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[RELEASE] Golden Sun Reloaded

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

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Dacheat

IIRC the Djinn in Mercury Lighthouse also gets 2 actions but I could be misremembering.

VardenSalad

I think something is up with the 1.78 patch for TLA specifically. I've tried opening a 1.78 patched version with the editor and almost no text loads. No item names, no djinn, names, no spell names, no in-game text.

I can open 1.78 for TBS and everything appears fine, I've tried patching TLA on two separate copies of clean ROMs, and the editor opens TLA 1.76 with no issues. I'm not sure what happened to the 1.78 patch.
Never forget why you started playing.

Caledor

I have absolutely no clue about what happened cause my backup copy was perfect and i tried to download thrice, getting a corrupted patch 2 out of 3 times, that in size resembled the GS1 one (patch for TLA is ~200 kb, patch for TBS ~56 kb).

I reuploaded the same patch anyway and now it seems fine.

Dark Mits

Ah, my bad about the djinni situation then, I am probably not remembering it well.

Reverting to the current TLA playthrough based on v1.77, I beat Briggs and co at the exact same level as the Sand Scorpion (lvl15, Hard mode). Briggs was noticeably easier, both in incoming damage as well as battle duration. Echo Cut from Briggs deals less damage than the scorpion's Twin Shear, and his pirates' Echo Cut even less. Additionally, they all seem to lack a multitarget attack. I suppose the situation about incoming damage is because the Sand Scorpion reduces defense with his sand throwing ability, and the battle duration is lower because there was less need to spend actions healing. I think the gear I bought at Alhafra also played a part.

For some weird reason I am still not good enough to scale Air Rock (the mimic at the base level near the large Whirlwind statue is moping the floor with me), so instead I decided to take a weird detour and recruit Piers (along with many Djinn) before tackling it. Currently lvl16 at Naribwe Inn.

For anyone who is as masochistic as I am and wants to try it the Reloaded mod on Hard mode, the greatest piece of advice I can give is something that I have ignored in virtually all RPGs I've ever played: Use items to recover HP instead of Psynergy, both in and out of combat. I had a severe roadblock at Yampi desert with random encounters because I'd run out of PP within 5-6 fights until I decided to follow the item solution. It makes the game like 30% easier.

raizarachi

Hello everyone, when I try to download the GSTBS ips patch, I got this error message instead: '404 - Attachment Not Found'

Is there something I can do?

Caledor

#745
it's probably related to the issue Varden reported. It's like the TBS patch was moved to TLA and TBS itself remained empty. I've reuploaded both though, so it should be fixed now.

As for me, i've finished my playthrough but i've yet to fight dullahan. Honestly at lv 45 it felt hopeless. I still have 1 strat i can try but it feels really forced to go that way. Long story short, dullahan, unlike the other 3 superbosses might see some changes in the long run. In the meantime, let me know what your experience with him was.

VardenSalad

#746
Quote from: Caledor on 29, June, 2020, 06:04:21 PM
As for me, i've finished my playthrough but i've yet to fight dullahan. Honestly at lv 45 it felt hopeless. I still have 1 strat i can try but it feels really forced to go that way. Long story short, dullahan, unlike the other 3 superbosses might see some changes in the long run. In the meantime, let me know what your experience with him was.

I've never beaten him on your mod because I have no idea how to approach him. I thought I had a plan by maxing Valk Jenna's Ailments and using Plume Edge every turn to make his physical attacks manageable and keeping Res up besides, but any random Djinn Storm instantly ends the fight. It didn't feel like a there was a way to push out damage fast enough now that summons are significantly slower AND weaker but, since I'm finding myself using djinn far more effectively on this run than in my last ones, maybe I just hadn't unlocked the puzzle. It may be a boss that could hit harder with LESS hp and be a torrid dps race, I dunno.

On another note, Taopo before Aqua Rock is definitely the way to go but Aqua Rock right after getting the boat felt appropriate without being overwhelming (for the majority of enemy groups) and Taopo is a bit of a pushover going second. I'd say you could buff Taopo (are Aqua Rock and Gaia Rock enemies equivalent?) and bring all 3 possible "first areas" in line.

I don't know which route you took after getting the boat, so you may have addressed this already. Having Flower might have done a lot for my survivability.

Edit: Never mind; I see you did make a list of locations and levels for the Eastern Sea. Copying here
Taopo = 20-21
Aqua Rock = 22-23
Gaia Rock = 24-25
Ankhol = 26
Tundaria = 27-28
Poseidon = 28
Treasure Isle = 28-29

Man, I'm just realizing that "Ability to complete Ankhol" has nothing to do with "Ability to fix the boat in Alhafra". I always did that section in a specific way to go to Ankhol after visiting Champa with Briggs there, but you can do the ruins before Tundaria since you don't need Burst, just Sand.

Final note: your Woodwalker trios are evil.
Never forget why you started playing.

Dark Mits

#747
Slight update. I realized that there are ways to recover PP for no cost (or little cost), by either running back and forth in an area that allows PP recovery with 0 encounter rate (like many Summon Tablet caves), or by using Avoid / Sacred Feather and running around till it expires then reapplying it. I am kind of "abusing" the latter trick to recover PP in long dungeons. Yes, I know that the recovery rate is low, but with emulators having a speedup option it's kind of trivial.

-=edit=-
If Avoid's cost was too high it could prevent this trick. I estimate that each party members recovers 7-8 PP per Avoid, so at a cost of 28PP-32PP it should "even out" for the front party, 56PP-64PP including the back party.

-=edit 2=-
I am now tackling Air's Rock. Sheba does not have access to Whirlwind if not on her base class or Seer class line. This means I have to keep her djinn on standby. I noticed that Felix can have a Jupiter djinni in order to have Whirlwind available though.
Similarly Felix loses access to Growth when not on his base class.

Caledor

Avoid: I don't want the game to be more annoying to play. The regen trick is fine... most RPGs even have stuff like "Tent" when you're outside that fully replenishes your PP. In GS we have djinn and walking.

Field Psynergy: yeah again that's how it has always been. You lose and gain field psynergy by messing with classes. In GS1 you must change to get Growth and Whirlwind, in TLA it's the opposite.

Maxipotter

Hey, It's been some time since I last wrote here. I've been playing some (v. 1.76) and wanted to comment on the level progression. I got to Lemuria at 30 and now I'm at reunion at 34. I'm not surprised I'm overleveled, you said the progression is based on running from many encounters and I almost never do that, also I tend to go for djinn-kills on any monster which increases exp and gold yield, so it was to be expected. What does bother me a bit is that now Isaac's party is lvl 30 so there's a big difference there, I'm used to this though, it happens every time :Sweat:

Caledor

Quote from: Maxipotter on 05, July, 2020, 02:52:30 AM
Hey, It's been some time since I last wrote here. I've been playing some (v. 1.76) and wanted to comment on the level progression. I got to Lemuria at 30 and now I'm at reunion at 34. I'm not surprised I'm overleveled, you said the progression is based on running from many encounters and I almost never do that, also I tend to go for djinn-kills on any monster which increases exp and gold yield, so it was to be expected. What does bother me a bit is that now Isaac's party is lvl 30 so there's a big difference there, I'm used to this though, it happens every time :Sweat:
sounds very ok if you're going out of your way to fell enemies with djinn all the time. As for the gap between isacc's party and the others, it not that big of an issue. just put them in the front row and the phoenixes in magma rock will soon take care of that.

Dacheat

Feature Suggestion: Replace the Psynergy descriptions with info on the Psynergy (eg. base Power, EPA formula, etc.)

Might be impossible. Not sure what the limitations of the editor are but figured I'd throw it out there.

Dark Mits

Continuing my adventure, I had again Aqua Hydra be the first boss that "forced" me to both grind a couple levels and resort to summon rushing in order to defeat it. It can instantly kill Sheba in one round with Raging Flood + Triple Chomp, especially when her defense has not been increased. It's also the first boss that can deal in one round more damage than what can be recovered unless the player has 2 characters with AoE healing and unlocked rank 2 AoE healing on at least one of them at the same time: 2x Raging Flood in one round is about 900-1000 total party HP damage. It's not that common, but the boss can do that.

During my tries on this boss, I realized that the nature of status effects as a hit-or-miss thing is really frustrating. The idea of Delude and Psynergy Seal blocking a couple of enemy abilities is an awesome design which encourages trying to keep those ailments applied, but their low success rate means that their effect is not immediately obvious in contrast to defensive Psynergy (Resist, Protect). I tried applying both Delude and Bind on Aqua Hydra and only Delude worked and only very few times, like 1 in 8. For many of my failed attempts I was fighting with 3 characters only because the 4th character would "waste" turns by trying to apply debuffs every round with no effect.

I am aware of the changes to the debuff system, so I would like to propose a change in order to make Paralyze / Sleep "workable" on bosses without making them overpowering; let them act as Ground/Petra/Ulysses. Basically have them block only 1 single enemy action. At the same time increase their cost so as to prevent making them spammable for the entire duration of a boss fight. Regarding Poison, Venom and Haunt, they could also work if it was possible to tweak them somewhat like this when applied to bosses:
Venom: Deals 0.5% of enemy hp per action, lasts 2 rounds
Poison: Deals 0.25% of enemy hp per action, lasts 2 rounds
Haunt: 50% chance to deal 0.5% of damage dealt back to user, lasts 4 rounds

For the maximum value of enemy HP (16383 for Valukar and Dullahan), that translates to a maximum HP damage of ~500 per application of Venom (I assume they act 3 times per turn?), and Haunt varying depending on what the enemy does. 500 damage is not a game-breaking damage number in late game but it is a bonus that can make these ailments useful when applies passively through djinn, summons and unleashes.

Caledor

> Replace the Psynergy descriptions with info on the Psynergy

Very likely to be impossible due to the text compression.

> Turn stoppers and passive damage

Main issue with those is that by trying not to make them overpowered you make them redundant. About passive damage... there's already plenty of offense that could replace it. It would be meaningful only if i had some classes with low traditional offensive stats and high defense/ailments so they efficiently fall back to passive damage. Long story short, it's not worth it because i don't even have the stats to make such a character, especially when i had to make my own magic offense and ailment on equipment.

For turn stoppers is just redundancy: It's important that djinn skills are somehow unique, even more for the rarer ones.

VardenSalad

> Replace the Psynergy descriptions with info on the Psynergy

Tough for anything but the simplest information. You could append the base power/multiplier/added damage of the spell or unleash directly into the end of the text string to add some info.

Example:
Flame spell, causes damage with flames. 40
Unleash, weapon unleashes power. 12

where "40" is the Base Power of the spell and "1.2" is the multiplier. This would be completely opaque to a casual player and the text compression won't do "X.Y", so it's all info you already know. For comparing weapons, raw attack does a pretty good job and for spells, PP cost.
Never forget why you started playing.

Dark Mits

Currently in Aqua Rock.

The encounter rate of enemies in Aqua Rock seems to be 1 or 2 enemies for most fights, which kind of "devalues" multitarget psynergies.
-=EDIT=- What a surprise. First battle after I post this message is with 3 enemies  :happy:

A fairly peculiar request/suggestion. In every playthrough inventory becomes restrictive, with the "worst" part being when the player gathers all 3 prongs and/or visits Lemuria for the first time. Due to each member holding max of 15 items with 7-8 of them already reserved for equipment and Psynergy items, and the added strain of quest items like the animal chain, the 3 prongs, Shaman's rod and Mars Star, the player has to decide if they will abandon items like dropped Herbs, Nuts, Smoke/Sleep Bombs and Elixirs. Getting to the point: Would it be possible to classify items like the Game Tickets, Lucky Coins and stat items (Cookies, Hard Nuts, Apple etc) as artifacts which can be rebought from the item vendor if sold?

Another suggestion: Artifact weapons could use an indication of what element they "belong" to, even though for most it is obvious by their color or name. What if their element was added in their description for further clarity? Additionally, what if every artifact weapon increased element power of the element they belong to by 5, as a minor boost?

Caledor

Only thing i can add to what varden said: i wouldn't take for granted even integers.

@Dark: all areas have enemy average set between 2.00 and 2.20. Honestly i can't think of a non-artifact that deserves the upgrade? As for weapons, power boosts belong to specific weapons categories. I can't give it to all weapons, it would completely defeat the point of the weapon categories system


Maxipotter

@Varden: It's a nice idea, but the thing is one can't know for sure if any change to that will result in a bug somewhere without going one by one and playing the whole game, so it's not doable.

@Dark Mits: Managing inventory before reunion is awful, that's true, but there's not much that can be done about it. Your suggestion is actually already a thing, Game Tickets, Lucky Medals and stat items are already considered artifacts and can be sold and re-bought later in the game in the item shop.
Showing the unleash element for every weapon would be awesome, but again there's surely some problem with the compression algorithm that could make bugs pop up anywhere else. On a side note, some weapons have inherent attribute that makes even regular attacks have an element (i.e. Gaia Blade) This can be seen in the status screen for equipment.
Increasing elemental power on every weapon indirectly nerfs staves, maces and mages since it makes warriors better at casting, so it doesn't seem like a good idea, unless you also increased all staves and maces power, but then that would be a nerf to overall difficulty

Dark Mits

#758
...I have completed the Golden Sun games over 10 times each and I was not even aware of the fact that I could already rebuy those items, wow. I should really check something before posting about it -.-

@Caledor: What I meant is, take for example Grievous Mace. It's unleash Terra Strike is of Venus element, and the weapon itself is modified to boost Venus power by +6. Similarly Comet Mace's unleash belongs to the Mercury element, and the weapon itself boosts Mercury power. But Robber's Blade, which unleashes Shred, does not indicate what element it belongs to. We know from experience and from actually seeing the unleash that it belongs to Mars. My suggestion was to indicate that by giving the weapon a Mars power +5 bonus. If the +5 is too large, it could be as low as +1. The suggestion is to indicate the element of the weapon and its unleash.

@Maxipotter: Definitely, I am aware of implications in the balance of the game, even though I am not aware of the magnitude of these implications. My suggestion was mostly with regards to QoL and information laid out to the player. In no case do I want the game to be easier ^^; in fact quite the opposite.

Caledor

About giving in-game info to the player: i might even start to do it but there would be no end. Even if i were to give a +1 ele boost just to indicate the element... what about someone else's that asks for unleash multiplier? And unleash side effects? And standard weapon unleash rate?

Then come psynergy power, EPA multipliers, Djinn power... and i could go on. Point is, there's no way to give every piece of info inside the game, you'll always need the docs for certain pieces of info... so in the end i'd just be breaking all the "rules" this mod is built upon for no good reason.

I don't think i'll ever do any change that affects gameplay for the sake of transparency. Gameplay is gameplay, transparency belongs in the descriptions.