I haven't gotten around to testing every condition but noticed some annoyances:
- In-built hero remote defenses work as expected when used on campaign and custom heroes
- Custom hero remote defenses instead trigger the campaign/custom hero to use their own defense, ignoring energy limits (will result in a stun if overdrawing) OR do nothing
- Making a custom copy of a campaign hero with remote defense will do nothing on other custom heroes or CTD on campaign heroes
- Both cause a crash to desktop when used on non-hero units
Note: this is all in the unmodded :ffvstr:
Has anyone worked out what's driving the unexpected behaviors?
If I remember correctly, it never worked entirely as intended due to game bugs. There was a beta patch fixing this (or attempting to, I don't remember if it worked 100%), but it was never officially released by Irrational Games, as it may have caused rare system freezes or something.
And of course, by that point, IG probably needed to put their resources elsewhere, as FFvsTTR clearly hadn't been nearly profitable enough, which would explain why the patch was never fixed and deemed ready for release.
Thanks for the background Epimethee. I think I understand the behavior now.
This testing was done in the Rumble Room - campaign results may vary. The behaviour is dependent on whether you're using Campaign heroes or Custom heroes, and what's in your power slot (as in the potential 10 powers each unit can have)
For example, I have custom hero 1 with 2x remotes (bubble & fire), casting on a different custom hero 2 with just a remote defense (hyper spin).
Custom hero 1 uses remote defense from slot 1 (bubbles) on custom hero 2 results in hero 2 using the slot 1 power (hyper spin) only if it's a shield. If not, then the end FX of the last used shield plays, or nothing. If instead there's nothing in the slot then you get a CTD, which is what using the fire shield does. If we fill out all of custom hero 2's powers with dummies then he will never get a CTD from another custom remote defense.
If I copy quetz as a custom and want to use his own shields on self, have another custom hero use a slot 8 or slot 10 remote shield used on the quetz custom. Note: Doing this with the actual campaign Quetz will CTD if the custom remote lines up with slots 8 or 10 (his shields, or vice versa) - otherwise will do nothing.
In the campaign:
Campaign hero Remote Defenses behave as expected, you can even shield enemies with Quetz's proxy shield. A custom hero can trigger a campaign hero's Active Defense using a remote defense. Powers that are not unlocked are treated as empty for the purpose of crashing the game. Also the structure of powers needs to be considered - for instance to make tombstone activate translucency he must have the power (through levelling or DEBUG_ALLPOWERS=1) and the remote defence must be in slot 9 (as he only has 4 powers in tier 1, and translucency is the 4th in tier 2)
It's also not true that custom heroes casting on a non-hero causes CTD - crashes are dictated by power slots being blank on the target. By taking a remote defense as the first power, with no damage types blocked (free skill!) you can use it to instantly interrupt the animation of enemy attacks, this is especislly effective on beams and cones as the attack ends mid-flight (Frost Warrior's Cold Fusion Ray, Fortissimo/Nuclear winter cones, Blitzkrieg area, all reich eye attacks)
Very nice detective work and a beautiful exploit with that remote animation interruption to boot, RingsOfReznor!
Quote from: Epimethee on August 08, 2025, 02:24:12 AMVery nice detective work and a beautiful exploit with that remote animation interruption to boot, RingsOfReznor!
Glad you liked it!
You might also enjoy this .gif-enhanced guide to playing ping-pong in FFvTTR...
FFvTTR projectile bug - steam guide (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3531136166)
Quote from: RingsOfReznor on August 08, 2025, 06:33:08 AMYou might also enjoy this .gif-enhanced guide to playing ping-pong in FFvTTR...
FFvTTR projectile bug - steam guide (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3531136166)
Interesting! If it continues working after both target characters have moved, that could have been the basis of some special FFX power...
Quote from: Epimethee on August 09, 2025, 05:39:40 PMQuote from: RingsOfReznor on August 08, 2025, 06:33:08 AMYou might also enjoy this .gif-enhanced guide to playing ping-pong in FFvTTR...
FFvTTR projectile bug - steam guide (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3531136166)
Interesting! If it continues working after both target characters have moved, that could have been the basis of some special FFX power...
Oh it absolutely does. Once the first rebound occurs the targets are effectively paired and can move however and the projectile will only ever travel between them, until it expires.