raics

Feedback and Suggestions

599 posts in this topic

I absolutely love my three Liches acquired at the Graveyard. They have no necromantic powers yet.  Of course they have to be protected and aren't really good for the Fortress quest series of fights, when directly assaulted by the enemy, but still very promising. I love their sheer destructive power, especially with the Spellcraft buff and how they can make the enemy vulnerable to Fire & Ice.  IMO this game with the super long story-line beats most current RPGs: Divinity OS2Def can't even come close.

In what game do we have amazing functions like Save Anywhere at Any Second and reload Inifinite number of Save States?  Also the cheat system of PPSSPP is amazing. Without losing valuable real-life time I can bring low level classes up to speed in a fraction of time, compared to the endless grinding in vanilla that would destroy my valuable time.

Edited by mercy

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Liches are probably my second favourite caster class in this mod for their ability to teleport alone, since it allows them to scale most terrain alongside my rangers/ninjas/rogues. Their Reflection ability also synergizes really well with the light-armored classes since they're the usually the prime target for spellcasters. But if you think Liches are amazing, the Astromancer will blow your mind. I just unlocked him and by god is he the most independent caster in the game. Amazing HP/MP sustainability, ridiculous re-positioning ability, and he can apply magic vulnerability in a large area - all this without taking up a combat action. Granted he comes pretty much near the end of the post-game content, but One Vision and Raics have made him absolutely worth the wait.

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Hi, 

I'm having a lot of fun playing your mod. However I have a lot of ideas I wanted to try on LUCT once I finish it. 

Can you share the pointers if I wanted to Hex edit it myself? Have you thought about creating a tool to edit LUCT, so you could grow a hacking community for this game?

Thank you a lot for this mod, as I said, having a lot of fun.

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2 hours ago, zoiwillxx said:

Can you share the pointers if I wanted to Hex edit it myself? Have you thought about creating a tool to edit LUCT, so you could grow a hacking community for this game?

I could, but my notes are too messy to make much sense of, can't see myself trying to tackle tidying them up before 1.0 release. I'm no programmer so making an editing tool would be too much and the battle data is a bit hopeless too, as there's no pattern to it.

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3 hours ago, zoiwillxx said:

Can you share the pointers if I wanted to Hex edit it myself? Have you thought about creating a tool to edit LUCT, so you could grow a hacking community for this game?

If you use an application like Beyond Compare (ensure Rules > Comparison > Alignment: None) to compare the extracted contents of the LUCT game's ISO against the One Vision mod files, it is easy to see that almost all of raics' changes are in the 03E8.bin file.  From looking at the changes in the other edited files, I assume those are mostly to modify sprites, portraits, and text in various cutscenes.

After a recent post from raics, I spent a few days slapping together a bare-bones application that let me read the full list of equipment records from both the LUCT and One Vision 03E8.bin.  This allowed me to greatly increase my own understanding of the equipment records which I used to update portions of my semi-public repository of TO:LUCT data hacking which is linked below.  My app is still very rough--it currently can only view a table of that one type of record, not even make changes and save them--and I used the opportunity to finally try out developing for UWP, which means I can't exactly just give it to you to play with... though I could publish the source, I suppose.  If raics does get around to publishing his knowledge, I may write (or at least collaborate with other developers on) some type of editor for at least portions of LUCT's 03E8.bin.

By the way, raics.  After my recent study of your changes to the 03E8.bin file, I think I could write an editor that would give you almost full control over item/spell names and descriptions; it looks as if, as long as the total length of the entire block of text strings is constant, you may be able to change the individual lengths of the names and descriptions at will... well, with great difficulty by hand.  Would you be interested in such a utility?

Anyway, zoiwillxx: my TO:LUCT hacking reference.  On the Equipment tab, the sidebar has info that may jumpstart your own hex editing.  Note that various record lists are proceeded by a 16 byte header, starting with "xlce", that contains the count and size of the records.

Edited by Sparafucile

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Thank you so much for that, I'm digging through everything you sent me. I am really grateful. 

I hope you and raics could collaborate to create a tool that could benefit not only raics to finish and update his mod as well as helping others to make their own mods for LUCT. 

Edited by zoiwillxx

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31 minutes ago, Sparafucile said:

By the way, raics.  After my recent study of your changes to the 03E8.bin file, I think I could write an editor that would give you almost full control over item/spell names and descriptions; it looks as if, as long as the total length of the entire block of text strings is constant, you may be able to change the individual lengths of the names and descriptions at will... well, with great difficulty by hand.  Would you be interested in such a utility?

It would be nice to have for sure but I'm mostly done with renaming stuff so it wouldn't be really necessary at this point, especially if it's tricky to make one and use it. Dunno if it's an issue, but would the editor be able to preserve backwards compatibility? Where I had to change the length of names it was done in a way that would allow you to still use the mod on original hardware if anyone wants to for any reason.

For any future projects cracking it would probably be a must, it was extremely annoying to be restricted by it.

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7 minutes ago, raics said:

It would be nice to have for sure but I'm mostly done with renaming stuff so it wouldn't be really necessary at this point, especially if it's tricky to make one and use it. Dunno if it's an issue, but would the editor be able to preserve backwards compatibility? Where I had to change the length of names it was done in a way that would allow you to still use the mod on original hardware if anyone wants to for any reason.

For any future projects cracking it would probably be a must, it was extremely annoying to be restricted by it.

I will do a test to see if my idea actually works and get back to you.

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Cressida necromancer Undead Army building

Leveling up Cressida at the Pirate's Graveyard. I noticed the first map has excellent Phantom Sorcerers(Lvl. 22), who have spells like: Sylphide and Gnome.
I have never seen these spells so far:
The whole point of me wanting to recruit these powerful wizards was to get these spells I noticed they use in battle. So I could get my first powerful undead mages. But, NO. Upon recruiting them with Master undead, then winning the fight, the game instantly rids them of these two spells, giving me a watered down, simple phantom sorcerer.  WTF is the point in getting them???!  Whose idea was this?

Edited by mercy

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3 hours ago, mercy said:

WTF is the point in getting them???!  Whose idea was this?

Not mine. When you recruit a unit you don't get all skills and spells it has, no idea why but I assume it's because skills are extremely grindy in vanilla and high level spells are hard to get, they likely didn't want to trivialize getting them and demean your efforts up to that point.

Anyway, it's something I can't change yet. You can buy those spells at deneb's or potd shops after you kill the last boss, I'll probably make them available earlier though, probably during chapter 4 when you get access to damasc gear.

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5 hours ago, raics said:

Not mine. When you recruit a unit you don't get all skills and spells it has, no idea why but I assume it's because skills are extremely grindy in vanilla and high level spells are hard to get, they likely didn't want to trivialize getting them and demean your efforts up to that point.

Anyway, it's something I can't change yet. You can buy those spells at deneb's or potd shops after you kill the last boss, I'll probably make them available earlier though, probably during chapter 4 when you get access to damasc gear.

Thank You!
The developers should have solved this by allowing players to keep what they earn as mighty trophies. Making the player feel empowered is very important for fun. Then they should have found a way around the problem you described: like each captured phantom gets a Clan Mark that prevents it being transformed into zombie then human, so salvaging their skills becomes impossible. Maybe the Clan Mark could have given the captured phantom sorcerer a one time protection against destruction by banishing them from the battlefield, sending them back into the army roster. So in the next fight they are available.

Edited by mercy

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1 hour ago, mario2000 said:

Patriarch is not on the lizardman's class list. Bug?

No, each of those three classes is available to two races, lizards and skeletons get hoplite, lizards and orcs get jugger, lamia and orcs get matriarch/patriarch, humanoids have 6 classes total and other creatures, like ghosts or gremlins get 4. Lizards don't have good caster stats so their access to magic is poor, with dragoon being the only class that can kinda use it, orcs are roughly on par with humans in magic and are much better suited for a beefy caster.

There will be some changes in next minor patch that should (eventually) untangle the mess with familiar class.

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2 hours ago, mario2000 said:

k...cuz I  managed to recruit a lizard patriarch and was wondering

Yeah, you can see quite a few races in classes they can't normally use, it will be that way until I fix it in battle data and it's a ton of work so I changed class availability early to get some feedback before the long haul.

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Hello everyone, new user here.

Just downloaded the mod yesterday and I'm honestly having a blast with it. I'm actually surprised cause being a fellow modder i'm usually VERY picky about gameplay changes, but most of what i've read in the changelog or experienced myself makes an enormous amount of sense. So far i've played up to halfway trough chapter 1 and i've loaded a endgame save with all weapons obtained through cheats.

As for the feedback, so far major props to:
- Almost everything in the global changes section, from RT to equipments. Heck, almost every balance-induced change
- Outright removing "mandatory passives" like strengthen, spellcraft, anatony, switftfoot and so on
- Outright removing ability to use scrolls.
- Added/new effects to spells and equipment. Changing resurrection to "save the npc".
- The FFXII tribute with cursed weapons, lol.

Cons
- Sprite changes/portrait changes. Mixed feelings about some of them but overall a con. For example the minor changes to Deneb and Lanselot are ok, I can live with Donnalto but it's mostly up to personal preference and Sara, Voltare and Rudlum are a big no for me. It's onestly a pity that the amazing work done on the balance side has to be penalized by purely cosmetic changes of all things. Seeing how you're also having difficulties with cutscenes and whatnot, I heavily suggest to revert all of them for the mandatory balance patch and make an incremental patch (that can be applied on top of the balance changes) for the new sprites. It looks like a win-win situation for me, cause you'd have way less work to do before you can release 1.0 with balance changes only, less bugs and better reception by making a (seemingly) controversial change optional.

Bugs
- You already know about the "nothing" skill Canopus and others still have
- A few on hit skill have a bugged/placeholder description "process_type_xxx" like RT increased, - 0 HP/TP/MP

That's it for now. Really looking forward to future releases, i'll probably say more when i have a better understanding of all the other changes i still don't know.

Edited by Caledor
post sent halfway through by mistake

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Is it possible for mod to allow San Bronsa ruin to able to access post-game without CODA (so it could access in N-route in first playthrough)

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3 hours ago, Caledor said:

...

Thanks for the feedback, it's especially interesting to hear from fellow tinkerers.

Sprites are indeed somewhat of an issue, as I've seen enough players asking for another version with default sprites for donnalto or rudlum, most commonly, and very few have problems with minor changes to deneb (red shoes on a witch are pretty iconic after all), voltare, lanselot, warren, gildas or vyce. Not that easy to solve, though, as enough people also like new sara or donnalto so I'd have to maintain two versions of the mod, and that's a bit too bothersome to do before final release. Maybe there's a middle ground somewhere as I've seen barely any requests to revert the named generics to change their sprites with class again, so it's just a matter of getting the right fixed sprite for the character.

Donnalto - probably the most controversial one, some love it and some hate it, can also break immersion by reusing an endgame portrait. could be reverted to his default, a bit of a problem with it is it isn't too different from a regular cleric, you just get a bag of different color with palette swap as it's mostly black

Felicia - the cleric sprite is fine, but also has a portrait issue like donnalto, she could use a normal cleric portrait

Sara - some like this combo a lot, as the blademaiden sprite looks a bit like orson from knight of lodis. She could be locked to female rogue instead as arycelle has the dibs on archer sprite, I could have her recruited as an early rogue too

Folcurt - saw some complaints that he looks a bit on the big side but the sprite and color scheme is also spot on for his portrait so his new look is fairly easy to get used to

Dievold - terror knight sprite barely changes, this is pretty much the only one you can spot easily

Oelias - her clothes don't match the portrait as well with this palette but hair does, it's the opposite for default so this is a lose-lose situation, best solved by editing the clothes on her portrait when it becomes possible as her hair is supposedly kissed by fire and brings good luck, the night is dark and full of terrors

Rudlum - heard it often enough to revert it, some like to have a playable templar but the warlock sprite looks pretty good

Ehlrig - the sprite is ok for a pirate captain but he has the same portrait issue as donnalto and felicia, could be changed to a normal beastmaster portrait

Chamos - some wanted an all-black ninja, his portrait would end up on ehlrig so that could be a good option

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42 minutes ago, Suppanut said:

Is it possible for mod to allow San Bronsa ruin to able to access post-game without CODA (so it could access in N-route in first playthrough)

Sadly, I don't think it will be possible anytime soon, I know next to nothing about campaign structure.

Edited by raics

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Strange, i thought it'd be easy to make an incremental patch with only the cosmetic changes in it.
Anything about the "process_" description bug btw?
Also, i noticed that you didn't "finalize" the renamed classes... the new names end with spaces (can be seen from the class description, there are spaces between the name and the ":"), in case you didn't know it. There should be a pointer or a value somewhere that enforces the length of the name.

Oh and could you please upload all the documentation you've gathered so far? I really don't care how messy it is, i'd just like some pointers to tinker with the data myself, so literally anything works lol

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1 hour ago, Caledor said:

Strange, i thought it'd be easy to make an incremental patch with only the cosmetic changes in it.
Anything about the "process_" description bug btw?
Also, i noticed that you didn't "finalize" the renamed classes... the new names end with spaces (can be seen from the class description, there are spaces between the name and the ":"), in case you didn't know it. There should be a pointer or a value somewhere that enforces the length of the name.

Oh and could you please upload all the documentation you've gathered so far? I really don't care how messy it is, i'd just like some pointers to tinker with the data myself, so literally anything works lol

Which process description bug?

The thing with changing sprites is I then have to hunt down every cutscene where that sprite appears and change it too, done it once and I'm probably not doing it again in a hurry. The game is sometimes strangely constructed, as if they tried to make things hard on themselves intentionally.

I left the names with empty spaces like that intentionally for the time being, as long as I'm still changing things I might change it again and forget to set the length back, empty spaces are much preferable to things getting cut off, I'll go through it once I'm done and fix everything.

Sorry, I don't have anything now that would make much sense or notes as such, there's something on page 19 that Sparafucile was working on that might be useful.

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Got it, thanks.
Here's the bugged descrption btw (same for -0 TP and MP and maybe for something else)

ULES01500_00001.png

Edited by Caledor

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15 minutes ago, Caledor said:

Got it, thanks.
Here's the bugged descrption btw (same for -0 TP and MP and maybe for something else)

Ah, right, that was never intended to be a weapon effect so it has nowhere to pull the damage amount from to use in the description. It would probably be safe to replace that tooltip with something like 'Additional hit', 'MP damage' and such, though.

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ah, so it's a secondary hit effect and HP TP MP is what it damages with the second strike.
Btw, i forgot to mention the change to Meditate's animation before. Was it itentional? There's no sound nor particle effect

Edited by Caledor

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