raics

Feedback and Suggestions

599 posts in this topic

I received the Ars Magna recipe book in Chapter 2 Chaos on my first playthrough. I think it was dropped from Vance. The patch notes say it should be bought from Deneb and the spells it creates definitely seems like it should be a late-game recipe. Is this intended?

On a more subjective note, could the first rank of Indirect spells be made to hit one area like it was in the base game?
- In chapter 1, getting hit by 40-50 damage on 2-3 characters is overly punishing, especially since Major Heal isn't available yet and enemy spellcasters have more movement to easily get into position
- For the rest of the game, not having a one-area attack that ignores line of sight makes it really difficult for spellcasters to cast into melee without hitting allies
- With the mod's focus on increased choice such as 1H swords that are held in 2 hands, or sidegrade spears that have 1-2 or 2-3 range, the loss of the one-area indirect spell seems counterintuitive

The solo fight against Vyce at the end of Chapter 2 Chaos on a first playthrough is pretty brutal. He now has a shield and has a chance to Bind on hit. If he binds you, you're done. Used to be, I could rely on the old Phalanx, but now even as a Knight, it's not at all obvious how to counter him. The skill Stopproof isn't available until level 16, while the fight happens around level 11-12. Perhaps make Stopproof require level 12 or just tone down Vyce for this fight?

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Right, the recipe dropping earlier isn't intended, I can't do anything (or at least anything elegant) about it until I go through all the battle data and you can't use those spells yet anyway so it isn't a huge issue, it's just saving you 50k goth.

Indirects are indeed a shade on the strong side, there was an error in the formula when I last buffed them so they're roughly as good as first tier projectiles, which shouldn't be the case, they should do less damage. I won't be reverting them to 1 panel, though, having a low level area spell is doing more good than harm and the loss of projectiles for area-only casters was supposed to be meaningful drawback, so it's a choice of lesser evil.

I could knock Vyce a peg or two down on the offensive side, sure, 1v1 fights are mostly for drama and flavor anyway, not much tactics to be had there. He's likely squishy enough, though.

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Ranger only has Shadow walk and First Aid. Don't get me wrong, Shadow walk is awesome and a bit ridiculous on a class that also has double attack, but the class feels really empty aside from that.

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That's the case with a lot of unique classes, they have one or two unique abilities and several more from normal classes. Would be nice to have more, of course, but the extra room in ability section I scrounged up is almost gone.

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Hey Raics!

Thank you so much once again for the mod. I finally finished a full play through with your mod (restarted a campaign at the last boss after i couldn’t resist a particularly juicy update that also broke my save), and I wanted to share my thoughts on the gameplay.

I love the new crafting and stat gain system. It really keeps the game interesting and somewhat more challenging than the original. I also love how you attempted to remove most of the otherwise tedious grind necessary to try out your cool new equipments!

I do have some doubts though regarding class balance - i get that we wanted to make generics more on par with specials and uniques. On the other hand, I do feel that the effort spent toward obtaining and leveling a unique should carry commensurate rewards - for example, Deneb’s Wicce class is still quite a pain to obtain, and it can only go towards filling out *one* character in your party roster, whereas obtaining and leveling a wizard can be used to occupy all 12 slots of one’s roster if one so chooses. Balance-wise, i think the effort that goes into obtaining and leveling a unique class that can only be used by one character should necessitate that that class be stronger than generics. 

I do feel that requiring the defeat of all enemies would be a welcome enhancement of the gameplay. I know this may be hard to code, and I’m just putting this out there to let you know that it’s a feature that some of us would really love.

Finally, is there any way you might enable decent exp gain for POTD? I feel this would lessen the grind post-game by increasing the rewards the player obtains in exchange for the time invested.

As an aside - I am keen on adding the Blinkwalk skill you gave Vyce to the Lord class. Do you have time to share with me how this might be done via the hex editor?

Thanks again for your great work!

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I did try to make unique classes that take more effort to obtain stronger, Astromancer and Songstress are probably worth it now and I might give some others a little boost. The problem with unique classes is you don't get only one, or three or five, you can have your whole team composed of unique classes in best case scenario and if I make them too good that will be the absolute ultimate team and generics will be kinda pointless, ideally I'd like a situation where getting unique characters is worth it but if you're feeling lazy you can go for generics for their accessibility and not feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Might have talked about that before, if I can, I definitely will add kill all condition to more battles. Adding more ext to PotD might be trickier, we'll see, I'll keep it in mind.

Giving your Lord the Shadow Walk skill is easy, however, just go to the address d25e4 and change the number from 255 (can't learn or use) to whatever level you want him to be able to learn it on.

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Raics - I did as you mentioned, and it works. I made a mistake at first that resulted in it not working. Thanks again!

I get what you mean about having the entire team composed of unique classes being possibly too much better than generics - on the other hand, attempting to use unique classes for ALL members of a roster also places some restrictions on the player - for instance, it necessitates the player carefully thinking through how each unique class will have to be built to play with other unique classes (e.g. Knight Commander with 2 White Knights?), as opposed to simply using flexible generics to fill whatever role is needed.

Edited by Lyrinix

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I edited the cell  d25e3  instead of e4. Stupid me. No idea how you do it so perfectly, across so many entries. xD

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Hi Raics!

Great mod, really brings the game to life. Recently had some time to play around with white knights but felt they were really weak so I was wondering if i was missing something. It seems their divine light spells are all situational debuff clears (dont know if they get something else later) and they only have melee weapons and slow speed which means they almost never get any action. Would it be possible to give them some kind of skill they could use when theyre not fighting, like aoe defense buff skills or something? I hardly ever find any use for their divine light spells. They just feel like slow melee characters that just lag behind everyone else atm and I wish they had something they could do more consistently.

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2 hours ago, Onelovekr said:

Hi Raics!

Great mod, really brings the game to life. Recently had some time to play around with white knights but felt they were really weak so I was wondering if i was missing something. It seems their divine light spells are all situational debuff clears (dont know if they get something else later) and they only have melee weapons and slow speed which means they almost never get any action. Would it be possible to give them some kind of skill they could use when theyre not fighting, like aoe defense buff skills or something? I hardly ever find any use for their divine light spells. They just feel like slow melee characters that just lag behind everyone else atm and I wish they had something they could do more consistently.

It's mostly a more offensive knight, probably a bit stronger than terror knight but won't match a berserker. They potentially have very strong skills later on, time of need is good anywhere and fervor is borderline broken in undead maps. Their light spells are indeed situational, he's no cleric so you won't use them all the time but they can save your bacon and won't slow you down much so it's handy to have. One of the reasons I can't make them super good is because you can get so many of them.

Edited by raics

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I know it's been said many times, but I think it bears repeating - really great work, Raics! Imo your mod is really underappreciated - sadly an old game like this probably has quite a niche following, many of whom probably may not bother coming back with a working PSP / emulator to try it again, much less go to the hassle of (1) looking for, (2) finding and (3) trying out your mod. For those of us lucky enough to chance upon this like myself, though, I must say it's really been a blast - I do believe I've clocked well over 100 hrs of playtime with your mod, which in the context of working as a responsible, professional adult is a LOT of time to give up. 

Thanks again! 

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It's perfectly fine, there's no money in this anyway so I don't mind if just the biggest fans of the game play it. The important thing is that the game deserves a mod, considering how many FFT has, maybe we could say it even needs one so I'm really happy when I see people enjoy it, that means it's a real improvement and not a bunch of wasted effort. Thanks for trying it out.

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Hey raics, thanks for getting back to me with your thoughtful answers. Separate question, I'm in chapter 4 chaos and read the Balmamusa Dead to trigger the fight to save Oelias. I used a Lifeline Gem on her, and it didn't trigger her follow-up conversation, thus now she's stuck in my party as a Guest and the next fight with Dievold isn't happening. Is this an intended result? Should I revive her via a different method?

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16 hours ago, crabcrouton said:

Hey raics, thanks for getting back to me with your thoughtful answers. Separate question, I'm in chapter 4 chaos and read the Balmamusa Dead to trigger the fight to save Oelias. I used a Lifeline Gem on her, and it didn't trigger her follow-up conversation, thus now she's stuck in my party as a Guest and the next fight with Dievold isn't happening. Is this an intended result? Should I revive her via a different method?

Yes, that's what the upgraded evacuation stone is for, besides saving denam.

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Hey raics!
Thanks for all the effort you put into making this mod.

So I played the 0.91a  version and the consolidated changelog states that the Berserker class can now equip 2H-Swords.
Was a little disappointed to find out that it does actually not allow this ingame.
Not sure if it is an oversight in either the mod or the changelog.

Best wishes, Dave

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I should update the consolidated changelog but it's kinda tedious. Reverted the change at some point to reduce the equipment overlap between berserker and terror knight, but I could bring it back, some players asked for it recently and it isn't exactly hurting anything.

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Hey raics,

I'm in 4L and noticed a few weird things regarding ai levels. In some story/mission fights like ozma recruitment fight and the first pirate recruitment fight that is available early on in ch4, the ai levels were in the 20s (22 or 26, dont remember). Which is a huge jump from ch 3 that early on. But in other story battles the ai is at lv 16 to 19, like saving lindl. So i had to level up classes to the mid 20s to recruit ozma and azelstan and then breezed through the rest of the story fights so far (just got lindl). wondering if this is a bug in my version? I dont remember if there were other high level fights early on but those 2 I mentioned stuck out to me because I had to do them early on but it was impossible at level 15.

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Have you considered making new classes you unlock start at your average level with appropriate unspent skill points? Its very annoying having to grind/scavenge just to let new characters cought up to your party. In the original game, that would be bad since you lose out on stat boosts from lvling, but in this mod it wouldnt be a problem right?

edit: and whats the deal with charm duration? I noticed it never even lasted long enough for them to take one action for your team with wortdart blowgun. I figured the spell might be different but I just had a fight where i used the spell on the monster that acts right after and he broke out immediately.

Edited by wazzur1

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On 7/30/2018 at 5:32 PM, wazzur1 said:

Have you considered making new classes you unlock start at your average level with appropriate unspent skill points? Its very annoying having to grind/scavenge just to let new characters cought up to your party. In the original game, that would be bad since you lose out on stat boosts from lvling, but in this mod it wouldnt be a problem right?

edit: and whats the deal with charm duration? I noticed it never even lasted long enough for them to take one action for your team with wortdart blowgun. I figured the spell might be different but I just had a fight where i used the spell on the monster that acts right after and he broke out immediately.

charm works fine for me, lasting multiple turns

i'd also like an equipment list, i just found out the Reeking set has changed, apparently into the Legion set, but I don't know what pieces complete the new Legion set.

I wanted to report that I'm noticing some weird issues with the earrings giving stat boosts when they shouldn't. For ex. I think the Beast earring gives a boost to 1h swords as well. Also I think it's kind of weird that warrior's band can give higher atk boosts than the earrings in some cases, same for Seal of Finesse being better than Gunner's Earring. And I wish archers would be able to use or get access to some new armor from the recipes as well. I just finished the shines and everyone has new body armor except the archers, who are stuck with scout vests which imo are worse than damasc vests for archers. Wish they could have a new piece of body armor from the recipes that complemented them more. I think the scout vests are really weak compared to phantom cloaks and damasc vests, not sure where they fit in really.

 

Edit: Also forgot to mention, I was playing around with a Necromancer and tried its Beckon skill on an injured enemy, but it didn't do anything. I used it on a human and it had 100% accuracy. I thought it would damage the enemy by its current damage amount but it just ended up using up my TP

Edited by Onelovekr

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Sorry for not responding, went on a short trip and had no reliable internet access.

On 7/29/2018 at 6:54 AM, wazzur1 said:

Is there any place i can find the equipment list for this mod?

Not really, I should probably make one. The pattern that most gear pieces follow is similar within a category, though.

On 7/29/2018 at 11:10 PM, Onelovekr said:

Hey raics,

I'm in 4L and noticed a few weird things regarding ai levels. In some story/mission fights like ozma recruitment fight and the first pirate recruitment fight that is available early on in ch4, the ai levels were in the 20s (22 or 26, dont remember). Which is a huge jump from ch 3 that early on. But in other story battles the ai is at lv 16 to 19, like saving lindl. So i had to level up classes to the mid 20s to recruit ozma and azelstan and then breezed through the rest of the story fights so far (just got lindl). wondering if this is a bug in my version? I dont remember if there were other high level fights early on but those 2 I mentioned stuck out to me because I had to do them early on but it was impossible at level 15.

Yeah, enemies in those battles are of higher level compared to the story missions or optional content available at that point, that's a vanilla thing, I'll most likely normalize that once I finish tweaking the battle data but it won't be soon, that's a ton of work.

On 7/30/2018 at 10:32 AM, wazzur1 said:

Have you considered making new classes you unlock start at your average level with appropriate unspent skill points? Its very annoying having to grind/scavenge just to let new characters cought up to your party. In the original game, that would be bad since you lose out on stat boosts from lvling, but in this mod it wouldnt be a problem right?

edit: and whats the deal with charm duration? I noticed it never even lasted long enough for them to take one action for your team with wortdart blowgun. I figured the spell might be different but I just had a fight where i used the spell on the monster that acts right after and he broke out immediately.

It wouldn't break anything, but skill points have to be granted to a character, they can't be tied to the class so that part can't be done. It might be possible to add new classes at a higher level but I don't know how to do that yet.

Charm and bewitch are potentially gamebreaking so their starting duration is very low and there's a small amount of variance for statuses that tick away on 'per turn' basis.

14 hours ago, Onelovekr said:

charm works fine for me, lasting multiple turns

i'd also like an equipment list, i just found out the Reeking set has changed, apparently into the Legion set, but I don't know what pieces complete the new Legion set.

I wanted to report that I'm noticing some weird issues with the earrings giving stat boosts when they shouldn't. For ex. I think the Beast earring gives a boost to 1h swords as well. Also I think it's kind of weird that warrior's band can give higher atk boosts than the earrings in some cases, same for Seal of Finesse being better than Gunner's Earring. And I wish archers would be able to use or get access to some new armor from the recipes as well. I just finished the shines and everyone has new body armor except the archers, who are stuck with scout vests which imo are worse than damasc vests for archers. Wish they could have a new piece of body armor from the recipes that complemented them more. I think the scout vests are really weak compared to phantom cloaks and damasc vests, not sure where they fit in really.

 

Edit: Also forgot to mention, I was playing around with a Necromancer and tried its Beckon skill on an injured enemy, but it didn't do anything. I used it on a human and it had 100% accuracy. I thought it would damage the enemy by its current damage amount but it just ended up using up my TP

It's the same pieces as before, they're just all saying 'legion' instead of various variants of 'stinky'. There were a few other set changes, you can complete the infernal set with shaytan's bullova too if you prefer axes to hammers and the dragonslayer set can be done with either a dragon/wyrm shield or any 2h weapon that has a racial bonus versus dragons.

Unlike rings, earrings have a resistance bonus and there's also accuracy from extra weapon skill levels and bonus HP, they're a more balanced option compared to the focused boost to just one stat that rings have. Scout Vest is supposed to be really bad, you're trading off good defense of damasc or elemental vests for bonus movement.

I'll check up on beckon, thanks for reporting.

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Glad to see you are back. i guess i didnt clarify that skill points part. What you describe is what i meant. Characters that join you in later chapters really should start with like 1~2k skill points. And If you can make it happen, I dont think anyone would object to starting new jobs at your ave level in the framework of this patch.

About charm... i think it should at least have a minimum duration so it doesnt do stuff like lasting 0 turns. That kind of makes it useless when you can just petrify instead.

I have a question regarding skills. Which skills cant be learned by other classes but can be used. I know meditate for sone mages and last rites can be used by princess. Any others? Mainly, I am wondering if conserveRT is wizard exclusive and if theres higher level sibyl active skills that can be used by princess.

By the way, I know this is still a work in progress, but its very hard to follow the readme. The relevant info is scattered all over the place and its hard to be sure if the info is current when you find it with ctrl + F. You must have your hands full, but perhaps in the future you could make a excel sheet or something that keeps the up to date info on classes/skills/magic etc.

Im really enjoying the mod. I never finished the original but played it til chapter 4. The skills and equipment is much more varied and enjoyable with the mod.

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Ah, right, giving the recruits skill points isn't easy because there isn't an entry for that in the template, skill points are something that only characters in your roster can have. However, as a workaround I could give them more adequate generic skills for their level so you don't have to buy stuff like counter or clarity at least. More weapon skills to choose from might not be a bad idea either, maybe even a few ranks in all weapon types their default class can use.

There isn't really a way to set minimum duration, I'd have to raise the default duration and then it could potentially last too long.

Some signature skills are cross-class, you can check if other classes can use them by checking the second info tab, classes that can use it are highlighted. A good example is meditate which is usable by most casters, some knight skills are accessible by unique knight-ish classes or squash which is usable by most attackers with access to heavy weapons. Some unique classes will have access to a few skills from normal classes, like knight commander, buccaneer or ranger, and lord can use one from each.

Got a consolidated changelog on the first page but it isn't fully up to date, I'll try to bring it up to snuff these days, got a handy sheet for vanilla but I was waiting until the mod solidifies enough to avoid extra work.

If you haven't played the game much, could you tell me how much of an annoyance are the french names for spell scrolls? Got some requests from first time players to change it to be the same as spell name because finding the right one can sometimes be annoying, and it isn't really adding anything to the game.

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