Thinking of doing a PSIV hack.

Okay, so PSIV is pretty much my favorite RPG ever. One of the things I like the most about it is how well it's paced. The story moves along quickly, the walking speed is sufficiently fast, the battle transitions and animations are short and to the point, and the experience curve is damn near perfect. I find myself to be continually impressed with that last point. It seems that every time I play through the game normally (doing all of the sidequests and extra stuff, but never making any wrong turns or spending any time grinding levels), I learn new techniques at just the right time (like the Circuitbreak combo right before some machine center, or the Grandcross combo while I'm in the Air Castle), and I always learn my very last techs right before the final dungeon. I always seem to have just enough money to purchase all of the equipment I want right when I need it and nothing more as well. It really is a very well-balanced game.

In my last few playthroughs, though, I've been trying my hand at low-level play and single-character play, and I've found myself coming up with new strategies or evaluating options that I wasn't previously aware that I had. A good example would be using "weaker" defensive equipment that has high resistance to certain types of attacks (such as Ceramic items drastically reducing damage taken from fire-based attacks). That's not really something you have to think about in a normal playthrough, but it can come in handy when you're under-leveled. Same goes for combo attacks in general; they're not really necessary, but Grandcross can make a normally difficult battle easy as pie.

So I was thinking of trying my hand at a PSIV hack that, while not drastically changing the mechanics or progression of the game, would maybe force the player to evaluate these kinds of options. Here's the sort of things I'm considering, just off the top of my head:

1) Reduce the EXP and MST given by enemies by half. Like I said, I generally consider PSIV's experience curve to be fine as it is, but this would be needed to increase the difficulty. My goal isn't to force the player to simply grind for more levels though, so this would be offset with some other tweaks.

2) Reduce the TP cost and base power for Zan/Gizan/Nazan techs by half. These techs are generally rather weak against most enemies, but they're important components for the Firestorm and Blizzard combos. Having a larger TP pool for these techs would make combos more appealing than they already are, especially at low levels.

3) Adjust various enemy resistances. Nothing too major, but I'd probably change a few things. Any enemy with a resistance value of 4 (extremely weak) for a particular element would likely see that resistance changed to 3 (weak). Stuff like that.

4) Adjust various weapon properties. I'm specifically thinking of items that don't really find their way into any practical use in a normal playthrough. Who actually uses the Plasma Dagger? Nobody, that's who. I mean, why would you? Only Chaz can use it, and why would you give up a sword for that dinky knife, especially when the elemental-equivalent Plasma Sword is obtained at the same time? But what if the dagger was changed to be stronger against mechanical enemies? Considering that the Kuran mission happens soon after obtaining that weapon, it could make a dagger+shield combo actually appealing for once.

5) Adjust enemy attack lists. This is actually the main reason I'm posting this topic (instead of just getting to work right away). Has anybody done any thorough testing when it comes to giving enemies new moves? I know people have had limited success with hacking new moves onto the playable characters, so I assume that at least some enemies are capable of using some new attacks as well. There are a few changes that I have in mind and if anyone's already done some work on this, I'd like to hear about it! (All I've tinkered with so far is adjusting the frequency that enemies use specific moves, which worked, and attempting to give the Alys illusion in the Anger Tower a transformation move, which failed. Too bad; that would have been awesome!)

6) Provide more descriptive item information. Using the LOOK command on equipment would tell you the pertinent information for that item that isn't always made aware to the player in vanilla PSIV (elemental properties, magic defense boost, etc).

Any thoughts or comments? Are the above changes enough to justify a full hack or does it not sound different enough from the standard game to be interesting? I'm planning on giving the Purgatory Mod a look at before I get any serious work done, as I haven't played it yet and it seems to be one of the more popular PSIV hacks. Maybe I can come up with a few more ideas after seeing what others have done to the game.

You've got some really nice ideas. I'd really like to see this put to work. =)

I really like your ideas for adjusting the Look command and weapon properties. Like you said, a lot of the daggers are useless when the sword is right there at the same time. Some clue to the elemental powers of each weapon is also a great idea. There are really too many to test each one individually when playing a regular game. All of the other ideas are great, too.

Sixfortyfive wrote:

4) Adjust various weapon properties. I'm specifically thinking of items that don't really find their way into any practical use in a normal playthrough. Who actually uses the Plasma Dagger? Nobody, that's who. I mean, why would you? Only Chaz can use it, and why would you give up a sword for that dinky knife, especially when the elemental-equivalent Plasma Sword is obtained at the same time? But what if the dagger was changed to be stronger against mechanical enemies? Considering that the Kuran mission happens soon after obtaining that weapon, it could make a dagger+shield combo actually appealing for once.

This sounds very cool. I guess you could ditch Brose to completely free up an elemental factor to make your own, and make robots a 3 and everything else a 1 or 2. This would make it a bit different from factor 12 in that it wouldn't be completely useless against biological enemies.
Or, hey, you could just keep Brose as-is but make mechanical enemies a 3. It would make Brose fairly viable!

Sixfortyfive wrote:

5) Adjust enemy attack lists. This is actually the main reason I'm posting this topic (instead of just getting to work right away). Has anybody done any thorough testing when it comes to giving enemies new moves? I know people have had limited success with hacking new moves onto the playable characters, so I assume that at least some enemies are capable of using some new attacks as well. There are a few changes that I have in mind and if anyone's already done some work on this, I'd like to hear about it! (All I've tinkered with so far is adjusting the frequency that enemies use specific moves, which worked, and attempting to give the Alys illusion in the Anger Tower a transformation move, which failed. Too bad; that would have been awesome!)

Sadly I haven't really done much hacking. I was hoping to find the menu font before I got into it and, well, I haven't even updated the dump site in over two years so I guess I lost my motivation. Komrade might have some helpful information with regards to enemy attacks.

Sixfortyfive wrote:

6) Provide more descriptive item information. Using the LOOK command on equipment would tell you the pertinent information for that item that isn't always made aware to the player in vanilla PSIV (elemental properties, magic defense boost, etc).

This sounds very cool. Might be a lot of work though.
Hm, I need to fix those table files. If I spent an hour figuring out the DTE the whole game's event text would be legible in a hex editor.

Oh yeah, there is that. It's been so long since I've had to bother with text tables in romhacking. The only thing I've been bothering to edit text for as of late is translations in more recent (1995 and onward) games, and since WinXP can force most hex editors to display S-JIS (standard Japanese text encoding) natively, tables aren't something you have to worry about in more modern games. Older stuff can be a pain when they don't use standard coding, though.

Anyway, I gave the Purgatory Mod a whirl last night and played up to Aiedo before giving it a rest. I don't think I like it much. Random encounters are supposed to be wars of attrition, not do-or-die on every single turn. D: I'm all for a challenge, but not when savestate abuse is required to get anywhere. I'm also not too fond of breaking the set character roles (giving Gryz lots of magic, giving Raja lots of offensive magic, etc) or giving characters techs that can crash the game when used at the wrong time.

That said, there are a lot of cool little ideas in it that I'm thinking of implementing myself: making the Ryrkos-Ring an equip, making the NOTHING items available, increasing the power of in-battle items (Eclipse Torch, Laco Rod, etc), making Vision effective at high levels, and editing FEEVE and other unused item/tech slots to give them a purpose. I'm also thinking of changing some equips (such as allowing Demi to use all of Wren's guns, a restriction that never made much sense to me to begin with) if possible, eliminating the order requirement for combos, giving other items (maybe the Aero-Prism?) an in-battle use, and allowing Triblaster to work with Gi and Na techs.

I'm giving the item and enemy charts a good look right now to see what I want to change.

Tons of great ideas. The one thing I would really like to do in a hack would be to completely change the script in the game. I have so many ideas but yet I don't know how I would change the script.

Regarding the order requirement for combos, sometimes that restriction affects the animation. When Shooting Star is made to work with Rune using Flaeli and Wren using Burstroc in that order, it shows the rockets firing from Rune's shoulders.
Otherwise, heck yeah. Removing the order restriction from Destruct can free up room for other cool combos, like Gi- and Na- level Triblaster.

Also, I'm pretty sure Vision was always useful in the Japanese version and was just made useless in the US. In fact, it was a little too useful, boosting Dex by 75 instead of 8 (if I remember a very old GameFAQs topic correctly).

Specific item changes I'm thinking of making right now:

LASR-KNIFE, PLSMDAGGER: Not sure what to do about these yet. I had planned on giving one of them F7 (Electric) properties, which would make them extra effective against machines, but that would be redundant with another change I'm already planning to make (LASRBARRIR). Right now I'm considering giving them some kind of side-effect, such as a small chance of inflicting sleep status on machines (HIJAMMER), sealing the enemy's techs (SEALS), etc.

SPIRAL-SLASHER, BLOOD-AXE: Give these items their proper names and make them available for purchase. It's mostly a matter of just figuring out which shop and price is best-suited for them. I'd probably change the Tonoe weapon store to carry the BROAD-AXE instead of the TITN-AXE (which Gryz starts with), and then have the BLOOD-AXE replace the BROAD-AXE's old location.

ALIS-SWORD: I know this weapon is supposed to be a novelty, but it would be fun to give the player an excuse to equip it. I've thought of giving it a supplemental effect that decreases the enemy's ATK stat, which I think would be kind of funny. (The result would be that the enemy is greatly weakened at the expense of also gimping Chaz's ATK stat.) I think I would also make this effect resisted by enemies with high DEX, or by some specific elemental resistance that would prevent bosses from being affected by it.

PSYCO-WAND: Perhaps give this weapon a small instant-kill possibility, such as SHADOWBLADE, GENOCYCLAW, and ELSYDEON? I'm also pondering changes for the FORCE-CANE and SILV-ROD to see if I could justify actually equipping them instead of shields.

STUN-SHOT: Greatly reduce this weapon's power but allow it to strike all enemies at once in normal attacks. Its main purpose would therefore not be inflicting damage, but inducing sleep on multiple biological enemies. It would also therefore be of at least SOME use for Wren as well. Also note that you don't normally have any way to hit multiple enemies with normal attacks at this stage of the game (Demi replaces Alys and is in turn replaced by Wren), so this would fill that niche.

PLSM-RIFLE, NAPALMSHOT, PLSMLAUNCH, PHOTNERASR: Allow Demi to equip these weapons.

LASRBARRIR: Add F7 (Electric) resistance to this shield. This would have the dual effect of both greatly reducing the damage taken from electrical attacks AND giving any accompanying dagger/claw electric properties, thus greatly increasing the user's effectiveness against machines. (For reference, 3 other shields have similar properties in PSIV: The CRMCSHIELD gives F3/Fire access, the PSY-SHIELD gives F11/Psychic access, and the PLSM-FIELD gives F2/Laser access. I believe giving Rika 1 claw + the CRMCSHIELD yields better results on the Dezolis overworld than 2 claws.)

CYBER-SUIT: Add F6 (Energy) resistance to this suit. Considering Seth's secret identity, it would make sense for him to want resistance to such attacks. I don't think this would give the suit any practical use, however, unless you feel like embarking on a suicide mission against Re-Faze.

SHORTCAKE, PENGU-FEED, PEROLYMATE: Maybe give these things some practical use. I'm not sure what, though. I'm also considering making DYNAMITE available for purchase somewhere.

ALGO-MAP: Make this item available for purchase.

AERO-PRISM: Give this item an in-battle use. Considering its plot use (blindingly bright light, makes Seth/DF go nuts), it would make sense for it to decrease the enemy's DEX, but I'd have to check if it's possible to add such an effect to an item.

LACO-ROD: Increase the effect of this weapon's power as an item to be equal to, say, half the damage inflicted by Rune's EFESS when he initially learns it, but change it from a multi-target item to a single-target item.

ECLPSTORCH: Double this item's power.

RYKR-RING: Make this an equippable helmet for the 5th character in the endgame.

SHADWBLADE, DEFEAT-AXE: Give these weapons proper MST values so that they can be sold for a decent amount of cash. I'm cutting the MST drop values for all enemies in half, so it would be nice to offset that with a few extra ways of farming some money here and there.

Also, I was wondering what determines whether or not an item can be sold. Since all such non-disposable items have an assigned internal value of 0 MST, it looks like all it would take to make these items disposable is assigning them a value. I think this could be useful in some cases, like ditching the LAND-ROVER for extra cash once the ICE-DIGGER is made available, and it would free up some extra item slots. I also think it would be a little funny if some poor sap chose to ditch the PSYCO-WAND before the Zio fight.

I do plan on testing all of these ideas to make sure that they (1) work and (2) don't throw the game out of balance in one way or another. I also haven't given a good look at the characters or enemies to see exactly what I want to change yet, but I have a few ideas:

SETH: Give him identical resistances to Dark Force 3.

ALYS (Anger Tower): Change her stats to match those of the real Alys at level 40 with optimal equipment.

I'm also thinking of reducing the starting levels for those characters who join you mid-game (to match the reduced experience gain for the rest of the party), but judging from the tables I've seen in various places, this might be more work than one would expect it to be. Am I correct in inferring that Alys, for example, doesn't even HAVE any preset stats for levels below 7, and that I would have to write them into the ROM myself if I wanted to use them?

Pengu-feed, if I remember right, can't be taken out of that one shop where it is sold. There isn't much point in giving it an affect unless you can prevent that penguin from appearing or make it sold somewhere else without the penguin.

I do like the sound of all of those ideas, though. Especially making the Alis-Sword worthwhile. I always thought that not having some kind of cool use outside the sidequest was a bit of a waste.

Oh yeah, there's at least one empty item slot in the ROM that has no use at all at the moment and could be replaced by another new piece of equipment or consumable item if anybody has any good ideas for one. (This slot currently holds another one of those elusive NOTHING items, but unlike the NOTHING map, the NOTHING axe, and the NOTHING slasher, this item has no existing purpose at the moment.)