raics

Feedback and Suggestions

599 posts in this topic

11 hours ago, LAN021 said:

...

Right, it would probably be best if I started by saying that those inconsistent uses of 'and', 'or' and '/' are all a consequence of space limitations, which is the biggest problem with most of those suggestions. With some others the problem is that the text isn't in one chunk that I could change, but instead generated on the spot, like 'Weapon Type' + some 'weapon_type' variable whose name the game is fetching, so I wouldn't have any room to put anything there. That aside, the chance and amount for some weapons can vary even for generic weapons within the same class so it's better to put nothing than a number that may be wrong, the general rule is that a stronger status will have a lower proc chance and that a 2h weapon will have a higher chance than 1h, unless the whole class is specialized for status infliction, like blowguns. The proc chance is always the same regardless of the target, so there's no decision involved and you don't really need to know how high it is, you won't pick one target over the other based on that information, you might decide to hit someone else if the target is immune to the secondary effect, though, and the tooltip will hide the icon when that's the case, which is probably good enough.

For spells, the chance differs based on the target so that wouldn't be possible, but there aren't many spells left that do a guaranteed hit and then have a chance for an effect that depends on your stats, maybe there aren't any at all currently. Monster skills have either a guaranteed secondary effect or a fixed 50%-ish chance so showing it isn't helping that much either.

Strengthen and Fortify are intentionally not in caps, to indicate you're getting a usable skill that grants that effect, not the effect itself, didn't really have the room to do anything more than that.

I tried it without the 'arcana' and it was a bit confusing because you'd sometimes forget if you're browsing the list of learned spells or the list of arcana and have to check, shortening some of the spell names was the lesser evil. Scrolls and treatises still have different names because there aren't many of them in comparison with other spells so they aren't hard to remember.

Edited by raics

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On 8/23/2020 at 12:51 AM, raics said:

I tried it without the 'arcana' and it was a bit confusing because you'd sometimes forget if you're browsing the list of learned spells or the list of arcana and have to check, shortening some of the spell names was the lesser evil.

Well, I can only speak for myself, of course, but I never even once had that issue in my 220 hours of playing. There are only two sections of magic, browse and learn, and they are sufficiently easy to tell apart. When you're browsing, you usually see a longer list of the spells of the school/lore/type that unit is focused on; when you're learning, you see multiple categories with all the random scrolls you have obtained and certain spells are marked with the striking red "mastered" text. Honestly, I can't see how a single individual who is smart enough to play a game as involved as Tactics Ogre would have an issue with this. Maybe it's because when you are playtesting, you have all the arcana in the inventory? In that case, it could be an issue, even then a minor one at most, but that rarely happens when playing normally. I'd definitely reconsider this one since it seems to be one of the few injudicious choices you've made (although you initially made the judicious choice to change the names from the laughably pretentious latin grimoires, you just went semi-back on it).

Fair points on my other suggestions. Saw now that tarot cards are only shown to the left when hovering with move selected, not otherwise.

Have you also considered buffing the rogue class a little? It's seems a little underwhelming, other than for stealing (haven't tried it much in latest patch, admittedly). Maybe decrease the TP of Sneak Attack to 30 or 20 or even make it a passive skill, if that is possible. Also, maybe add some tarot cards for booby traps with basic effects like damage and stun/sleep to the store?

And how about giving familiars access to evacuate 1 and exorcism 1? That way, they'd be great alternate healers. I used them as such in my lower level alt-party, but the lack of those two spells made it a little difficult.

Edited by LAN021

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11 hours ago, LAN021 said:

Well, I can only speak for myself, of course, but I never even once had that issue in my 220 hours of playing. There are only two sections of magic, browse and learn, and they are sufficiently easy to tell apart. When you're browsing, you usually see a longer list of the spells of the school/lore/type that unit is focused on; when you're learning, you see multiple categories with all the random scrolls you have obtained and certain spells are marked with the striking red "mastered" text. Honestly, I can't see how a single individual who is smart enough to play a game as involved as Tactics Ogre would have an issue with this. Maybe it's because when you are playtesting, you have all the arcana in the inventory? In that case, it could be an issue, even then a minor one at most, but that rarely happens when playing normally. I'd definitely reconsider this one since it seems to be one of the few injudicious choices you've made (although you initially made the judicious choice to change the names from the laughably pretentious latin grimoires, you just went semi-back on it).

Fair points on my other suggestions. Saw now that tarot cards are only shown to the left when hovering with move selected, not otherwise.

Have you also considered buffing the rogue class a little? It's seems a little underwhelming, other than for stealing (haven't tried it much in latest patch, admittedly). Maybe decrease the TP of Sneak Attack to 30 or 20 or even make it a passive skill, if that is possible. Also, maybe add some tarot cards for booby traps with basic effects like damage and stun/sleep to the store?

And how about giving familiars access to evacuate 1 and exorcism 1? That way, they'd be great alternate healers. I used them as such in my lower level alt-party, but the lack of those two spells made it a little difficult.

Sure, but knowing in which list you are is still something that should be clear without looking too hard, names are something you get used to and the pattern for most spell types is the same anyway.

I'm getting good feedback about rogue and it was a strong class in my last test playthrough, I don't think it needs anything at this point.

Familiar shouldn't match the scope of classes that focus just on utility, it isn't meant to be a full replacement for cleric.

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7 hours ago, raics said:

Sure, but knowing in which list you are is still something that should be clear without looking too hard, names are something you get used to and the pattern for most spell types is the same anyway.

I forgot to mention that I also found a lot of the name changes questionable. Impale instead of Icebrand is not a good change, even the vanilla Iceblast is better, same thing goes for a lot of other vanilla names (Spiritsurge, Gravity Flux, Dead Man's Ivy, Major Heal, Word of Pain). I don't think it was an issue of space in all cases, either (seems to be 20-24 chars), so it was probably something you wanted to change either way. Of course, we, the players, have to get used to the names either way, but that's not a valid reason for questionable name changes. Just being honest with you, of course. I admire your dedication to this mod and think most of your changes are great and make the game more enjoyable, but this was not one of those changes. I don't know what feedback you have gotten on these name changes, but at least consider this piece.

There are also icons for browse (exclamation mark) and learn (checkmark), which you can memorize if you really have a hard time telling the sections apart.

magicicons.thumb.jpg.4913d7cedc17db4fabe1c796faad001d.jpg

 

7 hours ago, raics said:

I'm getting good feedback about rogue and it was a strong class in my last test playthrough, I don't think it needs anything at this poin

Really? I see no reason to use them as a speedy fighter class over ninja, other than stealing. Ninjas even have the same ranged options, or very close. Decreasing the TP of Sneak Attack to 20/30 would be a good enough buff, it's a little TP heavy to use constantly. Maybe add automatic weapon proc, too, if that is possible (or another separate proc).

7 hours ago, raics said:

Familiar shouldn't match the scope of classes that focus just on utility, it isn't meant to be a full replacement for cleric.

They still wouldn't replace clerics fully, they don't have mother's blessing, major heal and a few other spells. Evacuate and exorcism just means that they could be used as adequate replacements for clerics. They don't have anything other than divine magic, correct? Even though a lot of elemental spells are listed as learnable they can't actually use them.

Edited by LAN021

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15 hours ago, LAN021 said:

I forgot to mention that I also found a lot of the name changes questionable. Impale instead of Icebrand is not a good change, even the vanilla Iceblast is better, same thing goes for a lot of other vanilla names (Spiritsurge, Gravity Flux, Dead Man's Ivy, Major Heal, Word of Pain). I don't think it was an issue of space in all cases, either (seems to be 20-24 chars), so it was probably something you wanted to change either way. Of course, we, the players, have to get used to the names either way, but that's not a valid reason for questionable name changes. Just being honest with you, of course. I admire your dedication to this mod and think most of your changes are great and make the game more enjoyable, but this was not one of those changes. I don't know what feedback you have gotten on these name changes, but at least consider this piece.

There are also icons for browse (exclamation mark) and learn (checkmark), which you can memorize if you really have a hard time telling the sections apart.

magicicons.thumb.jpg.4913d7cedc17db4fabe1c796faad001d.jpg

 

Really? I see no reason to use them as a speedy fighter class over ninja, other than stealing. Ninjas even have the same ranged options, or very close. Decreasing the TP of Sneak Attack to 20/30 would be a good enough buff, it's a little TP heavy to use constantly. Maybe add automatic weapon proc, too, if that is possible (or another separate proc).

They still wouldn't replace clerics fully, they don't have mother's blessing, major heal and a few other spells. Evacuate and exorcism just means that they could be used as adequate replacements for clerics. They don't have anything other than divine magic, correct? Even though a lot of elemental spells are listed as learnable they can't actually use them.

Haven't really gotten much feedback about names, I assume it's one of those things people don't care too much about as long as they have an idea of what the spell does. If the name of the spell isn't an issue, it was fitting the name of the spell together with 'arcana' for the scroll. Anyway, if we put something most people don't care about against a usability issue, the latter is more important after all.

Rogues already have enough advantages over the ninja, they're tougher, have more versatility with full item access and traps, self haste is always good, and their ranged options are much better, as they have 2h crossbows and guaranteed status infliction with bullseye and blowguns, real solid class.

Familiar is good enough at doing its own thing, they don't need to be full divine users to be useful.

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I love the mod but I've only been able to find an earlier version to play on my phone as I don't have a computer. If I could just get a ppf I could see all those great updates. I don't really have any bad things to say about the mod, it makes the game much more enjoyable. 

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7 hours ago, Trajiin said:

I love the mod but I've only been able to find an earlier version to play on my phone as I don't have a computer. If I could just get a ppf I could see all those great updates. I don't really have any bad things to say about the mod, it makes the game much more enjoyable. 

No need for that, there's now an alternative patching method in the readme where you just extract the files and point the emulator to it, everything can be done on any phone.

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Hi raics,

I decided to restart my game as I hadn't played for a while and most of my units turned into completely differents and passives were kinda switched around, that way I could also check the revamped battles for the chapters! So far I have to congratulate you yet again for your excellent work.

I've been playing chaos route and I found the difficulty quite nice, challenging but not impossible, though so far the hardest battle (just started chapter 4) was the battle with Ganp and his 4 beasts in Mount Weobtry, having the 4 beasts come guns blazing with full ward was very rough! I think beasts are in a nice spot (very dangerous for casters if they have any kind of warding and you can't stop them). Found it even harder than battles with Oz+Ozma, as flying units can't really be controlled by phalanx or ailments if they have wards.

I had a question as I've been reading the anatomy change /racial change but I'm not sure I get it 100%. The way it is right now, if a human dragooner has the dragon racial passive, he will get mitigation vs the dragon races but no mitigation vs all the others, correct? Or am I understanding this wrong?

The guide mentions changes to stealing, the stealing update has only been done to units in the campaign, correct ? No updates on the side areas like phorampa, potd, san bronsa, ect...

Thank you for your time

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Hi,

The problem with racial skills is I can't really fix them, if a human unit equips anatomy it will get a damage bonus vs humans and a damage reduction when attacked by any race, if it equips draconology it will get a damage bonus vs dragons and no damage reduction. The problem is currently circumvented by barring every class from using racial skills for races that can use the class, so you can't ever equip a racial skill that matches your race so the only thing you're getting is the damage bonus, I considered scrapping them altogether, but they aren't doing any harm this way and add a bit of flavor.

Steal tables were updated for all reworked battles, which is the campaign and some sidequests, I'm currently working on random battles. A good rule of thumb is - if you see that no enemies are equipped with skills they can't use, I most likely reworked that battle and replaced the steal tables.

I'll most likely replace the full ward on ganpp's pets with specific wards, now that beasts got more dangerous removing the option to shut them down is too much of a handicap.

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I see, thank you, at least I feel I finally understand the racial skills with that explaination. So far the only unit I've seen that could use their own race skill was Assassin Vice in chaos route (he comes with anatomy).

I don't think there is any need to scrap the the racial skills (they give a good flavour and aren't imbalanced), I just felt confused because both the damage calculator and the Consolidated changes document were not giving instructions clear enough for me.

Thanks for the steal tables confirmation, I'll keep an eye on your rule of thumb, it'll serve me well.

Speaking of full ward, I though I'd ask about it's obtainability by players without hacking. I remember you could get the passive that gave resistance to all ailments in the unmoded LUTC for 10k job points, but testing on my old savefile it didn't seem like I could learn full ward through any legitimate means. Is full ward somehow available outside of the crest of fire and gran grimoire? Or any way to get it (even through corpse scavenging or shenanigans) would be unintended and consequently fixed later on?

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3 hours ago, Rafos1314 said:

I see, thank you, at least I feel I finally understand the racial skills with that explaination. So far the only unit I've seen that could use their own race skill was Assassin Vice in chaos route (he comes with anatomy).

I don't think there is any need to scrap the the racial skills (they give a good flavour and aren't imbalanced), I just felt confused because both the damage calculator and the Consolidated changes document were not giving instructions clear enough for me.

Thanks for the steal tables confirmation, I'll keep an eye on your rule of thumb, it'll serve me well.

Speaking of full ward, I though I'd ask about it's obtainability by players without hacking. I remember you could get the passive that gave resistance to all ailments in the unmoded LUTC for 10k job points, but testing on my old savefile it didn't seem like I could learn full ward through any legitimate means. Is full ward somehow available outside of the crest of fire and gran grimoire? Or any way to get it (even through corpse scavenging or shenanigans) would be unintended and consequently fixed later on?

Sure, I left assassin with anatomy on purpose, it makes sense.

You can't obtain full ward legitimately, it's set to be a free use skill so bosses could equip it when needed, which means that if there was some way to get it on your character, they would be able to use it with any class.

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Hi raics,

I though I'd give some feedback, though you must have a lot already. Just finished doing the chaos route (I skipped cressidia and missed my timing on diego's quest though, also didn't touch POTD).

Been testing the random fights (quite nice, can't wait for the other areas) and the one handed damage, the changes felt good, I think this balances out dual wielding vs 2 handed a bit better.

I was mostly pleased with the balance (but the jump before going to brantyn felt a bit unnatural to me, I had to get some levels in phorampa), though I feel the need to say that battles with undead are very tedious . With archers being weaker nowadays, I feel like ghosts mage/warlocks lost their nemesis, and their insane mobility (which most classes won't have) makes them real hard to catch. It was specially noticeable in 2 maps, one of the vaasa temple maps (1st or 2nd descent? you start on the lower part with quicksand and fight against 2 golems+ 2skeletons with ramparts and 4 ghost warlocks, you can only be thankful they love lodestone SO much) and the one in hanging gardens with the 4 zombie dragons, 2 ghosts, 2 skeletons and that necromancer. I was actually level 28-9 while doing the gardens (and monsters were at 25, didn't really intend this but I had been getting the recipees and leveling some classes to test them out), and that fight was probably the one I spent the most time on. Maybe I could have brought more casters, but with the tigh layout to go up with the possibility of being thrown out of the map with the stones from dragons and archer knockbacks, you don't really want to take many chances unless you are using winged mans. Also animate dead costing 20 tp makes you want to instantly exorcise these guys so bad.

Regarding classes, I have not yet tested the lich, lord, bucaneer, geomancer, summoner, dragonborn and shaman, but I feel they will most likely be good, I've checked a bit  their available skills/gear on my savefile from the original game with most items unlocked.

Humanoid classes seemed in a good spot, all have their niches with useable weapons, though I felt necromancer is too pingeonholed into his necromancer role, if you aren't playing with undeads on the field this feels like a second beastmaster, a subpar class (lower damage from lack of missiles than mage, worst support/cc than warlock, and the non undead related skills are expensive both MP or TP wise). I wouldn't really mind this pigeonholing if getting the necro spells were easier to obtain, but getting the good stuff like bewitch is pretty hard (in my case leonar didn't drop it sadly), and the mana costs are really hard in the early game (I can see how lifeforce in the endgame is more than enough though). Also, for some reason deflect won't work or level on them, I guess this is bug from the original? Last but not least, getting necro marcs is hard, and only necromancers can learn to recruit undead, so it's a pretty thorny path all in all, seeing as the rooster is already quite limited (whish it wasn't limited to 50 honestly), was a bit bummed about this because male necro has got to be my favorite sprite.

I was very pleasantly surprised by warlocks, they feel like amazing units now, very useful to either support or cc, and they can help sustain others with more MP/HP, very versatile. Probably my favorite rework with the trickster umbra. Angel knights felt good, and it's one of these classes were I wish I had 2 or 3 more skillslots!

I felt monster classes were in a good spot, though the dark and holy dragons felt weak to me. The magic they had access to made them lose part of what makes dragons so dangerous (durable enough to answer back if you don't melt them, and those 100 tp breaths hurt), albeit fear being such a powerful ailment made me almost consider using one for real, I still think the fire or earth dragon wins over as removing TP/RT is very powerful no matter what, and also sadly headhunter doesn't have the dragon empowerement (makes sense considering the character and his history), does dragonborn cover this?

I tested the non human jobs, I felt like they were all very nice, both the hoplite, juggernaut, patriarch / matriarch (by the way, are there plans for evil eye? Or will it still be an enemy only skill?), familiar and trickster (this last one being insanely good in my opinion, has great sinergies between his unique skills and what he can learn, and the stats on umbras complement them very well).

Magic schools feel good, with some having more upfront benefits (fire,earth,dark,light), and other requiring more advanced caster classes (lightning, water, ice), but there is no school I wouldn't consider using, they all have at least 1 or 2 spells that really makes the school shine (ice might be the weakest for me but the stop debuff is so strong this balances it out imho). Draconic is nice despite how hard it is to get the spells, and necromancy has 2 or 3 powerful spells (curse, brainrot/MP burn one with debuffs, bewitch).

Lastly, on equipement, I like the changes a lot, weapons feel very balanced to me, all can find a good use with the appropriate setup.

Regardign armors, I find myself avoiding gauntlets too much -maybe if they had 2 points of passive resistance to crush/slash/pierce more? I also feel their overpower bonus is not enough to sway me over parry or deflect bonuses, though maybe playing at high lvl vs high parry/deflect units might change my mind- as I feel I would be too frail with them on, with their already low defence and avd. Is there any plan (or even a way) to increase the amount of gear there is? I feel like the helm/legguard selection in the endgame is very limited by lot of the legguards being unique now (can't remember if it was the same for helms, I think they were already very limited).

Jewelry wise, I think the balance is great, there are always tough and meaningful choices.

 

After this feedback, I though I'd ask, does POTD and San Bronsa still use their original loot tables (asside from the recipes / spells as they are displayed in the documentation)? Will I be safe going down with old doc? Because I guess the droprates on the items is still as horrendous as it was in the original.

Thank you for your time

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9 hours ago, Rafos1314 said:

Hi raics,

I though I'd give some feedback, though you must have a lot already. Just finished doing the chaos route (I skipped cressidia and missed my timing on diego's quest though, also didn't touch POTD).

 

Thanks for the feedback, it was a good read, glad you liked the experience.

You can get some necromancer marks and spell during the campaign, but the number of undead battles in different routes varies a lot so the plan was to add some necromancer related goodies to phorampa, so if you're using undead you have the option to go in there and stock up on some essentials from act 2 onwards, necromancer was indeed meant to predominantly be a 'cleric for the dead' so you need to be using some to get good mileage off them. To rank up and use parry or deflect you need a melee weapon equipped in one of your hand slots, that's one of the fringe benefits of 1h weapon + melee, so a necro could use a book in the main hand for the int bonus, MP boost, and the ability to deflect, and use a crossbow in off hand for some ranged capability.

Dragonborn does have empower dragon, yes.

No plans for giving patriarch evil eye, the only reason they can technically use the skill is because gorgons share the same skill set.

It's hard to hit a good middle ground with gauntlets, as most players love big numbers and everyone would run them on every unit if they weren't such a liability. The current state of using them only on units that can afford to seems ok, honestly. Got a few gear slots left so I could add a few more helms and leggings if I think of something useful.

The loot tables are mostly the same for now, you can find the drop list for recipes and arcana here in the equipment table below

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T7TupkvrKhnH0HtmU2O_-csqQuYQrjHf?usp=sharing

and another player is maintaining an equipment drop list for the mod here

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yZj8sUBp5BVYXK0XQSPR7BIZYGZCKBFb?usp=sharing

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Hi Raics,

I had some questions about spell drops and feedback:

-The spell "Hades": Dropped by Female Ghost Witch in Ch4 Optional Battle - Geylid Fortress <-- is this the battle to unlock the fortress for the oracle quest?

-Tier I and II of forbiden magic: Do tier 1 spells still drop after level 34? I remember there was some kind of limitation in the original version. If this limitation is present, are there any plans to make a crafting recipe to downgrade tier 2 forbiden spells to tier 1 with a recipe?

-Is there any plan to revamp where the spells drop? Spells like Hades II have such a limited drop place --> Dropped by Male Ghost Warlock reinforcement spawn in PotD - Floor 100 story battle (level 41+). by the way, is this the Blackmoor or Nybas battle?

Aside from that, I finished doing my first run of the palace of the dead, gotta say I felt pretty easy compared to the normal campaign (you can really feel the skills/spells haven't been revamped), but even then I have to say, the trip feels very long, between lots of battles, some rather long, and the rare item farming. When POTD and other side areas are revisited, are there plans to make a revision on the number of enemies and the droprates? Some cursed items took between 3 to 15 minutes, and farmining the pinions/racks took me quite a long time (farmed 22 of each though, but one time it took me 1 hour to get one of those racks, crazy). I ask about the number of enemies because if their skills/spells are revamped I feel the 100 floor trip will be too much of a burnout.

I finished testing some of the other classes I had not tested (only missing Summoner, Paladin and Astromancer, as I've not unlocked them yet). I enjoyed the geomancers (despite the limitations to their spells, making using augments for spells awkward), shamans felt bad, losing summoning magic means the nature grace (I think it's the name of the spell that adds flat damage) is awful, it's very costly tp and rt wise for such a small effect. You gain some spells, but shamans now feel a bit like a support caster now, with better offensive than warlock but worse defenses. Bucanneer is fine, though the low mind and res are qutie noticeable, but it's a good balance to their excellent kit. Dragonborn feels good, though the damage output compared to dragons is a bit lower due to lesser stats, but she is much more resilient against magic, so overall a good unique to me. Paragon was nice, though I feel her INT growth is totally wasted as she doesn't use it, but just a minor nitpick. Wicce is very powerful, but not having any powerful MP regen tool and lower mobility balances her out quite well.

On generics, I feel winged man are still much better compared to humanoids, and this also brings in my "complaint" about liches too:

-Winged mans are all from unknown clan, this a big benefit as you don't have to pay any mind to killing your own clansmen, so no CF or loyalty issues here. Another reason why galgastan clansmen feels so bad, since it's so hard to get the CF for Cressidia.

-Flying is the best mobility tool, and an insanely good one at that. Flying allows not only bypassing height (which you will notice is quite important in most maps, and almost crippling for slow classes on some maps), bypassing rampart, bypassing tiles with move penalty (moss/water). This is especially important for classes with low innate mobility, like wizards, clerics and warlocks, but is also inmensely powerful for classes such as archer and fusilier. There is no downside to winged aside from some lower initial stats, but for a dedicated player this is no big deal, you'll soon catch up to normal humanoid stats. Only interesting debate could be had on rogues, as ghost rogues make excellent undead units, with good mobility (but they cannot bypass ramparts with teleport). Aside from that, any class that could be a winged man is better of as one.

-Teleport vs Flight: Not only teleport allows for better height movement, it also bypasses ramparts. Normally I would be ok with this as most of the teleporting units you meet are ghosts (which seem to be able to float on water too, compared to liches), but this leaves liches in an awkward spot. I think giving lich innate lead inmunity/ward would help bridge the gap (I don't want to give lead warding to teleporters because ghosts are already plenty strong).

I think some RT penalty to winged men would help bring them in line with other generic races (and even uniques at that), it doesn't have to be too big, but something to help sway the balance toward a more equal power. I don't think making them more succeptible to leaden would be a fair solution, as wormhole is already a very powerful spell that scales very well into the endgame and the AI is pretty fond of it.

My final feedback, the Lich: Probably a bigger disapointment for me than shamans, liches got teleport (this is very nice if you are starting from a normal humanoid, no questions asked, as wizard suffers from paltry movement) and access to most magic spells (so you get the good crowd control on elemental magic such as brimstone or petrifog, a great boon against undeads, but no more support spells such as enrage or bulwark sadly), alongside necromancy (you'll be able to make a good use of some of the nonundead related spells of necromancy such as brainrot, curse, tainted love or the mp drain missile, and also banish!), and some limited dragon magic.

Sadly, this comes with a steep price, as you cannot use meditate, extend or conserve RT if you come from a wizard (which is the most likely case I think). I have been pondering if I should bench my lich and replace it with a winged man wizard (so use a philactery and lose all the stat investment I did on it, no small thing, this is a unit I've been using since the start of the game), because covenant, meat shield and reflection do not make the cut (this is because covenant, while good in some situations, requires you to have units who don't use their MP actively, as early in the fight is when MP is more valuable to buff up and start fighting), though I could be alone thinking this. I feel like giving liches access to meditate would make them stand out more, and feel like "powered up" wizards. I only say this due to how uncomon ring of the dead are, and how late you get them.

I make this comparison, which might feel unfair, because the other "rare generic", the angel angel knight has: flight, an imperfect but good support toolkit with non aoe-healing, haste, ease, holy missiles, exorcisms and the draconic suport spells (which is not that common), and very powerful and unique skills (day of reckoning, celestial aria are my favorite ones but evilsbane is very strong too), access to Arkhiatros Trousers for stopward (essential for any frontliner), and access to parry to back up their role in the frontlines. This feels like a unit that can go toe to toe with any unique class, as they have something no else can bring to the table, and a good selection of hybrid spells that a melee could use (different from the ranger or knight commander for example, which offer incredible offensive power but whose magic selection is lacking when compared to an angel knight).

What does the lich bring to the table that is really unique compared to other casters? Maybe necromancy+other magics at the same time, but that's it, no powerful skills like a wizard, heretic, patriarch or warlock (since reflection also reflects healing, what happens if your lich or teammate gets bullied and you need to heal it? this feels like a double edged sword, and an expensive one at that), no means to really defend itself against physical aggression, and archers sure love shooting at liches (no deflect, no parry, no access to medium armor, at least you have teleport), which means you'll have to be extra cautious on open maps with the lich, as you have low HP and you don't even have skills like conserve RT to allow you to cast some spells, retreat and not wait very long for your next turn. Can the lich compete vs other unique casters? I feel that their only advantage is their high mobility (as only 2 uniques are winged man), but I would not think of benching a unique caster (be it a princess, sybil, heretic, astromancer, wicce) to bring a lich (though I might bench a shaman to be faire). While their spell selection is grandiose (only second to lord and astromancers), thats the end of what they bring to the table.

Sorry for the long rant, and I just wanted to say thank you again for all your work, I'm a big TO fan, so replaying the game (which has aged beautifully) is a real joy, and this is all thanks to you.

I'm looking forward to the next patches, this last one was nice (though I'll leave my angel knight the a one handed sword!).

 

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5 hours ago, Rafos1314 said:

Hi Raics,

I had some questions about spell drops and feedback:

...

- You can see where all arcana can be obtained in the equipment table in the linked gdrive folder, added that some time ago and it will be updated as I move things around.

- The entire forbidden magic drop system will be updated when I rework the temples, it will most likely be some kind of a crafting book with the battles giving you elemental tokens you can use to craft and upgrade forbidden spells. The current system where you have to world back if you want multiple copies of forbidden II is a bit dumb.

- The drops in potd will also be much easier to obtain, especially crafting materials, spells and special gear will be a guaranteed drop and the enemies that drop them will always spawn, as is the case with the items I added there recently.

- I probably will nerf races with advanced movement a bit.

- Some of the things you can do with the game are pretty limited, classes can't have innate resistances to damage types or other passive bonuses, it's pretty much just movement.

- Regarding some other things you mentioned, paragon has decent int growth because she can use the first tier of divine forbidden magic. Shaman's nature's touch is an extremely volatile skill you have to be careful with because it adds base damage so it scales with things like fear, spellcraft, rupture or averses which is also the reason she lost summons, damage goes from normal to absolutely broken in a flash. You get one lich during azelstan's quest, which isn't too late, they have the best stats of any generic caster and innate teleport so it's kinda hard to buff them more and giving lich easier mp management would remove the main reason to stick with wizard, as his main selling point is a good skill kit that reinforces his main role, other basic classes are still decent once you get the advanced/unique classes, so wizard should be too.

Thanks for trying out the mod, nice to hear you had a good time overall and I'll continue working on it :)

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Hi Raics,

This is my first time playing Tactics Ogre, and I decided to use your mod because it sounded like a much better experience for the game. Overall I think this is probably true, but at present I am stuck on the Vyce duel at the end of Chapter 2, and it seems to be because I built my Denam as a Wizard.

I'm not sure how to get through this fight. My best spells are the level 2 missiles, which do about 30 damage. Not nearly enough to get through his ~360 HP. I switched to a Knight (Lv 12) in hopes of outlasting him, but I still do about 30 damage per physical attack and he heals for ~70 with a Mend Leaf, so that's impossible. I switched to Warrior (Lv 12) in hopes of outdamaging him, but I only have ~50 accuracy on him (even from behind) because I have no melee weapon skill, and the moment he Binds me the fight is over. I switched to Cleric (Lv 12) in hopes of using Regenerate and Haste to gain turn economy, but the moment he uses Heartbreaker I lose all my MP, which I can't afford when Haste costs 30 MP. I switched to Rogue (Lv 12) to outspeed him, but A) he was still faster and B) my Baldur Bow did 13 damage. I tried using tarot cards, but none of the ones I have seem to do much. The best is using Death (I have exactly one Death) to Weaken him, but I can never do enough damage afterwards to finish the fight before Weaken wears off.

As I said, this is my first time through the game, so maybe I'm missing something obvious. I'd appreciate any help with getting through this fight.

Thanks.

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7 hours ago, Astri said:

Hi Raics,

This is my first time playing Tactics Ogre, and I decided to use your mod because it sounded like a much better experience for the game. Overall I think this is probably true, but at present I am stuck on the Vyce duel at the end of Chapter 2, and it seems to be because I built my Denam as a Wizard.

I'm not sure how to get through this fight. My best spells are the level 2 missiles, which do about 30 damage. Not nearly enough to get through his ~360 HP. I switched to a Knight (Lv 12) in hopes of outlasting him, but I still do about 30 damage per physical attack and he heals for ~70 with a Mend Leaf, so that's impossible. I switched to Warrior (Lv 12) in hopes of outdamaging him, but I only have ~50 accuracy on him (even from behind) because I have no melee weapon skill, and the moment he Binds me the fight is over. I switched to Cleric (Lv 12) in hopes of using Regenerate and Haste to gain turn economy, but the moment he uses Heartbreaker I lose all my MP, which I can't afford when Haste costs 30 MP. I switched to Rogue (Lv 12) to outspeed him, but A) he was still faster and B) my Baldur Bow did 13 damage. I tried using tarot cards, but none of the ones I have seem to do much. The best is using Death (I have exactly one Death) to Weaken him, but I can never do enough damage afterwards to finish the fight before Weaken wears off.

As I said, this is my first time through the game, so maybe I'm missing something obvious. I'd appreciate any help with getting through this fight.

Thanks.

Switching to a tanky class like knight is a good idea, with heavy armor, shield, leggings and defense/azure ring you won't take much damage from him, and he will run out of consumables so it will just turn into a battle of attrition. Even one rank of weapon skill will help because you get 10% accuracy, and using your buff items or tarot to get truestrike or dodge, while debuffing him with falsestrike/stagger will help, his and your stats will be high so strengthen or breach won't be worth the bother and the best weapon you can equip will probably be a sword for the accuracy bonus. Another option is spellblade if you have the skill points to learn fated circle and hp infusion, if you don't a knight will be better because he needs no skills to work. You can also do the attrition battle with cleric if you don't have many mend leaves, as he will run out of them too but you won't run out of magic and you will have at least for basic heal most of the time, just equip him to be as tanky and evasive as you can, can't remember if vyce is immune to poison or stun but one of them will probably work so claw or hammer will be a good choice. The battle can be done as wizard but it isn't really worth the bother when you can switch classes freely.

You can come to discord too, maybe other players have some ideas https://discord.gg/5vff9HyV

Edited by raics

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Good mod overall, definitely improves on Vanilla's biggest flaws. I am currently in Chapter 4, so I will lay down some of my thoughts.

Scaling is vastly improved. While lowbies (level 1s) still cannot do any damage, they CAN support in other ways such as item usage, as they are no longer instagibbed, or support magic.

The archetype system makes the game significantly more challenging, as your enemies will no longer come with counterproductive base stats. The much reduced stat gains also means your units wont melt everything by chapter 4.

I love the secondary effects on weapons, as it adds a lot of variety. But I cant really say I agree with all of them. I would change some of them

Dagger: Bind -> Poisoned
Fists: Poisoned -> Stunned
Axe: Breached -> Bind
Hammer: Stunned -> Breached

Archers are still slightly too strong, but with TO's damage formula it could be hard to nerf them, instead if you could, I would have their evasion slightly nerfed. As my 2 archers are currently doubling as dodge tanks. I might consider ranking my impressions of every class once I beat the game. But for now, Berserkers, Archers and Matriarchs seem like the 3 most powerful, but the balance is solid enough that nothing is so strong it makes everything else obsolete. On a tier list, everything would be ranging from A to C (as well as a special Est tier for classes that arrive too late to contribute).

Edited by Avellion

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5 hours ago, Avellion said:

Good mod overall, definitely improves on Vanilla's biggest flaws. I am currently in Chapter 4, so I will lay down some of my thoughts.

Scaling is vastly improved. While lowbies (level 1s) still cannot do any damage, they CAN support in other ways such as item usage, as they are no longer instagibbed, or support magic.

The archetype system makes the game significantly more challenging, as your enemies will no longer come with counterproductive base stats. The much reduced stat gains also means your units wont melt everything by chapter 4.

I love the secondary effects on weapons, as it adds a lot of variety. But I cant really say I agree with all of them. I would change some of them

Dagger: Bind -> Poisoned
Fists: Poisoned -> Stunned
Axe: Breached -> Bind
Hammer: Stunned -> Breached

Archers are still slightly too strong, but with TO's damage formula it could be hard to nerf them, instead if you could, I would have their evasion slightly nerfed. As my 2 archers are currently doubling as dodge tanks. I might consider ranking my impressions of every class once I beat the game. But for now, Berserkers, Archers and Matriarchs seem like the 3 most powerful, but the balance is solid enough that nothing is so strong it makes everything else obsolete. On a tier list, everything would be ranging from A to C (as well as a special Est tier for classes that arrive too late to contribute).

Thanks for the feedback, good to hear you had fun.

I had certain reasons for picking those specific status effects, like daggers doing hamstrings or poison being suitable for the defensive nature of fists. Some of those could be shifted around and it would make more sense to some and less to others, but overall it wouldn't really bring anything new to the table, and people are used to these by now so I probably won't be making major shifts to them.

It's probably good that I'm hearing about so many different favorite classes, some swear that knights are the best unit, some say it's warlocks or beasts, for some it's clerics or familiars, or maybe still ninja. A lot of those depend heavily on your personal approach and it's nice that the game accommodates different playstyles. Archers could be made a bit less dodgy, though, sometimes they can be a bit annoying to chase down.

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45 minutes ago, raics said:

Thanks for the feedback, good to hear you had fun.

I had certain reasons for picking those specific status effects, like daggers doing hamstrings or poison being suitable for the defensive nature of fists. Some of those could be shifted around and it would make more sense to some and less to others, but overall it wouldn't really bring anything new to the table, and people are used to these by now so I probably won't be making major shifts to them.

It's probably good that I'm hearing about so many different favorite classes, some swear that knights are the best unit, some say it's warlocks or beasts, for some it's clerics or familiars, or maybe still ninja. A lot of those depend heavily on your personal approach and it's nice that the game accommodates different playstyles. Archers could be made a bit less dodgy, though, sometimes they can be a bit annoying to chase down.

Thanks for making the mod.

That makes sense. I just got a bit confused at first about the hammers not being the one that inflicted breach. But I have gotten used to it by now. Hey, in Mount and Blade: Warband, Axes would completely wreck shields.

I think everyone having different favorite classes is a sign of good balance. I like the Berserker a lot for its consistently high damage, TP regen and battering ram capabilities with Berserk, but new classes are impressing me when I see them. I think I would have liked Sword Masters a lot had they not joined at level 1, at the very end of chapter 3. Archers are good for supporting fire, and dealing high damage to high priority foes whom my melee fighters can't reach very easily. The Warrior class is looking extremely promising, the buffs you have given 2 handed weapons, means 2 handers are now actually worth using (too heavy and slow in base game with not enough payoff). Double attack with a 2 handed weapon, is something I could see deal an absurd amount of situational burst damage, when needed. Such as to quickly burst down a boss, before healers get a chance to heal them back up.

My strategy is to either turtle or assassinate the boss, whichever looks the most likely to clear me a mission without casualties. Archers and berserkers, are of course really good for this. I should try out beast units more, I was really disappointed in vanilla when my 2 dragons just completely fell off.

Edited by Avellion

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Hi. I have a question about Hobyrim´s Blade Knight class. Why is that class so good at generating mp (alchaka, clarity) if he can´t cast any magic that use mp? He can use some wardances and ninjutsu but all of them use tp so what´s the point on generating mp? The only thing I can think of is to allow dark mages to absorb mp from him but that can´t be all right? Thanks

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6 hours ago, Darius87 said:

Hi. I have a question about Hobyrim´s Blade Knight class. Why is that class so good at generating mp (alchaka, clarity) if he can´t cast any magic that use mp? He can use some wardances and ninjutsu but all of them use tp so what´s the point on generating mp? The only thing I can think of is to allow dark mages to absorb mp from him but that can´t be all right? Thanks

Yeah, it isn't right. It's about his soulstrike minor finisher, it converts mp to extra damage.

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On 8/4/2022 at 10:13 PM, raics said:

Yeah, it isn't right. It's about his soulstrike minor finisher, it converts mp to extra damage.

Ah, so that´s what it was. I have tried it in battle and it adds the mp as damage x 2. Alright, thanks for the quick response.

Edit. Forget it, I have found it. Is the Longhorn.

Edited by Darius87

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Hi. Which weapon is or are the gunblade? I have read about it in the readme but I can´t find it in the equipment document or ingame (by using a cheat to unlock all equipment for testing). I was planning to give it to the commando, but I can´t find info about it. 

Thanks

Edit. Forget it, I have found it. Is the longhorn and Hyperion.

Edited by Darius87
I resolved my doubt on my own.

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