15 replies to this topic

[Edea]

I apologize if this has already been addressed elsewhere on the site, but I looked around for some time and couldn't find anything, so I hope this thread might be able to get my question answered.

The game I'm looking into is the NA release of FE8 (GBA, Sacred Stones). I'm looking for the ROM location of the assembly code that handles Skills, the 'hardcoded' aspects of certain classes (such as the Bishop's Slayer skill and the Wyvern Knight's Pierce skill).

I was interested in assigning these abilities to other classes (hopefully in addition to the classes already coded to carry them), but I'm not aware of where the data is located in the ROM. If anyone knows the ROM address(es) for this data, please post it here as I would be most grateful. If you happen to have a trace log of the game calling up said data (probably an example would be using a debugging utility to trace immediately after assigning a Bishop to attack a Monster-class enemy unit), that would be absolutely smashing.

I saw a thread detailing a 'skill patch' that comes with FEditor Adv., but I'm unsure what it actually does (or for that matter, what to patch it to, the game or the editor; it almost sounded like you could patch the editor with it in order to modify the default menu options so that 'skill editing' would be available, allowing me to do pretty much exactly what I'm asking about). Initially I was also having issues running any of the utilities, but thankfully all that was needed was a JRE update (so to anyone else having issues with the utilities, make sure to update Java first).

I had a tangential question about how to get started with making a functional battle sprite/animation for Ewan's Pupil form wielding a Staff, but it's not as pressing to me as the main topic. Thanks again for anyone willing to help/reply to this.

[Fire Blazer]

QUOTE

I had a tangential question about how to get started with making a functional battle sprite/animation for Ewan's Pupil form wielding a Staff, but it's not as pressing to me as the main topic. Thanks again for anyone willing to help/reply to this.

You'll need to make your own sprites and then animate them/insert them into the game, which is detailed in a chapter in the Ultimate Tutorial (sadly I can't remember which one, but there's a table of contents and it should be pretty obvious).

As for skills, I'm sorry but as far as I know there isn't any easy way to go adding skills to classes and whatnot. I wish there was, but I simply don't know of one. It'd be a difficult assembly hack as far as I know and while I'm not too familiar with the skill patch you mentioned, I'd say that's the closest thing there is to altering skills, so you should probably check that out in a little more detail.

[Edea]

Actually...I guess I could apply the skill patch to a copy of the ROM, then run a comparison in Hex Workshop with the original to see what addresses were changed. I'll edit this post later with my findings (with respect to the skills question).

As for the sprite creation...hoo boy, I've never done anything like that from scratch before. I saw some nice custom sprites over at datacrystal, but none of those were Ewan (what fortune that would be, discovering someone else'd made the sprites already). I did notice that the Druid's staff use is actually little more than the unit's normal spellcasting animation + a staff graphic hovering in front of him...that'd probably be the easiest thing to do.

(EDIT 1)

CODE

Skill Patch Changes to the FE8 ROM by Address (along with notes): --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 00016C94 2c 2a 02 dc 2b 2a 00 db - Original Slayer?  Involves both 2b and 2c IDs.  c4 f0 66 f9 01 e0 c0 46 - Patched 00023E90 33 28 03 d0 - Original -----\  b7 f0 68 f8 - Patched       |                                            |   \ 0002AAE0 21 80 25 88 - Original -----|----> I think these have something to do with the  b0 f0 40 fa - Patched       |   /       weapons required for using Sure Shot.                                            | 0002B03C 05 1c 00 24 - Original -----/  af f0 92 ff - Patched 0002B226 1c 28 1e dc 1b 28 1c db - Original Sure Shot?  Involves both 1b and 1c IDs.  af f0 9d fe 1d e0 c0 46 - Patched 0002B238 37 28 01 dc 35 28 13 da - Original I'm...not quite sure what this is!  If the  af f0 94 fe 14 e0 c0 46 - Patched pattern holds, this involves Amelia's L2 trainee       class and the male Great Knight (-not- female). 0002B2AA 24 28 15 dc 23 28 13 db - Original Pierce?  Involves both 23 and 24 IDs.  af f0 5b fe 14 e0 c0 46 - Patched 0002B346 0c 29 16 dc 0b 29 14 db - Original Great Shield?  Involves both 0b and 0c IDs.  af f0 0d fe 15 e0 c0 46 - Patched 00E47180 (A large chunk of FFs gets replaced with data, probably for the 3 new skill functions  described in the readme: Vantage, Astra, and Adept). Classes with skills: ------------------------------------------------------------- 0b: General   - Great Shield 0c: General (Female)  - Great Shield 1b: Sniper   - Sure Shot (Weapon-specific) 1c: Sniper (Female)  - Sure Shot (Weapon-specific) 23: Wyvern Knight  - Pierce 24: Wyvern Knight (Female) - Pierce 2b: Bishop   - Slayer 2c: Bishop (Female)  - Slayer

If someone manages to dredge up some spare time, I'd like to try something (I do not possess an adequate savestate/file for this): make sure you have a save where Lute is a Sage, then open up the ROM in your Hex Editor, go to address $00016c94, and change the "2c" you find there to a "28". Save the change, and then boot up your savestate file with the altered ROM; if this does what I think it should be doing, Lute will suddenly get a large damage boost versus enemy units classified at monsters when she attacks (this is because that reassigned which class got the Slayer ability, so it's now female Sages instead of female Bishops).

[arimibn]

I'll try this. But does it have to be Lute?

[Edea]

Not at all! But if you're wanting to use another class, you'll need the ID for it ($28's a female Sage); Nightmare has a nice listing of the different classes with their hex value IDs, so that shouldn't be a problem.

(EDIT) Also, I don't know if Slayer works with any sort of attack, or only with Light magic; Sage gets Light magic, so it'd eliminate more variables. Still, please try whatever you like.

[arimibn]

Naw, it's just that in MY hack, I have a female sage already. XD

[Oblivion Knight]

If I remember correctly, there was a nightmare module where you could easily edit skills for each unit type.

[Edea]

Oblivion Knight: if there is, I WANT IT. The GBA Module Package on FEShrine doesn't contain one; the closest we have is the class/character modules being able to access non-skill qualities (such as being able to equip the Reginleif, or inheriting a +15 Critical Hit rate). The following are FE8's skills (things that are hardcoded into the assembly/can't be edited normally atm):
----------------------------------------
Great Shield
Sure Shot
Pierce
Slayer
Vantage (patch only, haven't seen this in action yet)
Adept (patch only, haven't seen this in action yet)
Astra (patch only, haven't seen this in action yet)
----------------------------------------

[Oblivion Knight]

I swear I've used it before, but I haven't actually hacked in a while. I'll definitely look around and get back to you if/once I find it.

[Edea]

Yeah, that would be wonderful Thank you for looking into it...people are very nice around here, seems like.

EDIT: I have another question regarding enemy item drops. When using the Nightmare editor to give an enemy an additional item (with the intent of having it drop upon defeat), the item does not have a green highlight during play, even if unequipped (it also does not drop upon the unit being defeated). Which module (if any) would carry the method of altering an enemy unit's item 'flags' so that one of them was droppable (i.e. would have the green highlight)?

[Fire Blazer]

Um I'm not sure but I *think* it might be part of the unit data, which means you either have to use the Chapter Unit Editors (if they exist for FE8) or hack the events.

You should also check out the character editor though--in Fire Emblem 7, the "ability" for a character to drop an item is in the character data. =O

Also I don't know of this skill patch thingy and would be interested in it as well...

[Edea]

Found the item drop byte @ Blazer; for FE8, it's under the 'Y-Coordinate' field in the Chapter Unit Module. Adding a value of $20 to this field will cause the enemy to drop the last item on its list (highlighted in green, works properly, etc.).

I guess as an aside, this means that map coordinates for unit placement in FE8 will not exceed $1F (31) without some fairly extensive assembly hacks.

Also, anyone test out those skill addresses yet? Haven't heard from arimibn yet.

[Whitewolf8]

I'll give it a go.
i'll just hack Lute to Sage, I don't have meh good saves right now. XD

Edit: Tested Slayer with Female Sage.

It didn't work when I replaced the '2C' (Female) but it worked when I replaced '2B' (Male) RESULTS MAN, THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT.

[Edea]

Oh cool it worked!

Wait...what? Is Lute a man? o_O Clearly there's a gender issue here, but at least now we know that's the area one needs to alter to transfer a skill to another class (sadly adding more classes than there already are per skill, 2, would require some pointer/subroutine hacking that I don't have the stamina for at the moment).

[Fire Blazer]

Co-ordinates in FE8 work extremely odd to start with... so I'd just like, ignore them for now and not edit them until you get to doing events ._.

FYI FE8 is much harder to hack than FE7 and is arguably even harder to hack than FE6

[Edea]

Interestingly enough, I checked the height and length of some of the maps today; counting precisely 31 squares in both directions happened with alarming frequency.