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I need to check many of these, especially balance questions, but for know i can answer:

Are the empty chests at the beginning of Treasure Isle hard-coded to be empty?

Dunno but the point of those is that it has just been raided by another party (Champa pirates IIRC) so they're staying like that to respect the lore of the game.

Valukar

Never considered that he's limited by the specific summons the player has obtained. I don't think i'd change it but if i were to enable everything i'd definitively include Coatli as well, no reason to handpick some. Also it's very easy to play around Valukar's skill by summoning before he does.

Djinn Stun

I think it should be extremely limited cause it's actually frustrating to play against. Enemies messing with your gear shouldn't be the norm.

Would it be possible to add heal-over-time Psynergy

It's something i considered many times but always decided against. It's either irrelevant or favors turtle strategies too much

Stun & Sleep

Yeah they differ mainly by application and recovery chance, otherwise they're very similar. Your idea of Stun sounds like a powered up version of Delude though, so if i change it it's gonna be different from that.

Tri-element classes seemed to make the run slightly easier compared to duo-element, characters were more durable

Tri element classes have the highest stat totals + the gap is often due to defensive stats so, perfectly normal.

I found some weird bug with item classes [...] Is it related to the change for the item classes where you need 3 element levels of the first 2 elements, then 3 of the 3rd, then 3 of the 4th?

yes. I implemented it by creating new identical class lines with different requirements. I didn't consider it'd be possible to swap between different version of the same class step and now i'm wondering if it can be avoided somehow.

Regarding Manticore, it's not overtuned as a boss. It's mostly that any party setup that doesn't have 4 Djinn set on Mia or Ivan for Wish requires some other way to handle its party damage. The 2nd best solution is to use Breeze and Granite, which would allow for Spritz to be used as party healing in place of Wish. A class with the Resist psynergy would allow for mitigating magic damage without needing to "downclass" by unleashing Breeze, but Resist is learned at a higher level than what the party is expected to be when fighting it.

There has to be a power spike in the Hydro Statue - Manticore area, and that's exactly cause you get Wish. It makes an enormous difference. I can only try to distribute this power increase between the two bosses compared to the ones before which is what i tried to do in the latest update. So as long as Manticore doesn't feel overpowering like Hydro Statue felt before, it's fine for me.

BTW, hydro statue was like that cause i always reflexively used the double brute setup which is the best by far, and i tuned it down cause bosses shouldn't force player into a specific class setup.

- Enemies between Tolbi and Venus Lighthouse seem to be somewhat low on Agility.

I don't think i changed agility of random enemies that much, especially in TBS. Are you sure you didn't get agility boosting boots in tolbi and/or swapped classes around?

- Storm Lizard in Suhalla Desert may also be facing the "I ran out of PP" issue that other bosses experienced in long fights. Around 10-12 rounds or so it stopped using any Psynergy.

That I need to check. I don't like bosses running out of PP

- Ply Well says that it restores 200hp on the tooltip even though it's 220hp for Reloaded. I forgot if you have mentioned if changing the tooltip causes issues.

IIRC the text compression prevents me from writing 220 in TBS

- On the subject of healing [...]

I wouldn't set values for that reason. Those mostly depend on what the element can do on other fields. For example, Water has the best healing and the worst offense. Jupiter has the best offense but lacks team healing so gets second best single target offense. Venus has second worst offense but has good team healing so gets worst st healing.
The power spike in the third tier is to make it endgame viable, where team healing is much more important.

What if Mountain Water restored 30-40pp, and Psy Crystal 100PP?

Mountain Water isn't really supposed to be used mid battle after a certain point in the game but retains its value out of battle so i don't see an issue if it remains low. On the other hand Psy Crystal must be balanced with other PP restoring options due to being an endgame item. This to say that while MW won't probably see an increase in power, Psy Crystal might potentially see a decrease if i wanted to make other PP restoring options more relevant.

- On the subject of PP restore options and how powerful they are in end-game, what if items with PP restore only appeared on mid-game equipment and maybe shirts/rings/boots, and every end-game item only had HP restore and maxHP/maxPP in its place?

the duality of PP restoring and PP increasing equipment is integral to the balance of the game after the changes to base psynergy damage from the PP multiplier, which is the cornerstone of the mod. Coupled with high costing mass healing, it makes dedicated healers prefer PP regeneration (and thus losing in offense) and offensive casters like Fateweaver, Incantatrix, Inquisitor etc prefer max PP increases, while classes that can do both, like Miko and Arcanist, have to choose.

Hopefully before next weekend I will have completed TBS and have started TLA!

Hope you'll enjoy your run, keep me updated! ;)

Hi Dark Mits, sorry for the late reply

- Some Psynergy that can be used in the overworld is not available as "base". This necessitates switching djinn around out of combat often to solve the puzzles.

This has always been the case, even in the base game. It's not a bad idea to add items for every psynergy but at this point it's very low priority for me, not gonna lie.

- Killer Ape in Mogall Forest can kill a character from full hp if it uses Ransack twice on a row on them.

It literally can't do anything else, it's second best move is... Douse. A Dull cripples it. I can't take aways a boss' only strength.

- Manticore in Lamakan Desert is the first boss that makes extensive use of 5-target damage abilities.

Manticore always felt like a joke to me, especially after Hydro Statue. Did i perhaps overtune it while trying to balance them? I'll have to check.

Thanks!

With the forum back up, i'm leaving a note that TBS has been updated around a month ago to tone down a bit Hydros Statue and Manticore up a bit.

Moreover the detailed changelog, the one that was found in the former download section of the forum, is now shipped with the patches

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.

Thanks for reporting, sadly I have no way of testing that. I'm afraid it must be some issue with the emulator itself.

[v1.82a is UP]

v1.82a is UP

Back to back releases again from r/GoldenSun input, this time Here.

Avalanche 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.

[v1.81 is UP]

v1.81 is UP

A small update after a long time, following some input I received on r/GoldenSun HERE.

Without further ado, here's the Changelog:

Tweaked 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".

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?

How 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

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?

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!

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.

Added replacement links for the mod in the opening post, right after the FAQs.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

OMG I finally killed Deadbeard, gold old Flint finished him off!

Hi kgable10, glad it worked out for you in the end!

the battle text says my strength returned to normal but it doesn't say anything about my defense. Is that intended?

"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.

Hey there! I have a couple of questions on the mechanics of the mods here.

Hi HyperMushrambo!

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, due to the Golden rule of equipment, Orihalcon can only be obtained after teleport.

Was there any change to the god-awful forging system itself?

Nope, the mechanics are unchanged.

Debuffs 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.

You 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.

Also 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.

Am 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.