Golden Sun Hacking Community

A topic where we can discuss and/or help fine-tune ideas on how Golden Sun (at least the first two) should be balanced. While there may certainly be flaws or oversights with a given opinion, it is unlikely that two people will have the same ideas; furthermore, even one person may have different ideas depending on how they want to balance a particular hack. For example, do they want to keep it close to how GS normally is or do they want to make it more like Paper Mario? It might help to preface your ideas with what your intentions are of course, but the point still stands. The idea isn't strictly for the perfection of GS, although that can certainly be the purpose of your ideas.

As there are so many areas we could start discussion with, I will leave it up to the next poster to lead the discussion with their ideas.

Well, since I've been making a freaking system with my philosophy, I might as well.

Spells:  Spells should always keep to formula.  This means that the balance of power to level and cost should never deviate.  Crazy stuff like Pure Pray breaks the game.  As such, it's more important to understand why the original games went off formula there and then to adjust the formula according to the spirit of it.  In this particular case, it's because by going strictly on formula Wish is too close to Pray, and thus renders it entirely obsolete.  Changing the growth formula for Single Target healing to account for this and keep it useful would have been the better choice here.

Spells should have weight behind them.  This is especially true for indirect spells, which are largely ignored in most jRPGs, let alone golden sun.  This means that spells that are effect-only should have a higher rate of success than spells that do damage while inflicting said ailment.  This is especially true for stronger effects like stun and KO.  This also has the added benefit of making people pay attention to the luck stat, as it becomes just as important as other defenses with this approach.

Summons should not be overglorified spells.  Ever.  This is a problem I have had with jRPGs since the concept was first introduced.  Rather, summons should work by adding another combatant to the field temporarily, something that I applauded FFX and XII for doing.

Spells need to have some kind of statistical association.  Unless everything, even physical blows, are all base damage, then simply sticking to base damage for spells isn't going to work.  At the same time, one should pay attention to the role spells play in GS, and plan a new stat for them accordingly.  Neither spells nor physical blows should be a clearly stronger act over the other - something much easier to do in GS, thanks to some physical skills costing PP as well (thus lowering much of the PP cost influence in the consideration).


Classes:  All classes must be useful at all points in the game.  At no point should a class ever be stricken aside as "just for early game" or "just for post game", as such things defeat the entire point of the class system IMO.  Classes, after all, are all about customizing your gameplay experience and approach.

Classes must serve a purpose.  GS' "winging it" style approach has constantly caused problems, rendering entire class lines as pointless because they just don't really do anything useful.  Giving each class a role to play in battle, and mixing it up for each and every party member, offers a ton more variety to the player.  Maybe they want Garet as the healer, counting on the fact that he's so slow to recover health after the enemies deal damage.  Maybe they want Ivan as the striker, dishing out heavy damage immediately to take down weaker threats before they can harm the party.  Maybe they want Mia to be the tank because f*** you, she's Mia, who knows.  But that should always be an option given to the players.  This also helps to prevent certain class combination from being "This awesome thing!  This awesome thing!  This awesome thing too!  And then you as well because that's all that was left..."  The "all that was left" should still be able to do something.  This is probably most easily seen in TBS, with the Samurai/Dragoon/White Mage/Ivan combo.  Ivan kinda gets screwed as Ranger, because the ranger really doesn't do anything...

Nobody's good at everything.  Even though I push the above philosophy, I also like the idea of each character having both an innate role, as well as an inept role.  Garet's innately a defender, as seen with his base class.  But maybe he's no good with strategy, so his inept role is that of a controller.  That means when he uses jupiter djinn, he'd not lean towards being a controller like other adepts, but instead be more of a jack of all trades.  Think Jenna's base class, how it was able to do a bit of everything.  It wasn't useless like Ranger, though - rather, it could be argued that the class specialized in doing what needed to be done.  Maybe the healer needs backup - in which case, you have some healing.  Maybe there's an opening in battle!  Strike away.  Raise defenses for those who need defending as well.  Sure, Garet may not be all that good at making the enemy dance to his tune, but then he'd easily just join in harmony with his allies instead.


General:  All things must have purpose.  Weapons, for example, should be more than just buffs to the attack stat.  Each weapon should have its own niche to fill and trends to follow.  Items should have a place in battle too - maybe instead of being just an imitation of a spell, attack items could have their own effects, maybe even allowing you to set up combos.  For example, what if the Oil Drop didn't just do fire damage, but also lowered fire resistance by a lot?  That could let you set up for some pretty powerful combos, and give the item purpose.  What about those items that can break when used in battle?  I think I've made my views on their sh*t-tier status in the past, but what if they had their own PP gauge, and that they didn't just have a random chance of breaking, but as you used them, it depleted?  Once it's out, it's not broken, but "tapped", and you'll have to get it recharged instead of repaired.  That'd make a lot more sense and encourage their use a lot more for those of us who don't think rolling the dice on the usefulness of gear has a place here.  Even simple differences between similar classes should be notable.  Maybe there's a reason to make Garet the striker instead of Isaac - maybe his take on it is worth doing over the more paladin-style Isaac uses.  Sure, Isaac does more damage... but Garet's power attacks are piercing, and some have a chance to lower enemy defense as well!  Or maybe you want Ivan and his ability to land powerful spells, striking at defenses that Isaac and Garet can't exploit as easily.  Or maybe you're that weirdo who really likes Mia wielding spiked maces with a slasher smile on her face, who knows.  But having different approaches to the same problem notably changes how you approach it, and often times for the better.

Risk vs Reward should be more of a factor as well.  As it stands, in basic GS some things just aren't worth the risk, and others are just exploitable.  Take Death Curse and unleashes as examples - a low chance of making sure the enemy will die in 7 turns.  Really?  I can kill him in three...  And unleashes are far too powerful to be both guaranteeable AND free.  Having a combination of both counters goes a long away - both having a cap on unleash rate, and a version of unleashes you can expend PP to use would help balance the risk vs reward, as those who don't care for the risk can always spend some PP to guarantee the use.

Enemies should be more than damage sponges that exist to give you xp and rewards.  They should work better with each other, and have roles in their "teams" the way the characters do.  This would add an element of strategy to battles - maybe you could take the enemy out quickly if that damned armor rat wouldn't keep tanking your hits!  And that damned rat warrior hits like a freaking truck, but you just can't get through to him because of his little buddy.  Of course, with the right weapon or spell this could be quickly taken care of...  And that's kind of what I think should happen.  Different areas encourage but don't require certain weapons or setups.  Maybe there's a ton of small foes in the area that zerg rush the bajeezus out of you.  AoE spam them into oblivion, and favor fast gear.  Maybe stuff here laughs at your physical blows.  Go for piercing and spell attacks.  Maybe they have nasty effects.  Go for weapons and spells that encourage control of your own.

QuoteSpells:  Spells should always keep to formula.

No need to be THAT strict, also consider you can't make a formula for everything. It's too time consuming and not worth the effort. Just try, test and correct. The real problem are the extremes, like Pure Wish. You should be fine with 2 or 3 general purpose easy formulas and then go from there.

QuoteSpells should have weight behind them.  [...] This means that spells that are effect-only should have a higher rate of success than spells that do damage while inflicting said ailment.  This is especially true for stronger effects like stun and KO.  This also has the added benefit of making people pay attention to the luck stat, as it becomes just as important as other defenses with this approach.

Absolutely agree but we lack the effect slots for that.

QuoteSummons should not be overglorified spells.  Ever.  This is a problem I have had with jRPGs since the concept was first introduced.  Rather, summons should work by adding another combatant to the field temporarily, something that I applauded FFX and XII for doing.

100% agree again, but FFX and XII just used the concept, the whole thing wasn't that great. Generally because you lose 1 or more team members, who are often better equipped/more useful, and some summons in XII are downright useless (Zalera=0xp) or just used as overglorified spells (Shemhazai, Zodiark). On the other hand we're talking about a GBA game so the whole djinn/summon thing looked like a very nice compromise to me. What's bad are the pp/mp costing summons: Those are really just spells with a longer animation.

QuoteSpells need to have some kind of statistical association.

Couldn't agree more. Not just spells OFC, but that's the main issue with the GS series.

QuoteClasses:  All classes must be useful at all points in the game.  At no point should a class ever be stricken aside as "just for early game" or "just for post game", as such things defeat the entire point of the class system IMO.  Classes, after all, are all about customizing your gameplay experience and approach.

It's a nice philosophy but to implement this we'd need way more ability slots per character. That, or (something i thought of just now) exploit the hell out of class tiers.

QuoteClasses must serve a purpose.

If classes don't serve a purpose, you're doing it wrong on the first place.

QuoteNobody's good at everything. Even though I push the above philosophy, I also like the idea of each character having both an innate role, as well as an inept role.

This applied OVER a good class system makes for a good gameplay. Many good class systems don't do this. FF5, for example.

QuoteGeneral:  All things must have purpose. [...] Each weapon should have its own niche to fill and trends to follow.  Items should have a place in battle too. [...] What about those items that can break when used in battle?  I think I've made my views on their sh*t-tier status in the past, but what if they had their own PP gauge, and that they didn't just have a random chance of breaking, but as you used them, it depleted?

First part agree, second not that big of an issue but yes the gauge idea is better than RNG.

QuoteRisk vs Reward should be more of a factor as well.  As it stands, in basic GS some things just aren't worth the risk, and others are just exploitable.  Take Death Curse and unleashes as examples

Those are just blunders. Like pure wish's cheapness or Paladin Jenna.

QuoteEnemies should be more than damage sponges that exist to give you xp and rewards.  They should work better with each other, and have roles in their "teams" the way the characters do.

agree on the roles, not really with cooperation. Random battles are frequent, and with randomness added you might encounter some VERY annoying or broken teams. like 3 tanks that will never defeat you but you take forever to kill.

Quote from: RoleSummons should not be overglorified spells.  Ever.  This is a problem I have had with jRPGs since the concept was first introduced.  Rather, summons should work by adding another combatant to the field temporarily, something that I applauded FFX and XII for doing.

I feel like you're taking more qualm with the name than you are the mechanic. Summons in GS work off a completely different resource from your normal psynergy, so I see nothing wrong with their fundamental implementation (balance is a different issue).

Quote from: CaledorNo need to be THAT strict, also consider you can't make a formula for everything. It's too time consuming and not worth the effort. Just try, test and correct. The real problem are the extremes, like Pure Wish. You should be fine with 2 or 3 general purpose easy formulas and then go from there.

Agreed. Formulas are a good starting place, but nothing can replace hand-tuning.

I'm of the opinion that as little of the original games should be changed as possible. I don't like formulaic implementation of power. I don't like changing the summon system. I don't really even like changing statuses. When I'm playing Golden Sun, I want to be playing a game highly similar to vanilla, simply improved. I don't want FF Tactics: GS Edition.

My balance changes are restricted to the following methods:

1. Tweak enemy health. Not Attack, not Defense, not abilities. Literally attempting to shift enemies from dying in a certain way to dying in a slightly more complex or intensive way, like trying to get an enemy to the second combat round by having health enough to survive 3 direct basic attacks from the party.

2. Bringing sub-par psynergy series up to par and differentiating some of the series which are highly similar (Frost series, a good number of the Mars psynergy, making Elder Wood and Ester Wood different, making the Pixies different, tweaking Quake, etc.)

3. Passing around some of the more unique Psynergy to classes that could use some differentiation especially Psynergy from classes that get no play at all, like Tamer or Pierrot (Death Leap, Gale, Thunderstorm, Poison Flow, Elder/Estre Wood, Juggle, etc.)

4. Tweak outlier classes that seem to do multiple things too well after moving power around in the first two steps.

5. Tweak items.

Anything else seems overly involved and complex to the point of creating more problems than they solve.

Makes sense. We seem to have a lot of similar ideas for what the end result should be, if not slightly different ideas for how to handle them.

I'm personally cool with having some deviation in spells to an extent, but I agree that Pure Ply and other things go overboard with that. Such deviations should be on a class-by-class basis though. For example, if class A and class B have... lets say Fiery Juggle in A and Supernova in B. Both have the same power, but Supernova has a higher PP cost. If the latter is only found in class B, then the higher cost may be justified if the class also has access to good healing spells that class A lacks. Otherwise they basically become reskins of one another.

I also like variation in class usefulness if the game can subtly nudge you towards a particular class or element depending on the situation (i.e. frequent Growth use -> earth is good to use in battle), although that's because my ideas behind balance also take field mechanics and map/room theming into very strong consideration. One big issue with them as well is an imbalance in eStats between mono/dual/tri/item classes, where you can normally just stay in your base classes for the entire game because there is little point in actually experimenting a lot of the time. Which is really bad. This does tie into your ideas around weapon use, since weapons and gear could be a good way to branch this gap between classes if a larger share of them were to provide eStat boosts or even drops.

In all honesty, this would even be a good way to branch the physical vs. psynergy imbalance as well if magic gear can provide higher boosts on average than warrior gear; with some overlap of course. While I still have to go through equipment and items in Disco Sun, one of the minor changes I made was to make the Wooden Stick provide +5 to every ePower stat. This also accompanies a very major change how eStats are distributed to begin with and allows mages (and warriors) to move along the fighter-mage spectrum by fiddling with their gear and classes. Once gear is actually balanced in my hack, it should be much easier for mages to specialize in magic stuff.

And that's mostly because I think player characters are overpowered, with enemies having no means of effectively countering them. Many ways to fix that, but something I'd like to experiment with is giving some enemies the ability to manipulate your djinn and class setups every so often. Kind of like what select bosses can do near the end, but having it start as early as... Yampi in GS2. I think. Gnomes feel like a good candidate for such an ability, and it could be a nice way to handle a number of issues as well.


That actually goes over a number of things. I mostly agree with the idea of summons just being glorified spells that leave you weakened for a few turns, although it could be cool to have a single summon that works like those FF games. I think having whip/summoner spells work like that might be better though; swap out the caster for the summoned monster, and then let the player access its moveset for a couple turns. That would probably be too much work to be worthwhile, but still.

@Formulas:  I find the opposite to be true.  I already have the formulas, they work fine.  I just round to the nearest nice looking values and call it a day.  Plug and play, simple as that.

@Effect slots:  The hell makes you think I'm using the editor and GS as a base?  The fact I want to add new stats kinda makes that moot, doesn't it?

@More ability slots per character:  No we don't.  What are you talking about?  I already solved this, it was one of my criticisms of your balance patch, remember?  Too many spells of redundant strength levels.

@FF5 example:  Any class system that uses global classes it wouldn't work on.  It'd have to be done in the way GS does it, with classes associated with the individual rather than global association.

@Team complaint:  You're not just going to throw random groups of monsters together when using this philosophy, dood...

@Varden:  That's... an odd opening statement.  GS is largely formulaic as is, only a few spells ever go off-formula.  So what you're basically saying is that you don't like vanilla, you just wanna keep to vanilla...  Golden Sun Tactics would be completely different than what I described simply due to the mechanic of being able to move around and strike foes on a 2d plane rather than a 1d one like we have now.  Also, "tweak" isn't a philosophy.  Philosophy is about the approach you make when tweaking.

Quote@Effect slots:  The hell makes you think I'm using the editor and GS as a base?  The fact I want to add new stats kinda makes that moot, doesn't it?

Nothing, it was just a statement. I wanted to do it too, but I couldn't. Simple as that. On the other hand new stats could theoretically be implemented with assembly.

Quote@More ability slots per character:  No we don't.  What are you talking about?  I already solved this, it was one of my criticisms of your balance patch, remember?  Too many spells of redundant strength levels.

I do remember. But to have mages that perform well at every point of the game you have to solve the spell level gap thing. I don't think it can be accomplished with only 14/16 slots without renouncing to something else, be it element variety or other sub-roles the class might have.

Quote@FF5 example:  Any class system that uses global classes it wouldn't work on.  It'd have to be done in the way GS does it, with classes associated with the individual rather than global association.

I basically said the same thing. FF5 was just the example of a good game that could've been better if followed that advice.

Just want to mention that new ability effects would probably be quite a bit easier to add than new stats. I also think that, with a few tweaks and a little work, the existing eStat modifiers could work quite well for this purpose. Using eLevels as some sort of "mastery" stat might help too, which is even supported by their inclusion in the ailment infliction formula. Not sure that would be necessary though. The reason for this is because there is never any indicator that psynergy requires any level of training, unlike where one would have to train somewhat to be a fighter. Ivan learns Reveal from Ham(m)a in seconds, the purple-haired chick and Tret both gain powers suddenly when they are pelleted by psynergy stones, Eoleo can use hand powers as a baby (after getting hit by a stone, but still), the baby in Contigo can conjure whirlwinds with ease, the rewards for the Rock dungeons in GS2, Babi learned enough psynergy to use Cloak, various monsters can use spells... and so on. The only exception is the very beginning of GS1 where Garet is training by using Move, but their teacher is Kraden; Kraden isn't even an adept to begin with and seems incapable or at least not yet capable of using psynergy, so it seems weird that he would actually be able to teach them how to use it. Especially when mere babies can use it with supposedly little to no training.

[spoiler=Before anyone tries to refute the Babi and Kraden stuff :P]

Quote
Sheba    : But... Babi stole a Lemurian ship from you, right? That means that
            he can sail it... You said yourself that he used it to flee the
            island!

Kraden  : Unfortunately, Babi was the only one of us who could use the ship.

Piers     : You see, Lemurian ships can only be helmed by Adepts... Which is why
            I have to get my black orb back! I must be able to captain my ship!
            There may be something up ahead on this path. Then let's go...

[/spoiler]

As such, my view is that physical strength takes effort to build while certain individuals may be more capable of using psynergy for longer periods of time. At the same time though, real battles are no place to train for physical strength (through the use of heavy weaponry or armour) and there is little opportunity to do so when already on a quest. Likewise, everyone should have equal spell power as there is no hint of the opposite being true anywhere in the plot. In this case, classes and worldly experience/the leveling system can allow adepts to acquire different spells that differentiate them from each other if they are naturally prone to entering those classes, while further proficiency should come down to more specific things. I really like the idea of using gear for this, since even warriors have gear that boosts their attack and defence more than magic gear does; why can't the reverse be true for eStats?

Keeping in mind too that stat growths do not differ too greatly between characters for the most part, assuming a circumstance where stats are untouched by class multipliers. Isaac's base attack at level 99, which is the highest in GS1, is only 44 points higher than Ivan's, the lowest in GS1. A new magic proficiency stat would wind up being a magic-oriented clone of an already existing attack stat, when it is generally classes and gear that add the true variation in stats. Djinn already manipulate your eStats, but they do so separately from class multipliers due to their universal nature. Universally applied modifiers and such. Any methods chosen to balance magic and swords so they are on an equal playing field should probably attempt to have the balance still apply in a setting where there are no class multipliers before trying maintain this balance with them. A new stat or two for that could theoretically work, but why bother when you already have eight others that could be used in a similar way?


Class/spell limit issue: Eh, I don't really see an issue with this. If you can make all or most spells have a viable use (including ailments), then you could probably achieve this by giving the magic-oriented classes more options that do not cause direct damage or healing. 16 slots could theoretically give a mage: 9 direct damaging abilities (three lines), 2-5 ailments (e.g. drain, PP drain, poison, venom, bind), and 2-3 buffs (e.g. guard, protect). In this example, you have a magic class that can prevent casters from using spells, boost the party's defences against their [possibly weak] physical attacks or the attacks of opponent fighters in battle, and cause both direct and indirect damage to enemies; they can even heal themselves and replenish HP and PP by using the drain spells, both of which are options that also directly harm the target. You can have a pretty good setup if you pair this up with a healer of some variety. Maybe the trade-off is that it becomes harder to counter physical attackers or walls with this setup, but it could still work well in many situations.

@Mages preform well:  With Casting and Warding as stats, that opens up the ability to use Casting as a power source for spells like Ragnarok, as well as make spell damage more common.  These suggestions don't exist independently from one another, they are intended to work well together.  With a spell version of the attack and defense stats, you're able to mitigate the problems with the delay between spells and able to focus fire better.  Not only do you have EPA-style spells scaling much better than Base Damage, but you also have weapons that deal spell damage, equipment that boosts spellcasting in similar ways to attack.  Using this setup, as well as the rules defined in my character creation tools, the ability slots thing not only becomes a non issue, but remains as a mechanic designed to encourage alt-classing.

Quote from: Rolina on 18, December, 2015, 06:21:47 PM
@Mages preform well:  With Casting and Warding as stats, that opens up the ability to use Casting as a power source for spells like Ragnarok, as well as make spell damage more common.  These suggestions don't exist independently from one another, they are intended to work well together.  With a spell version of the attack and defense stats, you're able to mitigate the problems with the delay between spells and able to focus fire better.  Not only do you have EPA-style spells scaling much better than Base Damage, but you also have weapons that deal spell damage, equipment that boosts spellcasting in similar ways to attack.  Using this setup, as well as the rules defined in my character creation tools, the ability slots thing not only becomes a non issue, but remains as a mechanic designed to encourage alt-classing.

This explains a lot. I got kinda lost reading your first post cause it seemed that at times you were making specific complaints to the GS engine and in other parts you were talking about RPGs in general.

Also, why all the tearing apart of my philosophy?  Why not, you know, share yours?  We all have different approaches.

Quote from: Rolina on 18, December, 2015, 08:23:22 PM
Also, why all the tearing apart of my philosophy?  Why not, you know, share yours?  We all have different approaches.

Why are you getting so defensive? The first poster was the one to lead the discussion, that's all. Besides, we've been discussing my balancing philosophy for the last 11 months on this very forum... i don't understand why it should be THAT bad talking about yours or anyone else's approach.

@Varden. Changing as little as possible to leave the "feel" of the original game is fine but things need to be changed. I think anyone agrees that Delusion is useless in vanilla GS. From level 12-13 onwards you either use ragnarok-like psynergies or unleashes in place of physical attacks, and both ignore it.
1. why is fine tweaking HP of enemies but not other stats? Those are just numbers... and tweaking only HP isn't going to make a fight more difficult, only longer. Also, if you're doing it only to give it a chance to act before it dies, raising only agility is also an option.
2. Didn't really get the elder wood and pixie part, but beginner psynergies are needed.
3. Didn't get this one also. Is it juggle that should be given to other classes so it sees some play or the pierrot that should become stronger?

If I was going to create a game from the ground up, I probably wouldn't even have tiers of spells. A fire-based class gets one single-target fire spell, and its damage scales off of a magic stat. Done. Then they get another fire spell that does an AOE. And another one that has some kind of secondary effect but is weaker. And so on. The end result is every spell serves a purpose, and no spell is ever completely obsoleted. Now, that's not to say there is no merit to having a stronger attack that costs more, so there might be *some* overlap of pure damaging abilities, but not to the extent that GS does it. Basically, you balance it such that the stronger attack costs considerably more, making it a poor choice for drawn-out or low-threat battles, but it remains effective when you just need to nuke something to get it off the map. This represents a meaningful choice to the player, something that vanilla GS generally fails to do (at least in respect to base damage psynergy).

Look at the angel class in vanilla GS. You have the ice-ice horn-ice missile line, and the frost-tundra-glacier line. All six of these spells take 3 targets and have no effect other than doing damage (except the basic form of ice, which takes a single target). Their only real difference is some do more damage than others in exchange for more PP. But, these have to compete with basic attacks, so you don't even feel the PP increase with the higher max PP and PP regen you get as you progress.  By the time you learn ice missile, you have no reason to use any of the other *five* abilities that you have in your arsenal, which is... really wasteful. I'd rather have a single spell fill the role of all *six* of these, opening up room for more interesting effects and a richer design space. Because when you get right down to it, this is just six skins for one spell. It's pretty boring.

Quote@Varden. Changing as little as possible to leave the "feel" of the original game is fine but things need to be changed. I think anyone agrees that Delusion is useless in vanilla GS. From level 12-13 onwards you either use ragnarok-like psynergies or unleashes in place of physical attacks, and both ignore it.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that the solution is increasing the delusion rate, like you did for your hack. That just encourages using EPA psys or unleashes even more >_>

Quote1. why is fine tweaking HP of enemies but not other stats? Those are just numbers... and tweaking only HP isn't going to make a fight more difficult, only longer. Also, if you're doing it only to give it a chance to act before it dies, raising only agility is also an option.

Agility is a tricky subject. Basically, if you make an enemy bulkier, it introduces a choice for the player: They can either burn through some resources to inflict more damage to an enemy, wiping it out before it can act, or they can let it take an action in exchange for not burning through those resources. If you just make the enemy faster, this is no longer a choice; you're going to get hit - no matter what.

Oh dear, lol. I'm honestly not trying to Role, my goal was to explain mine after some more came in but then some discussion started and my posts ended up being somewhat comparative. My apologies!

[spoiler=LONG]Anyway: My philosophy is that you need to balance both battle and field mechanics. I have a changelog for Disco Sun (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M7LyJTV0M8qpn6tFWavGyHgf69cilfC4sIDf8EM8IyU) that covers some of what I have done so far, but my idea for a balanced out-of-battle gameplay is to have certain things, like utility effects and even running, streamlined so the player can spend more time solving puzzles than watching the puzzles get solved. Likewise, this also means that many dungeons won't be mazes. I would like to aim for having more dungeons like this (http://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/Mario&Luigi-SuperstarSaga-BeanbeanKingdom-HoohooMountain.png) throughout and especially near the start of the game, albeit with less jumping around obviously.

In the end, I want both variety and at least a little more straightforwardness. One thing that I dislike about GS is that many of the dungeons are pretty similar. A majority of them are caves or have cave segments in them; very few have no cave portions in them at all and several towns have caves as well. This ultimately means that most tilesets are at least partially shared across numerous locations and only have palette swaps applied to them. Another thing is that many utilities, while visually or thematically distinct, serve extremely similar purposes in the end. You use Hover on certain spots to hover over gaps, you use Sand on certain parts to bypass rocks or walls, you use Blaze on certain objects to light other objects on fire to continue, Move moves tall objects on the ground while Carry moves short objects through the air and Lift holds different short objects in the air, Growth creates vertical ladders and Lash creates angled or horizontal stepladders... and so forth. There is a lot of potential for variety, but on the whole Camelot often did little to take advantage of it and many dungeons can be reduced to a couple gimmicks. Gaia Rock had Growth for a maze, Move to move tall objects, Cyclone for floating platforms, Whirlwind for swinging vines, and Reveal for a statue that could be used to move bigger statues. It's tough to say whether Move puzzles even count as puzzles most of the time, but the majority of these abilities are also wind-related. In an earth dungeon. The Whirlwind one even comes back in a later dungeon, except the vines are replaced with chains. Hover also fills the same role as Cyclone and the leaf platforms in the same dungeon, just with a different floor tile required to activate it.

That's not even going into the fact that the leaf platforms carry you all the way around the room before taking you to your destination, but it's not like it is a timing puzzle that requires you to carefully time your jumps or anything. It's a literal duplicate of the iceberg hopping puzzle in Karst, with the penguins and stuff. It would seem like the intent for both versions of the puzzle was for the player to be able to mess up and fall off (there actually is an event in Karst that is fully programmed to reload the room if you fail (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMduAkulY8Y)), but the code was never set up to allow for this to happen. I have the code set up to make such timing puzzles possible in Disco Sun at least, so I can try making some puzzles like that in the future.

Dungeons are also mostly mazes. Heck, the entire Eastern Sea in GS2 is more or less a giant maze (which would be pretty sweet if there were any amount of guidance in-game). While mazes can certainly be fun, not every dungeon should be one. Crossbone Isle may be one of the only not-mazes, but it is also a pretty bland dungeon with almost nothing unique about it at all. Aside from the bonus boss at the very end, it has few to no unique puzzles, no wholly unique enemies, and no wholly unique tilesets. Virtually everything is just a palette swap or reskin of something else that appeared earlier in GS1, perhaps barring a couple items, and every puzzle room is preceded by the same stairwell and an invisible fixed encounter. The end of Mars Lighthouse is pretty bad for that too with the four elemental flame portions copying puzzles from across both games, but maybe not as bad as Crossbone. Maybe.

So, yeah. I basically feel like the overworld should be given a little variety, and this can even extend to towns. Still working out the kinks, but I have a WIP time hack with a day cycle that will one day be incorporated to Disco Sun. Should be pretty sweet when it's done, but the goal is to tie many things (inn rates, store hours, PP regeneration, random encounters, etc.) to it eventually.


To summarize everything I have said or wanted to say so far:
- PCs are too strong, rather than enemies being too weak; this is particularly true of attack and agility, which is in part why physical attacks are so good later in the game
- PCs should be weakened and enemies should have more counters to accommodate that; for example, counters against summons and the class system
- Hopefully, with more counters, enemies can last long enough for other options to be viable (and other options should actually have some effort put into them to be viable, but this isn't hard to do at all)
- Aside from that, many things are cool right now (including the eStats); some things could also be added though, like Charm (WIP) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N32RUW-zcPs&ab_channel=Salafrog) and/or other effects
- There should be variety in everything, both in the field and battle; many utilities are rehashes of each other in the way they are used, but they could be so much more
- Dungeons and puzzles should be unique and interesting, as should towns;
- Camelot did not take advantage of the games/series' capacity to provide a good amount of variety
- Etc.

There are also a lot of other things that I am reconsidering for Disco Sun. For example, should I consider the "no tiers" approach that leaf discussed (or at least an approach where higher tiers completely replace lower ones in higher classes)? Should I re-examine my changes to eStat growth and distribution to make multi-elemental classes equal to mono-elemental? Should I introduce a level and/or HP/PP stat cap? Should I reduce class multipliers? I haven't made any concrete decisions for this stuff yet, but Disco Sun's balance and introductory release will be rolled out over a few different patches. I have plenty of time to mull things over once I get the basics out of the way.


Agility: Just want to mention, but PCs have RNG applied to their agility stats. So you can take that into consideration too if you want to try balancing it better/differently.

Leaf/tiers: I very briefly touched up on redundancy and reskins in an earlier post (mostly in justifying formula deviation), but I agree for the most part. Considering the option of doing something like that for Disco Sun, but I haven't decided yet. It sometimes gets worse than the ice/frost example though. Juggle and Blast(Nova) are exactly the same, except one is learned a level earlier than the other while later tiers are equal in power but different in PP cost and level learned.

In this instance, how would you handle

Delusion: In all honesty, I think it's one of the most useful ailments that the player can use against enemies in a standard spell (not counting djinn, items, summons, or unleashes). Almost useless against the player of course, but it could theoretically be painful if accompanied by bind/seal in the same battle... if the two appeared together more often. This is mostly because the majority of enemies are physical attackers with at least one attack command, and their AI doesn't seem to acknowledge delusion most of the time. Drain and PP drain can fail and aren't strong enough for when you get them, condemn fails too often and bosses are immune, haunt is too random for short battles and bosses are immune, there are not enough caster enemies to justify bind/seal a majority of the time (if you even know which enemies are casters to begin with), and the counter for curse is too high for it to do anything against enemies that are actually vulnerable to it unless you really suck at killing things fast. Sleep is the only spell-induced ailment that is better, and that's only because the target that is inflicted with it is unable to cure themselves or perform any other action. And it is multi-target, so if all goes well you can immobilize a couple enemies for 2+ turns. Debuffs are okay, but they have a similar problem to curse in random encounters.

As for the other ailments that actually made it in the game; stun is basically a reskin of sleep and is therefore useful when it lands, poison and venom are really good but there are few options to actually inflict them on enemies (and bosses are immune), 1-turn stun is basically a short, guaranteed sleep/stun that can be useful sometimes, and expulsion would be okay if it were guaranteed to work against all non-boss monsters but sucks mostly for its low success rate and the lack of experience provision.

Oh, and break. Break is actually pretty good and can make buffs, which are generally okay at higher levels, pretty worthless. Not really an ailment, but still. This is mostly because it is guaranteed to land on any target.

Aside from that, the only other finished effects you can activate in battle are counter/reflux and regenerate. The latter of these is probably the best effect in the entire game (behind poison/venom maybe), but the former is only good if you are attacked. So about 50/50 if it only lasts one turn. [/spoiler]

QuoteThe end of Mars Lighthouse is pretty bad for that too with the four elemental flame portions copying puzzles from across both games, but maybe not as bad as Crossbone. Maybe.

Actually, this is a pretty standard practice, making the final dungeon basically just a bigger and better version of all stuff you've already seen before. Mario and luigi does this too. The final dungeon should not be the place to introduce new mechanics.

QuoteDelusion: In all honesty, I think it's one of the most useful ailments that the player can use against enemies in a standard spell (not counting djinn, items, summons, or unleashes). Almost useless against the player of course, but it could theoretically be painful if accompanied by bind/seal in the same battle... if the two appeared together more often. This is mostly because the majority of enemies are physical attackers with at least one attack command, and their AI doesn't seem to acknowledge delusion most of the time. Drain and PP drain can fail and aren't strong enough for when you get them, condemn fails too often and bosses are immune, haunt is too random for short battles and bosses are immune, there are not enough caster enemies to justify bind/seal a majority of the time (if you even know which enemies are casters to begin with), and the counter for curse is too high for it to do anything against enemies that are actually vulnerable to it unless you really suck at killing things fast. Sleep is the only spell-induced ailment that is better, and that's only because the target that is inflicted with it is unable to cure themselves or perform any other action. And it is multi-target, so if all goes well you can immobilize a couple enemies for 2+ turns. Debuffs are okay, but they have a similar problem to curse in random encounters.

Tbh, sleep should be a hella expensive psynergy with near-100% success rate. The *only* time you would ever use it is against foes that you can't fight normally, that if they manage to escape being put to sleep, you're dead. Except that half the time it doesn't work, and you'd have been better off just using your strongest AOE psynergy instead.

Condemn should either not be given to players, or should get the same treatment. You wanna instant kill a normal enemy? Okay, fine, then pay 50 PP for it. It's too inconsistent to ever be worth using as is, and feels more like a secondary effect than a main one (think about the assassin ability in fire emblem).

QuoteAs for the other ailments that actually made it in the game; stun is basically a reskin of sleep and is therefore useful when it lands, poison and venom are really good but there are few options to actually inflict them on enemies (and bosses are immune), 1-turn stun is basically a short, guaranteed sleep/stun that can be useful sometimes, and expulsion would be okay if it were guaranteed to work against all non-boss monsters but sucks mostly for its low success rate and the lack of experience provision.

You can inflict venom on moapa, actually. He has 39 luck. It's the entire crux of the low level strategy against him, using wheeze to poison him while you disable him and his cronies with other status.

QuoteOh, and break. Break is actually pretty good and can make buffs, which are generally okay at higher levels, pretty worthless. Not really an ailment, but still. This is mostly because it is guaranteed to land on any target.

Break needs a single-target version. It's horribly powerful against the party, but only "useful" against enemies. It would open up a decent design space for bosses to have a single-target break without having to negate buffing as a strategy for the entire party. Maybe attach it to a single-target damaging ability, if it was too weak as just a break effect.

QuoteAgility: Just want to mention, but PCs have RNG applied to their agility stats. So you can take that into consideration too if you want to try balancing it better/differently.

I definitely would want to adjust this. A total revamp of the agility system wouldn't be out of consideration, either, but I feel like that's getting more into designing whole new systems.

QuoteIn this instance, how would you handle

Handle... what...? To skype!

Quote from: Sala on skypeThe question was going to involve how you would handle two things in that situation:
a) Are tiers replaced by upgrades (partly to take advantage of animations) or do spells remain constant?
b) Do you fill in the blank spell slots with other things? If so, how would you handle it?

Tiers could upgrade (so as to take advantage of the many animations in GS), but differences between tiers would be minimal. For instance, maybe a 100 power spell at base tier upgrades to 110 at tier 2, and 120 at tier 3. Range could potentially upgrade, so you might still see something go from 3 targets (T1) to 3 targets (T2) to 5 targets (T3). And because the upgrade is so minor/is supposed to be a reward for being in a higher tier class, cost remains consistent across all tiers. Note that this *is* meant to go with an actual magic stat, so it doesn't work well with vanilla GS stats; this so-called "100 power" ability is something you'd have access to at lv1.

As for the blank spell slots... well, yes. That's the point of introducing abilities that do different things. Not every class will necessarily use all of the available spell slots, but I think that's fine. That actually opens up the design space for having certain classes with an exceptionally large number of spells. For instance, you might have a tri-elemental class that uses all 16 slots, while a mono or dual element class only uses 10.

Mars: I mostly agree with that, but I also feel like the copied puzzles should be a step up from what it copies rather than just copying it. Maybe spiced up a tiny bit; no need for new mechanics, but at least mixing it up with previously introduced mechanics would be awesome. The trial and error Move statues are a good example of why I'm iffy about that section. Like, I think the Jupiter part actually did a fairly decent job with spicing things up, even with the trial and error cyclone warps, but then there were pipe pushing puzzles in both the Mercury and Mars areas. The Venus section was probably the only "bad" one in my opinion, and that's because the only puzzle it has that was not in the others was the use of Sand, and all that did was replace how you avoid the flames. Well, there is also Carry, but all that does is make it so you can drag an object to block a trap in a very similar manner to what you do in the Mars section. I don't know, it just feels like there could have been more variety in the ending section there, even if just using puzzles that appeared earlier in the game/series.

The lack of transfer data could be a pretty big issue with that, but then you still have Parch, Tremor, Grind, Lash, Mind Read, Growth, Douse, Whirlwind, Lift, Pound, and Scoop go entirely unused if I recall correctly. If excluding the three warp/escape spells (Avoid, Retreat, Teleport), the four GS1 or transfer-exclusive (Force, Catch, Cloak, Halt), and the two unused/unfinished ones (Arrow and Magnet), just over half (11/21) of the utilities go entirely unused in this area. So much wasted potential in my opinion.


Sleep: Maybe not 100%, but I agree that it should have a higher success rate. Higher rate for a little more PP, and maybe easier to recover from as a tradeoff (and to make Stun desirable over it in certain circumstances, should it be made available as a spell).

Condemn: Ditto, both your answer to it and mine. The djinni effect for expelling foes should be the one with 100% out of the two (especially as a djinni effect), but condemn should still be higher for sure. Almost every ailment should be higher though, with the notable exception being Break. Well, Break if it remains multi-target. It should be high for sure, but probably not guaranteed. I tweaked the formulas to make infliction rates higher without actually changing most of them, but I may need to revisit the rates for Disco Sun later.

Moapa: Both the editor and the wiki(s) say 40 in this case, which sucks because 39 would be a pretty fair tradeoff. His knights have 36 each though, so the venom thing would work there.

Break: I could get behind that if bosses and other enemies can use it more regularly than full break.

Agility: Same, I think. At the very least so RNG also applies to enemy agility stats in the same way.

Skype: Sounds neat. I have considered experimenting with this sort of thing in a vanilla GS setting (with no magic stat), but the way you describe it sounds pretty balanced overall. Added bonus is that utility spells wouldn't go up in cost either.



Just to add some more discussion stuff, but a part of my goal in adding variety is also to change and/or improve on mechanics and other things that are already in GS. For example, I plan to add Confuse, Charm, and Reflect as fully functional ailments/effects. I also want to work out which utilities and/or field effects I want to add to the game. Lift in particular is basically going to be a new utility in Disco Sun, although I still need to work out some of the minor details and do some testing to be sure. I am also seriously considering the idea of a swimming mechanic, rather than a "Float" spell to mimic GS1's Jesus effect. Swimming feels like it would be a pretty good fit without ending up as water Hover, so that's nice. I figure it could be limited to certain bodies of water, and not be permitted in either frigid settings or beyond the shallows of the world map. Not sure about rivers yet though.

I also want to try getting diagonal block pushing and Move puzzles to work somehow, but I'm not entirely sure about keeping such a change unless I can test it beforehand. Same with diagonal jumping. The animations exist for both things at least, so that would work until I get around to sprite editing later on.

QuoteMoapa: Both the editor and the wiki(s) say 40 in this case, which sucks because 39 would be a pretty fair tradeoff. His knights have 36 each though, so the venom thing would work there.

I misremembered. The low level strat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ki0QPcW2sE) uses wheeze on the knights, not moapa himself.

QuoteSleep: Maybe not 100%, but I agree that it should have a higher success rate. Higher rate for a little more PP, and maybe easier to recover from as a tradeoff (and to make Stun desirable over it in certain circumstances, should it be made available as a spell).

Quote from: Sala on skype, about vanilla GS ratesStun = 20%
Sleep = 50%
[12:52:48 AM] Love Machine: Those are the recovery rates.
[12:53:54 AM] Love Machine: 080B066C - 45% (24 - Sleep)
...
080B0698 - 40% (23 - Stun, 85 - Stun)
[12:54:24 AM | Edited 12:54:40 AM] Love Machine: In an unmodified game. So that is actually pretty bad; Stun is clearly superior to Sleep.

The answer is simple: You don't make stun available as a spell. In vanilla GS, it's only available through djinn, *because* it's a stronger effect. Additionally, it pays for being a stronger effect by having a slightly lower infliction rate. Anyway, I wouldn't have all status abilities of a given type (e.g. sleep) use the same infliction rate to begin with. Some forms of putting a foe to sleep should be more consistent than others.

I definitely agree with you there, should Stun remain unavailable as a spell. May opt for a slight boost in the event that there is a single-target sleep ability/unleash, but even then it wouldn't be by much. May even be able to leave it the same if the infliction/recovery animations are tweaked slightly (like in Disco Sun so far).

Quote from: leaf on 18, December, 2015, 09:51:43 PM

Quote@Varden. Changing as little as possible to leave the "feel" of the original game is fine but things need to be changed. I think anyone agrees that Delusion is useless in vanilla GS. From level 12-13 onwards you either use ragnarok-like psynergies or unleashes in place of physical attacks, and both ignore it.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that the solution is increasing the delusion rate, like you did for your hack. That just encourages using EPA psys or unleashes even more >_>

From the next version Delusion will completely shut down unleashes.

Quote from: leaf on 18, December, 2015, 09:51:43 PM

Quote1. why is fine tweaking HP of enemies but not other stats? Those are just numbers... and tweaking only HP isn't going to make a fight more difficult, only longer. Also, if you're doing it only to give it a chance to act before it dies, raising only agility is also an option.

Agility is a tricky subject. Basically, if you make an enemy bulkier, it introduces a choice for the player: They can either burn through some resources to inflict more damage to an enemy, wiping it out before it can act, or they can let it take an action in exchange for not burning through those resources. If you just make the enemy faster, this is no longer a choice; you're going to get hit - no matter what.

Hmm, well you have a point. But still, if the issue with a enemy is that it poses no threat at all, increasing its attack should be the correct play. I just think that limiting your options from the get-go is wrong.

Random question to you guys: If you were going to add a separate magic stat to GS, what would you call it (keeping with GS's themes)? Intelligence? Wisdom? Acuity? Insight? Mind?

Quote from: Caledor on 18, December, 2015, 08:55:30 PM

Quote from: Rolina on 18, December, 2015, 08:23:22 PM
Also, why all the tearing apart of my philosophy?  Why not, you know, share yours?  We all have different approaches.

Why are you getting so defensive? The first poster was the one to lead the discussion, that's all. Besides, we've been discussing my balancing philosophy for the last 11 months on this very forum... i don't understand why it should be THAT bad talking about yours or anyone else's approach.

Eh, I'm just terrible getting my point across.  I was just curious as to what your approach was.  I mean, I posted mine, but it was several more posts before anyone posted theirs, so it's mostly me responding to people about mine rather than me reading about how other people approach things.  I'm genuinely curious as to what your personal approaches are.

@Leaf, Mia's spells:  That's a damn good point.  Either mix it up, or consolidate the marginal increases.  I like the idea.

@Squirtle, delusion:  Er... not so fast.  Delusion only affects the attack command, and most enemies have a nice assortment of other things to use against the players.  It's as useless against them as against the party without at least some tweaks to what it affects.
@Squirtle, break:  Oh, that reminds me.  I'm rather fond of the idea of break not being an instant-success, but rather to have it have simply a high chance of success, and to check against each individual buff.  I'd also take it from Target All to Large Area, so that while it has a high chance of wiping the central target clean, other targets have a much higher chance of having some or all of their stats intact afterwards.  This would keep buffs as being useful, but still have break be a credible threat.

@Leaf, Squirtle, and Agility:  It depends on how you approach it, I think.  High AGL foes should also have lower defenses, making them fast but fragile.  Bulky foes would have lower speed, but also some higher firepower, giving the scenario leaf presented.  It's part of how I think each enemy should have its place - some are fast skirmishers, others are bulky artillery.  I'd also make better use of priority skills on either side.  Agility should still be an important stat, but between the counters that defenders get, priority moves, and the approach enemies take, it'd not be quite as powerful as it is in vanilla.

@Condemn:  Eh... this is a tricky one to balance.  InstaKO moves have always been kinda... eh.  No point in them being that costly though, not unless they're a near guaranteed success.  As it stands, they should still be one of the less successful ailments, though some foes I could see being vulnerable.  Say, for example, they have high HP, defense, and warding, but low luck and an actual weakness to insta-ko moves.  That's mean that your heavy damage dealers may struggle with it, but a controller could more or less handle it with ease.  I think how much it's worth really depends on its implementation in the end.

@Magic stat:  I use Casting and Warding.  They fit the general naming mold that attack and defense use.  I try to avoid terms like intelligence, wisdom, etc since I think that it should be fine to have a smart warrior who just isn't that good with spells, but not your usual dumb oaf.  I avoid terms like Strength and Dexterity as well, since I think those should be defined by the character, not by the battle stats.

About golden sun... my approach in general was to give (almost) everything a chance to shine. I focus a single issue, the one that "bothers" me the most, solve it, rinse and repeat.

My first complaints to the game were: unleashes are too strong, psynergy is too weak. So: nerf unleashes, increase the power of psynergies (the pp multiplier came A LOT later).

Then came the classes, starting with Piers and Jenna and the ridiculous copy paste from GS1, which ended up becoming a full overhaul. And yes, as you know by now, i'm fine with some classes performing better or worse than others at certain point of the game. I think that adaptability is a good quality for a player and this encourages changes instead of sticking to one class setup from the beginning to the end.

After that the items, starting from simple tweaks, then weapon categories, full shop rebalance, general TLA nerf from the eastern sea onwards (so that the TBS team has weapon of comparable power to yours when they join), up to the 2 new cursed items.

I never ever summon rushed in like 5 playthroughs so it became an issue only after posting my work in progress (at the time) here and making it available for everyone.

And well i could keep going but i don't see the point of it. It can really be summed up as "i don't like that/it can be improved -> fix it/improve it -> "what's next?". That's why it's easier for me to talk about other people's ideas or answer their questions.

@Magic stat name: If we want to keep the GS theme, the only word we really can't use is Magic. The perfect fit for me are Power and Resistance, too bad that those are already used for the elements. I'm not really fine with casting and warding, but the main reason is that they don't really translate well into italian.

@Condemn I really like your idea Role. After all, somehow i already did the same with the classes in my mod: the ones vulnerable to Death are Paladin and Holy Knight, two of the sturdiest classes, with very high HP, top tier defense, and healing abilities.

@Break. Don't forget the effect this might have on the AI. Against bosses (main break users) you always have at least 1 turn more than them. Nerfing break implies that the turn advantage become even more noticeable cause you can finally stack buffs AND the enemies have to "lose" more turns casting multiple breaks. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but be VERY careful with it. Personally, i like the idea of break being a move that "punishes" players being "too greedy" with buffs. Against sentinel for example, i used to cast a single buff per turn in order to bait a break. And it's already a win-win situation as it is, cause if he did break, he lost 1/3 of his actions, while i lost only 1/4. If he didn't, i was stronger the next turn.

Delusion: You would have a good point, except that literally every enemy other than Doom Dragon has at least one Attack command, with many having 2-5 on average and a few even having nothing else (e.g. Kobold/Goblin line). And Doom Dragon's first head has a "do nothing" move. Since most/all enemies tend to pick abilities regardless of their current status ailment, this means that delusion always has the potential to help. This is particularly true near the start of the game, when Delude is always available from the moment you get Ivan/Sheba and few enemies have less than 6-7 attack commands. Its usefulness is obviously diminished later in the game and against several bosses, but the fact that it is more reliable than most other spell-based ailments means that it is better than them already. To quote what I said to some people on Skype:

QuoteAlthough as far as spell-based ailments go, Delude is still more useful than almost everything else the player can cast. Every other ailment spell is either too volatile (haunt), too unreliable (condemn, Drain spells), and/or mostly useless (bind, curse).

The only better ailment that can be inflicted through a spell is sleep. Well, if ignoring item classes at least. Poison/venom and stun would certainly be more useful if they were more accessible as spells, but they aren't. :P


Magic stat: While I still think that the eStats can be good enough for this if you make eStat boosting gear (especially for mages) more plentiful and give magic classes more distinct abilities, naming such a stat "wisdom" or something like that could be pretty fitting. It should probably be distinct from attack in order to differentiate the two, otherwise you basically have two names for the same thing. Plus it would be pretty hard to justify having a blanket resistance stat for many enemies that don't use magic, unlike for defence where you can chalk that up to the physical characteristics of the enemy almost 100% of the time.

Condemn/break: I read those as "@ Condom" and "@Break" for a moment, lol. I agree with the condemn stuff for the most part (although a higher cost for a higher success rate could be nice if the success rate isn't too high), and also agree with break to a point; a single target variant could work pretty well for common enemies and early bosses, and then later bosses and other enemies can have a full one. At the very least a single-target variant that is attached to a physical attack of sorts.


Don't like -> fix -> loop: I kind of do the same as well, but I think in different ways. Not sure, hard to explain really. One example is how we seem to have handled some ailments; it looks like you mostly looked at base rates, while I have only changed a couple rates so far and tweaked the actual formulas to make up for it. Mostly just to lessen the influence that luck has on ailments, but still.

Agility/priority: Makes sense. Which reminds me, I was planning to investigate the "has priority over everything else" thing later. It normally only applies to certain effects if they are used as djinn abilities, but I can't see that being too hard to change...

Quoteand/or mostly useless (bind, curse)

I just wanna say that the *only* reason bind is so-called "useless" is because it's inconsistent. Luff and rime are both totally legit djinn that inflict that same effect, but with 100% success. I'd actually say that seal is one of the better ailments in the game, as long as the enemy you're binding doesn't have better monster skills than they do psynergy.

Oh definitely, yeah! It's just that those aren't spell-based like the other examples; in terms of djinn, unleashes, or item classes, then delude and sleep can definitely be outclassed by other alternatives. Plus a number of enemies don't actually use psynergy, so the player has to learn or remember which ones to use it on. Pretty good with a djinni, but also mediocre otherwise.

Also, does it bother anyone else that there are so many djinn with duplicate effects in the game? Luff/Rime, Tonic/Salt, Zephyr/Coal, Corona/Iron... I mean, I get why, but it just seems a tad silly that they couldn't figure out how to diversify them a bit.

Not really tbh. It bothers me more when they're of the same element (e.g. forge/kindle), but even that I find excusable, since they don't do it often. Before the parties join, you need the replacements for GS1 djinn in GS2, and after the parties join, having duplicate effects on different elements lets you set up your party in a lot of different ways while still keeping the same basic functionality. And being able to double up on a djinni effect is pretty cool too; unleashing both kindle and forge T1 for an instant +50% atk boost to the entire party is fun.

@Bind:  That's an easy fix.  Bind would be useful if monster skills consumed PP.  Even if they only cost 1 PP, it'd force monsters to use the rarely used (in my experience) attack command, meaning that a combination of bind and delusion would be a devastating combo.  Seem too powerful?  Well... I'd argue that's why we need to have monsters with their own roles.  Maybe after that, there's another monster on the team that can use a Restore-like ability on it.  Or maybe that monster has some items - the fact that enemies get items I think is great, so if more of them can use a greater variety of items, that could be used to account for the bind/delude combo as well.

@Similar effect djinn:  So long as they have different "equip" stats, I'm fine with it.  Literal clones are what I'd have a problem with.  I definitely agree with Leaf in that I'd prefer identical abilities to be spread across multiple elements, though.

Bind: Oh yeah, that should work. I have also thought of of having numerous fighter enemies with PP pools; while some would be able to use it like you suggest, others would merely have it to make PP-related effect (like PP Drain) more useful.

Djinn: That's true. I guess I am thinking too much about it, although my preference would be for even slight variation. For example, one that does +25% to every PC and another than only does +12.5% but also heals. Might work out if it weren't for transfer data being a thing.

@Caledor/Break and "Greedy buffs" - I've gotta disagree with you on this one.  That's not how break works in practice.  What it does instead is pretty much force you to not waste your time with buffs.  Making it a high success rate while checking each individual buff you have on you, as well as giving it a diminishing area like most spells, keep it from negating the whole point of buffs (thus making them a viable option in strategy), while also still being rather powerful.  Something that might help is if the enemy AI targets the person with the most buffs on them as the focus of the spell - that way, while it doesn't act as global punishment, it does preform the role you wanted with it punishing the spamming of buffs.

At the same time, my whole approach to buffs/debuffs is vastly different than what GS does.

Each stat would have two buff and two debuff slots, save for HP, PP, and luck which have one.  There are 4 types of buffs/debuffs that can be put into these slots.  For simplicity's sake, I'll just post the buffs, since debuffs are basically the inverse:

Attack, Defense, Casting, Warding, Agility buffs (max buff value: 50%):

Stat +12.5% for 4 turns (targets whole party)
Stat +25% for 4 turns (targets single target)
Stat +25% for 8 turns, break effect -25% success rate for this slot (targets single target)
Stat +50% for 4 turns, break effect +25% success rate for this slot (targets single target)


Resistance Buffs (max buff value: +80):

Stat +20 for 4 turns (targets whole party)
Stat +40 for 4 turns (targets single target)
Stat +40 for 8 turns, break effect -25% success rate for this slot (targets single target)
Stat +80 for 4 turns, break effect +25% success rate for this slot (targets single target)

Power Buffs (Max buff value N/A*):

Stat +10 for 4 turns (Tier 1 summon buff)
Stat +20 for 4 turns (Tier 2 summon buff)
Stat +40 for 4 turns (Tier 3 summon buff)
Stat +80 for 4 turns (Tier 4 summon buff)

Luck buffs (max buff value: +7):

Luck +7 (djinn effect exclusive, targets whole party)


HP and PP buffs:

Regen for 4 turns (amount depends on spell) (no debuff counterpart for this effect) (whether single or full party as target depends on spell)


When you cast a buff, it'll take up one of the slots.  As each turn goes by, a counter ticks down - when it hits 0, the buff will end and that buff will disappear.  However, if you cast a second buff for that same stat, it'll reset the counter for the original buff back to its default value.  This only has an effect if there is an empty slot - if both slots are filled, then the spell will simply not work on that character.  IMO, this puts more of an emphasis on strategy.  Do you go for Weapon Grace and risk the easy dispel?  Or maybe you go for the long con, using long duration buffs, which though not immune to the dispel effects is at least resistant to it.

Power buffs are a bit different, though.  They still work as they do in GS - you get the buff after the summon.  But here's thing - these are pretty much not stackable, since their duration lasts the same duration as a summon.  Effectively, this means that by the time the next summon leaves and gives you a power buff, the old one has already worn off.


Debuffs work similarly, though the break-resistant and break-weak debuffs do double duty - since they're negative effects, luck is working to counteract them.  Break-resistant debuffs are less likely to be shaken off each turn due to luck checks, and break-weak ones are more likely.  In addition, a spell that works like break, but vs debuffs on the team would exist as well.  It'd not have as high of a success rate (considering that you can also shake off debuffs/ailments), but it'd effectively be a way for allies and foes to counteract debuff strats.

Hmm, I don't really think buffs are a waste of time just due to Break. I kinda understand what you're saying but i fear that switching to that system (area of effect break with lower chance on non main targets) might have very bad side effects, like:
- enemies become too easy cause they lose more turns trying to Break you, while you enjoy the increased stats more (double bonus for the player)
- the former might force us to strengthen the enemies. This then might lead to a scenario where buffs are absolutely needed to fight certain enemies (overleveling is not an answer since we want to add strategy), which is the opposite of the current situation but bad all the same.

I used Sentinel as an example cause he's strong enough to completely rape your team in the 3 turns he has with damage and debuffs. Plus your casters are completely useless against him so having them using buffs to bait a Break IS a strategy and also a very good one IMO cause you can only gain from doing this. And there are still enemies with sequential attack patterns, where you simply know when he/she will use Break and buff accordingly.

However, to sum up the whole thing, I'm against changing break only cause i fear the consequences of that. I just can't see it being a good and flawless change like you guys do. But still, i acknowledge that all of this is only inside my head for now and I might be proven to be completely wrong when someone actually does it and brings solid results from tests. Hence the "I'm not saying don't do it, i'm saying be VERY CAREFUL with it".

About the other things you wrote, I like many of them. A revamped AI IMO is a MUST if the new break is used, or we might end up with turns where the enemy breaks a high impact on 3 of your characters, then the RNG immediately tries to break again on Mia, cause it's simply too dangerous leaving the poor girl's attack stat unchecked. Or the opposite, when he breaks 3, and he doesn't try to break again on the Sol Blade weilder.

The slot thing also is nice, as is the different resistance to break/turn duration within buffs of the same type.

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with both sides of the argument. My solution so far is to just make it not guaranteed; Disco Sun currently has it at a 100% formula rate, meaning that it will still land most of the time unless the target has a good Mercury eLevel. It's mostly due to concerns regarding buff preparation, djinn, and enemy buffs being useless by the time you learn Break in the early 30s. Key part of that being early 30s. It makes it easier to give later enemies and bosses the ability to use buffs as something more than Break bait, although then the other two

That being said, there's a very fine balance for Break/buff stuff. The balance is fairly lopsided towards Break being overpowered right now, but the other side of that is basically what Caledor said. What is in place now is arguably better than that, and some care should be taken to make sure it can't be broken easily by the player.

A single target version that can precedes the normal variant in some way could work if done properly. Maybe like how Ragnarok becomes Odyssey: Break -> Shatter? Not sure. Something similar could theoretically work for Cure Poison and Restore as well, now that I think about it. This idea would probably work best in a hack where djinn manipulation is much more commonplace, which I am actually a huge fan of.

On that note, I have a few "new" strategies or roles in mind for enemies that will accompany more traditional roles of mage/fighter/tank/whatever. They mostly build on existing enemy mechanics though:

- Class/djinni manipulator: Starting with single target abilities that maybe target 1-2 djinn and progressing to multiple enemies having moves like Djinn Blast and Djinn Storm. Only five (5) bosses actually have the ability to do this in Golden Sun, and two of them are bonus bosses. It would also be neat to have a select few enemies with djinni scrambling moves, but that may be too much effort to be worthwhile.
- Summoner: Can use Summon-type abilities and even deal percentage-based damage. A select few enemies may even mimic adepts in terms of djinni use and/or ePow boosts, particularly certain bosses.
- Caller: Basically Star Magician, which is an expansion of the "duplicate self" and "revive ally" stuff with entirely new enemies. Whereas the previous two strategies/roles will be fairly common, this one will be less so. Enemies that can do this will generally do so to either to add enemies you can't normally encounter separately or for thematic purposes. E.g. a Doomsayer may be able to summon Zombies or Skeletons into battle, or a Gnome Wizard may be able to call Estre Woods. This may even branch into transformation stuff, but I don't know yet.

Ah, but you forget about added effects!  What if they enemy doesn't waste their time actively casting break - what if many of their skills actually have break as an additional effect?  For example, an attack called Searing Flame that strikes a medium area at high magnitude with an added break effect to it.  Because it's damage + effect, the chance itself is halved, but because it's also an attack, you get that anti-buff effect, and it can be cast multiple times in a turn.  Nothing wasted, but your controller may want to change tactics from buffs to debuffs against a foe like that.

To me, this the easiest of arguments - if you change something, you compensate in turn.  You have to adapt the enemy strategies to your techniques.  What's more, the fact that you think break in and of itself is a wasted turn is a very, very incorrect view.  Break → Armor Crush is not only a great tactic, but devastating one.  Enemy AI would need to be tweaked to exploit stuff like this as well.  Plus, in my system this might force the players to clear that debuff slot via normalize effects.

As for the slot thing, it was mainly implemented to counter buff spamming.  I mean, when all I have to do is cast high impact every few turns to keep everyone at full attack power, it doesn't feel very... tactical, you know?  But if I have to keep track of buffs and juggle both them and enhancements and what not effectively, it's more engaging.  

@Squirtle:  Not that kind of break.  Break refers to the breaking of waves, it'd be Break → Crash.


@Djinn Storm:  I'm kind of the mind that this shouldn't be guaranteed.  Djinn Storm and Blast, IMO, should be a moderate chance of success and check vs every djinn.  Crippling still, yes, but not overwhelmingly so as it is now.  Those moves are far too overpowered as they are now, and come across more cheap than anything.

Well, i agree with pretty much your whole post. Under those conditions, a Break nerf might be viable. Also

Quote from: Rolina on 27, December, 2015, 06:19:55 PMBreak refers to the breaking of waves, it'd be Break → Crash.

While this makes more sense, remember that Break should actually be named Splash.

Added effects: Pretty much, yeah. My previous post was referencing the effect as a standalone thing more than as an added effect. One should still be careful about not going too far in the other direction at any rate.

Break: Huh, never thought of the wave thing before. I always associated it with the erosion/weathering/cracking of solids (e.g. rock, cement) from the cold/freezing, which honestly makes more sense to me given that you are literally breaking buffs. The name though...

Djinn Storm: I agree. Preferably non-elemental in most situations though, unless there are also versions that only target specific elements. Something like 60-70% could work pretty well if going by the formula, maybe even with item classes being extra vulnerable to them should they still be multi-elemental in nature.

@Break/Splash:  Yup, I agree with you there.  But if you're gonna use the localized name, you gotta keep to naming trends. :3c

@Squirtle/Break:  Doesn't make sense for that animation.

Maybe not for that animation, but that's not necessarily something that is always consistent. I mean, a number of animations basically have random and/or cool-sounding names for them.


Also, I recently thought of an idea about turning eLevels into element-specific proficiency stats that can be trained and raised over time. Basically into actual levels. Still working out the kinks of it though, so I will update later. All I know is that it could potentially change the class system around a bit. Not sure. Later.

Unless you specifically disassociate the class system from E-Levels, then I'd avoid it.  I'm all in favor of that, though.  In fact, I'd change the name even to reflect that - I'd use Elemental Proficiency.  I'd not give it use mastery the way your idea is, but instead add equipment support for it.  I think it'd make its place as Control Offense a bit clearer.

While we're at the subject of renaming stats, I've flirted with the idea of changing Luck into Resilience before.  FFTA2 uses that name for the same thing that stat does, and I kinda like that approach.  Gives it a more defense oriented name, while who knows what the hell luck means - every game uses that differently.

Posting again to get more thoughts.  Long with ELevel → EProficiency and Luck → Resiliance, I'm also a fan of changing PP (Psynergy Points) back to EP (Energy Points).  Having the idea that this comes from your energy or stamina reserves means that as a developer we can actually take better advantage of it, such as creating a non-adept ("Freelancer" in my system) that can consume EP as a second-chance critical, or even stacked critical.  It'd let you have a non-caster in the system without having an entirely useless stat, since it's now fuel for their higher crit rate.  It'd also be better justification for giving monster skills a cost.  They're not casting psynergy when they breathe fire, but they are expending energy.

...what's stopping you from doing that now? Your distinction between "EP" and "PP" is entirely superficial. They're literally the same stat, called by different things, but have the same meaning; "psynergy" is short for "psychic energy" after all.

You have a resource bar. May as well use it.

Despite being the most fervent supporter of reverting terms to their japanese original (when the change to english is meaningless) i'd never touch this one.

Energy was changed to Psynergy because the name wasn't exotic enough for english speakers. Psynergy, on top of fulfilling said goal, is similar to the japanese name AND coherent with the power it represents.

Moreover, changing the name wouldn't change what it represents one bit, since it's clearly described in-game.

Mostly the ties to GS are what's stopping me.  At the moment, my system is being made for Golden Sun fans.  If I do wind up using this though, I'm probably going to make exactly those changes, since I'll be using my own IP.  That is an eventual end goal, after all.  Luckily, I can finally afford to go to college starting this year, so I'll be able to start getting the education I need to help me not only get back up to speed in terms of math and computer science (I've forgotten so much over the last decade it's depressing), but I should also be able to learn modern programming and design techniques.

Well, yes. I should probably clarify, when I said "what's stopping you from doing that now?" I was referring to creating a non-adept with a resource. I don't think you should rename PP if you're staying within the GS framework. I was trying to convey that changing the name to EP wouldn't change anything about your problem.

Congrats on entering college btw.

Heh, I haven't entered yet - it's my job that's helping me afford it, so once I get a year down full time, they'll pay for half my college.  I'll be able to start college in the Summer Semester as a result, gonna use the shorter session to catch up on the remedial courses I'll need to get back up to date.  Thanks for the wellwishes, though.

Since GS currently doesn't have Spell Offence/Spell Defence stats, I just use the Base Damage Multiplier patch to make PP an offence stat and use the ratio of HP/Defence for spell damage tanking vs. physical damage tanking. High HP but low Defence = eat spells all day, but fall to physical strikes. High Defence but low HP = eat physical attacks all day, but fall to spell damage.

If Caledor were to make a patch for his "Delusion prevents unleashes" modification, I would gladly abuse that to make spell damage weapons properly-balanced as well.

Well yeah, but... this is about balance philosophy, so the idea here is that if you could, what would you do, and why?

No idea where a question about this would go in the new forum layout, so I'm gonna put it up here.  Catman over in Golden Sunrise had come up with a type of support that I think is interesting - "Auras".  These would behave a bit differently than your more traditional spell type, and would have their own ups and downs.  I came up with a quick scratchpad-style idea for how they'd work, and I'd like y'alls opinions and suggestions on the topic.

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Auras only affect the user.
Auras would work as a toggle, and would have a low initial PP cost.  As a toggle, activating/turning off auras doesn't use up the turn, and further action may be done on that turn (ex: Activate 3 auras, cast Liquifier.)
Multiple auras can stack, so long as they affect different stats/have different effects.
Stat boost auras take up a buff slot for that stat, and behave much like a buff.
With an aura active, any time you'd take damage, you take PP damage in proportion to the damage you'd take (damage is applied for each aura in play.
In the case of defensive auras, you'd take damage as if you didn't have the aura (though buffs from other spells would work).
Auras have a recurring cost equal to the cost of the spell (at the end of each turn, they lose PP equal to the cost of all applied auras).
Once an adept no longer has enough PP for upkeep, the auras dispel.
PP regen is cut by half when an aura is active (does not compound with multiple auras).  PP restoration items and djinn are unaffected.

Auras come in two types - those that increase in effect as PP goes down, and those that decrease in effect as PP goes down.

Enraged Auras:  As PP goes down, the aura gets stronger and stronger.  For stat boost auras, the stats go from 12.5% → 25% → 37.5% → 50% at each quarter remaining.  For effect auras, the chance increases from low, to mid, to high for each third remaining.

Diminishing Auras:  As PP goes down, the aura gets weaker and weaker.  For stat boost auras, the stats go from 50% → 35.5% → 25% → 12.5% at each quarter remaining.  For effect auras, the chance increases from high, to mid, to low for each third remaining.

Limitations:

You cannot have both the Enraged and Diminishing version of an aura for a certain stat or effect in the same class.
Auras cannot affect an area - the can only affect the user, or in the case of counters the attacker.
Auras can be dispelled via break-type effects.
Psy Seals disable the ability to toggle auras, but do not outright dispel them.  If an aura is active when sealed, it cannot be turned off until either the seal ends or the adept runs out of PP.
HP/PP Regen and Drain are not available as auras. HP/PP damage, however, are.

Things of note:

Auras are not limited like buffs, debuffs, and ailments are, and are basically "pick as many as desired for as many slots as you have available"
Auras hypothetically could outlast standard buff, or could only last a very short amount of time.  It all depends on how much PP the adept has to spend.
Be careful when stacking auras.  Sure, you could have six different auras active at the same time, but you take 6x the PP damage when you get hit if you do that.  This is very much a risk vs reward type of situation, as though you could be super powerful, you can also get drained of fuel quite quickly.

---

tl;dr - Auras are a self-target only buff that has no set duration, but consumes a bit of PP each turn and triggers PP damage upon PP damage.  When out of PP, auras end.  Auras work as a toggle, and toggling auras counts as a "free action", and you can have multiple auras active at once, but the PP consumption effects stack.

More traditional buffs work instead by targeting anyone on the party/the whole party, and last a set number of turns.