zedorfed66

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

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.

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.

Hi again.

So I decided to make a better 2020 and release version 4.1 of this mod. It only changes the 'Koshoki' enemy's HP back to the original. I pondered for a long time whether it was worth updating this mod just for 1 change but here we are! Have fun.

21 hours ago, elltacko said:

Happy new year!

Honestly, I'm okay with randomly dying to random encounters.

It sounds kinda stupid, but you can deal with randomly dying to random encounters by changing the way you navigate the dungeon. By emphasizing save points while doing dungeons (most Shadow Hearts 2 dungeons are not very big and save points are fairly common), you can make incremental progress by going back to the save points after doing a puzzle or getting an important item.

Navigating dungeons was then pretty scary and you get the risk/reward of either going further into the dungeon for a save point or items and possibly dying vs. retreating for a save point. So, there was a lot of tension and fear while moving through the dungeon because I could randomly die. And whenever I reached a save point, whether a new one or while retreating to a save point (because you can still die on your way back), there was always a breath of relief and happiness.

I also appreciate that the dungeon design in Shadow Hearts 2 was a little unrefined at times, so save points were actually kinda unpredictable when they would actually show up, making reaching a new save point surprising and relieving, rather than "oh, I'm pretty sure it's time for a save point? Yup, there it is."

So when I got the accessory that prevented back attacks, although the game was more fair, the tension of going through the dungeons disappeared. (But at the same time, that occurred around the time I was able to start oneshot bosses with buff stacking, so it was also okay because then after struggling through the game for so long, it felt incredibly powerful being able to go through dungeons and bosses without breaking a sweat while being incredibly underleveled.)

Alright cool, that's very useful to know that I can grind in Nihonbashi Park. This is also weird to say, but even though I missed that you could grind and ended up finding the boss unreasonably difficult, it was still fun switching to the base game, getting like 4 to 6 turns to the boss's 1 turn and messing with the boss into a super overkill buff stacked oneshot was also fun. The feeling was like "lol, the base game is really, really easy (and I might've been overleveled for the base game), so that's the reason why I'm playing on hard mode." Partly because of not actually finding it unfun and partly being pretty sure that I was underleveled was why I didn't mention it originally. I was okay with it being unreasonable for me.

I think that unlike other players, I tend to appreciate jankiness and unrefined gameplay because it tends to give a sense of unpredictability, wonder, discovery, and cleverness whenever you figure out a way around the jank. And a lot of times, when players complain about unfair or unrefined mechanics, there are usually ways to play around and avoid the issue. Me included, apparently, with the Nihonbashi park encounters, lol.

Finally, just because a design can make you feel annoyed, frustrated, cheated, angry, or even bored at times, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad design. If art is about making you feel emotion, why aren't those valid emotions to make you feel? A game that makes me feel those "negative" feelings is definitely more interesting than a game that always tries to make you feel good emotions.

So yes, I really enjoyed my time with your mod, including the unenjoyable or unreasonable parts of it. That's why is why I want to replay it, especially on the new version to see how things change. Will I like it as much? Will I find new things to like? Even if I like the new version less, it's still okay because it will probably clarify my feelings on why I like the previous version more, even though the new version is very likely better.

Sorry for this long post, I feel like maybe that you got the impression that the things I mentioned were "bad" (and to be fair, the things I mentioned were phrased as issues with the mod), but that's not how I feel at all.

Also, my posts from 2018 are probably not representative of how I feel now after 1.5 years of expanding what I think "good" is.

That's interesting. I kinda wanted to make a super hard mod at first but my thoughts have changed a bit. The way Shadow Hearts games are balanced making the enemies "balls-to-the-walls" hard would only work in some dungeons and some dungeons would be super easy compared to them. Also the normal enemies' stats would be higher than bosses and I didn't want that. And if I made bosses an overkill I couldn't make them faster or they'd totally annihilate the player party. I learned stuff after modding all 3 Shadow Hearts games and made similar changes to normal encounters and bosses alike.

The games are all kinda similar in a way and I like the combat in all of them so it was important for me to make the mods as perfect as possible in my own vision. The normal encounters are naturally harder in the 1st Shadow Hearts game simply cause it has different battle system. Then again in that game the bosses are simpler so it kind of balances things up. I think the 3rd game has equal challenge with bosses and normal encounters. In Covenant I think the bosses are more challenging than normal foes.

4 hours ago, elltacko said:

I played his 3.0 version of his mod. It was pretty difficult, which isn't surprising since I was underleveled.

I overall enjoyed the mod because it felt like the mechanics were incredibly focused on managing buffs (agility up and defending sp cost down being mandatory, along with multiplicative buff stacking being the best way to achieve damage), healing (due to the really high incoming damage from a boss as they would usually get about 4 or 5 turns for every 5 to 6 turns that I have, after agility up), and somehow finding the time to do damage. Deciding what to do on my turn was pretty difficult (Heal? Buff? Am I healthy enough so that I could do some damage?) and the game was really rewarding when I would win by playing smarter.

There were definitely times though that because I was underleveled, the game was unreasonably difficult. The most notable time was sometime on Disk 2, where you have to fight a boss after doing something like a minute or two of mob fights with the Mutant Apes. That boss went three times before I went and would AOE me to death; I had to switch to the base game to get past that because I'm pretty sure you can't fight random encounters before that boss during that event, so I couldn't grind.

EDIT: Oh yeah, due to surprise attacks in the early through mid game, dying to a random encounter was a matter of when, not if, due to them killing you before you have a turn to go. So that's something you have to be okay with. It's mitigated when you get an accessory that prevents ambushes, but the final dungeon's enemy agility is high enough that that can still happen.

Also, the balance of the characters isn't very good, but I'm pretty sure zedor didn't rebalance the characters from vanilla, so it's not their fault.

Happy new year everyone!

I'm glad you also found positives to my mod. If I recall correctly I changed lots of stuff with the random encounters between v.3.0 and 4.0. Now they shouldn't ever be able to one-shot you to game over screen if you have the best equipment and enter new dungeons in the recommended levels of the previous ones. Final dungeon enemies shouldn't be able to now either (they're still super fast though). You can level at Nihonbashi park before fighting the boss (it's not unusual to miss this).

2 hours ago, elltacko said:

I plan on playing the new version of your mod and this time I will try to avoid using technical ring!

However, can you give me a spreadsheet or list of recommended levels for each boss? 

I felt as if I might have been under leveled on my previous playthrough and there were some difficulty spikes that might have been avoided if I was properly leveled.

Hi and thanks for giving my mod a whirl!

Here are the optimal levels to take on the bosses in their respective dungeons:

2          Apoina Tower
5          Ardennes Forest
8          Paris Subway
12        Wine Cellar
14        Rhondda Mine
17        Manmariana Island
18        S.G. Headquarters
20        Neam Ruins
25        St. Marguerite
29        Winter Palace
31        Mirror Palace
33        Gallery of the Dead
35        Hermitage
39        Idar Flamme
42        Apoina Tower 2

45        Battleship Mikasa
49        Otherworld
51        Nihonbashi
56        Hojo Research Lab
59        Purgatory
63        Immortal Mountain
64        Azabu Kamiyashiki
68        Queen's Garden

72        Tiffauges Castle
78        Doll House
86        Black Forest
86-89   Dog Shrine
92        Neam Ruins Underground
99        The Vessel

If I recall correctly all optional content can be done at least 92 levelled. After that it's simply the leveling in 'The Vessel' before taking on the final bosses.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

6 hours ago, ronlyn said:

@zedorfed66 quick question: Can you use this mod with a undub version of the game?

Hey again Ronlyn. I hope your weekend is going smoothly.

There might be a way if the version is NTSC-U. It all depends whether the code sections are in exact same places in the game images. Even if they're not you should be able to paste the edited changes into the undub version if both the original and undub version are same region (in this case NTSC-U). However in order to do so you will need to compare the 'orig. unmodded Covenant' and 'unmodded undub Covenant' to find the changes between them. I think you will need a program called "delta maker" in order to do this. Once delta maker has created you a file that is used to change 'orig. unmodded Covenant' into 'unmodded undub Covenant' you can do that even with the 'orig. modded Covenant'. The change that occurs will not affect the modded values, and even if they're not in same places in the code they will be moved automatically. I think the program you need is delta maker. I have been modding FFX International undub and I'm able to transfer the modded values the same way between the 2.

Edit: I think the program is called "delta patcher". Haven't been using that in a while but if you need help in this matter I can get more deep into it.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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).

On 1.8.2019 at 2:03 PM, vhatever said:

So are castor and pollux supposed to be so buffed up in this or do i have a bug or maybe i'm supposed to grind some levels? i got there with everyone at level 7, and first attempt each of of them took 3 turns consecutively(6 consecutive total), comboing and killing off two characters without much trouble before i got a single turn, leaving me with only yuri and karin. after yuri and karin take their turns, they again had 6 turns which was basically a game over. tried another time and it was a little better it was more like 4 turns at the start and then 4-6 turns after my characters got a turn, which was still pretty brutal. i think even if i had all my characters spamming luck talisman/healing items/cure they'd still be out damaging all my healing.  When i get some more free time i will try again after hitting level 8. I took the water dress on the logic that hail breeze is the best level 1 spell and i though I't give gapeto a bit of an edge in the boss fight since I could focus down the water one with karin's fire sword arts, yuri's fire fusion rage, and gapetto using the fire crest magic, blanca healing.  

 

edit 1: as a side note, one of my first subway encounter was an with an enma(?) with like 5 rats i think too. and i think they all got to go before i did. was incredibly painful Heh. it seemed alright after that, with only one more particularly brutal "you are surrounded" encounter

 

Edit 2: wow, what a difference a level(8) makes. that little extra hit point buffer and probably one or two extra turns i gained made all the difference in the world.

Hey, thanks for giving my mods a go  yep you are supposed to be 8 levelled before that boss. And since both of them are able to use magic it's better to have Gepetto with the non-elemental dress. That's actually the first boss that has significantly higher agility. You will be needing enough Thera items in the bosses to come along with Talismans (in late bosses you have powerful healing magic so that's not as prevalent then). I suggest you keep several save files just in case for there will be segments in the game where you're trapped on boss and can't buy items before beating them (one wouldn't necessarily notice these points in the game since the game is so easy). Let me know if you need help on anything. I'll be glad to help ;P

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.

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.