Artemis

Modder
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Everything posted by Artemis

  1. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    3-4 hits definitely is too much, especially considering the case of 2 enemies at once which leads to 6+ hits. Also you cannot assume that everyone has Strong at that point. The crucial thing here is that the players are still learning the very basics. Okay, players need to learn the importance of healing, but potions are an option too. However, the way it is now, you have to waste way too much potions/resources - way more than you get from battle rewards. The expected learning curve is just way too harsh. And, of course, there's still the issue of the boss 2-shoting me.
  2. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    Still, the enemies in the first dungeon are way too powerful damage sponges. Is there really no other solution than grinding for money and buying lots of skills?
  3. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    I have 265 gold right now, I bought boomerangs for 100 but otherwise I spend no money. Therefore right now even if I wanted, I could only buy one single skill. I'm still in the learning phase, that's why the difficulty curve is way too harsh here. I'm still trying to learn which skills I might buy later, because I don't want to spend my scarce money for some useless skill. The stat boosts from these skills should by no means be the make it or break it criteria already in the very first real dungeon. Besides, how am I supposed to even know that ALL skills affect my stats at this point of the game? Aside from the description of the passive skills, there is no indication, and nothing really indicates that active skills necessarily work the same way. You should change the tutorial NPC dialogue texts to do the skills proper justice. As the skills are a big deal for gameplay, it should be something which really is unmissable despite players ignoring NPCs all the time. Like changing one of the elcid people on the outside - especially give that NPC are very distingushable sprite, like a siren enemy, so that nobody dares to not speak to that one. Again, the problem is: At this point of the game I'm still in sniffing mode. That is, I'm still evaluating for myself whether I generally shall try out the mod at all or not. And in that sniffing mode the worse thing you can do is destroying me that badly. Unless it's explicitly supposed to be a hard mod - which START mode definitely is not.
  4. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    Finally tried it out myself, but I'm not too fond of it, however, because the tutorial enemies are way too overpowered. I did choose START instead of hard, therefore I expected a somewhat smooth and non-lethal experience at the beginning in order to get warm to the next changes. However, basically every normal enemy almost brings me down to 0 HP - totally impossible if there are 2 of them. And stronger enemies like a spider are flat out impossible to kill for me right now. Also Lizard Man effortlessly can 2HKO me, so there's not really that much I can do. Aside from grinding. I'm level 4 now and honestly, I just don't feel like grinding. Especially not in the very first actual dungeon. I might have bought some of the new spells, which I didn't, but that's the same issue: I need to grind for money. And I don't want to really spend money before I didn't get a decent grasp about what might be good to buy. The balancing at the beginning just is terrible. The first dungeon should be more like a playground instead of a minefield.
  5. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    Can you imagine to also alter events in the game? Like adding new scenes.
  6. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    Some more questions about the standard non-retry modus: This is more like a rebalance hack instead of a difficulty hack, right? So how would you say is the difficulty curve? Both in comparison to vanilla as well as in itself? With the latter I mean e. g. how do Tarantula or Gordovan Gades compare to Fire Dragon, Ghost ship or Tank regarding the difficulty? Also how difficult would you say Egg Dragon is compared to the Sinistrals and especially compared to Guard Daos? (This question goes for both Start and Retry.)
  7. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    No other item, however, a few other enemies and capsule monsters have it. Another thing: The timing when the true final boss battle starts seems a bit off. It would work way better if the battle starts later - like when the actual force clash happens. So that the final battle actually IS that clash of energy waves. I'd say the best moment is after Maxim says "Now! Do it now!". That is, if it's feasible to start the battle during these animations.
  8. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    Dread may be a debuff, but it's also a spell and therefore goes into ring territory. Spiderweb is an odd case, yeah, however all the jewel IP moves are based on an enemy move - including Uni Jewel and Unicorn's Dash. And while Spiderweb is a debuff, it's nevertheless not in the same playground as the regular debuffs like Meltdown. The jewels are a melting pot for all kinds of behaviours effect-wise (including Tarantula's Spiderweb debuff), but with the restriction that there's an corresponding enemy move named the same. So my suggestion to be consistent with it: Give Uni Jewel the Dash IP move, but with the Meltdown debuff effect instead of its regular effect. Sounds random and silly? Actually no, because a lot of these stone moves behave very differently from the corresponding enemy move. Just look at Gorgon Rock's Ax Attack which, despite sharing the name, just is a completely different move. Therefore Dash as debuff would be perfectly fine and absolutely in-line with the game's conventions.
  9. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    The problem is all the stones which are based on specific enemies also have the corresponding IP move which is based on said enemy's special move. Therefore, the Uni Jewel breaking this established pattern just feels wrong. Another established pattern is that these kind of debuff moves are exclusive to headgear items. So this feels totally off as it breaks two patterns of how items and IP moves are designed.
  10. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    I'm fine with everything else, but replacing Dash just feels wrong. How about making Dash more useful instead?
  11. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    Awesome! However, I thought of something: How about instead of Merix choose one of the gamblers in the VIP room to be the skill resetter? That not only gives a decent narrative reason for why it's so expensive, but also give the VIP room itself some more meaning. Besides, it makes you thinking more about what to choose during the mid-game - which is just exactly what you want, anyway, right? Did you change Stardust Blow from neutral to light-elemental? If not, you should do so because then there's the Apollo Shield which greatly reduces the damage and makes that attack way less unfair - and actually survivable. Actually I'm not that fond of this change. Because Dash is also the special attack of the unicorn/narwhal fishes. Like they dash/charge at you and ram their horn right into you. Meltdown just seems too random and artificial.
  12. On the nature of modding & game design...

    I totally agree. In games there basically agree two types of errors. Those which are obviously errors and therefore are easy to identify as such - and those which are not that easy to identify. For example in Lufia, if there's a tileset missing and as result a few room turn into total visual garbage, this obviously is an error and therefore in need of fixing. If, however, a game has no properly working learning curve for its primary combat system, no one will scream for fixing that easily. A major problem of Lufia - and many other RPGs - is, well, there's a 20+ hours game, but you just won't learn anything meaningful about the combat system after the initial 2~3 hours anymore. In the beginning you learn about weapons, magic and special attacks and... that's just it. Like in the first three or so towns there's a dude standing in the local weapons shop who talks about combat with you. And in later towns there's just nobody because the game has told you everything it wanted to teach you and lacks the ability to further intensify the nature of its combat system. Recently I uploaded 2 (lets ignore the hard mode here) different Lufia hacks of RHDN. One which only fixes the undoubtedly bugs and translation issues (Frue Lufia), and one which additionally also fixes some not-by-the-book stuff such as a messed up combat learning curve (Spekkio Lufia). Which hack do I consider superior? And which one is way more popular? Recently I asked a streamer who finished Frue to also try the final endgame of Spekkio. And I basically got the result I expected that is a curbstomp. And for the exact reasons I expected, that is, he never ever had to deal with the combat system in any meaningful way. It just was enter smashing the whole time without the vanilla game trying anything at all to add more depths to its battles. Or the Master of the Ancient Cave who basically has the same problems as the Magimaster - just that you'll lose around TEN HOURS of play time when you lose to him for the first time. Both battles are fine itself in theory, but fail completely in its execution. They would be perfectly acceptable if: #1 There's an actual learning curve which lets you learn about the gimmick in question BEFORE you do the corresponding boss battle. #2 There's a NON-OPTIONAL possibility given to actually win on first try if you're just awesome enough. For those who don't know the Master is a giant jelly who doesn't attack and has to be beaten within three rounds. Unfortunately there's nothing else enemy-wise that even resembles that behaviour slightly.As even the small jellies just attack normally. So what do you do when you meet him the first time - after a 10 hour long run full of hard-hitting monsters? *cough* Gold Dragons *cough* Well, as it's a boss you'll assume that you won't kill it that fast and therefore you'll play it as safe as possble. And congratulations, you basically wasted all the chances you had at victory! All the hours to get through fucking 98 floors of a dungeon - wasted! A lot of people screams for fixing graphical bugs or messed up translations - but how many demand a fix for the Master battle or the Iris Treasures?! Well, the Iris Treasures, they are even worse than the Master... They basically are achievements, add no rewards aside from bragging rights, and are tied to an especially monotonous task - which can consume HUNDRED GODDAMN HOURS! It did so the first time I played as a child so no exaggeration here. You basically go through the same monotonous dungeon floors over and over and open the same monotonous treasure chests over and over for hour over hour in order to pray that these items despite their ridiculously low drop rate finally arouse our pity! Seriously, why do I get never ever asked to fix that?! If only I get the feedback that I let them appear too frequently instead. (To be fair, in my Kureji lufia hard mode they drop that ridiculously often that they actually are more of an annoyance than any achievement at all.) Also Lufia never ever - aside from the optional Ancient Cave - demands anything like tactical thinking. So if you have a heavy hitting boss with high agility, what should you do considering your healing? Should you just wait til the damage is done over and over again, and then finally consider healing? Or - as there are plenty of ridiculously overpowered healing spells - should you heal in advance so that the hard hits immediately feel way less painful as they get healed right away? Or you could try to lower the agility in order to get someone faster. Whatever you do... You should LEARN from your previous battles, overthink your strategies and tactics in order to not redo the same mistakes over and over. But for quite a lot of people a game like this really isn't more than an interactive movie which you just are supposed to win nevertheless regardless of how bad you as player perform. Especially final bosses, they are the final test whether you really did understand the combat system enough. They will question you everything you learned in your dozens of hours play time. They won't pull any punches. At least that it's how it's supposed to be. If they lack being worthy final exam tests for the players' skills, almost no one will ask any questions at all. However, a missing decent final hurdle is some kind of error, too, but unfortunately most casual gamers completely are unable to grasp these kinds of issues - that is, in its entirity. They want to win - of course, I get it, you'll get positive emotions out of winning, but what value does a victory have if it's not really earned? However, as long as you win - and please without actual trouble - it's fine and not in nedd to fix... An unlike the vanilla game where they more likely will pull themselves together (speaking of hard, but also fair difficulty), it's just too easy to blame the hack for your players' mistakes and just stick with vanilla - sadly.
  13. This thread is for general discussion of the Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals Mod Series. The English patches are only for a headered NTSC-U ROM with these specifications: - Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (U) [!].smc - Size: 2.50 MB (2,621,952 bytes) - SHA1: 8B2CB09B1A0122027FB3863974D0728E53FE8B69 - MD5: D35FCF90C273D4BC12EED59120954E58 - CRC32: 2FAEBB78 - Apply only to a headered ROM NTSC-U ROMs have the Natsume logo at startup, not the Nintendo logo. Other ROMs will not work. I cannot provide ROMs or sources to them. With that said, here's an overview of the big trio: Frue Lufia, Spekkio Lufia, and Kureji Lufia, located in the main archive's "Projects" folder. These are also now on RHDN. Frue Lufia Frue Lufia is a mod of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals that fixes just about every bug in the game. Additionally, it sports a full script update, fixing many of the inconsistencies and errors present in the retail version. Censorship has been removed as well. As a cherry on top, some minor rebalancing is also featured. See the “Notable Changes” text file for a full list of alterations. (Note: This is a direct upgrade to Relnqshd’s Lufia II Fixxxer Deluxe. All of Relnqshd’s enhancements and bug fixes are included in Frue Lufia.) If you dislike the new names for Shriek, Awake, and Trick, there are patches to revert specifically these changes in the main Mod Series archive's Patches folder, linked at the start of the thread. If anyone is looking for a Frue Lufia that has consistency with vivify93's Lufia I Restored and Lufia III Text Cleanup, please check out Frue Lufia: Trilogy Addendum. The changes mentioned previously are already reverted in this branch. Spekkio Lufia Based off of Frue Lufia, Spekkio Lufia is a battle rebalancing mod that aims to supply more of a challenge while lessening problems in the retail release’s game design. Not only are bosses rebalanced, but certain regular enemies are too. The Ancient Cave also received some tweaks. Enemies of later floors drop more useful rewards, you can buy Blue Chest items in Gift Mode—which is available from the first time you launch the game—and Iris Treasures appear more frequently. The important updated bosses are as follows. 1. The Sinistrals in the Fortress of Doom are stronger, more befitting final bosses. 2. The Master can fully heal himself every round. How can you possibly bring him down? There must be some way… 3. The Egg Dragon, who named the patch. He now behaves like Spekkio in Chrono Trigger, his battle script changing based on the highest-leveled party member. 4. La Puella, the beloved pet giant tarantula of the Princess of Parcelyte. She can be fought anytime after defeating Gades in the Ancient Tower. Do you stand a chance against La Puella and her friends? Check the X_Notable_Changes_X text file for detailed changes. To aid your survival, included are a bestiary, and a list of equipment that have always provided protection against status ailments. Kureji Lufia Based off of Frue Lufia, Kureji Lufia is a difficulty mod of legendary proportions. All opponents have been beefed up by a crazy amount, especially the bosses, who now have only one goal: Clinging on their wretched lives. They don’t want to just fade out into obscurity and nothingness, and therefore will do everything necessary to stay alive and put their mark on the world. This might be Maxim’s toughest journey yet! Will you manage to emerge victorious? It cannot be stressed enough: it’s hard… It’s really, really hard—and it sure won’t get any easier as you progress! Most bosses have new gimmicks you’ll have to deal with in order to even be able to survive against them. In particular, the later bosses have the potential to wipe out your entire party very, very fast. You won’t only need a strong party, but also some sound strategies and tactics, like wearing the right equipment, and analyzing and completely understanding the enemy attack patterns. Of course, the Ancient Cave has received some heavy tweaks as well. This is the place where you’ll really feel the tremendous new power of regular enemies the most, whereas you will find masses of treasures as elusive as… Green Tea or Ear Picks. So, you better prepare yourself as best you can when blazing your trail down; you will face all the formidable atrocities that dwell deep down at the ineffable abyss beyond all imagination… It’s highly recommended that you check out the text file “survival_tips”! To aid your survival, included are a bestiary, and a list of equipment that have always provided protection against status ailments. There are different versions of Kureji Lufia available in the main Mod Series archive's Projects folder, linked at the start of the thread. However, I suggest the DIFFICULT version WITH the normal enemies buffed as well. Also in the Projects folder, there are two additional patches: The Wrath of Foomy and The New Fierce Battle. These are superboss fights - which are not included in any of the above mods. Within the Patches folder, you can find all of the mods made by Relnqshd, Artemis, and Rainponcho. These range from bug fixes to text cleanups, and newly-designed boss fights can be found in here as well. Not every patch has documentation, unfortunately. (There are also some docs on vanilla monster AI in Relnqshd's folder.) Please enjoy!
  14. General discussion thread

    I don't know enough about this capsule monster stuff in order to change it. Besides, I'm somewhat burned out about modding Lufia, so I guess there won't be an update for quite some time.
  15. Lufia 2 - Age of the Sinistrals

    I think the optional bosses need some more polishing, though. Looking at the code, the Egg Dragon seems pretty bland and generic compared to the Sinistrals. But he should be the hardest and most thought-out boss battle instead. Also the Master: So he has 19980 HP, eh? Are there any moves/skills comparable to Fatal Blow to any non-Dekar chars? And there's no real way to survive even one Stardust Blow of a Gold Dragon I think. And the skill reset really is way too penalizing. In a mod with its main feature being all these new spells I really want to have fun with it and test the hell out of it. But the way it is now I instead fear to do anything wrong because I don't want to do a mistake. At least considering the endgame party - however, considering 3 of them are in the party against Gordovan Gades every skill for them feels like a chore I'll totally regret later on. Does it at least reset the Divine Shrine stat boosts, too, so that I can get them again? Because such a permanent penalty just is way too much overkill.