[Tutorial] Final Fantasy XIII-2 Save Hacking: Monster Abilities

[Ryudo]

I figured it's best to make a new thread for this rather than putting this in the Item Thread, in order to keep both topics clean and organized.
So after lots of experimenting I finally have some info worth posting.


Things to do beforehand:

• If you want to have 10 abilities on a monster that originally has 5, you will have to first infuse some junk monsters to fill up his passive abilities to 10.
  The reason for this is because when you add an entirely new ability manually, it somehow screws with the Save, corrupting the data.
  Replacing an existing ability is perfectly fine, BUT you have to make sure you match the byte difference listed further below in the post. Otherwise you'll end up with the same corruption!
• Download HxD Hex Editor, and make sure you use that tool only. This guide was made using that program.

[MONSTER ABILITIES] [OFFSET START]: 0x60300

This is where your Monsters are all listed. It will probably look VERY confusing at first, and it might even be a maze to even figure out where your monster is. I recommend that you infuse some 'pretty rare' ability that you don't have much yet to your monster, and then you can find your monster from there.


Fun facts regarding Abilities:
Did you know, originally the best passive ability for a Monster in terms of STR/MATK boost is 35% from the Tonberry monster.
However, you can actually set it to 50%, giving your monster a huge boost compared to before.

Alright, let's get down to business;
Listed below is some basic entries I figured out after lots of testing by going in-game and checking the values here. I listed both the hex, and text-strings. I recommend you work with the text strings, because the general rule of "FF" for 255 doesn't apply here. Also when you see "??" in the hex, please move to the text-strings instead, and just use enter the correct value listed at the end instead. (auto_att_8 = 35% STR)

Byte Differences
Alright, this is to explain the trickier part with the byte differences. Before you can change an ability, you have to know exactly when to 'start' with the next ability. Doing this wrong can easily ruin your Save.
It's imperative that you keep a back-up of your Saves before attempting to add/change abilities! In the Ability Table below I already added the byte differences, but I wanted to keep this section in the Tutorial to explain it either way. If you're only editing one number (auto_att_5 to auto_att_8) then you won't be editing much, but if you're changing an entire ability, it's a different story.

• AWP Special Abilities - 2 byte difference, new entry.
• MATT - 3 byte difference, new entry.
• ATT - 4 byte difference, new entry.
• HPP - 4 byte difference, new entry.
• auto_p_[buff] - 3 byte difference, new entry.
• auto_[buff] - 5 byte difference, new entry.
• (Element Def) auto_?defp_? - 2 byte difference, new entry.
• (Status Def) auto_sdefp - 3 byte difference, new entry.
• auto_syncmax (FERAL SURGE) - 2 byte difference, new entry. (Seems to corrupt the Save sadly, no matter what you do, so don't add this to your monster abilities unless you want to completely break your Save and freeze your console).
• (Magic Resistance) auto_mdefp_? - 3 byte difference, new entry.
  
  • [buff] = Stands for any buff. So example, if you want to add Auto Bravery and Auto Haste, you type auto_brav first then you move ahead 5 bytes to add a auto_hast.

Passive Abilities: Offense
61 75 74 6F 5F 61 74 74 5F ?? 00 00 00 00 // auto_att_? = Strength +??% (7 = 25%, 8 = 35%, 9 = 50%) // Don't go higher than 9.
61 75 74 6F 5F 6D 61 74 74 5F ?? 00 00 00 // auto_matt_? = Magic +??% (7 = 25%, 8 = 35%, 9 = 50%) // Don't go higher than 9.

Passive Abilities: Defense & Buffs
61 75 74 6F 5F 62 72 61 76 00 00 00 00 00 // auto_brav = Auto-Bravery
61 75 74 6F 5F 70 5F 62 72 61 76 00 00 00 // auto_p_brav = Critical: Bravery
61 75 74 6F 5F 68 61 73 74 00 00 00 00 00 // auto_hast = Auto-Haste
61 75 74 6F 5F 70 5F 68 61 73 74 00 00 00 // auto_p_hast = Critical: Haste
61 75 74 6F 5F 66 61 69 74 00 00 00 00 00 // auto_fait = Auto-Faith
61 75 74 6F 5F 70 5F 66 61 69 74 00 00 00 // auto_p_fait = Critical: Faith

61 75 74 6F 5F 64 65 66 5F 73 ?? 00 00 00 // auto_def_s? = Resilience +??% (3 = 20%, 4 = 40%, 5 = 60%) // 60% is the max, any higher will 'null' it.
61 75 74 6F 5F 6D 64 65 66 70 5F 33 00 00 // auto_mdefp_? = Resist Magic +??% (3 = 15%, no idea about the rest yet, it's a bit of a weird number. For Physical; 7 is 36%, but it might be different for Magic, will have to test this).
61 75 74 6F 5F 64 65 66 70 5F 37 00 00 00 // auto_defp_? = Resist Phyisical +??% (7 = 36%)

Status Abilities:
61 75 74 6F 5F 68 70 70 5F ?? 00 00 00 00 // auto_hpp_? = HP +??% (7 = 20%, 8 = 25%, 9 = 30%)

Special Abilities:
These are special abiltiies usually found on the locked ability spot for Monsters, modifying these can be a bit buggy when overwriting existing Special Abilities.
61 77 70 5F 63 30 30 32 5F 31 30 30 00 00 // awp_c002_100 = Chain Bonus Boost
61 77 70 5F 63 30 30 30 5F 30 35 30 00 00 // awp_c000_050 = ATB Charge II
61 77 70 5F 63 30 30 33 5F 31 30 30 00 00 // awp_c003_100 = Siphon Boost
61 75 74 6F 5F 62 5F 61 74 62 00 00 00 00 // auto_b_atb = Kill: ATB Charge


EXAMPLE MOD:
Here is an example of a modded Red Chocobo (COM).


As you can see I have given him 60% Resilience, +50% Strength and Magic, Auto Bravery, Critical: Haste, Critical: Bravery, +30% HP and his default Ability; Stagger Maintenance. Before I modified him I first added 10 junk abilities to make sure I had enough space available to add these abilities.

The following entries are used to add these abilities:



Text-strings: (Each dot represents a "00" in hex!)

awp_c002_200..auto_att_9....auto_matt_9...auto_hpp_9....auto_brav.....auto_p_hast...auto_p_brav...auto_def_s5

Hex:

61 77 70 5F 63 30 30 32 5F 32 30 30 00 00
61 75 74 6F 5F 61 74 74 5F 39 00 00 00 00
61 75 74 6F 5F 6D 61 74 74 5F 39 00 00 00
61 75 74 6F 5F 68 70 70 5F 39 00 00 00 00
61 75 74 6F 5F 62 72 61 76 00 00 00 00 00
61 75 74 6F 5F 70 5F 68 61 73 74 00 00 00
61 75 74 6F 5F 70 5F 62 72 61 76 00 00 00
61 75 74 6F 5F 64 65 66 5F 73 35 00 00 00

[CloudStrife7x]

very awesome tutorial Ryudo, great share man, this will definitely come in handy :)

[Barx001]

thxxxx for sharing this is very interesting

[ldsdrive]

Found one ability called auto_shorten (Rapid Recovery) that has 2 blank bytes after it instead of 4. Is it normal?

[ldsdrive]

Just found out one of my posts is gone. LOL

[iKing]

can i hex edit don tonberry's perpetual poison to another useful ability ? because one time i tried with another monster but i got an corrupted save so... hope someone helps lol

[Ryudo]

can i hex edit don tonberry's perpetual poison to another useful ability ? because one time i tried with another monster but i got an corrupted save so... hope someone helps lol

Is it the default ability? (I don't remember Don Tonberry's abilities lol).

[catzilla]

hey Ryudo, have you ever tried to actually hex the number of ATB bars on your creatures? if we can pick up COM Boost II and have 6 ATB bars on the monsters it would be cool. :D