Insane Difficulty: Seiken Densetsu 3 Sin of Mana - Discussion - Insane Difficulty

Final bosses are flat out missed on a normal physical attack and Lv1 techs, the element of that attack isn't even taken into consideration. On Lv2/3 they take normal damage.
I'll try to make misses still add to the tech bar.

As I wrote initially, I make no promise that every team can win this.


Pressure point is exactly the same as power-up only self target, so I gave Light-Kevin Power Up instead.
In case I need something, I have now one "freely" moddable spell

Dark Saber... well, Dervish could just have 3 sabers, but then Death Hand is clearly(?) better than Dervish; more STR&AGL, +crit buff, +def debuff. I gave him Life Booster as that is now always useful, noone reaches 999HP naturally - so Dervish has at least something: more/capped maxHP and small additional heals for the party over Death Hand's raw power.


I think sharing Ghost and Gremlin between both of Charlie's dark classes should be ok. It's allow me to give her enchantress class another offense spell.
Necromancer would have full debuff range (Black Curse) and "full" single-target elemental range; Dark Force is int-based, I don't think she'd like depending on 28 INT for dark damage when she has a good 31 PIE which fuels her summons.
Btw, why does a shaman - I associate that with spirit-calling - have access to devils?
If I can get it to work, maybe Ghost Road for Shaman, but as ice damage.
I could also see deathspell, transshape or half-vanish on shaman...
no idea on this; Necromancer is a decent 2-in-1 package, like Ninja decent damage+debuff
Evil Shaman... Angela without multi-target for most elements but a magic debuff

In case someone cares for the reasoning behind the summons elements:
Ghosts = afraid (well... not of those clowns) = cold feelings
Ghoul = poison/infection which BURNS!!!
Golems = rock-hard (and weak to air)
G...unicornHead = fast (in SOM1 they had speed up) = lightning = air


The full debuff range can be covered by Riesz (any dark), Hawk (any Dark) and Charlie (dark-light; though dark-dark has the important mind-down effect as well); I may give further debuffs to "round a character out", but not as a main role, 3 options should suffice.

Praetarius5018, on 13 October 2014 - 11:34 AM, said:

Can you make the characters' max defence a lot lower than 300? The characters can reach a defence value of 300 even in the original game, which makes Defence Up useless in the end-game, as the defence stat can't exceed 300. Therefore, Power Down is much more useful for defending against enemy physical attacks than Defence Up. A lower max defence stat would make Def Up more useful. To compensate for weaker physical durability, you could reduce the physical attack of late-game enemies. Alternatively, you could make the characters' max defence cap at 300, and the actual max defence cap at 400, which means Def Up will still raise the defence above 300, but I don't know if this is possible.

For the challenge part, even the "easy" mode feels hard in the beginning. When I ran into 2-3 Myconids in the Rabite Forest or the Cave of Waterfalls, they were able to knock out my characters almost instantly, even though they were already at level 6. My levels are never that high during those parts of the game, so I reckon the EXP requirements for gaining levels have been greatly lowered. This is great, as it reduces the amount of grinding. Hopefully, I'll be able to use the final classes a lot sooner than on "normal" playthroughs, where you usually class change at Pedan, meaning the final classes will be available for only 3 dungeons. Anyway, even with the characters being on level 6, Myconids were still a nightmare. I could usually dodge their attacks pretty well unless they ganged up on the character I was controlling, but the AI allies got themselves killed right away. I'm fine with the hard version being hard, but I think the "easy" version is still too hard. Would you mind reducing the enemy damage and increasing the hero damage of the "easy" mode even further? You don't have to make the game as easy as the original version, just make it easy enough that you don't need excess grinding for your characters to survive normal battles.

I love the class balance changes. Now dual-hitters are no longer as overpowered as in the original game, level 2 and 3 techs are actually useful since they benefit from elemental Sabers, and Lise's Vanadis and Rune Master classes are no longer vastly overshadowed by Star Lancer and Fenrir Knight. I just wish there was a way to play the game with the balance changes and bug fixes, but without making the game overly hard. That is, having one version for those who play the game for challenge, and another version for more casual gamers who just play the game for fun.

Great job fixing many of the bugs, though! The game has been out for almost 20 years, and I think this is the first bug-fixing hack out there.

Your base defense caps at 300 but buffs ignore that cap;
and the cap applies to magic defense as well - I'm not aware of any class that even reaches 200 in the original.
Power/Mind Down feels more powerful because (only in the original) they reduce the power BEFORE def by 33% while def up only adds 20% to your linear defense. And power obviously is way bigger then defense.
In the patch power/mind up/down only changes the final damage by 33% AFTER defense.

As I said the "easy" patch is not easy per se, just not as hard, that's why I always put quotes around it.
Or you can call it the "easy" patch because it was easy to derive from the main hack.
I'll have to remake monsters' attack and defense growth anyway...
How much lower over the current easy patch should the enemy damage be in your opinion?

Btw. I have no idea how grinding helps with surviving at low levels; you can only add 6 points before the class change to vitality which means +6 defense with starter items, so -6 damage normal or -3 damage on easy...

The experience requirements are mostly the same, only a few adjustments to prevent silly jumps; around Lv25 you need 7k exp then suddenly 28k for one level and afterwards back down to 8k. Only exp gains are increased; Lv1 enemies now have double base experience and "end-game" mobs about 5-6 times.

if you keep up with the enemies you'll be about 30-32 when you reach the desert or sub-zero snowfield, and there have been added some enemies that can drop ??? seeds for class change items; in other words can do your 2nd class change round about when you'd normally do your first.

As for techs; Lv1 techs do exactly double your normal damage instead of amplifying your attack by 50% before defense. Lv2/3 techs get a small bonus to attack before defense and a bigger multiplicator afterwards.

Shameless cross-advertisement:

His poison breath is quite deadly but blockable with Lv1 tech's invincibility frames.
To attack fast press and hold A until a red AT replaces your level, let go for a very short time when your attack animation stats.

Praetarius5018, on 17 October 2014 - 08:45 AM, said:

That's very good to hear.

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I tried different versions again. Using the same save file again, here's the damage numbers against a Myconid in the Rabite Forest (Duran on level 3, STR 6, VIT 6, initial weapon and armor):

Original - Myconid does 1 damage, Duran does 15 damage
Hard - Myconid does 28 damage, Duran does 4 damage
"Easy" - Myconid does 14 damage, Duran does 5 damage

I'd keep the hard version as it is, because it is intended to be harder. For the "easy" version, I'd change Myconid to dealing 5-10 damage. Duran's attack can either stay the same, or be slightly increased. Actually, Myconid doing 7 damage (cut to 25% from the Hard version) and Duran doing either 6 or 8 damage (increased by 50% or 100% from the Hard version) would sound pretty good to me. This would mean you'd have to use slight caution (they're still a lot harder than in the original version), but you don't have to watch your AI allies constantly getting killed.

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Oh, the early enemies giving 2 EXP instead of 1 EXP must be why I felt my characters leveled up faster. Does the increased exp gain only affect level 1 and end-game mobs, or all the monsters in the game?

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Sounds good, so I assume you can perform your first class change before or after retaking Rolante, and your second class change around the time you reach Mana Holyland for the first time.

Other things: Duran's intro is slightly buggy, mechanics-wise. In the original version, Koren drops him to critical HP. In the hard version, he only drops to semi-low HP, and in the "easy" version, he doesn't take much damage at all. It doesn't really matter since it's a story scene, but it just looks weird how Duran falls on his knees when he still has lots of HP remaining.

Sefie1999AD, on 17 October 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:

These numbers will change this weekend when I remake the enemy attack and def calculation from scratch.
Though I remember them doing about 10 damage to the main character in the original as they had worse armor than the followers stated with.

Sefie1999AD, on 17 October 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:

All monsters, those were just the only concrete numbers I had at hand.
The base exp was planned by taking the exp needed for that level and dividing it by the number of same level monsters I expect you to handle. About 10 at the start and then slowly increasing.
If the next playthrough ends up to grindy again, I'll increase enemy Lv 42+ exp further.
Missing the first class chance at 18 is a temporary inconvinience, missing the second at 38 is a disadvantage to the end.

Sefie1999AD, on 17 October 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:

I'd say right before or directly after Zenker, ideally. The mobs in the last room before her are level 18.

Sefie1999AD, on 17 October 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:

Meh, just assume Duran realized that Koren was about to cast Ancient
He's at this point just an NPC, so defaults to Lv1 but has otherwise the same values as the boss fight Koren. Most stats are just derived from level and those values, incl. intelligence which determines his spell damage there, so it sucks.
So unless you want low level caster or Koren as a boss to be stronger that's what we have to keep.
it's a similar "plot hole" to how Angela is supposed to learn magic from Wisp right after the first boss. Can't change that due to the 12 spell limit... well, that happens.

next version, updated links in first post

v0.110
-new attack and defense tables for enemies
-increased effect of defense against physical attacks
-some enemy element edits

note: I did not play through the entire game with those changes, only tested 6 key points (start with Duran and Angela, pre-Zenker, Bill/Ben, ???-grinding in snowfield, endgame)
so a few adjustments will probably still be necessary for attack and defense


next plans:
-Ghost Road for Charlie
-changes to skill sets based on feedback (Duran & Charlie)
-weapon attacks only get 1/4 damage instead of 0 on immunity
-on a miss tech bar still increases by 1
-probably replace the Greater Demons in Fortress Navarre (Riesz/Hawk quest) to prevent pre-GodBeast best weapon/armor farming
-(if possible) prevent level up from 18 to 19 and 38 to 39 is the class change has not been done yet (to prevent disadvantage by missing stat points)

Praetarius5018, on 17 October 2014 - 08:45 AM, said:

small correction...
the original HAS a 300 cap there, I once had it increased to 360 (300 +def buff)... and forgot that I had to roll back for some other bug...
will be fixed again next version...

v0.125
-increased cap for defense with buff from 300 to 360
-increased base attack for Charlie's and Angela's weapons
-minor adjustments to enemy attack and defense
-minor adjustments to spell damage data; Lv2&3 spells were too weak in low levels
-small increases to post Lv-15 experience gain
-skill set changes
--Kevin/Dervish traded Life Booster with Lunatic and Ice Saber
--Kevin/Death Hand gains Dark Saber
--Kevin/God Hand gets Life Booster
--Charlie HolyBall upgrades to multi-target at 10 PIE
--Charlie/Priestess Heal Light upgrades to multi-target at 14 PIE
--Charlie/Enchantress gains Ghost
--Charlie/Necromancer gains Gremlin
--Charlie/EvilShaman gains Ghoul, Ghost and Ghost Road
--Duran/Paladin gets Anti-Magic
--Duran/Lord gets Speed Up* and Leaf Saber
-Ghost Road displays in menu the text of Ghost summon, this is as good as it gets without breaking compatibility to translation patches...


link in first post updated;
v0.110 easy patch still works on this

still planned:
-weapon attacks only get 1/4 damage instead of 0 on immunity
-on a miss tech bar still increases by 1
-(if possible) prevent level up from 18 to 19 and 38 to 39 is the class change has not been done yet (to prevent disadvantage by missing stat points)

Mmmmk, giving the 0.125 + easy patch a spin. Party is Hawk/Carlie/Duran.

On paper, Light Kevin is kind of shafted relative to Lord, imo. Is power up really equivalent to speed up, defense up, moon saber, and lifebooster? They both get leaf saber. I assume melee output is comparable? Kevin has a lower Str cap but there is the that whole doublehit thing.

Initial impression is positive, although I suppose part of that is because I remember The Before Time. Maining Hawk again. Made it from Jad to lake village with about 15 spare HP. Didn't have to pop a round drop, but the fights were certainly better than in vanilla.

I ran into the 3 myconids from previous, and happily managed to down em and their high-damage, stunlocking asses with the use one of round drop. I loaded state to see how repeatable this was, only to find that the formation is sometimes one myconid and 2 sleeping rabites(!). Which... is exponentially easier.

Either way, my success with that mini-boss is about 50% without round drop usage; Hawk is doing 3-9 damage per swing (average 2hit combo is ~10) and myconids are hitting for 12-15. And spike traps hit for 15 as well.

Within the rabite forest I had to burn another round drop, and I made liberal use of the golden statue. I feel kind of dirty using the terrain to my full advantage, but I think the "hard" numbers are with those sorts of terrain/AI exploit usage in mind.

I'm digging the level pacing in concept -- I think there was one playthrough I did in vanilla where I beat the game at level 34 D: Leaving the rabite forest and already level 3.

Picked up Carlie in the cave and... I'm pleased to see her flailing things with reckless abandon. She doesn't feel like deadweight in random skirmishes! The power output she has is nice. She's a little suicidal by default, but here in the easy patch she's not getting insta-gibbed so I can heal away the damage.

Um... shouldn't I have a three-person party by now? I could've sworn it was typical to recruit Duran when the fairy let me into Wendel cave. And yet, here I am, about to cross Wisp chasm with just Carlie in tow.

(This brings to mind a great patch idea! Solo or duo-only playthroughs!)

philsov, on 20 October 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

For Kevin always assume wolf form, then he has more or less the same attack power as Duran + double hit - small damage penalty... about 30-50% more DPS if you only use normal attack + Lv1 techs? depends how often you can land both hits.
if you can abuse fast attacking (e.g. against boss or cornered enemy)... more like double; Hawk&Kevin kind of get out of hand with that.
To me, on paper, Duran keeps the party running longer while Kevin makes things dead faster.

philsov, on 20 October 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

you have no idea how often I had to reload to get the 3 'shrooms to test...

philsov, on 20 October 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

well - keeping on the move yes, getting enemies stuck no. But that's nothing I can really change anyway.

philsov, on 20 October 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

I'd expect something in the 80s-90s at least, now.
Hard version probably more towards the Lvl cap.

philsov, on 20 October 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

You would have 3 people if you have Chosen Charlie as 3rd - that's just how the game works;
1st is main, 2nd is met before Cave; 3rd is usually in jail unless you chose Charlie who hangs in the cave.

Praetarius, I registered here just to say thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand for doing this. You have no idea how long I've been holding out hope that someone would release a bugfix for this game. I had never belly laughed purely from excitement before until I saw the gamefaqs thread "someone finally fixed the crit/evade bugs apparently" that led here. Clearly this was/is a huge undertaking and I sincerely appreciate all the work you've done. HIGH FIVE!

*HIGH FIVEs back*
though, evade isn't fixed as much as I'd like it to be...
I've had it bug out a couple times in a way that hit, miss and damage is calculated but no damage or miss is ever shown... but only in favor of the player so far.

At least I should be able to write off another bug this week.

• rarely damage result is lower or wrong - sometimes a pointer gets re-allocated mid-damage calculation
  
• rarely damage is "transferred", e.g. if Hawk uses a Lv1 tech and Kevin attacks at the same time all four hits may contain a random assignment of the two damage values, e.g. all 4 do Kevin's normal damage - possibly same bug as above

Thanks for that party info, for a second I thought I had broke the game.

Metal Hugger cleared on easy. Party was Hawk+Carlie; level 6. Used all my round drops and the one puipui grass I had on me (I'm a bad boy scout). No need for angel cup, at least, because HOLY CRAP that price tag.

Which meant the bound wolf gauntlet was hell (no round drops in store), but I got carried by my MT holy ball. Were it hard mode I'd probably have needed 30+ round drops to make it out of Jad leaving from Wendel O.o

Bound Wolfs are supposed to have a (literal) weakness to physical damage (in the same sense that a Harpy is weak to earth); did that show at least?

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure they took as much damage as the bats/zombies/goblins from the cave. Can't confirm though, sorry.

Just finished the ghost ship and man am I loving this. Do you have plans to change up any techs? What about altering the downtime between hits, or movement speed? It always bothered me that cpu controlled characters could sprint with their weapons drawn while the one you control is forced to slowly shuffle around.

Edit: I'm also curious what tools you're using to achieve all of this. I'm guessing just a good old fashioned disassembler, hex editor, and maybe giangurgolo's mapjester?

eltiopepe, on 24 October 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

Both can be - to an extend - already done in game; hold A for a few seconds to enter a semi-AI mode, your character will then also run towards his/her target.

I tried to explain in the main post how to speed up physical attacking:

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or a few posts ago:

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it's something that's already in the original; no idea how to explain it better...

eltiopepe, on 24 October 2014 - 02:23 PM, said:

mapjester
Geiger’s Snes9x Debugger Mark 10
2 hexeditors
basic stuff for taking text notes and excel sheets

Right. I understand the skipping method and how AT controlled characters can sprint, but I'm not really a fan of using either. In a perfect world, this game would have used the same "attack whenever you want 0%-100% recharging damage" system from Secret of Mana. I'm jealous of your assembly reading abilities.

next update, had to update easy-patch as well...

v0.130

• Anti-Magic now affects immunities in addition to absorb and reflect; instead of simply clearing all three, they are now added to the simple resistance
  
• fixed issue where sell price was sometimes 30k+ for certain items; this was display only
  
• fixed issue with elemental sabers against enemies that resist physical where the elemental part was skipped
  
• fixed issue with multi-elemental spells where certain element/resistance combinations ignored a potential weakness
  
• upgraded weakness hitting spells; before you'd gain a +50%+38 flat damage increase, now it's strict double
  
• weapon attacks that hit a monster that is immune will now do 1/4 damage instead of a flat 1
  
• fix for "wrong" damage (issue from original); every weapon damage is temporarily saved in 9 "slots" on a per victim base, normally they are removed once the damage gets pulled from these slots, under random conditions they get not cleared. If all 9 are full the new damage is ignored and a lingering old damage was used instead.

The last fix is only experimental at this point. It should solve the issue for new incoming attacks, still occupied slots from old saves will still be blocked, though.
Originally I only noticed this problem when Bill/Ben did 8 and 15 damage to Angela and Riesz instead of triple digits.


some ideas I'd want feedback on (no promises I'll be able to do that!!!):

• running in battle, techs would have to be executed via Y instead
  
• disable AT mode, instead a "charge" effect where the tech bar fills
  
• uncap defense with a small penalty after 300, e.g. calculated 320 def becomes 315 def; e.g. Kevin currently has 8 points of VIT he can't make use of end-game
  
• heroes get each one weakness and resistance + fix for Duran's shields; armors from Ghost Ship and Pedan could receive a defense drop but cover the wearers personal weakness
  
• increase inventory cap from 9 to 20 items per type, e.g. you could have up to 20 candy in your ring menu in battle

This post has been edited by Praetarius5018: 25 October 2014 - 10:59 AM