:VenusDjinni: :MarsDjinni: Intro :JupiterDjinni: :MercuryDjinni:
Taking inspiration from the many great ideas I've read on this forum over the years, I managed to build up my personal collection of tweaks, hacks and changes in order to try to balance out this game. With "balance" i mean addressing all the things that make the game too straightforward (Megiddo and Summon Rush beat any other strategy by a landslide), by lowering the strength of the most effective options AND either increasing the usefulness of the weaker ones or outright replacing them.
Over time - since this mod has been in development for at least 5 years thanks to the continous feedback from its users - it eventually evolved into a full fledged gameplay overhaul that preserves the spirit of the original game while building up on its hidden potential.
The main goal of this mod is to
increase the number of options available. This means that while you can play the game like you always did, since many popular classes, abilities and items are all still here mostly untouched (with the sole exception of the "summon rushing" strategy, which has been removed completely), you can also try all the strategies were simply too weak in the original game to be considered viable, cause they have now been improved. Tactics like unleashing with Sheba or Mia, using the item classes, using caster classes to attack and not only to heal or buff, using debuffs, using djinn to attack and revive, and many, many more, along with brand new classes, items, abilities and enemies.
The secondary goal is to
increase the difficulty. This mod is aimed at players that are quite knowledgeable with the game mechanics, and tries to be an enjoyable challenge for them. I actually advise against using this mod on the very first playthrough. Moreover, the increase in difficulty is mainly here to encourage smarter plays... to give players an actual reason to try all the different strategies and combat tricks this game can offer. It not intended to be more difficult "just because".
Reloaded is a 100% Gameplay-oriented mod. Nothing story-wise, except for a few translation tweaks, has been altered. It affects both games and the two link up perfectly. It's best enjoyed as a new challenge on subsequent runs, starting back from GS1 and transfering data to TLA.
:save: Documentation :save:
Class doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W9VJcbmV5l6wGSiDO4oM6IV566i7XvVFQs_5WT0ajN8 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W9VJcbmV5l6wGSiDO4oM6IV566i7XvVFQs_5WT0ajN8)
Class Setup doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1prjK1L0YpeKuadoy5A2liiAWm_m0yZ3oOc-FE5rGQKU (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1prjK1L0YpeKuadoy5A2liiAWm_m0yZ3oOc-FE5rGQKU)
Equipment doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13eCQOiM5YsKmcBZKSlwW4-wExXtn8WZ4U46cL_hmRO8 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13eCQOiM5YsKmcBZKSlwW4-wExXtn8WZ4U46cL_hmRO8)
Psynergy doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qVYsowdD3n_g3kjvdGl8UBryidcRU1rJaEebiDaPrlA (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qVYsowdD3n_g3kjvdGl8UBryidcRU1rJaEebiDaPrlA)
RNG Guide (GameFAQs, for drops): https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/25734 (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/25734)
:link: Download Links :link:
English Patches: HERE (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mVREs1QpL6MlolnaTCH14H-pkpqP4NfG/view)
Italian Patches: HERE (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jGXsWxVmhrDTPD4d-by-iCRlmFXcy68c/view?usp=sharing)
Current Version: v1.82a
Latest Update: 01 Mar 2024
Reason:
Minor Angelic Ring Fix in TBS
:newquest: Mod Content :newquest:
:fight: Classes: New and revamped classes, new djinn progression for item classes, stat bonuses in 5% steps, partial classes removed from TLA, new magic resistance stat tied to classes. Quote from: ClassesUse the Class Setup Doc linked above to see which class combinations are available among those that involve classes you like.
Felix's and Sheba's starting classes now are different from Isaac's and Ivan's respectively. Inspiration for their classes (both in names and spells) was taken from Rolina's Class Tweaks for TLA (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2094.0).
Jenna and Piers have a completely new set of classes made almost entirely from scratch: Jenna's classes are mostly mage-ish while Piers' are mostly warrior-ish.
Each class line has a Magic Resistance value (WRD in the class doc) that alters damage taken from Base Damage attacks. For example a 95% WRD means that a character in that class will take 5% more damage from Base Damage attacks.
A fourth three-elemental class has been added to EVERYONE, to fill the djinn combination gap left by the other three. So, Venus/Mars characters gain the 5 :VenusStar: 5 :MarsStar: 4 :MercuryStar: class and Jupiter/Mercury characters gain the 5 :JupiterStar: 5 :MercuryStar: 4 :MarsStar: class.
Item classes can be go up a tier by adding 3 djinn of a specific new element instead of keeping them balanced (full explanation here (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2779.msg48211#msg48211)). The order for each class is:
Acrobat: Water - Earth - Fire - Wind
Dragontamer: Earth - Wind - Water - Fire
Necromancer: Wind - Fire - Earth - Water
Quote from: ReasoningJenna and Piers' classes needed a total revamp and they needed it badly. Classes in TLA were carbon copies of those in GS, which means that Jenna got the warrior-ish classes from Garet despite being a mage and Piers the mage-ish classes from Mia despite being a warrior.
Base classes were changed for flavor so each pair of characters of one element uses two different aspects of that element.
A magic resistance stat didn't exist in this game. Mages usually have lower HP and Defense than warriors, so they compensate with higher Magic Defense. It was needed for stats balance.
The fourth three-elemental class line was missing for no apparent reason, the new progression for item classes is just a bonus to make them easier to try/use.
Design choices for classes: Setting Jenna and Piers aside, everything you were familiar with in the vanilla game is still here. Names have been changed here and there either to get closer to the japanese ones or to avoid redundancy. Changes to psynergy sets are mostly to balance the power level among them or again, to avoid redundancy. For example, Guru Mia lost Wish because otherwise all her dual classes would've had it.
Warriors have usually access to weaker base damage psynergies than mages, with the exception of monoelemental warriors. Idea it is that even warriors can access strong psynergies by mastering one element instead of going wide, that's why they get it only after the third tier of their class progression (just like vanilla).
Biggest changes are to tri elemental classes, especially due to the 4th one I created from scratch for everyone: each character having now 4 lead me to center each class around a different main element, which can easily be guessed by looking at djinn requirements and psynergy sets. Also each group has a "hybrid" class (warrior going mage or mage going warrior), again each centered around a different element. They are Ninja, Valkyrie, Fury and General.
:Isaac: Characters: Characters' base stats and starting levels rearranged. Piers levels up faster. Stats gained at level up are fixed and unaffected by RNG.Quote from: CharactersCharacters' base stats were rearranged to balance them out and at the same time make differences between them more striking, cause those changes are (for the most part) reflected by the stat multipliers of the base classes. For example: Sheba is now everything that Ivan was: best caster and frailest character. Ivan also gained more attack. Piers improved with more PP and HP at the expense of Felix. Piers is also a better caster than Isaac now. Mia has now second best PP but also second worst ATK.
Characters have more innate HP and gain less from Djinn. Luck grows with levels. Leveling up doesn't depend on RNG anymore.
In TLA, Jenna starts at 4 and Piers levels up faster (while still being the slowest).
Quote from: ReasoningMoving some HP from Djinn to characters is to make them more resilient to summoning and putting djinn on standby. End result when they're all set is the same, but as you use djinn you lose less HP than vanilla, cause part of the HP that were granted by djinn is now hardcoded into the characters' stat growth.
Luck growing with levels is part of a full overhaul of the debuff mechanic, which will be explained in its section.
:buy: Items & Equipment: Weapon categories system, new items added, tweaked MANY others. Some treasures have been rearranged in TLA. New attribute "Ailments" found on equipment.Quote from: ItemsAlmost every piece of equipment has been tweaked.
The Golden Rule: Each piece of equipment found/bought in the game is stronger than anything (of the same type) you could find at an earlier point in the game and weaker than anything found later. Shops (and some chests) have been changed accordingly.
Weapon categories
- Long Swords: standard weapon
- Light Blades: -Atk, +Agility, +Defense
- Axes: +Atk, -Def
- Maces: -Atk, -5% Unleash Rate, +MaxHP/Power/Ailments
- Staves: --Atk, +5% Unleash Rate, +MaxPP/Power
- Ankhs: --Atk, +5% Unleash Rate, +Power/Luck/Ailments
Ailments boosts the chance to hit enemies with debuffs, negative statuses and anything else that requires a Luck check on the enemy. It directly increases the percentile chance by the amount shown on the item, just like how the Criticals attribute increases the chance to unleash.
Each forgeable material now has a "target level range" and the places where they can be found have been changed accordingly.
Tear stone: ~21. very early eastern sea.
Stardust: ~23. early to mid eastern sea. Taopo, aqua rock and early gaia rock.
Sylph feather: ~25. Mid to late e.sea. Ankhol to Lemuria.
Dragon Skin: ~28. early w.sea. From right after grind till shaman village.
Golem Core: ~30. Contigo till reunion. (new Gaia Staff replaces Gaia Axe)
Sala Tail: ~33. From reunion to Loho.
Mythril silver: ~35. Loho to Prox. (Myhril Blade is now a light sword)
Orichalcon & Dark Matter: After teleport.
Quote from: ReasoningIn vanilla weapons were different only in name. Graphics aside, there's nothing that makes an Axe different from a Long Sword since they can be equipped by the same characters. Now they have proper categories each with their own quirks and rules.
Ailment (the attribute) is part of the overhaul to the debuff mechanic, explained in detail later.
Every change to treasure, drops and shops (and forging) from vanilla is due to the Golden Rule, so I'm not doing a "reasoning" there.
:Attack: Unleashes: All attack based unleashes use multipliers. Unleashing mages are now a viable option.Quote from: UnleashesThe standard unleash rate is now 30%.
Armageddon's (Megiddo) multiplier is now x2.4, Ceres' Legend and Heaven Vengeance had their added damage part reduced.
Some unleashes had their element changed. Among the most notable ones, Acheron's Grief is now non-elemental and High Vitals changed to Mercury.
Every unleash of non-staff weapons uses a multiplier to increase damage. Staves' unleashes are all base damage type.
Quote from: ReasoningMostly number tweaks for balance reason: nerfs and buffs where needed.
Element changes: IIRC like 80% of Axes unleashes were Fire or Earth for example. They're to spread things out more.
I ditched the "Added damage" formula completely in favor of multipliers (both from EPA and Unleashes) cause the former doesn't scale well. It's bonkers at the beginning cause the relative damage increase is huge but as your regular damage increases the relative bonus becomes lower and lower.
Staves unleashes becoming "base damage" type (= spells) is a great deal. It means that mages can now unleash effectively cause their usually low attack stat is completely ignored.
:psynergy: Psynergy, Healing & Reviving: New psynergies added. Max PP stat increases damage dealt by Base Damage psynergies. Reviving tweaked, group healing costs MUCH more. Healing mechanic tweaked. Power and Resistance cap raised to 255. Last psynergy is learnt at 42.Quote from: Psynergy, Healing & RevivingNew psynergies: Tyrfing (Venus equivalent of Quick Strike), Meltdown (Mars equivalent of Quick Strike), Waterspout (Mercury equivalent of Quick Strike), Rolling Fire (Stronger mars Ghost Soldier), Sabre Rain (upgrade to Pierrot's Sabre Dance), Punishment series (Stronger Jupiter Fume), Boon series (from DD), Heal series (Group healing Venus psynergies), Bravery/Courage (Venus Impact/High Impact), Blessing (clone of DD's Weapon Grace), Raise (Mars equivalent of Revive), Remedy (a single target Tonic). Poison and Paralyze are available.
The new base damage formula is Damage = (Base Power + MaxPP/8) * Elemental_Factor * (1+(MaxPP/1024)).
PP cost for base damage psynergies recalculated from scratch with a custom made formula I wrote in order to make Power weight more than range.
Group healing and reviving psynergies cost MUCH more, as well as the strongest single target healing psynergies. Reviving effects now have ALL a 100% success rate BUT Revive, Raise, Lich and Phoenix revive only to 50% HP. Water of Life revives to 25% HP.
The Necromancer's Call Demon/Dullahan are base damage type spells. Call Dullahan is the strongest base damage psynergy in the game. The Pierrot's Card and Juggle series are also stronger. Frost Card is the strongest Mercury base damage psynergy in the game, Bramble Card and Thunder Card have a chance to debuff their targets, Fire Breath is a muti-target EPA like Shuriken.
Drain and Psy Drain are stronger and never miss. Psy Crystal restores 200 PP.
Endgame EPAs except Quick Strike, Tyrfing, Meltdown, Waterspout, Minotaur and Annihilation have a chance to debuff the target or to partially ignore defense.
All EPAs are multiplier based, endgame ones are now closer in power to unleashes.
Elemental Power doesn't affect healing spells as much as before (half of the original bonus/malus).
New formula: HP healed = Base_Power * [((Ele_Power-100)/2 + 100)/100]
Quote from: ReasoningGroup healing was massively undercosted in vanilla for how good it was (and still is).
The new base damage formula: good old PP Multiplier, the starting point of this mod back in 2015. The game lacks a "magic offense" stat that grows with levels and is higher for magic oriented characters than warriors. Elemental power was not good enough to differentiate. This implied that both mages and warriors were equally proficient at casting and that spells' growth (unlike physical attacks) resembled a step function: the only way to improve it was learning a new one with higher power. A big jump that eventually fades out. Old base damage formula was Damage = Base_Power * Elemental_Factor. Elemental_Factor is unchanged.
Having Max PP to serve as the missing "magic offense" stat addresses all of the above (mages are better than warriors at casting, smoother growth) and even more. Since both equipment for +MaxPP and +PPrecovery exist, characters have to choose: High PP cost of mass healing will move healers towards PP Recovery, losing out on damage, while offensive casters will aim for maxPP as high as possible cause that translates directly into damage.
Healing (reviving djinn) and offense (drain) should never miss, but reviving at 100% health is way too good cause at some point it's just better to have a character die and revive than try healing them.
Endgame EPAs: if they were all about power it meant some would overshadow others, so i added a chance to debuff to the weaker ones. Also part of the Ailment overhaul.
Elemental power in vanilla was literally twice as effective for healing than how it was for offensive spells. It made things harder to balance, cause power boosting equipment is used by casters and healers equally, and even worse for classes who can do both. So i halved it. Plain and simple. Now an elemental power boost grants the same percentile improvement to both offensive and healing spells.
:Revive: Buffs, Debuffs & Ailments: Debuffs are now useful against bosses. ST Buffs/Debuffs have lower duration. Defense buff/debuff are stronger, Resistance ones are weaker.Quote from: Buffs, Debuffs & AilmentsHaunt triggering rate is 40%. Characters wrapped in Delusion can't unleash and regular attacks miss more often. Death Curse's countdown starts at 4 instead of 7.
Resistance buffs and debuffs increase and decrease resistance by 15/30 instead of 20/40, and they cap at +-60 instead of +-80.
Defense buffs and debuffs are stronger: buffs go from x1,1875 to x1,75 (in 4 steps as usual).
Similarily, debuffs go from x0,8125 to x0,25.
Stronger (djinn and single target) buffs/debuffs have lower duration (5 turns vs 7) and base infliction rate than weaker buffs/debuffs (usually found on MT psynergies). Ailment infliction rate and ailment recovery chance aren't dependant on elemental level anymore.
Luck equal or higher than 40 grants immunity to stun and sleep (in addition to the usual immunities, which are unchanged).
New formulas:
Ailment/Debuff Infliction chance: [(Caster's_Level/4 - Target's_Luck/2)*3 + Base_chance + Ailment_Bonuses + Vulnerability's_25]*Area_multiplier
Ailment Recovery Chance: Luck - Level/2 - Turns*5 + Base_chance
Quote from: Debuff RatesDebuff Base Activ. Chance Base Recovery Chance
Drop attack 90%, 125%, 75%* 10%
Drop defense 90%, 125%, 75%* 5%
Drop resistance 90%, 125%, 75%* 5%
Poison 70%, 45%**
Venom 65%, 40%**
Delusion 70%, 50%** 30%
Stun 60%, 40%** 50%
Sleep 45% 40%
Seal 55%, 100%*** 30%
Haunt 60%, 40%**
Death 20%, 5%**
Death Curse 60%, 75%**
HP to 1 30%
Ignore Defense 85%
Force target OOB 40%
Skip a turn 115%, 130%****
* = Single Target Psynergy (2 tiers), Multi Target Psynergy (1 tier), Damaging abilities (2 tiers)
** = Non damaging move, Damaging move
*** = Psynergy, Djinn
**** = Djinn, Ulysses
Quote from: ReasoningBuffs were imbalanced, with defense being easily the worst. True, attack and defense buffs gave the same percentile increase but everyone's attack stat is usually around twice their defense if not higher. An attack buff and a defense buff will never cancel each other out cause the attack gained is much higher. So now defense buffs are stronger.
Resistance buffs were too good instead, especially when compared to defense buffs so they got lowered. Also remember that ele Res also reduces physical damage taken as long as it's elemental, while defense buffs will never reduce "magical" damage.
Ailment overhaul: Debuffs have various issues in vanilla that make them useless.
- Affliction and recovery rate being tied to elemental level and luck was a big downside. Neither grew with levels.
- They never worked on bosses due to high luck and high elemental levels and there was nothing you could do about it. Debuffs were simply a waste of slots on anyone's psynergy set.
- A mechanic being tied to stuff that doesn't change with levels greatly limits design space. If an enemy overpowers you offensively the usual counter is leveling up some more and tackle it again with better defenses or change strategy or gear. If the same enemy's main strategy was to put you to sleep constantly and then kill you, leveling up wouldn't solve anything. It will take longer cause your defenses are better due to leveling up, but it'll still put you to sleep as easily as before and kill you in the end.
Result: elemental level outright replaced with caster's level and luck grows with levels. Digression: In order to make this viable i had to remove RNG from level growth or people could've manipulated the RNG to always grant luck at level up, which is bonkers. Free immunity for everyone to most statuses due to 40 Luck being very easy to reach.
Ailment stat on equipment expands character's options greatly cause you can now build a dedicated debuffer. Also having weaker EPAs debuffs both avoids redundancy with stronger ones and makes warrior builds less one-dimensional, since they usually gear up for unleashes unlike mages, who get to pick element boosts (which ones), maxPP vs PP recovery, and now even unleashes themselves.
Stronger buff and debuffs last less: because they needed a downside or the multi target weaker ones, that also cost more, would be completely useless. For buffs, think of attack. Most likely scenario is that you have one or two warriors in the current party dedicated to attacking, so why cast an attack buff on everyone when 3/4 of the targets are never gonna use it instead of casting a stronger buff (again, that costs less) on the best available target? So High Impact's role now is to reset the turn counter with a longer duration, decreasing the times you need to recast the buff to keep it up. For enemies and debuffs it's even simpler: 95% of bosses are alone. so MT debuffs are weaker as usual, but have an higher infliction chance and last longer: remember that the recovery chance from a debuff is directly tied to the turns remaining for the debuff to disappear naturally.
I think that stunning or sleeping bosses can only be either OP or irrelevant in this game (no middle ground) so i'm getting rid of them. It's mainly debuffs that got in. Passive damage like Poison, Venom and Haunt also would be way too good and encourage a fully defensive playstyle or force me to waste attack slots on the boss for status healing, so those immunities remain as well.
:djinn: Djinn & Summons: Summon rushing isn't possible anymore, summons have been rebalanced. Most Djinn have improved, the strongest ones were nerfed. Djinn grant less HP. Chill and Mud's encounters swapped.Quote from: Djinn & SummonsSummons' HP% Damage nerfed from 3% per Djinn to 2%~2.5% per Djinn. Ratio starts growing from 5+ Djinn summons onwards.
Summons Base power is 35-70-130-220 for the standard 4, Zagan 60, Megaera 65, Flora 120, Moloch 125, Ulysses 210, Eclipse 300, Haures 310, Coatlicue 400, Dedalus 140+340, Azul 500, Catastrophe 520, Charon 580, Iris 750.
Flora decreases Resistance instead of inflicting Sleep.
Summons that require more than 2 djinn won't appear right at the start of a battle. After the first turn, 3-djinn summons become available; after the second, 4-djinn summons become available and so on, with Iris available after the 6th turn has passed (6 and 7 djinn summons are unlocked in the same turn).
Catastrophe requires 7 djinn to be summoned (5 Ju, 2 Me), Charon 8 (6 Ve, 2 Ju) and Iris 10 (6 Ma, 4 Me).
Mud is now found in the wild south of Naribwe, where Chill used to be. Conversely, Chill is now in Gabomba Catacombs, in Mud's place.
HP gained from Djinn more or less halved (moved to characters as explained above).
Reflux is multi-target. Shade and Flash reduce damage respectively by 50% and 66% instead of 60% and 90%. Vine, Mud, Gasp and Fury deal base damage. Ember restores 10% of PP, Ether 35% and Aroma 12,5%. Balm and Spark revive to 50% HP instead of 60%. Crystal heals 60% of HP.
Quote from: ReasoningSummon rushing is what made every boss in the game a joke. A strategy that involves setting all of your djinn in standby before battle (thus ready to be summoned immediately), unleash a barrage of summons at turns 0 and 1 and win the battle on the spot, effectively nullifying the penalty from having djinn on standby and/or recovery, which is worse classes and stats.
By turn-gating the strongest summons I want to make this strategy completely unviable, cause you'll simply not live long enough to see them if the enemy has a few turns to attack your characters with much lower stats and without key psynergies for survival due to having most djinn on standby.
Lacked Res debuff on summons, Flora was the perfect candidate: only low tier summon that inflicted ailments instead of debuffs & -Res is a typical Jupiter effect.
Other changes are just to balance the power levels of summons and djinn. As usual, buffs to what was bad in vanilla (Reflux) and nerfs to what was too good instead (Flash being the greatest offender).
Chill and Mud's locations have been swapped because when Piers joins (which is after Chill and before Mud) you end up with 5 Mercury djinn and 2 Venus djinn. With this change you now end up with 4 Me and 3 Ve which is much more manageable.
:Alex: Enemies: Stronger in general. New enemies and new enemy abilities added. Full overhaul in TLA, with more enemies per battle on average.Quote from: EnemiesEvery enemy has higher stats and those that uses psynergy have maxPP equal to their levelx5 (if it isn't already higher) so they can benefit from the PP Multiplier. For some enemies (especially in TLA), the element they're weak to got changed.
In TLA enemies and enemy groups have been completely revamped from start to end.
For some enemies (especially in TLA), the element they're weak to got changed.
Treasure Isle overworld area now has enemies from the Eastern Sea lands. The Northern Reaches overworld area has a completely new set of enemies.
Enemies use Break less frequently.
Quote from: ReasoningStat wise, the difficulty for both games is more or less vanilla TLA hard mode. Please note that vanilla TLA is MUCH easier than vanilla GS: many enemies were copy pasted from GS into an area in TLA where your characters have a higher level than they had in GS.
Changes to weaknesses: the numbers were unbalanced. Too many enemies weak to Jupiter and Mars and too few weak to Mercury and Venus.
Treasure Isle overworld had enemies from the western seas in vanilla despite being in the eastern sea. I simply dunno why it was like that, it didn't make sense to me to have a single area immediately accessible where enemies are 10 levels stronger than everywhere else.
Northern Reaches had the opposite issue instead: it's accessible only very late into the game but reuses enemies from an earlier portion of the game. So I made new stronger ones and confined them there.
Break's role is to punish those who go overboard with buffing. So it should still be used but not so much that it discourages buffing altogether.
:Sell: Drops: Notable drops that changed from the original version. Forgeable materials are dropped earlier. Remember to follow the RNG guide doc linked at the top instead of simply reusing move sequences tested for vanilla.Quote from: DropsSea Dragon (Lv 24) -> Tear Stone 1/64
Mad Plant (Lv 25) -> Herbed Shirt 1/1
Living Armor (Lv 25) -> Star Dust 1/64
Cerberus (Lv 26) -> Virtuous Armlet* 1/64
Harridan (Lv 27) -> Sylph Feather* 1/64
Minotaur (Lv 27) -> Vial** 1/32
Chimera Mage (Lv 27) -> Crystal Rod* 1/128
Magicore (Lv 28) -> Mystery Gloves* 1/128
Turtle Dragon (Lv 28) -> Storm Gear 1/128
Slayer (Lv 29) -> Lucky Medal 1/64
Wyvern (Lv 31) -> Dragon Scales 1/128
Blue Dragon (Lv 32) -> Dragon Skin 1/64
Ghost Soldier (Lv 32) -> Gloria Helm 1/64
Grand Golem (Lv 32) -> Golem Core* 1/64
Wise Gryphon (Lv 33) -> Aeolian Cassock 1/128
Hell Chimera (Lv 33) -> Knight's Greaves 1/128
Karst -> Salamander Tail 1/1
Mini Death (Lv 34) -> Salamander Tail 1/64
Minos Warrior (Lv 35) -> Casual Shirt 1/128
Devil Frog (Lv 35) -> Divine Camisole 1/128
Aka Manah (Lv 35) -> Ninja Sandals 1/128
Gillman Lord (Lv 36) -> Caladbolg 1/256
Ocean Dragon (Lv 36) -> Clotho's Distaff 1/256
Pyrodra (Lv 36) -> Triton Ward 1/128
Puppet Warrior (Lv 36) -> Silver Greaves 1/128
Star Magician -> Iridial Ring 1/1
Nue (Lv 37) -> Alecto's Mace 1/128
Balrog -> Sol Ring 1/1
Bane Wight (Lv 38) -> Dark Robe 1/256
Estre Baron (Lv 38) -> Rising Mace 1/256
Sentinel -> Luna Ring 1/1
Mad Demon (Lv 40) -> Ker's Weight 1/256
Aeshma (Lv 40) -> Lachesis' Rule 1/256
Spirit Army (Lv 40) -> Selene's Bracelet 1/256
Dullahan -> Mind Ribbon 1/1
*TLA Only. Also Earth Golems don't drop Giant Axe anymore in TLA.
**Removed Tartarus Axe cause it's now found in a chest, see Treasures section.
:Artifact: Treasures & Shops: Items swapped for various reasons and notable shop changes (TLA Only)Quote from: Treasures & ShopsKibombo
Shop sells Staff of Anubis
Removed from shop Frost Wand
Western Sea
Rusty Mace (Hagbone Mace) -> Tear Stone
Champa
Shop sells Cocktail Dress
Removed from shop Demonic Staff, Blessed Robe
Izumo
Shop sells Grievous Mace, Assassin Blade
Removed from shop Shamshir, Ninja Blade
Apojii Islands
Removed from shop Dragon Axe
Taopo Swamp
Tear Stone -> Star Dust
Aqua Rock
Tear Stone -> Star Dust
Ankhol Ruins
Thanatos Mace -> Tartarus Axe
Lemuria
Rusty Sword (Corsair's Edge) -> Rusty Sword (Pirate's Sabre)
Star Dust -> Sylph Feather
Eastern Sea
Rusty Sword (Pirate's Sabre) -> Lucky Medal
Gondowan Settlement
Star Dust -> Dragon Skin
Shaman Village
Shop sells Zodiac Wand
Removed from shop Crystal Rod, Silver Blade, Magical Cassock
(Crystal Rod can be dropped in TLA)
Atteka Inlet
Vial -> Golem Core
Orihalcon -> Mythril (Hammet reward)
Contigo
Bramble Seed -> Golem Core
Shops sell Kikuichimonji, Mythril Circlet
Removed from shops Swift Sword, Righteous Mace, Mirrored Shield, Jeweled Crown
Jupiter Lighthouse
Phaeton Blade -> Sidereal Edge
Loho
Golem Core -> Mythril
Prox
Dark Matter -> Mythril
Shop sells Viking Axe
Trial Road
Elixir -> Hagbone Mace
Treasure Isle
Rusty Axe (Viking Axe) -> Thanatos Mace
Star Dust -> Dragon Skin
Firebrand -> Dark Matter
Yampi Desert Cave
Myhtril -> Dark Matter
Dark Matter -> Firebrand
Anemos Sanctum
Dragon Skin -> Golem Core (before Teleport)
Orihalcon -> Phaeton Blade
:speech: Tech Tips & FAQ :speech:
:!: Tech tips: What to do when experiencing a crash or a freezeQuote from: TechIf you encounter freezes, crashes or other technical oddities, please try patching a different clean rom or try a different emulator before reporting.
The emulator I use is VBA-M 1.8.0 SVN1243.
Always include details about the emulator where you experienced the crash or freeze in reports and if the same happens in VBA as well.
:?: Frequently Asked Questions:Quote from: FAQTBS = Golden Sun, TLA = Golden Sun: The Lost Age. TBS comes from "The Broken Seal", unofficial translation of the Japanese title of the first Golden Sun game.
Q: How do I apply the patches?
A: LunarIPS is the tool for the english versions. Italian patches come with their own tool instead. English patches must be patched to english roms and Italian ones to italian roms. Always patch only vanilla roms, even if you want to update your Reloaded rom with a newer release. Delete the current rom and patch again the vanilla one.
Q: How do I tell if the rom has been patched?
A: The psynergy Move is Earth instead of Fire.
Q: At which difficulty is you're supposed to do a TLA playthrough to enjoy the mod?
A: Normal. TLA's Hard mode multipliers would be applied ON TOP of the already higher stats. Do that at your own risk, if you're in for the challenge. I haven't tested that.
Q: Do i need to start a new game to play the mod?
A: If you're coming from vanilla, yes. You should start from TBS and move to TLA with data transfer, either password or link. Main reason is that i've changed stat growth for characters, especially the Luck stat, which doesn't grow at all in the vanilla game. Your characters need to level up in Reloaded all the way from Lv1.
Q: I am in the mid of my Reloaded playthrough and the mod got an update. Can I continue on the new version?
A: Unless the notes on a the new release states otherwise, yes, you can always switch to the newest release an continue as if nothing happened. Remember that you must always apply patches to a vanilla rom though.
Q: Does password transfer from TBS work?
A: Almost flawlessly. The only thing that isn't carried over is the amount of Mountain water. It will always transfer only 1 for each character that has it.
Q: Is there a faster method than typing a Gold Password by hand?
A: You bet there is. Download the Golden Sun Passwords tool (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M-VweCbVj4JA8VXG3ydwibtJX8zAHlUs/view). It can save your passwords in memory format, which can be imported into any emulator that has a "Memory Viewer/Editor" function. Read the txt that comes with the program for the actual method. Please DO NOT reply to this thread for issues with this method because it has nothing to do with the mod. Make a new thread or reply to an existing one about this specific matter.
Q: Which items should i transfer from TBS to TLA?
A: Setting the obvious Psynergy granting items aside, most endgame gear from TBS is on par with the stuff that the TLA team is wearing at the time they join (unlike vanilla), so definitively bring those. Also, here's a list of items that can't be obtained in TLA unless transferred (unique effects & missable endgame gear bolded):
Quote from: ItemsArctic Blade
Asura's Armor
Aura Gloves
Bandit's Sword
Blessed Mace
Cell Key
Cleric's Ring (Angel's Ring in Reloaded)
Demon Axe
Demon Mail
Dragon Shield
Elven Rapier
Elven Shirt
Fairy Ring
Feathered Robe
Fur Coat
Gaia Blade
Hermes Water/Empty Bottle
Lucky Cap
Lure Hat
Muramasa
Mystery Blade
Ninja Garb (Black Garb in Reloaded)
Oracle's Robe (Princess Robe in Reloaded)
China/Sanan Dress (Cheongsam in Reloaded)
Spiked Armor
Thunder Crown
Vambrace
Vulcan Axe
Warrior's Helm
Water Jacket
Wicked Mace
muchas gracias! con ganas de esta actualización. feliz navidad!
First release of Golden Sun Reloaded IS UP!
Merry Christmas everyone!
For the love of god, make a changelog. I know that like, everything is changed, but, I also have no real way of making sure that everything is changed the way you want it to be changed.
Like the time Sheba's psynergy hit for summon power. Or resistance power text changes. Or free high levels drops on birds.
Oops forgot to link it.
THIS (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2612.msg45848#msg45848) is the most detailed list of changes from The Balance Age. It's a bit outdated though, so you have to include:
- Light Blades boost Defense
- Treasure rearrangement in TLA
- Enemy changes in TLA
Sadly i don't think i kept a detailed list of treasures rearranged, but the "Equipment's Golden Rule" is enough to tell if something isn't where it should be.
Lemme know whenever you've put out a version you think it's worth doing a full playtest of.
This one. Technically all that's left to do is to remove the RNG factor from leveling. Aside from that and bugfixes I can't really see myself making further improvements to this mod after 2 years
Also, happy new year :D
Alright, that sounds like a green light for me and anyone else who was waiting to do a full feedback run-through. Look for the beginning of it in the next week or two, no promises.
If it's anything like the playthrough I did forever ago, expect complaints about sheba having the durability of wet napkins and djinn battles directly assaulting the well-being of the player with their difficulty and damage.
I haven't tested anything myself but my opinion is that both issues are related only to the earliest part of the game... i'd say till level 10 at most. After that point you have already enough versatility to face almost anything that comes at you.
About Sheba, i don't remember when you did your last playthrough but since TBA's v1.34 she has the best "Magic Resistance" stat in her base class, reducing all base damage taken by 15%.
I don't know if I'll play your hack. I'm getting tired of playing GS. I cleared the games a good 15 times now. Did you correct the Caladbolg ? I remember that it was a pretty bad weapon in Balance Age compared to when you could find it.
@Caladbolg: I remember you telling me about it and i remember making some changes but not the details: it's been 6 months after all.
Im currently playing the updated mod and enjoy it so far :)
Just got access to the ship and my first destination in the eastern sea is yallam.
The most notable experiences so far for me:
- the beginning of Osenia was hard. fast and hard hitting enemy encounters on the overwold and yampi desert were a little nightmarish to deal with. Even Felix just barely survived 2 attacks. My paranoia to encounter 3 Emus was real xD
- the Kibombo mountains were intereting as i was not used to seeing the pixie survive a turn of multitargeted psyenergy. There was always a chance to get wiped out because of the sleep spell(pixies)and sleep bomb(assasins) and not beeing able to deal with more than 1 pixie in a turn was problematic as i did not have mutltitarget healing availible yet and their multitarget psynergy drained more health than I can heal which woulldnt be such a problem if they didnt have resist. Oh boy the encounter with 3 pixies...
-The Gabomba Statue was less problematic now that I have a full party, but to be fair I didnt encouter a group with more than 1 demon
- love that the staff of anubis is now purchable in the shops in Kibombo
- now in Yallam with a full lvl 20 party and ready to explore the swamps, foolish enough to believe that the swamps were the easiest part of the eastern sea... and my first encounter after leaving Yallam was this group of enemys:
Gillmann
Nightmare
Sea turtle
Well wasnt expecting that! XD
Glad you're enjoying it!
Also thanks a lot for your feedback, it will be useful for when i'll be doing my own playthrough. ;)
Hmm I have trouble changing in Tri-elemental Classes. Felix with 3 :MarsStar: 3 :JupiterStar: should be a Shinobi right? But he stays as a Ruffian!?
You are correct, and I already know why that happens, but sadly I can't work on a fix today. Thanks a lot for reporting and sorry about that, it's due to a very stupid mistake of mine.
Class bug fixed, patches have been updated!
Again, sorry for the inconvenient.
Thanks for the quick fix!
gracias caledor estoy jugando ahora mismo al 1 , afecta algo este parche?
@Seestern: thank you for reporting!
@javi: both games were bugged so yeah, download the new patch, apply it on a clean rom, and keep playing as if nothing happened.
The first post in a very long journey I'm sure, but I can say that Sol Sanctum proved exactly the amount of challenge it should. I can't tell if I rolled high with the number of enemies I faced, but they're simple and weak monsters, so area psynergy did its job just fine.
This start doesn't tell me anything about the patch but it feels good to be playing again.
Glad to hear that :D
I'm looking forward to hear more from you and hopefully i'll be able to start my own playthrough soon too.
Just picked up Forge. Fine fight, I think: his AoE sticks because you can't AoE heal but it's not overburdening. Stick with your strongest psynergy and Flint -> Venus and it works well.
Bandits were pushovers but that doesn't mean much.
I really want to see how Tret goes. The dungeon plus the Tret fight is definitely the first challenge in GS.
Thank you for all your hard work, I'll be starting a new play through on both games starting tonight. If I find any bugs I'll report it here.
Tret and the tree dungeon was a good, good experience. Tough enemies, occasionally a lot of them, good length, good PP requirement, and a nice area right before fighting Tret to get all your PP and health back by running in a circle for 5 minutes.
But what fresh hell are these Oozes before Imil? I was just in a battle against a squad of them for several full minutes because they just keep dividing and you can't kill em all fast enough. It was great.
QuoteThank you for all your hard work, I'll be starting a new play through on both games starting tonight. If I find any bugs I'll report it here.
Thank you very much!
Quote from: VardenSalad on 26, January, 2017, 08:42:54 PM
But what fresh hell are these Oozes before Imil? I was just in a battle against a squad of them for several full minutes because they just keep dividing and you can't kill em all fast enough. It was great.
Hmm... I have some doubts about this cause Oozes have only a 1/4 chance to split... regarding their durability, instead: HP are unchanged (and are the lowest for a lv 9 enemy, ~50 less than the bears found in the area); their defense has increased a lot though, cause i wanted the slimes to be very resistant against physical blows, like Final Fantasy's Flans.
I rolled poorly after attempting to take them out one at a time and a group of 3 became a group of 6 in one turn. After that, it was just a nightmare of killing oozes in between other oozes and AoE psynergy not being able to hit the remaining ones, which would split. I was only level 9 or so at the time myself and finished the Saturos fight with the whole team at 11.
Then it's fine. You can be punished by a bad roll after failing to take them out, which happened cause you chose the wrong method: physical attacks. It would've been bad if it was a normal occurrence, but since it's non repeatable - cause you've learned from your mistakes - it's good instead. Little surprises like this one, that happen when you lower your guard, make the game more interesting IMO.
Sorry I've not been trying this out as I'd like. Just getting harder and harder to play on the PC, so I'm thinking of getting it for the PSP. Well, once I get it repaired, and... that other thing. Modded GS as it's meant to be - portable. That'll be nice. It... maybe a few months from now, though. Hard to afford repairs and pay for college at the same time.
Don't worry, obviously i'd like to hear your opinion on the new mod as well (especially after all that "less break more debuff" debate) but real life issues come first. Also, I ain't going anywhere so take your time :D
Alright, I see Poison on Ruffians. Does the poison tick actually do enough damage to be worth using? It deals a percentage of HP damage per tick, right?
Correct: poison removes 10% of HP per turn, venom 20% just like on characters. I still consider it one of the least useful status effects, around Delude's power level.
You and I have very different views on the strength of those ailments.
Well, the strength of poison depends on what you're fighting. Against a boss, poison is ridiculously powerful, capable of shaving off several turns of combat. But it's decent to unnecessary against everything else. It'll tag on some extra damage, but against most enemies, it won't make a difference. Against player characters, poison is very strong.
Delude is just bad all around. Monster skills bypass it, and I think unleashes might too. And of course anything that isn't selected by pressing "attack" bypasses it, as well.
Quote from: Rolina on 03, February, 2017, 07:23:33 PM
Well, the strength of poison depends on what you're fighting. Against a boss, poison is ridiculously powerful, capable of shaving off several turns of combat. But it's decent to unnecessary against everything else. It'll tag on some extra damage, but against most enemies, it won't make a difference. Against player characters, poison is very strong.
This. And since bosses are immune to poison/venom, its usefulness is greatly diminished. Also, Delude in my mod is stronger against the player cause it shuts down unleashes completely.
"And since bosses are immune to poison/venom"
Damn, that means i cannot venom deadbeard with the iforgotitsname axe for an "easy" fight...
Quote from: dive_darkness on 04, February, 2017, 05:00:52 AM
"And since bosses are immune to poison/venom"
Damn, that means i cannot venom deadbeard with the iforgotitsname axe for an "easy" fight...
Bosses (aka luck > 40) have always been immune to Poison & Venom, (+ Haunt, Death Curse & Death). I only added immunity to sleep and stun as well.
Alright, something is wrong with at least a couple moves enemies know. I'm pretty sure I saw earlier in the game that a ghost using Rumble or something similar did no damage and I just watched 2 lizardmen each use Cutting Edge with no effect. It was like they cast the animation aimed at themselves.
Yeah, I doublechecked. They hit themselves with the move for no damage.
A fix will be online very soon. In the meantime, i'll leave here a completely unrelated but funny story to entertain you guys while i fix the bug.
There was once a young forgetful man. He knew about this problem of his, so he used to remind himself all the time of things he had to do, like "i have to go buy milk" or "i have to paste animations from the italian rom, cause they don't come together with abilities". Here's the funny part: he remembered to paste animations, but forgot to paste the abilities themselves, leaving the the old ones outdated and new ones blank. Well, not fully blank, since the wonderful animations worked flawlessly... kinda... as the animations didn't know what to hit since the abilities were blank, but that doesn't really matter, does it?
Hope you enjoyed that, see you soon!
EDIT: Fix is UP!
I think there may be some text issues too. A Spirit just used ?! which looks like some kind of reverse Rumble.
Damn it... well, i'll check them all later today. Sorry about that.
Quote from: Caledor on 04, February, 2017, 07:23:36 AM
Quote from: dive_darkness on 04, February, 2017, 05:00:52 AM
"And since bosses are immune to poison/venom"
Damn, that means i cannot venom deadbeard with the iforgotitsname axe for an "easy" fight...
Bosses (aka luck > 40) have always been immune to Poison & Venom, (+ Haunt, Death Curse & Death). I only added immunity to sleep and stun as well.
Is that so ? Well then forget what i said. My memory must be playing tricks on me, because i remember inflicting toxic on him with the unleash and it did ~300 after each of his hits in my very last playthrough on my cartridge.
Ah, no wait a min. Only TLA had immunities, the original GS hadn't and resorted to very high luck to discourage statuses and I ported immunities in TBS for my mods.
Still, i was testing deadbeard specifically, since with is low venus level i thought it might have been possible to bypass his 60 luck wall with a venus status effect from issac in his base class... but the formula gave me a negative chance (=impossible) to apply poison/venom on him.
So... i don't really know. Maybe you remember correctly and there's a mistake with the formula or something else.
If i do remember correctly, i think i applied venom using the axe with garet. Garet had the asura armor, spirit gloves (those dropped by manticores), the clerical ring, the thunder crown, the sport shirt, the quick boots, and i think i might have dropped his resistances with djinns before inflicting venom.
All on the french cartridge version.
Quote from: dive_darkness on 04, February, 2017, 07:08:07 PM
i might have dropped his resistances with djinns before inflicting venom.
It doesn't matter: the formula checks for elemental levels, not resistances. that's why isaac in the base class has the best chances of success.
That's good to know.
Well, my mermory was indeed wrong. You cannot venom deadbeard, but you can venom the fusion dragon in the original game. Maybe i just confused the two bosses ? Memory is tricky ><
Actually, while Fusion Dragon has less luck than Deadbeard it also has a higher venus level which compensates perfectly (10 luck or 5 elemental levels have the same "weight"), so formula wise the result is identical: -11% chance for full venus isaac to venom FD or DB.
BTW, the fix for rumble is up.
Corona drops your own party's own defense
Fixed. I also checked all djinn for other inconsistencies, and it was the only one.
Yeah, no problem. Just throwing em out there as I find em.
Alright, I think I'm about to hit that point where dungeon outside of bosses no longer pose any kind of threat. I've got 4 djinn on everyone and am about to set sail on the Karagol. Normally, a soon as you pick up an AoE healing, the game become a total cakewalk, so we'll have to see how it plays out.
I notice your Adept's Clothes don't have an PP regen and I know it's intentional. Breaking my heart, man.
Hope I live up to your expectations, tell me about anything you are dissatisfied with.
About Adept Clothes isntead, wasn't it +Max PP instead of regen?
Quote from: Caledor on 10, February, 2017, 07:44:47 PM
About Adept Clothes isntead, wasn't it +Max PP instead of regen?
pretty sure it was regen, but it was originally +MaxPP in vanilla. I remembered incorrectly.
Alright, I beat the Kraken. @#$% Break. I know it using Ply Well is a way to make it take off a turn, but it feels like a gut punch when it eliminates a turn and a halfs worth of damage. Forcing me to use psynergy crystals to maintain Mia's healing is okay, I guess, but this thing probably has too much HP.
Either make it less tanky or remove break. The battle needs to be shorter somehow, or drop its damage and give it even more hp.
if you have a save from before the battle i can try and let you know my thoughts. sadly the savegame compilation is not reliable anymore for tests due to the changes to stats. Still, if it's really THAT tanky i think the most i'd do is change ply well to ply and/or move break down 1 slot to change its chance to be cast from 18% per turn to 13,3%. It's not much stronger than vanilla, actually it's weaker than (hypothetical) hard mode.
It's not that it's tanks, it's that there's kinda no way to fight it other than keeping two people healing and then the attacking people can never get buffs to stick. Honestly, Break is the issue. It invalidates both psynergy buffing and defeats the point of using djinn.
I'm new here so, hi...?
Been playing this hack for a while, I enjoy my time with it.
There's a question though, why is Mariner series the only class who can cast Wave? Also, is this spell meant to completely replace Cool? I think I saw several Mercury Djinn and Ghost MageI think, memory's kinda fuzzy able to cast Cool.
Oh yeah, I think I find this too, looks like the stun/paralyze effect animation is off. This was inflicted by Alecto's Mace by the way.
(http://i.imgur.com/BXd3sXz.png)
Well, I think you found the real reason bosses were immune to ailments. XD
Quote from: connoc on 12, February, 2017, 06:57:12 PM
Oh yeah, I think I find this too, looks like the stun/paralyze effect animation is off. This was inflicted by Alecto's Mace by the way.
(http://i.imgur.com/BXd3sXz.png)
Hi, glad you're enjoying the mod! About your questions...
Quote
why is Mariner series the only class who can cast Wave
Wanted piers to have a water theme since Mia is ice. About other class lines that could potentially have wave, there are 2 conditions to fulfill: they must already have prism (as it would replace that one due to similar power level) and must be a TLA only class line, so restricted to Jenna and Piers (cause i only have the animations for Wave in TLA). only one class line matches those 2 requirements and it's jenna's guru line. I kept prism here to preserve simmetry with mia's guru line.
QuoteAlso, is this spell meant to completely replace Cool?
Yup. Since i have a limited amount of icons available, cool's icons were used for wave's, leaving the former without icons, which leads to...
QuoteI saw several Mercury Djinn and Ghost MageI think, memory's kinda fuzzy able to cast Cool
... me not wanting to lose that psynergy line entirely, so it now belongs to the enemies, since it doesn't matter if their spells have icons or not.
Quote
Oh yeah, I think I find this too, looks like the stun/paralyze effect animation is off. This was inflicted by Alecto's Mace by the way.
That's totally not supposed to happen cause DD should be immune to stun, so i'll have to investigate. Thanks for reporting!
About the graphical issue, my first guess is that since DD's sprite is actually a merge of 2 sprites (left and right half) the stun effect just centered on one of the 2. Other "split" bosses are Poseidon, Kraken, Orochi and Fusion Dragon so the same issue should happen for them too if i'm right. They're still all supposed to be immune to it though.
QuoteAbout the graphical issue, my first guess is that since DD's sprite is actually a merge of 2 sprites (left and right half) the stun effect just centered on one of the 2. Other "split" bosses are Poseidon, Kraken, Orochi and Fusion Dragon so the same issue should happen for them too if i'm right. They're still all supposed to be immune to it though.
Kraken can be statused; it's notorious for being one of the only bosses in GS1 that status effects actually work against. And I believe stun is among them.
I guess I'm lucky with the DD thing? lol
Speaking of Alecto's Mace, I sold two of them but not a single one appeared in Artifacts section even though the shop clerk said "Wow! It's a Rare Stuff!". I tried this again on the third one (the one equipped on Isaac) and the same thing happened.
A pity with the wave thing though, since I like the animation. I was thinking Piers' Seafarer class should have one considering him being, you know, seafarer and all, but I don't really mind all
Quote from: leaf on 13, February, 2017, 03:38:18 AM
Kraken can be statused; it's notorious for being one of the only bosses in GS1 that status effects actually work against. And I believe stun is among them.
Maybe in the vanilla game but with my mod Luck > 40 means immunity.
QuoteSpeaking of Alecto's Mace, I sold two of them but not a single one appeared in Artifacts section even though the shop clerk...
I've already found and fixed this so hold on your Alectos' till next release. Thanks again!
QuoteI was thinking Piers' Seafarer class should have one...
The issue here is power. In my class design Warrior-like classes (strong attack & HP low PP) have a power cap on base power psynergies that is either 120 or 150. The only exceptions to this are mono elemental classes.
Uploaded hf2 for TLA which fixes the Alecto's Mace bug: it can now be bought again if sold.
About the other bug (stunning bosses) i tested and didn't find anything wrong with it.
So please connoc, update your rom and tell me if it happens again.
The selling bug is fixed now, thanks!
I'll give you another report on Alecto's Mace stunning DD later
Update: No stunned DD seen. Will try with Star Magician and Dullahan but these two will take time.
The Succubus - 2x Big Bear Enemy fight in Crossbone is fantastic, btw. Finally, Dull gets some value. Look to incorporate that idea again somewhere.
Same with the fight immediately after; the ghouls and the ghost mage thing. Them being susceptible to both poison and haunt made that fight winnable due to the DoT. Great boss fight.
hi, first of all thx
second, why did you delete the 3rd psynergy for some of the 3 elemental classes? for example mia had gaia/prism/whirlwind series b4 as an elementalist, now its only got gaia/prism series
sry english
thx :)
pls put back XD
Same thing for the Griffins. Poison and grind it out with double healing and Dull. I think this is fine and works well. I'm a fan.
The Grphyons may be a bit too strong though. The odds of making it out of the very first turn without one of them using twin beaks to one shot someone at level 19 can't be high. Perhaps tuning their attack down a touch. The AoE psynergy is fine, but twin beaks is a bit much.
@pachichi: Design choice. Many things changed between Balance Age and Reloaded and one of them was the Worldwaker class, one of the few i never really liked in its first iterations. Now it finally found its place as the formerly non-existant venus-oriented caster for Mia&co with Cure (which received a huge boost in power between the 2 mods) and Gaia. If you're missing whirlwind both the Divine Mage is crazy good with Jupiter, while the Wild Mage and White Mage have Plasma despite specializing in Mars and Mercury respectively. Honestly, a 4th (out of 4) classes capable of jupiter offense was unneeded.
@Varden: Glad you're liking them, I knew it was a going to be good place to go wild with ailments, since they are strong fixed encounters but they don't count as bosses. About gryphons... I need a saveeeeee. I can't do any testing on my own anymore and I ain't gonna do an half assed job with them cause it's easier to make things worse than fix it.
Edit: Added as personal text right below my profile picture.
I can assure you that I definitely have saved since then and at 14 hours in, is no small feat to get back to the same spot. Give me maybe a week and a way you recommend I give the .sav files and I'll give you ones for every major encounter.
What kind of save do you need? I mean, the one with access to every place/encounter in the game?
@Cal: it also makes no sense that the Assassin Blade is a better weapon than the Mystery Blade, considering that the Mystery Blade is basically a treasure in an optional dungeon that you shouldn't even be at yet and you'd have to work pretty hard to NOT get the Assassin Blade, given how the Tolbi Spring works.
@saves: my request is based on the assumption that anyone saves before fixed battles like djinn or bosses. And during that battle you know immediately if you see that something's wrong and you'd like to report it to me.
When that happens all you need to do is to remember to minimize your gba window and make a backup of your battery (.sav) file.
If you forget to save before even saving immediately after is good enough, cause i think i can just replace a random encounter anywhere on the map with the encounter you reported and test it. I just need your save for the stats/equipment setup.
If both don't happen, well, it just means that i'll look into that battle when i get there myself (unless it's terribly broken, in that case my compilation with older saves is enough), cause i really don't wanna anyone to go back in the game for the sole purpose of grabbing a save. playing through the game once more is supposed to be fun, not to feel like a chore, and i'm already grateful that you guys report your finds here.
As for how... for a single save file an attachment to the post is the best way. for 2 or more i'd say just .zip/.rar them and upload it anywhere you're comfortable with (if the rar is small enough the post here is still an option).
@Mistery/Assassin Blade. Considered doing that at least a thousand times. Don't remember why i ultimately settled on the assassin for the stronger one but i know it was really a close call so i could easily reconsider and switch their stats.
In that situation, it sounds like making them equal would be okay as well, considering they're kind of thematic opposites anyways. One grants health to the wielder while the other ends the life of the opponent. or maybe equal attack and one prioritizing defense while the other, agility.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 17, February, 2017, 11:22:29 AM
@Cal: it also makes no sense that the Assassin Blade is a better weapon than the Mystery Blade, considering that the Mystery Blade is basically a treasure in an optional dungeon that you shouldn't even be at yet and you'd have to work pretty hard to NOT get the Assassin Blade, given how the Tolbi Spring works.
Mystery Blade can be gotten before Assassin Blade. That's why assassin blade was stronger. I think the bigger problem is that because you can get multiple assassin blades, it renders the mystery blade moot since you'll rarely get a chance to use it - similar to a lot of the forged/rusted weapons worked in TLA. I think making them equal in power and thematically opposed in how they work as you suggested would be a good way to handle implementation - good idea.
I think that the unleash for the Frost Wand, Frostbite, is overtuned. I'm not at my computer, so I can't check it in the editor, but I'm pretty sure Mia is doing way too much damage with the unleash.
Please give more info: damage done, Mia's elemental power, max pp, enemy and damage done against the same enemy with a random offensive mercury psynergy.
Maybe I need to do more testing, but she seemed to randomly pop out 200+ damage on the unleash. It might have just been against weaker enemies or ones weak to Mercury.
200 is not impossible but definitively really high, cause the gap in mercury pow/res difference between her and her target must be in the 130-150 range.
Toadonpa is good, btw. Manages to consistently poison the majority of my team over the course of a fight. I'm sort of afraid that people who aren't dedicated to let Garet cast Protect very, very often with get steamrolled from the constant defense lowering.
The Jupiter Djinn in Babi Lighthouse needs more powerful psynergy. Wind Slash and Blue Bolt are just not scary at this point in the game. Maybe it's packing 3rd level Plasma or Thunderhead and I got lucky, but it was a pushover.
Wow, Deadbeard. There's an off-chance that a Dull doesn't stick, Beardy gets an Impact off, and then double Sweeps your team. I actually don't know if I had access to Break at level 27, I'd have to check on the editor.
But, yeah, Deadbeard is really, really, really hard, but fair, I suppose. It's a heavyweight fight. I've got a save for before him that I'll post later. I'm getting to the point where I'm afraid that you can never afford to ever summon ever because you can't take the loss of stats and summons don't have enough pop considering you're taking 7 turns off to unleash, summon, and recover 4 djinn. So, I dunno, but buffing Isaac and having him beat Deadbeard by smacking him with the Gaia Blade doesn't feel much different than the old Sol Blade beatdowns you worked so hard to invalidate. Psynergy still doesn't do that much damage if you're in multi-elemental classes, so, personally, I'd up the multiplier with MaxPP. Also, holy moley, when do you get access to second level of Punishment?
Was it a better experience than vanilla? Yeah.
@Babi's Jupiter Djinni: my bad. My indexes for pasting from the italian rom were off by 1 enemy and since that djinn was the very last enemy he wasn't updated. Mine still has wind slash but blue bolt is replaced by shine plasma and has ~300 more hp and 20 more defense. It also has tornado and sonic slash though.
@Retribution: learnt at level 29, but boasts 135 power. For reference, Serpent Fume (power 130) is learnt at 28, while Sonic Slash (power 120 but 5 targets) at 30. I'm getting that quite often though so I might reduce that power a bit to lower the level requirement as well (on average: 10 power = 3 levels).
@Break: you do. The earliest break is learned is at 26 by the Armed class series. IIRC i lowered this value in one of the latest Balance Age releases especially for deadbeard.
@Deadbeard and summoning:
A few reminders. the time to recover from a summon is tied to class setup, so it's completely up to the player. Base class setup grants the highest power but also the longest recovery time, while double and triple class setup halve the recovery time for example.
About psynergy... the issue might be related to deadbeard "typing". His lower resistances are to Venus and Mars and in GS you just lack the power boosting equipment AND the psynergies to make efficient casters for those 2 elements. I will gladly test that save one of these days though.
All good points. It's tough to see Retribution just barely out of level reach, but I've also played the game a billion times so there's no much screwing around to pick up extra xp. For Babi's djinn: no big, that's just bug fixing.
About Break, I hadn't thought to look at that particular set-up (that's Garet dual-ele with Mercury) because Mercury djinn are at such a premium for access to a second Wish for Ivan for healing at the very start of a turn. And you really, really need access to that second wish. I know that you can pull Wish on Isaac and Garet, but their tiny PP pools and incredible Attack makes sticking them on healing duty very, very sub-optimal. I'm sure there's other classes that get it, I just didn't find it. No big deal.
Psynergy power specifically: I didn't mean against Deadbeard. I think by the end of the game that it was so much easier to roll with having Ivan attack every turn and focus Ivan, Isaac, and Garet on a single enemy with attacks and pray for unleashes to try and eliminate one enemy then another in short order. I'm almost positive that (and you can check on that save file) Ivan does more damage with one unleash from either the Zodiac Wand or Crystal Rod than with two casts of his strongest psynergy when he's at 27 or 28. I'll have to run it a couple times with base classes to get higher elememtal power.
Just beat Dullahan with your save without changing anything in your setup.
The double healer team is so resilient I could easily spam djinn and summon during the whole battle (i think the highest i've had on standby was 5 or 6, with an average of 2) and even finish him off with judgement (didn't count damage, i just though it was about time and i managed to stabilize at that point). The hardest part was when mia run out of pp (seriously pal, you've gotta spread healing items more). Always have some kind of buff active (especially resistance) but don't get to greedy with them, cause that's where Break hurts badly.
Oh, and remember that single target debuff are stronger but also have a lower chance to hit. If dull wasn't working, you should've switched to Blunt ;)
I totally misunderstood the relationship between the debuffs and AoE then. I thought the single target would be more likely to hit. That makes sense though, because it's tuned explicitly for bosses and really hasn't much use in general PvE. Consistently being able to get his attack lowered would neuter Deadbeard completely.
As for Double Wish being resilient, hell yeah it is. I needed to survive to 300+ damage Sweeps if Deadbeard buffed himself and mine didn't stick, one after Ivan used it and then Mia. I guess my setup was far from perfect.
Quote from: Caledor on 23, February, 2017, 09:02:48 AM@Retribution: learnt at level 29, but boasts 135 power. For reference, Serpent Fume (power 130) is learnt at 28, while Sonic Slash (power 120 but 5 targets) at 30. I'm getting that quite often though so I might reduce that power a bit to lower the level requirement as well (on average: 10 power = 3 levels).
You could always consider making it a 3-tier spell like Fume, or having it work in an upgrade path akin to spells like Ragnarok → Odyssey.
Quote from: Rolina on 25, February, 2017, 02:07:31 PMYou could always consider making it a 3-tier spell like Fume, or having it work in an upgrade path akin to spells like Ragnarok → Odyssey.
It already is. Retribution is the second tier of the Punishment series, which is basically a slightly stronger Jupiter fume (third stage is Scrouge).
Yeah, there's really just not enough game in either of the Golden Suns to take advantage of the highest level Psynergy. The level cap easily could have been 50 and balanced accordingly.
Alright, Saturos, Menardi, and Fusion Dragon have all fallen. Fusion Dragon's constant poisoning and haunting of whoever had the cursed gear and Angel's Ring was an annoyance, but he's far less than Deadbeard was. Saturos and Menardi was a good fight too; as long as Death Seize manages to hit a few times and makes you stabilize.
I guess it's on to TLA now. Cal, I assume you're going to be doing your own runthrough of TBS, so I guess I'll go ahead and continue documenting bug reports and leave my thoughts on the second game in the series as I play through it.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 26, February, 2017, 05:44:46 PM
Alright, Saturos, Menardi, and Fusion Dragon have all fallen. Fusion Dragon's constant poisoning and haunting of whoever had the cursed gear and Angel's Ring was an annoyance, but he's far less than Deadbeard was. Saturos and Menardi was a good fight too; as long as Death Seize manages to hit a few times and makes you stabilize.
I guess it's on to TLA now. Cal, I assume you're going to be doing your own runthrough of TBS, so I guess I'll go ahead and continue documenting bug reports and leave my thoughts on the second game in the series as I play through it.
Everything here sounds just perfect to me. Especially cause TLA is where the real fun begins: new items, new enemies, rearranged treasures, new spells...
Hmm, I haven't run into it yet (honestly, not out of the prologue yet) but I was wondering what you thought about your ability to have a party full of healers as soon as you get the first two Djinn in TLA? Assuming Felix's Swordsman class hasn't been tampered with, you're fully capable of making healing kind of a non-factor in terms of in-dungeon PP usage.
Do you think doing something like pushing healing off of the first level classes for Jenna or Felix would fix this or do you see it as not a problem?
Honestly, I don't think I've ever seriously thought about it, but I can see your point.
It IS a problem for overall balance (albeit a minor one), but I also think that making an exception to class builds to address this 6-level issue (by comparison, Mia joins at 10 in GS and you start at 4 in TLA) is overdoing it: after level 10 you'd be losing a healing spell line after djinn unleashes/summon/djinn storm for no apparent reason.
The perfect solution would be altering djinn spread in the early game, to push back that single mercury djinn.
Alright, Dekhan Plateau Mars Djinn wrecks things. Starburst 2hkos the entire team and you can't counter it. I think Fire is fine, but Starburst wrecks.
Save posted
Tested, and it's actually fine. this one's the mars equivalent of the Tret Tree Jupiter Djinn. Same level, same number of team members, better equipment in GS, djinn slightly weaker in TLA to compensate. In fact, Breeze has more HP AND Plasma, which is stronger than starburst (also Flare is weaker than Whirlwind).
Thanks anyway!
PS: Chance for double starburst is 8,8%.
I am running quite a streak of pulling the combination that just eats your team for djinn (that I inevitably complain about here). Don't worry about it too much, though.
I'll keep posting saves and whatnot in the future.
Nono, you're the one who shouldn't worry about what (or not) to report. By all means, post here every little bit that "disappoints" you. Dekhan's Djinn is barely safe and strongly backed up by another djinn in TBS, but he's the exception. You never know where i might feel "this is a bit too much". ;)
Alright, since I posted the Dekhan one and you can walk, I'm not posting a save but, I really really don't know about this Venus djinn outside Madra. This guy REALLY hurts.
Assuming you're not hunting for him specifically abusing the fact that hard resets give you a free first turn, Thorn and Gaia just crushed my team. I don't know what the odds are to get him to roll Spire multiple times, but if you cant pull that outcome, it's likely that someone will die unless you're running double or triple healing, which is just stalling until you get a spire in my opinion, plus he seems to run away quite often. I need to look specifically at how much HP this thing has, because I think it living too many turns is the issue.
Maybe I should be running double healing at this juncture, but man, does that djinn hurt.
This is quite strange. The Venus Djinn outside madra has ~60 more HP than Dekhan's (but you should have gained 1 level since that fight), replaces flare for Spire and 1 starburst for Punji (45 power so stronger). Apart from this, the core of their moves is identical: Thorn and Gaia are just element swaps of Fire & Starburst so, if anything, the problem should be Spire since that's where the power gap is... or to a lesser extent, punji.
Does Sour not drop resistance unconditionally anymore? Or is it subject to luck and ele. power calculations?
Sour's effect was the same as weaken's before so it's always been subject to luck and ele level difference.
Remember that now defender's luck and attacker's level are the only stats that affect the chance to inflict debuffs/ailments
Hmm, alright.
Hey, could you take a look at Haunting that the Doomsayers use? On one use it did 250 damage to Piers, while a later use in the same battle only did about 80.
I'm wondering if maybe there are two separate instances of Haunting with different base power that just happen to be in its moveset?
That should be the case but Doomsayer has only 1 instance of haunting with BP 70. I also tested it briefly and nothing strange happened, so without further proof I can't do much about this one.
Alright, look like the site is back up.
Okay, so, I can't tell if it's just my ROM, just my emulator, or what, but as you can see in the pics, something is broken with weapon unleashes. It seems to affect every weapon, but only some of the time. I've repatched and the same problems occur. Additionally, it seems Wheeze also suffers from an issue where it alternates between showing the animation correctly and using the standard critical attack animation (where it zooms in on the person attacking).
Also, consistently and independent of region, but as soon as i get off the boat to start walking around on land, there's a decent shot of running into an enemy party that is always, 100% of the time Gillman-Turtle Dragon-Nightmare in that order. And they will crush you into the dirt if you see them when you're early levelled after just getting Piers. First thing i Did was try to go to Taopo Swamp, and leaving north of Yallam dropped that party on my head.
There's Fire Worms in Gaia Rock which are screwing with the level progression and difficulty since they seems to swarm everywhere, give twice as much XP as a Cerberus and 4 times that of an Undead, almost 3 times a Wood Walker, Angle Spike deals 220+ damage consistently on characters with 280 min and 410 max, and on and on. I swear I gained 5 levels from that dungeon alone and am sitting at 28-28-27-27 before doing the Ankhol Ruins, the Briggs event, Treasure Island, really anything. If you were pushing for one dungeon to give xp by the truckload, you've got one.
You might want to tone down some of the monsters in Tundaria. They're basically pushing 1/2 to 2/3 of any characters hp, appear in groups almost always, and will guaranteed be faster than you. There's a difference between difficult and overbearing. Getting 2 shot before anyone on the team can act and/or cycling Shade pretty much constantly is pushing into micromanaging territory.
Lastly is an overall feel I'm getting as i progress through the actually rather linear Eastern Sea: I get better and better items, specifically weapons and armor, but enemies are not taking any more damage from me as i progress to new dungeons than old enemies were in old dungeons. At the heart of RPG progression is seeing the numbers of damage you can output increase with better equipment and using enemy HP to temper your gains by letting you do more actual damage, but do less as a percentage of total HP. IE, if I'm level 30 in a level 30 dungeon, let me do a basic attack that deals 150 on an enemy that has 1500 hp. In a level 20 dungeon, let me do 100 damage on an enemy with 800 HP. And so on. Scaling defense gain harder than scaling HP gain for enemies is turning this into a wearying experience because i just don't seem to be doing more damage. I already know that basic attacks aren't ideal, but make my equipment upgrades mean something beyond scaling for djinn attacks.
And find ways to make mountain Waters either drop more often of be buyable in stores. Need that since healing is so expensive.
My most recent explicit save point in the past is Gondowan Cliffs. I can link that if you'd like, but I'm well beyond that point now.
I can give feedback on anything specifically you'd like, just let me know.
Ok let's go by order. From what I can see there are at least 3 separate issues: weapon unleashes, enemy groups misplaced (Fire Worm, the turtle dragon monster trio) and enemy in the right place but too strong (Tundaria).
The second one is easy... the enemy group table is messed up. I don't know why cause i'm positive i pasted that one correctly, but it's an easy fix: I just have to paste it again.
About the first one, please upload your current save and give me a list of weapons that gave you that issue. By memory is enough, it doesn't need to be inclusive: i just want a small group of weapon to test with higher priority.
About the third one, I fully agree with you about on enemy strength so i guess it's about time i start my own playtrough and see for myself, lol. Could you please upload your endgame TBS save so I can use it to start directly with TLA?
Also, what were your leves while progressing through the Eastern Sea? It's really important cause that's where i started messing heavily with exp. I planned for 18~20 to 28 from start to end (Lemuria). Other checkpoints are 22~23 for entering Aqua Rock, 24~25 for entering Gaia Rock, then +1 each for Izumo Ruins and Tundaria.
I'll give more details as i dig deeper into those issues but for starters i really need those 2 saves.
Thanks a lot for reporting as always!
Alright, away from computer now, and I can't find a way to move files via my phone file structure to attach. I'll get a save at Sea of Time Islet cave, one at Gondowan Cliffs without Piers (that's the most recent older save that I have, quite a bit behind current), and the Broken Seal endgame file.
For weapon unleashes that I know have this issue: the Cloud Wand, Staff of Anubis (obviously), and the Robber's Blade. Also, the Djinn Char seems to have the same issue with that spiked damage (Felix pushing 400+ unbuffed randomly) and Wheeze has the animation problem I mentioned earlier.
When I get the chance, I'll probably head back to Dalia and test unleash damage for the weapons tiny monsters.
For levels, I can guess I was at about 23/24 before doing Gaia Rock and at 27/28 afterwards. My order of dungeons was [Boat/Gabomba/Aqua Rock/Tundaria/Gaia Rock/Treasure Island (for a short bit since it's Grind-locked)/Avimander]. Currently have 6 djinn apiece and am headed to Ankohl.
Here you go with those save files.
Thanks a lot, i'll let know here how it goes as i make progress with the fixes
I have a feeling that the Fire Worms have upset the level curve rather severely.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 04, April, 2017, 11:06:54 AM
I have a feeling that the Fire Worms have upset the level curve rather severely.
Cause they're shouldn't be there. Fire worms are level 32 enemies, you're supposed to meet them for the first time in Magma Rock
EDIT: BTW the order for eastern sea enemy level wise is Gabomba, Taopo, Aqua, Gaia, Ankhol, Tundaria, Avimander, (Lemuria), Treasure.
Hmm, I'll have to remember that ordering, because I normally run Aqua to Tundaria (after Gabomba and Taopo) just to get mileage out of Parch immediately as well as start the trading sidequest. It ultimately doesn't matter too much as long as the level swings aren't radically higher.
Let me know when you get a save file immediately after you beat the Hydra on Piers' ship. I'll run the Eastern Sea again (starting with taking the boat back to do Gabomba Catacombs).
The ordering isn't strict. I just told you cause if you go straight to tundaria after aqua rock i might easily dismiss "enemies are too strong" comments cause you're underleveled.
About the issues:
I brutally pasted all the groups from my (Italian) rom once again and they appear to be fixed now.
It seems i can't to replicate the visual unleash bug nor the spike damage displayed in your screenshot. How often did those bugs happen to you? 1:3? 1:10? 1:20? To know if I should try more or dismiss it for now. Ditto for wheeze and char.
I'll be uploading a hotfix in minutes to you can immediately play an improved game. If any of those issues persist it might be the rom's fault, so upload the patched rom somewhere and send me the link to my email address
Edit: Fix is up
On my 600th post, Golden Sun Reloaded loses its Beta status!
With the latest patch, leveling isn't dependent on RNG anymore and will always reach the goal stats shown in the editor at levels 19, 39, 59... etc.
This will happen only in a new game though, on a game started on the Beta version level up will be fixed from the patch onwards, but it won't fix the RNG based levels you've already gained.
Credit for the new level up formula goes to leaf, full discussion is here (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2796.msg46974).
Oh, nice. Good to see that it can't be abused anymore - I normally don't really have a problem with the way it's normally done, but when you add the luck stat this is kinda important to not break the game.
Hello!
I am keeping track of this hack since the previous thread ended and now I am at the end of the game :D
Recently updated to the current version.
This post also has an end-game save attached (only Dullahan left as I cannot beat him right now so tips are also appreciated...). Hopefully it can help somehow.
I do not think I have anything new to add at the moment but noticed a few description mistakes here and there. Like the Alastor's Hood says it boosts Luck when it does not, I think.
Was Mythril Blade removed from the game? I could not get it so I uh, edited one in and it turned into a ? item, haha.
I went by the opening post and I think got all the new items (RNG manipulation) but is there anything else?
Here is a thought on Darksword.
[spoiler]Why did you change its unleash to Jupiter?
Now that a lot of unleashes are potentially stronger due to better elements handling, it would be a good candidate for the other Venus Adept if you choose the "cursed warrior" setup. More consistent than Tisiphone Edge. If you want to leave it Jupiter then maybe the Terror Shield should boost that instead of Mercury.
I guess you wanted a proper Jupiter sword that is consistent unlike Excalibur. Mercury has Caladbolg now and Masamune.
What is some other alternative to Tisiphone Edge for those who are not using Sol Blade?
I understand a lot depends on setups but from the basic perspective. It is of course very debatable so that is why I am asking.
This is how I currently see it in terms of "ultimate" weapons:
Mercury Mage Weapon -> Nebula Wand
Venus Mage Weapon -> Ker's Weight
Jupiter Mage Weapon -> Lachesis' Rule
Mars Mage weapon -> Atropos' Rod
Mercury Warrior Weapon (consistent)/(inconsistent) -> Caladbolg / Masamune
Venus Warrior Weapon -> Sol Blade / Tisiphone Edge
Jupiter Warrior Weapon -> Darksword / Excalibur
Mars Warrior weapon -> Alecto's Mace / None?
Like this I can see the reasoning so... I guess I need to rephrase it to: What is the next good Venus weapon for a warrior?[/spoiler]
No comment on armor and stuff because wow, I think most of it makes perfect sense!
Thanks for the hack :D
Before everything else, thanks for playing this mod till the very end and glad you enjoyed it.
Now, about your questions:
I opened the ROM in my editor and Alastor's Hood has the correct description so... i don't really know. You sure it's alastor? and most important, did you see other mistakes? if yes, where?
Mythril Blade wasn't removed. Actually, i don't recall "removing" anything, unless it became something else like the supernova axe into Herculean Axe.
Darksword: yes it went to jupiter cause i didn't like having the top 2 strongest swords with the same element. IIRC before the caladbolg was added, i had already changed the darksword's element to mercury.
Other than that i don't think i've ever thought about splitting weapons into reliable and unreliable.
I don't even consider masamune an endgame weapon cause the gap from tisiphone is way too big... the other endgame mercury weapon is the Rising Mace. For Mars instead the other spot obviously belongs to the Herculean Axe.
Another reason for Darksword not staying as Venus is cause Ker's Weight is also (forced) venus and i wanted to variate a bit for cursed equipments. Also, i don't see the problem on the shield cause you'd probably get the jupiter bonus from the helm anyway. And if you skipped the helm cause you didn't like the HP loss, i'm telling you that i placed Jupiter there on purpose :P
Also, for me the endgame mercury staff is more Clotho's Distaff rather than nebula wand cause i tend to use staves as support rather than unleashing but they're really close in terms of power so it's fine.
So, my answer to your "What is the next good Venus weapon for a warrior?"... you guessed it, for me it's Tisiphone.
I'll try your dullahan when i have some free time and let you know here how it goes ;)
My bad! It is Gloria Helm. The description says Boosts Luck, Replenishes PP but it actually replenishes HP and no Luck bonus.
Alright. I will try to get Mythril Blade then. I could not and using the save editor gave me a glitched item instead :D
I see your point about Darksword so I guess that is clear now as well!
You're right, i forgot to update Gloria and Millennium Helm's description after their changes for Reloaded. Thanks man!
PS. Mythril Blade's description too... I might make a quick fix for those. Let me know if you spot more!
PPS: i just tried hacking in a mythril blade via save editor and i got the blank coin as well, this is something worth investigating.
Edit: tried forging a hacked in mythril silver, got the blade at first try so it's confirmed being in.
Awesome! I will give it a try then!
Hm... Let's see. Did some snooping around in the store (could only check what I have there):
Dragon Robe - Minor thing. "bestows" is not capitalized :D
Dragon Scales - Resists Fire BUT the armor also resists Water! This description is actually correct in the first game, haha!
Arcadia Mail - No mention it also boosts Luck!
Bone Armlet - No mention it also boosts Earth power!
Herbed Shirt - Debatable. Replenishes HP does explain HP regen but maybe word it in a way that also shows you can use it in battle.
Speaking of the first game... Unfortunately, I only have a cleared save left so no access to shops so no idea if there are any mistakes BUT I think I might have seen one so someone else will have to provide OR I will hack in all items on a fresh file right away when I have the time. I do not think you added any new ones there.
EDIT: Which save file editor do you have? I have GSSGEdit 2.0a for a long time now and it seems to be the only one? You also cannot hack in the new stuff but I guess that makes sense because it does not know it is there.
bestows fixed, dragon scales fixed.
arcadia and bone are fire cause i omit passive bonus in the description when there's a on-use effect.
herbed is kinda fine: the description is ok cause i removed the on use effect but i still had to fix something.
@Save editor: same as yours and yes everything you said is correct.
Thanks a lot for your tips!
Edit: patches updated
Patches updated to v1.1
Nothing major, I just implemented the latest 2 patch in the download sections. So, stat-boosting items aren't affected by RNG anymore and a few menu panels and the text inside them have been rearranged.
Updated my game so thanks!
Also beat Dullahan so that is solved :D
Writing because I just found a small graphical bug. No idea if it is known but this is the very first time I see it :O
You can walk behind the INN sign in Prox. I do not know if that happens anywhere else.
This is a really pointless bug but since you are doing minor improvements as well plus I am not sure where else to post it, haha.
Screenshot included.
It's probably worth a small mention but those kinds of graphical errors happen a lot, lol.
Hides away again, but not before saying "congratulations on the hack Caledor!"
@MadJak: great! If you don't mind please share your story of how came to beat him since you experienced some difficulties.
About the graphical bug, i actually spotted it myself not too long ago but it doesn't really bother me (and i'm clueless at map stuff).
@Squirtle: Thanks! :D
Never touched anything about RNG. If the item doesn't drop, it's VERY likely there are mistakes in your method.
Guides for RNG are here for TBS: https://www.gamefaqs.com/gba/468548-golden-sun/faqs/19312
and here for TLA: https://www.gamefaqs.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/25734
The enemy group that appears is based on your timing from system on to when you load in. If your timing isn't frame perfect, you won't get the same group every time. What's more, enemy groups may have been edited in Cal's hack, so even if your timing *is* frame perfect, it's possible that the enemy group that used to be Magicore+Vile Dirge is now Magicore x2.
I think the former is a lot more likely, though. You're consistently using one timing, but it's not the same timing you used before.
I think it's more likely that an enemy group has additional actions per turn you're not accounting for in your RN calculations. Cal added quite a few instances where monsters act twice; could this be one of them?
That shouldn't happen anymore. Some release ago, with the latest enemy revamp, most enemies went back to 1 turn and became stronger.
The most likely reason for drops not happening is that players tend to follow step by step guides that worked for the original game instead of making their own. Well, aside from making math mistakes, which happens also often (quite often...)
1) Graphical glitch:
Yep! It is a really minor thing but I noticed it only now :D
Definitely nothing important but I figured I would throw it here.
2) I killed Dullahan after X number of times where X is pretty big I would say lmao :D
Nah but it took me a LOT of tries since I have last mentioned him.
Basically, I adjusted the general strategies written on the wiki as you changed classes a bit so that I still have a lot of healing and reviving. Also grinded for a few Mist Potions and Water of Life(s). Then simply tried until I got into a favorable loop and used Luff when needed :D
I also found new appreciation for Eddy, haha.
3) RNG abuse:
I have noticed I could not pull it off sometimes even when I was following the general two-enemy advice and it turned out I had to use a different Djinn. For example, I could not get a drop with Bane or Sap but Flint did it with the same strategy.
It has a been a long time so I do not remember whether it was always like that but probably was since there has been no changes to the system as was already said.
I hope that helps.
I beat the game a few days back. Doom Dragon was fine since I was buffed from Dullahan but still seemingly tougher than before and Cruel Ruin is well, more cruel ;D
Now I have two saves: One cleared and one with the game pretty much fully explored (not every artefact in stores).
Awesome patch all around, truly! Cannot go back to the original game now!
The djinni you use shouldn't have an effect on getting a drop. However, either your elemental level or epow could (I forget which).
Referring to djinn kills/rainbow kills? http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2760.msg46291#msg46291
The chance for quadrupled item drop chance is this in the original game (As long as the djinni is the element where the enemy's resistance is lower than their other elements.):
(Attacker ePower - Defender eResist + 30) * 655 > BRN(,0xFFFF)
For the original game: Most of the times, the lowest enemy resistance will be 72 or below... Exceptions include Dullahan (110 Jupiter), Doom Dragon (98 Jupiter)... and the very first elemental data entry (all 100 stats), and third entry (all 90 resist stats) -- Probably can rule out those four if they do not have item drops...
In my game many Resistances have been raised, but the rainbow effect is a dead giveaway of whether the chance quadrupled or not.
If you're not seeing it, you need to either Enfeeble the enemy before killing it or just raise you characters' power with equipment, cause no rainbow = no item.
@Leaf: a few Djinn have strange effects on the RNG counter so it's believable, and i'd say it's certain that it's the reason if he just selected a different djinn on the last turn.
Just did a quick test.
Mars Lighthouse -> Minos Warrior and Aka Manah -> Ninja Sandals.
First turn:
4x Psynergy targeting both enemies.
Second turn:
2x Psynergy targeting both enemies.
Venus Djinn on Aka Manah -> flashes and dies
Defend
Minos Warrior makes his move.
Third turn:
Attack -> Minos Warrior dies -> Ninja Sandals but...
Here are the details (I used a save state before making the same commands on the second turn):
I tried Flint, Sap, Bane and Geode. All made Aka Manah flash and die.
After Flint, Sap and Geode, Minos Warrior used Sack and raised his Attack. On the third turn, Ivan unleashed and killed him ending the battle WITH Ninja Sandals.
After Bane, Minos Warrior used Power Crush. On the third turn, Ivan attacked normally (without the unleash) and killed him ending the battle WITHOUT Ninja Sandals.
Meaning, some Djinn probably adjust the RNs differently? I actually do not remember that at all in the vanilla game but is has been a very long time...
This is just one example but like the poster above said, this also happened to me with other drops and other Djinn. I remember a similar case with some of the Mercury Djinn against Nue for the new Mars based mace.
Thoughts?
QuoteI tried Flint, Sap, Bane and Geode. All made Aka Manah flash and die.
Not surprising cause the Power/Res difference remains the same.
QuoteAfter Flint, Sap and Geode, [...] WITH Ninja Sandals.
After Bane [...] WITHOUT Ninja Sandals.
I think that Bane adds 1 more to the RNG than Flint Sap and Geode, and i'm pretty sure it has to do with his venom inducing effect. I'd be interesting to try 2 things:
1) Open the editor remove the venom effect from Bane and try again under the same settings.
2) Battle again but make it so that you reach bane's turn with 1 RNG point less (to see if effectively bane is the same as Flint+1).
The best advice is try to avoid djinn with secondary effects when going for RNG drops.
Oh, okay, that makes sense actually.
Funny the guides do not mention that.
That would also explain my problem with the Mercury Djinn like Mist who causes Sleep.
Sorry then.
so, question say after beating GS1 how would transferring work after the patch? or is there a way to bypass it or simply use a gold code? Any answers appreciated:)
Works the same. I simply obtained my gold code and used it like normal!
great news thanks i was gonna use that code generator i found a long time ago lol
Just remember that minor issue with Mountain Water: only up to one per character will be transferred, regardless of how many they carry.
Quote from: MadJak91 on 08, May, 2017, 08:20:55 AM
Sorry then.
Lol sorry for what? You tested it on your own and helped us understand that issue better. I'm thankful, actually! :D
thanks ill be sure to keep that in mind any threads or anything with a list of small issues like the one you brought up?
No issues i'm aware of, so if you spot something please report here.
Quote from: Vortal on 14, May, 2017, 11:34:51 AM
Where exactly do Grand Golems appear(In TLA)? I think I have missed them somewhere. According to your drop guide they are lvl 32 which kinda means that they should be either at Jupiter Lighthouse or ar Magma Rock. Did I missed them there or are they at different place?
They're in Trial Road.
QuoteAnd also, did the name of Grand Chimera got changed to Hell Chimera?
Yes, cause Hell Chimera is the original japanese name. I also fixed the misunderstanding on the opening post so thanks for pointing it out.
EDIT: Sneak peek of next release info panel. Critical hits bonus shows actual value
Oh, that's good!~ Think you'd be able to add that to the Balanced Age patches when you find the time?
Well, I usually wouldn't cause there's no real reason to play Balanced Age now over Reloaded with the beta status gone... BUT, since
a) it's literally two bytes per game
b) i have the addresses documented in the other thread
c) It's your birthday
I might as well do it.
So... happy birthday Role! :D
EDIT: Done
Thanks.
But yeah, I'd want to finish my playthrough of TBA before doing Reloaded. One of those "finish what you start" sort of deals.
I just finished my playthrough of TBS so it's a good time for an update.
That said, Reloaded v1.2 is up: minor tweaks and the item info panel improvement.
Yup, translation error, thanks for reporting. It's already fixed for the next release.
EDIT: ... which is already up cause i also had to fix a visual bug with the in-battle djinn menu panel (TLA only).
Back to modding.
Next release will I've made Defense buffs and debuffs stronger. As you all know Attack and Defense buffs use the same multipliers but due to how damage formulas are structured, Defense is always a lot lower than the Attack value.
That's why boosting Defense is always worse than reducing the enemy's atk, and reducing the enemy's defense is always worse than boosting your own attack.
This won't fix things perfectly and make them equally worthy, but it will noticeably reduce the gap between the two.
Original multipliers (attack & def) go from 4/8 (max debuff = x0.5) to 12/8 (max buff = x1.5) in 1/8 steps.
New multipliers (Def only) go from 4/16 (x0.25) to 28/16 (x1.75) in 3/8 steps.
PS: Another thing i'd like to do is to make some equipment capable of affecting the chance to debuff enemies. This way the characters will be able to specialize in debuffing. I already have a rough idea of how i should implement it but i don't how how difficult it might be so i'm keeping things vague for now.
EDIT: For the next release I've also fixed the random encounters around Prox. The game was still using the usual Western Sea land enemies, which is completely wrong. I must've skipped that part when porting changes from the italian game as usual so I apologize about that.
EDIT2: v1.3 is UP
Can you post the Psyenergy gained from level up on all classes someplace? Because some classes have had their level ups changed like the swordsman, which normally gets cutting edge at level 11 but doesn't have it in my current play through.
I would like to know what has been changed level up wise on the rest of the classes as well. Thank you for making this hack though. Its really great. :JupiterDjinni: :JupiterSet:
Hi ender wizard. You can easily check all the level ups by opening the ROM with atrius' editor, so I omitted it from the excel sheet. Same reason as why I haven't made a psynergy sheet despite all the power levels and pp costs I've changed. Btw the swordsman line learns cutting edge at 12
Wow. Thanks for replying so soon.
I didn't expect a reply for a while.
Also I am new to this, so I was unaware of the editor.
Thanks for your help and for your hack.
:JupiterDjinni: :JupiterSet:
Quote from: Ender_Wizard on 22, May, 2017, 06:04:09 AM
Wow. Thanks for replying so soon.
I didn't expect a reply for a while.
Also I am new to this, so I was unaware of the editor.
Thanks for your help and for your hack.
:JupiterDjinni: :JupiterSet:
Well I get notified by mail when someone replies here so it may happen that i reply within minutes.
Glad you're enjoying the mod, let me know if you have any other issue with it.
Also, time for an ANNOUNCEMENT.
Next release is gonna be pretty big cos i managed to implement a
new attribute to items (over the unused counterstrike rate attribute) which
boosts the chance to inflict ailments and debuffs. You'll basically be able to create dedicated "saboteurs" that excel at hindering enemies, even bosses with very high luck (Samurai class, i'm looking at you).
For now i can only say that MANY pieces of equipment will be affected by this but ATM i've yet yo decide which ones and how.
Stay tuned, and wait for the changelog!
Major release v1.5 is UP!
As announced this version introduces the "Ailments" attribute on equipment, which boosts the chance to inflict debuffs and ailments (and anything else that requires a Luck check on the enemy). The number shown is a flat % increase, just like items that boost the critical hits chance. Keep in mind that this bonus won't do anything if the enemy is immune to the ailment.
I've also used this chance to do a global check of equipment and unleashes so there are A LOT of minor changes and a few major fixes, like for the unleashes of Viking Axe and Hagbone Mace, cause i forgot to update their unleashes accordingly when i moved them to Prox and Trial Road respectively.
I'll paste here TLA's changelog from the Download section for reference.
[spoiler=Changelog]"Ailment" attribute implemented.
Minor fixes to some weapons, mostly maces & light blades.
Maces don't improve Resistance anymore; some of them increase Ailments chance.
Darksword, cursed staves, Matoi and Meditation Rod increase Ailments chance.
Minor fixes to many pieces of defensive gear.
Major changes for Demon Mail, Black Garb, Spirit Gloves, Jester's Armlet, Prophet's Hat, Ninja Headband, Devil's Crown, Alastor's Hood, Astral Circlet, Stardust Ring, Angel's Ring.
Many unleashes have been strengthened, especially those belonging to weapons found late in the game.[/spoiler]
Oh hell, that sounds delicious. So increase ailment resistances AND offenses? Dood, I can't wait to play this version. Any other juicy additions you've got up your sleeve? :3c
Quote from: Rolina on 27, May, 2017, 07:17:45 PM
Oh hell, that sounds delicious. So increase ailment resistances AND offenses? Dood, I can't wait to play this version. Any other juicy additions you've got up your sleeve? :3c
Wait a min, that could be a misunderstanding. It's true that you can increase both ailment resistances AND offenses, but with 2 different attributes.
Luck affects ailment resistance and ailment recovery.
The new "Ailment" attribute is only for offense.
As for other additions, ATM the ToDo list is empty. The only thing i'd like to do is rearrange the Djinn in TLA, cause those early mercury ones are a pain, but i have no clue.
Still, maybe some other things will pop up in the future... this mod is 2 and a half y.o., i lost count of how many times i said "it's finished", and it's still improving ;)
? My apologies, I had thought you mentioned earlier that you'd have certain armors increase resistance to specific ailments. Must have mis-remembered.
QuoteThe only thing i'd like to do is rearrange the Djinn in TLA, cause those early mercury ones are a pain, but i have no clue.
Fog (Kandarian Temple), and Sour (Osenia random encounter.)
No clue how to edit them, or no clue what to do with them/what to put in its place?
--
Easiest way to find it without documentation might be to put a breakpoint write on the flag data (Referring to the 0x200 bytes at 0x02000040, but the djinn flags appear in the first row.), and trace it back to what one wants to edit?
Fog is probably given from Map Code... based on how Events are done...
As for Sour...
0200E7C0 = World Map Event table... looking for flags 0x30-0x7F (0x4C being Sour) in entries that replace the common 0xFFFF. == Six djinn entries.... and the Sour one is at 0200E7FC-0200E807 , That's the event for it, but you might need to edit 0x5D's in the map data to move its location. (Event Type 0x2 is tile-based.)
Quote from: Fox on 28, May, 2017, 05:13:56 AM
No clue how to edit them, or no clue what to do with them/what to put in its place?
ATM both. I know it annoys me, but that's also as far as i thought about it. Knowing i'd be a huge pain to reallocate them i didn't bother worrying too much.
Also, for now i can totally live with it. I finished TBS and started TLA right before v1.3, so i think that now is a really good time for playing the mod, something i haven't managed to do in the last 2 years.
Hey there, I just found out about your creation (and it looks great!) and I'm planning on playing it over the next few weeks. I'll probably just jump to GS2 right away, I've been playing lots of GS1, so I'll like the change of pace. On your bio or whatever that is (text below your profile name/image) it says you need saves to test encounters for this. Any idea what specific encounters you mean? I'd be glad to help out with some save data as I move my way through. Lastly, I'll plan on giving my thoughts about the new edits. Looks like I'm gonna have some fun this month. :happy:
Hello Saturos, and welcome aboard!
About the saves thing, i need them only for encounters you want me to check. People often here tell me "check encounter x, it might be too strong/weak/etc": if you want me to do that, i need your save before that fight. ;)
It's been only 3 days, but it's time for another update.
I got kinda annoyed at the thought that Jenna doesn't get a Mars based staff until Salamander Rod, so I gave her 2, one for each Sea.
Asteria's Staff, which replaces Glower Staff and Cultist's Rod, which replaces Goblin's Rod.
Also, since Mercury based Axes are non-existant, their unleashes went to Captain's Axe (Sargasso) and Deepsea Axe (= Mighty Axe, which gets Ocean's Roar = Flash Force). This also allowed me to fix Captain's Axe unleash, cause the animation was bugged.
Swapped Blessed Ankh and Psynergy Rod unleashes to give Ivan/Sheba an earlier Jupiter boosting staff.
Power and type for all those unleashes is the same of the original weapon (only name, element, animation and side effect change).
TLA's starting levels were reverted to 5 (Jenna levels up to 5 after defeating the Punchy Ant in the cave) cause that level makes a lot of difference in Kandora and early Dekhan.
Also, some lore: some of you might think that it's weird to find a Mars based staff in the Shrine of the Sea God but Asteria is a Greek titan who died (rusty weapon) by flinging herself into the sea. :P
I love that bit of lore! You also have a very good point about the lack of Mars staves early on...
Keep up the good work. :P
Quote from: Lord Squirtle on 31, May, 2017, 11:24:08 AM
I love that bit of lore! You also have a very good point about the lack of Mars staves early on...
Keep up the good work. :P
Usually nobody cares about the element of the unleash midgame. But it's very important that Maces and Staves at least have some kind of reasonable distribution due to the power buff. In GS1 you find ONLY Mercury and Jupter staves, but it's fine, cause those are the main elements of Ivan and Mia. In TLA from early eastern sea to early western sea there are 4 staves and 3 of them are Mercury.
Also, expect an update in the near future. I found out that ability effects 41 and 43 are bugged and they respectively double and triple damage in addition to the effect I wanted them to have. Those 2 effects are used by damaging abilities that Stun or Haunt their target, like Stun Voltage.
EDIT: Lol Fury (the Mars Djinn) is completely broken
EDIT2: This bug was originally discovered 2 months ago by VardenSalad...
[spoiler]
QuoteAlright, away from computer now, and I can't find a way to move files via my phone file structure to attach. I'll get a save at Sea of Time Islet cave, one at Gondowan Cliffs without Piers (that's the most recent older save that I have, quite a bit behind current), and the Broken Seal endgame file.
For weapon unleashes that I know have this issue: the Cloud Wand, Staff of Anubis (obviously), and the Robber's Blade. Also, the Djinn Char seems to have the same issue with that spiked damage (Felix pushing 400+ unbuffed randomly) and Wheeze has the animation problem I mentioned earlier.
[/spoiler]
Yeah, there really does need to be a better staff distribution in general. :/
Haha, oops! I also used those for the Intellect patch! Just for buffs at least, but that's still not a good sign...
Ankhs need a huge increase and distribution as well - I still find people how don't know that GS treats it as a separate weapon type.
Quote from: Rolina on 02, June, 2017, 07:31:18 AM
Ankhs need a huge increase and distribution as well - I still find people how don't know that GS treats it as a separate weapon type.
It depends. If you want to balance the number of weapons warriors and mages have access to, yes. Otherwise, i don't think so: mages don't need to continuously improve their weapons like warriors do, so it's fine it there are fewer of them.
In my mod Ankhs are weapons that boost ailment offense and defense, something quite marginal in a standard playthrough. 5 of those evenly distributed is ok imo.
Edit: I've fixed all the bugs, even the other bugs Varden reported like the Whorl one and others he probably missed, but i'll wait a bit before releasing a new patch. The reason is that it's gonna include A LOT of changes to the early game and i want to be sure they are final by playing them.
:)
Release pushed further back cause a sudden burst of ideas filled my ToDo list. Spoiler: it has to do with debuffs and warriors.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 04, June, 2017, 10:22:58 AM
:)
Made you wait for those fixes man (and technically i still am :P)
I'll be very, very interested to hear what you plan on doing with the Mercury Djinn pre-Piers
Well, after that talk with Fox i gave it some thought so i already know what i want to do: what bothers me is that by the time Piers joins you have 2 Venus Djinn, 3 Mars/Jupiter and 5 (FIVE) Mercury, which is completely imbalanced.
So the solution is to swap the overworld Mercury Djinn around Naribwe with the Venus one found in Gabomba Catacombs (the one that requires Cyclone)
Ahh, just one djinn then. Alright.
Yeah, that is the only thing that imo really needs to be addressed. I know there's this difference with TBS, where you start getting Mercury Djinn only after Mia, but:
1) TLA is supposed to be the "expert mode" of TBS, since you already had the basics taught from the first game
2) Piers joins at 18, 8 levels later than Mia. Enemies in Mars lighthouse are at 35. I really can't deny an entire element for almost half of the game.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I know why they are where they are.
Anyone have a complete Broken Seal end-game file (or just a password) for this mod? Wanted to try TLA with it, but have no interest in playing Broken Seal again.
Here it is. It's from the italian version of the game but it's compatible. Includes a final save game and one at Venus Lighthouse in case you want to backtrack for something.
v1.6 is up! and is quite the big update
Before everything else, my congratulations to all of you who played TLA till eastern sea before this patch. You all truly deserve it. The point is, with Reloaded i succeeded (finally) in making TLA exactly as hard as TBS, but in TLA you start at a higher level and you literally skip a town, so all shops were lagging behind.
To make it short: a lv 10 enemy in TLA is about as strong as a lv 10 equivalent in TBS, but in TLA it'd be like fighting it with equipment from Vault instead of Bilibin. That's why Emus hit VERY hard, Sheba died to the drop of a hat etc etc. So...
1) I shifted ALL shops "left" by 1 city. Thus, Daila = Vault, Madra = Bilibin (etc etc) with minor exceptions. Items found in chests before the eastern sea were obviously affected by this due to the Golden Rule and have improved. Knight's Greaves boost Ailment chance so they might be useful now instead of being total crap.
2) The debuff and warrior thing: EPA with added damage have 2 issues. They're crazy strong as soon as you obtain them, but their power fades away with time. Solution: ALL multipliers. The only ones that are still added damage type are those that multiply damage from the effect like Excalibur.
For reference, the lowest multiplier for unleashes is 1.5, ragnarok & co are ALL 1.4 (so no more EPAs are better than unleashing until tolbi). Dragon Cloud and death leap are 1.6
2nd stage EPA are 1.7 and have a base 70% chance to debuff the target by 2 stages so they're useful even in the endgame. Odissey, Liquifier and Diamond Berg lower def, Thunder Mine res and Plume Edge atk. Planetary has a flat 50% chance to ignore defense instead. Helm/Skull splitter are a weaker and stronger odissey respectively. Epicenter is a stronger Planetary, Death Plunge is a jupiter Epicenter. Quick Strike & co + Annhilation had their multiplier raised to 2.0. Shuriken raised to x1.2
The Tamer series: Minotaur has a flat x2.2, Ghost Soldier is the same as Death Plunge, Troll is basically Odissey. Manticore allows for a limitless PP supply.
3) Summons had their base power raised cause i noticed that for the 5+ ones the Damage/Djinn ratio wasn't increasing, thus making the strongest literally useless. The downside is that HIS Charon is gonna hurt more now.
4) Stat changes to class: Magic Resistance (WRD) for all wizards has improved, then i used a new formula to rebalance the stat multipliers. The changes are mostly improvements, take a look at the doc, changes are in red
5) The Acrobat has the peculiarity of being the only wizard that can damage and debuff at the same time - like warriors do with the new EPAs - with Thunder Card (-res) and Bramble Card (-def). The debuff is also more reliable at 100% base chance but also weaker: 1 stage instead of 2.
That's it!
Oh, and... Varden's long awaited fixes.
hey, doing like a billion damage with specific djinn or unleashes has a tendency to debalance the game a bit, especially since those were some useful djinn and unleashes that had the issue.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 06, June, 2017, 07:01:14 PM
hey, doing like a billion damage with specific djinn or unleashes has a tendency to debalance the game a bit, especially since those were some useful djinn and unleashes that had the issue.
Can you be more specific?
it was the double/triple damage fixes you implemented. those were really needed. thanks for getting to those; they were quite odd.
Ah, nevermind then. Somehow i misread damage as changes, so i thought you were worried about the impact all those changes might have had.
BTW as you now know they were related to damaging effects that had a chance to haunt or stun. The effect slots i was using for those abilities were bugged (they are close to the double/triple damage effect and they do the same thing IN ADDITION to any effect you put there), so i just moved those effects into another slot.
As for the whorl animation bug: again it's related to effect slots. Effects from 36 to 40 are kinda bugged and have a chance to mess up effects that use attack animations, which are the ones where the character executes the attack animation before the effect... like Murk, Scorpionfish. They're safe for spell-like animations (like Titan Blade) instead.
Is the transfer screen supposed to have Isaac with 1/0 HP and PP?
Quote from: 2dgirlfan on 06, June, 2017, 08:42:57 PM
Is the transfer screen supposed to have Isaac with 1/0 HP and PP?
You're probably seeing this on a non-patched game. Since classes aren't in the same slot as the original, it might happen that characters have the wrong index for their class. And if the index points to an empty class slot, where stat multipliers are all 0s, this happens.
It's a non issue though. Stats are immediately corrected if you force a class refresh by messing with the character's djinn
I never really noticed that TLA was a shop behind the level average until when you made the shop edits, definitely a good idea when it comes balancing the game. Shifting most of the relevant physical skills to multipliers reminds me of Dark Dawn in a way, although now I wonder how mages will stack up because near the end of the TBS patch, I was resorting to having everyone spam the attack command because spells still couldn't beat unleashes when it came down to it.
It wasn't an issue cause enemies in TLA have always been A LOT weaker then their same level counterpart from TBS. The lv 18 Red Demon from Gabomba (strongest here) has lower Atk and Def than the lv 18 Armored Rat (nobody) found near tolbi for example. Now that enemies in TLA have caught up, it became a necessity.
@Spells: the main issue with spells is that they don't age well, cause the base power makes of a huge portion of the actual damage dealt. Maybe I can come up with something better than the PP multiplier
You could tier the bonus from the PP multiplier. It sits at something like (X/1024) flat now, correct? Maybe starting at something like 250 PP or 300 PP, the bonus could start applying at (X/512) for each Psynergy Point over the set amount?
Obviously, the numbers could be changed.
Sadly tiers won't work. They create scenarios where, when crossing the tier boundary, it either becomes suddenly worse or suddenly better. I want to avoid discontinuities in the function.
ATM i'm considering the possibility of making part of the pp multiplier additive or throwing in the level of the character or other PP related things.
It might be easier to do some general testing by comparing physical damage vs spell damage in various break point areas so Chestbeaters, Aqua Hydra, Poseidon, Jupiter Lighthouse and Mars Lighthouse and seeing where spells start falling off and the percentage difference at that too. That way you can create a modifier to kind of bridge the difference so that the gap isn't as high.
In my hack, while I am using the Int patch instead of the multiplier, I opted for spells to be consistent over time damage compared to the burst damage from Unleashes, although this method requires you to drop the unleash rate cap to about 55-65% or so to keep it from getting out of hand. If you're keeping the 99% unleash rate cap then you'll probably need to drastically bump up damage to keep up with constant 2.2x and 2.6x attacks going off each turn.
Cal, I'm suggesting each new point over the mark follows a new scaling, not the whole thing.
For example, you have 350 PP. The first 250 PP always scale at (X/1024). The remaining 100 PP scale at (X/512). It wouldn't change all the earlier scaling.
It may not work well regardless, but I at least want you to know what I'm pitching.
Quote from: Baransu on 07, June, 2017, 09:37:54 AM
It might be easier to do some general testing by comparing physical damage vs spell damage in various break point areas so Chestbeaters, Aqua Hydra, Poseidon, Jupiter Lighthouse and Mars Lighthouse and seeing where spells start falling off and the percentage difference at that too. That way you can create a modifier to kind of bridge the difference so that the gap isn't as high.
That much is certain.
QuoteCal, I'm suggesting each new point over the mark follows a new scaling, not the whole thing.
Oh, then it's fine, but multipliers won't help reducing the gap you feel between one spell and the next one. I think i need an additive constant.
Thanks for all your inputs though, i didn't expect all this interest on the matter.
And yeah, i have some work to do on endgame unleashes
If you're going to use an additive modifier, I'd probably recommend using your level as a base. Dullahan is at about 50 or so, therefore a level modifier would at bare minimum add 50 damage and at maximum 150. I wouldn't recommend anything higher since then spells would be way too strong in the eastern sea/early western sea period when your physical characters are really coming into their own.
I've considered many things but i think i've figured it out. Might as well share it with you in advance since the discussion has already started.
For spells: the additive modifier will be MaxPP/8. It's quite big since my lv12 sheba has 99 PP, so i'll have to reduce the original base power (but it's a good thing cause once again the gap with warriors widens). This number is added directly to BP so it's factored in the Power/Res calculation and the PP multiplier itself.
I won't touch anything else in the formula and adjust base power of spells from there with a batch of saves set at each 5 levels or so.
Megiddo will probably go down to x2.4, the Herculean Axe/Caladbolg to x2.2, Darksword/Alecto to x2.1. Excalibur/Tisiphone are both x2.2 inherently (with added base damage 0) cause that's the weighted multiplier they'll use on average.
Another thing I'm gonna reduce is the endgame level, both for Dullahan and the last learned spell. Mid fourties for both maybe? Or dullahan to 45 and spells 42 or so... i don't really know.
All the things combined here are for the following goals:
a) obviously give the same offensive potential to both mages and warriors
b) reduce the gap between one spell and the next
c) mages won't need to hurry to the next spell tier cause they're falling behind
I think of mages acting on a kind of curve between getting a new spell and jumping ahead of warriors on power and not yet having one and declining over a number of levels. Obviously, the idea of making the mage curve flat is impossible, but I don't see an issue with them spiking and fading twice over the course of the game as long as they end up sort of equal near the end (likely due to single target spells).
The sort of +/- on mages is that the AoE-ness of enemies doesn't continuously scale over the course of the game. You're not fighting 19 enemies and having a warrior overkilling 3 at a time but a mage taking out 10. When the majority of the game and the battle system is set up to fight 3 enemies most of the time, warriors beat 1/3-2/3 of the opposition into the ground. The best mage spells, in effect, turn them into warriors that scale with PP and ele power instead of Atk (and ele power).
Rather than mess with every ability's base power, couldn't you just make the modifier something like...
MaxPP/8 - 12
That breaks even at 96 PP, thus leaving early game basically as is (slightly nerfed for warriors). Just making it part of the formula makes it so you don't have to do nearly as much grunt work.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 07, June, 2017, 05:53:26 PM
I think of mages acting on a kind of curve between getting a new spell and jumping ahead of warriors on power and not yet having one and declining over a number of levels. Obviously, the idea of making the mage curve flat is impossible, but I don't see an issue with them spiking and fading twice over the course of the game as long as they end up sort of equal near the end (likely due to single target spells).
The sort of +/- on mages is that the AoE-ness of enemies doesn't continuously scale over the course of the game. You're not fighting 19 enemies and having a warrior overkilling 3 at a time but a mage taking out 10. When the majority of the game and the battle system is set up to fight 3 enemies most of the time, warriors beat 1/3-2/3 of the opposition into the ground. The best mage spells, in effect, turn them into warriors that scale with PP and ele power instead of Atk (and ele power).
I concur with both statements. Spiking and fading isn't an issue and won't disappear, it will just be smoother.
@leaf: very nice idea but it doesn't save me from much grunt work. Actually, spells in levels 8-12 are slightly OP so i want to check them anyway, but i like the concept and I might still use it... We'll see. Thanks ;)
That's certainly one way of looking at mages... but the way I see it is that each new spell is basically akin to a warrior equipping a new weapon. Mages tend to get 6-9 weapons total, while warriors get a new one every 20 minutes. Thing is, warriors can swing their weapons for free, so the problem of balance doesn't just show itself with rate of staggered upgrades, but also with the scale of cost. I'd argue dynamic stats as well, but your mods address those already.
Casting Bramble Card might currently freeze your game cause i messed up one byte.
It's already fixed for next release but if someone wants to try out the latest changes to the Pierrot class, here's the fix: at 00121645, change 2B to 1B. Sorry for the hassle
@Role: Thinking back, in the original game mages growth was almost identical to a staircase function: only the +5 power from a new djinn could slightly improve spells between steps.
I wish there was a way to textually show the base power of spells from the status screen or something similar. There's space in the text box underneath the line that gives the description of the spell ("Attack with wild plants", "...bolts from the heavens") but I have no idea how to access it and my rudimentary experiments just garbled other text.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 10, June, 2017, 04:11:43 PM
I wish there was a way to textually show the base power of spells from the status screen or something similar. There's space in the text box underneath the line that gives the description of the spell ("Attack with wild plants", "...bolts from the heavens") but I have no idea how to access it and my rudimentary experiments just garbled other text.
Actually there is already text in that space but the english version is bugged so it doesn't appear.
It should show "A:Items L/R:Switch characters" like the other screens of the status menu.
Here's the unbugged italian version
Your text at the bottom showing usability is different from the English version as well. Yours is more useful because it shows all the usabilities at once.
No clue where to stick a short blurb in base power or scaling noe that I know that space is taken up.
I played TBS 1.0, TLA 1.3, and TBS 1.55 and found this to be a very well made mod. I have some feedback about difficulty and character/class balance. I'm not sure how much has changed in 1.6 but most of this should still apply.
First and possibly most importantly, Flash seems to reduce non-physical damage by far more than 66%. Deadbeard's Freeze Prism and Spark Plasma and Fusion Dragon's Outer Space were all consistently dealing under 30 damage to all characters, some of which had no boosts to the relevant resistances, when Flash was active. However, Deadbeard's Sweep still hit for around 160 on the primary target when Flash was active (and Deadbeard under 2x Impact), which leads me to believe that Flash still reduces elemental damage by 90% but physical damage by less. This essentially trivialized the endgame of TBS; I didn't even need lvl27 for Break against Deadbeard as long as he didn't use Sweep four times in a row or something because his Freeze Prism and Spark Plasma would do nothing on my Flash turns. Saturos, Menardi, and the Fusion Dragon were even easier since they didn't have anything like Sweep. Rotating Flash and Ground and giving PP regen gear to your healer makes your party all but invulnerable.
Another issue is that there is no significant benefit to being in a mage class over a warrior class unless the character will spam heals, especially in boss battles. Mage classes usually have higher PP and agility at the cost of HP, attack, and defense, but agility is mostly irrelevant against bosses unless the character is a healer and warrior classes' psynergy does comparable damage to mage classes' psynergy with the only difference being max PP. This means that warriors can act as mages when the situation calls for it, but mages can never be effective warriors because short swords and maces are worse than long swords and axes for most of the game. At least against Deadbeard and the final bosses, Ivan ended up being by far my weakest party member because Shine Plasma against single targets is about as strong as basic attacks and Ragnarok from Isaac or Garet but at a high PP cost. In fact I probably could have stuck all my +criticals gear on Mia to have Drown unleash outdamage spamming Glacier. What I'm getting at is in boss battles, attack Psynergy other than Ragnarok/Heat Wave/etc is very weak so casters are relegated to healing (Mia) or using utility Djinn like Breeze, Kite, and Flash (Ivan).
I didn't finish TLA 1.3 but I got to the Flame Dragons. I actually like the early Djinn imbalance since it encourages experimenting with varied class setups. I found giving Venus Djinn to Jenna and Mercury Djinn to Felix while leaving Sheba in her default class was very effective. This is definitely the harder of the two games, especially around Yampi Desert and Gondowan before Piers, but since the shops are adjusted in 1.6 it should be better. Another reason it's harder is the Djinn are way weaker than in TBS. You don't get Shade until around level 21 and not having Granite made boss battles much harder. It is not an exaggeration to say Flash, Shade, Granite, Ground, and Petra are the best Djinn in the game, with the only comparable ones being Ether, Luff, and Kite. Just like with Ivan in TBS, Sheba ended up being the party's weak link, but her Boon and Punishment psynergy made her relevant in boss battles beyond utility Djinn.
Edit: Just started TLA 1.6 and Yampi Desert is still ridiculously hard. The Jupiter Djinn can easily bop my level 9 Jenna from max because it gets two turns. I feel like I need to grind to level 11 or so to take on that zone which is annoying since I never had to grind in TBS.
@Varden: IMO the best (only) place is the description. About the bottom line in the status menu, it's the english translation's fault. There are 3 lines, meant to be used for "town/dungeon", "T/D/Battle", "Battle only". The english localization compressed the first two into "town" and uses "battle" only for the last one. You can see for yourself in the editor.
@bpat: thanks for playing with the mod and for the massive feedback. Let's see...
- Flash: VERY strange. As far as i know, those effects have no way to discriminate between types of damage. I'll check.
- TBS Endgame Bosses: makes me think that i should reduce their power and increase the number of turns they act (to reduce Ground's effectiveness).
- Mages: That is being fixed right now. Lower levels for learning psy, especially for those learnt later than 30, and Base power directly increased by max PP.
- Yampi in 1.6: I did yampi on 1.6 and had no issues. Remember that you can go to Mikasalla before Yampi, where you can grab new gear and a djinn. Going to Yampi before Mikasalla is like going to Imil before Kolima forest, so it's to be expected that it'll be difficult.
Progress for v1.61: The new BD formula is in.
I'm also almost done with updating ALL the classes for the psynergy learning levels. Only item classes in tla missing.
It's been a nightmare.After item classes i'll have to update the psynergies themselves.
Huh I totally forgot about Mikasalla. Next time I'll be sure to go there first. I just beat Briggs and found him and the King Scorpion to both be trivially easy compared to random encounters in Yampi Desert. King Scorpion could probably get an extra turn because he doesn't even do as much damage as a Momonga or Emu. Briggs and his Sea Fighters spent a lot of time healing and defending which made the fight very easy since I rarely had to cast Boon.
I don't think giving TBS end bosses extra turns would help fix the Ground/Flash cheese since then Granite would replace Ground and be almost as effective. Flash is the bigger offender since for unknown reasons it reduced psynergy damage to 30 or less so if that is fixed then these encounters would be fine.
Oh one other thing I forgot is that Crossbone Isle before Deadbeard is pretty easy. I figured that getting the Mystery Blade before getting to Tolbi was intended but the encounters after that could be a bit harder.
Honestly, the problem with Ground isn't one of bosses and turn count - rather, it's the overabundance of solo bosses. GS really needs more multi-foe boss fights. :/
Upping turn count just defeats the point of ground's very existence. Even so much as giving bosses two turns can be enough to render ground a waste of time. Only one, and it becomes too strong. If you have multiple foes, however, that changes things. Two foes with one turn each is enough to keep ground very much balanced. Or at least, that's my musings on the issue.
Gonna agree with role that foes with 3+ turns pretty much nullify ground's existence. At 2 turns, you're still cutting out a significant amount of damage by tying up one of them, but at three turns it's functionally a 33% damage reduction... which is just plain inferior to using a barrier djinni.
Multiple foes also gives another lever for balancing mages; they wouldn't need their big AOEs to be hitting for the same damage as unleashes to keep up in boss fights if AOE actually had a purpose there.
Plus, if the foes are doing different things, who you use ground against is arguably more important than just using ground itself. For instance, let's say there were two foes in the boss fight - one who did heavy hits, and one who focuses more on healing and buffs. If you needed emergency healing yourself, using ground on the attack would be more important. Else, targeting the healer would probably be the optimal strat.
@Ground: What you all said makes a lot of sense. So let me ask you: do you think that wall effects are fine as they are now (50% Granite & Shade, 66% Flash) or should they still be a little lower?
About v1.61: everything's done. Holding back the release to check Flash in TBS
Alright, bpat is correct. King Scorpion now does very, very little damage and I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm underestimating the effects of items.
Emus, Raptors, and Momangas are scary as hell, specifically Emus for doing just a ton of damage. Mikasalla's shop needs tweaked somehow; it only has Adept's Clothes and a Broadsword, which even if it's sort of accurate to old Mikasalla, just sort of looks wrong.
Varden or anyone else, please upload a save in Yampi or a bit earlier (char lv 8-9). I'll test those encounter once again cause i really had no issues with the area.
And yes, Flash in TBS reduces by 66% only physical damage, and by 90% base damage.
Wish you had let me know a bit ago :/ Middle of Air's Rock now.
On the subject of Ground, Granite, etc, I think they're fine as they are as long as Flash gets fixed to reduce base damage attacks by only 66%. Nerfing Ground wouldn't matter since Granite exists and Granite isn't oppressively strong. The Ground/Flash combo was so good because against bosses with two turns like Saturos and Menardi you would take 10% damage then 50% damage assuming no physical attacks. The only threatening physical attack from a late-game enemy is Deadbeard's Sweep, so you can assume you take almost 0 damage on one turn and half damage on the other turn, but if stuff like Spark Plasma starts hitting for 80 instead of 25 on a Flash turn then you'd have to spend more turns and PP healing.
I forgot to keep saves from Yampi Desert but if I find another zone or boss to be too easy or too hard I'll be sure to upload a save of my party in that area.
v1.61 is UP
It's all about the new base damage formula, which adds MaxPP/8 to the power of each base damage psynergy.
In TLA lowering the target level for the endgame is a way to reduce the gap between unleashes and EPAs/BD psynergies.
Includes Bramble card fix in TLA and Flash fix in TBS.
@Flash: that thing was ridiculous. There are FIVE separate functions used by Flash, Granite, & Defense command, which are called depending on damage type or effect. I still don't know when 1 of those is used but i changed them all so there shouldn't be more issues.
@Varden. If i'm to ask you everytime, i'll always be late... that's why i put a reminder under my profile pic. Still, it's fine. It will just be longer cause i have to start over again.
Yeah, I'll have one for the Mimic fight in Air's Rock uploaded when I get home. This Mimic has Fiery Blast, which just wrecked my party.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 13, June, 2017, 12:18:29 PM
Yeah, I'll have one for the Mimic fight in Air's Rock uploaded when I get home. This Mimic has Fiery Blast, which just wrecked my party.
Oops that's true. And there's obviously the lv 34 one with Mad Blast too. Fixed both.
If that's the only issue in Air's rock there's no need for a save.
Quite odd, but I'm pretty sure Felix using Sour just used the critical hit animation instead of Sour's djinn animation. Testing to confirm.
I currently don't have a good internet connection to upload the save but I'll do so when I get home. The Yampi Desert Jupiter Djinn should either not have two turns or not have much weaker psynergy like Slash and Bolt instead of Punishment and Flash Bolt. Punishment + Flash Bolt kills characters under 110 HP and it has high enough agility that you can't reliably heal before it attacks. Something like Punishment + Flash Bolt/Plasma would drop someone to 30 or so health from max, then any psynergy would down them sometimes before I could heal (seemed random if Sheba or the Djinn went first). I had both Felix and Sheba healing with only Jenna attacking (spamming Juggle) and I still needed to use savestates to win with my level 9 party.
Also, what filesharing sites would you recommend for uploading the save?
Quote from: bpat on 14, June, 2017, 06:46:58 PM
I currently don't have a good internet connection to upload the save but I'll do so when I get home. The Yampi Desert Jupiter Djinn should either not have two turns or not have much weaker psynergy like Slash and Bolt instead of Punishment and Flash Bolt. [...] to win with my level 9 party.
At 9 you are seriously underleveled for Yampi, 11 is the level for enemies in the area. The djinn itself is fine, cause it's a lot weaker than Quartz in TBS despite the 2 being only 1 level apart (which makes sense, cause you fight Quartz as a 4 man party with 2 djinn each.
That said, unless the recent changes to the PP formula had that much of an impact to those early djinn.
QuoteAlso, what filesharing sites would you recommend for uploading the save?
No need for filesharing sites for a 64kB upload, just attach it to the post itself. To attach a file, click on "Additional Options..." while posting.
@Varden: I tried for 30 minutes with no success, so let me know if it happens again.
Yeah, I did the same. Couldn't get it to happen. I'll pay attention in the future.
Yeah I think my problem is probably that I'm underleveled for the Djinn fights. Weirdly I still didn't have a problem with King Scorpion and Briggs despite having a level 10 party but I think that's the nature of fights against single-turn bosses. Both could possibly use a bit more max HP to make PP management a bit harder since I tended to win shortly after running low on PP. I take it level 13-14 is underleveled for the Mercury Djinn after Gondowan Cliffs? I also struggled with the Gondowan Cliffs Mars Djinn at level 13 but somehow managed to beat it.
The save I attached has my level 9 party at the Yampi Desert Jupiter Djinn in the second slot and my level 13-14 party at the Gondowan Cliffs Mercury Djinn third slot.
QuoteThat said, unless the recent changes to the PP formula had that much of an impact to those early djinn.
Honestly it wouldn't be surprising if suddenly inflicting an extra 10-15 damage broke some early fights. Unlike some games, characters in GS do not get significantly more powerful with levels, so being underleveled shouldn't change much. However, the combination of being underleveled plus the extra damage the djinni puts out, might be enough to put it over the edge. Bpat's party was probably ~10 HP under where you expect them to be, so in tandem with attacks doing another 10-15 damage from the maxPP bonus, that could easily hit a kill breakpoint.
Area levels in my mod are the same as the vanilla game. So:
Yampi 11, Air's Rock 14, Gondowan Cliffs 16, Naribwe 16, Kibombo 17, Gabomba Statue 18...
@Leaf: you even guessed the numbers right. I think there might be an issue for djinn in the 11-16 range, cause 11 is the level where djinn start having 2 turns and 16 is the last djinn level before gaining access to area heal.
I think even with taking the area levels into account the Djinn in that range may be too strong. I did some grinding and tried again with Felix and Jenna level 16 and Sheba level 15 and still got demolished by the Mercury Djinn. If doesn't cast Ply it usually does 250-350 overall damage to my party each turn which is too much to keep up with even with two characters spamming Cure Well. I attached a save of my party at this point in the game.
An example fight I had it use Tundra (66 damage to Jenna, 55 damage to Felix) then Drench (56 damage to Jenna, 76 damage to Felix, 50 damage to Sheba) on the first round of combat for a total of 303 damage and it didn't even use its most damaging psynergy nor did it target Felix twice.
I'm currently fixing the djinn in this level range. The issue exists because early djinn with 2 turns have a lot of weak moves to compensate the second turn. Weak moves had their base power lowered by 5 or 10 at most, to compensate the MaxPP you had at the level you learn them. At higher level, the MaxPP increases base power by 10 or even 15, which means that those djinn deal 5~10 more damage per spell cast.
EDIT: v1.61a is UP. I can't thank you guys enough for all the feedback i've been receiving these days.
I'm gonna keep going with my 1.61 run since I managed to deal with the problematic Mercury Djinn without much trouble once I got Piers and his Shade Djinn. I noticed that the Cave Trolls in Taopo Swap do at least five times as much damage as they have any right to. Attached is a screenshot of level 20 Felix getting horribly overkilled (over 2x his max HP) by a Cave Troll.
Quote from: bpat on 16, June, 2017, 04:06:22 AM
I'm gonna keep going with my 1.61 run since I managed to deal with the problematic Mercury Djinn without much trouble once I got Piers and his Shade Djinn. I noticed that the Cave Trolls in Taopo Swap do at least five times as much damage as they have any right to. Attached is a screenshot of level 20 Felix getting horribly overkilled (over 2x his max HP) by a Cave Troll.
...v1.61b is up.
I cant believe someone is making a difficulty mod I love it!!
I just only found this mod.
Might it possible to even add a secret/additional boss or only work with with we have?
What's the difference between
Golden Sun: The Broken Seal:
Golden Sun: The Lost Age
This mod is just for golden sun 2 right?
? Broken seal?
Quote from: chrisssj2 on 16, June, 2017, 07:05:03 AM
Might it possible to even add a secret/additional boss or only work with with we have?
ATM i don't know how to do it nor i have plans for that.
QuoteWhat's the difference between
Golden Sun: The Broken Seal:
Golden Sun: The Lost Age
This mod is just for golden sun 2 right?
? Broken seal?
Broken Seal is Golden Sun 1. The japanese title for GS1 includes "The broken seal" in its name so i use it to make it clear that i'm talking about the 1st game only.
So, mod is for both games.
I'm finding that for almost the entirety of the Eastern Sea, Piers sucks in any class besides his base class, which isn't even a great class to begin with. Also, Mercury Djinn are in high demand by Jenna and Sheba so it's hard to justify giving him all the Mercury Djinn when the only great thing about his base class is Prism.
The only thing left I have to do in the Eastern Sea is beat Poseidon and Piers is level 26. The best base damage Mercury Psynergy available to him outside is base class is Ice Horn which is 13 PP and the only way to get it is from the Venus/Jupiter triple element class. The double element classes and his Mars/Jupiter triple element class are even worse, where he's stuck as Froth Sphere (12 PP) until Fiery Blast in the Mars double element class. In fact, he doesn't get anything from any of these three classes that's better than Froth Sphere in any element until Fiery Blast. At level 26, his best base damage psynergy in his Jupiter double element class are Drench (9 PP) and Wind Slash (11 PP), which is terrible. Piers in his base class isn't even as good a warrior as Felix in his base class or double element classes so the only roles for him before getting Fiery Blast or hitting 24 Djinn (for the triple element classes) are party healing from the Venus double element class (which is worse than Wish) or act as a weaker Felix.
Giving him the Cool line instead of either the Douse or Froth lines would help a ton. I'm not sure why Cool was removed from his base class in the first place but he desperately needs it back. My recommendation would be to replace the Douse line with the Cool line on his Jupiter double element class and his Mars/Jupiter triple element class and replace the Froth line with the Cool line on his Mars and Venus double element classes. The Douse line is largely irrelevant for him because Drench is useless by his join time so there's no need for him to have it just for Deluge, and the Froth line is barely better. If for whatever reason Cool has been coded out of the game since it doesn't appear on any class, Prism would work instead since they're very similar.
Edit: More thoughts of TLA thus far. I just beat Poseidon.
The rusty items are pretty bad aside from the Captain's Axe and Dracomace. Usually comparable gear will be available by the time you can forge them so there's no point forging them, especially since they cost a lot. Most of the Eastern Sea rusty items aside from Captain's Axe and Dracomace could probably use some minor buffs to make them worth the trip back to Yallam and the cost of forging.
Poseidon was a really fun and challenging boss, I think I used 2x Ulysses, 2x Judgement, and 2x Thor before he fell. Three turns is no joke. Jenna burned through her entire PP pool of 189 plus some more after I used Ether and she didn't even cast every turn. My setup was all Mercury Djinn on Jenna, all Jupiter Djinn on Felix, all Venus Djinn on Piers, and all Mars Djinn on Sheba. I find no one wants Venus Djinn in TLA so Piers got stuck with them since he gets the Heal line and his other double element classes are really bad. At least in TBS Garet excelled in his Venus double elemental class.
Edit 2: Leda's Bracelet says it gives wind and earth power but it actually gives wind power and earth resist.
@Psynergy lines and classes
Outside of base classes, psynergy lines are based on the class' PP multiplier, which represents its proficiency on a mage-like role. The average for warrior-esque classes is thorn/starburst/ray/froth, Psy Champion and Sun champion are Warrior-Mage hybrids, thus gain Whirlwind. Chaos Lord and Sea Lord are horrible at casting and don't go beyond growth/blast/douse/slash. Ninja and General are hybrids as well so they gain up to ~Plasma and Gaia.
So, basically you're telling me that Piers sucks in a role i didn't give him.
Piers in his base class is basically a Garet who can actually cast.
As far as dual classes go i don't think there's anything as sturdy as Protector Piers, the most defensive dual on the second best character on defense.
Radiant Piers is actually good on the offense, and can fall back to Aura if needed.
Sea lord is a less extreme Chaos Lord. He loses a bit of Attack and speed, but is more resilient to statuses and can heal if needed (so i don't get how garet can excel as a Chaos Lord while Piers is bad as a Sea Lord)
@Cool
It was removed while this was still called Balance Age (replaced by Prism in his base class) but now i think i can bring it back if needed. Point is, Piers doesn't have class line that could learn it.
Giving Piers a caster class at this point is going to be difficult. The easiest way to do it would be swapping the Sun Champions and Radiant's PP multiplier, which would affect Piers' Radiant class as well. But I lack Beam in TBS, which is the Mars equivalent of Whirlwind.
@Rusty items
Sad (and strange) to see that Asteria's staff isn't included. I think i'll use it as Jenna's main weapon through the whole western sea. Other stuff mainly depend on when you get them. in the western sea there's an overabundance of weapons so if you go even a bit off course it can happen that you find weaker stuff than what you already have.
@No one wants Venus Djinn in TLA
Miko Jenna is one of my favorite class lines ever, but i understand that lv 26, right before she learns Serpent Fume, is the absolute weakest point for that class line, offensively.
@Leda
Missclick on my part. The description is correct and Leda's already fixed for next release.
Thanks for the feedback!
Interesting, I think I better understand what you had in mind for the classes. My party is now level 28 and I'm running base class Jenna, Jupiter double elemental Felix, Venus double elemental Piers, and Mercury double elemental Sheba which has been my most successful setup so far. I basically forced Piers into a weird role where he's my best healer and my second best warrior, since the preferred Mars Djinn are occupied by Jenna who has a fantastic base class, possibly the best out of all eight characters other than maybe Mia. I find it interesting that you like Jenna's Venus double elemental class, since it looks like a straight downgrade from her base class. I liked it in Gondowan when Briar was great but now it just doesn't cut it in terms of offense.
Asteria's Staff is looks alright, I gave her the Corsair's Edge instead but I'm not sure if that was the right call. In retrospect it probably would have been better to use Asteria's Staff instead now that I've decided to keep her in her base class, but for a while she was mostly casting Hail Prism with +water power gear so I didn't value the fire power highly.
Quote from: bpat on 17, June, 2017, 07:21:00 AMI find it interesting that you like Jenna's Venus double elemental class, since it looks like a straight downgrade from her base class.
The Miko is a full fledged healer (missing only cure poison and restore) with access to a strong single target psynergy. The only thing she can't do well is support, cause guard is arguably the worst support spell among the 6 buff/debuffs. Heal is way better than Aura and she has Revive, but it's also true that symbiotic dual caster classes gain a huge boost in the endgame thanks to the Big Bang Gloves (Mars/Venus power boost) and Selene's Armlet (Mercury/Jupiter power boost).
Being a healer means she also has better defenses: the Incendiary has subpar Luck, while the Miko is much more resilient to statuses. But that again, is something that becomes more and more relevant by progressing through the game, with instant death attacks and such. Many classes are like this... for example... the Chaos Lord has amazing stats with top tier attack, great defense and HP but a Delude is enough to cripple him.
Just beat the Flame Dragons with a level 33-34 party. They destroyed me on my first attempt so I got the Djinn and items from Treasure Isle, Yampi Desert Cave, and Islet Cave then came back. This was an incredibly difficult fight and one of the most fun fights in Golden Sun Reloaded, with only Poseidon being a comparable challenge (and also very fun!). My strategy was to remove all the agility gear from Mia so she would heal after each Flame Dragon attacks once. I had her and Jenna heal two of Felix, Isaac, Garet, and Piers attacked the smaller Flame Dragon with Thunder Mine and Odyssey, rotating them as they got stunned. Ivan and Sheba only showed up to use a PP restoring Djinn or revive someone.
On the other hand, Moapa and Karst and Agatio were disappointingly easy battles. My party was level 29 for Moapa and level 30 for Karst and Agatio. My saves from shortly before these battles should be in the third and second slots of the attached save respectively. The first slot has my party shortly before battling the Flame Dragons but they're actually in Islet Cave.
Just for fun, here are my rankings of the eight adepts. This applies to both boss battles and general use. My current class setup is Worldwaker Ivan, Shogun Isaac, Jonin Garet, Angel Mia, Incendiary Jenna, Jonin Felix, General Piers, and Pure Mage Sheba. The only things I'm not happy about are that Isaac would rather be a Jonin and Ivan would rather be a Pure Mage.
1) Jenna. Her base class is amazing and she does the best physical damage of the four mage adepts. She has relevant offense Psynergy for the entire early-mid game since Cycle Beam is passable even in the Western Sea thanks to the high fire power she has in her base class. Fume is pretty good too though it's not that important. The Aura series is great since Healing Aura and Cool Aura are available before the second and third psynergy in the Heal and Wish series. Favorite class: Incendiary.
2) Mia. She's Jenna-lite. Physical attacks are worthless if unleashes don't trigger though. Trades Fume for Ply which is alright but single-target heals aren't that important late game. Glacier is her version of Cycle Beam. Bad agility can be a problem but she's still really good. Favorite class: Angel.
3) Isaac. Great physical attacker and a decent early healer in his base class. Almost functionally identical to Felix but has a better base class so I give him the edge. No reason to run him as anything other than Psy Champion or Jonin since Jupiter Djinn are not in high demand by other adepts. Well that's not entirely true since it's hard to make both Isaac and Felix Jonins but Shogun is good enough. Favorite class: Psy Champion/Jonin/Shogun.
4) Felix. Same as Isaac but doesn't have Cure in his base class. Favorite class: Psy Champion/Jonin/Shogun.
5) Garet. His base class is okay but he really shines in Chaos Lord and Jonin which fix his agility and improves his already solid attack. His ridiculous defenses are always welcome in harder boss battles. Favorite class: Chaos Lord/Jonin.
6) Sheba. Boon worked wonders early but she kinda sucks in any class that doesn't have party healing because having offensive psynergy being her only notable trait is pretty bad. Terrible at physical attacks, like Mia. Gets the edge over Ivan because her base class is better early. Favorite class: Arcanist/Pure Mage.
7) Ivan. Sheba without Boon. I run him as a pure offense caster which is worthless in boss battles but pretty amazing otherwise. For boss battles in TBS he was relegated to using important Djinn like Flash and Breeze and in TLA boss battles he sits on the bench. Favorite class: Inquisitor/Pure Mage.
8) Piers. Easily the worst of the warrior adepts because his attack stat and his offensive psynergy are both pretty bad until he gets Froth Spiral. His base class looks decent since it gives him Prism and Diamond Berg but there's no way he gets to keep his Mercury Djinn when Mia's base class is too good to pass up and Ivan and Sheba both benefit immensely from them. Favorite class: General/Protector.
Thanks for the tips. Seeing how you still won't let go of Angel and Incendiary worries me a bit, as well as the disappointing boss fight you mentioned. I'll also check the dragons cause there shouldn't be THAT much difference from the JL battle against their human form.
I like Jenna and Mia's base classes best because party healing benefits immensely from elemental power. I gave them all the best fire and water power items respectively and it worked incredibly. Their stats are pretty bad but I don't need them to do damage when I have Felix, Isaac, Garet, and Sheba.
I just beat Balrog and Sentinel with a level 35-37 party and a level 36-38 party respectively. Turns out giving Sheba all the cursed mage items and a Mythril Armlet and Ninja Sandles makes her outdamage Garet with all the cursed warrior items and Ninja Sandles and Felix with the Sol Blade and a bunch of crit items though her low HP means she can't occupy a middle slot safely. I switched her and Ivan's classes for this because Ivan doesn't want to wear Ninja Sandals over Silver Greaves.
Balrog was actually the harder of the two superbosses because of his Stun Jip and high agility. If he stunned my healer before Wish Well or Cool Aura then I could expect party members to go down. I often used Petra and Ground to guarantee he doesn't stun or summon before I can but other than those I mostly focused on attacks with Ker's Weight, Sol Blade, and Darksword with two characters and healing with the other two. It was also annoying when one of Ivan's Mercury Djinn got put on standby since it made him lose Wish.
Sheba was amazing against Sentinel because Soul Doom ignores his high defense and exploits his Venus weakness. I still had to have two healers to make sure she didn't drop. Unlike against Balrog where I used all eight party members, I mostly used Sheba, Jenna, Felix, and Mia since Sheba and Felix have great Venus unleash setups (Garet's Jupiter unleash is bad here and Isaac has an Epicenter/Skull Splitter setup which doesn't work). Sometimes I'd swap Ivan in and have him use Wish Well and Felix Immediately unleash Lull before Sentinel could act, then immediately swap him back out and have Jenna unleash Flash and Felix summon Magaera. Other than that my strategy was mostly attacks with Felix and Sheba and healing with Jenna and Mia.
I attached a save with my party right before the Flame Dragons in the first slot, Balrog in the second slot, and Sentinel in the third slot.
Edit: I beat Star Magician as well, which was the hardest one yet. Anger Balls have relatively high HP so I ignored them until they blew themselves up. Thunder Balls do tons of damage if left unaccounted for but they weren't as high priority as Guardian or Refresh Balls. Guardian Balls annoyingly could take a hit of Armageddon or Soul Doom because of their earth resistance so I had to use an AoE as well to kill one in one turn. Refresh Balls instantly die in one hit of Armageddon, Soul Doom, Epicenter, or Death Leap but sometimes Felix or Sheba would get deluded before attacking making them miss their unleash.
Glad to see you're liking the Cursed Mage setup.
About party healing: in this mod the influence of ePower on healing has already been reduced (to 66%) and it's further reduced to 50% for the next release as of v1.62. This way ePower has the same relevance for offense and healing.
That said, Angel Mia is always going to be the best healer in the game, but Incendiary Jenna can only be good at best, cause Aura is inherently weak. Any class with Heal or Wish, be it dual or tri elemental is supposed to fulfill that role better.
I've also fixed a bug about healing: currently any amount of ePower over 200 is ignored so you'll probably notice Mia and Jenna to improve despite the nerf.
Tip: Incendiary Jenna as a healer against Balrog probably wasn't a wise choice. She has subpar Luck and a weakness to Stun to boot. Ditto for Chaos Lords/Samurais against Star Magician.
Edit: v1.62 is UP
All these buffs to single target psynergy effectively buff warriors, no? Any plans to pick a single line per element of AoE, more mage-useful psynergy to give additional effects to? Maybe Volcano, Gaia, Plasma, and Prism?
You mean Odissey and the others? The plan was to make them actually useable, cause they were completely overshadowed by unleashes in the endgame, while the first stages (Ragnarok) were just overpowered. Granting EPAs the ability to debuff the target is something i thought a long time ago, but without the ailment attribute it would've been almost useless.
As for mages: currently the only spells that debuff are the Acrobat's Bramble and Thunder Card. Extending the effect to other psynergies has some issues like finding the actual slots for the effects, especially in TBS.
Still, if i ever end up doing that, it's never gonna happen for the strongest spells. So there would be the issue of giving mages low tier spells that debuff as well.
It's not as easy as it was for warriors: they ALL already had some kind of EPA that was useless in the endgame. Mages, especially tri elemental classes, often have just 2-3 very strong offensive spells and then healing and support.
PS: about the "buff" to warriors. I don't really see it that way. I see it more as giving them another role. An unleash setup has been a no brainer for warrior classes since forever, but with the unleash nerf, EPA buff and EPAs that debuff i hope this will change.
At the same time, the mages' endgame improved with the latest change to the PP formula: my lv55 casters gain have PP that range from 400 to 500+, which translates into a BP increase of 50~63, but the highest reduction in BP i've done (as compensation) is 40. If there's someone that's got a straight buff, that's mages.
EDIT: I kinda screwed up healing. I'll work on a fix and release it as soon as it's ready. Fix is already up.
Love this hack! This has made TBS feel almost like a new experience for me.
I just have a few thoughts:
1. Kraken was a big difficulty spike. It took me quite a few tries and some grinding to beat it, whereas everything up to that point had been relatively easy. It also wasn't great afterwards when I had to deal with the tough encounters in Altmiller without being able to heal at an Inn.
2. Paralyze as a psynergy is almost too powerful. Obviously it doesn't work on bosses but on everything else it removes a lot of the challenge. Maybe make it cost more PP?
Thanks for playing the hack, and glad you're enjoying it! Now, let's see...
1. Since you also had difficulties in Altmiller, you might be underleveled.
2. Paralyze is single target and has a base 60% chance to stun. Also it works only with random enemies. IMO it's quite marginal.
Psychic Rod has stats: +48 Atk, +3 MaxPP, and -0 :JupiterStar: Pwr in 1.62hf.
Strange, i clearly remember finding and fixing it.
Well, whatever. v1.62 hotfix2 (TLA only) is up.
Hello Everybody, I just started to use this mod so there are many things i don't know. I am stuck after vault because Ivan doesn't have the whirlwind psynergy. I pushed him to level 9 and still nothing can somebody please help me ? thank you very much
Hi.
Ivan lost Whirlwind in his base class with one of the latest patches so leveling won't solve it.
But just give him a Venus Djinn and you have it back ;)
...why didn't you just give ivan whirlwind as in innate psynergy?
Quote from: leaf on 23, July, 2017, 12:47:45 PM
...why didn't you just give ivan whirlwind as in innate psynergy?
Cause innate psynergies in TBS can't be changed through the editor. I'd have to repoint the whole section and it's a pain honestly. He has whirlwind in the Oracle class and you are guaranteed to have Flint by the time ivan joins so i can just treat it like growth
Thank you very much for the info
Hi, wanted to comment on this fan-hack - love it! Recently, group I'm with decided to (re)play Golden Sun, I chose to try this alongside RetroAchievements - easily the most fun I've had with this game. It gives a much needed difficulty boost, while remaining balanced enough to tough it out. 50 battle mode chain was rough, but doable! Loved the changes to the weapon system / classes(added psynergy helped with the classes I went with) Cheers to the maker and keep up the good work! Just started my play-through of TLA with it, lookin' forward to it :happy:
Hi Rufus, glad you're liking it so far! Let me know how TLA goes!
Hey Caledor! I'm back because I was itching to play some Golden Sun!
I'll do what I did last time with your reloaded hack - Play through both games, and with a Gold file transfer between the two.
As always, I'll let you know if I have any questions or I find any bugs along the way!
Keep up the good work! :happy:
Hi, Chrono, glad to see you back and thanks in advance for your reports!
As a side note, for those that aren't on Discord, check roger's latest patch in the Download section. He's done the amazing job of restoring the missing drum line in the TLA overworld theme (pre-reunion). The patch is obviously compatible with Reloaded so go grab it ;)
Heyo! Have not posted here in a while!
I quickly checked the changelog but if some of the following was already discussed in the thread somewhere then disregard it.
Question: Is the Giant's Axe still in TLA? Earth Golems seem to drop Vials now.
Typo: Alecto's Mace has "Unleshes" instead of "Unleashes".
Weird EXP: The Wights under Izumo give a suspiciously generous EXP reward for killing them. Is that on purpose? A group of two Wights and one Earth Golem when killed with effective Djinn gives over 3k EXP. A group with one Wight and one Gressil gives over 1.2 EXP without Djinn kills. And so on.
Thanks!
Thanks, MadJak! The fix is up for both Alecto's description and Wights. It was a typo for Wights too... they gave 1151 exp instead of 151.
Giant Axe was removed cause it overlaps with Tartarus Axe (123 and 124 atk).
Cool! Thanks!
Possible suggestion unless it was already discussed or there are problems implementing it:
Mia's Cure Poison upgrades to Remedy which is awesome but Remedy itself disappears from her field Psynergy menu. Sure, you have Piers and items OR you can downgrade her class but I think having Remedy/Cure Poison outside like usual would be practical.
There's a limited amount of slots for psynergies and the only way for many classes to make remedy fit was to replace other things. A trade i'm willing to make if all it takes to CP outside of battle is pressing two buttons to downgrade. ;)
No, I think they were saying that Remedy should be flagged to work in fields/dungeons as well as battle. That's just a flag to toggle.
That's how i originally wanted it to work, only to find that some effects do nothing outside of battle. I clearly remember having to fix that issue.
Sure! No problem! If it is not possible then that is fine!
I remember trying to mess with Remedy and found the same issues. It just doesn't seem to work without tinkering with quite a bit more under the hood.
TBS patch updated to v1.62 hf2 to fix an issue with the summons' HP% damage
Is there a list of items that were removed just like Giant Axe?
I am curious about Gloria Helm for example. Thanks!
Hey Caledor,
Just finished up my play-through of GS1, so I'd thought I'd let you know how that went.
The only bug I caught is, well, weird. I'd imagine you
can't fix it. Just a side-effect that happens from editing the game's code.
(https://i.imgur.com/QBoEovt.png)
Here is an image of me transferring a Djinn from Isaac to Ivan, nothing
seemingly weird here.
(https://i.imgur.com/UnnPOc2.png)
Though, if I tab over to Ivan's stats
before actually moving Djinn, you can see the stat changes are completely different from the initial preview. The second picture is actually what will happen. Not sure if this one is in your control, but I'd thought I'd show you regardless.
Edit: I'd like to mention that this happens in more than one place, this is just one example.
That out of the way, here are my thoughts and suggestions.
- Hydros Statue seemed a bit tough, but maybe I just suck? It was a while back but I got wiped quite a few times and didn't really struggle with any bosses for the same length of time as this one.
- Similarly, Deadbeard seemed too easy, though maybe level 31 was a bit high so it just seemed that way.
- The change to Vine (not sure when you made it, hadn't played in a while, lol) make a near-useless Djinn extremely valuable. I think it actually might be too strong on Mia/Ivan due to the damage it outputs vs. their attack stat, especially if you consider it's AoE.
I think that about covers my thoughts. Moving on to the Lost Age! Gold Password and all. I'll let you know how it goes!
Good luck in continuing your mod!
I don't remember Hydros a Statue being as deadly and unpredictable as Killer Ape; but it IS definitely very difficult to kill. It's got a lot of HP, and has a bad habit of dragging things out with repeated Pure Ply castings.
@Chrono i tried briefly but i couldn't replicate the bug. Try patching a clean rom again and let me know if it keeps happening. Good luck with TLA!
@MadJak There isn't really a detailed list but they are very few. Another item that can't be found anymore in TLA is the cursed staff. Anyway, if you keep spotting drops that don't behave as you'd expect report them to me, so i can fix the list on the first post. And yes, Gloria Helm was missing from the list as well. It's dropped by Ghost Army in JL.
Quote from: Caledor on 16, September, 2017, 05:26:50 AM
@Chrono i tried briefly but i couldn't replicate the bug. Try patching a clean rom again and let me know if it keeps happening. Good luck with TLA!
The first time I caught it, I had trouble replicating it as well, but then when I saw it again I took screenshots because I knew I might not come across it again. Not a huge deal in terms of a bug though!
Quote from: Fionordequester on 16, September, 2017, 03:50:01 AM
I don't remember Hydros a Statue being as deadly and unpredictable as Killer Ape; but it IS definitely very difficult to kill. It's got a lot of HP, and has a bad habit of dragging things out with repeated Pure Ply castings.
Killer Ape did give me some trouble, but I just remember Hydros Statue spamming Aqua Breath and wiping my team, even with a 2 wish setup.
What is the intended behavior of the Olympus Rage unleash?
Because it seems to be capable of instant death. That is alright but... the effect also just worked on Dullahan. Makes him really easy if it connects, haha.
Yeah, it has the instant death property but it shouldn't work on enemies with 40+ luck. i just checked the ailment table and it's correct, so i don't know what's the cause atm. i'll have to investigate.
Check dullahan's resistances maybe? Might have typoed them and accidently made him vulnerable to it... :/
Unless you fix it in the meantime, I will try using other instant death unleashes on him if I have the time. Although I guess it does not matter what weapon you have? It is about some fault in his resistance... Dunno.
Question: How concerned are you with mistakes or typos in the script? There are a few mistakes I spotted at the very end when using the Mind Ribbon on Prox villagers but since this is mostly a gameplay patch, I suspect script mistakes were always there.
Quote from: MadJak91 on 25, September, 2017, 03:48:32 PM
Unless you fix it in the meantime, I will try using other instant death unleashes on him if I have the time. Although I guess it does not matter what weapon you have? It is about some fault in his resistance... Dunno.
Please do. Atropos' Rod, Condemn... or even other effects that he's supposed to be immune to, like poison or death curse if you want. For most effects there are 2 separate istances, one with a lower trigger rate that is attached to damaging abilities (which means that using atropos rod or herculean axe is the same thing for the purposes of this test), and another one paired with effect only abilities (condemn).
Quote
Question: How concerned are you with mistakes or typos in the script? There are a few mistakes I spotted at the very end when using the Mind Ribbon on Prox villagers but since this is mostly a gameplay patch, I suspect script mistakes were always there.
Ignoring changes for sake of consistency, i haven't touched dialogues for a simple reason: i don't play with the english version. So I won't fix anything on my own but if you spot a mistake and ask for a fix, 99% of the time my reply will be "sure, why not" and you'll have it fixed in the following release. Maybe just copy paste the sentence or provide a screen when reporting so i can find it easily in the editor.
I think I found a bug in TLA.
Using Mud on Orochi(?) (The Serpent in Gaia Rock) does nothing to him. No damage or agility dropped. I've done it 3 separate times and nothing.
Agility drop can fail. It has a base 130% success rate though. The damage part was a bug instead and is already fixed for the next release.
@MadJak I just checked the ailment formula and everything seemed to work. Let me know if something strange happens again.
Cool. I figured it was something similar, I've seen the agility fail but the damage part was where I thought it might be a bug.
Alright!
I attached screens of the possible script mistakes. They sound wrong or awkward at least to me.
As for Dullahan...
Here is a very quick video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81beX3Jgtto
Once I have more time, I will try other status effects as you suggested but here is the Olympus Rage bug for now. I was able to reproduce it.
A couple of notes: No other patches were used. Just yours (current version). The recorded attempt is after NUMEROUS such attempts with the guys constantly attacking until Dullahan wiped them out. Then I restarted and did it again and again. So it is rare but possible... Hm.
Thanks and please also attach the save you used to make that video so i can check it myself on the same conditions.
Sorry for the late reply.
I actually used the same save I uploaded here in the thread in the past when I was playing the hack for the first time.
Here you go! :D
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2779.msg47030#msg47030
I am already saved after Dullahan on the current one (where the glitch happened for the first time) so I downloaded that one.
Actually, this old save is RIGHT before him and you only need to save edit yourself four "Stellar" Axes or such!
I just used it with the current version of the patch and could reproduce the bug.
I hope that helps!
Found and fixed the bug (for next release). Don't know if you're on discord, but i'll still leave an explanation here for future reference.
The root of the issue is that the RNG function generates a number from 0 to 99 and uses a >= to check.
Basically even if an effect has a flat 0% success rate, there's a 1% chance that the RNG generates 0, 0>=0 is true and the effect connects. This also implies that every chance is artificially increased by 1% cause 1% connects with 0 and 1 and 99% always connects.
Thanks for the report and for the saves, this was quite the tricky bug. ;)
Cool! So if people want a cheap Dullahan battle, now it is the last call ;D
And thanks for the explanation! Makes total sense.
Curious: Can the issue happen in the vanilla game as well or did you change the RNG function and now found the bug? I am thinking if it can be exploited on virtually any enemy. For the sake of theory, really.
I guess that completed my playthroughs for the time being but I will be on the lookout for more stuff if possible.
Thanks for the hack!
I don't know how if the bug is in the vanilla game as well, cause i always used squirtle's simple effects patch. It's possible that the vanilla game somehow took into account the >= and acted accordingly, but Squirtle is more qualified than me to answer. It's a yes or no question though: if it works even once, it will work on anyone.
Still, the fact that an Instant Death on dullahan never been pointed out in 15+ years makes me think the bug was introduced later.
QuoteThanks for the hack!
You're welcome, hope you enjoyed it.
v1.63 is up, it contains the bug fixes and other tweaks that have been discussed here recently, like the 1% ailment bug and the fix to Killer Ape.
I also considered for some time how to tweak debuffs, and in the end i went for a small % increase to the 2 stages debuffs (ST and Djinns) for the midgame and changing the lategame EPAs (Odissey, Unleashes) to be 1 stage decreases but with a much higher base chance, from 70% to 90%.
Hey Cal. Nice to see this is still reasonably active. You ever do your full run-through of the games?
Quote from: VardenSalad on 25, October, 2017, 12:05:45 PM
Hey Cal. Nice to see this is still reasonably active. You ever do your full run-through of the games?
Hey Varden. I finished TBS plenty of times but i still haven't managed to do TLA once. My last playtrough stopped at Naribwe.
Hey Caledor, I'm finally winding down on TLA. While I do have one or two bugs or other proposed changes, I'll save those for the end. The main point of this post is about the classes and their tweaks. I've been heavily experimenting with them and I have some changes to suggest. Obviously it's your mod so you can do what you want with the information at the end of the day. I'm going to try my best to make this formatting not so terrible on the eyes, forgive me if it is.
I would like to point out all my characters are level 42. I wanted to make sure I knew what the entire class consisted of psyenergy-wise before I suggested changes. Secondly, I know there is a limit of what you can put on a class (I believe it's 16) so I've kept that in mind with the changes I'm purposing.
Time to get into the nitty-gritty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Holy Knight/
Saint Knight ( :Piers: - :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :JupiterStar: :JupiterStar: :JupiterStar: :JupiterStar: :JupiterStar:)
Proposed Change: Switch out
Plume Edge with
Odyssey/
Tyrfing.
Reasoning:This class being a tri-elemental, actually has no Venus representation at all, aside from Revive. Swapping out
Plume Edge with something Venus-based fixes this issue and makes it more similar to
Paladin/
Templar, where there is an offensive set of psyenergy for Venus and Mars, along with
Plume Edge.
(Paladin is :Isaac: or :Felix: - :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MarsStar: :MarsStar: :MarsStar: :MarsStar: )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fateweaver/
Divine Mage ( :Ivan: or :Sheba: - :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MarsStar: :MarsStar: :MarsStar: :MarsStar: )
Proposed Change: Switch out
Bind with
Raise.
Reasoning:The current identity of this class focuses on healing and buffing the team, with minimal offensive psyenergy. Bind doesn't really seem to fit what this class is trying to achieve in battle. Raise brings a bit more Mars to this class (which is currently only seen through Guard and Protect) and fits better with the healer/support role.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Protector/
Paragon ( :Isaac: or :Felix: - :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: )
Proposed Change: Add
Remedy (Removing
Cure Poison and
Restore), as well as a set of Mercury-based offensive psyenergy. (Such as
Froth,
Froth Sphere, and
Froth Spiral.)
Reasoning:This class honestly just feels somewhat incomplete. It's lacking a lot of late-game power that a lot of other 2 :NeutralStar:/7 :NeutralStar: classes have. I believe you only want
Remedy on a hybrid of Venus and Mercury classes, and this class fits that mold. Removing
Cure Poison and
Restore means there are 3 open slots, which would be perfect for a Mercury-based offensive psyenergy, since the class currently only has
Plume Edge,
Thorn,
Briar, and
Nettle as it's offensive psyenergies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Protector/
Paragon ( :Piers: - :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :VenusStar: :MercuryStar: :MercuryStar: )
Proposed Change: Add
Remedy (Removing
Cure Poison and
Restore), as well as a set of Venus-based offensive psyenergy. (Such as
Thorn,
Briar, and
Nettle.)
Reasoning:This one kind of goes without saying, since it's basically just a flip-flop of the proposed class change right above.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is all I have for class-related discussion, moving on to other bugs/changes:
- Getting a Salamander Tail from the Hammet transfer quest instead of an Orichalcum just feels so bad. I know why you made the change as per your original post and wanting the Dark Matter and Orichalcum to be post-teleport, but the reward almost doesn't seem worth-while now. Maybe a decent weapon/armor or even like a stat-up item would feel better than a Salamander Tail.
Edit:I will mention this even though it's kind of petty- It makes more sense in terms of lore for Hammet to send bars of gold instead of a Salamander's Tail, but I get that doesn't really fit very well for the balance you're trying to create. My original opinion still stands, though. - Not sure if this is intended or not, becuase I'm not too sure how it works in vanilla, but you can only use Clotho's Distaff if it's equipped.
- Have you ever tried fixing or looking into why the transfer event with Feizhi breaks upon entering Champa early? Not sure if you even have control over that I just thought it was worth mentioning to me because it happened this playthrough... :irate:
- Lastly, I'm playing on Hard, (I'm sure you're only really balancing the game on Normal), but the Twin Dragons fight before "activating" the Mars Lighthouse is INSANE I had to grind 10 levels before my team was up to snuff. Not to mention not having that last Mars Djinn is more of a handicap then you might think...
Anyways, that's all from me! I'll be stopping by frequently as always to see how things are progressing with the mod. Thanks for making the mod again! Good luck!
Hey Chrono, thanks for the feedback. Let's see what we've got here.
Holy KnightI would've probably given Odissey to it if it wasn't for a very specific design choice. There are 4 Tri-elemental classes for each character that can be divided into 2 sets. Those with 3 stages (3Tri) and those with 2 (2Tri). I "assigned" each class an element to be its main while giving 2Tri classes 2 Symbiotic elements corresponding with those of the characters that had access to it and the other 2 to the 2Tri. This rule was self enforced to try to avoid redundancy.
So, for Isaac/Felix/Garet it goes like this: Venus/Mars for the 2Tri (Leader/Shogun) and Jupiter/Mercury in the 3Tri (Ninja/Paladin). Same for Piers: He's Mercury so Mercury/Jupiter are the focus for Holy Knight and Archon respectively. Long story short, Paladin and Holy Knight are bound to have a Mercury oriented main offense. For the Holy Knight it's more likely that i'll change either Froth or Ply to Thorn or Cure, or even nothing: after all its caster equivalent is the Pure Mage, which has only Revive as Venus too so it's not really strange.
FateweaverQuoteThe current identity of this class focuses on healing and buffing the team, with minimal offensive psyenergy.
I simply disagree. Fateweaver is one of the best damage dealers in the entire roster due to Punishment; its main focuses are offense and buffing with minimal healing support (Single Target only). Giving it Raise is the worst thing i could possibly do balance-wise (full buff suite, best offense and revive is too much). Bind is there mostly as filler cause i thought it fit with the theme. Also, due to what i explained above, elements are imbalanced on purpose in 2tri classes, and the non-symbiotic element is often the shafted one.
ParagonThis is a close call but IIRC this class has only 2 offenses (ST EPA and MT psynergy) cause it's much more healing oriented.
Hammet TransferGoing to Salamander Tail was literally me picking the fastest route: changing the reward for another one of the same class that belonged to that state of the game. So options are open here.
Clotho's DistaffThis is intended cause Clotho doesn't break when used outside of battle, effectively allowing for free full healing. The Sprit Ring received the same treatment for the same reason.
Champa bugThis is news to me and something that i'll have to investigate.
Hard DifficultyYep, i stated many times over the years that i'd love to tweak the multipliers for hard mode. I never played it myself but if you consider that right now Normal is more or less the same as vanilla HM, you've basically applied Hard twice which is simply insane.
Hope this makes some sense for you, i'll be looking forward for your final report. If you still have some doubts don't hesitate and write them! ;)
Okay, got it. I see what you are saying with
Holy Knight's direction overall, and it makes much more sense when you put it that way.
Fateweaver's I disagree with, and my original thoughts stand, because this class comes off as more support to me. I can respect your direction, because there is merit to what you are saying.
Paragon(s) I guess I should have drawn more comparisons between other classes, let me look at some other ones you've created and see how other healers are treated, I'll have to re-evaluate it and report back.
Edit: Mia's
Druid class is very similar to what I proposed with the
Paragon changes. She has
Cures,
Wishes,
Revive,
Remedy,
Gaias, and
Froths. Though she was probably designed this way because she was innately designed as a caster, and not an attacker, like most of the male cast.
As for the bugs and stuff:
- I'll have to think on Salamander Tail and see if I can come up with a suitable replacement to recommend for you.
- The Champa Bug you can just google for more information on it, I think it's basically if you visit Champa before Briggs returns, it writes a flag incorrectly that the Feizhi event is completed, and thus the event never plays.
- Honestly I've had almost no trouble with Hard Mode overall except for Djinn fights, and well, that Dragon Fight I just mentioned. I figured out quickly that you can hard reset to stun and poison the Djinn, the fights are winnable most of the time. Worth noting I haven't even attempted any of the four superbosses yet, though.
- Another Edit:I figured out some more information about the Clotho's Distaff. You made Spirit Ring so it can't be used outside of battle, and I completely agree with that change. Though it can still be used in battle, even when not equipped. This, is fine, but Clotho's Distaff doesn't follow the same properties. Well, that's what I thought until I realized there clearly is some sort of bug here. Clotho's Distaff can be used even if it's not equipped, as long as the person holding it is eligible to equip it. Example: Jenna is wielding a Masamune, but is just holding a Clotho's Distaff. She can use the Clotho's Distaff's effect. Garet is wielding a Darksword, and is also just holding a Clotho's Distaff. He cannot use the Clotho's Distaff effect.
So champa bug is present in vanilla as well?
About Clotho: isn't that true for every item that is equippable and useable?
The Champa bug is in vanilla, yes. That's why I said I don't know if it was even if your power to fix it.
Clotho: I'm honestly not sure actually. Probably so, that's just the first item I've come across where I tried to use it in battle.
Quote from: Chronotakular on 27, October, 2017, 11:22:59 AM
Clotho: I'm honestly not sure actually. Probably so, that's just the first item I've come across where I tried to use it in battle.
Perhaps i worded myself poorly, but what i wanted to say is that i knew of that behavior and that's no bug for me, cause that's how it always worked.
Super late reply, but now I agree with how this works, the item's actives and stuff. Just took a little while to wrap my head around it.
Many ways to check: open patched and unpatched rom with Atrius' editor, open both roms with a hex editor and do a compare...
In game you can look for basic things after reading about at the changes made (in the opening post): for TLA, Felix's base class having a different name is a dead giveaway.
Something i should have done years ago: posting a ton of .sav files.
Some more
Only allowed 4 attachments per post
Try to zip a bunch of them, they'd still be small enough to fit in one attchment. Thanks anyway, they'll be useful for testing purposes.
I gave Reloaded another go and it's just as fun as I remember. Not much to say about TBS since it's a simpler game, except it'd be nice if Mia could get Break at lvl25 or 26 instead of 27, because from my experience Break is needed to reliably beat Deadbeard and without it he will massacre your party after a couple of Impact casts. I am pretty sure I could have beat him earlier if I had Break earlier but I level-ground my party from around lvl25 until Mia hit lvl27 because I needed Break. My favorite class setup was Ivan and Mia in base classes and Isaac and Garet as Chaos Lords. This allowed for better defense rotations since I could have Ground, Granite, and Flash all on Garet instead of split between Isaac and Garet and with Mia's Wish Well I had little difficulty surviving. Ivan's role was unleashing Djinn and summoning Thor since Jupiter Djinn have great utility Djinn with Breeze, Zephyr, Kite, and Luff all being amazing. Also Chaos Lords are surprisingly good casters late game in TBS thanks to Fiery Blast and Wild Growth.
I've always liked TLA more since it has more interesting choices with class setups due to early Djinn imbalance, eight characters, tri-element classes being useful, and class-changing items. I still struggled in Yampi Desert and the nearby overworld, as well as all of Gondowan, but I was probably severely underlevelled with my average level around 15-16 by the time I recruited Piers. Briggs is a good fight, with all three adepts burning through a majority of their PP pool by the end. In the Eastern Sea, my zone order was Aqua Rock, Tundaria Tower, Gaia Rock, Ankohl Ruins. Of these, I found Aqua Rock and Ankohl Ruins relatively easy, Tundaria Tower brutal (in a good way), and Gaia Rock in the middle. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to do Gaia Rock before Tundaria Tower but I really wanted Ether so I did Tundaria Tower first. Avimander and Poseidon are still good fights, not much new to say about them. Avimander may be a bit on the easy side though.
In the Western Sea, Moapa and his Knights are still trivially easy. The only scary thing they do is Bramble Seed and similar which are rare. Karst and Agatio are also pretty easy compared to the Flame Dragons. If the Flame Dragons are intended to be fought after looting Treasure Isle, Yampi Desert Cave, and Islet Cave and getting a near endgame setup then their difficulty is in a good spot. After getting all the Djinn and items I need, I used the following team setup for Balrog, Star Magician, and Sentinel in that order (haven't fought Dullahan yet as he'll probably require a different setup focused on two-element classes). My party was level 34-36 before Balrog and now they're level 37-38.
Jonin Isaac: Best physical class alongside Chaos Lord but doesn't suck at casting. Low luck is an issue at times, most notably during the Balrog and Star Magician fights where he, Garet, and Felix kept getting stunned/deluded/sealed, but otherwise the class is fantastic. He runs an unleash setup with, Sol Blade, Mythril Helm, Riot Gloves, Valkyrie Mail, and Ninja Sandals.
Jonin Garet: He would have worked better as a Shogun since he isn't unleashing and he's focusing Venus and Mars power and they have better physical attack psynergy for these elements but Jonin is a surprisngly decent caster despite being a physical class. An unleash setup would make him a worse version of Isaac and Felix since the cursed items and Valkyrie Mail are occupied so he has a semi-caster setup with Alecto's Mace, Millenium Helm, Big Bang Gloves, Xylion Armor, and Dragon Boots.
Fury Ivan: Despite the class's high attack stat it sucks at physical attacks (Tisiphone Edge is Venus, the only element not included in this class) and he's too low level for Spark Plasma and Pyroclasm. Currently he's the weakest member of my party but he can still be useful by casting Impact and unleashing against enemies with high defense or Jupiter weakness. He runs a caster unleash setup with Lachesis' Rule, Berserk Circlet, Mythril Armlet, Mythril Clothes, and Ninja Sandals.
Angel Mia: Best healing class in the game (or will be once she finally learns Pure Wish haha). Agility is awful but can in your favor during boss fights if you are using two healers. She can unleash Shade or Balm without messing up her class if she doesn't need to heal that turn. Ice Missle shreds random encounters thanks to her insane 224 Mercury power. Her setup is for maximizing Mercury power with Clotho's Distaff, Psychic Circlet, Selene's Armlet, Triton's Ward, and Dragon Boots.
Jonin Felix: I decided that the difference between Darksword and Excalibur unleash setups is bigger than the difference between Ker's Weight and Lachesis' Rule unleash setups so Felix gets the Cleric's Ring. He runs an unleash setup with, Darksword, Fear Helm, Terror Shield, Stealth Armor, and Ninja Sandals.
Radiant Miko Jenna: This class is better than I gave it credit for in the past. I used to hate how it gets stuck at Briar for so long but once I learned that unleashing Mud is pretty good the class felt a lot better. Mars power is completely irrelevant since she isn't a high enough level for Dragon Fume. Too bad Ker's Weight is cursed since not using it is a 10 Venus power loss but that's not a huge deal. Her setup is for maximizing Venus power with Nebula Wand, Psychic Circlet, Big Bang Gloves, and Mysterious Robe.
Pure Mage Sheba: She's too low level for Freeze Prism and Spark Plasma but she's still a solid healer. Only significant advantage she has over Mia is agility and Revive but both of those are important at times.
Dragontamer Piers: I don't really like his class options for physical attacks since he will never measure up to a Jonin but Dragontamer is an awesome jack-of-all-trades class with solid physical damage, a party heal, a revive, a decent area damage psynergy, and Impact. It doesn't do any of these things particularly well but having someone so flexible is great. He runs a weird hybrid setup with Herculean Axe, Millenium Helm, Riot Gloves, Xylion Armor, and Ninja Sandals. Tisiphone Edge and Dragon Boots would possibly better uses of those slots but having a 57% unleash chance isn't awful and he's still a good caster with the rest of his gear.
Balrog was a fun and moderately challenging fight since he kept stunning my Jonins (Felix has 9 luck haha). Moloch was a serious issue since it gutted my party's agility allowing him to act twice before any of my adepts could act, which was a disaster. The trick I found was to unleash Zephyr a ton to counteract this. Whenever I really needed him to not summon something I had Jenna unleash Petra. He also sometimes burned a lot of Djinn of an element, disabling party heal psynergy for a while, so I had to swap my healers around as well. It was pretty hectic swapping stunned adepts in and out but overall it wasn't too difficult after I figured out the key Djinni to use.
Star Magician's fight was harder since he kept deluding and sealing my adepts. Shuriken worked wonders against the Guardian and Refresh Balls but my Jonins can't cast it when they're sealed which happened a ton thanks to their awful luck stat. One unleash from Isaac or Felix would drop a Refresh Ball and two would drop a Guardian Ball but they can't unleash when deluded. Because of the constant statuses, Tonic and Salt were key Djinni aside from the usual Flash, Shade, Granite, Aroma, and Ether. Star Magician was probably the hardest of the three superboss I fought since it's hard to even be able to damage him in the first place and I can't afford to take a turn of no damage dealing if there's a Refresh Ball.
Sentinel was surprisingly the easiest superboss of the three I fought since he's the most 'fair'. He's slow, he won't mess with my Djinn, he won't use any disables, and he won't summon allies. Isaac and Felix were the only ones doing damage to the boss since they were my only good unleashers. Ivan could have been decent if I gave him Atropos' Rod but I forgot to bring one. In retrospect I should have swapped Felix's Darksword with Tisiphone Edge but I forgot to do that was well. Even with Felix and Isaac's crazy physical setups, Sentinel's defense shot through the roof after a couple casts of Guard so I needed Kindle/Forge/Impact to balance this out. Fortunately, all my adepts aside from Jenna, Mia, and Sheba have access to Impact which help Felix and Isaac deal enough damage. Sadly Sentinel loves to use Break (while being immune to Break himself) so I had to keep reapplying Impact but overall he wasn't too hard. He occasionally one-rounded a few of my adepts but I have enough access to reviving that this wasn't a major issue.
Attached is a file with saves right before each of these superbosses.
Based on my experiences during my two playthroughs, I have some suggestions for some item and class changes.
Items
Dragon Skin items suck except the boots. Usually you end up with enough adepts in classes that can use the relevant psynergy which aren't even that important aside from boss battles. I recommend adding elemental resistances or some other stats to make these worth using since the psynergy is not good enough.
Most weapons from early forgeable (not rusty) items aren't very good compared to the armors and even if they are good, they are quickly replaced, like Sylph Rapier vs Lightning Sword or Murakamo.
Golem Core items aside from Titan Gloves are pretty bad for the time you get them. For instance Chronos Mail is worse than Dragon Scales which you get much earlier.
Berserk Circlet should give attack (around 20-30) instead of or in addition to the PP in order to make the Fury and Valkyrie classes actually work as physical attackers. I'll explain more when I talk about those classes.
I changed my mind about the cursed mage items from my previous playthrough. They are good but they aren't good enough to justify the Cleric's Ring when Lachesis' Rule is almost as good for unleash setups. Comparing Dark Robe to Xylion Armor is pretty sad considering Dark Robe just has 5 more of each power in exchange for 5 defense and not being cursed. Sure elemental power isn't that great on warrior adepts compared to mage adepts but really mage adepts don't need more than one or two elemental powers and +25 power +40 resist options exist for each element as well as Iris Robe.
Any hope for a new endgame quality mace or light blade? There is only one endgame quality weapon light blade and two endgame quality maces (Tisiphone Edge, Rising Mace, and Alecto's Mace, and Rising Mace's attack stat is pretty bad for endgame) which severely limits the options for the Fury and Valkyrie classes and warrior adept semicaster builds.
Classes
I mentioned this in my previous post but it'd be awesome if Break would be learned a couple levels earlier. It only really matters for the Deadbeard fight and it's not very fun to level grind just for Break.
I don't really understand how Fury and Valkyrie are supposed to work. They appear to be physical classes but they just don't work as such. Firstly, compared to an Excalibur unleash setup with Riot Gloves, Tisiphone Edge, Rising Mace, and Alecto's Mace lose 28, 28, and 20 attack respectively before scaling (since you need Mythirl Armlet over Riot Gloves) and Excalibur doesn't even give as much attack as Sol Blade, Darksword, or Herculean Axe. Jenna has a decent personal attack stat but Valkyrie's 155% mod is abysmal. I'm not seeing what she brings to the table compared to Holy Knight Piers. Fury is a bit more interesting, since it seems pretty similar to the Inquisitor class but with a bunch of attack and Planetery tacked on. Ivan can only use Tisiphone edge which sucks because he will have no Venus power. Alecto's Mace seems decent on Sheba and Mia but their low personal attack stat combined with the low stats on their items and the weak 160% mod on the class makes them very bad at physical attacks. My recommendation is to reduce the PP modifier and increase the attack modifier of these classes to 175% or so, in addition to adding an attack stat buff to the Berserk Circlet in order to make these classes function as physical attackers. As they are now, their Plume Edge and Planetary psynergies are useless and their better off as a pure caster or a Lachesis' Rule/Atropos' Rod unleasher.
Did you make a new game for this mod? iirc Caledor did some tweaking on innate psyenergies and things don't work properly if you don't start a new file on the patched rom.
I have no idea why you may have this issue though, consider I exclusively played on the latest version and didn't have that problem.
A temporary fix: You can hack a Frost Gem in to your party. :P
@bpat
those are all excellent suggestions and there might be enough material for a new release. Especially on the Valkyrie/Fury part and the lack of endgame light blades. Most midgame items are just too hard to salvage instead. There's simply a lot of stuff into a small time frame, it's really no wonder you can't enjoy every single piece as much as you'd want to before it gets outclassed.
@zadiel
As chrono said, Piers now has frost innately, and innate psynergies are distributed the moment you start a new game. if you patch your game and hit continue piers will lose Frost as it isn't in his base class anymore.
QuoteAs chrono said, Piers now has frost innately, and innate psynergies are distributed the moment you start a new game. if you patch your game and hit continue piers will lose Frost as it isn't in his base class anymore.
Off chance this can be remedied by resetting the innate Psynergy every time you load a file? = Sounds like I could make a patch for general use.
Example - I'm thinking:
if (does not have Psynergy)
{
give Psynergy
}
(And flag checks for the Rock Psynergy.)
Would fix the psynergy issue, but it wouldn't remedy the broken stats (especially Luck) grow differently from the vanilla game. I'd rather keep it as it is then: a reminder that you'd be better off starting anew.
Good point. It might be better to start anew, yeah.
While there could be a way to partially fix the stats issue? (Only somewhat.) I really should take another look at your hack(s)... If enough of the game was played that you would have gotten an extreme advantage in level # or something... then it most certainly wouldn't be recommended.
I'm thinking:
tempVar = Current level value.... (For each char)
Set cur level value to 0 for each char (I think)...
And then call the level up function with tempVar to level that many times.
Call the recalculate stats function (So djinn/class/item stats are counted.)
I'm assuming stat-boosting items could also be checked? (Check treasure flags for if obtained, and artifacts for if dropped. (When it is an artifact) .... If it is assumed you used them, the items could always be re-added to a character/shop without putting them in as stats.)
It might be better to start anew, yeah.
Regarding bpat's suggestions. After a bit of analysis here's what i came up with regarding the endgame.
- There will be a strong Jupiter-based Light Blade. No new items though. A few midgame blades will be moved around to have 1 strong endgame Jupiter LB. Tisiphone might even drop to second best.
- Berserker Circlet will also boost attack. Probably by 20.
- Dark Robe will probably be boosted to +30 power to all.
- Classes will see minimal or no change at all.
About the midgame: a few elemental resistances might be fine for the dragon equipment.
If there is to be a change regarding Golem Core's equipment, it will be Chronos Mail. I doubt weapons will be touched.
Is there a list of the changes to levels you learn certain Psyenergies at for the existing classes? I'm not seeing Death Plunge as a Ninja and I'm already at 20 :Isaac: :MarsSet: :JupiterSet:
And do Seer classes no longer get Growth?
Quote from: karmaepsilon on 06, January, 2018, 04:28:00 AM
Is there a list of the changes to levels you learn certain Psyenergies at for the existing classes? I'm not seeing Death Plunge as a Ninja and I'm already at 20 :Isaac: :MarsSet: :JupiterSet:
And do Seer classes no longer get Growth?
You can check psynergy sets with the class doc linked in the opening post and learning levels by opening the modded rom with Atrius' editor.
Quote from: Caledor on 06, January, 2018, 06:39:40 AM
Quote from: karmaepsilon on 06, January, 2018, 04:28:00 AM
Is there a list of the changes to levels you learn certain Psyenergies at for the existing classes? I'm not seeing Death Plunge as a Ninja and I'm already at 20 :Isaac: :MarsSet: :JupiterSet:
And do Seer classes no longer get Growth?
You can check psynergy sets with the class doc linked in the opening post and learning levels by opening the modded rom with Atrius' editor.
Ah it's listed under Jonin whereas I've just become so used to it being listed as Ninja in other places. That last part seems inconvenient but alright
Sidenote: Oh gods y'all cranked Toadonpa's HP up a lot. Could not win that attrition war. (I like it, gonna have to actually grind a bit for once)
Hydros Statue has me a bit perplexed. Can't seem to poison the bugger and Ply-usage makes me sad.
Changelog for v1.65b
Classes tweaked: Ninja, Valkirie, all Piers' tri-elemental
Corsair's Edge renamed to Sidereal Edge
Phaeton's Blade is now the strongest light blade (165 atk, x2.2 unleash)
Tisiphone Edge slightly weakened (-4 atk), Rising Mace improved
Pirate Sabre weakened to old Corsair's edge level
Sidereal Edge improved to old Phaeton's Blade level
Acheron's Grief multiplier increased to 2.2 but is non-elemental
Dark Robe boosts elemental power by 30
Berserker Circlet also boosts attack by 20. Unleash bonus lowered to +5%
Demonic Circlet boosts PP by 40, PP regen lowered to 5/turn
Mace's and Firebrand's unleashes boosted : +0.1 to every multiplier
Dragon's Mail now boosts HP & Criticals
Chronos Mail also resists earth and improves luck; hp bonus lowered
Erinyes Tunic bonus to crits increased
Dragon's Robe now boosts Fire power & res and replenishes PP
Dragon Shield now boosts Fire & Water resist
Swapped elemental boost for ailment bonus on warrior's cursed gear
Tweaked Millenia Helm & Alastor's Hood
Treasure changes:
Corsair's Edge in Lemuria -> Pirate Sabre
Pirate Sabre in Western Sea -> 500 Coins
Phaeton's Blade in J. Lighthouse -> Sidereal Edge
Orichalcum chest in Anemos Sanctum -> Phaeton's Blade
Djinn:
Mud and Chill swapped places
Explanation:
Originally you found a light blade in lemuria and then one immediately after acquiring Grind. Since those are too close to each other, I removed the Western sea one (replaced with coins) to make the Lemuria blade live a bit longer and create an endgame Jupiter Light Blade.
NB: due to the changes to treasure chests and djinn (especially djinn) you can't just upgrade v1.63 to v1.65 whenever you want. You have two things to look out for that might ruin your playthrough.
1st. You MUSTN'T upgrade when you have only one djinn among Mud and Chill, or you'll permanently lose the other one. Either before acquiring one of the two or after you have both.
2nd. In addition to the above statement, it is strongly recommended that you upgrade either before acquiring Phaeton's Blade in Jupiter Lighthouse OR after obtaining Darkmatter from Anemos Sanctum.
The reason behind the second point is that Phaeton's blade has been moved into the (former) Darkmatter chest in Anemos Sanctum and its strength has increased accordingly. That point is to avoid ending up with a very strong weapon too early or with two Phaeton's.
All things considered the best moments to upgrade midgame are either before Mud/Chill, whatever comes first, or after both Mud and Chill are acquired but before Lemuria, where you acquire the Pirate Sabre/Corsair's Edge, the first of the rearranged weapons.
v1.63 can be found in the attachment for backup.
Hydros can easily put out 150+ damage on any single adept and I have enough djinn for 1 wish user in the fight. I can't tell how I'm supposed to win a damage race with this behemoth that I can't poison, has Break, and heals itself.
Yeah, I can't do 247 damage a turn and Hydros just casually heals it off with one of its two moves. Making no progress in this fight.
TLA patch updated to v1.63 plus. Changelog and download link are in the message above.
@varden. ATM my opinion, after reading other people reports and from my memories of when i fought it, is that Hydros statue is challenging but winnable. It just poses the right amount of challenge. So i'm afraid i need more than a written report about this one. Either a save, or a video.
EDIT 10/1/2018: I completely forgot the promised changes to some pieces of midgame equipment in v1.63 plus, so i updated patches for both games to v1.65. TBS' is in the download section, TLA's in the same post where you found v1.63plus (scroll up from here) in the attachment, with an updated changelog.
EDIT 2: Updated again to v1.65b (both games) for minor equipment tweaks and a few class tweaks. Patches links/changelogs at same places as v1.65 described above.
Recap of addressed issues since v1.63:
- Lack of strong endgame Light Blade, possibly Jupiter for warrior Ivan
Rearranged Corsair's Edge and Pirate Sabre, moved Phaeton's Blade to Anemos' Sanctum - Weakness of Dragon Skin's equipment
Overall boost, aligned Dragon's Robe with Princess' and Feathered Robe - Early Game Djinn Imbalance
When Piers joins you end up with 2/3/3/5 Ve/Ma/Ju/Me Djinns. Swapping Mud with Chill changes the distribution to a much more manageable 3/3/3/4. - Role of mage/warrior hybrid classes: Ninja, Valkyrie, Fury and General. Mages lack attack.
Tentative fixes: Atk boost in Berserker Circlet, PP boost in Millenium Helm.
Enter
v1.67.
First three points were completely solved as of v1.65b. There's still lots to do about the fourth though.
- Difference in PP multipliers between mages and warrior much larger than the difference in Attack multipliers
Reduced by 10% the PP multiplier of ALL caster classes, all characters gain 10 more PP between levels 19-39. Result: caster classes unchanged, every warrior gained ~15 PP at lv 39. - Gap between Scrouge/Dragon Fume and the rest of the endgame psynergies is too big.
Reduced base power of Scrouge, DF and Call Dullahan, boosted every MT psynergy learned after 35. Also reflects the big jump in unleashes' strength after that level (from x1.9 to x2.2). - Rarely used pieces of equipment.
Iris' Robe boosts attack and Ailments instead of Luck now (the mage atk boost moved from Berserk Circlet to Iris Robe), the 2 Greaves also boost Jupiter and Mercury power, to cover for the blind spot left by Big Bang Gloves. Pending: Cosmos Shield. - Hybrid Classes
Valkyrie gained Ragnarok and can run a ailment/atk boost build pretty well, turning into a full support character. Ninja/General can cast much better thanks to Greaves and Millenium Helm. I'm still concerned about Fury: the way it is it's completely overshadowed by the Shogun, so i still have some work to do here before this release.
In progress...
So, I started playing this hack, starting with TBS.
Re: Djinn fleeing: Forge trying to flee on turn 2 after a reset is absolute bullshit. I spammed all of my strongest attacks, and couldn't kill it before its turn came up. I had to keep resetting until its flee failed, then kill it the following turn. Honestly, djinn fleeing adds nothing gameplay-wise and is just a frustration factor for the player. It was lame in vanilla and it's lame here. There's no reason to keep this mechanic at all.
Everything else up to kolima seemed fine, but the enemies introduced in kolima and tret are... a bit much. I assume that the "intended" fighting style here is psynergy spam, but even that isn't enough to kill the enemies before they put down some serious hurt, so your PP ends up going both toward damage *and* healing. Fighting normally and healing between battles isn't really sustainable, so I ended up having to rely on summon spam to get through it. Surprisingly, even with summon spam, I was still unable to one-round some enemies (trolls are notorious for this), and the agility of the bees and gnomes meant that I was always going to take some damage from them, even if they *do* die to two lv2 summons.
Unless summons are the intended way to get through this area, either atk or hp should really come down for these foes. They simply do too much damage for how sturdy they are. Even after switching to summons, I still had to heal frequently enough that I had to use a mountain water on isaac before taking on tret (speaking of which, I'm really thankful for this item being in the game).
Specific enemies:
Bees: Faster than isaac until he reaches a certain level (wasn't keeping track of what level that specifically is, whoops), inflicts over 30 damage on a single attack and can stun. Extremely high priority to get rid of these things, but with their agility value, they'll always get off something before going down. I'd say drop agility a few points so isaac can outspeed them at least one level sooner.
Trolls: Way too sturdy. Damage is fine considering their low agility. I'd reduce HP and increase regen.
Spiders: Seem fine, for the most part. Maybe a bit lower hp to more reliably one-round them?
Amaze (or whatever variant this one is called, idr): Its bulk and damage reminds me of GSC suicune. It doesn't do a lot of damage at once, but it lasts long enough that it builds up. It really likes spamming ghostly rumble. I think its bulk is fine, but it could do with a touch less damage, so you aren't punished so heavily for ignoring it while you deal with other bigger threats.
The tret battle seemed reasonable, but I only had a single ally fall asleep throughout the entire battle, and it happened to be near the end. With how frequently he spams sleep star, if someone were unlucky and had it trigger more often, they'd probably lose. A small nerf to HP would probably make this fight consistently winnable, since I was basically completely out of PP when victory came through.
---
Moving onto bilibin cave, holy @#$% the ghoul is so overpowered. High hp, high damage, and it drain-tanks. You must really want me to summon spam through this. If summon spam wasn't an option here, I would probably just straight-up flee when I get an encounter like double ghoul+double ooze. I nearly wiped on that party once, and had to trek back to bilibin to revive isaac.
Outside the cave, grizzly is another enemy that just has too much HP. Even with full focus from all three party members, they don't die in a single round unless you target focus summons on them. Atalanta+Ramses barely kills one if both are focused on the same target. Meanwhile, most psynergy at this point doesn't even break 50 damage, with gust as the only non-summon option for one-rounding them (deals 100+ damage on a double-hit, but is unreliable).
For reference, I currently have isaac with elven rapier, garet with an axe, and everyone with the best possible defensive equipment available. I've just arrived at imil.
I'm kinda hesitant about making changes to TBS at this point. Unlike TLA i've played my mod there multiple times so i'm quite satisfied with the outcome, balance wise. Still, i'll definitively keep all this in mind if i start another playthrough of book 1.
Also, levels are extremely important when reporting about balance in the early game.
ATM, the Fury/Shogun issue has the utmost priority so i can release v1.67
I only checked my level after the tret fight (lv9), but I think I was was lv7ish for most of the tree, having leveled up to 8 near the end, and then again vs tret. I checked with the editor, and indeed it should be lv8 that isaac starts to outspeed the bees. I think if you dropped bee agility by 4 to let isaac outspeed them one level sooner, it would make that enemy a lot more reasonable.
This is what I'd do:
Drone Bee: 43 agility -> 39
Troll: 144 HP -> 129, 10 regen -> 15
Ghoul: 141 HP -> 111
Grizzly: 155 HP -> 135
Amaze: Ghostly Rumble (2) base damage 15 -> 13
Tret: 1012 HP -> 922 HP
This makes the Troll and Grizzly reliably one-roundable if you focus three psynergy on them, unlike at present which absolutely requires either a summon or double-hit gust. Same for the Ghoul, who is frankly well above the curve for that point of the game, and has absolutely no business being that tanky while also being able to drain tank with high damage. At 111, it should die to a double-hit gust + off-range aoe, or to three focused aoe psynergy. The slight nerf to Ghostly Rumble is simply to reduce the ambient damage from Amaze while you focus on other, bigger threats.
Cosmos Shield is incredibly powerful on paper, but the issue is the characters who most want a pure defensive item are the characters that can't use it in the first place. I'm more concerned about my healers getting taken down than my warriors so I never use it. If I could I'd absolutely use it on Mia or Jenna in boss battles since there isn't a great option in that slot due to elemental power having a lesser effect on healing psynergy.
@Epower potency: EPower has the same effect on healing or base damage psynergy. It's lower from vanilla cause originally Epower was twice as strong on healing than it was on offensive spells.
@cosmos' shield: probably it will be used by paladins and holy knights wearing the orichalcon armor and helm, since it'd be pointless to increase crits or venus/mars power.
@Fury: it will gain a new strong EPA whose animation is agatio's rolling flame, and a few changes will occour to Planetary and Fury's psynergy set. It will still take a while to release cause i have to design a new icon for it.
v1.67 is up and is back to the download section!
Remember that this version tweaks the characters stat growth. You'll be fine if your characters are in the 1-19 range but PP growth is different in the 20-39 range. You can patch things up by adding 10 PP with a save editor to everyone once they reach level 39.
Rules for upgrading from versions earlier than v1.65b still stand and can be found HERE (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2779.msg47868#msg47868). In the linked post you can also find the old v1.63 patch to downgrade if needed.
Quick question - I want to to use this hack together with other hacks, specifically:
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=63
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=69
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=72
Usually I just do it and test if it's all still alright, but since the creator is still active - could you confirm compatibility beforehand?
The first one should work, as long as Sala didn't place his code in other areas of the ROM. In that case it might overlap with mine.
The other two are mine so there's no need to patch: every other patch I made and uploaded here is already included into Reloaded.
Thanks, good to know. <3
Saw leaf's knocks on the Tret dungeon, wanted to comment:
I didn't have an issue with my team going through Tret. No one should ever underestimate the usefulness of grabbing 15 herbs or so, considering they cost 10 a piece and are EXTREMELY useful early game.
Tret does have a bit too much HP; a few of your newer boss battles fall into that problem. You're either safe enough to know you'll be fine and the fight drags way too long or you get blitzed in the first few rounds and need to change your party composition. It isn't strength of the bosses that are normally the issue, but durability. And please, for the love of everything, remove djinn's ability to run away.
One of the things i've already done for next release (fixes as i play TLA) is a minor tweak to prices (herbs to 12 and corn halved to 40). As for bosses life i think i used the same multiplier for hp literally everywhere, there's also the scenario when you drop your guard under the illusion you'll be fine and that's when you get blitzed.
@Djinn. I've seen this sooo many times, it's never been an issue for me over god knows how many playthroughs since vanilla GS, only a very minor annoyance. It's run away? heal, change room, reload, mess with the RNG, whatever... Probably 3-5 djinn will run away once in anyone's entire playthrough if they beat them quickly enough. Seriously if anyone experiences the same djinn running away over and over i blame the RNG.
I seriously considered getting rid of it before replying, cause i don't know how many times i've read this advice. But I still like the concept of djinn being intelligent creatures who value survival if the situation seems dire, and i value it more than the minor annoyance it provides.
Expect a new patch in the next 48-72 hours. I just found out that Asteria Staff isn't where it was supposed to be (Shrine of the Sea God). I'll also check every treasure chest and post a detailed list of all the changes, something i should've done a long time ago.
Just finished TBS reloaded. The ramped up difficulty was great! Thanks for all the work in putting this together.
I'm excited to see all the changes in TLA, as it seems like that's where the bulk of the design choices were based. Unfortunately I can't get GSTLA v1.67 working - when I load the patched rom I get a blank black screen that continues indefinitely. I'm using VBA 1.8 but also tried VBA-m and mGBA with the same results. I've redownloaded both the patch and rom multiple times to no effect.
I grabbed the v1.63 file posted in this thread and that works, but I'd prefer to play with the latest changes and I'm also not sure how that will handle game transfer from TBS v1.67.
I'm thinking there must be an issue with the specific rom I'm using, but I can't seem to find any different versions across the numerous sites that allow you to obtain them. If only I still had my original cart to rip...
Hi MomongaMan thanks for playing this hack and glad you enjoyed it.
I'm aware of the issue with TLA you mentioned and I think it's related to the emulator you're using, cause other people didn't have issues. There are absolutely no issues with transfer from TBS to an older Reloaded version though, and the issue itself has already been fixed: it will be in the patch i already announced, which should be finalized and uploaded in a few hours from now.
Quote from: Caledor on 02, February, 2018, 01:39:06 PM
Hi MomongaMan thanks for playing this hack and glad you enjoyed it.
I'm aware of the issue with TLA you mentioned and I think it's related to the emulator you're using, cause other people didn't have issues. There are absolutely no issues with transfer from TBS to an older Reloaded version though, and the issue itself has already been fixed: it will be in the patch i already announced, which should be finalized and uploaded in a few hours from now.
Awesome! I was actually able to dig up a rom that I think I ripped from the cart years ago and didn't have any luck with that one either. I've tried using several different versions of VBA and VBA-m, mGBA, and no$gba, across both Windows 10 and 7. I even threw it on a RetroPie I have set up. No dice.
v1.68 is up! I also updated the opening post to list ALL treasures i changed in TLA.
As usual, since i swapped the Rusty Staff (Asteria's Staff) in aqua rock with the Rusty Sword (Robber's Blade) in Shrine of the Sea god, you should upgrade to v1.68 before acquiring either of them or only after you have both. If you upgrade when you have found one but not the other, you'll lose the "other" permanently.
@MomongaMan maybe i'm wrong and it depends on the ROM you use for patching. Still, i had the same problem and it has been fixed for me so you shouldni't have issues anymore. Let me know if something goes wrong again though.
Hi all. I'm a newbie to this site, however, I started playing this hack about a week and a half ago. I've gotten through a majority of this mod without much of a hitch, however now I am stuck at the Star Magician. Sentinel and Balrog were challenges, however, I beat them after some thought and strategy adjustment. But now I am stuck at the Star Magician and cannot think of any solutions other than getting insanely lucky. My party is between lvls 37-41. My original strat was to have 3 people with high luck(28-32) for healing and shade/flash/granite, however I pretty much get killed if anyone other than Felix(my damage dealer with the Jonin class luck=19) gets put to sleep. Can anyone give me some pointers on how to switch up my strategy because I feel like he is beatable at my level but I'm most likely overlooking something.
Also I've been reading this forum link and people are mentioning items such as the ninja sandals, which weren't in the final version of the original Lost Age, however I have no idea where these would be found. Is there a way for me to check out these item locations?
Thanks in advance
Quote from: annihilation656 on 11, February, 2018, 11:35:33 AM
Hi all. I'm a newbie to this site, however, I started playing this hack about a week and a half ago. I've gotten through a majority of this mod without much of a hitch, however now I am stuck at the Star Magician. Sentinel and Balrog were challenges, however, I beat them after some thought and strategy adjustment. But now I am stuck at the Star Magician and cannot think of any solutions other than getting insanely lucky. My party is between lvls 37-41. My original strat was to have 3 people with high luck(28-32) for healing and shade/flash/granite, however I pretty much get killed if anyone other than Felix(my damage dealer with the Jonin class luck=19) gets put to sleep. Can anyone give me some pointers on how to switch up my strategy because I feel like he is beatable at my level but I'm most likely overlooking something.
Also I've been reading this forum link and people are mentioning items such as the ninja sandals, which weren't in the final version of the original Lost Age, however I have no idea where these would be found. Is there a way for me to check out these item locations?
Thanks in advance
Hi annihilation656. Indeed you should be able to beat Star Magician (not without trouble though). It's pretty difficult yo give you advice with this generic setting but maybe you'd want to avoid classes weak to sleep like the Arcanist? Trying a different class setup is always an option.
About new items and whatnot: the opening post of this thread has all the answers you're looking for ;).
Quote from: annihilation656 on 11, February, 2018, 11:35:33 AM
Hi all. I'm a newbie to this site, however, I started playing this hack about a week and a half ago. I've gotten through a majority of this mod without much of a hitch, however now I am stuck at the Star Magician. Sentinel and Balrog were challenges, however, I beat them after some thought and strategy adjustment. But now I am stuck at the Star Magician and cannot think of any solutions other than getting insanely lucky. My party is between lvls 37-41. My original strat was to have 3 people with high luck(28-32) for healing and shade/flash/granite, however I pretty much get killed if anyone other than Felix(my damage dealer with the Jonin class luck=19) gets put to sleep. Can anyone give me some pointers on how to switch up my strategy because I feel like he is beatable at my level but I'm most likely overlooking something.
You should be able to beat the Star Magician at those levels, my party was lower level than your when I beat him. I posted my party setup and strategy pack on page 20 of this thread. You need to have two healers most of the time and you should treat it like a battle of attrition, where as long as you deal more damage than he heals on average you will eventually win. Most rounds I had zero or one adepts damaging the Star Magician at all. Salt and Tonic Djinni are essential in this fight, plus the usual set of defense and PP restoring Djinni. Jonin are amazing here because Shuriken lets you hit two balls and the Star Magicial at the same time.
Quote from: Caledor on 11, February, 2018, 02:05:44 PM
Hi annihilation656. Indeed you should be able to beat Star Magician (not without trouble though). It's pretty difficult yo give you advice with this generic setting but maybe you'd want to avoid classes weak to sleep like the Arcanist? Trying a different class setup is always an option.
About new items and whatnot: the opening post of this thread has all the answers you're looking for ;).
Thanks for the advice about the Arcanist, I overlooked the fact that it's weak to sleep originally lol. I beat the Star Magician finally after getting a couple Triton Wards and Clotho's Distaves(for the luck). Didn't even have to grind, which is nice. I have to say that this is a pretty nicely set up boss in my opinion and probably my favorite boss fight in the mod so far. Can't wait to see what Dullahan is like
Quote from: bpat on 12, February, 2018, 04:11:23 PM
You should be able to beat the Star Magician at those levels, my party was lower level than your when I beat him. I posted my party setup and strategy pack on page 20 of this thread. You need to have two healers most of the time and you should treat it like a battle of attrition, where as long as you deal more damage than he heals on average you will eventually win. Most rounds I had zero or one adepts damaging the Star Magician at all. Salt and Tonic Djinni are essential in this fight, plus the usual set of defense and PP restoring Djinni. Jonin are amazing here because Shuriken lets you hit two balls and the Star Magicial at the same time.
Yeah, I'd have to agree that this really was a battle of attrition. I usually stuck with someone using either granite/flash/shade while having another one spam wish well/pure wish though this required that is use like 4 psy crystals. I didn't try to kill any of the balls with him unless they were guard or refresh because with pure wish and shade I could maintain just about max throughout the battle. I probably got to attack once every two turns or so usually but Jonin Felix with the sol blade and high crit rate is so good that it wasn't even that bad
I really love how something once very marginal like vulnerabilities now are actually relevant in certain boss fights. It adds to the strategy element of the game, which was the goal of the "difficulty" part of the mod.
I'm still going through TLA Reloaded for the first time ever and making changes as I go. A new release is planned for when i beat Dullahan, unless something major pops up and i have to deal with it urgently.
Until now everything's been fine, and i just entered the Western Sea. I made some some very minor tweaks to the stats of midgame equipment (like +-2 to atk enforced by the Golden Rule) and made Avimander a bit stronger (it was a breeze at 28 the when i tried, so heat stun from x1.3 to x1.5, in line with other similar attacks, and his star attack reduces res).
The biggest change so far is the Gaia Axe that will become the Gaia Rod, venus boosting staff. The game really needs a venus based staff in the western sea (cause jenna can't equp tungsten mace) and golem core has 3 weapons equippable by warriors, so i think it's the perfect pick.
EDIT: Oh, and... a minor tweak to Deepsea Axe's icon to give it a blueish tone, since it still had the original Mighty Axe icon.
EDIT2: Gaia's Rod is done, the journey resumes.
I'd be curious about your endgame party composition and how it compares to mine once you get there. I haven't found any good compositions to fit Acrobat or Necromancer into which is a shame since they seem really cool.
I agree that a Venus staff is needed, assuming Gaia Rod is on par with Atropos' Rod and similar it will be greatly appreciated on Jenna. I found the Moapa and Karst and Agatio fights to be easier than Avimander, though I think I generally have a lower level party than you (mine was probably around level 26 when fighting Avimander) so that may influence things.
Quote from: bpat on 19, February, 2018, 06:19:35 PM
I'd be curious about your endgame party composition and how it compares to mine once you get there. I haven't found any good compositions to fit Acrobat or Necromancer into which is a shame since they seem really cool.
I agree that a Venus staff is needed, assuming Gaia Rod is on par with Atropos' Rod and similar it will be greatly appreciated on Jenna. I found the Moapa and Karst and Agatio fights to be easier than Avimander, though I think I generally have a lower level party than you (mine was probably around level 26 when fighting Avimander) so that may influence things.
My default endgame party comp has always been, at least in tests:
Warlord Isaac, Shogun Garet, Arcanist Ivan, Pure Mage Mia, Chaos Lord Felix, Radiant Miko Jenna, Fateweaver Sara, Sea Lord Piers. Mages are built for their original element, Sol Blade on Felix, Herculean Axe on Isaac, Cursed gear on garet, Caladbolg on Piers, Orichalcon staff on ivan, Atropo Lachesis Clotho on the girls. But i'd like to try a different one this time.
If you want to use class X, you can just download the txt in the opening post and search for that class. The txt lists every possible class setup that doesn't waste djinn, so it's your best bet.
Gaia Rod replaces Gaia Axe so its level is 30, slightly weaker in atk than meditation rod (boosts venus power by 18). It was the best place to put it as it's exactly midway between anubis (lv 19) and ker (lv 40).
Just beat Dullahan and Doom Dragon, so I thought I'd share some opinions.
I love that every enemy has enough atk/powerful abilities to pose a threat as you level up throughout the entire game. I think this is what separates this version from the base game and it's done really well. However, I played up to level 25ish on my first attempt, and enemies were just too sturdy for my liking. I found myself constantly PP starved trying to heal after every couple battles, so I used the editor to decrease enemy (excluding bosses) HP by about 24% (new HP = old HP/1.3 to be exact). This felt much more manageable to me - enemies could still threaten me if I wasn't proactive about surviving, but I wasn't burning 50% of my pp on every random encounter. Though I'm also fully willing to admit I'm no pro at this game so there could easily be some aspect I'm overlooking that would nullify my opinion here.
I messed around quite a bit with endgame party comps and finally settled on one that I really really like. I used it from the beginning of Mars lighthouse on.
Miko :Jenna: - geared for venus power with Nebula wand. Beastly heals and nettle hits decently hard.
Chaos Lord :Felix: - geared for 100% unleash. Nothing new here.
Holy Knight :Piers: - geared for mercury power and PP with Caladbolg. Very tanky support providing backup heals, remedy, revive, and break.
Psy Champion :Isaac: - geared for hybrid unleash/ailments with Excalibur, dark matter helm and shield, Demon Mail, and Knight's greaves. I was super excited to try this build out, but ended up a little underwhelmed. The unleashes didn't come often enough, and the -luck on some of the cursed gear made him extremely susceptible to condemn, seal, curse, etc. That being said, I don't think he missed a dull on Dullahan and may have been the top dmg dealer during that fight. Ideally I think the +12% crit from ninja sandals probably outweighs the ailments and jupiter power on the Knight's greaves, but I didn't feel like going back to pick up another set of sandals.
White Mage :Mia: - geared for mercury power with Clothos. She got shorted 1 djinn each from venus and jupiter, but she's still so good with powerful group heals and prism/plasma.
Fury :Ivan: - geared for jupiter power and PP with Nebula wand. I was surprised how much I liked this setup. He hits really hard with his psynergy, but needs a lot of PP recovery or will burn through his pool quick.
Radiant :Garet: - geared for resistances and some mercury power with Rising/Alecto's mace. An even tankier version of Holy knight Piers without remedy.
Arcanist :Sheba: - geared for mercury/jupiter power with Clothos/Lachesis. Versatile healer/dmg dealer with wish/plasma/ice.
Nice party comp MomongaMan, though there are a 2 things that i'd like to ask you: for Piers and Ivan, why did you choose Caladbolg instead of Rising Mace and Nebula Wand instead of a weapon with more attack like a dagger? I think Fury's main selling point is the attack stat so i find curious keep using a staff in that class.
Also, about the 2 djinn missing, did you check the txt in the opening post? The one that lists every possible party comp that doesn't waste djinn.
Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed your playthrough.
Caladbolg over Rising Mace: I forgot to mention another little tweak I made when I reduced enemy HP - I added +15 elemental power of their respective elements to the "big 4" long swords. So Caladbolg provides almost as much epower and much more attack than rising mace.
Nebula Wand over light blade: I see the main attraction of fury being the wide variety of very powerful psynergy it has access to, and nebula wand was the only way to boost the epower of all 3 types.
I was aware of the class lists you posted but I didn't consult them when working through my setup. I wanted the satisfaction of finding out what I could come up with on my own rather than copying from a list, if that makes any sense.
Anyway, thanks a lot for all the work you put into this project. TBS/TLA were already among my favorite games, but this makes them so much more engaging.
QuoteCaladbolg over Rising Mace: I forgot to mention another little tweak I made when I reduced enemy HP - I added +15 elemental power of their respective elements to the "big 4" long swords. So Caladbolg provides almost as much epower and much more attack than rising mace.
Ok now it makes sense. Though it completely defeats the main selling point of maces, so it's something i'd never do.
QuoteAnyway, thanks a lot for all the work you put into this project. TBS/TLA were already among my favorite games, but this makes them so much more engaging.
You're welcome, glad you liked it. :happy:
This patch is amazing, Caledor. I'm going through TBS right now and I'm loving what I'm seeing.
I recently grew nostalgic over the Golden Sun series and wanted to play through the game again after many years. I always loved the class system but I hated how the games were never difficult enough to actually make you have to use them. I was trying hard mode in TLA and, while it was interesting in the beginning, it just kind of became tedious after you got enough djinn to start experimenting with the classes. It wasn't really difficult, battles just took longer and you had to heal after every battle. Golden Sun Reloaded seems to be more balanced in this respect, as the bosses (with their extra turns, oh my) are actually fun and interesting.
I'm going to be playing through both games back to back, so I figured I'd comment my experiences and impressions with the game as I progress.
As of right now, I just finished the Altin mines and defeated the Hydros statue. Up until now, I've been using
:Isaac: with :MarsDjinni:
:Garet: with :JupiterDjinni:
:Ivan: with :VenusDjinni:
:Mia: with :MercuryDjinni:
But after I got the 4th :MercuryDjinni: I switched around my party to be the following for the Hydros statue and, probably, the rest of the game.
:Isaac: with :JupiterDjinni:
:Garet: with :VenusDjinni:
:Ivan: with :MercuryDjinni:
:Mia: with :MarsDjinni:
BANDITS
I think they were well balanced for a first boss encounter. I had given Flint to Ivan so I could have 2 healers during the fight, but I ended up not needing to heal much at all. I still had starting equipment on everyone (everyone is lv 4), but given what I had read from everyone on this thread I was surprised with how fast they went down.
OVERALL DIFFICULTY : 3/10
TRET
This guy really surprised me. I was not expecting him to have 2 turns. At this point I had everyone around level 6 with all the Djinn available so far. I, for whatever reason, did not take the psynergy crystal up above to heal, so almost everyone had around 30%-40% of their PP when I fought Tret. I had to restart this fight 3 times since he would end up just double casting his sleep spell and immobilize my entire team for several turns at a time. In hindsight it would have been useful to have some elixirs to counter the sleep with the (usually) 1 awake member I had, but at that time I only had 1 elixir and that member would always be the one who fell asleep.
This was the first time in the series where I was intentionally using all the djinn on Issac to switch his class so he could start using cure, which gave me a giddy feeling. That's exactly the situation I was looking for in this mod and I'm happy I got to experience it so soon.
Ultimately, the MVP of this fight for me was the healing ring you found in this dungeon. Eventually, I just had to have Issac use it every round to keep everyone alive until Ivan finally woke up and could start healing again.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 8/10
JUPITER DJINN ON TRET'S BRANCH
As a side experience, the Djinn in this dungeon was a huge pain in the F$@king @#$. He would consistently run away on the second or third turn, and no matter what I did I just could not kill him before then. I summon rushed, I spammed djinn, and swapped around all my character's classes, I messed around with the RNG, over and over and I just could not get this guy. After about 15 minutes of trying eventually he tried to run and failed, to which I spammed him with summons, he lived, and then he tried running again and succeeded. I had to leave the dungeon and come back to actually get this guy. He tried to run again, of course, but this time he failed every time he tried. Thank. God. This was, no doubt, the most frustrating part of the game for me by far.
F#%k this guy.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 9/10
SATUROS
After fighting Tret, Saturos was a little bit disappointing for me. He felt like a buffed up average enemy: he doesn't really pose a threat to my party, he just takes a long time to deal with. With an extra party member and 2 dedicated healers in my party now, there was no danger of wiping. I just did a basic strategy of using all my djinn then summon rush him, rinse, repeat.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 4/10
KILLER APE
This guy did SO much damage. I was around level 12 with everyone and I didn't pick up any armor from the village near Tret since I didn't have enough money to upgrade from Imil. There were several times where I would fully heal someone to full hp, the Boss would attack, and that member would be left with ~ 12 hp left. And he still had another turn after! This was a long, drawn out fight, with me constantly healing every turn and switching from offense and defense, but surprisingly I only lost 1 member (Issac) through the entire fight, and it was literally on the last turn of the battle. Was a little upset at that but I didn't feel like redoing the entire fight just so I could have everyone's experience around the same level. Up until now (besides Tret's sleep bs), this was the first and only time in the run someone has died.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 7/10
LIVING STATUE
The typical living statues in the Altin Mines were mostly annoying, and reminded me a lot of Saturos. They don't actually provide any danger to you, their entire purpose seems to just whittle down your resources to make fighting the boss more of a challenge, but the problem with them is the dungeon is segmented, meaning you can easily recuperate at the inn after you fight them. In fact, the segment you actually fight the boss doesn't even have any living statues to begin with, making their overall tankiness just an annoyance rather than a challenge. They either should have had more damage to make them an actual threat, or they should have had a lot less health to make them less of a tedium to fight, since you have to fight 4 of them.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 2/10
HYDROS STATUE
It was at this point I was able to have 4 :MercuryDjinni:, meaning i could now have wish on one of my member. I chose Ivan because he is much faster than Mia. This boss is what the living statues should have been, imo, just with more hp. With Ivan healing with wish basically every turn, however, there was absolutely no danger of dying. I had to use a few of my mountain waters (20 pp recovery) on Ivan through the fight, but ultimately with him on heal duty this was just a battle of resources and I had more than the boss.
This is ultimately what happened in TLA's hard mode. As soon as you get wish the game just becomes laughably easy. If I didn't have wish for this fight I suspect it would have been an actual challenge given how much AoE he had, but since I did all I had to do was make sure Ivan had enough PP every turn. And because the boss had no stuns or sleeps (god dammit Tret) there was literally nothing to worry about.
I'm really hoping Wish doesn't trivialize the rest of the game as it did this fight. I appreciate the increased PP cost of the move, but because you also increased the Base PP of everyone (to make psynergy more powerful, I believe, since max pp now influences damage scaling of psynergy) that kind of negated the increased cost of the move. We'll see what happens.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 4/10
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I like what you've done with the game. I think swapping around the psynergy of some classes is a fun idea (I'm not sure I agree with removing whirlwind from Ivan's base psynergy though. That was weird), though I'm sure I won't really come to appreciate it until I get to see Felix's and Sheba's new classes in TLA.
I'm a bit torn on normal encounters, though. They remind me a bit of TLA hard mode where they are just an annoyance rather than anything substantive. I justify the increased hp pools by telling myself it's to use up my resources in dungeons for the bosses, and as a result I rather like them when I'm in dungeons. But in areas without any bosses to fight enemies like this are just a complete chore. I kind of agree with the other poster here who ended up reducing normal enemy's hp by 24%. I would do that for overworld enemies, but I think I would keep enemies located in dungeons as they are. As the enemies are now, the entire game just feels stressful in a way. Part of me keeps expecting the game to let up a bit and let me just relax, but I haven't really felt that yet. After every fight I either use up a ton of psynergy to end the fight quickly or I conserve my psynergy and take a lot of damage and have to heal it back up immediately. Sometimes not having to requiring using resources every fight is nice, but that's probably the nostalgia of the vanilla experience talking.
I'm noticing the increased power of psynergy too and i'm loving it. It's great having a reason to use them over regular attacks. However, from an emotional standpoint, I'm mixed with it because I grew up with these games with attack being the end-all-be-all tactic to use, and to have all 4 members attack an enemy and not kill it is annoying. It makes me feel like there's no reason to attack and to just spam psynergy, which logically speaking makes sense - regular attacks that use no resources shoudn't be as strong or stronger than psynergy that does require resources - but it'll take some time to get used to.
Overall, I'm really happy with what you have done. As I said, I'll be binging through both games back to back so I'll update with anything noteworthy.
Hi Malyck
Thanks A LOT for the detailed reports, i really appreciate the effort and i love reading those.
About certain changes:
Ivan lost whirlwind cause i split the "focus" of each character in their element to differentiate the main classes. Ivan is Jupiter's thunder while Sheba is wind. Same happened with Venus (Isaac's Rock vs Felix's Plant), Mars (Garet's Blast vs Jenna's Fire) and Mercury (Mia's Ice vs Piers' Water).
Actually Ivan had only Whirlwind, without the other 2 tiers, for a long time for ease of use, but at some point i gave him the 16th psynergy and thus lacked the space for whirlwind from that moment onwards.
I don't think i increased PP overall. I did increase base PP and HP but i always compensated somewhere else. Lower class multipliers for PP and less HP from djinn for example.
Hope you'll enjoy the rest of the game and TLA like you did so far.
All right, I just finished going through all of TBS. Similar to my last post, I'll detail my thoughts on each of the major sections and then give an overall impression after.
But before that, I want to comment on my party setup. Before, I was planning on having :Mia: be a guru, but I soon realized that you had switched around its psynergy and it no longer had Wish. Thus, upon exiting the Desert and getting the :VenusDjinni: immediately outside it before Kalay, I changed my setup to be the following:
:Isaac: -- :MarsDjinni:
:Garet: -- :JupiterDjinni:
:Ivan: -- :MercuryDjinni:
:Mia: -- :VenusDjinni:
This setup was the obvious route for me since it's pretty much the only one that gives my party 2 wish users. Mia can also get wish from her :MercuryDjinni: and :JupiterDjinni: classes, but Ivan needs the :MercuryDjinni:. I was debating giving Mia :JupiterDjinni: instead of Garret, but once again, when I saw you removed revive from the Chaos Lord class that :Isaac: and :Garet: share there was really no point in having 2 of them.
As a result, I really felt like I was pigeonholed into this specific party comp. The enemies and bosses (especially) did so much damage that I just couldn't justify not having 2 wishes. And with :Mia: also having the full cure series, the revive I was expecting :Garet: to have, and better stats than her default Angel class there was no reason to not have her as a Guru.
One of the goals of this patch, I thought, was to give players a reason to explore the class system and try new tactics they didn't have to in the vanilla game. This is why I thought you had moved some psynergy around and themed the characters to differentiate them from one another. However, my impression from playing through the game was that class diversity was actually hurt as a result of the balance attempts. As I stated before, the enemies do so much damage that you really need 2 healers in your party. And since nearly all the bosses have multiple turns with aoe potential having wish is just the best and ideal solution, especially when one of those classes has both wish, cure, AND revive. The difficulty of the game basically requires you to have :Ivan: as an Arcanist and :Mia: as a Guru, at least if you want to have a smooth run.
Anyways, onto the bosses.
MANTICORE
At this point I had 4 :MercuryDjinni:, so Ivan was now a certified Wish user. With Ivan healing every turn and Mia topping off or supporting with Granite every now and then, my party never came close to dying. This was a fairly smooth and uneventful fight, actually, and with the 2 psynergy crystals in the previous zone I came into this fight pretty much in perfect condition.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 3/10
KRAKEN
From reading through this thread I had noticed quite a few mentions of this boss being quite a big difficulty spike from the game up to this point, so I was expecting hell going into this. And while he did do a ton of damage, I was also savvy enough to pick up the 2 :VenusDjinni:, :JupiterDjinni:, and :MarsDjinni: before this area. This meant that in addition to Ivan, Mia could now also use Wish. Having those 2 work together on healing duty and Issac + Garret just cycling through djinn -> summons was more than enough to clear the fight with little difficulties. I think 1 character went down during this fight, but he was easily revived immediately after.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 6/10
COLOSSO
I was really nervous going into this. This is where you have to use Issac alone, and given the HP and Damage boost enemies have I was worried I wouldn't have enough sustain to do these 3 fights consistently. Before then, though, I got a bit peeved at your balancing attempts for the classes. In the first challenge, you have the option to help Issac complete the obstacle course faster by using Move, Douse, and Growth. However, you removed any possibility for Mia to get Growth, and since Garet is the only one who can learn it while also being the only one who has move of the 3 helpers, there is absolutely no way to cheat all 3 areas with psynergy. Admittedly, it's not that big of a deal since you still have more than enough time to get every chest and make it to the goal first, but it was still a bit annoying and noteworthy. It was this event that made me start feeling like a lot of the balance changes involving psynergy were a bit unnecessary on your part and done more so for flavor than actual balance.
Anyways, as for the 3 fights themselves, giving Issac his trusty :VenusDjinni: so he can have cure proved to be more than enough to handle all 3 fights. The third guy was doing a ton of damage every turn and was making me worried, but when I gave in and decided to use the bombs the game gave me the fight suddenly became a cakewalk.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 3/10
TOADONPA
Honestly, not much to say about this fight. 2 Wish users and Djinn + Summons was all that was needed here. No one went down and nothing besides poison (which Mia could cure) to worry about. Fight dragged on longer than I feel it should have though.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 3/10
STORM LIZARD
At this point I realized I could use Ember to restore my party's PP and then reset him after each fight, thus giving me effectively infinite PP for healing. By the time I got to the boss I was at pretty much tip top condition, despite fighting pretty much every Tornado Lizard in the area.
The Storm Lizard did a lot of damage, which is somewhat par for the course, and my characters got below 50 hp quite a few times during this fight, but with the power of double wish I managed to not lose anyone throughout the entire fight. No status aliments to worry about. No real difficulties to note.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 3/10
DEADBEARD
At this point I, of course, had every single Djinn and pretty much the best in slot equipment aside from Issac's Gaia Blade. What made this fight manageable for me was being able to use Djinn on Ivan and Mia and not have them lose their Wish spells. He honestly was not that bad until the second half of the fight where he started spamming sweep on the same characters over and over. 3 of my characters went down in total during the fight. Issac went down first, but With Garet casting Kite on Mia she was able to revive and then full heal Issac back to full the following turn. Then Mia and Garet both went down at the same time due to a double Sweep from Deadbeard, but since my team has 3 characters that can revive (2 Djinn + mia), I was able to get both of them up the following turn too. And, luckily, Deadbeard decided to play nice and just buff himself that turn while I recuperated.
Ivan and Mia were getting really low on PP so I used my first 2 psynergy crystals on both of them using a Kited Issac (who had the crystals), but in 2 turns Deadbeard died so it was a total waste. Sigh.
Long fight, but doable.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 8/10
SATUROS AND MENARDI
These 2 had a ton of hp, but they didn't feel that threatening at all. Menardi stuck to trying to cheese me with Death scythe pretty much every turn (but it never worked, thank god), and Saturos alternated between fireball and attack mostly. I spammed djinn and summons on Saturos first, and 2 years later he finally died. Menardi by herself was barely a threat that I decided to just recuperate by recycling all my djinn and just attack her until she died. Mia was enough to heal anything she could do with her eyes closed.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 4/10
FUSION DRAGON
He had a ton of Aoe and liked spamming outer space on me every other turn, but yet again the power of 2 wishes came out on top. I think at one point he killed Issac by using a move that automatically puts a character at 1 hp and then did an Aoe to attack everyone like an @#$, but it was a simple revive procedure to get him back up. Other than that, he went down much faster than the duo before him. Ivan also got low on PP from constantly healing so I threw him a Psynergy Crystal, but like with Deadbeard the boss died a few turns later, making it another wasted item. Sigh.
OVERALL CHALLENGE: 6/10
GENERAL IMPRESSIONS/COMMENTS
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this. This was definitely a different experience from the vanilla game. The game was kind of stressful in the beginning, as I noted in my first post, but after obtaining Wish that feeling went away mostly. It was still annoying to have Ivan have to heal after every battle, but after Mia got Wish herself the game suddenly got A LOT easier.
I mentioned it up above, but I want to restate it here, I think there is still some issue with the balancing in this game/patch, and perhaps it's not something you can address. Wish is such a strong move that it pretty much trivializes much of the game. However, when you make enemies have so much hp and deal so much damage you basically force players to take it. And this is why I felt like I was stuck in the one party comp I had at the end. Anything else just isn't as efficient, you really want to have 2 wish users and a revive (just in case).
Ultimately, I ended up playing the game the way I usually do: Have 2 dedicated healers and then just spam djinn -> summons on bosses. The only difference being I had to heal pretty much every turn as opposed to only every 2-3 turns in the vanilla experience, thus making fights last longer not just because of the increased HP pool. Part of me wanted to experiment a bit with aliments and using buffs/debuffs, but I didn't really need to, just like vanilla.
After getting all the Djinn I got really curious about how TLA is going to work though. With more Djinn and characters a lot more class options are likely to open up and my problems with the balancing in TBS might be alleviated there. With the 7 Djinn limit, though, the game feels somewhat incomplete to me. That might just be my familiarity with TLA talking, though.
One thing that I really have to applaud you for in this patch is making the bosses actually feel like bosses. They feel like an entirely different beast from the regular enemies, as they should. In the vanilla game you could pretty much fight bosses the same way you would fight normal enemies. In fact, the last several times I've played the GS games I decided to never use any djinn or summons since they made the game so easy. The bosses in this patch, though, were tough enough that I felt like I needed to use the djinn to have a chance. I could probably beat most of the bosses without djinn or summons, but they would be a very, very long fight without them.
I'm glad I found this patch, but at the end of the day I'm feeling exhausted from the whole experience. I can't say I've ever felt tired from playing GS before, so I'm still deciding whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing.
But I would definitely recommend this patch to anyone who thinks the GS is too easy. Thank you for making it!
I'll be starting my TLA Reloaded run within the next few days, so I'll post my thoughts on the game when I make some decent progress in it.
Thank you very much for the feedback, Malyck. Let's see...
@Wish & difficulty: i think the overall difficulty is more or less TBS hard mode. This might have given too many HP on enemies since in TBS they're already stronger than in TLA. so i'm considering cutting 10% of HP to everyone. About wish, Isaac's Protector also has it.
@Guru: Mia had wish in every dual class. For the sake of variety, either this or Druid had to lose it.
@TLA. The mod was tailored for TLA, where i focused especially on endgame variety, so it's well within my expectations that TBS might feel underwhelming.
Again thanks a lot for playing it and for the huge report, I hope you'll enjoy your TLA run!
I also just finished playing through TBS Reloaded, and I ended up taking a similar class setup as Malyck did, with Ivan having the Venus Djinn before getting Mia, and then swapping them for Mercury after the lighthouse.
Before going to Kolima/Tret, I did make a brief detour into Bilibin Cave to snag the Elven Rapier for a much-appreciated increase to my damage output to help get through the forest.
I ended up not using Djinn or summons, though, and went for a strategy of Bravery/Impact on Isaac/Garet, use Ragnarok/Planet Diver/Astral Blast, with Ivan's priorities being to heal, use Dull/Blunt/Resist, or just use an attack spell. Mia simply healed or used an attack spell when everyone was healthy.
This took me through most of the boss fights with no major issues. Once I had the "endgame" gear and Isaac was loaded out with the Gaia Blade, Warrior's Helm, Asura Armor, War Gloves, and Hyper Boots, he stopped using any Psynergy beyond a Bravery at the start of a fight, and just used basic attacks and Titan Blade, which hit Deadbeard for about 500 damage on each TB, and 3-400 against Saturos & Menardi and Doom Dragon, depending on how recently they used Break. Deadbeard was taken out at level 28, which leveled everyone up to 29, and by the time I climbed back up Venus Lighthouse, Isaac, Garet, and Mia were 30, then Saturos & Menardi gave Ivan enough experience to hit 30, also.
The Saturos and Menardi fight had somewhere around 4 Death Scythe/Size actually connect, downing Garet 3 times and Isaac once, but Revive and a Nut got them back up and going again each time.
I've started TLA now, and I don't know if it's just the enemies themselves, or the lack of a second warrior instead of a second caster, but enemies take about 2 rounds of auto-attacks, barring unleashes, or a round of spells, before going down, and I tend to end up needing to Cure everyone after a random encounter or two, even with a full set of armor from the shops and what little treasure armor is available at the start. Things seem to hit really hard right now, especially Skeletons with Undead Sword.
Admittedly, I'm not even level 10 yet, about to head out to Yampi Desert, so that may change soon.
Overall, I'm having a great time playing through this update, and I can't wait to get enough Djinn to actually get into the classes and take down some superbosses.
Hi ReploidX welcome aboard and glad you're liking the mod so far.
About TLA, what you described is perfectly normal. I'm positive i literally ported enemy stats from TBS so the blame is entirely on the "second caster instead of second warrior". Longer fighter in turns implies more damage taken which implies more healing needed and so on.
Hope you'll enjoy the rest of TLA as well!
Well, TLA's been pretty great so far. I've got my Trident now, and it's time to take down Poseidon.
The last two bosses, Serpent and Avimander, went fairly well, using the same basic class setup as in the first game. Jenna's got all Venus Djinn, Felix has Mars, Piers with Jupiter, and Sheba with Mercury. Near the end of each fight a few characters ran out of Psynergy, and I actually unleashed some Djinn for the last round or two.
Poseidon, though, seems a bit further out of my reach than either of them did, with his 3 actions and the "set to 1 HP" attack (Ocean Fist?). I'm level 27, so I might just need to grind a few levels first. Looking at various treasure lists, I have all the major treasures so far, so I don't think I'm under-geared. Then again, the item classes might have something I overlooked, because I never used them before, so I have no idea what they actually do.
Yo, incredible hack you made dude. Played a vast part of the first GS, but my save state messed up, so I'm just gonna play the TLA one now. Question: Do all the djinn appear? Cause for all i know, you needed to transfer data from the first game in order to have ALL the djinn in the series that far. Other than that, incredible job, and i hope you keep it going, cause I'll sure try it.
Quote from: Megalord38 on 07, April, 2018, 05:05:25 PM
Yo, incredible hack you made dude. Played a vast part of the first GS, but my save state messed up, so I'm just gonna play the TLA one now. Question: Do all the djinn appear? Cause for all i know, you needed to transfer data from the first game in order to have ALL the djinn in the series that far. Other than that, incredible job, and i hope you keep it going, cause I'll sure try it.
Thanks Megalord, and sorry for the late reply. All i can say is that Djinn requirements are the same as vanilla. Without a password you'll find some extra GS1 djinn exactly like vanilla TLA but you won't have all of them.
So far so good, although the Gabomba Statue was a really hard dungeon despite the full party being available xD. A have a question though: In you class chart document you shared in the download link there are some red numbers, is it just my computer being crap or does it have a meaning?
Quote from: Megalord38 on 22, April, 2018, 05:00:39 PM
So far so good, although the Gabomba Statue was a really hard dungeon despite the full party being available xD. A have a question though: In you class chart document you shared in the download link there are some red numbers, is it just my computer being crap or does it have a meaning?
Red = values changed from last version update. ;)
hi, thx for the great work!
I'm playing TBS atm, and according to the chart, the oracle class series have "drain" and "psy drain". Are these locked behind higher class lvls? Ivan is Augur and doesnt have them.
Also I remember when I played your patch long ago, class series like worldwaker had more psynergy, for example like how Fury has volcano, plasma and ice, they had jupiter psynergy + gaia + prism. Imho this class in particular misses wind psynergy.
Drain and Psy drain for Oracle are only locked behind levels and not class tiers. learned at levels 32 and 33 respectively
Worldwaker has been changed many times so i really can't remember but i can say this: it's not mandatory for tri-elemental classes to use all 3 elements offensively.
btw fury has ice for the sole reason that it's the only mercury spell i could give to that class. mercury has A LOT of healing, which all clashes horribly with Fury's theme.
Got to the Eastern Sea now, and I'm getting rekt by Gaia Rock xD. Are all the items in Yallam's forge the same as vanilla, or did you change something? Other than that, i guess i just need to grind a bit lul.
Quote from: Megalord38 on 04, May, 2018, 10:22:37 PM
Got to the Eastern Sea now, and I'm getting rekt by Gaia Rock xD. Are all the items in Yallam's forge the same as vanilla, or did you change something? Other than that, i guess i just need to grind a bit lul.
Almost every item in the game has been changed in one way or another, you can use atrius' editor to open the modded rom and check. The target level for gaia rock is 24.
Hello
I'm excited to play this hack :) But when I apply the patch, conversations are glitched out and the characters go out of screen. This happens in both games. Why does this happen? I'm patching the US version of the games.
Thank you for your help.
Quote from: Frey on 15, May, 2018, 07:36:50 AM
Hello
I'm excited to play this hack :) But when I apply the patch, conversations are glitched out and the characters go out of screen. This happens in both games. Why does this happen? I'm patching the US version of the games.
Thank you for your help.
most likely you're using a bad rom, or even a bad emulator. try different roms and/or VBA as an emulator on PC.
Got to Lemuria, and have to say, that Poseidon fight was hard af. Kept killing Felix and the only source of damage was Piers with the trident xd. I think you should reduce the amount of turns he has cause he destroyed my team with that one-hit k.o attack he has. Otherwise, pretty clutch win xD. I wanna ask if is possible to obtain multiple lucky medals by the RNG manipulation method (is this possible too?) or you just have a set amount of lucky medals to manage along the game. So far it is pretty good.
Quote from: Megalord38 on 16, May, 2018, 03:47:41 PMI wanna ask if is possible to obtain multiple lucky medals by the RNG manipulation method (is this possible too?)
Yes to both. As usual, use the editor to see who drops what. RNG manipulation is unchanged from vanilla but enemies have changed so old patterns might not work. To address that, just make new patterns after understanding how RNG works (-> https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/25734).
Around a month ago I got Golden Sun on my mind something fierce. I happened to hear about a mod called Golden Sun Reloaded that retooled the game to make combat less spammy, more thoughtful and more challenging. Considering I had cheesed my way through GS1 as a kid at least ten times, this sounded like the perfect way to replay it.
I've attempted to replay the game a few times since my childhood, but I've generally ended up dropping it in lieu of playing it its more challenging, meatier sequel. With this mod, this changed - I was suddenly far more engaged in the combat. This mod meant I spent far more time thinking about optimal class setups and equipment, scraping by tough boss monsters with buffs and debuffs, and getting my teeth kicked in when I realized I couldn't just summon rush my way through the game, and it was an absolute joy seeing Camelots systems finally getting put to something that wasn't a novelty use.
It was a nostalgic treat for me to play this game again and your mod not only made the experience fresh, challenging, and incredibly rewarding - It made it happen in the first place. If I could had just beaten Saturos the old fashioned way I would probably not had gotten farther than going back to Tret before I lost interest and looked to the sequel instead.
I've rambled long enough (Probably Golden Sun rubbing off on me) but I want to say
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HARD WORK CALEDOR! THIS MOD IS DA BOMB! It has allowed me to experience Golden Sun again, and it has opened my eyes - Rom hacking can do so much more than just modding a Sonic Sprite into Super Mario Bros.
With that in mind, I have two questions I was hoping you could answer:
1: Is Hard mode still around in modded TLA, or did you get rid of it in lieu of the mod? Or is it available as some Frankenstein thing that mixes TLAs hard mode with your mod?
2: Are there any plans to work on a similar mod for Dark Dawn?
What can I say? Just thank you for playing with the mod and taking the time to make an account here to tell me all this. :D
About your questions:
1 - It's in as the Frankenstein thing. I left it untouched so it still applies its stat multipliers to every enemy, which means on top of my changes. Call it Hard mode squared, Hell mode... it's completely untested. Play at your own risk. ;)
2 - None, I'm sorry. I never even finished it cause i always preferred replaying the first 2 games improved rather than vanilla DD. So i can't really see it happening.
I've spotted 2 minor bugs in the current version. One is about the Spirit Glove's description, the other about Fury's Rolling Fire, which is learnt automatically after reaching channeling tier instead of requiring level 40. They will be fixed in the next version among the other tweaks.
Here's the current changelog for v1.70
Fixed Spirit Golves' description
Fixed Fury's Rolling Fire learning level (40)
Psy crystal restores 200 PP
PP cost of Wish Well, Pure Wish, Cool Aura, Potent Heal slightly increased
Psychic Circlet restores 15 PP/turn
Caladbolg's Atk +1
Water of Life revives to 25% HP <- In progress
BTW, i was re-checking everything about the mod while the site was down and this is all i wanted to change in the end. I think it goes a long way in telling how close to being finished this mod is.
QuoteI think it goes a long way in telling how close to being finished this mod is.
Has it been 3 years already?
Quote from: VardenSalad on 25, July, 2018, 10:43:58 PM
QuoteI think it goes a long way in telling how close to being finished this mod is.
Has it been 3 years already?
Since the first time I said "it's finished"? yeah it's possible, lol :D
v1.70 is up.
This release is all about decreasing the strength of 2 consummables: Psy Crystal and Water of Life.
About Psy Crystal. I always said that I wanted people to usually equip Berserk Circlet on offensive casters and Psychic Circlet on healers, as you'd be trading off power for sustain. My fear is that Psy Crystal's strength allowed people to easily equip Berserk Circlet on healers as well since they'd only lose 1 in 10 turns to replenish their PP completely. So, healing costs slightly more, Psychic circlet is stronger and Psy Crystal's power is more than halved at endgame.
About Water of Life: When i decide on a psynergy set on a class i always try to keep things balanced and Revive and Raise are among the spells i weight more in a set. For example, Raise was given to the Inquisitor to cause its set felt lackluster without it; likewise, it will never be given to Fateweaver cause it'd be way too good with it. Farming Water of Life makes all this irrelevant since you could end up with 8x30 WoLs and effectively give everyone free revives. So WoL effectiveness is now half that of Revive.
Edit: Also opening post updated
I just want you to know how happy having the final psynergy learned at 42 makes me. Matches the actual length of the game much, much better. That change slipped past me in earlier version notes.
I really had to. Not only to avoid the endgame grinding to dullahan, but also because the power/level ratio of base power psynergies decreases after lv ~35 in vanilla, while unleashes spike in power.
V1.71 is on the way and will see a lot of tweaks to classes, mainly stats, with 2-3 psynergy sets affected.
Also includes tweaks to a few psynergies and pieces of armor (5 to 10 each) and I finally decided what to do with Cosmos Shield.
UPDATE: v1.71 is up.
Changelog:
Many class tweaks: see class doc, linked from the opening post of this thread
Items: Tweaked Xylion Armor, Luna Shield, Flame Shield, Cosmos Shield, Iris Robe, Titan Gloves, Greaves, Silver Greaves
Other minor fixes to equipment
Aura series, Dragon Fume, Searing Beam, Spark Plasma, Tempest, Scourge, Thunderhead, Dullahan are stronger
About class and psynergy changes (on the doc Blue is for improvements, Orange for worsenings):
Every mage's WRD dropped by 1 tier or more to put the max at 115%, then i started to make tweaks to even out stat totals.
After that the most significant changes were due to specific class comparison: I compared all the mages' classes capable of MT healing and tried to make the sum of damage + healing as similar as possible. Miko with Arcanist, Jenna's Guru with Druid, and Pure Mage, Guardian and Incantatrix together. Those comparisons caused the psynergy changes listed in the changelog. The most notable one is Aura, which is A LOT stronger (like +40 BP to the 3rd tier)... The only way I had to bring Incantatrix up to the Miko's level (and still wasn't enough, that's why the Miko's PP multiplier dropped by 5%).
Also, both Guru had to become stronger (they were the worst of the duals), so more PP and a slightly better psynergy set. Jenna's inquisitor lost raise for impact to avoid having all her 3 duals capable of reviving.
About equipment: Added minor bonuses to the very underwhelming luna shield and flame shield. Titan Gloves now boosts Venus Power by 30 (+5) cause a venus only mage lacks a non cursed staff and has to fall back to gaia rod. The other are boosts to warrior-mage hybrids. Xylion armor boosts power by 25 (+5), Cosmos shield brings a boost to Jupiter Power AND max PP and this allowed me to switch the Greaves' EPower bonus to Venus. Iris Robe and Silver Greaves are minor changes: -5 atk and +5 Me Power respectively.
UPDATE 2: TLA Patch reuploaded, i forgot to update the descriptions for the 3 shields i tweaked.
Hey Caledor,
Where is the doc located? Can't seem to find it.
Thanks!
The doc is the class chart, linked from the first post of this thread
UPDATE: Another walkthrough has started and I already had to stop before Dekhan to fix enemy groups. In the area around Dekhan's entrance you can encounter drone bees, trolls and skeletons, which are enemy that belong to the Madran half of Indra (after Dekhan), which is clearly wrong. From the next release, enemies around Dekhan's entrance in the Dalian half of Indra you'll encounter the enemies you're supposed to, like punchy ant, wolves and bats
Howdy all,
For (long)ish reasons I played through The Broken Seal with a different hard mode mod, but I'm not liking the version that that author created for The Lost Age. :sad:
So I think I'd rather check out GS Reloaded for The Lost Age instead (though I have played Caledor's old mod circa 2015). That presents an issue for me with transferring data to The Lost Age since I don't want to replay TBS again.
Would any kind soul be willing to share their clear .sav file from GSR TBS? (One with all djinn, extra psynergy items, all events done, etc.). Password works too, but I presume that is more challenging to type up.
Alternatively, are vanilla clear .sav files compatible? Would I miss out on any mod unique items this way?
Quote from: Apprentice57 on 17, August, 2018, 01:03:45 AM
Alternatively, are vanilla clear .sav files compatible? Would I miss out on any mod unique items this way?
While you'll never miss out on exclusive TBS items cause there aren't any, you will miss out on the modified stat growth of the characters, like PP and especially Luck.
So here's my endgame save from TBS played with my mod. It's as good as a normal run can be, it has all the important lategame stuff, characters are at a fair lever for the reunion, and carries the stat boosting items (i use them in TLA after i decide on the endgame class setup) for maximum freedom.
PS: passwords become trivial once you figure out how to use the golden sun passwords tool and VBA's memory viewer. Google it, download it and read the Readme. It will teach you how to save & load a dump of the password in TLA and save you from inputting it manually
Beautiful. You're the best Caledor!
EDIT: I gave updated details on why I'm switching mods midway on reddit if anyone is curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoldenSun/comments/93bx8k/mods_reloaded_or_fallen_star/e3hs2k7/ . It's more about the other mod, so I didn't want to quote it verbatim here. I'll update it again with my thoughts after I finish GSR TLA. I gave you a shout out for your help.
EDIT2: Btw Caledor, I didn't receive the bandit encounter. No biggie, but fyi to anyone else wanting it, keep that in mind.
@Apprentice57: sorry about that, but i think you can still fix it by editing the .sav with a save editor (there's a checkbox to tick) and update the password in TLA before reunion.
@YoungLink4. Thanks for the report, I found a few other issues in TBS though, so it might take a while to release a fix
Ok so it's totally a side effect of porting the advanced reviving patch from TLA to TBS in v1.70
I might need to do that part again from scratch so in the meantime please downgrade to v1.68 from here: goo.gl/2gvKmR
BTW this also implies that the bug is TBS only
Patch for TBS updated to v1.71a, which fixes the Cure Poison bug (couldn't heal poison in battle).
The bug happened cause the advanced reviving function spilled over on the cure poison effect function, which is right after it, overwriting its first 2 instructions. The bug was fixed by saving some space in the advanced reviving function, which allowed me to restore the lost instructions.
I couldn't replicate any of the issues in TBS with the Crystal Rod. So i'd say try patching another clean rom and see if it works.
Mud in indeed repeatable instead, guess I forgot a flag of some sort when i swapped it with Chill. I'll have to investigate cause that obviously shouldn't happen.
Hi Warden. That doesn't happen on my copy so please try a different rom and let me know how it goes.
Anyway, v1.71a for TLA is up and fixes the mud bug reported by Supremezero
Quote from: Caledor on 03, September, 2018, 03:24:48 PM
Hi Warden. That doesn't happen on my copy so please try a different rom and let me know how it goes.
I ran into the same issue as Warden when playing through. The issue itself seems to be some kind of fatal error and I'm able to get it to occur consistently by having enemies use Smoke Bomb or Weaken so far (only just made it to Goma Cave in TBS). I'm wondering if it's applicable to any type of debuffing ability.
I've repro'd this across three different TBS ROMs. Curiously, playing the un-patched ROMs is no problem—I'm only seeing the issue occur when playing a patched version of any ROM.
Hope this helps for now. Happy to provide any additional detail as needed!
EDIT: Tested a couple of different emulators and I think the issue is isolated to mGBA. I can only repro the problem using that emulator—all others work just fine. I'll post back if I find anything different or new.
I think literally everyone here uses visual boy advance either the old one or the vba-m port, at least on windows
Quote from: Caledor on 04, September, 2018, 07:42:17 AM
I think literally everyone here uses visual boy advance either the old one or the vba-m port, at least on windows
No, I use mGBA because of its quality.
https://mgba.io/ (https://mgba.io/)
well i've been playing GS on VBA for the past 15 years I think and never had issues with it, so i never bothered to look for something else. Anyway, i added a tips section to the opening post for future reports.
mGBA is, currently, the most accurate GBA emulator, and it's ported to multiple platforms. It's probably the future of GBA emulation, so it's kind of important things run on it.
On top of that, emulator-specific hacks are a bit problematic. In the early days of SNES emulation there were SNES9x-specific hacks and zSNES-specific hacks, and most of these do not run on modern iterations of SNES9x or higan, the other top SNES emulator - because as accuracy increased, the emulator-specific behavior the hacks relied on was simply removed, making those hacks simply unplayable.
Could you please investigate and see how to make it work on mGBA? Or if anyone has a flashcart and a GBA, can confirm if this happens on real hardware?
Quote from: inknow on 15, September, 2018, 01:07:47 PM
Could you please investigate and see how to make it work on mGBA?
The method is simple but extremely time consuming: I'd have to check the edited functions after you guys report a crash, since it's likely that the issues are in the jumps/branch-link i added, coupled with a sligthly different scheduling in mGBA.
It will probably take (several) months, so for the time being, switching to VBA-m is much more efficient.
Also, is very important that nothing is broken on VBA-m before i start making changes, or i might make things worse than they're now.
Does mGBA even work properly on Windows Vista?
Happens when trying to load a ROM - causes app to close.
Then there's some notifications about Microsoft's Data Execution Prevention stopping it. Huh.
If mGBA does not work on outdated OS's (would prefer as far back as XP.), then how could it be the best emulator? Maybe some day it shall be.
I shall try on Windows 10 later. From another computer. Don't think I will have a problem with that. Edit: That worked.
Still interested to see how this mod wraps up, emulator issues notwithstanding.
I use My Boy! for playing on my phone personally, but I haven't booted up one of these versions since about 1.6. I was sort of surprised that you haven't done a full playthrough of both games, Cal, but they are time-consuming.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 20, September, 2018, 11:52:36 PM
Still interested to see how this mod wraps up, emulator issues notwithstanding.
I use My Boy! for playing on my phone personally, but I haven't booted up one of these versions since about 1.6. I was sort of surprised that you haven't done a full playthrough of both games, Cal, but they are time-consuming.
The problem is not the time it takes for a single playthrough. It's the ideas that pop up in my head while i'm doing one, cause they force me to start again. Changing character growth forces a restart, so does swapping djinn, weapons, changing healing effectiveness... basically any change that isn't about endgame balance only. I think i've started a TLA playthrough at least ten times in those 3 years, and each one of those could've been the last one. Yet sometimes i had to restart from TBS.
On the other hand, I guess playthrough attempts lead to innovation. Not criticizing, more impressed that you went out of your way to fix issues you found so many times.
Of course, that's what happened. Whenever i found something i didn't like i stopped playing in order to work on the next release.
Hey Caledor, really loving the mod so far! I just wanted to mention a super, super minor issue I noticed with Isaac's attack growth when I was checking stuff out in the editor. At level 79 it's set to 289, but at level 99, it's set to 253. So according to level ups in battle, you actually 'gain' negative attack :p I say it's minor though since I REALLY doubt anyone's gonna be insane enough to grind out that much in TBS lol. It looks like this is fine in TLA though, there it's set to 353 which seems a lot more normal, and it's actually possible to level him that high.
But as for the mod itself, the difficulty is pretty close to perfect imo. I first started playing the games when I was 5, 22 now and I've always done 1 or 2 playthroughs of both every year, so I mean they're not REMOTELY close to challenging at this point, but I'm SO happy I can say that's not the case anymore with your mod :) Last year I did full playthroughs of both games with Reloaded (can't remember which version anymore, whoops :p), just finished up a second run of TBS with 1.71 this week, and about to start TLA on my next day off soon. I really love that it's still completely feasible to get through both games with zero grinding, but I genuinely have to strategize for every boss, to the point where much of the time I'm anticipating what I might get hit with NEXT turn and preemptively have to setup a turn in advance for it. I find a lot of the time I'm not so much reacting to what my party gets hit with, and picking the 'best' option afterwards, but trying to read what a boss might do then covering as many options as I can, if that's a good way to put it?
It felt basically impossible to just have one person cast Wish each turn and everyone else spam djinn/summons, which is a very, very positive thing for me. If I wanted to use a lot of djinn and summons, it was definitely doable, but it required a lot of actual thought about not only when I'm using them to drop stats or inflict statuses, but actually the order I had to use them, and how long I could go without summoning, otherwise they wouldn't be set again by the time I needed to reuse them. Deadbeard was a great example for this, since when I fought him (around mid-late twenties I think), he easily out-sped everyone in my party, but Vine/Zephyr made Mia (who was healing of course :p) just fast enough to act before him. So that meant I ALWAYS had to be focusing on when their effects were wearing off, and again, when I'd NEED to summon or set them to get them ready again to either drop his speed or raise mine. Otherwise he hits last on one round, speed returns to normal, and downs most of the party at the start of the next round before I can heal, which at those levels was incredibly difficult to recover from. Managing Mia's PP (nerfs to healing in general were honestly really well implemented btw) while having to stall for a couple turns with Granite/Flash/Ground to let her recover PP, while now having to focus on when THOSE three djinn would be usable again, on top of STILL focusing on when to set/summon to keep Vine/Zephyr ready to avoid getting rushed by Deadbeard's buffed psynergy (loved the new damage formula for this too!) turned this into an incredibly cerebral fight. Whereas on Vanilla, running the same strategy meant just alternating Granite and Flash, Wish every turn, and summon whenever. This was genuinely the most fun I've ever had with a boss in any playthrough of the series.
The only sort of 'complaint' I guess I might have right now is by the time you hit Tolbi and have access to the slots, the boots/shirts/rings from those provide a pretty substantial buff to everyone, which really lowered the difficulty of random enemy encounters. Not that they weren't still difficult, they were still MUCH tougher than vanilla, but I didn't really need to worry nearly a smuch about trying to balance PP between offense and healing to avoid running out partway through a dungeon, since I could tank hits much better, and kill enemies before they could do as much damage. Maybe either lowering the chance of getting a game ticket to get less equipment, nerfing the equipment, or slightly buffing the late game enemies more could help with this a bit, or some combination of these? Early dungeons though (going through Kolima Forest and Tret back to back come to mind actually) I'd often find my stats low enough that just standard attacks weren't really viable, so I'd be more inclined to use psynergy to end fights fast enough that I wouldn't risk downing anyone, with the trade off being it was much more difficult to manage keeping enough PP to heal between fights without running out entirely. I really liked this since it meant I'd always be aware of what I was making throughout an entiere dungeon, and what consequences might come from them. Again, later areas are still tough, just kind of inconsistent with difficulty in the early game, you know?
It seemed too that since by this point you'd have access to Scorch/Mist/Squall, smaller enemy groups in general became much easier. Even if on paper they should have the ability to be threatening, being able to basically remove one or two of them for virtually the whole battle with sleep/stun meant the party was taking very little damage, and I could almost always be back to max HP/PP by the next encounter. Single enemy groups, like Tornado Lizards, were basically impossible to lose to because of this, even though they had the stats and abilities to make for a challenging fight otherwise. But other than directly nerfing those djinn, or sleep/stun in general, I don't really see much way to avoid this. Neither this or the stuff with the slots equipment are THAT big a deal to be honest though, like I wouldn't be disappointed if these never changed, they're just spots that have a notably different feel to me in terms of challenge.
But yeah, overall I absolutely love what you've done so far, it's a HUGE improvement on the vanilla games! I'm really looking forward to how the mod progresses, I'm hoping you'll keep going with it :)
(also I really didn't think my first post would be this long, my b :p)
Hi ShiFT
Thank you very much for the kind words, i'm glad you're enjoying the mod.
Quote
super, super minor issue I noticed with Isaac's attack growth when I was checking stuff out in the editor. At level 79 it's set to 289, but at level 99, it's set to 253
Thanks for the report and for using the editor to check stuff lol. It's the classic typo that can go unnoticed for months. IIRC i have fixed a similar typo recently but i don't remember which one and if it's for the next version or if it's already released. I'm on a different OS atm so i can't check with the editor, but it's definitively something i'll check as soon as i can.
Quote
The only sort of 'complaint' I guess I might have right now is by the time you hit Tolbi and have access to the slots, the boots/shirts/rings from those provide a pretty substantial buff to everyone,
Noted, i'll check ;)
Walkthrough progress report (and reminder for me): Just beaten Aqua Rock.
So far everything's good, made a few minor adjustments here and here.
Noted potential issues:
1. EXP might be a tad too much in the eastern sea, but i'll wait until after lemuria to decide if i should lower it or not
2. There is a huge coin shortage as soon as you enter the Eastern sea. Considered on having the Hydra boss give you something like 5k to 10k coins to compensate, but it might be a good thing to leave it like this: players will have to upgrade equipment and forge stuff as they go instead of being able to upgrade everything immediately.
Partial changelog:
Jenna's Inquisitor line loses Volcano, gains Raging Heat
Jenna's Guru line loses Beam, gains Juggle
Raging Heat line and Fiery Juggle are slightly stronger (BP 185 and 155)
Mud's base power down to 80 (from 100)
Fixed overworld enemies around Dekhan Plateau
Enemies in Dekhan Plateu, South Indra and Madra Catacombs give more Exp and Coins
Minor stat fixes to many early to mid game weapons
Jupiter Djinn in Yampi: -3 SPD (L10 Sheba outspeeds it now)
Briggs, Pirate +atk
Slightly tweaked a few learning levels (mostly MT healing and high-end spells)
Boss Hydra slighly weaker (less AoE, more venom)
Fixed Isaac's attack growth in TBS (typo reported b ShiFT)
Ps. curious stuff: whenever i checked the class doc in the past 2 months, there were 2-4 people online reading it with me. I don't think it ever happened in those 3 years and half, it makes me wonder if there's something going on that i'm unaware of, lol.
I liked the eastern sea coin shortage since it made shopping choices more meaningful. It could be worth making rusty forging cheaper though since they have the downside of making you go all the way back to Yallam. You have essentially infinite money after Lemuria which is bad, so you may want to consider heavily reducing the cost (and sell value) of the fountain items.
I think prices should still reflect the overall strength of an item so i don't think i'll make specific tweaks. What can i do is:
- Increase all the prices. The growth is quadratic so the early game (up to level 20-25) will be left mostly untouched, with much greater effects in the mid to late game. The effectiveness of this depends on how many items you have to buy/craft vs the ones you find (free).
- Reduce the amounts of Lucky Medals found before Lemuria.
Btw i just finished Lemuria and i stand at 130k coins (80k before lemuria) so what you said it's kinda true (i was already quite rich before lemuria though). Still, there's also the fact that after level 24-25 you don't have to shop anymore (it's literally find vs craft) so it's normal that the coins keep increasing.
Reducing the number of lucky medals is just going to turn the fountain into a save-scumming fiesta. It's already difficult enough to try and bounce it off the turtles in just the right way to get what you want.
On forging, Sunshine charges a good amount for his pieces. It's not like you get them for free; any monetary changes are still going to affect your ability to buy whatever he makes.
You could look at potentially decreasing money drops from enemies across the entire region.
I agree with VardenSalad that decreasing Lucky Medal drops would be bad. Perhaps additional shop items later in the game could help with the too much money problem.
The more i think about it, the more it seems i won't ever reach a satisfying solution.
Coind drops from enemies are already extremely low from the western sea onwards, changing prices will only give minimal results overall (cause you increase the price of free stuff as well and you always get 75% of that back when you resell), and i think i'm out of space in shops: I already added zodiac wand in Shaman village, Kikuichimonji in Contigo and Viking Axe in Prox.
I might have 1 rusty weapon to reassingn, and i'm thinking of using it on the Lightning Sword: this will probably give the best results out of any other change i can do since it's a net -13k coins.
I'll probably still do the price rebalance cause until now i always winged it and following a function seems more proper.
EDIT: Other things i'm considering: make Ker's Weight forgeable from Darkmatter, swap Laevateinn and Rune Blade, put the first in a chest in magma rock, the other from mythril silver (to space them out more).
This is all minor stuff though: the change i feel the most it should be done is to have a lv ~37 jupiter mace. But to do that i also need another lv ~33 mace. I can make the latter and upgrade the Hagbone mace. Maybe upgrade Thanatos for the former?
Anyway, i think i'm running out of items i want or need to change.
Are status effects from weapon unleashes luck-dependent? Aren't you basically RNG-ing twice at that point?
Quote from: VardenSalad on 09, October, 2018, 01:15:43 PM
Are status effects from weapon unleashes luck-dependent? Aren't you basically RNG-ing twice at that point?
yes and yes.
Statuses are effects in the editor, and they're shared by abilities: djinn, unleashes, psynergies, items are all "abilities".
Still, most effects from unleashes are not that important (the boss is usually immune to the effect), i wanted people choose between damage from unleash or the debuff from EPAs like odissey.
Quote from: Caledor on 21, September, 2018, 06:00:46 AM
The problem is not the time it takes for a single playthrough. It's the ideas that pop up in my head while i'm doing one, cause they force me to start again. Changing character growth forces a restart, so does swapping djinn, weapons, changing healing effectiveness... basically any change that isn't about endgame balance only. I think i've started a TLA playthrough at least ten times in those 3 years, and each one of those could've been the last one. Yet sometimes i had to restart from TBS.
If you're looking for testers or other help, I have some time to spare. Might make things a little easier.
Thanks for the kind offer, but i really don't want people to play the mod only for the sake of reports, or it'll feel like a chore. I think you should play it if you want to enjoy another run, not only for the sake of feedback. Also at this point the feedback i need the most is my own lol.
I'm going to play it either way of course, just wanted to offer the help :D
Edit: Finally found the IPS program, downloading now.
I'm encountering a problem with Golden Sun Reloaded and I'm hoping I can at least alert people to it or can help me troubleshoot. I primarily use mGBA for emulation and I'm trying to play Reloaded on it. It runs phenomenally until a stat debuff happens, the game freezes up and I can't continue play. It happens 100% of the time, no matter who's side the debuff happens. I first encountered it in the 3 Thieves fight when one of them used Smoke Bomb. It happened again when I attempted to cast Poison on an enemy. It also happens when Ghost uses Impair, but not when Ooze uses Sticky Goo. I can't progress without worrying about being unlucky, but I imagine that this will continue and make some bosses unable to be defeated, as they'll just freeze the game before I can do it.
I swapped over to VisualBoy Advance to bypass this, as I don't seem to encounter the problem then, but it runs very poorly, I'm not sure if it's my settings or what. I have audio lag, where sound effects are delayed, but I also have audio speedup at random intervals. Everything also sounds very choppy, and visually mGBA looks a whole lot better, so I'd prefer to use it.
I use a US/Europe ROM, and I'm on a Macbook Pro 2012.
The Reloaded hack is great! I just can't play very long due to the possible bug. Any ideas? I hope people are still active on this thread.
Given your hardware no Gameboy Advance emulator should have lag or audio trouble.
It is likely your setting in VBA that make it behave strange.
Make sure "Options>Emulator>Synchronize" is on as well as "Options>Frameskip>Throttle>No Throttle".
For the visual look, check the "Options>Filter" menu out. As well as "Options>Video>Render method".
With the filters you can apply a few effects the whole of the screen, like scanlines or smoothing out.
When looking at render methods, make sure VBA uses one that your system supports well and full. If you have screen tearing make sure Triple Buffering is on in Render Methods.
Hope that helps!
In addition to what Luna said, if nothing works try with an older version of VBA. I never liked the releases from 2.0.0 onwards and i'm still using the 1.8.0 myself. As for the stat debuff thing... i'll probably look at it when i'm done with the current TLA playthrough.
Thanks for the help. I've tried an older version of VBA, it was 1.8 I believe, but the audio issues got worse and worse no matter how I played with them, but they synched correctly at least. But now it's heavily artifacted and sounds terrible. I've tried troubleshooting as best I can, but no avail. When I tried the latest version of VisualBoy advance again, it just crashes when it tries to load any ROM, I don't know what's up with that. Runs great on mGBA still, but I keep encountering the bug.
I'm doing a few tests with mGBA and it looks like the issue does not happen on TLA (trying both v0.63 and v0.71beta on Win10) Could you please confirm this? If positive the solution might be closer than what we think.
EDIT: Or... try the ips patch i've added. It must be applied on top of the latest reloaded patch for TBS and it should somehow fix the glitch. Now i just need to find out why (lol) and if there aren't other issues.
That little patch worked like a charm! I was able to test it by casting Poison on the enemy party and by also having a Ghost cast Weaken on my own party, both times it would freeze previously but not with this patch applied. I can test TLA later, but I'm a little busy at the moment to be able to sit down long enough to try some things. Thank you so much for the rapid help, I'm so excited to keep playing now!
Glad it works but keep your eyes open for other strange happenings though. What the patch does is literally bypass a jump (instead of doing A -> B -> C, it makes A go straght to C) and ATM i have no idea why it was coded with the double jump on the first place. It could be either a dumb mistake of mine that is ok to fix or something that i shouldn't have touched.
I used to get audio issues with TLA as well but I switched to VBA-ReRecording on Windows 10 which works perfectly.
The mGBA fix is now included in the TBS Reloaded patch (v1.71b). It looks like the fix was completely harmless since there wasn't a need to use a double jump in the first place.
Also now we know that VBA-m can handle double jumps just fine while mGBA can't.
Has anyone managed to beat Deadbeard? My party is ~lvl 27 and I don't want to move on to the next game without completing everything.
Seems like the author of the patch got rid of all the viable cheese strats like luffing him and using granite / flash. If he gets off even one impact, one of his swipe attacks is curtains for my whole squad. Looking for tips.
Otherwise, great patch so far. makes the game much more challenging.
Since the issue is impact, have you already tried with dull?
Quote from: Caledor on 19, November, 2018, 05:21:18 PM
Since the issue is impact, have you already tried with dull?
Yea I have. My strat was to set Issac as Shinobi and attack with helm splitter to reduce defence, while Garret Seals him with Luff and Ivan uses dull / summons / other buffs, and have Mia constaly healing. Obviously Deadbeard has a monster move now so blocking his psenergy is less effective, but the fight fells impossible without constantly using luff. The problem is that no matter who uses it, Luff seems to act after Deadbeard moves, so he can get an impact off. Either way I don't end up lasting too long, and it feels like I would run out of mana on Mia faster than I could put out enough damage with Issac auto attacks.
I'm thinking now that I need to forget about wasting a Garret's move every two turns to set Luff and rely on Break. But I wanted to hear someone elses ideas and whether its even possible to kill him at my party level.
beat him, not too much trouble in the end.
dont waste your time using luff. it makes you have 3 effective party members and Deadbeard can still get off impacts between intervals and has a monster move now.
Break is essential or his sweep attack really hurts with impact.
having two white mages, with issac as a samuri makes this fight a walk in the part. you easily outlast his PP with two heals and increasing your resistance via Ivan, and from there you can spam dull on Deadbeard, making him pose no threat. Although I did have to use a psy crystal on Ivan.
Summoning feels underpowered, and not usefull. 4 djjin earth summon did like 700 damage, and I was pulling 400s with Issacs Gaia unleash.
Giving Garret armour with mecury resist is also a good idea or storm prism really hurts.
I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's approach and their levels when they beat him.
Demon mail is also buffed, which is nice. for some reason in the original it reduced jupiter resist, which made it just worse than other gear, despite it being cursed.
Well... Agatio and Karts make for a seriously disappointing fight (as bpat reported in june 2017) so they're gonna receive quite the boost in the next release.
Hey, I noticed the Wave series disappeared. Anything happen?
It was a long time ago so i don't remember clearly. I guess i just decided it was a purely cosmetic change and reverted it... or at some point i had plans for new psynergies and i needed the space...
are you talking about the battle on jupiter lighthouse? yea that one was easy. I also found briggs pretty easy this time around for some reason. Now I just have to make a strategy for the star magician
Hey, I see that the Ailments formula has an Area Multiplier component. What is this variable or its values?
https://goldensunwiki.net/wiki/Luck, under "Luck-related formulae"
0.6 for distance of one space, 0.3 for two.
Ahh, I understand. Also, minor error: Knights Greaves description is boosting wind power and they give :VenusStar: +15, at least on my version.
fixed for next release, thanks
Berserk Circlet is also incorrect. No attack bonus despite the item description
fixed too. Thanks a lot for those man, keep them coming if you can. You know i don't play with the english version so it's very unlikely that i'd notice myself.
Oh, no problem. I'll probably do a full run through of all the items in the editor after I finish this playthrough.
Major Releases v1.72 are UPThis is the result of the first - almost - full playthrough i've managed to do in these 4 years.
The changelog is already on the download page, but i'll paste here a slightly more detailed version as well
[spoiler]Jenna's Inquisitor line loses Volcano, gains Raging Heat
Jenna's Guru line loses Beam, gains Juggle
Raging Heat line and Fiery Juggle are slightly stronger (BP 185 and 155)
Mud's base power down to 80 (from 100)
Vine's base power down to 70 (from 80)
Fury's base power down to 160 (from 170)
Gasp's base power down to 150 (from 160)
Slightly tweaked a few learning levels (mostly MT healing and high-end spells)
Minor stat fixes to many early to mid game weapons
Price tweaks to most weapons
Vial, potion, mist potion are weaker and cost less
Cookie is weaker (6 -> 4)
Contigo, Shaman Village, Lalivero sell Vial
Fixed overworld enemies around Dekhan Plateau
Enemies in Dekhan Plateu, South Indra, Madra Catacombs give more Exp and Coins
Jupiter Djinn in Yampi: -3 SPD (L10 Sheba outspeeds it now)
Briggs, Pirate +atk
Boss Hydra slightly weaker (less AoE, more venom)
-10% Exp/Coins by enemies from Izumo to Magma Rock
Crystal rod drop rate from chimera mage down to 1/128
Agatio and Karst are much stronger
+30 PP each
Death Scythe is now Mars-based
Heat Kiss deals damage (BP 110)
Stun Muscle x1.5 -> x1.6
Cage deals damage and Stuns (BP 120)
Agatio replaces Eruption with Pyroclasm
Agatio knows a stronger High Impact, loses standard attack
Karst loses her standard attack for Enfeeble
Karst replaces Healing Aura for Cool Aura
Flame dragons are slightly weaker
Flame Breath's BP: 170 -> 120
Karst loses Fiery Blast, Break, gains Death Scythe, Enfeeble
Agatio loses Rolling Flame, gains Giga Impact, Debilitate
Fixed a few descrptions and inconsistencies between TBS and TLA[/spoiler]
From the top we have:
- Minor buffs to two of the most underused classes of Jenna
- Minor nerf to Mud and Vine (especially Mud, he was too good in the midgame). Gasp and Fury followed for power/level ratio
- Various balance fixes to different parts of the game, be it enemies or item stats
- A follow-up of the nerf to PP restoring items
- Cookies nerf: the reason is in the base HP/PP ratio
- Buff to Agatio and karst lighthouse version, nerf to their dragon version, respectively the easiest and hardest normal bosses of TLA
Almost full playthrough cause i'm not touching again the superbosses: they've been tested way more than other enemies and there won't be balance-only changes for them ever again.
@Varden: please note that i've done a quick check of descriptions in TLA and fixed some, in case you still want to do your own check
Patch is for English version only.
I don't play with the English one (the one i release here) cause I'm Italian and i have my personal Italian rom patched with the mod.
EDIT: this was an answer to a post that somehow disappeared
Hey, so I played through both GS Reloaded mods, and I really enjoyed both of them.
though, to be honest, I didn't play TBS much differently than vanilla up until Deadbeard and Fusion Dragon. With those two, I put Ivan and Mia in the Wise classes for Dual Wishing, Break, and Dull, with Garret and Isaac as Black Knights, Garret with Gaia Blade and Isaac with Wicked Mace and other Cursed Gear. Deadbeard was absolute cakewalk, especially when he ran out of PP, though Fusion Dragon gave me hell until I remembered Tonic could dispel Haunt.
TLA was much more enjoyable to play than Vanilla, however, my party ended up weirdly lopsided. Piers and Jenna were the most useful, Piers being able to take hits and decent supportive capabilities with his newfound power thanks to his new classes, and Jenna being flat out the best character in both vanilla and this mod.
Jenna wound up being a blend of Ivan and Mia, taking the best of both worlds in her Miko classline, while Sheba felt like Diet Mia rather than a better caster than Ivan.
Felix feels like Diet Garet more than Diet Isaac, while Piers is taking Garet's valuable bulk and pumping them to greater extremes and adds in more supportive capabilities with decent healing psynergy, good support psynergy, and Liquifier in his Archon (5 :JupiterStar: 4 :MarsStar: ) Classline.
I feel like the Tier 3 Party Heal Psynergies for Heal and Wish cost FAR too much PP for how little they heal relative to the massive HP Pools the characters boast and how much damage endgame enemies deal. I have Ker's Weight, Big Bang Gloves, and a Dark Robe on Jenna for 181 Venus Power in her Guardian (5 :VenusStar: 4 :MercuryStar: ) and she heals about 440-ish HP with Potent Heal for a hefty 48PP cost. at Lv.48 (829HP being the lowest and 1017HP being the highest) against the Flame Dragons, the superbosses, and Doom Dragon, 440-ish HP isn't enough to really justify 48PP. I feel that 38PP would've been a better PP Cost, and Pure Wish sitting at 48PP would've been reasonable over a tremendous 53PP cost.
Sentinel was a bore to fight since all it did was spam Spark Plasma and Break. Balrog was an interesting battle, but having summons like Zagan, Moloch, and Maegaera under your belt can make Balrog extremely deadly to face. Star Magician was easily the highlight of this mod, as I had to switch around my party and take out the Balls as fast as possible (thank god Fury Ivan has Rolling Fire to oneshot Recovery Balls). Dullahan is too much of a pain to beat for too little reward. Once I found out the Mind Ribbon was a Psynergy Item instead of a "circlet" with massive PP Regen and MaxPP Boost, I just used a glitch to get Iris and call it a day.
Now for the party:
:Jenna: - Guardian 5 :VenusStar: 4 :MercuryStar:
Even in this mod, Jenna is still the best character in the game. Like mentioned before, she's a blend of Ivan and Mia, taking the best of both worlds, and then some.
Her final equip set is Ker's Weight, Demon Circlet, Big Bang Gloves, Dark Robes, Quick Boots, Trident, Angel's Ring, and Silk Bustier.
10/10. Not using her is heavily handicapping yourself.
:Piers: - Archon 5 :JupiterStar: 4 :MarsStar:
This mod has done wonders for him. Now he has Classes to actually use his Warrior Stats and equipment, and his stats sacrifice speed for wonderful bulk. I love his Archon class as it has Liquifier for an ever useful Defense Debuff, Dull & Guard to help out with reducing damage, and Boon for emergency single target healing.
His final equip set is Alecto's Mace, Mythril Helm, Riot Gloves, Erinyes Tunic, Ninja Sandals, Running Shirt, and War Ring
:Ivan: - Fury 5 :MarsStar: 4 :MercuryStar:
Ivan has ascended from best Support to 2nd Best Mage, and Fury is practically made just for him. Rolling Fire, Planetary, and Thunder Mine make use of his solid attack score, and he boasts Volcano, Plasma, and Ice for fantastic elemental coverage. Atropos' Rod with Selene's Armlet and Dark Robes gives a whopping +55 ElePower to Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury, making his AoE spells devastating. Fury gives him Impair and Weaken, though I feel that Break would've been more useful than one or both of these debuffs.
His final equip set is Atropos' Rod, Demon Circlet, Selene's Armlet, Dark Robe, Ninja Sandals, Golden Shirt, and Angel's Ring (I used cheats for 2 extra Angel's Rings cuz I really love the Cursed Mage gear~)
:Garet: - Jonin 5 :JupiterStar: 4 :VenusStar:
Ah, Garet. How good and useful you are in this mod. With enemies hitting harder, having extra bulk is super handy. Garet has the bonus of being able to hit really hard in return. I made him a Jonin primarily for Impact and Ward, though the stats may have had a hand in my decision as well.
His final equip set is Sol Blade, Warrior's Helm, Riot Gloves, Valkyrie Mail, Ninja Sandals, Sol Ring, and Running Shirt.
:Isaac: - Shogun 5 :MarsStar: 4 :JupiterStar:
In TBS mod, I slapped my Jupiter Djinn on Isaac for Paralyze. Stunning Battle Djinn was a HUGE help for dealing with the amount of damage they could do, and keep them from fleeing. Because of the nifty Ailments under his belt, I had him focus on those, which led me to making him a Shogun.
His final equip set is Darksword, Fear Helm, Terror Shield, Demon Mail, Ninja Sandals, Casual Shirt, and Angel's Ring
:Mia: - Worldwaker 5 :VenusStar: 4 :JupiterStar:
I didn't know what to really do with her, since Jenna exists and does Mia's job better than Mia and then some. Just kinda stuck her in Worldwaker and never used her again except in extreme emergencies.
:Sheba: - Pure Mage 5 :MercuryStar: 4 :VenusStar:
She was basically Diet Mia, spamming Wish until I got Isaac's gang. after that, she became my back-up Party Healer in the event Jenna couldn't use Heal.
:Felix: - Paladin 5 :MercuryStar: 4 :MarsStar:
He filled the same role Isaac did in TBS, Jupiter Djinn for stunning Battle Djinn. Once that wasn't needed, I genuinely had no clue what to do with him, so he ended up as a Paladin.
I don't think I ever touched the Class Items, as there wasn't much incentive to do so, especially since I needed to make one duplicate of the 3 class items so there wouldn't be someone with a wasted distribution of Djinn. If it were possible for you to craft a whole new Class Item and Class line for it, then that would greatly encourage players to try them out.
All in all, these mods were absolutely fantastic, and the only thing that could make me happier than a Golden Sun 4 would be a balancing mod of similar ideology for Dark Dawn. Though I can understand if you'd rather not touch upon that, since these mods alone took a VERY long time to reach where they are now lol
So I started replaying TLA with this mod under Hard Mode and holy moley is it Hard. But it's hard in a fun way. :happy:
Thus far I have yet to hit a painful roadblock, though King Scorpion nearly halted my tracks until I remembered about Djinn. I've been so used to never needing to Unleash Djinn, so having to remember they're always available for use is gonna be key lol :VenusSet:
As far as random encounters go, the Trolls are concerning when you first reach them, as they can easily oneshot Jenna & Sheba, possibly Felix too, with a Power Charge. :fight:
Unless Inside Air's Rock is supposed to be AFTER Piers, the new enemies there WILL viciously tear through players upon arriving before getting Piers. Those Brutal Wolves truly live up to their name, as two of them tore through Lv.13 Jenna & Sheba with 2 Fierce Fangs to both girls, doing almost 95 damage per Fang. Also the Mimic at the start of Air's Rock simply cannot be beaten upon the earliest arrival at Air's Rock. If Inner Air's Rock is supposed to be AFTER getting Piers, then I'm just gonna have to do without Maha's Djinn :JupiterSet: or the Hypno Sword...:Artifact: :sad:
Even under Hard Mode with this mod, Tamer isn't worth using at this point, despite its wonderful bulk on Felix, and Pierrot was only handy for Deluding the Chestbeaters (with Felix Poisoning them) + spamming Juggle around Madra to earn both cash and levels. :sad:
As things are now, I'm being heavily pushed into using Jenna under Venus :VenusDjinni: for Cure + Cure Well, Felix under Mercury :MercuryDjinni: for similar reasons, and Sheba under her Jupiter :JupiterDjinni: for Boon, since having one healer can easily cost me a party member or three, and Sheba's been burning through her PP absurdly fast trying to patch up the damage we take.
:um: ...Now that I think about it, Gondowan Cliffs are more dangerous than inside Air's Rock... I might be stuck in Osenia for quite a while longer lol :Sweat:
Still gotta take down Briggs before Gondowan, so we'll see how that goes :happy: though honestly I'm not /too/ concerned about Briggs, given how much easier the King Scorpion was once I started using Iron :VenusDjinni: to negate Sand Breath's debuff and for its Sheer Claw to do less than 100+ damage :!:
Will give more updates on Hard Mode under this mod as I slowly advance through it :happy:
Really loving the sheer challenge it's giving me. It's even more of a challenge than my Karis Solo Run of Dark Dawn where I even beat the Ancient Devil, Ogre Trolls or whatever they're called, and the Star Magician with just her :heart:
EDIT:
Finally beat the Air's Rock Mimic. I had to hit Lv.14, put Jenna under Jupiter for Paralyze with Blessed Ankh and Guardian Ring to hit 8 Luck, Sheba under Venus for Sleep, and Felix under Mercury for Cutting Edge. Had Jenna & Sheba cast Paralyze and Sleep respectively to disable the Mimic while Felix did nothing but spam Cutting Edge. Jenna alternated between Impact on Felix and Volcano, and Sheba used Punishment until the Mimic woke up/was no longer stunned.
Visiting Gondowan Cliffs was a good experience. the Monsters there are stronger than Inner Air's Rock's Brutal Wolves (Flash Ant dealt 100+ damage with a Flashing Punch), but not overwhelmingly so. Lv.14 Haruspex Sheba with Blessed Ankh and Guardian Ring has 11 Luck, so I'm gonna be banking on that for the tougher enemies.
Gonna clear out Air's Rock so I have Reveal, Maha's Djinni, and the Hypno Sword, then it's off to take down Briggs. Thanks to Maha's Djinni, I'll be able to stick Felix back in Tamer to toy around with that some more. I still think a new 4th Item Class would help fix any concerns of wasted Djinn distribution. Assuming you can and you do make a 4th Item Class, perhaps you could stick it some place between after the Necronomicon and before Poseidon, so we have ample time to toy around with those classes, and don't have to deal with someone being stuck with a useless djinn distribution.
EDIT2:
I've got several notes since the last time I edited this post, but idk if this thread is still active... :um:
Don't know if you read the messages i left you with karma, anyway...
Glad you liked it and it's nice to see a lot of different classes (especially Fury) and the infamous cursed mage setup.
But i must say that it's strange to see jenna being praised like that and then end up in the Guardian class, which is literally a Venus Pure Mage.
Abut the MT healing, those spells absolutely deserve the high PP cost.
I didn't get the part about the class items, why do you need to duplicate one.
Also nice to see that someone is enjoying Reloaded in hard mode, given that i've never tested it.
If I wanted to use all 3 Item Classes, that essentially locks the other 5 Party Members to a very small handful of classes so nobody ends up with an odd Djinn Distribution (like, say 4 :MercuryStar: 3 :VenusStar: 2 :JupiterStar: ). A Fourth Item Class would allow One Item Class per Adept Element (example, Jenna with Acrobat, Sheba with Necromancer, Felix with Tamer, and Piers with the 4th Item Class), and thus have no wasted Djinni, and the other four Adepts would be free to use whichever classes they desire that's available within 9 Djinn of each element.
Jenna's Guardian Class is surprisingly strong. With Pyroclasm and Grand Gaia, she was slightly out-damaging Fury Ivan, and could easily patch up the party when needed.
After reading back through the posts and seeing the number of people using Double Wish/Heal Setups, yeah I agree about the High PP Costs of Party Heals. I just had PP Management issues since I only used one Wisher on the frontlines at a time lol.
Now for those notes I spoke of:
•Numb Ants can use the Djinni Sour. Is this supposed to happen?
•In Hard Mode, the Eastern Sea Mermen's Hydro Slash deals roughly 158 Damage, and can take down all party members in 2 hits at Lv.20 and higher, until they have close to, if not over, 400HP
•Hard Mode Aqua Hydra can be extremely dangerous if RNG isn't in your favor. There were several turns where it did nothing but use Slaver. Had it used Triple Chomp after at least two Slavers, it would have easily killed any party member unlucky enough to be targeted, even if they were at full health. Raging Waves is too strong, dealing roughly 168 damage per party member and can easily give an instant party wipe if used twice in the same turn.
•Hard Mode Wargolds can insta-kill any party member at Lv.20 and slightly higher with Triplestep if it gets the triple damage multiplier.
•Would it be possible to intensify Elemental Weaknesses and Resistances? Ice Horn does considerably more damage to enemies resistant to Mercury than Plasma does to enemies weak to Jupiter. Thus far, Sirens are the only Mercury Resistant enemy to take less damage from Ice Horn than from Plasma, and they're not weak to Jupiter.
•Buff Delude to block Monster Moves so it's not pointless after Chestbeaters.
•Is there an Endgame Mercury Staff?
•Dark Robe should boost MaxPP and/or have the Attack Boost from the Iris Robe for a Cursed Mage Build. As far as I can tell, Fury and Jenna's Infidel Classline are the only classes that benefit from Dark Robe as is, since those are the only Mage Classes with Attack Psynergy of three different Elements.
•Golden Accessories need to be buffed. You only get one of each, but they're quickly shoved aside due to how little usefulness they have down the road.
-Golden Shirt should boost MaxPP and Luck in addition to its MaxHP boost.
-Golden Ring should either add +10 to all ElementPower or grant +4PP Regen.
-Golden Boots should give +10-15 HP Regen and increase Agility by either 15 or ×1.2
•Herbed Shirt should be buffed to +5Def and +5HP Regen. Kinda useless for when you get it as is, and especially after reaching the Slots.
•Would it be possible to change HP Regen Armor + Accessories to regenerate HP by Percentage Values instead of fixed numbers? (example, Spirit Ring would regenerate 3% of the equipper's HP per turn instead of a measly 3HP per turn.)
•Is the intended order of playing from after Taopo Swamp going to Aqua Rock next? I went to Gaia Rock because clearing that nets me my 5th Mars Djinni, and unlockes my 6th Venus Djinni in Izumo Ruins, and 5th Jupiter Djinni at Apoji Islands.
•The Orochi's/Serpent's Mighty Press instantly killed Piers, despite doing 1 damage. This boss is already incredibly difficult. Instant Death attacks on this boss is just BS.
And some notes regarding the Item Classes:
•For Pierrot, Fire Breath is pointless when Juggle and Flame Card both exist on this Class line. Move Resistance Debuffing on to Flame Card to keep it relevant, and give Thunder Card a chance to inflict Stun.
•Necromancer could have the Weaken or Blunt Psynergy Lines replaced with new Psynergy. Ideally a Mercury and Venus element Psynergy, if possible.
•In Dragontamer, why does Minotaur not replace Troll? The Psynergy Slot wasted by Troll could be used for a stronger party heal, which would make sense, since Dragontamer has two single target heals. What is the difference between Ghost Army and Minotaur, aside from their elements?
•4th Item Class concept: One that's intended to draw enemy attacks and tank hits like a champ. Super high HP & Defense, super low PP & Agility, mediocre or good Attack. Would be perfect for Piers and Garet, especially on Hard Mode. Makes the Djinni Reflux relevant.
I brain stormed a few Psynergy Ideas for the 4th Item Class, should you decide to implement it, and have also thought up some places to put the new Item. I'll post my ideas if you're interested in them. :happy:
Oh yeah I should also note that Feizhi still refers to Hsu as Ulmuch. Can't remember if you wanted her to refer to Hsu in 3rd Person, such as "my friend," as the game prevented "Hs" ever appearing together for whatever reason. I also don't recall Kraden mentioning going back to speak to the Mayor of Dailah after helping Tavi and his friend, but I did kinda speed through that batch of dialogue lol. I'll give this a look later.
EDIT:
Just saw the Karma messages lol. I didn't get any notifications or anything like that about it, so I might have to check my settings for this site :happy:
EDIT 2:
Oh yeah, I forgot to put this with my other notes, but does Piers' Permanent Frost take up a Psynergy Slot? Or does it act like an invisible Frost Gem that's always equipped to Piers? I'm really curious about this, since I noticed he always had it, even in the Tamer class line.
Going to sleep so i'll answer the most important ones first and edit tomorrow
Quote•Numb Ants can use the Djinni Sour. Is this supposed to happen?
Damn it. That happened cause i work on the italian rom, and there Formic Acid and Sour have the same name (Acido). So i selected the wrong one by mistake.
Quote•In Hard Mode, [...]
Can't do anything about HM right now, remember that reloaded it's not supposed to be played on HM. It's literally "do it at your own risk"
Quote•Is there an Endgame Mercury Staff?
Clotho or Nebula
Quote•Is the intended order of playing from after Taopo Swamp going to Aqua Rock next?
Yes
Alrighty. Then I guess my Hard Mode notes can just be considered "Warnings" for those who dare to play Reloaded Hard Mode :medal:
The Numb Ants use both Sour AND Formic Acid, so you got the right one, but added in the wrong one lol
Quote•Dark Robe should boost MaxPP and/or have the Attack Boost from the Iris Robe for a Cursed Mage Build. As far as I can tell, Fury and Jenna's Infidel Classline are the only classes that benefit from Dark Robe as is, since those are the only Mage Classes with Attack Psynergy of three different Elements.
Cursed mage setup is fine as it is. It's meant to be used by a caster so you'd always pick the demonic circlet and the dark robe. the 4 element boost is there so it can be used by everyone, and 30 power boost in two elements is already huge if you compare it to the other robes. If someone wants to give a mage attack they'd go for iris and alastor, saving the angel ring for someone else
Quote•Golden Accessories need to be buffed. [...] Herbed Shirt [...] Spirit ring
i'll probably tweak rings boots and shirts a bit for the next release, but the number will remain low for accessories.
QuoteFire Breath is pointless [...] Move Resistance Debuffing on to Flame Card, give Thunder Card a chance to inflict Stun.
It fills a gap in learning levels. Stun is pointless at high levels, i'd be nerfing the Pierrot class as a whole by doing that.
QuoteNecromancer could have the Weaken or Blunt Psynergy Lines replaced with new (offensive) Psynergy
That would make it worse. IMHO 2 elements + debuff is better than 3-4 elements without debuffs.
QuoteIn Dragontamer, why does Minotaur not replace Troll?
The Psynergy Slot wasted by Troll could be used for a stronger party heal, which would make sense, since Dragontamer has two single target heals.
What is the difference between Ghost Army and Minotaur, aside from their elements?
There's a mistake in the fact that i switched around Ghost Soldier and Minotaur (harmless but whatever). Troll has always been the last in its own line.
Balance would be an issue. Tamer is a physical attacker with jack of all trades vibes. Its healing shouldn't be that good.
You can check this kind of stuff with the editor. Minotaur has a higher multiplier but no effect, ghost soldier has a lower multiplier but can ignore 50% of defense.
Quote4th Item Class concept: One that's intended to draw enemy attacks and tank hits like a champ
I lack unique looking psinergies for a 4th element class but i'd love a "cover" move for defensive classes. But that again would require coding it from scratch.
Quotedoes Piers' Permanent Frost take up a Psynergy Slot? Or does it act like an invisible Frost Gem that's always equipped to Piers?
The latter. It's innate to him, like Move or Retreat.
let me know if you spot mistakes in dialogue as that's the only way for me to fix them. But like you said, i can't do anything about Ulmuch though.
Hmm. That makes sense for the Dark Robe. I do tend to have a bad habit of viewing the individual pieces instead of the whole set lol. :Sweat:
Obviously accessories shouldn't give enough stats to outright substitute armor, but I still think it's a shame at just how little usefulness the Golden Accessories have, considering the amount of hassle you have to go through to get them (basically 100% TBS and transfer one of the longest Passwords ever).
Despite only getting one Herbed Shirt, it's surprisingly weak as it is.
Hmmm... I dunno if giving Resistance Debuff to Flame Card and giving Stun to Thunder Card would nerf Pierrot, but I think Flame Card should have SOME kind of secondary effect so it's not completely useless down the road.
I wouldn't say Stun is completely useless at high levels though. In my completed file, I still used stun to stop enemies that used Instant Death, since I can't reliably take them out in Round 1 before they get a turn. It's gonna be even more helpful in HM where dying is a very real problem.
I wouldn't say removing a debuff line for a new attack psynergy would make Necromancer worse, per se. I personally have never found any reason whatsoever to use the Weaken Psynergy line, since Psynergy now does a crapton of damage, especially at high levels. Not to mention Thunder Mine and Thunder Card both debuff Resistance, both of which are FAR more useful than the Weaken Psynergy Line. I think Necromancer would benefit from a Mercury Attack Psynergy that isn't Call Zombie, and could attempt to inflict Haunt.
For Tamer, I saw it more of a bulky utility class, what with having three healing Psynergies, a PP Recovery psynergy, and a Revive. I was gonna suggest a Stronger MT Heal for this class to restore maybe 300 base HP, until I checked and saw how pathetically weak the Aura Psynergy line is...
I've already thought of using graphics/animations from Djinn and Monster Moves for a 4th Item Class. I had even considered the possibility that such a class wouldn't be possible within the game's mechanics, so no worries if you can't figure out how to make it work, if you decide to make it.
Alrighty! I'll keep an eye out for dialogue mistakes from here on out. I look forward to seeing what else you bring to this mod! :happy:
EDIT:
I just thought of a way to fix Fire Breath's redundancy in Pierrot. Would it be possible to change it to Aqua Breath? Making it Mercury Element would make it stand out and give Pierrot a way to hit Mercury Weakness until Frost Card is learned.
For what it's worth, I don't know if Aqua Breath (or almost any monster ability, but this one specifically) has an icon for the ability, since it's normally a move monsters use so you can never access it in a menu, so a new icon would need to be created. There's also a wide variety of breath moves at different power levels, if I remember correctly, so one would be able to pick any of them and not have to create another move.
Honestly, I think any Non-Mars Elemental Breath would replace Fire Breath just nicely. Pierrot having three separate Attacking Mars Psynergies just seems kinda redundant, and the class is very lacking in Mercury Psynergy for most of the game.
So, I went to the Ankohl Ruins after Aqua Rock so I could snag a few extra Star Dusts and a Virtuous Armlet before tackling Gaia Rock again, and I've hit a pretty alarming snag.
I'm trying to RNG Drop a Virtuous Armlet (gave up on Star Dust for now since Sheba flat out can't hurt the Living Armors with my current Jupiter Djinn), but no matter what I do, the Virtuous Armlet won't drop.
First Strike against Cerberus + Orc Lord (1RN)
Sheba casts Tornado on Cerberus (+4RNs)
Jenna casts Cycle Beam on Cerberus (+4RNs)
Felix casts Punji Trap on Cerberus (+4RNs)
Piers casts Hail Prism on Cerberus (+4RNs)
Total RNs = 17
Turn 2
Cerberus attacks Piers (+1RN)
Sheba casts Tornado on Cerberus (+4RNs)
Jenna casts Cycle Beam on Orc Lord because focusing Cycle Beam on the Cerberus would kill it too soon (+4RNs)
Felix Defends (+0RNs)
Orc Lord uses Brute Strength on Felix (+1RN?)
Piers uses Mercury Djinni on Cerberus (+3RNs)
Cerberus Dies (+1RN for death on 31RNs)
Turn 3
Sheba kills Orc Lord with Punishment or Stun Cloud unleash from Cloud Wand
No Virtuous Armlet, and I've tried this with all three attack Mercury Djinns. I can't figure out what's going wrong.
EDIT:
I got one to drop via RNG, but I had to rig for a different encounter. here's what I did:
Everyone in their Base Class line at Lv.24
First Strike against Skull Warrior + Cerberus!
Sheba used Tornado on Cerberus
Jenna used Cycle Beam on Cerberus
Felix used Punji Trap on Cerberus
Piers used Hail Prism on Cerberus
Turn 2
Cerberus attacks Jenna
Sheba casts Tornado on Cerberus
Skull Warrior attacks Felix
Jenna casts Debilitate on Cerberus (lands on both enemies)
Felix casts Bravery on Piers
Piers unleashes Fog on Cerberus, killing it.
Turn 3
Sheba casts Punishment on Skull Warrior
Skull Warrior uses Bone Charge on Sheba
Jenna casts Fume on Skull Warrior
Felix casts Ragnarok on Skull Warrior, killing it.
Virtuous Armlet drops after battle.
It seems that Fog (and possibly Sour & Chill) has an extra RN Value for its attempt to inflict Delude, and that RNG Drops only work with specific enemy formations.
EDIT 2:
Is there any possible way to get a Spirit Armlet legitimately before Isaac's gang rejoins with Felix's? Jenna would love the extra Venus power for Heal and her Venus Attack Psynergy when I get around to tackling Poseidon.
QuoteThe whole Fire Breath thing
The only reason Fire Breath is Fire, is cause it fits with the theme of the class and since it's only a mid tier spell the element never bothered me.
QuoteI'm trying to RNG Drop a Virtuous Armlet
From a quick glance it seems you're not adding turn RN (1x each enemy)
QuoteSpirit Armlet legitimately before Isaac's gang rejoins with Felix's? Jenna would love the extra Venus power
Spirit Armlet is sold at Loho. For Venus boosts you have the bone armlet in the Western Sea
BTW i'm reworking bonuses from equipment after the recent suggestions i've read here and that Role sent me.
Mostly a rebalance to the power level of Shirts Rings and Shoes and of the boosts to Agility, Crits and Ailments.
Nothing major though, just tweaking the numbers.
I figured the turn actions and Monster Actions were considered the same RN numbers (1RN for their turn total regardless of actions). However, monsters like the Magicore seem to prove otherwise with AoE Psynergy. I went to Tundaria SUPER early in hopes of RNG'ing a Mystery Glove, in addition to snagging Wheeze. Thus far, I've gotten nothing.
Lv.24 everyone in base class lines
First Strike vs Magicore + Minotaurus (1RN)
Sheba casts Tornado on Magicore (+4RNs)
Jenna casts Debilitate (+2RNs)
Felix casts Bravery on Piers (+1RN)
Piers casts Hail Prims on Magicore (+4RNs)
Turn 2 (+2RNs)
Magicore casts Cycle Beam hitting Sheba and Piers (+4RNs?)
Minotaurus attacks Piers (+1RN?)
Sheba casts Tornado (+4RNs)
Jenna casts Impair on Magicore (+1RN)
Felix casts Ragnarok on Magicore (+2RNs)
Piers unleashes Fog on Magicore (+3RNs +1RN for Delude chance?)
Magicore Dies (+1RN for a possible? total of 31RNs on death)
Turns after kill Minotaurus
No Mystery Glove.
I've tried a whole bunch of other things for Turn 2, but it either ends up with no Mystery Gloves or the Magicore not dying. I might go to Treasure Island to rig a Crystal Rod for Sheba and a Sylph Feather or three to forge a Sylph Rapier for Felix and maybe Piers, along with a Faerie's Vest for Jenna.
Ah, Spirit Armlet's locked at Loho? Kind of a shame, considering Virtuous Armlet is available for MUCH longer. I don't think I'm strong enough to give up Dual Wishing just yet, especially with the Serpent coming up fast, so the Virtuous Armlet might not see much use.
I look forward to seeing the tweaks you're implementing! :happy:
EDIT:
So, I tried rigging a Mystery Glove to drop on my completed file to see if it's worth going after, but it's not dropping?
First Strike against Magicore + 2 Minotauruses (+1RN)
Jenna uses Sleep Card (+3RNs), Sleeps both Minotauruses
Piers uses Ester Wood (+8RNs)
Garet uses Tempest (+6RNs)
Mia uses Poison Flow (+6RNs) poisons Magicore and middle Minotaurus (does this add any extra RNs?)
Turn 2 (+3RNs)
Jenna uses Gel/Serac/Hail (+3RNs) on Magicore, killing it (+1RN)
Rest of party defends
Minotaurus A dies of Venom
Minotaurus B is Asleep.
Turn 3
Minotaurus B gets killed
Vial is dropped.
Were the Mystery Gloves removed from the Magicores or am I doing the RN Math wrong?
EDIT 2:
Never mind the last sentence of my previous edit. I got a Mystery Glove to Drop. I did the same thing, but had Mia cast Dire Inferno instead of Poison Flow. I think the Minotaurus dying from Venom somehow overwrote the Mystery Gloves guaranteed drop? It's weird, but that aside I got my answer about the Mystery Gloves. I think I'll get a couple so the girls can hit harder with elements besides Mercury/Venus, while still keeping some extra Mercury/Venus Power so they're at least healing HP equal or close to the base power of their MT Heals.
You can easily check drops with the Golden Sun Editor: you dropped a Vial from a Minotaur, so you're doing something wrong. Stick to healing, psynergy and buffing for manipulating RN, no need to make things more complicated.
BTW i just tested drops and there's a minor issue with certain djinn (those that reduce atk-def-res as a side effect). Those djinns add 1 RN more compared to vanilla. Easily fixed by using another djinn or by compensating for that 1 RN more by using different abilities.
I was using Poison Flow because I wasn't sure if Dire Inferno would kill the Magicore too soon.
Huh. that's a peculiar bug. I suppose that's handy to know in case I hit spots where I'd be one RN Short with a normal Djinni kill. I'll give the Magicore + Minotaurus another spin in my HM file to see if I can get it to drop Mystery Gloves.
EDIT:
Gave up on trying to rig Mystery Gloves, and I can't get a Crystal Rod or Sylph Feather to drop. I think the issue as of now is that my party is simply too slow to use RNG manipulation. I can't outspeed any of the enemies I'm trying to RNG abuse, and that greatly screws with the RNs, since I can't tell if the Monsters' actions add RN values or not.
Do you know if the Guaranteed Drop RN Value was changed or not? because with the bug that has Stat Debuffing Djinn add an RN Value, I'm getting Mystery Gloves on 32RN in my completed file, using the strategy in my last post (with Mia using Dire Inferno instead of Poison Flow).
Huh... that's really bizarre... in the encounter I listed for my completed file, I get the Mystery Gloves if Mia casts Dire Inferno which leads to Garet killing the middle Minotaurus via Tempest. BUT if she casts Fiery Abyss instead, the middle Minotaurus survives Garet's Tempest, and I don't get the Mystery Gloves, even though I should have the same number of RNs at the time of killing the Magicore with Hail (32RNs). I REALLY don't understand TLA's RNG...
Just read this thoroughly: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/25734
There's no way you can't drop stuff if you stick to it. More so if you don't use stat-debuffing djinn for the kill (due to the +1 RN bug)
Reading that is how I learned that enemies are guaranteed to add extra RNs, regardless if they get a chance to act or not, unlike TBS (i think?).
Oddly enough, using Hail, a Stat Debuffing Djinni, is the one who scored the Mystery Gloves for me. But for whatever reason, if Minotaurus A survives the Preemptive Strike, I don't get the Mystery Gloves, despite having the same number of RNs. (+1RN extra in Turn 1 due to Minotaurus A dying and +2 at the start of Turn 2 for 2 Monsters living, vs +0RN extra in Turn 1 and +3RN in Turn 2 for 3 Monsters living.) That part just doesn't make any sense to me at all.
EDIT:
I think I have an idea of what's going on. I'm guessing the RNG, or whatever system determines which monster drops their item, is checking if Minotaurus A, the Middle Monster of the enemy formation, dies on the 31st/32nd RN if it's still on the field by the time the 31/32RN Kill comes around. Death by Poison must not add an RN value, because doing the strategy I've listed previously with Mia using Poison Flow instead of Dire Inferno in Turn 1, I get a guaranteed Vial Drop, which is the Minotaurus Drop Item. I'm not entirely sure about this, but it's the best explanation I can think of why one method of 32RN Drop gets me the Mystery Gloves, but two others either get me nothing or a Vial.
Also I tried doing this method with Fog (meaning 31RNs at Magicore death), and got nothing each time. I think something bugged and bumped the guaranteed drop RN Value to 32, or Fog is one of the bugged Djinn that add an extra RN and Hail isn't. I can test to see which other Mercury Djinn produce the Mystery Gloves and which ones don't, if you'd like.
Yeah, I just made equipment and weapons drops 1:1 and threw away the extras. I treat rare drops as unique items anyways, so pitching the extras just works. Grinding out rare drops adds xp and RNG manip adds hard resets, frustration, and too much djinn rearrangement to make sure everyone is fast enough for just one item, imo.
Yeah, I'm gonna do something like that. Use a cheat to force Mystery Gloves and a Crystal Rod to drop. Being too slow to even have a chance to outspeed the monsters I'm abusing, and given that I've got proof that 31RNs doesn't guarantee the drop in this mod (all stat-debuffing Mercury Djinn net me a Mystery Glove at 32RN in my RNG Manipulation Testing Encounter with a Magicore and two Minotauruses thanks to their bugged extra RN value, but Fog, Serac, and Mist don't cause the Mystery Gloves to drop), I don't think I'll be able to get these pieces of equipment at a reasonable time for them to be worth getting under more normal circumstances.
EDIT:
So, I spawned a couple of Mystery Gloves into Sheba's inventory, and I noticed that they're defensively weaker than the Virtuous Armlet, which you'd get sooner according to Cerberus being 2 levels lower than Magicore, meaning you'd go to Ankolh Ruins before Tundaria Tower. This kinda contradicts the Golden Rule you stated on the first post of this thread, that new equipment is always statistically/generally better than old equipment, but it's only a minor gripe. If you decide to change this, a simple fix would be to swap Cerberus' and Magicore's drop item, so you're more likely to get the Mystery Gloves first.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 28, January, 2019, 08:18:09 PM
EDIT:
So, I spawned a couple of Mystery Gloves into Sheba's inventory, and I noticed that they're defensively weaker than the Virtuous Armlet, which you'd get sooner according to Cerberus being 2 levels lower than Magicore, meaning you'd go to Ankolh Ruins before Tundaria Tower. This kinda contradicts the Golden Rule you stated on the first post of this thread, that new equipment is always statistically/generally better than old equipment, but it's only a minor gripe. If you decide to change this, a simple fix would be to swap Cerberus' and Magicore's drop item, so you're more likely to get the Mystery Gloves first.
The Golden Rule is valid when comparing items of the same type. Gloves have inherently weaker defense than Bracelets acquired in the same point of the game, like long swords and light blades, or heavy armor and robes
Alrighty. Though due to the Mystery Gloves being available later than the Virtuous Armlet and when farming Star Dusts becomes available, the Mystery Gloves are completely pointless. Both guys have the Luna Shield for PP Regen and the Planet Armor if they want extra Elemental Power, while the girls would rather have the Virtuous Armlet for stronger offense under their Jupiter/Mars classlines, or Sheba would rather have the Clear Bracelet for stronger Wishing.
Speaking of Star Dust items, the Comet Mace is REALLY bad, to the point where it's not worth even considering getting. The Astral Circlets and Luna Shields alone take higher priority for use of the three free Star Dusts you get, and by the time you can farm Living Armors for more, you have the Demon's Mace, the Mist Saber, and the Rusty Longsword from Aqua Rock. Even if you did decide to get it instead of Astral Circlets or Luna Shields, Aqua Rock REALLY knocks down its usefulness since Mercury Power is the least desirable thing on your warriors at that point. Plus Sheba likely has the Cloud Wand at this point, which is more useful thanks to the MaxPP Boost.
Anywho, I finally beat Gaia's Rock on HM, but that damn Serpent managed to get off an Instant Kill Mighty Press on Sheba RIGHT before he died... bastard... :fury:
EDIT:
tacking this bit onto this post to avoid double posting-
Which of Jenna's tri-element Classes are supposed to parallel Ivan's/Mia's/Sheba's Tri-Element classes? I know Guardian is Pure Mage, and I'm pretty certain Incantrix equals Fateweaver. But I can't tell if Heretic or Valkyrie was supposed to parallel Fury and the other Worldwaker. Though Heretic and Valkyrie strongly feel like Fury was broken into two separate classes for Jenna, Heretic coming away rather okay, but Valkyrie suffering so horribly it feels like a rushed/unfinished class. two EPAs and ONE Attack Psynergy is all Valkyrie has, making it easily Jenna's worst Class. I really don't have any clue what your goal was with Valkyrie, but as it is, there's absolutely no reason to use it.
As it stands, Jenna's best parallel to Fury is Pierrot, which isn't a good thing.
Don't try to force parallels. Valkyrie is obviously the mage warrior hybrid like Fury, Jonin and General are, but it's more defensive while Fury is all about offense.
Valkyrie is easily the worst caster among mages and has lowish attack (even though it's only 5% less than Fury) but can: Revive, ST Heal, Debuff (with EPAs), Buff, Break and heal ailments. It's unparalleled at support.
Incantatrix is... and oddball. If this wasn't golden sun it'd be an anti-mage mage that can do a bit of everything. Sort of like a master of magic (that's the concept behind it). The rest can easily be seen: highest PP multiplier paired with Fume, AOE healing, self sustain with the drains, ward, weaken and bind for support. The best parallel would be calling it a Mars Arcanist.
Heretic is Fury in pure caster form: all on offense. Second best offensive caster (190% + Punishment) right behind Necromancer (190% + Call Dullahan).
Guardian: Venus Pure mage. Nuff said.
Hmm... I see.
Does replacing Cure Poison and Restore into Remedy free up a Psynergy slot? Because if so, I think Valkyrie would benefit greatly from a Quick Strike-type Psynergy or something like Fury's Rolling Fire, to fill in the free slot.
Incantrix really is an oddball. It does indeed look useful, but I can't really think of a scenario of when I'd use it outside of boss battles. Sadly, Bind probably won't be any good against bosses lol
I might use Jenna as a Cursed Heretic this time around, though that means Sheba/Ivan and Mia will likely shoved into Wishing Classes to make up for Jenna's lack of an AoE heal.
Guardian is just fantastic. A very fantastic class.
While on the topic of Jenna's classes, would it be possible to replace Miko's Thorn with Punji? The Thorn Psynergy line is pretty weak, though it's clear that Jenna's Miko Classline is inspired by Himi's Venus Classline, so I can understand if you'd rather not change it.
Also I came up with more ideas for a 4th Item Class, if you're still interested in making one.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 29, January, 2019, 07:27:41 PM
Does replacing Cure Poison and Restore into Remedy free up a Psynergy slot? Because if so, I think Valkyrie would benefit greatly from a Quick Strike-type Psynergy or something like Fury's Rolling Fire, to fill in the free slot.
Yes but i don't think i will for balance reasons. Jack of all trades shouldn't have access to the highest tiers.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 29, January, 2019, 07:27:41 PM
While on the topic of Jenna's classes, would it be possible to replace Miko's Thorn with Punji? The Thorn Psynergy line is pretty weak, though it's clear that Jenna's Miko Classline is inspired by Himi's Venus Classline, so I can understand if you'd rather not change it.
Same as above, but i also have an excel sheet where i tried to balance offense and heal for each MT healer
As for the 4th item class i have no plans to make one for the time being
If you consider Remedy a highest tiered Psynergy, I'm a little confused by that, considering I had very little reason, if any, to use Remedy towards the end of the game. If a Quick-Strike type Psynergy or something like Rolling Fire are considered highest tiered Psynergy, then perhaps Valkyrie could have a third debuffing EPA? If I remember right, Odyssey lowers Defense while Plume Edge lowers attack. If not a debuffing EPA, then perhaps Planetary could be her third EPA? Without something for raw physical damage like Fury got with Rolling Fire and Planetary, Valkyrie just lacks purpose for any team, since most other Mage Classes fill that supportive role FAR better with larger PP Pools, along with better ways to deal damage when Support isn't needed.
I don't really see how keeping Thorn over Punji is for balance purposes when Sheba under Mercury is doing huge damage with Shine Plasma and Ice Horn, both almost as strong as Unleashes around the middle to end of the Eastern Sea.
That's a shame about the 4th Item Class, but understandable, considering you'd have to code it from scratch.
EDIT:
I figured I should give my point of view on Support Classes to better explain my disappointment with Valkyrie.
In my opinion, a good/"ultimate" support class has valuable support skills that ONLY THEY can use.
The Bard and Chemist Jobs from Final Fantasy 5 are probably my favorite examples of great support classes that aren't dedicated healers.
Bards can put HP Regen on the entire party within a single turn at zero MP Cost, while other Jobs would need multiple turns to do the same while using a fair amount of MP or rather rare items. Bard can also drastically increase the party's stats given enough time, but nothing of value is lost should the battle end sooner than expected. Chemist can do the same through its Mix Command, but a prematurely ended battle leads to a waste of some very precious Mixing items.
Meanwhile Chemist has a whole array of supportive capabilities through their Mix command, many of which can ONLY be done through Mixing. A Chemist can grant a Buff to any party member that amplifies ALL Elemental Damage they put out. They can place Berserk, Haste, and Image (a special buff that flat out negates 2 physical attacks to the character) on a party member with a single turn.
They may seem overpowered, however neither Job will be able to take on the entire game themself.
I believe that if you want Valkyrie to be an "Ultimate" Support type class, then she needs something(s) that ONLY she can do, and for that thing(s) to be considerably useful.
Heck, my new ideas for the 4th Item Class were intended for making an Ultimate Support-type Class, as it would have very few direct attacks, but a multitude of Supportive Buffs that only it could do (outside of Djinn and Summoning).
I meant highest tier in its own category, you can see i haven't given the upgrade to Remedy to all those who have access to CP+Restore.
There is merit on what you say about the valkyrie though, so i'm considering 1-2 buffs to it, but it won't be easy considering how picky i am.
BTW i know i'm partial to jenna so i'd like to hear opinion on piers' classes as well
Valkyrie really needs a buff or two, considering nearly every class in the game, along with their grandmothers, can buff and/or heal like she can, if not better.
As for Piers' classes
General:
I really like this class, but seeing the Ray psynergy line kinda threw me off. I would've liked to see Cool return here over Ice, since it got replaced by Wave then by Prism in his Base Class line (what happened to Wave, anyway?). I find it strange for this class to have Gaia, seeing as how Gaia has become FAR more common than it used to be, and while it's sporting Ray, one of the weakest/weaker Jupiter Psynergy lines.
Holy Knight:
Nothing much to really say here. It's essentially Jupiter Dragoon. Solid, but Piers has better options.
Archon:
This class succeeds where Current-Valkyrie fails. Quick Strike gives this class a very strong move for damage, Liquifier for a Defense Debuff and Mars Damage, solid ST healing, and a Buff & Debuff that work very well together to reduce incoming damage.
Destroyer:
This is a gorgeous offense-oriented class. Diamond Berg and Thunder Mine for EPA Debuffs, and Meltdown to deal incredible damage. Boasting Impact+Impair to help boost the damage output, and self sustain through Drain+Psy Drain, this class is very well built. I feel that the Nova or Fire Psynergy lines replacing the Blast Psynergy would perfectly round out this class' kit, since Blast is far too weak to take up a Psynergy Slot on such a high tier class.
Honestly, I think the only possible way Piers could get any better is if there was a Draw Attacks mechanic he could use, so his wonderful bulk would get even better mileage against physical enemies.
QuoteGeneral:
I find it strange for this class to have Gaia, seeing as how Gaia has become FAR more common than it used to be, and while it's sporting Ray, one of the weakest/weaker Jupiter Psynergy lines.
I grant psynergy lines based on power and how much i think a class is inclined toward casting. General is a warrior mage hybrid (again, along Fury, Ninja and Valkirie), so it's supposed to be the best caster among warriors. I also wanted each of those classes to focus on a different element. Ninja is wind, Fury is fire, Valkyrie is water and General is earth. "must be good at casting" and Venus -> Gaia
QuoteDestroyer:
I feel that the Nova or Fire Psynergy lines replacing the Blast Psynergy would perfectly round out this class' kit, since Blast is far too weak to take up a Psynergy Slot on such a high tier class.
Same reasoning as above, but on the opposite side of the spectrum. Destroyer is a tri-elemental chaos lord, a purely physical class, so it's horrible at casting.
Quote
Honestly, I think the only possible way Piers could get any better is if there was a Draw Attacks mechanic he could use, so his wonderful bulk would get even better mileage against physical enemies.
I'd love that too.
That makes sense for them. Still curious as to what happened to Wave, though.
Does Jenna have access to the Fire Psynergy in any Class line besides her Disciple(Jupiter) Class? I'm pretty sure she flat out doesn't have access to Nova yet she has Blast in her Mercury Class, which I find rather strange. I really like the graphics for Nova and Fire, so it's kinda sad that they're pretty rare, particularly for Jenna.
EDIT:
So I looked at the document you linked under the Classes tab on the first post of this thread to see if Fire or Starburst are on any Mage Classes (sadly, only Fire exists on Jenna's Jupiter class. no other Mage Class gets Fire and none have Starburst), and I noticed something peculiar with Jenna's Guru and Inquisitor classes.
The Document states that Guru should have Juggle but it has Beam instead, and Inquisitor should have Raging Heat but it has Volcano instead.
Did you scrap the idea to have those Psynergies on those respective classes?
update to v1.72
about wave: i wanted it cause it was cool and fit piers' water theme, but then i found out that i didn't really need a mercury psynergy stronger than prism, and decided that it wasn't worth it
Updating is a scary thought since I'm playing on mobile and I'm worried about losing all my progress lol
Ah, okay. That makes sense.
On a different note, I'm SUPER THANKFUL for Sanctum Warping because I had forgotten to snag the Center Prong from Tundaria Tower while I was there, and I remembered it after I had chased Briggs to Champa...
Avimander was easier than the Serpent since it didn't regenerate HP or heal itself for 500+HP.... though it did kill Sheba just before it died.... now Sheba has stolen Piers' title of slowest level rate... ha ha ha.....
I'm terrified to fight Poseidon, honestly.
By the way, what's the damage formula for the Trident? is it like Base Damage Psynergy? Because if so and it has a fairly high BasePower, Heretic Jenna and Necromancers would have a considerably powerful Mercury "Psynergy" to use.
EDIT:
Whoops, nevermind about a "strong Mercury Psynergy." Just found out that the Trident isn't Mercury Based lol :Sweat:
EDIT 2:
I do believe I've hit the end of Reloaded HM. Poseidon is horrendously overpowered, effortlessly tearing through the party's HP Pool with attacks doing 150-280+ damage along with THREE actions per turn, and an absurd amount of HP to where it is most likely impossible to outlast his huge damage output to somehow pull out a victory. Not even buffs can save me from Poseidon's ridiculous damage output. If we could hit him with Status Ailments, then MAYBE this fight would be possible. But as it stands, Poseidon is where HM Reloaded ends unless you do an absurd amount of level grinding, and I mean ABSURD. I'm not even sure if my Lv.48 Party in my completed file would be able to beat Poseidon with Late Eastern Sea gear.
I'm surprised to see Piers performing so well for you. He was easily my worst party member throughout almost all of the eastern sea because he lacked good offense Psynergy (Hail Prism comes too late) and had worse attack than Felix. Late game I didn't feel like I needed a hybrid and no matter what I did he felt worse than the other warriors in physical classes and way worse than the mages in the more hybrid classes. At least he made a solid Dragontamer but that class line is horrible until very late game. What classes have you been running him in the mid game, especially around the eastern sea?
I've been running Globetrotter (Jupiter) on him since it helps out his speed, gives him Boon, Diamond Dust, Astral Blast, and Impact. Piers' biggest asset his is incredible bulk, which is very helpful at some of the tougher spots in the game. Now that I have 6 of each Elemental Djinn, I'm having him run Renegade for extra attacking power.
The Tamer Class is fine throughout the game imo. Its main flaw is the odd Djinn Distribution it requires, especially since there's only 3 Item Classes.
If you have tips for Piers' classes now is a good time cause I'm getting ready to release the next version
As far as Piers' classes go, there really isn't much I would change, aside from maybe giving General the Cool Psynergy instead of Ice.
As for people playing Reloaded, I highly suggest running Piers under Jupiter to help him catch up with the party, so he's not acting at the end of the turn (unless it's a Djinni Battle, in which case, put Felix under Jupiter for Paralyze and Piers under Mars for better damage).
Once you get all of the Eastern Sea Djinn (excluding the one in Lemuria), have Felix run Shinobi (3 :MarsStar: 3 :JupiterStar: ) and Piers run Renegade (3 :MarsStar: 3 :JupiterStar: ) so Jenna and Sheba can run Dual Wish/Heal so Poseidon isn't overwhelmingly difficult.
After Poseidon, what you want Piers as is pretty much up to you. After all, once you beat Poseidon, you've pretty much beaten TLA up until the Twin Flame Dragons.
I'm not sure exactly how to fix these issues but Piers has noticeably worse physical damage, offense Psynergy, and speed than Felix for a long stretch for most of the Eastern Sea making him pretty bad for this stretch of the game in my experience. After that he becomes a bit better since he's the closest thing to a hybrid but I don't think hybrid is a particularly valuable niche to have.
By the way, would it be possible to change the forging to let us choose what item we get forged instead of RNG deciding what Sunshine forges, to remove the save scumming to get what we want? or is that simply not possible within the game's systems? If it is possible, you could scale the prices up a bit to compensate for the change. heck, I have more cash than i know what to do with in HM, so forking over a couple hundred coins more for a Luna Shield isn't a problem, in my opinion. After Aqua Rock, the money in your wallet just seems to multiply at an astounding rate and you have like nothing to spend it on.
Picked Shining Force 2 back up and remembered just how god awful RNG Forging is...
It may be easier just to change the odds of getting each item to all be the same or similar so you won't have to hope for the 1/20 chance to forge Excalibur and such.
Perhaps a fourth item class could help by making it easier to run item classes without someone getting stuck with a lower tier. I have no idea what a new item class should be though.
the forging odds have definitely been made much more favorable than they were in the base game, but it's still a pain to get the certain item you want (like two Astral Circlets instead of another crummy Stardust Ring or worse, a Comet Mace).
I had an idea for a Support/Tank hybrid for a 4th Item Class, however, Caledor has stated he has no plans to make a 4th Item Class, which is understandable since he'd have to code it from scratch.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 03, February, 2019, 08:08:44 PM
By the way, would it be possible to change the forging to let us choose what item we get forged instead of RNG deciding what Sunshine forges, to remove the save scumming to get what we want? or is that simply not possible within the game's systems? If it is possible, you could scale the prices up a bit to compensate for the change. heck, I have more cash than i know what to do with in HM, so forking over a couple hundred coins more for a Luna Shield isn't a problem, in my opinion. After Aqua Rock, the money in your wallet just seems to multiply at an astounding rate and you have like nothing to spend it on.
Not possible. I speed things up by checking the result from the memory viewer (address 020004FC). The resulting item is stored there as soon as you give sunshine the forging material, after that it's just a loop of F1 (load state) + A (confirm) until i know i'll get what i want. No moving, exit reenter whatever.
We discussed money issues a few pages ago. I tried for a bit and then decided that it's just not worth "fixing" it, as the amount work i need to put into it far outweights the benefits
Ah, that's a shame. At least it's not *as* annoying to deal with as it was in the base game.
I noticed the discussion about the overabundance of money in the game. I think the core problem is that there really isn't anything worth buying after you get what you want from Sunshine (which isn't a whole lot of stuff, mind you). Maybe if Mountain Waters could be bought from an unlimited supply, that would help mitigate the excessive money in the Eastern Sea. I had a constant issue of running out of Psynergy as I neared the end of dungeons and had to flee battles as a result. Heck, I spent a considerable amount of time exploiting areas with no encounters to regenerate PP to make it to the end of dungeons (or to fight the Serpent).
Rough copy paste of the partial changelog for the next release
Savage bear (crossbone) replaces 1 special for standard attack
Sour bug fixed (Numb Ant)
Sentinel is a lot faster
New psynergies: Blessing and Waterspout
Lowered success rate for debuffing EPAs and 2-stage debuffs
Base power increased for psynergies learned between levels 20-35
Estre wood PP cost: +2
Bravery and Courage's icons tweaked
Tweaked the numbers of most items that buff Agility, Crits or Ailments
Changed animation and name of Caladbolg's unleash.
Full rebalance of accessories (shirts focus on def and less on boosts, rings do the opposite, boots are in the middle)
Early to mid game unleashes boosted
Minor changes to the psynergy sets of a few classes
Switched positions of Minotaur and Ghost soldier (the psynergies)
Currently working on balancing EPAs
Blessing is literally Weapon Grace, Waterspout is a mercury Quick Strike, both are for the Valkyrie line
If anyone has questions or tips, now is the time. Release is currently scheduled for the 9th
Out of curiosity, why buff Sentinel? It was plenty strong enough, just incredibly boring to fight since it spammed Shine Plasma and Break almost non-stop.
Blessing and Waterspout are GREATLY appreciated buffs for Valkyrie. I assume she's losing Cure Poison and Restore for those?
Would it be possible to make an upgrade to Necromancer's Fear Puppet Psynergy? It could replace Fear Puppet at the highest Class Rank of the Necromancer line, like the EPA Psynergies. It could use the same icon, graphics and secondary effect as Fear Puppet, and have roughly the same base power as Poison Flow.
I can't think of anything else to ask or suggest at the moment, but I look forward to the next update!
QuoteOut of curiosity, why buff Sentinel? It was plenty strong enough, just incredibly boring to fight since it spammed Shine Plasma and Break almost non-stop.
Exactly because its boring. Raising speed alone increases unpredictability while leaving its strength untouched.
QuoteBlessing and Waterspout are GREATLY appreciated buffs for Valkyrie. I assume she's losing Cure Poison and Restore for those?
Bravery and Courage
Quote
Would it be possible to make an upgrade to Necromancer's Fear Puppet Psynergy? It could replace Fear Puppet at the highest Class Rank of the Necromancer line, like the EPA Psynergies. It could use the same icon, graphics and secondary effect as Fear Puppet, and have roughly the same base power as Poison Flow.
I don't like the redundancy and also I don't think Necromancer needs another Venus spell when it already has Demon. Actually, i don't think the best offensive caster hands down needs further boosts to its offenses.
Hmm.. Okay, though it might need some tweaking on how often it uses certain commands. If it's still spamming Shine Plasma and Break despite being faster, then it's still a boring fight.
Ah, I see. I feel that Item Classes can afford to be a bit on the "probably too strong" side, considering that using them either forces you to basically forfeit a party member, or locks the other 5 party members to a small handful of Classes.
While on the subject of Necromancer, do you think the Weaken Psynergy Line could be replaced with an AoE Psynergy Bind spell, and a Super Weaken spell?
And will Status Ailments get buffed to stay useful throughout the course of the game? or will they stay marginally useful for certain segments of the game and quickly becoming irrelevant once said segments are done?
QuoteAh, I see. I feel that Item Classes can afford to be a bit on the "probably too strong" side, considering that using them either forces you to basically forfeit a party member, or locks the other 5 party members to a small handful of Classes.
This is something i want to look into. And i say look into cause i have no clue on what to actually do with it
QuoteWhile on the subject of Necromancer, do you think the Weaken Psynergy Line could be replaced with an AoE Psynergy Bind spell, and a Super Weaken spell?
ATM i don't think tweaks are needed nor planned for the necromancer. Since my goal is balance and i consider the necromancer already quite strong changes for it are very low on priority. The same reasoning made me address valkyrie immediately.
Quote
And will Status Ailments get buffed to stay useful throughout the course of the game? or will they stay marginally useful for certain segments of the game and quickly becoming irrelevant once said segments are done?
If for status ailment you mean poison and such, i'm afraid there's not much that can be done. A ton of RPGs have bosses immune to most status conditions cause otherwise they would trivialize those fights. I think Golden Sun is no exception to that.
EDIT: About item classes: I can see some decent setups though. This for example looks promising (found in the class txt)
Isaac: Dragontamer
Garet: Paladin
Ivan: Pure Mage
Mia: Arcanist
Felix: Chaos Lord
Jenna: Incantatrix
Sheba: Necromancer
Piers: Destroyer
I think some bosses, namely Poseidon, absolutely do not deserve absolute status immunity. being able to hit him with Status Ailments (aside from Poison/Venom) would make the battle FAR more manageable. I stated earlier that Poseidon is where Reloaded HM ends because of how blatantly overpowered Poseidon is, and being able to hit him with Ailments might make him beatable.
A simple fix to prevent Ailments from being broken is to make bosses (excluding Chestbeaters) immune to Poison/Venom, since that would be the game breaking Status Ailment. Stun, Sleep, Psynergy Seal, and Delude would simply serve to make difficult bosses far more manageable and encourages fighting smart over fighting hard.
Another issue with item classes is Acrobat is kinda bad. It's just an offense caster but that's not good enough when it has a horrible elemental power distribution from Djinn. To be worthwhile, Acrobat needs to have incredibly strong offense Psynergy in multiple elements (Frost card is good but not enough) since otherwise Necromancer is always going to be the better class. Also item classes' stat mods are bad, they should be probably better than the three-element classes since these classes spread your elemental powers even thinner but they have lower stat totals. It's not as bad for Necromancer since its statline is so minmaxed with a ton of PP and Agility but Acrobat and Dragontamer's stat mods hold them back.
Acrobat's kind of a Mage-Warrior hybrid, as it has Backstab and Sword Dance for EPAs (unless those were changed to/always were Base Damage Psynergy), and Base Damage Psynergy of every element. The only flaw I can really say about its kit is its lack of elemental variety until Thunder Card is learned.
Dragontamer's gotten a nice modifier buff (at least from what I can tell), as its PP Pool is no longer godawful, and it has an actual speed score now. with two incredibly powerful EPAs, a PP Recovery Ability, and solid healing & buffing capabilities, it's a Hard Hitting Utility Class (at least that's what I would classify it as).
Also, a couple quick questions about endgame weapons:
•Is there an endgame Mercury Light Blade? I'm planning on starting a new game and using the newly buffed Valkyrie in this run, and she'd love a Mercury Light Blade for Endgame.
•Why is Ker's Weight the Cursed Staff instead of, say, Atroposis' Rod? As far as I've seen of the classes, Heretic Jenna is really the only Mage who would benefit from using it in a Full Cursed Mage build. Heck, in my first Reloaded Run, I used it to buff her Venus Power to squeeze out as much Recovery from Potent Heal as possible to help make up for its hefty PP Cost on one Frontline MT Healer.
I see an incredible amount of suggestions for tweaks, but I'll add a question: did Demon Night and Thorny Grave disappear completely and have their spots used for newer psynergy or are they just sitting around waiting to be used?
I have another question to add, too:
I noticed that the Tamer's Whiplash is no longer available right away as it was in the base game, and it has a noticeably higher PP Cost than it used to have. What level is it learned at now, and how much was it buffed?
Acrobat doesn't work as a hybrid because 150% attack mod sucks. Fury has 160% and even that's not enough for it to be a good class on Ivan.
Quote from: bpat on 07, February, 2019, 11:57:11 PMFury has 160% and even that's not enough for it to be a good class on Ivan.
Lolwut. I'm about 95% certain that Caledor made Fury specifically *for* Ivan, and a 160% Attack modifier was plenty good enough for Ivan to make fighting Star Magician FAR easier by oneshotting Recovery Orbs with Rolling Fire. Attack modifier and EPAs aside, it's easily the 3rd Best Offensive Mage, boating Volcano, Plasma, and Ice for incredible Elemental Coverage and damage. Literally the only thing I would change on it would be to replace the Weaken Psynergy with Bind & Break, or something. Drain+Psy Drain would be neat, but then this Class would be even more absurdly overpowered.
Fury aside, Acrobat is clearly intended for Jenna and Ivan, since Sheba and Mia don't have the Attack Scores or weapons to support the EPAs, and the Warriors would rather have Dragontamer or a purely Warrior-type class. Sure, it could stand to have a higher Attack Modifier given the Djinn Distribution restrictions, but it's understandable if Cal doesn't buff it, since its intended users already have fairly high attack scores and have weapons that can support a hybrid type class.
Done with exams, it's time for answers
QuoteI stated earlier that Poseidon is where Reloaded HM ends...
Sounds more like an issue with HM to me. Overall i think i lack the tools to make ailments vs bosses sustainable without breaking the game.
QuoteIs there an endgame Mercury Light Blade? I'm planning on starting a new game and using the newly buffed Valkyrie in this run
The one thing valkyrie won't need is a mercury unleashing weapon. It can't get any better than Phateon blade
QuoteWhy is Ker's Weight the Cursed Staff instead of, say, Atroposis' Rod?
2+2. Wanted to buff the cursed mage, lacked venus among the strongest staves, so i made a cursed venus staff. I didn't really think about it that much. BTW i always test healers without cursed weapons.
Quotedid Demon Night and Thorny Grave disappear completely
It looks like the icons are gone so they can't be used by the player. But i have 2 free slots since i started overriding the Cool line
QuoteLolwut. I'm about 95% certain that Caledor made Fury specifically *for* Ivan
Oh, I'm SO glad you said that. :D
Here's the true story behind the Fury line: it dates back to Balance Age, when the tri elementals for mages were still a disaster as both Ranger and Dark shaman existed. When i noticed that i had 3 hybrids (general, valkyrie, ninja) i thought "eh, let's make the fourth", soon followed by "oh my god, a mace wielding Mia casting planetary has to be rad as f*ck!!". A few hours later Fury was fully built, while Alecto's mace followed 2 releases later.
Also I'm having an issue right now, cause while reworking EPAs i just noticed that Planetary is basically a discount Rolling Fire. A sane person would probably switch it with Liquifier and call it a day but I obviously can't do it with that backstory, lol.
PFFT! That's the best backstory for any class ever lmao
Why not change Planetary to debuff Attack? of the EPAs, I'm pretty sure Plume Edge is the only one that debuffs Attack.
Hmm... That's a shame about the ailments. The way I see it, getting Stun or Sleep on a particularly difficult boss would be a way to catch a breather for reapplying buffs and healing. Poison/Venom is really the only Status Ailment that's gamebreaking, in my opinion, since it says "screw you" to basically everything and all forms of strategy, since few things can beat a highly defensive team using Poison as their means of attack. Heck, Poison carried me through the early stages of Octopath Traveler when I solo'd it with Primrose, so I can say firsthand that Poison against bosses is simply broken.
That's a strange thing to say about the Light Blades, considering you went out of your way to make an endgame Mercury Longsword.
Makes sense you'd test Healers without cursed weapons, considering they'd prefer PP Regen Equipment. The Dark Robe's and Ker's Weight's hefty bonuses to Venus Power were just far too appealing to pass up for Guardian Jenna, since she was my only healer on the frontlines lol. Though I should probably mention that while Heretic Jenna is probably the only offense-oriented Mage who would even want the Ker's Weight, she'd much rather have Lachesis' Rule for maximum Punishment/Scourge Damage.
QuoteWhy not change Planetary to debuff Attack? of the EPAs, I'm pretty sure Plume Edge is the only one that debuffs Attack.
another perfectly sound argument blocked by silly reasons: It doesn't go well with the animation. So i'll probably make Liquifier the attack debuffing one and make planetary debuff defense.
QuoteHmm... That's a shame about the ailments. The way I see it, getting Stun or Sleep on a particularly difficult boss would be a way to catch a breather for reapplying buffs and healing.
They'd be broken, it's not a breather if you can spam it. People can't recover from statuses on the turn they are applied so a measly 33% chance of inflicting stun/sleep would make any boss a walk in the park. It should be less then 10% to be almost fair, but at that point it'd just be boring for the player.
QuoteThat's a strange thing to say about the Light Blades, considering you went out of your way to make an endgame Mercury Longsword.
I wouldn't really call it "went out of my way". I already had the icon (copy pasted from TBS, dummied out), it looked like mercury, noticed that i REALLY lacked endgame mercury weapons, and Caladbolg was born.
QuoteMakes sense you'd test Healers without cursed weapons, considering they'd prefer PP Regen Equipment.
More like because i wouldn't want my healer to suffer from the luck decrease inflicted by the ring.
Here's another idea for Planetary: Give it a chance to inflict Stun. It makes sense for the animation, too.
Hrm... That is true... Status Ailments are a pain to try to balance, which is a shame because they're fun to use and allow for smarter fighting.
Ah, I see. Still kind of a shame that Masamune is the only endgame Mercury Light Blade (at least that I know of), considering how hard it got nerfed. Also is there no Endgame Mars Light Blade? Jenna's and Ivan's selection of endgame weapons seems kinda shallow and really pushes them to using Staffs, with the Tisiphone's Edge being the only other noteworthy endgame Light Blade. Meanwhile the Warrior characters have Sol Blade, Firebrand, Herculean Axe, Excalibur, Alecto's Mace, Rising Mace, Caladbolg, Tisiphone's Edge, and the Phaeton's Blade.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 08, February, 2019, 09:56:27 AM
Here's another idea for Planetary: Give it a chance to inflict Stun. It makes sense for the animation, too.
Ah, I see. Still kind of a shame that Masamune is the only endgame Mercury Light Blade (at least that I know of), considering how hard it got nerfed. Also is there no Endgame Mars Light Blade? Jenna's and Ivan's selection of endgame weapons seems kinda shallow and really pushes them to using Staffs, with the Tisiphone's Edge being the only other noteworthy endgame Light Blade. Meanwhile the Warrior characters have Sol Blade, Firebrand, Herculean Axe, Excalibur, Alecto's Mace, Rising Mace, Caladbolg, Tisiphone's Edge, and the Phaeton's Blade.
Stun was the first thing option i considered when i added ailments, but it was bound to be underwhelming when compared to other effects and doesn't solve the "discount rolling flame" issue.
mithril blade is stronger than masamune.
As for acrobat, it's true that it is underwhelming when compared to dragontamer and necromancer and the issue fall on the stat total cause hybrids can't be minmaxed, so it makes a lot of sense to raise the totals for item classes, thanks for the tip
I can't really think of any way to make Planetary not be "discount Rolling Flame", aside from making it Mars Minotaurus (though that would kinda ruin one of Dragontamer's draw points).
Ah, I had forgotten about the Mithril Blade lol
Though there's still an issue of lacking an endgame Mars Light Blade, albeit a minor issue, since Fury Ivan would likely rather have Atropis' Rod for the Mars Boost in combination with Selene's Armlet and the Dark Robe for +55 Elemental Power to Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter.
That reminds me, is there an Cursed Arm Equipment for Cursed Mages? Not really sure what else you could slap on there, though, since the Dark Robe and Demon Circlet alone already have very hefty buffs to any Mage's offense.
EDIT:
Since Planetary is on the Chaos Lord class, is there really a need to change it solely for Fury's sake? If anything, Planetary could get buffed to take Rolling Fire's current strength and effect, then change Rolling Fire to essentially be Mars Minotaurus. This way Planetary isn't redundant on Fury, and Chaos Lord doesn't suffer Planetary getting nerfed, and Dragontamer doesn't decrease in value since Rolling Fire only exists on Fury.
EDIT 2:
I should also mentioned that you've forced me to stick Fury Mia in my second Normal Reloaded Run specifically because of the backstory for Fury lol. I just HAVE to use her in Fury now, knowing why Fury exists as it does in the first place lmao
QuoteThat reminds me, is there an Cursed Arm Equipment for Cursed Mages? Not really sure what else you could slap on there, though, since the Dark Robe and Demon Circlet alone already have very hefty buffs to any Mage's offense.
That
Quotechange Rolling Fire to essentially be Mars Minotaurus
That is an option i'm considering. I'm studying all the side effects of the change to Liquifier and Planetary both, weighting the nerfs (there's also plume edge / liquifier redundancy in some classes and i might be ok with them) against the "easy way out" that is mars minotaur
QuoteI should also mentioned that you've forced me to stick Fury Mia in my second Normal Reloaded Run specifically because of the backstory for Fury lol. I just HAVE to use her in Fury now, knowing why Fury exists as it does in the first place lmao
Lol i still remember testing her (as in, to see the animations) as a Fury and as the wielder of Alecto
If you do change Planetary into a debuffing EPA and change Liquifier to debuff attack, why not simply switch out Liquifier with Planetary (or Plume Edge with Diamond Berg) on the Class(es) that have both Liquifier and Plume Edge? A simple fix to avoid redundancy.
Oh yeah, I should also mention that the Divine Camisole just plain sucks. The defense +5 is fine for a shirt, but only giving a measly +2 Luck? During the endgame? Silk Bustiers easily win over this one, since Status Ailments past Instant Death and Delude are pretty rare at that point, and the girls simply love the extra PP, no matter how small the boost is. I hope it's made worthwhile with the changes you're giving Shirts, Boots, and Rings.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 08, February, 2019, 09:02:38 AM
Poison/Venom is really the only Status Ailment that's gamebreaking, in my opinion, since it says "screw you" to basically everything and all forms of strategy, since few things can beat a highly defensive team using Poison as their means of attack. Heck, Poison carried me through the early stages of Octopath Traveler when I solo'd it with Primrose, so I can say firsthand that Poison against bosses is simply broken.
For what it's worth, attempting to poison djinn you have to fight as fast as possible is my most consistent means of taking the things down since they deal an absurd amount of damage in the early stages of the game. I'm with you on wishing statuses would work on bosses, but it would be kind of impossible to balance their hp for poison and if you balanced their damage assuming the player gets a free turn to heal, you're have a boss that assumes you're at full health constantly, which means you're just racing your PP meter.
The thing related to bosses I'd want is for debuffs to stick around a bit. And I do remember that poison finds a place in some of the Crossbone Isle fights. Multiple enemies makes poison fair game.
Oh snap Poison/Venom works on Djinn? I've been using Stun to avoid damage altogether and try to take them out ASAP before Stun wears off and they nuke the party and/or flee. Please, Cal, never ever give Djinn Status Immunity because those things are now WAY too dangerous and have way too high of a chance to flee to be immune to Ailments.
Both things of what you said about ailments are true... like I said earlier, Ailments are a major pain to balance well.
And yeah, I feel that debuffs fade far too quickly, even when re-applying them through the MT version, to be worth using past the Debuffing EPAs. I don't even bother trying to land them now, since it's better to focus on the party's buffs instead.
Yes, if you can poison them, then having multiple actions per turn works against them heavily. I try to keep Felix as ailment-heavy as possible to consistently land Poison on things
Well snap. that just makes catching those little bastards WAY easier, especially when you stack it with Stun. no damage taken, and they receive HUGE amounts of damage from the party's attacks and poison.
v1.73 is UP
Changelog:
Savage bear (crossbone) replaces 1 special for standard attack
Sour bug fixed (Numb Ant)
Sentinel is a lot faster
Item classes' have higher stat totals (multipliers increased)
New psynergies: Blessing, Waterspout and Sabre Rain
Lowered success rate for debuffing EPAs and 2-stage debuffs
Base power increased for psynergies learned between levels 20-35
Learning level, PP cost and power adjusted for a few psynergies
Liquifier drops Atk, Planetary drops Defense
Positions of Minotaur and Ghost soldier switched
Item classes' EPAs rebalanced
Mid tier psinergies of Samurai and Ninja + Annhilation are weaker
Minor changes to the psynergy sets of a few classes (see class doc)
Bravery and Courage's icons tweaked
Tweaked the numbers of most items that buff Agility, Crits or Ailments
Full rebalance of accessories (Shirts, Boots, Rings)
Name and animation of Caladbolg's unleash changed
Early to mid game unleashes boosted
Attacks that may double or triple damage rebalanced
As usual, take your time checking the numbers within the editor for items and psynergies, then fire questions at will: I'll answer them tomorrow
Hooray!! I've been eagerly waiting for the update since Valkyrie's buff! Sorry, Etrian Odyssey V, you just can't compete with this mod lol.
I checked the Class Doc, and noticed that Destroyer lost Douse and gained Frost. Any particular reason for the downgrade?
EDIT:
hrmm... looks like going into Version 1.73 will have to wait until tomorrow. It seems the apps I have (UniPatcher and the generically named ROM Patcher) for patching on mods don't like Reloaded V1.73, and don't apply it correctly, making the ROM unplayable. Once I have access to a PC, I'll see if LunarIPS does the job better. (though even LunarIPS would screw up applying a mod for Shining Force 2, so I'm afraid that LunarIPS won't do the job either...)
I tried to patch on Version 1.73 with LunarIPS, and it keeps failing to patch correctly, making the game unplayable. Is anyone else experiencing this problem? If not, what program are you using to apply this mod?
I reuploaded the patch for TLA, try downloading again. BTW i use LunarIPS to create the patches.
Yay! It's working now! Time to put in that obnoxiously long password again! lol
Very eager to try out Valkyrie, and to see all the changes you've made!
EDIT:
I just realized that with Valkyrie having Waterspout, we can now cast the same Psynergy we see Alex using during the intro section! lol :happy:
I've reached Kibombo, and so far nothing really different to note aside from Pierrot and Tamer being noticeably stronger, and Pierrot learning Sword Dance much sooner and at a much cheaper cost.
Although Pierrot and Tamer are indeed stronger, they're kind of risky to use since you have to more or less sacrifice a party member to use these two Item Classes, and that means Tamer will be your only healer in battle (unless Sheba is your non-Item Classed party member and you keep Spark on standby so she's in her Venus classline). And that problem will only be more drastic after Piers joins and you get the Necronomicon. A 4th Item Class is desperately needed to make these classes worthwhile and safer to use before Isaac's gang joins up with Felix's. If you still have absolutely no plans to make a 4th Item Class, I could try to code it myself if I have the time (even though I don't have any experience with coding lol :Sweat: )
I also made an unfortunate discovery that the game will prevent you from returning to the Gondowan Cliffs if you trigger the cutscene with Piers joining your party before clearing the Gabomba Statue. This is unfortunate because I forgot to grab Kindle before reaching Piers, so I'm going to be Wishless until I get Steel :sad:
I got some screenshots to show off some interesting bits.
•A pointless bit of trivia, but you can trigger the cutscene with the Mayor of Madra and his posse on the higher ledge, quite a ways away from where the flag for this cutscene normally is.
•I healed Felix with the Djinni Breath, and he remained Whited-Out until I advanced the Battle Text. I dunno if this was a visual glitch or if that normally happens.
•Am I the only one who didn't know Alex was hiding an Apple in his room in Alhafra?
EDIT:
Reached Piers' boat, so I've got a few things to add:
•Golden Boots. What happened to them? They have lower defense value than the Safety Boots (which you get much earlier), and they boost Luck? I get that Luck is used for Ailment Checks, but I personally never found +2 or 3 Luck making any difference at all if a character gets inflicted with an ailment or not. Heck, my Cursed Mages in the earlier version of this mod rarely suffered any ailments or instant death despite having 15 Luck. And if I remember right, you need at least 40 Luck to be flat out immune to most ailments, which Mia is probably the only character who will feasibly get her Luck score that high without using Cheats for Infinite Lucky Peppers. Keeping its original defense value of +8 and buffing the HP Regen for these boots would've been more ideal. Golden Boots suffered horrendously from this change, and are only worthwhile early on due to how weak the Leather Boots are.
•Safety Boots getting changed to Venus Resist is... interesting. More or less a side-grade, since the +5HP it used to have rarely made a difference the further you went.
•Aqua Jellies on Piers' Boat are honestly too strong, and rarely deviate from attacking with Electrical Bite and Venomous Fang (or whatever the Bite Attack that inflicts Poison is called). It's weird for them to be so tough only for the Eastern Sea monsters to be only marginally harder than the Gondowan Monsters.
•Aqua Hydra is too RNG based. If it uses Raging Tides twice in the same turn, you'll find yourself bribing the last Priest you visited to convince whatever god the people of Weyard worship to revive your drowned party. Nerfing Raging Tides and/or changing it to be used far less often would solve this issue.
•This has been an issue since an earlier version of this mod, but the Guardian Ring is kind of moot, considering the Unicorn Ring gives the same stat boost (+2 Luck) AND cures Poison for the party. Maybe change its stat boost and/or give it SOME kind of In-Battle use?
QuoteGolden Boots. What happened to them? They have lower defense value than the Safety Boots
QuoteGuardian Ring is kind of moot
My bad. Forgot to edit the safety boots and guardian ring. The former should have 4 defense, the ring should boost hp by 5
Quote
Aqua Jellies on Piers' Boat are honestly too strong
minibosses, can't be compared to random encounters
Quote
Aqua Hydra is too RNG based. If it uses Raging Tides twice in the same turn
The chance of that happening is 2.56%
As for item classes, i might have found the solution: multiple copies of the current tiers to allow a different djinn progression.
With only 3 more slots i can allow item classes to grow by adding a new element per tier instead of keeping everything balanced.
For example the Necromancer with an elemental progression of Wind -> Fire -> Earth -> Water will require:
0-0-0-0 for base tier as usual
3-3-0-0 jupiter and fire for the first tier
3-3-3-0 jupiter fire earth for the second
3-3-3-3 everything for max as usual
In addition to the usual 1-1-1-1 and 2-2-2-2 for tier 1 and 2
This means that the first tier can be accessed by jenna and sheba just like a dual elemental class (basically an item based inquisitor line for both)
While second tier can be accessed by jenna sheba or felix just like a tri elemental class (heretic/ninja line for jenna/felix, no equivalent for sheba as 3 mars 3 venus doesn't exist for her)
Yikes. RNG really wasn't in my favor against the Aqua Hydra, since it used Raging Tides three times in a row.
Huh. that's an interesting way to solve it, but it works. It'll be super nice to be able to use the Item Classes and still have a "full" party before Isaac's gang shows up.
v1.73a (TLA only) is UP
Changelog:
Fixed Safety boots and Guardian Ring
Added elemental progression for item classes
What is elemental progression:
In addition to the usual djinn setup for item classes, it is also possible to go to a higher tier by giving 3 djinn of a certain element instead of the usual method of adding 1 djinn for each element
The elemental progression for the item classes are:
Acrobat: Fire - Water - Wind - Earth
Dragontamer: Earth - Wind - Water - Fire
Necromancer: Wind - Fire - Earth - Water
As usual tier 0 doesn't require any djinn.
To go to to the first tier, you need 3 elemental levels on the first 2 elements of the progression.
For the second tier you need to add 3 djinn of the third element.
The last tier, as usual requires 3 el. levels on each element.
There is also another copy of tier 1 that is a copy of tier 2 with 1 el.level less for each element to ease the downgrade when summoning, cause for example if necromage ivan (3 earth 3 fire djinn) were to unleash a single fire djinn it would plummet immediately to tier 0 without this "special" tier.
It also allows characters of the third element to access the first tier by having 2 djinn each of the first 2 elements.
Why all this: cause it will be easier to use item classes in the midgame, since they are literally dual classes for tier 1 and tri-elemental classes for tier 2
This might sound convoluted but just looking at the elemental levels from the editor will explain better than i ever could.
Oh boy I'm loving this new Class LOL. The Tamer's Whip only works correctly for Sheba, oddly.
Guardian Ring still boosts Luck, but by +5 this time.
I'm not entirely sure what's happening in the 3rd screenshot, to be honest lol
... are you sure you patched a clean rom?
I patched over the previous version, which I hope is clean enough. I tried it on an untouched version to make sure it didn't have the same issue Version 1.73 had the first time it was put up, but didn't really do anything from there.
Pierrot works as intended and promotes to the 2nd Tier with 3 Djinn. The Safety Boots now give +4 Defense instead of +5, as intended. And like I said, Tamer's Whip works properly, but only for Sheba.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 13, February, 2019, 08:02:59 PM
I patched over the previous version
NEVER EVER do that. Clean = vanilla. This is 100% the reason why the guardian ring grants Luck +5 instead of hp+5.
QuoteThe Tamer's Whip only works correctly for Sheba, oddly.
Also, please, you need to report issues better. Setting the clean rom issue aside (which is by far the most important thing), that line and the random screen with piers on a NPC class don't help at all.
1) Which djinn setup?
2) Does it happen with other classes and other items?
3) What did you do and what you were expecting? As in: situation before, situation after and how the after is different from the outcome you were expecting
4) Are you sure you understood the elemental progression correctly? (aka read the post with the changelog again)
All these questions need some kind of answer.
Especially 3), since that's how every bug should be reported, not only class related ones
Piers and Jenna are stuck with NPC unless I give them the standard 1 of each non-Mercury/Mars Djinn respectively. Felix escapes NPC with Jupiter Djinn, and Sheba with Venus Djinn (aside the standard way of promoting Item Classes).
Pierrot works normally, and changes everyone to Pierrot as intended.
Sheba and Felix only promote to Jester with the standard Djinn Spread for Item Classes
Jenna promotes to Jester with 3 Mercury, 2 Mercury and 2 Jupiter, and standard Djinn spread for Item Classes.
Piers promotes to Jester with 3 Mars, 2 Mars and 2 Jupiter, and the standard Djinn spread for Item Classes.
I can't check with the Necronomicon right now, since I forgot to snag it before heading to Taopo, but I'll check it out later.
Oof... starting with a fresh ROM prolly means I gotta start AAALLLLL over again.... heck...
EDIT:
Never mind about starting all over. I figured out how to avoid that problem.
anyway, on to the Item Classes:
Pierrot for Felix, Jenna, and Piers is unchanged, only promoting to Jester with the same Djinn combos listed above. Sheba can promote to Jester with 2 Mercury + 2 Mars, but not with 3 Mercury or 3 Mars.
Trainer's Whip actually works now.
Piers promotes to Wild Tamer with 2 Venus + 2 Jupiter, along with standard distribution for Item Classes.
Jenna only promotes to Wild Tamer with the standard distribution for Item Classes
Felix promotes to Wild Tamer with 3 Jupiter, 2 Mercury + 2 Jupiter, and standard Item Class distribution.
Sheba promotes to Wild Tamer with 3 Venus, 2 Venus + 2 Mercury, and standard Item Class Distribution.
Everything works as intended
QuoteIn addition to the usual djinn setup for item classes, it is also possible to go to a higher tier by giving 3 djinn of a certain element instead of the usual method of adding 1 djinn for each element
The elemental progression for the item classes are:
Acrobat: Fire - Water - Wind - Earth
Dragontamer: Earth - Wind - Water - Fire
Necromancer: Wind - Fire - Earth - Water
As usual tier 0 doesn't require any djinn.
To go to to the first tier, you need 3 elemental levels on the first 2 elements of the progression.
For the second tier you need to add 3 djinn of the third element.
The last tier, as usual requires 3 el. levels on each element.
From the bolded parts you can see the elements are specific, that's why i listed the progression for each class. You can't give 3 djinn of a random element and expect it to work.
To go up to tier one it's either 1-1-1-1 (the usual) or the new 3-3-0-0 or 2-2-2-0, where those numbers are the elemental levels for
the elements in the same order as the progression for that class.
Long story short:
Quote1) Pierrot works normally, and changes everyone to Pierrot as intended.
2) Sheba and Felix only promote to Jester with the standard Djinn Spread for Item Classes
3) Jenna promotes to Jester with 3 Mercury, 2 Mercury and 2 Jupiter, and standard Djinn spread for Item Classes.
4) Piers promotes to Jester with 3 Mars, 2 Mars and 2 Jupiter, and the standard Djinn spread for Item Classes.
1) is obvious, as the requirement is 0-0-0-0
2) True for felix (earth is 4th), false for sheba. She can use 2-2-2-0 cause wind is third in the progression.
3) and 4) work as intended cause fire and water are first and second in the progression.
Jenna and Garet can't use elemental progression for Tamer cause Fire is the last element of the progression. The same will happen for Felix in Pierrot, or for Mia with the Necronomicon.
Also, to see the numbers and have a better understanding of the whole thing,
use the editor as suggested in the post with the changelog. I can't stress this enough.
Alrighty. Though I find it odd that some promotions to Tier 2 happen with a combination of 2 Djinn of the first two elements in the Elemental Progression (e.g. Piers to Wild Tamer with 2 Venus + 2 Jupiter), when it's stated clearly that at least Djinn 3 of the first element in line are needed to promote to Tier 2.
I don't know if the editor would work on mobile, and my access to a PC is inconsistent at best. Trial and Error along with actually getting the items is my best way of figuring things out, until I get my own PC.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 13, February, 2019, 09:40:34 PM
when it's stated clearly that at least Djinn 3 of the first element in line are needed to promote to Tier 2.
Not at all. Elemental level =/= djinn. Each character starts with an elemental level of 5 in his own element.
Be sure to read again the other posts cause i probably edited them after you already answered.
Djinn add Elemental Levels though, right? because of that, I always figured they were synonymous in regards to classes.
either way, it doesn't really explain how 2 Venus + 2 Jupiter + 5 Mercury resulted in Tamer promoting to Wild Tamer.
EDIT
i'm an idiot and just now started reading posts you edited lol
Things make sense now. Thank you for being patient with my dumb butt and explaining it clearly. :happy:
Hello all!! I'm new here. I've been playing this mod for quite some time now and I've loved it you've done a wonderful job, congratulations! I'm currently entering the Western Sea. I have some really minor things to point out that could be fixed (I'm playing 1.71a so some of this may have already been changed, but it didn't look that way in the patch notes (
I was going to comment on using Mud being too strong tho)):
- It's a pity we don't get clear info on most of the changes you made to items, monsters and drops because then we can't plan confidently on what to farm. For example: you say Cerberus drop the Virtuous Armlet, but Cerberus didn't even exist in vanilla, we don't know where to go look for them. Or maybe we go to Treasure Isle wanting to farm Turtle Dragons for the Storm Gear you said, but there aren't any Turtle Dragons there, and instead we find monsters that weren't there before like those Crabs and Dirges and we don't really know if it's worth farming them or not :sad: I do realize making a full list of monsters-positions-drops is a lot of work and you have more important things to do. I'm just saying it's a pity
- Some weapons, like the Lightning Sword and the Blow Mace (I think), have an elemental affinity on attacks besides the Unleash. Is it possible to put a :JupiterStar: marker somewhere in the Attack +xx line to show this? Or do you think this distintion is irrelevant?
- The low-tier craftables are somewhat unbalanced with 2 or 3 things being really useless:
- Tear Stone is in a pretty good place with Pure Bracelet being the most desirable but the other options are good as well Cloud Wand, Wish Well Ring and Pure Circlet's Mercury resist being useful in all the sea, Aqua Rock, Tundaria and Poseidon and the ring.
- But with Stardust you have Planet Armor, Luna Shield being really dominant, then maybe Astral Circlet (If you don't care for the :MercuryStar: resist. Though Clarity Circlet is more powerful for Jupiter), then Comet Mace isn't really worth it since it gets replaced fast and Stardust Ring is a joke. Maybe if Comet Mace had at least 10 :MercuryStar: Power it could be considered an upgrade for Arcanist Sheba over Cloud Wand. Stardust Ring would have to be pretty much reworked
- Sylph Feather is also pretty awful with Aerial Gloves being REALLY good, then Sylph Rapier being good, and both Floating Hat and Faery Vest being really weak; :JupiterStar: resist is mostly useless in the Eastern Sea with imporant enemies being Mercury, and some Mars and Venus. It only becomes important in Jupiter Lighthouse, but by that point we've got better equipment, don't we? A possible fix for this could be to give the Hat some Agillity, since it can be used by everyone you can stick it on whoever is lagging behind. The Vest could have it's effect made stronger either by healing ~500 ST or 200 MT, or it could work like the Dragon Helm (I loved that one), instead of being an on-use healing bestowing a psynergy, either something offensive like Thunder Card or keep the ST healing
- Also something simillar happens in the Lemuria Spring: The Glory Crown (hat +35 Def +6PPrec) is way superior than Clarity Circlet (+31 Def +6 Luck) even though Circlets are supposed to have greater Def than hats and usually have +MaxPP or some element. Also the Wild Coat (Clothing +36 Def +35 Agi) is better than the Floral Dress (+35 Def Sleep-on-use) and both aren't really that good compared to the earlier Muni Robe (+32 Def +12 MaxHP +4HPrec) or the later Dragon Robe (+36 Def +30 :MarsStar: Resist +15 :MarsStar: Power +2PPrec).
- I really liked your fix for Golden Boots to be +8 def +5 HPrec since they where way overpowered in vanilla, though I see that is gone in the latest patch to instead boost Luck. Is your intention to make them not-endgame-material? Are Dragon Boots strictly defensively superior now?
- I saw Average Wind Seer talk about "Sanctum Warping" but I couldn't find anything about it in-game or in this topic. What is this?
I belive that's all for now. Thank you for making this wonderful game even more wonderful! :heart: :heart:
Hello there, Maixpotter!
I can answer some of the things you mentioned.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 14, February, 2019, 05:56:56 AM
- It's a pity we don't get clear info on most of the changes you made to items, monsters and drops because then we can't plan confidently on what to farm. For example: you say Cerberus drop the Virtuous Armlet, but Cerberus didn't even exist in vanilla, we don't know where to go look for them. Or maybe we go to Treasure Isle wanting to farm Turtle Dragons for the Storm Gear you said, but there aren't any Turtle Dragons there, and instead we find monsters that weren't there before like those Crabs and Dirges and we don't really know if it's worth farming them or not :sad: I do realize making a full list of monsters-positions-drops is a lot of work and you have more important things to do. I'm just saying it's a pity
All this can be found by using the Golden Sun Editor. You can also guesstimate where they're found by looking at their "levels" within his Monster Drop Changelog, and keeping the Order of Progression in mind (Piers' Boat -> Shrine of the Sea God -> Taopo Swamp -> Aqua Rock -> Gaia Rock -> Ankohl Ruins -> Treasure Island -> Tundaria Tower -> Champa -> Poseidon).
Quote from: Maxipotter on 14, February, 2019, 05:56:56 AM- Some weapons, like the Lightning Sword and the Blow Mace (I think), have an elemental affinity on attacks besides the Unleash. Is it possible to put a :JupiterStar: marker somewhere in the Attack +xx line to show this? Or do you think this distintion is irrelevant?
Fun fact: this is noted. Go into the Status Menu and press A until it shows the characters Inventory. Weapons that change attacks to an Elemental Attack will display the respective Elemental Star (as noted in the screenshot below)
Quote from: Maxipotter on 14, February, 2019, 05:56:56 AM- The low-tier craftables are somewhat unbalanced with 2 or 3 things being really useless:
- Tear Stone is in a pretty good place with Pure Bracelet being the most desirable but the other options are good as well Cloud Wand, Wish Well Ring and Pure Circlet's Mercury resist being useful in all the sea, Aqua Rock, Tundaria and Poseidon and the ring.
- But with Stardust you have Planet Armor, Luna Shield being really dominant, then maybe Astral Circlet (If you don't care for the :MercuryStar: resist. Though Clarity Circlet is more powerful for Jupiter), then Comet Mace isn't really worth it since it gets replaced fast and Stardust Ring is a joke. Maybe if Comet Mace had at least 10 :MercuryStar: Power it could be considered an upgrade for Arcanist Sheba over Cloud Wand. Stardust Ring would have to be pretty much reworked
- Sylph Feather is also pretty awful with Aerial Gloves being REALLY good, then Sylph Rapier being good, and both Floating Hat and Faery Vest being really weak; :JupiterStar: resist is mostly useless in the Eastern Sea with imporant enemies being Mercury, and some Mars and Venus.
I have the very same issues with the craftables. Tear Stone has very good options, with the Circlet being the least useful. the Stardust only has two good items, with the Stardust Ring not being valuable enough to warrant getting, and the Comet Mace just flat out being garbage. Meanwhile the Sylph Feather's items just aren't really worthwhile, with the Sylph Rapier only worth using if you're using Jenna as a Valkyrie.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 14, February, 2019, 05:56:56 AM- Also something simillar happens in the Lemuria Spring: The Glory Crown (hat +35 Def +6PPrec) is way superior than Clarity Circlet (+31 Def +6 Luck) even though Circlets are supposed to have greater Def than hats and usually have +MaxPP or some element. Also the Wild Coat (Clothing +36 Def +35 Agi) is better than the Floral Dress (+35 Def Sleep-on-use) and both aren't really that good compared to the earlier Muni Robe (+32 Def +12 MaxHP +4HPrec) or the later Dragon Robe (+36 Def +30 :MarsStar: Resist +15 :MarsStar: Power +2PPrec).
This isn't too different from the standard Lemuria/Tolbi Springs, honestly. They had plenty of trash items with a small pool of worthwhile items. Though the Floral Dress is the noteworthy stinker, since the previous Dress-Piece (Cocktail Dress) is FAR superior with its sizable MaxPP boost.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 14, February, 2019, 05:56:56 AM- I saw Average Wind Seer talk about "Sanctum Warping" but I couldn't find anything about it in-game or in this topic. What is this?
This has always been a hidden feature within the game, long before Caledor began this project. To use it, you press L + Start as you press A to select the save file you want to play while in the Title Menu Screen.
I hope I was able to help clear things up :happy:
EDIT:
I checked the Spirit Ring and Stardust Rings to see if their value changed, but nope. Spirit Ring got a barely noticeable buff, so it's still just as valuable as before. Meanwhile the Stardust Ring is unchanged, meaning it's still trash.
Hi hi, thank you, you cleared up many things :happy:
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 14, February, 2019, 09:57:13 AM
All this can be found by using the Golden Sun Editor.
Oh, nice. Guess I'll have to learn how to use that :happy: :Sweat:
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 14, February, 2019, 09:57:13 AM
Fun fact: this is noted. Go into the Status Menu and press A until it shows the characters Inventory. Weapons that change attacks to an Elemental Attack will display the respective Elemental Star (as noted in the screenshot below)
Wow, I never knew this. That's cool.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 14, February, 2019, 09:57:13 AM
This has always been a hidden feature within the game, long before Caledor began this project. To use it, you press L + Start as you press A to select the save file you want to play while in the Title Menu Screen.
Ohh, so it sends you to the last Sanctum you visited? I guess its there to escape from trap bugs. So it can be abused, right? for example I go to Yallam to forge something then save and through this I'll be back in the sactum in the Western Sea instantly?
Thanks a lot!!
Actually, you'll be sent back to Yallam's Sanctum. It warps you to the Sanctum of the last TOWN you visited, not the last visited Sanctum. It's more of an Emergency Escape for when you're deep in a dungeon, Felix doesn't have enough PP to cast Retreat, and you desperately need to fall back and heal up at an Inn. Or, in my case, cut the return trip from Tundaria back to Champa after having to go back to Tundaria because I forgot to snag the Center Prong of the Trident when I was there the first time lol
Ooh, bummer, that trip to Yallam is so long and boring. It's good to know anyways.
Thank you!
Once you get the Teleport Jewel from Mars Lighthouse, you can simply cast Teleport to warp to Yallam and back to the Town closest to where you want to go. Unfortunately, it's unlocked so late in the game that it's kinda pointless. :sad:
I don't really see a way to fix this since adding a new Psynergy to do the same thing will become redundant once you get Teleport, and giving Teleport earlier would give players access to further inside the Islet Cave and inside Yampi Desert Cave, which they shouldn't be going to until the end of the game.
I forgot just how good this mod is.
Booting up Dark Dawn and seeing all the bland, same-y classes, and Karis' basic attack doing twice the amount of damage from her Psynergy (Freeze Prism and the strongest tier in Plasma) reminded me of just how good and wonderful the Reloaded Mod is :heart:
I honestly don't think I can ever go back to playing base Golden Sun ever again lol.
This latest update is amazing, since I can now actually use Item Classes without being down a party member. The only downside to using all 3 Item Classes at once is that Piers is my only means of AoE healing until Felix (using the Tamer's Whip) can summon the Treant monsters lol. Though I'm still going to use Valkyrie Jenna in this run, so Acrobat will eventually be put away. Super excited to experience her buffs!
EDIT:
Hey, uhhh quick question.
Is Call Zombie supposed to cost 20PP? I checked with an earlier version and Call Zombie only cost 5PP then.
Well DD is really bad. I wouldn't replay it even if there was a mod like this one to fix all the battle issues. The story and mazes are just too dumb and half the characters aren't even likeable. I don't really know what they were thinking when they did that trainwreck. :sad:
I was thinking about how cool Shuriken is being a multi-target EPA and how it would be interesting to have variations of it for other characters or elements. I was also thinking about how Dragon Helm bestowing Fire Breath is a really nice effect but it hardly ever is a good choice since only the warrior-type can equip it and they don't benefit all that much from it with their low PP, and mars power and Fire Breath's hitting side targets for super low damage. Finally, I was thinking about an argument you had about Fire Breath having little place in the Acrobat´s psynergy pool.
All three of these can be easily fixed by making Fire Breath a range 3 multiplier psynergy (Like Shuriken) instead of a Base Damage (Diminishing): This gives Fire Breath a separate identity in the Acrobat set. This makes Acrobat a more viable option for Piers (which ties in nicely with water being the second element in the progression), as well as helping Jenna (and Ivan) with short swords in a fury-type set. And Dragon Helm is now a desirable piece for any warrior not running Shinobi.
What do you think?
DD is a guilty pleasure of mine, tbh :no:
I just really enjoyed playing it so much to the point where it's my second most replayed game ever (Chrono Trigger takes first place on that record), and I even solo'd 99% of the game and superbosses with Karis (Chaos Chimera is too strong for Karis to handle by herself)
That's actually a really neat idea for Fire Breath. I think it'd also be really nice for Dragontamer's Salamander-line, since you're only gonna have your warriors use this class anyway.
Speaking of Warriors, I found myself barely ever making a dent in Felix's or Piers' PP Pools unless I used their PP for healing, meanwhile Sheba and Jenna burn through their much larger PP Pools at an astounding rate. I noticed this to be the case due to Felix's and Piers' classes have a LOT of low cost Psynergies (8-9PP per cast) during the midgame, whereas Jenna and Sheba need to be tossing out Psynergies costing at least 16PP a pop to clear out trash mobs with the same power as the boys using their EPAs or basic attacks. This PP disparity gets even worse when you factor in Felix and Piers having the Luna Shields available to them LONG before you find any PP-Regen equipment for either girl. It's weird seeing the Warriors having drastically better PP longevity in battle than the Mages.
Also the Comet Mace is unbelievably bad. There's literally zero reason for it to even be in the game as it is. I suggest either removing it or reworking it into a Western Sea Mace.
Minor note, but I think something screwy happened with Instant Death unleashes. Within the normal game, it checks to see if the Instant Death lands before doing a damage roll, as noted in the TBS screenshot from the vanilla game. In Reloaded, it rolls damage first, then rolls to see if Instant Death lands, as shown in TLA Reloaded screenshot. I used the Assassin's Blade for both screenshots, and Ivan's & Jenna's set-up doesn't matter because it always happens like this in Reloaded.
Well, Karis is one of the more likeable characters, I prefer Amiti tho. But I only played through it once after having played these two many times and I just felt insulted at every step.
At first I thought about the Tamer, but I didn't think Caledor would agree to that since Tamers get ST and MT heals, revive, many diferent EPAs and impact, with their MT damage being their weak spot. If you also gave them good MT damage it might be a bit too much.
Other possibilities would be a Mercury Shuriken for Piers' Archon class (since it only has Froth and lacks MT healing, revive and impact). This is IMO Piers' worst tri-elemental class and this change would greatly benefit it. And MAYBE for Jenna's Valkyrie (Replacing Cutting Edge that is somewhat redundant having Waterspout) though she does have both revive and impact and various other utility psynergy :/ what would you need to give up in order to have MT EPA?
I agree about Tamer, though it also has the Blue Dragon Psynergy for wider MT Psynergy, while its Salamander line stays a 3 Target MT Psynergy (i think).
I have to disagree about Archon being Piers' worst Tri-Elemental Class (that title goes to his Venus Dragoon class). It succeeds where original Valkyrie failed, in that its support spells worked together to minimize incoming physical damage, while Original-Valkyrie just has Attack and Defense buffs which nearly all other classes could do better.
If I were to change anything on Archon, it would be swapping Froth for the Jupiter or Mars Psynergy that's a "stage above" it (e.g. Bolt being the lowest tier and Plasma being 3rd highest tier). Any changes to Valkyrie would be replacing Beam for Gaia, Prism, or Cool. Any "high tiered" Psynergy that isn't the incredibly lame and boring Beam psynergy and still fits the theming of this class.
also here's a pointless fun fact:
Not sure if this was the case in vanilla, but at the entrance screen to Tundaria Tower, you can jump that gap from either direction (as noted in the screenshots below). so much for the visual effect of an upward slope lol
Well, Piers' Holy Knight, just as the others' Paladin, is pretty straightforward, a highly durable healer and it's better at that than any other: Piers' superior natural bulk and PP, slightly higher HP and PP multiplier while having the same def and wrd, higher natural :MercuryStar: Power and access to Remedy and Break all make him better than Felix, Isaac or Garet at the job. Off course there isn't much reason to run this when a lower durably healer can give stronger heals with a larger PP pool and still manage to not die, right?
So the correct way to use Archon is to just cast Guard-Ward-Guard-Ward? If you ask me it's better to have the defensive buffs on different characters so that you can get your defenses up in half the time. I still think giving it Mercury Shuriken would be a good idea, of course changing Froth to something like Tornado would complement this change further.
Archon doesn't have Ward? it has Guard and Dull/Liquifier, so physical damage barely hurts. Holy Knight's flaw is that its speed score is absolutely abysmal with nothing to compensate for it. It also has Heal instead of Wish, so the higher Mercury Power doesn't really mean squat.
EDIT:
nevermind what I said about Archon not having Ward. I never used it from this Class, so I had forgotten it even had it. my bad lol :Sweat:
Oh, that makes sense for Archon, I'm just reaching that point it the game where EPAs begin to have added effects so I'm not all that familiar with these effects. Also I don't use debuffs much since they tend fail me regularily
Both the spread sheet and the editor (at least on my 1.71a) show Holy Knight to have Ply-Wish-Revive, maybe you are confusing with the two-elemental Protector that has similar stats and functionality? And I think the low speed is there so that the heals come in between the enemy's multiple attacks
I checked, and yeah you're right. My bad.
Though for the other Warriors to be in the Paladin Class, they need 5 :MercuryDjinni:, which puts their Mercury Power at about the same. Not to mention Caledor nerfed how much Elemental Power boosts Healing spells, so Piers' two whole points above, say, Paladin Garet is negligible.
the Debuff Psynergies are still crap, honestly. They fail too often and fade too fast to be worth using (even the MT versions).
EDIT:
So in an earlier version of Reloaded, I toyed around with Jonin (used Garet) and General to see how well they function as a hybrid, aaaaaanndd... They don't work too well as Hybrids, at least, not to the extent Fury does. (I can't really call Valkyrie a hybrid since she only has one Base Damage Psynergy, and behaves more like Piers' Destroyer) I think replacing General's Ice and Ray Psynergies with the next Psynergy up in base damage (e.g. Ray -> Whirlwind?) would help him, and both could do with a higher PP multiplier. Both Piers and Jonin Garet did well over twice the damage their Base Damage psynergies could do with their EPAs, which kind of diminishes the whole point of them being hybrid classes. I tested them on enemies around Prox, by the way.
at the same time, I took a closer look at Fury with Ivan (with Cursed Mage equipment). He doesn't do as much damage with Rolling Fire as he does with his Base Damage Psynergies, however, the difference between the two isn't anywhere near as drastic as General's and Jonin's damage difference between their EPAs and Base Damage Psynergies.
I think buffing General's and Jonin's MaxPP multiplier would go a long way (along with upgrading General's Ice and Ray psynergies), and adding Endgame Venus and Jupiter Maces. The Hagbone Mace comes close to endgame Jupiter, but is very noticeably weaker than the Rising Mace, so buffing that to be closer in power with the Rising Mace would be very very nice for General and Jonin.
I'm glad I went and checked my notes about Forging Items, because I had forgotten that the Millennium Helm, Cosmos Shield, and Xylion Armor gave very nice boosts to help out the Warriors' Hybrid Classes. though, would it be possible to buff the Cosmos Shield to also give Venus Power & Resist boosts so General benefits just as much from it as Jonin does?
EDIT 2:
oh wow never mind about them not working as Hybrids. I equipped them with the armors mentioned above, and they've closed a significant amount of the damage gap between their strongest Base Damage psynergies and their EPAs. General could still benefit from having an endgame Venus Mace and having Ice and Ray upgraded, along with a Venus equivalent to the Cosmos Shield. I don't see why Jonin should be stuck with Carpet Bomb when it's just a slightly weaker Supernova. Why not replace Carpet Bomb with Supernova, and get rid of Carpet Bomb? I assume getting rid of Carpet Bomb would free up a slot for you to make a new Psynergy?
LOL I tried to go fight Star Magician right after Isaac's party joined. I got my @#$ handed to me in a plate. So I guess I'll come back latter. :Sweat:
On the Buffs to General: You say you want to change Ice for a higher psynergy, but Ice already has the third highest Base Power (after Frost Card and Prism), if you were to switch it for Cool you'd be losing power (and gaining range). Unless you want to give him Prism? Ray isn't all that weak, it's average but I could see it upgraded to Whirlwind to add a bit more damage and range.
On Jonin: I'd argue Jonin is actually too strong right now having the highest PP, ATK and AGI modifiers available for Felix, Isaac and Garet as well as good EPAs, the only (so far) MT EPA, Thunder Clap being really close to Plasma and Punji being a bit further away but still second in damage after Gaia, while also having access to buffs Impact and Ward. If you were to change anything I would make them more psynergy oriented by decreasing the ATK multiplier a bit, then you could buff the PP or psynergies freely.
EDIT: Shouldn't Shogun have the highest ATK multiplier in the first place? Lava Shower, Rockfall and the debuffs are seldom useful, it has no other utility. It's only role is to spam unleashes or EPAs and it's not even the best at that it's wierd
Huh. I really should check the new base powers for Psynergies. I thought Cool was stronger than Ice lol :Sweat:
As for Jonin's and General's statlines, after looking back over their PP Multipliers, yeah they don't need any stat changes. However, they could really benefit from an Endgame Venus Mace, a substantial buff to the Hagbone Mace to be better suited for endgame content, and a Venus Cosmos Shield for General.
I personally think Carpet Bomb, Rock Slide, and Lava Bath, should all be removed, since their animations are copy/pasted from Starburst, Gaia, and Volcano respectively, and don't add anything to the classes they're found on that other psynergies of similar base power couldn't.
EDIT:
yeah, why does Jonin have a 170% Attack multiplier, but Warlord only has 160%? It makes no sense and throws away any reason to use Warlord. As it is, Jonin is outright the BEST class for Isaac, Garet, and Felix. There is no reason to use Warlord (or any other Tri-Elemental Class of these three) when Jonin is as strong as it is (also please switch out Liquifier for Planetary or Plume Edge for Diamond Berg on Warlord).
EDIT 2:
Here's a little pro-tip for everyone.
With the glitch of Stat-Debuffing Djinn adding an extra RN value, Mud and Vine are invaluable for RNG Methods against enemies faster than your character doing the killing blow (assuming the enemies aren't weak to Venus). Mud and Vine normally add +1RN per enemy, and the glitch makes them equal an attack psynergy (on non-Venus Weak enemies). I was able to rig a Crystal Rod to drop earlier than I should've been able to, thanks to Mud.
EDIT3:
Why the ever loving f*** does the Serpent have an instant death attack?
>Serpent uses Mighty Press!
>Felix takes 1 Damage! (from full HP)
>Felix is downed!
Remove that damn instant death crap from this boss.
This boss is already more than enough of a pain in the butt with AoE Poison, Black Blizzard saying "screw your defense buffs!", and it being able to use Potent Cure (it used it twice in the same turn several times in this battle). It. Does. Not. Need. Instant. Death.
Jonin absolutely doesn't need any buffs since it is tied with Chaos Lord for the highest attack stat. They're not supposed to be hybrids, they're supposed to stack crit and attack stuff with Psynergy as a secondary option when AoE or a specific element is needed. They seem like bad hybrids because they are bad hybrids, as that isn't their role. The warrior classes with lower attack stats are better options for hybrid setups.
plot twist, my dude:
Caledor specifically modified Jonin (and crafted General) to be a Warrior-Mage hybrid. Though he made Jonin incredibly unbalanced by giving it a 170% Atk modifier (while Warlord only has 160% for some reason) in addition to a 170% MaxPP modifier and the highest agility modifier available to Isaac, Garet, and Felix.
To fix Jonin, I suggest swapping its Attack Modifier with Warlord's, and getting rid of Carpet Bomb, replacing it with the Mars Psynergy closest to Carpet Bomb in base power, even if it means downgrading.
Jonin being unbalanced aside, both Jonin and General perform wonderfully as hybrid classes once you give them the Millennium Helm and Xylion Armor (and Cosmos Shield for Jonin. General needs a Venus equivalent to that shield.) They jumped up from doing about 260 with their strongest Base Damage Psynergies to doing 380-400 on the center target. I do hope Cal makes an Endgame Venus Mace & Venus Cosmos Shield for General, and buffs the Hagbone Mace for Jonin (and rebalances Jonin's stat mods).
Jonin has Z-tier defenses. That's why he can afford that attack stat: because as far as warriors go, he has the durability of a wet tissue. -20% HP and -15% def over the chaos lord is no joke. Warlord and Shogun are MUCH more well rounded, especially when atk cap becomes a factor. He is a hybrid and can go either way but i can see why it's easier to stick to the warrior side.
Further power buffs for Jonin and General are not needed: I already balanced them, each warrior can gain 60-65 power in each a single element.
-20% HP and -15% defense isn't any blow at all to keep Jonin balanced when Dual-Wishing is a thing, along with the fact that a lot of endgame enemies use Base Damage Psynergies (at least, I assume they're base damage Psynergies).
At Lv.47 with Warrior's Helm, Valkyrie Mail, Ninja Sandals, Running Shirt, Riot Gloves, Sol Blade, and Sol Ring, Jonin Garet clocks in with 926HP, 329PP, 693Attack, 331Defense, 343Agility, and 20Luck.
Meanwhile Chaos Lord Garet has 1025HP, 263PP, 695Attack, 368Defense, 314Agility, and 16Luck
Yeah I dunno about you, but that 20% MaxHP and 15% Defense less sure is looking like a joke because that is one sturdy wet tissue.
And let's be real here, not many people will be grinding enough to hit stat caps. Jonin is unbalanced, plain and simple.
+60-65 to each element? What equipment combination does that use? Unbalanced Mods aside, Jonin still has an unfair advantage over General by having Hagbone Mace (which should have its Attack Score buffed to be suitable to endgame content) and the Cosmos Shield. General doesn't have any Venus Mace at endgame or a Venus Equivalent to the Cosmos Shield. This pushes Jonin even further to being incredibly unbalanced, and the best warrior class.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 21, February, 2019, 10:40:11 AM
And let's be real here, not many people will be grinding enough to hit stat caps.
Impact. 666 is enough to hit the cap
Okay, that makes sense and works unless the boss you're fighting uses Break. and even then, Jonin's still better than Chaos Lord and Warlord. Its huge Agility modifier ensures that Jonin will go earlier in the turn, and its sizable PP Pool will let it throw out its EPAs without rest for far more turns than Chaos Lord and Warlord, before needing a PP Refill through Ether, Tinder, or a Psy Crystal.
EDIT:
By the way, I thought of a way to make Ker's Weight actually worth using with a Cursed Mage build.
Why not give Infidel a Venus Fume Psynergy in place of Punishment? It could be stronger than Punishment but weaker than Call Dullahan, further incentivizing people to use Infidel over Guardian. It could use the graphics from the Growth series (recolored, if possible) which would work, since Punishment uses the Ray series' graphics.
EDIT 2:
Nerf Poseidon. Break, self-healing, a powerful ST attack that can reduce the party member to 1HP, AND a powerful party-wide attack that can cause INSTANT DEATH TO MULTIPLE PARTY MEMBERS is wayyyyy too much for this point of the game where your options are extremely limited. Even with Master Miko Jenna and Savant Sheba dual-wishing, Poseidon effortlessly tears through the party, and Watery Grave can easily just outright say "f*** you" and cause instant death to two or more party members.
No bosses deserve nerfing. Poseidon is hard but not unreasonable since you have revive Djinn and Shade at that point. If anything, bosses tend to be too easy on average and Poseidon is an exception. He's difficult but absolutely manageable without needing to grind.
I'm at Lv.27 and Poseidon is incredibly unfair. Ocean's Fist does about 200+ damage to any character when not reducing their HP to one, and Watery Graves deals about 160+ damage per party member, along with a chance to inflict instant death on multiple characters. That is simply unfair to any team, especially considering the fact that Poseidon gets three actions per turn. Jenna, Piers, and Felix have about 450MaxHP and Sheba is at 350-ish MaxHP, so getting hit with three 160+ to 200+ damage attacks makes short work of the party.
Maximum Defense and Resist buffs bring Poseidon's attacks down to a manageable 98-ish damage per attack, but it still adds up very quickly thanks to three actions per turn. And let's not forget that he has Break, making buffs a waste of PP, and every single turn counts against this bastard.
Poseidon. Needs. To. Be. Nerfed.
Heck, even just reducing his Turn Count down to 2 would make him MUCH fairer to fight with the limited options you have for Classes and Equipment at that point.
Quote from: bpat on 23, February, 2019, 02:55:52 PM
Poseidon is hard but not unreasonable since you have revive Djinn and Shade at that point. If anything, bosses tend to be too easy on average and Poseidon is an exception. He's difficult but absolutely manageable without needing to grind.
The only boss that deserved the slight nerf it received is the Flame Dragon duo. Everything else has been tested so much that is straight up impossible that something that "needs to be nerfed" still exists
I have two runs completely stopped because of Poseidon (though one was HM, so not much can be done there). Not even dual wishing and max buffs can save me because of Poseidon having Break and a Party Wide Instant Death attack.
I may try to cheese it by alternating Flower and Shade, though that likely won't work simply due to how hard Poseidon hits, how many actions per turn he has, and his Party Wide Instant Death attack.
Seriously, no boss should ever have Instant Death, because then it becomes more of a battle of luck than a battle of strength/skill.
This just sounds like a baseless complain to me, so i'll say this once.
We're telling you (me and bpat both) that Poseidon can be beaten and you aren't even curious about what you might be doing wrong. You didn't post builds, ask for advice or talk about actual numbers (istant death trigger chance, luck-based formulae, anything). Heck, you didn't even bother reading my signature!
To sum it up, this is
not how you (anyone) should give feedback.
QuoteSeriously, no boss should ever have Instant Death, because then it becomes more of a battle of luck than a battle of strength/skill.
Also, this is beyond wrong. Luck is a STAT. It can be manipulated. ID has a base 15% rate on damaging moves, which also means that multiple IDs have a <2% chance of happening. You need to ask for/know the numbers before saying "nerf this, nerf that".
here are my builds in screenshots down below.
I've considered going to Dual-Element Classes for Piers and Felix, but honestly the only benefit I would really get is allowing me to freely use Djinni Ether.
I know full well that Luck is a Stat that can be manipulated, HOWEVER, unless there are hidden equipments in the Eastern Sea that I don't know about, there are only two Luck boosting equipment available for the guys (Unicorn Ring and Golden Boots). Jenna and Sheba have Ankhs and Astral Circlets, but honestly they'd likely prefer Staffs for more PP and extra Venus or Mercury Power for better healing and better PP sustain for more heals. Astral Circlet is a very nice head piece for the girls, but they also might want the Pure Circlet for the Mercury Resist so Poseidon's attacks don't hurt as much.
15% is pretty dang high for a base ID rate, honestly. Yiazmat in FFXII has I believe a 5% Instant Death chance with his basic attacks, yet it still lands VERY often.
Instant Death is a VERY cheap status effect, even if it has a low chance to land. In my opinion, it's better suited on Random Enemies than on Bosses, since Bosses WILL be considerably long battles, and in such long battles, the RNG has MANY opportunities to simply decide that you get blasted with multiple Instant Deaths. Meanwhile random battles can end within a couple of turns at minimum, meaning Instant Death can still hurt, but not be borderline Run-Ending.
EDIT:
what are the Luck-based formulae, anyway? Because, honestly, Luck never ever feels worthwhile to invest in since 15 Luck was plenty enough on my Cursed Mages in an earlier version, and I'm pretty sure 40 Luck isn't feasibly reached on anyone other than Angel Mia with all the Luck Boosting Mercury Djinn, a Psychic Circlet, and Clotho's Distaff.
Just upload the .sav file. It's much easier
I can't attach more than 4 files per post on mobile (dunno if it's different on PC), and I figured posting my team's class+equipment would get better mileage than just uploading the .sav file. Anyway, it's attached to this post, now.
Also a minor thing, but Chill still sometimes uses the Critical Hit animations, but at this point, I assume there isn't much that can be done about it/it's not worth fixing?
Hey Cal, you say Jonin has wet tissue defenses even though they are better than what most of the mages get, THIS is NOT bad balance but if THEY can survive then surely so can the Jonin with better multipliers and more defensive equipment options. And in the end staying alive is what matters.
My main issues with Jonin is that there are so many different situations where you would want to use it over other clases:
- Pretty much all the mid-game, from the moment you get the 6 djinn up until end-game. Since you are not stat capped the extra atk and PP go a long way
- All mid-game bosses, except maybe Poseidon. Avimander is easy enough (and alternative setups Protector and Paladin are niche and not really needed) and then Moapa, Karst and Agatio and Flame Dragons all get destroyed by shuriken faster than by ST :MercuryStar: EPAs. Since Shuriken is 1.2xN°enemies, so with 2 enemies you get 2.4 multiplier, way better than Plume Edge's x1.7 or Quick Strike's x2.0
- Any trash even end-game, since shuriken hits harder than base power psynergies and is cheaper (even against Jupiter Lighthouse :JupiterStar: resistant enemies my Felix's Shuriken would deal more damage than Guardian Jenna's Mother Gaia or Pure Mage Sheba's Hail Prism even though they had their apropiate elemental power equipment).
- Bosses weak to Venus (namely Sentinel): Since Annihilation is just a more expensive Tyrfing but because Jonin has a higher PP pool it somewhat cancells out. You could consider Shogun Skull Splitter to debuff Defense, but you lose out on the impact/ward utility jonin offers.
- Star Magician: a Jonin with 863 attack (achived by buffs, for example 691 base+25% easily achieved in 1 turn) should one shot Refresh Ball and Thunder Ball (and two shot the others) while damaging nearby targets with shuriken. So potentially one shot two orbs and damage the Magician
- Finally, if you want to run a Hybrid for some reason
While the other clases only shine in really specific Boss fights:
- Warlord in Balrog and thats it
- Shogun in Doom Dragon and Dullahan that hit so hard it may not be a good idea to go Jonin
Most of the Jonin's points are about Shuriken being strong not about the Atk multiplier being too high, but Shuriken would still be strong even if the attack multiplier was way weaker. This presents three separate ways to fix it:
- 1: Really Nerf/Remove Shuriken. This is the easiest one. I wouldn't really like it since I find Shuriken's mechanics very interesting
- 2: Relocate Shuriken /Create Shuriken copies for other clases to use. I already gave some ideas for this, but I do think too many would totally ruin it
- 3: Turn Jonin into a more mage-like class by lowering the Atk multiplier by 15-20% and increasing PP, Luck or Wrd. Shuriken would still be useful in some situations but it would not be as mandatory and it would make other EPAs more desirable against some of the bosses
EDIT: Also, about the Poseidon Instant Death issue. I don't think its a bad mechanic to have Instant Death but it does mean you sometimes have bad RNGs and have to replay the same fight over and over and it can get on your nerves so I understand how Wind Seer feels
Exactly everything Maxipotter said is why Jonin is so incredibly unbalanced, invalidating the other Classes for Felix, Isaac, and Garet.
If you add more MT EPAs, I suggest giving one to Destroyer (replace Frost line), Warlord or Shogun, and Valkyrie.
Truthfully, Valkyrie still doesn't work as a support class, or even a hybrid class. Instead she now does her job of being a Warrior class for Jenna, so that's something.
Personally, with Poseidon, all that needs to be done for it to be a fair fight is removing Watery Grave's Instant Death chance (MT+15% base chance of ID is just ridiculous), and either change Break to be ST (you only ever need it against bosses anyway) or remove it from Poseidon. I stated in a previous post that having maxed out defensive buffs makes Poseidon manageable but still dangerous, so giving the option to actually use buffs would make the fight fair without changing Poseidon's stats.
I also stated that Instant Death just works better on Random Battles due to their short nature, while it makes Bosses incredibly luck based due to boss battles taking a considerably long time. If you still doubt that a <2% chance of multiple IDs from Watery Grave is enough to be worth removing from Poseidon, I'd like to note that in The Legend of Legacy, I once had a boss use its Uber Attack, a Party Wide attack that deals close to 300 damage per character with a max HP average of 400 and can inflict poison, F I V E T U R N S I N A R O W. The odds of that happened should be really low, and yet it happened. Never underestimate the wrath of Bad RNG, Cal.
EDIT:
I figured I should tack this on, considering your response the last time I stated Bosses with Instant Death are luck-based battles.
Luck being a Stat doesn't mean squat until it breaks numbers that outright make the characters immune to ailments, which is impossible for pretty much everyone but Mia. As long as the chance of multiple Instant Deaths is greater than 0%, it can, and will, still happen.
That aside, the Luck Boosting Equipment is near non-existant for the guys during the Eastern Sea, and the girls have equipment that can make a bigger difference between life and death than maybe reducing the chance of being insta-killed by 1% or so, such as the Pure Circlet adding 20 :MercuryStar: Resist. Even if you stacked on all the Luck Boosting Gear from the Eastern Sea on Sheba or Jenna, you're still horrendously screwed if Watery Grave insta-kills two or more party members.
What i find really strange is how you both keep mentioning Jonin and nobody has said anything about Chaos Lord yet.
Shuriken has already been nerfed: you need to update, Maxi.
QuoteI'd like to note [...] I once had
I will always ignore any luck-related complain/suggestion/whatever formulated this way.
Not only about this mod or this game, but in real life as well.
A lot of things have low odds of happening but they will still happen. A random person might get struck by lightning while someone else's winning the lottery. But then what? I can't (and won't) tailor this mod for a 2%. Because if i did that, i'd be making a change that's worse for the other 48% and unnoticeable by the other 50%.
Think about it from the opposite perspective. Somebody fought Poseidon tons of times and never had any character instantly downed by Watery Grave. Should I boost the ID rate because i feel he should experience that? Obviously not.
Tomorrow i'll probably try to battle poseidon with that save
I don't see how removing MT ID from a boss that's plenty strong enough without it will somehow make the experience worse. If anything, it makes it better since there's no chance of getting completely screwed by bad RNG.
Why bother with Chaos Lord when Jonin exists? Jonin offers better utility with Impact and Ward, along with far better PP, EPAs, a MT EPA, and the ability to function as a powerful Hybrid. Heck, why bother with any other class for Isaac, Felix, and Garet when Jonin is blatantly the best class for pretty much the rest of the game once you get access to it?
The few things Chaos Lord DOES have that Jonin doesn't (Poison, Haunt, and Curse) are basically useless in any scenario you'd want to use them either due to bosses having total status immunity or it simply being faster to just attack to win the battle (BTW by no means am I even trying to suggest any ID should possibly work on bosses, cuz that defeats the whole point of boss battles). Not to mention I previously pointed out how extremely marginal the differences between Jonin's and Chaos Lord's HP and defense stats are.
What is the recommended level I should challenge Saturos and Menardi'? for some reason I feel like I should come at level 70 from the difficulty of the Mod 'lol. oh and (Very Very) good job on this mod too! :medal:
Hello, Proxian Obs!
I fought Saturos and Menardi at Lv.29/30 with Isaac & Garet as Black Knights (6 :VenusStar: 6 :MarsStar: ) spamming Ragnarok and Planet Diver, sometimes buffing themselves with Courage/High Impact. Ivan and Mia were Wises (6 :MercuryStar: 6 :JupiterStar: ) for Double Wishing and Break. Tonic :MercuryDjinni: is a huge help during the Fusion Dragon battle, since it cures all ailments including Haunt.
Down below are screenshots of the equipment I used to fight the final battles and Deadbeard.
I hope this helps!
Cal, you are right I made two mistakes. First, I was only considering tri-elemental classes, I didn't give two-elemental enough credit. Second I didn't know Shuriken had been nerfed, in the patch notes for 1.72 and 1.73 it doesn't say it explicitely so I assumed it was unchanged, I guess it falls under "mid-tier psynergies for Ninja" though I wouldn't call it that. I see now it has a x1.0 multiplier. So let's go over these:
First Chaos Lord, for the early game its a really good class, both it and Sun Champion have a lot of uses. Once you get the 6 Djinn that allow you to go Shinobi, Chaos Lord remains the top choice against Poseidon. After that most of the mid-game focuses around multi-target fights and Mars-alligned bosses where Chaos Lord is inferior. You could still use it for specific djinn or Mad Plants, but they aren't hard enough to justify moving all your djinn around and then back, are they?
For end-game Chaos Lord looks like the perfect Unleasher, since PP doesn't matter for that, and it gets bravery to buff his attacks, it is strictly better than Jonin at this since they have the same atk but Chaos Lord has way better surviveability, so you would put him in a (posibly cursed) Crit+atk set to get the perfect crit chance, with the Darksword or Herculean Axe or something.
However, as you pointed out there's the posibility of getting stat capped, so then the highest atk multiplier doesn't matter. If you are aiming for 666 atk it's worth noting that if your Chaos Lord is at 708 atk, him in Warlord would be 666 and Warlord is then strictly superior (Same HP and Def, Higher PP, Agi, Luck and Ward. And having access to 3 EPAs, Bravery, Guard, Cure and better MT psynergies). Likewise if your Chaos Lord is at 687 atk, him in Shogun would be at 666, though it is not as strictly superior since it doesn't have atk buffs himself and has to relly on others for it. Shogun does have improved surviveability over Chaos Lord (and PP and Agi) and access to 3 better EPAs.
Secondly, Shuriken has a 16.6% damage reduction compared to my game. This means it now will (probably) deal less damage than ThunderClap and Punji, encouraging to build your Jonin more on elemental power than attack which is nice, while still having a budget option in Shuriken. Shuriken should also hit lower than for example Warlord's Stone Spire when learned at level 33 against Jupiter Lighthouse enemies or Supernova when leared at level 35 against some Mars-weak enemy. However at end-game if neither is geared for elemental power then Shuriken will outdamage all other warrior classes in MT which if perfect by me Jonin should be the best warrior option in MT and it should be hitting for slightly lower damage than Mage's top-tiers, which it didn't before but it now does.
Against the mid-game Bosses Jonin is still the best against Moapa, since MT any element destroys them, which is fine. Against Karst and Agatio and the Flame Dragons it is no longer the clear choice since x2.0 is still strong but just as strong as Quick Strike and considering elemental power differences possibly as strong as Plume Edge's x1.7
Against Star Magician it used to be that Shuriken could 1-shot some of the Balls, with this change even at 999 atk it is not enough to one shot Refresh Ball, though it IS enough to one shot the Thunder Ball. It is still a good choice, but not as mandatory since it would still need extra damage. Shogun, Warlord and Chaos Lord are all able to oneshot one Ball at a time and are better at dealing with the Magician himself.
Against Sentinel I should add Chaos Lord as an option since Odyssey is a good EPA. But Jonin still remains a solid class 'cause Ward.
So of my previous 6 points 2 fell flat with that change I didn't notice. Sorry. I guess you were somewhat right. I still don't see the need for Jonin to have the highest atk multiplier if it is suposed to be more like a caster but I understand its not really that big of a deal and Shogun/Warlord can't have a higher multiplier because it would make Chaos Lord completely useless.
I noticed you didn't say anything about my proposed change to Fire Breath, you didn't like it?
Doesn't Sentinel's barrier gimmick also nullify EPAs? I can't remember if it did or not.
Honestly Cal, if you want Jonin to be balanced, then either nerf its HP and Defense modifiers even further to make an actual dent in the Warrior's HP and Defense scores, or nerf Jonin's attack modifier so it isn't on par with Chaos Lord in terms of attack. Personally, I believe it should have the lowest Attack Modifier of Isaac's, Garet's, and Felix's tri-elemental classes at about 150% to 155% attack.
I feel that Shogun needs some major changes, because the intended draw of it being Debuff-focused is really bad. Debuff Psynergies just aren't worth using due to how quickly they fade and being more difficult to maintain (yes, i'm talking about the MT versions). This intended draw-point for Shogun is made even worse by having a PP score marginally better than Chaos Lord's. Not to mention Chaos Lord, Jonin, and Warlord all performing the EPA spam much better due to either higher attack modifiers or better PP pool (or both in Jonin's case).
One thing that makes sense from the whole Jonin debate is that i should tweak the "weight" for atk and def when calculating stat totals (to balance classes). By making atk weight slightly more and def a bit less (as is should be cause atk is always more or less double than def), it turns out that i should, among other changes, drop the jonin's hp by another 5%. But that's it. 5% Hp is how much it is imbalanced so i really think that you're grossily overestimating the Shinobi line.
Also, i think shinobi itself is why you were having such a hard time against poseidon. Changing Piers to radiant and Felix to Psy champion made the fight a joke even though the entire setup was completely unprecedented for me (btw why miko jenna didn't have asteria's staff?).
As for debuffs, I did some math and I think I can drop the base recovery chance by 5%.
About Fire breath, i found the post cause i didn't really remember hearing about it. It kinda makes sense, i'll mull it over and it will either be in the next update or i'll tell you why it didn't make it.
EDIT (Answer to last point below) I never thought that Jonin has ever been anything near the best for the Isaac Felix and Garet. I'd still pick Shogun and Chaos Lord over it, and i've enjoyed using Leader a lot. I just happened to think something that makes sense math-wise, which involves reducing Jonin's HP multiplier by 5%. Shuriken at x1.2 was actually OP and in fact it only took me 3 castings to nerf it to x1.0
Jenna didn't have Asteria's Staff because I had her wielding a Sylph Rapier in preparation for Valkyrie until I noticed she lacks Blessing from the get-go. Thus it went to Sheba, then sold to Izumo after nabbing a Crystal Rod. After Poseidon, I was gonna have Jenna go Infidel and Piers go Strategist, so the staff she's wielding right now gives more mileage to Punishment.
As long as that 5% takes off more than a measly 100HP when comparing to Chaos Lord, then maybe it'll be fine.
Like Maxipotter said in his first post about changing Fire Breath to a MT EPA, it makes the Dragon Helm's bonus actually worthwhile. I also agree with his point of making more MT EPAs for various hybrid and warrior classes would help knock Jonin down a peg or two from being the "undisputed best" for Isaac, Felix, and Garet.
EDIT (Reply to Cal's edit):
Jonin at the very least was the best class before the planned nerfs to it. We'll see if it keeps a firm grip on that title once the next update is out.
On a separate note:
why did Destroyer get Douse downgraded to Frost?
Saturos and Menardia (and Fusion Dragon) are all trivial compared to Deadbeard. I usually fight them right after Deadbeard which I do at whatever level Mia learns Break because I dunno how to beat him without Break.
I personally find Deadbeard fairly trivial compared to Fusion Dragon, largely due to Deadbeard having a finite PP pool and a pointless Monster Move. Fusion Dragon's AoE Haunt and Venom can be crippling if not dealt with immediately via Tonic, not to mention Crushing Blow having a chance to reduce its target's HP to 1.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 27, February, 2019, 07:11:00 PM
why did Destroyer get Douse downgraded to Frost?
when you said you'd like more variance in psinergy lines i ended up counting them all. Frost was among the rarest ones and i decided that it fits destroyer better than douse (themathically).
QuoteWe'll see if [Jonin] keeps a firm grip on that title once the next update is out.
You misunderstood. I
never thought that Jonin was the best for the boys. You think it's the best and i find that questionable. I don't like that class, I'd always pick Chaos Lord or Shogun over it. Shuriken alone was too good and it got nerfed but that's it.
I didn't misunderstand you. It's been clear for a while that you simply don't care for Jonin. However, regardless of how much you liked or disliked Jonin, it was simply overpowered and the best class for the boys. If that extra 5%HP loss cuts off more than a puny 100HP when compared to Chaos Lord, and more classes get MT EPAs, then Jonin will be as balanced as you (and everyone else) want it to be.
Huh. Okay, that makes sense for Frost.
Also, will General be gaining an Endgame Venus Mace and a Venus equivalent to the Cosmos Shield? Jonin has a bit of an unfair advantage over General by having the Hagbone Mace and the Cosmos Shield. General doesn't get anything from Alecto's Mace, and Rising Mace's Mercury Power doesn't help him all that much.
You keep misunderstanding. Jonin being OP or best class is only your opinion, one i disagree with. It's not that i don't care, i just think you're vastly overestimating that class.
Pretty sure i already answered that, but no. Power bonuses for warriors are already balanced. There's no need to keep adding equipment.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 25, February, 2019, 05:59:11 PM
My main issues with Jonin is that there are so many different situations where you would want to use it over other clases:
- Pretty much all the mid-game, from the moment you get the 6 djinn up until end-game. Since you are not stat capped the extra atk and PP go a long way
- All mid-game bosses, except maybe Poseidon. Avimander is easy enough (and alternative setups Protector and Paladin are niche and not really needed) and then Moapa, Karst and Agatio and Flame Dragons all get destroyed by shuriken faster than by ST :MercuryStar: EPAs. Since Shuriken is 1.2xN°enemies, so with 2 enemies you get 2.4 multiplier, way better than Plume Edge's x1.7 or Quick Strike's x2.0
- Bosses weak to Venus (namely Sentinel): Since Annihilation is just a more expensive Tyrfing but because Jonin has a higher PP pool it somewhat cancells out. You could consider Shogun Skull Splitter to debuff Defense, but you lose out on the impact/ward utility jonin offers.
- Finally, if you want to run a Hybrid for some reason
While the other clases only shine in really specific Boss fights:
- Warlord in Balrog and thats it
- Shogun in Doom Dragon and Dullahan that hit so hard it may not be a good idea to go Jonin
I dunno, it sure doesn't seem like it's just
my opinion.
Regardless, Jonin having Shuriken aka currently the only MT EPA falls in line with what I stated earlier with Support-type Classes:
Jonin is so highly appealing and so good for the majority of the game mainly because it has something only it can do. Take the exclusivity of a MT EPA away from it, then it falls back to being appealing as a Hybrid Class.
QuotePower bonuses for warriors are already balanced.
Unless I'm missing certain pieces of equipment, I have to strongly disagree with that statement. In the screenshots below, you can see that I gave Piers and Garet the same armor pieces and Garet is wielding the Hagbone Mace. Garet is clearly boasting a whopping 37 extra Jupiter power over Piers' 128 Venus Power. Do take note that Piers' highest Elemental Power is also Jupiter instead of Venus.
EDIT:
never mind about a Venus Cosmos shield. I just remembered the Titan Gloves exist.
But an Endgame Venus Mace would still be fantastic, since Jonin has the Hagbone Mace. I think the Grievous Mace from the beginning of the Eastern Sea is a fine candidate to receive the same treatment that the Phaeton's Blade got. It
is kind of pointless even for when you get it. Sheba would rather have the Cloud Wand for better Wishing, and the guys don't really get anything from Venus Maces at this point, not to mention you can easily sequence break into Gaia's Rock to snag the Demon Mace right away. Even playing the dungeons in the intended sequence, the Grievous Mace is quickly outclassed, and the Demon Mace is a direct upgrade shortly before Strategist is available.
QuoteUnless I'm missing certain pieces of equipment
Yes. Once again, please use the editor. Titan Gloves, Big Bang Gloves, both Greaves.
The Knight Greaves close the gap, but the Silver Greaves are... kinda pointless in my opinion. Jonin gets absolutely nothing from their Mercury Boost, and General would rather have the Knight Greaves. I guess Paladin benefits from them, but honestly why even bother with Paladin in this mod? Not to mention, both Warlord and Destroyer would much rather have Ninja Sandals for higher Unleash Rates.
Though for the sake of elemental power balance, I suppose that there really isn't much to be done here.
Hey there! I've been keeping track of all the work done in this website and, honestly, you guys are amazing.. From Rolina to Atrius and everyone else, thank you for keeping Golden Sun alive. I love this patch (this is my fav to be honest, I can't play vanilla anymore hehe) and I'm happy you keep updating it. I must confess I still do some tweaks for my gameplays (I hate it that items like Douse Drop and Frost Jewel become obsolete later on and you can't even remove them from inventory, for example). So I just turn them into some items that bestows useful battle psyenergies that I design myself (e.g. turning Douse Drop into Regen Drop, item that bestows the Regeneration psynergy).
Well, sorry for overextending myself. Your patch is great, congratulations. Keep it up.
So now that I've reached the Western Sea and did some Sequence Breaking by going to Contigo first to empty out all of my Game Tickets, I have a couple things:
- Golden Boots are now the 3rd Worst boots (Turtle and Leather Boots being the two worst). As I've stated a few times now, Luck just isn't worth investing in until you can break 40 Luck, which can only be feasibly reached by Angel Mia with all the Luck Boosting Mercury Djinn, Psychic Circlet, and Clotho's Distaff. This kinda defeats any reason to bother with activating the Thieves' Bonus Event back in TBS for a Password Transfer. On the flipside, the Fur Boots are now actually useful thanks to the HP Boost.
- Brilliant Circlet and Floral Dress are direct downgrades from the Astral Circlet and Cocktail Dress respectively. the Brilliant Circlet only adds one singular point of Luck over the Astral Circlet and lacks the MaxPP Bonus. Floral Dress' effect is just awful garbage. Why bother with Sleep when Stun exists? Cocktail Dress effortlessly beats out the Floral Dress. This is a pretty considerable problem since the defense bonus from either armor piece isn't enough to justify losing the extra MaxPP from either previous piece.
- What is Elementalist's Role? Incantrix and Fateweaver are strong Offensive Mages with some good supportive capabilities, but I can't tell if Elementalist is supposed to fall under the same vein or have a different role.
- I know that MT Heals had their PP Cost drastically boosted and the healing boost from elemental power was nerfed to weaken Dual-Wishing Teams, however, with both nerfs in effect, Dual-Wishing is honestly kind of pressured on to the party. One Wisher will quickly deplete their PP Pool, and likely won't be able to heal enough HP when fighting bosses such as Doom Dragon or Dullahan. I think un-nerfing the healing bonus from Elemental Power will help alleviate the pressure to use Dual-Wishing, since it will better allow for one Wisher with encouraged smarter healing (as opposed to simply spamming MT Heals).
And here's a few ideas I've come up with:
- Would it be possible to have the Douse Drop and Frost Jewel to bestow their entire Psynergy Lines, like the Sand Prince and Snow Queen Jewels in Dark Dawn? These would make them much more useful in TBS as it gives everyone but Mia a Base Damage Mercury Option they wouldn't normally have in a good number of their classes.
- Give Jenna's Heretic a Venus Fume Psynergy and swap Punji with the Jupiter Psynergy closest in base power. This would give the Ker's Weight purpose and thus make sense for a Cursed Mage Build.
- This is a pretty big one, but I thought about how to make the Rising Mace and the Silver Greaves more useful since Paladin/Holy Knight aren't worth using. The solution I came up with was scrapping Paladin/Holy Knight altogether and crafting Mage Classes to replace them. Since Jenna gets a Warrior Class in Valkyrie, I figured why not give a Mage Class to the guys? Paladin could be replaced by a Mercury Fateweaver with a Mercury Fume, Plasma, and Heal/Wish/Boon. Holy Knight could be replaced with a Mercury Heretic, with Mercury Fume, Tornado/Plasma, and Gaia/Punji. Naturally, these classes would likely have the lowest attack, defense, and HP multipliers of the tri-elemental classes, but boast the highest PP, Ward, and possibly Luck. This way they're not stepping on the toes of the Hybrid Classes, since those will be more durable and more versatile than a purely caster class.
That's about all I could think of for now. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on these.
EDIT:
Oh yeah, I just remembered that I found this weird text glitch. Sheba still changes to the Tamer class just fine when equipping it, and it only happens when she changes to Tamer specifically. I don't think I've seen this happen with her other classes, though. It's a minor and kinda funny glitch, so no worries if you can't fix it.
Wind Seer:
You've been asking for a Venus Hagbone Mace to have extra :VenusStar: Power, but there already is Tungsten Mace (Crafted from Golem Core) that has 15 :VenusStar: Power, over Hagbone's 12 :JupiterStar: Power. It does have lower atk (129 vs 143) but if you want it for casting it's good.
You don't like Paladin/Holy knight and I agree, persolnaly, I don't want to use them, but I don't think they are bad classes, they fit their theme very nicely. Also think that Cal rates Def and HP way higher than you or I do, and that is likely not going to change. I think the main issue with these classes is that there isn't really a place where they shine because all the enemies are similarly affected by physical attacks and psynergy attacks; If there was a boss (pre-reunion) that had UBER defense and low resistances (kinda like FF Flans) then you would want to have the guys heal and the girls be in offensive classes with Fume/ Punishment. Thing is if this boss was after reunion, you would probably go full mages.
Other than this you would need some boss with really high atk-based MT (high enough that it makes the mages die in one turn) so that you go full warriors with 2 of them wishing, but that would probably be hard to make work.
Still, it's not a bad strategy to have one of your double Wishing come from a low speed unit, since that way you would heal some of the damage the boss did in this turn, which could save someone. Ex: If the boss does 400dmg three times, its really significant if all of that comes at once (1200 would kill most) or it there is a wish in between (-400-400+500-400=700 final).
I agree that Golden Boots are underwhelming if you compare them to end-game gear, but since you get them so early in the game maybe we should be comparing them to the other alternatives available at that moment? It will be a strict upgrade for anyone using Leather Boots and will remain so through all Eastern Sea up until Contigo. Still, I don't agree that Luck is meaningless unless its capped and it's not true only Angel Mia can reach said cap.
On the Circlets and Dresses I agree completely.
The Tungsten Mace is a bit too weak for my liking, but since the Knight Greaves give +10 :VenusStar: Power, I'm willing to let go of an Endgame Venus Mace.
The Paladin/Holy Knight aren't bad classes, per se, however they certainly are the least useful of the classes available to the Warriors. Due to how fast Attack scales upwards, Defense is kind of moot, and the rising number of Base Damage attacks the further you go in the game also renders Defense pointless. HP also scales up absurdly fast, which kind of make High HP Classes a bit redundant since they'll have super high HP regardless of their class.
A lot of the boots have been adjusted to where only the Monster Drop Boots/Shoes can be considered "endgame", so the Golden Boots are very lackluster of the available boots before the Ninja Sandals and Knight & Silver Greaves are available. It's not exactly any strong point to be better than the Leather or Turtle Boots, especially considering the steps you need to take to unlock the Golden Boots.
Angel Mia is really the only one who will hit 40Luck at a reasonable level. At Lv.42, I just barely broke 40Luck with the aforementioned Djinn Set-up and equipment, whereas other characters would likely have to abandon some very strong endgame gear to come close to 40 Luck around that same level. 15 Luck on my Cursed Fury Ivan and Cursed Guardian Jenna was plenty enough for all of endgame.
EDIT:
To clarify what I mean by "defense being moot" in regards to the super fast Attack scaling, I never really found any reason to care about defense past getting the most recent armor piece, up until 300 Defense. Once you hit 300, it becomes more of a question of "which pieces of armor help boost my offense?" rather than "which pieces of armor give the highest yields of bulk?"
I don't know the damage formula, but I don't think defense has enough weight to really be worth investing past 300 or even using a Tank Class past that 300 benchmark. Not to mention it's often times better to go balls to the walls with offense to clear out the random encounters before they do too much damage to the party.
QuoteGolden Boots
It has a niche. Sounds good enough to me.
QuoteBrilliant Circlet and Floral Dress are direct downgrades from the Astral Circlet and Cocktail Dress respectively.
Astral Circlet doesn't add Luck. Floral Dress has always been the "dud" of the Lemurian fountain.
QuoteWhat is Elementalist's Role?
Elementalist is a Fateweaver toned down offensively with better support. It's the venus child of fateweaver and pure mage. AKA the best i could came up with for a venus mage bound to GS1.
QuoteI think un-nerfing the healing bonus from Elemental Power
I changed my mind three times while writing this answer. First was no cause i want elemental bonuses to be the same for offense and healing, then yes cause offense has the pp multiplier to compensate, then no again cause this would give an unfair and unfixable advantage to classes with less elements.
Quote
Would it be possible to have the Douse Drop and Frost Jewel to bestow their entire Psynergy Lines
impossible
Quote
Give Jenna's Heretic a Venus Fume Psynergy and swap Punji with the Jupiter Psynergy closest in base power. This would give the Ker's Weight purpose and thus make sense for a Cursed Mage Build.
Heretic is the jupiter tri-elemental.
Quotesince Paladin/Holy Knight aren't worth using.
You say that, also i'd rather boost Paladin and Holy Knight than scrap them, seeing how unique they are.
QuoteOh yeah, I just remembered that I found this weird text glitch. Sheba still changes to the Tamer class just fine when equipping it, and it only happens when she changes to Tamer specifically.
Pics don't help me... i need details to replicare that. How many and which types of djinn did she have equipped?
QuoteAngel Mia is really the only one who will hit 40Luck
I'm assuming you know this false cause any other caster with access to a 130% Luck class can do the same.
QuoteI don't know the damage formula, but I don't think defense has enough weight to really be worth investing past 300 or even using a Tank Class past that 300 benchmark
There are no benchmarks in the damage formula. It's just a subtraction.
Quoteclear out the random encounters
why would you care about them? literally anything works... it's against bosses that you have to actually think about your class/gear setup
Quote from: Caledor on 06, March, 2019, 05:13:20 AM
It has a niche. Sounds good enough to me.
a niche one would rarely use. Its previous niche of being part of an HP Regen Tank armor set was honestly more useful, in my opinion.
QuoteAstral Circlet doesn't add Luck. Floral Dress has always been the "dud" of the Lemurian fountain.
That's my bad with the Astral Circlet, but it doesn't change the fact that the Brilliant Circlet is a direct downgrade, especially considering it comes right after a Boss where the luck boost might actually be useful. Not to mention that simply brushing aside the Floral Dress' blindingly obvious flaw like that just seems lazy to me.
Quote
I changed my mind three times while writing this answer. First was no cause i want elemental bonuses to be the same for offense and healing, then yes cause offense has the pp multiplier to compensate, then no again cause this would give an unfair and unfixable advantage to classes with less elements.
That would honestly benefit them, since it would give more reason to use Dual and Mono-Elemental classes instead of just slapping on tri-elemental classes.
QuoteHeretic is the jupiter tri-elemental.
The Ker's Weight
really doesn't have much use on Guardian by being Cursed, when Guardian would want PP Regen instead of Cursed Gear. And as it stands, Guardian is the only one who benefits from it. Un-cursing it and making the Lachesis' Rule or the Atropis' Rod the Cursed Staff is really the only course of action I can think of to make Ker's Weight worth using, given the current classes.
QuoteYou say that, also i'd rather boost Paladin and Holy Knight than scrap them, seeing how unique they are.
Considering that defense doesn't have enough weight for the ~30 defense loss going from Chaos Lord to Jonin to mean anything, Paladin's/Holy Knight's tanky roles don't have much use. Not to mention, like I said earlier, high HP classes are kind of redundant what with how high HP skyrockets. If you want these classes to be relevant, then I suggest nerfing everyone's overall HP scores and tweaking the damage formula so a 30 Defense loss
does have a significant impact.
QuotePics don't help me... i need details to replicare that. How many and which types of djinn did she have equipped?
Given that she's a Savant, and I stated that I took that after "sequence breaking" and going straight to Contigo after Lemuria, I was hoping it was obvious she had 7 Mercury Djinn.
QuoteThere are no benchmarks in the damage formula. It's just a subtraction.
300 Defense is about where endgame randoms deal less than 200 damage with normal attacks (if I remember right), and given how absurdly high your HP scores will be at that point (800-900+), anything dealing less than 200 to the party isn't worth caring about.
Quotewhy would you care about them? literally anything works... it's against bosses that you have to actually think about your class/gear setup
Considering random encounters can actually kill you if you're careless or force you to deplete huge amounts of PP, you'll tend to favor classes that can deal with random encounters quickly. Against most bosses, any extra defense past 300 or so is moot either due to the bosses having sky high attack scores, or due to them using base damage attacks. Again, tweaking the damage formula so defense actually does matter past 300 or so, or simply giving higher defense to armors and the character's innate defense scores, will easily change this matter.
EDIT:
I'm looking at v1.73a via Atrius' editor, and holy moley are these modifier values right? for example, it shows Archon with 390% HP, 330%Atk, 330%Agility, 300%MaxPP, 300%Defense, and 200% Luck.
are all of these blank slots shown able to be filled? because if so, then there's plenty of room for new items, some psynergies, and maybe like one or two classes. I personally would like to see the 50PP Recovery item from Dark Dawn to show up here and be buyable, so we have a reason to actually use the money we get (along with Mountain Waters being buyable in the Eastern Sea).
you need to halve them. or just look at the class doc.
as for items/psy, i lack icons. for classes, just no. we already discussed the 4th item class
I really don't care about a 4th Item Class at this point. I was just noting that given the number of blank slots, there's room for one or maybe two classes.
aren't Punishment, Heal, and Boon recolors of pre-existing icons? (Ray line flipped upside-down, Wish/Aura, and Cure/Ply respectively) If so, couldn't you recolor some other item icon (like maybe the Mint item?) for an equivalent to Dark Dawn's Ginseng? Having something to bridge the gap between Mountain Waters and Psy Crystals, like Corn did for Herbs and Nuts, would be very nice, especially if we can freely buy them.
Quote from: Average Wind Seer on 06, March, 2019, 09:05:00 PM
aren't Punishment, Heal, and Boon recolors of pre-existing icons?
No recolors. I have a fixed number of slots, each different icons takes 1 (can easily be seen from the editor).
hey so I've got a weird question. i experienced something.... odd. i apologies in advance if its a dumb question lmao. its not a problem it just confused the hell out of me so i literally made an account to ask this question lmfao! it bothered me that much yes! :P not sure if its hack related or base game related but 2 of the djinnis had swapped locations for me. to be specific Mud :VenusDjinni: and Chill :MercuryDjinni: in the lost age. Chill :MercuryDjinni: is supposed to be encountered on the world map in southern gondowan and Mud :VenusDjinni: in gabomba catacombs. but i encountered Mud :VenusDjinni: on the over-world instead in Chills :MercuryDjinni: location, and Chill in Muds location. did you swap them around in the hack or is that something that can happen in the base game if you go djinni hunting as soon as you get to gondowan? i'm not crazy i sware! lmao i looked up 20 million different guides and found screenshots of Chill being encountered in southern gondowan. I've played through both games an uncountable amount of times and I've never seen this before so i naturally assumed it was hack related. if its base game related its such a minor thing that i would wager people just simply haven't noticed this happening before. and i'm curious what the point of such a thing would even be if its hack related. again i know this is a weird question but its bothering me lots and making me feel like I've gone mad or something :P Lmao
by the way you've done an excellent job with this, really spiced up the games and after 50 billion playthroughs it was sorely needed for me :P thanks loads!
Hack related
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2779.msg47868;topicseen#msg47868
QuoteDjinn:
Mud and Chill swapped places
Quote from: Fox on 10, March, 2019, 09:59:36 PM
Hack related
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2779.msg47868;topicseen#msg47868
QuoteDjinn:
Mud and Chill swapped places
ahh thanks okay. i'm not crazy after all!! :P lol probably should read through all these pages first before making that comment but thats such an odd thing to change. i'm curious what the reasoning behind it is
I used the search feature to find that post, by the way. (Use the search feature while in this topic so you only get results from this topic.)
Also, the swap is mentioned in the first post of this topic too. (Missed it at first.)
QuoteEarly Game Djinn Imbalance
When Piers joins you end up with 2/3/3/5 Ve/Ma/Ju/Me Djinns. Swapping Mud with Chill changes the distribution to a much more manageable 3/3/3/4.
Trivia/FYI:
I see the grammar error is common...
Djinni = singular
Djinn = plural
And the game always starts the word with a capital letter.
Quote from: Fox on 10, March, 2019, 10:12:22 PM
I used the search feature to find that post, by the way. (Use the search feature while in this topic so you only get results from this topic.)
Also, the swap is mentioned in the first post of this topic too. (Missed it at first.)
QuoteEarly Game Djinn Imbalance
When Piers joins you end up with 2/3/3/5 Ve/Ma/Ju/Me Djinns. Swapping Mud with Chill changes the distribution to a much more manageable 3/3/3/4.
Trivia/FYI:
I see the grammar error is common...
Djinni = singular
Djinn = plural
And the game always starts the word with a capital letter.
ahh okay yeah that makes a tonne of sense actually i was always bothered by that in the base game thanks (: hopefully i wont have any other dumb questions lol but if i do ill make sure to use search first :P and i always thought the plural AND singular of Djinni was just.... Djinni :P good to know lol :P not that it matters a whole lot lmao.
Quoteif i do ill make sure to use search first
Most of the time there's no need to go that far. Checking the first post should be enough
Depending on the information you are looking for.
Does the first post explain why the Djinn were switched?
--
@Djinn(i) grammar = Yeah, I thought maybe you might have not known, which is why I mentioned, in case it is of interest. (And it is related to the topic still, but different.)
It is an interesting piece of information... Psynergy is also capitalized... and I'm guessing the same spelling is used for singular and plural. (Could be the same, just like how "code" is singular and plural... Although, I'd argue that "codes" is fair enough, since the way I see it,... if it can be easily understood, it shouldn't really matter. Heheh.)
(//)I just finished a playthrough of TBS and you really nailed the difficulty curve in this game. I can't think of anything that was too easy or too hard except maybe Deadbeard and Fusion Dragon being too easy. I managed to beat Deadbeard at level 26 (no Break this time!!) and Fusion Dragon at level 28 for reference, though I think I could have done it at lower levels. Saturos and Menardi are actually harder than Fusion Dragon in my opinion but none of the bosses are pushovers. Hydros Statue was my favorite boss fight and probably the hardest. Attached is a screenshot of my very close victory.
I'm playing TLA now and it feels like I need to level grind while I didn't in TBS. I don't think my behavior for fighting vs running from enemies is different between the games, yet my level 13ish squad is getting destroyed in Gondowan Cliffs. I had similar struggles in Yampi Desert and Air's Rock where if two or three enemies decided to gang up on Sheba or Jenna they'd just go down in a single round of combat. To me it seems the experience gain doesn't scale with the enemy strength as much as in TBS so I end up a little underleveled. Other than that, the game is still solid so far. King Scorpion was a great fight but Briggs and Chestbeaters were a little too easy. Briggs' squad spends too many turns doing nothing so I don't need to worry too much about healing. I've actually been finding Djinn harder than the bosses so I resorted to Poison cheesing against many of them like Blitz, Kindle, and Mud.
A general thing I've noticed is critical boosting items are pretty bad until very late in TLA. There is little reason to stack crit when you won't realistically pass 60% chance anyway, so I tend to favor items with better combat stats and using Ragnarok and similar Psynergy on my warrior adepts. I think a lot of the the earlier crit boosting items could have their crit values improved without being imbalanced since they will still have to compete with strong attack Psynergy and Djinn that are more reliable and deal comparable damage. Warrior adepts don't really care about burning a bit of PP on these attacks since they can be counted on to deal good damage.
Quote from: bpat on 14, March, 2019, 01:18:27 AM
I'm playing TLA now and it feels like I need to level grind while I didn't in TBS. I don't think my behavior for fighting vs running from enemies is different between the games, yet my level 13ish squad is getting destroyed in Gondowan Cliffs. I had similar struggles in Yampi Desert and Air's Rock where if two or three enemies decided to gang up on Sheba or Jenna they'd just go down in a single round of combat. To me it seems the experience gain doesn't scale with the enemy strength as much as in TBS so I end up a little underleveled.
Level 10-18 (Yampi to Kibombo) in TLA is the hardest to balance. Usually is pretty easy since TBS scales really well so it's just about finding a good multiplier to the stats there (on top of some changes to the skills) and copy paste them to TLA, which is way easier than the predecessor.
But TBS assumes that you gain Mia at 10, and scales accordingly. In TBS though, Piers joins at 18, so with a mere copy paste from TBS (my starting point) you end up fighting enemies balanced for a team of 4 with a team of 3. I obviously made a lot of changes since then, trying to smooth out that difficulty spike but getting rid of it is another thing sadly (moreso if you're a bit underleveled).
Thanks for the feedback ;)
I just finished Aqua Rock and I'm still not sure what Piers is supposed to contribute to my team at this point in the game. He learns literally no offense Psynergy better than Froth Spiral until level 23 where he can finally get Hail Prism, though that's only in his base class which is otherwise pretty bad. He's worse at both physical attacks and AoE than Felix until level 23 where he finally learns Hail Prism so he's been relegated to using Mad Blast and Healing Aura in Aqua Rock because he just doesn't have better options. He's tanky but that's about all he has going for him and it doesn't really matter when the other Adepts just go down instead of him because he doesn't do enough damage to kill anything. I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on how to use Piers pre-Hail Prism because I have no idea how to make him useful.
I just slap Piers under Mars for better ST physical damage or Jupiter to help out his speed. Admittedly, Piers doesn't really shine until you gain access to Tri-Elemental classes (or slap him under Tamer or Pierrot).
The Warrior Psynergy lists honestly baffle me, since in just about every class outside the Hyrbids have VERY low PP Cost Psynergies (Jonin has Shuriken which is still fairly cheap for strong damage). Even when spamming the strongest available Psynergy in battle, the Mages almost always burn through their PP pools FAR faster than the guys do (especially in during the Eastern Sea if you snag Luna Shields for Piers & Felix). Obviously there's not much that can be done here since the Warriors typically AREN'T supposed to have super strong Psynergy, but maybe giving Jenna & Sheba a PP Regen armor piece during the Eastern Sea will help balance out that weird disparity of PP Sustain between the Warriors and Mages?
Also would it be possible to make a Psynergy that dispels Debuffs from the party? It could use the same Icon and graphics as Break, since they have similar functions. It'd be a handy way to shake off nasty debuffs without having to fight so hard against a constant stream of debuffing (like Aviamander's Star Mine easily crippling the party with its Resistance Debuff, making Ward not strong enough to keep up). If you think having it affect the party would be too strong, simply make it ST to force players to be mindful of who's most important to return to their normal stats. (e.g. Dispelling Jenna's heavy Defense & Resist debuffs so she's not at such a huge risk of dying over the next few turns, or Dispelling Felix's Attack debuffs to help shorten the battle.)
Aside from endgame if you learned all your Psynergy, Mages don't even have stronger Psynergy than warriors aside from Piers who has a horrible Psynergy list in all his classes until around level 27. It all depends on what level your adepts are. For instance, Felix with Clay Spire/Tornado hits a lot harder than Jenna with Flare Storm/Briar which makes him the better caster until Jenna learns Volcano/Searing Beam.
The Flare line is just plain awful. The Thorn line is also pretty bad, but nowhere near as awful as Flare. Student Sheba has a pretty stinkin' unfair advantage over Miko Jenna, since Plasma and Ice are the 3rd strongest Psynergy lines of their respective elements. Meanwhile Miko only has Fume for comparable offense, which isn't good for random encounters, and Thorn is incredibly underpowered for Miko's only means of AoE damage.
Those combined are why I either put Jenna under Monk for stronger damage + Wish, or Jupiter for some very powerful Psynergy and Paralyze.
Did Balrog get harder recently? He's been destroying my level 37 team this run. I thought 40 luck on Mia would be enough but he still manages to Djinn Stun --> stun or sleep her surprisingly often. Also he straight up oneshots my squishier adepts with Stun Jip sometimes which is terrifying since I can't rely on having Granite/Shade/Flash up each turn.
Edit: I did manage to win but it was a struggle. I probably had to use revive Psynergy/Djinn at least 10 times and I cast 1-2 Wish Well / Estre Wood each turn. It would have been much easier if I level grinded for Pure Wish so I could get away with only one party heal per turn instead of needing two. I tried the Moloch strategy that I did last time but sometimes he'd just summon Moloch himself without me being able to disrupt him.
I think I was about Lv.42 with Guardian Jenna, Jonin Garet, Piers (don't remember his class. Might've been Destroyer or Archon), and Ivan (either Fury or Pure Mage). Ivan is very helpful here since he can use any leftover Djinn from the previous round to Summon before Balrog gets his turn (I think. I don't remember if Balrog is faster than Ivan).
Stun Jip is pretty dangerous, but even at Lv.42+, it can be fatal if he summons Zagan a few times first. Not to mention his Djinn Stun makes relying on 40+ Luck for status immunity a moot strategy.
I'm so excited! This seems a really well thought job! Can I ask for an Italian mod for both games?
Replied to Mahou in PM, as for Balrog I think haven't touched him for a very long time now. If the changelog doesn't say otherwise, it's safe to assume he's the same as the last time you fought him
Hello,
How can I know if my rom of Golden Sun: The Broken Seal has been patched ? The game doesn't seem really hard. I used a "USA Europe" rom.
Edit below : OK, it's patched then ! Thank you !
Easiest way to know is to check Garet's Psynergy. If he has Flare it's not patched if he has Blast it is. If you find it's not patched try a different ROM, a USA only ROM. Don't expect the enemies to be uber hard though, its pretty nicely balanced
Just defeated Trent and I'm having so much fun! Only con I can find is that I wish the game was a bit harder, but that's kinda my fault too, as an hardcore fan of old school turn based rpg and liking to grind up, I always get full equip and more levelled up than I should be before going in the new dungeon and boss. I didn't need to heal myself with Trent but the fight lasted decently long even tho I was more than ready. If you're still patching this wonderful mod and you're searching for feedbacks, mine is: it's perfect, but if you can, make it harder! :)
I am almost at the end of GS1 and preparing for GS2.
QuoteEach forgeable material now has a "target level range" and the places where they can be found have been changed accordingly.
Tear stone: ~21. very early eastern sea.
Stardust: ~23. early to mid eastern sea. Taopo, aqua rock and early gaia rock.
Sylph feather: ~25. Mid to late e.sea. Ankhol to Lemuria.
Dragon Skin: ~28. early w.sea. From right after grind till shaman village.
Golem Core: ~30. Contigo till reunion.
Sala Tail: ~33. From reunion to Loho.
Mythril silver: ~35. Loho to Prox.
Orichalcon & Dark Matter: After teleport.
How does it work exactly ? Can they be found on all the monster of the area ?
No, i'm just saying what the overall level of the item is. I rearranged treasure and drops from that though, and you can find info about both in the respective sections (same post).
I read that on the golden sun wiki :
QuoteIf you fell a Chimera Mage with the attack effect of an offensive Mercury Djinni, there is a 1/16 chance it will drop a Spiked Armor
I got a Spiked Armor, but without using a mercury Djinni (Ivan Assassin Blade). Is the wiki wrong or is the drop system changed ? Because I am trying to get a a Kikuichimonji since this morning without success using a mars Djinni on a Fenrir.
Edit : anyway, I just finished the game. My strategy at the end was always the same : granite, flash, ground on Ivan with Garet / Isaac summoning (mars / ramses) so they can come back quickly or attacking with their high attack. Mia spamming wish spells with PP recovery items.
The difficulty was OK, except for these guys way too easy to beat, even if it is repeatable.
Edit2 (below) : OK I thought killing with a specific Djinni was mandatory to have a chance to get the item, but it seems not. It is sad to have to use RNG to get these items.
Quote from: Hervé on 05, April, 2019, 11:35:22 AM
I read that on the golden sun wiki :
QuoteIf you fell a Chimera Mage with the attack effect of an offensive Mercury Djinni, there is a 1/16 chance it will drop a Spiked Armor
I got a Spiked Armor, but without using a mercury Djinni (Ivan Assassin Blade). Is the wiki wrong or is the drop system changed ? Because I am trying to get a a Kikuichimonji since this morning without success using a mars Djinni on a Fenrir.
The RNG part of the drop system hasn't been touched but one shouldn't blindly follow the wiki, as those moves are tailored for vanilla. Learn how the RNG works from the Random Number Generator FAQ guides on Gamefaqs and adapt from there
Speaking of RNG drops, I think unique item drop rates could stand to be increased to the point where you don't need to use the RNG trick to get them. I didn't mind it at first but it started to get annoying when rigging for items that I want a bunch of like Mythril Silver and Orichalcum.
I just recently got into Golden Sun and figured I probably wouldn't play it again because of the tedium, but then I found this, which has proved to be several times more enjoyable than the original, and I think I'll be playing around with this hack for a while. All the changes that have been made have made the Golden Sun experience a lot more engaging, so thank you for that.
That aside though, I noticed something weird about the Karst and Agatio fight, as well as the Flame Dragons fight. Both Agatio and the Agatio Flame Dragon have a skill that massively buffs attack, but the name of the skill simply displays as "?", as shown by my screenshot below. I highly doubt this was intentional, but I also noticed that when you mentioned a while back that you were buffing Karst and Agatio because they were too easy, you included that Agatio has a "stronger high impact" but you didn't mention a specific name for the skill.
QuoteSpeaking of RNG drops, I think unique item drop rates could stand to be increased to the point where you don't need to use the RNG trick to get them. I didn't mind it at first but it started to get annoying when rigging for items that I want a bunch of like Mythril Silver and Orichalcum.
Now that I've gotten everything important I want to say out of the way, I figured I would respond to this. If you're at the point where you're grinding for drops, you may as well just edit the drops in the TLA editor yourself and farm as much as you want, then change them back if they're going to fill up your inventory. Though to be completely honest, I wouldn't mind higher drop rates for most items because it's really rare for good drops to show up in any normal playthrough.
Quote from: bpat on 07, April, 2019, 07:18:51 PM
Speaking of RNG drops, I think unique item drop rates could stand to be increased to the point where you don't need to use the RNG trick to get them. I didn't mind it at first but it started to get annoying when rigging for items that I want a bunch of like Mythril Silver and Orichalcum.
not gonna lie, it is annoying. but timewise, i don't know how faster it'd be if i actually decreased drops. the lowest i can realistically put them is 1/64, right below the threshold for "must use djinn" to get the drop. Correct me if i'm wrong, but with a djinn 1/64 would increase to 1/16. I think it's faster to manipulate the RNG for one battle rather find and fell 16 times a certain enemy with the right djinn.
@Pie
thanks for reporting that. it is usually the most common bugtype for my mod, cause i play with (and make changes on) my italian version and then port stuff to the english one for releases here. That's why strings are an easy miss for me, cause i just don't play with the english version to notice that and it happens that i forgot some of them while porting. btw I just released an update that gives that move the name "giga impact".
please keep reporting any text related issue or doubt you might find, no matter how little.
First boss,slapped venus djinn on Ivan for cure thiefs were both dispatched easily, but the main bandit kept spamming herb
which is nice. However I didn't feel threatened by that it merely prolonged the fight
and I don't remember healing, maybe one cure ? Both Thief didn't do much damage and meanwhile
Bandit just wasn't making anything out of the extra HP he got from herb. I suppose it's a first boss, not too hard,
don't really see how to @#$% that one up. Good to ease you into the game.
Died once in Tret after failing to kill the Jup djinn after three turn, was out of PP, Garet bite it and the rest went after running from
one encounter, the next one killed me :s
Tret himself wasn't that challenging, died once because I didn't use an herb on someone and choose to attack
while Ivan was asleep, but next try I managed to beat him fairly easily with Ivan asleep most of the fight
Sadly he was the one with all the elixir, if I shared but one I wouldn't have too much problem
Proceeded without too much problem to Mercury Lighthouse, then Mimic wiped me just loaded my save
Stronger monster in the upper part of the tower killed Ivan then and I had to go back, they kept me on my toes generally
Nothing to say about Saturos, I knew he's supposed to be a little tough
Proceeded to the Fuchin Temple, their the Mimic raped my twice quite fast it was a surprise
I mean the rest of the time I can accept a mistake here and there but that was pretty nasty
Did it the third without too much problem being careful
Did a comparison with a walkthrough, normal GS:Mimic dead in three turn, 2 turn unleashing dinn then summons
3rd turn Strongest psynergy+ply on Garet
4th turn, Mimic kills Isaac with punji as I was going to Ply him, unleash djinn with Ivan and Mimic down
Mogall forest, the ape felt threatening in general it was great but I don't really push myself too muh for the rest
I was able to kill the Boss ape, but used psy crystal on Garet think. It was useful I'd never do that normally.
Hydros was hard as @#$% I was forced to have Isaac, Sofia, Ivan only healing, Sofia and Ivan unleashing Resis and Str buff djinn to have
access to healing skill. Got Sofia killed the very turn before he went down and managed to rez her with Quartz before he fell
Was I supposed to come in at lvl 19 with rez and wish ? Isaac is lvl 17 and the rest are lvl 16, didn't even get a level after lol
Took me a LOT of tries and not a single turn of mistake, usually this is final boss stuff for golden sun.
Watching a golden sun walkthrough, 4 min boss fight Tiamat does upward 300 dmg, while all other character are constantly on offense.
My guy were constantly on defense, Tiamat does around 170-180 with forge buff, and sometime I was forced to settle for Kirin
Turn out that you need just 4 mercury to get wish lol
Manticore only beat me once, after that it was a fairly good fight, but not scary after Hydros.
Kraken was alright, I only discovered that a battle without using djinn at all just eat your PP way too much.
Not much to say about Colosso really, perhaps fighers use more item ? Can't say.
Nice mod ppl i have a question, i just ended the first GS ,for lost age how can i import the data it is even compatible? if someone can enlighten me will be apreciated.Thanks
99% compatible. The only thing that isn't carried is the amount of mountain water owned by a single character. To import the data you can do whatever. either export the password from GS (there was a button combination to unlock it in the menu i don't remember rn) or setup a link with emulators that can do it
Suhalla desert was sort of hard (but not undoable) so I went back to do Lunpa and such. Toadonpa was decently designed, I mean I killed him as
I was going to need a psy cristal to use. I just Planet dived him with wish on sofia and ivan. Got him second try,
I was too slow with my DPS the first and didn't pay attention to the +80 HP
I want to note I don't know when, probably before boarding the ship Djinn and Mimic stopped being threatening.
Nothing to say about Suhalla desert Boss
Venus Lighthouse shorter than I remembered. Dragon Fusion was difficult, until instead of a dedicated buffer with I can, healer with Sofia and the boy
doing the usual, I went for a Samurai/Ninja for Isaac/Garet while Sofia and Ivan both had wish, fast and slow healer while Isaac also spammed Breeze for at least one layer of
resistance. Did the same thing pretty much, but with Corono on Sofia for Deadbeard. Does he run out of PP ? Started spaming sweep only at some point ( Ivan dead in one turn if no buff)
Yeah, Hydros was what stopped me playing GS on my most recent run-through. Only boss I really feel simply underlevelled for; Hydros puts out so much AoE
hi everyone, i got a doubt about class system, i'm playing golden sun TBS, and i saw that single element classes require level 13 to access final tier, but i have all 7 djinn in all elementes and max level is 12 thus i can't reach the final tier, so i was wondering if there is something i'm missing because i'm close to finish the game and i'd like to know what's the problem with elemental levels, by the way the base elemental level for each character is 5 in their respective element
In TBS you never had access to ANY final tier (both reloaded and vanilla) exactly because you had only 7 djinn at most. In TLA, where you can have up to 9 for each character, it's possible.
got it, thanks for the info, guess its time to try TLA, great work with the hack by the way, thanks for taking the time to do this, but it would be awesome if you do an update to add an extra djinn and summos to TBS
this is really fun twist on one of my fav rpg i am enjoying the challenge a lot, help me out I can't complete gabomba statue puzzle even when when the electricity reaches the middle and the statues refuses to swallow the orb it is only opening its eyes or spitting fire :( why me
No bug on my end, make sure both lights reach the middle
you're nice for responding well in that case can you check this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWtE6dx5fBI&t=3s and tell me what i'm doing wrong, is there a trick or something i'm missing here, or is this glitched bad, i have not played the game in a while but i never had this much trouble in this part, i am just confused
As you can see i have a different config so i can't say. I'd try with a different setup that still works, like making the closest tile to the idol go left instead of right to the goal
Worked perfectly ah I was meant to make them reach the middle at the same time ^^ I can get further now
What weapon is better excalibur or phaeton's blade?
Also do you think it's better to use one of those jupiter weapons unleshes instead of sol blade's vs dullahan?
Does dullahan follow a loop pattern like in the original game or did you change it?
I think darksword is one the best for him but you can only run 1 cursed char.
I'm enjoying reloaded a lot btw, thanks <3
Quote from: Priscila on 21, August, 2019, 04:13:41 AM
What weapon is better excalibur or phaeton's blade?
For raw power excalibur is better, phaeton has a chance to lower res though
QuoteAlso do you think it's better to use one of those jupiter weapons unleshes instead of sol blade's vs dullahan?
yeah especially cause earth is dullahan's strong element
Quote
Does dullahan follow a loop pattern like in the original game or did you change it?
yep
QuoteI'm enjoying reloaded a lot btw, thanks <3
thanks, i'm glad :D
Hey! I started to play this cause is my annual playthrough time and i finally decided to check the mod out. BUT. How can i know im playing the patched game? I don't notice any difference and i would like to make sure I'm playing the mod and not vanilla. Is there any early point in the game where you're like: oh @#$%, yeah this is it.
Thank yoy and Amazing work :heart: I'm talking about gs 1 Which apparently is called the broken seal and there's no thread for it and the changes in the changelog are not a tangible thing that I can notice right away, especially early game.
IIRC in game the earliest points are:
- Garet doesn't have Flare at Lv1 (learns Blast at 3) in GS1
- Felix base class name is different in TLA
Hope you'll enjoy your playthrough ;)
Hello,
I've been stuck on the fire dragons in the mars lighthouse for 2 months now. Characters are ~lvl 32 all around. Doesn't seem possible to beat them. Do I need to grind for 10 levels?
Target level for them is 34 assuming all djinn until that point obtained, so 2 levels only, which is not much.
But the most important thing against them is not level, but strategy. They will kill you without fail if you don't pick the right one, but once you do it becomes very easy. Speaking from experience here, i got my @#$ handed to me a few times while i wasn't putting too much tought into the fight.
oh no... guess i'll have to experiment a bit.
good to know that i'm not too far behind on levels.
BTW, are you working on any new hacks?
Quote from: miner49er on 03, September, 2019, 11:27:55 AM
oh no... guess i'll have to experiment a bit.
good to know that i'm not too far behind on levels.
BTW, are you working on any new hacks?
No plans for another hack ATM, and even Reloaded is supposed to be completed without external input, be it reporting bugs, imbalances or suggesting features i end up agreeing with.
Greetings Caledor! I have been following your Rebalancing hack for quite some time! Let me congratulate you and tell you, that you made an already good game even better, by fixing many of its problems.
Wanted to ask you, if I can find a documentation of every equipment, item and psynergy of your hack, with every bonus, boost and location, in order to manage and create my builds as good as possible. Keep it up! :heart: :VenusDjinni:
Hi Shogun, and thank you for the kind words!
Let's start with the easy stuff. The location is either the same as vanilla or changed according to the Treasures & Shops section in the opening post.
About the rest. Until now i tried to dodge the question with "use the editor" cause that's what i did at the beginning but in the end i had some spreadsheet to keep track of changes and compare values... which is what you need if you wanna optimize builds... and the editor just won't do.
There's an issue with those spreadsheets though... they're literally half in english and half in italian cause they weren't supposed to be seen by (or make sense for) anyone but me. Still, having all the values in a single page is WAY better than using the editor alone. As for the parts in italian, going back to the english name should be way faster than not using these docs at all.
So... I just uploaded them just the way they are. To make things a bit easier, since i don't have the time to fix all the names there, everyone is allowed to leave comments to ask questions, put english names where italian names are or whatever. Just use as you see fit.
Hope they'll still be useful.
Equipment doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x0HGGK5up3MWgbSgeysR8VQ3YzFT8YOy/edit#gid=140150310 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x0HGGK5up3MWgbSgeysR8VQ3YzFT8YOy/edit#gid=140150310)
Psynergy doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ub3UfJimPP7VcXcsZV45t0X8EMMTIWPM/edit#gid=1066041648 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ub3UfJimPP7VcXcsZV45t0X8EMMTIWPM/edit#gid=1066041648)
PS: How to comment: example in equipment, weapon, "Spada di Sol". Notice the yellow mark. Leave a comment on a cell by clicking on it with the right button of the mouse.
Thanks for the quick reply, Caledor! Reading the spreadsheets, and wondering why haven't you released them earlier... Everything is arranged extremely good and careful.
Followers of your hack can help you with commenting the names, and it is not so hard navigating. Will check it more thoroughly!
Congrats yet again for your efforts! :idea: :VenusStar: :MarsStar: :JupiterStar: :MercuryStar:
:!: Wow, that's some really good resources, that's great. Thanks Caledor! :heart:
I've commented the translations on the names and some other things in the weapons page already :happy: I'll probably do the armor one next. Maybe tomorrow.
I'm going to start a new game to try out the latest patch (I played 1.71) but with that tiny change I once mentioned: Fire Breath (Acrobat and Dragon Helm) made into a MT EPA simillar to Shuriken to check that out.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 12, September, 2019, 12:13:01 AM
:!: Wow, that's some really good resources, that's great. Thanks Caledor! :heart:
I've commented the translations on the names and some other things in the weapons page already :happy: I'll probably do the armor one next. Maybe tomorrow.
Well, i'm amazed. You commented perfectly all the weapons and armors in less than a day, reporting even a few discrepancies between the docs and the actual rom. Thank you very much for your efforts. Hell, it looks even better than if the name were in english from the start, since a lot of comments (that i wouldn't have enabled otherwise) expand on the abbreviations i used.
So, thanks again. The least i can do is check those discrepancies you meticulously reported on the doc.
Moreover, since this was such a huge success
i'm also allowing comments on the class doc. There's a lot of potential for permanent discussion about very specific things that will simply get buried page after page here. Like commenting "how would you use this" on a class name or "why this stat is lower/higher than the one on X" on stats, or movesets... anything, actually. I just wrote a few comments myself.
Quote from: Caledor on 12, September, 2019, 01:34:46 PM
Well, i'm amazed. You commented perfectly all the weapons and armors in less than a day, reporting even a few discrepancies between the docs and the actual rom. Thank you very much for your efforts. Hell, it looks even better than if the name were in english from the start, since a lot of comments (that i wouldn't have enabled otherwise) expand on the abbreviations i used.
So, thanks again. The least i can do is check those discrepancies you meticulously reported on the doc.
Oww, thanks! It's the least I could do as a "thank you!" for such a wonderful hack :heart: It wasn't all that hard, had the Editor in one hand and my spanish on the other, it's close enough :happy: The discrepancies are quite minor, but I didn't want other users being confused by the different numbers
Quote from: Caledor on 12, September, 2019, 01:34:46 PM
Moreover, since this was such a huge success i'm also allowing comments on the class doc. There's a lot of potential for permanent discussion about very specific things that will simply get buried page after page here. Like commenting "how would you use this" on a class name or "why this stat is lower/higher than the one on X" on stats, or movesets... anything, actually. I just wrote a few comments myself.
This is great! As long as it doesn't rekindle the Jonin is OP discussion
amirite?
Quick
v1.74 release. Fixes the errors reported on the doc by maxipotter and tweaks a few multiplier for classes i planned a looong time ago, but i felt that releasing them alone wasn't worth it.
Also i added a page on the class multiplier that lists the multipliers displayed by the editor, which are simply the in-game values doubled. If someone wants to check that i haven't screwed up, that's for them.
QuoteThis is great! As long as it doesn't rekindle the Jonin is OP discussion amirite?
I'll probably just reply with a link to the page were we talked about it here :P
There I did the Psynergy doc, this one was a bit harder, some of those italian names a bit... abstract, but I'm confident in the result. Though that document could really benefit from a make-over.
Why is there an "outdated" page? why not remove it? It's a pity though, that one makes far more sense than the "updated" one.
Thanks again maxi. :heart:
About the names being abstract... that's due to the very strict char limit.
As for the outdated page, it was the main one originally, but then i wanted some global ranking from where i could adjust numbers better, so i copypasted everything on the other page and tweaked numbers only there. You can even see part of the graph i used to rebalance the power growth across all elements. The main part of it didn't get ported to google drive but basically i added a few points (like beginning, end and a few midway, the ones you can see) and had excel derive the growth formula from those for all the other points.
The outdated tag is mainly for "don't bother with numbers here" cause i stopped updating them as the other page was much more useful for me.
... Heck, i probably will now, though... i owe you that much.
Edit: turned out it was already up to date, lol.
Hello, almost done with the first gs, can't wait to go into the lost age, but, I'm having trouble farming endgame armor in venis. I really want to send a perfect save file (but also my own) to TLA but I don't know who drops what or if anything at all, i tried rng manip on gryphons and chimeras but nothing drop, idk if I'm doing it wrong or that is how it works since I can't find any docs about it. Any pointers? I kust wann het 2 featheres robes, since o think i have the best of everything else without farming. Thank you very much, I'm absolutely adoring this(http://:heart:)
This is a question that pops out from time to time but all i can say is:
- Changed drops are listed in the first page. Everything not listed there is unchanged. Actually I don't think TBS had drops changed at all.
- If you still have doubts, use the editor to check.
- RNG manipulation guides still work flawlessly and can be found on GameFAQS. Do not follow blindly the move sequence from vanilla, learn how RNG works and adapt
- The method above works but humans can fail at math, so if you still fail try to get as close as possible to 31 and try around there (like in the 28-34 range) with savestates.
I guess i was doing it wrong, according to my calculations i was on 31 everytime, but i guess i wasnt counting correctly. Anyways, I managed and every rng item is ready for TLA, ninja hoods max, the boots, the kikuichimonjis and the shirts, I hope I didnt miss out on any busted items (because of the rebalance). Finally beat Fusion Dragon (Level 30 all tri elementals), it was way harder than I expected (even deadbeard i beat at 25ish).
Anyways, Im so hyped for TLA. Thank you very much again not only for the incredible rebalances but also for the quick responses, this has been an excellent experience. pls mr bowser gs4 when.
Hope I dont need to come back too much for answers for the second game. Once again thank you. Much love :heart:
Ignore this reply, quick search confirmed feature. Sorry my b
Ok here we go, I got mud where i was supposed to get chill. Issue? Feature?
Usually all "feature or not" questions can be answered by the first page, since it's a list of features.
Anyway, hope you'll enjoy your playthrough and if you have any questions don't worry, you can find me here ;)
PS: added the link to the RNG guide on gamefaqs and a reminder at the drops section
Quote from: Caledor on 26, September, 2019, 12:52:58 PM
Edit: turned out it was already up to date, lol.
Oh, I didn't even bother checking, dumb me. That's great though. Im going to translate that page right now. Thanks!
Hey Caledor,
I've been playing through very slowly since the latest version came out, I wanted to skip a Broken Seal this time around, but meh.
But hey! I found a bug! It's easy fix I'm sure.
In TBS, If Ivan is equipped with 6 Venus Djinns, he actually becomes a Spellblade, which is one of Isaac's classes.
Okay, so I was wrong. I can replicate a similar change in class with Mia, but I just wasn't experiencing a different class change with other characters with 6 Djinn so I assumed it was a bug. Also seeing Ivan with Ragnarok may have contributed to that. Lol
I'll have a complete write up later once I'm done with GS1 before GS2. See you then!
Yeah, it's not a bug, it's a feature!TM :P
Honestly though, i simply didn't port the "class separation patch" from TLA, so classes in TBS behave just like they do in vanilla.
I'll be waiting for your report!
I'm wrapping up TBS, so I'll share my thoughts now, as they are mostly unlikely to change with just Doom Dragon left. I know TBS isn't your focus, and TLA is where all the work goes, so I'll keep it brief. I tried to think about the game a little differently from a balancing design prospective so hopefully it's somewhat useful.
One think I'd like to mention is it's been almost 10 years since I've played vanilla, so honestly it's hard to remember what I'm comparing the base game too. So if I get some details wrong, bare with me.
Journey- I always go to Imil before going to Kolima. So Imil is a grind and struggle where as Kolima is easy peasy. I should probably play them in their intended order one of these days huh?
- Okay so here is one of the few things I wanted to mention from a balance/experience perspective. For some reason the wild encounters around Tolbi don't yield more exp than around Kalay, even though it's a fair bit later in the game. What's weird to me is that monsters in Vault Cave seem to give more exp, than around Tolbi when I feel like it should most certainly be the opposite. Maybe I had some bad luck with encounters or vanilla wasn't balanced very well here? I honestly I have no idea and it's not that big of a deal, I just thought it was worth bringing up.
- Classes this time ended looking up like this:
:Isaac: : Black Knight (6 :MarsStar: 1 :VenusStar:) Primary Damage dealer. He also has pretty decent speed with this layout too.
:Garet: : Luminier (6 :MercuryStar: 1 :MarsStar:) One of my favorite classes for Garet in the entire mod. Garet is slow, so healing and res on him I find so useful. Makes it so the character lives after they get res'd most times (lol)
:Ivan: : Augur (6 :VenusStar: 1 :JupiterStar:) Unfortunately, Ivan got the leftovers this time around. Though healing at the beginning of the turn is vastly useful.
:Mia: : Wise (6 :JupiterStar: 1 :MercuryStar:) I tired not to overdo party healing, but I always have to have one. Often go with Mia because Mythril Circlet is a thing.
Seemed to work well this time around! But TBS is never the struggle. TLA I play in hard mode so that one is always tricky to figure out what works. I always end up going tri-elemental classes in that game so we'll see what I lean towards soon.
Bosses- I struggled on 0 of these this time around, I think that's because I've been playing the game for a while so I know what strategies work, but I'll play devil's advocate here and agree with what most comments say: Hydros Statue is probably the hardest boss in the entire game. Almost every time I play this I have to set up my djinn differently, which is a good thing! But I do think this boss is mighty difficult without AoE healing which is hard to achieve with what Djinn you have up to this point.
Toadonpa- This boss kicked my @#$ then I realized I forgot to grab Hail near Tolbi. Oops. This is one of the harder fights in the game though if you go and do it as soon as you can.
Deadbeard- I don't know how much control you have over most things with the editor, but out of the 4 or so times I've played this mod, I've almost exclusively won this fight due to Deadbeard running out of PP. I really don't remember this happening in vanilla, but like I said it's been a while. I think this is possibly a side effect of the ton of balancing you've done for player skills, and as a result, Deadbeard's PP costs have gone through the roof. I can beat this fight at level 25, (which I think is pretty low/on par for this fight) once I get at least one character with Wish Well it's pretty easy. Though I'm not sure how difficult you want it to be. I guess my suggestion here is to see if you can up his max PP if you can, so it's not so easy to stall until his PP is drained. I don't even think this is a difficult boss in vanilla and I'm not sure how difficult you want to make it, but yeah. I'm beginning to ramble here, so moving on.
That's more or less it! Like I said, didn't want to go too crazy with this game because TBS isn't the focus. Hopefully you found something helpful or at least it was entertaining to read. :happy:
To be continued in TLA! (However long that may take hehehe)
This is pretty much in line with what i'd expect from an experienced player.
About the journey, yeah: that early into the game you WILL feel the difference from just a few levels, no way around it. Gonna have to check the exp thing though.
About bosses, it's no surprise to me that Hydros statue has the biggest spike in power level, cause i expect people to get the 4th water djinn before fighting him (and thus party heal, which is the #1 gamechanger in GS).
As for Deadbeard yeah, you were def underleveled (again, experienced player), so you won by outliving him. I can definitively remove that (every enemy has a PP regen stat) but unless you can actually stall (like chaining walls and stuff) instead of simply outlive him i don't really see the need for a change. AKA i'm okay with you being rewarded for fighting well instead of making it just a dps race, less ok if you hide behind walls and such until he runs out of juice.
I always have a good time reading your reports, hope you'll enjoy TLA as well! ;)
I'm back quicker than I thought. This time I actually found a bug (unlike last time lol) Guardian's Ring is halving max HP. I'm pretty sure the value for the HP multiplier is set to 0.5 when I'm pretty sure the value for the item should be set to 1.5.
eh. i can guess the bug without opening the editor nor the documentation. it's supposed to be hp+5 but a value of 5 coupled with the hp multiplier means x0.5
That makes more sense. I was like 1.5x seems way too strong. Haha.
after days of struggling with the editor i finally managed to fix the guardian ring. Patch is up.
Awesome! I'll definitely patch and head back into it (now that pokemon is becoming a bit boring hehehehe)
Hi everyone!
Is there any possibility to use this mod in Spanish or another languaje ?
The mod as released here works only on the english ROM. Since i'm Italian, I also have my personal Italian ROM with the same features as Reloaded.
Hey I've come into some kind of bug. I just realized that I'm missing the djinn Mud, the one inside the catacombs of Gabomba that you can access after rturnung to Madra and then coming back to Gabomba. I completed the dungeon and after that I went to fight it. The thing is I don't have it and it doesn't seem to be there though. I remember fihgting him but I can't remember if I defeated him or if it just fleed without me noticing as it was a few days ago (right now I was abour to forge the trident to fight Posidon). Is there any way I can manually add Mud into my team with gameshark?
You can do it with a Save Game Editor.... (I should check to make sure, though.)
Or you can do it in VBA's memory viewer.
Quote from: Fox on 27, December, 2019, 08:29:06 PM
You can do it with a Save Game Editor.... (I should check to make sure, though.)
Or you can do it in VBA's memory viewer.
Thanks. Can I find those tools on this forum? Anyway I'll look for it by myself if needed, but any help would be welcomed as I have 0 experience with those. Btw I'm playing the hackrom on my nintendo switch via VBA
Opening post, Djinn & Summons: "Chill and Mud's encounters swapped".
Hi! First of all, I'd like to say that I really appreciate all the effort you've put into this mod/hack/rework. I am only in Kalay now, so I can't give you a proper review (it's not like another one was needed at this point), but I am having almost as much fun as when I played the game for the first time!
The difficulty seems pretty hard (especially bosses), but still fair at the same time. I actually got a game over during the prologue part with kid Isaac and Garet, so congratulations for that! Otherwise, things got really bad only with Tret, had to beat him with Isaac and Garet poisoned. (that spider moveset change was incredibly evil)
I'd also like to ask about/point out some things about item/psynergy distributions, but it's mostly nitpicking.
1. How can you obtain the new boots/rings/shirts? Just by playing the classic slot minigame in Contigo?
2. If you compare basic mono-elemental classses, you have Garet with pretty shallow psynergy pool at one side (Blast, Nova and EPA at base level, Guard/Volcano later) and Sheba, who gets a lot more off the bat (Whirlwind, Slash, Punishment, Boon, and some buffs/debuffs later). I get that Garet is supposed to be the worst spellcaster and Sheba the best one, but to me it feels like Sheba should unlock one of these psynergy lines at a bit higher class level. Or maybe the early game in TLA is so hard that would make it imbalanced, who knows?
3. Why did you replace Piers' Cool line with Prism? Did you need the slots for some of the new stuff?
4. And finally, I'd like you to elaborate a bit more about your reasoning behind the newly introduced EPAs for tri-elemental classes. Like, Meltdown, the strongest fire EPA is unique to Piers, a mercury adept, and Waterspout, the strongest water EPA is unique to Jenna, a mars adept. I mean, they're cool and everything, but why?
Hi, glad you're having fun with the mod.
1. Check the drop list on the first post. Anything that is different from vanilla is there.
2. It actually doesn't make that much of a difference, it's mostly design reasons. I decided that non-spellcaster classes would unlock the highest tier after 4+ djinn, since they normally don't even have access to them.
3. Piers needed a stronger spell there (same tier as Gaia/Volcano/Plasma). Also yeah, free slots.
4. About the tri-elemental, i made each set of 4 tri-ele class tied to a different main element. Valkyrie is mercury based and Destroyers mars based. Characters have nothing to do with who got what, only classes matter.
Yeah, I've finally noticed that those ninja sandals etc. are rare drops now.
Thanks for the clarifications. And If I understand it right, Meltdown/Waterspout are unique to Piers/Jenna, because the other mars/mercury based tri-elemental classes either either have group heals and you didn't want those to have access to the strongest EPAs, or in the Samurai's case, already have one on exactly same power level. That is actually very smart.
And for the (hopefully) final question, this time about dual-elemental classes for Piers/Jenna. Jenna's Guru/Inquisitor and Piers' Protector/Radiant classes have same names and stat percentages as their same element equivalents for Mia/Ivan,Sheba and Isaac,Felix/Garet, but completely different psynergies. Why's that?
Nvm I think I got it. They are actually the same, you only swapped the elements while keeping the general power level and type of the psynergies the same, right?
Spot on. It's the main/secondary elements that are swapped
EDIT: CLEAN ROM FIXED IT. LOL
Hey! Appreciate all your hard work on this mod. I applied the patch to a clean English rom. There are a few text glitches on item descriptions. Also, Garet learns Impact twice as a Page/Fated?
I assume I did something wrong, surely glitches this obvious would be fixed? Or, are these known bugs? Thank you so much.
Images of bugs: https://imgur.com/a/tF7L0Mu
On what level you are supposed go through Suhalla desert? Cause I was on 21/22, and Storm Lizard was... hard. It basically required two dedicated Wish healers just to survive the Tempest/Wing Stroke onslaught, and even then it just proceeded to eat through all my PP and promptly TPK me afterwards. I finally managed to beat it somewhat easily with Isaac and Garet in base classes using Granite,Flash,Ground etc. (you can easily cats resist on Granite/Flash turns) to help surviving and charge summons, while Ivan and Mia spammed Wish. Ember's PP recovery was the MVP of the whole fight.
Is this the intended experience or am I just underleveled?
Also, the Colosso fights were a bit anticlimactic, just basic vanilla experience. Maybe give those gladiators some monster skills like Brute Force/Berserk/War Cry to spice things up a bit?
alternating walls is never the intended experience. I don't remember anything particular from that fight so i guess you're just slightly underleveled? I mean i'm pretty ceartain that some crossbone bosses, which are at the same level, gave me a much harder time. Giving self buffs to colosso gladiators is a nice idea to spice things up, but in a short 1vs1 fight it will probably make things even easier since it's a turn with no damage taken.
I think it was mostly me being underleveled. The fight itself wasn't THAT challenging, but if the damn gecko decided to use two AoE moves in one turn (basically 75% of the time), I took more damage than I could heal by casting Wish 2 times. And as I didn't want to run past or to grind, I used the wall djinni to setup resistance buffs, and it was just simply healing and cycling djinni to cast Meteor and Judgment from then. Well, except that one time it used Tempest two times in a row at the end of the turn, then the agility debuff expired, and proceeded to KO both my healers next turn, cause Mia couldn't heal in time. But as I said, it was most likely me being overleveled. Only feasible nerf to it I could imagine would be lowering it's PP by a half or so to slightly lower the damage and giving it passive PP regen, or just lowering the chance of using the multi target moves in favor of something single target move like some enhanced attack or Judgment. But it's probably fine as it is.
Can't really compare it to the Crossbone fights yet, I really hate running through Suhalla desert 3 times in a single playthrough :sad:
Confirmed bug. Mia loses Avoid and gains 2 copies of Protect when moving from Yamabushi to Ascetic (3-->4 Mars Djinn). Clean rom.
Also Mia doesn't gain Wish with 4 mars djinn? is that intended?
Finally... certain class lines advance at 4 AND again at 5 djinn - Garet's mercury class and Ivan's mars class are examples. Then some don't advance with 5. Is this intentional?
Deadbeard is probably as hard as vanilla Dullahan without summons. I suppose he could've been a bit easier if I just used some classic class combinations, but I really wanted to use tri-elemental classes, and they were probably not that optimal for this fight. If Deadbeard didn't have Break or Impact, it could have been a pretty easy fight. It's really fun when he buffs his attack, removes your buffs and then starts jumping at your team dealing 300-400 damage, possibly two times in a row. First 3 or so tries started out good, but approximately 4-5k damage later he always used Impact and Break, and then started swiping my team like he was on Tinder, KOing everybody. And then I realized he ran out of PP (not enough for Crystal Prism, but enough for a few Breaks/Impacts), and after I rebuffed and his Impacts expired, it was over.
I think it's very interesting that he is actually most dangerous for about two turns after he stops using Psynergy, because he's practically guaranteed to use only Break, Impact, Swipe and 300 damage basic attack.
10/10 experience, really looking forward to TLA superbosses.
Here's my class setup, if anybody's interested.
:Isaac: 4 :MarsStar: 3 :JupiterStar:
Samurai is very tanky, Helm Splitter deals a lot of damage.
:Garet: 4 :VenusStar: 3 :MercuryStar:
Used mostly for spamming Protect/Impact, but also has reasonable damage. When things turn bad, using Granite morphed Garet into a White Knight, becoming a second Wish spammer.
:Ivan: 4 :MercuryStar: 3 :MarsStar:
ALL the buffs, also a fast ST healer when needed
:Mia: 4 :JupiterStar: 3 :VenusStar:
Healbot, also has special secret option of using Dull and promptly causing TPK because it missed and buffed Deadbeard used Swipe twice in a row.
QuoteConfirmed bug. Mia loses Avoid and gains 2 copies of Protect when moving from Yamabushi to Ascetic (3-->4 Mars Djinn). Clean rom.
Confirmed. It's already been fixed on my end and I'll upload the updated patch soon. Thanks for reporting.
EDIT: The Patch has been uploadedQuoteAlso Mia doesn't gain Wish with 4 mars djinn? is that intended?
Yes, check the class doc. The Guru class line lost Wish and gained Raise, among other (minor) changes.
QuoteFinally... certain class lines advance at 4 AND again at 5 djinn - Garet's mercury class and Ivan's mars class are examples. Then some don't advance with 5. Is this intentional?
In vanilla GS the symbiotic dual classes Earth-Fire and Wind-Water (Brute and Hermit) already do that. I merely extended this quirk to all dual classes.
@sandokhaan Glad you've enjoyed the first game and i have to say i really liked your DB setup, especially your plan for garet.
TLA is where the real fun starts with all the new items, psynergies, classes and characters. With the first game you barely scrape the surface. ;)
Just cleared Aqua Rock in TLA, and my experience thus far has been... interesting. The whole Indra-Osenia-Gondowan part of the game felt both too hard and too easy at the same time. Felix, Jenna and Sheba are a lot more powerful and balanced party than Isaac, Garet and Felix. You get a very good physical attacker, (a lot stronger than Isaac and Garet in early TBS, mainly thanks to artifact weapons) and two mages with useful support spells and ST damage. In the early parts of TBS you could heal only with Isaac, and then you'd lose a lot of your damage, and this is no longer problem in TLA. But this is an issue that wasn't caused on your part, I just felt like mentioning it.
Some enemies could potentially deal over 80% Jenna/Sheba's max HP (Skeletons with the sword from ground and Trolls with Brute Force), and no access to revive skills until late Osenia made it that more annyoing. The bosses (King Scorpion, Briggs) also felt slightly toothless compared to Tret or Saturos, but the generic Djinni fights were absolutely brutal. And the whole Osenia felt a bit too hard earlier and a bit too easy later, but that was mostly due to the inherent non-linearity of the continent.
Things got a lot better (and harder) in Gondowan, and this trend seems to continue in the Eastern Sea as well. My only problem at this point is that I have too many forgeable items but not enough money to pay for them.
While you did an excellent job with this mod, it made the design flaws in TLA (weirdly non-linear Osenia, carrying random Mercury Djinni that don't really contribute to your classes) even more obvious, but there's really nothing to be done about that. I am still on the fence about Felix not having Cure and Sheba having Boon, Felix being free to go ham with unleashes/EPAs every single turn might be too good in the early game, but that can't really be changed, or we'd either lose all the early game healing or get rid of the difference between Isaac/Felix and Ivan/Sheba in this hack.
Oh, and one more thing. After getting Piers, it's really simple to get a class setup that gives you 3 MT heals. Not sure if this threatens the balance of pre-reunion areas, it just felt worth noting. (Yeah, I get it. Aura and Heal aren't in TBS, and only new classes they could be given to are from Jenna/Piers)
For example:
:Felix: 4 :JupiterStar:
:Piers: 4 :VenusStar:
:Jenna: 4 :MarsStar:
:Sheba: 4 :MercuryStar:
Shouldn't Minotaurs drop Tartarus Axes? Because they seem to drop Vials on my end.
Yeah, forgot to mention it in the opening post (i amended now).
Added:
Minotaurs: Removed Tartarus Axe cause it's now found in a chest, see Treasures section (It's in the ankhol ruins).
About balancing issues, yeah, the non linearity is a problem. Power levels are tailored for specific levels and a specific visit order. Moreover, al lower levels, small stat differences have a pretty big impact on percentile damage. So it's very easy to feel a big change in overall difficulty if you are under/lower leveled.
The 3 healer setup is indeed a minor issue. Maybe I can remove Heal from Piers' Protector... problem will be finding something that fits thematically and is almost as good as Wish. Maybe... Bravery + Mercury Ward.
Reaching the endgame now, just the bonus dungeons and Doom Dragon are left.
Standard random encounters are balanced perfectly, almost every enemy is a threat now, can't really say anything about that.
Mimic and Djinn fights were very painful, bot manageable, so that's cool. It gets pretty old to fight 5th or so djinn that just blasts you with 3 Pyroclasms/Spark Plasmas each turn, though.
As for bosses :
Serpent: Probably my favorite fight in the series now. The occasional Potent Cure made it a lot more intense, making the fight a damage race while stile forcing you to play somewhat defensively.
Avimander: I am not sure when you are supposed to fight it, but considering you need to have cleared Tundaria Tower for it and the tower seems to be the hardest dungeon in the Eastern sea, it seems like you should fight Avimander just before Poseidon. In that case, it's a pushover boss that just doesn't have very threating skills. Star Mine especially dealt very low damage. Are you sure it still has the HP% damage?
Poseidon: Absolute memefest. Got absolutely BTFO the first, second and the third time. After that I just used the proven Storm Lizard strategy consisting of healing and charging up djinni for summons. Ulysses summon was an absolute beast this fight. Deals damage comparable to meteor, a lot easier to charge up and uses up otherwise very weak mercury djinni. It also stunned one Poseidon's action about 35-40% of the time. I really want to like this fight a lot more, but there seems to be a bug with his Veil skill. It is supposed to recharge his force field, right? Because if I remember correctly, it did exactly that for about 2 or 3 times, and then just... stopped doing it and became just reskinned Ward. If it really reapplies the invulnerability and I wasn't tripping, then there is a bug that prevents it from working after a few casts. If it worked properly, though, then I'd probably have to reevaluate Serpent's #1 position.
Moapa and his homies are still a joke, Karst and Agatio felt somewhat weak, especially considering it is the only fight in the game you don't have to win to continue. That probably doesn't matter, though, because they are only a teaser for the Flame Dragons.
Flame Dragons felt like they really weren't intended to be fought before optional teleport dungeons and at level 34. They have left me a bit traumatized. The sheer unpredictability of 4 enemy actions each turn was bad enough, and random stuns/instakills/djinnfests were just an icing on the cake. I mean I managed to beat them after a while, but they are probably about 30% harder than anything the game threw at you before this point (including Deadbeard and Poseidon). Maybe don't nerf them (considering you can fight them a lot later, missing out only one Djinn), but definitely don't buff them.
My final review and opinions about bonus dungeons, classes and equipment is coming soon.
Follow up from my last post, v1.75 has benn released.
Only changes to the psynergy lines of a few classes.
Archon: Bind -> Sleep
Jonin: Impact -> Delude
Protector (Piers): Heal -> Bravery
Sea Lord: Impact -> Sleep
Guru (Mia): Avoid -> Break
Arcanist: Break -> Sleep
First change was removing Heal from Protector, then i noticed that i had way too many Impact/Bravery and Breaks so i took a few of them from the best classes and replaced them with kinda dummy (but rare) spells like Sleep and Delude that disappeared from class lines almost completely.
Making Break and Impact rarer and at the same time moving them to less used classes will increase those classes' worth.
Here for my yearly playthrough of GS 1&2. I have nothing to contribute but my love.
:heart:
Do I need to transfer data from gs1 for this rom hack??
Quote from: kiesko on 28, February, 2020, 10:12:46 PM
Do I need to transfer data from gs1 for this rom hack??
No. This is a rom hack of both games. You do not have to transfer anything, but you have the same limitations you would have in vanilla if you don't transfer. IE. Missing Djinn, no Dullahan, etc.
At around what level am I supposed to fight Poseidon? I found the last few bosses a bit hard but managed to beat them by using buffs but since this one can clear them I cant manage to do much
I'd say late 20s
Well that would explain it, Im still level 21 Haha :Sweat:
I suppose Ill give it a try a few more times, last time he was being pretty nice to me
Hello,
first of all, congratulations for this mod, it looks great and it feels like a lot of work and love went into it.
I have a couple minor questions before I start playing:
- Will I mess anything up if I use the "outdated" editor to change a couple things (a couple of class or item names, maybe a couple of drop rates). I don't have/don't know ho to use visual studio.
- Has anyone checked if the mod is compatible with retroachievements? This one really isn't all that important, it's just that I recently discovered it and I thought I might try it.
That's all, thanks for your time.
I used that editor for everything but assembly changes so go for it.
As for retroachievements, no clue. Learned they existed from you.
Great, thanks for the answer.
Ironically I've never cared for achievements, but something about adding them to older games seemed interesting from some reason. I will try it out and see what happens.
I was playing through this game again and I was just sailing from Yallam back to the Western Sea to take care of Magma Rock after a forging trip and I found this little strip of land out in the open ocean, just to the east of Indra. It even had collision! I don't know if this is an error that's unique to Reloaded, but I was playing this hack when it happened. And strangely enough, as soon as I pressed B to fly, the strip of land vanished and everything was back to normal. I figured it was worth reporting but I don't see how this is something that could be properly diagnosed or fixed.
How very bizarre.
You found Magic River? (A known bug in the original.) Good job!
It only took a year for me to forget how great this game is. I'm glad that it only took a year for me to come back to it, though!
I've just finished up with some of the lategame bosses, and I must say, they are many times more fun than I remembered. The Doom Dragon is unlike basically any other required fight in the game due to Djinn Blast, and I felt the need to grind levels for a little so that a drained adept wouldn't get one rounded by the dragon. The first time through, any adepts that got drained and downed were sent to the bench, never to be seen again, but this strategy of course did not work when Djinn Storm came into play, because without a deep bench, there is basically no recovering from Djinn Storm --> Cruel Ruin. Anyways, I got really lucky on my successful fight because I ended up summoning Ulysses on the turns the Doom Dragon would have probably used Djinn Storm, because I never saw a single Djinn Storm during the fight.
Balrog was a lot easier. Despite a pretty half-baked strategy with no real tweaks from my Doom Dragon setup, he went down on the first try. With defense and agility buffs, he never really posed an offensive threat, and so I could take things at my own pace.
Next up are Star Magician and then Sentinel. I think they'll be a lot tougher.
Here's my djinn setup that I used for both fights.
:Felix: 5 :MarsStar: 4 :JupiterStar: I have a real soft spot for Shoguns, and they're pretty decent to boot. Quick Strike was the main damage against the Doom Dragon.
:Jenna: 5 :VenusStar: 4 :MercuryStar: Guardian is nice for the wide range of healing, but the real power comes from Vanguard. By spending just one Venus Djinn, I get access to Blessing, which basically just invalidates Impact and Bravery imo. And then you can re-set the Venus Djinn or use a summon and go back to healing as soon as you're done buffing. Delicious.
:Sheba: 5 :MercuryStar: 4 :VenusStar: She's a Pure Mage. What else is there to say.
:Piers: 5 :MarsStar: 4 :JupiterStar: I really love Piers (and it has nothing to do with the fact that the first three letters of his name are pie) but I probably should have made him an Archon instead of Destroyer so that I could have Quick Strike. He does lose out on a lot of bulk if I were to make him an Archon though. Oh well.
:Isaac: 5 :JupiterStar: 4 :MarsStar: If Piers were to be an Archon, Isaac would also be a Shogun and I would have had 3 Quick Strike users against the Doom Dragon. That would have been good. Dunno if Death Leap or Quick Strike is better though.
:Garet: 5 :VenusStar: 4 :MercuryStar: Warlord is ok for buffs, but Courage is kinda useless when I'm relying on Blessing instead. He could also use a Venus Djinn to get healing, which is good, but it also guts his speed. I think having Jenna be a Guardian and Garet a Warlord is probably better because their natural state will have enough speed to get things done.
:Ivan: 5 :MercuryStar: 4 :MarsStar: This guy just casted Resist a lot and used useful Djinn with his giant speed. And summoned. And if he had nothing to do (and nobody else wanted to be swapped in from the bench) he could cast Scourge for a chunk of damage.
:Mia: 5 :JupiterStar: 4 :VenusStar: Another Pure Mage. Huh? Why are you looking at me like that? Do you have a problem with two Pure Mages and a Guardian? In all seriousness though, it's probably a good idea to have a lot of healers for the Doom Dragon because you want plenty of backups in the case that they start getting Djinn blasted.
Sentinel was trickier than Balrog but not by a whole lot. Eventually I got into a good rhythm where I had two adepts healing, Felix unleashing Armageddon over and over again, and one Adept using psy crystals and defense reducing djinn (Garet).
Star Magician, on the other hand, was an absolute nightmare. There were a lot of situations where I felt like things were decently under control, and then he would just put half my adepts to sleep and silence the other half. My strategy basically just came down to grinding out the fight until that didn't happen to me. The worst is when he summons a bunch of refresh balls, because then you have no choice but to take all of them down in one go, since otherwise they'll just heal each other back to full, and the magician will be recovering a huge amount of health to boot. My successful attempt was lucky enough to not run into any situations where he summoned a ton of refresh balls all at once. At some point during the fight, I resorted to very cheeky flash/granite/shade strats, as well as using speed buffs and lull to get a free round of combat off, but I didn't rely on them for the entire fight.
I tried fighting Dullahan but as soon as Djinn Storm came out I got washed. Admittedly, haven't been keeping a close eye on my equipment or item loadouts, so it might be time to take a step back and get myself some better gear. The next best weapon I have after the Sol Blade and Phaeton Blade (which I only just got) is Mythril Blade, which says something...
Dropping by to say i was following your posts from the beginning Pie, but was waiting for the final post about Dullahan.
Still, it's been quite some time so i feel i should reply.
Loved the Guardian into Vanguard trick, that's exactly the kind of gimmick i hoped people would use. One piece of advice though: Single target buffs are stronger than mt but last for less turns. So the point of MT buffs is to reduce the number of times you need to recast, cause they reset the counter at the highest possible value.
Star magician is statusdoom. The one mechanic you forgot for 90% of the game comes back at full force for that one fight. He's there to remind you shouldn't neglect vulnerabilities and the luck stat. ;)
That's really true about vulnerabilities and the luck stat, but I figured I couldn't do a whole lot better than Pure Mages when it comes to that. Of course, most of my warriors were hastily inflicted with delusion, but it didn't bother me since I could just use EPAs... unless, of course, they got psynergy sealed, which meant I just needed to swap them out for someone else. There's also luck boosting equipment, which I completely neglected. So there's some stuff I could have done to make things easier, but I'm not sure how much can be done when all 3 pure mages (guardian is a pure mage) is either sealed or asleep (use djinn, I guess). I've just come to accept that luck is very important in that fight, both as a stat and just luck in general.
As for how Dullahan is going... absolutely not well at all. I still have no clue what to do when he uses Djinn Storm other than steadily swap characters and hope he doesn't start wiping everyone with Charon. Maybe I could try having a "wall" djinn in the back pocket at all times? I should also be less anxious about Dullahan's crazy health regeneration and focus more on not dying rather than dealing damage.
It's also completely possible that he has an attack pattern that I can read and adapt to, but I haven't paid much attention to that. I usually reserve that kind of treatment for games that require good reactions (like DMC), while in turn-based games, I prefer to just go willy nilly. But I'm getting desperate, so...
Anyways, thank you for paying attention and responding back, it's really exciting to see you're still following your wonderful creation. I'll be back again once I finally beat Dullahan. Hopefully.
Hi bro, i see that you make a patch for play it in italian, but will you make a spanish pacth?
Can you tell me how to translate it in to spanish ty
Sorry for my english
Hola, he visto que recientemente has subido un parche en italiano para el juego, pero haras un parche en español?
O podrias decirme como traducirlo mas facilmente o es necesario ir texto por texto?
Me he pasado ambas versiones y se nota bastante el incremento de dificultad y lo adoro, me paso ambos juegos al menos 1 veces al año y aunque ya me se la historia casi de memoria me encantaria leerla en español cuando juegue a tus versiones. Gracias por todo tu trabajo, eres un grande ;)
@Pie: I'm always following, good luck with Dullahan ;)
@Osuna1492: I'm Italian so the italian version has always existed (in my own PC at least). I just added the links recently. For translating the english rom to spanish... your best bet is the Golden Sun Translation Toolkit. Just google it, the very first links should give you both the first game and Lost age version.
Long time lurker, first time poster, so this is my hello message to the community as well. A great thank you to you, Caledor, and everyone involved in the development of the tools and mods for the games.
Here's my feedback, and after that my "armchair developer" view:
- Initial parts for both games are amazingly well balanced. Very tight, they encourage grinding an extra level (or 2) before bosses, but do not require it.
- First points in the game where I felt I had to actively go back and grind to overlevel the bosses were the Hydro Statue in the Broken Seal, and Poseidon in the Lost Age.
- The Broken Seal was awesome difficulty-wise in its entirety. The Lost Age became impossible at the double dragons in Mars Lighthouse. That's where I'm stuck currently with my lvl38 team.
- Later parts of the game require cheesing by interchanging Flash/Shade every round (1 character uses Flash/Shade, 1 character sets Shade/Flash back, 1 character heals or attacks, 1 character attacks)
- Both games start amazingly reminiscent of old-style JRPGs, where you progress in a dungeon and then have to escape before completing it to go back to the city to sleep and restock, then retry the dungeon and reach further deep before retreating, and repeat until you clear it. However as equipment progresses, we reach a point of infinite-PP due to massive PP regeneration options. At that point (basically end-game of Broken Seal and after Jupiter Lighthouse in Lost age), the only difficulty is having enough HP to not be oneshot due to being focused twice in a row.
- The change in the summoning system is a great idea to deter summon-rush, even though summoning still remains the best/fastest way to end a fight.
Below are my ideas as an armchair-developer on what would make the game feel even better:
(A) PP management
- Rank 3 Psynergy should have higher costs relative to their effect. I'll bring the Cure series as example. Cure costs 3PP and restores 70HP base (so 23.3hp/pp). Cure Well has 18.75hp/pp (a 20% nerf in efficiency) which promotes the idea of using the lower rank for longevity, but Potent Cure has 22.72hp/pp. Many other Psynergies exhibit similar design.
- PP regen on equipment switched to other stats. Currently I have +13pp/round on Ivan and +11pp/round on Mia on near-endgame equipment (ie. I am not using an "inferior" item to boost pp regen). This enables a free Destruct Ray per 2 rounds, on top of Ivan's current starting 320PP, and almost 1 free Wish Well per 2 rounds from Mia (Pure Wish too powerful for my team's HP levels) on top of her 340PP. In boss fights it'd take 25 rounds of consecutive casting of these Psynergies before I ran out, and as expected there are rounds where I have to use an item. Not to mention that so far no boss fight has exceeded 10-15 rounds. For reference, the above numbers/stats reflect my lvl36-38 team (single-element classes on everyone), so at higher levels PP will matter even less.
The above changes will encourage the idea of trying to manage your PP and not treat it as an infinite resource in late game.
(B) Reducing the factor of RNG in the outcome of combat
- Enemies after Jupiter Lighthouse, especially bosses, should have more HP and less damage. I'd say a factor of about +50% HP for random encounters and -25% damage would be fine. This will reduce the times that we get OHKO'ed, and combined with the suggestions in part (A) it would increase the need for more efficient PP management instead of always using the higher rank.
- Weapon unleashes should have their damage reduced to that of a normal critical hit. To compensate, the added effect should have 100% chance on non-immune enemies. Sol Blade excluded.
- Instant death effects removed, or at least changed to "HP reduced to 1" or to unavoidable Curse with 2 turns left to die. Instant death is really an unfair mechanic, because even though it technically is similar to sleep/stun/confuse/enthralled/etc. of many games in that the inflicted character loses turns, the latter effects can wear off on their own after a few turns while Death always requires another character to spend a turn to Revive.
(C) Other random changes and reasonings
- Enemies should no longer try to run away from a combat, enemies should call for reinforcements more often. This can add more challenge, and also necessitate the use of 5-target or 7-target Psynergies more often.
- Random encounters, especially after Jupiter Lighthouse, should have more enemies. To the best of my memory, there was only 1 fight with more than 4 concurrent enemies, and that was some oozes which kept summoning friends. Reasoning similar as above.
- Levelling speed doubled, levelup bonuses halved. This would accomplish the effect of reducing the time it takes to level up to higher levels without throwing the balance out of the window. It also helps to reduce burnout because it does not feel like 2 hours to get 1 level. Yes, it also means that a lvl99 team would have the stats of a (now) lvl49 team, which heavily and negatively impacts powerlevelers and possibly end-game too.
- Cursed equipment is rightfully more powerful, but it still does not feel that good compared to other endgame options, because boosting ailments does not help much against bosses and especially random encounters. Maybe each cursed item should autoboost luck to 40 instead to make the character equipping it immune to Sleep and Stun? Is it possible to also change the "cannot act because cursed" effect of cursed items to something else like "loses 25% of their max hp due to curse"?
- Is it possible to re-code the djinn set-standby-recovery system from the current:
Set <-> Standby -> Recovery -> Set to Set -> Standby -> Recovery -> Set (ie. remove the ability to set a standby djinn back)
This would help reduce the effectiveness of Summon Rush tactic since summon rushing would require many random fights to set it up (ie. to have the djinn you want on standby), while also increasing the risk of dying in those random battles due to less djinn being set.
To enhance the above, would it be possible to also disable the ability to set a djinn back from standby during a combat? This would block the above tactic I mentioned of cheesing fights with interchanging Shade and Flash, which in turn would make other defensive Djinn and abilities more appealing.
Those are my feedback and suggestions on a (failed) playthrough as monoelement classes. I am intending to try dual-element for a second run, for both games again. Once again, thank you for the awesome mod to one of the best JRPGs ever.
Whelp, this is a lot of (amazing) feedback. It's been a while since i played so i don't think that taking my time in answering will change much, i'd rather write immediately what comes to mind.
So:
Quotedouble dragons in Mars Lighthouse
This fight is very tricky, no doubt about it. I clearly remember having my @#$ handed to me last time i played and i was about to nerf them cause they felt very unfair and overwhelming, especially right after fighting them in Jup Lighthouse. But i realized i made a fundamental mistake in the strategy i used, and by doing the exact opposite the second time, with the same team more or less, it became quite the easy win. I don't wanna give it away since you haven't beaten them yet, so all i can tell you is that strategy is key against them. Pick the wrong one and yes, you'll probably feel like it's completely hopeless. I don't know exactly how you approached them but this was my experience.
QuoteRank 3 Psynergy should have higher costs relative to their effect
Interesting point. I honestly don't remember right now why i made them that way, so atm i tend to agree with you.
QuotePP regen on equipment switched to other stats.
With PP doubling up as an offensive stat on top of being fuel, PP regen is needed. Healers are supposed to pick PP regen due to high cost of AOE healing, losing in offense, while offensive mages pick +PP equipment. Never running out of PP is a lesser issue for me. But it's still an issue... and my feeling is that addressing the point above might kill 2 birds with one stone.
Quote(B) Reducing the factor of RNG in the outcome of combat
That's the hardest part to "balance". There will always be that unlucky streak when it feels unfair so i can only look at crude numbers, draw a line and say "this much is fine".
About HP/damage it sounds a bit odd to me... after JL is basically endgame but the stat progression follows a mostly linear growth. Actually i remember feeling that the "hardest" point of both games was the beginning, while as i progressed, with more options being available, fights tend to be safer and safer. For example... djinn are very unforgiving at the beginning but in lategame i can steamroll them with ease.
Instant death... it's been brought up many times before but i honestly still think it has a purpose. I think it's possible to tweak teams and classes to somehow improve the odds against it so it encourages variety. Your statement about stun and sleep wearing off on their own suggests that this might be mostly a gut reaction cause not addressing the issue immediately is much worse unless you're being insanely pressured. Aka either the fight is so easy you can take you time and let the issue solve itself (so it's not an issue at all) or it wouldn't have made much a difference wheter it's death or stun since you're facing too much pressure nonetheless. HP to 1 already exists within the game and has a different purpose... dunno honestly how the unavoidable curse will change or improve the current mechanics, need time to think about it.
Quoteenemies should call for reinforcements more often
gut reaction to this and the +50% HP suggestion was that random encounters might become a chore. Also, there are technical limitations for numbers of enemies in a fight and depends mostly on enemy size. It's easy for oozes to be in groups of 5 but there are some enemies where the screen will glitch at 3. Oozes are actually the exception.
QuoteLevelling speed doubled, levelup bonuses halved.
Lv99 is not required at all, as is most RPGs. 99 is just a number, it exists for those that enjoy the grind. There's no point in tweaking the entire game only to ease Lv99 if end result is the same as current Lv 50 or 60. Stat bonuses already take a big hit after lv 40 and are affected by diminishing returns. Powerlevelers should be a bit rewarded for their efforts and the game is balanced for those that avoid the grind route. Yeah, on this front i think that status quo is best.
QuoteMaybe each cursed item should autoboost luck to 40. [...] Is it possible to also change the "cannot act because cursed" effect of cursed items to something else like "loses 25% of their max hp due to curse"?
Won't happen, actually the ring decreases luck (power has a price), and the turn loss basically guarantees that the cursed user has the ring. I'm a big supporter of this kind of "make a choice" gameplay elements since you can farm both stuff for mage and warrior but use only one at any time. Glorified poison (the hp loss) would take that away imo.
QuoteIs it possible to re-code the djinn set-standby-recovery [...] This would block the above tactic I mentioned of cheesing fights with interchanging Shade and Flash, which in turn would make other defensive Djinn and abilities more appealing.
I feel like i can easily achieve that goal by nerfing a bit more those djinn, since those are the only one responsible for the problem.
QuoteOnce again, thank you for the awesome mod to one of the best JRPGs ever.
I'm glad you enjoyed it so far and i'm the one thanking you for taking the time to write this report, seriously. Thanks a lot! :D
Hello all,
I have been using the hack for GS1 and was wondering what happened with enemy spawns. I cannot seem to be able to get a specific enemy when hard resetting, I assume this is intended, since Caledor points to a RNG guide instead of going for vanilla methods. Is this the case and if so, how do I even calculate the RNG by the time I get the enemy I want? Or are hard resets a thing from the past that don't really matter? I was under the impression RNG values changed with previous encounters.
This is because I am seeing things like this in the guide:
"To sum it all up:
-Hard Reset (turn GBA off/on)
-Battle Start
-Six Attack Psynergies
-Djinni unleash (DP method)
-Enemy dies
-Item dropped at end of battle"
Doesn't that mean that I need the required enemy in the first battle after a hard reset?
Thank you.
RNG values haven't changed. What changed is damage and HP, so strict methods with a specific chain of actions to do that guarantee the kill on the last one, don't work anymore.
As for enemies, they might have changed after a hard reset cause i rearranged enemy groups.
Quote from: Caledor on 24, May, 2020, 08:29:34 AM
RNG values haven't changed. What changed is damage and HP, so strict methods with a specific chain of actions to do that guarantee the kill on the last one, don't work anymore.
As for enemies, they might have changed after a hard reset cause i rearranged enemy groups.
Sorry but that's not what I was asking, your last sentence is the one I care about.
My question is, are you able to get any item now that the enemy we need is not appearing the first battle after a hard reset?
I tried for the 2 Fenrirs(whatever they are called) in Altmiller cave for prophet's hat and also tried for the kikuichimonji, but they never appear in the first battle after a reset. I don't really care about how they are, the whole game has been really fun with your mod, I just want to know how am I supposed to get any item now that the order in which they appear after a reset makes them the 4th encounter or more. Thanks though!
Edit: I might not be explaining myself clearly, every time I hard reset in either Altmiller or Venus lighthouse, the first enemy is a specific one, the order of the following battles always follows the same pattern too. So, for example, in Altmiller cave, the 2 fenrirs appear always at the 4th battle when trying the hard reset method in the Djinn room
Quote from: Condrak on 24, May, 2020, 08:47:25 AM
Sorry but that's not what I was asking, your last sentence is the one I care about.
My question is, are you able to get any item now that the enemy we need is not appearing the first battle after a hard reset?
I tried for the 2 Fenrirs (whatever they are called) in Altmiller cave for prophet's hat and also tried for the kikuichimonji, but they never appear in the first battle after a reset. I don't really care about how they are, the whole game has been really fun with your mod, I just want to know how am I supposed to get any item now that the order in which they appear after a reset makes them the 4th encounter or more. Thanks though!
Edit: I might not be explaining myself clearly, every time I hard reset in either Altmiller or Venus lighthouse, the first enemy is a specific one, the order of the following battles always follows the same pattern too. So, for example, in Altmiller cave, the 2 fenrirs appear always at the 4th battle when trying the hard reset method in the Djinn room
I don't think fleeing consumes RNG other than the one for the "got first strike" in the first fight after a reset, so you can keep fleeing until you get the desired fight and start counting RNG from 1.
In the worst case scenario, there's always the brute force method. That is, count your rngs until 31 and tweak stuff from there with savestates, like adding or subtracting a few by altering your actions slightly.
Quote from: Caledor on 24, May, 2020, 09:17:24 AM
I don't think fleeing consumes RNG other than the one for the "got first strike" in the first fight after a reset, so you can keep fleeing until you get the desired fight and start counting RNG from 1.
In the worst case scenario, there's always the brute force method. That is, count your rngs until 31 and tweak stuff from there with savestates, like adding or subtracting a few by altering your actions slightly.
Ah I see, thank you sir. I will try then. I just thought the hard reset before battle was a requirement to have the RNG "clean" by the time you kill the enemy with the item.
Oh and really, amazing mod so far, will go for the lost age after this. It gave the game a much needed refresh and a harder difficulty. I love it, thanks a lot for your efforts.
v1.76 coming IS UP.
Changelog:
- PP cost of all base damage and healing spell recalculated with a new formula.
- Slightly lowered the strength of the 4 best staff unleashes
- Berserk circlet unleash rate down to 10%
- Base damage psynergy bug fixed.
- Guardian class: +5% HP, -5% MP
About the bug: E.Power was contributing only with half its intended power to base damage spells and EPAs. No big deal for the latter since it's never been high to begin with, but it was pretty important for endgame base damage spell balance, where the difference is between a x1.8 (intended) multiplier and a x1.4 (resulting) on average.
I'm updating the docs in the meantime. If you notice any mismatch, especially with PP values, after the patches are released, please leave a comment at that cell within the doc (with the right value) and i'll fix it.
About the nerf to the staff unleashes:
I think that, while warriors have unleashes as a primary damage source, for mages it should be their secondary, with their psynergy set being the primary.
Reasoning is that if unleashes for mages are always the best option, the offensive part of the psynergy set would lose all meaning, since the unleashes are free. Oh and BTW, if you choose to build an unleshing staff user, keep in mind that EPower is very important. Trading epower for unleash rate (example: replace robe with mithril vest) might imply a loss of damage on average.
Tests were done with my usual Fateweaver Sheba, by comparing Lachesis Rule against Scrouge at 55%, 90% and 100% Unleash Rate (Tip: the 90% unleash rate build was better on average than the 100% one :P).
If you happen to discover that for some offensive mages unleashes completely dominate their psynergy set, let me know and i'll look into it.
Thank you for the swift reply. I revert with further feedback ^^
Quote from: Caledor on 22, May, 2020, 06:34:39 PMdouble dragons in Mars Lighthouse
I will retry them with a new tactic. There are definitely more options that I have not yet explored, especially since I have locked myself to monoelements for this first playthrough with the mod. I have also tried the tactic of having 2 djinn on standy per character, to have rank 4 summons available on turn #3, without positive results though.
Quote
With PP doubling up as an offensive stat on top of being fuel, PP regen is needed. Healers are supposed to pick PP regen due to high cost of AOE healing, losing in offense, while offensive mages pick +PP equipment. Never running out of PP is a lesser issue for me. But it's still an issue... and my feeling is that addressing the point above might kill 2 birds with one stone.
What you say is indeed true. My observation is that right until the fight in Jupiter Lighthouse PP is a resource that has to be managed. However, once the group goes to 8 members, then we simply exhaust the front party's PP, switch to the back party and repeat. Due to the high PP regen available from both equipment (during combat), spammable Ether, Ember and Aroma, and walking around (out of combat), I have been able to do random encounters in Mars Lighthouse without ever needing to go back to Prox to sleep. On the contrary, up to Jupiter Lighthouse I remember burning Mountain Waters and Psy Crystals.
Quote(B) Reducing the factor of RNG in the outcome of combat
I found the contrary relating to Djinn. Maybe that was though because I was trying to get them always as soon as they were available. In fact, my major gripe with Djinn fights is that they tend to run a lot, which is compounded by their multiple actions per turn in mid and end-game ^^. 2 specific Djinn that I remember being slightly harder than the rest are:
- That Venus (or was it Mercury?) djinn south of Naribwe
- The Jupiter djinn southwest of Tundaria Tower
Regarding instant death, I will admit my feedback comes from an additional specific limitation that I impose to myself on all RPGs that I play; permadeath. Basically, if a single character dies a non-scripted death, I consider it as a game over and reload from the last save. This is indeed a personal gripe, and I admit I should not have brought that up, when death is technically just another "debuff" like sleep or stun.
Quotegut reaction to this and the +50% HP suggestion was that random encounters might become a chore. Also, there are technical limitations for numbers of enemies in a fight and depends mostly on enemy size. It's easy for oozes to be in groups of 5 but there are some enemies where the screen will glitch at 3. Oozes are actually the exception.
This was a large typo from me which I didn't notice because I did not proofread my entire comment... I meant for bosses to have more HP and less damage, in order to further reduce the effectiveness of summon rushing, while also allowing characters with djinn on recovey to not die after 2 enemy attacks. I do know about the 16383HP limit, which could "circumvented" by allowing bosses to passively recover HP per turn, but that brings the issue of bosses becoming even harder than intended as more turns pass.
Random encoutners are fine. Though I do admit I have trouble with Wonder Birds, but that's something that reaching lvl45 should fix.
Quote(regarding Shade and Flash) I feel like i can easily achieve that goal by nerfing a bit more those djinn, since those are the only one responsible for the problem.
I fear that nerfing them to be equal to Granite would simply make them "stat Djinn", like many other Djinn that we don't bother using since there are other more powerful options. In fact, outside of Flash, Shade, Aroma, Eddy, Kite, Ground, Petra and Haze, I don't remember using the rest of the Djinn for anything other than putting them on standby before a boss to unleash them.
I'd say that this is a general issue with the whole concept of Djinn that no number-tweaking can solve, and which would require reworking the entire battle and class system.
No luck with Dullahan yet. I've been a little depressed with how easily he's crushing me and have lost a bit of motivation. Ok, maybe more than a bit.
Anyways, I wanted to get in on this. The Fire Dragons are really the first boss fight you face after you obtain your second party, so it stands to reason that it would be very difficult without any sort of change in tactics. Also, limiting yourself to mono-classes will naturally make things more difficult... mono-classses suck.
Quoteonce the group goes to 8 members, then we simply exhaust the front party's PP, switch to the back party and repeat
I think of this as good design! It forces you to use all your adepts, and it's basically necessary, especially in fights like the Star Magician, which is a huge endurance battle.
Quote1 free Wish Well per 2 rounds
Sounds like using Pure Wish every single round will put on a considerable PP drain then. (Which I know for a fact)
Quoteif a single character dies a non-scripted death, I consider it as a game over and reload from the last save
Are the Doom Dragon and Dullahan even beatable with this little rule? (Technically yes, but the chances seem beyond minuscule without power leveling)
Quotemy major gripe with Djinn fights is that they tend to run a lot, which is compounded by their multiple actions per turn
I found this very frustrating as well, but it helps to try to poison them with a djinn unleash like wheeze. They take poison damage every single action, and it kills them off pretty effectively. You can also psynergy seal them to cripple their offense (I think).
QuoteRank 3 Psynergy should have higher costs relative to their effect
Honestly, I feel that it's fine how it is for ST healing. Bosses in the endgame (where tier 3 healing is gained) have the potential for ridiculous amounts of damage (this is a good thing) and ST healing should be very strong considering that MT healing is otherwise massively better. And by design, MT healing
should be better, but ST healing does need a bit of help.
Wait, I think I got a little off track. Anyways, my point is that it's ok for tier 3 to be more efficient than tier 2 because mid game threats don't deal as much burst as endgame threats, with maybe the exception of a few bosses. But if the rest of the bosses got adjusted...?
QuoteI don't remember using the rest of the Djinn
A bunch of the EPA style djinn aren't very worth using, but I've found uses for agility boosting djinn (Balrog), defense reducing djinn (Sentinel), as well as Mud and Flower during the midgame for sustain while out exploring (also Mud is used in some boss fights as a replacement for agility boosts).
And on that note, as much as I love Mud and Flower, consider nerfing them Caledor, since they are incredibly free sources of strong damage and healing during the midgame.
QuoteBase damage psynergy bug fixed.
WHOA NO WAY! Scourge users are pleased with this. Also I might have liked this for Star Magician... It would have been nice to sweep those balls out of the way with a barrage of MT psynergy instead of having to rely on stronger Unleashes and EPAs and taking them down one by one.
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMAlso, limiting yourself to mono-classes will naturally make things more difficult... mono-classses suck.
Indeed, which is why I want to retry the game with dual-element, and possibly later with tri-element classes. Of course I understand that they need many Djinn to "take off" compared to mono-element, like in Vanilla ^^
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMI think of this as good design! It forces you to use all your adepts, and it's basically necessary, especially in fights like the Star Magician, which is a huge endurance battle.
I agree. Requiring to use all 8 members is indeed an amazing design. My observation was simply that:
(a) Player power effectively tripled immediately (instead of gradually) once you get Isaac and co.. Double number of members, with additional equipment that has been brought over and can be exchanged between them, and with better Djinn distribution options. The result is that the front row party can experience a significant power increase, and the back party can immediately take over if something goes bad. For example, with 4 members if your main-healer gets stunned you have to use an elixir on the exact next turn and also use another character to take over healing for that round, but with 8 members you just replace your main healer with the back-party healer and waste 0 actions.
(b) Random enemies retain their linear power progress and do not immediately increase in power. For reference, I completed Magma Rock in one single go, whereas I had to retreat to sleep and restock for Air, Gaia and Water Rocks by up to 5 times (Air Rock especially since you only have 3 members).
(c) The first boss you encounter with 8 members (the double dragons) is a case of avoiding OHKO. For all games once you can guarantee that you "can't die", a fight becomes an issue of attrition. This is true for nearly all boss fights in the Reloaded mod, and something that I love. But with 8 members there is no attrition, PP becomes infinite. So the difficulty stems from simply avoiding getting OHKO'ed.
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMSounds like using Pure Wish every single round will put on a considerable PP drain then. (Which I know for a fact)
I admit I still do not have access to Pure Wish, but Wish Well and Cool Aura are already doing more than enough in combination with 100% uptime on damage reduction buffs (Mia's Wish Well heals ~250HP per round per character at 195 base Mercury power, Jenna's Cool Aura ~310HP per round at 184 base Mars power)
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMAre the Doom Dragon and Dullahan even beatable with this little rule? (Technically yes, but the chances seem beyond minuscule without power leveling)
Only if RNG favours you, and really just a personal thing. I shouldn't have brought that up.
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMI found this very frustrating as well, but it helps to try to poison them with a djinn unleash like wheeze. They take poison damage every single action, and it kills them off pretty effectively. You can also psynergy seal them to cripple their offense (I think).
Honestly it's not their damage output that makes them hard, it's that they flee. I remember the Mercury Djinni in Sea of Time Islet Cave go (1st action) Attempts to run, but failed, (2nd action) Attempts to run, but failed, (3) Runs away, all in one round.
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMHonestly, I feel that it's fine how it is for ST healing. Bosses in the endgame (where tier 3 healing is gained) have the potential for ridiculous amounts of damage (this is a good thing) and ST healing should be very strong considering that MT healing is otherwise massively better. And by design, MT healing should be better, but ST healing does need a bit of help.
This is basically a "what does the developer want" issue. My personal preference is also that ST healing should be better than MT (like double healing since it's all on one target), but MT healing can heal 4 targets for total healing which is twice the amount of ST healing. But this double amount of healing should also cost at least double as much PP if not more.
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMAnyways, my point is that it's ok for tier 3 to be more efficient than tier 2 because mid game threats don't deal as much burst as endgame threats, with maybe the exception of a few bosses. But if the rest of the bosses got adjusted...?
This is where I disagree. I will bring a weird analogy to convey my point.
Let's suppose I want to drive a distance of 800km / 500mi. I can retain a conservative speed of 80kph/50mph to get me there in 10 hours, and spend 70$ on gas (this is an example, I am not aware of gas prices in the US ^^). But if I am in a real hurry, I can speed up to 160kph/100mph to get there in 5 hours, but the car will burn more than double fuel, and cost me 170$. So I get to my destination at half time, but I spend more than double cash on gas.
This is how I think of resource costs in video games too. I can either use the PP-efficient Psynergy and have battles last longer (with the added danger of extra damage from enemies), or I can use the PP-inefficient Psynergy that deals more damage to dispatch enemies faster, but I will have to go back to sleep/restock after a lower number of battles.
Quote from: Pie Burritos on 27, May, 2020, 01:05:28 AMA bunch of the EPA style djinn aren't very worth using, but I've found uses for agility boosting djinn (Balrog), defense reducing djinn (Sentinel), as well as Mud and Flower during the midgame for sustain while out exploring (also Mud is used in some boss fights as a replacement for agility boosts).
Being able to act first sounds good on paper, however I actually found that for most bosses I
want my healer to not act first but after 1 or 2 actions from the boss. Since bosses can kill a mage-type (*cough*
Ivan*cough*) in one round even when not targetting them exclusively with ST abilities, then being able to have a fast character heal as first option, then have the boss act and then my main healer heal again is a tactic that I used in virtually all bosses with 3 actions per round.
PP issue: Before ramping up the PP multiplier by adding PP/8 to the base power, i followed a strict formula that obviously became useless with that change, since i had to slightly nerf the actual base power of skills by hand.
Kept tuning stuff for many releases but never thought of finalizing the process with a new formula, which is what i did now. BTW overall result is that midtier abilities were overcosted, endgame and earlygame are mostly the same.
Djinns running away: single turn ones have their chance set to second lowerst, 2+ turn ones have their chance set to lowest, like 4%. One further change i could do is take 3+ turn ones, remove their flee chance completely and greatly power em up, so they become like mini bosses.
Shade and Flash: they have already been nerfed to 50% and 66% respectively. With my design limitations the only thing i can do is lowering flash to 50% as well.
Healing: Difficulty in golden sun comes mainly in multi target attacks. You're often 4 vs 1 so it's either MT or way more stronger ST attacks that could either whiff or kill 1 adept/round. Basically the game becomes way more RNG oriented unless the enemies get some kind of AI.
So in lategame ST healing loses a lot of value and i think it's fair if it's cheaper than MT healing. Despite what raw numbers say, it simply has less utility by game design.
PP Costs: I tend to agree with Mits. We're dealing with turns and here, stronger abilities increase the damage/turn ratio so it's fair that their damage/pp ratio is lower than weaker ones. We could ignore this if abilities also had a "turn cost", like a slower recovery time for the strongest ones. In such games you can either chain multiple weak abilities in the same time or less stronger ones. It's a different "cost" we don't have here so all shifts to PP.
As for the Base Power bug, i can only apologize, deeply. It's a mess so big I can't believe i actually did it and even more that it went unnoticed for so long. I discovered it by chance while working at this release... numbers felt very wrong while comparing Scourge and Lachesis and I had to do the math on paper to finally figure it out. Thankfully the fix was very easy but it also adds to my shame.
Hello, I just beat Sentinel, and I revisited this thread, and I didn't realize that it got updated. But I don't think that it matters because the updates that you wrote don't seem to be relevant to the feedback I wanted to post.
Alright, so the first thing I thought might be an issue is that at the reunion, Mia's stats and class were pretty messed up where she started with a ? class and 0/0 HP and 0/0 PP. Luckily it went away after I changed the Djinn around, but the glitch certainly gave me a scare and made me think that she wouldn't be useable during this run.
Speaking of glitches, whenever I soft reset the game in TLA, it displays random data and images while it's soft resetting. It didn't do this for the TBS version, but I was wondering why it was for TLA.
I couldn't find anything regarding the Rising Mace being mentioned anywhere in the list of drops from Estere Baron. It would also be nice if you could list where you've put these new monsters you've taken from the source code. I've been paging through wikis and not finding the ones you've put in from the source code and just been having to guess and run around to try and find them.
Remedy is excellent, but I think that functionally it's less useful than cure poison or restore separately because I can't use Remedy in the field, and it isn't an option. I have to downgrade Djinn first until Remedy downgrades to Cure Poison and Restore and use Cure Poison and then reset the Djinn again. It's pretty irritating to do every single time whenever someone gets poisoned, and the battle ends.
One question about removing the cool line of Psynergy from Piers. Why specifically was it removed? I can't find it but I think you gave a reason because you added in Prism to his class and it would make him have too many strong Psynergies to his base class. If that's the case then can't you just nerf cool instead or something? If I'm remembering correctly the advantage of cool was that it hit more enemies as opposed to douse and froth, which only hit 5 targets. Also, it might just be me, but I felt like the cool line was more or less Piers' character identity in a way if that makes any sense at all lol. Let me explain myself: one example of a good change I thought you made was giving Garet blast and having Jenna have flare instead, based on Garet's personality it made sense for him to have blast instead of flare. So for Piers, I'm not sure Froth fits his characters' personality as opposed to Mia, where I think Froth would fit her better TBH. I mean I get that Mia is from the cold north and Piers is from ocean environs, but based on their personality I feel that Mia's character is warmer than Piers is, where she is pretty much non-hostile and very agreeable and doesn't take much persuasion to join the group. Piers, on the other hand, is more defiant and basically argues with Felix's party when they have their first conversation in Kibombo and it takes a bit of warming up to them before he decides to take them to Lemuria. So with Froth, I think of something warm and bubbly, which I don't think fits Piers's personality all that well as opposed to Mia. Obviously they learn it with Djinn swapping and Mia can learn Prism in several classes, but I'm talking about base classes here. I don't know lol you can probably disregard all that, but I felt that was something I needed to say because it was a strange change to me.
I probably should have also made a post after I beat TBS, but I was so excited to get into TLA that I couldn't wait, so I'll put some of my thoughts that I remember when I beat TBS a couple of weeks ago.
So there's a couple of issues story-wise and Colosso mechanics-wise with how Ivan's default Psynergy doesn't include both whirlwind and growth (when given a Djinn like in base game). The story-wise is where when Ivan rejoins your party, and he uses whirlwind to blow the rock clean of ivy when by default he doesn't get whirlwind unless you give him Flint. I'm not sure how specifically you can fix this when I know that you made Ivan and Sheba completely different intentionally, and it does make more sense for Sheba to inherently have Whirlwind because of the Garoh and Air's rock subplot. Would it be possible to make an addendum or add-in lines where he says something along the lines of "oh hey, Isaac let me borrow Flint for a second" and then uses Whirlwind? IDK I'm just throwing ideas out there.
The other part for Colosso - and I can't remember the specifics - where on the first turn, I believe Garet was required for a moving puzzle. There was a growth puzzle in a different section, and Ivan couldn't do anything or participate because he now no longer learns growth when you give him Djinn if I remember correctly. And there were only three cheering locations so I couldn't have him do anything else. Maybe I'm misremembering, or perhaps I didn't mess around with the classes properly, but I do remember being stuck at that one specific part in Colosso and just had to have Ivan do nothing for that turn because he doesn't learn Growth.
I felt like Fusion Dragon was much more difficult than Deadbeard. Maybe it was because Fusion Dragon used more hard-hitting AOE attacks and kept using Break like every other turn on me, but Deadbeard just kept wasting turns buffing his attacks instead of actually hitting me. I don't know if I just got lucky, but I felt like it really should be the other way around. Or maybe I just suck lol IDK.
Overall though, I really like a lot of it, and it made it fun to play. Some bosses were challenging in a fun way, while others were difficult in a frustrating way. I've forgotten which ones specifically outside of Fusion Dragon and Deadbeard ack >_<; but I do remember Kraken being super difficult though, but I can't remember specifically why.
That's all I can remember from TBS, I'll try to play it again once I've finished TLA.
I saw a couple of posts above about the healing PP, and I'm a little bit torn on it. On one hand, I understand what you're trying to do, and it does make sense and I think that it does provide an interesting challenge having healing costing more. The new healing cost works fine for Mia, Ivan, Sheba, and Jenna, but the problem is that the ~50 PP cost for Wish is just devastating on Felix, Isaac, Garet, or Piers, which really limits which classes would be ideal to put them in. I think Garet would only be able to cast it like 3 or 4 times before he's just absolutely drained. And plus I didn't see too many PP restoring equipment for the warrior Adepts as opposed to one of the caster Adepts that can get like every piece of gear be PP restoration along with a huge PP pool to use them with. I might need to mess around with the classes a bit more but I wind up with either not enough Wishers with the Djinn combination or too many Wishers. Maybe I need someone to explain to me an ideal setup though haha
One question I had was about Luck. So I was wondering what the formula was for Luck and how it worked with Ailments because it seemed like using Ailments was really useful in some bosses but not others for reasons I don't understand, and the game does a really poor job at conveying specific information whether an ailment cast just failed because of a bad roll or if the boss is just straight-up immune.
That's all for now, but I'm really enjoying myself with the changes and I'm generally having a blast going through these games again and having to actually strategize and think through my turns more than in base game.
Hi KisukeOboro, thanks for the feedback! Let's see:
QuoteMia's stats and class were pretty messed up where she started with a ? class and 0/0 HP and 0/0 PP
That's cause GS slots have different alignment from TLA slots. So for example Mia's class was the 15th in GS, when ported to TLA that 15th is something else so numbers don't match. Extremely minor issue though: any djinn change will immediately load the right class.
Quotewhenever I soft reset the game in TLA, it displays random data and images while it's soft resetting
couldn't manage replicate the issue, looks fine to me. Maybe it's due to a different emulator?
QuoteI couldn't find anything regarding the Rising Mace being mentioned anywhere in the list of drops from Estere Baron
My bad, I added it to the first post. Also i've rearranged sections by adding the boss to each block so now it's easy to tell.
QuoteOne question about removing the cool line of Psynergy from Piers
Needed one strong psynergy line: i could either move prism to piers or bump up the cool line. Doing the former would also free some icon slots i got to reuse for other new psynergies.
QuoteSo for Piers, I'm not sure Froth fits his characters' personality as opposed to Mia
It's much easier. Mia got "Ice" cause she comes from Imil, while Piers got "water" cause he's a seaman.
QuoteColosso & Ivan
I can test that and find a solution, but i need a savefile around that area.
Quotethe ~50 PP cost for Wish is just devastating on Felix, Isaac, Garet, or Piers
I actually think that a paladin can easily reach PP close to 400 with the Millennium helm, Cosmic Shield and the right djinn (which is the intended gear for a warrior caster). They don't have much PP regen but +PP for warriors have huge numbers (i could afford it since warriors lack staves). BTW 400 is much higher than what my Pure Mage Mia has (~320) but she has PP regen.
QuoteSo I was wondering what the formula was for Luck and how it worked with Ailments
It's in the first post, now it's also bolded :P
Straight up immunity exists only for a few ailments (old + Sleep/stun). everything else (or everything if below 40 luck) has to go through that formula. But i doubt the formula can return 0% if you gear for ailments
QuoteMia has ~320 PP
That's really odd. My Pure Mage Mia has around 430 PP at lvl 43. Her Equipment is Lachesis' Rule, Psychic Circlet, Spirit Gloves, Iris Robe, Quick Boots and Wind Ring (because that's all I have lol), and Golden Shirt. So I did equip her with as much PP recovery as I could, but I only have two pieces of PP Max equipment. Even when I remove them she has around 370 PP.
Which I guess comes the question of what level are we using as a base for measuring these stats?
QuoteUse Millennium Helm and Cosmos Shield
Yeah, I was using the Millennium Helm on Paladin Isaac, but not the Cosmos Shield because then that would just waste the Jupiter power that Cosmos Shield gives. So I tried to change Piers into Holy Knight because then he'd be able to use the Jupiter Power but that just completely fucked up all of my classes and displaced too many Venus Djinn too much and now Garet has nothing lol. I guess I should just cut my losses on the Jupiter Power going to waste. Unless the weapons' unleashes factor in the characters' Elemental power? I could give Isaac one of the Orichalcum weapons and that might work if it does take elemental power into account.
Quote from: KisukeOboro on 30, May, 2020, 12:09:16 PM
QuoteMia has ~320 PP
That's really odd. My Pure Mage Mia has around 430 PP at lvl 43. Her Equipment is Lachesis' Rule, Psychic Circlet, Spirit Gloves, Iris Robe, Quick Boots and Wind Ring (because that's all I have lol), and Golden Shirt. So I did equip her with as much PP recovery as I could, but I only have two pieces of PP Max equipment. Even when I remove them she has around 370 PP.
Which I guess comes the question of what level are we using as a base for measuring these stats?
QuoteUse Millennium Helm and Cosmos Shield
Yeah, I was using the Millennium Helm on Paladin Isaac, but not the Cosmos Shield because then that would just waste the Jupiter power that Cosmos Shield gives. So I tried to change Piers into Holy Knight because then he'd be able to use the Jupiter Power but that just completely fucked up all of my classes and displaced too many Venus Djinn too much and now Garet has nothing lol. I guess I should just cut my losses on the Jupiter Power going to waste. Unless the weapons' unleashes factor in the characters' Elemental power? I could give Isaac one of the Orichalcum weapons and that might work if it does take elemental power into account.
You have Spirit Gloves and Lachesis Rule, while i have Selene's Armlet and and Clotho Distaff on her. That alone is ~60 PP even if our levels are about the same. Mine also doesn't equip many +PP increasing djinn, cause her job is to heal, but i can easily manage ~440 with your setup and PP increasing djinn. I just don't need all those PP on her, with my team they're better on Sheba and Jenna.
Elemental Power factors in EVERY elemental attack. For Elemental Physical Attack though (aka EPAs, like Ragnarok, non-staff unleashes and Quick Strike), the bonus they gain is halved when compared to non-physical elemental attacks (base damage spells, Summons and staff unleashes).
Both bonuses are unchanged from vanilla game. What i changed is effectiveness of EPower on healing (halved)
So which category are unleashes classified as? EPA or just Physical?
Like i said, every non staff unleash is physical. 99% of unleashes have an element. So 99% of non-staff unleashes are EPAs.
"Just physical" is non-elemental... PA without the E. The only non-elemental unleash is Acheron's Grief.
Alright so I just beat Doom Dragon and I gotta say that I really enjoyed it. It provided a good mix between difficult but not too difficult, unlike Fusion Dragon. Either it was because I had more party members and more options available to me, but whatever it was I enjoyed it greatly.
I beat all the optional bosses except for Dullahan. I feel like I need to be at level 60 or something before I attempt him because he just completely killed me so quickly.
Other notable bosses:
Poseidon: I felt like I had a bit of trouble with the given classes and Djinni at that point, where it required me to have Break on hand as well as MT healing. Can't remember specifically but I think I had to just buy a bunch of elixirs and give them to everybody just so I could have anybody remove any status ailments that occurred in the fight.
Agatio and Karst: I really like how they have you completely on the defensive at the beginning when it's just Felix and Piers, and it really feels like you're being overpowered by them both. Until Jenna and Sheba join you then that's where you finally feel like you turn the tide in your favor. Really nice job there! I also really liked their dragon versions too! It really buffed them up and made things really difficult for your first combined party boss, and it makes narrative sense why they would be much more difficult after being transformed into dragons.
As far as the optional bosses go:
Valukar (Balrog?): Definitely forced me to go mono element for the fight so I didn't mess up my classes. I remember it not really being necessary for the base game since the damage he did was pitiful, but now that he does much more damage it makes me have to be conscientious about when to swap when there were too many Djinn being set by him.
Sentinel: I really enjoyed this fight because it forced me to use all of my supporting Djinn to buff myself and Debuff him (since any Psynergy cast on him doesn't work) and then use the summons to damage him. Switching between the three shielding Djinn and using Luff and Gravity helped out a lot with damage mitigation and manipulating the turns in my favor.
Star Magician: I remember the usual strat in the base game where you kill the orbs and force him to summon the purple orbs so there aren't any buffs to himself. Unfortunately, this strat didn't cut it in this version lol. There was just too much damage going out that way that even shielding and pure Wishing each round would just kill me easily. So instead what I found was that actually going ham with my casters and nuking everything turned out way better since he used his turns to just summon more orbs and didn't attack me. The damage going out would kill the orbs before the orbs could do anything and keeping the pressure on him before he could have his orbs set up any buffs or heals for him. I liked it because it forced me to get out of the defensive playstyle that I've been conditioned to play as throughout these whole two games and to instead opt-in for a more offensive strategy. I really enjoyed that, but I did notice something about the battle system I wanted to address that I noticed during Star Magician.
So I don't ever remember this in the base game, or maybe because it was easy that it wasn't so much of a problem, but I feel that the way it's programmed it makes me feel like the computer is 'cheating'. What I mean by this is that I feel that the computer is playing action by action rather than turn by turn. So for example: I noticed this when I killed all of the orbs at the end of everybody's turn once they were done nuking Star Magician and the orbs. Star Magician immediately starts his turn by summoning two new orbs. Obviously he is only supposed to have four orbs out maximum. So why would he queue up his actions to summon more orbs when at the start of the turn he had the maximum number of orbs already. The only way he could do this was by playing by a different set of rules than how you play as, where you queue up your actions every 'turn', but he's playing by the Persona 4 battle system where you simply decide your action when it's your turn. I feel like this introduces a cheap advantage that the system has over you. Another example would be when you bind an enemy's Psynergy to stop them from casting. They will immediately, on the same exact turn, switch their action to instead either attack or use an action that isn't Psynergy dependant. If the roles were reversed, however, say that an enemy used bind on one of my party members and I had a cast queued up when their action happened, my party member would still try and cast the Psynergy. Because of the increased difficulty, this adds in an unfair advantage of the enemy being able to react to situations like this. I don't know, maybe it's always been like this and I've never noticed it, but the increased difficulty makes it very apparent.
One other note. I don't like how debuffing a boss only lasts for essentially 1 turn. It basically forces a party member to continually keep debuffing in order to keep the debuff up and if they miss with the debuff then you're back to square one that same turn. I'd expect at least 3 turns to pass before the debuff wears off and I feel like the debuffs that the enemies cast on you last longer than the ones you cast on them if I'm not wrong.
Oh, also I don't like how Waters of Life are essentially useless, especially since they're a rare item that you can only use once. They restore so little health that any enemy can one-shot you easily with how little health it gives you, added on top of the issue with enemies being able to adjust their actions after you have executed yours and you get cheeky actions where they'll single target attack a party member you just revived like how is that even possible
I don't really remember how AI works. My guess for SM is that he rolls for ability like normal but then checks if there's space for more balls and eventually rerolls at casting time.
Debuffing healing rates have been on my to do list for a while, so definitively expect that on next release. Dunno when though, i'll be crazy busy in the next few weeks.
WoL being half as good as Revive is mandatory: WoL is farmable and Revive/Raise are a valuable asset of anyone's psynergy set. Also expecting to WoL someone and call it a day for that turn is quite naive: you always know the order in which characters act, WoL with the fastest and heal with second fastest
Final notes, based on v1.74 of the Reloaded mod. I don't know if I should warn for spoilers, but I expect that everyone on these forums already knows all secrets of the games by heart :happy:
Yep, this is an amazing modification. The last time I remember that I had such a long and endurance-based final boss was for The Last Remnant, over 10 years ago. I finally beat Doom Dragon, on the first try, with a lvl41-lvl40 team. The battle lasted around 1 hour and 30mins, and was surely over 80 rounds. I did not attempt Star Magician, Valukar, Sentinel, and I did not step foot into Anemos Sanctum. These will be done with v1.75 (or even newer?) and with dual-element classes.
The Double Dragons were in fact the hardest part of the mod for me, and mostly due to two abilities: Rolling Fire and Meteor Blow. Not even Doom Dragon's Cruel Ruin was dealing as much damage percentage-wise as Meteor Blow.
The random battles in the part after Jupiter Lighthouse are relatively easier than the ones in TBS and TLA up to JL, exactly because of the reasons I explained in my previous post; because we no longer need to be conservative with our PP. After getting Isaac and co. you can spend the entirety of your front party's PP for offense, while the back party heals after each battle. In combination with the occasional use of Aroma and Ember, and with PP-regen equipment, this means infinite PP. In fact all fights in Mars Lighthouse, except the Fire birds which I was killing 1-by-1 to prevent them escaping, were a 1-turn deal.
Regarding Doom Dragon:
- His last form uses Mother Gaia instead of Grand Gaia. Is this intended? Especially since his second form uses Grand Gaia.
- What's the success rate of Condemn? Doom Dragon used it at least 10 times and it didn't work a single one of them. Was it a stroke of luck?
- Earth Force never did anything, it was like a wasted action. Was it again luck that it never worked?
- Did you really change Doom Dragon's AI to make it use Guard Aura when unleashing more than 1 summon at a turn? :happy: All times, without exception, that I used 2 summons in one round, Doom Dragon always casted Guard Aura. If this was indeed not just a random occurence but something that you implemented, it was amazing!
- His Jupiter weakness is kind of exploitable. Eclipse, Thor, Flora and Scourge/Spark Plasma were my main damage sources. Even Megiddo was dealing barely breaking 200 damage, while Spark Plasma was dealing ~350 even right after Djinn Blast/Storm.
- His first form is actually his most dangerous one, due to 4 turns. Since Cruel Ruin was dealing approximately 40%-60% of my party's HP, then the only time it can turn lethal was when combined with another dangerous attack (like Darksol Gasp, or True Collide). On the other hand, during 1st phase he could cast Gravel Blow, Desert Gasp, Inferno and Supernova in the same turn.
- Doom Dragon lost Break and Potent Cure after 1st phase, was this intentional? I think he retained these Psynergies in vanilla. I was allowed to have near 100% uptime on Defense/Resistance due to him losing break.
One question regarding Hard mode; do enemies have their +25% ATK and +50% HP in hard mode with the mod too? Will it be hell to complete it on hard mode?
- Mother Gaia is totally a mistake.
- Earth Force was bugged in vanilla (supposed to force the skip of a turn like petra/ulysses but fails cause doesn't act first), i changed it's effect to turn HP to 1 but won't work outside of physical strikes (added damage or mul) and it's basically a death sentence on a 4 turn boss with multiple AOEs, so i'm changing it again into a base damage spells that stuns.
- Fun Fact: Guard Aura is picked only as part of the sequential pattern of its attack. It's not even bad RNG, you just picked the wrong turn everytime lol
- Every weakness is exploitable, Elemental res matters much more now that base damage spells are actually useful. But Jupiter has been designed on purpose to have the best overall offense in the game, no question. Monoelemental Sheba basically nukes with Scrouge. Only Necromancer's Call Dullahan comes close to that.
- Doom Dragon never had break in vanilla. But i might readd it to it's later stages.
- Hard Mode: Yes
GG on finishing the game with monoelemental classes BTW :happy:
@KisukeOboro: the wiki has info about the enemies intelligence in their pages. I haven't touched that value in the mod so everything written there about any enemy is still true
That Elemental Power on base spells bug explains a LOT about the issues I felt like I was having with spellcasters over the years despite doing everything I could to amp their casting ability and watching unleashing be more effective (not wrong on builds that don't run +unleash, mind).
My ideal casters through the overwhelming majority of the game tries to either spike EleP (thanks to +EleP weapons) by syncing a dual class to a +EleP weapon and unleash of my largest EleP element or making up the difference in weapon elements with Djinn flexibility (thank you, Cal, for the endless combos of the item classes) and spreading maximum elemental flexibility. Getting the EleP calculations right bring Dual class casters back into the fold as the game continues since there's quite a few scenarios where equipment combinations result in substantial +EleP spikes in single elements.
Also, I don't remember if I mentioned this over the years, but thank you, thank you, thank you for adding so much power flexibility for the tri-elemental classes by giving them a wide variety of buff/de-buff psynergies instead of raw damaging skills. I have loved the Fateweaver / Divine Mage since the second I saw it. While you've broken my heart by removing a lot of the Psynergy lines I thought had potential (Demon Night/Thorny Grave died for the Wave series(?) which hasn't made the cut), what you've added has been very nice to see.
One last thing, forever ago, when you were creating the Wave series, I think you ended up breaking the animation for Dreamtide, from the Spada Pirata. With the Wave series out of the picture, would you mind bringing the original animation for Dreamtide back in? Unless that slot is already used for something, of course.
Hi Varden, long time no see!
spiking ePower (and PP) on casters is what i also do as you can see from the psynergy doc, healing math sheet. I used those calculations in balancing the power of classes who can MT heal
As for the power flexibility to tri-elemental they're totally a design choice cause there's only so much offense skills can do and you take a ePower loss going from dual to tri classes, which can only be compensated by higher stats and a better psynergy set. Miko/Incantatrix and Arcanist/Pure Mage are the perfect example. (I also love Divine Mage: it was designed with Sheba in mind and she's had that class from day one).
Wave was quite a loss for me as well but i simply couldn't afford it. 3 icons for a fancy animation to be used only by one class (monoelemental, no less) was too much. It's the only reason Wave didn't make it: i don't like Piers casting Prism either but ATM i think i have 1-2 free ability icon slots.
Demon night and thorny grave were cool but kinda useless in the player's hand and even worse in samurai's hand, lol. I think i reused that animation for a venus unleash somewhere? Mid game mace/staff maybe?
BTW the change to Dreamtide is a well known side effect of the Wave Animation Patch, just to say that i knew it would've been affected. But since i also can't figure the Wave series making it again, Dreamtide's animation will be restored for next release. In the meantime, the attached patch will do ;)
(It's literally the opposite of the Wave Animation Patch in the download section: it restores the values changed by that patch to the vanilla ones)
Quote from: Caledor on 04, June, 2020, 12:58:38 PM
Demon night and thorny grave were cool but kinda useless in the player's hand and even worse in samurai's hand, lol. I think i reused that animation for a venus unleash somewhere? Mid game mace/staff maybe?
Oh, absolutely. Haunt being so unpredictable and much more damaging for the player than the enemy is just a side effect of the status itself. Still, it felt like something that fit the Necromancer, but ultimately, it's a better monster thing than a player thing. Plus why bother casting when you can rip off EPAs for a trillion damage?
Quote from: Caledor on 04, June, 2020, 12:58:38 PM
BTW the change to Dreamtide is a well known side effect of the Wave Animation Patch, just to say that i knew it would've been affected. But since i also can't figure the Wave series making it again, Dreamtide's animation will be restored for next release. In the meantime, the attached patch will do ;)
(It's literally the opposite of the Wave Animation Patch in the download section: it restores the values changed by that patch to the vanilla ones)
Neat, I'll probably just wait for the next release then. Thanks for the patch though!
Dunno when it'll be though. Unless some catastrophic bug pops up i'll take my sweet time in releasing v1.77
I recently started a full playthrough so i'll probably refrain from updating until i'm done.
Hey Cal, maybe you already answered this elsewhere in the thread, but what's up with Tisiphone Edge's and Excalibur's unleashes on the Equipment Google doc?
Is that Base+5 x1, 2, or 3 on the Excalibur and Base+8 x1, 2, or 3 on the Tisiphone Edge?
Yes. BTW for doc specific stuff you can also leave a comment on the doc itself
Heyo, so I used the updated patch and now I'm going through the games again and recording my experience for feedback. So here they are so far:
https://youtu.be/kdWXnx5xBVI
https://youtu.be/IqeOdVvY_Hw
https://youtu.be/w7B3mac8tZA
https://youtu.be/Ojc-VPm04fw
Currently, I'm up to Tolbi and I need to edit those streams so once I've gotten those up I'll share them in this thread
Unleashes were all based on the Attack stat originally. Staff unleashes becoming base damage type means that they're basically spells now, so they ignore the attack stat completely AND use the PP multiplier i introduced for psynergies.
Casters in vanilla endgame were basically useless. Unleashing and summoning did way more damage than casting would ever do. This mod was born with the PP multipier, aka turning PP into an offensive stat. Base damage psynergies (aka spells) deal more damage as maxPP grows
Vulnerabilities_25: this is unchanged from the vanilla game. Each class is actually weak to a specific status: that status has a 25% higher chance to affect its target. Vulnerabilities_25 is supposed to be read as "Vulnerabilities' 25%". Which means: "if target is weak to this status add 25% to chance to inflict, else do nothing". Again, this is completely unchanged from vanilla game, it's always been there.
Hp Gain from djinn halved: NO. i'm talking about the HP stat bonus granted by setting djinn. I moved a good chunk of that bonus from Djinn to characters, so when you have all djinn set it's unchanged, but as you standby djinn, you lose less HP cause the djinn's impact on your HP is lowered: for example if X djinn granted 30 HP to your chara on average, they now grant 15. The remaining 15 is now hardcoded on character growth so setting X djinn makes you lose less hp than before cause it won't be lost as you unleash djinn and/or summon.
Shake things up: YES. Something like 80% of enemies were either weak to Jupiter or Mars with the remaining 20% being weak to Mercury or Venus in the original game. This creates imbalance on the offensive weigth of each element so i rearranged that. My goal was to make it as close as possible to having weaknesses distributed equally among elements. Long story short i replaced a lot of J/Ma weaknesses with Ve/Me ones, just cause the latter had less.
"this mod is intended for people who know the game already": big YES. I say this all the time to newcomers. DON'T use the mod right away unless you're in for a big challenge. The mod is supposed to give more value to a second/third/nth playthrough. If you go in blind youre up for a harsh challenge.
"dual and tri classes are leaps and bounds better than mono elemental, and they're needed for this mod cause everything is more difficult". YES/NO. Yes cause base game was just so easy that you never needed to change from mono element classes, NO cause they've always been better, it's not something i changed. Mono elemental classes are BAD and they've always been so. Setting aside Angel and Incendiary, which had huge benefits in vanilla due to the healing mechanic, everything else was just catastrophically bad. BUT it was still good enough. Through equipment and whatnot i tried to greatly encourage multi-elemental classes from some point onwards.
Poison: erm... Tret is immune. 40 Luck.
Buffs: how long? -> Vanilla has all buff last for 7 turns. I changed the stronger buffs (those usually attached to single targets spells) to last for 5 turns. Reasoning: take impact. You usually don't have 4 physical attackers in a team, so it's much more effective to just cast impact for 25% on your heavy hitter than high impact for 12.5% overall on your entire team, which includes people who are not supposed to use the attack command ever. How do i make High impact relevant? -> By making it last for longer. Intended usage is Impact for the immediate big boost then HImp to reset turn counter with a longer duration.
Classes: For A LOT of them, only the name changed, cause i didn't want to repeat them. The ENTIRE Herbalist -> Druid line is a carbon copy of the original Seer (Mercury) -> Oracle line (except Growth -> Gaia). It's just that most of those names have been retained by the Jupiter counterpart, so i had to make up new ones for the mercury variant.
Yeah, my memory isn't very good in remembering specific details in base game, such as what classes were specifically named nor which Psynergies they really had. This is also compounded due to me streaming and I have a hard time remembering things on the fly despite me running my mouth. I know what you meant on the Djinn HP thing I just did terribly in explaining it.
Okay, it says on your first post that above 40 has immune to stun and sleep so I didn't know if that also applied to poison or the other status ailments. Also again I don't have an editor to see these values and so I'm testing the only way I can with what I have and that's trying to brute force these status ailments on these bosses
Big update to the first post
Added "Reasoning" paragraphs where I explain why I made the changes described there. Also if you think i've forgot something i should've mentioned or you have further questions tell/ask me and i'll add it.
Oh and @KisukeOboro if you have some kind of schedule for the next stream I'll see if i can join and answer some questions live.
I'm planning on going this Wednesday, which might be your Thursday if I'm understanding correctly that you're in Italy?
But yeah you can catch me at twitch.tv/kisukeoboro and get notified when I go live. Gonna plan to get through the rest of GS and make those save states for more testing
Ok hopefully i'll manage some time. 100% sure i won't be able to follow the whole stream since it'll be after midnight.
For the record, my TBS playthrough is over. Whole game was such a smooth sail that i lost a few times only again Deadbeard and Fusion Dragon cause i underestimated them at first. Picking the right team comp/strategy allowed me to easily clear them as well. Perfectly in line with what i'd expect after all this time.
Usual password copypasted, TLA begins. Changelog for next release is building up. Zero urgent balance changes so far, only improvements and fixes.
UPDATE: checked your stream after, 4AM to 8AM is the time when i'm 100% asleep sadly.
Also i'm at Naribwe in TLA. Just how it was predictable the "no-changes" tag in TBS, i'm having quite a few instead in TLA. The infamous Yampi-Kibombo section strikes again (by far the hardest portion in TLA to do right, as i said many times) and i'm mainly nerfing some enemies.
Cal, I do have one question since it's not something I can find looking at the editor:
Does the "Restore X% of damage dealt as HP/PP" effect on unleashes like Psynergy Leech have a Luck calculation as well? I swear I can't get the "Restore PP" effect to occur on anything at Air's Rock with the Blessed Ankh no matter how many times I get the unleash.
If it does have some Luck calculation attached to it, I'm wondering why it wouldn't restore every time the unleash went off. It doesn't seem like something that should be affected by luck since it's not a debuff; I already did the damage, I should get the restore. I don't think any sane person is attack-spamming at base unleash rate to get 5 PP back while their team gets AOE'd every turn, so it's not like it would be game-breaking if the restore chance is 100%.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 12, June, 2020, 10:22:43 PM
Cal, I do have one question since it's not something I can find looking at the editor:
Does the "Restore X% of damage dealt as HP/PP" effect on unleashes like Psynergy Leech have a Luck calculation as well? I swear I can't get the "Restore PP" effect to occur on anything at Air's Rock with the Blessed Ankh no matter how many times I get the unleash.
If it does have some Luck calculation attached to it, I'm wondering why it wouldn't restore every time the unleash went off. It doesn't seem like something that should be affected by luck since it's not a debuff; I already did the damage, I should get the restore. I don't think any sane person is attack-spamming at base unleash rate to get 5 PP back while their team gets AOE'd every turn, so it's not like it would be game-breaking if the restore chance is 100%.
This is something i noticed as well during my last TBS and even in TLA now so thanks for reminding me. As expected i've set both effect to always occour regardless of luck, but for the PP variant, it simply won't happen if the enemy doesn't have PP to steal. And all enemies without psynergies have 0 PP.
So this is mostly a design / flavor choice... i'll think about it
Heya I almost forgot to post it here, but I made a simple playlist on my playthrough and testing so far. Any new videos will be uploaded to that playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5H7ksn_gzwC2sp_ytgl7iV_gTRP1uEVZ
So quick note about some of the last videos. I do realize that I am mistaken about status ailments. This was streamed before I realized that I conflated debuffs and status ailments together. So ignore what I'm talking about for status ailments. However now I am more interested in the debuffing and how that works now and how viable a strategy it can be against bosses. So I'll be testing that a bunch in my future testing
Quote from: Caledor on 13, June, 2020, 02:52:17 PM
This is something i noticed as well during my last TBS and even in TLA now so thanks for reminding me. As expected i've set both effect to always occour regardless of luck, but for the PP variant, it simply won't happen if the enemy doesn't have PP to steal. And all enemies without psynergies have 0 PP.
Ahhhhhhh, yeah, that makes sense. I knew you gave enemies PP values to boost their psynergy, but hadn't realized all non-psynergy-using enemies had their base psynergy set to 0 and I didn't realize that the "restored" HP/PP was actually literally drained from the enemy, I figured it was just a calculation based on the damage done and the PP was pulled from thin air i.e. Enemy HP damaged became PP restored.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 13, June, 2020, 06:56:04 PM
Ahhhhhhh, yeah, that makes sense. I knew you gave enemies PP values to boost their psynergy, but hadn't realized all non-psynergy-using enemies had their base psynergy set to 0 and I didn't realize that the "restored" HP/PP was actually literally drained from the enemy, I figured it was just a calculation based on the damage done and the PP was pulled from thin air i.e. Enemy HP damaged became PP restored.
It is, at least for a while. The game does literally damage / 10 but then caps that number at the enemy's current PP. Then it damages both HP and PP and restores your PP only. For the record, restore 50% of damage to HP does the same thing. Damage / 2 (the restore part) is capped at the enemy's current HP.
It took me only a few minutes to tweak the PP regen formula so it'd be capped by enemy's HP rather than PP but then i noticed the battle messages and the fact that those PP are actually drained from the enemy. It looks like a very specific design choice, also all relevant enemies do have PP so i'll probably keep it as it is in the end.
@Kisuke
Thanks for the link. I think i already watched the current episodes uploaded until now through twitch btw. Also if you have some questions about game mechanics do write them here so i can address them properly. There's likely a ton of stuff i take for granted by now, like why i made all those changes or (de)buff turn duration, but this mod is 5.5 years old now (!!!) and most people haven't been here from the beginning. If i can improve the first post i'll definitively do it.
PS: Oh, forgot to address it before. Ivan lacking growth for the first round of colosso is something i've implicitly accepted. But i also made a point on never sacrificing anything of the original experience so i might add a "Growth Seed" item just to address this.
As a last note, here's one line from the ever-growing changelog:
[spoiler]Every non-overworld Djinn can't escape anymore.
Reasoning: Some rooms are simply horrible to reset after an escape and resorting to save/reload is even worse since it grants a preemptive strike.
Also in some rooms the puzzle involves cornering that djinn in a place where he can't possibly escape so it doesn't make much sense for it to escape in battle. Like the first Mars from TLA, the one with Pound.
Overworld djinn are way more "free" instead and i feel like they should know their environment so it makes sense to me that they'd want (and are able) to escape if things get ugly.[/spoiler]
What's the general opinion with level progression?
I just finished Tundaria at 27.5 but i feel like I had to run away more than I intended to just for the sake of not overleveling.
Those are the intended levels for each area after the ship is obtained (= average enemy level of the area)
Taopo = 20-21
Aqua Rock = 22-23
Gaia Rock = 24-25
Ankhol = 26
Tundaria = 27-28
Poseidon = 28
Treasure Isle = 28-29
Eastern Sea = 29
Jupiter Lighthouse = 30-31
Reunion = 31-32
Magma Rock = 32-33
Northern Reaches = 34
Mars Lighthouse = 35-36
Optional Dungeons = 37-42+
Does this match with your playthroughs? Or do your happen to under/overlevel easily?
I'm asking cause this is a delicate matter. There might be an issue at all and it's my playstyle that leads to overleveling (didn't happen in TBS though... maybe it's due to the lower linearity in eastern sea), while if it's an issue it can be addressed in different ways... if difficulty is also a problem i can reduce the average number of enemies encountered, while if the difficulty is right i'd just reduce exp.
Just finished Kibombo (Great Gabombo Statue is a giant pain in the @#$ at first) at level 18-ish.
A couple things I'm noticing:
Light Blades/Maces have almost no purpose if they aren't being wielded by Felix, maybe Piers. The unleashes are woeful as multipliers compared to the base power of staffs, but I think the problem may be elsewhere. In my opinion, it may have to do with the ATK multipliers on Jenna's classes; I don't know if she gets above 140% on anything outside Valkyrie.
I understand she ends up slotting into a healer-esque role if Sheba plays caster later in the game, but she's got access to Light Blades for a reason. She's a different kind of hybrid and distinctly not full support like Mia is. I know there's a couple instances like the Inquisitor line where Ivan, Sheba, and Jenna have a sort of "shared class" where Jenna has different psynergy. Maybe their multipliers could differ?
Strangely, I can't tell I'm just playing optimally by putting all the healing duty on Felix for the overwhelming majority of the 3-member party early-game. If you can get through fights with something like:
Sheba AoE -> Jenna AoE -> Felix attack/djinn -> take hits
Breath -> Attack -> Attack
then you can have Felix dump 3-9(rarely) PP on Cures and stay topped off while walking gains back PP. Nothing truly threatens your PP pool until the Gondowan Cliffs. Spreading the PP cost around makes each regened PP by walking go a lot farther. I don't think this is problematic exactly since it seems just like very efficient play and I'm not sure of your take on it.
Remind me in the future not to go to Air's Rock before Alhafra. That was a mistake. And to edit Leather Boots in for Piers' starting equipment just because.
Quote from: VardenSalad on 16, June, 2020, 02:57:40 PM
Just finished Kibombo (Great Gabombo Statue is a giant pain in the @#$ at first) at level 18-ish.
A couple things I'm noticing:
Light Blades/Maces have almost no purpose if they aren't being wielded by Felix, maybe Piers. The unleashes are woeful as multipliers compared to the base power of staffs, but I think the problem may be elsewhere. In my opinion, it may have to do with the ATK multipliers on Jenna's classes; I don't know if she gets above 140% on anything outside Valkyrie.
I understand she ends up slotting into a healer-esque role if Sheba plays caster later in the game, but she's got access to Light Blades for a reason. She's a different kind of hybrid and distinctly not full support like Mia is. I know there's a couple instances like the Inquisitor line where Ivan, Sheba, and Jenna have a sort of "shared class" where Jenna has different psynergy. Maybe their multipliers could differ?
Level is perfect. Ending kibombo at 17/20 for me would be borderline low/high... borderline, not alarming. 18-19 is perfect.
Light Blades/Maces are obviously less straightforward than Swords Axes and Staves, because they are designed as a compromise from the start. Also i think you're being mislead by the high burst damage of staves, but you have to consider also the lower base damage. I did literally one test and the results were hilarious.
Miko Jenna w/Asteria vs Inquisitor Jenna w/Sylph Rapier. Base -> Unleash
64 -> 215 vs 95 -> 167.
If you do the math, it's exactly 116 on average for both. I did honestly not expect nor rig this, lol
But this was against an enemy with 7 level less than jenna, so results are gonna be lower (against a same level enemy avg turned out to be 100), but then you have to factor in that attack is much easier to raise in battle than epower + the bonus to agility and def the weapon brings, while PP and Power are already factored into the unleash damage. Maces are kinda similar since they boost HP. Very early in the game i tend to give one to sheba since she's so frail.
One test doesn't mean anything but those numbers are perfect all things considered. If things go wrong, my fix would be further reducing the base attack of staves, but this is not the case yet.
QuoteStrangely, I can't tell I'm just playing optimally by putting all the healing duty on Felix for the overwhelming majority of the 3-member party early-game. [...] Spreading the PP cost around makes each regened PP by walking go a lot farther. I don't think this is problematic exactly since it seems just like very efficient play and I'm not sure of your take on it.
Totally ok. The increased difficulty is supposed to be mostly negated by playing smart and optimizing actions... any "by doing X and Y it doesn't seem much harder" is a huge compliment in my book.
QuoteAnd to edit Leather Boots in for Piers' starting equipment just because.
Aaand this is not a compliment at all instead. :P
I mean, 5 years without noticing AND right now my level 27 piers still doesn't have boots?
I'm editing Piers' base equipment as I write, consider it in for next release.
Quote from: Caledor on 16, June, 2020, 01:28:48 PMWhat's the general opinion with level progression?
I am still in TBS, parked outside Sulhalla with a lvl23 party (Ivan is 22). Level progression so far has been (I mention the levels I remember I was when fighting the bosses):
- Kalay = 4
- Kolima Forest = 8 (with Mia at 10 [yes, I cheated and went to get her first])
- Mercury Lighthouse = 11-12
- Mogal Forest = 15
- Altin Caves = 18
- Lamakan Desert = 19
- Karagol Sea = 20
- Colosso = 22
(at this point I equipped Lure Cap, which I intend to keep equipped for the rest of the game, and for all of TLA from Jupiter onwards)
- Lunpa Fortress = 23
- Suhalla Desert = 25
- Venus Lighthous (clearing path and collecting all treasures up to the point of no return) = 28
- Deadbeard = 30 [I wanted to post an image here. Deadbeard sweeps Ivan for 2 damage only. This is the result of 4 levels of Protect + 1 level of Dull]
- Fusion Dragon = 31 (Isaac was 32)
Dual-element classes are offering a significantly easier experience compared to mono-element for my usual no-death runs. In fact after acquiring 3rd Djinni for each class, nearly all random encounters have become a 1-turn deal. So far there has been only 1 encounter that I was not able to clear at all, and that was the 2 gryphons at Level 4 of Crossbone Isle with lvl20-21 group.
Offtopic: Since I also aim to do a "near-perfect" run, what items are exclusive to TBS that I will need to transfer to TLA? I'm asking cause I know that there have been changes to both games.
GS1 levels are mostly ok since i haven't changed enemy group or experience at all. I'm mainly concerned with TLA since i changed BOTH enemy groups and experience granted. But now that i've beaten poseidon and i'm at 29-28 i think it's ok. Maybe the issue was that i went to Tundaria and Islet Cave earlier than intended, which made me think i was borderline overleveled for the other areas i should've visited at that time instead.
GS1-only items: https://goldensunwiki.net/wiki/Category:Unique_items_in_Golden_Sun MINUS the items i added back in TLA as described in the Drops and Shops sections of the first post.
v1.77 is up!Just finished Jupiter Lighthouse and decided to release. Discussing the most important points of the changelog:
- Added to the main post Ailments and Debuff's base rates
- Power of Elemental Bracelets Gloves and endgame Robes: see doc, changes in yellow.
- This is a much needed boost to non-symbiotic dual classes (and some tri-elemental classes). While the symbiotic could rely on the endgame Big Bang Gloves and Selene's armlet, the other 4 combinations had to fall back on other subpar bracelets for power boosts. So I added a second power boost to the endgame robes that complement perfectly the ones found on those bracelets. - Flora was the only low-tier summon that didn't de/buff PLUS I lacked a Res Debuff on summons PLUS -Res is mainly a Jupiter effect. Easy change. Now Flora is actually good.
- Mainly nerfs to enemies in the infamous Yampi-Kibombo range (Lv 10-18 of TLA). As a reminder, the issue here is that i can't use the perfectly balanced values of GS1 as a guideline cause those values in GS1 assume a party of 4 (Mia joins at 10) while in TLA you have a party of 3 until Kibombo (Piers joins at 18) so i had (and still have) to improvise.
- Few enemies replace 1 special attack with regular attack
- Emu, Dino, Wyvern Chick, Wolfkin Cub, Wild Gorilla, Wood Walker, Cerberus.
-- Yes, it's mainly a continuation of the point right above this one - Avimander is overall stronger
- Star mine HP% damage down to 0 -> uses PP multiplier, -10 BP (careful: PP Mul >>> 6% HP damage, this is a big boost overall)
- 1 Star mine replaces 1 Fiery Blast
- Cool Aura replaces Impair - Minor Poseidon tweaks
- Now uses a third separate moveset for his third turn instead of reusing his first one
-- Won't waste his third turn using Counter-Rush - Moapa & Knight: Mainly a buff to Moapa.
- Bosca Hit eliminates status boosts (AKA Single target damage + break effect)
- Moapa gets Pike Assault, Sack, Total Defense
- Items tweaked - Slightly reduced enemies in some zones
- About -0.10 per fight in Yampi Desert, Air's Rock Interior, Gondowan Cliffs, Western Sea Land.
We need an improvement on password transfering from TBS to TLA :sad:
Quote from: Dark Mits on 21, June, 2020, 06:00:32 AM
We need an improvement on password transfering from TBS to TLA :sad:
FAQ section added to the first post.
This is awesome! Thank you once more.
On topic, I started TLA today, on Hard mode based on v1.77. Still in Daila. I will be informing about progress and notes, even though you do mention that the mod is supposed to be enjoyed on Normal and not Hard.
It's ok, that disclaimer is just cause i won't be testing nor making changes with Hard mode in mind.
BTW, i've just defeated the Flame Dragons, which implies that i'm basically done with changes for this playthrough, since i doubt i'll be making any change to the superbosses after all this time. I must also say it's almost scary how easy it was for me to beat the dragons: i know they're probably the most oppressive boss in the game so far with their 4 turns but i think i've got to know them so well, that having the right mindset for the battle and planning every turn ahead just carried me. Heck, i even forgot to grab the Sol Blade before fighting them... my main offense was Leader Isaac with the Apollo Axe.
I think the revamped Moapa - underestimated despite knowing perfectly what he was capable of - gave me a much harder time. I've had a stupid amount of deaths when he was alone just cause i dropped my guard at that point, almost as much as those i suffered from the Flame Dragons during the entire fight.
And i honestly love it. The increase in difficulty is here ONLY to encourage smarter plays and punish you if you get careless, thus encouraging the player to try many different strategies.
Also, I re-uploaded TLA v1.77 to fix an extremely minor bug i discovered by chance after the latest upload. The Muramasa was being displayed in battle with the Mace sprite instead of the Long Sword one. Another bug that managed to hide itself pretty well over many releases.
PS: Updated main post with artifacts removed from shops in TLA.
Reverting a bit to TBS. I forgot to mention that Deadbeard seemed to have run out of PP approximately 8-10 rounds into combat. I don't know if it was an extreme example of RNG, but there was a point after which he only used normal Attack and Sweep till the end of the fight, which was for over 20 additional rounds from the time he last used Psynergy. It's what allowed me to cheese the fight by maxxing Defense and using Dull on him. That was with v1.76 of the mod.
I don't think it's possible for him to run out of PP that way. He regenerates 50 PP each turn, he wouldn't run out in 10 turns even if he used is 2 most consuming psynergies each round. And even if he does run out eventually, the regen is still there so it's extremely unrealistic that he doesn't cast at all for 20 more turns. It's more likely that PP regen glitched somehow.
I just loaded the save file that I have right before fighting Deadbeard. Combat log does not mention him recovering PP. I am attaching my save file.
Odd, but true. Looks like PP regen is completely broken in GS1.
Well, for the time being, i "fixed" Deadbeard by creating clones of his offensive psynergies + Break that cost 0 PP. He can technically still run out through Impact and Ward but, well, even assuming he uses one of those 2 each turn, it takes 40 turns for him to run out.
Reuploaded v1.77 for TBS as well.
EDIT: 1 PP cause the status Seal blocks everything that costs PP, if they cost 0 they'd still be used even if DB is sealed.
EDIT2: Valukar, Star Magician and Sentinel down, usual setup (it's about time I try something new btw)
Thank you so much for this mod Caledor. Golden Sun was one of the first RPGs I played as a kid, and this mod has been a great way to relive that while still keeping it fresh. Seeing you still updating the mod after all these years is really cool as well.
Anyways, I'm nearing the end of TBS, and I have a question. In the vanilla game there were certain items you could transfer from TBS that were somewhat relevant even in the endgame of TLA (Elven Shirt, Cleric's Ring). Are there any items like that for your mod? I'm planning to transfer over all of the stat boosting item, but other than those I'm not sure what items are relevant.
Quote from: Dacheat on 24, June, 2020, 01:39:53 AMAnyways, I'm nearing the end of TBS, and I have a question. In the vanilla game there were certain items you could transfer from TBS that were somewhat relevant even in the endgame of TLA (Elven Shirt, Cleric's Ring). Are there any items like that for your mod? I'm planning to transfer over all of the stat boosting item, but other than those I'm not sure what items are relevant.
I made this list with items that I have found to be unique in TBS under the Reloaded mod:
[spoiler]Arctic Blade
Asura's Armor
Bandit's Sword
Cell Key
Cleric's Ring (Angel's Ring in Reloaded mod)
Demon Axe
Demon Mail
Douse Drop
Dragon Shield
Elven Rapier
Elven Shirt
Fairy Ring
Frost Jewel
Fur Coat
Gaia Blade
Halt Gem
Hermes Water
Lift Gem
Lucky Cap
Lure Hat
Muramasa
Mystery Blade
Mythril Circlet
Ninja Garb (Black Garb in Reloaded mod)
Oracle's Robe (Princess Robe in Reloaded mod)
Orb of Force
China/Sanan Dress (Cheongsam in Reloaded mod)
Shaman's Rod
Spirit Gloves
Thunder Crown
Turtle Boots
Vambrace
Vulcan Axe
Warrior's Helm
Water Jacket
Wicked Mace
Dragon Scales (Rare drop in TLA)
Storm Gear (Rare drop in TLA)
Virtuous Armlet (Rare drop in TLA)[/spoiler]
Of these, the ones I'd recommend holding on to are:
[spoiler]Douse Drop (Psynergy)
Frost Jewel (Psynergy)
Halt Gem (Psynergy)
Lift Gem (Psynergy)
Orb of Force (Psynergy)
Asura's Armor (Great HP regen and attack boost)
Cleric's Ring (Angel's Ring in Reloaded mod)
Demon Mail (second only to Valkyrie Mail in my opinion)
Fairy Ring (Can be used as an extra Antidote)
Lure Hat (helps when grinding)
Mythril Circlet (Great PP recovery)
Oracle's Robe (Princess Robe in Reloaded mod) (Awesome for Mia especially if you keep her pure Mercury based. Might be replaced by Triton's Ward from Treasure Isle)
Thunder Crown (Devil's Crown in Reloaded mod) (Good PP if you decide to put cursed item on a "caster")
Dragon Scales (Rare drop in TLA) (Good resistances)
Storm Gear (Rare drop in TLA) (Good resistances)
Virtuous Armlet (Rare drop in TLA) (Good Fire elemental boost)[/spoiler]
Thanks! That is super helpful!
Also, I'm not sure if this is a Reloaded bug or just a bug with TBS in general, but I can't use Remedy in the field. Only in battle.
Because Tonic's effect (that Remedy uses) doesn't work outside of battle.
Thanks for asking btw, cause it made me notice that i can add cure poison back to most classes that have Remedy atm, so you're not actually forced to reset your djinn only for that. It will be in the next release.
EDIT: v1.78 up!
Mostly balance changes. An extra oomph to multi target offenses and the classes that wield them.
I've spent a lot of time balancing heal and offense on classes that could do both for older releases, especially symbiotic duals and tri elementals. With v1.77 i gave a much needed boost to their non symbiotic counterparts by improving the robes and now i'm boosting casters that focus only on offense, namely Inquisitor, Heretic and Necromancer.
All of them will also enjoy the newfound ailment boost from the berserk circlet which they already wear for the PP boost alone. The nerf to critical rate for mages is cause i noticed it was too high after doing some tests. Remember that unlike warriors, for mages unleashing is a secondary choice, their main offense is casting.
Cosmos shield switching to PP regen is for Holy Knight and Paladin instead. Warriors lacked PP regen equipment to reliably use mass healing.
Last, Cure poison is back as promised for every class that has or gains Remedy, except the Holy Knight. I've run out of slots for him and it's not worth losing Break for CP imho.
PS: @Dark Mits nice list, i'll be adding it to the FAQs section on the first post.
Quote from: Caledor on 25, June, 2020, 10:11:54 AM
Because Tonic's effect (that Remedy uses) doesn't work outside of battle.
Thanks for asking btw, cause it made me notice that i can add cure poison back to most classes that have Remedy atm, so you're not actually forced to reset your djinn only for that. It will be in the next release.
Funny enough, this had been my solution for years. There was only a few classes that it couldn't fit back on.
quote author=Caledor link=topic=2779.msg48704#msg48704 date=1593094314]
The nerf to critical rate for mages is cause i noticed it was too high after doing some tests. Remember that unlike warriors, for mages unleashing is a secondary choice, their main offense is casting.
[/quote]
Good call.
quote author=Caledor link=topic=2779.msg48704#msg48704 date=1593094314]
Cosmos shield switching to PP regen is for Holy Knight and Paladin instead. Warriors lacked PP regen equipment to reliably use mass healing.
[/quote]
Another good call.
I noticed that Djinn in TLA get 2 actions per round as early as Yampi Desert, and they use recovery Psynergy too. If I remember correctly, Djinn in TBS didn't get multiple actions except from Flash in Suhalla Desert onwards, and none used any recovery Psynergy. This makes Djinn easier in TBS / harder in TLA for their respective levels.
Quote from: Dark Mits on 28, June, 2020, 06:16:23 AM
I noticed that Djinn in TLA get 2 actions per round as early as Yampi Desert, and they use recovery Psynergy too. If I remember correctly, Djinn in TBS didn't get multiple actions except from Flash in Suhalla Desert onwards, and none used any recovery Psynergy. This makes Djinn easier in TBS / harder in TLA for their respective levels.
Djinn gain 2 turns from level 11 onwards (first in TBS is quartz in mogall iirc) and use healing from 2 turn onwards. The issue in GS is that i lack Mars and Jupiter healing, but they're identical by design. Actually, given the same level in the 11-18 range, TLA ones have weaker psynergies to compensate for not having a 4th party member.
IIRC the Djinn in Mercury Lighthouse also gets 2 actions but I could be misremembering.
I think something is up with the 1.78 patch for TLA specifically. I've tried opening a 1.78 patched version with the editor and almost no text loads. No item names, no djinn, names, no spell names, no in-game text.
I can open 1.78 for TBS and everything appears fine, I've tried patching TLA on two separate copies of clean ROMs, and the editor opens TLA 1.76 with no issues. I'm not sure what happened to the 1.78 patch.
I have absolutely no clue about what happened cause my backup copy was perfect and i tried to download thrice, getting a corrupted patch 2 out of 3 times, that in size resembled the GS1 one (patch for TLA is ~200 kb, patch for TBS ~56 kb).
I reuploaded the same patch anyway and now it seems fine.
Ah, my bad about the djinni situation then, I am probably not remembering it well.
Reverting to the current TLA playthrough based on v1.77, I beat Briggs and co at the exact same level as the Sand Scorpion (lvl15, Hard mode). Briggs was noticeably easier, both in incoming damage as well as battle duration. Echo Cut from Briggs deals less damage than the scorpion's Twin Shear, and his pirates' Echo Cut even less. Additionally, they all seem to lack a multitarget attack. I suppose the situation about incoming damage is because the Sand Scorpion reduces defense with his sand throwing ability, and the battle duration is lower because there was less need to spend actions healing. I think the gear I bought at Alhafra also played a part.
For some weird reason I am still not good enough to scale Air Rock (the mimic at the base level near the large Whirlwind statue is moping the floor with me), so instead I decided to take a weird detour and recruit Piers (along with many Djinn) before tackling it. Currently lvl16 at Naribwe Inn.
For anyone who is as masochistic as I am and wants to try it the Reloaded mod on Hard mode, the greatest piece of advice I can give is something that I have ignored in virtually all RPGs I've ever played: Use items to recover HP instead of Psynergy, both in and out of combat. I had a severe roadblock at Yampi desert with random encounters because I'd run out of PP within 5-6 fights until I decided to follow the item solution. It makes the game like 30% easier.
Hello everyone, when I try to download the GSTBS ips patch, I got this error message instead: '404 - Attachment Not Found'
Is there something I can do?
it's probably related to the issue Varden reported. It's like the TBS patch was moved to TLA and TBS itself remained empty. I've reuploaded both though, so it should be fixed now.
As for me, i've finished my playthrough but i've yet to fight dullahan. Honestly at lv 45 it felt hopeless. I still have 1 strat i can try but it feels really forced to go that way. Long story short, dullahan, unlike the other 3 superbosses might see some changes in the long run. In the meantime, let me know what your experience with him was.
Quote from: Caledor on 29, June, 2020, 06:04:21 PM
As for me, i've finished my playthrough but i've yet to fight dullahan. Honestly at lv 45 it felt hopeless. I still have 1 strat i can try but it feels really forced to go that way. Long story short, dullahan, unlike the other 3 superbosses might see some changes in the long run. In the meantime, let me know what your experience with him was.
I've never beaten him on your mod because I have no idea how to approach him. I thought I had a plan by maxing Valk Jenna's Ailments and using Plume Edge every turn to make his physical attacks manageable and keeping Res up besides, but any random Djinn Storm instantly ends the fight. It didn't feel like a there was a way to push out damage fast enough now that summons are significantly slower AND weaker but, since I'm finding myself using djinn far more effectively on this run than in my last ones, maybe I just hadn't unlocked the puzzle. It may be a boss that could hit harder with LESS hp and be a torrid dps race, I dunno.
On another note, Taopo before Aqua Rock is definitely the way to go but Aqua Rock right after getting the boat felt appropriate without being overwhelming (for the majority of enemy groups) and Taopo is a bit of a pushover going second. I'd say you could buff Taopo (are Aqua Rock and Gaia Rock enemies equivalent?) and bring all 3 possible "first areas" in line.
I don't know which route you took after getting the boat, so you may have addressed this already. Having Flower might have done a lot for my survivability.
Edit: Never mind; I see you did make a list of locations and levels for the Eastern Sea. Copying here
Taopo = 20-21
Aqua Rock = 22-23
Gaia Rock = 24-25
Ankhol = 26
Tundaria = 27-28
Poseidon = 28
Treasure Isle = 28-29
Man, I'm just realizing that "Ability to complete Ankhol" has nothing to do with "Ability to fix the boat in Alhafra". I always did that section in a specific way to go to Ankhol after visiting Champa with Briggs there, but you can do the ruins before Tundaria since you don't need Burst, just Sand.
Final note: your Woodwalker trios are evil.
Slight update. I realized that there are ways to recover PP for no cost (or little cost), by either running back and forth in an area that allows PP recovery with 0 encounter rate (like many Summon Tablet caves), or by using Avoid / Sacred Feather and running around till it expires then reapplying it. I am kind of "abusing" the latter trick to recover PP in long dungeons. Yes, I know that the recovery rate is low, but with emulators having a speedup option it's kind of trivial.
-=edit=-
If Avoid's cost was too high it could prevent this trick. I estimate that each party members recovers 7-8 PP per Avoid, so at a cost of 28PP-32PP it should "even out" for the front party, 56PP-64PP including the back party.
-=edit 2=-
I am now tackling Air's Rock. Sheba does not have access to Whirlwind if not on her base class or Seer class line. This means I have to keep her djinn on standby. I noticed that Felix can have a Jupiter djinni in order to have Whirlwind available though.
Similarly Felix loses access to Growth when not on his base class.
Avoid: I don't want the game to be more annoying to play. The regen trick is fine... most RPGs even have stuff like "Tent" when you're outside that fully replenishes your PP. In GS we have djinn and walking.
Field Psynergy: yeah again that's how it has always been. You lose and gain field psynergy by messing with classes. In GS1 you must change to get Growth and Whirlwind, in TLA it's the opposite.
Hey, It's been some time since I last wrote here. I've been playing some (v. 1.76) and wanted to comment on the level progression. I got to Lemuria at 30 and now I'm at reunion at 34. I'm not surprised I'm overleveled, you said the progression is based on running from many encounters and I almost never do that, also I tend to go for djinn-kills on any monster which increases exp and gold yield, so it was to be expected. What does bother me a bit is that now Isaac's party is lvl 30 so there's a big difference there, I'm used to this though, it happens every time :Sweat:
Quote from: Maxipotter on 05, July, 2020, 02:52:30 AM
Hey, It's been some time since I last wrote here. I've been playing some (v. 1.76) and wanted to comment on the level progression. I got to Lemuria at 30 and now I'm at reunion at 34. I'm not surprised I'm overleveled, you said the progression is based on running from many encounters and I almost never do that, also I tend to go for djinn-kills on any monster which increases exp and gold yield, so it was to be expected. What does bother me a bit is that now Isaac's party is lvl 30 so there's a big difference there, I'm used to this though, it happens every time :Sweat:
sounds very ok if you're going out of your way to fell enemies with djinn all the time. As for the gap between isacc's party and the others, it not that big of an issue. just put them in the front row and the phoenixes in magma rock will soon take care of that.
Feature Suggestion: Replace the Psynergy descriptions with info on the Psynergy (eg. base Power, EPA formula, etc.)
Might be impossible. Not sure what the limitations of the editor are but figured I'd throw it out there.
Continuing my adventure, I had again Aqua Hydra be the first boss that "forced" me to both grind a couple levels and resort to summon rushing in order to defeat it. It can instantly kill Sheba in one round with Raging Flood + Triple Chomp, especially when her defense has not been increased. It's also the first boss that can deal in one round more damage than what can be recovered unless the player has 2 characters with AoE healing and unlocked rank 2 AoE healing on at least one of them at the same time: 2x Raging Flood in one round is about 900-1000 total party HP damage. It's not that common, but the boss can do that.
During my tries on this boss, I realized that the nature of status effects as a hit-or-miss thing is really frustrating. The idea of Delude and Psynergy Seal blocking a couple of enemy abilities is an awesome design which encourages trying to keep those ailments applied, but their low success rate means that their effect is not immediately obvious in contrast to defensive Psynergy (Resist, Protect). I tried applying both Delude and Bind on Aqua Hydra and only Delude worked and only very few times, like 1 in 8. For many of my failed attempts I was fighting with 3 characters only because the 4th character would "waste" turns by trying to apply debuffs every round with no effect.
I am aware of the changes to the debuff system, so I would like to propose a change in order to make Paralyze / Sleep "workable" on bosses without making them overpowering; let them act as Ground/Petra/Ulysses. Basically have them block only 1 single enemy action. At the same time increase their cost so as to prevent making them spammable for the entire duration of a boss fight. Regarding Poison, Venom and Haunt, they could also work if it was possible to tweak them somewhat like this when applied to bosses:
Venom: Deals 0.5% of enemy hp per action, lasts 2 rounds
Poison: Deals 0.25% of enemy hp per action, lasts 2 rounds
Haunt: 50% chance to deal 0.5% of damage dealt back to user, lasts 4 rounds
For the maximum value of enemy HP (16383 for Valukar and Dullahan), that translates to a maximum HP damage of ~500 per application of Venom (I assume they act 3 times per turn?), and Haunt varying depending on what the enemy does. 500 damage is not a game-breaking damage number in late game but it is a bonus that can make these ailments useful when applies passively through djinn, summons and unleashes.
> Replace the Psynergy descriptions with info on the Psynergy
Very likely to be impossible due to the text compression.
> Turn stoppers and passive damage
Main issue with those is that by trying not to make them overpowered you make them redundant. About passive damage... there's already plenty of offense that could replace it. It would be meaningful only if i had some classes with low traditional offensive stats and high defense/ailments so they efficiently fall back to passive damage. Long story short, it's not worth it because i don't even have the stats to make such a character, especially when i had to make my own magic offense and ailment on equipment.
For turn stoppers is just redundancy: It's important that djinn skills are somehow unique, even more for the rarer ones.
> Replace the Psynergy descriptions with info on the Psynergy
Tough for anything but the simplest information. You could append the base power/multiplier/added damage of the spell or unleash directly into the end of the text string to add some info.
Example:
Flame spell, causes damage with flames. 40
Unleash, weapon unleashes power. 12
where "40" is the Base Power of the spell and "1.2" is the multiplier. This would be completely opaque to a casual player and the text compression won't do "X.Y", so it's all info you already know. For comparing weapons, raw attack does a pretty good job and for spells, PP cost.
Currently in Aqua Rock.
The encounter rate of enemies in Aqua Rock seems to be 1 or 2 enemies for most fights, which kind of "devalues" multitarget psynergies.
-=EDIT=- What a surprise. First battle after I post this message is with 3 enemies :happy:
A fairly peculiar request/suggestion. In every playthrough inventory becomes restrictive, with the "worst" part being when the player gathers all 3 prongs and/or visits Lemuria for the first time. Due to each member holding max of 15 items with 7-8 of them already reserved for equipment and Psynergy items, and the added strain of quest items like the animal chain, the 3 prongs, Shaman's rod and Mars Star, the player has to decide if they will abandon items like dropped Herbs, Nuts, Smoke/Sleep Bombs and Elixirs. Getting to the point: Would it be possible to classify items like the Game Tickets, Lucky Coins and stat items (Cookies, Hard Nuts, Apple etc) as artifacts which can be rebought from the item vendor if sold?
Another suggestion: Artifact weapons could use an indication of what element they "belong" to, even though for most it is obvious by their color or name. What if their element was added in their description for further clarity? Additionally, what if every artifact weapon increased element power of the element they belong to by 5, as a minor boost?
Only thing i can add to what varden said: i wouldn't take for granted even integers.
@Dark: all areas have enemy average set between 2.00 and 2.20. Honestly i can't think of a non-artifact that deserves the upgrade? As for weapons, power boosts belong to specific weapons categories. I can't give it to all weapons, it would completely defeat the point of the weapon categories system
@Varden: It's a nice idea, but the thing is one can't know for sure if any change to that will result in a bug somewhere without going one by one and playing the whole game, so it's not doable.
@Dark Mits: Managing inventory before reunion is awful, that's true, but there's not much that can be done about it. Your suggestion is actually already a thing, Game Tickets, Lucky Medals and stat items are already considered artifacts and can be sold and re-bought later in the game in the item shop.
Showing the unleash element for every weapon would be awesome, but again there's surely some problem with the compression algorithm that could make bugs pop up anywhere else. On a side note, some weapons have inherent attribute that makes even regular attacks have an element (i.e. Gaia Blade) This can be seen in the status screen for equipment.
Increasing elemental power on every weapon indirectly nerfs staves, maces and mages since it makes warriors better at casting, so it doesn't seem like a good idea, unless you also increased all staves and maces power, but then that would be a nerf to overall difficulty
...I have completed the Golden Sun games over 10 times each and I was not even aware of the fact that I could already rebuy those items, wow. I should really check something before posting about it -.-
@Caledor: What I meant is, take for example Grievous Mace. It's unleash Terra Strike is of Venus element, and the weapon itself is modified to boost Venus power by +6. Similarly Comet Mace's unleash belongs to the Mercury element, and the weapon itself boosts Mercury power. But Robber's Blade, which unleashes Shred, does not indicate what element it belongs to. We know from experience and from actually seeing the unleash that it belongs to Mars. My suggestion was to indicate that by giving the weapon a Mars power +5 bonus. If the +5 is too large, it could be as low as +1. The suggestion is to indicate the element of the weapon and its unleash.
@Maxipotter: Definitely, I am aware of implications in the balance of the game, even though I am not aware of the magnitude of these implications. My suggestion was mostly with regards to QoL and information laid out to the player. In no case do I want the game to be easier ^^; in fact quite the opposite.
About giving in-game info to the player: i might even start to do it but there would be no end. Even if i were to give a +1 ele boost just to indicate the element... what about someone else's that asks for unleash multiplier? And unleash side effects? And standard weapon unleash rate?
Then come psynergy power, EPA multipliers, Djinn power... and i could go on. Point is, there's no way to give every piece of info inside the game, you'll always need the docs for certain pieces of info... so in the end i'd just be breaking all the "rules" this mod is built upon for no good reason.
I don't think i'll ever do any change that affects gameplay for the sake of transparency. Gameplay is gameplay, transparency belongs in the descriptions.
That's fair and sound. Other random ideas I've had, which I am aware will have a significant impact on gameplay / difficulty:
- Regarding information on weapons: Are the element indicators (:VenusStar: :MercuryStar: :MarsStar: :JupiterStar:) treated like a character in-game? Can they be added to the names of weapons without causing bugs? For example ":VenusStar: Gaia Blade"
- The last tier of non-artifact equipment (Great Sword etc.) is available fairly mid-way through TLA, in fact right after getting Piers's boat. This means that from that point onwards all equipment upgrades are from artifacts. Would it be possible to add larger gaps to the non-artifact equipment so that Long Sword, Battle Mace etc. become available after the reunion with stats and coin cost that match artifact equipment at that point?
- Slightly tied to the above, coins lose their "role" as a resource that we have manage and make choices about how we spend it fairly midway through the game too, since we no longer spend them on anything other than sleeping at the inn, rebuying a piece of equipment or for crafting items in Yallam. There are 2 ways to extend their significance: (a) increase buy value of all items or (b) reduce sell value of all items.
- Is there a way to know what item is going to be crafted from the blacksmith in Yallam without having to go out to the world then return and talk to his wife (and of course without viewing the emulator memory :p )? I am not asking fpr RNG manipulation to always get a desired item, simply an indicator of what he's going to create since we know that the item is decided the exact moment we hand over the material.
- In v1.77 patch notes you mention that you have reduced average grouping of enemies by 0.10 in the part before getting Piers. Is it possible to add a Psynergy / Item that does the opposite, ie. one which dynamically increases average grouping of enemies, based on if the player wants to use it? Or is it something static? Similarly, is there a way to implement a Lure psynergy, one which has the same effect as Lure Cap, without having to "sacrifice" a helmet spot for it?
-I don't think you can add anything in the names or descriptions without it backfiring somewhere. The only reasonable solution would be to make all artifact weapons have the same attribute as their unleash so that you can check it in the status -> equipment page, which I am not against. But I agree with Caledor, there's a lot of information that you would want to know about the equipment and you can't get all of it in game, so you always end up going to the docs anyway. Besides, how often do you rely on unleashes before end-game? When is risking a 30% unleash better than casting an EPA or Djinn?
- About the coins issue, Caledor has said in the past that increasing the buy prince is not a good solution since you sell them back eventually and get most of the gold back, because sell price is 75% of buy price. I don't know if this percentage can be lowered, getting it to 60% would make coins a far more valuable resource, but it would mostly make the beginning and mid game more challenging, once you stop buying regular equipment and start finding lots of artifact gear you just stop spending.
- AFAIK Lure can´t be made into a psynergy because the effect on the Lure Hat is picked from a completely different list than utility psynergy. After reunion you can wear the Lure Hat on some back party member to increase the encounters without losing gear on the front party. The only way to implement it before reunion would be to give that same effect to some other piece of gear, though that would make the Lure Hat not really worth sending over
I noticed that Nurse's Cap can be used out of combat, to heal a party member for 70hp, but Spirit Ring (heals group for 80hp) cannot. Could Spirit Ring be changed to work out of combat too?
I will check about the behaviour of the rest of on-use items as I acquire them.
-=EDIT=-
I just reached Poseidon, and I'm stuck again. Being the first boss that acts 3x per turn, it's natural that incoming damage should be approximately 50% higher than the previous boss (Avimander), but there's another factor that makes him unfair.
The unfairness comes from the fact that he often uses Ocean Fist as 2nd action to bring a party member to 1HP, then follow up with Watery Grave or Typhoon Blow as 3rd action to kill that member. There could be a way to prevent that if we could reliably have an AoE healer who is very slow so as to heal between 2nd and 3rd actions, but the slowest I have available is Felix at slightly over 120 Agility with 4 Mercury djinn on and Turtle Boots, which makes him act between 1st and 2nd of Poseidon's actions.
Alternatively, Poseidon could be given higher Agility so that it is possible to get a character to act between his 2nd and 3rd actions.
-=2nd EDIT=-
Poseidon has access to Ply Well to heal for 250HP, but Orochi has access to Potent Cure for 567HP. At the same time Orochi is fought 2-4 levels lower, and also has 30HP/round regen. Maybe give Poseidon Pure Ply?
-=3rd EDIT=-
Poseidon't Counterrush is not a priority action? I got to use Trident and Serpent Fume on him before he used it.
-=4th EDIT=-
Poseidon down. 3rd boss in a row where in order to defeat I had to spam Summons. Psynergy and Unleashes still do not reach the effectiveness of Summons.
WOW, you beat Poseidon in Hard Mode? Kudos to you! That guy would stomp most players.
Giving him Pure Ply might be a bit too much. Imagine him healing 750+ on action. One cast is enough to cover most or all of your damage that turn and get 2 more attacks on your guys, also with 3 actions that's potentially 2250+ on one turn O_O Unless it's a very rare cast, I don't know the % rates
About on-use items, Spirit Ring used to be super OP since it healed for 160hp party wide and if used out of combat it would never break, so Caledor nerfed the healing and the out of combat use, it's still a useful item though. The same thing happens with the Unicorn Ring. I don't know why some on-use items break if used out of combat and some don't, that might be a bug on the base game that we can't fix with our editor. If they were usable out of combat it would make their respective psynergies useless.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Considering you go there (or at least you can go there) right after reunion, don't you think the second half of Treasure Island's loot is overtuned? I mean, Iris Robe, Caladbolg, Triton's Ward, Clotho's Distaff, Dark Matter. It's all stronger than what you get in Magma Rock or Mars Tower even though you can get it first. And the enemies there are not so hard that you should first go do Mars Lighthouse either, I could farm them with my lvl 31 Isaac's party getting the Djinn kill on everyone in the second turn and using the second party only for heals.
It should either:
a) Have weaker loot more in line with Magma Rock and Mars Lighthouse, move the better pieces to Mars Lighthouse or other endgame dungeons
or
b) Have way stronger enemies that prevent you from going there (or at least makes it somewhat harder)
Maybe the balancing philosophy post-reunion needs to be addressed. Before reunion balancing most fight to last 2-3 turns is good, because if they were longer you'd run out of PP early and wouldn't be able to complete the dungeon. However post-reunion you get a lot of benefits [spoiler]not just 4 more characters, but new loot options and more importantly Djinn reserves that allow you to have the front 4 in their ideal classes for mobs and the back 4 in any less-than-ideal class that can heal. The back party recovers PP passively from walking and PP/t from gear, and group-wide heals affect all 8 out of combat[/spoiler]
Fights should be more challenging (4~ turns) that way you are swapping regularly. Else you just forget the other party even exists and go on playing with your favourite 4
Quote from: Maxipotter on 13, July, 2020, 02:59:39 PMWOW, you beat Poseidon in Hard Mode? Kudos to you! That guy would stomp most players.
Yes, the tactic was:
1) Start with 2 djinn of each element (and on each character) on standby so as to have 4 rank-2 summons available at the start: 2x Megaera, 1x Ramses, 1x Nereid. Nereid was summoned by Felix (Class: Fearless for Wish) to buff Wish for a few rounds, Ramses by Jenna (Class: Master Miko for Heal Well) to buff Heal Well for the same reason.
2) On each subsequent round have Sheba use a Fire Djinn (Kindle / Reflux / Spark) and Piers a Jupiter Djinn (Ether / Haze).
3) Summon Megaera with Jenna if she doesn't need to heal (Jenna has always first action on every turn) or with Sheba if she needed. Even after Poseidon's Break it was good 700+ damage.
4) Felix Wish Well on every round
5) Piers would take up summoning Megaera if the other 2 couldn't or if not enough Djinn on standby then cast Nature Boon on most wounded member.
6) Break the above actions if anyone needs to revived (Sheba, Felix and Jenna all have Reviving Psynergy and Piers holds all Waters of Life). I had about 10-12 deaths during combat.
7) Characters at lvl31. I know that it is higher than expected. I'd say that being 10%-20% ahead in levels compared to Normal Mode is a good enough guideline for Hard Mode for early-mid game, especially when that allows you to unlock the next rank of Psynergy.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 13, July, 2020, 02:59:39 PMGiving him Pure Ply might be a bit too much. Imagine him healing 750+ on action. One cast is enough to cover most or all of your damage that turn and get 2 more attacks on your guys, also with 3 actions that's potentially 2250+ on one turn O_O Unless it's a very rare cast, I don't know the % rates
This is true, especially since he casts Ply Well a lot more often than Orochi casts Potent Cure. I also don't know if it's part of the AI or again RNG being RNG, but Ply Well was only used as 3rd action in a turn, similar to how Break was only used as 3rd action, so that limits Poseidon to max of 250HP/round.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 13, July, 2020, 02:59:39 PMAbout on-use items, Spirit Ring used to be super OP since it healed for 160hp party wide and if used out of combat it would never break, so Caledor nerfed the healing and the out of combat use, it's still a useful item though. The same thing happens with the Unicorn Ring. I don't know why some on-use items break if used out of combat and some don't, that might be a bug on the base game that we can't fix with our editor. If they were usable out of combat it would make their respective psynergies useless.
That explains it then. So far I like using Nurse's Cap when out of combat, even if it means "saving" only 20PP worth of healing till it breaks (about 4-8 uses). Healing Ring seems to break after 2-4 uses when used in combat, but that's still 1000HP+ total party recovered per repair (about 70-100PP)
My general way of thinking is that items are supposed to be (weaker) substitutes of magic that have 0 resource cost but limited number of uses plus additional cost which acts as money sink, and also take up inventory space (which then forces the player to decide what items to purchase and at what quantity).
Regarding Treasure Isle, I vote for
Quoteb) Have way stronger enemies that prevent you from going there (or at least makes it somewhat harder)
Star Magician has the fame of being the easiest of the secret bosses, but that could be "fixed" with the random encounters "softening" the party up a bit before the actual encounter.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 13, July, 2020, 02:59:39 PMMaybe the balancing philosophy post-reunion needs to be addressed. Before reunion balancing most fight to last 2-3 turns is good, because if they were longer you'd run out of PP early and wouldn't be able to complete the dungeon.
I disagree here. The buff to PP-recovery djinn in combination with PP-recovery on items means that PP is no limitation in the long run. To bring again my above example, for Hard Mode Poseidon I didn't have to use any Psy Crystals or even Mountain Waters; Felix who acted as the main healer has Luna Shield for +4 PP-recov, and Piers was using Ether on cooldown on Felix for about 53PP every 3 rounds. With my current PP pool of 165, that's 30+ rounds before Felix runs dry if spamming Wish Well every round, and for quite a few rounds Felix did something else (like use Wish instead of Wish Well, use Shade, use a summon or simply use his Healing Ring as a substitute of Wish)
Also, when I completed Reloaded mod v1.74 less than 2 months ago on Normal Mode, I mentioned that PP was never a limitation after the Reunion exactly because of insane PP-recovery on healers from both equipment and from djinn; the only difficulty stemmed from not being instakilled.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 13, July, 2020, 02:59:39 PMHowever post-reunion you get a lot of benefits [spoiler]not just 4 more characters, but new loot options and more importantly Djinn reserves that allow you to have the front 4 in their ideal classes for mobs and the back 4 in any less-than-ideal class that can heal. The back party recovers PP passively from walking and PP/t from gear, and group-wide heals affect all 8 out of combat[/spoiler]
Fights should be more challenging (4~ turns) that way you are swapping regularly. Else you just forget the other party even exists and go on playing with your favourite 4
This is exactly my observation as well. PP-regen is so abundant that I remember spending it all while hovering on the ship so as to start at 0, then entering Mars Lighthouse and simply walking back and forth to force encounters. The front party (in monoclasses) would use autoattacks, djinn and summons, and the back party would just heal out-of-combat. Total group PP was going up after every fight because more PP was recovered than spent. I think Mia had something like +16PP/round, Jenna +12PP/round and Sheba +8PP/round?
Giving more HP to enemies is definitely one way to tackle this and possibly the best one that would not break the balance between classes, especially between Weapon-unleashers and Psynergy-users. I prefer the solution of more simultaneous enemies, to promote the use of more expensive AoE Psynergy, but I realize that there are technical limitations.
This may be a minor bug: After acquiring Grind and entering the West sea, I immediately went to the shallow patch abit to the east of Tundaria Tower. The reward has been changed to 500 coins (intentionally I guess), but if I press A again, I get the text "Felix found a ???" instead of the usual fluff text. I attach screenshot.
Quote from: Dark Mits on 13, July, 2020, 05:46:33 PMStar Magician has the fame of being the easiest of the secret bosses, but that could be "fixed" with the random encounters "softening" the party up a bit before the actual encounter.
Well, you can always run around in the room before him to regain PP, since it doesn't have random encounters. :happy:
Quote from: Dark Mits on 13, July, 2020, 05:46:33 PMI disagree here. The buff to PP-recovery djinn in combination with PP-recovery on items means that PP is no limitation in the long run. To bring again my above example, for Hard Mode Poseidon I didn't have to use any Psy Crystals or even Mountain Waters; Felix who acted as the main healer has Luna Shield for +4 PP-recov, and Piers was using Ether on cooldown on Felix for about 53PP every 3 rounds. With my current PP pool of 165, that's 30+ rounds before Felix runs dry if spamming Wish Well every round, and for quite a few rounds Felix did something else (like use Wish instead of Wish Well, use Shade, use a summon or simply use his Healing Ring as a substitute of Wish)
You finding a specific strategy that allows you to recover PP constantly through a battle is, I think, good design and good thinking on your part. IMO most boss fights are really well balanced.
My main concern was with dungeons and random encounters. I meant the dungeon difficulty before reunion was OK (and I was thinking before Lemuria, since I was overleveled after that and that may be the reason post Lemuria felt easy to me). Yampi Desert, Air's Rock and Kibombo Mountains + Gabomba are
spot on Quote from: Dark Mits on 13, July, 2020, 05:46:33 PMAlso, when I completed Reloaded mod v1.74 less than 2 months ago on Normal Mode, I mentioned that PP was never a limitation after the Reunion exactly because of insane PP-recovery on healers from both equipment and from djinn; the only difficulty stemmed from not being instakilled.
We agree, post Reunion dungeons become trivial and PP is not an issue. If fights were longer you would probably need to heal during the fight and it would overall drain your PP more than you recover. Ideally you should be reaching the Psynergy Stones or the end of the dungeons with pretty much no PP (at the intended lvls, obviously if I am overleveled that's my fault).
In Treasure Island 2nd half I was with lvl 31 Isaac party killing every encounter in 2 turns without ever falling below 75% PP and I wasn't even geared optimally for that. So that's a problem. :sad:
Quote from: Dark Mits on 13, July, 2020, 05:46:33 PMI prefer the solution of more simultaneous enemies, to promote the use of more expensive AoE Psynergy, but I realize that there are technical limitations.
Yeah, I'd love to see more 4 and even 5 enemy fights, but that might not be doable. There's a bunch of stuff I would love to change, but most are impossible to mod and the ones that are possible are changes so big I'm sure Caledor wouldn't agree. It's his property after all, so he gets the final call. :Sweat:
It's been a busy week. catching up:
QuoteAre the element indicators (Venus Mercury Mars Jupiter) treated like a character in-game?
Nope, that's something i would've used btw.
Quote- The last tier of non-artifact equipment (Great Sword etc.) is available fairly mid-way through TLA, in fact right after getting Piers's boat. This means that from that point onwards all equipment upgrades are from artifacts. Would it be possible to add larger gaps to the non-artifact equipment so that Long Sword, Battle Mace etc. become available after the reunion with stats and coin cost that match artifact equipment at that point?
I think the game is so packed with stuff that you don't really need much more. Actually there's so much i could easily afford the luxury of moving some to the end game (phaeton blade).
QuoteSlightly tied to the above, coins lose their "role" as a resource that we have manage
c) drop/chest items cost down to single digit or something like that. If we really want that it's the only way. 75% sell value is a huge wall to overcome.
QuoteIs there a way to know what item is going to be crafted from the blacksmith [...] (and of course without viewing the emulator memory :p )
Emulator memory :P
QuoteAFAIK Lure can´t be made into a psynergy because the effect on the Lure Hat is picked from a completely different list than utility psynergy
^^^
QuoteUseable items out of combat
Note to self: check behavior of those items. Spirit ring was removed because it'd never break when used out of combat IIRC. Any item that does the same must follow suit.
QuoteConsidering you go there (or at least you can go there) right after reunion, don't you think the second half of Treasure Island's loot is overtuned?
Probably. But i've also run out of places to put endgame stuff. I literally had to pull new enemies out of thin air only to give them the added items as drops before. And "balancing" random encounters post reunion is a bit of an extreme issue. I either ignore it cause you can still only deploy 4 people at the same time, or double all enemy stats cause you have a backup party.
QuoteThis may be a minor bug: After acquiring Grind and entering the West sea, I immediately went to the shallow patch abit to the east of Tundaria Tower. The reward has been changed to 500 coins (intentionally I guess), but if I press A again, I get the text "Felix found a ???" instead of the usual fluff text. I attach screenshot.
100% intentional (remember the moving phaeton to endgame thing i meantioned earlier, it's related to that), but the display issue is also 100% a bug. Note to self: check.
QuoteYeah, I'd love to see more 4 and even 5 enemy fights, but that might not be doable
In the latest patch i had to decrease the size of some enemy groups cause they glitch in a all warrior party comp. It's literally the gba running out of RAM to manage all those sprites, cause warrior sprites are bigger than mages + ivan.
EDIT: 900th post! :Revive:
Quote from: Maxipotter on 15, July, 2020, 08:08:12 PMWell, you can always run around in the room before him to regain PP, since it doesn't have random encounters. :happy:
True. In fact I used this trick a lot during my first Reloaded run on Normal mode, and I also (ab)used it in Hard Mode especially after finding the trick with Avoid. I do want to do a run where I impose this artificial rule for extra challenge (no running around in no-encounter areas and no using Avoid for PP regen)
Quote from: Maxipotter on 15, July, 2020, 08:08:12 PMYou finding a specific strategy that allows you to recover PP constantly through a battle is, I think, good design and good thinking on your part. IMO most boss fights are really well balanced.
My main concern was with dungeons and random encounters. I meant the dungeon difficulty before reunion was OK (and I was thinking before Lemuria, since I was overleveled after that and that may be the reason post Lemuria felt easy to me). Yampi Desert, Air's Rock and Kibombo Mountains + Gabomba are spot on
I would say the strategy worked for Poseidon because he is weak to Mars. At the same time, it was pure luck that I got Luna Shield from one of the available Star Dusts, but even without it I could easily replace one unleash of Ether with use of Psynergy Crystal. The same strategy would not work for Avimander with equally good results or other bosses that require more turns before the djinn can complete a cycle of Unleash->Summon->Recover.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 15, July, 2020, 08:08:12 PMWe agree, post Reunion dungeons become trivial and PP is not an issue. If fights were longer you would probably need to heal during the fight and it would overall drain your PP more than you recover. Ideally you should be reaching the Psynergy Stones or the end of the dungeons with pretty much no PP (at the intended lvls, obviously if I am overleveled that's my fault).
In Treasure Island 2nd half I was with lvl 31 Isaac party killing every encounter in 2 turns without ever falling below 75% PP and I wasn't even geared optimally for that. So that's a problem. :sad:
After reunion PP recovery can be so high, especially on the back party with stacking PP-recov equipment, that longer battles can "backfire" and provide even higher PP recovery. I can't check yet because my current save file is right before Moapa, but I think I am not exaggerating that it might be possible to have +30PP/round in the back party (and even higher with end-game equipment). If the front party does not need to use more than that every round, it means that you can have another new way of recovering PP: Initiate a battle, leave only 1 enemy alive, then have everyone in the front party Defend and heal any incoming damage until the back party gets back to full PP. While spending 50PP or more per round is normal for end-game boss fights (Pure Wish covers that on its own), in random encounters we generally do not need to deal with so frequent AoE healing.
Quote from: Caledor on 16, July, 2020, 04:57:06 PMc) drop/chest items cost down to single digit or something like that. If we really want that it's the only way. 75% sell value is a huge wall to overcome.
While on the topic, I noticed that the enemy "Slayer" near Gondowan Settlement drops only 21 coins when defeated. This was in vanilla too, and I guess it's an oversight from Camelot. Is it possible to tweak the coins dropped from enemies? I believe a simple reduction of 20% for enemies after getting Piers would impact our wallets quite significantly and make us have to choose what item to prioritize when visiting a new shop instead of buying everything.
For my current Hard Mode run, I had to actually choose what to buy at Naribwe because I did not have enough for more than 1 item. I also had to choose what to pick right after defeating Aqua Hydra because many shops became available at the same time (Champa, Izumo, Apojii Islands, Yallam). Right now I am at Moapa, overleveled of course at lvl33, and I have 120k coins.
I know I sound like a broken record and that I've become annoying, but I will blame again the abundance of PP-recovery options. If they were not as numerous and powerful, we would have to resort to items in order to conserve PP for offense or more HP-recov/round. This means there would exist a coin sink. I actually did this for the entire part from Madra till Kibombo Statue.
a) A stack of Herbs is 360coins and restores 1500HP, which is approximately 18x Boons or about 54PP.
b) A stack of Corns is 1200coins and restores 3000HP, which is approximately 30x-32x Boons (because of higher HP per PP as element value rises) or about 95PP.
c) A stack of Nuts is 3600coins and restores 6000HP, which is approximately 60x Boons or about 180PP.
d) A stack of Vials is 9000coins and restores 10500HP, which is approximately 90x Boons or about 270PP.
The cost of 1 stack of the above items is comparable to that of buying a new weapon at the appropriate levels. But the key is how important PP is at the point of the game where the use of the aformentioned item is "needed".
a) At Air's Rock, the group of 3 (I assume Piers is not present) should have about 150PP-200PP total. One stack of Herbs is almost a 25%-30% "boost" to starting PP, which can help significantly until the party reaches the small Psynergy Stone as they enter inner Air Rock and/or the large stone deep in the dungeon. Giving all 4 members a full stack (which is costly for this level) is like giving double starting PP. This is very important because there is no way to actively recover PP.
b) At Kibombo Mountain, the group of 3 should have about 250PP-300PP total. With Piers the group could reach about 400PP. One stack of corns is about 25% extra PP again, which is again of good use because Kibombo Mountain and Statue could be considered 1 large dungeon (there is no Inn between them). Similarly to above, giving 3 members a full stack of Corn a very good buff to the available PP pool. But now the group also has Ether to continually recover PP, and a few Mountain Waters.
c) At Eastern Sea dungeons, a total PP pool of about 500PP-700PP is expected. Again, a stack of Nuts is ~25% buff, and the only expected continuous source of PP is Ether (I assume the player does not receive any PP-recov equipment from Sunshine).
d) When starting Western Sea content, the group should have around 800PP-900PP. Vials are starting out strong even though expensive. But the group now has both Ether and, through active player decisions, over 10PP/round (currently at Moapa I have +17PP/round). With 10PP/round, 30 rounds of combat are enough to provide the equivalent PP that a stack of Vials helps to conserve.
e) After the reunion, PP recovery from equipment and djinn overshadows starting PP. At 30PP/round from equipment and at least another possible average 20PP/round from Ether, Aroma and Ember, the party of 8 would gain in 20 rounds 1000PP. That is achieved by starting 10 random fights and have them last 3 rounds. Even if we assume that every fight is 2 rounds (which means PP recovery activates once per combat), 20 fights bring the same result. I expect that a full run of Mars Lighthouse should be about 50-100 fights, depending on luck. As long as Pure Wish (or equivalent rank 3 AoE healing) is not required every round, the outcome is PP-positive for the party. Vials are no longer of use and can be safely vendored or discarded.
TLDR: Nerfing PP-recovery options would also automatically make coin a more limiting resource.
Quote from: Caledor on 16, July, 2020, 04:57:06 PMProbably. But i've also run out of places to put endgame stuff. I literally had to pull new enemies out of thin air only to give them the added items as drops before. And "balancing" random encounters post reunion is a bit of an extreme issue. I either ignore it cause you can still only deploy 4 people at the same time, or double all enemy stats cause you have a backup party.
Only HP please :sad: Enemies deal enough damage as they are.
QuoteAnd "balancing" random encounters post reunion is a bit of an extreme issue. I either ignore it cause you can still only deploy 4 people at the same time, or double all enemy stats cause you have a backup party.
Probably doubling all stats would make it too hard. I would double HP on all post-reunion and maybe increase Agi in some (~50%) and then check how that goes, probably damage still needs to be increased on some endgame enemies, but I wouldn't change it without first trying those other changes. I agree it IS a bit extreme, but otherwise it is just too straightforward and easy.
I think this also would be a nice indirect buff to Ailments. What's the use of sleep or stun or poison when you can kill your enemies before they can attack you? However if the fights were longer it would be more worthwhile.
QuoteIn the latest patch i had to decrease the size of some enemy groups cause they glitch in a all warrior party comp. It's literally the gba running out of RAM to manage all those sprites, cause warrior sprites are bigger than mages + ivan.
Figures. That's a pity, but it can't be helped
Quote900th post!
WOW Congrats!
QuoteI can't check yet because my current save file is right before Moapa, but I think I am not exaggerating that it might be possible to have +30PP/round in the back party (and even higher with end-game equipment)
If you go for the absolute maximum PP/t equipment on a back party of 2 warriors and 2 mages just at reunion you would take:
Warriors:
2x Luna Shield (4PP/t)
2x Crown of Glory (6PP/t)
Mages:
2x Dragon Robe (2PP/t)
1x Spirit Gloves (3PP/t)
2x Mythril Circlet (8PP/t)
So in total that's 43PP/t thought that's min-maxing, maybe don't use that number for balancing.
The same in endgame gear would be:
Warriors:
2x Cosmos Shield (10PP/t)
2x Crown of Glory (6PP/t) Though Millenium Helm (50 max PP) may be better considering class multipliers and passive walking recovery
Mages:
1x Iris Robe (5PP/t)
1x Dragon Robe (2PP/t)
1x Spirit Gloves (3PP/t)
2x Psychic Circlet (12PP/t)
Any:
1x Golden Shirt (3PP/t)
1x Iridial Ring (5PP/t)
For a total of 74PP/t This, again is strict min-maxing.
Quotein random encounters we generally do not need to deal with so frequent AoE healing.
QuoteEnemies deal enough damage as they are.
Pick one :P
QuoteInitiate a battle, leave only 1 enemy alive, then have everyone in the front party Defend and heal any incoming damage until the back party gets back to full PP
Well, that's a broken strat surely, but I don't think that's something balance should be involved in, it's not something most people playing would do. You exploiting that is entirely on you. If we are going for broken strats there's also the out-of-combat heal efficiency one: Put all djinn on standby except the healer's (all if using items), heal the lower total HPs due to class multipliers and then Set all djinn again to get 100% HP with cheaper heals.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 17, July, 2020, 01:29:32 PMEquipment stuff
Thank you for laying out the data, and also for providing the information on how to create a broken party! Turns out the situation can be even more skewed in favor of the min-maxer. However, this also means that the player can select another piece of equipment with higher HP or armor or element boost instead of PP recovery.
Quote from: Maxipotter on 17, July, 2020, 01:29:32 PMQuotein random encounters we generally do not need to deal with so frequent AoE healing.
QuoteEnemies deal enough damage as they are.
Pick one :P
I indeed should have clarified that; my point is that damage in random encounters is not high, it's spiky.
Random encounter enemies still have the potential to kill a party member, without use of Condemn-like abilities or Forceful fists followed by a simple attack, especially Ivan/Sheba with less than 5 djinni active, if they all focus on that party member. It is also often that 2 party members are hit and below 50% hp, while the other 2 members are at full. The player has the option to multitarget heal every turn to prevent such an accidental death, but that means that in most cases at least 50% of its healing would go to waste. It's like using Spark Plasma for single target damage because it's the highest damage ability on that character, when it would make more sense to instead buff your other characters with specialized single-target abilities (or debuff the enemy).
Boss encounters are different. While bosses also have strong single-target attacks, they tend to use AoE attacks more often instead, and this means that damage is spread out. They are kind of balanced around Wish / Wish Well / Pure Wish every turn (or every 2nd turn), with a second member providing additional single-target (or multitarget) healing if needed.
There is indeed the tactic to overcome this by having the 4 durable characters at the front (Isaac, Felix, Garet, Piers). You know what, I think I will try it!
Quote from: Maxipotter on 17, July, 2020, 01:29:32 PMWell, that's a broken strat surely, but I don't think that's something balance should be involved in, it's not something most people playing would do. You exploiting that is entirely on you. If we are going for broken strats there's also the out-of-combat heal efficiency one: Put all djinn on standby except the healer's (all if using items), heal the lower total HPs due to class multipliers and then Set all djinn again to get 100% HP with cheaper heals.
I am not going to lie, the only reason I do not do that is because of laziness. At the same time PP is not so restrictive so as to necessitate it. If I had to look out for my PP, I would definitely have used that strategy too.
Jeez, I don't think I've been gone that long but it's crazy to see these conversations taking place!
Anyone starting a TLA 1.78 run. I'm not really going to focus on balance suggestions this time (I've done that enough lol) But I'll look out for bugs and oddities. Of course I'll speak my mind if I feel strongly about anything as always. :happy:
I'll try to keep up with this more often so I don't have a 5 page backlog to read next time haha.
The more people in the discussion the better!
Update on v1.78: Moapa down.
After a couple rounds, Moapa was using Defense as one of his actions on 2 out of 3 turns. Possibly on more turns, but Ulysses's stun prevented him from doing so? It seems to be connected to him using Mist Potion. Maybe the AI tries to make him use Mist Potion every time he is on low HP, but it fails due to limited items and falls back on Defend?
At the same time, Petra did not work on him any time.
Strategy:
[spoiler]Strategy revolved around utilizing Ulysses on a character with good Ailment bonus, so as to have as many as 3 out of 4 enemy actions wasted. Piers was spamming Gel on Moapa to remove his Attack buff, and throwing the occasional Shade, to get the 2 Mercury djinn on standby. Sheba was similarily using Reflux and Kindle.[/spoiler]
Hello!! I already played this mod several times and I just wanted to say that
I adore it. I love the variety of things that were added and the challenge that the game poses (the only thing that I consider a bit difficult is the stretch from the Gondowan cliffs and the ship, but I love the rest of the game). Now I'm replaying TBS, trying to get all the equipment before Deadbeard :heart:
If something is misspelled, I apologize, my native language is Spanish and although I read English well, writing is a bit complicated
Your English is wonderful. You would have me fooled. There may be a few very minor things like commas, but that's normal/everyone messes those up from time to time (including me)... and is most likely acceptable informally.
QuoteI already played this mod several times, and I just wanted to say that I adore it.
(Example - Connecting two sentences uses a
comma and conjunction word. Edit: Or alternately, a semi-colon. (;))
And I like how this is the only real active topic on this forum. :D :D....
What if we name this site to... Golden Sun Reloaded Community
Updating progress... Just killed the Double Dragons, after a few flukes where my main healer (Felix as Protector) would be stunned before firing off Pure Wish.
Smaller dragon using Djinnfest 4 times in 2 rounds made me chuckle.
I am not entirely sure, but Agatio-dragon may be facing the same issue of running out of PP in long fight as Deadbeard did in TBS before the change to 0-cost abilities. The combat lasted over 40 rounds, and in the final 10+ rounds he only used normal Attack, Stun Muscle and Cage, no other ability. Both dragons were normally recoving 4PP/t as in vanilla. I expect that Karst-dragon would face similar issue if she survives long enough in combat.
Strategy
[spoiler]Pretty straightforward. Front team Isaac 39, Felix 40, Piers 39, Garet 38.
Isaac kept himself buffed with Bravery and spammed attack for Armageddon (...wasn't this Megiddo?)
Felix was the healer - alternating between Potent Cure or Pure Wish depending on what was needed
Piers summoner/djinn user: Shade, Eddy
Garet djinn user: Flash, Kite, Breath, Ether, Haze, Lull
Back party would replace Garet near the start of the combat 1-by-1 for "summon rushing" regardless of element. Due to Hardmode, enemies seem to have almost 10k hp (or maybe more?) so even Meteor from Piers was outdamaging Armageddon.
First focused on Karst since she's the more annoying one.[/spoiler]
-=EDIT=-
Again I found something that I was not aware of! In the room with the gauntlet where you have to pound the pillars to reach the exit before the big dragon head is lit and fires you back and off the edge, once the gauntlet has started it is not allowed to save. I attach screenshot.
-=EDIT 2=-
The currently "broken" build of extreme PP/t actually works. In fact it's so plentiful, that after every fight I just alternate between Jenna and Mia (both in back party) and spam 3-4 expensive party heals to heal the front party even if only member needs healing for only 30HP. They never go out of PP.
Similarly, I have made Isaac a "broken" autoattacker. With Warrior's Helm (+8 crit), Aegis Shield (+15 Crit), Valkyrie Mail (+20 Crit) and Hyper Boots (+4 Crit), I get 4 out of 5 autoattacks as Armageddon. Checking the equipment sheet, it seems that max possible is actually 100% without cursed equipment. (Valkyrie Mail, Riot Gloves, Mithril Helm, Casual Shirt, Ninja Sandals, Sol Ring).
Again similarly for ailments, the max seems to be +42% (Demon Mail, Terror Shield, Alastor's Hood, Angel's Ring)
-=EDIT 3=-
I noticed that Apollo's Axe unleash is Mars element, but the orbs that spawn have yellow hue as if it's Venus. I don't know if this is intentional, an oversight, or if it worked like that in vanilla too.
Speaking of broken strategies, I have one. :idea:
If you're exploring a dangerous zone (Example: Western/Eastern Sea areas you are supposed to visit at a higher level) you can save and restart after every combat.
That way you always attack first and therefore you can easily escape :MercuryDjinni:
I used that strategy when I went to the Venus Lighthouse at level 20 to get the Gaia blade before exploring the pirate island :Sweat:
Quote from: Luca100 on 25, July, 2020, 08:16:06 PMSpeaking of broken strategies, I have one. :idea:
If you're exploring a dangerous zone (Example: Western/Eastern Sea areas you are supposed to visit at a higher level) you can save and restart after every combat.
That way you always attack first and therefore you can easily escape :MercuryDjinni:
I didn't want to admit it. I have been abusing this trick as well. It works on djinn too, but not on Mimics and bosses. Similarly I have been resetting every time when Sunshine wouldn't give me the item I wanted.
-=EDIT=-
In order to prevent spamming, I am editing this post.
The Bombanders in Anemos Sanctum use Eruption instead of Pyroclasm. I don't know if it's intended or not, since they already use Supernova which is rank 3 Psynergy.
Also the triple enemy encounters are evil >.<
QuoteI used that strategy when I went to the Venus Lighthouse at level 20 to get the Gaia blade before exploring the pirate island Sweat Drop
How did you even get to Venus at level 20?! You should be like 30 by then :!:
I used the save and restart one only for Djinn that would escape. Since most of them can no longer do so in the newest patch I don't think I'll ever do it again lol
Moving ahead... I'm currently stuck at the optional bosses. Here are some notes:
- Balrog may also be suffering from the similar "I'm out of PP in long combats" syndrome. There is a point where he stops using Supernova and instead spams Stun Jip.
- I am unable to beat him so far only and only because at some point he will manage to get Coatlicue going on him. Over 20 tries so far, and in at least 5 of them, while he was below 30% hp (I know because Coatlicue restored some 9800hp to him instead of "recovered to full"), he did 2 Djinn Stuns and Coatlicue in a row. It will be hard managing the party so that at no point will I have more than a total of 3 Mercury or Jupiter Djinn at the front. I would go as far as propose that Coatlicue should get a hard 999hp per round cap.
-- Note to self: Next playthough do not pick up any Summon tablets until Balrog is defeated.
- I noticed something weird with the Attack stat. Balrog has high enough that any changes to it (Megaera, Blunt etc.) should be in intervals of 118/119. But Summoning Magaera once buffs him only by around 50, I assume because it reaches the ceiling of 999. But if I use Blunt on him, it doesn't reduce it by 118 as it should, but by only that amount of 50. Further Blunts normally reduce it by 118 (and Eclipse by 237 or so). Does the game allow stats to go over 999, but only visually caps them?
- Star Magician is even harder (and I love this!), but not because of his own abilities. Rather, a combination of Refresh Ball + Guardian Ball basically "nullifies" all damage done and reverts damage done so far. At some point he had 2x Refresh + 2x Guardian Balls. ...Yeah, I was unable to kill any of them.
- Guardian's Ball ability "Harden" seems to have some weird rules. Sometimes is acts as having higher priority, being used before abilities like Ground, Petra, Flash etc., and other times it acts as having normal priority.
- Thunder Balls sometimes use Spark Plasma while other times they use Shine Plasma.
Quote from: Dark Mits on 02, August, 2020, 06:47:14 AM
Moving ahead... I'm currently stuck at the optional bosses. Here are some notes:
- I noticed something weird with the Attack stat. Balrog has high enough that any changes to it (Megaera, Blunt etc.) should be in intervals of 118/119. But Summoning Magaera once buffs him only by around 50, I assume because it reaches the ceiling of 999. But if I use Blunt on him, it doesn't reduce it by 118 as it should, but by only that amount of 50. Further Blunts normally reduce it by 118 (and Eclipse by 237 or so). Does the game allow stats to go over 999, but only visually caps them?
This is due to how buffs are calculated coupled with actual stats never going beyond the intended cap.
They work in tiers. Neutral is 0 and each buff or debuff changes that tier from -4 to +4. Then the game applies the corresponding multiplier.
So after megaera, his "strength buff status" was +1 (12.5%) but with blunt you dragged him back to 0 (since it applies -1), thus removing only the stats he gained. If you had cast Dull instead, he'd go to tier -1 (dull is a 2 tier decrease), and lose 50+118.
This also implies that if you reach the ceiling with a few buffs, all the next ones up to +4 grant some kind of resistance against debuffs since you won't suffer from any stat decrease. If you hit the cap at tier +3, going to +4 grants a buff of zero, but the next debuff that brings you back to +3 will also decrease by zero for the same reasoning as above.
I assume that applies to player characters once they reach very high levels, like 80+.
Does it work similarly for HP? If I remember correctly, unmodded game had a hard cap of 1999HP.
(Balrog again used Coatlicue near death)
-=EDIT=-
Balrog dead. Nothing fancy. He just didn't cast Coatlicue when he had the opportunity. Going for Sentinel.
-=EDIT 2=-
I forgot to mention. Avoid does not seem to work in Anemos Sanctum. Encounter rate was normal even after using Avoid. Intentional?
Avoid is less effective if your character level isn't higher than the enemies you're trying to Avoid.
(Or something like that)
Quote from: Caledor on 03, August, 2020, 06:06:01 PM
Avoid is less effective if your character level isn't higher than the enemies you're trying to Avoid.
(Or something like that)
Ah, so that the player cannot just zoom through an area if they are attempting a low-level run.
Sentinel down. Again no fancy tactics. Simple Summoning + Healing. It was pure luck that he never mind blasted the same character twice in a row without Shade or Flash. Off to Magician.
[spoiler]I assume that the intended design is to keep Sentinel's Psynergy sealed so that he is forced to only Attack and Mind Blast in order to significantly reduce total damage per round, just like in the unmodded game. On Hard mode this doesn't work because it's 500+ damage per Mind Blast, 600+ on a character with Djinn on standby for Summoning. His high Agility also necessitated the use of Coal / Zephyr with Kite on the healer to be able to Pure Wish twice in between his attacks on rounds where Granite, Shade or Flash was not available.[/spoiler]
So I said I wasn't going to suggest anything and mainly focus on bugs BUT
[spoiler]I lied.[/spoiler]
Since this game has a Vial nerf (rightfully so IMO, that item is way too good in vanilla based on how easily accessible it is) It makes that chest in Air's Rock that requires Frost after you get Piers kinda... meh. It's really not worth the back track- I'm thinking this might be okay to switch with a forge item, one you can get as a drop around this part of the game; like a stardust or something. Thoughts? You can always keep it as a Vial too. Lol.
Easy agree with not worth the backtrack (even before the nerf honestly), but if i'm to change it, i've got mostly 2 choices:
1) swap with a better item from air's rock (safest)
2) replace with water of life (slightly not safe due to impact on early game economy)
Any equipabble item has an even worse impact on early balance and i don't even know if i have something viable. As for forging, being Air's rock WAY before Yallam, the only thing i could add is tear stone.
What if the Vial in Air's Rock switched places with the Potion in Piers's ship (assuming it can be done) or the Cookie in the wooden box at the cliff outside the ship? It is expected that the player will go to pick up the Air Rock's chest right before entering Piers's ship, so these items are almost one-next-to-the-other from a progress point of view.
At this point in the game, I think noone in my team had reached 350HP, so even with the nerf the Vial was still pretty much a full-heal.
Final feedback on Hard Mode run: Star Magician is the hardest boss in the mod. Over 50 attemps, all failed. Wondering if I needed to grind levels due to Hard Mode, I went for Doom Dragon which I expected to be even harder and see how long I would last. Instead, it died on first attempt with 2 deaths only (both from Condemn). So I went to Dullahan. After just 3 attemps I have manged to survive enough for him to use Djinn Storm 4 times before Game Over. I only need to learn again his action sequence so that I can play around Djinn Storm like in vanilla (btw, it's funny seeing Fulminous Edge deal 1100 damage :heart: , noone survives that at level 46).
But Star Magician simply wipes the floor with me. I love it. Team levels range from 41 (Ivan) to 46 (Felix). The only tactic I haven't tried is to get 4 Guardian balls up and chop SM's HP by 50 every turn until both him and I die of old age :happy:
Notes:
- There may be an issue with action priorities. Both Guardian Ball and Doom Dragon sometimes do not fire off their Guard Aura as an action with priority, but instead normally based on their Agility.
- When Psynergy-sealed, both Refresh Ball and Thunder Ball defend. Thunder Ball is quick enough so that it can defend before any party members act, and therefore it can benefit from the reduced damage. Refresh Ball however is slow and most times acts last, so it is essentially a lost action. Could it be given a regular attack?
- Thunder Balls use both Shine Plasma and Spark Plasma. Intended?
- Doom Dragon uses Mother Gaia instead of Grand Gaia during 1st form. Intended? It normally uses 3rd tier Fire psynergy in 1st form. I remember that one of the latest patches (v177 or v178) corrected the issue with Mother Gaia being used in 3rd form.
- When using Lull during Star Magician battle, the battle music does not entirely stop but instead one instrument continues to play. All other bosses and battle themes correctly stop during Lull's animation. I admit that I haven't checked if this bug is present in vanilla too.
- (The following is exacerbated during Star Magician, but it applies for all boss battles and encounters with 3 strong enemies):
Most turns go like this: 2-3 party members act, fastest enemy acts, 3rd and 4th party member act, slower enemies and/or boss 2nd/3rd actions take place. If party Agility has been buffed (or Moloch has reduced enemy team's), then all 4 party members go first and all enemies go last. A major "headache" is being able to fit a healing action between those last enemy actions in a turn, so as to prevent a party wipe due to the enemy team firing off 3+ AoE attacks in succession. It is not uncommon to have Spark Plasma, Mine Ball, Mine Ball again, Anger Ball kamikaze and Freeze Prism as the final actions of the enemy team. Would it be possible to give some non-important equipment negative Agility (shirts, boots)? Currently I have been using Kite on healers instead of damage dealers so that I can get that extra 5th party action in between enemy actions.
Hmm. Some interesting points here. The tear stone actually is a good replacement imo. Even if you get it later on you can forge a ring or something.
But, if we want to get a little bit crazy- the idea I'm toying with is the rusted sword that turns into the Robber's Blade can swap with the Vial.
I'll try not to make this a wall of text, but my thought process behind this is: You get this from a chest that you need Parch for at the end of Aqua's Rock. If you go to Aqua's Rock as soon as you get the boat (which honestly, most veteran players that this mod is aimed at probably do) and get this rusted weapon immediately, you still have it for such a tiny amount of time before it is outclassed. Main reason for this is where the Lightning Sword is obtained though; right below Yallam where you have to go to use the blade anyways, and is also blocked by Parch (Burst too, but Tundaria Tower is so short that makes Burst being an obstacle irrelevant)
But maybe the real solution here is slightly buffing Robber's Blade. Lol.
TL;DR Tear stone good, consider Robber's Blade?
I've never posted on here, but I wanted to make an account to reach out and just say I really appreciate this rom-patch. Golden Sun is one of my favorite games and as an adult having a version that balanced the game to make it more enjoyable to me. I beat GS TBS with this patch and I just beat Sentinel, Star Magician and Balgor. I have Doom Dragon and Dullahan left with a party of around lvl 40-41. It's been incredibly enjoyable to constantly mix djinn/classes up and I've thoroughly enjoyed this playthrough. Thanks!
Thank you for the kind words Sfantul!
Also i'll take this chance to say that my pc is currently under repairs so i can't work on the mod from the replacement i'm writing from ATM. As usual though, I read every post here almost instantly.
About Robber Blade, iirc it was removed to make room for the endgame wind Light blade. Honestly i'm at a point where i don't really feel like the midgame needs more weapons... and honestly fixing that issue in Air's rock wouldn't be worth a release on its own, since it's so minor.
Even if i decide what to do with it, i'd wait and pack it with some other changes in any case.
Doom Dragon has proved to be a difficult fight for me. My average level in my party is 42. I keep getting him to the final phase then I get annihilated by a djinn storm plus chaos ruin. I also noticed he has some new moves, specially in phase 2 and 3. He has that AoE breath, not Darksol Gasp but I think a new ability, that drains HP from the whole party. Watched him heal like 1.2k in a turn from it ._.
I'm looking to farm some forgeable items, namely Orihalcon and some weapons from Inner Sanctum. I've been following the RNG guide but can never manage to get the drop. Anyone have any tips on how you farmed these items?
Indeed Doom Dragon has True Collide / Dark Contact, but it shouldn't be that powerful. It targets 3 members max, deals about 150-200 damage per character hit and sometimes heals for 50% of the damage dealt. At worst case Doom Dragon should take 300HP back by using it.
Regarding the difficulty with Djinn Storm + Cruel Ruin wiping you group, what is your general approach to the fight? How many attackers, healers, wild cards?
Quote from: Dark Mits on 23, August, 2020, 06:46:02 PM
Indeed Doom Dragon has True Collide / Dark Contact, but it shouldn't be that powerful. It targets 3 members max, deals about 150-200 damage per character hit and sometimes heals for 50% of the damage dealt. At worst case Doom Dragon should take 300HP back by using it.
Regarding the difficulty with Djinn Storm + Cruel Ruin wiping you group, what is your general approach to the fight? How many attackers, healers, wild cards?
So, I misspoke. It does only hit 3 party members, didn't hit the fourth but he healed for like 650ish hp. He healed anywhere between 170hp to 290hp off each individual hit. I thought he hit all 4 the first time he used it on me and it caught me off guard, wasn't expecting the new attack! As for my set up I have this.
:Felix: Lvl 44 Jonin 4 :MarsStar: 5 :JupiterStar: I'm using all the dark matter armor/wep on him with the angel ring. The procs from the dark sword are insane.
:Jenna: Lvl 44 Guardian 5 :VenusStar: 4 :MercuryStar: I have it where she has a decent amount of PP with PP recovery and some bonuses to Mars. Her gear is kind of all over the place.
:Sheba: Lvl 43 Pure Mage 4 :VenusStar: 5 :MercuryStar: Her gear is alright, I got a fair bit of mercury/jupiter power from items to buff my attack psynergies and I have a decent amount of PP/PP Recovery items.
:Piers: Lvl 43 Destroyer 5 :MarsStar: 4 :JupiterStar: His gear is kind over the place too, but I find myself using him when I'm going on the offense or if I need to use some of his djinn. (I carry Flash and Coal on him)
:Isaac: Lvl 43 Chaos Lord 2 :VenusStar: 7 :MarsStar: His gear is centered around Unleashes of the Sol Blade, Have Sol Ring, War Gloves, Hyper Boots, Mithril Shirt, Valkyrie Mail. I just spam auto attack and the occasional buff and/or djinn.
:Garet: Lvl 42 Chaos Lord 7 :VenusStar: 2 :MarsStar: Tbh, I just spam his Unleashes too with Excalibur and his gear isnt ideal. mostly tanky gear.
:Ivan: Lvl 43 Arcanist 7 :MercuryStar: 2 :JupiterStar: Ivan has a fair bit of PP+/PP Recovery mixed in with +Ailment and some Jupiter Power increases. He's pretty solid.
:Mia: Lvl 42 Arcanist 2 :MercuryStar: 7 :JupiterStar: She has pretty much the same gear set up as Ivan. Pretty solid dmg/healer.
My general strategy for doom dragon has been to star the fight with Felix, Jenna, Piers and Ivan. I'll Shade with Ivan, use another mercury Djinn on Jenna, use kite on on Felix and I'll Haze Ivan with Piers (Ivan gets obliterated by this boss with this Djinn setup, as does Mia). I generally go for Eclipse summons and just try to keep party topped off while keeping damage up from at least 1-2 of my characters (Usually Isaac/Felix/Piers). I do well up until the third phase. I keep getting nuked by a djinn storm/chaos ruin combo. If I have people alive after the combo theyre too slow and get out sped by boss. It's essentially a wipe everytime he does that. I'm sure I'll think of something. I beat the 3 super bosses, not counting Dullahan, in the 40's. Star Magician was tough as hell.
Oh, Idk if this was an intended feature, but I used Gale at the start of Phase 2 of Doom Dragon and skipped the whole phase straight to Phase 3. Oh wow, I Gale can cause the final boss to be done in 6 turns or less. Gale will make the boss fly away and reduce his phase hp to 0 allowing the next phase. Was this intentional?
Ah, you have triple-element classes in front party. This may be why Djinn Storm is so devastating, because you spend extra turns at classes with lower multipliers. It may be easier if you switch to duo-element classes for the main group, since they will be slightly more durable while recovering djinn. Of course the downside will be that it will take longer to get to the 3rd stage.
Another advice I can give is to stack pp-recovery items on healers only, since you will be spending 50+ PP per round at least. If your attackers drop low, use Ether / Aroma / Ember.
Third advice is to replace Sol Blade with a Jupiter-unleashing weapon, since Doom Dragon is strong against Armageddon/Megiddo. For this boss fight, Sol Blade gains use if you use it as a stat-stick for "physical" Jupiter psynergy like Quick Strike and Death Leap.
I'm still kind of surprised at the damage numbers you report. Are you playing on Normal or Hard mode?
Also I suppose Gale instakilling bosses is probably unintentional, unless Caledor left it in there for speeding through the game for test purposes :happy:
Uploaded v1.78a for TLA which fixes a certain djinn bug, totally unrelated to the latest messages :um:
Quote from: Dark Mits on 24, August, 2020, 03:25:53 AM
Ah, you have triple-element classes in front party. This may be why Djinn Storm is so devastating, because you spend extra turns at classes with lower multipliers. It may be easier if you switch to duo-element classes for the main group, since they will be slightly more durable while recovering djinn. Of course the downside will be that it will take longer to get to the 3rd stage.
Another advice I can give is to stack pp-recovery items on healers only, since you will be spending 50+ PP per round at least. If your attackers drop low, use Ether / Aroma / Ember.
Third advice is to replace Sol Blade with a Jupiter-unleashing weapon, since Doom Dragon is strong against Armageddon/Megiddo. For this boss fight, Sol Blade gains use if you use it as a stat-stick for "physical" Jupiter psynergy like Quick Strike and Death Leap.
I'm still kind of surprised at the damage numbers you report. Are you playing on Normal or Hard mode?
Also I suppose Gale instakilling bosses is probably unintentional, unless Caledor left it in there for speeding through the game for test purposes :happy:
I managed to beat him with the party set up I had without using Gale. I just rearranged my front line to have only 2 tri classes and the other 2 were substituted with dual class characters. I definitely had to anticipate djinn storm in the third phase and make sure I had at least 2 tri classes in back line. I was doing near 800ish damage per unleash from the Dark Blade. It's a venus unleash and Doom Dragon is resistant to Venus lolwhat. Felix, who I has Dark Blade equipped, had his attack stat boosted to max and I just spammed Auto's and using Djinn like Lull to skip turns to get my Djinn back from Djinn Storm. Incredibly difficult fight for me, but I managed to prevail. I plan on doing Dullahan soon, but I am incredibly reluctant to attempt with my current levels.
Quote from: Sfantul on 06, September, 2020, 11:38:50 AM
I was doing near 800ish damage per unleash from the Dark Blade. It's a venus unleash and Doom Dragon is resistant to Venus lolwhat.
Acheron's Grief is non-elemental.
Also, I guess it's about time i start working on Dullahan.
v1.78b is UPChanges are only to Dullahan. I revamped his movesed and move selection mechanic, from a 24-moves ordered list to 3 sets of 8. Also added new moves.
[spoiler=Moveset]
Dullahan now works just like other bosses that pick moves from different movesets at each turn, such as Poseidon.
Turn 1
| 21% | Bravery | 18,4% | Enfeeble |
| 16% | Swiftness | 13,6% | Ward |
| 11,3% | Toxic | 8,98% | Condemn |
| 6,64% | Break | 4,29% | Djinn Blast |
Turn 2
| 21% | Fulminous Edge | 18,4% | Grand Gaia |
| 16% | Dark Contact | 13,6% | Thorny Grave |
| 11,3% | Charon | 8,98% | Fulminous Edge |
| 6,64% | Charon | 4,29% | Djinn Storm |
Turn 3
| 21% | Ward | 18,4% | Dark Contact |
| 16% | Tempest | 13,6% | Anathema |
| 11,3% | Bind | 8,98% | Attack |
| 6,64% | Break | 4,29% | Djinn Blast |
Swiftness is a single target Zephyr: doubles his agility.
Toxic is the upgraded version of Poison.
Djinn Blast, as you already know, is the single target Djinn Storm.
Anathema is a full party Death Curse.
Main concern for this first iteration was "how often should Djinn Storm happen". ATM there's a 50% chance for it to occur once in 16 rounds, half of the old, mandatory occurrence every 8 rounds. Looks kinda low, so i balanced it Djinn Blast on other turns. Another option is to swap Djinn Storm and Charon and remove some Djinn Blast.
All the big hitters are on Turn 2 because it's the hardest turn to skip. If I didn't put those moves there, either Lull or Petra/Ground would've been too good.
[/spoiler]
Looking forward to trying out the new Dullahan fight soon! Might be a bit until I can give any feedback though lol, I just started TBS 1.78 last night.
Hi guys, it's nice to see Golden Sun is still living !
I just finished GS1 vanilla but I found it too easy compared to what I remembered so I wanted to give this hack a try for GS2, but I'm afraid that if I import my golden password from my save the character stats won't match (like I'll miss a lot of HP and Luck on GS1 characters...) Do someone has a screenshot of their team in GS1 around levels 30 (I found all the stats up items) ? Or at least do someone knows how much hp/luck I should add (and if i should lower other stats) so I can adjust it in the Golden Sun Password Generator ?
I'm hesitating to simply put my GS1 team back at level 1 so they evolve "normally" (but i don't remember exactly what bonus stats every character had.. ugh)
Thanks a lot per advance !
@Kuime
It might be a bit tedious, but if you're set on using specifically your file, I could recommend maybe using the password generator that's linked in Caledor's original post under the FAQ section. You could patch a ROM of TBS, then using the editor, compare what stats should be like for your characters in Reloaded vs Vanilla at your current levels and adjust them accordingly, give yourself whatever items, djinn, etc. you had.
Or if you're okay using someone else's transfer data, I actually just finished up a run of TBS last night, I can try and link my save file for you to use once I get home from work. Everyone's level 34, all djinn, all extra psynergy items, Cleric's Ring, and all extra events complete (other than maybe talking to Dora after Lamakan Desert).
Edit: Attached the password, you can either manually enter it from the text file, or if you're using an emulator that supports it like VBA, you can import the .dmp file directly into memory to avoid typing it (instructions in the download for the password generator I mentioned).
TBS 1.78 is finished for me, so a few thoughts on it before starting TLA. I opted to stick with mono-elemental classes for most of the run, only switching over to tri-elemental once I collected all the djinn. Up until I had Wish available, I found most bosses I could stick with a very similar strategy and win with little trouble. In fact, Tret (done before Mercury Lighthouse) was surprisingly the only one I died to a couple times lol, two Sleep Stars one one turn to hit my whole party makes for a pretty quick loss the next turn. The main focus for all bosses though was making sure to use Breeze turn 1 (and Corona once I was through Mogall Forest) to tank everyone up significantly, then Granite and Zephyr turn 2. This essentially guaranteed that even with reduced stats from using Djinn, by turn 3 I'd be fast enough to start getting off summons, and still durable enough to survive after. If someone was hit hard on the first two turns, I could heal them with Fizz to set up for more summoning, or worst case, Isaac or Mia delays summoning by a turn to use Cure/Ply. Barring what I mentioned with Tret's Sleep Star shenanigans, no bosses were even able to down any of my party, even Ivan with his paper thin defense stats.
After getting a fourth Mercury Djinni in Altin though and getting Wish, I was pretty pleased that I couldn't just stick to spamming Wish every turn and go full offense with the rest of the party. Hydros Statue actually hit a very nice level of challenge in my opinion, where he had enough AoE damage to outpace healing with Wish every turn, so being forced to do some healing with the other three helped break up the strategy of buff with Djinn -> offensive Djinn -> summon ->repeat, since taking those extra turns to do more healing meant buffs wore off before I could get my summons out. Kraken wasn't too tough though, since I had all Djinn up to that point, I could keep Kite and Granite in reserve while still getting off tier 4 summons. Having those two meant that if Kraken ended up doing too much damage than Mia could heal, all I needed to do was use both the next turn to guarantee no one was downed (Granite) to allow Mia to catch up on healing, and the following turn having Wish available twice. By then, I'd have Djinn starting to recover, after which I could start buffing with them again. This Granite/Kite strategy got me through most of the rest of the bosses actually, and access to Wish Well made it VERY hard to die. Factoring in a Psy Crystal or two, and PP was never an issue either.
Deadbeard was a very, very nice step up in difficulty though, I attempted him as soon as possible when going through Suhalla Desert, I believe I was level 28 for the whole party. Last time I fought him on an earlier version of the mod, it felt doable in mono-elemental classes at this point thanks to the issue of him only using physical attacks after long enough, but since that was fixed, I couldn't find any viable strategy to fight him. It was entirely possible to last quite awhile against him through a combination of Psy Crystals to keep Mia's healing up, with the tried and true Granite/Flash/Kite combo, but keeping everyone alive while doing any meaningful damage just wasn't happening. I attempted it again at level 32 after grabbing all the endgame equipment from Lalivero/Venus Lighthouse, and it went a ton smoother. Still didn't get the win after 4-5 attempts with mono-elemental classes but I definitely think it would be doable. On a whim I tried messing with some tri-elemental classes and found a strategy that won on the first go. I'll have the specific Djinn setup pictured below, but it was Isaac - :MercuryStar: 3 :MarsStar: 4 Leader, Garet - :VenusStar: 4 :JupiterStar: 3 Samurai, Ivan - :MercuryStar: 4 :MarsStar: 3 Divine Mage, and Mia - :JupiterStar: 4 :VenusStar: 3 White Mage. While it isn't the intent of tri-elemental classes, this set up worked incredibly well for getting off summons. Mia was able to use all three Venus Djinn while still keeping access to the Wish series, and while this means she isn't healing, both Isaac and Ivan only needed to use one Mars Djinn each to shift into classes that also had the Wish series. With Ivan having Flash, and Garet having Granite, it was very easy to survive an extra turn if I was in trouble and end up with three wish users, which even against Deadbeard was very hard to lose with. Baiting out Break with a couple tier 1 summons to boost elemental power helped lower damage output a bit too. With Isaac ending up as the slowest , it worked out nicely being able to start a turn with only 2 Venus Djinn on standby, but with Ground and Granite both having priority, he could reliable get off tier 3 or 4 summons with minimal setup.
This strategy made even quicker work of S&M/Fusion Dragon, since Isaac and Ivan were the ones with Mercury Djinn, Mia was free to stick to healing rather than trying to work in some Venus Djinn usage while still being able to hit Boreas repeatedly. I was level 34 by the time I got back to them though, so that obviously made things a bit easier too. Both bosses went down on my first attempts, with S&M actually working nicely to let me set up for the second fight. Since Isaac and Garet both get a free PP refill between fights, I could use one of Isaac's Mars Djinn to give him access to Wish after downing Menardi, then refill Mia's PP and essentially auto attack until Saturos went down too. Saturos coincidentally hit after the other three but before Isaac, so it was actually impossible to not have Max HP & PP for Fusion Dragon with that setup.
I think overall though, while bosses still have some challenge, overworld enemies posed very little threat. Single enemies died to Djinn spam, groups of 2 as well since using Ground on one, and Mist/Squall/Scorch on the other basically made both unable to act before killing them. Groups of 3 or more were much better in my opinion, while none come to mind as being actually threatening to the party, they worked well in making me burn PP or items to stay healthy until the area's boss. Djinn spam isn't TOO effective on these groups, since no matter what it's tough to kill 3+ enemies with only 4 Djinn, so they'll generally get a few attacks off. It felt more necessary to use AoE psynergy to avoid prolonging the fight and taking more damage, which feels fitting for, again, wearing me down throughout a dungeon. It's worth noting too I think, the only time I did any kind of grinding was just outside of Bilibin to make some money for new armor (didn't gain any levels if I remember right), and 2 levels of grinding right before rematching Deadbeard, so I feel pretty confident saying I was going through all areas at their intended levels.
If I was going to suggest any changes though, I'd go with this:
- Changing enemy groups for random encounters to lean more towards 3+ enemy groups. 1-2 enemy encounters work as a nice break, but especially later on, it's far to easy to simply use Djinn to stun/sleep an enemy, then use Spritz/Ember to fully recover during the fight. It seems the further into the game you go, the less threatening small groups become. While it might be alot of work, reworking 1-2 enemy groups to favor high agility enemies may give them more of a chance to get some damage in. Possibly even agility buffs to even guarantee they'll at least do something before dying. It might just be me, but I found enemies that aren't threatening on their own weren't too engaging, they were more of a nuisance than anything.
- Most bosses other than Hydros Statue, Deadbeard, S&M, and Fusion Dragon had alot of trouble outpacing the damage that can be healed with the Wish series each turn. While I think they need higher damage outputs, I think there's a few ways that would work well without screwing too much with game balance. 1. Focusing their move sets on higher damage moves that are specifically 3 targets (Eruption, Ray series, etc.) I think focusing damage on fewer characters, but doing enough to them so that Wish can't fully heal each turn means other spells like Cure/Ply see more use, and allow a little more flexibility with the party, rather than one dedicated healer. 2. From what I saw in the editor there's a fair amount of unused ability slots, maybe use those for some boss specific versions of spells? e.g. Rather than, let's say, Manticore getting the same Nova that Garet learns, its version has an extra 10-15 base damage to slot it somewhere between the standard version of Nova and Supernova, or has a chance to inflict a status effect of some kind. This can buff their offense, but would probably require more testing to avoid them possibly ending up unbalanced. Adding boss-specific versions of spells also has the nice side effect of not needing to rework anything the party learns. This principle could also feasibly be applied to my first suggestion about bosses using more 3 target psynergies as well, using stronger boss-specific versions to up damage output on only a few characters. 3. I'd be more apprehensive about this one, but giving bosses some abilities that do percent based damage like summons do. If there's a target level range that each boss should be fought, and thus the general amount of HP any party member would have is known, being able to hit a specific percent of it may work for outpacing Wish healing, with the added benefit of still being effective on a party that's a bit over leveled, and not game ending one that's under leveled. I admittedly don't know a whole lot about damage formulas for summons, other than it's base damage + percent of HP, but doing VERY low base damage, and having most of the damage come from the HP multiplier might be worth looking at.
- More Wish nerfs lol. Even with a much higher PP cost than Vanilla, it's still entirely possible to use spells from the Wish series without ever really running out of PP. At worst in my experience, I just had to delay an extra turn every now and then to use a psy crystal. I don't think upping the cost would do a whole lot more since that just means using psy crystals more frequently, but nerfing them from 80 & 160 HP (wasn't high enough level to get Pure Wish, so I can't judge that) to something like 70 & 140, or even a touch less, feels like it would be a nice spot to leave them at. Comparing Wish to Cure, it's (80x4)HP healed for 12PP, versus 70HP for 3PP. Wish has a better HP healed per PP ratio, with the convenience of hitting the whole party, which definitely doesn't feel right. Dropping the power further would be nice to make you think more about using, in terms of PP used at least, a powerful single target heal, versus a weaker multi target one. Side note I don't know if this is intended, but the power of Cure Well, Ply Well, Wish Well, and Pure Wish don't match their descriptions, they're all off by 10, 20 for Ply Well.
That's about all that comes to mind though, sorry for a big @#$ wall of text lol. Definitely still a WAY better experience than Vanilla, I'd just like to see a touch more difficulty on bosses and random encounters. As always though, thanks so much for making this mod, it's always a pleasure to play through it! :)
It's always my pleasure to read feedback after a playthrough.
QuoteI think overall though, while bosses still have some challenge, overworld enemies posed very little threat.
It's probably you playing VERY efficiently. The increased difficulty in Reloaded is to encourage smarter plays. You're using djinn to block attacks and recover, it would've been an issue if they died by mashing the atk button or you didn't run out of PP after using psynergy to force your way through a dungeon.
I'm afraid enemy groups of 3 on average might become boring. Difficulty is not the main goal here.
As for bosses & wish i think you're the first one that actually wanted MT heal to be nerfed even more... so it might be your preference? I think i went as far as i could and nerfing wish even more might simply result in more people running dual wish parties, cutting offense for survivability, thus reducing variance of class setups (which i definitively don't want).
Descriptions issue: 2 out of 4 are due to the text compression. Try editing those string youself with Atrius' editor if you don't understand what i mean.
More HP% based damage on bosses is an interesting concept. I can easily add it to any ability. Just a note, doing so replaces the maxPP-based multiplier.
I get what you mean, yeah, it's a fine line between a difficulty that still allows all play styles, and one that starts to limit a player to only a few viable ones. I can definitely see it being more of the way I play making encounters a bit easier and 'by the books', 90% of the time I do a play through (Vanilla or Reloaded) I end up focusing almost exclusively on Djinn usage. That would make sense for some of my points (e.g. larger enemy groups) since someone focusing on casting would have a much different experience.
But yeah, for Wish nerfs, it was just based on the idea of single target healing restoring less HP per PP spent while also being limited to one party member. Wish being more efficient AND hitting everyone seemed to make it objectively better in almost all situations. Since I didn't think it made sense to nerf single target heals, nerfing multi target ones ended up being my conclusion. I'd 100% agree with you though that if nerfing it led to party setups with 2+ Wish users, that would be way worse in terms of both balance and fun. I think nerfing multi target heals more would only really be viable in done alongside some of my other points, like higher damaging spells hitting less party members to encourage single target healing. Honestly though that's probably way to much to change to make just one psynergy series POSSIBLY more balanced, especially if I'm the only person asking for it lol.
Also I actually only noticed the description issues while doing my write up for TBS yesterday, but I wanted to get started on TLA so I didn't even bother changing them lol. Just a limitation of the game though I guess, nothing anyone can do.
But thanks for discussing your views on my suggestions, I appreciate it! I definitely have to clarify though since I didn't yesterday, I think the mod's at a very good spot right now in terms of balance for the first game, it's still leagues more challenging than Vanilla. if there weren't any further changes I'd have no gripes with that at all. Hoping I can get through TLA soon though!
I agree with a lot of ShiFT's points, but I disagree on MT healing requiring a potency or PP-efficiency nerf, the main reasons being more evident in TLA where HP bars and incoming damage increase more compared to what MT heals can recover. In fact I'd say that the "easiness" experienced is not as much due to the efficiency of MT heals, but because of the 1-action-per character combat itself; it's an issue that prevails in almost every game where players and enemies get fixed actions per turn instead of fluid turns (like Final Fantasy Tactics, Grandia, Final Fantasy X etc). I will try to explain my train of thought below, so please mention any incosistencies and gaps:
a) Enemies are designed to ensure that, when fought at appropriate level and equipment, they cannot kill the entire player party from full HP and good status condition just because. In order to achieve that, they have their AI designed to never use 2 multi-target devastating attacks in a row without the player having been given the option to recover, reduce incoming damage or prevent an enemy action. In fact Caledor spent a lot of time balancing Dullahan, who gets 3 actions per turn, to achieve this and explains it thoroughly in the latest Dullahan patch (side note, I still haven't beaten him. I need to stop slacking)
b) An important factor of playing video games is to have positive visual feedback of your actions. This leads developers to always favor combat where player actions almost always take place as intended. In order to achieve that in turn-based combat, they favor the players by balancing enemies so that the player will usually go first, then the enemy. This means that if a character is inflicted with a negative status effect, the player is given the option in the next turn to alleviate it without having a turn wasted. In the opposite case where enemies go first, it is entirely possible to have a fragile character die before they act, or your melee characters blinded and waste their current, or your casters silenced and waste their current turn etc.
c) Healing is along with damage-dealing one of the most obvious and easy-to-track and easy-to-manage and make sense of visual effect in a combat-based game: You move a HP bar positively, while damage-dealing moves it negatively. So to ensure that point (b) above takes place, the healer has to act before the enemies. If you encounter enemies that outpace your healer, it is most of the time an indication that the player is underleveled, underequipped, or needs to change their strategy (for example change to a faster class that provides healing, or switch a faster character to be the healer etc).
d) There are now 2 cases: the main healer is able to outheal the enemies' damage or you need an off-healer too.
d1) If your main healer simply outheals the damage, then the only thing that can break the monotony and force the player to use alternatives is to prevent the main healer from being able to heal. This means either kill them directly, silence/sleep/stun/confuse/whatever them, or exhaust their resource. Directly killing is rarely used, and like mentioned in point (a) it is generally avoided. If a boss can kill a character from full HP in one action, then usually it's an indication that the player is underlevelled (just like how I am when Dullahan simply instakills anyone with Fulminous Edge). A negative status effect or exhausting their resources is prefered because it gives player options: Offload healing to some other character until the silence goes off naturally or resources are recovered, or take immediate action to force the removal of the negative status effect or recover resource. This in turn means that the offhealer must be able to outheal the enemies' damage, or at least recover enough until the main healer is back in action.
d2) If an off-healer is needed at intended levels then enemy design becomes even stricter and predictable, because the enemies cannot simply prevent one or both healers from being able to perform. Doing so would make the game frustrating and unfun. Games that necessitate an off-healer in a small party (1 to 5-6 members) simply have all enemy threats come in the form of direct damage, which makes combat monotonous in the long run.
Having said all the above, I will also consider here Caledor's point that the mod is intended to promote smarter plays and not turn Golden Sun into a hardcore grindfest. This means giving player options either during combat or even before engaging enemies to ensure that if something goes wrong, the player can always have backups. My take is that this is proof that MT healing cannot be nerfed in how much health is restored, at least not if enemy damage is not also nerfed at a similar scale. The end-game boss encounters of TBS and almost every boss in TLA from Poseidon onward already deal enough damage that the main healer is forced to MT heal every turn (side note: on Hard Mode an off-healer is needed on every boss, including the Chestbeaters at the very start).
Pre-post edit: I just also noticed that Caledor also thinks that nerfing Wish will simply limit party setups due to requiring 2 main healers.
I was wondering if it would be possible to redesign how MT healing works, but I do not know if it is possible to be implemented, and also I cannot yet estimate how it would affect player experience. The idea was to change MT healing from affecting the entire group for equal amount of healing to making it share the same pyramid calculation that offensive psynergy does. What I mean is that the player selects a main target who will be receiving the most healing, then the characters on the left and right receive 80% of the main target's healing, then the next characters 60% hp etc., exactly how damage is reduced to 80% for the 1st-adjacent target, 60% for the 2nd-adjacent target etc.
Those are some really solid points, from a player feedback perspective they make a ton of sense. Like I said in my first post though, I was only judging Wish/Wish Well in strictly the first game, I never ended up at high enough levels for Pure Wish, still too low leveled in TLA for it too. Forced grinding is never a good thing though, and Caledor's done an amazing job avoiding making you feel like you have to at really any point, so I'd understand more people being against a nerf if it seemed like it would just lead to grinding it back to being more viable. I'd say theoretically though I'd 100% agree that nerfing Pure Wish against late game TLA bosses is just asking for a bad time, but I simply haven't gotten far enough in 1.78 to have a good opinion on that yet. I think the Aura series is hitting a really comfortable spot in terms of what it heals vs boss damage output, but I'd want to wait until I finish to fully judge anything, I only just finished with Serpent/Orochi today.
I actually really like your point about changing MT heals to use the same damage drop off (well, not damage in this case lol) that offensive spells use though, I've never considered that but I feel like that would be a really interesting system to experiment with. Keep high powered MT healing, but make you actively think about who needs it most. It's kind of hard to judge how it would impact balance though since that would, as far as I know at least, be a first in the series, but definitely a cool concept!
Quote from: ShiFT on 05, October, 2020, 09:33:04 PMKeep high powered MT healing, but make you actively think about who needs it most. It's kind of hard to judge how it would impact balance though since that would, as far as I know at least, be a first in the series, but definitely a cool concept!
This was what I was thinking too, I also did some napkin math yesterday on how psynergy should be re-balanced. For the Wish series it would be:
Wish - 3 targets (like Quake) - Main target 125HP, 1st-adjacent characters 100HP. Maximum healing at 325HP which is very close to the current 320HP.
Wish Well - 5 targets (like Earthquake) - Main target 210HP, 1st-adjacent characters 168HP, 2nd-adjacent characters 126HP. Due to a maximum of 4 characters that can be affected, maximum output is 672HP, which is fairly close to current Wish Well's 680HP.
Pure Wish - 7 targets (like Quake Sphere) - Main target 440HP, 1st-adjacent characters 352HP, 2nd-adjacent characters 264HP, 3rd-adjacent character 176HP. Maximum possible output would be when targetting a middle character, at 1408HP which is close to current 1400HP.
All values of course assume 100 Mercury power.
Other idea I had was to have multiple combinations of MT heals. For example the Wish series could retain its current equal healing across the party, Aura series could have 7 targets at all ranks with dropoffs as explained above, and Heal series could have all ranks at 5 targets. Then the main target of Heal would be receiving more HP than the main target of Aura who in turn would receive more HP than Wish. This could add another layer of "how to optimize" by switching your healer for one of the backup healers who has a more appropriate series. For example, if only 3 members are hurt with one having received a harder hit, which isn't a rare occassion, Wish loses value over Aura and Heal with the above design.
Of course I say all the above as an armchair developer.
QuoteThe idea was to change MT healing from affecting the entire group for equal amount of healing to making it share the same pyramid calculation that offensive psynergy does.
I did consider it over the years, even though the topic never made it here cause i quickly rejected the idea for 2 reasons.
1) Replacing current Wish with Pyramidal Wish (pWish) is better only for healing damage you're carrying over from the last turn. It's incredibly worse for any slow healer and a huge blow to the Paladin/Holy Knight cause you have to guess where the damage will go. So it can only exist alongside Wish and never replace it.
1bis) this is the same reasoning i always rejected any change to Break. It decreases control you have on the battle and adds to RNG.
2) pWish will undoubtly cost less than Wish which is nice for the players but bad for me, cause i absolutely love the dualism in endgame TLA between psychic and berserk circlet. One of the best side effects of the PP multiplier (if not the best) is healers needing PP regen (and losing in offense) and offensive casters wanting maxPP. If cost of mass healing falls below a critical threshold PP regen becomes useless, decreasing build variance and all that stuff i don't like.
Hi Caledor,
I just discovered this forum and your mod a few days ago. I was actually in the middle of my (5th? 7th? 8th? lost count lol) GS1,2,3 run (I just beat Gaia Rock in my vanilla game) that I normally make every couple years when I discovered your mod, and I just HAD to restart from TBS because of good everything sounded. Well so far I have to say I've made the right decision. Your mod has taken the complex combat system of GS and improved it to a significant degree. Just wanted to give you a shout out for how awesome this mod is!
Welcome aboard, GSFan, and thanks a lot! Hope you'll enjoy your playthrough!
Quote from: Caledor on 05, November, 2020, 06:10:19 PM
Welcome aboard, GSFan, and thanks a lot! Hope you'll enjoy your playthrough!
I just got to the Eastern Sea, and I'm loving the difficulty so far. I google'd/searched a few posts but I wasn't able to find an answer - I can't seem to get the usual RNG method of RN = 31 to work. The only item I've gotten to drop this way so far (to be fair, I've only tried a few) has been the Feathered Robe from GS1's Wild Gryphons. Am I just not doing it right, or would you have some insight for me?
Thanks again for making such an amazing mod!
All the info I can give is on the guides linked on the first post and the FAQ you can find there.
Yeah, I'll tinker around a bit more with it all, thanks though!
Big question time. Is Fire Breath currently a multi target EPA as was stated in the thread a lot of time ago, or still a power based psynergy? It's not in the psynergy doc, and the Acrobat class would certainly benefit a lot if it were a multi target EPA.
I'm fairly certain it's still a base damage psynergy. I vaguely remember the EPA discussion existing but i don't remember where it comes from, so all instances of Fire breath should still be base damage.
Good to know, thanks for the quick answer. I finally got around to finish my TLA playthrough, and I've been thinking about the item dependent classes, more specifically about when, how and most importantly why use them. On paper they are trading off raw elemental power and slightly butchering the djinni balance for a lot of versatility, both in psynergies and characters able to use them.
Dragontamer is a warrior class with very good physical stats and low PP. It has very bad multitargeting options, but good EPAs, group healing (worst in the game, but still, group healing is big) and can revive. This alone would make it a good compromise between Paladin and Warlord (also usable by the caster characters), but Dragontamer is also the only class in the game with PP restoring psynergy, which is huge. Not gamebreakingly powerful, but very worthy of consideration.
Necromancer is a damage caster with the best PP multiplier in the game and generally fulfills the same role as Inquisitor or Heretic (it's also the only way for Mia and the warriors to get access to single target nuking psynergies). Dullahan has slightly more power than Scourge, but Necromancer won't reach the same Jupiter power, so for elemenatal offense purposes they are generally about the same. The same can also be said about Demon/Dire Inferno compared to Grand Gaia/Dragon Fume, respectively. So the trade off for the fucked up djinni balance a is the versatility of very strong psynergies of 3 elements (the only class with this high PP multiplier and comparable offensive psynergies is Heretic available only to Jenna.) and it also gets access to Drain, Revive and multitarget offense capable of inflicting Stun/Venom. Necromancer would easily be the best offensive caster class in the game, if it weren't balanced by the drawbacks inherent to the item dependent classes.
And then there is the Acrobat. Lo and behold, the only true hybrid class in Golden Sun: The Lost Age Reloaded. On paper it's quite similar to the other hybrid classes, namely Jonin, Fury, Valkyrie and General. Acrobat has overall similar (but very slightly worse) stats than these four, but one of them is available to every character in the game, so for Acrobat being worthy of crippling your djinni balance, it should be able to offer something the non item depentent classes can't. Sure, it gets base power psynergy of every element. Fiery Juggle and Frost Card are very strong (Frost Card is actually the strongest), psynergies, but Bramble Card is very meh and Thunder Card is just plain old bad. These Jupiter and Venus offensive insufficiencies are somewhat offset by Backstab and Sabre Rain (Sabre Rain has the best EPA multiplier in the game). Then it gets some status effects from the other Card psynergies and the Fire Breath is a complete afterthought thanks to theavailability of Fiery Juggle. Acrobat class isn't inherently bad, but the only thing you get from using it is the elemental versatility (but no actual versatility, as all it can do is attacking and no healing/buffing), and incredibly minor niches in the form of Sabre Rain and Frost Card. It could be borderline useful on account of being a true hybrid if it didn't require gimping your djinni and elemental power, but as it does, there is zero reason to use it, as any benefit is offset by the drawbacks. Acrobat brings nothing to the table, and therefore shouldn't be allowed to sit at it. And if, by some miracle, you find yourself with a class setup that specifically needs an item dependent class on somebody, Isaac, Garet, Felix and Piers are better of as Dragontamers, and Ivan,Mia Jenna and Sheba are better of as Necromancers.
TLDR: Dragontamer and Necromancers would be great if they didn't have the djinni setup restrictions, and the restrictions make them balanced. Acrobat, on the other hand, would be merely balanced even if it didn't have the restriction. Therefore, Acrobat could use a buff that would make it on par with these two and for players to have an actual reason to pick it. It's a hybrid class, so maybe something similar to Shuriken or potentially a EPA that also scales with the PP (not sure if that's even possible, but that could be a very unique niche). Sorry about the wall of text, Caledor, and if you're still with me, a lot of thanks for reading this rant/post/suggestion to the end.
I actually agree that the acrobat feels the most underwhelming of the bunch. its main niche is being able to debuff with base damage psynergies like thunder and bramble card. maybe i should push that a bit further
Yeah, I actually missed that Bramble and Thunder Card can debuff stats, emphasizing on that idea sounds like a really good idea that would make Acrobat offer something unique, making it more interesting. Thunder Card's 95 power is too small a umber in late game though, even with the resistance drop. Here's an idea. Esentially swap the PP cost, power and level of Bramble Card and Thunder Card and make Bramble Card potentially lower agility. 125 BP Thunder Card is just good enough to be usable even lategame, and 95 BP Bramble Card with the agility drop is basically on demand spammable Mud/Vine, which would make Acrobat very unique and viable class, but hopefully not too strong. Flame Card is currently a Mad Blast clone, so giving it a defense debuff chance at the cost of a bit lower BP and higher cost accomplishes a) a new strategical option in the early game b) having a Debilitate that is both unique and deals some damage in the late game. Paralyze and Poison are currently a bit underrepresented and somewhat fit the theme of the class, but they'd probably only make the class overpowered in the early game (Djinni fights, for example, but this could be fixed by unlocking the psynergies only at higher class levels) while not providing that amazing value in the late game. A pure hybrid with access to a lot of status effects and can debuff while dealing damage sure sounds like a good niche that isn't overpowered.
v1.78c is up
A small set of changes to improve the Pierrot line:
- Frost card, Bramble card, Thunder card, Fiery Juggle are stronger
- Flame breath is now a multi target EPA like Shuriken
Also:
- Searing beam +5 power
PS: remember that Dragon Helm (forged from Dragon Skin) teaches this improved Flame Breath.
Notes: Went for a straight buff in the end. I noticed that the spells were a bit underpowered for the level they're learned at, so i fixed it. I want to keep Bramble as the second best card cause it's his only venus attack. I think Thunder card at 100 is already worth it BTW. Consider that your regular res lowering effects don't deal any damage at all. Halve agility on bramble card could honestly work but I want to think it through before doubling up on djinn only effects. Decided to go with Flame Breath as shuriken instead. Its multiplier is 0.1 higher than Shuriken to compensate for the Acrobat's lower atk.
These are subtle, but very effective changes IMO, making the Acrobat a lot better in several ways, both as a caster and as a warrior. It's the best offensive Mercury caster in the game now, which is good, as the majority of dual/tri elemental mercury heavy classes are mostly healers. The caster aspect of Acrobat is pretty similar to Guru/Worldwaker/Pure Mage with better BP but no healing,no revives and no buffs, but gets the warrior part of the class in exchange. Which was previously quite unimportant, thanks to the lower attacks rarting, and all other warrior classes also had better access to secondary utility, such as healing/buffing/debuffing. Being able to deal both physical and psynergy damage is a bit redundant, because it's just plain better to have one way of attacking and secondary abilities that benefit your party (Valkyrie and Warlord can attack just as well as Acrobat but can also buff/heal when needed). The Fire Breath change gave this class a much needed benefit in this aspect, but that's probably not that important, as every warrior class can now use Fire Breath, but with at the cost of losing strong bonuses from other helmets. Acrobat is mostly on par with Jonin (the dillema here is mostly whether Frost Card or not screwed up djinni is better) as a hybrid class, but only 3 characters in the game get access to Jonin. Acrobat also gets a lot of synergy with Maces, so Piers and Mia with Alecto's mace would probably be the best users of this class.
The agility drop could be a bit too much, I also second that keeping djinni only effects djinni only opinion.
You weren't right about the Bramble and Thunder, though. Both of them are Acrobat's only venus/jupiter attacks (if we're not counting the Backstab and Sabre Rain), so they are interchangable.
Chaos Lord, Shogun and Destroyer can also now equip the Dragon Helm for dungeons and clear enemy groups and Star Magician's balls a lot more easily. Certainly an interesting change.
QuoteYou weren't right about the Bramble and Thunder, though. Both of them are Acrobat's only venus/jupiter attacks (if we're not counting the Backstab and Sabre Rain), so they are interchangable.
I was actually counting Sabre Rain as the other endgame attack but mistakenly labeled it as Jupiter while it's Venus. I want to double check why I haven't already swapped them and if I can't find a reason it'll be in a patch in a few hours.
Found the reason?
First thing i can think of is spreading out elements across item classes. The other 2 already main Wind for the offense (Ghost Soldier, Call Dullahan), so i'm reclutant to push Wind up for the third item class.
I figured Sabre Dance was left as Venus to make the class more attractive for the two Venus adepts, since they start with solid Venus power and it was an EPA even in vanilla. The class doesn't have healing, but you generally weren't looking for them to heal anyways.
I don't really need to have (nor look for) a reason for things staying the way they already are: that's the default setting. I do need a very good reason to change stuff though, and benefits must outweight the downsides.
Of course, of course. I considered those points to be arguments in favor of keeping the Sabre tree Venus, independent of their original elemental affinity.
Hi !!!
This mod is amazing, i am enjoying a LOT, like a first Golden Sun experience again.
Is this mod compatible with a GS1 password or it isn´t needed ???
Another question ... Did you think on modding Golden Sun Dark Dawn ??
I think it is an amazing game with some flaws
Thank you :)
Hi Rikku,
thanks a lot, I'm glad you're enjoying the mod.
The mod is 99% compatible with passwords from GS1 (see Frequently Asked Questions in the first post). As for Dark Dawn, i doubt i'll ever mod is since I haven't even done a full playthrough of that game yet.
I have been playing this mod for a few days now, up to just before the final boss in TBS. I have a few questions and things to report.
First and foremost, I can't find the Lucky Cap or Thunder Crown. You list them as items that can only be obtained in TLA through a transfer, but I think I've been everywhere and I can't find them. A guide for the unmodded game says that they are found in the early and upper Venus lighthouse, respectively. The chests that used to contain both items now give other things. If these items were renamed, it isn't mentioned unlike for the other items that were renamed. Most change notes are for TLA, so it's difficult to tell what was changed in TBS.
How come Ivan lost his Whirlwind in his base class? When you recruit him permanently he uses it to clear some leaves, then when he joins you he doesn't know it. I had to give him a Venus djinni to be able to use it. It's not gamebreaking, but it is pretty silly.
The Fenrir enemy in the Venus lighthouse doesn't seem to have a drop. I know the thread says that you moved the Kikuichimonji to a shop in TLA, but other enemies seem to have their drops changed. At least, I could never make it drop through RNG methods, and I had no problems with other drops. One exception to what I just said though - in the Suhalla desert, I had to use one or two (can't remember which) points less during RNG methods to make any enemy drop their item. After failing to get the Aura Gloves I tested it on a few other enemies just after entering the desert. Maybe it was like in this in the original game; it has been years since I played it last.
At various points your class changes list 12 or 13 points in the different elemental types. Did you change how many djinn each character can have? I thought it was only nine in the original TLA.
Thanks for these mods.
Edit: After looking around some, I think the Lucky Cap and Thunder Crown may have been renamed to Ninja Headband and Devil's Crown, respectively. I'm not certain though.
While going through the list of what to bring over to TLA, I noticed that you list a ton of items as removed from shops in TLA, yet not as drops or treasures. For example, the Jeweled Crown and the Magical Cassock. Is the list just outdated or is this a sinister plot against completionists?
Apparently i forgot to push the post button yesterday after writing the reply. Well, let's do it again.
Renamed items+Edit: Yes. There's no full list of renamed items though, but the icon is a dead giveaway. As for password items, there's just a mistake in the list.
Ivan's Whirlwind: It was due to changing the focus of all mono-elemental classes for flavor reasons. Sheba got wind and Ivan thunder in their case. This pops up from time to time because it's that early into the game and people are so used to it that they just don't expect it, but it's a non-issue. It took a while for me to realize that he doesn't really need it, in fact for some time ivan had whirlwind alone in his base class, without tornado nor tempest.
Fenrir: still drops kikuichimonji as the editor can easily confirm. It has nothing to do with the weapon being in a shop in TLA, nor the Fenrir in TLA. Fenrir in TLA doesn't drop kiku because it's in a shop now, but the Fenrir in TBS is unaffected by that change. Don't assume enemies with the same name in tla and tbs drop the same stuff.
Elemental levels =/= djinn equipped. Every character has 5 elemental levels in their main element despite not having any djinn equipped.
Hope you're enjoying the mod and keep reporting any doubt or issue.
Hello.
First of all thanks for this forum and this patch very nice :D
Second i detected a bug related to this IPS patch it's issue with djinn and summons. Look at screenshoots.
https://ibb.co/VN4GW4J (https://ibb.co/VN4GW4J)
https://ibb.co/yfPwWPd (https://ibb.co/yfPwWPd)
Hope your fix on next release.
Cheers.
Hi.
I'm assuming you're talking about the higher tier summons not being displayed. For that you might want to read the first post, section Djinn & Summons. Quoting the relevant part from it:
QuoteSummons that require more than 2 djinn won't appear right at the start of a battle. After the first turn, 3-djinn summons become available; after the second, 4-djinn summons become available and so on, with Iris available after the 6th turn has passed (6 and 7 djinn summons are unlocked in the same turn).
Quote from: Caledor on 17, March, 2021, 12:39:07 PM
Hi.
I'm assuming you're talking about the higher tier summons not being displayed. For that you might want to read the first post, section Djinn & Summons. Quoting the relevant part from it:
QuoteSummons that require more than 2 djinn won't appear right at the start of a battle. After the first turn, 3-djinn summons become available; after the second, 4-djinn summons become available and so on, with Iris available after the 6th turn has passed (6 and 7 djinn summons are unlocked in the same turn).
Hey. Thanks for fast reply.
But why this limitation? Did you put for some reason?
Read the first post, it has all the explanations you need
My first ever playthrough of TBS was in Fallen Star, which I absolutely loved and 100% without it ever losing its fun. Then I tried Risen Star and I quickly realised that, not having ever played TLA either, I had absolutely no idea how to distribute the stat boosters, so I stopped playing it. I'm sure more experienced players appreiciate the completely reworked (non-) leveling system, but for a new player it's much more inaccessible than Fallen Star was.
So I decided to re-play TBS but with Reloaded this time, and then jump to TLA Reloaded as well. Here goes.
Incidentally, and more as curiosity from someone ignorant of the GS romhacking scene than an actual feature request: Do you think it'd be possible to move all of each village's hidden items to a single location, like say, each village's inn? It gets a bit tiring to check every single nook and cranny without it adding enjoyment to the exploration (the joy being in the vilalgers' dialogue), and the kleptomaniac nature of the activity is ludonarratively dissonant enough already.
Honestly dunno, but even if it's doable it would require an immense effort (checking every single treasure, create new treasure places, delete old ones, relocate) for such a small benefit, so hardly worth it
Quote from: Mr. Mister on 22, March, 2021, 09:23:53 AMIncidentally, and more as curiosity from someone ignorant of the GS romhacking scene than an actual feature request: Do you think it'd be possible to move all of each village's hidden items to a single location, like say, each village's inn? It gets a bit tiring to check every single nook and cranny without it adding enjoyment to the exploration (the joy being in the vilalgers' dialogue), and the kleptomaniac nature of the activity is ludonarratively dissonant enough already.
There are guides that list every hidden item, GameFAQs has some of them.
But you can also try to avoid these treasures, which will add an extra layer of difficulty, even if minor. Besides, the game does not have a "treasure finder" counter.
On topic, and after having completed a 2nd run of TLA on hard (except for Dullahan and Star Magician again, heavy grinding is needed for these 2), I honestly don't have any valuable feedback to give besides that it is an exciting adventure. With the exception of unavoidable "cheap" 1-shot mechanics (like Poseidon's Ocean Fist followed by any attack, Truncheon Fist followed by attack, Condemn etc), the mod is a delight to play. Most of my comments will (again) be armchair developer ones:
- Would it be possible to move instant-death abilities and Ocean's Fist as last actions on a given turn? I do understand that such a change would make fights like Poseidon a whole lot easier.
- Similarly, would it be possible for Condemn to be reworked into a Doom-like spell that Stuns/Sleeps the character and gives only 1 turn to the player to act? This way it would still be a dangerous ability and require another character to restore them immediately on the next turn, but without losing all on-going buffs.
- Restorative items are in a weird spot. Early on, when PP is massively limiting and best reserved for offensive Psynergy, they are a huge boon and party saviours. Especially for hard mode (disclaimer: I know you have said that you have balanced the game for Normal mode), it is better to spam Herbs in and out of combat instead of Cure/Boon. Similarly Corn is a good replacement of Ply. In fact, stocking up on 60+ herbs/corns at towns to get through Yampi Desert, Air's Rock and Gondowan Cliffs up to getting Piers felt almost like cheating. By mid-game however (around 4-Djinn classes, when you start exploring the Eastern Sea), PP is so abundant that they are no longer needed and can be freely vendored. In order to make these items helpful in end-game without overshadowing Psynergy, would it be possible to change their effect from a static one-time immediate heal effect to a recurring healing effect like that of Coatlicue? For example: Herb 50hp/turn for 1 turn, Corn 100hp/turn for 1 turn, Nut 125hp/turn for 2 turns, Vial 150hp/turn for 3 turns, Potion 200hp/turn for 4 turns, Mist Potion 250hp/turn for 3 turns to the whole group.
- The reduced duration of buffs and debuffs helps a lot with giving them a more prominent role instead of being fire-and-forget abilities, but failing to refresh a buff because of reasons (the caster was silenced/dead, or they had to use an emergency heal) leaves a bad taste. At the same time, random encounters are generally so short that it is more beneficial to use Attack/Offensive Psynergy straight away instead of get buffs going.
Is it feasible for buffs (and debuffs) to reduce their effect by 1 rank at the end of every turn instead of reverting completely to 0 after 3 turns? So instead of going +2 -> +2 -> +2 -> 0, it could go +3 -> +2 -> +1 -> 0. This way, their total effect per cast would remain the same, but due to being frontloaded they would become more beneficial in short random encounters. I do understand that this would be a heavy nerf for boss fights where you get 2x High Impacts going though before hitting them with your strongest attacks.
- Random masochist idea tied to the above: What if Break did not revert all buff effect to 0, but instead acted like a -4 modifier on all of them? Or in other words if it acted like a combined Blunt+Debilitate+Enfeeble on steroids?
- Another mechanic that the player can ignore from mid-game onward are Coins. Equipment sold by vendors simply does not hold a candle compared to artifacts found in the wild. The vendor value of the artifacts also helps with the "inflation" of our pockets. Would it be possible for some of the equipment to be moved from treasure chests to vendors, and replace the treasure chests with some coins or restorative items (like you did with the shallow waters near Tundaria Tower in the West Sea)?
- Psynergy crystals (like the one right at the first screen when you enter Air's Rock and the one outside Gabomba statue where you meet Piers) are infinite in the sense that moving out of the screen and back again replenishes them. So the player can use them as free inns mid-dungeon. Could they be removed or turned into a 1-time event? The giant crystals inside the Rocks would of course keep their infinite PP recovery effect, though I could live with them being a 1-time effect only ^^
- Other random masochist ideas: What if PP regeneration when walking was nerfed/removed? This is to counter the use of Avoid/Sacred Feather as another indirect "free" PP restoring ability. I exploited this before fighting that aquatic enemy in Piers's Ship so that I have full PP when starting combat. I do undestand that this could block progress in dungeons that require Psynergy for puzzles if the player runs out of PP.
Random encounters would become more dangerous if enemies had higher Agility than the party when fought at their intended level, since they would always get 1 more attack in.
Looking forward to another Reloaded run!
Quote- Would it be possible to move instant-death abilities and Ocean's Fist as last actions on a given turn? I do understand that such a change would make fights like Poseidon a whole lot easier.
- Similarly, would it be possible for Condemn to be reworked into a Doom-like spell that Stuns/Sleeps the character and gives only 1 turn to the player to act? This way it would still be a dangerous ability and require another character to restore them immediately on the next turn, but without losing all on-going buffs.
I think the issue is that you're thinking of a reactive approach without considering a proactive one: boost luck.
QuoteIn order to make these items helpful in end-game without overshadowing Psynergy, would it be possible to change their effect from a static one-time immediate heal effect to a recurring healing effect like that of Coatlicue? For example: Herb 50hp/turn for 1 turn, Corn 100hp/turn for 1 turn, Nut 125hp/turn for 2 turns, Vial 150hp/turn for 3 turns, Potion 200hp/turn for 4 turns, Mist Potion 250hp/turn for 3 turns to the whole group.
It'd be either busted or negligible. So high that you won't need an healer on your team or so low that it wouldn't change your healer's actions. Items are a tight rope to walk because if they're too good they devalue the psynergy kits of classes.
QuoteIs it feasible for buffs (and debuffs) to reduce their effect by 1 rank at the end of every turn instead of reverting completely to 0 after 3 turns? So instead of going +2 -> +2 -> +2 -> 0, it could go +3 -> +2 -> +1 -> 0. This way, their total effect per cast would remain the same, but due to being frontloaded they would become more beneficial in short random encounters. I do understand that this would be a heavy nerf for boss fights where you get 2x High Impacts going though before hitting them with your strongest attacks.
This might actually lead to something interesting.
QuoteWhat if Break did not revert all buff effect to 0, but instead acted like a -4 modifier on all of them? Or in other words if it acted like a combined Blunt+Debilitate+Enfeeble on steroids?
It would make both a massive buff suite and a spell complementary to break (restores all maluses to 0) mandatory. Too powerful.
QuoteThe vendor value of the artifacts also helps with the "inflation" of our pockets. Would it be possible for some of the equipment to be moved from treasure chests to vendors, and replace the treasure chests with some coins or restorative items (like you did with the shallow waters near Tundaria Tower in the West Sea)?
Treasure hunting is actually more fun than getting stuff from vendors, as for the replacement you mentioned, it was part or a bigger change that involved other weapons being moved, and it left me with a spot for a treasure and nothing to put in there. So i put coins.
As for balancing coins i mostly gave up to it, the best i can probably do is to set the price of every non-rusty, non-bought artifact to 1 coin, so it doesn't translate into free money once it gets replaced.
QuotePsynergy crystals (like the one right at the first screen when you enter Air's Rock and the one outside Gabomba statue where you meet Piers) are infinite in the sense that moving out of the screen and back again replenishes them. So the player can use them as free inns mid-dungeon. Could they be removed or turned into a 1-time event? The giant crystals inside the Rocks would of course keep their infinite PP recovery effect, though I could live with them being a 1-time effect only ^^
If it doesn't require too much work i could honestly consider it. won't change much though, you can still retreat to a town, or heal in battle with PP restoring djinn.
QuoteOther random masochist ideas: What if PP regeneration when walking was nerfed/removed? This is to counter the use of Avoid/Sacred Feather as another indirect "free" PP restoring ability. I exploited this before fighting that aquatic enemy in Piers's Ship so that I have full PP when starting combat. I do undestand that this could block progress in dungeons that require Psynergy for puzzles if the player runs out of PP.
Random encounters would become more dangerous if enemies had higher Agility than the party when fought at their intended level, since they would always get 1 more attack in.
It's probably the same answer as before. It wouldn't change much the options available to the player, only the means to reach it, to more time-consuming ones. As for Agility there are already some enemies that are naturally faster than the player at intended level, as there are others that only the fastest characters can outspeed and others that are very slow.
Quote from: Caledor on 01, April, 2021, 05:32:38 PMI think the issue is that you're thinking of a reactive approach without considering a proactive one: boost luck.
That is quite true. In fact I remember that when i defeated Doom Dragon, I was surprised that it failed to score any kill with instant-death attacks.
But at Poseidon, in the late 20s levels, Luck boosts are not that abundant, unless I have missed some specific equipment or class combinations... I'll definitely check this out next time.
QuoteIt'd be either busted or negligible. So high that you won't need an healer on your team or so low that it wouldn't change your healer's actions. Items are a tight rope to walk because if they're too good they devalue the psynergy kits of classes.
While the "inspiration" came during my failed attempts against Star Magician, it is not a rare occurence for incoming damage to be larger than 1 MT heal + 1 ST heal, but less than 2 MT heals. This is especially true when using a party line-up of lowHP-highHP-highHP-lowHP (for example Ivan-Isaac-Garet-Mia). If not overleveled, the player has to repeat the 1MT + 1ST heal routine almost every turn because without the MT heal one of the lower-hp members will die next round, and without the ST heal the party member that gets pummeled the most will not survive. (At this point I have to point out that I assume that the member that gets hit the most is one of the two in the middle, which is also why the above party lineup is used)
The idea of the heal-over-time effect is to lessen the burden of the off-healer without replacing the role or reducing the work that the main healer has to do. The similarity to Coatlicue is that: whereas Coatlicue allows the main healer to keep the party up with a "cheaper" MT heal for its duration or even not use a heal for a round and perform some other action, a single-target heal-over-time would allow the off-healer to perform other actions in-between.
The values I proposed in my previous message were chosen to match the current Herb and Corn heal values (since these items are already in a great spot), to give a small boost to Nut and Vial (since by the time they are useful for the amount they recover [ie. stop overhealing], healer PP is no longer a limitation), and to give a good boost to Potion and Mist Potion (which are in limited quantities and overshadowed). I think I went overboard with Potion and Mist Potion though.
QuoteThis might actually lead to something interesting.
My armchair-developer intuition leads me to think that such a change would be most beneficial only and only for Impact/High Impact for battles that currently last 2 rounds where enemies get to strike before they die in the 2nd round. In all other cases of random encounters it is a net loss for the player (wasted PP and action). I cannot make an educated guess on how it would impact (heh, made a pun :happy: ) boss fights, but generally I believe it would make them harder because we have learned to maintain maxxed buffs, and such a change would require us to refresh them every round if we want to maintain their max effect, which is not feasible and PP-hungry.
QuoteIt would make both a massive buff suite and a spell complementary to break (restores all maluses to 0) mandatory. Too powerful.
Fair enough.
QuoteTreasure hunting is actually more fun than getting stuff from vendors, as for the replacement you mentioned, it was part or a bigger change that involved other weapons being moved, and it left me with a spot for a treasure and nothing to put in there. So i put coins.
As for balancing coins i mostly gave up to it, the best i can probably do is to set the price of every non-rusty, non-bought artifact to 1 coin, so it doesn't translate into free money once it gets replaced.
Another idea would be to progressievly nerf the coin drops from enemies in mid- and end-game, though for some reason I feel that most of the coins are from directly selling the artifacts found in treasure chests.
Wasn't there an enemy near Magma Rock that dropped only 1 coin (I think "Slayer")? Was that a bug in the unmodded game or my imagination?
On the subject of treasure hunting, the chests at the entrance of Treasure Isle are empty. Are they hard-coded to be empty, or can items be placed there? I understand that lorewise they are supposed to have been looted by Briggs and Co.
Hello there,
Played through the game for the past week or so and I had a blast with very few exceptions. Love >99% of the changes that were made which made the game so much more open ended with party options while the classes people stuck to were for the most part untouched or slightly buffed vs vanilla(ninja)
Got through everything except Dullahan so far, unfortunately I didnt realize that importing my GS1 save from forever ago would screw me...over level 40 so RIP luck. Think i'm going to go for a new save before attempting.... i get very tilted constantly dying to condemn/charon or anything with instant death tied to RNG
GS is easily 1 of my fav series and this version is amazing work, hopefully I can help improve it.
Im sure you spent countless hours working on this so I'll spend maybe ~1 hour writing this up and make an account(which i never do lol)
everything I say is meant to be constructive, so bear that in mind. A lot of feedback is based on personal experience...although I've played this game a lot I definitely know very little compared to probably most people here so if I post something not correct no offense is intended
Im going to make a list of feedback/thoughts/suggestions, the number just means a different topic nothing else...I have no idea how technically possible some requests are as I have no experience in hacking ROMS.
It's a really long post but eh, figured more details the better
1. change descriptions for abilities in-game that can add status effects - especially higher tier EPAs, but for spells too if they have a chance for some status effect. Perhaps add a line in a sample format for say, Odyssey:
line1:default txt
line2:(damage modifier%, %chance to land debuff, -x turns)
would be great if technically possible...no idea on line/character limit...and I imagine it can be a lot of work but would be a great QOL vs constantly checking spreadsheets
2. assuming no hardcore grinding/abuse, the economy felt good prior to reunion...I bought lots of vendor gear since they were decent upgrades most of the time and early artifacts/gear dont sell for a lot I was constantly broke..felt good. really liked the consumable changes as well
once late game comes around though the player is once again swimming in gold in normal play...
instead of trying to control the coin flow other than maybe gear$ nerfs, introduce some gold sinks like potions/psy crystals at special vendors that cost a ton..maybe 8-12k a piece(just making this number up)
3. perhaps introduce ranks to certain spells rather than just ST/MT
Good example is hp/psy drain. I like how much it got buffed but at certain points of game it felt super out of place. when I was level ~20 at aqua rock, fairy monster would drain more than my entire PP pool in 1 go, leeching 85-95 points. Since that would require expensive/rare consumables to be used or slowly run back to town/come back i just kept resetting there.
I think it would be cool to have it scale to some stat, have different ranks so its not so insane early on but later on it can scale to very large amounts if player builds around it
Revive would be another caididate for consideration here, maybe 3 ranks at rank 3 it revives with full hp but costs a ton of PP to use. currently unless your characters are exactly speed tuned the revived character can easily miss the party wide heal/buff then die again and again
maybe do the same thing for buffs/debuffs
Jenna's valkyrie class is a great example ....looks like its the only max ATK buff in the game
This might just be from my experience...later on sometimes its not even worth trying to buff, at least more than 1-2 total buffs because bosses that matter will break you right away. also with the nerfs to them, you get even less benefit that I found often its a waste of PP/turn.
I also found debuffs very unappealing(ST or MT) since again...anything challenging or worth using debuffs on just fail to land even with +ailment too much and fall off insanely fast I found them not worth using, only exception would be some EPAs where I'm not expecting it to land too often and considered it a bonus.
Debuffs are insanely strong vs djinn/non super bosses but late game they fell off for me hard. maybe i'm doing something wrong for the above mentioned, idk.
4. gearing is totally awesome, from incremental upgrades to getting to late game.
almost everything end game is at least situationally good or best in slot. the endgame gear hunt was really fun for me tracking down and getting all the best stuff for my party...
only real complaint i had as a result from this was, running out of inventory space all the time-not sure how this would be, or if it can be changed since inventory size is native to the game
I ran into a hiccup where using certain djinn suggested by guides/wiki messed with RNG, however I did not realize this for quite some time and it was driving me nuts. One good example was Gel ...guides recommened this and it does work in vanilla, but in the mod the RNs get messed up so when i finally switched djinn the gears dropped. I know you mentioned some Djinn got changed around..is there a list somewhere, or can you provide a bullet list of changes that would cause certain djinn to mess with RN vs vanilla?
Would it be possible to change Ker's weight to be not cursed or somehow get a second cleric's ring? I liked Darksword's appraoch with non elemental because you dont need to swap gear depending on fight...however with Ker's weight being cursed you dont get that benefit compared to darksword while cursed
Maybe change nebula wand to earth and kers weight to something else...but thematically that wouldnt fit as golem core forgeables is the earth type
5. Overall game experience was smooth, with a few outliers:
I want to emphazise that the game can be made way wayyyy harder while being possible, but it would not be any fun for most people, so my approach has this in mind.
tundaria region the bear is totally over-tuned. insane HP, DEF and damage compared to anything else, i killed one just to see how it'd go and i always ran from them.
aqua rock - the ROCs(forgot name, ostrich looking dude) same story as bear but are SUPER fast as well, going before my default sheba sometimes. these guys are worse offenders than bears, sometimes i reset just from seeing them if i cant run.
aqua hydra boss- probably my least favorite part of the entire mod. its not that he was too hard to beat, but early game theres not a lot of options at all other than doing a long boring grind. I believe I was at par level for this guy and the damage from hydra is just insane.
Very often the flood aoe + chomp combo would kill any female character, with full HP and 1-2 buffs. and this gets spammed....wasnt super hard but just really really annoying and not fun
Late game:
Valkur and sentinel - strat wise pretty similar to vanilla, just harder so not too much to say here
Valkur stunned me at 40 luck, it only happened once ~10 tries or so, what happened there? I doubled checked at end of fights and am 100% sure I had exactly 40 luck. (sheba, pure mage)
Star magician: my favorite fight by far, the strat is such an overhaul compared to vanilla(leave all thunderballs up and focus down boss, tank n spank)
The wide variety of debuffs, summoning balls that must be dealt with fast, and potential damage output really made me use wide variety of my characters movesets. only fight where casters kept using the highest tier of offensive psyenergies as needed
If high damage is coming from adds and boss, then MT heal(s) need to come and play more defensive until HP is topped off, while picking off anger ball
It was really cool having to use such wide variety of moves and not having to pray to RNGesus compared to many boss fights, RNG being females dont get targeted 2-3x in a row -> dead
doom dragon:
this is where having my old GS1 file screwed me, anyone from GS1 constantly got stunned/debuffed/KO'd due to bad luck stat and this fight was so much harder than it needed to be. because this fight was such a nightmare i dont really want to bang my head against the wall on dullahan, will do another playthrough in the near future w/o luck-sacked characters
6: Balance changes:
Really liked the much-needed huge buffs casters got for late game. Now there's much better reason to use the more-likely to die characters/setups - since in vanilla you can just use warrior classes for healing/support at much lower death rate.
I noticed that in both the mod and vanilla hard-mode, physical damage gets a much bigger penalty vs magic. Getting even a small boost in defense can result in a large phys. damage reduction. I think thigns are fine so far but if changes are made in the future increasing defense by a lot penalizes physical users harder than magic, and even more vs summons
Hi comingsoon, glad you enjoyed the mod and thanks for the feedback!
Going through the points:
1 - Two line descriptions are impossible sadly. Space is extremely tight.
2 - Coin amount has been brought up many times. It's pretty much impossible to solve since you basically run out of things to buy after a certain point in the game while being able to sell stuff you get for free. Most impactful thing i can do is probably drop the price of free artifacts to single digit.
3 - I already added a "rank" to psy drain for very early game enemies, so adding another one to address that issue is easy enough.
For stuff like characters it would be mostly an exception rather than a staple, like there's only one class with the full hp revive. I have to consider it.
Quotecurrently unless your characters are exactly speed tuned the revived character can easily miss the party wide heal/buff then die again and again
this is exactly what i had intended instead. Turn order is important.
Break is there to punish excessive buffing. If you don't overdo it it's always gonna be a loss for the enemy.
4 - nothing i can do about inventory space, sadly. Djinn and RNG are another issue people keep reporting but honestly i never faced anything of the sort.
QuoteWould it be possible to change Ker's weight to be not cursed or somehow get a second cleric's ring?
Nope :P
They can be that broken exactly because you have to choose between warrior and mage getup.
Darksword could easily be non-elemental because I already had the full elemental set of endgame swords, while Ker is the Earth one. It's also the best element for it since most of the classes you'd want Earth power on are Healers so i don't think they should use it regardless. Nebula will suffice.
5 - i'll definitively check the reported enemies. keep in mind though that that's the first open world area. The cause might simply be that you did it in an unfavorable order.
6 - Raising defense has effect only against physical attacks. Raising resistance is twice as impactful for magic as it is for EPAs. On the other hand, improving physical offense is much easier than improving magical offense (in battle, only through summoning)
QuoteFor stuff like characters it would be mostly an exception rather than a staple, like there's only one class with the full hp revive. I have to consider it.
Ahh did not realize it was unique to a class already, I tried out a handful of classes but of course most of them were not given serious time, as I think most single playthroughs would not. Perhaps a middle ground for some classes to have a 75-80% revive and its way less efficient than default revive, to a point most players would default to the cheaper option unless they 100% have to use the more expensive option.
"Would it be possible to change Ker's weight to be not cursed or somehow get a second cleric's ring?"
QuoteNope :P They can be that broken exactly because you have to choose between warrior and mage getup.
I think my post ran on for too long before and I had the request worded wrong. What I really wanted to ask is change ker's weight to non cursed but be toned down so its overall same power as the other 3 elemental staffs at highest tier, so earth alone isnt locked behind clerics ring.
Then have another staff be more powerful overall but it's cursed. It's not a big deal I'm just really OCD(i bet a lot of rpg players are) with wanting optimal gear, with earth mage I gotta run with nebula/gaia staff vs other elements getting a better version.
Asking for another Cleric's ring was a bad idea tbh as that would just give player too much power since you've given cursed equip a nice overhaul
Quotei'll definitively check the reported enemies. keep in mind though that that's the first open world area. The cause might simply be that you did it in an unfavorable order.
I dont belive I did eastern sea in a bad order, maybe it wasnt optimal but main point originally is that those particular monsters I mentioned felt out of place relative to others in the same area, as all others within the same area were fine
Welcome comingsoon. I noticed you mention that the game can be made harder and wanted to ask if you tried the mod on Normal or Hard mode, so that we can compare our gameplay experiences.
Regarding the limited inventory, I was given the suggestion to vendor some items and re-buy them later once I get the full 8-man group, specifically the buff items (Mint, Apples etc.), Psynergy crystals, Water of Life, Game Tickets, Lucky Coins and the 4-element class items if you do not use them. It is a great relief as you can empty up to 12 slots.
Regarding the bear in Tundaria region, it seems overtuned because the party is expected to be ~lvl28 for this part, which also includes equipment upgrades from Gaia Rock, Aqua Rock, items from Sunshine etc. I tried going there immediately after getting Piers's ship in order to acquire the Jupiter djinni, but just 2 battles in I decided it's not worth it yet :sad: The Squirrelfang in the same area also hits like a truck with its Quick Slash.
For Caledor:
I am again playing through the game (I simply can't get enough of this mod!), I'm currently at Eastern Sea (specifically Gaia's Rock) and so far I have the following notes:
- Unleashes from Staves seem to be very powerful compared to unleashes from all other types of weapons. Sheba was dealing 150+ damage with Psychic Rod, which was 30 dmg points higher than unleashes from Felix, and upwards to 240 damage with Asteria's Staff unleash, while both Piers and Felix cannot break 180 yet. I understand that this is balanced by attacks with no unleashes, where she hits for less than 50 while the others hit for almost 100.
- Similarly to comingsoon, I still feel that the Aqua Hydra is overtuned because a combo of Chomp plus any other attack on one of the squishies is a guaranteed death. I tried to lower its Attack with Dull with almost 0 success, then I tried to maintain stage-4 Protect but this was both very PP-intensive and turned out that it does not reduce damage from Raging Flood, so total incoming damage reduction was not as effective as expected. I resorted to Summons and Shade.
- Again similarly to comingsoon, I realized that the Psy Drain from the Faeries in Aqua Rock is EVIL! They can absorb up to 80PP (possibly more?). Granted, this can be "countered" by simply spending a couple more turns using Ether. Considering that I have mentioned that PP is "infinite" due to vast PP-regen options in late game, what if late-game enemies and bosses acquired PP-drain abilities, or had those merged with their existing abilities (for example True Collide absorbing both HP and PP, Restore Balls getting a PP-drain ability instead of Defending, Earth Force from Doom Dragon absorbing PP, maybe even make Venom have the same effectiveness as Poison but add PP-damage as well?)
- During my fight with the Mercury djinni in Aqua Rock, I got his Psynergy sealed and it simply stood there defending 2 times per round till the end of the battle, it did not attack at all. I thought that enemies "fall back" on Attack if they cannot use Psynergy, and I'm fairly sure that other djinni earlier did so.
Thanks for the welcomes all,
Glad to see I'm not just crazy for pointing out that specific enemies were out of place relative to others around the same area/level lol
Regarding difficulty, I played mine through on normal modded difficulty since I read on Cal's post that hard is untested
Not sure I'd enjoy hard mod in its current state - I've played through vanilla hard a lot and flat stat increases don't always work out well with how damage scales mid-late game.
My guess for hard mode of mod would be that physical does little to no damage due to:
-increased defense from in-game hard mode
-increased defense base from mod itself
-overall slight to moderate nerfs of physical damage potential vs vanilla
-bosses like sentinel physical would simply be a waste of time since +defense buff is more powerful
I think when dark mits had staff unleashes did more damage than phys. attackers, the reasons above is majority of the cause. I noticed that early on there were a couple staffs that had particularly hard hitting unleashes compared to others for the time you get them.
My guess would be, the game experience would be devolved into abusing barrier djinns+lull abuse and summon spam being by far the best strat, and in some instances the only strat viable especially for superbosses. That or excessive amounts of wonder bird slaying
Maybe just my personal opinion but I really dislike how summons damage is calculated - largely based on max HP and does not scale with player power aside from ele power. It feels very not-RPG'ish because you'll do similar damage whether you are level 1 or 99(assuming all other factors same) late game doing the same summon.
Just thinking out loud here - normal difficulty of mod is tuned very well in 99.9% of cases but I think the flaws of base-game damage calculations and stat limitations really start to show on hard mode mod.
Indeed the mod is designed for Normal difficulty. I have completed it on Hard mode albeit without defeating Star Magician and Dullahan. I believe you will enjoy it on Hard mode since you do claim you'd like it a little more difficult, I can write down my remarks in gameplay differences:
- Defense scales by x1.25, and since enemies in early game have had their Defense buffed more than enemies in late game in the mod, physical attacks are at a disadvantage only till mid-game (until around you defeat Poseidon / Moapa). From there on they pull ahead of single-target Psynergy of mono- and duo-element classes. I have not done any playthrough with tri- or quad-element. Unleashes on their own remain stronger than psynergy but are balanced around the fact that they have 30% chance to occur, so psynergy is on average more powerful. Of course matching enemies' weak element is important.
- As a consequence of the above, psynergy gains tremendous value till that part. So you will be relying on it heavily in order to have combat last 2-4 rounds. For reference, Sheba would deal single-digit damage with no-unleash attack, but over 150 with rank 2 psynergy even at lvl20 against some enemies.
- Again as a consequence of the above, PP becomes heavily limiting, which means that the best course of action (at least best in my experience) is to heavily invest in Herbs and Corns until you get Ether in order to free up all your PP for offense. I estimate that I have used somewhere around 300 herbs and 200 corns till I reached the point where I can maintain my PP levels.
- Consequence of the above is that coin becomes more limiting in early game. In fact I was not able to get all available at-the-time craftable items from Sunshine and the vendors of Eastern Sea due to lack of coin. Which asks you to prioritize the order of your upgrades.
- The main difficulty is not the extra HP from enemies but the extra ATK. Sheba and to a lesser degree Jenna are vulnerable until the reunion. After the reunion, running with Isaac, Garet, Felix and Piers at front-row makes the game significantly easier. Don't be afraid to use Defend.
- Funnily enough, Sentinel is the easiest of the optional bosses. Physicals work well at end-game on Hard mode too. Valukar posed difficulty only and only because he would always manage to get Coatlicue at some point due to 3 actions per round, which is why I am not going to pick up Summon tablets of 4+ djinn until I defeat him for my current playthrough. I didn't manage to defeat either Star Magician or Dullahan with a lvl48-50 group, but Star Magician is definitely harder than Dullahan because of (surprise!) unkillable Guard+Restore Ball combo. I have defeated Valukar, Sentinel and Doom Dragon without summons, but the battles did last quite a while (with Doom Dragon lasting over 40 rounds).
- Due to increased enemy HP, Summons become relatively more useful (like in the unmodded game), but the loss of stats and powerful psynergy is a risk. I prefer fighting everything except bosses with Psynergy, and use only counter-element Summons for bosses.
Shade / Flash and Lull spamming didn't feel necessary, because it means lots of actions wasted to use them, set them etc. which in turn makes battles drag on longer. Using them once to prepare them for Summons then reuse them many turns further during the battle is what I did.
That's all I can think and remember right now. I highly suggest you give it a try, I believe you will find it engaging and satisfying to defeat bosses with your PP bars almost depleted :happy:
Thanks for the insights on hard mode, I think i'll do at least 1 more normal run before attempting hard since i've only done it once and want to try a few other setups.
Good to know that summon spamming isnt automatically the best option or the only viable option =)
regarding star magician adds, this is taken from wiki:
"It is also worth noting that any monster spawned mid-battle (such as the balls Star Magician summons) will retain their original normal-mode stats, and thus will be significantly easier than their Hard Mode counterparts."
are you taking too much damage and need to be more defensive during those turns? I know for normal it was very easy to kill the adds right away, since i dont need to worry about dying nearly as much. I was level~50 and had very good gear at that point.
For hard mode around what level do you predict is needed to beat star magician/dullahan?
and last question, anyone have a link to step by step instructions or a video on how to exactly import a dmp for VBA on gold passwords? Ive googled it quite a bit and the only couple posts i've found say "go look it up" ....dont enjoy doing 6 pages of PW each time lol
Quote from: comingsoon on 13, May, 2021, 10:46:58 AM
and last question, anyone have a link to step by step instructions or a video on how to exactly import a dmp for VBA on gold passwords? Ive googled it quite a bit and the only couple posts i've found say "go look it up" ....dont enjoy doing 6 pages of PW each time lol
First post, FAQ
Hello!
Firstly: I'm absolutely loving this mod. First playthrough of reloaded, and about 15 years since I first played the game. You've done a great thing here. :heart:
But I've got a problem I can't seem to solve...
Quote from: Caledor on 11, May, 2021, 01:11:30 PM
Djinn and RNG are another issue people keep reporting but honestly i never faced anything of the sort.
I'm also encountering issues with RNG methods.
I'm trying to obtain Alecto's Mace, which drops from Nue killed with Mercury, in the Yampi Desert Cave.
I've been trying for quite a while now and have had no luck. I've done both 2-enemy and 3-enemy variants, and have tried different psynergy of the same RN values, and also with every damaging Mercury djinn. Hundreds of slightly varied combinations, checking my RN move by move, but it just won't work. I've gotten other items (Riot Gloves from Minos Knights, in the same cave) just fine.
Could you or someone else here try getting it to drop? I just don't know what to do-- I've tried pretty much everything.
I don't know if it helps, but its being run with the mGBA core on RetroArch, the only emulator core that seems to run this mod with 0 bugs.
Hey there,
having played through this recently myself, I ran into an a few issues and eventually figured it out after reading up a lot on the RNG guides on gamefaqs/wiki.
hopefully 1 of these tips solves it:
-I ended up using serac because from what i can tell does not mess with RN and has a high multiplier
-sometimes if anyone in frontline has cursed items/clerics ring equipped it can mess with RN methods(applies to vanilla as well)
-are you getting the rainbow kill? ensure they make the flash and funny sounds - i actually had issue with this due to not having enough elemental power - female characters had too little attack so I forced physical classes to do the finishing, it might be possible that you might need 1-2 more power even if you get the rainbow kill if you are borderline, not sure there
If you still cant get it to work, post a log of exactly what you are doing and people can look further
Quote from: comingsoon on 13, May, 2021, 08:25:08 PM
-I ended up using serac because from what i can tell does not mess with RN and has a high multiplier
I haven't got Serac yet (going after Valukar/Balrog first), so I'll try this again when I've got him.
Quote from: comingsoon on 13, May, 2021, 08:25:08 PM
-sometimes if anyone in frontline has cursed items/clerics ring equipped it can mess with RN methods(applies to vanilla as well)
Does it have an effect if the character with cursed gear / clerics ring isn't on the field? It's on Garet, off-field.
Quote from: comingsoon on 13, May, 2021, 08:25:08 PM
-are you getting the rainbow kill? ensure they make the flash and funny sounds - i actually had issue with this due to not having enough elemental power - female characters had too little attack so I forced physical classes to do the finishing, it might be possible that you might need 1-2 more power even if you get the rainbow kill if you are borderline, not sure there
Yeah, getting the rainbow every time. I was getting Riot Gloves by killing Minos Knight with Blitz @ 186 Jupiter power, but am killing Nue @ 149 Mercury power with Piers. Is 149 not enough? Mia has 179 Mercury power but a djinn-kill with her is going to be REALLY tricky since her physical damage is so low. Are any of the mercury Djinn base damage? I guess if Piers' mercury power is too low, I could hope for getting lucky with Serac's instant-kill.
You have way more than enough base elemental power, I believe 120-122 is the highest you need (mad demon in anemos). Generally having 105 or more is enough, or simply seeing the flash kill
I had tri-ele classes, physical get kills so they had pitiful ele power lol
Non physical classes were doing ~100 damage which is why i forced physical classes, which were doing 500+
I'd just come back after serac to see if that solves your issue, and reasons I used this isnt for instant kill, its because it doesnt mess with RN and does a lot more direct damage vs others
go for the simplest solutions first rather than go down the speculation rabbit hole
Far as I know, cursed/clerics ring off-field characters have no bearing on RN
Quote from: comingsoon on 13, May, 2021, 10:46:58 AMregarding star magician adds, this is taken from wiki:
"It is also worth noting that any monster spawned mid-battle (such as the balls Star Magician summons) will retain their original normal-mode stats, and thus will be significantly easier than their Hard Mode counterparts."
are you taking too much damage and need to be more defensive during those turns? I know for normal it was very easy to kill the adds right away, since i dont need to worry about dying nearly as much. I was level~50 and had very good gear at that point.
While the balls spawn with their Normal mode stats when summoned, the Reloaded mod has those stats buffed compared to the unmodded game. So they remain somewhat durable.
Quote from: comingsoon on 13, May, 2021, 10:46:58 AMFor hard mode around what level do you predict is needed to beat star magician/dullahan?
I believe Dullahan could be doable around 50. My lvl48-50 group had reached an "equilibrium" where I could maintain tens of rounds without dying despite Djinn Storm, Charon and the like, but that was with focusing heavily on the defensive and barely chopping off Dullahan's HP.
Star Magician on the other hand is harder because you can get up to 5-6 multitarget hostile actions per round against you, which on Hard mode is impossible to survive without Flash. Defeating some Balls can get him with an even worse setup of 2 Guardian Balls + 2 Refresh Balls which practically make the entire group immune to damage. Refresh Balls heal whoever needs to full then Defend, one Guardian Ball casts Guard Aura and the other Defends, which means that even Megiddo deals at best 30 points of damage while Star Magician happily spams Mine Ball, Megacool and Spark Plasma. Failing to kill a Ball in one turn also means that the Refresh Ball will heal it back to full at the beginning of the next, because they are quite fast in the Reloaded mod.
Quote from: comingsoon on 13, May, 2021, 09:21:14 PM
I'd just come back after serac to see if that solves your issue, and reasons I used this isnt for instant kill, its because it doesnt mess with RN and does a lot more direct damage vs others
Serac did the trick! Working like a charm now.
So that means, interestingly, Serac is the ONLY Mercury Djinn you can reliably do RNG methods with. The other Mercury djinn must be producing some other RN value-- they definitely aren't 1 or 2. I'm not sure how this happened, but including this note about Serac in the Drops spoiler will be massively helpful for anyone else running into this issue. This took a couple hours out of my day, but luckily I'm on break until Fall semester, so no biggie.
Glad to see that did the trick,
I only knew of this because I ran into the same exact problems and was really scratching my head, only difference was on a different monster. What's weird is that it never worked despite me trying every RN number from -2 to +2 so I suspect something is making the method pretty much not work at all, but yea since I dont really know this sort of stuff on the technical/memory level, no point getting further into it lol
Interestingly, Serac isn't working for Dark Matter from Wonder Birds..
You wouldn't happen to have a method for that would you? lol
EDIT: Nevermind, got it working.
For Dark Matter from Wonder Bird, my RNG method uses Sheba, Jenna, Mia, Piers (in that turn order) and specifically kills with the mercury djinn Serac. Serac works every time with this method, and I've been at this for too long and am too lazy to test the others. lol
Turn 1: Sheba uses Ward, Jenna uses Aura, Mia uses Wish, Piers defends
Turn 2: Sheba uses Resist, Jenna defends, Mia uses Ice Missile, Piers uses Serac
I am not sure if this is a bug but it is bothering me so I will post it lol
In GS1, when I give a party member 5 set Djinni that is not of their starting element, the classes follow the progression in this doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W9VJcbmV5l6wGSiDO4oM6IV566i7XvVFQs_5WT0ajN8/edit#gid=514056960
However, when I give them a 6th set Djinni of the same element, they suddenly switch to a completely different line.
With Jupiter Djinni:
Isaac 5 Jup - Spellblade from the Psy Champion line
Isaac 6 Jup - Clairvoyant from the Oracle line
Mia with 5 or 6 Jup follows the Arcanist line as expected.
Garet 5 Jup - Planar Knight from the Sun Champion line
Garet 6 Jup - Zealot from the Inquisitor line
Similar findings with Mercury Djinni:
Isaac 5 Mer - Fearless from the Protector line
Isaac 6 Mer - Healer from the Druid line
Ivan with 5 or 6 Mer follows the Arcanist line as expected.
Garet 5 Mer - Righteous from the Radiant line
Garet 6 Mer - Shugenja from the Guru line
And with Venus Djinni:
Ivan 5 Ven - Clairvoyant from the Oracle line
Ivan 6 Ven - Spellblade from the Psy Champion line
Mia 5 Ven - Healer from the Druid line
Mia 6 Ven - Fearless from the Protector line
Garet with 5 or 6 Ven follows the Chaos Lord line as expected.
Is there just something I am not understanding about the class system here? I don't have 6 Mars Djinni to test with yet but I imagine it will be the same. One of the things I love about this mod is the viability of different class setups and mixing Djinni together but these dramatic class switches when just adding one more of the same type are throwing me off.
That is the game's default behaviour. It has always been like that, at 6 and 8 djinn, with a specific djinn combination, warrior class lines "leak" on mages and vice-versa. Btw if you want to prevent this from happening, just give that character 1 djinn of their element before the 6th and 8th off-element djinn.
For reference: https://goldensunwiki.net/wiki/Pilgrim_(Mercury)_class_series, look under Mars Adept.
A side effect of the full class separation implemented in TLA (so that Jenna and piers could have unique class lines separated from garet and mia respectively) is that this leaking no longer happens.
I see, thank you for the explanation! I will do that since the swapped class usually goes against my plans.
v1.79 is up
1 major bugfix (Res buffs were in steps of 20 instead of intended 15) and minor adjustments.
Also unlimited ability icons gets back Mist on the ninja line (for starters)
EDIT: actually TLA is messed up, i'll have to check again.
EDIT2: In the meantime, the attached file, applied ON TOP of v1.78c fixes the Res buff bug
EDIT3: TLA Patch is up!
Hello, there.
I've been having a great time playing this mod, but I seem to ave run into an issue.
The new djinn setups for item classes does not seem to work properly for the Pierrot class. The attached images show the djinn requirements for the 2nd tier of the Pierrot Class being fullfilled for everyone except Felix, be they all stay at Pierrot. I've tested for the other 2 item classes, and those work fine.
Thanks in advance. :repair:
Hi and Welcome, Usami!
My bad, I forgot to update the info about the Djinn progression for Pierrot, which changed with the last release.
Now it's Water - Earth - Fire - Wind. That's why it's working for Felix alone, cause he's innately granting the needed 3 Venus levels.
Thanks for reporting!
Ah, I see.
I tried just now, and it's working properly.
Thanks, and have a good day. :JupiterDjinni:
Yo, I'm very new to this forum and only made an account to ask this question.
Im boutta have the final showdown with Dullahan, and I've been treasure hunting. I've been told the feathered robe is the best robe on Ivan, I went to the shaman village cave but there were no wild gryphons in sight :'(.
I'm asking you, grand creator of this wonderful patch, where are the wild gryphons hiding at?
(P.S what level would you recommend to fight Dullahan at?)
(Also I noticed Valukar was renamed to Balrog, why was that?)
Oops posted twice :sad:
Hi and welcome Chunkyson, let's see...
Wild Gryphons have been moved to Jupiter Lighthouse but they also don't drop feathered robe anymore, so hunting them is useless. You should go for Wise Gryphons in Magma Rock, which drop the Aeolian Cassock, basically an upgrade to the Feathered Robe.
Level for Dullahan I'd say 45+, with 40 being the bare minimum for all psynergies. 42 if using necromancer (Call dullahan).
Balrog is just Valukar's original Japanese name
EDIT: After a more through check, I have confirmed that Feathered Robe is unobtainable in TLA, so I've added it to the "must be brought from GS1" list in the opening post.
Mkay, thank you very much for the info, I cant wait to face doom dragon. :happy:
Hi, I'm having trouble getting the RNG method to work in TBS. I was trying to grab a Prophet's Hat off Cerberus, but I can't get it to drop even on RN 31.
I used save states to found out that if I reset in the room after Squall, then leave and re-enter 4 times, two Cerberi will appear. However, I tried multiple times to use 6 multi-target psynergies (without killing any) or 4 multi-target psynergies + a Wish, then finishing off one of them with a mercury djinni (which should lead to it dying on RN31), and while it would flash and die, no hat would drop for me. Just for sanity check I used a rom editor to check that Cerberus would drop the hat at all, and the editor says indeed it does (1/64 chance).
EDIT: I found this topic https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/45031874 and used cheat engine to check the memory for RN. Apparently something used up one extra RN than normal because I realized that I was getting RN31 on the flash, not on the kill, so I went back and used 1 less RN than normal and the hat dropped. I have no earthly idea what used up that extra RN though.
EDIT 2: After several successful RN methods, I started failing again on trying to get a Spike Armor from Chimaera Mage, so I opened up cheat engine to keep track of RN again. Turns out Sleet is using up one more RN for no apparent reason.
DOUBLE POST: Ivan not having access to growth at all means I can't cheat as much in Colloso as vanilla :(
Hi RegalStar,
about the drop, do you still have the save so I can do some testing? Most likely culprit is the djinn if it's off by one btw, in case you wanna try again.
The topic of Ivan lacking growth pops up from time to time. There's no way around it with classes cause Growth is the second worst spell in its element IIRC, so a spellcaster class won't have it.
I considered adding an item that teaches Growth but it's so minor i'm not sure it's worth it.
Quote from: Caledor on 28, June, 2021, 06:38:41 PM
Hi RegalStar,
about the drop, do you still have the save so I can do some testing? Most likely culprit is the djinn if it's off by one btw, in case you wanna try again.
The topic of Ivan lacking growth pops up from time to time. There's no way around it with classes cause Growth is the second worst spell in its element IIRC, so a spellcaster class won't have it.
I considered adding an item that teaches Growth but it's so minor i'm not sure it's worth it.
Here's a save: http://puu.sh/HStf9/c07622efc2.sav though this one is for a different djinni that also exhibits the same problem (Gust). First encounter in the room is Grand Golem + Wild Griffin. With all psynergies centering on Grand Golem, turn 1 use Plasma/Fireball/Thunderclap/Prism (16 RNs); turn 2 use Plasma/Defend/Gust/Prism (8 RNs). Grand Golem dies but no Zodiac Wand at the battle's end. On the other hand, Turn 1 use Shine Plasma/Wish/Thunderclap/Punishment (18 RNs); turn 2 Plasma/Defend/Gust/Impact (on Garet) (5 RNs) will result in Zodiac Wand dropping. Switching Gust to Squall will result in the first method working (but the second not working).
It's 100% the djinn. Sounds like Gust is adding 3 RN instead of 2, while Gust and Smog work as intended. Just like Sleet before
It's been some time since I last spammed :happy: I just started Mars Lighthouse, but I'd like to provide some feedback. I think some have been discussed and already addressed, but my memory is hazy.
Djinn:
- When Psynergy-sealed, many djinn simply Defend, they do not use their normal Attack. But it's not a "proper" Defend that reduces the damage they receive.
- The Mars Djinni in Magma Rock (was it Fury?), even though not affected by any debuffs/status effects, started Defending a lot after around 8-10 rounds. Is it possible it ran out of PP due to its Psynergy costing more than what it recovers at the end of each round? I'll check if the 4 remaining end-game djinn also behave similarly.
Items with uses:
So far I have found 4 items with restorative effects: Nurse Cap, Faery Vest, Spirit Ring and Unicorn Ring.
- Both Nurse Cap and Faery Vest can be used out of combat, but only from characters that can equip them. This is identical to how these items behave in the unmodded game too.
- The Spirit Ring cannot be used out of combat. This is unlike the unmodded game where it can be used normally.
- The Unicorn Ring also cannot be used out of combat, again unlike the unmodded game. I suppose this is because its effect is party wide in the mod, and it does not have an accompanying Psynergy effect that can be used out of combat.
- Is the chance to break for an on-use item tied to the character's Luck stat? I have not actively tested it, but I think that my 30+ Luck character got over 20 uses of the items, while my Luck 8 character usually has it break after 1 or 2 uses only.
Other notes:
- Moapa also wastes a lot of actions Defending after using his Mist Potion. It doesn't seem to reduce the damage he takes either.
- Agatio is significantly more dangerous than Karst when fought atop Jupiter Lighthouse. If the player defeats Agatio first, they have a noticeably easier time than if they defeat Karst first. I was thinking if maybe Agatio's damage should be lowered a bit and either increasing Karst's damage or giving her 2 actions per round to keep the fight balanced.
- The fight against the Colosso Warriors in Shaman Cave feels undertuned. It lasted only 6 rounds (on Hard Mode!) and there was no need to use even a single heal during its entirety. It could be a fluke though.
Is there a reason why Slayer is so poor? (It only gives out 21 coins which seems atrocious for a west continent encounter)
Sorry for the late reply guys. I've read immediately as usual but then stuff kept me busy.
- I'll definitively have to investigate the Defend thing as well as the gladiators. Agatio being more dangerous than kars is less important though, i can potentially write it off as "strategy" to focus on him.
- Dunno if luck affects breaking changes, but it would be odd if it's still unknown honestly
- IIRC spirit ring didn't break when used out of battle. That alone forced me to disable its usage on the field.
- Slayer is a typo. I checked my docs, it's supposed to be 211 coins
Quote from: Dark Mits on 30, June, 2021, 07:38:44 AM
- Agatio is significantly more dangerous than Karst when fought atop Jupiter Lighthouse. If the player defeats Agatio first, they have a noticeably easier time than if they defeat Karst first. I was thinking if maybe Agatio's damage should be lowered a bit and either increasing Karst's damage or giving her 2 actions per round to keep the fight balanced.
For what it's worth, I think this is a positive; Agatio is a gigantic warrior and really puts out the damage while Karst supports. If I were to have to buff Karst, I'd look at the hit chance on Death Scythe to punish low-luck characters.
@Caledor: Did Ground pick up a miss chance somewhere? Deadbeard seems to be dodging mine a good % of the time. Does Skip a turn use 140% chance on Ground or 115%? I'm only level 28, so maybe Deadbeard just has the Luck to get past it. Or maybe it's my ROM; Deadbeard is only regenerating a few hp and pp a turn, like 1 and 2.
Released v1.80 for the few minor fixes we discussed recently:
Djinn PP Regen (increased based on turn count)
Slayer's coin amount (21 -> 211)
Moapa's AI.
Turned out the weakest iteration of Moapa (you win all 3 rounds in the trial) always had lower AI than other Moapas (which happen when you lose some rounds in the trial) and than bosses in general.
@Varden. Ground has base 115%, so Deadbeard has just to win the luck check to resist it. I have confirmed Deadbeard's regen, this is an old issue sadly. The editor can't read regen values for GS1, which are handled differently from TLA, so i'm afraid something goes wrong when i save. I'll figure it out and reupload the GS1 patch when fixed.
Yeah, no problem at all. I got past him with Luff, Protect, and Atk Down regardless.
Released TBS v1.80a which fixes Deadbeard's PS and PP regen (btw he doesn't need PP regen at all), and Djinn PP regen.
EDIT 01/08/2021: Released TLA v1.80a to fix a minor bug with weapon sprites. Caladbolg and Ker's Weight equipped by Garet and Mia respectively, appeared in battle as Axe and Ankh instead of Sword/Staff.
Quote from: Caledor on 18, July, 2021, 06:33:46 PM
Released TBS v1.80a which fixes Deadbeard's PS and PP regen (btw he doesn't need PP regen at all), and Djinn PP regen.
EDIT 01/08/2021: Released TLA v1.80a to fix a minor bug with weapon sprites. Caladbolg and Ker's Weight equipped by Garet and Mia respectively, appeared in battle as Axe and Ankh instead of Sword/Staff.
Hi, could you upload the patch in ups please? It is that it is incompatible in a translation patch in nups, thanks and great job
Quote from: javi3 on 24, August, 2021, 02:52:00 AM
Hi, could you upload the patch in ups please? It is that it is incompatible in a translation patch in nups, thanks and great job
Done
Quote from: Caledor on 24, August, 2021, 05:10:50 AM
Quote from: javi3 on 24, August, 2021, 02:52:00 AM
Hi, could you upload the patch in ups please? It is that it is incompatible in a translation patch in nups, thanks and great job
Done
Thanks, I was referring to the golden sun 2 tla, is that the translation being in ups, it does not let me patch this patch.
I upload the translation patch in case you want to do tests.
Wait i don't get what the problem is. What are you trying to do and what is the result you're expecting?
Quote from: Caledor on 24, August, 2021, 08:44:35 AM
Wait i don't get what the problem is. What are you trying to do and what is the result you're expecting?
I want to put in a rom two patches, a patch with the translation and your balance patch, the patch of the translation is in NUPS format, and your patch in IPS, and are not compatible, my question is whether you could upload your patch in UPS format
Quote from: javi3 on 24, August, 2021, 11:32:18 AM
Quote from: Caledor on 24, August, 2021, 08:44:35 AM
Wait i don't get what the problem is. What are you trying to do and what is the result you're expecting?
I want to put in a rom two patches, a patch with the translation and your balance patch, the patch of the translation is in NUPS format, and your patch in IPS, and are not compatible, my question is whether you could upload your patch in UPS format
Why are they not compatible? where is it failing?
Quote from: Caledor on 24, August, 2021, 11:40:17 AM
Quote from: javi3 on 24, August, 2021, 11:32:18 AM
Quote from: Caledor on 24, August, 2021, 08:44:35 AM
Wait i don't get what the problem is. What are you trying to do and what is the result you're expecting?
I want to put in a rom two patches, a patch with the translation and your balance patch, the patch of the translation is in NUPS format, and your patch in IPS, and are not compatible, my question is whether you could upload your patch in UPS format
Why are they not compatible? where is it failing?
It is not compatible because when starting the screen remains black, in the gs 1 being the two ips if it works perfectly
I don't think the problem lies in the format, but here you go.
BTW, you can make ups patches by yourself. All you need is the vanilla rom, the patched rom (with the usual ips patch) and a program that makes ups patches, like tsukuyomi.
Quote from: Caledor on 24, August, 2021, 12:00:57 PM
I don't think the problem lies in the format, but here you go.
BTW, you can make ups patches by yourself. All you need is the vanilla rom, the patched rom (with the usual ips patch) and a program that makes ups patches, like tsukuyomi.
Thank you very much for your time, I have been a fan of your work for 5 years now.
Quote from: Caledor on 24, August, 2021, 12:00:57 PM
I don't think the problem lies in the format, but here you go.
BTW, you can make ups patches by yourself. All you need is the vanilla rom, the patched rom (with the usual ips patch) and a program that makes ups patches, like tsukuyomi.
Well, it does not work either, applying the separate patches works, but putting them both not, any idea?
Quote from: javi3 on 24, August, 2021, 12:21:12 PM
Thank you very much for your time, I have been a fan of your work for 5 years now.
Thanks, i remember your posts from back then!
QuoteWell, it does not work either, applying the separate patches works, but putting them both not, any idea?
That was expected, honestly. there is no reason ips and ups should be incompatible with each other. The problem is that those are diff patches. To simplify, those patches contain the difference between a source and a target. Like if we think that vanilla rom is "5", and the reloaded patched rom is "8", the ips/ups patch created from them will store "3" so when you apply it to the vanilla rom you get 5+3=8. Your translation patch does the same but you aren't applying it to the vanilla 5 anymore, you're applying to the reloaded 8.
Hence things can go bad, in a range that goes from "a few dialogues are now gibberish" to "it won't boot". For that reason, i would also double check GS1.
Quote from: Caledor on 25, August, 2021, 03:18:14 AM
Quote from: javi3 on 24, August, 2021, 12:21:12 PM
Thank you very much for your time, I have been a fan of your work for 5 years now.
Thanks, i remember your posts from back then!
QuoteWell, it does not work either, applying the separate patches works, but putting them both not, any idea?
That was expected, honestly. there is no reason ips and ups should be incompatible with each other. The problem is that those are diff patches. To simplify, those patches contain the difference between a source and a target. Like if we think that vanilla rom is "5", and the reloaded patched rom is "8", the ips/ups patch created from them will store "3" so when you apply it to the vanilla rom you get 5+3=8. Your translation patch does the same but you aren't applying it to the vanilla 5 anymore, you're applying to the reloaded 8.
Hence things can go bad, in a range that goes from "a few dialogues are now gibberish" to "it won't boot". For that reason, i would also double check GS1.
Gs1 works perfectly with both patches so I am surprised that it does not work on the 2..
Any tips for Deadbeard in GS1? My party is fully geared, have all Djinni, Isaac is Psy Knight, Ivan is Fanatic, Mia is Thaumaturge, Garet is Luminier. Mainly I want to know what debuffs are effective vs him, I know lowering his resistance and agility works but are any seals or stuns possible? It just seems that even full healing every round, casting only the best venus and mars djinni and immediately summoning, and hitting him with my best psynergy, he still will get a turn where he 2 shots someone before I can heal and then I can't keep up anymore with the death spiral. Should I just level more?
Also, small bug report. When I have boosted defense and an enemy uses break on my party, the battle text says my strength returned to normal but it doesn't say anything about my defense. Is that intended?
OMG I finally killed Deadbeard, gold old Flint finished him off! Just an endless cycle of flint, granite, vine, flash, corona, ember for the djinni and summons, and then lots of ragnaroks, eruptions, wishwells, potent cures, and breaks. He is a tough cookie for sure and the double spark plasmas or freeze prisms can one shot Ivan or Mia very easily. Fun fight though, I feel I learned a lot from it in terms of game mechanics and long-term strategies. Tempest Lizard and Toadonpa too, those 3 are the only bosses I died to so far with Fusion Dragon coming up momentarily.
"Strength" is a broad term that includes all the combat stats, not just Atk. It was just the same in Vanilla. :happy:
BTW it also resets Agi and Resistance increases
Hey there! I have a couple of questions on the mechanics of the mods here! :happy:
I finished GS1 and quite enjoyed it for the most part and I'm rolling into GS2 and I'm a ways in and I wanted to run past a couple of things that you mentioned in the details on the first post just to make sure I understand a couple of the changes. I'm kinda wondering if some of the notes there are out of date?
1: With the changes, Orihalcon can no longer be obtained from the Hammit event? Doesn't that mean there's only like 1 or 2 in the game you can find otherwise then?
2: Was there any change to the god-awful forging system itself?
3: You said in the description one goal was that "Debuffs are now useful against bosses" was that idea scrapped? I noticed now that not only are the bosses that were immune before still immune, but bosses that weren't immune to debuffs before ARE now immune as are most regular enemies. It's a shame too because I like some of the ones you added like Ivan's Stun and Felix's Poison. I used Stun up until about Mogall Forest, especially to catch Djinn, but after that pretty much everything was immune to Stun so I stopped using it for the rest of the game (except for the occasional "Stun? :sad: No Stun" just to see if it had changed) since it was just a waste of a turn and I've tried multiple times to use Poison in TLA and it's never succeeded except for once against a basic enemy so I also stopped using it because it was a turn waster. I wasn't completely sure it wasn't just bad luck until the Storm Lizard that carries you to Crossbone Isle. Back in the day, when I was younger, I had a fairly reliable method for farming it that was basically hit it with the stun/sleep Djinn and Bane to poison it, kill it in like 2 or 3 turns, run back in, repeat. This almost always worked, give or take a couple tries, but I did notice now it was completely immune to sleep, stun, and poison as were other major bosses like Saturos and Menardi, and almost all of them are extremely resistant to the stat debuff psynergies too like Impair. :?: I've been seeing it in TLA too as even Fog, which almost always worked is now maybe only deluding enemies maybe 1 in 5 times and I think Blitz has only stunned 2 or 3 enemies since I got it and Char hasn't stunned any. Except you, ohhhh all it takes is a monster looking at you the wrong way and your whole party's poisoned, stunned, and asleep.
4: You also mention enemies using Break less often and thank goodness that didn't turn out to be the case. The only way I beat a couple bosses like Fusion Dragon was the fact they would use Break any time I'd get a single buff so I'd just bait them into wasting one of their attacks every turn Breaking me. So kinda a shame, I really wish I could use buffs against bosses, but also kinda a lifesaver? Was that idea scrapped too? As much as it got me through those fights I'd still like to play with buffs some time.
Anyway that's it for my questions.
As far as my thoughts/experience so far: Running through GS1 again with the mod was very fun. It was a "GS1 Hard Mode" for sure. Unfortunately, it didn't really change the experience much besides the added difficulty. Most of the added classes require 8+Djinn so really there wasn't much of them to be seen in GS1. The slight shuffles to the classes were interesting but unfortunately the added difficulty led to me being stuck with everyone in their base classes for most of the game because every time I experimented with classes I was just too weak to function. In the end, I would have had a way easier time beating Fusion Dragon if I'd kept everyone in their base classes. I forced myself to try to do something different so I used Ivan as my healer as a Savant, Isaac as a Ninja, Garet as a Ronin, and Mia as an Ascetic which was one of my old tried and trued combos from the original version. It honestly decreased the "Available options" since I had two characters that were all but dead to me as their only function was spamming Granite and Flash back and forth every turn, Ivan whose ONLY job was to use Wish since it uses up SO much PP with every use so it was Wish or nothing, and then having Isaac just spamming attacks and summons. That was the only way I was able to beat Deadbeard and Fusion Dragon. Even with that Granite/Flash spam, and Ivan dedicated to Wish, the only thing that got me past FD was putting the buff djinn on Isaac. So he'd use Breeze, FD would immediately waste one attack doing Break, he'd use Forge, Break again, basically throttling FD down to 1 attack per turn and then he'd follow it up with a summon since he was the only one dealing damage.
Also with the changes Revival items/psynergy in boss fights, especially end-game boss fights became useless. For example if Isaac went down during either of the last three battles in GS1. If I tried to rez him he'd be at barely any health and I couldn't heal him until next turn because then it would pause the stream of Granite/Flash barely keeping everyone alive, and whoops Outer Space, Isaac's dead again. If Garet or Mia went down that means no wall and whole party goes down next turn, and if Ivan goes down there's no healing for a turn so death ensues. Basically any time a character went down in one of those fights there was simply no coming back from it, reset. It is SUPER irritating to beat a boss that can haunt you, poison you, and deal 130-150 damage 2x per turn WITH Granite/Flash up without a single KO, especially since unless I got poisoned at max health it was basically guaranteed death. Water of Life is such a rare item, having it only res for 25% health makes no sense to me especially with nothing else giving you a full health revive.
I feel like TLA is going to be a bit better with the added Djinn so I can play with the classes and I ABSOLUTELY love the changes to the base classes so far, but as I return to pick up the Tomegathericon before getting the boat the inability to use debuffs or summon rushing is starting to lend me back to some forced patterns and I'm getting a little worried I'm not going to have much of a chance to really play with classes since Djinn - Djinn - Djiinn - Summon - Djinn - Djiinn - Djinn - Djiinn - Summon is starting to become my every single battle tactic since everything else just burns through PP that has to otherwise be dedicated to healing only (Sorry, Sheba and Jenna you have ONE job now and that is IT.) Am I playing the mod incorrectly, or am I missing something?
Quote from: kgable10 on 01, September, 2021, 10:39:17 PM
OMG I finally killed Deadbeard, gold old Flint finished him off!
Hi kgable10, glad it worked out for you in the end!
Quotethe battle text says my strength returned to normal but it doesn't say anything about my defense. Is that intended?
Quote"Strength" is a broad term that includes all the combat stats, not just Atk. It was just the same in Vanilla. Happy
BTW it also resets Agi and Resistance increases
Correct. Which reminds me, in my Italian version i changed that line to say something like "Buffs removed from X". I had actually forgotten the original line was like this.
QuoteHey there! I have a couple of questions on the mechanics of the mods here.
Hi HyperMushrambo!
QuoteWith the changes, Orihalcon can no longer be obtained from the Hammit event? Doesn't that mean there's only like 1 or 2 in the game you can find otherwise then?
Correct, due to the Golden rule of equipment, Orihalcon can only be obtained after teleport.
QuoteWas there any change to the god-awful forging system itself?
Nope, the mechanics are unchanged.
QuoteDebuffs are now useful against bosses
Debuffs are specifically stat debuffs. Status afflictions like stun and poison still won't work cause they'd make most battles trivial.
QuoteYou also mention enemies using Break less often
This is true. In many cases i moved Break to an enemy ability slot with a lower chance to be picked at any given turn.
QuoteAlso with the changes Revival items/psynergy in boss fights, especially end-game boss fights became useless.
This is all about planning your turns and setups in advance. Know the order enemies are gonna act, plan your characters speed, alter speed with Zephyr/Mud if necessary but the scenario when your fastest character revives and then the enemy acts killing someone unbuffed at half life can and should be avoided. Walls should be a commodity, they are by no means necessary to survive at every turn.
QuoteAm I playing the mod incorrectly, or am I missing something?
Probably just a hard time adapting to the increased difficulty? Dunno if you ever played Hard mode TLA before but this mod is slightly harder than that for reference. Other than that i really dunno why someone would fall back to base classes after the midgame, mainly because i abandon them around 4-5 djinn per characters in GS1, in TLA even earlier since you start getting Mercury Djinn before getting Piers. And even in GS1 there are some early game boss fights where certain class setups are basically ingrained in me by now... like Defender Isaac against Saturos for Cutting Edge (and switch back to Knight afterwards) or double Ruffian/Savage against Hydro Statue, spamming Planet Diver like madmen, while Ivan buffs resistance and Mia heals.
Hey there! Thank you for the quick response! It's a shame that only a couple hacks are still active on this site but I'm glad yours is one.
QuoteCorrect, due to the Golden rule of equipment, Orihalcon can only be obtained after teleport.
Ah man what a shame, there were only ever 2 items that Orihalcon could ever go to and I was hoping to have reason/chance to see any of the other Orihalcon equips.
QuoteNope, the mechanics are unchanged.
Darn. Well I guess Save States will make running in and out of Yallam 90 times to get Excalibur a little faster lol. I really wish there was a mod that made that process less tedious, since it's by far the most annoying thing in the entirety of TLA.
QuoteDebuffs are specifically stat debuffs. Status afflictions like stun and poison still won't work cause they'd make most battles trivial.
So besides a couple early djinn fights what's the point of the afflictions? I'm not going to waste a turn inflicting an ailment on a random monster I could just be killing instead and if they can't affect bosses they're just taking up space in the psynergy screen. Also that makes the affliction djinn all but useless. Perhaps the ones that aren't functional anymore (i.e. anything that's not Luff since it still seems to be 100% of the time) should have their abilities changed since the afflictions don't affect anything that matters? I was excited for being able to use some of those psynergies like Haunt (since you even buffed it), Sleep, Stun, and Poison especially since you added it. Do you intend for status ailments to only be used against the party? Now it kind of feels like the only available strategy is just "hit as hard as you can over and over until it dies".
QuoteThis is true. In many cases i moved Break to an enemy ability slot with a lower chance to be picked at any given turn.
I did not experience that, it was an IMMEDIATE punishment. I buff, they break, I buff, they break. It was as, if not more consistent than vanilla. At least in the Saturos & Menardi and Fusion Dragon fights. As I mentioned above the immediate predictability of Break was the main thing that helped me beat Fusion Dragon.
QuoteProbably just a hard time adapting to the increased difficulty? Dunno if you ever played Hard mode TLA before but this mod is slightly harder than that for reference. Other than that i really dunno why someone would fall back to base classes after the midgame, mainly because i abandon them around 4-5 djinn per characters in GS1, in TLA even earlier since you start getting Mercury Djinn before getting Piers. And even in GS1 there are some early game boss fights where certain class setups are basically ingrained in me by now... like Defender Isaac against Saturos for Cutting Edge (and switch back to Knight afterwards) or double Ruffian/Savage against Hydro Statue, spamming Planet Diver like madmen, while Ivan buffs resistance and Mia heals.
I dunno, I played Hard Mode many times in vanilla TLA but never really felt like I was trapped into the new playable characters being Wish Well, Granite, Flash, and Isaac haha. Some of the earlier fights I could play around with classes, I certainly did with Saturos and Tret, but after that I was locked in for the majority of the time. I think it was around Hydros statue that I was like, "This is fun and all but I NEED to use the base classes, I literally can't win without them." The base classes are reliable and tend to be the only ones that have reliable healing and damage especially since it is usually a solid choice of use djinn and summons or use unique classes but never both. You want unique classes? Your Djinn are dead to you. You want to summon something? Better be in base class the whole fight or suddenly your only healer has nothing but Astral Blast and a dream.
My other concern that just occurred to me because of that is Djinn Storm later on. One of the main reasons to use nothing but base classes in TLA is the later bosses, especially Dullahan, using Djinn Storm. You added all these fun and exciting new changes but will I get to use them during the final battles or am I going to have to switch back to base classes for those like always?
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 02:42:35 AM1: With the changes, Orihalcon can no longer be obtained from the Hammit event? Doesn't that mean there's only like 1 or 2 in the game you can find otherwise then?
Correct. Orichalcum can be found on 2 chests in the mod and then as a rare drop from Sky Dragons in Anemos Sanctum if I remember correctly.
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 02:42:35 AM2: Was there any change to the god-awful forging system itself?
Not mechanically; just some items have shifted around. The trick to save right before you talk to Sunshine and keep resetting until you get the desired item still works (or memory viewing if you're into that).
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 02:42:35 AM3: Question regarding debuffs (snipped to save space)
Bosses are now more vulnerable to debuffs that reduce their Attack, Defense and Agility and for longer than just 1 or 2 rounds. They are still immune to Poison/Venom (because otherwise these would be brokenly overpowering), and depending on the boss in question it is also easier to apply Seal, Stun, Sleep or Delusion. Different bosses have different debuff weaknesses in other words. Keep in mind that the new stat
Ailment increases your chances of applying a debuff. Ailment is mostly found on cursed equipment, but you can find it on other items as well.
Djinn are susceptible to Stun, Seal and Sleep. I can confirm this because this was my go-to way to defeat them on Hard mode where they wreak havoc with their multitarget psynergies. It's just a matter of RNG if you get it to work because the creature does a Luck vs. Ailment check. I cannot say for Poison and Venom because I have not used these at all outside of weapon unleashes.
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 02:42:35 AM4: You also mention enemies using Break less often and thank goodness that didn't turn out to be the case. The only way I beat a couple bosses like Fusion Dragon was the fact they would use Break any time I'd get a single buff so I'd just bait them into wasting one of their attacks every turn Breaking me. So kinda a shame, I really wish I could use buffs against bosses, but also kinda a lifesaver? Was that idea scrapped too? As much as it got me through those fights I'd still like to play with buffs some time.
In my experience bosses would not use Break with only 1 or 2 buffs; instead if everyone in the party was buffed (ie. 4 buffs) then they use it. So you can "fool" the AI by buffing with Guard your 2 most vulnerable characters. This is different than vanilla where I think some enemies/bosses would use Break even if you weren't buffed at all.
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 02:42:35 AMThe slight shuffles to the classes were interesting but unfortunately the added difficulty led to me being stuck with everyone in their base classes for most of the game because every time I experimented with classes I was just too weak to function.
This is different from my experience. Dual element classes generally make your characters more durable; not significantly compared to mono-element but definitely easier to avoid one-shots when your djinn count is low. Of course the downside is that summoning is harder to pull off properly because you may spend more time in weaker classes, but the lack of Djinn Blast / Djinn Storm in The Broken Seal means that you do not face any serious trouble.
Regarding your attempt to use dual-classes without success, I notice that you mention Ivan and Mia as classes with 5 djinn, and Garet as a class with 9 djinn. I will assume that you mean Garet is Samurai and not Ronin (renamed Shogun in the mod). In other words you empowered Isaac and Garet who are already more durable by design, at the expense of survivability on your more fragile characters. I did the exact opposite and instead used the following: Ivan - Wise, Isaac - Black Knight, Garet - Star Knight, Mia - Thaumaturge. You will notice that everyone is more durable compared to their mono-element class except for Garet. This also gave me 2 healers that alternate healing depending on if one of them needs to do some other supportive action.
Also a great tip: Dull and Blunt are amazing against bosses. I have a screenshot at home where Deadbeard hits Ivan for just 2 points of damage. For reference check this post of mine from last year (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2779.msg48690#msg48690). I wonder why I never uploaded it.
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 02:42:35 AMI feel like TLA is going to be a bit better with the added Djinn so I can play with the classes and I ABSOLUTELY love the changes to the base classes so far, but as I return to pick up the Tomegathericon before getting the boat the inability to use debuffs or summon rushing is starting to lend me back to those same patterns and I'm getting a little worried I'm not going to have much of a chance to really play with classes since Djinn - Djinn - Djiinn - Summon - Djinn - Djiinn - Djinn - Djiinn - Summon is starting to become my every battle tactic since everything else just burns through PP that has to otherwise be dedicated to healing only (Sorry, Sheba and Jenna you have ONE job now and that is IT.) Am I playing the mod incorrectly, or am I missing something?
There is no "wrong" way to play, just less optimal. Of course there are always faster and/or easier ways, but the great thing about the mod is that it allows many strategies and classes to work assuming the party is properly arranged. For example you mention that battles drain you a lot of PP through Wish, which can be resolved by switching to classes with higher passive damage mitigation, or by alternating Granite/Flash as you mention, or by spamming Ember and Psynergy Crystals, or by equipping items with PP-regen, or by using defensive buffs on your characters or by applying debuffs on enemies!
-=EDIT=-
As always, I take so damn long to complete a reply that Caledor has already answered everything :happy:
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 04:23:49 AMSo besides a couple early djinn fights what's the point of the afflictions? I'm not going to waste a turn inflicting an ailment on a random monster I could just be killing instead and if they can't affect bosses they're just taking up space in the psynergy screen. Also that makes the affliction djinn all but useless. Perhaps the ones that aren't functional anymore (i.e. anything that's not Luff since it still seems to be 100% of the time) should have their abilities changed since the afflictions don't affect anything that matters? I was excited for being able to use some of those psynergies like Haunt (since you even buffed it), Sleep, Stun, and Poison especially since you added it. Do you intend for status ailments to only be used against the party? Now it kind of feels like the only available strategy is just "hit as hard as you can over and over until it dies".
Think of them as stat- and class-boosting djinn, not unlike a lot of the offensive ones. In fact, with the exception of Granite/Shade/Flash, Ember/Ether/Aroma, Ground/Petra, Salt/Tonic, Kite, Haze and Eddy, I have not unleashed any of the other djinn
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 04:23:49 AMI dunno, I played Hard Mode many times in vanilla TLA but never really felt like I was trapped into the new playable characters being Wish Well, Granite, Flash, and Isaac haha. Some of the earlier fights I could play around with classes, I certainly did with Saturos and Tret, but after that I was locked in for the majority of the time. I think it was around Hydros statue that I was like, "This is fun and all but I NEED to use the base classes, I literally can't win without them." The base classes are reliable and tend to be the only ones that have reliable healing and damage especially since it is usually a solid choice of use djinn and summons or use unique classes but never both. You want unique classes? Your Djinn are dead to you. You want to summon something? Better be in base class the whole fight or suddenly your only healer has nothing but Astral Blast and a dream.
This is true for both the vanilla version and the modded version. If you want to have an easy time with Summoning and Djinn unleashing, mono-element is the go-to way. Duo- and Tri-element classes exchange the burst of Summoning with higher durability, PP-longevity and more diverse toolkit per character (as in possessing psynergy of 2 or 3 elmenets and so having more characters that can deal extra damage to a specific target).
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 04:23:49 AMMy other concern that just occurred to me because of that is Djinn Storm later on. One of the main reasons to use nothing but base classes in TLA is the later bosses, especially Dullahan, using Djinn Storm. You added all these fun and exciting new changes but will I get to use them during the final battles or am I going to have to switch back to base classes for those like always?
I will mention from experience that Doom Dragon
is defeatable on the mod, on Hard mode, at level40, with duo-element classes, without using a single Summon. Key points:
- All 8 characters need to be somewhat equally durable
- The 4 members in the back party should all be able to fulfil a supportive role
- Right after Djinn Blast, switch the character with a character in the back. Once the "main" character has recovered enough djinn, switch them back to the front
- After Djinn Storm, bring the back party to the front 1-by-1 and use Defend on the characters who do not have multitarget healing. Their output will not be worth the incoming damage.
- Your strategy should not be to maximize damage per round to make the battle last fewer turns, but instead to have enough survivability to be back at full HP at the end/start of every round. This means that even your main damage-dealing character should only deal damage if there is no helpful support action they can take.
- If your main healer is about to run out of PP, bring a back-party character in their spot until PP-regen does its thing. With over 40PP/round in end-game gear and Ether/Aroma/Ember, you have virtually infinite PP.
- Do not ignore items. Potions are very powerful 0-PP-cost ST heals. Vials are good alternatives.
I cannot tell about Dullahan as I have yet to defeat him, but it's not Djinn Storm that's the most dangerous move...
QuoteNot mechanically; just some items have shifted around. The trick to save right before you talk to Sunshine and keep resetting until you get the desired item still works (or memory viewing if you're into that).
I hate the forging system so much. It's so time consuming trying to get the one thing you want over and over.
QuoteBosses are now more vulnerable to debuffs that reduce their Attack, Defense and Agility and for longer than just 1 or 2 rounds. They are still immune to Poison/Venom (because otherwise these would be brokenly overpowering), and depending on the boss in question it is also easier to apply Seal, Stun, Sleep or Delusion. Different bosses have different debuff weaknesses in other words. Keep in mind that the new stat Ailment increases your chances of applying a debuff. Ailment is mostly found on cursed equipment, but you can find it on other items as well.
Djinn are susceptible to Stun, Seal and Sleep. I can confirm this because this was my go-to way to defeat them on Hard mode where they wreak havoc with their multitarget psynergies. It's just a matter of RNG if you get it to work because the creature does a Luck vs. Ailment check. I cannot say for Poison and Venom because I have not used these at all outside of weapon unleashes.
I'm just not a fan of useless psynergy. The game has a lot of "bloat" psynergy that's just pointless and I was kinda under the impression that the mod was intended to help open up the options to allow for for more strategy but it seems "Heal" and "hit hard" are the only two options, it's just a matter of which character does which.
QuoteIn my experience bosses would not use Break with only 1 or 2 buffs; instead if everyone in the party was buffed (ie. 4 buffs) then they use it. So you can "fool" the AI by buffing with Guard your 2 most vulnerable characters. This is different than vanilla where I think some enemies/bosses would use Break even if you weren't buffed at all.
Ah I think I understand. To me, buff bloating is like 3 or 4 full party boosts, not ONE full party boost. That's 1 buff not 4 by the way I look at it. So it feels more like I'm being punished for trying to support my party AT ALL.
QuoteThis is different from my experience. Dual element classes generally make your characters more durable; not significantly compared to mono-element but definitely easier to avoid one-shots when your djinn count is low. Of course the downside is that summoning is harder to pull off properly because you may spend more time in weaker classes, but the lack of Djinn Blast / Djinn Storm in The Broken Seal means that you do not face any serious trouble.
Regarding your attempt to use dual-classes without success, I notice that you mention Ivan and Mia as classes with 5 djinn, and Garet as a class with 9 djinn. I will assume that you mean Garet is Samurai and not Ronin (renamed Shogun in the mod). In other words you empowered Isaac and Garet who are already more durable by design, at the expense of survivability on your more fragile characters. I did the exact opposite and instead used the following: Ivan - Wise, Isaac - Black Knight, Garet - Star Knight, Mia - Thaumaturge. You will notice that everyone is more durable compared to their mono-element class except for Garet. This also gave me 2 healers that alternate healing depending on if one of them needs to do some other supportive action.
Also a great tip: Dull and Blunt are amazing against bosses. I have a screenshot at home where Deadbeard hits Ivan for just 2 points of damage. For reference check this post of mine from last year (http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2779.msg48690#msg48690). I wonder why I never uploaded it.
I think I see what you mean, and yes I miss-remembered the names of the lower levels for Samurai my bad. My problem was even with them as beefy as I could get them, they were still the two getting downed the most (with Mia and Ivan being at the ends they were getting hit the most). I tried to use Dull on FD but it didn't work at all. It did help a bit with Deadbeard. I think GS1 is just always going to be more limited class-wise compared to TLA and that's what I was feeling most.
QuoteThere is no "wrong" way to play, just less optimal. Of course there are always faster and/or easier ways, but the great thing about the mod is that it allows many strategies and classes to work assuming the party is properly arranged. For example you mention that battles drain you a lot of PP through Wish, which can be resolved by switching to classes with higher passive damage mitigation, or by alternating Granite/Flash as you mention, or by spamming Ember and Psynergy Crystals, or by equipping items with PP-regen, or by using defensive buffs on your characters or by applying debuffs on enemies!
-=EDIT=-
As always, I take so damn long to complete a reply that Caledor has already answered everything :happy:
Caledor is a beast, they answered while I was actually editing my first post! I never expected a reply so quickly it was kinda awesome. :heart:
I think I'm getting a better picture of the choices from that. I think the area around Kimobo is kinda a weird spot anyway in terms of options. Once I get on the boat I might feel like I have a bit more to work with.
QuoteThink of them as stat- and class-boosting djinn, not unlike a lot of the offensive ones. In fact, with the exception of Granite/Shade/Flash, Ember/Ether/Aroma, Ground/Petra, Salt/Tonic, Kite, Haze and Eddy, I have not unleashed any of the other djinn
Yeah that still really feels like a waste. :Sweat:
QuoteI will mention from experience that Doom Dragon is defeatable on the mod, on Hard mode, at level40, with duo-element classes, without using a single Summon. Key points:
- All 8 characters need to be somewhat equally durable
- The 4 members in the back party should all be able to fulfil a supportive role
- Right after Djinn Blast, switch the character with a character in the back. Once the "main" character has recovered enough djinn, switch them back to the front
- After Djinn Storm, bring the back party to the front 1-by-1 and use Defend on the characters who do not have multitarget healing. Their output will not be worth the incoming damage.
- Your strategy should not be to maximize damage per round to make the battle last fewer turns, but instead to have enough survivability to be back at full HP at the end/start of every round. This means that even your main damage-dealing character should only deal damage if there is no helpful support action they can take.
- If your main healer is about to run out of PP, bring a back-party character in their spot until PP-regen does its thing. With over 40PP/round in end-game gear and Ether/Aroma/Ember, you have virtually infinite PP.
- Do not ignore items. Potions are very powerful 0-PP-cost ST heals. Vials are good alternatives.
I cannot tell about Dullahan as I have yet to defeat him, but it's not Djinn Storm that's the most dangerous move...
Yeah I'm more concerned about Dullahan. My experience with him is he uses Djinn Storm probably once every other turn (Sometimes you get lucky and he does it twice in the same turn or immediately the next turn and uses up his attacks) so you have to do the entire battle without your Djinn. And in doing so, you have no choice but to use the base classes because otherwise you'll just be a mess as you get bounced around between junk class to junk class with no control over it. If that's the case here too then there's no point in trying to strategize with any of the new fun classes like Jenna and Piers' because I don't get to use them anyway. At that point even considering anything that's not the base class is just a liability. That's why with him it's always best to just summon rush him at the beginning of the battle because you ain't touchin' those djinn again for the rest of the fight. Since that's not an option in this mod well... I have worries.
Please note none of my feedback is intended to be unkind. I think Caledor has done some amazing work here, and I don't want to diminish that at all. I just have some concerns from my current perspective and I feel a little disheartened after finding out that the amount of useless djinn and psynergy has increased not decreased.
Separate question/error maybe? I thought from the drops section the Mad Plant was supposed to always drop the Herbed Shirt. "Mad Plant (Lv 25) -> Herbed Shirt 1/1" But I just beat it and it only dropped a game ticket. I tried again, even making sure I took it out with a mars Djinn and it still only dropped the ticket.
Quote from: HyperMushrambo on 07, September, 2021, 07:38:21 PM
Separate question/error maybe? I thought from the drops section the Mad Plant was supposed to always drop the Herbed Shirt. "Mad Plant (Lv 25) -> Herbed Shirt 1/1" But I just beat it and it only dropped a game ticket. I tried again, even making sure I took it out with a mars Djinn and it still only dropped the ticket.
It probably wasn't the LV25 one. looking at game data, you probably fought the lv19 one, which actually drops game ticket. If i had to guess by area levels, i'd say the LV25 is the one in gaia rock, while LV19 is the one in Gabomba Catacombs.
Ohhhh gotcha. I forgot there was more than one of him! You're right it was the one in the catacombs.
I wonder.. is the Laughing Fungus still useless? Or is it destined for something greater in this mod?
The fortune teller says something about forging a weapon from it...
Do Gameshark or Action Replay codes work with this mod? I only ask because I used the Golden Sun Password Generator to transfer from the previous game and didn't realize you needed top have Event 3 UNchecked on the Misc tab. I'd like to be able to add the Golden Ring to my inventory but I'm worried the cheats will conflict with the mod. :Sweat:
Quote from: PathofChaos on 23, September, 2021, 01:10:12 AM
Do Gameshark or Action Replay codes work with this mod? I only ask because I used the Golden Sun Password Generator to transfer from the previous game and didn't realize you needed top have Event 3 UNchecked on the Misc tab. I'd like to be able to add the Golden Ring to my inventory but I'm worried the cheats will conflict with the mod. :Sweat:
Unless i moved items around and it 100% isn't the case for Golden Ring due to how it's acquired it should be safe.
What's always safe is pick an editor, open the rom, add the item as a guaranteed drop from a random enemy close to you, get it, save, switch back to the regular rom and continue as if nothing happened.
(https://i.ibb.co/6nWHYbk/saturos.jpg)
These are the djinn I have. My party is largely level 9, with the exception of Mia who is level 11. Can they defeat Saturos? I've been struggling on him for a while.
You should, another Venus and Jupiter djinn would go a long way though. Especially considering they're a wall and a Res boosting djinn respectively
Quote from: Caledor on 23, September, 2021, 04:12:29 PM
Quote from: PathofChaos on 23, September, 2021, 01:10:12 AM
Do Gameshark or Action Replay codes work with this mod? I only ask because I used the Golden Sun Password Generator to transfer from the previous game and didn't realize you needed top have Event 3 UNchecked on the Misc tab. I'd like to be able to add the Golden Ring to my inventory but I'm worried the cheats will conflict with the mod. :Sweat:
Unless i moved items around and it 100% isn't the case for Golden Ring due to how it's acquired it should be safe.
What's always safe is pick an editor, open the rom, add the item as a guaranteed drop from a random enemy close to you, get it, save, switch back to the regular rom and continue as if nothing happened.
Could you recommend a user-friendly editor for a no-coding experience moron, like me? :-DNvm I found it: http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=132 thank you!
*5 minutes later*
This editor is AWESOME :!: Now I can see, quantitatively, all the hard work you've done and disambiguate some things I wasn't clear on after reading the main forum post. Implementing the changes you suggested was super easy. Even a dolt like me could do it without any second-guessing.
Quote from: Dark Mits on 07, September, 2021, 05:14:26 AM
Bosses are now more vulnerable to debuffs that reduce their Attack, Defense and Agility and for longer than just 1 or 2 rounds. They are still immune to Poison/Venom (because otherwise these would be brokenly overpowering), and depending on the boss in question it is also easier to apply Seal, Stun, Sleep or Delusion. Different bosses have different debuff weaknesses in other words.
Is there a list of which bosses have which ailment weaknesses? Its difficult to tell if a boss is weak to an ailment when I have to cast it 4+ times to get it to stick. I've been using save states to test whether a given boss enemy can be afflicted with specific ailments but its tedious and a list would take the guesswork out of it.
Does anyone know if Haunt can afflict bosses? Its a cool psynergy that, in vanilla GS/TLA, never saw use. I'd love to be able to drop it on Poseidon and laugh as his Counter-Attack round brings the pain.
Lastly, why are certain enemies afflicted with Seal still able to use psynergy? I thought the point of Seal was they couldn't use magic anymore but today I sealed a Chimera Mage and it kept on using fire breath regardless. Same with the Salamander boss in Champa... I was so stoked when I finally got Seal to work! And then... then he immediately bombed my team with Star Mine twice in a row. Seal did stop him from using his healing psynergy but he still had full access to the rest of it. Why? :sad:
It works wonders on Djinn and some randos but certain enemies seem to ignore it despite the fun purple sigil hovering over their head.
Here's an example of what I mean about Seal
Boss weaknesses: there's a row with 4 numbers under the moveset of an enemy those numbers are the ability effect IDs the boss is "weak" to. Issue is I rearranged some effects so your editor in some cases will display the wrong label for a certain effect ID.
Haunt: you get immunity at 40+ luck
Seal: disables any ability with a PP cost > 0. A lot of enemy only abilities cost 0 MP that's why they are still able to use them while sealed. Also i wouldn't consider a breath attack "psynergy" from a lore perspective.
First off, excellent mod. I had a blast playing through the original. Deadbeard actually took a couple of attempts! GSTLA is great too. I'm in the end game, and I'm working on min/maxing all my characters. I've come across a couple of things that I either need help with, or can't quite explain.
I can't get some of the reworked monster drops to work the same way as usual. For example, using the RN method to get an Aeshma to die at RN 31, with the correct Djinn, does not net me Lachesis' Rule. There's a few such drops I can't seem to get using the RN method.
Mad Demon (Lv 40) -> Ker's Weight 1/256
Aeshma (Lv 40) -> Lachesis' Rule 1/256
Pyrodra (Lv 36) -> Triton Ward 1/128
Aka Manah (Lv 35) -> Ninja Sandals 1/128
Hell Chimera (Lv 33) -> Knight's Greaves 1/128
There may be some others, but I haven't tested absolutely all of them. The interesting thing is, I must have hit the 1/128 for the Ninja Sandals incidentally, because I do have one pair of them, but I cannot force more. For the Aka Manah specifically, felling it on RN 31 does not make it flash. I've tried altering the RN at which the Aka Manah dies, similar to what is needed for Wonder Birds (-2 RN from the total prior to monster felling), and then I can make it flash, but again, no drop. Any info as to what is going on behind the scenes here would be very appreciated.
Secondly, I was really excited to see in your title post that there was a TXT file with every possible perfect class combination in GSTLA. I've been looking for such a thing for years! I imported it into Excel, so I could sort the data, and quantify (stats wise) the ideal team compositions. Unfortunately, theres a few combinations that I've come across that don't work, and I've only been through a tiny fraction of that whole enormous list. For instance:
Isaac: Slayer
Garet: Phalanx
Ivan: Sorcerer
Mia: Angel
Felix: Paladin
Jenna: Heretic
Sheba: Fury
Piers: Holy Knight
This is the second set of classes including tri-elementals. Heretic Jenna requires 5 :JupiterStar: and 4 :VenusStar:. Holy Knight Piers also requires 5 :JupiterStar: and 4 :VenusStar:. As a result, the above team comp uses 17 :VenusStar:, 18 :MarsStar:, 19 :JupiterStar:, and 18 :MercuryStar:.
How did you come up with such an exhaustive list? Can it be tweaked to ensure each team comp does not go over or under a total of 18 Djinn for each element? If I had any coding capability, I'd try and write a program to sift through each permutation. I looked into doing it manually initially. If I ignore the 18 Djinn per element cap, given 9 possible Djinn combinations per character that result in valid classes, and 8 characters, thats 43 046 721 combinations. Paring down from those possibilities to only those that meet the 18 Djinn limit was my initial plan, but 43 million combinations is so far beyond what is possible to do by hand.
Anyone here able to write a program that can produce all the valid class combinations? If I had that data set, I'd love to work with it to see what kind of class comps would be the most fun/powerful.
Again, excellent mod.
Welcome Chaeron, and thanks!
About drops: it's something that pops up from time to time: in most cases the issue is due to human error or can be solved by killing with a different Djinn of that element (aka you're off by 1).
Classes.txt has been fixed and reuploaded: the error was in Holy Knight and General being swapped through the whole file. And yes, i wrote a(n extremely dumb) program that prints that txt.
It simply cycles through all the 43m setups and discards those where it didn't use exactly 18 djinn of each element (also i count monoelemental as requiring 9 djinn instead of 8) or it tried to use item classes more than thrice.
Being this simple, it's easy for me to tweak it into forcing certain characters into specific classes in case i am looking for setups that include those.
Heya, have played through the mod a couple years ago and started anew now.
I love a lot of the changes, especially to the classes, however I don't really like how it feels like the game basically makes you grind levels, since I always disliked grinding due to it not really adding enjoyment while needlessly padding game time. I also dislike how lethal random encounters can be early on, having been sent back to the last town a couple times already due to a random caught by surprise outright murdering a party member, and the lethality only adds up when they get a second turn. Admittedly, this is a lot less of a problem when you finally have 4 party members. The Saturos fight frustrated me a lot since it took me three attempts to beat him and watching the cutscene every time was a little bit tilting.
Other than the few frustrating parts, I love the new strategies that come from the new class system, even though the new status psynergies feel terrible in my opinion.
Hey Leon, I believe that the hard part that you encounter is on your way from Bilibin to Imil, and especially the bears, right? If yes, then there is a non-grindy way to tackle this, but it does require a lot of travelling:
- Go to Kollima first as 3-man party. Clear the dungeon up to the boss while gathering all treasure and djinn. Do not fight Tret.
- Now go to Imil. When encountering the bears, defend with Ivan. You should have reached level 10 or 11 by now.
- Pick up Mia, clear Mercury Lighthouse and defeat Saturos.
- Go back and defeat Tret, and now proceed as normally with the game.
Semantically you could argue that I am hiding the grind in the part where I say to clear Kolima and then backtrack, but in a sense I am avoiding the concept of grinding as repeatedly fighting enemies to gain levels.
As you have probably guessed, the mod kind of assumes that the player is aware of the locations of all (or at least most) treasures and djinn. In order to make it easier for me, I gave Ivan a durable class and prioritized defensive equipment on him until mid-late game, even if at the expense of offense on everyone. Besides, battles taking 1 turn longer is better than resetting after every 2-3 battles :VenusDjinni:
-=EDIT=-
I just realized that my reply comes too late. But the idea of clearing everything and not leaving treasure behind is really helping in the long run. The other "bottlenecks" I encountered were the Hydro Statue in Altin and the lizard boss in Lamakan desert.
Of course, you should aim to get to Crossbone Isle before Tolbi and clear up to the 3rd basement. The boss of the 4th basement is hard to defeat so early in the game.
What triple element classes can I unlock specifically in the first Golden Sun game? From what little I experimented with, I could get Shinobi/Samurai/White Knight(I think, was definitely a Defender esque class though) on Isaac and Garet, and Wild Mage/Divine Mage/White Mage on Ivan and Mia. I'm also not sure if any of them are good compared to dual element classes or even some mono element ones. For instance, I don't see how Wild Mage is useful when Isaac and Garet get generally better weapons and better attack stats to go with said weapons. Shinobi is alright, mostly because of Shuriken and powerful aoes, but Samurai was surprisingly underwhelming and White Knight wasn't really much better than Defender. I suppose you can't really make two effective Defenders in this game though given the small pool of Djinn compared to the Lost Age.
Quote from: DevAnj on 25, October, 2021, 11:39:35 PM
What triple element classes can I unlock specifically in the first Golden Sun game? From what little I experimented with, I could get Shinobi/Samurai/White Knight(I think, was definitely a Defender esque class though) on Isaac and Garet, and Wild Mage/Divine Mage/White Mage on Ivan and Mia. I'm also not sure if any of them are good compared to dual element classes or even some mono element ones. For instance, I don't see how Wild Mage is useful when Isaac and Garet get generally better weapons and better attack stats to go with said weapons. Shinobi is alright, mostly because of Shuriken and powerful aoes, but Samurai was surprisingly underwhelming and White Knight wasn't really much better than Defender. I suppose you can't really make two effective Defenders in this game though given the small pool of Djinn compared to the Lost Age.
Basically the same as TLA for the original party but you're locked to earlier tiers, just like every other class line. Wild mage is for mages though, not Isaac and Garet.
"Always keep frequent backups" is something we learn... and I didn't do. Due to my own stupidity, I managed to lose my savefiles. So I go back from square 1... but the downloads do not seem to work. Both:
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=86
http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=87
give me an "404 - Attachment not found" error.
-=EDIT=-
It seems like no download is working at all, not just for Reloaded mod. Looks like moderators needs to fix it.
Added replacement links for the mod in the opening post, right after the FAQs.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Thank you, Caledor!
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year everyone!
Replaced in the first post the Class setup txt with an easy to filter Google Doc, for everyone to figure out which combinations are available among those that involve a subset of classes they like.
I think you have Jenna's Guardian and Valkyrie switched around in the class setup guide. I think.
Quote from: Guff on 13, May, 2022, 09:43:13 PM
I think you have Jenna's Guardian and Valkyrie switched around in the class setup guide. I think.
You're right, I fixed it. Thanks for reporting!
Thanks for your work love this mod! :happy:
hey. first of all thanks for all of the work that's put into the project. it's been a great way to replay the game. I'm sure you've heard that a million times.
unfortunately I'm having a lot of inconsistencies with RNG methods for weapon drops. Specifically, my current trouble is getting the Staff of Anubis. I've tried Waft + blitz and neither worked. And I'm certain my method is correct. Did you remove this drop? Is there a list of removed drops?
I've figured out the problem & working on the solution.
the 1/256 drops don't work according to normal rng methods.
since I'm addicted to this game, I will be trying different methods to get the drops. will report back if I succeed.
Please help, Im trying to play this version, but no matter how I apply the patch, "The Lost Age" patch dialogues and UI texts are running slow, its like they play in slowmotion. Its really unenjoyable to read story like that. Is that intended part of the patch or a bug? It doesnt seem this way for the first game
That sounds strange. Are you sure it doesn't happen in the same rom unpatched? can you record and upload a video of the issue?
How do I know if the patch is applied when I start the game?
Quote from: mclau152 on 02, August, 2023, 12:54:21 PMHow do I know if the patch is applied when I start the game?
TBS: You risk to die in the prologue if you're careless. Also Garet learns Blast first
TLA: Felix is a Rogue and has Growth in his base class.
BOTH: Move is Earth instead of Fire
Hello, I managed to make a translation to Spanish of both games using the modded Italian ROMS as the base.
Everything is translated except the intro scene where it should say "pulsa start" (press start) it says "premi start", and the background image in the lost age says l'era perduta, but pretty much that's all. If someone wants to insert the original images from the spanish rom you're welcome to do it!
Also the articles like "una" in "una avellana" were removed. In the game data should be something like "[1D][01] avellana" where [1D][01] is the article "una". The problem is that in Italian some articles are different and I couldn't managed to change it. There is someone who knows how to do it?
Anyways, here are the translated mods. Remember that you must apply them to the Italian ROMS!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vPz8OOBRPxFjl9Sdr8D01soQCFq0tla9/view?usp=drive_link
Nice! I suggest you make your own thread though since it's a separate project.
As for the articles, can't you ignore the variables and just hardcode them?
Yeah, I think is a good idea to create a new thread for this! When I have time though...
About the articles I already tried that, but then they appear in the inventory that way, and is a bit weird to me to read "una espada corta" there. So I prefer to just get rid of all of them.
Anyways, good job for the mod Caledor!
Hey
First, thanks for all the hard work that went into this mod. I discovered it recently and having a blast so far. Seems really well made.
I do have a question: In Colosso round 1, I tried to figure out any combination of classes, that would allow me to support Isaac in all 3 rounds, and from what I can tell, this just does not seem possible.
Garet is the only one besides Isaac who gets move. Garet is also the only one besides Isaac who gets Growth.
Is this intentional? Am I missing something?
Hello!
Fantastic work! I am currently wanting to try your rework. However I can't tell if I patched it properly within the game. Is there a way to tell, besides the luck stat that grows by leveling?
Edit :
Quote from: Caledor on 02, August, 2023, 06:54:12 PMQuote from: mclau152 on 02, August, 2023, 12:54:21 PMHow do I know if the patch is applied when I start the game?
TBS: You risk to die in the prologue if you're careless. Also Garet learns Blast first
TLA: Felix is a Rogue and has Growth in his base class.
BOTH: Move is Earth instead of Fire
Sorry I looked early in the thread but literally not few messages above where you answered! haha getting wrecked by first mobs I encounter... I guess this settles it.
v1.81 is UPA small update after a long time, following some input I received on r/GoldenSun HERE (https://www.reddit.com/r/GoldenSun/comments/17ggte0/reloaded_mt_healer_class_balance_st_and_mt/).
Without further ado, here's the Changelog:
Quote from: ChangelogTweaked the multipliers of a few classes
Dragon Fume, Scrouge, Call Dullahan, Stone Spire, Inferno, Supernova, Dire Inferno Power +5
Nettle Power +10
Ice Missile Power -5
Learning Levels and PP cost of above psynergies adjusted accordingly
Tweaked the PP cost of some psynergies so range weights slightly more
Vital Boon PP cost to 27, Heal Well 24, Potent Heal 50, Cool Aura 38
Life Shear Base Power to 220, Final Judgement to 230
Death and HP to 1 base chance rate all -5%: 25>20 (condemn), 10>5 (damage + death), 35>30 (hp to 1)
Open World Sea Treasure 500 Coins -> Lucky Medal
It started by comparing Arcanist to Miko so the focus were minor imbalances in single target vs mt spells (I was heavily inclined towards ST ones) and it leaked out to caster dual classes vs tri-classes where the higher PP in the latter is supposed to balance out the lower elemental power.
The last 2 are something i've had ready for a long time but it wasn't worth a release on its own so they found their way now.
Especially the 500 Coins (which replaced Pirate Sabre's rusty sword)... the change was due to the fact that the coins specifically triggered a minor bug when analyzing the same spot twice so i just replaced it with an item.
PS: I also used this chance to improve the documentation, removing the italian parts and whatnot. The equipment documentation is thanks of Chronotakular and it was so much better than the one i originally published, i just asked permission to maintain it and make it "official".
v1.82a is UPBack to back releases again from r/GoldenSun input, this time Here (https://www.reddit.com/r/GoldenSun/comments/17nt9pq/golden_sun_reloaded_class_problems_piers_still/).
Quote from: ChangelogAvalanche Power -5, Magma Storm +5
Reworked psynergy and stats of a few classes, mainly Piers'
Cool psynergy line reintroduced
Tweaks to the psynergy sets of a few enemies
This is mainly a Piers update. I've always felt his classes came out kinda lackluster especially in comparison to Jenna's but honestly i never managed to figure out what to do.
The linked post's author managed to hit the nail on the head in many points so, after a more conservative approach failed and a few other tests, the major changes suggested (Heal to Piers' protector and Sea Lord as a mage-warrior hybrid) were in.
The rest are mainly collateral changes to redistribute psynergies around, like Impact, CP and Restore from Protector to the Sea Lord for healing (Boon-> Heal)
Adding Cool back (finally!) also helped cause i was stuck with way too many Froths distributed around, and that's why Cool is in that power range.
The change to the Samurai and Destroyer psynergies are mainly for flavor, to further emphasize them being the "mars" tri-elemental.
Those to enemies psynergy sets instead, are due to a check on those that had Cool.
Changes to sun champion and chaos lord were to balance out their stat total. I consider the Chaos Lord the strongest dual warrior class but the agility buff is kinda a double edged sword cause you want him to act after the pg carrying Impact.
Details as usual are in the documentation, with colored cells marking changes in v1.81 and 1.82.
EDIT: Stealth update to
v1.82a to fix minor mistakes in a few psynergies descriptions and values.
Muchas gracias, estoy a punto de pasarme el primero y me ha encantado, gracias por actualizarlo
I just downloaded and patched The Lost Age and keep getting NORMATT screens right after the beginning intro while the statue is being moved, This only happens on gpSP emulator on my PS Vita.
It does however work on all other GBA emulators on PSP/Vita.
That being said TBS Reloaded works flawlessly on gpSP so far.
Quote from: Treemaster on 29, December, 2023, 04:09:27 AMI just downloaded and patched The Lost Age and keep getting NORMATT screens right after the beginning intro while the statue is being moved, This only happens on gpSP emulator on my PS Vita.
It does however work on all other GBA emulators on PSP/Vita.
That being said TBS Reloaded works flawlessly on gpSP so far.
Thanks for reporting, sadly I have no way of testing that. I'm afraid it must be some issue with the emulator itself.