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[RELEASE] Golden Sun Reloaded

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

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sandokhaan

#660
Reaching the endgame now, just the bonus dungeons and Doom Dragon are left.
Standard random encounters are balanced perfectly, almost every enemy is a threat now, can't really say anything about that.
Mimic and Djinn fights were very painful, bot manageable, so that's cool. It gets pretty old to fight 5th or so djinn that just blasts you with 3 Pyroclasms/Spark Plasmas each turn, though.
As for bosses :
Serpent: Probably my favorite fight in the series now. The occasional Potent Cure made it a lot more intense, making the fight a damage race while stile forcing you to play somewhat defensively.

Avimander: I am not sure when you are supposed to fight it, but considering you need to have cleared Tundaria Tower for it and the tower seems to be the hardest dungeon in the Eastern sea, it seems like you should fight Avimander just before Poseidon. In that case, it's a pushover boss that just doesn't have very threating skills. Star Mine especially dealt very low damage. Are you sure it still has the HP% damage?

Poseidon: Absolute memefest. Got absolutely BTFO the first, second and the third time. After that I just used the proven Storm Lizard strategy consisting of healing and charging up djinni for summons. Ulysses summon was an absolute beast this fight. Deals damage comparable to meteor, a lot easier to charge up and uses up otherwise very weak mercury djinni. It also stunned one Poseidon's action about 35-40% of the time. I really want to like this fight a lot more, but there seems to be a bug with his Veil skill. It is supposed to recharge his force field, right? Because if I remember correctly, it did exactly that for about 2 or 3 times, and then just... stopped doing it and became just reskinned Ward. If it really reapplies the invulnerability and I wasn't tripping, then there is a bug that prevents it from working  after a few casts.  If it worked properly, though, then I'd probably have to reevaluate Serpent's #1 position.

Moapa and his homies are still a joke, Karst and Agatio felt somewhat weak, especially considering it is the only fight in the game you don't have to win to continue. That probably doesn't matter, though, because they are only a teaser for the Flame Dragons.

Flame Dragons felt like they really weren't intended to be fought before optional teleport dungeons and at level 34. They have left me a bit traumatized. The sheer unpredictability of 4 enemy actions each turn was bad enough, and random stuns/instakills/djinnfests were just an icing on the cake. I mean I managed to beat them after a while, but they are probably about 30% harder than anything the game threw at you before this point (including Deadbeard and Poseidon). Maybe don't nerf them (considering you can fight them a lot later, missing out only one Djinn), but definitely don't buff them.

My final review and opinions about bonus dungeons, classes and equipment is coming soon.

Caledor

Follow up from my last post, v1.75 has benn released.

Only changes to the psynergy lines of a few classes.

Archon: Bind -> Sleep
Jonin: Impact -> Delude
Protector (Piers): Heal -> Bravery
Sea Lord: Impact -> Sleep
Guru (Mia): Avoid -> Break
Arcanist: Break -> Sleep

First change was removing Heal from Protector, then i noticed that i had way too many Impact/Bravery and Breaks so i took a few of them from the best classes and replaced them with kinda dummy (but rare) spells like Sleep and Delude that disappeared from class lines almost completely.

Making Break and Impact rarer and at the same time moving them to less used classes will increase those classes' worth.

catmebro

Here for my yearly playthrough of GS 1&2. I have nothing to contribute but my love.
:heart:

kiesko

Do I need to transfer data from gs1 for this rom hack??

Chronotakular

Quote from: kiesko on 28, February, 2020, 10:12:46 PM
Do I need to transfer data from gs1 for this rom hack??

No. This is a rom hack of both games. You do not have to transfer anything, but you have the same limitations you would have in vanilla if you don't transfer. IE. Missing Djinn, no Dullahan, etc.

Alexow

At around what level am I supposed to fight Poseidon? I found the last few bosses a bit hard but managed to beat them by using buffs but since this one can clear them I cant manage to do much

Caledor


Alexow

Well that would explain it, Im still level 21 Haha :Sweat:
I suppose Ill give it a try a few more times, last time he was being pretty nice to me

gsalekhine

Hello,

first of all, congratulations for this mod, it looks great and it feels like a lot of work and love went into it.

I have a couple minor questions before I start playing:

- Will I mess anything up if I use the "outdated" editor to change a couple things (a couple of class or item names, maybe a couple of drop rates). I don't have/don't know ho to use visual studio.
- Has anyone checked if the mod is compatible with retroachievements? This one really isn't all that important, it's just that I recently discovered it and I thought I might try it.

That's all, thanks for your time.

Caledor

I used that editor for everything but assembly changes so go for it.
As for retroachievements, no clue. Learned they existed from you.

gsalekhine

Great, thanks for the answer.

Ironically I've never cared for achievements, but something about adding them to older games seemed interesting from some reason. I will try it out and see what happens.

Pie Burritos

I was playing through this game again and I was just sailing from Yallam back to the Western Sea to take care of Magma Rock after a forging trip and I found this little strip of land out in the open ocean, just to the east of Indra. It even had collision! I don't know if this is an error that's unique to Reloaded, but I was playing this hack when it happened. And strangely enough, as soon as I pressed B to fly, the strip of land vanished and everything was back to normal. I figured it was worth reporting but I don't see how this is something that could be properly diagnosed or fixed.

How very bizarre.

Daddy Poi's Oily Gorillas

You found Magic River? (A known bug in the original.) Good job!
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! :)

Pie Burritos

It only took a year for me to forget how great this game is. I'm glad that it only took a year for me to come back to it, though!
I've just finished up with some of the lategame bosses, and I must say, they are many times more fun than I remembered. The Doom Dragon is unlike basically any other required fight in the game due to Djinn Blast, and I felt the need to grind levels for a little so that a drained adept wouldn't get one rounded by the dragon. The first time through, any adepts that got drained and downed were sent to the bench, never to be seen again, but this strategy of course did not work when Djinn Storm came into play, because without a deep bench, there is basically no recovering from Djinn Storm --> Cruel Ruin. Anyways, I got really lucky on my successful fight because I ended up summoning Ulysses on the turns the Doom Dragon would have probably used Djinn Storm, because I never saw a single Djinn Storm during the fight.
Balrog was a lot easier. Despite a pretty half-baked strategy with no real tweaks from my Doom Dragon setup, he went down on the first try. With defense and agility buffs, he never really posed an offensive threat, and so I could take things at my own pace.
Next up are Star Magician and then Sentinel. I think they'll be a lot tougher.
Here's my djinn setup that I used for both fights.
:Felix:  5 :MarsStar:  4 :JupiterStar:   I have a real soft spot for Shoguns, and they're pretty decent to boot. Quick Strike was the main damage against the Doom Dragon.
:Jenna:  5 :VenusStar:  4 :MercuryStar:   Guardian is nice for the wide range of healing, but the real power comes from Vanguard. By spending just one Venus Djinn, I get access to Blessing, which basically just invalidates Impact and Bravery imo. And then you can re-set the Venus Djinn or use a summon and go back to healing as soon as you're done buffing. Delicious.
:Sheba:  5 :MercuryStar:  4 :VenusStar:   She's a Pure Mage. What else is there to say.
:Piers:  5 :MarsStar:  4 :JupiterStar:   I really love Piers (and it has nothing to do with the fact that the first three letters of his name are pie) but I probably should have made him an Archon instead of Destroyer so that I could have Quick Strike. He does lose out on a lot of bulk if I were to make him an Archon though. Oh well.
:Isaac:  5 :JupiterStar:  4 :MarsStar:   If Piers were to be an Archon, Isaac would also be a Shogun and I would have had 3 Quick Strike users against the Doom Dragon. That would have been good. Dunno if Death Leap or Quick Strike is better though.
:Garet:  5 :VenusStar:  4 :MercuryStar:   Warlord is ok for buffs, but Courage is kinda useless when I'm relying on Blessing instead. He could also use a Venus Djinn to get healing, which is good, but it also guts his speed. I think having Jenna be a Guardian and Garet a Warlord is probably better because their natural state will have enough speed to get things done.
:Ivan:  5 :MercuryStar:  4 :MarsStar:   This guy just casted Resist a lot and used useful Djinn with his giant speed. And summoned. And if he had nothing to do (and nobody else wanted to be swapped in from the bench) he could cast Scourge for a chunk of damage.
:Mia:  5 :JupiterStar:  4 :VenusStar: Another Pure Mage. Huh? Why are you looking at me like that? Do you have a problem with two Pure Mages and a Guardian? In all seriousness though, it's probably a good idea to have a lot of healers for the Doom Dragon because you want plenty of backups in the case that they start getting Djinn blasted.

Pie Burritos

#674
Sentinel was trickier than Balrog but not by a whole lot. Eventually I got into a good rhythm where I had two adepts healing, Felix unleashing Armageddon over and over again, and one Adept using psy crystals and defense reducing djinn (Garet).
Star Magician, on the other hand, was an absolute nightmare. There were a lot of situations where I felt like things were decently under control, and then he would just put half my adepts to sleep and silence the other half. My strategy basically just came down to grinding out the fight until that didn't happen to me. The worst is when he summons a bunch of refresh balls, because then you have no choice but to take all of them down in one go, since otherwise they'll just heal each other back to full, and the magician will be recovering a huge amount of health to boot. My successful attempt was lucky enough to not run into any situations where he summoned a ton of refresh balls all at once. At some point during the fight, I resorted to very cheeky flash/granite/shade strats, as well as using speed buffs and lull to get a free round of combat off, but I didn't rely on them for the entire fight.
I tried fighting Dullahan but as soon as Djinn Storm came out I got washed. Admittedly, haven't been keeping a close eye on my equipment or item loadouts, so it might be time to take a step back and get myself some better gear. The next best weapon I have after the Sol Blade and Phaeton Blade (which I only just got) is Mythril Blade, which says something...

Caledor

Dropping by to say i was following your posts from the beginning Pie, but was waiting for the final post about Dullahan.

Still, it's been quite some time so i feel i should reply.

Loved the Guardian into Vanguard trick, that's exactly the kind of gimmick i hoped people would use. One piece of advice though: Single target buffs are stronger than mt but last for less turns. So the point of MT buffs is to reduce the number of times you need to recast, cause they reset the counter at the highest possible value.

Star magician is statusdoom. The one mechanic you forgot for 90% of the game comes back at full force for that one fight. He's there to remind you shouldn't neglect vulnerabilities and the luck stat. ;)

Pie Burritos

That's really true about vulnerabilities and the luck stat, but I figured I couldn't do a whole lot better than Pure Mages when it comes to that. Of course, most of my warriors were hastily inflicted with delusion, but it didn't bother me since I could just use EPAs... unless, of course, they got psynergy sealed, which meant I just needed to swap them out for someone else. There's also luck boosting equipment, which I completely neglected. So there's some stuff I could have done to make things easier, but I'm not sure how much can be done when all 3 pure mages (guardian is a pure mage) is either sealed or asleep (use djinn, I guess). I've just come to accept that luck is very important in that fight, both as a stat and just luck in general.
As for how Dullahan is going... absolutely not well at all. I still have no clue what to do when he uses Djinn Storm other than steadily swap characters and hope he doesn't start wiping everyone with Charon. Maybe I could try having a "wall" djinn in the back pocket at all times? I should also be less anxious about Dullahan's crazy health regeneration and focus more on not dying rather than dealing damage.
It's also completely possible that he has an attack pattern that I can read and adapt to, but I haven't paid much attention to that. I usually reserve that kind of treatment for games that require good reactions (like DMC), while in turn-based games, I prefer to just go willy nilly. But I'm getting desperate, so...

Anyways, thank you for paying attention and responding back, it's really exciting to see you're still following your wonderful creation. I'll be back again once I finally beat Dullahan. Hopefully.

Osuna1492

Hi bro, i see that you make a patch for play it in italian, but will you make a spanish pacth?
Can you tell me how to translate it in to spanish ty
Sorry for my english

Hola, he visto que recientemente has subido un parche en italiano para el juego, pero haras un parche en español?
O podrias decirme como traducirlo mas facilmente o es necesario ir texto por texto?
Me he pasado ambas versiones y se nota bastante el incremento de dificultad y lo adoro, me paso ambos juegos al menos 1 veces al año y aunque ya me se la historia casi de memoria me encantaria leerla en español cuando juegue a tus versiones. Gracias por todo tu trabajo, eres un grande ;)

Caledor

@Pie: I'm always following, good luck with Dullahan ;)

@Osuna1492: I'm Italian so the italian version has always existed (in my own PC at least). I just added the links recently. For translating the english rom to spanish... your best bet is the Golden Sun Translation Toolkit. Just google it, the very first links should give you both the first game and Lost age version.

Dark Mits

#679
Long time lurker, first time poster, so this is my hello message to the community as well. A great thank you to you, Caledor, and everyone involved in the development of the tools and mods for the games.

Here's my feedback, and after that my "armchair developer" view:

- Initial parts for both games are amazingly well balanced. Very tight, they encourage grinding an extra level (or 2) before bosses, but do not require it.
- First points in the game where I felt I had to actively go back and grind to overlevel the bosses were the Hydro Statue in the Broken Seal, and Poseidon in the Lost Age.
- The Broken Seal was awesome difficulty-wise in its entirety. The Lost Age became impossible at the double dragons in Mars Lighthouse. That's where I'm stuck currently with my lvl38 team.
- Later parts of the game require cheesing by interchanging Flash/Shade every round (1 character uses Flash/Shade, 1 character sets Shade/Flash back, 1 character heals or attacks, 1 character attacks)
- Both games start amazingly reminiscent of old-style JRPGs, where you progress in a dungeon and then have to escape before completing it to go back to the city to sleep and restock, then retry the dungeon and reach further deep before retreating, and repeat until you clear it. However as equipment progresses, we reach a point of infinite-PP due to massive PP regeneration options. At that point (basically end-game of Broken Seal and after Jupiter Lighthouse in Lost age), the only difficulty is having enough HP to not be oneshot due to being focused twice in a row.
- The change in the summoning system is a great idea to deter summon-rush, even though summoning still remains the best/fastest way to end a fight.


Below are my ideas as an armchair-developer on what would make the game feel even better:
(A) PP management
- Rank 3 Psynergy should have higher costs relative to their effect. I'll bring the Cure series as example. Cure costs 3PP and restores 70HP base (so 23.3hp/pp). Cure Well has 18.75hp/pp (a 20% nerf in efficiency) which promotes the idea of using the lower rank for longevity, but Potent Cure has 22.72hp/pp. Many other Psynergies exhibit similar design.
- PP regen on equipment switched to other stats. Currently I have +13pp/round on Ivan and +11pp/round on Mia on near-endgame equipment (ie. I am not using an "inferior" item to boost pp regen). This enables a free Destruct Ray per 2 rounds, on top of Ivan's current starting 320PP, and almost 1 free Wish Well per 2 rounds from Mia (Pure Wish too powerful for my team's HP levels) on top of her 340PP. In boss fights it'd take 25 rounds of consecutive casting of these Psynergies before I ran out, and as expected there are rounds where I have to use an item. Not to mention that so far no boss fight has exceeded 10-15 rounds. For reference, the above numbers/stats reflect my lvl36-38 team (single-element classes on everyone), so at higher levels PP will matter even less.
The above changes will encourage the idea of trying to manage your PP and not treat it as an infinite resource in late game.

(B) Reducing the factor of RNG in the outcome of combat
- Enemies after Jupiter Lighthouse, especially bosses, should have more HP and less damage. I'd say a factor of about +50% HP for random encounters and -25% damage would be fine. This will reduce the times that we get OHKO'ed, and combined with the suggestions in part (A) it would increase the need for more efficient PP management instead of always using the higher rank.
- Weapon unleashes should have their damage reduced to that of a normal critical hit. To compensate, the added effect should have 100% chance on non-immune enemies. Sol Blade excluded.
- Instant death effects removed, or at least changed to "HP reduced to 1" or to unavoidable Curse with 2 turns left to die. Instant death is really an unfair mechanic, because even though it technically is similar to sleep/stun/confuse/enthralled/etc. of many games in that the inflicted character loses turns, the latter effects can wear off on their own after a few turns while Death always requires another character to spend a turn to Revive.

(C) Other random changes and reasonings
- Enemies should no longer try to run away from a combat, enemies should call for reinforcements more often. This can add more challenge, and also necessitate the use of 5-target or 7-target Psynergies more often.
- Random encounters, especially after Jupiter Lighthouse, should have more enemies. To the best of my memory, there was only 1 fight with more than 4 concurrent enemies, and that was some oozes which kept summoning friends. Reasoning similar as above.
- Levelling speed doubled, levelup bonuses halved. This would accomplish the effect of reducing the time it takes to level up to higher levels without throwing the balance out of the window. It also helps to reduce burnout because it does not feel like 2 hours to get 1 level. Yes, it also means that a lvl99 team would have the stats of a (now) lvl49 team, which heavily and negatively impacts powerlevelers and possibly end-game too.
- Cursed equipment is rightfully more powerful, but it still does not feel that good compared to other endgame options, because boosting ailments does not help much against bosses and especially random encounters. Maybe each cursed item should autoboost luck to 40 instead to make the character equipping it immune to Sleep and Stun? Is it possible to also change the "cannot act because cursed" effect of cursed items to something else like "loses 25% of their max hp due to curse"?
- Is it possible to re-code the djinn set-standby-recovery system from the current:
Set <-> Standby -> Recovery -> Set          to          Set -> Standby -> Recovery -> Set      (ie. remove the ability to set a standby djinn back)
This would help reduce the effectiveness of Summon Rush tactic since summon rushing would require many random fights to set it up (ie. to have the djinn you want on standby), while also increasing the risk of dying in those random battles due to less djinn being set.
To enhance the above, would it be possible to also disable the ability to set a djinn back from standby during a combat? This would block the above tactic I mentioned of cheesing fights with interchanging Shade and Flash, which in turn would make other defensive Djinn and abilities more appealing.

Those are my feedback and suggestions on a (failed) playthrough as monoelement classes. I am intending to try dual-element for a second run, for both games again. Once again, thank you for the awesome mod to one of the best JRPGs ever.