So, I've never been quite great at modding, but the modding tools for PSX and PSP allowed me to dip my toes. With FFTPatcher, I could edit some abilities and ability sets, and that was enough to add some custom content to the game.
Looking at the mods available for Ivalice Chronicles on Nexus, it feels like people are using a similar technique, but I couldn't find how they're doing it or any tool analagous to FFTPatcher. I just wanted to do things like Add my own personalized set of skills to Ramza's Squire class, stuff of that level.
Is there any comprehensive tutorial or tool for me to custom-make changes of that level?
There's one that was in development recently that has some of the functionality. But not all of it. That isn't how most people are making their mods at this point, I'm afraid.
This is the link to the FFHacktics wiki related specifically to TiC hacking tools/development, but for more specific and up to date info it would be better to check the FFHacktics Discord
You will want to pop into FFHacktic's discord server; It's been a while since I've looked, but they were tracking their investigations into hacking the game there at the time.
That being said, the main modding is all basically on pause until Denuvo gets removed from it, since that prevents anything beyond some higher level changes (Though, I will give hackers credit for restoring the WOTL stuff that was cut).
If you (like me) are not particularly knowledgeable about modding or coding, you can use AI assistance to create your own mods. I wouldn't announce or share them here if you do so, however.
I made the mistake of sharing my mods with this particular "community" and the reception has so far been negative. Apparently they've embraced being regressively anti-ai use and hostile to people with no real basis for it beyond their own animus.
The process to do all this can be difficult depending on how ambitious you're being about what you'd like to create. So my advice to you, is you can start with something simple. use Claude Opus or ChatGPT Codex, set up very rigorous rules, for clean coding and checkpoints so you don't lose your work and experiment as much as possible.
If you'd like some advice or help, feel free to reach out ot me privately and I'll do what I can to help.
I do hope you'll take the time to read galan0's reply as it is pretty on point. As you are a bit vague as to what community you are referring to, whether its FFT Hacktics Discord or this subreddit, I'll refer to both.
But I will say, there IS in fact a lot of negativity regarding AI out there, yes, its true. I actually like a lot of your ideas. And if you are going to maintain your mod for years to come through patches and updates, you have my (random guy on the internet) support.
The one caveat I 'll throw out there to just hopefully give some context to the negative sentiment you've been getting. Our "community" as of late has been flooded with mod content and then the developer disappears, leaving a broken mod that conflicts with every mod throughout the community and leaving THOSE authors there to do tech support. (It also doesnt help that some of these authors put out a half a dozen mods in 10 minutes, ask for donations on their pages and dont credit the original designer of said mod, sprites, etc)
"Oh, you are using AI mod A? Yeah, its not compatible with anything because the bot programmed it to touch every aspect of code A B and C so if any mod even LOOKS at those sections you get an automatic crash. Meanwhile, the FFT Hacktics community has collaborated on the series of mods B-Z and they all work with one another to not have any conflicts or compatibility issues.
So, the last thing I'll say, your mods are VERY extensive. And because of that, I hope you will learn the code you are messing with in order to help others with troubleshooting your mods and to make sure you have a high compatibility with the rest of the community.
Thank you dearly for your response, its thoughtful and in good faith, I think you'll be pleased with how I responded to Galan and I did try to take their perspective seriously and constructively before responding to them.
I think I addressed most of what you brought up in your response there. I have tremendous affection and respect fot the FFT modding community. Anyone who bothers to look at my post history would have that become readily apparent to them. My mods took into account that this wider community exists and that I am building "from the shoulders of giants" so to speak.
I took pains to stay out of their way and indicated when I could not. I also made certain NOT to plagiarize anyone's code and only use the work of people who specifically give permission to do so. To which I gave them credit for, whether they indicated wanting it or not.
I live in a part of the world where GenAI use and AI use in general is welcome and celebrated. We're not having such a bizarre backlash like is apparently happening in the U.S,, but I'm learning more about it, unfortunately.
Rest assured, I am not one of these fly-by-night profit-seekers or swindlers. My Nexus pages have donate buttons, but I specifically make certain people know they never have to pay me a cent. I am happy to support my mods and other modders in any way that I can and if they want to reach out to me, my inbox is always open for them. I designed my mods with the philosophy of doing everything I could to make the ecosystem better without stepping on anyone's feet.
That said, AI can make mistakes and if my Agents' code HAS somehow done that, I am pleased to work with anyone else who approaches me with some common dignity and asks for it.
I genuinely didn't know that this subreddit had been so assailed, but it doesn't change what I observed in my post. I and others like me will probably steer clear from here from now on.
Sounds good to me. I recommend trying out the FFT Hacktics discord as there is a lot of collaboration there. (As well as the sharing of breakthroughs and research) There is anti-AI sentiment from time to time. I hope this is something you can grow accustomed to rather than feel hurt by. ( I try to just scroll on )
Unfortunately its par the course for a lot of communities as it is a very controversial topic in a lot of places.
Below are the Discords recent AI guidelines, which it seems you abide. Some of the most prominent members in the community have disclosed AI use. (Even to the point of bringing back the WOTL content was done with AI assistance) As long as you are respectful and have thick skin, if you have anything to contribute, I feel like most members would be appreciative.
Just some food for thought, and if you have a passion for this modding, keep it up. Have a good one.
I remember when a year ago I made posts celebrating them cracking the game open and starting to get the WOTL content online again. I attempted to field questions so that people did not harass them while they were working or flooding their dischord. I did, however, want the folks on that server to know that their work was loved.
And you're right, I already hold myself to the standards stated there and even above that. However, I will not be participating in that forum. My skin is plenty thick, but I do not suffer fools. It seems from what you've intimated here and just looking at that rule-set that the tolerance will only one way.
I can safely assume that its borne out of good reasons, trying to prevent people from being irresponsible, inconsiderate, plagiarizing, meddlesome and so forth, probably led them to have to crack down. I get that, but I won't be subjecting myself to ANY of the smuggled assumptions or condescensions that come with having those policies and passive-aggressively being treated as one of them (oh, those evil AI-users).
I've got plenty of real world baseless discrimination to have to deal with, I'm not taking on any extra in order to thanklessly produce content in concert with people who may not actively disparage me, but will do so with clumsy subtlety. Frankly, the way you've written about it here, it already irritates me on your behalf that *you* have to find yourself putting up with it.
I'll stick to what I've laid out here, anyone who contacts me directly will have my attention and hopefully, if they make themselves available and I need their attention, they'll hear me out as well.
Incidentally, you've mentioned that some of the code in my mod may be unruly, from my rudimentary understanding, that's probably as a result of me having the AI purposefully avoid copying anyone. If that's something that anyone who happens to be part of the FFT server and the Hacktics community and chances upon reading this is causing issues for them, please reach out on here, privately or on Nexus.
Also, I was so dedicated to helping out and trying to pass on knowledge, that while I was trying to implement new things into my mods I was having the AI specifically put togehter a document with things we should share with the community that we had discovered. I'm particularly proud of the Omnislash's smart targeting and getting Marach's mantras to do the same.
I wish more people had approached this conversation like you had. Dealing with troublesome people can make One jaded, but its worth trying to remember that people are individuals and its not productive or smart to pre-judge. Thanks for the conversation.
To each their own. I suppose I scroll on because I understand that they are frustrated and feel violated to a certain extent. They spent 30 years nearly pulling apart the code to this game to create tools to do rather crazy stuff with this old game. Then AI comes and turns years of labor in to moments of output. I understand, that I cannot TRULY understand the level of frustration that must have caused.
However, the largest strides in this community are with AI tools. And if you dont want to be a part of the community, thats fine, the only recommendation I would make...
This is something one of the AI users in the discord does. (image below) They make a breakthrough using Claude to implement something that was long thought impossible. Then they share the documentation on how it was achieved. That way anyone who has been doing this for 30 years, might be able to review how it was done, and through collaboration, find a fool proof way to run this without conflict or crashes.
I'm no coder myself and all this stuff goes over my head, but the recommendation I would make that will keep you out of the crossfire, be as transparent as you possibly can. Github, public coding, write ups.
I suppose that was another issue I forgot to bring up, people sneaking malware in to their mod packages or code that runs external script. Again, a couple of bad actors sort of ruin everything for everyone else.
Last note, regarding you having "unruly code" I know nothing about your code. Just know that the larger the mod and the more things that get changed, the more chance for a conflict. Again, lots of these things go over my head, but thats what I have been so appreciative with the FFTHacktics community for the last few years. Just being a fly on the wall to absorb the bits of knowledge that. "If you mess with this, you need to change this, if you mess with this, you risk a crash with this... etc etc etc"
Maybe I've been too forceful in the way that I've expressed that I won't be participating in the dischord, and I don't want to be mistaken:
You're a thoughtful person and distinguished immediately that I had been vague when I wrote "community" (meaning this subreddit, it occurs to me that in the subsequent time between release of FFTIC and now, there appears to be some kind of blending of identity of the modding community at large and this subreddit in the heads of some people and to some extent.) responding to the OP asking for advice in this post.
So, being clear, I am part of the FFT modding community, insofar as I've been supporting and amplifying, mostly reading on the old FFT Hacktics forums, but occassionally posting. I am very happy to be part of that community, I just won't be patricipating in the dischord server in the way you described, I don't have the time and certainly not the patience to subject myself to anyone's prejudicial ire.
Again, I sympathize with the modding community's plight and in what ways this AI vibecoding revolution has affected the larger modding community, but why should I be treated as guilty by association when I've done nothing but try to be helpful and respect other people's work both in actual methodology of implementation and in public?
I may change my mind eventually about being chatty on there, and I will probably drop by to leave the doc I've put together, but beyond that I make no guarantees, specially if I even get a whiff of what went on here.
Maybe if you actually posted in that particular community asking for help or even just mentioning you've been using AI, instead of just shitting on the hard work of real programmers and the people that made modding possible for FFT:TIC in the first place you'd be a little more grateful instead of spouting lies.
For starters, AI is a grey area in the community. It is frowned upon sure, but there are a lot of modders that are using it and are respected because they are honest about their work, and have community respect and ask questions and review each others work to make sure modded content made by AI can at least be traced and used without licensing issues, plagiarism, and furthermore to prevent modders from releasing mods they can't even read their own code in for bug fixes. It is at the point of it's going to happen regardless, so take it in and see what they can do to help make it better. Some are more against it, some are fine with it; it depends on the topic of discussion about it.
You had AI create 3 mods with these crazy write ups you didn't do yourself, used genAI for the image previews, and made it pretty obvious you did it through AI. your post on here earlier had a bad reception.
If you come into any community with that kind of attitude with AI, yeah you'll get a negative response. I know you might mean well with AI and you are being kind for trying to help others get started, but shitting on the community that has decades of documented code and tools that allowed your AI to even make mods is not a way to get respect for using AI with mods, especially if you're stealing peoples code or assets without their permission.
If you think coming to reddit to post about AI Mods was going to get you good reception, reddit is *far* more aggressive towards anything AI compared to said community you mentioned.
I'm going to try not to be indignant, despite the fact that your response suggests two things: A) you didn't actually read my post, and B) you haven't seen my other posts here, where I've done nothing but praise, promote, and thank the FFT modding community, as I've done for years.
First, I have NEVER concealed my use of AI. Every single one of my releases explicitly discloses AI assistance. You're welcome to visit their Nexus pages and verify that yourself.
Nor does it make any sense to accuse me of shitting on the modding community when I specifically thank its contributors in the very post you're criticizing.
I'm talking about how I've been received in this subreddit. That's the community I'm criticizing, and I stand by that criticism. Please don't conflate it with the broader FFT modding community, whose work I've consistently celebrated.
I respect programmers, reverse engineers, toolmakers, and everyone who has invested their time and talent in making FFT modding possible. What I don't respect is ego-driven gatekeeping about who counts as a "real" creator.
I'm an accomplished writer. I wouldn't dream of telling someone their creative work was illegitimate because they used AI to help write it. I don't see why programming should be held to a different standard.
I'm not a professionally trained programmer or modder. Nevertheless, I've invested substantial time, energy, and money into creating and releasing these mods for others to enjoy. The concepts, mechanics, writing, design decisions, and creative direction are my own. AI assisted me with implementation.
And since you've raised the possibility of stealing other people's code or assets, you should know that I went out of my way to avoid doing precisely that. Independent implementation, respect for licensing, and proper attribution have been explicit priorities throughout this project. Where third-party work is legitimately used, it's credited. Please don't insinuate plagiarism without identifying something I've actually misappropriated.
I welcome cooperation and constructive criticism. In fact, I attempted to engage with other modders early in development, and I created two alternative versions of my mod specifically to minimize compatibility conflicts with other people's work. But I don't have unlimited time to track down individual developers and coordinate every aspect of my personal project with them. Nor do I, or should I nor anyone else need their *approval*, unless they specifically used their work.
Finally, I genuinely appreciate that you took the time to respond and that parts of your comment seem intended constructively. But the condescension, the assumptions about my work, and the suggestion that I must earn the right to create through the approval of "real programmers" illustrate exactly the attitude I've been criticizing.
Respect for the people who built this community and criticism of how some people in this subreddit behave are not mutually exclusive.
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u/Nyzer_ 1d ago
There's one that was in development recently that has some of the functionality. But not all of it. That isn't how most people are making their mods at this point, I'm afraid.