Insane Difficulty: RotDS v1.6.1 (fixes stuff) is ready - Insane Difficulty

v1.6.1

- fixed an issue with different difficulties status menus reading incorrectly (credit & thanks to Madsiur)
- fixed an issue with the Esper Restriction patch that I caused putting up garbage text and exiting out of skill menus.
- fixed an issue with a couple glitchy monster attack animations.
- re-removed Oboro's equipment at the end of the fire house events in case he has an esper equipped.
- possibly fixed up some weird spell learned % issues by removing a few treasures that were exceeding their designated RAM range into an area that might be used now for spell learning, or something...but I'm not sure yet.
- nerfed some boss speeds down a bit for the nATB patch.

Hopefully the issues brought up thus far for v1.6 are all better now, I did test but didn't do a super thorough job. So keep me posted please! And now if you'll excuse me, it's my birthday and I'm off to do some drinking.

Cool, going to start over on the "Casual" setting...and thanks again for nerf-ing the beginning bosses speed.

The regular encounters are great, but in the last version...the bosses stopped me from progressing through the game.

* with out power leveling and multiple save states *

With all of these new updates, I am very excited to give this game another try ^_^"

I just nerfed the boss speed for the natb patch, if you're using that. But if not nothing has changed in terms of monster stats. If Casual mode is still too tough for most I will consider nerfing them down though, but as it is aside from the AI they are right around the vanilla game in terms of monster stats.

Just as a query...are there any more chests besides the vanilla ones that get better and better rewards as the game progresses? I'd imagine the rewards they'd give max out upon reaching the WoR. Just curious before I delve deep into recording boss videos for the Insane difficulty setting.

Anima Zero, on 06 September 2016 - 01:45 PM, said:

Just the original/vanilla ones exist still like that, no others were made or changed to do that.

Not entirely sure if it's bugged at all, but...



I'm not sure if Insane difficulty is using the right mp gain table. Aurora's been gaining 9 mp per level consistently which is in line with standard difficulty. No idea if hp gains are using that too if only because stamina ties into hp gains a bit as well (Serin & Cloud have ~100 or so more hp than her at an equal level). Exp table though is fine at least.

EDIT: Should also mention the enemies are definitely on Insane difficulty based on the fact I got past the dual J. Mecha fight when Serin joined and went "OH SHIT!" when the sole J. Mecha standing decided to vomit Sand Storm on my team for ~200 damage each.

Well I just recently start the Mod on Insane (with nATB and Esper Restrict patchs) currently just get Serin, so far the game isn't to hard as long as you're cautious (got one death to Fireweaver because he enter into his body just after I set my attacks so I hit the body and take a Meltdown in the face).

I liked the fight against Tritoch tough it was a little to long for me (and the only real threat being Nova who deals big damage for this point) but it's always cool to have some new stuff, Marshal was annoying the bastard just didn't want to die and constantly heal himself but wasn't that hard and the 2 J Mecha were very easy since you can confuse them with Cosmic Fang.

So far I enjoy the mod, new cool stuffs, the new sprites are good and love the Eastereggs (I honestly laugh when I see Prinnies in this mod XD) and suspect I can expect new bosses like Tritoch, kind of interesting to how the new characters and story will look like, also I enjoy the new OST (just the theme when you escape Durandal Castle and fight the J Mechas isn't really my tastes).

Thanks for giving it a shot! And I appreciate the feedback.

Anima Zero, on 08 September 2016 - 01:30 PM, said:

Hrm, yes that does seem like it's not working right then, I shall take a look into this.

Gi Nattak, on 09 September 2016 - 07:15 PM, said:

Sounds good! I had some Insane difficulty vids already recorded and I was grinding up some Beast Hides outside of Seascape Town to sell for gil, but if this is messed up in some way, then I'll likely have to start over if and when a new version's released.

It seems both the MP and HP are using the Standard (Normal) curves on all difficulties ;_;
Hopefully it will be the same fix that was for the experience, I've alerted my buddy who handles the asm coding about this. Well it's his code I mean, the difficulty option. But I shoulda tested and noticed this for sure, it's my bad on that. Especially after the experience fix was added. Ah well...

There will definitely be a 1.6.2 in the very near future, a couple other things have come up as well, one being Aurora's mom Eliza being called her old version name still which is kinda funny (like he slips up and calls her his Ex's name) but horribly unforgivable lol. And a couple other things brought up here recently.

Good to know. I was really lazy in uploading my first batch of Insane videos (as in I still haven't uploaded them, heh) so this news means I can just kick back and relax until the next version gets released ;D.

While waiting for the next update, I've been doing a quickie casual difficulty run to check a few things and ran into a couple peculiar bugs.

First, when Astral joined for the first time at lv20 (yes, I grinded the hell away ;D), his exp tnl was clearly bugged at something like 16.7 million. However, one battle fixed it by giving him a level. This also happened to Oboro on the FC and I think one or two other people, don't remember who though. Possibly a result of there being no level re-averaging, the exp curve differences based on difficulty, or a combination of the two?

Secondly, I ended up wiping to JCE3000GT when I was in Jericho for no reason other than to BS around. After the game over screen, well....



That happened. JCE3000GT's presence is so significant even the title screen is afraid!

That's all I could see for now. Well, that and me going "WHAT THE CRAP ?!?" when casual difficulty's FlameEagle bitchslapped someone for 1.7k damage with Delta Attack.

Will look into those, thanks.

About the jacked up splash screen after game over, that one baffles me. It seems to show fine here after a game over, does it mess up for you on a game over other than JCE3000GT? The only way to have the title/slash screen show after a game over is when there's no srm (save) data present, or else it goes to the game loading screen, or the last save point save. So did you not have a real save all the way up until JCE3000GT?

I did have a save, but I want to say that one was made on the insane difficulty setting. Let me test real quick on a non JCE3000GT enemy real fast.

EDIT: Seems fine just doing a quick game over to a random enemy group in the WoB. Maybe it's just inherent in the WoR? I'll check that out when I get this current file back there (And maybe not ham up my save states so badly that I had to redo some work, heh).

So I recruited Aurora in the WoR, and noticed that she was taking a long time to level up (even with the Birdo Egg equiped). So I checked how much more Experience she needed.



According to the info that came with the download, the total exp needed for level 22 (on standard) is 37744. 9504 total exp is what a level 13 character would have, but she's level 22 here.

This is concerning, I see what you mean. I'll be taking a look into it, thanks.
It seems to be correct normally from the start, checking here leveling up a bunch in the cave. Might just be something with her being recruited in the WoR I'm not sure will have to test that. It was correctly displaying for you until you got her back in the WoR again and then it was showing incorrect, in other words?

Are any other characters experiencing this incorrectness have you noticed? And was this playthrough a pure v.1.6.1 or did you patch over a previous version by any chance? Or are you on 1.6.0? There was some issues with incorrect status info in 1.6.0.

Quote

I'm on 1.6.1, and I didn't patch on top of a previous patch.

Quote

I haven't noticed any other characters having issues with their exp.

Quote

I remember her gaining levels normally in the WoB (eg. I remember her gaining levels in the cave to the sealed gate). In fact, I'm rewatching some of my past broadcasts and she was definitely level 22 before the Floating Continent.

From the point I recruited her until the point I noticed a problem, she fought 3 battles with Rot-Walkers in a 4 person party while equipped with the Birdo Egg. By my calculations, that would have earned her 7020 exp.

Rot-Walker exp = 1560 = exp from 4 Rot-Walkers / 4 party members
Birdo Egg gives 50% more exp, 1560 x 1.5 = 2340
3 battles, 3 x 2340 = 7020

If that's correct, then she had 9504 - 7020 = 2484 total experience when I got her back after Proto Babil+

And it wasn't just incorrectly displaying exp, it was displaying her actual exp. I also had another level 22 character (Avalon) in the party, and by the time she finally reached level 23, he had reached level 26.

Did her experience work itself out after gaining that first level in the WoR (once it was screwed up) to 23? Or is it perma-messed up now. I didn't get a chance to check it out today.

Oh I just now fully understand what the issue is in that screenshot and from what you said, I was a little out of it when I saw it at first - the exp needed for level up and the exp she currently has are switched! ...How weird is that. I have no idea off-hand but will definitely look into this asap.

Once she finally reached level 23, things went back to normal. No Exp issues since.

I did Avalon's dream last night, and ran into two issues.

First, I used the Astral Doll at the start, which glitched out my party once I collected my other 2 party members. Turned out not to be too much of an issue, because the 5th party member replaces the 4th. So moving Astral to the 4th slot let me use my intended party in battle (but I was unable to interact with the 5th character outside battle).

It also had an amusing, consequence at the end of the Dream. When the game tries to display all the party members in the Soul Eater confrontation scene, and the cutscenes afterwards, Astral was spawned as well. And since he was never scripted to be unspawned, he continued to spawn on the center of the screen after the dream sequence ended. I'm going to highlight that part when I get the chance.

Suggestion: Is it possible to temporarily disable the Astral Doll for the Dream Sequence?

Second, The Soul Eater boss has an unfortunate consequence for having a dead character with undead properties. It keeps triggering the boss to give himself Reflect + Image (I think it's image, it makes physical attacks miss regardless), and trying to revive them as a Zombie. But because they're undead they're immune to Zombie.

I didn't realize what was going on in my first attempt at the boss, but I inadvertently made the Reaper undead by using one of his Spirits (of an enemy that I didn't realize was undead). The boss constantly buffing himself was manageable until the final phase of the fight. Once he started also becoming actually invincible, and casting instant death and Quasar, things become unmanageable. Not to mention also healing himself with Crimson Moon and Devour.

Suggestion: When Reaper dies, could he lose the status changes he gets from his Spirit command? I think there's a patch like that used in BNW.