Insane Difficulty: Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals - Insane Difficulty

So, my save issue kinda sorta got better after advancing the story (completed the Divine Shrine, acquired the submarine). Loading a save makes the church graphics look really screwed up (but fixes itself if I duck into the menu and out) and there's no ship outside if I left it there before saving. However, warping to another town, even the one I just exited, brings it back. Something to note there.

Also...I suspect some enemy stats are screwed up. In the Dankirk North Dungeon, Ramias die in a stiff breeze, Desert Roses do jack squat for damage (like 15-20 damage...and that's with equipment from Dankirk/Auralio at best), and Brone Lizards in the Divine Shrine (or whatever they're called. Giant ass lizards that drop Twist Jewels) do almost nothing with Blizzard.

The king of all screwed up stats (or moves perhaps?) goes to Wingers from the North Dungeon. Being fast, fine. Decent damage with physicals, fine.



Them using their skill Twister though? Ok, nothing special here at first glance.



Holy crap, who spiked their wheaties? I want in on that!

ok, then have a mini update v5 for those enemy stats

Anima Zero, on 13 February 2017 - 10:18 AM, said:

I think I got those.

Anima Zero, on 13 February 2017 - 10:18 AM, said:

no idea what's wrong with them... the numbers look ok; but then I don't even know if I have the right enemy.

Anima Zero, on 13 February 2017 - 10:18 AM, said:

0x1040 instead of 0x0140, happens xD

Turns out those giant ass lizards in the Divine Shrine are actually called Brinz Lizards. They cast Blizzard and it hits for like 15-30 damage to the whole team (Frost hit the whole team for ~50-80, but this was on a lv71 team who completed the Divine Shrine and got the stat boost at the end).

The only other enemy I was partially questioning if they were underperforming a tad damage wise were Asashins (in Dankirk North Dungeon oddly enough, heh). 50-60 damage compared to most other enemies hitting for 120+ or a bit higher seemed off, but I figured the insane agility they have combined with the ever looming threat of Terminal Blow was the real danger.

Praetarius5018, on 13 February 2017 - 10:38 AM, said:

Yeah, just like with Gold Dragons in vanilla. ac0d (3500) became dc0a (2780) which explains their unusual HP value.

One thing I constantly keep forgetting to bring up...in Portravia's skill shop, the Beta skill is in all caps along with a description saying "Description should be added here" or something to that effect". I can always take a screenshot later if needed for this.

Also...I know you mentioned it in one of my videos, but I'll post it here as well...Blaze SERIOUSLY needs a nerf in some form. Burning Rain & Inferno just rip apart enemy randoms at this point unless SOMEHOW the enemy resists/blocks fire, has insane hp, or has insane speed and ganks him before he can act.

As for how he should be nerfed...that's a good question. Lower multipliers on his attacks or lower stats is all I can really think of here.

Anima Zero, on 19 February 2017 - 04:53 AM, said:

That one is on purpose.
It is a literal beta spell as in it uses a "beta" animation of Vortex, can't be multitargeted because the animation crashes on MT, etc.

Also, I hope someone got the joke I tried to make with the entire collection of Portravia's spells.

Anima Zero, on 19 February 2017 - 04:53 AM, said:

Is it only him or is it a case for others as well?
Blaze, at least class 5, is intended as a glass cannon; lowest HP by far, and powerful moves with INT x3 (Rain) or x4 (Inferno).
A few others have x3 (or higher) moves as well
-dark CM has his 90% insta kill move, x3 INT Dragon blast, actually higher INT but maximized cowardice (only class5 CM that can actually flee)
-Foomy5 has ATP x5 tail smash, though not that good ATP (about 20% less than fire); Foomy4 would probably outdamage him with Mega Punch (2x2x ATP)
-light CM has in 4th and 5th form each an x3 INT attack (Bolt attack, Holy Thunder), heal moves and an element that is arguably better
-water CM has ATPx4 Hyper Kick for one and 2x ATP Diving Claw for groups
-wind CM may have good multipliers on all moves (x3 on most) but he is only fast, lacks ATP/INT; wind5 can reach 999 AGL though for max dodge rate with his special
-earth CM likewise lacks INT to make use of the only-theoretically strongest move, Battle anger: ATP + 3xINT on all, not resistable

fire is probably only that strong because he's that consistent with his attacks; 2/3 moves are strong and multi-target, against a single target he can't use a wrong move, because all three are close in power. at least he's durable as paper.

This post has been edited by Praetarius5018: 19 February 2017 - 06:32 AM

I suppose, yeah. Still, Blaze has such stupid high agility that he goes before the majority of the enemies. I suppose the fact that, despite a bad gut score, he seems to never run anymore in master form is something to consider too. His previous forms ran if he so much as took a hit.

I dunno...maybe make the fruit that brings him to master form unavailable until much later? Can't think of much here honestly.

Was just dinking around the Shrine of Vengeance a bit this evening and noticed a small oddity with the Demise enemy. If they cast Mirror on themselves, they attack again...on themselves. Since their attack is dark elemental, it whiffs. Rather amusing really.

Master forms didn't have any flee logic, I had to add one to the dark CM.

I guess I could just lower his AGL a bit so he doesn't almost always go before enemies. And weaken a move or two so he isn't win-win on his move wheel in contrast to everyone else who have only 1-2 strong ones.
Sorta the intended differences for fire were:
Fire4 has some staying power but flees like a "normal" CM - I think his current threshold is ~20% HP left.
Fire5 would be high power, durable as paper so dead fast but it goes in both directions.

I think the demise problem is part of the fix for him; originally he didn't cast mirror because of a bug, now he can, but it misses the targetting instruction afterwards, so it stays on "self".

Btw. if you can, try to beat the final Gades and Erim fights without anyone dieing.
I'd like to know if the "trick" to doing that is too obscure.

Oh yeah...I tried fighting Egg Dragon today for kicks.

*Sunny Side Up gets used*

...OW!!!! Think this should be possible, but I'm holding off until the endgame (or whenever I hit lv99 really. Went from 75 to 87 in the Tower of Truth fighting everything there).

Anyway we can get the gold drops adjusted to be a bit higher? I've only made it to the Catfish, but I'm stuck grinding randoms for 20 minutes, and the one piece of equipment I can afford after that amount of time isn't enough to make a dent in the difficulty.

Downloaded the newest version - a few thoughts about Skill Reset:

How about also offering to reset only a single person - or even only one spell?
Like you want to take on Eggy and come to the conclusion that there are one or two spells that might come in handy or even be crucial. But whereas your lists are full, you actually are very satisfied with 90% of it. So you really don't want to remove your complete set-up.

Also the stat potions and the certain event... So these boosts are permanently gone? without any way to get them back? And the amount of potions is limited now, eh?

For me the Skill Reset feels too much like a penalty - instead of actually encouraging the player to experiment with different builds.

And you should consider to also let Warp and Escape remain.

jester22, on 14 March 2017 - 06:18 PM, said:

I didn't change the gold at all, so it is still vanilla values.
Do you already have all the skills you want? Those make more of a difference for the long term as you will replace equipment very soon.

Artemis, on 16 March 2017 - 06:34 AM, said:

Exactly. Stat boosts via skills would be pointless if you could just farm stat potions to the max (at least in theory).

Artemis, on 16 March 2017 - 06:34 AM, said:

It was explicitly ment to not be free to avoid abuse ala complete reskill for each boss.
You may lose the stats for the certain event, but you actually "gain" some stats total otherwise; because starting spells do not give stat increases.

Maybe I'm too defensive about this, dunno.

Artemis, on 16 March 2017 - 06:34 AM, said:

If I remember right, everyone who can learn warp or escape already starts with those spells.
So those slots would be completely blocked. I only excempted Reset and Light because you can't get them back, but everything else should be up to the player, imo. And you have access to warp and escape items, those want some love, too.

I don't see what's so bad about 'abuse'. The way it is now you basically get penalized just for trying out a lot of different possibilities. As if it's a bad thing just to play around and try different things.

The problem is, unless you overanalyze the readmes, you have no clue which spells will be how good or bad at the very end. So would the optimal strategy then be to buy as less spells as possible? Until you finally get to the final spell stop when you finally can properly judge what will be the best for you?

I don't think it's that fun to have always to fear of ending with a suboptimal build - or alternatively the penalty - as a Damocles sword over your head. I mean, look at how the items are handled. You have to pay a little price, but you can get basically anything back without a permanent penalty. I'd prefer spells to be that way, too.

The only permanent loss would be the event stats which isn't that big, imo.
Also before that event you can already access all spell shops.

Apart from that, how would you change it?
Event stats and other stat bonuses use the same variables.
Iterating over the whole skill list and subtracting the individual values wouldn't work too well as everyone who has a starting spell list has 0 stats for those, giving the "undo" negative total values (or, well, 0).

How about iterating the spell lists of the characters at the beginning or when they join so that they actually get their boosts for the start spells as well?

Artemis, on 16 March 2017 - 03:17 PM, said:

Maybe that or the lazy way - no stat relevant starting spells.

the Version 5 is the final version?

Current? yes
Final? maybe, maybe not.

How about you just make the event stat event usable again after using the skill reset? I guess it's just an ordinary event flag which has to be set properly then.