Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World [RT4EAF]

[arch feline]

At the time that the location is rolled your origin point is set.  Mostly you cannot move because you are buried somewhere but occasionally you actually end on a walkable surface.  What I love about this is that you can see that they planned on having Martel Temple as a location and probably Gladsheim as well.  There are a few missing groups for encounters and part of the fun is looking for them.

One dumb question I am using the [c] button plus [1] or [2] to roll locations and it takes me forever to get something to happen.  Should I just hold the buttons down or should I press rapidly?

You do know that the Ishrantu is supposed to be a random encounter on a Katz Quest but apparently has been forgotten. Stuff like this does happen.  In Lunar Legend for the DS the only known way to get a collector card for Gabriele is with a cheat code.

But yes.  I am having fun with it.

[dcx2]

When I did open all areas, I found the quest locations listed at first.  I think some of the areas that you can get to with a quest location roll are not actually quest maps.

You do have to hold C and press 1 or 2 a lot to change locations.  There are something like 300-400 location values to roll through, and sometimes adjacent locations have the same name.

[dcx2]

I'll see if I can de-glitch the location roller with that, thanks.

Are you sure something's wrong with your USB Gecko?  If it shows up in Device Manager as "USB Serial Converter", and the USB Gecko icon lights up in HBC, it probably still works.  I know some people say WiiRD stops working for them but Gecko.NET still does.

[arch feline]

Great stuff! I am still working on the first set of codes though.  

Here are locations where quests would occur. You can tell because you get dialog, bosses and you start out on a black screen which reads "loading."

Companion: Curse of the Monster - Martel Temple
Rescue: Monster Medicine - Martel Temple
Rescue: Cooking Wife - Iselia Human Ranch
Suppress: Defeat the Bandits - Iselia Human Ranch  

Actually, Martel Temple is a boring location for a Katz Quest and it is just as well that they left it out.

A gamefaq member (created the Katz Quest topic I link to) pointed out that the Embryo Alpha Group and Griffin Alpha Group might have been placed by Tenebrae's altar: this area is not available in the Temple of Darkness A-rank Katz Quests because of a story event.  Using dcx2's location roller I was able to check and the groups are there.

[dcx2]

I had that problem sometimes.  When loading Gecko OS it would occasionally just black screen with no menu.  Usually it happens the first time I boot the Wii.  I think it happens less if I power up using the Wii's power button, instead of a Wiimote's.

When I got the black screen, I would just shut down the Wii and reboot it again.  Sometimes I would have to do this three or four times before Gecko OS would work.

I think my problem went away when I upgraded to HBC 1.0.8.

Also, if WiiRD doesn't work, try Gecko.NET.  It's a little bit different than WiiRD, but I've heard people say that it works when WiiRD doesn't.  I think there's some extra error checking.  Make sure you launch it after you get to the first game menu; it patches the code handler automatically and apparently some games (like ToS) will freeze if you patch it before the game is at the loading menu.  http://geckowii.googlecode.com/files/Gecko dNet 0.65.1.zip

----

EDIT: just noticed arch feline's edit.  I can try to modify the Quest Roller so that it tells you the numerical value of the location and quest type that you're choosing.

How do you know what encounters are missing?  If you can help me identify them, I might be able to hack them back into the game.

[arch feline]

The numbers will help.  I am still looking for a 3rd location for Monster Medicine.  I guess Gladsheim, Ginnungagap, Building 2 or Hima.

AkaneJones reasoned from A_Doorknob's Encounter Guide.  He looked for groups that did not appear as Alpha Groups.  Hacking in encounter groups is awesome.  I am twitching with excitement here.

Furie group, Alpha Furie group ...

Can you just provide a group roller first so I can see what to ask for?  I want groups that have encounters with Ishrantu, Fenia, Sword Dancer.

It is just strange that for the family of monsters Fire Drake, Sea Wyvern, Wyvern, Wyvern Lord, Ishrantu, Vouivre, Bakunawa that there are Fire Drake group, Sea Wyvern group, Wyvern group, Vouivre group, Bakunawa group = 5 encounter groups and the Ishrantu does not appear.

[dcx2]

I'm still having some trouble figuring out exactly what you want.  It seems like you are much more well-versed in how this game works than I am, which makes sense because I only half-play games since I got into hacking.  I kinda finished one play-through, but I missed some chunks because the gf played while I was at work.

I tried looking at AkaneJones' Quest Guide on the GameFAQs message board, and the A_Doorknob's Encounter guide.  But I'm not sure what I'm looking for...I see what you mean by "looking for missing Alpha groups" but it's a lot of information and it doesn't mean much to me yet.

A group is defined by the monster you see walking around the world map?

---

When you say a Group Roller, do you mean for *any* encounter anywhere (e.g. you could walk around Lake Sinoa Cave and force an encounter with a Sword Dancer group), or do you mean just for a "combat Quest" (e.g. for Visitor in Moonlight quest you want to pick Sword Dancer boss group)

---

Looking at your previous post...are you saying that you found valid locations for quests that cannot normally be accessed when quests are randomly generated?

[arch feline]

I am naming a group by the symbol that you see walking around the map.  After messing around with the first set of rollers I can see that the game does some stuff that rollers cannot change: you can get Visitor by Moonlight by rolling but you will not get the fight that you want.

What I want is group rollers.  Most of all I want a group roller for the alpha groups which appear in A rank quests. Second of all I want a roller for the monsters which roam Gladsheim (Orion, Demon, Ice Titan, ...).  Rollers for everything is something which I would not mind.  A_Doorknob's guide lists the alpha groups and where they are found.  The Katz Quest guide was never accepted.  There are a few archived topics. The topic called Treasure Guide also has the quest list.http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/942210-tales-of-symphonia-dawn-of-the-new-world/51581887

a group roller for the encounters found in D, C, B rank quests
a group roller for the encounters found in A rank quests
a group roller for the encounters found in S rank quests
a group roller for the encounters from the symbols roaming around Gladsheim
a group roller for Katz Quest bosses if there is one


This said it might be simplest to roll a fight over all of the monsters in the book.  I have seen a youtube video of someone in the debug room rolling single monster fights so I guess that this might be more doable than what I want.


* * * * * *

I have been checking out your inexhaustible quest queue, roll the current page of quests (quest randomizer) and change rank.

First off the inexhaustible quest queue gave me quests when I loaded a save that had exhausted all quests. (yay!)  After doing a few quests you end up with all the same quests which of course is no problem with the quest randomizer.  The change rank works for dungeon quests but for battle quests such as Visitor in Moonlight the boss does not change.

^^^ Can you write a code that will change one quest on the list to ?
Search[Treasure Hunter's Trophy The Truth]--------------------------------------(Twilight)
That is roll rank to S, roll type to THT the Truth, roll location to Twilight Palace?

Call it a Twilight Palace code.  Lots of people would use it.  I am guessing that you would need to hard code rank, type and location.


^^^ As you can put text at the top of codes How about?
Inexhaustible quest queue - should be used with quest randomizer
change quest location - expert use only
change quest type - expert use only
Change quest rank - only works for dungeon quests

[dcx2]

I am naming a group by the symbol that you see walking around the map.  After messing around with the first set of rollers I can see that the game does some stuff that rollers cannot change: you can get Visitor by Moonlight by rolling but you will not get the fight that you want.

Yeah, I think the fight is randomly picked when you start the quest.  I didn't see anything in the "quest table" which would predict encounters.

I think I need to make sure we have common terminology.  For example

Jelly Group
-Jelly X3, Goliath X2
-Jelly X3, Embryo, Graeae
-Jelly X2, Moirae, Machina
-Jelly, Graeae, Wyvern X2
-Jelly X5, Pudding

"Jelly Group" defines the symbol that I will see roaming around the map.  The dashed lines identify various sets of monsters that will be encountered if I contact one of those Jelly symbols.  It looks like Alpha groups are composed of the same monster encounters, so it's more like whether the symbol is an Alpha or not.

What I want is group rollers.  Most of all I want a group roller for the alpha groups which appear in A rank quests. Second of all I want a roller for the monsters which roam Gladsheim (Orion, Demon, Ice Titan, ...).  Rollers for everything is something which I would not mind.  A_Doorknob's guide lists the alpha groups and where they are found.  The Katz Quest guide was never accepted.  There are a few archived topics. The topic called Treasure Guide also has the quest list.http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/942210-tales-of-symphonia-dawn-of-the-new-world/51581887

There are two important necessities for a good roller.  You need a way to specify precisely what you want to roll, and you need a way to get feedback from the roller so you know what value you're on.  For instance, when you want to roll a quest's location, the quest that is highlighted will be rolled, but the other quests stay the same, and the location changes in real-time to show you where you're at.

One problem with a group roller is that I need a way to specify what symbol you want to roll.  I don't think you can highlight enemies.

Do you want a symbol roller?  I'm not sure how practical this is, because there's no way to "highlight" the existing symbol on the map.  I could just try to roll everything, and you'd be responsible for running into the symbol you want.  I'm not sure symbols will update in real time...you might have to leave the room and come back.

Or do you want an encounter roller?  So that you could pick whether you were going fight e.g. Jelly X5, Pudding when you run into a Jelly.

Instead of rolling the on-map symbols, I could make an "always fight Orion group" code.  Then a roller based on that which can roll Orion, and a value for specifying "unrolled" (i.e. turn the code off).

Do you want to roll one group (e.g. Jelly group) to another group (e.g. Embryo group), but still have randomly select from the encounters within a group?  This could be like a "group swapper", where you can replace any group with any other group.

The next question is how do you provide feedback on what group you have rolled to?  I think I might have to use the status screen again.  I could hijack the HP and TP displays to show the numbers.

This said it might be simplest to roll a fight over all of the monsters in the book.  I have seen a youtube video of someone in the debug room rolling single monster fights so I guess that this might be more doable than what I want.

When you say "roll a fight over all the monsters in the book", do you mean e.g. roll through each of the encounters in the Jelly group, then each of the encounters in the Griffin group, etc?

Also, what's this debug room?  That might help me nail down a group roller (or encounter roller)

EDIT:

I could probably make a "first quest is always Twilight Palace" code that's compatible with the Randomizer.

Yes, "always have quests" will make sure that you never run out of quests even if you've done them already.  However, quests are still consumed, as you saw you end up with all the same quest.  Don't consume quests will prevent that from happening.

The rank roller doesn't affect battle quests...this is interesting.  Thanks for letting me know

EDIT2:

When you said rank roller doesn't affect battle quests, did you roll rank, and then leave the Katz menu all the way, and then go back to the Katz menu?  For instance, if you roll rank, the rewards won't update until you leave the Katz menu.

[dcx2]

Okay, I've made some more changes to the Quest codes.  You can see this post for a list of all the codes I've made recently.  The modified/new quests are the Quest Randomizer, Quest Roller, and Display Quest details

Quest Randomizer was changed from [hold C then 1], to [press 1 and 2].  This makes it compatible with the Quest Roller.

Quest Roller has changed a bit.  Now, [ + ] or [ - ] will roll rank (no need to hold C, no left/right arrow changing info).  [hold C then +] or [hold C then -] will still roll type.  [hold C then 1] or [hold C then 2] will still roll location.

I decided on this configuration because it will allow everyone to use Quest Roller without needing an "experimental" version.  Rolling rank is the safest, and so does not require the C-modifier.  The C-modifier acts as a bit of protection against rolling type/location.  This also works well with the modified Quest Randomizer.

I think you'll appreciate the new Quest Display code.  While holding C, the recommended level value will temporarily change.  It will display the last value that type/location was changed to.  So if you roll location, you'll see the location's numerical value.  If you then roll type, you'll see that type's numerical value.

[arch feline]

What I mean about rank roller is that on a dungeon location you get the bosses, symbols and chests of the new rank but on a battle quest only the reward changes. Say that you want to fight a Made-In-Heaven.  This is one of the two possible bosses for S-rank Rescue - Mysterious Disappearance.  If you randomize to S-rank Rescue - Mysterious Disappearance you will get this fight or the alternative Incognito boss.  If you roll the rank only; that is you start with S-rank Rescue - Mysterious Disappearance, you still get one of these 2 bosses. this is not like Search - Happy Birthday: if I start in Chapter 2 with D-rank Happy Birthday and roll rank to S I will fight a Fenia instead of a Phantom. Everything changes.



Twilight Palace is an exception to rank roller for a dungeon quest.  You always get the same monster layout,

The quest code configuration is a winner.

At Iselia Human Ranch there is a Poison Leech in the room to the east of the Gerichtslinde boss.  This Poison Leech symbol gives you the alpha Poison Leech group. Is it possible to write a code which rolls this symbol to any alpha symbol?  

[dcx2]

I think I figured something out.

Battle quests determine the boss you will fight based on the quest type's number.  For instance, there are 11 "Mysterious Disappearance" quest types, numbered 18-28.  18 is *always* Gamat Boss.  19 is always Rock Golem boss.  27 is always Made in Heaven boss.  Don't get too excited about hidden quest bosses...28 is a dud, no boss.

Sword Dancer is always quest type number 42.

EDIT:

If you feel like making a list of quest type numbers to bosses, I will post it to the database and give credit to you.

---

Also, could you try this out?  You're more familiar with Twilight Palace so you'd know if something's out of place.

First quest is always Twilight Palace [dcx2]
04493580 000000C8
02493590 00000141

---

As it turns out, I did find the random number generator.  This is cool and could be quite helpful.

I've been trying to learn more about encounters, but it still eludes me.  I did find a way to make monsters respawn faster after you kill them.

[frubam]

I've been trying to learn more about encounters, but it still eludes me.  I did find a way to make monsters respawn faster after you kill them.

You might already know about this, but the encounters are located in memory and determine what monster you fight. I think it's at 0x2EDD00(there's a file table of some sorts above it) and continue to around 0x2F5CE0. Goes by this format:

0P00ZZZZ YYYYXXXX WWWWN1N2 N3N40000 0000L1L1 L2L2L3L3 L4L40000

Where:
P is either 1 or 0. Don't know the difference. Perhaps random enc vs static enc? Or perhaps it cues some voice dialogue. Never bothered to find out =0\
Z,Y,X,W represent the half-word hex value of the enemy.
N1,2,3,4 represents the quantity of each enemy respectively(no more than 10 in one battle).
L1L1,2,3,4 represent the level of the enemy. It generally looked like a byte was used twice, so maybe each byte represents a range. Max level of the enemy looks like 510 when set to 0xffff on Unknown.



Quick example: If I wanted to find the first Lloyd battle, I could just type in "015C 0000 0000 0000 01 00 00 00" minus the spaces(0x15c is the value for enemy lloyd) the other 0s are empty and one signifies a quantity of 1 for that enemy type.

[arch feline]

Finding the random number generator is awesome.  Is there only one random number generator?  

I will check out the Twilight Palace Code and I will work on that list.  ???UNLESS someone else wants to do the list of quest type number and the boss you get on battle quests? 

I want to test out the Twilight Palace Code carefully.  I will test each of chapters 2 - 8 and I will test it alone and with other codes.

[dcx2]

Damn, frubam.  Way to go.  I didn't know any of that.  That will certainly help me figure out some stuff.  The table is at 802EDD00 - I swear I've seen that base pointer before...I was probably too busy chasing something else.

EDIT:

Why does your game look so different?

---

As far as I could tell, the PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator) that I found is called from all over the place.  My guess is that it's the CRT "srand()" function.

There is one common function which calls the PRNG, and it typically gets bounded integer return values (i.e. make me a random number between e.g. 0 and 100).  This function seems to be what's called most of the time when it needs a random integer.  For instance, it's called when quests are randomized, it's called when rewards are randomized, it's called at the end of making a pact to determine whether your pact was successful.  I bet it's also called for item drops and steals; once I finish some sort of encounter roller, I'll make something that increases odds of rare drops and steals.