Larc

I for sure couldn't presume to know which you intended! That sounds interesting. So black curse cast onto a character wearing the armor I imagined (granting the target all buffs instead of all debuffs) would mess with the program in some way? And having the armor equipped at all would cause characters to learn the wrong spells? How does that happen? My mistake. But if that was your intention, I do stand by the idea that the armor should be on par with the +healing armor's defenses if "medium" is considered middle of the road because it seems like an unnecessary cost for choosing flexibility in party makeup instead of flexibility in party aptitude. Anyway, I'm guessing you're probably on other projects by now and in the wide scheme stuff like this (read: some internet nobody's criticism (read: blatant opinion)) doesn't really add or subtract from what you've created very much, so thanks again for the excellent mod and always taking the time to reply to everyone.

Hello! I'm a big fan of this mod and have been for a while, and I'm especially a HUGE fan of the relatively recent addition of "Hold X during a spell title to skip the animation." It's a great solution to the emphasis on spell and buff usage for this mod and for an action game with so many flashy and long spell animations! Coincidentally, when I used to play the game as a kid, I would always make a party without casters not only because physical attacks were so much better / magic was countered / Hawk and Kevin were my jam, but because casting all the time made the game feel slower! Something I wish more games would consider when making animations you see a lot. How long they take and how much they interrupt the flow. Not just RPGs, either! Anyway, Mr. Praetarius, my most recent play I've been using Lord, Archmage and Dervish on hard, figuring I could avoid taking mind up and power up by careful use of the "Dragon's Mail" tier armor on bosses I'd need the buffs, the ones that "change buff effects into debuffs and vice versa". However, I found that they don't actually change the (de)buffs applied to the character wearing the armor, but rather they change the buff the character casts themselves, which I think might be unintended. I know the armor is actually functioning this way because when Angela casts power down on an enemy while wearing the Dreamdevil Coat, the message "Attack power up" appears, and when when Dolan uses Spiral Moon, everyone's max hp is lowered. My reasoning: An attack that damages and debuffs (like Icicle or Demon Breath) is tougher to recover from than just one that damages, so having it buff your stats instead is a strong resource saving tool. This was meant to be offset by the armor tier's light and light physical/magic defense. In addition, it would allow you to have one character with all (de)buffs (any Lise class) handle all stat effects for your team and your enemy. Currently, there's no benefit to the current armors that I can see other than allowing you to have one character buff your team while another with the exact same spells debuffs enemies, in case you happened to pick two characters with the same (de)buffs as each other. If the intention was purely to allow you to have more variety in which classes you can build your team with and reach more buff coverage, might I suggest giving the armor more defense since then it's just shoring up a weakness (not enough team variety) instead of giving you a strength? Also, Lord's speed down isn't marked as multi-target in the classes.txt but functions as such in game. Thank you for all the good times!

Hello, Praetorius! I've been silently following your project for a few months now. I've played it on normal and hard by myself and normal with a few friends completely unfamiliar with the game. It's been really fun, and I just wanted to jump in and say you do excellent work. I think you really succeeded in remaking the game to offer various, meaningful choices, and even beyond that the added depth from running, "strong attacks" and counters and reworking the enemy ai make for a satisfying rpg experience AND action experience that, best of all, has replayability. The removal of grinds helped in that, too. That's what I mostly came here to say, and I really feel like I should have sooner. I want to contribute what I can, too. The Sage Stone (sudden cast ring) consumes MP when techs are used while equipped (sets MP to 0). You can see this happening at 23'45'' in the latest video, #"46-48", of that let's play going on of your mod (coincidentally, they're how I found out about your mod!). You can see Lise's equipment at 25'36''. I encountered this bug myself. I also remember something fishy about one of the Pedan armors, like it was supposed to have a major drawback only the penalty was bugged or something so the armor was too good. I'll try to provide specifics when I have time. I'm sorry I can't offer more bugs. Maybe that's a good thing, though! I haven't beaten the mod yet, but I keep coming back to it and am happy to start over. The worst parts are the things you can't address as you've said like FSTs/Spells stopping all action, no in game descriptions of changes, slowdown and battle message spam and limited enemy tells to work with. The worst offenders are buffs like mind up or power up, had square only made them with like 1/3rd second animations like protect up the screen freezing wouldn't interrupt the game's flow much. Is it possible to just make those play out faster like I do manually with frame skip? It does make me wonder what you'd be capable of with a team behind you and maybe the freedom of your own game. I think you've got a great sense of balancing challenge and fun. It also makes me think about other games that were so close to being good games that could be made less tedious and more interesting with some modification. I know very little about modding or programming in general, but damn if Sin of Mana wasn't so impressive and such a good time with my friends for being such an old game that it hasn't inspired me to learn how and see what could be done with a game like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles or, you know, Legend of Mana. Anyway, that's a lot of words and bullshit, so I just want to be clear and repeat. Thank you, Praetorius. You've done incredible work.