raics

Feedback and Suggestions

599 posts in this topic

1 hour ago, raics said:

The point of 1h katana sidegrades is mostly lowering luck so they're less likely to crit when dual wielding, the intended use is sidegrade in first slot so you get the parry bonus and a normal katana in second slot, I might give them a small damage bonus on the account of being reinforced, though. Thrown are the heaviest ranged weapons because you're assumed to carry a stack of them, but also cost the least RT to use of all ranged weapons so it cancels out if you're using them a lot, and their damage is good. I'll be tweaking the items further for sure, it's a recent addition so they're still a bit rough around the edges.

 Ah I honestly didn't think of that purpose for the katanas, it makes perfect sense tbh to lower the crit chance on the first hit.  I dont think youd need to increase the damage, maybe lower the weight and the dmg actually and shorten the actual description, something like "main hand katana to improve defense and ensure follow up," something to indicate its intended purpose isnt for raw dmg.  Adjust it around avd or something instead, 2 1h katanas do good damage regardless even if you make the sidegrade a more defensive option.  I dont have the mod up to actually see what the stats are on most of em.  It honestly didnt occur to me but its a good design after you explained it.

Edited by Bateman

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Hi Again!

So, after a roughly 220 hour playthrough, here are my observations:

My MVP through all the tough late-game things was a Shaman-classed Iuria, because she was a Shaman and she could innately fly.  Second place went to Olivia, a Shaman who by virtue of a ring, could teleport.  Mobility is, hands down, the most valuable aspect any character could have.  Straight up, no melee, and no ranged attacker can compete with the effectiveness of magic.

In my earlier post, I had distressed over the power of the Ninja's mobility in comparison to other classes, and while this was true for a time, but they also wound up being more or less worthless contributors to the combat effort not long after Lv.30.  A lack of mobility in other, non-Ninja physical classes simply led to the use of none of these classes being viable participants in the end.  There is nothing any melee class can do that a casting class cannot address either through their damage, or their ability to control/suppress (sleep/petrify/stun/etc) the opposition.

There were two separate maps where bosses/objectives killed themselves by using a particular skill that consumed a portion of their Hp as a preamble to performing some other effect and resulted in my immediate victory on those maps.  I wish I could remember who they were, or what maps they appeared on, but I don't quite recall.  I'm reasonably sure they were pre-Coda, though.  I'm very sorry for not paying more close attention.  They were probably Berserker-classed people, though.

While I appreciate the innately higher move you granted to units, the fact is that an overall "+1 move" ultimately still renders all land-bound units less mobile than their unmodded counterparts.  Moreover, all my units simply wound up slotting in Jump I/II in an effort to gain as much mobility as they could.

Early on, in story maps with relatively friendly movement for all, everything seems pretty okay!  But after two runs through the Palace of the Dead, and a visit to the San Bronsa Ruins, there are clear disparities between unit value.

I wound up using CW codes to lock my characters at Lv.30, because I found that around roughly Lv.35 or so, anyone who was dealing physical damage (melee or ranged) was dealing 25-50 damage to most opposing front-line units, whereas a casting unit would deal 300-400 damage.  Sometimes AoE.  Sometimes even more.  (My Iuria and Olivia had a fantastic Air/Earth synergy, that made them an inseparable pair, and by keeping their RTs tight, a force that literally nothing withstood.)  There was no reason to use a physical/melee person to deal 50 damage, when a magical person could deal 300 damage.

My melee so often wound up being a tile or two short of being able to contribute, I simply wound up not needing any melee in the end.  I don't think that it's because casters are too powerful.  I think it's because melee is too worthless.  Their lack of mobility is an innate hindrance, and their late game weaponry options don't scale well enough to keep them viable even as defenders.

Any skill that provides a base 30% chance of success, +10% more success per rank, ultimately resulting in 100% success to lay down a status ailment at Rank 8 is...  really decisive.

I'm sorry if this comes across as kind of harsh or negative, but I do hope it helps!

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Don't worry, this is a feedback thread, not a praise thread so it all helps.

I already adjusted unit resistance and endgame spell scaling a bit for next patch and I'm planing to raise the RT values of spells in general, as part of the problem is mages being way too fast compared to other ranged units when they stick to low level spells. If they aren't able to nuke to opposition instantly anymore they won't benefit much from extended movement because there will be a high chance they will get bopped if you get too greedy and break the line.

Berserker does have two abilities that sacrifice his HP, one of them shouldn't be able to kill him because it removes half of current HP and the other does only 5% of max so the chance of boss killing himself with it isn't high. I can just switch the latter to 10% of current HP and remove the other one from bosses when I get to doing that.

Some of those ranked skills are very strong so going from 30% to 100% is a huge power upgrade, yes, I'll likely switch some to a mid-way fixed percentage like 60% and scale range with rank on some of them instead.

Edited by raics

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Currently playing through CH2 Chaos with World (~level 30) and I think elemental bombs (shots) might be a little too abusable by enemies. The Darza fight in particular has three melee enemies fitted with Field Alchemy II and all they do is spam 150-200 unavoidable AOE bombs regardless of any other skills they have set. It also makes saving Bayin impossible because he starts near a crossbow archer and all it takes is a bolt and a bomb from below him to knock him out..

Edit: Finally got Darza to not savage Bayin on his first turn and managed to sleep the three culprits. So not impossible after all, but still a massive pain in the butt. Never thought I'd see the AI use cheese strats against me.

Edited by Rucession

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Those bombs aren't really doing much on the grand scale and they're kinda cheap, I'll see what to do with those. Maybe the simplest thing would be to make them single target so only using them with lobber makes sense, which is what they are intended for.

Edited by raics

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Made an account just for this mod :P

I'm up to Chapter 3 Chaos right now. I will post my thoughts on this so far:

 

What I like

I like the opposite-element aversity, it gives me an excuse to use multiple elements on single caster or use different-element casters.

Turning Instill Element into an active skill really makes the fights faster and more fun.

Increased emphasis on debuffs brings the "tactics" back to Tactics Ogre

Heal Rain (forgot the actual name) is useful again!

Rune Fencers/Valkyries being a support spellcaster makes them very fun to use.

Dragoons can use magic again!

I like the shortened animations on some attacks and skills (looking at Meditate here), some of them were needlessly long in vanilla.

Crafting system is lovely. I am uncertain why you would keep the success chances at near-100% but not absolutely 100%.

Blessing Stones removing a friendly from the battlefield rather than reviving them makes battles less cheeseable.

Removing scroll usage makes battles less cheeseable.

 

What I am unsure about

Magic seems very powerful. Much more powerful than bows and melee weapons. Uncertain if this is because of the way my units are geared and skilled or not.

Skill Point gain still seems very slow. While it's not an issue for units you have had from the start, it does make making new recruits battle-worthy a lot more difficult because the fights themselves are harder while new units are basically dead weight.

 

Thoughts, ideas

Would it be possible to create an item to boost a character's skill point gain meant for new recruits? Sort of like an inventory item. Or a skill itself. e.g. Training Armor: +100WT +100% skill point gain.

Overall I am very pleased with this mod.

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Thanks for the feedback.

The main idea was to make mages very oppressive and powerful but also very squishy. It's kinda tricky to finetune so it will take a bit, but both of those aspects will be moderated slightly in next patch.

There's less things to spend points on now so I wasn't planning of any introducing any method to boost skill point gain. There isn't a quick solution either and it couldn't be done with an item, I'd have to tamper with SP gain formula and that isn't something I'm able to do right now. I suppose there's still the sp gain multiplier cwcheat if you're looking to save on some farming time.

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Finally got around to scaling San Bronsa for the second tier of draconic attack spells, and I've noticed that their damage is unaffected by buffs like spellcraft or strengthen. I suppose this is because of their unique damage formula, but their damage doesn't seem to be boosted by elemental augments either. Is this an intended drawback for their relatively cheap MP/RT cost (compared to apocrypha/summons)?

Also noticed two small bugs in my playthrough so far - Dynamo Plate doesn't require any materials to craft (the materials page is blank), and the Steadfast skill can't be learned because its prerequisite is listed as -nothing-

It has otherwise been a blast rediscovering all the bonus dungeon loot and dealing with the higher level enemies in the upper floors of San Bronsa (the Titans in particular really feel as tough as their namesake now). Now to tackle the Palace of the Dead!

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They should be affected, but it's more of the way those effects work than spells themselves. To see any benefit from bonuses that affect the stat overhead (like strengthen or elemental averse) you have to pass the stat threshold first and units that can use draconic damage spells tend to have lowish attack stats, augments add to the stat total, but if you didn't pass the threshold you won't see any effect either. There's a damage calc table in the first post if you want to know more in detail.

Thanks for the report on those two, forgot to set the crafting recipe for dynamo and the Steadfast requirement was Knockback 1, which got removed.

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Hmm..I did some further testing and it appears augments and strengthen DO affect draconic spell damage, just as you said. I suspect I didn't notice it earlier because my most prominent draconic user (Hammer Lord) is always targeting bulky frontline units so it didn't look like either of them were making a difference.

Edit: Just completed my CH4 Palace run, now farming mats for the Secrets of the Master recipes. Would be nice if there were a few more sources of Daedalus Pinions, Racks and Skyiron (not too many because they're supposed to be rare). Maybe as max-rank steal loot like Orichalcums? On another note, the Valkenheim is listed as ice elemental in the changelog PDF but it has no element in-game. It's still a pretty big upgrade over the Spiked Bola (although you do lose the ability to equip a melee weapon alongside it for counters and parry).

Edited by Rucession

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Is there a save editor for this game? Ended up losing my save and all I still had to do was the palace and CODA. Don't really want to have to reach the endgame again, as the game is still very...very slow at the start.

EDIT: Actually, nevermind, I just saw the huge overhaul that 0.89 and 0.90 were and I should probably go through the progression again.

Edited by Valenhil

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Heya Raics.  Kain told me about this mod in my discord.  I'm a pretty active Twitch streamer so I am REALLY looking forward to playing this mod when it is finished.  I loved TO back on the PS1 in the late 90s/early 2000s, and never got to try the PSP version.  This mod, and everything he has told me about it looks like it will be a real treat! 

Keep up the good work man.

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Also made a account just for this mod hehe.

So, I was leveling up a party of 6 to pick extra 2 (Vyce and Gildas, but Hobyrim is so cool and Mirdyn seems useful) and I noticed 2 things:

1 - Berserker is so underwhelming. I knew in vanilla they're worthless, but they don't seem a whole lot better here. I'm using Xanpa with 2H Axes. Should I try another stuff?

2 - Dragoon also doesn't feel good. I have a spear dragoon on vanilla I wanted to finally use some 2H Hammer, I already have a Spellblade with spear and I want variety. His magic damage seems okay, tho. It isn't 80 damage for tier 2 spells with a mage, but 60 damage seems good enough. But his defenses are so crap AND he is slow. Am I doing it wrong? He can't use double handed crossbows, but it would be even worse due to it's hefty RT cost. Halp.

 

Based on that, I would like to throw 2 ideas regarding Berserker. I'm by no means a veteran on TO (this is my second run), so take this with a grain of salt:

How about he gain Convert HP? This archetype in games have some mechanic regarding being beaten and improving his stats, either being his defenses or his ofense with some defense (Tryndamere in League of Legends, can crit and heal and gains damage when low health, for example.). Historically (or rather, the concept about Berserkers in history), they were fearless warriors that wouldn't stop his assault regardelss of damage. So, self-heal through Covert HP would make him somewhat durable when he actually gets into the fray. What about give his sanguine assault a bigger TP cost and also a bigger attack modifier? In a way that, if you want to do big damage, you can't just gain through attacking but through getting beatean until you "enrage" enough and nuke someone. Or +crit when low health?

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Berserker isn't really something you can just leave on the frontlines and forget about him, right, he needs support from a healer, a knight or maybe earth buff user to shield him so that part works as intended. He doesn't exactly shine early on but in late game when a lot of damage comes from stat scaling and you raise your skills he can do very high damage and has the tools to throw TP around like dirt. There's only so much I can do with my current access to the game's innards so passive bonuses you suggested would be a no go.

Dragoon pretty much does as advertised, kills beasts well and does ok otherwise, he shouldn't be able to beat a warrior, swordmaster or berserker straight up but he doesn't lose too badly either, around the level of terror knight and he got a few new tricks. He's stronger than spellblade but can't match him in support role, you can't use 2h crossbows but 1h ranged weapons are much more usable here so it isn't that much of a loss.

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What's with mages, seems like they love to cast Poison Mist at every opportunity.

Also is there any way to make Fear status somewhat usable against bosses? 

 

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AI is kinda funny, ever since I raised the chance to 100% they just love poison spells.

When I find those encounter tables I'll probably be able to set immunities, unless they just use that death ward thingy, in which case not much can be done.

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Decided to jump back into it since the last time I played the mod was .83 and the patch notes have got me excited. I noticed that you took a bit of an axe to Canopus' stats which is probably justified by how strong that guy is but the poor boys stats are almost generic tier now. Anyway keep up the good work my man.

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just got to patch 0.90, katanas feel too strong, it out damages the 2 handed swords especially in the early game, and to think they can double hit and gives deflect with warriors feels weirdly OP

Edited by jullian29

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Canopus is a disc one nuke of sorts so you have to be careful there or he makes the entire early game a cakewalk. In vanilla winged race is only marginally weaker than humans which doesn't properly offset their incredibly valuable flying ability, in the mod hawkmen are considerably weaker so Canopus and Iuria are actually really strong for a winged and probably on par with a normal human.

On a unit with no STR/DEX bias, the weeb sword doesn't outdamage a 2H sword in general case scenario, only when hitting squishies (like mages or archers), which is probably the way it should work. The additional TP hit on katana is useful but in early game the extra chance to hit on swords is probably more valuable, I might take a small snip or two at it it in future but there isn't anything too broken currently.

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Hi,

Just tried the patch for the first time (so I'm still geting used to the changes), I'm in Act 3, one thing I'd like to point because I feel it's kind of cheesy: The AI seems to have an unhealthy obsesion with poisoning units (be it poison cloud or the water magic), even units like Gatialo, a terror knight boss with good physical stats spent almost all his turns casting poison instead of physically attacking (only attacked when he could use a finisher). Maybe the AI could try to use buffs instead of poisoning everyone, which honestly feel more like an annoyance than anything else.

Many units seem to have empty skill slots (but I think it's on the do list), so when you recruit them you maybe have 1 valid skill and 4-5 empty slots, feels kind of weird, but no big deal. I'd like to point out that the clerics in the Act II fight in tynemouth hill (so the Galiatos cleric fight) are still using Caldias fans despite being a lvl 21 fan (dagger).

My main gripe with the changes right now is how mandatory a healer feels, as everyone seems to be able to tank some damage, and heals top off a lot of hp (so enemy clerics on fights are your worst enemies!), specially on low hp units, so leveling new classes/monsters without a healer made the map choice very restrictive for me. Was the idea behind this to always have someone with lob gloves and have him heal with items instead of magic? (if you can't bring your monks because their level is much higher).

Also it would be nice if the monsters could have a mastery for their claws (weapon), as without this I feel in the long run they are at disadvantage with humanoids, and with the range changes + the need for buffs for units to work at a full potential it makes beasts and dragons less attractive (octopus on water maps are still strong though), maybe this changes with the later craftable weapons that I haven't seen, if this is the case then nevermind.

Other than this I'm enjoying the mod a lot and I'm thankful for your work, it's nice rediscovering the game (despite the early game being a big of a slog) and trying out new things.

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Yeah, enemies like poison a lot, unfortunately there's isn't much I can do about that except remove the spells altogether, the fix I released recently helped a bit by reverting them to normal accuracy instead of 100%. There are very few buffs that the AI is set to use, because they typically won't do anything else as long as even one unbuffed unit is nearby.

The problem with empty skills and fans is one and the same, they're equipped manually for that battle so until I get to doing a pass over battle tables and remove them myself it won't be fixed.

Clerics aren't really a problem when levelling new classes, if you stick a low level class in a high level team it will syphon most of the xp anyway and level fast enough, units also get to the point where they won't get oneshot anymore earlier because level stat difference is lower. Strong healing is intentionally a necessity, you could get by without it in vanilla because very few enemies did any damage beyond a certain point and I like the way it changes the battle dynamic.

There's probably no need to give monsters the ability to level attacks, they're pretty strong at all stages of the game, especially later on and grow well enough naturally.

Good to hear you're enjoying it overall, there's a loot of room for improvements but the game isn't always cooperating and my options are still pretty limited.

Edited by raics

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is it possible to rework the poison mechanics? have a percentage based damage like 5% for the normal and 10% for envenom, and revert the intervals to normal but with a longer duration, in that way players will be obligated to use cleanse. the damage it does is honestly nonexistent all throughout the game

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