[Archived] Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

[zefmc]

I'd love a hack of Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal that makes it so that your weapons randomize like in some of the arenas in Annihilation Nation. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard, since the randomization is already programmed in. You'd just make it so it happens everywhere instead of just in the arena.

[Metal Max Lover]

One hack idea that was always on my mind is the possibility of extending the daytime in Harvest Moon for the SNES to something more akin to the later releases. The days are VERY SHORT in tnat game and you can't get almost anything done in the first couple of weeks. Is that feasible?

[NeoSeraphim]

Hi all! I'm completely brand new to the romhacking process and have only just last night read through all the recommended documents for beginners, as well as perused several existing BoF2 hacks on this website and others. BoF2, as is, takes a very straightforward approach to calculating a spell's base damage, i.e. they all have a singular set value with a slight random +/- (I won't be factoring enemy magic resistance for purposes of my hoped for adjustment). A common complaint about magic damage in this game is that it falls off toward the end and therefore I was thinking of trying to add a variables to each spell's existing "base damage" as a small bonus that scales with both level and MP cost and is, itself, multiplied by a new, static "element affinity" stat I want to add on a character by character basis for each element depending on how attuned to each element I think each character is

To give an example, lightning damage affinity would be set to we'll say "Affinity 1" which for Nina (who would have strong lightning affinity) would be equal to 4, for a x4 multiplier. Nina now casts the strongest spell in the game "Bolt X" which costs 30 MP and has a base power of 180. The formula would now be something like 180 + lvl/(lvl+50)*MPcost*4. Assuming lvl 50, this would be an extra 60 spellpower for Nina (or roughly +80 at lvl 99).

I have yet to see any hack for this game that doesn't simply increase the existing static value and I've read that "adding" to roms is hard-to-impossible so as a beginner, I'm mostly just wondering if I'm wasting my time even thinking about trying this and if anyone has done something similar to maybe give me some advice on how to pull it off before I pull out my hair instead. Thanks for any help in advance!

[FAST6191]

Base damage, once the locations are known, are usually just numbers you can change simply. Adding something to the damage calculation would take figuring out where said calculation happens, finding a place to put some more code, doing the code and having it all land back where it would have originally. If said code also means inventing a new variable (personally I would probably do an if character value = this then do this rather than making a new one if they are unique characters) then you need to get that in memory (and possibly the save) somehow too.

That said for simple numbers if the late game renders magic a trickier prospect and you can just edit magic resistance/defence of said enemies then that might be a better option. For something simpler I might consider something like if level is greater than that then add or multiply damage (multiplication by 2,4,8... is simple enough with shifts). You could also go another way and nerf an existing pointless spell or three (don't know how easy adding will be in this game) and make it do mega damage for mega mana or something.

[#]

One hack idea that was always on my mind is the possibility of extending the daytime in Harvest Moon for the SNES to something more akin to the later releases. The days are VERY SHORT in tnat game and you can't get almost anything done in the first couple of weeks. Is that feasible?

It's definitely feasible and if you're interested in hacking games yourself it would even be a nice first project.

[NeoSeraphim]

Base damage, once the locations are known, are usually just numbers you can change simply. Adding something to the damage calculation would take figuring out where said calculation happens, finding a place to put some more code, doing the code and having it all land back where it would have originally. If said code also means inventing a new variable (personally I would probably do an if character value = this then do this rather than making a new one if they are unique characters) then you need to get that in memory (and possibly the save) somehow too.

That said for simple numbers if the late game renders magic a trickier prospect and you can just edit magic resistance/defence of said enemies then that might be a better option. For something simpler I might consider something like if level is greater than that then add or multiply damage (multiplication by 2,4,8... is simple enough with shifts). You could also go another way and nerf an existing pointless spell or three (don't know how easy adding will be in this game) and make it do mega damage for mega mana or something.

Ahhh, yes that is a great point! "If character = x" seems like it would be a good deal more efficient. In addition to buffing spells in general, I wanted the buff to be bigger for certain characters casting certain spells but outside of Nina, Deis (an optional, already insanely broken easter egg character), and to a lesser extent Sten, most of the cast only has at most one or two low-level and generally obsolete attack spells to their names anyway so that idea would probably save a good deal of work.

BoF 2 also has almost literally zero magic defense scaling throughout the entire game; end-game enemies have the same levels of magic resist as start-game enemies with only slight variances between individual monsters in any given area so I don't think I really have much room to play with that idea, unfortunately. Magic damage is very, very consistent both in THAT sense and in the sense of "Oh, now I have Hail/Fireball/Missle/Bolt X, so I have literally no reason to cast any of the damage spells learned at lower levels ever again even though they were exactly what I needed at the time."

I'm presently only shooting for an approximately 33% increase to spells as cast by the character who will be their best caster by level 50, the level the game nearly stops giving stat gains altogether, which is incidentally the reason I chose a formula that sort of "front loads" the bonus damage in my original example. Simple addition after a certain level certainly sounds plausible enough, assuming the idea is to add a small gain for each spell at certain levels that would also be subject to the "if character = x" multipliers to the bonus. Referring again to my benchmark spell "Bolt X", Nina learns it at level 36, so if I had its power increase by 5 every 5th level beginning the same level it is learned, with those "5"s being multiplied by Nina's maxed affinity for lightning (say x4 like in my original formula), then I just so happen to land at that same +60 spellpower (+33%) as before at level 50.

Yeah, this sounds decent-ish to me. Maybe. What do you think?

[Psyklax]

Adding code can be hard when a game uses all the free space in the ROM(like SMB on NES) and expanding it requires moving a lot of code around. As SNES and GBA rom sizes can be fairly large there is a good chance there will be enough free space for your changes, and it shouldn't be hard at all. Even expanding the ROM to create free space isn't as hard as it can be for NES games.

Precisely. Anyone who told you it was "hard-to-impossible" was being economical with the truth. Sure, early NES games can be hard-to-impossible, and slightly later games can be tricky but not that bad if you know what you're doing. SNES, GBA, GBC, hell, anything with a bit more storage space - they're easy. Either use the copious amounts of free space, or make your own free space. So if you want to do this (for some reason) then it's totally feasible. Might be a bit tricky for a newbie, though.

[NeoSeraphim]

Precisely. Anyone who told you it was "hard-to-impossible" was being economical with the truth. Sure, early NES games can be hard-to-impossible, and slightly later games can be tricky but not that bad if you know what you're doing. SNES, GBA, GBC, hell, anything with a bit more storage space - they're easy. Either use the copious amounts of free space, or make your own free space. So if you want to do this (for some reason) then it's totally feasible. Might be a bit tricky for a newbie, though.

I see. That's encouraging though. I can't immediately think of any NES roms I particularly want to mess with anyway, so that suits me just fine.

[BlkMelynx]

I've had an idea in my head about modding Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for some time now, although I never really looked too much into it. My knowledge and skills are below even being called rudimentary, but from what little I do know, hopefully the changes I'd want to make wouldn't necessarily be too difficult to implement. I've done some GB romhacking stuff using hex editors etc before, but working with a PSP iso is a completely different kettle of fish, and the knowledge/documentation seems pretty scarce from the googling I've done.

I've poked around some of the files with UMDGen etc, but I still haven't been able to make much sense out of what files contain what, and how to go about finding the data I'm looking to edit. Essentially, I'd want to edit weapon data: individual weapon stats, weapon class damage modifiers etc. More than anything I'd like to learn about all the things I need to do, and I know that sort of thing takes a long time so I'm not really too bothered, but it would be nice if I could at least find someone who has an interest in hacking this game/knows some stuff about PSP hacking to discuss these things with.

[FAST6191]

If you understood the concepts as they apply to the NES it is not that much different for more or less anything, be it older or newer. Newer systems allow for more numbers and quicker manipulation thereof but data representation is still data representation.

If someone tells you the locations to those then it will possibly be pretty straight forward and you can get on with the act of tweaking them to your will -- my only reservation being that custom weapons are a thing there and those can be more weapon parts and custom stuff (even in shops/drops) rather than the more classic final fantasy clone where it likely is a big table somewhere of all the stats either in order of appearance in the game or for that unique identifier for that item. It could still be that fabrication is just a shop that takes monster bits as currency but for something as extensive as the Monster Hunter franchise... I would not make that bet. You can have both styles in the same game, and you can have a halfway house like base stats + buffs elsewhere.

Finding it when such things are unknown is a trickier prospect, though far from impossible. You can find such data without messing with assembly or the more hardcore stuff. I assume you have looked at file names already, and also eliminated based on file name/extension/size.

First step is look for the stats in memory with a cheat finder and then see if it is in the game somewhere. Stats are probably decimal on the screen so remember to convert to hex. The vast majority of the time games do things on a weapon by weapon (or component by component) basis rather than here is the table for attack values, here is the one for accuracy, here is the one for magic attack...
I doubt it will be some kind of XML setup here (I see that more in really involved PC western PC games) where it is a list of stats and extra effects to avoid having a each entry in a database list be 50 bytes long to account for every enchantment combo and strength thereof but it would not be the first time I have been surprised, and the game could benefit from it.

You can try corruption too. Find something that looks promising and fiddle with the numbers (this can include copy and pasting what looks like valid data over large chunks of the rest of the file), boot the game back up and see what changed. For something like this I doubt you will run into the bestiary issue -- in older games the list of monsters and their stats in some kind of end game or in game bestiary might be standard text rather than pulling from the same table the battles use, meaning a change of the battle stats might not be reflected in the bestiary and vice versa.
If the game changes between regions, and includes a rebalance, DLC weapons... then comparing that can be good, and for as much as they pumped these things out in Japan at least (I'll be nice) you can probably look at the sequels there as something quite viable to compare with, possibly different consoles of the same vintage if someone has taken a swing at one of those.

The class stuff can be a bit trickier but if it is that core a concept it might be in the game rather than something in the binary (this would be the eboot files on the PSP).

If you do want to do the assembly way then find the data in memory (if you have to start with a save then do that), reset the game and follow what path it takes to get there from a shop or smith when buying from then. That will also tell you how it generates stats.


As for me having interest then Monster Hunter on paper should be everything I want in a game (weapons creation, thoughtful combat, giant monsters, exploration) but in practice I find them so incredibly boring and tedious to play, and I really tried to get into them more than almost anything else I have ever done, so I am out there. I heard the more recent ones might have improved things but I have yet to try those.

[tc]

That's one of the main reasons I feel that putting a kind of "charm" translation would be needed. Because when I played the fan translation of FF5 and the original Chrono Trigger translation (the one that I managed to play before it got taken down by Square-Enix's cease and desist), I feel like that parts of the translations...well, they just felt empty and kind of flat.

Mega Man X2 might be worth a look. Some of the enemy names are spelled oddly (Weather Cristal?), and the official translation has changes like

Spoiler

making Zero's creator more ambiguous.

[close]

[hossbags2]

Crazy Climber for nes - anyway of modding game so only 1 controller can be used

[KingMike]

Crazy Climber for nes - anyway of modding game so only 1 controller can be used

What would you suggest changing the controls to? It is a twin-stick, as they say, game.

[BlkMelynx]

First step is look for the stats in memory with a cheat finder and then see if it is in the game somewhere. Stats are probably decimal on the screen so remember to convert to hex.

This is probably the most awkward part, and part of why someone with some knowledge of MH's code would be really helpful. The games represent weapon damage by using multipliers. For example, a greatsword has a class modifier of 4.8, so a Greatsword with 260 true raw is displayed as 1242. There's also the conundrum of how it decides to represent affinity (crit) and sharpness values etc. Searching for true raw values is a pretty futile effort for the most part unless I do things with a cheat finder like you said.

Speaking of finding it boring, what didn't you like about the gameplay loop? Too much busywork and grinding? I'm not sure how far I'd take it, but considering weapons are essentially just crafted using items and money, things could be tweaked to make that aspect a little less irritating, for example. I definitely that things like needing to press A on a rock 50 times to get enough ore for a weapon is not really anyone's idea of fun. I should probably just stick to the former goal for now though. Thanks for the suggestions.

[FAST6191]

Speaking of finding it boring, what didn't you like about the gameplay loop? Too much busywork and grinding? I'm not sure how far I'd take it, but considering weapons are essentially just crafted using items and money, things could be tweaked to make that aspect a little less irritating, for example. I definitely that things like needing to press A on a rock 50 times to get enough ore for a weapon is not really anyone's idea of fun. I should probably just stick to the former goal for now though. Thanks for the suggestions.

I don't know, and that irritates me as well. As mentioned crafting, combat I have to think about rather than mash a button with the best crafted gear, large monsters too... if you go back and find games, or aspects thereof, I have gushed about over the years and such things will feature prominently (still do for that matter). How Monster Hunters ended up so much less than the sum of their parts is a mystery to me.
I tried loads of things to get to like it -- cheats, guides, videos of play, loading up someone's late stage play and going from there, sitting down and thinking about it to try to make it click, trying to force my way through things to see if it is one of those "after 12 hours" things, got the best versions I could (I read that some of the PSP efforts were more "for fans of the older games")... I had even gone into the series cold (not that I really fall for hype of either direction normally)
About as close as I can get to words is I found the controls deeply unsatisfying but not for any of the usual reasons -- it is probably not going to be a fighting game any time soon and I have played so much better but controls like that I have pushed through for lots of things before to have a great time with the results.
Thankfully I was not the only one but I still find it bizarre.

[nanashi89]

A Mega Man Maverick Hunter X undub would be sweet! And restore "Don't Wanna Be" by Spinwake in the intro FMV.

[Masaru]

A port of the hairy_hen Final Fantasy VI translation script into the RPGONE translation

[Dzumeister]

The Peace Keepers (or JP Rushing Beat Shura) has the background music disabled by default for some reason, and you have to go into the Options Menu on startup to set it yourself every time. It would be nice to make a patch that enables the bgm by default.

Also, more than half of the music from the original JP release was cut from the NA version. Restoring these tracks would be amazing. The localization has a pretty bad translation, but is tolerable. What's weird for fans is that most of the characters' names were changed. Changing them back would help the series stay consistent.

I've also recently found out about another beat-em-up, Gourmet Sentai. Gideon Zhi has a partially-completed patch that it'd be cool to see finished.

[Chicken Knife]

Currently doing a few playthroughs of Seiken Densetsu 3 / Trials of Mana. Would love to see something remedied with a hack. I'm not at the point of writing ASM or I would do it myself.

Getting the ??? seeds or the Weapon / Armor seeds is cool, but using them in the pots at the inn to produce the items you need is a huge chore. If it was as simple as saving, using the items, and resetting if you didn't get what you want that would be fine. But the RNG is tied to a battle counter so you have to leave the town, fight some battles, come back, save, then restart, load your file, and only then will you get a different result. If you don't like that one, rinse and repeat. It causes something that should take a short time to take forever.

My idea would be to write a small bit of ASM to tie the results to a RNG that isn't reliant on any counters. Would take the only real nuisance out of the game. 

[John Enigma]

Ever since the Trials of Mana rom got extracted from the Collection of Mana (Switch) digital collection, has anyone made any plans to make improvement patches to the rom, like the Secret of Mana Turbo hack: https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=27890.0 ?

Also, since we're in the topic of Mana, it would be nice if there was a Toruzz-style colorization hack for the original Game Boy version, but using the palettes used in the Adventures of Mana remake, instead of the Sword of Mana remake. I would've also asked for a title screen hack that said Adventure of Mana, but Da_GPer already did that. Although, I would love to request one that said Final Fantasy: Adventures of Mana, where you would see the Final Fantasy font used in the original title screen of the game at a smaller scale, above where it says Adventures of Mana.

That's all.