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Final Fantasy XIII-2 Guide

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Start Guide

Prerequisites

As well as Archipelago and the AP World, you will also require:

First time setup

Download the latest prerelease version of FFModdingWPF here 0.8 Pre-release. Specifically, the "FF13_2Randomizer0.8.x.y.7z" archive.

Unpack this where you want, but bear in mind that the modpacks will be generated in its subfolders and can be quite large, so ensure you have sufficient hard drive space.

Once unpacked, start the tool, and point the 2 paths at the top to your FF13-2 installation folder, and your Nova install.

Nova Setup

NOTE: Nova 2+ is required for the randomizer to function as expected, if you have an old Nova 1.x install you will need to download the newer version.

If you don't already have Nova setup, click the download link to the right of the Nova Chrysalia Path entry box in the randomiser tool, and follow the setup there.

Once Nova is installed, start it up, setup your FF13-2 installation folder (and the other trilogy games if desired), ensure the active game is set to FF13-2, and in the rightmost column, click the button marked "Unpack Game Data (EN Audio)". This will take some time.

If you wish to use DLC regions/items in the randomiser, you will also need to obtain the "DLC Restoration - Console Content" mod for FF13-2.

Post Nova Setup

Once your game is unpacked, CLOSE NOVA CHRYSALIA, and return to the Randomizer tool. Setup your Nova Chrysalia installation directory (if done correctly, the version of nova will be autodetected by the tool), and you're ready to go!

Leaving nova open when generating a modpack will lead to various strange issues. The tool will attempt to warn you at some points in the process if the program is open, but is not quite smart enough to detect if you open it at a bad time during generation, so please don't :)

Understanding generation options (AP)

Historia Crux randomisation

shuffle_historia_crux

If enabled, causes the Historia Crux to be randomised. This acts as an "Entrance Randomiser", causing you to start in a random area, and for some gates to lead you to areas they would not normally.

It is generally recommend to also enable Battle/Boss randomisation in the post-generation options when using this flag, as otherwise encounters in the area you start with may be unwinnable.

fixed_crux_start

To ease some of the issues with battle scaling, and to provide some more early game familiarity, you can choose the following options to fix the starting location(s) even when the Historia Crux is randomised.

allow_dlc_locations

By enabling this option, the 3 DLC locations will be added to the Historia Crux randomisation pool. Currently these locations contain no checks, but also adds 3 additional starting locations that will be unlocked from the beginning of the seed.

Enabling this option requires the "DLC Restoration" mod to be present within Nova Chrysalia for post-generation to function.

Item randomisation options

allow_dlc_items

Add items from the DLC into the pool.

Enabling this option requires the "DLC Restoration" mod to be present within Nova Chrysalia for post-generation to function.

fully_remote_items

Enabling this option will cause AP to place excluded/junk locations rather than post-generation.

After generating a game

Once a room is generated, you should be provided (or be able to download from the room page) a .apff132 file.

Open the FF13-2 randomizer tool, and select the button marked "Load from ZIP/APFF132", and select this downloaded file.

You can then adjust various local only settings, which do not affect item placement, but can adjust your experience to your taste.

(Images tbd)

Local / post-generation settings

Most options are either self-explanatory or have a help string in the randomizer tool, but here's a quick reference also (which may be out of sync with reality as new options are added/amended - if something looks wrong here yell at MLSTRM to fix this list!)

Randomize Crystarium Abilities

Does what it says, will cause the abilities for Noel, Serah, and all monsters to be randomised. Abilities remain within the same role, and there is a chance that some abilities do not appear at all (as the number of ability slots per role is fixed, and the lists are wider than the number of slots).

Start with CP

Select an amount of CP to be given to you at the start of the game. Recommended for newer players to help bootstrap your setup a bit especially with Battle Randomisation

Randomize Weapon Stats

Does what you'd expect

Randomize Equipment Passive Abilities

Does what you'd expect. Note that this can lead to some pretty silly situations, and there's a lot of bad/negative passives out there.

Randomize Accessory Weights

In jumps of 5, adjust how much each accessory's weight can drift from its vanilla weight. This is capped at 99 so everything is still technically equipable if you get the slots.

Run Speed Multiplier

Adjust how fast Serah/Noel run on the field. Caps at 150%. Highly recommended especially if you have low patience and like to go zoomy. Be warned, after using this option going back to the vanilla run speed feels really bad.

Enemy CP Multiplier

Multiplies the CP given out when defeating an enemy.

Shuffle Music

Does what you'd expect. Currently includes every music track in the game we can get to.

Randomize Enemy Locations

These options get their own section as this gets a little complicated.

It's important to note that since this is local only, if you get stuck with battle rando due to crashes or fights you can't win, you can always regenerate the modpack with different battle rando settings without disrupting your checks/treasures/etc and then swap out the modpacks and carry on.

Allow Larger Encounters

Increases the size of some encounters. Generally unstable, not recommended for use.

Shuffled Bosses

Select which boss fights are in the pool to be randomised. "Caius (Beach)" is in the list here but currently is fixed in place due to some issues with the Caius fights if they end up in a different Caius slot, this is being looked into currently still.

Enemy Rank Range

Each enemy is given a rank by the randomiser indicating its (rough) difficulty/strength, increase the range to allow for a wider replacement variation. This may lead to some very silly encounters.

Scale Boss Stats [Experimental]

Scales boss stats to match the area/sphere they are placed in. Even though this is Experimental, if playing with Crux Randomisation this option is recommended. If you get some very difficult boss fights still (or very easy ones), please let us know with the following information:

Deprioritise Caius Boss Shuffle [Experimental]

This game has a lot of Caius fights, and it gets a bit tedious beating just him up all the time. This option shoves all of the Caius fights to the bottom of the placement list internally, which means they are much more likely to show up in optional/dlc boss fight locations, making the "normal" boss fights you'll usually encounter during the run much less likely to be Caius.

Full random shuffle bosses [Experimental]

Full shuffles the boss list before placement. Highly recommended to be selected only with "Scale Boss Stats" enabled. Takes place before the Caius deprioritisation if applicable.

This option true shuffles the boss list before placing the boss locations, so that there is no longer any correlation or sphere correction applied to the placement, you can end up with any boss in any location. Doing this without scaling enabled will likely lead to unwinnable boss fights in the early game.

Puzzle QOL Options

Options which adjust the behaviour of the Temporal Rift puzzles.

max stage count

Select the maximum number of stages you have to complete of each rift type to clear the rift. For example, if set to 1, then in Bresha Runs 5AF when clearing the void before fighting Atlas, only 1 puzzle is required when normally there are 3.

Clock puzzles - max clock count

Set the maximum number of clock numbers the puzzles can contain, between 5 and 13. This will place an upper limit on the internal puzzle generation script to keep the puzzles below a desired complexity.

Clock puzzles - timer behaviour

Adjust the timer behaviour for clock puzzles. Note that not every clock puzzle has a timer in the base game, this only applies to those which do set a time limit.

Playing the randomizer

Once a modpack is generated, you add it in Nova through the following steps:

For more information on some randomiser specific changes, see Rando info

AP Client and UT integration

The AP client should be resilient to being opened independent of the game running, although it is generally recommended to start the game first to avoid some edge cases. Once connected to a room, if the game is running the client should automatically start auto-tracking for you. Checks will be sent out fairly soon after obtaining the item in the game.

To receive items, ensure you are active on the field (i.e. not in the main menu or Historia Crux) and hold down one of the triggers (L2/R2), items will be given to you if there are any to give, and the client maintains an internal queue so you will receive things in order they were sent until there is nothing left. Feel free to run around and do things while this is happening, although you may need to clear through the pop ups to interact with objects/skip cutscenes/etc.

The apworld supports yamlless UT integration, so you can just run UT and point it at the room/slot with no prior setup. Note that UT currently will "spoil" your Crux randomisation if enabled, since as soon as you have an Artefact, it can see what area is past the gate before you can. There are plans to look into doing something to suppress this in the future, but its not currently a high priority.