[RELEASE] Golden Sun: The Balance Age

[Caledor]

Thank you very much for the kind words. Also, glad i asked know, who knows what you would have written if you already tried beating dullahan haha :P

I never felt that any part of this patch has been so difficult that I needed 8 people (especially since summon rushing is out) and I like it that way. Being tactical has paid off and if that was the goal, it was a success.

That's exactly what i wanted. If the eight people party were just "another team" that adds to your survival, enemies after Jupiter lighthouse would have been MUCH more dangerous. Also, this just gave me an idea... what if i tweaked the game to give you a game over despite having living party members in the backrow, when the front four die?

Can't tell if Triton's Ward has a place on anyone, especially since Cursed gear is so good and Piers has all the TLA gear (sans Darksword).

Both my pure mage mia and sea lord piers use triton ward (Cursed gear is on shogun garet, cause his luck is already screwed up by being a shogun), so i'd say yes. IMHO e.power boosting equipments will always be very good.

Too bad that fixes aside, I can't develop the patch further cause i lack the tools to do so. I'd like A LOT to tinker with statuses like delusion, haunt or curse, but i don't know where the data for them is stored. Or to make a few new items (especially a cursed robe. i already have look, name and bonuses in my mind), if only an "icon compression tool" existed...

As a side note, what about your playthrough instead, Role?

[VardenSalad]

I've got Valukar to take care of before Dullahan. I really don't know how this guy got changed, since his shtick is so unique (summoning my djinn).

There's no need to tweak game overs IMO. Pretty much only enthusiasts play Golden Sun at this point, and we all know that letting an entire party fall at one time is basically a fail state (assuming it wasn't planned for, like old summon rushing strats).

As for stuff like statuses, that's something that feels like it would need so much work it almost wouldn't be worth it. For the most part, Golden Sun isn't balanced at all around status conditions. Something like a Death Curse makes you react immediately, but anything like long-term or persistent effects are something I haven't thought about enough to provide input on. They really just aren't a part of the game as it currently is.

Actually, I've wanted to ask something. Have you considered moving Frost off Pier's permanent psynergy into one of his alternate classes? I ask because he lost the rest of the Frost tree in his base class and I don't know if the Glacier tree shows up in any other class.

EDIT: Alright, actually, @#$% Valukar/Balrog too. The number of times he decided to Stun Jip someone 3 times in a row, despite doing everything I could to try and make sure his attack was lowered and my defense boosted, was ridiculous. I'm happy that he plays so close to the original boss, because I thought he was really unique. Interesting to see how much adding one turn does for a boss.

[Caledor]

As for stuff like statuses, that's something that feels like it would need so much work it almost wouldn't be worth it. For the most part, Golden Sun isn't balanced at all around status conditions. Something like a Death Curse makes you react immediately, but anything like long-term or persistent effects are something I haven't thought about enough to provide input on. They really just aren't a part of the game as it currently is.

I don't think so. Even just making haunt and delusion trigger more often would be a huge step forward. As they are now, they are usually ignored cause they don't pose a treath.

Actually, I've wanted to ask something. Have you considered moving Frost off Pier's permanent psynergy into one of his alternate classes? I ask because he lost the rest of the Frost tree in his base class and I don't know if the Glacier tree shows up in any other class.

seeing how frost is an utility spell, it needs either to be always available (piers) or to be available to the character's main class (ivan's whirlwind), and the first is always preferable (i'd gladly make ivan's whirlwind permanent like piers' frost if it could be done). While reverting to base class is easy by pressing R+select in the djinn menu, having to switch djinn around in order to advance in the main story would be very frustrating IMO. As for why piers doesn't have that specific spell line in other classes, it's cause the frost line is too weak.

[VardenSalad]

There were a few spots in vanilla where Growth was needed and it was not on anyone's base class. I understand that this was fixed with the alterations to Felix in this patch, but it's not without precedent. While the Frost line itself being weak is probably justified, I don't think any other line of psynergy has been straight up ignored. It could be buffed, altered to have additional effects, or conpletely replace the Haunt, Curse, Condemn line, useless that those are.

I'm probably backing this crappy Psynergy line a little strongly, but I didn't like seeing Frost just sit alone on Piers since now none of his spells are ice-related in the least, nor is his character. And yet, canonically and in cutscenes, he has Frost and has used it. Yet it hangs there, undeveloped.

I dunno. I'm away from the computer with my save games and the TLA editor, but I'll have to look at spell lines for other Mercury classes.

[Caledor]

I don't think it is the only one. In GS you see Flare only in the prologue from Jenna (Garet has Blast), while tla lacks Quake and Bolt for the same reason. Ivan's whirlwind suffers from the same issue. His base class has it but he doesn't learn tornado nor tempest. Even vanilla piers was the same, just douse and frost were switched.

[VardenSalad]

Fair enough. Getting Growth on base Felix was pretty convientent, as I'm sure I've mentioned before.

Also, it's just Salt that removes the Haunt status, right? Or is there another Djinn? I suppose it would be good to try and balance the Haunt status, but it's something you HAVE to spend money on (or die, but same problem early) in order to fix early game. Could present problems with backtracking and forcing people to leave when deep in a dungeon, though I don't think there would be many situations like that, with how relatively cheap healing is.

EDIT: I checked. Both Salt and Tonic remove Haunt.

[Caledor]

Well actually the base class changes was mostly for fluff. I wanted to differentiate characters despite having the same element so i made those "branches". Earth/Plant for Venus, Blast/Flame for Mars, Bolt/Wind for Jupiter and Ice/Water for Mercury. Whirlwind to Ivan and Frost to Piers don't fit but are needed and (thankfully) justified by them using those psynergies in cutscenes.

As for haunt/salt i need to check but this is certainly something i'll have to keep in mind, so thanks.

[VardenSalad]

Hey Cal,

Just a house-cleaning post. I was checking classes with the editor and noticed you have the level for learning Thorn and Cure Poison is flipped. For Venus Swordsmen/Defender/Valiant/Fearless/Paragon, you learn Thorn at 5 and Cure Poison at 4. For Venus Protector, Thorn is learned at level 4 and Cure Poison at level 5. This definitely does not feel like something worth putting out a patch for by itself; throw this in with something worthwhile.

I'm going to keep looking for little stuff like this with the editor as I learn how to better use it myself. If I find anything else, I'll edit this post.

Found issues go here: (None)

[Caledor]

Thanks, fixed. I'll wait for more input before releasing a patch tough, since this one is a pretty much harmless bug.

[Caledor]

Screw the new icons, it has to be done.
v1.25 is coming.

[VardenSalad]

Yeah, I just checked the Glacier line's base power, I had no idea it topped out at 100. Pretty weak, you were right. Flare Storm at 80 is also pretty low, though you do get these extremely early.

[Caledor]

v1.25 released!

The first post has been updated and contains all kinds of info regarding the new version.

[VardenSalad]

Hey, can't tell if it's just my ROM, but on a clean ROM, Stealth Armor has +15 Jupiter Power twice, whereas before it was +15 Venus Power and +15 Jupiter Power.

[Caledor]

It's not your ROM, I messed up. -.-
I'll upload the patch this evening (maybe something else pops up in the meantime).

[Aurorain]

Phew...finally finished my run through of the lost age(and doing the first one before it of course). This was a really good rebalancing, and made a lot of the game much harder than the original.

Just a few notes of my time with the superbosses/final boss: Balrog and Sentinel were extremely difficult the first few times I tried fighting them, though I managed to eventually win after getting to around the 40's. I still nearly died on both, but made it through. Star Magician...I'm not going to lie, he was incredibly easy for me. Just buffed up my resistances, sealed his psynergy, and used barriers now and then(rinse and repeat with Felix walloping him with Armageddons xD), and made sure to take out the refresh balls out as soon as they popped up.

Dullahan was where the -real- challenge of the game came in. That thing was ridiculous to fight, with constant sealing him, one or sometimes two characters attacking(when no one needed buffing)to keep up with how much he kept healing every turn, and Mia/Jenna constantly healing as well. If I screwed up even once, my party was dead. That's a good challenge, really.

Then the Doom Dragon, while not quite up to par with Dullahan in terms of damage dealing, the fact that it can use Djinn Blast/Storm even while using a seal on it, made it quite a struggle, since I had to constantly switch back and forth characters that got blasted. A good final boss from the original made even better though.

Anywho, really enjoyed playing through it, awesome hack Caledor~  

[Caledor]

Thank you for playing this hack till the end and for your feedback aurorain!

Now, regarding your notes: balrog should be beatable in the 35-40 range, so if there was no chance for you to win in that range i'll have to nerf him a bit. SM should follow in the 38-42 range and then sentinel after hitting 40. I consider trying to fight dullahan before 50-55 (for access to most/all psynergies) nothing less than suicide. It still depends on class setup but at the very least 46 for pure wish is mandatory.

About SM. It is troubling if he's too easy, so i'd like you to be more detailed. For example how and how often did you seal his psynergy? What did he do while sealed (yup, i never thought of sealing him, but he should still be able to use call and mine ball, right)?

Sealing dullahan: seriously? doesn't it make djinn storm come faster cause he skips his psynergy while sealed?

EDIT: just got a pretty nasty idea for the star magician~

[VardenSalad]

just got a pretty nasty idea for Star Magician

Please god, no. Although I did use the same strategy that Aurorain did, I didn't bother sealing his psynergy; I just kept everyone's resistance buffed and killed all the non-Thunder Balls. Compared to Sentinel and Balrog, Star Magician was easier. I wouldn't touch Refresh Balls, though. They're already huge "kill me now" targets and have Break to really screw you over. Maybe buffing Star Magician himself somehow to force players to make him call Balls more often?

Also, I didn't level drop where I was when I beat most of the superbosses. I was above 40 and before 46 at least for all of them minus Dullahan, for whom I will be level 54 at least (just for access to every single psynergy.) I'll probably try to beat him in the next couple days, not looking forward to that fight ._.

[Caledor]

refresh balls are fine. what worries me is that the SM might wast too much time in summoning those balls that end up being just divert, where the player kills them all with 3 multi target psy and has a fourth pg on healing duty. I'll try fighting him myself before releasing, with a level 41 party.

EDIT: ok, 3 turn star magician is unbeatable without lowering a lot the balls' hp. back to 2

EDIT2: v1.25a uploaded.

[Rolina]

Yeah, I just checked the Glacier line's base power, I had no idea it topped out at 100. Pretty weak, you were right. Flare Storm at 80 is also pretty low, though you do get these extremely early.

Glacier is a basic spell line.  It's not supposed to be super powerful - it's about on the same tier as quake and growth.

@Caledor:  New icons? 

[Caledor]

@Caledor:  New icons?  

What about them?

EDIT: Ok 2-turn SM is impossible to balance cause he completely lacks the raw firepower (coupled with stat-lowering abilities) that Balrog and Sentinel have... going back to test the 3 turn one...