Insane Difficulty: New Class Tier Theorycrafting - Insane Difficulty

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I could certainly do this, but the effect would be very small. By the time you get these promotion classes, there aren't many XP levels left to gain. So it'd be a difference of maybe 7 HP and only by the end of the game, before that it would be even lower. That's kind of why I haven't even bothered describing what I'll do with class growth rates on the final tier of classes: whatever I do there will be of pretty minimal impact. So I'm more interested in their skills and passive effects.

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My point is this: Lans' advantage over a normal Knight is a matter of base stats. He has (lets say) 10 more Str, and he will have 10 more Str all game. So when you subtract 2 Str, that is a consistent effect relative to the advantage Lans has over a normal Knight. If it were 10%, he might eventually be worse than a normal Knight, at least under the conditions where he would receive the penalty.

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Sounds more like an attack to me Or the name of an angel. Wrath of God and all that.

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For us, I agree, but I think more about the challenges we’re facing instead of the perks we’re getting. Most things we gain from promoted classes will be used by the enemy more, and we’ll be fighting these new tiers a lot more than we’ll be using them ourselves.



Being a couple levels higher than the Muses, the Freya leader would normally have ~153 HP, but as a pure Freya, she’ll be around 167. Yeah, it’s not a huge difference, even for the enemy, but it pushes the idea that they’re better, and it adds to our motivation to have one, even if we won’t get that much of the bonus. After about 7 levels, we’ll get some.

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Heh heh…I know, and good. It sounds like a good penalty. STR is just a representation of performance, and it can be that Lans's performance comes as much from leading as it does from fighting.

And it won’t actually be a consistent e.g. 10 STR the whole game because there’s always a +/- to their stat gains. It’s not that hard to end up with Knights stronger than he is. In Vanilla, with them both at lvl 16, I had a pure Fighter-Knight-Paladin who was only 2 points weaker than Lans. Maybe his HP sucked a lot more, I dunno. Anyway, I doubt that would happen with Fogel or Saradin, but Lans is comparatively puny. If you've locked the stat gain to flat gains, that's different.

So I guess that’s not a good argument to penalize him further with a % decrease in overall damage done, but maybe a 2-5% increase in damage done when they’re leaders could balance out the decrease when they’re not. I guess it really depends on how much the special leaders should or shouldn’t be together. I like seeing Norn and Debonair together sometimes, but it mostly feels like abuse, especially when they’re fighting under a Princess leader.

But with the new tiers, maybe they could also get an increase to total damage done, like a flat 2%.

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Yeah, that's not really how it works in this hack though. Players and enemies have distinct starting stats, so I could tweak enemy Freyas however I want. Thus the only impact Freya's growth rates have on the game are in the levels that happen after they start showing up.

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That's totally random, though. Lans could be as weak as a normal Knight, 10 points stronger than a normal Knight, 20 points stronger, etc. If I wanted to give Lans a huge penalty for not being a leader, I would adjust the amount that I subtract rather than use a percent. I will probably take a look at some possibilities once I get to a point in the game where the special characters start to pile up.

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That's right. You did say that a while back. So if that's the case, I guess I'm just saying the enemy top-tiers should have an extra 10% HP, do maybe 5% overall damage, and I'm not really worried about ours.

Except for the Boogeyman. Maybe 2 x 60% Pumpkins, 1 x 75% Pumpkin that they could only use from the back row, or 1 x 33% AoE Pumpkin they could only use from the back row, maybe with a 30% chance to miss.

If you still haven't thought of a good name for the Paladin healing ability, I might suggest "lay on hands". It's what they call it in D&D, and is pretty flavorful with the fact that you have it going off a physical stat.

That is some classic nomenclature. Unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in the rather stringent character limit for attack names (which is 8 characters). I'm currently going with "Chivalry", which I'm pretty happy with. Especially considering it may wind up having a special property where the Paladin will attack instead if the player's squad is fully or near-fully healed.

Wasted heals are always annoying. Going to be Chivalry only or any chance the monk class line could maybe cast banish if everyone is healed up?

The Monk class deserves to have the drawback I'm looking to give more utility to a single-target healer. His heals also grow in strength the more wounded a target is and are Str-based.

zombero, on 24 June 2015 - 04:15 AM, said:

You could always go full Woosley and call it something like "LayHands"

But yeah, Chivalry sounds appropriate. Or, I mean, not from a historical context, but yeah based on what it tends to mean in fantasy lit/video games. I think actual Chivalry was largely concerned with the handling of land disputes? Then again I'm pretty sure actual Paladins were just the term for Charlemagne's royal guard.

Could you split the Queen upgrade into two classes? Maybe "D Queen" and "L Queen" or something more clever. This would add more ALI manipulation to the late game. It would also fix your concerns about themes. I don't know how much work it would take to do this or add even more of these kind of tree splits. It's just something to think about.

Also, is it possible to add a chaos gate to reach Dragon's Haven? Maybe put it in Shiguld. Once again, just something to think about.

On a related note: I cannot help but wonder at the full extent of your power. Looking over all of your changes, it is difficult to determine what is and is not possible. My total ignorance about how this very complicated process works gives me a certain amount of freedom with my suggestions. Once again, I apologize if I suggest things that are impossible or require too much work for you.

This post is specifically about endgame content for OB. The question I have been asking myself is, "If I were a competent and motivated programmer who could do anything to OB then what would I do?" I am thinking about the biggest fixes that would seriously change the game.

Is it possible to create new battlegrounds and new maps? Is it possible to create passages between maps? A good idea that many games are using today is an random generator for the maps. Civilization does it, but so did the first Diablo two decades ago. If you had randomly generated maps wherein you could set the average level of the opponent then it would make the game replayable without forcing you to create whole new armies and retire your old army. A randomly generated level wouldn't need story type content for capturing cities or anything. They could just be skirmishes or something.

Also, small point: neutral characters. Can you make areas of the map where neutral encounters are much more common, where the neutral encounters come in dangerous groups, and where you cannot persuade them or maybe you cannot get the whole group of them. Vanilla OB is pretty lame with neutral characters. You have complained before about how ALI adjustment is a rather asinine process, and I think this may have almost as much to do with how stupid looking for neutral monsters is when it takes forever.

Another big point but may be easier: Can you remove the level cap or raise it to 50+? Can you remove the stat cap or raise it to 500+? I think that the early game is the most fun because of all the tweaks you have to make to your army and all of the cool planning that takes place. However, by the end of the game it doesn't really matter so much because any unit you create will only get to see action a couple of times. Top tier upgrades are cool, but such a small part of the game involves those characters that it is difficult to get excited about them.

You have done such excellent work so far, and I understand that you are moving level-by-level from beginning to end. As such, this kind of idea is a long way off even if it is a reasonable project. However, if you could expand on the later parts of the game (especially by random maps) then it would transform your hack from a cool yet esoteric set of modifications for an old game into an actual new addition to the original game that made it truly new in many ways.

Thanks for your work

One more little suggestions!

Special characters that you acquire early in the game are important. You develop an emotional attachment to them, you grow them into the classes that you want, and you use them as leaders in frequently involved groups. Lans and Warren are perfect examples, I always end up with a Lich Warren and either a paladin, vampere, or dragoner Lans (mostly just to use the items rather than letting them rot [which I complain about in another reply]).

You have these characters for the entire game so they have a number of chances for extra stat growth like World Tarot card effects. However, it would be nice if they were buffed in such a way that appreciated how important they are for the entire arc of the game. Maybe give them a little bit of extra luck or a better starting weapon (maybe a white magic weapon or aoe weapon if you can make such a thing) or even a special elemental attack type. Those kinds of buffs wouldn't make them overpowered in the early game (or you would have to be careful that they didn't), but would continue to be relevant throughout the game.

For example, lets say that Lans had a white magic type basic attack but the same exact stats. This would allow him to be very effective against undead even as an otherwise normal knight. An early white damage Lans would create some counterplay in Pogram Forest (which would probably be the coolest counterplay anyway because it involves named characters). Alternatively, you could give Lans special recruiting powers or something else subtle

Sophist, on 14 May 2016 - 06:26 AM, said:

When asking what's possible, the answer is almost always yes. Unless you're asking something like increasing the graphics from 16-bit to 32-bit, or something the SNES otherwise can't do. So the question is more: is it reasonable. And the answer to everything in this section is: no. Graphics are not my forte, and I don't really intend to learn how to make new maps, at least not until I have a full version of this hack out already.

Sophist, on 14 May 2016 - 06:26 AM, said:

I would probably sooner offer heavy supplies of an item that summons a neutral encounter. As far as dangerous groups, that's something I'd be interested in.

Sophist, on 14 May 2016 - 06:26 AM, said:

Yes and Yes to it being possible. I wasn't aware of a level cap in this game, though presumably one exists. Is it 50? 100? 255? In this hack, enemies eventually stop giving XP, so level is capped regardless. The Promotion item doesn't let you exceed your Lord's level, either. My experience with endgame OB is that it gets super boring because there's nothing to look forward to. As such, I think it's important to have class upgrades all the way up to maybe 4-8 stages before the end of the game. So by necessity, you wouldn't have long to enjoy those units.

Making special characters more special is something to consider. Particularly if it can be done in ways that doesn't encourage death squads. Death squads are the main downside to buffing special characters at all.

If I can find a way to make Dragon's Haven reachable, I'd certainly do it.

To the Queens split: most of the work required to setup new classes has been done already, so it wouldn't be that hard. Although I'm not sure it's a change I'd like. It's nice for holy and evil to have their own brands of classes, like Lich and Princess.

Thanks for replying man. I am hyped over your work.

I just wanted to give you a few ideas to kick around.

An older idea that you mentioned is still awesome: make more bad guy specials to join you on your evil path. Kapella and Usar could be evil path characters to replace normal npcs.

Also, can you please provide a link to the most up-to-date version? I will play test it next week if you want.