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zedorfed66

Shadow Hearts: Covenant NTSC - Godslayer v6.50

114 posts in this topic

9 hours ago, SirShaggy said:

Wow, I was taking a trip down memory lane here and you're still updating this mod! Hey again Zed! It's Shaggy, the dude who streamed your mod a couple years ago. I got the Shadow Hearts fever and was thinking of doing another playthrough of Covenant at some point. How's your FtNW modding coming along? That's another one I played through doing my own ruleset of no armor/buffs/keys, which is a nice challenge in the later fights. A couple of my viewers liked the playthrough so much they've been asking me when I'll show them Covenant so of course I'm treating them to watching me get my ass kicked with your mod haha. Can't wait to see the changes you've made! Hope you've been doing well man! Good to see you're still putting good work out. :)

Hey, good to hear from you Shaggy. It's been a while eh. I hope you've been feeling good and healthy in these testing times.

I've made a goal of making these mods as perfect as I possibly can. I keep coming back to them once in a while cause I love these games so much. And sometimes I find stuff that I want to change for myself and others. I've also made mods for Shadow Hearts 1 and FtNW if you wanna check them out. I also released a mod for Final Fantasy VIII a while ago. I need to play through that game more to test it out some more.

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On 5/20/2020 at 11:54 AM, zedorfed66 said:

Hey, good to hear from you Shaggy. It's been a while eh. I hope you've been feeling good and healthy in these testing times.

I've made a goal of making these mods as perfect as I possibly can. I keep coming back to them once in a while cause I love these games so much. And sometimes I find stuff that I want to change for myself and others. I've also made mods for Shadow Hearts 1 and FtNW if you wanna check them out. I also released a mod for Final Fantasy VIII a while ago. I need to play through that game more to test it out some more.

Dealing with some life stuff, but I'm not doing too bad! Thanks man!

I really appreciate the amount of work you put into these! I'm really excited to see the improvements you've made. Ah man, I will definitely be checking out your other mods! I play FtNW every couple of years. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. Never played FFVIII myself! Heard the junction system was really janky. I'll take a look at it and see if anyone has videos out of what it's like. Gonna start my Covenant playthrough here real soon! Same place, twitch.tv/shaggysir if you ever want to watch!

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15 hours ago, SirShaggy said:

Dealing with some life stuff, but I'm not doing too bad! Thanks man!

I really appreciate the amount of work you put into these! I'm really excited to see the improvements you've made. Ah man, I will definitely be checking out your other mods! I play FtNW every couple of years. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. Never played FFVIII myself! Heard the junction system was really janky. I'll take a look at it and see if anyone has videos out of what it's like. Gonna start my Covenant playthrough here real soon! Same place, twitch.tv/shaggysir if you ever want to watch!

I'm glad you're doing well. FF8 was my childhood game and my favorite in FF series. I've also played through 7, 9, 10, 12 and the 13 trilogy but I find 8 to be the easiest to pick up. The junction system can be annoying but it's also the game's way of getting stronger since leveling alone also levels the enemies. It feels more rewarding in hard mod when you get access to better junction magic since you really need it against the enemies that have been modded stronger. At the same time I can understand if the system puts off lots of players. I hope you enjoy the mods and if you have any questions or anything you can message on these boards. Thanks for the invite, I'll be checking out your progress if you choose to tackle them.

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10 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

I'm glad you're doing well. FF8 was my childhood game and my favorite in FF series. I've also played through 7, 9, 10, 12 and the 13 trilogy but I find 8 to be the easiest to pick up. The junction system can be annoying but it's also the game's way of getting stronger since leveling alone also levels the enemies. It feels more rewarding in hard mod when you get access to better junction magic since you really need it against the enemies that have been modded stronger. At the same time I can understand if the system puts off lots of players. I hope you enjoy the mods and if you have any questions or anything you can message on these boards. Thanks for the invite, I'll be checking out your progress if you choose to tackle them.

Hey maybe I'll have to give it a shot sometime! I love me some hard mods. X and XII are my favorites. I'm actually finishing up my FFXII Struggle for Freedom (hard mod) run right now! I sure will man! I think I'm gonna see if my viewers are around and start on it tonight!

Edit: Oh I forgot to ask, will the 5.0 version have an excessive amount of grinding in between bosses? I see you labeled it as a more hardcore version of the mod and don't know if I should do the previous version to save my sanity.

Edited by SirShaggy

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5 hours ago, SirShaggy said:

Hey maybe I'll have to give it a shot sometime! I love me some hard mods. X and XII are my favorites. I'm actually finishing up my FFXII Struggle for Freedom (hard mod) run right now! I sure will man! I think I'm gonna see if my viewers are around and start on it tonight!

Edit: Oh I forgot to ask, will the 5.0 version have an excessive amount of grinding in between bosses? I see you labeled it as a more hardcore version of the mod and don't know if I should do the previous version to save my sanity.

You are more required to be on the recommended levels in 5.0 cause the bosses hit harder. Either go with 5.0 or 4.1. If you only can i recommend going with 5.0 since it's more complete. On 4.1 you could beat the bosses earlier levels but the wolf bouts and fusion battles couldn't be done immediately cause they're more strictly locked to the recommended levels. So it's kinda weird mix. I definitely prefer how things are in 5.0 cause I enjoy the grinding but it's different for everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying XII btw. I also like FFX and XII.

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9 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

You are more required to be on the recommended levels in 5.0 cause the bosses hit harder. Either go with 5.0 or 4.1. If you only can i recommend going with 5.0 since it's more complete. On 4.1 you could beat the bosses earlier levels but the wolf bouts and fusion battles couldn't be done immediately cause they're more strictly locked to the recommended levels. So it's kinda weird mix. I definitely prefer how things are in 5.0 cause I enjoy the grinding but it's different for everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying XII btw. I also like FFX and XII.

Gotcha! I will go ahead and give 5.0 a shot and if the grinding is a bit too excessive I'll probably switch to 4.1. Don't think my viewers would be interested in seeing me grinding for too long, otherwise I would. XII has really grown on my over the years. Just like FtNW honestly. Now they're two of my favorite RPG's.

Edited by SirShaggy

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37 minutes ago, SirShaggy said:

Gotcha! I will go ahead and give 5.0 a shot and if the grinding is a bit too excessive I'll probably switch to 4.1. Don't think my viewers would be interested in seeing me grinding for too long, otherwise I would. XII has really grown on my over the years. Just like FtNW honestly. Now they're two of my favorite RPG's.

In v4.1 I thought I'd have the duels as reward for being patient with leveling while the bosses can be done on lower levels. Maybe I should make a "perfect" low level mod that still requires correct inputs. I think it'd be cool for those who don't care to spend so much time on leveling. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you think about the mod.

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On 5/24/2020 at 2:34 PM, zedorfed66 said:

In v4.1 I thought I'd have the duels as reward for being patient with leveling while the bosses can be done on lower levels. Maybe I should make a "perfect" low level mod that still requires correct inputs. I think it'd be cool for those who don't care to spend so much time on leveling. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you think about the mod.

Ahhh gotcha! A "perfect" low level mod would be cool to save on grinding time but I totally understand that that would be a ton of work. I started my playthrough yesterday and got up to Castor and Pollux! Forgot how tough those two were. Got up to level 8 so I'm gonna take them on again next time! Has the exp in the subway been adjusted? Maybe I'm just a casual but 20 exp for each fight seems pretty low considering it takes about 300 to get to level 8.

Edited by SirShaggy

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2 hours ago, SirShaggy said:

Ahhh gotcha! A "perfect" low level mod would be cool to save on grinding time but I totally understand that that would be a ton of work. I started my playthrough yesterday and got up to Castor and Pollux! Forgot how tough those two were. Got up to level 8 so I'm gonna take them on again next time! Has the exp in the subway been adjusted? Maybe I'm just a casual but 20 exp for each fight seems pretty low considering it takes about 300 to get to level 8.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna commit to making a "low level" mod. It would alter pretty much everything I've had set in this mod. For example the recommended levels all work with 1.5 multiplier for agility for Yuri and 1.65 for Blanca/Kurando. There are also multipliers that go for hp, str and mag stats. If I'd change the recommended levels below what they are now things would get messed up. I thought I'd increase the exp gained in battles but that wouldn't work well either cause some of the dungeons are longer and the exp that is given to the characters now is just right the way you get to explore everything and not get over leveled. Then there are some dungeons where you get to the end fast but have to grind for an hour. Basically there's grinding in every area. Some just go more naturally while exploring. I adjusted the exp for every area the way you'll need to be leveling for about an hour in each area. There may be exceptions in later dungeons.

The subway dungeon gives og exp since it's kinda a long one and you get plenty of exp if you explore everything.

Basically this mod is not very good for streaming unless your audience wants to get bored with the grinding. And from what I gathered that was your concern too. I'm sorry about that. I still hope that you enjoy it.

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1 hour ago, zedorfed66 said:

I'm not sure if I'm gonna commit to making a "low level" mod. It would alter pretty much everything I've had set in this mod. For example the recommended levels all work with 1.5 multiplier for agility for Yuri and 1.65 for Blanca/Kurando. There are also multipliers that go for hp, str and mag stats. If I'd change the recommended levels below what they are now things would get messed up. I thought I'd increase the exp gained in battles but that wouldn't work well either cause some of the dungeons are longer and the exp that is given to the characters now is just right the way you get to explore everything and not get over leveled. Then there are some dungeons where you get to the end fast but have to grind for an hour. Basically there's grinding in every area. Some just go more naturally while exploring. I adjusted the exp for every area the way you'll need to be leveling for about an hour in each area. There may be exceptions in later dungeons.

The subway dungeon gives og exp since it's kinda a long one and you get plenty of exp if you explore everything.

Basically this mod is not very good for streaming unless your audience wants to get bored with the grinding. And from what I gathered that was your concern too. I'm sorry about that. I still hope that you enjoy it.

One option could be ajust the bonus exp You get for doing good in battle (no damage, high combo count) to both reduce grinding time and give an incentive to git gud with the timings

Edited by ronlyn

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1 hour ago, zedorfed66 said:

I'm not sure if I'm gonna commit to making a "low level" mod. It would alter pretty much everything I've had set in this mod. For example the recommended levels all work with 1.5 multiplier for agility for Yuri and 1.65 for Blanca/Kurando. There are also multipliers that go for hp, str and mag stats. If I'd change the recommended levels below what they are now things would get messed up. I thought I'd increase the exp gained in battles but that wouldn't work well either cause some of the dungeons are longer and the exp that is given to the characters now is just right the way you get to explore everything and not get over leveled. Then there are some dungeons where you get to the end fast but have to grind for an hour. Basically there's grinding in every area. Some just go more naturally while exploring. I adjusted the exp for every area the way you'll need to be leveling for about an hour in each area. There may be exceptions in later dungeons.

The subway dungeon gives og exp since it's kinda a long one and you get plenty of exp if you explore everything.

Basically this mod is not very good for streaming unless your audience wants to get bored with the grinding. And from what I gathered that was your concern too. I'm sorry about that. I still hope that you enjoy it.

Yeah it would really throw off your system... You'd really have to redo everything from the ground up. I see what you're saying about the exp rate it's really hard to balance around dungeon size and exp earned, especially because you want to keep it fair that each dungeon gives progressively more exp. Makes me wonder what an exp multiplier would do for the experience and how much would be too much, you know, but trying to casualize a hard mod seems like a pretty counter-intuitive concept haha. I'm curious what the agility multiplier does and how that effects the enemies. Would bumping agility with seals be detrimental in the long-run because of that?

Ah ok. I thought I got through it pretty fast. I must have missed some areas.

Ah, it's all good man! I knew what I was getting into going in. From what I remember from last time the grinding slows down a bit in the later parts of the game, so I'll just power through for now. If it gets to be too much I'll probably cut myself a break and run with technical ring to makes things a little "easier" for myself.

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15 hours ago, ronlyn said:

One option could be ajust the bonus exp You get for doing good in battle (no damage, high combo count) to both reduce grinding time and give an incentive to git gud with the timings

I don't personally see that as a good thing to do. I often get ring perfects in the normal encounters and if I'd get extra exp for every time that happens I would get way too much xp. There are already rewards for doing well in the fights and I don't like the idea of changing them.

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14 hours ago, SirShaggy said:

Yeah it would really throw off your system... You'd really have to redo everything from the ground up. I see what you're saying about the exp rate it's really hard to balance around dungeon size and exp earned, especially because you want to keep it fair that each dungeon gives progressively more exp. Makes me wonder what an exp multiplier would do for the experience and how much would be too much, you know, but trying to casualize a hard mod seems like a pretty counter-intuitive concept haha. I'm curious what the agility multiplier does and how that effects the enemies. Would bumping agility with seals be detrimental in the long-run because of that?

Ah ok. I thought I got through it pretty fast. I must have missed some areas.

Ah, it's all good man! I knew what I was getting into going in. From what I remember from last time the grinding slows down a bit in the later parts of the game, so I'll just power through for now. If it gets to be too much I'll probably cut myself a break and run with technical ring to makes things a little "easier" for myself.

Don't feel like a cheater unless you use actual cheats. I want my mods to be enjoyable so using any of the rings or applying Seals is more than ok. This is a pretty tough mod at this point afterall :D.

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Hello once again, and it appears I have another wall of text! I've completed this mod again on 5.0. Again, thanks for all of the hard work. Shadow Hearts: Covenant has some great gameplay and options, but the base game being pretty easy means that you don't have to use any of it.

As compared to 3.0, the last version I played, this version is a lot less janky and more consistent without Spikes. The random encounters are a lot more interesting, having to match elements and differing enemy types, but they also take a lot more time now, and random encounters can get kind of repetitive. Still, as compared to other JRPGs of the era, they are some of the most interesting I've played, even if repetitive.

Since there was talk about a low level version, I went ahead and tried completing 5.0 under leveled, making sure to record my levels (and gameplay) as I played. If you use all the mechanics the game has to offer, including Technical Ring, Seals, Replacement Men, Element Matching, and, of course, Lucia. Before St. Marguerite, I was about 1 level under leveled, if that, and afterwards, about 10% to 20% under the recommended level, depending on how long the dungeon was beforehand.

With this playstyle, not much extra grinding was done for bosses. I would explore the level normally, and by the time I reached the boss, if I could get a level by doing 2 fights, I would, otherwise, I'd go for the boss. For endgame, instead of grinding for levels, I grinded for speed seals and Ashura's Earrings for HP, both of which you get from the same pit fight. I think grinding for speed seals might be faster than levels, and I personally found doing its boss fight more interesting than doing more random encounters.

By the way, being 10% to 20% underleveled can be super rough at times, but it's doable. At this amount of underleveled, it feels like a decent amount of things that are supposed to be a 3 shot turn into a 2 shot, and things that can be a 2 shot can turn into a 1 shot, along with an even more massive turn advantage bosses and enemies will have. I think it's intended for bosses to start with 2 turns before you go? When underleveled, bosses will get 3 turns before you go, which can be quite rough: one of the boss fights I managed to turn around and win started with a full team wipe, lol.

The main thing you could do to make it "proper" for low levels is make the first fight with Kurando a bit easier, since that was a hard wall I couldn't pass without grinding. Reducing damage/agility/or amount of the enemies would all be fine, if it's possible, but I understand if you don't want to also adjust their stats because they're also used in the first dungeon of Disk 2 or because it's more work.

A nice quality of life thing for low level runs would be to increase, perhaps greatly, the EXP gained from bosses. I haven't actually checked all bosses to verify this, but it seems like a boss fight is worth around 3 to 5 random encounters? Considering the length and difficultly of a boss compared to a random encounter, it could probably be increased without causing players to become overleveled. My gut feeling would be to go with 2x, if that's something you want to bother with.

While I'm talking about EXP, I think The Vessel could give more EXP? It seemed like they give similar EXP to the other final areas, but The Vessel's random encounters take a lot more time since the enemy will always go first, their higher HP, and they actually apply status effects.

If I were to play this again, I think I'd do it without Yuri and keys. Yuri's damage output with keys and buff stacking gets silly, and Yuri's final fusion makes healing, buffing, and random encounters really easy. Even before endgame, Yuri makes random encounters really easy since you can still get Libertis before Astaroth, and if you dump all of the speed seals on Yuri, he can go before the enemies. I think without Yuri and keys, Spikes and Mind's Eye might also might be fine (on characters other than Joachim)? That seems fun to try. I would do it on New Game Plus, mostly for better access of AOE buffs because you don't get duplicates other than Yuri until endgame.

Lucia's Strike Oil is pretty balanced on low level if she goes 3rd or 4th. You need buffs on to live at all, but you also need the buffs off when you cast Strike Oil'ed buffs because the game doesn't let you reapply buffs, so you have to wait for an opportunity to actually cast super buffs. Additionally, sometimes the extra protection of the super buffs doesn't actually change the amount of hits before you die, anyways. A 1 shot might turn into a 2 shot with technical ring buffs, and it still might be a 2 shot with super buffs. And the Strike Oil uses Lucia's turn, and sometimes, you need buffs or healing immediately. It also doesn't do anything if she immediately dies afterwards, and she's fairly squishy too. Reapplying super buffs is also a big pain if someone dies, since you need to wait for Lucia's turn + someone else's again, especially if it was Lucia that died. The damage dealt is also pretty unnecessary, doing 20k to 30k with a Mind's Eyed Third Key, when bosses have 10k in endgame. At the same time, if you're able to apply a super Arc Gale and survive, that's like a victory condition on its own, which is a lot easier to do if she goes first.

I recorded my entire playthrough, so if there's anything you want to see or know, I can pull it up, like a more detailed description of my levels when completing bosses. This was a blast to go through again, and I think Shadow Hearts: Covenant has my favorite combat system of a JRPG when played with your hard mode. I have yet to play From the New World, but I think I'll take a break from the Shadow Hearts series and hard modes for a while. I want something easier with a more developed story next, lol.

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9 hours ago, elltacko said:

Hello once again, and it appears I have another wall of text! I've completed this mod again on 5.0. Again, thanks for all of the hard work. Shadow Hearts: Covenant has some great gameplay and options, but the base game being pretty easy means that you don't have to use any of it.

As compared to 3.0, the last version I played, this version is a lot less janky and more consistent without Spikes. The random encounters are a lot more interesting, having to match elements and differing enemy types, but they also take a lot more time now, and random encounters can get kind of repetitive. Still, as compared to other JRPGs of the era, they are some of the most interesting I've played, even if repetitive.

Since there was talk about a low level version, I went ahead and tried completing 5.0 under leveled, making sure to record my levels (and gameplay) as I played. If you use all the mechanics the game has to offer, including Technical Ring, Seals, Replacement Men, Element Matching, and, of course, Lucia. Before St. Marguerite, I was about 1 level under leveled, if that, and afterwards, about 10% to 20% under the recommended level, depending on how long the dungeon was beforehand.

With this playstyle, not much extra grinding was done for bosses. I would explore the level normally, and by the time I reached the boss, if I could get a level by doing 2 fights, I would, otherwise, I'd go for the boss. For endgame, instead of grinding for levels, I grinded for speed seals and Ashura's Earrings for HP, both of which you get from the same pit fight. I think grinding for speed seals might be faster than levels, and I personally found doing its boss fight more interesting than doing more random encounters.

By the way, being 10% to 20% underleveled can be super rough at times, but it's doable. At this amount of underleveled, it feels like a decent amount of things that are supposed to be a 3 shot turn into a 2 shot, and things that can be a 2 shot can turn into a 1 shot, along with an even more massive turn advantage bosses and enemies will have. I think it's intended for bosses to start with 2 turns before you go? When underleveled, bosses will get 3 turns before you go, which can be quite rough: one of the boss fights I managed to turn around and win started with a full team wipe, lol.

The main thing you could do to make it "proper" for low levels is make the first fight with Kurando a bit easier, since that was a hard wall I couldn't pass without grinding. Reducing damage/agility/or amount of the enemies would all be fine, if it's possible, but I understand if you don't want to also adjust their stats because they're also used in the first dungeon of Disk 2 or because it's more work.

A nice quality of life thing for low level runs would be to increase, perhaps greatly, the EXP gained from bosses. I haven't actually checked all bosses to verify this, but it seems like a boss fight is worth around 3 to 5 random encounters? Considering the length and difficultly of a boss compared to a random encounter, it could probably be increased without causing players to become overleveled. My gut feeling would be to go with 2x, if that's something you want to bother with.

While I'm talking about EXP, I think The Vessel could give more EXP? It seemed like they give similar EXP to the other final areas, but The Vessel's random encounters take a lot more time since the enemy will always go first, their higher HP, and they actually apply status effects.

If I were to play this again, I think I'd do it without Yuri and keys. Yuri's damage output with keys and buff stacking gets silly, and Yuri's final fusion makes healing, buffing, and random encounters really easy. Even before endgame, Yuri makes random encounters really easy since you can still get Libertis before Astaroth, and if you dump all of the speed seals on Yuri, he can go before the enemies. I think without Yuri and keys, Spikes and Mind's Eye might also might be fine (on characters other than Joachim)? That seems fun to try. I would do it on New Game Plus, mostly for better access of AOE buffs because you don't get duplicates other than Yuri until endgame.

Lucia's Strike Oil is pretty balanced on low level if she goes 3rd or 4th. You need buffs on to live at all, but you also need the buffs off when you cast Strike Oil'ed buffs because the game doesn't let you reapply buffs, so you have to wait for an opportunity to actually cast super buffs. Additionally, sometimes the extra protection of the super buffs doesn't actually change the amount of hits before you die, anyways. A 1 shot might turn into a 2 shot with technical ring buffs, and it still might be a 2 shot with super buffs. And the Strike Oil uses Lucia's turn, and sometimes, you need buffs or healing immediately. It also doesn't do anything if she immediately dies afterwards, and she's fairly squishy too. Reapplying super buffs is also a big pain if someone dies, since you need to wait for Lucia's turn + someone else's again, especially if it was Lucia that died. The damage dealt is also pretty unnecessary, doing 20k to 30k with a Mind's Eyed Third Key, when bosses have 10k in endgame. At the same time, if you're able to apply a super Arc Gale and survive, that's like a victory condition on its own, which is a lot easier to do if she goes first.

I recorded my entire playthrough, so if there's anything you want to see or know, I can pull it up, like a more detailed description of my levels when completing bosses. This was a blast to go through again, and I think Shadow Hearts: Covenant has my favorite combat system of a JRPG when played with your hard mode. I have yet to play From the New World, but I think I'll take a break from the Shadow Hearts series and hard modes for a while. I want something easier with a more developed story next, lol.

Hey elltacko,

The mod can be beaten on lower levels for sure if you keep farming for the Seal items. The recommended levels are for those that don't use Seals. I didn't design this mod to be beaten on low levels but I'm glad if you managed in doing so and enjoyed it. I felt upping the exp gained from bosses hit the grinding experience and in cases would make the player be higher level than intended so I decided not doing so. Final dungeon exp is 2x of the og which is the same as the other late dungeons which is ok in my opinion. I hit level 100 pretty quickly when i entered it a bit over 90 levelled. It may be harsher experience low leveled but once again I didn't design this mod with low level challenge in mind. If I changed something that's already there it would also affect the mod when playing without Seals.

I'm sure playing through this mod can be tiring and I hope you find something relaxing and nice in change :)

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Hi folks, it's been a while. I've been secretly working on version of this mod where significantly less grinding would be required. It would kinda replace the versions before v5.0 as a more cohesive lower level version. It's still kinda underway and I take a risk announcing it at this point. But I decide to do this for people interested in this mod to be aware that v5.0 is not the last version. As long as nothing too unforseen happens I'll be releasing this at some point. If everything goes well I'll be thinking of doing the same for SH1 and SH3. But this is a long term modding goal. I hope everyone has been well lately btw. It can be hard but as long as we think positively and look into the future we can make things work out in the end. See ya!

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Thanks for your work on these game Zerdorfed!  I am very interested in your versions that take less grinding. I played your SH1 mod and I liked it but in the interest of time, I cheated and gave myself 3 sets of Monk Earrings for the EXP increased and I still felt like I was grinding a lot longer than I preferred just be able to scrape by in most of the boss battles no matter what strategies I tried.

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On 21.4.2021 at 9:41 PM, tacticalcraptical said:

Thanks for your work on these game Zerdorfed!  I am very interested in your versions that take less grinding. I played your SH1 mod and I liked it but in the interest of time, I cheated and gave myself 3 sets of Monk Earrings for the EXP increased and I still felt like I was grinding a lot longer than I preferred just be able to scrape by in most of the boss battles no matter what strategies I tried.

Thanks for your interest. It's a bit trickier to get the enemies' Agl multipliers right cause they need to be specific for the areas now instead of same multiplier. I'll get this right, I just need lots of testing and I'm currently playing through the game. I actually like being on lower level. You gotta have better control on how you use Cash and Soul energy is lower so you need to do right stuff with the Fusion power upping too.

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Hey Zed! Glad and AMAZED to see you still hard at work on this mod! I've kind of put my current playthrough on hiatus because of the excessive grinding, and can't wait to try the latest version! Any ETA on when you might have it ready? Hope you've been doing well and taking care of yourself man!

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3 hours ago, SirShaggy said:

Hey Zed! Glad and AMAZED to see you still hard at work on this mod! I've kind of put my current playthrough on hiatus because of the excessive grinding, and can't wait to try the latest version! Any ETA on when you might have it ready? Hope you've been doing well and taking care of yourself man!

Hey Shaggy. It's more than fair if you don't want to continue with the v5.0. It is kinda excessive I agree. I've been working on the new version at least some time everyday but it's still gonna take a lot of time, I'm sorry about that. It was risky for me to announce it so early but I also saw it as necessary to let people know I'm still trying to improve the mod. I've been thinking of making Seals give nothing since apparently you can farm the Seal items from the Solomon trials and make your party members excessively strong making you able to take on the Fusion battles earlier than intended which I don't like. Basically I'm learning stuff about the stats mechanics even now so I'll be able to make the newer version better than v5.0 in many ways other than having to grind less. I want to make this new version as complete and good as possible when it comes out so it's still gonna take time, I'm sorry about that.

You too man. Hope you've been well. We have to cope in there. Pretty much all we can do :D

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Hi guys. This is a good day. It's the 17th of June. My birthday and I'll be glad to do the gifting. This is it, the release of v6.0! 

This is the new version of the mod I promised. This could be considered the ultimate version since it has so many changes that improve it for the better.

You no longer need to use as much time for level grinding while the bosses and random encounters should still remain interesting. There will be more leveling required in optional dungeons, but these dungeons also give more Exp, Cash and Soul.

Earlier random encounter enemies now deal less damage but are still agile to the current level. Early bosses should be more challenging now having twice the agility but with og attack power and magic. There are power adjustments to bosses and other enemies all around and agility levels are more accurate to the recommended levels. I'll make a list of the new recommended levels for each area in next message.

Another change I made is that you can no longer sell the best equipment. You also can't sell the equipment that would sell for 10 Cash. Those accessories are usually valuable and can't be reaquired, that's why I made them unsellable as well. Hit and Strike Area Expands are still sellable since they were in another segment of the code I didn't care to touch. Basically just make sure you don't sell them xd.

I've made the decision to remove the ability to up stats using Seal items as they're farmable and can potentially hurt the experience. Basically the Seal items now do nothing when used. Of course one can still use them in original and then turn the mod back on.

I wonder if I forgot something? Maybe not. I'll make a list of the new recommended levels for next message.

Have fun with the mod people!

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Here's the recommended levels at the end of each area in the game for the newest release (v6.0):

2         Apoina Tower
4         Domremy
5         Ardennes Forest
7         Paris Subway
10        Wine Cellar
12        Rhondda Mine
15        Manmariana Island
16        S.G. Headquarters
18        Neam Ruins
21        St. Marguerite
24        Winter Palace
25        Mirror Palace
27        Gallery of the Dead
28        Hermitage
32        Idar Flamme
35        Apoina Tower 2

38        Battleship Mikasa
42        Otherworld
43        Nihonbashi
46        Hojo Research Lab
49        Purgatory
53        Immortal Mountain
56        Azabu Kamiyashiki
59        Queen's Garden

66        Tiffauges Castle
69        Doll House
72        Black Forest
77        Dog Shrine
84        Neam Ruins Underground
99        The Vessel
 

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Some more info to make things more clear:

Fusion battles go as follows: Earth, Light and Dark before the bosses in Idar Flamme (do Earth and Light here so you get Arc Shield and Arc Barrier. After Rasputin go get 3rd Soul Drop to do the Dark battle). Water before Terada in Mikasa, Fire before Kouenki in Inugami Village and Wind before the baby boss in Queen's Garden. After clearing the main story boss in Queen's Garden you can immediately take on 'Guardian' there. You can take on 'Kouenki 2' immediately after beating 'Garan 3'. Dark Seraphim, King Solomon and Man Festival can be done after clearing the boss in Neam Ruins Underground. I did the final boss at around 95 level so it can be done before lvl 99 but it still hits hard so maxing out is the best course of action.

Edited by zedorfed66

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v6.05 is tiny update that changes Rhondda Mine's enemies' str & int multipliers from 1.4 & 1.68 to 1.3 & 1.56. This prevents Lambton Worm from one shotting Blanca with lucky crits. Sometimes I miss something like this and come back to update my previous projects. I've also started working on less grindy and better version of my SH1 Imbroglio mod.

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Thank you so much Zed, and happy very belated birthday man! I will definitely start the Covenant streams up again very soon with this new "grind-free" version of the mod. :)

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