Thinking of doing a PSIV hack.

Alrighty. You can find a current patch and a very brief changelog here:

http://www.sixfortyfive.com/ps4arrange/

One patch is for .BIN roms, and the other is for .SMD roms. Download whichever one you need and use the Lunar IPS program to patch your rom. (Make sure to save a backup copy first!) The changelog is rather vague, so if you can't figure out how one of the items or bosses listed have been changed, just ask me if I haven't already covered it in this thread.

I haven't done much testing on this current version, and I plan on playing through from start to finish right now to see if all of the current changes are working and if the difficulty curve is reasonable. If anyone else is interested in giving this a whirl, I would greatly appreciate any bug reports.

EDIT: Well, I've already found a problem. Gryz's experience settings are screwy... Now to figure out why.

EDIT 2: Okay, for some reason, it's saying that Gryz needs 9.2 million EXP to reach his next level. For whatever reason, this happens to be the exact amount of EXP that Rune needs to reach level 99. I've heard of this sort of thing happening to various characters in a normal playthrough, but it's an error that corrects itself when the character reaches the normal value for his or her next level. Supposedly, anyway. I'll keep playing for a little while and see if this goes away.

EDIT 3: Huh. Sure enough, Gryz leveled up to LV 6 when he was supposed to (1046 total EXP), and the NX counter looks normal now... I swear, PSIV's experience tables are the screwiest things ever.

EDIT 4: Oh ho ho. The changes to the Mile Sandworm didn't go quite as planned, but I think I like this accidental result better. I can't believe I beat the thing with an average party level of 7.

EDIT 5: Demi's EXP is also wrong. The NX counter lists the required EXP for Rika at level 98. I'm not sure what's causing this, but there does seem to be a distinct pattern. I expect that Wren's initial NX counter will list the requirement for Demi to reach level 97. I also expect this to straighten itself out again on each character's first level-up.

EDIT 6: Hm, the changes made to the Stun Shot work, but Demi doesn't show up in the attack animation. Oh well.

EDIT 7: Wait, no. It doesn't work quite right. It can only put one enemy to sleep at a time... Maybe that's not too bad, as it keeps it from being overpowered. I'm thinking I might have to bump up its ATK boost a little, though.

EDIT 8: Okay, so Zio's Black Wave is an instant-kill move until the Psyco Wand is used. Might have to change that if I want that battle to be possible without it.

EDIT 9: Well, I don't know what to make of Zio. No matter what edits I make to his move list, he always uses Black Wave and it is always an instant kill until the Psyco Wand is used. I guess this is the specific effect that MAG BARRIR or NIGHTMARE actually causes.

EDIT 10: Note to self: remember to update the other instances of item names later.

EDIT 11: The Silver Rod's new use as an item does not seem to be working.

EDIT 12: Not to toot my own horn too much, but I am getting a kick out of most of the adjusted equipment. Most of it seems to work as intended and so far nothing seems to be throwing the difficulty out of whack in either direction.




EDIT 13: I think I may have nerfed the Spiral Slasher a bit too much when I implemented it. I need to bump its sleep inducing power back up to its default level. In other news, though, pairing a slasher with the Elecbarrier is great in mechanical dungeons. The Elecbarriers might be the most valuable items in this version so far; I'd hate to play through these particular dungeons without them.

EDIT 14: Aw crap, Lashiec's AI is screwed up. This answers one question I had but poses another.

EDIT 15: Alright, after a lengthy break (busy with school lately), I'm back at it. Here's an interesting discovery: Lashiec's REINFORCE attack stacks. That is, it increases all of his stats by 20 points every time he uses it, not just the first time. This is different from the stat boosts that are available to the player, as they do not have any effect when used a second time. (Well, that's not technically correct, but it's a simplified explanation.) I'm just going to throw out a warning right now that even though you will be able to sell the Psyco Wand in this hack, you probably shouldn't.

EDIT 16: Whew, I managed to beat Lashiec at an average level of 24, but I had to restart the fight a few times and use up most of my Star Dews to do it.

EDIT 17: Okay, the Eclipse Torch is just a wee bit overpowered. Better scale that back a little.

Sixfortyfive wrote:

I'm also thinking of lowering Re-Faze's stats a little as well. You still wouldn't get a reward for defeating him, naturally, but it'd be an interesting solo challenge for Chaz.

Actually, what I'd like to see is a different kind of reward for beating him. Maybe an immense experience dump. And since you're soloing with Chaz, anyone not in your party would gain big levels, too.

FreshFeeling wrote:

Sixfortyfive wrote:

I'm also thinking of lowering Re-Faze's stats a little as well. You still wouldn't get a reward for defeating him, naturally, but it'd be an interesting solo challenge for Chaz.

Actually, what I'd like to see is a different kind of reward for beating him. Maybe an immense experience dump. And since you're soloing with Chaz, anyone not in your party would gain big levels, too.

Wouldn't be a half bad idea.

Continuing with the logging of my current playthrough:

1) I was coming up blank with changes to make to Dark Force 2, so I left him as-is. Turns out that that's probably for the best, as I just struggled to kill him at level 25-26. Jesus. Never had to use up so many dews this early before.

2) Extra lol at Kyra leaving the party at level 26, one level less than what she normally joins at.

3) Beat Dark Force 3 at around level 28-29, about 8 Star Dews, no Efess yet. Disappointed that you can't add DTHSPELL to DF3's command list.

4) For the most part, I've been able to barely scrape by without any grinding. The only exception so far is the Zio battle. Lashiec and DF2 would have been trouble if I hadn't been saving up the few available Star Dews up until that point. DF3 would have been trouble if I hadn't also been hoarding MST to buy several more Star Dews for that fight. lol



Though, I'm going to need a few more levels in order to stand up to a Megid blast.

5) The Alys illusion's changed stats are kind of funny; Alys and Chaz only do 1 HP of damage to each other with normal attacks, so you have to use techs/skills to dispose of her quickly. I might tweak that a little bit. As for Re-Faze, he can be beaten at level 37 fairly easily provided that you've held onto the proper defensive equipment. Otherwise, you'll need several more levels. He gives a huge MST and EXP bonus, but only Chaz receives the EXP.

6) Dammit. None of the changes I was planning to make to PD's moveset worked. The only way I can think of making it harder is pumping up its stats, and I doubt I'm going to bother doing that. A little bit of grinding will be needed to beat it as-is. No sense in overdoing it.

Well, I've played through the whole thing and ironed out most of the kinks on the way. Now to clean up some stuff I skipped.

Alright, I think I'm done with this for now. I haven't finished everything that I had wanted (such as changing the LOOK command text), but pretty much all of the major gameplay changes have been implemented. I've created an updated patch and readme and uploaded both of them here:

http://www.sixfortyfive.com/ps4arrange/

If Thoul wants to host it here as well, that's fine with me.

Any comments would be appreciated.

EDIT: I also spent some time looking for enemy encounter data and came up with nothing. The only idea I have left is comparing the June 1994 beta to the August 1994 beta and trying to identify the specific change that removed Acacia/Shadmirage from encounters, and that would take an awful long time to do.

I did notice something peculiar in the list of in-game locations, though:



Given its placement on the list, I'd assume "Ghoul Forest" is the patch of carnivorous trees in front of the Garuberk Tower, but that's just a patch of tiles on the Dezolis overworld, not a dungeon all to itself. Makes me wonder if they had planned on making it into a full-fledged dungeon at one point.

(This is from one of the betas btw, so AIRPORT should be SPACEPORT.)

Thanks for keeping us updated. I'll get that up in the downloads section here in the next few days.

Very interesting about Ghoul Forest! I wonder if there are any other parts of that potential extra dungeon hidden away somewhere in the game.

a new reply to a very old post i know but i wonder if you found out where the dungeon and encounter data are stored?!