Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

[Darkdante44]

there is like a 10 minute loading screen everytime you go to the world map.

[Agamemnon]

After seeing the last few posts in this thread, I thought the game might be working. No such luck.

Just as before, the screen goes to black right after the battle to save Aragarth, (Or whatever his name is in FotL.) and never comes back. I left the game on that black screen while I slept. In the morning it was still on the black screen. I think it's safe to say it will never load past that screen. (With the current version.)

So basically, the game is not working. Move on.

However, if you insist on playing... There is an interesting trick I'd like to share. I'm sure many people know this already, but the enemy Chemist in the 2nd battle has infinite Potions. If you surround him, and you are careful, you can attack him over and over... To be more precise, you can attack him until his HP is low, then skip turns until he gets an action. His action will be to heal himself with a Potion. You can then resume attacking him. The battle will go on indefinitely.

If it isn't obvious, this allows you to gain near-infinite XP/JP during the second battle. Back on the PSX version of FFT, I got all my characters involved in that battle to level 10. The Squires all had enough JP to master their classes. (Or got very close.)

Things to watch out for:
- Delita will end the battle... if he can. Keep him away from the enemy Chemist. "Kill" Delita if you have to. As a Guest, he won't have a countdown timer. So, he will just lay on the ground until the battle ends.
- You should be particularly wary if Delita has the ability to throw Stone. If he gets high enough, he can take attack the Chemist... Even if surrounded!
- At least one person will be unable to attack the Chemist. This would ideally be the main character. "Ramza" plays the role of healer here. You use Chant to restore HP to any of your characters that get too low.
- Once Ramza's HP gets low enough, Delita will rush over and use his Chant on Ramza. They can exchange Chants over and over for easily exploitable XP/JP/HP. (Best of all it includes Delita in the cheesy goodness!)
- The enemies that die will leave behind crystals and chests. Your free character should aim to acquire these as quickly as possible. If left with no useful options, Delita will grab the items. This is fine for chests, but for crystals... He never takes skills from crystals, only HP/MP... Even if he is full on both!
- To earn the most XP/JP, you need to take an action every turn. Unfortunately, the Chemist will not always be available to attack. In these cases, consider attacking your own teammates. You will still earn XP/JP as if you had hit an enemy! Throwing Stones is useful in this regard.
- One poorly-timed knock-back can ruin the entire operation.
- Unequip your weapons once the enemy Chemist is surrounded.
- Don't rely entirely on the damage estimates. One critical hit can end the battle.
- After the battle, the game will go to a blank-black screen for 5-10 minutes. As long as you have "Ignore Illegal Reads/Writes" selected it should load the map... eventually. After that you can save your game! (So that hard work won't be wasted!)

Tested on Vista32 with v0.8.1-716

[altimus]

Hi, I'm new on the forum, and came exactly because of this game, it seems no matter what you do is almost a matter of luck to pass the second battle to the map screen (same configs sometimes don't pass, sometime does), but the reason that I decided to comment is something interesting, don't know if it's something already known, but if you play on the jpcsp version this black screen doesn't even bother, it loads really fast (although the game is really laggy and with bad sound), so my question is, couldn't the work on the jpcsp emu be of any use to fix it?, don't know the relation between jpcsp and PPSSPP, or if the code is too different for use as reference, just wanted to point that out, and seems like jpcsp saves work but the black screen always appears .

PD. I have reached as far as to where Ramza's father dies, anyone has gone beyond?

Sorry for my bad english ^^

[Gilgameur]

(07-15-2013 01:26 AM)drbretto Wrote:  

(07-14-2013 08:27 PM)Gilgameur Wrote:  

(07-13-2013 11:36 PM)drbretto Wrote:  It'll happen. I say to make sure any breakthroughs don't go unnoticed, we all have a competition to see who can report it first

Well, we're all on the alert

You did a good job with your mod, I understand why you're as impatient as me ...

Why thank you Still a lot of cosmetic bugs and some balance issues to work out, but it's always a work in progress. But yeah, I'm dying to be able to play it on a PC so I can record playthroughs (not to mention the possibilities it would open up to the entire FFT cult-like community if netplay ever becomes available. We would create the de facto PVP balanced tournament patch)

You can already record playthroughs with RemoteJoy Doc if you don't want to wait, but you already knew it

The multiplayer, when it work, will totally ROOOOOOOCKS, indeed.

---

(07-17-2013 06:03 AM)EnChains Wrote:  So I was looking here for a solution to the aforementioned problem with it getting stuck on a black screen after the first real battle, and as I was doing so the game finally loaded the next screen. I just had to wait a long ass time. Still probably more issues later on, but I thought you all may like to know.

I have V.0.8.1
Windows 32-bit version (although my system is 64-bit)
I'm in the U.S., but I have no idea where the file I got originated

Also I love drbretto's multiplayer idea, this is something I've always wanted in FFT.

(07-22-2013 12:18 PM)Agamemnon Wrote:  After seeing the last few posts in this thread, I thought the game might be working. No such luck.

Just as before, the screen goes to black right after the battle to save Aragarth, (Or whatever his name is in FotL.) and never comes back. I left the game on that black screen while I slept. In the morning it was still on the black screen. I think it's safe to say it will never load past that screen. (With the current version.)

So basically, the game is not working. Move on.

Sorry man i am not agreed. I am not move on. What the funk man, do the second battle to max JP for what ? Mastered Squire Job and Chemist Job Class....
Seriously ?
Peace and love man

Maybe the real problem is this motherf..hugger of Algus/Argath. Maybe a patch to skip his battle "Save the Private Algus's ass" will solve our black screen of the dead problem... in my dream

[AgriaS]

Well, i hated Algus, or w/e he is called in WOTL before, now i just hate him more Was so exited to play DrBretto's mod...

[Agamemnon]

(07-22-2013 07:05 PM)Gilgameur Wrote:  

(07-22-2013 12:18 PM)Agamemnon Wrote:  After seeing the last few posts in this thread, I thought the game might be working. No such luck.

Just as before, the screen goes to black right after the battle to save Aragarth, (Or whatever his name is in FotL.) and never comes back. I left the game on that black screen while I slept. In the morning it was still on the black screen. I think it's safe to say it will never load past that screen. (With the current version.)

So basically, the game is not working. Move on.

Sorry man i am not agreed. I am not move on. What the funk man, do the second battle to max JP for what ? Mastered Squire Job and Chemist Job Class....
Seriously ?
Peace and love man

Maybe the real problem is this motherf..hugger of Algus/Argath. Maybe a patch to skip his battle "Save the Private Algus's ass" will solve our black screen of the dead problem... in my dream

Here is why I suggested my strategy for the 2nd battle:

1. It gives your characters additional levels. This provides an edge in the early battles of the game. (Helping significantly with the Dorter Slums.)
2. It is the only way (I know of) to grind XP/JP with Delita. He isn't present for your random battles. So he tends to fall behind the group.
3. The point is not to master Squire. The point is to get a boost. Besides, with Squire mastered you can change to a better job before the 3rd battle. (Without losing-out on anything.)
4. I would not suggest mastering a Chemist during the 2nd battle. It will take far too long.
5. I'm not sure... but I think there is a "trickle-down" effect to JP. If you gain a ton of JP as a Squire, you will also get Knight & Archer JP. I think that's how it works.
6. If nothing else, this is a great trick to get your initial team to all have Earned JP Up.
7. It is a novelty. It is simply something to do while waiting for PPSSPP to integrate some sort of fix.

[drbretto]

It seems to be just the world map screen, so I gotta think it'll be like flipping a switch when they find it. It plays everything else so smoothly, it's gotta be close.

[combusken]

It's not Argath's fault LMAO

I think there are something that can't be interpreted by the emulator and misinterpreted as invalid addresses, BUT why if you wait it for 5-10 minutes, it will eventually load? Without processing those addresses? Then, what are those addresses for?

Maybe, it has something to do with the TODOs in Core/MemMapFunctions.cpp? Because the errors is being thrown from there:

Code:

template <typename T>
inline void ReadFromHardware(T &var, const u32 address)
{
    // TODO: Figure out the fastest order of tests for both read and write (they are probably different).
    // TODO: Make sure this represents the mirrors in a correct way.

    // Could just do a base-relative read, too.... TODO

    if ((address & 0x3E000000) == 0x08000000)
    {
        var = *((const T*)&m_pRAM[address & RAM_MASK]);
    }
    else if ((address & 0x3F800000) == 0x04000000)
    {
        var = *((const T*)&m_pVRAM[address & VRAM_MASK]);
    }
    else if ((address & 0xBFFF0000) == 0x00010000)
    {
        // Scratchpad
        var = *((const T*)&m_pScratchPad[address & SCRATCHPAD_MASK]);
    }
    else
    {
        if (g_Config.bJit) {
            WARN_LOG(MEMMAP, "ReadFromHardware: Invalid address %08x", address);
        } else {
            WARN_LOG(MEMMAP, "ReadFromHardware: Invalid address %08x PC %08x LR %08x", address, currentMIPS->pc, currentMIPS->r[MIPS_REG_RA]);
        }
        if (!g_Config.bIgnoreBadMemAccess) {
            Core_EnableStepping(true);
            host->SetDebugMode(true);
        }
        var = 0;
    }
}

I'm not really good at programming, so i'm not trying to be smart, just curious.

[luckyboylb]

By the way, does it work on Ubuntu without problem?

[combusken]

The problem is the invalid addresses errors on any OS .

[thelordymir]

So question, dying to play this game. Is it available for Android yet? I mean the actual game where I could pay to download it, or is it only still on psp and iOS?

[drbretto]

(07-23-2013 03:03 PM)thelordymir Wrote:  So question, dying to play this game. Is it available for Android yet? I mean the actual game where I could pay to download it, or is it only still on psp and iOS?

I'm fairly certain it will be iOS exclusive forever, so you're looking at PPSSPP as your only eventual option for playing on an android. I don't think the android version is as far along as the normal PC versions yet, but the few blips I saw at first were encouraging.

Plus my mod only works on PSP ISO

[Agamemnon]

(07-23-2013 02:31 PM)combusken Wrote:  It's not Argath's fault LMAO

I think there are something that can't be interpreted by the emulator and misinterpreted as invalid addresses, BUT why if you wait it for 5-10 minutes, it will eventually load? Without processing those addresses? Then, what are those addresses for?

Maybe, it has something to do with the TODOs in Core/MemMapFunctions.cpp? Because the errors is being thrown from there:

Code:

template <typename T>
inline void ReadFromHardware(T &var, const u32 address)
{
    // TODO: Figure out the fastest order of tests for both read and write (they are probably different).
    // TODO: Make sure this represents the mirrors in a correct way.

    // Could just do a base-relative read, too.... TODO

    if ((address & 0x3E000000) == 0x08000000)
    {
        var = *((const T*)&m_pRAM[address & RAM_MASK]);
    }
    else if ((address & 0x3F800000) == 0x04000000)
    {
        var = *((const T*)&m_pVRAM[address & VRAM_MASK]);
    }
    else if ((address & 0xBFFF0000) == 0x00010000)
    {
        // Scratchpad
        var = *((const T*)&m_pScratchPad[address & SCRATCHPAD_MASK]);
    }
    else
    {
        if (g_Config.bJit) {
            WARN_LOG(MEMMAP, "ReadFromHardware: Invalid address %08x", address);
        } else {
            WARN_LOG(MEMMAP, "ReadFromHardware: Invalid address %08x PC %08x LR %08x", address, currentMIPS->pc, currentMIPS->r[MIPS_REG_RA]);
        }
        if (!g_Config.bIgnoreBadMemAccess) {
            Core_EnableStepping(true);
            host->SetDebugMode(true);
        }
        var = 0;
    }
}

I'm not really good at programming, so i'm not trying to be smart, just curious.

My programming skills are weak. (at best) However, I can tell you that the "TODO" lines are just comments. Based on the code I see here... I'd say the game is looking for some sort of information that should be stored in a PSPs RAM. Only this isn't a PSP, it's an emulator. So, whatever is supposed to be there, isn't. In short, there's probably some additional code that needs to be added to deal with whatever the game is calling for. Of course, it would help to know what it is calling and why.
(I know this is just stating the obvious, but that's all I'm seeing.)

...but... "Why does it load after 5-10 minutes?" ... I don't know. I'm guessing the game is performing some sort of check. It must not be vital. (Because it eventually says, "Whatevs!") So... copy protection perhaps?

The situation with Lion War reminds me of Chrono Trigger DS. The game plays fine until you time-travel for the 1st time. The game then gets trapped in an infinite loop. I'm told this was a copy-protection measure. You can fix this with a simple cheat code. I wonder if there if there is enough similarity there to be significant.

[combusken]

Hell, that make sense.

[Agamemnon]

I was fooling around with the Disassembly-thing... and I got the game running... past the 3rd battle! Unfortunately, I have been completely unable to reproduce the result. I was able to make a new save game, (I should have made a save-state! WTF was I thinking?!) but it doesn't work. When I load it just sends me to the same, endless black-screen.

I was playing around with all kinds of settings, so I'm not sure how I was set up. The last thing I did was turn off "Ignore Illegal Reads/Writes". I hit "go" in the Disassembly, and it loaded up... FAST.

I *think* I altered the following:
VBO = on
Read Framebuffers to Memory (GPU) = on

I'm not entirely sure because after I got it to work, I reset the emulator. I tried to load the new save, and it failed. The whole thing locked-up at that point. When I re-started the emulator, my options were all reset.

My guess is that I was able to skip a certain part of the code that's causing the problem. I tried to play around and remember where I was at, but I have no idea. Nor do I remember the exact settings. I just hope something can be gained from this info. (Though I imagine it's not very useful.)

Edit: I turned on the VBO while it was paused on an illegal memory read. When I resumed, it IMMEDIATELY went to the audio-loop-error. It also inserted this:
idle0 I[HLE]: GLES\Framebuffer.cpp:1116 Drawing the framebuffer <04000000>
idle0 E[HLE]: c:\buildagent\work\acf56f986e98e7c9\core\hle\sceKernel.h:446 Kernel: Bad object handle 0 <00000000>
idle0 E[HLE]: c:\buildagent\work\acf56f986e98e7c9\core\hle\sceKernel.h:446 Kernel: Bad object handle 0 <00000000>
idle0 E[HLE]: HLE\sceKernelEventFlag.cpp:370 sceKernelClearEventFlag<0, fffffffe> - error

Vista32 0.8.1-716