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My personal edit

Started by Sora167, 22, October, 2015, 09:14:03 PM

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Sora167

Hey all! So for the past week or so I have been working on my own edit for GS and TLA. So far I've made all enemies harder, and given most bosses and djinn two turns each (sometimes more. Dullahan moves 4 times, ouch). I've also made base classes more endgame, by giving them a sixth class, and adding to their stat multipliers. Experience has also been bumped up, so you will usually be level 30-34 by the time you face Saturos and Menardi. This is to make the game quicker, and require less grinding, but still keeping it a challenge. I still need to test run with the new classes, and if they are too OP I will simply make enemies harder.

The editor has been a godsend, as I am USELESS at hacking. So thanks Artius!!

I have been using the PP multiplier and other info from Caledors Golden Sun patch, so thanks for that! Also thanks for making your patch(s) in the first place, and allowing me to get a feel for a more challenging GS!! :D And thankyou to Rolina, for your class ideas!

I have also been editing their Psynergy, what levels they learn them, and the power levels of said Psynergy. For example, Garet no long learns the flare series (I cannot describe my hatred for that series), and it has been replaced by his Fire series (With the power levels tweaked, and other psynergy to take the place of the higher level flares). Also, Mia now learns the Prism series, to make her have more multi-target options (And high level psynergy), when she isn't healing.

This is still a massive work in progress, and I'll keep updating this with more info as to what exactly I have been changing! If anyone has any ideas they'd like to input, then please go ahead :D


Rolina

#1
To be fair, it's not so much hacking as it is modding.

Also, why do you dislike flare?  And what'd you replace on Mia?  I'm curious as to the details and rationale behind the decisions.  I mean, I can understand replacing spells you don't like.  Helm Splitter's Doink of Doom, anyone? :P

As for the XP bump... The first GS is a master class in pacing.  It's so well done you never actually have to grind - by the time you reach end-game, you're the target level of 28 or so.  I'm guessing this is due to an increase in difficulty you put into the monsters, then?

@Thankyou:  Let me guess, yer using my old classes from years ago?  My philosophy of game design has drastically changed since then, so those classes are kind of obsolete by my current standards.  Your welcome for helping you with ideas, though.  If you'd like to know anything else, feel free to let me know, I'll try to help however I can.

Sora167

Yeah, kinda realise I should've put this in the editor rather than hacking section. Ah well XD.

And I dislike flare because its repeated on both Jenna and Garet, and then makes a reappearance on both Tyrell and Eoleo. I have always been like come on developers, mix it up a little. There are so many unused Mars Psynergy. Oh and also because Flare Storm becomes obsolete pretty quick, even though its the top tier of that series (Like how I changed the power levels for the Quake series, so they are useful until Mother Gaia).

Mia I got rid of her Break and Restore abilities (Especially as I edited the Fairy Ring, to make it cure Haunt now), although thinking of replacing the Ice/Frost series, as although I've never personally used Restore and Break much, I want to try to make them useful again with enemy buffs.

Yeah, the XP bump is to help with the increased difficulty... which now that I think about, kinda defeats the whole point of enemies being harder. Whoops.

And I'm mainly just using the names that you have given the classes, as trying to come up with my own names was a lotta work.

Thankyou :D If I think of anything I'll let you know ^^

Luna_blade

Oh hello there, I don't think I've seen you here before.

You'll be making a difficulty hack for GS1 and GS2?
We don't have that many difficulty hacks for GS2 IIRC.

More and better classes are always good.
I like the idea of more EXP in GS1. It could turn out pretty well. Then the player is finally able to obtain spells like Grand Gaia in a normal playthrough... :happy:
"Hear the sounds and melodies
Of rilets flowing down
They're the verlasting songs
Whispering all the time
As a warning that behind some rocks
There's a rigid grap even
Oreads fear the tread"

Rolina

Flare is considered a "Basic" spell.  Since Tyrell is a clone of Garet, and Eoleo is just a physical version of Jenna, it makes sense that they'd share the spell since they basically have the same class.  There's three general strengths of spells - Basic, Advanced, and Expert, based on where it'd be in the spell list.  For example:  Quake is Basic, Spire is Advanced, and Gaia is Expert.  Consider instead of nerfing one spell to satisfy your desire for varity (mad props for the reason, by the way - I very much agree) by swaping out Flare for Blast?  I like the idea of giving Blast to Garet, since the Volcano line is kind of explosive as well, you know?

Hmmm... not sure about replacing any of Mia's spells, though.  She's got a solid class.  I could see this for Piers, though - though instead of giving him prism, I'd give him an Advanced line instead, since Cool is an Expert line.

XP bump matching increased difficulty is a good thing - raising enemy stats/levels is what you should be raising XP to meet.  Increase difficulty through stronger abilities and meaner AI, and consider having more added effects onto enemy abilities.

Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas

#5
QuoteYeah, the XP bump is to help with the increased difficulty... which now that I think about, kinda defeats the whole point of enemies being harder. Whoops.
You could consider raising the end-game target level instead, if you're thinking about changing your mind? (Is 28 too low? - 30s or 40s could do, or even ~70s if you want to add a tiny bit more difficulty to level 99, the max level?)

QuoteOh hello there, I don't think I've seen you here before.
This thread almost feels like an Intro thread in one small way.... So... Welcome to Golden Sun Hacking Community!




QuoteYeah, kinda realise I should've put this in the editor rather than hacking section. Ah well XD.
Oh, and forgot to mention that I think this Hacking section is the right section.... especially if you add your hack download.

I mean:
QuoteNo New Posts    Golden Sun Hacking
Show off your hack, or discuss Golden Sun hacking in general.

The Editor forum is for talking about the Editor itself... How to use it, questions about it, and any developmental stuff/etc.
Golden Sun Docs: Broken Seal - The Lost Age - Dark Dawn | Mario Sports Docs: Mario Golf & Mario Tennis | Misc. Docs
Refer to Yoshi's Lighthouse for any M&L hacking needs...

Sometimes I like to compare apples to oranges. (Figuratively) ... They are both fruits, but which one would you eat more? (If taken literally, I'd probably choose apples.)
Maybe it is over-analyzing, but it doesn't mean the information is useless.


The only GS Discord servers with significance are:
Golden Sun Hacking Community
GS Speedrunning
/r/Golden Sun
GS United Nations
Temple of Kraden

Can you believe how small the Golden Sun Community is?

2+2=5 Don't believe me? Those are rounded decimal numbers. Take that, flat earth theorists! :)

Sora167

#6
Hey Luna! I've only recently joined.

Yeah, its more of a mod as Rolina said, due to the fact I'm only using the editor and minor patches made by others. Gonna try and learn how to use Hex however.

Currently the mobs have had their stats multiplied (eg, hp x1.5, atk x1.3 etc), and high end mobs/bosses/djinn have been given more turns (Expect the first few djinn to obliterate you without careful planning) but I am planning to up those multipliers even more (I dread when I run through on hard mode haha).

In regards to the classes, I am also going to add individual dual and tri classes, and maybe make a couple more class changing items etc.

The extra exp has only increased my levels by 2-3 over what they should normally be, which balances out well with the harder difficulty.

New items are being added, and current ones are being tweaked.

In TLA, I am adding 'ultimate moves', which will be learned between level 60 and 70. Most of these are revamps of boss moves, with their power increased. I am taking the idea from the limits/overdrives of FF. They cost A LOT of PP (Usually ranging from 100-300), but their damage will be insane. All of this is subject to change ofc.

Garet learns Agito's Meteor Blow, Mia learns Regeneration (Coatlicue's ability, single target), Jenna learns Rising Dragon, etc etc. For the mage's, the abilities are base damage, and for the warriors they are Attack damage.

Edit: Hi Fox! Thankyou ^^ It's great to be here, seems like a really nice community :D . Yeah, the endgame level is more what I am aiming for. I wanted the GS1 party to be around the same levels as the TLA team when they join up (So high 30's), and I want TLA endgame to be about 70 or so.

Good Idea Rolina! I'll take another look at the abilities I am giving each character and work around that. True Mia is very solid... I may up the damage of Glacier and Ice Missile to compensate at higher levels. (Or maybe just straight up replace Ice... I love abilities that turn the screen XD)

I get the feeling Garet is more about explosions, whereas Jenna is more about using actual fire. So I may give her the Fire series and give Garet the Nova series instead of Fire. Just like how my Felix is plant based, Sheba is Wind based, and Piers is water based (He is a sailor after all, so I gave him Douse, Froth, and made a 'Wave' series for him)

Caledor

So you succedeed in applying the pp multiplier patch?

Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas

#8
QuoteYeah, its more of a mod as Rolina said, due to the fact I'm only using the editor and minor patches made by others. Gonna try and learn how to use Hex however.
Okay. Well, I like to think of Hack and Mod mostly meaning the same thing.... (Depending on context, the meaning may differ from person to person(?); One idea would be that "Mod" (even though it means Modify) is an add-on extension to a project/basically things you make for people to apply to their own projects.... I'd probably think of "Mod" as "Modification" in that case-sole purpose to modify a system's workings rather than being anything more... while hack is actually editing the whole thing/not meant to be applied to other projects... or something... but that's just one example you can take with a grain of salt.) Language is a Work-In-Progress in my opinion (Why not? There's Old English, UK English, and US English.... things can vary quite a bit.), so doesn't matter if you get it right so long as it makes sense.... and who knows, we might even come up with new words that weren't previously English words. :P

@hex: Awesome. I'm here to help if needed. After you have some experience with hex editing... Checking out the Work-In-Progress GS2 documentation might be quite helpful.
Just a quick warning though, most of the documentation is based on documenting code/for learning how code works I recommend GBATEK and VBA's Tools>Disassemble...
(The link from my sig is my GS2 doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nsDI-Bx6p65X25CPGdJOk8K-WVsYjYTBEN-i_bR8bdk/edit# )
Although there are a number of tables, I don't think it takes a lot to describe them. A little bit, though.)
For any editing needs, you can use VBA's Tools>Memory viewer.... The edits are only temporary, but you should be able to save a dump of the entire ROM section (0x08000000-0x087FFFFF for an 8MB file like GS1; 0x08000000-0x08FFFFFF for a 16MB file like GS2), and change extension to .gba.

QuoteEdit: Hi Fox! Thankyou ^^ It's great to be here, seems like a really nice community :D . Yeah, the endgame level is more what I am aiming for. I wanted the GS1 party to be around the same levels as the TLA team when they join up (So high 30's), and I want TLA endgame to be about 70 or so.
You are welcome!  Sounds like a nice plan.
Golden Sun Docs: Broken Seal - The Lost Age - Dark Dawn | Mario Sports Docs: Mario Golf & Mario Tennis | Misc. Docs
Refer to Yoshi's Lighthouse for any M&L hacking needs...

Sometimes I like to compare apples to oranges. (Figuratively) ... They are both fruits, but which one would you eat more? (If taken literally, I'd probably choose apples.)
Maybe it is over-analyzing, but it doesn't mean the information is useless.


The only GS Discord servers with significance are:
Golden Sun Hacking Community
GS Speedrunning
/r/Golden Sun
GS United Nations
Temple of Kraden

Can you believe how small the Golden Sun Community is?

2+2=5 Don't believe me? Those are rounded decimal numbers. Take that, flat earth theorists! :)

Sora167

Thanks a lot Fox! I've been looking into how to use it, can tell this is gonna be hard haha. Can you edit extra text/scenes into the game using it, or another hacking device?? As I want to delve more into Babi's death, as its just like "Oh, this important character from the previous game... yeah, he's dead now. BYE". I was like what... IS THAT IT!?


Aile~♥

A few notes:
— The game can't display more than 2 digits for a spell's PP cost. This means that if an ability costs either 100 or 200 PP, you'll just see 00 in the PP cost.
— The absolute highest you can possibly make an ability's PP cost is 255.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

Keep in mind that Mia doesn't need more power - she's the one person in the games that nobody bothers to give an unleash setup to, because she's that godlike with her healing.  Plus, you're very much underestimating the PP Casting patch.  Neither the Frost nor Ice lines need to be boosted.  Consider instead finding a way to allow for manual use of unleashes - having them bestowed as spells when equipped.  This will allow some cool stuff:

Attack Unleashes ignore PP cost and range - you could make Megiddo cost 999 PP and hit a range of 9, but an attack unleash would only hit one target and would cost nothing.  However, if you use PP to channel it...

Aile~♥

#12
Quote from: Rolina on 24, October, 2015, 02:59:46 PMAttack Unleashes ignore PP cost and range - you could make Megiddo cost 999 PP and hit a range of 9, but an attack unleash would only hit one target and would cost nothing.  However, if you use PP to channel it...

There's a GS2 patch up that lets Unleashes use range, actually. PP cost is still ignored, however.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]

Rolina

I'd normally say to avoid using that given what happened when DD did that, but I'm not sure how it'd fair with the Psynergy patch applied.  Still, it'd put a bunch of unnecessary work on you to duplicate all the abilities for the dual unleash setup I proposed, so without a weapon like Bows where having ranged normal unleashes actually makes a bit of sense, I'd avoid it if nothing else than to take advantage of the absence of said patch.

Caledor

#14
I won't say anything regarding how should you mod the game, cause i'll probably end up repeating myself (my ideas for balancing can be found in my thread after all), but let me tell you that you should have a clear goal in mind when attempting those kind of things. So far you tried to make the game harder and leveling faster, two things in conflict with each other. Also, "if new classes are too OP, i'll just make enemies harder" is a dangerous way of thinking that could trap you in an endless loop (classes OP -> strengthen enemies -> enemies too strong -> strengthen classes -> classes OP). If the issue are classes, you should address classes. If the issue are enemies, nerf enemies, if you're leveling too fast, reduce experience gained.

One last thing: be extremely careful with the things you like the most. Usually, when modding something, there are changes we stubbornly refuse to let go even if those turn out to be unbalanced or poorly done, and we try changing other things around them to make them fit. While there are hardly solutions to this (you either scrap it or become a master at changing other things around it, both unlikely from personal experience), knowledge that this happens should help you in keeping those things to a minimum.

I hope this will help you in making your mod.

Rolina

#15
To add on to Caledor's comment, don't be afraid of nerfs.  Often times it may be better to nerf something than to empower the thing that counters it, especially given that stat caps are a thing.  Consider that instead of making Base classes 6-tier, you may want to balance the rest of the classes by rebalancing them, reducing stats that seem to high while boosting stuff that may be too low.  Consider the "weight" of each of the stats - or how valuable one stat is compared to the others - and how the changes you make affect that weight.  Boosting the power of effects raises the weight of Luck.  Raising enemy speed so that the good guys no longer always go first makes speed more important.  Boosting enemy defense raises the potency of both attack and PP.  Boosting their attack raises the potency of HP and Defense.

What you want to do is make sure that your balancing the stats not only against what enemies should be like, but also according to what the class should be.  Maybe it's powerful, but has crap for luck.  That'd mean any time someone throws down an ailment, this class would be more likely to be pegged by it than others, potentially making it a high risk high reward class.

Also, look into boosting the potency of some effects.  Delusion means nothing to adepts normally, right?  But if you can make it so that all offensive actions make an accuracy check, suddenly Delusion becomes a significant threat.  I mean, if unleashes, djinn, summons and psynergy can all miss, that can completely change the dynamic of balance, and thus how stats should be weighted.  How common ailments and debuffs are thrown around should also be looked at.

Also look into spell availability.  Don't fall under the trap of "bigger is better" or "I'll make this cool thing that's super strong!", because that's all endgame crap that nobody will ever see.  No, early and mid-game stuff is arguably more important, ESPECIALLY for TBS where you normally don't even hit level 30.

So when it comes to balance, there's a lot to take into consideration.

Aile~♥

Quote from: Caledor on 27, October, 2015, 06:51:01 AM
Also, "if new classes are too OP, i'll just make enemies harder" is a dangerous way of thinking that could trap you in an endless loop (classes OP -> strengthen enemies -> enemies too strong -> strengthen classes -> classes OP).
Another issue with that is that you risk having certain classes fall behind in terms of overall power, if you make a few classes that turn out to be OP and then buff the enemies to make up for it.

That said, I'll disagree with what Caledor said on one particular point: power is relative. That said, stat caps exist, as does random damage variation (from +0 to +3 over the actual damage result), so there's a limit in how much you can do with that. And even if the stat caps can be modified within certain limitations, the absolute cap for boss HP is just over 16000 so you're still stuck either way.
[sprite=16, 6, 0]:P[/sprite]

Lloyd: Easy as pie.
Genis: Sweet!
Presea: ...Sweetie pie...
Zelos: Let's not start on this again...

[spoiler=epic mindscrew][/spoiler]