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zedorfed66

Shadow Hearts NTSC-U - Imbroglio v3.20

105 posts in this topic

5 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

I really enjoyed that video, well done ^^

That dungeon is one creepy place with exceptionally tough enemies.

About the pit fights. That's weird. They should be challenging at least to some degree. Some of the enemies remained untouched (mainly the different versions of Wind Shear) but most of them are from the main campaign with the more recent ones being tougher. LiLi is the toughest of the bunch. I did a test run with Zhuzhen and he's only able to beat her after Kowloon (about lvl 27). But I'm pretty sure Yuri is able to beat her at about 22 leveled.

Flash Badge + Iron Clogs: +5-7 levels worth of agility to that character (+10 -12 without Iron Clogs and Golden hourglasses) and  Zhuzhen can spam Corpse Arms and proc paralysis on critical rings (can be done with a coral larial) and those inmune to that can be done with relative ease using Life sucker. Margarete went full 360 no scoope with the above combo and that's all.

Other notes:

- Zhuzhen didnt learn Fire serpent at lvl 32 and Margo didnt grab On Switch at lvl 28. I guess You must reach europe to have those.

- Poor tornado doesnt have any reason to be used at all: Most earth enemies can be killed fast or Margarete can snipe them to death

- I like how acupuncture is pretty much needed to keep up with the damage race...which is why I hate how generic most ítems are (the last interesting weapon was margo's type 94 with the confuse proc).

All of these brings the next question: Can you edit things outside of enemy stats?

 

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21 hours ago, ronlyn said:

Flash Badge + Iron Clogs: +5-7 levels worth of agility to that character (+10 -12 without Iron Clogs and Golden hourglasses) and  Zhuzhen can spam Corpse Arms and proc paralysis on critical rings (can be done with a coral larial) and those inmune to that can be done with relative ease using Life sucker. Margarete went full 360 no scoope with the above combo and that's all.

Other notes:

- Zhuzhen didnt learn Fire serpent at lvl 32 and Margo didnt grab On Switch at lvl 28. I guess You must reach europe to have those.

- Poor tornado doesnt have any reason to be used at all: Most earth enemies can be killed fast or Margarete can snipe them to death

- I like how acupuncture is pretty much needed to keep up with the damage race...which is why I hate how generic most ítems are (the last interesting weapon was margo's type 94 with the confuse proc).

All of these brings the next question: Can you edit things outside of enemy stats?

 

There's tons of little items with effects in Shadow Hearts that i have never even used. Flash Badges happen to be one of them. None of the items should make this mod overly easy since the enemies have dramatically higher stats. And since players need to be pretty much maxed out at the end I wanted to leave options for those who keep having hard time.

I did some other changes than just up the enemy stats. I made the characters learn their 3 last abilities later in the game (multiplied levels by 2). Those that would learn ability at lvl 32 will learn it at lvl 64. I also changed Sandalphon fusion's Revive ability (ring and spell status). These changes are listed in my original post.

I'm not very good at modding these games tbh. Shadow Hearts series is super easy to mod overall. Every value is clear and easily accessible in the game iso. But like I have stated before I prefer to have these games as close to the originals as possible with only game-breaking stuff addressed. I think these games are very well designed overall (even this 1st Shadow Hearts).

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On 4/12/2019 at 3:49 PM, zedorfed66 said:

There's tons of little items with effects in Shadow Hearts that i have never even used. Flash Badges happen to be one of them. None of the items should make this mod overly easy since the enemies have dramatically higher stats. And since players need to be pretty much maxed out at the end I wanted to leave options for those who keep having hard time.

 

I actually support you in this decision if only because agility is one if not the most important stat in this game: Being able to reduce grinding time is quite amazing since most people don't have time or patience to grind like crazy to the level marks you gave there (I still have shivers remembering the time lost in the sewers). 

 

On 4/12/2019 at 3:49 PM, zedorfed66 said:

I did some other changes than just up the enemy stats. I made the characters learn their 3 last abilities later in the game (multiplied levels by 2). Those that would learn ability at lvl 32 will learn it at lvl 64. I also changed Sandalphon fusion's Revive ability (ring and spell status). These changes are listed in my original post.

 

@zedorfed66 you REALLY need to pull out a changelog about this stuff since it´s kind of important. And in the topic of spells I can already tell this is going to bite some characters in their ass in the midgame: Alice is fine since now Gospel is arguably the best buff in the game prior to the final fusion and Margo can actually put to use Snipe against mobs since their stats can justify killing them fast before being horribly killed by them. 

Zhuzhen however will arguably sucks even more here than vanilla because his spells are more focused on crowd control and his other half of spells are locked until the endgame (Fury serpent at lvl 62.....after the mental hospital. To make it worse he's locked with some of the worst spells since they don't scale in damage while Halley has access to all his stuff as soon as he joins and only needs to unlock his top nuke spells at endgame which is more appropriated), Nourishing Potion won't be replacing any healer soon with that MP cost and Scirocco Blast is nice but not enough to save him from the bench. I suggest to reschedule his spells to get them early since NOBODY will use him at the final boss (or bonus dungeons) so might as well make him useful before that.

 

On 4/12/2019 at 3:49 PM, zedorfed66 said:

I'm not very good at modding these games tbh. Shadow Hearts series is super easy to mod overall. Every value is clear and easily accessible in the game iso. But like I have stated before I prefer to have these games as close to the originals as possible with only game-breaking stuff addressed. I think these games are very well designed overall (even this 1st Shadow Hearts).

 

I know your sentiment but the original is not exactly the best in a lot of things (Like the 324 items to affect the judgement ring with the same use between them. The second game remove those for a reason) and enhancing that experience could potentially bring back this game to the highlights (I'm really amazed this game bombed like it did: FFX was great but this one is on par with it and I LOVE FFX). Hell, if you need help I would like to help you with this.

 

Leaving this aside, back to the gameplay I finally finish the Asia Section of the game

 

- Kuihai Tower: Get ready to spend a LONG time here since getting to lvl 38 (I didn't) is quite a slog since the enemies are a threat but you can just buy 99 Thera/Mana seeds and 99 tents since you will have money to throw everywhere at this point. Excellent place to use the pedometer and unlock even the 5000 steps price

 

- Dehuai:

This fight was a warm up for what it comes: Flash badges ensure the little sage cannot outpace me but still I need to be on the ball since two AoE spells will kill the team. Offensive wise just use Inferno with aqua edge since Margo's damage is lacking and you won't get Bazooka until later

 

- Yamahara Calamity:

NOW this is a quite enjoyable challenge worth of an end boss: This pal over here is sporting around 7000 hp which means you will be stuck with him for a LOOOOONG time (32 minutes in my case) full of nerve-wrecking decisions. Here's how it went down:

- Everyone's in the back row since going Leroy Jenkins will get you killed fast.

- Yuri with Heaven's Fiend is a must, no questions asked.

- Between Margo and Alice just pick the latter since even if Margo make things go faster, you need to survive multiple AoE attacks and Gospel can help you mitigate a good chunk of damage and even let you go full offensive in a turn.

- Protect against Silence and Petrification ASAP.

After all that, the game strategy was as follow: The first half of the battle I used a hourglass with Yuri and after that Zhuzhen was designated as the time master lobbing those without fail since missing a sacred remedy can cost you the whole thing, Alice went ahead and used Gospel on Zhuzhen and herself in that order to make sure both are always under it's effects (-30% physical and magic damage is quite amazing and the judgement ring for it is one of the most easy in the game).

After all that, it's up to Yamaraha to decide how I will proceed: If he uses Crimson Flame or Shockwave Yuri will pop a sacred remedy and Zhuzhen will toss a life sucker and if he blow someone with a physical combo or petrification Yuri will go with Exorcist arrow followed by Zhuzhen. Alice in the meantime before Gospel runs out will toss seeds like candy since you wanna avoid getting low on SP later in the fight since once he's down to 50% hp he will spam AoE like crazy and you won't be able to hold the fortress so better be prepared beforehand and heal MP/SP when it hits the half mark.

 

And with this, we're in Europe baby. More later

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7 hours ago, ronlyn said:

 

Congrats on beating the Asia section! Cool vids, I gave them likes.

Other than the changes in enemy stats there's no other changes than allies learning their 3 last spells later (levels multiplied by 2) and the change in Sandalphon's Revive skill.

Actually Zhuzhen's 'Corpse Arm' AOE will be useful in his mid-game. I wanted to push the last 3 abilities for endgame since it starts with Alice's Arc and it's way too soon for her to learn it 35 levelled. The ideal level to face Amon in the last storyline dungeon before Float is 70 so I saw this as a clear sign that players should aim to be at that level before facing him. And since the last ability learned is Keith's 'Gift' which he learns at 49 levelled in the original it was clear I wanted to double the level amount. The enemies in Nemeton Underground should prove to be rather difficult so it's only natural to level some to keep up with the game.

In my opinion the different in-battle effect items only add to the gameplay. If they were to be taken off the game would feel more bland. It works in Covenant cause the battle system is more fast paced and interesting. In SH2 you will be using more different buffs and effects in the form of different Crest Magic and Fusions where in SH1 you will be only using the set character abilities and 1 Fusion monster per battle.

I guess Shadow Hearts came a bit under marketed and without a doubt FFX overshadowed it with a heavy hand. I find Shadow Hearts story to be excellent with Yuri as one if not the best characters I've experienced in a videogame.

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After playing some more, I can say with confidence that early europe is not that bad....if you enjoy mindless grinding.

- Prague & Bistritz first visit: The forced battle against two birdman is fine and once I got access to the next tier of healing items, spamming magic can be done with more freedom. Still your best bet is to GTFO of all random encounter until the next party member joins since this duo has 70/30 chance of getting killed by random dogs with human hands in their mouths and birds that thanks for reading their bestiary entry won't leave my nightmares (Shadow Hearts knows how to get you scared for sure).

- Blue Castle: Same deal as before until Keith joins the party. He's a welcome addition because I feel more comfortable with his judgement ring, his spells are quite useful and since MP is not a problem with all the money you get tossed in your lap all the time I will drop Hecatoncheire like crazy.

- Tindalos: Poor Kevin doesn't know how fusion works since being a putrid dog wouldn't be my first pick. Since he doesn't go for status effects, I was free to use coral/jade lariats which is nice because this one only think of doing a BBQ with your team and maybe use deathblow to take 75% of your health. Blood Sucker is amazing to avoid losing a turn while healing. 

- Blue Castle's eternal stairs: I just did some cardio here using the pedometer while climbing. Enemies were meh and I'm grateful for that. Farmed until lvl 40 but the boss at the end destroyed my team for a unknown reason (*cough*ZHUZHEN*cough*) so I went back and farmed until lvl 42. 

- Rude Hero: Went into the fight expecting high damage and he didn't disappoint: 450 - 500 to Keith and 360 - 400 to both Alice and Zhuzhen in the back row. Alice big flaw finally starts to appear: Outside of using Gospel and Holy edge, she's just a nuisance and with the new thera roots 300/360 hp healing you for a good chunk of your HP, she's just there filling space and I don't seeing her getting any better until lvl 70 (I would gladly gave up her resurrection spell for a more potent healing spell to keep up with the new damage flying around or maybe let her regain Advent earlier so she can at least do some damage).

-Fox Face: It's more of a interactive story scene than a proper battle. Just make sure to keep your hp above 300 and you're golden

On 6/12/2019 at 12:59 PM, zedorfed66 said:

In my opinion the different in-battle effect items only add to the gameplay. If they were to be taken off the game would feel more bland. It works in Covenant cause the battle system is more fast paced and interesting. In SH2 you will be using more different buffs and effects in the form of different Crest Magic and Fusions where in SH1 you will be only using the set character abilities and 1 Fusion monster per battle.

They would add something to the gameplay if some of them weren't just outright useless since the risk/reward ratio is not worth it (Monkey Paw is rather crummy for what it offers with things like the mind's eye existing , Dice of Caesar has the chance of give a boost to the healer/support and not the your DPS machine and the bronze Arrow/Dagger are superfluous when their party wide equivalent are available rather soon and you won't need them before that).  I would fill chests with those items with seals since after lvl 80 and forward everyone's growths slows down and you will start using those items to bring everyone up to date (Zhuzhen is the only reason I grind all the time: his agility sucks balls and him getting left in the dust is quite aggravating).

 

On 6/12/2019 at 12:59 PM, zedorfed66 said:

I guess Shadow Hearts came a bit under marketed and without a doubt FFX overshadowed it with a heavy hand. I find Shadow Hearts story to be excellent with Yuri as one if not the best characters I've experienced in a videogame.

This is the understatement of the century: FFX has his moments but this one has been one hell of a ride all the way until now and the gameplay is the only drawback and not by much really

Edited by ronlyn

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Well done with the ongoing quest for Bacon. I apologize for giving the wrong idea before. There indeed is some grinding suggested to be done in every area. I hope it's not too big of a burden. I wanted to ramp the suggested level for final boss to 99 instead of the 50ish of the original.

Alice is actually very useful in fights cause of her Gospel ability. Without it 'Rudie' will kill your characters with his 3-hit combo if he happens to crit even if you're in the suggested levels. Alice and Zhuzhen should be ok in battles if you have Gospel or some other defensive spell in effect.

The in-battle effect items have the pro you can have their effects without having to equip your characters with additional accessories. You can only have 3 accessories on your characters afterall. I really didn't want to change any of them. Some of them are more useful than others and players can have the freedom to choose what they wanna use.

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Sorry for the LONG wait, took a break since grinding takes a tool on your mind after a while.

- Prague's Bathroom: Olga got her ass whopped really easy and the only notable thing about it is that even with a light weakness Alice manages to deal less damage than Yuri using his punches which is kinda sad since you can throw punches forever.

- 2nd Tier fusion monsters: Went ahead and used every opposite level 1 fusion since this is the last time I'm using them. The AI is really dumb in these fight so unless you managed to change that this is just a formality (Charon boosted his special attack and decided to attack me physically next turn and died without tossing a spell)  :facepalm:

- Rouen: Decided to roll with Yuri/Zhuzhen/Keith since this game shoves Alice everywhere and it's nice to not just do that for once. Grinding is easy enough but there's a problem in terms of balance: Yuri and his lvl 2 fusions outright removes any reason to have Zhuzhen in the party at all (High damage, AoE spells, 36 mp per cast vs 55 with Zhuzhen best spell and worse of all, Yuri has access to all the elements which means he can snipe weaknesses). I always say this but let me say it again for enphasis: Shadow Hearts sucks at balancing things and the problem with this mod is that those problems become more pronounced earlier which is sad.

- Olga Round 2:  Decided to record this one because who knows if this is Zhuzhen's last time in the spotlight. Old Flash badges are here to save me some grinding time, Keith goes on the offensive dealing between 320 and 370 damage per turn (if I don't fail the ring), Yuri goes Baldo for healing and 350 - 400 hp damage with nova when he has the chance. Zhuzhen goes support since Corpse Arms does 260 damage with a perfect ring and I need to keep that gold hourglass mojo going.

Gonna take a wild guess and say that the orphanage will crash me into another wall until some grinding is done.

Edited by ronlyn

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Hey again.

It's fine, just relax and take your time. It's only a game afterall ;)

Yuri is supposed to be like Zhuzhen's big bro in late game. He's basically the number 1 character so he's better than everyone else. This was less of the case in Covenant and you could actually leave him out of the party in that.

Like I stated in my first post I wasn't able to modify the scaling enemies. So basically all Graveyard business is completely the same as in the original, save for Seraphic Radiance (thank god!). I felt a bit anxious for a while for not being able to mod the scalers, but it is what it is.

Character skills are more powerful the later they're learned. Zhuzhen learns 'Corpse Arm' early on so it's powerful at the time he gets it but in comparison is less powerful than Keith's 5th ability since Keith learns 'Hecatoncheire' in way later levels. Some characters in the game are more late-game than others and their abilities are good for different purposes.

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35 minutes ago, zedorfed66 said:

Yuri is supposed to be like Zhuzhen's big bro in late game.

Yuri is the Jack of all trades character here and I can accept him being good in a lot of things but the problem is that he's perfect: Even if Alice gets Arc later on I'm gonna make a wild guess and say Yuri will still trump her in the healing department (the daugther of a bishop who spend years in training got hee job robbed by her lover winging it). 

Margo is not in the same train since she got a suprisingly reliable instant kill and Keith has a hp absorb skill which thankfully Yuri doesnt hey access somehow.

Can you change spells? There are single Target versions of the tier 2 spells Yuri use and would be nice to have a protagonist who doesnt invalidate all his companions

Edited by ronlyn

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1 hour ago, ronlyn said:

Yuri is the Jack of all trades character here and I can accept him being good in a lot of things but the problem is that he's perfect: Even if Alice gets Arc later on I'm gonna make a wild guess and say Yuri will still trump her in the healing department (the daugther of a bishop who spend years in training got hee job robbed by her lover winging it). 

Margo is not in the same train since she got a suprisingly reliable instant kill and Keith has a hp absorb skill which thankfully Yuri doesnt hey access somehow.

Can you change spells? There are single Target versions of the tier 2 spells Yuri use and would be nice to have a protagonist who doesnt invalidate all his companions

Yuri was simply made the star of this show. He would actually best Alice's Arc with his Sandalphon fusion's Revive which would heal and revive everyone to full health. I made a change to that so it no longer heals to full health. He also has group instakill with his 3rd tier Dark and Light fusions so Halley wouldn't be better than him either with his 'Black Hole'. He also has a version of blood suck with his Seraphic Radiance fusion (life steal + group heal). I actually like it this way. There's always Shadow Hearts: Covenant if you want a more balanced Yuri (LOL).

Zhuzhen specializes with his group magic spells and when maxed out has the highest magic defense. Then again he is not as good as Halley in late since he doesn't have group instakill. Halley also has revive to full health which is why he is recommended in the final party with Yuri and Alice.

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Short update in terms of gameplay if only because there's a big rant incoming:

- Orphanage: Halley joins the gang and we visit this place, only to find two enemies to grind here and as always, things are kind of boring since Yuri's Flare and Margo's Grenade wipes the floor with everything in sight with the proper equipment. Only Earth soul left to max out.

- Jack: Is quite suprising to find out a dude with a knife and a oedipux complex can murder you faster than a arcane witch but here we are. Yuri goes Ifrit to punch the lights out of him, Halley heals when needed and Margarete is our secondary attacker/healer. He goes down after a few minutes.

 

- Mammon: Ahhhh the big old bug is back to torment our souls. Yuri switch to Baldo for healing, Halley use air edge on Malkovich and then spam Strong Earth/Healing when needed. Finally, Ms. Zelle goes full barrage on this abomination. Was kind of aggravated by that healing at the end but thankfully it was death a minute later (BTW, for those twelve or so dudes who played Koudelka, here's a nice callback to that game).

- Calios Mental Hospital: Zhuzhen replaces Margo here (I must admit, later on after the whole breakdown I feel both could have switch places and things would have been partially better but not by a lot). Enemies here will destroy you if not careful (Dogs with hands as mouths and ladies with brains in a stick? Those are just for show, the giants bugs are the real deal -_-lll ). First problem here with the grinding: Those Monks Earrings just give a 20% boost in exp which is not a lot and people like Zhuzhen or Keith needs the levels more than anyone to stay relevant. Can you change it so those things give double exp or at least 50%?

This would be the time where I would post about the next two bosses but I must stop there because there's a lot of BS in here: Raussan can be beaten with a lvl 60 team outside of the suggested party, but the last round agains Olga is straight up BS all the way until I left for my sanity: I went with the suggested level and it's pretty clear you didn't test this outside of going in with Yuri/Halley/Alice (or maybe you went in with a different level) because Zhuzhen lags behind too much and the boss gets a turn every two of mine, which wouldn't been so bad if this one wasnt a boss that has only a 25% chance of going against one person while the other 75% of the time will AoE everyone to death since Yuri cannot keep up with Grace, Halley is the only one that can do some damage in a reasonable timeframe (Corpse Arms does 250 - 270 per cast......to a boss which has at minimum more than 10000 hp) and Zhuzhen can help so much before getting nuked along the rest of the party.

And no: If the answer for this is "Bring Alice or die" it's just plain and simple bad choice of your end since I wanna use every party member and the mod should not punish me because of it.

Edited by ronlyn

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Hey again and Merry Christmas! I hope you had a fun one and nothing else is bothering you save for my troublesome mod here ;P

I tried entering the Arcane fight with Zhuzhen lvl 55 and I can say it could be beaten on those levels but it wouldn't be fun since you would be using all your time playing super duper defensively. I'll be leveling him to 60 and try again just for the sake of the test. Then again I'm wondering why would wouldn't you be using Alice in bosses when she has a perfect kit designed for them? It's like trying to make things harder than they should be. I believe it's canon to try going with Alice anyway since you get extra dialogue before the boss. But yeah I'll be leveling Zhuzhen and seeing how it goes.

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1 hour ago, zedorfed66 said:

tried entering the Arcane fight with Zhuzhen lvl 55 and I can say it could be beaten on those levels but it wouldn't be fun since you would be using all your time playing super duper defensively. I'll be leveling him to 60 and try again just for the sake of the test. Then again I'm wondering why would wouldn't you be using Alice in bosses when she has a perfect kit designed for them? It's like trying to make things harder than they should be. I believe it's canon to try going with Alice anyway since you get extra dialogue before the boss. But yeah I'll be leveling Zhuzhen and seeing how it goes.

 I like Ms.Elliot and her kit but there are some glaring problems with her in this mod:

- Her healing is not what it used to be in Europe and can be easily replaced with thera roots

- Like Zhuzhen, her agility really lags behing (at lvl 60 she has 74 and the old man 71)  and like the start of the game, if all enemies decided to rush them after the other two party members do their stuff they will die without a jiff

- Visit the graveyard every four - five fights since getting malice in the red slot is quite fast with the new grinding around gets annoying and I rather avoid that kind of deal when I can (AKA toss her ass into the bench)

- Gospel is only a great deal against bosses but in normal combat she's just garbage in general (even Zhuzhen can contribute a little since he can AoE with his spells) and you deal with more random encounters here than vanilla.

 

And now, back to the normal schedule:

- Raussan: Went ahead and try out a magical approach by going Dragner using ice breath while Halley do his best with Aqua Blade. Zhuzhen was actually quite amazing here not because of his magic but because he can tank two Blaze without any healing in-between using berserker earrings for more HP. Raussan has a rather simple AI that spam Silence against a poor sap (Halley in this case) and Blaze next turn so getting heal was really easy to manage. 

 

 

- Olga Round 3: Ahhh this hellhole of a fight. Had to repeat Raussan whole fight since Halley leaves the team after that and I need him to wear a Flash Badge along the others to ensure Olga doesnt get a lot of turns (without flash badges the turns would go: Olga > Yuri > Halley > Olga > Zhuzhen > Yuri > Olga > Halley > Olga > Zhuzhen, repeat this from 1st Yuri and this is with the whole team at lvl 60). I also took the red herring and exchange Yuri's crucifix with Halley's Warlock earrings to ensure he could top everyone's hp with Grace (Poison was actually a blessing in disguise since losing 25 hp per turn wont kill anyone with 800 hp).

Offensive wise, Halley had to pull Air shot and Yuri could squeeze a Nova every once in a while. Zhuzhen went support and keep up everyone's hp. Another reason why this is better than him going aggresive: Olga's Mind Assault with her new stats can absorb ALL MP from anyone and her priority is the character with the highest MP (Which means the order was Zhuzhen > Halley > Yuri) so avoiding that was an extra weight to this trainwreck of a battle (The second Mind Assault turn wasnt planned: I was 100% bonned if she went ahead and toss a spell at me).

Rest in piss horrible thing, I hope your death was a painful one

 

 

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Here I am once again, with more feedback:

- Nemeton Monastery: Rolling with Yuri/Alice/Keith since they haven't see the light of the day in weeks. Enemies were really easy to manage with Yuri nuking everything with his fusions spells and Keith cleaning up the floor using his shining, new 100% instant death proc sword Jiru (I fact, I could reliable hit all three hit zones with a flash badge + coral lariat so I went ahead and killed Yuri once he reached lvl 70 so the kids would catch up). Alice as always just sits there and watch the slaugther since she can't do shit with blessed light being a weak light spell and advent stuck at an amazingly rude lvl 96.

- Albert Simon: This fight was so-so and here's why: First Phase is fine and all dandy stuff and I decided to pull Gospel to start the next phase with a good advantage. Amon makes his appearance and demon eyes straight up does 650 - 700 damage to Yuri....with Gospel on him. Next thing I see is the game over screen because the boss take a turn every two turns of mine which is really bad when he decides to use the end twice since Alice won't reach in time to stop him for killing everyone except Yuri after using a Thera extract. Next go I completely disregard Gospel as useless since you either be at full hp for Demon Eyes/The End or you die.

Thank god I decided to bring some Thera Extracts from the silent merchant otherwise Amon would stall the fight and this game punish you for playing defensively with sanity evetually running out. I suggest you reduce Amon's Demon Eyes output to deal 550 - 600 damage once Gospel is on the table so the player isn't forced to pop out a Thera extract to avoid a KO and that spell has an actual use in that battle (You could argue that I must have alot of unused step to buy more of those but you should not wall the player with this kind of stuff since you can get the final tier of restoring items legitimately AFTER defeating Amon).

 

 

I will edit this later since I'm gonna suggest a new spell list because it's really dumb to have characters like Alice suck this much with this new difficulty.

EDIT: As promised here's a new list of spells for everyone except Yuri now that the only thing left are the final dungeon and the bonus dungeons:

OvCxGDu.png

Ms.Elliot is quite amazing in the first half with the game actually encouraging the use of her spells. Once Europe rolls in however she goes from hero to zero in a hurry with her only offensive spell not doing enough numbers and her healing being outpaced by the third tier of restorative items in hand. Getting Advent inbetween The orphanage and the mental hospital let her contribute in the random battles by doing a good amount of damage and this is counter balanced by the fact she will always go after the enemy roster which means she needs to survive the enemy outslaught before firing the spell at all. The mp cost means she won't be using it in a boss battle since she got more important things to do like protecting the party with gospel or healing. Arc remains the same and Resurrection was put last since by that point you start to need full hp revives.

uMowIsB.png

The old man has the 2nd best crow control after Yuri which means he needs his spells earlier than anyone. Getting Fury Serpent after dealing with Mammon means he can be used against Raussan in the mental hospital and do some real damage along Halley while Yuri takes care of the healing. Thunder Roar helps a lot in nemeton against the enemy encounters there since none of them resist the spell (and Inverse is actually weak against it). His final spell is gotten earlier than anyone in the party to ensure the old man has a edge in the cave temple. The real drawback of him is that after that he starts declining into the bench since the rest of the gang gets better toys than him and magic is easily outclassed by physical damage any day.

9QmylFj.png

Not a lot of changes for Margarete: On Switch and Snipe can carry her from most of the mid game and I put her last two spells earlier to ensure she can actually use them before becoming an item bot for Yuri

zMoEOYY.png

The biggest changes are for our dracula expy here. I don't really remember having problems in neither The Blue Castle or Rouen because I just nuked everything with Hecatoncheire and Corpse Arms. Pushing the former for later means you cannot just wing it in there and can actually make wise use of Larva to shut down the most dangerous enemy in the screen. Apsaras and Gift are just there so no reasoning from moving those further outside of me being fancy.

uPfl6St.png 

Finally, Halley is basically a magical Yuri with no fusion to rely on so of course he outclass every other mage in the team. Not anymore: All his spell were moved further into the endgame to make sure you have to choose between a early screen clearer (Zhuzhen) or a Late bloomer (Halley).

 

This is my take on the case of these poor saps being quite disjointed with the new difficulty curve. 

Edited by ronlyn

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Happy New Year everyone, I'm back with more feedback:

- Dollhouse: Before setting foot there, I went ahead and looted every single location with side-quests outside of the bonus dungeons and changed a good chuck of my lottery tickets for seals of speed so the team wasn't filled by three decent characters, two garbage party members who can barely stand on their two legs and the almighty god that is Yuri ( and Alice wasn't in the first group if you wanna know). This place is amazing for going in and deal with the enemies which are quite challenging but please don't grind here, 6000 extra xp per fight doesnt excuse the +400 extra hp the enemies in this place are sporting, go to the neameton catacombs instead.

Orb Chaos: I love this fight which is something really refreshing after having all these badly design bosses lately. The thing will start the battle buffing himself with two random buffs and while this happens you better make sure to pop out Gospel and whatever buff you want since the next 4-5 turns this baby will kick the crap out of you and missing a heal means death. After that he goes back to rebuff himself so your best tactic is to ensure you have a nice damage output all the time (even if it means leaving someone eating dirt for a turn or two) to end this as soon as possible.

 

 

The masks: Okay, IDK what happen in here but poor Grail Mask got screw in the buff department because holy cow that poor thing died way too fast. Other than this peculiar thing, the other three masks are quite challenging and worth of being optional because you're getting kicked around if you come here below lvl 75 (And even then just watch the videos).

 

 

 

Atman (Good Ending): This fight was the dullest thing I have ever experienced in this mod. A will power + crucifix will ensure that Alice doesn't get tagged with some nasty stuff (even by his rather hilarious special move with really clunky CGI) and the dumb thing doesn't use AoE spells enough to avoid a messy death by Demon Lasers to the face. A sad thing since I was expecting a better thing after the masks. Alas, another one to the pile I guess

5e0e395f5ed50_atman1.png.cd44b0906d4492b9a8285fb941318591.png

 

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Happy new year to you too!

I tried getting Grail stronger but I just couldn't. I guess he's designed to be a pushover compared to the others. He can still be a challenging one "non-Grailed" (he can be beaten right after you get Yuri back if I recall).

You are a very critical type. I guess we are kinda the opposites. But I still try to take all your negatives as advice and see if there's something to update. However I made so sure I had pretty much everything settled when I released this I haven't encountered anything I'd like to change based on your feedback. I don't like changing the ability orders or the character stats or anything like that. I don't intend to make mods like that. I stand by my opinion that this game is well balanced even after the changes I've made to the enemies. But yeah that's just my opinion. Imo it's clever to have characters with power and ability differences.

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7 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

Happy new year to you too!

I tried getting Grail stronger but I just couldn't. I guess he's designed to be a pushover compared to the others. He can still be a challenging one "non-Grailed" (he can be beaten right after you get Yuri back if I recall).

Well, I guess it's more a thing of the game being hard-coded into him becoming useless for the sake of story

7 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

You are a very critical type. I guess we are kinda the opposites. But I still try to take all your negatives as advice and see if there's something to update. However I made so sure I had pretty much everything settled when I released this I haven't encountered anything I'd like to change based on your feedback. I don't like changing the ability orders or the character stats or anything like that. I don't intend to make mods like that.

I guess several years dealing with people (and mods) where feedback just get ignored does that to you. In terms of the spells it's more of a thing about progress and keeping things fresh: You don't get anything new until the endgame basically and if the battles are tiresome, it's even more boring doing the same things again and again (Even Yuri gets hit by this since the game doesn't do a good job showing off his fusions since the fire/light/dark element fusions are the way to go until Amon/Seraphic Radiance are a thing. Water/Earth/Wind are there for show and I try my best to avoid that situation).

On the characters stats I do admit I was very harsh on that one since you can use all the seals gotten until now (including those for malice clearing rewards) and spend all you tickets in Europe on seals from the get-got to solve many of my complains immediately (In fact, I got a notepad with all the seals I used to accomplish that. Will put that on the next update).

7 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

I stand by my opinion that this game is well balanced even after the changes I've made to the enemies. But yeah that's just my opinion. Imo it's clever to have characters with power and ability differences.

The problem is that you don't get to play with the other half of the party members unique abilities until they are easily forgettable (Alice's Advent wasn't exactly of much used in the vanilla game less here when you get it at the very end, Zhuzhen spells are what makes the character anything outside of just a worse item bot, Margarete & Keith are fine since they can instant kill stuff and that won't get old in this mod and Halley is generally the best spell caster only because he comes with a whole array of elemental spells).

Edited by ronlyn

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Ok, here I am with A LOT of stuff so let's go:

After the last boss, I went ahead and invest every single ticket I got outside of those to unlock the final lottery into seals to reduce any grinding outside of getting everyone on the same levels. Here are the results:

5e12784d29afb_sealsused.png.149ecb3189209a460fb44cc46872cfa0.png

(To be clear, I only used seals on Margarete, Keith and Halley because I'm kind of perfectionist but outside of that, just count the absurd amounts of seals to ensure both Zhuzhen and Alice weren't left in the dust by the rest of the gang. I guess now I know why you suggest Halley since he's a Magic Yuri without any of the drawbacks of his fellow magic users).

- The Float: Since this place was designed around the idea of going back and forth between this place and the bonus dungeons the difficulty of the random encounter goes from "reasonable" to "hellish" if you dare to go further after killing a boss...or at least it's supposed to be like that, the reality is that these encounters are the best EXP farming place you will ever found since if you try to do the same on the bonus dungeons you will get smashed for just 4000-5000 more exp which is not worth two extra turns of fighting per encounter (and you will fight A LOT).

- Soul Block: Light element boss means Czernobog and Zhuzhen are on the case. One particular thing I found and abused in this battle is the little quirk about revived party members: If you wait until the next round and revive the death one with your second character (Example: Zhuzhen dies, we don't revive him immediately but next turn before the boss act), said party member gets his turn before the boss and can heal himself to avoid death. It's kind of nice to know these little things wherever in the original the poor eldritch abomination was death at the fifth turn.   

 

 

- Cherubim: Since the darn thing absorb any kind of magic damage, I dusted Forron out of his retirement and both him and Malkovich went ham on his ass with Ms.Elliot on her invariable spot as healer. I'm grateful about him not being a slog since his dynamic was plain bad.

 

 

Hate: This boss was the perfect example of this mod's new spell list: Yuri cannot longer patch up everyone to full without use of a warlock ring, which would have been the perfect opportunity to use Advent since Yuri is fast enough to not have need for a Flash Badge and use the small jug/seven eyes mask/crucifix combo to reduce  the magical damage received along Sanctuary (+30% M.defense) while our white mage does the DPS....if Alice didn't learn that thing at lvl 96. So yeah...let's once again throw her white rear into the support role and never let her do something else unlike the rest of the cast (The last time she used Blessed Light and mean something was waaaay back with Li Li, Here? Not worth the effort).

 

 

Seraphim: This boss was dope. I almost got wiped at the end but I managed to survive and take the win (even with the fatal framedrop that happens because of his low-res rainbow spell). Tried out Halley here and got pretty pissed because the boss somehow can avoid a darn black hole (Really, I can understand bosses with physical evasion since those are free, but dodging a magic spell means you didn't only lose that character's turn but also the mana expended. Double Whammy since you also need more effort to ensure the move hit at the critical spot for max damage) so Ms.Gertrude went in to double tap that meaty boy. But the real MVP was Alice with her new vitality from seals who's capable of tank a turn of physical punishment.

 

 

Seraphic Radiance: This battle is basically a stat check for Yuri - He needs at least 850 hp and enough defenses to take 400 damage per turn to avoid getting himself into a healing cycle until he runs out of items. First phase is Old Ben Hyuga punching you in the face for 250 hp per turn, like any loving parent would. Since magic is kind of hard to keep on in the 2nd phase I went ahead and busted Demon Rays until he switched into the bronze soul himself. In the 2nd phase I decided to pop some third keys to both reduce the tedium and time spend on this battle (One could argue I just chicken out but on the other hand, I didn't had to deal with 20+ minutes of a slog since if you meet the requirement at the beginning you won't die unless you miss the healing ring and seraphic radiance doesn't bother with status effects so no deep strats outside of walling on it until death).

 

  

Only three bosses before the end of this mod

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Hey. Great vids as usual. Thanks for updating your progress on my mod here at every turn. i really appreciate it.

Don't worry about using Third Keys, it's not chickening out or anything. Especially in late game it's more than fair to use them. I was thinking about that Cherubim boss. He went down very quickly. And I mean VERY. I lowered his HP from 10 000 to 7500 since I thought it took a bit too long to beat him, but I might have to fight him again to see if changing back to the original hp would be better. Another thing I noticed is he's supposed to use 'Divine Punishment' just like Seraphim after him. I guess you just got lucky there lol. I gotta do some testing when I'm in the mood for it.

I guess in the original players pass level 50 before entering the final stages so characters have learned their final abilities already. I've been thinking about making the 3 last abilities learnable a bit sooner than before. Yes, I guess you're right about the characters learning the 3 last abilities a bit too late. Thanks for the food for thought. This is how you change things ;) I've been trying different things and I thought making characters learn their 3 last abilities 'x1.8' times later instead of 'x2' would be perfect. So Alice would learn Arc 63 levelled instead of 70. It's too harsh to force players to be 70 levelled before facing Amon (and unnecessary). And the first final ability would be Margarete's 'Divine Bomber' and she would learn it 83 levelled. The very last character ability is Keith's 'Gift' and he would learn it 88 levelled.

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Hey Ronlyn, I hope you read this before continuing with the mod. I just updated to v1.1. Now the characters learn their 3 last abilities sooner as I mentioned in my previous message. So go grab my newest patch asap! :)

Same to all you other Rude Heroes out there, go get v1.1 if you feel like it.

-Zed

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6 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

Hey. Great vids as usual. Thanks for updating your progress on my mod here at every turn. i really appreciate it.

Don't worry about using Third Keys, it's not chickening out or anything. Especially in late game it's more than fair to use them. I was thinking about that Cherubim boss. He went down very quickly. And I mean VERY. I lowered his HP from 10 000 to 7500 since I thought it took a bit too long to beat him, but I might have to fight him again to see if changing back to the original hp would be better. Another thing I noticed is he's supposed to use 'Divine Punishment' just like Seraphim after him. I guess you just got lucky there lol. I gotta do some testing when I'm in the mood for it.

I guess in the original players pass level 50 before entering the final stages so characters have learned their final abilities already. I've been thinking about making the 3 last abilities learnable a bit sooner than before. Yes, I guess you're right about the characters learning the 3 last abilities a bit too late. Thanks for the food for thought. This is how you change things ;) I've been trying different things and I thought making characters learn their 3 last abilities 'x1.8' times later instead of 'x2' would be perfect. So Alice would learn Arc 63 levelled instead of 70. It's too harsh to force players to be 70 levelled before facing Amon (and unnecessary). And the first final ability would be Margarete's 'Divine Bomber' and she would learn it 83 levelled. The very last character ability is Keith's 'Gift' and he would learn it 88 levelled.

 

5 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

Hey Ronlyn, I hope you read this before continuing with the mod. I just updated to v1.1. Now the characters learn their 3 last abilities sooner as I mentioned in my previous message. So go grab my newest patch asap! :)

Same to all you other Rude Heroes out there, go get v1.1 if you feel like it.

-Zed

Good to know I made a change even if a small one. so... with the new spell list we would have this:

Spoiler

                  ============================
                          Alice Elliot 
                  ============================


Spell           Effect                MP    Level Learned
-----           ------                --    -------------

Cure            Heals small amount     6    initial spell
                of HP (one)

Holy Edge       Adds Light class to    8          7
                P-atk (one)

Blessed Light   Light class damage    22         11
                (one)

Wish            Cure all statuses     15         21
                (one)

Gospel          Raise allies' P-def   40         28
                and S-def 30% (one)

Arc             Fully restore HP      80         63
                (all)

Resurrection    Revive w/ full HP     65         73
                (one)

Advent          Great Light damage    120        86
                (all)

                     =========================
                            Zhuzhen Liu 
                     =========================

Spell           Effect                MP    Level Learned
-----           ------                --    -------------

Ogre Flamedance Fire Class damage     15    initial spell
                (all)

Scirocco Blast  Adds Fire Class to     8          7
                P-atk (one)

Nourishing      Restore HP + Cure     35          12
Potion          paralysis (one)

Life Sucker     Dark Class attack     30          17
                + Silence (one)

Corpse Arm      Earth Class attack    55          23
                + paralyze (all)

Fury Serpent    Water Class attack    70          55
                (all)

Thunder Roar    Wind Class attack     90          70
                (all)

Flames of Fudo  Fire Class attack     120         84
                (all)

                    ================================
                           Margarete G. Zelle 
                    ================================

Spell           Effect                MP    Level Learned
-----           ------                --    -------------

Grenade         Water Class attack    20    initial spell
                (all)

Aqua Edge       Adds Water Class to    8    initial spell
                P-atk (one)

Scout           Reveal enemy stats     1         13

Snipe           Non-class attack      38         19
                (one)

Pain Killer     Cure all status       20         22
                ailments (one)

On Switch       Non-class S-atk       65         50
                (one)

Bazooka         Water Class attack    95         68
                (all)

Diving Bomber   Fire Class attack     120        83
                (all)

                    ===============================
                            Keith Valentine 
                    ===============================

Spell           Effect                MP    Level Learned
-----           ------                --    -------------

Drain Touch     Dark Class attack +   15    initial spell
                Drain some HP (one)

Earth Edge      Adds Earth Class to    8    initial spell
                P-atk (one)

Bat Dance       Wind Class attack     33    initial spell
                (all)

Blood Sucker    Dark Class attack +   54    initial spell
                Drain HP (one)

Hecatoncheire   Earth Class attack    70    initial spell
                (all)

Apsaras         Water Class attack    80         66
                (all) + Cure Status
                (all)

Larva           Earth Class attack    96         77
                + psn/para/silence (one)

Gift            Dark Class attack     120        88
                (all)

                     =============================
                            Halley Brancket 
                     =============================

Spell           Effect                MP    Level Learned
-----           ------                --    -------------

Healing         Restore HP (one)      20    initial spell

Air Edge        Add Wind Class to      8    initial spell
                P-atk (one)

Strong Earth    Earth Class attack +  40    initial spell
                petrify (one)

Aqua Blade      Water Class attack +  50    initial spell
                poison (one)

Air Shot        Wind Class attack +   60    initial spell
                confusion  (one)

Black Hole      Dark Class attack +   75          65
                Death (all)

Reviver         Revive with full HP   65          75

Shock Max       Non-Class attack      120         85

I love it: Now you can get all the things between dealing with sidequests and farming for the bosses inside The Float. In fact, your timing was so perfect that I decided to screw the plans I had with The Messiah (First Final Boss) and do it another way to ensure Alice get the spotlight with her shiny new spell.

Stay tuned, I'm posting footage about the encounters on the bonus dungeons and the endgame soon.

Edited by ronlyn

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Ok, another quick update on the mod. v1.2 Changes Olga 3's agility value from 156 to 130 (turning the sketchy Beach more into mainstream). I also tested the Cherubim battle, however the boss seemed fine with 7500 HP so I didn't touch that. I wouldn't be surprised if there was nothing else to change tbh. I made sure v1.0 had pretty much everything covered.

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AAAAAAAAAND DONE!!! Here's some feedback for the finale:

- Pit Fights: Halley went for his ultimate armor and I must say, you're coming to this place after dealing with seraphic radiance since that diamond ring really helps against the mobs here (maybe not against mammon as much but the rest get cockblocked by it).

- Scapegoat: My god this thing is annoying with his ability to dodge anything from the 3rd party member (Yuri for some reason never miss his spells now that I think of it. Weird). This is the last time Halley will see the light of day since the final bosses needs a specific setup and he's kind of ruin it

 

 

Messiah: since v1.2 is a thing now, I went ahead and grind until everyone hits lvl 86 for comparison sake and because of Advent (could have gone lvl 88 but there's no reason to farm for a ultimate skill for a character with little use for it). Albert´s new pokemon is quite annoying since we cannot brute force the thing and bypass his really dangerous 2nd phase, so healing must be a thing all the time and sadly Halley don't make the donuts here (Alice needs to get her turn 2nd and Halley/Margarete are two points faster than her thus unusable) so the options are Zhuzhen and Keith and the last one can tank stuff with his high HP and doesn't need a berserk earring to have more than 800 hp thus can use that accessory to boost his defenses. 

I decided to test Seraphic Radiance before the finale and I discover something horrible: For Tomorrow boost every single attribute by 30/36% including speed, which has the same effect as equipping a flash badge, meaning the judgement ring will go balls fast and that's kind of bad when you need precision for some moves, so yeah...good thing I died at some point to erase that thing.

 

 

Meta God: Final boss here, and he needs a real strategy to not find yourself dealing with Albert once again. The abyss spells are AoE elemental spells of each kind that does good chunks of damage and needs to be tank with the ultimate armors yes or yes, Judgement Time not only deal damage but also deletes mp which is really bad when Yuri is the secondary healer and his mp is on the low side and nine springs/physical attacks are just a free turn for everyone.

Turn wise, Yuri will use the stack of third keys I got here to deal around 1150 per turn (2280 - 2300 with a moon swallow added) and use For the Children when Alice in unavailable for Arc, Alice will do her job and Keith is just there to provide item support either healing MP/SP and toss Moon swallows to accelerate things. A good battle overall and it doesnt feel like I cheese it with the items used here. 

 

 

I will put a review of my whole ordeal later. For now I need to test some other things

Edited by ronlyn

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Congrats on beating the mod!!!

Those characters with less than half the agility of a boss tend to miss their abilities and basics a lot of times. So it simply has to do with agility values. And yeah Seraphic's boost does horrible things. Need to have something to reduce judgement speed if you decide to use it.

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Awesome work! I have just started playing with this mod, so far so good.

I started a lets play and wrote about it on my blog

https://shadowheartsorigins.blogspot.com/2020/05/shadow-hearts-ps2-lets-play-with.html

will be posting weekly videos and will write a written review / summary for each section.

Sadly no commentary in the video but I will maybe make a video review summary once I beat the game.

Thanks again!

 

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