the grave in the World of Ruin with it equipped, you will be able to obtain the Illumina. This is now the ONLY way to obtain the Illumina. Trading the Ragnarok at the Colosseum will get you a Ragnarok in return.

(12-13-2018, 04:34 PM)C-Dude Wrote: Sad Finally, I'm curious how your changes with Morph are going.  Is it making Terra more fun to use in the party?  I had wondered if maybe replacing it with the Magitek menu would be more appropriate (making her a walking war tank).
The changes to the Morph Supply are going well, and are making Terra a lot of fun to use. Combined with the new spell "Rasp 2" though, I was able to take down the Atma Weapon on the floating continent in 2 turns. So... next on my list is seeing if I can make Rasp 2 not show up till the World of Ruin. Laugh (That means that ZoneSeek needs to not show up in the Auction House till the WoR.) The change that makes Revert a queued action rather than a priority action works great on the surface, but I can't get it to play well with Moprh Mayhem. I may just give up on that one.

There are two problems with giving a character the MagiTek menu. First off is that MagiTek is not balanced with the rest of the abilities. The second is that the animation for the spells assumes you are in the Magitek suit, so when you hack the ability onto a character, they slowly walk up to the enemy... and a beam of lethal energy just sort of appears from their big toe.  Kappa!  It looks really weird.


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FFVI: Divergent Paths (Completed) - a complete storyline and gameplay hack of FF6 that adds Leo as a playable character
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#56
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(12-14-2018, 11:52 AM)PowerPanda Wrote: There are two problems with giving a character the MagiTek menu. First off is that MagiTek is not balanced with the rest of the abilities. The second is that the animation for the spells assumes you are in the Magitek suit, so when you hack the ability onto a character, they slowly walk up to the enemy... and a beam of lethal energy just sort of appears from their big toe.  Kappa!  It looks really weird.

I couldn't stop snickering when I read this.  I don't know why I assumed they'd use it like Sabin uses Aura Bolt.

Thank you for the information.  I'll read your chocobo riders patch again and try some swaps, just to get the hang of it.
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What kind of power is Rasp 2 in your hack? in comparison to Rasp 1 (if unmodified, otherwise a comparison of both).



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(12-16-2018, 06:37 PM)Warrax Wrote: What kind of power is Rasp 2 in your hack? in comparison to Rasp 1 (if unmodified, otherwise a comparison of both).

First off, Rasp and Osmose have swapped strengths, so the progression goes like this:
Osmose - 15
Rasp - 26 (about the same as Fire/Ice/Bolt)
Rasp 2 - 63 (about the same as Fire 2/Ice 2/Bolt 2)

Rasp 2 is specifically built for the Fanatic's Tower. I put it on ZoneSeek because that was the only Esper where it made sense. So the solution is just to make ZoneSeek WoR only.


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Interesting, I swapped Osmose and Rasp powers in my hack too, otherwise it made Rasp and Ethers useless.



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I'm really excited about your hack. A few suggestions/comments:

Have you given any thought to making Cid a playable character in the WOR? He has a much better backstory than someone like Gogo. His skill could be summoning any esper you currently have... also if you're getting rid of Gogo you could maybe give him mimic too. You could explain it through dialogue from soldiers in Vector that Cid was chosen to be head of the Magitech Research when he discovered how to mimic the esper's powers.

Maybe Gogo can give you a weapon or item instead of joining the party.

Thanks for all the work on this!
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