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zedorfed66

Shadow Hearts NTSC-U - Imbroglio v3.20

105 posts in this topic

Hello and welcome!

This is my difficulty modification for the first Shadow Hearts I named 'Imbroglio'. It changes enemies making them have more health, agility, strength and magic. In addition there's been changes to different character abilities. Also, characters learn their 3 last skills way later (when Alice learned 'Arc' before at 35 levelled now she learns it 70 levelled instead).

NOTE: I lowered the required level for the 3 last character abilities starting with v1.1. From there on Alice learns Arc 63 levelled (level requirements are x 1.8 of the original).

The mod is currently v3.20 with lots of different changes. See the other messages on this thread where I have listed changes.

In this mod you are required to be higher level than before in order to progress in the game. Increased experience and cash from enemies will help in that. You have better chances at the final boss the higher level you are and the more sidequests you have completed. It is recommended to do the final boss maxed out (99 lvl).

I wasn't able to find the values for the scaling enemies from the code so those remain unchanged unless some helpful person will be able to help me in that. Fortunately those are only the Fusion battles and the Malice lowering battles (and also the scaled Fox Face if you dare facing him).

Give my mod a go if you feel like it. 

You need to have the original disc image of Shadow Hearts NTSC-U. Then patch that image with the file from the zip using 'ppf-o-matic' tool.

 

Here's the download link:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/pjgt3ituu7und2q/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_3.20.zip

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Here are the previous versions if you want to try these instead, however the newer version is improved.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/segzg7cpdte0am8/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_3.15.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/9tgdrwzeh75syoc/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_3.1.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/bco0n5alyhfjdco/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_3.0.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kcgc88ahhvqb65p/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_2.0.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/b4i3qdspqr3bypd/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_1.3.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/qkbhz4zgzzsmvcb/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_1.2.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4aku2ftbd7dvdm8/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_1.1.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/see5y0jrhxgjsr8/shadow_hearts_ntsc-u_imbroglio_1_0.zip

Edited by zedorfed66
updated files

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Thanks for the rep guys^^

I forgot to mention the enemies also have higher agility. I updated the info to my first message.

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Awesome. I just did a bunch of box-searching for my old ps2 games and have all the shadowhearts games. That's cool it looks like you've made mods for all of them. Have to try them out when i have time. 

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19 hours ago, vhatever said:

Awesome. I just did a bunch of box-searching for my old ps2 games and have all the shadowhearts games. That's cool it looks like you've made mods for all of them. Have to try them out when i have time. 

Hey, thanks a lot for the interest! Give them a go if you feel like it ^^ Shadow Hearts is my favorite RPG series and they hold a big place in my heart, that's why I've made mod for all of them. I've been thinking about modding Koudelka too but that game seems really hard to mod. At least I can't find the enemy data in that game.

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4 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

Hey, thanks a lot for the interest! Give them a go if you feel like it ^^ Shadow Hearts is my favorite RPG series and they hold a big place in my heart, that's why I've made mod for all of them. I've been thinking about modding Koudelka too but that game seems really hard to mod. At least I can't find the enemy data in that game.

Koudelka is a hot mess of a game in terms of....everything

 

If you manage to make it work (especially if you remove the idiotic RNG) I will make you an altar

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16 hours ago, ronlyn said:

Koudelka is a hot mess of a game in terms of....everything

 

If you manage to make it work (especially if you remove the idiotic RNG) I will make you an altar

Lol. Koudelka has its' charms in the whole dark evil setting and all. And actually I don't have the same complaints about the game most people do. For example I don't care about the slower paced gameplay (due to technical stuff). The problems are pretty much all on the modding end. I'll probably totally skip Koudelka in my list of projects and focus on something else instead.

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On 7/11/2019 at 1:14 PM, zedorfed66 said:

Hey, thanks a lot for the interest! Give them a go if you feel like it ^^ Shadow Hearts is my favorite RPG series and they hold a big place in my heart, that's why I've made mod for all of them. I've been thinking about modding Koudelka too but that game seems really hard to mod. At least I can't find the enemy data in that game.

Ya, I certainly plan to try them all out eventually here. Obviously having all the games for the PS2, I was also a fan of the series back in the day. Koudelka I only played once at someone else's house it seemed absolutely nothing like the shadowhearts games, though it was funny when the characters would suddenly break out into this expansive professor-like dialogue about whether Immanuel Kant's position X was in agreement with Voltaire's position on Y.

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On 13.7.2019 at 8:50 AM, vhatever said:

Ya, I certainly plan to try them all out eventually here. Obviously having all the games for the PS2, I was also a fan of the series back in the day. Koudelka I only played once at someone else's house it seemed absolutely nothing like the shadowhearts games, though it was funny when the characters would suddenly break out into this expansive professor-like dialogue about whether Immanuel Kant's position X was in agreement with Voltaire's position on Y.

Lol. It seems all the old school horror games tended to have weird dialogue at least in some point. I guess the whole weirdness makes them more scary.

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Hello once again @zedorfed66 , I just wanted to ask: Would be any issues if I played your mod as first playthrough? I just download the game and I have never touched any game of the Shadow Hearts trilogy (just heard/saw gameplay and after touching Kouldelka's....interesting mechanics I just gave up on the series).

Edited by ronlyn

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On 28.8.2019 at 4:07 AM, ronlyn said:

Hello once again @zedorfed66 , I just wanted to ask: Would be any issues if I played your mod as first playthrough? I just download the game and I have never touched any game of the Shadow Hearts trylogy (just heard/saw gameplay and after touching Kouldelka's....interesting mechanics I just gave up on the series).

Hey, ronlyn. 

This is not an extremely hard modification. Just somewhat challenging (like my other Shadow Hearts mods) while still being fun to play so there shouldn't be much problems. The last bosses can get more brutal if you've gotten used to power level since they're supposed to be done maxed. Then again you can still use the 'Seal' items to power up (which are not required to beat the game at lv 99).

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4 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

Hey, ronlyn. 

This is not an extremely hard modification. Just somewhat challenging (like my other Shadow Hearts mods) while still being fun to play so there shouldn't be much problems. The last bosses can get more brutal if you've gotten used to power level since they're supposed to be done maxed. Then again you can still use the 'Seal' items to power up (which are not required to beat the game at lv 99).

Well then, I'm gonna treat myself with this on the weekend (I got excited from this whole series after reading The Dark Id's kouldelka LP, which I appreciated since I'm not touching that game any day soon...)

Edited by ronlyn

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1 hour ago, ronlyn said:

Well then, I'm gonna treat myself with this on the weekend (I got excited from this whole series after reading The Dark Id's kouldelka LP, which I appreciated since I'm not touching that game any day soon...)

Have fun! :)

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Came back after playing a bit. @zedorfed66 you should really nerf/balance the enemy output:

- In the prologue Yuri got straight out nuke by two imps using wind shear. Had to reset and try again and luckily one decided to attack

-  There's no reason to use regular Yuri since Death Emperor grants stats upon activation and sometimes you need them WAY TOO MUCH to 2 turns KO enemies rather than 3 turns them (something important since once Alice becomes part of the team, her ass will get whopped by virtually anything)

- Since agility is also up the charts, sometimes I found everyone and my grandma killing Alice before even getting Yuri to act. That's outright BS

- The fight against Rage Tiger last long enough to lose control of Yuri if you dare to use Death Emperor to reduce/inflict more damage, meaning you can lose against what I see as a tutorial battle

 

For real, unless you expect me to grind to like lvl 5/6 in the plains the game feels really unfair

EDIT: Items can get you so far since I check and yeah, they can be bought in the next location but at the same time, I expend way more that I win per battle, so I'm not sure this will pan out very well

Edited by ronlyn

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5 hours ago, ronlyn said:

Came back after playing a bit. @zedorfed66 you should really nerf/balance the enemy output:

- In the prologue Yuri got straight out nuke by two imps using wind shear. Had to reset and try again and luckily one decided to attack

-  There's no reason to use regular Yuri since Death Emperor grants stats upon activation and sometimes you need them WAY TOO MUCH to 2 turns KO enemies rather than 3 turns them (something important since once Alice becomes part of the team, her ass will get whopped by virtually anything)

- Since agility is also up the charts, sometimes I found everyone and my grandma killing Alice before even getting Yuri to act. That's outright BS

- The fight against Rage Tiger last long enough to lose control of Yuri if you dare to use Death Emperor to reduce/inflict more damage, meaning you can lose against what I see as a tutorial battle

 

For real, unless you expect me to grind to like lvl 5/6 in the plains the game feels really unfair

EDIT: Items can get you so far since I check and yeah, they can be bought in the next location but at the same time, I expend way more that I win per battle, so I'm not sure this will pan out very well

Alice is the squishiest party member followed by Zhuzhen so yeah she'll be taking a lot of beating in this mod sadly :(((. You're supposed to be lvl 5 before entering the Raging Tiger boss. Overall there's some leveling required here and there. You will also need to be buying more items throughout the game since enemies and bosses take longer to defeat. I'm sorry if you feel overwhelmed by that. Magic overall is more powerful than basic attacks so you might be able to one shot some foes with Yuri's fusion monsters' magic spells. And it's pretty much always better to have Yuri transformed since it gives him extra stats.

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It has been almost two months since I dared to play this (and get frustrated at the balance) so this time, I will play the entire deal if only because I really want a mod that offers a fair challenge without devolving into mindless grinding or cheap bosses:

Train: The Wind shears can actually live up to their names and tear you apart if you're so unlucky to get four of those in the face, besides that everything's ok until Bacon blows the duo to...

The Plains: And this is where everything goes down the drain. Alice will get her ass KO by virtually any enemy that decides to do multiple hits almost all the time until she hits lvl 3. Yuri can ORKO bats and spiders while the wolfs are 2RKO all the time you spend here grinding but since you're grinding mostly because of Alice so better pray she gets lucky on these fights. I suggest reduce the local fauna's attack since the only concern is that the RNG decides to be a dick and send two enemies against Ms.Elliot. Once both reach lvl 5, Yuri gets bodied by Fox Face and fight Ranging Tiger in the graveyard which was actually fun.

Zhaoyang Village: after the scenes, we get to experience a problem with the enemies: These formations expect you to have Zhuzhen in the team, so better get cracking and get him since otherwise Alice with eat dirt and Yuri will follow suit since he gets locked in a healing cycle. Once the old man is with you the next section is rather tame since ogre flame-dance will trounce everything and with the new economy you can actually spam that like it's nothing. Poison and Confuse are status effects you will see here and I feel poison could be boost to actually matter since 1-3 hp per turn is kind of hilarious. The status protection gear in the shop could also have their price lowered since wasting almost 3000 per item is kind of impossible to think off when you have to worry about your supplies.

Hell Cats: I think you forgot to buff them since they only took two casts of Flying Stones to end the battle.  

Felinus: OMG this thing needs more testing and not because her damage input but because of her dumb agility: Is quite possible to have the darn cat two turn you and toss two wind slash to kill both Alice and Zhuzhen and probably leave Yuri on death's door. Tornado was quite amazing since it means Yuri could tank three turns before healing was in dire need. I went lvl 8 here.

Yamaraha Earth: After the cat everyone reach lvl 9 and Zhuzhen learned Fire Edge which was used against this boss. This one actually feels more fair since he does give you breath room to get yourself up and do some damage unlike that demon cat and while he can two turn you every now and then, since the second one is a physical attack it will only down one party member.

More of this later but right now things are looking grim for my sanity

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23 hours ago, ronlyn said:

It has been almost two months since I dared to play this (and get frustrated at the balance) so this time, I will play the entire deal if only because I really want a mod that offers a fair challenge without devolving into mindless grinding or cheap bosses:

Train: The Wind shears can actually live up to their names and tear you apart if you're so unlucky to get four of those in the face, besides that everything's ok until Bacon blows the duo to...

The Plains: And this is where everything goes down the drain. Alice will get her ass KO by virtually any enemy that decides to do multiple hits almost all the time until she hits lvl 3. Yuri can ORKO bats and spiders while the wolfs are 2RKO all the time you spend here grinding but since you're grinding mostly because of Alice so better pray she gets lucky on these fights. I suggest reduce the local fauna's attack since the only concern is that the RNG decides to be a dick and send two enemies against Ms.Elliot. Once both reach lvl 5, Yuri gets bodied by Fox Face and fight Ranging Tiger in the graveyard which was actually fun.

Zhaoyang Village: after the scenes, we get to experience a problem with the enemies: These formations expect you to have Zhuzhen in the team, so better get cracking and get him since otherwise Alice with eat dirt and Yuri will follow suit since he gets locked in a healing cycle. Once the old man is with you the next section is rather tame since ogre flame-dance will trounce everything and with the new economy you can actually spam that like it's nothing. Poison and Confuse are status effects you will see here and I feel poison could be boost to actually matter since 1-3 hp per turn is kind of hilarious. The status protection gear in the shop could also have their price lowered since wasting almost 3000 per item is kind of impossible to think off when you have to worry about your supplies.

Hell Cats: I think you forgot to buff them since they only took two casts of Flying Stones to end the battle.  

Felinus: OMG this thing needs more testing and not because her damage input but because of her dumb agility: Is quite possible to have the darn cat two turn you and toss two wind slash to kill both Alice and Zhuzhen and probably leave Yuri on death's door. Tornado was quite amazing since it means Yuri could tank three turns before healing was in dire need. I went lvl 8 here.

Yamaraha Earth: After the cat everyone reach lvl 9 and Zhuzhen learned Fire Edge which was used against this boss. This one actually feels more fair since he does give you breath room to get yourself up and do some damage unlike that demon cat and while he can two turn you every now and then, since the second one is a physical attack it will only down one party member.

More of this later but right now things are looking grim for my sanity

Hi again Ronlyn and thank you for giving my mod a whirl!

I'll try to answer to everything you have pointed out while trying to help at the same time.

 

Siberian Express:

There are never 4 Wind Shears in one group in the train. It's always either 1 or 2. Yuri should be fine as a by-passer.

 

Plains:

Lvl 1 Alice will always be able to survive with at least 1 HP even if the 'Vampire Bat' (the strongest enemy in the area) happens to hit with critical.

As long as you have full health and mana before the fights you will be able to survive every time as long as you play correctly. Even as only Yuri and Alice. If you run the game on PCSX2 you can test this out by making a save state after a surprise attack. I have tested this in every single area of the game. As long as you have the best weapons/armor at that point you won't see a game over screen. However there are all of these things to take in consideration along with being on correct levels and having enough items if you need to use them.

 

Zhaoyang Village:

I decided not to buff the health of the 'Hellcats' since I thought of them as children compared to the rest of the enemies. Yuri will be able to one shot the 'Green Flyer' enemies with his Earth element monster's magic spell. Which you should be doing especially before you get Zhuzhen on your party.

I wanted to keep the game experience as close to the original as possible without changing status effects / shop prices or anything like that. It is also my way of respecting the vision of the people who created this game. You are not expected to buy any protective accessories at Zhaoyang Village other than Bandannas. Later on in the game you will be able to buy way more freely. Just measure what things are more important or if you want you can alternatively grind until you are able to buy everything.

It is optimal to fight the 'Felinus' boss at lvl9 (same as Yamaraja).

 

I'm sorry for making you feel awful while playing through my mod. I hope you will start liking it more if you decide to continue another time.

-Zed

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3 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

Hi again Ronlyn and thank you for giving my mod a whirl!

I'll try to answer to everything you have pointed out while trying to help at the same time.

 

Siberian Express:

There are never 4 Wind Shears in one group in the train. It's always either 1 or 2. Yuri should be fine as a by-passer.

 

Plains:

Lvl 1 Alice will always be able to survive with at least 1 HP even if the 'Vampire Bat' (the strongest enemy in the area) happens to hit with critical.

As long as you have full health and mana before the fights you will be able to survive every time as long as you play correctly. Even as only Yuri and Alice. If you run the game on PCSX2 you can test this out by making a save state after a surprise attack. I have tested this in every single area of the game. As long as you have the best weapons/armor at that point you won't see a game over screen. However there are all of these things to take in consideration along with being on correct levels and having enough items if you need to use them.

 

Zhaoyang Village:

I decided not to buff the health of the 'Hellcats' since I thought of them as children compared to the rest of the enemies. Yuri will be able to one shot the 'Green Flyer' enemies with his Earth element monster's magic spell. Which you should be doing especially before you get Zhuzhen on your party.

I wanted to keep the game experience as close to the original as possible without changing status effects / shop prices or anything like that. It is also my way of respecting the vision of the people who created this game. You are not expected to buy any protective accessories at Zhaoyang Village other than Bandannas. Later on in the game you will be able to buy way more freely. Just measure what things are more important or if you want you can alternatively grind until you are able to buy everything.

It is optimal to fight the 'Felinus' boss at lvl9 (same as Yamaraja).

 

I'm sorry for making you feel awful while playing through my mod. I hope you will start liking it more if you decide to continue another time.

-Zed

Don't worry about me getting loud with your mod: It means you're doing something amazing but that needs tweaks here and there since otherwise I would just ignore the whole deal altogether

Now with my replies:

- Train: I was speaking of their wind move that they spammed the very first time I played the mod until I was right back ay the start screen. It was kind of unfortunate 

- Plains: Went back and you're right on that front. That place is still awful since Alice needs to get lucky to not get targeted by two foes and the enemies comes in packs of 2-3

- Zhaoyang: I'm okay with all that is there.

 

If is not too much to ask: You don't have anything like a readme or at least a short list with suggestions about which level You should reach a boss/dungeon?

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More feedback:

- Sewers: Once again I rush the whole place to avoid getting rekt before Margarete. Tested the boss and I found lvl 13 for everyone to be the rule. Shot out for the 3 bats and 2 spiders enemy formation which can AND will destroy everyone not named Yuri if three or four enemies focus their efforts on someone (which is actually prone to happen since the AI seems competent enough to target someone's near death) and you cannot get rid of the real threats (bats) in one turn which means you will eat SIX fireballs before killing one until Blessed Light is a thing (Alice lvl 11 BTW). Margarete's Grenade can 2HKO them along the spiders but one must pray for them to ignored her weakness against said fireballs.

The blue and green frogs are hard but since they come three at max even if they kill someone you can recover from that. Farmed frogs for Man eater's fusion in hopes that it means something against the next boss (spoilers: It wasn't worth the effort).

Red and Blue kappas: This trio was actually quite funny since the lackeys were quite resilient with their healing spell and if you're feeling feisty, you can use death emperor and drain their mp to avoid said tactics. I like this one if only because there are options 

- Beast Dog: lvl 13 in tow, I went offensive with Man eater casting his water spell while the girls support the fish man and got myself killed since the water fusions kind of sucks in general in the entire trilogy. Next try I went ranging tiger with aqua edge and everything went smooth since the mutt didn't two turn to spam his fire breath with the new levels I got.

- Dalian: The blue frogs are back in packs of three and with their light affinity it means it's time to farm for heaven's fiend which is really easy with both Margarete and Zhuzhen using their AoE spells to clean house. The Yellow kappas were completely avoided since even at lvl 14 the assholes would normally stomp even Yuri and you need to endure six of their attacks before you can take them out. However I do admit I didn't try using heaven's fiend since I went directly to fight the boss after getting it (not much to say about fusion fights) so I'm gonna test them later. 

Yamaraha-Earth at lvl 14: Surprisingly enough, the problem wasn't survive the strange thing even with it getting two turns since everyone could survive a double shockwave or one shockwave and one cast of flying stones. but physicals are quite dangerous if only because they are RNG dependent in terms of how much hits you will get. The real issue is that the goddamn asshole avoided SIXTEEN spells (4 from Margarete and 12 from Zhuzhen) it doesn't help that the darn thing refuses to die (I counted the damage I deal and it went well over 1000 hp).

Really, it would be nice to know at the very least which are the levels you expect someone to reach these bosses since me testing out per level is dragging me down

EDIT: 2nd attempt was a success and the only real change was that he decided to avoid two grenades and three ogre flamedances instead of half of them. Went ahead and use my calculator and the final result was 1432 which means that thing has 1400 hp (+600 compared to his vanilla self). I can foreseen in the future that heaven's fiend will be my go to fusion until basically endgame because AoE healing is a must most of the time. This also make Alice irrelevant in most bosses since single target healing is not very appealing with a lot of money to toss in thera/mana leafs and her sanity is basically the worst (which is a problem with longer bosses).

Edited by ronlyn

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12 hours ago, ronlyn said:

More feedback:

- Sewers: Once again I rush the whole place to avoid getting rekt before Margarete. Tested the boss and I found lvl 13 for everyone to be the rule. Shot out for the 3 bats and 2 spiders enemy formation which can AND will destroy everyone not named Yuri if three or four enemies focus their efforts on someone (which is actually prone to happen since the AI seems competent enough to target someone's near death) and you cannot get rid of the real threats (bats) in one turn which means you will eat SIX fireballs before killing one until Blessed Light is a thing (Alice lvl 11 BTW). Margarete's Grenade can 2HKO them along the spiders but one must pray for them to ignored her weakness against said fireballs.

The blue and green frogs are hard but since they come three at max even if they kill someone you can recover from that. Farmed frogs for Man eater's fusion in hopes that it means something against the next boss (spoilers: It wasn't worth the effort).

Red and Blue kappas: This trio was actually quite funny since the lackeys were quite resilient with their healing spell and if you're feeling feisty, you can use death emperor and drain their mp to avoid said tactics. I like this one if only because there are options 

- Beast Dog: lvl 13 in tow, I went offensive with Man eater casting his water spell while the girls support the fish man and got myself killed since the water fusions kind of sucks in general in the entire trilogy. Next try I went ranging tiger with aqua edge and everything went smooth since the mutt didn't two turn to spam his fire breath with the new levels I got.

- Dalian: The blue frogs are back in packs of three and with their light affinity it means it's time to farm for heaven's fiend which is really easy with both Margarete and Zhuzhen using their AoE spells to clean house. The Yellow kappas were completely avoided since even at lvl 14 the assholes would normally stomp even Yuri and you need to endure six of their attacks before you can take them out. However I do admit I didn't try using heaven's fiend since I went directly to fight the boss after getting it (not much to say about fusion fights) so I'm gonna test them later. 

Yamaraha-Earth at lvl 14: Surprisingly enough, the problem wasn't survive the strange thing even with it getting two turns since everyone could survive a double shockwave or one shockwave and one cast of flying stones. but physicals are quite dangerous if only because they are RNG dependent in terms of how much hits you will get. The real issue is that the goddamn asshole avoided SIXTEEN spells (4 from Margarete and 12 from Zhuzhen) it doesn't help that the darn thing refuses to die (I counted the damage I deal and it went well over 1000 hp).

Really, it would be nice to know at the very least which are the levels you expect someone to reach these bosses since me testing out per level is dragging me down

EDIT: 2nd attempt was a success and the only real change was that he decided to avoid two grenades and three ogre flamedances instead of half of them. Went ahead and use my calculator and the final result was 1432 which means that thing has 1400 hp (+600 compared to his vanilla self). I can foreseen in the future that heaven's fiend will be my go to fusion until basically endgame because AoE healing is a must most of the time. This also make Alice irrelevant in most bosses since single target healing is not very appealing with a lot of money to toss in thera/mana leafs and her sanity is basically the worst (which is a problem with longer bosses).

Hey again.

Looks like you've made some good progress. You're way lower level than what is intended at this point. But if you're fine with that don't let it bother you. It's simply just the optimal level before taking on the bosses, nothing too serious. The bosses' HP is often multiplied by 1.5 (which was the case with Yamaraja) and sometimes by 2.

 

Here are the suggested levels before entering the bosses:

Plains: 5
Zhaoyang Village: 9
Fengtian Sewers: 16
Dalian: 18
Smuggler's Ship: 20
Trials 1: 20
Trials 2: 22
Trials 3: 22
Kowloon Fortress: 27
Kuihai Tower: 38
Bistritz: 41
Blue Castle: 44
Rouen: 49
Orphanage: 55
Mental Hospital: 60
Nemeton Underground: 70
Doll House & Float 1: 79
Cave Temple & Float 2: 89
Ancient Ruins & float 3: 99

 

Basically when everyone on your team is at these levels it's optimal to take the next boss. I upped the exp and cash received in all the areas. In some more and in some less. Especially in the areas where you need to level up more you will receive more than in some other areas.

 

But yeah, you don't necessarily need to be in those levels. And you're right, 'Heaven's Fiend' is very important fusion on Yuri early on. Alice will also be very important later on with her 'Gospel' and 'Arc' spells. This is basically the game where you want to have Yuri and Alice on your party until the end. Halley is the default for 3rd and is probably the best choice since he also has revive and healing spell and also 'Black Hole'. He is simply the best for 3rd but other choices may work as well.

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9 hours ago, zedorfed66 said:

Here are the suggested levels before entering the bosses:

Plains: 5
Zhaoyang Village: 9
Fengtian Sewers: 16
Dalian: 18
Smuggler's Ship: 20
Trials 1: 20
Trials 2: 22
Trials 3: 22
Kowloon Fortress: 27
Kuihai Tower: 38
Bistritz: 41
Blue Castle: 44
Rouen: 49
Orphanage: 55
Mental Hospital: 60
Nemeton Underground: 70
Doll House & Float 1: 79
Cave Temple & Float 2: 89
Ancient Ruins & float 3: 99

Thanks, I will keep this in mind when I get to farm for levels and such. There are two problems I've found so far in all locations:

The agility stat: Enemies are dangerous enough with their new damage output and endurance, let alone the fact that now I can't even get a full round of turns with my team because some enemies gets turns in between my actions which irks me to no end (Zhuzhen for example, has really low agility and thus gets his turn way too late most of the time). I think you can dial down the agility and up the enemy's hp in order to ensure that the player can properly fight against the monsters and further remove the player's ability to erase the enemies in one round.

EXP vs effort ratio: The three Kappa Gods in Dalian give 300 exp per fight and you will suffer a lot more with them than the three blue frogs which gives 270 exp per fight. In the end I just save stated and only engaged those frogs since they are easier to deal with and the kappas are jerks in general. Bump their exp from 100 to 160 per kill to ensure the player get an proper reward for dealing with them while farming.

Back to the game:

- Smuggler's Boat: I didn't remove Zhuzhen's accessories so I went ahead and just used two rosewood bracelets against Li Li. The fire wisps or whatever the hell they're called were quite the pain in the ass for the first reason explain above: If a party member dies in the middle of the fight you cannot get back up because you will get torched to death before everyone's get on top form. You could argue that I'm just behind in levels but the thing is... I won't spend around half an hour fighting the same two enemies formations to met the required level since it just the agility that causing problems not their damage or their hp. 

- Li Li's back-to-back: First form has 900 hp (+400 compare to vanilla). I took my time farming to lvl 16 (Yuri/Margarete) and lvl 15 for Alice to these fights while also getting enough fire souls to unlock Inferno. Everyone on the back row, Yuri went Heaven's fiend and spammed Exorcist Arrow and occasionally Sacred Remedy when Li Li got two turns. Alice was my secondary damage dealer and backup healer and Margarete just did her best to top everyone's HP/MP to ensure I ended the fight in good shape.

Second form has 1100 hp (+400 to vanilla). Same tactics except I needed two turns to heal everyone's HP/MP and SP when half way though the deal. She got a turn every two of mine which means being alive was my priority and damage was secondary until sanity was dropping low. I enyoyed this for all that is worth. 

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Making the characters always get turns before the enemies removes the challenge from fights to the point of making them boring imo. The normal encounters already have 3x their original hp, starting from Smuggler's Boat 4x and the late game enemies 6x. As long as you're in high enough levels you will find the normal foes bearable. However one is still able to play the mod on lower levels but with added challenge. In the suggested levels the enemies with highest agl get the initiative as often as the player's character with highest agl value. I wanted to make it this way. I'm sorry if it bothers you. In low levels the foes also deal more damage and they'll be able to one shot party members if they happen to get crits with their basics.

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On 26/11/2019 at 11:05 AM, zedorfed66 said:

Making the characters always get turns before the enemies removes the challenge from fights to the point of making them boring imo. The normal encounters already have 3x their original hp, starting from Smuggler's Boat 4x and the late game enemies 6x. As long as you're in high enough levels you will find the normal foes bearable. However one is still able to play the mod on lower levels but with added challenge. In the suggested levels the enemies with highest agl get the initiative as often as the player's character with highest agl value. I wanted to make it this way. I'm sorry if it bothers you. In low levels the foes also deal more damage and they'll be able to one shot party members if they happen to get crits with their basics.

I can accept this on enemies since it means you have to be on your toes all the time or you will get wipe out. However when bosses get two turns...Let me first post the whole ordeal until finish off Wugui in the Ancient Temple and you will understand:

- Shanghai 1st visit & Zhuzhen Solo adventure: I had to redo the whole Dalian act since I needed some levels on Yuri of all people (lvl 14 Zhuzhen can survive two water blasts from the kappas if he manages to reach 50 S.Def with accessories and equipment). Lvl 18 for Yuri/Margarete and 17 for Zhuzhen and Alice after redo the whole fiasco with the squid lady. The kappas could potentially two turn Zhuzhen but I can accept this since only attacking when he's on full hp it's the way to go. Wugui pulled off a trap card and send the old man to the shadow realm. 

-Wugui 1 vs 1: Unlike his father, Yuri had to grab a Flash Badge from the Silent Peddler back in Dalian since Wugui would otherwise double turn his ass every now and then and two 3-hit comboes from the stretchy man means death so playing defensively while Inferno punch him into a paste was the call here. 

- Temple Ruins - First Trial: Went ahead and fully upgrade Yuri & Margarete's weapons since I know the straight up bullshit this dungeon brings. Yuri & Zhuzhen's adventures were quite fun if only because Man dragon straight up wash the floor with the pythons here. However Zhuzhen almost catch up with Yuri in terms of levels because it seems the enemy AI has a weird predilection for the first slot (Yuri) and he was death before Zhuzhen could cast the last spell to end the battle.

- Temple Ruins - Second Trial: Margo carried the "team" so hard it hurts. I hope the ones responsible for this dungeon die in a fire while their ability to open doors are disable inside a building.

Temple Ruins - Last Trial: Just fight off two random battles since I was really tired of this horrible dungeon and the bosses were honestly the easy part (EXCEPT FOR ONE DETAIL).

- Xieshi, Baigu & Qinngu: These three are fairly challenging (lvl 20 before doing every single one of these) and I actually would have enjoyed the deal...If they didn't get two consecutive turns every three turns and decided that it was fair to spam their AoE spell to murder the party for shit and giggles. The only who didn't pull that off was Quinngu and only because I decided to screw the system and equip Flash Badges on Yuri & Zhuzhen.

- Yamaraha War: This guy was acceptable since once again Flash Badges save the day. Zhuzhen was up to use gold hourglasses and support, Margarete and Yuri went full physical on the dude while occasionally healing anyone below 120 hp.

EDIT: Since I'm reaching out the climax of the first half I must ask: At which level do you suggest tackling the pit fights? 

Edited by ronlyn

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4 hours ago, ronlyn said:

I can accept this on enemies since it means you have to be on your toes all the time or you will get wipe out. However when bosses get two turns...Let me first post the whole ordeal until finish off Wugui in the Ancient Temple and you will understand:

- Shanghai 1st visit & Zhuzhen Solo adventure: I had to redo the whole Dalian act since I needed some levels on Yuri of all people (lvl 14 Zhuzhen can survive two water blasts from the kappas if he manages to reach 50 S.Def with accessories and equipment). Lvl 18 for Yuri/Margarete and 17 for Zhuzhen and Alice after redo the whole fiasco with the squid lady. The kappas could potentially two turn Zhuzhen but I can accept this since only attacking when he's on full hp it's the way to go. Wugui pulled off a trap card and send the old man to the shadow realm. 

-Wugui 1 vs 1: Unlike his father, Yuri had to grab a Flash Badge from the Silent Peddler back in Dalian since Wugui would otherwise double turn his ass every now and then and two 3-hit comboes from the stretchy man means death so playing defensively while Inferno punch him into a paste was the call here. 

- Temple Ruins - First Trial: Went ahead and fully upgrade Yuri & Margarete's weapons since I know the straight up bullshit this dungeon brings. Yuri & Zhuzhen's adventures were quite fun if only because Man dragon straight up wash the floor with the pythons here. However Zhuzhen almost catch up with Yuri in terms of levels because it seems the enemy AI has a weird predilection for the first slot (Yuri) and he was death before Zhuzhen could cast the last spell to end the battle.

- Temple Ruins - Second Trial: Margo carried the "team" so hard it hurts. I hope the ones responsible for this dungeon die in a fire while their ability to open doors are disable inside a building.

Temple Ruins - Last Trial: Just fight off two random battles since I was really tired of this horrible dungeon and the bosses were honestly the easy part (EXCEPT FOR ONE DETAIL).

- Xieshi, Baigu & Qinngu: These three are fairly challenging (lvl 20 before doing every single one of these) and I actually would have enjoyed the deal...If they didn't get two consecutive turns every three turns and decided that it was fair to spam their AoE spell to murder the party for shit and giggles. The only who didn't pull that off was Quinngu and only because I decided to screw the system and equip Flash Badges on Yuri & Zhuzhen.

- Yamaraha War: This guy was acceptable since once again Flash Badges save the day. Zhuzhen was up to use gold hourglasses and support, Margarete and Yuri went full physical on the dude while occasionally healing anyone below 120 hp.

EDIT: Since I'm reaching out the climax of the first half I must ask: At which level do you suggest tackling the pit fights? 

Hey. Well done. I hope you don't feel too bad about using the Flash Badges. I've never used them but they seem to help if you're lower than the recommended levels.

I think you can do the Shanghai pit fights immediately when they become available. I'm not completely sure about that tbh but that's what I think. You must do them before entering Kuihai Tower if I remember correctly. You should be able to do them at least at that point.

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Here with some more input (and a nice treat):

- Shanghai's pit fights - I feel these were left untouched since I didn't need to redo anything at all which is kind of underwhelming but the other option is to fight against turbo jacket enemies and with this setup the other two party members have an actual chance of beating the whole thing

 - Kowloon's - My god this place was quite the spooky thing with the setting looking like an old horror movie and enemies that will whoop the crap out of you if not at full hp. Margo learns Snipe on the way up to the boss and that skill straight up makes her a keeper for the rest of the game since being able to delete someone without suffering a lot (most single enemies here had around 1000 hp which takes 4-5 turns to deplete taking healing into account) is golden and the new economy means she will spam that rifle until I get something better.

- Wugui - The fight was intense and I finally put my brain to work and setup fraps so here you have it:

Since this knucklefuck can absorb even Snipe (IDK why since that move is non elemental and you know, a bullet to the face) Margo went full DPS on the stretchy Man while Yuri fused into Heaven's Fiend to support the team (with wall of resistance pto ensure he survives two nightmares at 300 hp minimum). Zhuzhen went ahead and played support here since he's kind of useless without offensive magic. The frames dropped at a point and I missed two input which was almost lethal but I took the win there.

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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.

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