FE: Awakening 0% Growths

[VincentASM]

Sorry it took this long.

I'm not actually sure if this already exists or not, but somebody asked me recently and I had some spare time to do some tinkering around with the files.

Download

[spoiler=Instructions for Homebrew users]Before beginning, you must have the latest Homebrew installed. If you have Homebrew, but aren't sure if it's the latest build, go and update it.

If you don't have Homebrew or don't know what it is, check Smealum's amazing site:

http://smealum.github.io/3ds/

0. You must own the physical or digital version of Fire Emblem Awakening.

1. Download braindump and install it on your 3DS:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/braindump-prerelease-dump-game-contents-on-any-system-version.400920/

2. Use braindump to dump Fire Emblem Awakening (from your cartridge or SD card) to your SD card.

This can take a long time, but so long as you have enough space (around 1 GB) and the program doesn't crash, you don't need to worry.

Once the program is finished, you will have an exefs and romfs file inside the braindump folder, inside a folder with a bunch of numbers as its name.

3. Move your romfs file from your SD card to your PC and extract its contents with RomFS Extractor:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b3wx0oqq7clnlo0/RomFS%20Extractor.zip?dl=0

This will likely take a long time again, since you are extracting a 1 GB file.

4. Open your newly created "romfs_" folder and navigate to the "data" folder. Replace the GameData.bin.lz in here with the hacked one. Next, go further inside to the "person" folder and replace Static.bin.lz with the hacked one.

5. Download RomFS Builder (the zip file):

https://github.com/SciresM/RomFS-Builder/releases

Open RomFS Builder and select the romfs_ folder, then press "Go" to create your modified romfs file. Again, this will take a long time, so sit back and relax.

6. After you've created your modified romfs file, check the original folder in your SD card where you retrieve the original romfs file. Note down the numbers (and letters) of the folder.

Now rename your modified romfs file to have the last 8 numbers/letters of the folder and add ".romfs" to the end of the file.

Eg. My romfs file was inside 000400000009f100, so my modified romfs file should be 0009f100.romfs

7. Create a folder called "hans" in the root directory of your SD card (the very first place you see, where you have folders like "3DS" and "DCIM") and place your modified romfs file inside this new hans folder.

8. Boot up your Homebrew menu, load up HANs and select Fire Emblem Awakening. Move the cursor down to where it says "Romfs -> SD" and toggle it to "YES".

You may notice HANS will display the romfs path below.

If it says "INVALID", you've done something wrong; check that your romfs file is correctly named and it's in the right place. If you can't see "INVALID", you're doing good so far.

9. Move your cursor down to "OK" and press A. Fingers crossed...

Basic troubleshooting

Q. I did everything up to 9, but my game stopped after the opening movie.

A. You probably have an outdated HANs or Homebrew launcher. Update and try again.

Q. I have another problem!

A. Sorry, you'll have to ask someone else. I'm just the guy fiddling around with the files.

I don't have custom firmware, so I can't help there. If anybody does and can provide instructions, I'll link it here.

What I've done:

1. Set every playable character and class to have 0% growths.

2. Removed Avatar growth mods.

3. Neutered Aptitude.

(BTW, it's probably super easy for Fates since the growth rates are ciphered in that game.)

Notes:

1. This hack hasn't been fully tested; I'm not much of a 0% growth player, but it seems kinda fun.

2. Not 100% sure if it works for the NA or JPN versions, but I don't think the files are different.

3. No idea if Bonus characters (SpotPass/DLC) are affected.

Sharing:

1. You can share and edit this to your liking. I probably won't update it unless there's a glaring issue.

Edited December 22, 2015 by VincentASM

[Espinosa]

Well, that sure was quick, thanks a lot Vincent! It's recorded LTC run time in my world now!

I'll be sure to report how everything works.

[Elieson]

Psh, you put it on Reddit first instead of here. I'm appauled.

[Carmine Sword]

Now I can finally put that FE:A 0% growths theory-crafting I did to use!

Edited December 22, 2015 by Carmine Sword

[fengaridotdll]

So, we've finally figured out how growths work in Awakening?

[VincentASM]

So, we've finally figured out how growths work in Awakening?

No, I think the final piece of the puzzle was solved in early 2015. Hence my "apologies for being late" comment.

Back then, I noticed the ciphered growth rates were following a particular pattern as you moved between characters and classes. After a while, I found out how to reproduce the pattern and thus I could manually remove it.

However it was only fairly recent that Smealum created HANS so not just people with custom firmware (i.e. a small minority of people) can play ROM hacks.

EDIT: But I don't think I released any public notes.

Edited December 22, 2015 by VincentASM

[Espinosa]

Posting to ask if anybody here has successfully got this to work yet.

I've been trying to accomplish this on and off during the last month, going through the forest of confusing (for me, since I'm really awful at these hacking things and the 3DS ones are way more complicated than the easy edits with readymade tools I'd ever had to do before) manipulations with the console to downgrade / upgrade stuff, set-up menuhax and so on and so forth, and the only thing that hasn't still worked out for me is getting this hack to work.

The furthest I've got is the game freezing each time on the Avatar Creation screen (right when the A button prompt appears) OR immediately after loading a save if on HANS. I've tried braindump and Decrypt9WIP to dump / decrypt the original game (and a .3ds file since that's what you need for Decrypt9WIP), tried both HANS through Homebrew and installed .cia (same effect) - no luck. Cias work for me fine, but not this one that I've been failing to produce following Vince's instructions here and also what I found on gbatemp.

Would really appreciate if somebody could lend a hand here as I've been dying for some 0% growths LTC action with seemingly all the resources available, especially now that Vince's gone through the trouble of editing all the growths out.

EDIT: *I think* it's working now...

Edited January 30, 2016 by Espinosa