blackcat777

Oh my god, so I'm so excited to start this!! Is there anything you specifically want feedback from while I play it? Thank you for your years of hard work.

Glad you answered, because I probably would have gone looking for it again tonight May I ask what caused its extinction? I didn't realize it was taken out, I think the last version I played was 1.8. I wasn't looking to grind, I was just looking to pick a nasty fight. I guess it's time for Kefka's Tower then! 2.0 is the most fun I've had with this game, or many games, btw. I love that all of the battles are strategy driven, and all the characters pulled their own weight. There were a few I loathed getting stuck with in vanilla.

Is the biggest, baddest of the dinos still in its vanilla location? Has the spawn rate changed? I'm only finding Tyranos. Am I just unlucky? Thanks!

Thank you, that is incredibly helpful! I was stressing the most about Zoneseek and Chainsaw. I bought Golem just now, but didn't try talking to the guy selling it a second time. Whew.

Because it's been a long time since I've played this mod (and even longer since I played vanilla), what can't I miss before heading to the floating continent? I have Seraphim and Golem. Is Zoneseek still WoB? Water Rondo with Mog? Intangir? Ultima Weapon? Stray Cat & Grenade rages? Also, has the Chainsaw been moved? I got a Thief Glove from behind the clock in Zozo. Thank you! 2.0 is completely awesome... by the way.

Thanks for the update. So exciting!

I am so pumped. This is the most magical news ever. I'm happy to playtest whenever you need someone to playtest something. Thank you for being awesome.

Ooooh... that is absurdly cool. Thank you.

For the early first playthrough, I ran with a Raging Ache setup. The unsurvivable boss hits forced me to get *really* good at timing those defense skills that recover a fraction of HP; that small fraction of HP recovered guaranteed Ashley will hit hard with Raging Ache. It's even easier to rack up damage if you chain well. The low HP & high risk means certain death if your timing is off... but... those are the moments I'm feeling alive and/or like a riskbreaker. Or like OMG THIS MOD PUT ME ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT! Once more gear becomes available, Ashley's options for strategies multiply, which I thought unfolded smoothly into the game progression. The entire mod isn't a matter of life-or-death timing... and certain bosses with frequent parries and healing abilities require other strategies. I'm a huge fan of how the mod requires you to try different strategies. @Cross - Do you have certain weapons dedicated to certain affinities? I find that extremely helpful, too. I still always swear my head off and use a map when I'm in the Snowfly Forest.

After leaving my fight with the two liches, I warped to Crumbling Market and this guy popped up. He dropped a Muramasa like the one who should have spawned outside Godhands. Not sure if he was supposed to be here, but thought I'd post a sighting. Like bigfoot, but with better loot.

One another thing I forgot to mention about spawns is that the dragon boss in the very last room of IMB1 continuously respawns, and always drops an Elixir of Sages (so Ashley is well-educated these days). I cleared all of Iron Maiden for the first time on this playthrough and trekked back to Godhands. I did not take screenshots, but pre-Iron Maiden, outside Godhands, Death closest to the door dropped the (D) Brigadine and the one further back dropped the (L) Wizard Robe. Post-Iron Maiden (*Last Crusader did not spawn with them this time... weird?), the Death closest to the door dropped a (S) Plate Mail, and the one further back dropped a (D) Brigadine. I'm going to clear it again and see if anything changes. Let me know if there are any other drops you would like me to check.

When you first enter IMB2 and go straight for about ten screens, in each big locked room in which there was previously a boss, now spawns a big enemy plus two liches, after clearing Iron Maiden for the first time. One of the locked boss rooms now spawns a single last crusader (NICE touch) and no liches. If you want me to take notes on which rooms specifically, I'll be heading through the dungeon again today/tomorrow/Monday sometime, so I can do that. All the rooms with three enemies spawn two extra liches. Did you intend for the two liches to replace the single enemy? In the room outside Godhands, two liches in white and a Last Crusader spawn together. But seeing three high-level enemies together in a room gave me the same thrills of unlocking legendary dark knight mode in DMC4, so it's not a complaint. I thought it was brilliant. It wasn't a bloody fight to the death where one false timing would kill me - I had to look at ALL my equipment, check everything, and see what buffs I needed and what strategy I could cobble together. It was a thinking battle, which essentially tested my knowledge of how to use the gear I had. 10/10 Ok... This is weird. I just went to see what they drop. I am pre-iron maiden, and one drops a (D) Brigadine and the other drops (L) Wizard Robe. However, I know 100% post-iron maiden one of them dropped a (S) Plate Mail and I swear to god the other dropped a (D) Plate Mail. Farming in that spot was how I made (S) Jazeraint Armor, because lower level silver armor is a little easier to come by... and that spot was yielding SOMETHING gratuituously damascus because I had to specifically farm two pieces in that spot to put the rest of my inventory to use to make (D) Dread armor. I was shocked to see the leather drop just now because I know I was farming twin pieces of silver and damascus body armor on my last file. The only difference is that the Last Crusader isn't here yet, so I'll check this out as soon as I clear Iron Maiden again. I don't know if the Last Crusader appearing bugged them out? They only spawn at < 150 HP (I double checked this), but their own HP levels are laughably low. Another thing to possibly consider would be raising their stats/HP and making it extremely dangerous to win some loot? After clearing IMB2, right before the exit... it would raise the stakes a lot. I would probably be greedy and die a few times. I won three (D) Pole Axes from them and want a (D) Brandestoc. BUT. Here's the snag, it's not as broken as it seems - by that point in the game, I had almost 90 dragon affinity on a (H) Brandestoc. I had gotten two (D) Voulges from boxes - not even from an organic drop - until that point. If there are no training dummies, and I want a (D) Brandestoc with my affinities, the only choice is to downgrade my (H) Brandestoc, and take the insanely long route of converting that into a (D) Pole Axe. (D) Brandestoc is another one of the game's worst challenges. Other (D) Polearms, and other necessary components, like (D) Katana and (D) Langdebeve are so incredibly complicated to craft, that I'm still on my third playthrough and nowhere near actualizing a (D) Brandestoc WITH the affinities I've built up through my playthroughs. I mean, the alternative is to just scrap my old polearm and make a new one with drops from the blood lizards, losing all my affinities, BUT, who plays a Vagrant Story mod and makes Hoplite Leather just to cheap out on the Brandestoc? The lack of training dummy forces me to cheap out or go hard, so there's lots of existing built-in challenge, even with some help from the Blood Lizards. The increased drop rate is also an incentive to try and figure out how to take the long way, like the game rewards you for experimenting instead of punishing you. But it's still pretty punishing! I may have to do a 4th playthrough focused on just the (D) dread shield and (D) brandestoc. What I also like about these leather drops is the frequency of them - I end up with *just* enough in my inventory where I am like, "Do I take this next big step toward hoplite leather, or do I combine this with silver for some damascus armor?" The balance is awesome and they remain in high value. There were a few battles where I was pleasantly challenged because of the teleportation (especially in Temple of Kiltia), so I'd personally choose having the challenge with a bug than no challenge. I'll get back to you with instances of triple-enemy weirdness and see if those drops are different.

I'm on my third playthrough... It has been about 5 years since my last playthrough BUT: Did you change some of the enemy spawns for the postgame, and for Iron Maiden B2 after clearing it the second time??? I'm pretty sure there were never three enemies in any given room, but I love it. Liches everywhere. Liches in the beginning of the game when I went to farm leather. Changed placement of the Last Crusader spawns? Asura's final form, did you tweak that? I remember PLOWING through her in the past, and I had to try multiple setups to find which element would reach which body part... extremely fun fight. I also liked the little rumble that spawns outside the door of Godhands. Did you change the drops? The liches in white used to drop Radial Surge... if I remember correctly. Maybe they still do and I just didn't get one. Also on the subject of these guys - With the increased armor drop rate, the only drop that seems SLIGHTLY broken is one of the white robed liches dropping damascus plate armor. I say this because, being outside Godhands, this is easily farmable, and there is a rare drop of it already down somewhere in the Iron Maiden. At the end of my second playthrough, Ashley had full hagane dread everything, plus a damascus hoplite glove... and damascus dread armor. Damascus dread armor was only possible because of the lich outside Godhands - otherwise the powering up of all other armors was equally available and I had to make my choices carefully. I currently have a damascus jamadhar, wakizashi, and sage's cane. The drop rate for the Last Crusader weapons seems fun and fair - on three runs of Iron Maiden, I won one each time. It's not too easy (the loot down there can quickly break the game), but it's not stupid like how I used to have to spend three hours for a single drop. It gives me more time to play with crafting things I never thought imaginable. Crossbows are definitely sadly grossly underpowered and I don't use them. A third gem slot wouldn't hurt, especially when you consider other weapons can be built with spiral hilt and spiral pole. I don't know if vanilla Iron Maiden had high level leather drops, but I LOVE getting those occasionally. I'm working toward a set of hoplite leather armor - Have you given thought to the balance of wood and leather drops? Enemy drops early game seem a little less frequent than midgame/late game. Leather bone helms are the only things I have to actively farm (and probably long boots, I'm just not that far in my farming quest yet). Wood shields are pretty scant, too. I have a wooden kite shield, and that's it. I'm trying to level up my wood shields before combining them with the few damascus shields the game drops. Also: the escapeway. LMAO. I thought the timed portion of Mines B2 was the Escapeway for some reason, and I missed it on my first playthrough (umm, wow, I was rusty). The actual Escapeway I had no issues with. With the Escapeway taken out, is it possible to get 100% map completion? I was stuck at 97% for my second playthrough - but again - I suck at maps and missed an entire dungeon my first time around, so. I have mixed feelings about the map of Iron Maiden B2 becoming visible! There was only one other bug I noticed: when Ashley is chaining, casting, or using an item, and if he's fighting Dullahan/Last Crusader type of enemy, you'll hear the "chunk chunk chunk" sound effect of the enemy running during those animations. I think it only happens for the enemies that can warp off the screen, I noticed it first in Temple of Kiltia and later in Iron Maiden. I know it's not finished yet, but the patch is already 11/10, would play again, in fact, I'm still replaying. I also have some ultimate pieces of silver armor accumulated just because, and I imagine they would look quite stylish. Another random though: the first time I played, I wasn't sure if I had the mod until I went into the room in the beginning expecting a chest, and found the mimic. When the box moved, I screamed. Excellent touch.

If by fast, you mean I clocked an embarrassing amount of playtime hours over the weekend... There were other enemies that I had to try different things to beat them, like the various flying gremlins where it makes sense only to hit them with magic. I never ever used magic in vanilla. But none of that was troubling. With Rosencrantz, I was just insanely fixated on defeating him with a single handed sword... because I always did it that way, I guess?? Kali (or is it Asura? whoever is at the bottom of Kiltia on the way to the cathedral) went down easily. Maybe in part because there are so many organic opportunities to raise human affinity? I had really high stats. When does Ashley pick up AGL up? I somehow missed that on this playthrough. Thanks for the directions! Have you given any thought to when the game drops grimoires to learn higher level magic? Or was this worked into the mod somewhat already? My last playthrough was maybe 4 years ago, so when items drop are fuzzy. I enjoyed the somewhat limited magic offerings in the mod - in vanilla, did grimoire avalanche, foudre, etc., not drop until the Cathedral? In the Cathedral, the game also gave another grimoire flamme drop, which took me up to flame sphere level 3. Not sure what your thoughts on level 3 magic on the first playthrough were? In the modded portion of the game, having easily affordable magic - but a limited variety of low level spells - was balanced really well. Not sure if this is even possible or desirable, but have you given any thought to changing the stats of the various metals for equipment? Another reason I never pursued damascus was that the stat difference did not make it remotely worth the effort. The difference with silver being weaker but having higher affinities, or leather being skewed to magic, is interesting in theory, but useless in practice.

I cleared the game! (The Cathedral was lulz. ) All my loot remained intact with no issues upon starting a second playthrough. I am dying to get to Godhands, but should I wait for the next version of the mod to keep playing? I forget how far in I have to play before it becomes accessible, and if lots of other cool rood-inverse-only areas are accessible before that, I'd rather wait and suffer appropriately for the treasures they contain. I also kept a save just outside the Cathedral on the first playthrough. FWIW, the phantoms in the Temple of Kiltia were LOTS of fun to fight. I love how magic and affinities are rebalanced. I never had to bother with elemental stuff before. I am scared but excited to see what happens to the last boss's final form.