Dissidia: Final Fantasy - JP Version ability sort bug exploitation guide by fallacies version o.2 (o3\Io\2oo9) =============================================================================== [C] Table of Contents =============================================================================== C Table of Contents O About this Guide I Overview II The Ability Menu III How do I use the Bug? IV Mastery of Successions =============================================================================== [O] About this Guide =============================================================================== o3/o9/2oo9 - ver. o.I - Ist draft o3/Io/2oo9 - ver. o.2 - Initial Publication Draft for GameFAQs. This is a quick and simple guide for the Ability Sort Bug in the Japanese version of Dissidia: Final Fantasy. It assumes that the player has some knowledge of Japanese -- specifically, familiarity with the game terminology. Included Japanese text content is best viewed in Shift-JIS encoding with a browser. This version of the guide does not include methods for obtaining specific succession abilities using sort. If requested, I will attempt to provide this information in the future. In the meantime, try and play around with the sort option. You might find what you're looking for. This guide can be freely redistributed as long as its contents aren't modified. Please credit Fallacies for authorship. Any questions, suggestions, clarification requests, information additions, or corrections may be submitted to: [email protected] Please head the subject with [DFF]. =============================================================================== [I] Overview =============================================================================== A basic explanation of the Ability Sort Bug was first posted to a Chinese web- community for Japanese Dissidia sometime in January 2009. In brief, there is a bug in the algorithm used by the game to implement the "sort by" option in the Ability Menu. As a consequence, if any of the non- Default sort orders are selected, succession Brave Attack Abilities that can normally not be directly equipped may appear in the list of equippable abilities. For Gabranth, even the HP Attack Menu is influenced. To give a plain-language example of this phenomenon: Cloud has an airborne Brave Attack called Slash-Blow. Once Slash-Blow is mastered, he gains a succession/followup attack for it called Omnislash Ver.5 (the version of Omnislash used in Advent Children), which causes HP damage. The fully mastered Slash-Blow requires 15 CP to equip, and having it equipped is a prerequisite to equipping Omnislash Ver.5, which requires another 20 CP on mastery. Thus, under normal circumstances, Cloud must allot a minimum of 35 CP just to have Ver.5 in his movelist. When the Ability Sort Bug is exploited, the Omnislash Ver.5 can be equipped without any prerequisite. In combat, pressing the keys for whatever Brave Attack slot you put it into produces the normal Slash-Blow attack, which may be followed up by the Omnislash Ver.5 by pressing the Square button once the Slash-Blow has landed as usual. Effectively, you're equipping *both* Slash-Blow and Omnislash Ver.5 for only 20 CP. Characters with more than one form can exploit the sort bug to access Attack Abilities that are non-native to whatever form they happen to be in. Cecil's Dark Knight form can thus equip attacks normally usable only in Paladin form and vice versa; Gabranth's EX-Mode HP Attacks may be used in normal mode, and his EX-Charge ability may be accessed in EX-Mode (not that this is extremely useful). Shortly following the discovery of the bug, the majority of the Dissidia communities in Japan unsurprisingly decided to ban its use in semi-formal tournaments. It is now primarily used in informal matches to conserve CP allotment -- making space for more action abilities and critical-augmentation abilities. There is another use, described in section [IV] below. =============================================================================== [II] The Ability Menu =============================================================================== Making use of the bug is easier if the player has some familiarity with the ability menu. A basic menu translation is given below: �U���A�r���e�B Attack Abilities Menu �u���C�u�U�� Brave Attacks Menu HP�U�� HP Attacks Menu ��{�A�r���e�B Basic Abilities Menu �A�N�V���� Action Abilities Menu �T�|�[�g Support Abilities Menu �G�L�X�g�� Extra Abilities Menu �f�t�H���g Reset Abilities to Default ���ׂĂ͂��� Unequip All Abilities �������X�g List of Currently Accessible Abilities Of specific relevence to this guide is the Ability Sort Menu, which is accessible by pressing the Triangle Button in the List of Currently Accessible Abilities, the Action Abilities Menu, the Support Abilities Menu, or the Extra Abilities Menu. The Sort effect determines the order in which abilities are listed throughout the entire Ability Menu -- that is, even outside of whatever menu you used Sort in. A translation of the Ability Sort Menu is given below: �f�t�H���g Default Sort Order Resets the sort order to the game default. This is the sort order automatically in effect whenever you enter the Ability Menu. �ݐ�AP�������� Sort by Highest to Lowest AP Accumulated Lists first the abilities for which the character has accumulated the highest amount of AP for. �ݐ�AP�����Ȃ��� Sort by Lowest to Highest AP Accumulated Lists first the abilities for which the character has accumulated the lowest amount of AP for. ������ Sort by Currently Equipped Lists first the abilities the character presently has equipped. Note that a character can have up to three different builds, indicated above the Ability Menu options as Set A, Set B, and Set C. You can switch between them freely by pressing the select button within most parts of the Character Customize Menu. This feature is extremely useful for experimentation. =============================================================================== [III] How do I use the Bug? =============================================================================== The simple answer is that if you change the sort order in the Ability Sort Menu, the attacks listed in either the Brave or HP Attacks Menu change, occasionally resulting in the appearance of abilities that are typically unequippable. The only sort option that has no chance of triggering the bug is Default. The complex answer is that the list of abilities produced after a sort differs according to which sort option you use; and that the sort turnout is determined by what abilities are equipped and the amount of AP the character has accumulated for everything so far unlocked. No-prerequisite successions are only equippable from the category of their parent -- meaning that because Slash-Blow is an airborne Brave Attack, Omnislash Ver.5 may only be equipped as an airborne Brave Attack. For a very rough sense of what attacks are rendered equippable by the bug, refer to the top of the List of Currently Accessible Abilities after executing a sort. Note also that when a character has an extremely large number of succession attacks, a fraction of these never appear on sort regardless of what you do. Sort by Currently Equipped is in theory the most easily exploitable sort option, as the turnout has a very high chance of being whatever attacks you presently have equipped. To give an example, if Cloud equips Slash-Blow and Omnislash Ver.5, subsequently applying this sort almost *guarantees* the presence of the no-prerequisite Ver.5 in turnout. Sort results for the two AP-based sort orders can potentially change *every time the character gains AP* -- thus, Cloud might be able to equip the Omnislash Ver.5 without prerequisite before a given match, but disequipping and attempting to reequip using the same exact sort option after gaining some AP may result in the Ver.5 disappearing from the no-prerequisite ability list. AP-based sorts stabilize after all abilities accessible by the character have been learned and mastered. Note that this does not mean that the Ability Sort Bug is rendered unusable -- rather, it makes the sort turnout *more reliable*, in the sense that gaining more AP no longer causes the generated list of abilities to wildly fluctuate. On the downside, certain succession attacks vanish permanently from the sort results. The Ability Sort Bug does not influence characters with only one form and no succession attacks. =============================================================================== [IV] Mastery of Successions =============================================================================== There are a number of more obvious ways to exploit the bug, but here I'll be describing a use that benefits characters that haven't mastered all abilities yet -- a method of greatly accelerating the mastery of non-Basic Abilities. The Chaos fight is divided into three stages, and the reward for passing each stage is calculated as if it were a single match. This means that if you beat Chaos twice and lose the third match, you are rewarded all of the battle-rise and AP that you won in the first two matches. If you've bought all of the AP Calendar Icon items in the PP Catalog, on Special Day and the days with the AP Icon, fulfillment of the AP Chance condition given at the bottom right of the screen at the beginning of the fight rewards you with 6 AP per match -- a total of 18 AP if you beat Chaos three times. After unlocking the option to fight Chaos in Quick Battle (beat the game once and purchase it from the PP Catalog), equip the Diamond series items (+100% AP) and the independent accessory Maneki Neko (+100% AP) on a character that you want to master attack abilities. Equip as few basic abilities as possible, and then proceed to fight Level 1 Chaos. If you fulfill the AP Chance condition now, you gain 300% of your normal AP -- meaning that three AP Chance fulfillments versus Chaos gives you 54 AP instead of 18. Any attack ability may be equipped a maximum of three times. If equipped once, successful completion of a Chaos fight accumulates 54 AP to the attack's mastery bar. If equipped twice, 108 AP accumulated per fight. If equipped three times, 162 AP is accumulated per fight. Under normal circumstances, using this method to master succession/followup attacks consumes a huge amount of CP -- for example, it takes an allocation of 165 CP to equip the unmastered Omnislash Ver.5 three times (including the cost of equipping Slash-Blow). Using the sort bug exploit, however, equipment of the Ver.5 costs only 120 CP; and after 2 fights with level 1 Chaos, the ability is completely mastered.