Insane Difficulty: Gameplay Videos - Insane Difficulty

The new topic for gameplay video posting! I unpinned the other topic as it is decidedly outdated at this point. However we can start off the new thread with Far Horizon's Dragon's Haven video, since that is actually a part of the new release.

Said demo vid



http://www.youtube.c...h?v=N29cQIM6r-Y

Looking forward to making one for the first stages!

Stage 1 - Caste of Warren. Calm before the storm ..


http://www.youtube.c...h?v=CLNJw_WHujg

Temples count the same as towns as far as Morale Factor is concerned. I changed the "Tips" section to make this more explicit. And only the units you get during/before the first stage come with starting EQ, other units come naked. You can't find the starting EQ as buried treasure, so there's no worry of getting dud treasure.

Part of the reason Ninjas aren't a part of the standard starting army (technically the Phantom Lord does get one Ninja) is that they were absent from the starting armies in vanilla as well. But the main reason I didn't decide to add them in is their front row ranged attacks with low defense make them a bit of an advanced unit, so it felt best to give the player a couple stages before introducing them in stage 3.

Stage 2 - Sharom



https://www.youtube....h?v=EzU3UdRuVKQ

Longer than I thought it would be. I am going to have to turn off animation, which will challenge my ability to think + talk even more

This is the most challenging stage 2 has been ... mostly because I cannot rotate some uber item like relic sword or ogre shield. The reduction of the stat gap between starting characters in tier 1 vs tier 2 likely also played a role.

High Sky seemed usable here. I was able to make use of the utility it provides by sending my opinion leader off to find things across various terrain, but I didn't go zipping around like before.

Great fun!

Well, about 8 minutes in I can see what the cause of the length of this video is: hidden towns and temples also count for Morale Factor. I was on the fence about whether or not to include them, but the main deciding factor was that a few stages are comprised almost entirely of towns/temples that are hidden. As such, if you don't remember the locations of hidden towns/temples, I would strongly suggest using stage maps which can be downloaded HERE

I'm thinking about other possible solutions to this issue, as it is kind of overly hostile to new players or people who simply don't remember the location of hidden towns/temples. One solution, I suppose, would be to un-hide most of them. If I did that, then I could probably make the few that remain hidden not count toward Morale Factor. Another possible solution would be to make Crystal Balls widely available and cheap.

Dat Iainuki, tho.

Hmm, how much difference would it have made to liberate the last 3 cities? I had 4 at that point and I thought it'd be easier to have the majority of my guys all hold that one spot. I guess I could have made a push to hold at the city close to the enemy base, but then I'd have very little time to heal between waves. I probably could have taken the two hidden cities and held the north with the water unit + opinion leader and the south with the main group.

Haha, yeah .. I guess I won't be using Ianuki against any fighter-type bosses.

It would make a pretty big difference. I took about the most aggressive liberation strategy possible and didn't struggle much with the stage. You could try the stage again with a more aggressive approach if you want and judge for yourself. It'll probably be at least a couple days before I can get stage 3 up, as I have some decisions I need to make.

I didn't find stage two overly challenging, but I also didn't hard push to Valikesh either. The dollmage group and the diana group were the toughest I think. The cleric and two giant group was less frustrating than I remember.

My strategy:
Kraken party and Gryphon party to Ellery.
Opinion Leader (Gryphon) to Island Roshian Temple->Svastpol (Base).
Protect group in Valna.
Main force in central Roshian Temple after liberating Abdella.
Wait for the majority of enemy units to be killed before liberating Fallsala and Valikesh.
Usar was too easy. Only took two units to kill him. Can he be buffed at all?

The starting ninja you get with the Phantom Lord is not very useful compared to the 6 wizards and 3 wild men. I still hate that ninjas cannot be leaders when every other upgraded male or female character can be.

My opinion would be to leave the hidden cities or have another interaction (maybe they reveal after you capture a different city...)
I guess I have just played the game so much that for the first 20 locations I remember where the hidden cities are. And I don't think new players will realistically be able to play this mod. A lot of people use to complain that the original was already too hard for beginners haha.

That's pretty close to what I did, except I didn't leave anyone on the base, and I pushed to liberate the last two towns as quickly as possible, too. Keeping a flying and water unit out in the sea between the allied/enemy bases seemed sufficient to catch the enemy. It's generally fine to leave the enemy with a couple towns, though, since the bonus dimishes heavily toward the end.

Usar isn't too tough, but the stage in general isn't too tough either, and I figured I'd give players a little time to adjust to using strategies they've never had to use in this game before, as even seasoned ones might need it. He could perhaps be made a bit stronger, though, or at least more durable.

The original game had unique mechanics that no other game could really prepare you for... but the creators also compensated for that by making it absurdly easy in all other ways... People who weren't able to handle vanilla's difficulty would be pretty hopeless here. New players who aren't incompetent when it comes to RPGs should be able to at least handle the normal version of this mod (there will be a non-hardtype version as well) despite the fact that even normal will be harder than vanilla. It may be optimistic to think anyone new to Ogre Battle would be playing a mod of it, though.

Do giants get the bonus from beastmen leaders? I thought of them as more of a humanoid then a beast. Dragons? Or are they just dragons and not beasts?

Golems get a bonus from dollmages. Dragons get a bonus from dragon tamers. Everything else gets a bonus from beastmen.

For the record, I don't intend to make these bonuses so good that a unit with a giant feels like it has to have a beastman or a unit with a dragon has to have a dragon tamer. Beastmen and dragon tamers, by default, sort of *lack* synergy with beasts and dragons by being mediocre backrow classes. Their tamer bonuses are meant to make up for that lack of synergy.

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Well, it's the same way in OB64, so it seems to be a theme. I don't really see any reason it needs to be that way, but I don't feel any strong need to change it either... I dunno. What makes the Ninja less useful than wildmen/wizards?

As an update to my thoughts on the difficulty of stage 2: my friend who is competent at RPGs in general but not very familiar with this one was able to just barely beat this stage, which is about how hard I'm looking to make it. The next few stages should ramp up the difficulty considerably as the hack will expect the player to adapt quickly.

#1 The starting wizards all do more damage than the ninja's ninjutsu. And their minute amount of extra elemental resistances are not that important on stage two.
#2 They get crushed too hard in the front row with such low HP and physical defense. A single golem or giant can easily wipe the ninja from full health, almost easier than a level three fighter. The starting three wildmen are quite durable.

The only real benefit is that you can put them in the front row for one battle, let them get wrecked, and switch them to the backrow for the next battle. The valkyries do this just as well if not better imo. The beastmen are comparable but at least have the synergy bonus. Even the mermaid felt more durable in the front row.

In the vanilla version of the game you could overpower the enemies with pretty much any formation, and the ninjas were great for the extra attack. Your mod makes me play much more defensive and I feel that right now a ninja would never be a front line contender for any formation.

#3 They cannot be leaders. I don't want to change your hack because I love the direction you are going and all the work you have done. This is a pretty big negative in my mind though. Waiting until level 15 before a ninja can lead units is just cumbersome. Even thematically, why would every other male and female promotion be able to be a leader at level 4/5/6/7 but not the ninja at level 6. The mermaid can lead a group at level 3, Canopus (rightfully) can lead at level 5. And those two aren't even human characters.

Well, I don't think I'd mind giving them the ability to be leaders. In the original, they had 3 attacks to (more than) balance out their inability to lead. The only argument against would be that in OB64 they only got 2 attacks and STILL couldn't lead. I can understand how, lore-wise, a ninja wouldn't be a leader-type unit, but "Wildmen" don't really seem like high quality leaders either. I'll let them be leaders.

The main benefit of front row ninjas would be their ranged melee giving them the ability to pick off squishy back row enemies before they get a chance to do their full damage to your unit. This doesn't really work so well when you only have one of them, though. In the back, they trade damage for some tankiness and a lotta speed when compared to a wizard, but again this doesn't stand out very much in the beginning due to a lack of AoE damage and the fact that enemy AI is not yet in full gear in the early stages (they are quite merciful in who they hit with their ranged attacks right now). These factors add up to Ninjas not being very good in the early game, although certainly still better than an amazon in the rear, at least.

I actually haven't entirely finished balancing Ninjas, I planned on doing it before stage 3, and wasn't too concerned about the 1/4 chance of the player having a single ninja for stage 2. Their front row ranged attack is a difficult mechanic to balance, and might be better left abandoned (the Diana tree would still be able to use ranged in the front row). It makes them a specialty attacker and forces them into a specific role, and I think people are more used to Ninjas being adept front liners in a variety of situations instead of only specific ones. People wouldn't bat an eye at Dianas only being specialty front liners.

With some of the new items they might be okay in the front. Idaten Mail sounds nice for them.

zombero, on 22 March 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

I had a question about this. In the vanilla game Dragoners (such a bad name) could recruit Wyverns, implying they were part of the dragon lineage in some way. Conversely Beast Masters could recruit Wyrms, implying they were part of the beast class.

In a way you could say all dragons are some sort of beast, but it is pretty clear in our mythology that Wyrms and Wyverns are just different names for dragons.

How are you planning on classifying them?

Wyrms/Wyverns are beasts in OB64, so that's how I have them classified here. I've considered classifying them as dragons, or classifying them as beasts and dragons. As far as making logical sense, there doesn't seem to be any wrong answers, so I feel pretty free to go with whatever feels mechanically better. Without more field testing, I'm not sure which would feel better mechanically.