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[RELEASE] Golden Sun Reloaded

Started by Caledor, 22, December, 2016, 03:56:07 PM

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Average Wind Seer

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.

Caledor

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

Average Wind Seer

#482
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

Caledor

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

Average Wind Seer

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.

VardenSalad

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.
Never forget why you started playing.

Average Wind Seer

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.

VardenSalad

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
Never forget why you started playing.

Average Wind Seer

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.

Caledor

#489
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

Average Wind Seer

#490
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...)

Average Wind Seer

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?

Caledor

I reuploaded the patch for TLA, try downloading again. BTW i use LunarIPS to create the patches.

Average Wind Seer

#493
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:

Average Wind Seer

#494
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?

Caledor

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)

Average Wind Seer

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.

Caledor

#497
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.

Average Wind Seer

#498
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

Caledor

... are you sure you patched a clean rom?