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« on: 22, December, 2016, 08:56:07 PM »
Hi guys n' girls.
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 mods and hacks in order to try to balance out this game. With "balance" i mean addressing all the things that make this 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 available options . 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 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".
Documentation (Unrefined, contains parts in italian, look in comments for english name):
Class doc :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W9VJcbmV5l6wGSiDO4oM6IV566i7XvVFQs_5WT0ajN8 Class Setup doc :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1prjK1L0YpeKuadoy5A2liiAWm_m0yZ3oOc-FE5rGQKU Equipment doc :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x0HGGK5up3MWgbSgeysR8VQ3YzFT8YOy Psynergy doc :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ub3UfJimPP7VcXcsZV45t0X8EMMTIWPM RNG Guide (GameFAQs, for drops) :
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/25734 Tech tips : What to do when experiencing a crash or a freeze
Frequently Asked Questions :
**NEW** Spoiler for FAQ :
TBS = 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 :
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.
If you're just updating to a newer release instead, you can just patch and continue your playthrough as if nothing happened, unless the changelog for the new release says otherwise.
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 . 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):
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.
Spoiler for Classes :
Use 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 .
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
5
4
class and Jupiter/Mercury characters gain the 5
5
4
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 ). The order for each class is:
Acrobat: Water - Earth - Fire - Wind
Dragontamer: Earth - Wind - Water - Fire
Necromancer: Wind - Fire - Earth - Water
Spoiler for Reasoning :
Jenna 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.
Characters : Characters' base stats and starting levels rearranged. Piers levels up faster. Stats gained at level up are fixed and unaffected by RNG.
Spoiler for Characters :
Characters' 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).
Items & Equipment : Weapon categories system, new items added, tweaked MANY others. Some treasures have been rearranged in TLA. New attribute "Ailments" found on equipment.
Spoiler for Items :
Almost 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.
Unleashes : All attack based unleashes use multipliers. Unleashing mages are now a viable option.
Spoiler for Unleashes :
The 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.
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.
Spoiler for Psynergy, Healing & Reviving :
New 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] Buffs, Debuffs & Ailments : Debuffs are now useful against bosses. ST Buffs/Debuffs have lower duration. Defense buff/debuff are stronger, Resistance ones are weaker.
Spoiler for Buffs, Debuffs & Ailments :
Haunt 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 Spoiler for Debuff Rates :
Debuff Base Activ. Chance Base Recovery Chance Spoiler for Reasoning :
Buffs 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.
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.
Spoiler for Djinn & Summons :
Summons' 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.
Enemies : Stronger in general. New enemies and new enemy abilities added. Full overhaul in TLA, with more enemies per battle on average.
Spoiler for Enemies :
Every 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.
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 .
Spoiler for Drops :
Sea Dragon (Lv 24) -> Tear Stone 1/64 *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.
Treasures & Shops : Items swapped for various reasons and notable shop changes (TLA Only)
Download Links :
Patch for
Golden Sun: The Broken Seal :
HERE Patch for
Golden Sun: The Lost Age :
HERE Temporary replacement while the forum downloads are broken :
HERE Patches in
Italian :
HERE
« Last Edit: 26, March, 2022, 06:03:41 PM by Caledor »
