rpschamp

I've run into a major problem where stat buffs and debuffs aren't working.... I've tested spells (Power Up, Defense Up, Deadly Weapon, Cutter Missile) and items (Porobin Oil) and nothing seems to have any effect, most clearly with the MaxHP-altering spells/items, but also by monitoring damage after Attack/Defense-altering spells. I started with a verified unpatched ROM and the only patches I applied are the main patch (2.060), normal difficulty, and no pop-up messages - and even though there are no pop-up messages, I'm still getting status effects (e.g. Poison) from status-inducing spells or attacks. I've tried changing my equipment around but nothing seems to help. Has anyone else reported a problem like this?

Oh my God it's fucking Tech Points, isn't it.... Wow how many playthroughs and I haven't figured this out until now!

Every playthrough, I come away from the fight against Gildervine confused about how the damage of Spined Kelp is calculated. Is there a gimmick associated with it, and how do I minimize its damage? This time, it's taking out most if my team in one hit at full HP.

On 1/22/2022 at 12:45 PM, Nesouk said:

I really should try a team with Rogue, as for Lise capstone well ince you're skipping Holy Ball and Thunder Saber tha mean no investment in LUK so the LUK Capstone is out of the question, don't see much use for the INT capstone in this configuration, so I would go either VIT Capstone tough I'm not sure if a 15 Attack reduction would have a lot of impact or the AGL capstone which would be good to attack faster (especially for Hawk).

As for Archmage yeah could skip Anti-Magic and Rainbow Dust to Aura Wave can be really usefull to get an item fast if you ever need it of fill Rogue's TP faster to maximize Crit By TP effect, that being said her AGL Capstone could be interesting as the team may have to cast quite a lot (especially Angela and Lise), would be interesting if her AGL Capstone could allow Vanadis to cast faster Freya with her Final Weapon to allow Vanadis to exploit elemental weakness with Hawk's Sabers.

Rogue is my favorite Hawk class to lead with: his spells come out fast so no need to switch characters when casting, his high LUC stat is great for treasure hunting, his build is simple with no real need for INT, and his ability to hit against physical defense with his spells is a great asset when you need it (e.g., Seashore Cave mini-boss). You also get great mileage out of his LUC stat for spell damage, spell bonus damage, and crit chance/damage. Plus his Level 3 super gets a random color which is fun and helps to break up the visual monotony.

I think I've decided on the LUC capstone for Angela. AGI would be nice, but 20% reduction just doesn't seem that game-changing to me. The LUC capstone lets Angela ignore STR and improve her physical damage with all weapons, crit chance/damage, and magical damage with one stat. There are some battles where damage casting is just not helpful, so this should help give the Archmage class more of a role when she would otherwise just be swinging for tech points. This also helps her with two of my favorite weapons in the game: YellowDMG Heal and Crit by TP.

For Lise, I will probably go for her AGI capstone as it seems more useful than the VIT one in the longterm: -15 attack should become less useful at higher levels as hit points and attack values increase, while -7 weapon cooldown should be useful as long as cooldown values are 7 or above, which I'm guessing should always be true?

On 1/22/2022 at 12:45 PM, Nesouk said:

Well for Bil and Ben in 2.0 Evasion works really well, if you can stack a lot of Evasion Speed Up and Speed Down you're going to evade like crazy, and with TP on Dodge armor you'd have access to items pretty frequently and can set party members on using LV1 Tech to land counter to reduce their Revenge Value and trigger less Shadow Dives, there is some RNG tough as it depend of what Jutsu they uses against you, also having a Slime's Eye or 2 to reduce their attack power is welcome to if you don't have Ninja Hawk (who's in 2.0 is the only class 2 to have access to Power Down though his Spell with Water Jutsu) as Lise's Rune Maiden lost it.

I want to like the TP on Dodge armor more, but the defense is so low, especially when the alternative is High Defense armor, so when you do get hit with a string of attacks or a super you can be quickly screwed.

On 1/22/2022 at 12:45 PM, Nesouk said:

Machine Golems are a pain in the ass tough, on Hard I always found it safer to just solo them with one character by focusing on landing counter with the Break Counter accessory, some items to handle the buff/debuff and just revive my party member when only one of them remain.

This strategy is also great for Lugar - counters seem to slow him down and really help keep his damage in check. I have no idea what his listed weakness - "special magic" - means, non-elemental magic perhaps? For me, his weakness has always been counters.

40 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

immunity = 0 damage
resistance = it deals damage like a normal spell instead of 999

Would the Death Resist ring protect against Death Roulette, or would you need a normal Resist Death item like the Undead armor for that?

Also, I'm interested in the Death Resist ring for my Deathless run. I'm confused by the item description in the Excel file: "Death Spell immunity for wearer; party gets resistance to Death Spell". What is the difference between Death Spell immunity and resistance, and is this different from the normal "Resist Death" (e.g. that you get with Undead armor)?

I'm having a lot of fun now playing a Rogue, Vanadis, Archmage team. I just hit my final class change and am looking forward to finally learning Heal Light in a few levels. With Hawk's PIE capstone, this team gets a boost from previous versions of the game with access to sabers. Vanadis will also get Flame Saber as well that I can use for saber-resistance. Access to all buffs/debuffs will be really nice. The point of this team is to do a ton of elemental damage, physical or magical. I have not fleshed out my endgame equipment, but right now Hawk is loving the Crit by TP weapon with the TP Gain Up ring.

Spells to miss: Silver Dart and Speed Up for Rogue, Holy Ball and Thunder Saber for Vanadis, and either Anti-Magic and Rainbow Dust or Body Change and Aura Wave for Arch Mage. I will probably take Aura Wave though due to it's usefulness in several difficult fights.

Capstones: PIE for Rogue, undecided for the other two. Archmage's LUK capstone is looking really nice to add some more physical damage to my team. For Vanadis, I really have no idea and would welcome suggestions.

I'm playing this time Deathless on Normal, which brings its own sort of challenge. So far, the hardest boss has been Machine Robos x3 - keeping everyone alive requires a bit of luck. My strategy was to charge in, group them immediately with Hawk, and keep them stunned as much as possible by constantly quick-attack double-swinging with a Wind Ring while having my other two team members cast as much as possible to keep them away. Apart from this boss, Bill and Ben are always pretty tough, and the others have been a breeze. The next boss is Lugar - expecting no problem after casting Flame Saber on him with Element Guard armor, Protect Up, Power Down.

Deathless on Tough or Hard (single-player) - I'm not sure how I would pass some of these multi-boss battles except by letting my team members die and reviving them right before the end of the battle.

On 11/20/2021 at 5:52 AM, Nesouk said:

So if I'm not mistaking we have a 6,328125 Damage Multiplier here everytime Hawk Crit and this isn't counting the +10% Attack from Saber and the Damage added by the Crit.

Loved your video, Nesouk, and it's good to see that you are still finding ways to break the game :-)

Capstone question: Are Capstones applied based on stats coming into level 60, or stats at level 60 after assigning your stat point? (i.e., which happens first, the stat increase or the Capstone?)

Example: Hawk, Level 59 Rogue with 14 STR, 22 AGI, 15 VIT, 18 INT, 22 PIE, 23 LUK reaches Level 60 and assigns one stat point to PIE. Will he get the LUK Capstone, since his LUK was the highest when he hit Level 60, or will he get the PIE Capstone, since his PIE is now the highest and the top-most after the stat point increase?

Thanks for your help figuring this out. I'm confirming that switching the rom solved the problem on my end. In fact, I found a more recent [!] version in an updated archive, tested it, and am moving forward with that. Restarting for a fresh srm to be sure.

I've found that's this game works best for me with BSNES v115 (Byuu's final release).

On 9/30/2021 at 3:09 PM, praetarius5018 said:

Can you send me your savefile (.srm)?

What is the best way to send you a file? I should be able to get you this sometime next week.

23 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Can you send me your savefile (.srm)?

Unfortunately no, I erased it last night when I was trying some other setups. I realized that I should have kept it right after.

I will be traveling out of state for the next few days, but if it helps, I can regenerate a save file under the same conditions when I get a couple of hours on the game this Sunday after I get back home.

Thank you for your help on this!

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

I think ZSNES would make it worse.
What party setup?
Really sure you hit all plot triggers?

My party setup is Lise, Angela, Carlie. As for plot triggers, I beat the Machine Golems, saw the bridge collapse, spoke to Bon Voyage (for the second time) who runs off and tells me to find gunpowder, and then spoke to his wife who doesn't know where he is. When I exit his house, I don't get the cut scene where the team discusses asking around the town, the old man and old woman don't have the new dialogue that points to the dwarves, and the goddess statue at the cave just functions like a normal statue. Interestingly, it seems like my characters pause for a second when I leave Bon Voyage's house as if the game is searching for a cut scene... but nothing happens. Is there another trigger that I'm missing to produce the cut scene outside Bon Voyage's?

BSNES is by far my favorite platform.... I've tested this cut scene problem on both the nightly release (2021-09-06) and v115 ("final release") but got the same result. I feel like this problem did not occur with previous releases, but those are not available now.

Apart from this, SoM 2.060 is an awesome and otherwise stable release, I love how you've restructured the item usage system around tech points, and I look forward to playing more when I find a path forward.

On 9/22/2021 at 5:36 PM, rpschamp said:

I ran into this same bug in BSNES v115 (final release). Is there a recommended platform that works well with this game? I've been trying different platforms lately, but I haven't found one that 1) runs well and 2) doesn't present bugs.

Ran into this same problem again, on a different platform.... From what I can tell, current versions of Higan/BSNES and SNES9X are not working. Any suggestions? I love this game but I really don't want to go back to ZSNES....

On 6/18/2021 at 11:38 AM, Majora4Prez said:

I'm having a great time with this hack, but I've encountered a problem. After the alchemist tells us to find gunpowder and then vanishes, the scene outside his house where the party deliberates how to find it and resolves to ask around town doesn't occur; thus the guy who's supposed to tell the party to go to the dwarves is still talking about King Richard, and there's no option to use Lumina at the statue in the Cleft of the Earth. For some reason, the town of Maia now plays the same music as is normally played on the Golden Road.

My emulator is SNES9x v1.53-1240, and my party is Duran, Angela, and Carlie.

I ran into this same bug in BSNES v115 (final release). Is there a recommended platform that works well with this game? I've been trying different platforms lately, but I haven't found one that 1) runs well and 2) doesn't present bugs.

I think I'm going to try the Spell: Resistance ring for my current playthrough. Once the spell is cast, can the effect be removed for the current battle? Will Antimagic cancel it, and do you have to recast it after a character dies?

Does Gorva have a new instant kill mechanic? I have been dying from his swipes without any damage reported. I thought this might be linked with his Antimagic spell... I'm not sure why I haven't run into this before.

One more: Level 0: LUK-based ATK+ weapon. Go for 19/19/19/19/19/19 at level 60 and then ignore STR thereafter. The LUK score should boost her p.atk instead, and you can stay committed to Angela's traditional stats.

There seem to be a few levels of craziness here:

Level 1: Deathless weapon. If I went for a high STR build, this would be the one I would start with; this weapon is fast and powerful and comes with zero downsides apart from not being able to try any of the Death Bringer gear.

Level 2: Death Bringer weapon. This one is not cursed and looks straightforward to use, and gives a bonus to both attack and magic which is perfect for Grand Divina. It looks like it comes with the full downsides of death though. It might be worth starting deathless, then carefully saving and giving this a try to see if the difference is worth it.

Level 3: Death Bringer weapon, ring, and Silence Res. ring. Here, only attack is increasing, so it may give diminishing returns compared to just the weapon. Still no curse, so you can flirt with this setup and return to normal gear according to preference.

Level 4: Death Bringer weapon, armor, ring, and Silence Res. Ring. Once you put the armor on, you're committed. But the armor lessens the downsides of the death score so the draw is there. The tortured Grand Divina (Light/Light!), drawn ever deeper by her lust for power, eases her pain with a contract writ in blood.

The Constant Regen helm (also cursed) may also be able to afford you constant casting with longer-animation spells like Fireball.

Let me know if I missed anything....

I am also interested in Lise's PIE capstone with Vanadis on a Magitech wielding team; there should be +2 TP from spell casting plus +1 TP for everyone targeted by Heal Light. This could be a good alternative way to keep the Lv2/3 tech damage flowing.

Anyways, this Angela STR capstone looks fun to explore; I'm going to go for it. She should also get a boost for her Magitech weapon Lv2/3 techs from this. With her frequency of spells and stat build, Grand Divina looks like an ideal class to try this with.

50 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

the buffed value is with saber; power up is separate

I see; so this would be influenced by the initial saber +10% or Duran or Kevin's +20% capstones, but not much else.

m.atk = max(0, p.atk - p.def) * 0.31 + m.atk

From this equation and my understanding of what goes into the m.atk and p.atk/p.def values here, it looks to me that the damage increase resulting from any boost in STR would be roughly on par with that resulting from a boost in the secondary stat, LUK in this case, basically providing another stat to boost spell damage moderately. Another way to do this would be to use Angela's LUK+ weapon so you can focus on just one stat and get essentially a double-boost from LUK; STR would have to be at least high enough to win the capstone, I think 19, but then you could maximize INT and LUK for maximum damage boost.

13 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

this is explained in the mechanics folder:
10) if Angela with STR capstone
    m.atk = max(0, p.atk - p.def) * 0.31 + m.atk

Thank you Praetarius, I overlooked this.

So, for a more basic question, what does "(buffed)" refer to in the weapon damage calculation 1) p.atk = (buffed) attack power? I can see that it does not include Power Up or Saber effects; I'm just wondering if there are other ways to improve this stat.

1 hour ago, Nesouk said:

Her STR capstone is on my list of thing to test I actually was interested in testing with Magus combine with her final weapon to remove the damage reduction on Multi Target spell this could be a good combo for mob fight (also think Magus with STR Capstone + Trials Set could work well the idea of being able to instant cast Ancient to not give a damn about Elemental affinity with STR Capstone to boost it top with a self Mind Up sound pretty tempting ^^). That being said I think Prae mention to me that Power Up wasn't affecting the bonus damage of her STR capstone so Trials Buff armor will not do much here.

Hi Praetarius, can we confirm what affects the weapon damage that is added to the spell damage by Angela's STR capstone? My wishful thinking was that it would be some fraction of whatever the output of the "weapon damage" calculation would be, including Power Up and Saber effects on Angela and Protect Down effects on the target.

On 6/20/2021 at 4:36 PM, Nesouk said:

Continuing the run and I think I have a team of Girly power house here ^^.

Rune Master : Since the Trial Set makes her spells instant I have no need for AGL, and her PIE capstone raise defense strong enough I don't have to invest in VIT and PIE to heavily so I ended maximizing both her INT and LUK and as you can imagine she is deadly, if the target has a weakness to exploit that's usually around 800 damage with a LV2 spells + Mind Up + Mind Down + Corresponding Saber on bosses and around 500 on Neutral so yeah quite the madness, Magitec weapon works well on boss her LV3 tech does about 700 damage more than her elemental spell on neutral. Really Rune Master is a beast.

Vanadis : It took more time but the Power Attack build pay off, now that I maximize her STR and up her AGL quite a lot, she hit like a freaking truck and I don't even have Protect Down, but the Trials Armor + Power Attack Up + Kevin's INT capstone + Saber of corresponding weakness and she can reach 600-700 with a regular hit on average, Darkshine Knight who has a noticeably high p.def was taking 300 damage from her Power Attacks, she is a killer, and yet Vanadis has a downside for this build in the sense for bosses she needs to dedicate one of her ring slot to Meta Multi for bosses, otherwise the best to do this build would be to put the Balanced weapon and the MP Steal ring to exploit the Balanced's cooldown reduction (and it just so happen that the max MP you can drain in one hit is 5). I'm honnestly interested in how such a build would turn out on character that don't need to dedicate a ring slot like Vanadis.

I'm back at this game after a small break, and ever since this post, I've been thinking of a way to out-do Nesouk's team of Girly power house. It doesn't look likely in any meaningful way - Trials Set Rune Master may be too good - but since the all-girl team is my wheelhouse I am taking up the challenge.

So far I have Light Lise, Light Angela, Dark Carlie and am thinking of the following builds:

Angela - Grand Divina with STR capstone. Adding weapon damage and spell damage looks too interesting to not try. With Power up, Protect Down, and Saber weapon buffs to add to her typical Mind Up, Mind Down, Saber spell buffs, Angela might be able to achieve a significant spell damage boost that will help with her Level 1 spells. I'm also wondering if the Trials Buff Armor would double the Power Up effect for her damage spells. The main idea here is that with a significant damage boost, Angela should be able to cast quickly, powerfully, and repeatedly. I don't think this would actually beat a Trials Set Rune Master, except maybe against werewolves who can't be silenced and might get a tech in against Rune Master every now and then, but I think it could be interesting. Plus she can heal (maybe; I'm not sure about the spell build here). If I don't go for the Trials Buff armor, the Constant Regen helm might be interesting to achieve a state of constant casting.

Carlie - Necromancer or Evil Shaman with Regen ring and LUK capstone. The Regen Ring is too useful to bypass with this team, and the capstone will help keep Angela casting constantly. With Necromancer, Black Curse has both Protect Down and Mind Down for Angela's spell damage, and non-elemental spells will help against Dolan. With Evil Shaman, the MT Power Down and Mind Down spells will help during mob fights, Protect Up (plus Grand Divina's Speed Up) can help Vanadis with her spell build, and her final weapon effect can be doubled if Lise takes her INT capstone.

Lise - Vanadis or Star Lancer with STR, INT, or PIE, or LUK capstone. The main idea of this build is to provide buffs for the team and saber spells to cast on the enemy for elemental resistance, Thunder Saber for Vanadis or Saint Saber for Star Lancer. Since the saber spells will require a Multitarget Ring for most fights, Star Lancer's multitarget buffs would only provide an advantage against bosses. Vanadis provides some extra options here - healing (especially important if Angela skips her healing spells) and a final weapon that works well with Grand Divina's final weapon. For the capstone, there are a few options - The INT capstone would go well with Evil Shaman, and if Vanadis becomes a heal bot, the PIE capstone might be interesting with a set of Magitech weapons. Also, I'm wondering if the STR capstone would work well with a Power Attack UP ring; did you try this, Nesouk? It seems like the critical chance reduction on power attacks would limit the effectiveness a bit.

Any ideas on the options here? I'm not sure if anyone has tested Angela's STR capstone yet, so I'm curious to give it a try.

11 hours ago, smileless said:

I finally beat Bigieu ffs man, so many tries I still went for defense builds, Lise eith Magitech tho and Duran with TP gain Up ring, even if it didn't matter much damage reduction is damage reduction, majority of the times I spent running around while sneaking in hits, Lise casted Holy Ball and Heal Light, Kevin Heal Light, as I slowly casted buffs and debuffs (power down and protect up at the beginning asap), Duran trying to sneak hits as she mauls the other two characters.

Not really that impressed of Swordmasters final weapon overall even with max LCK and analyze/energy ball, for mobs I used pure critical, bosses Crit by TP alternating between those two weapons.

Could saber/resist help with Bigieu? From what I remember of the calculation, the harder the enemy hits, the greater the HP saved.