Need some assistance with my hack, maps, events, graphics

I don't want to give away the project details since my FF6 mod is still secret but I am going to need some help. What details I can release is that I'm porting a non-Square RPG from the SNES over to FF6. That's right, a complete game rewrite! If all goes well and the community likes the final product I'd like to do a true sequel. I'm also going to be doing this as a complete in box reproduction as well with TimeWalk Games. I should be able to get free copies for those major contributors who help out the most. Talk about a good incentive! :D The more you can do the better, I'd almost prefer to have the least amount of people possible...I know that sounds weird but the smaller the group the more efficient it is. While I don't have a definitive deadline for release I'd like to have a good steady amount of progress at whatever pace suits you as long as progress is being made.

Progress so far:
-I've already got 70-75% of the storyboard and planning done.
-The overworld map is sitting at about 50%.
-The items are 95% done.
-The magic, characters and etc related data is at 5%. :(
-Fonts and menu window graphics are 100% done.
-Music is 85% complete. :)

What I need the most help with:
-Maps. I need someone to assist me or take over drawing the game's area maps. This is the most time consuming part of the redesign. I'm going to use FF4Tools to roughly design what ideas I have on paper of what the areas should look like to give a better visual representation to use as a rough template for the mapper.
-Graphics. More specifically characters and NPCs. I'm not a spriter and don't pretend to be.
-Graphics part deux. More specifically battle backgrounds and assistance creating a title screen based upon the original game's design. I'm doing a splash screen intro but would like the actual in-game's title screen to be changed as well.
-Graphics part trois. Replacing/removing the translucent little overword map in the corner of the screen. I'd prefer to remove it and the position red dot altogether.
-Events. Once the maps are done I'll need some assistance coding events. The good news is the game I'm porting is so simple the events won't be too much of a headache. :) The hardest part here is creating the title, intro and the ending.
-Music. I've got music covered between myself and Nattak! :D
-Assembly. Things like changing the damage formulas, changing what the character stats affect and other misc items that if told would give away the project. ;)
-Magic and weapons. While I can do this stuff myself mostly I would like an expert to assist/take ownership here and also to give his or her input to use an additional smart brain for another perspectives to more accurately represent the original game's feel. I'd like to have a new magic menu done loosely based on how the Lore menu looks but with 14-16 spaces for names and possibly having the ability to learn them at various level ups.

Any takers? Please feel free to use this topic to ask questions and discuss what I've posted above. Just don't ask what the game is or ask questions that would reveal the game in question. :D

Lastly, please no requests for beta testers. I cannot stress this enough, beta testing is so far in the future I don't even want to see the words "beta test".

Sounds interesting for sure. I might be able to contribute with spriting if you need the help. Feel free to PM me if you want to discreetly discuss what kind of sprites you are looking for.

Also, "beta test."

PM sent.

hmm... if u have any weird animal npcs in mind lemme know... since i might make some npc pokemon in my hack that have close to the same base.

I'm actually going to work on a patch that fixes up all of the NPC's graphical issues (the older merchant, the old lady, the townsman, chupon etc.), as well as a few inconsistencies with some chars (Celes, Kefka, Shadow, Imperial Soldier, and the ghost)

once its done I'll send it your way

I'm slowly making progress on this but I could use some help in three very important things.

Title screen:
I just cannot edit the title screen or simply bypass it altogether. I've been able to get a splash screen intro done but my goal to have it go from splash screen to Load Save screen OR edit the title screen graphics themself.

Damage / Defense formulas:
New physical damage, physical defense, magical damage and magical defense formulas. I just don't have the assembly skills with this.

Menu edits:
Removal of some of the main menu options (Config, Skills, etc). I would like a very simple main menu consisting of...
Item
Magic (replace Skills and have it point straight to Magic)
Equip
Status
Save

Does anyone have time to help out on this?

Damage / Defense formulas:
New physical damage, physical defense, magical damage and magical defense formulas. I just don't have the assembly skills with this.

Do you have any thoughts as to what you want the formulas to be? Having implemented a new physical damage formula in BNW, I can probably help out with this, though I can't say my work will be especially fast. I tend to do most of my hacking on night shift at work, which is usually one week out of every month.

No worries, speed is not important.

I'm up for ideas on these formulas. I just know I would like weapon/physical skill power to be toned down so getting 9999 damage is more rare like it was in FF4. And I'd also like Stamina to play a huge role with physical defense while evade can be left alone I guess. As for magical defense...I'm not really sure how it's calculated now to know what to change. I just know magical defense needs to be slightly stronger while magical evade needs to be almost (if not completely) eliminated.

Thoughts?

Defense is calculated the same way regardless of the type of attack:

Code:

Damage = (Damage * (255 - Defense) / 256) + 1

The only thing that changes is which defense stat to use.

As for damage, this is what we came up with for BNW, but it's obviously tuned to the vigor and battle power scaling we implemented:

Code:

Dmg = 2Vgr + BatPwr + ((Lv^2 * Vgr / 16) * (BatPwr / 16)) / 24

Outside of a lucky crit, I'm not sure it's possible to damage cap with a physical attack in BNW since we also capped levels at 50.

Still, coming up with a good formula would require knowing how stats and equipment scale. I think the best way is to create some benchmarks at various points in the game (that is, what you're expecting the average character to look like at certain levels, including equipment) and run some numbers that way to see if the damage falls within your expected or desired range. We also ran some extreme numbers (the highest possible vigor/strongest weapon at a certain point in the game) to make sure the high-end values didn't get out of hand.

We didn't touch the magic damage formula, but I think the approach would be similar.

The other consideration is what this would do to enemy damage. Because enemy vigor is generally static (it's a random number between 56 and 63), we allowed them to use the default physical damage formula to make their damage output easier to adjust in usME.

Ooh, thank you for the information. I need to think about this and I will definitely take your suggestion on the levels for the physical damage.

On monsters physical damage instead of the random 56-63 could the range be widened to say 16 to 84?

As for defense, is it possible to do something similar to the physical damage to use Stamina and Defense?

I hope you don't mind all my questions. Just trying to learn.