Kyrios

Alright, you've convinced me.

I'd like to point this out for everyone: when you don't like something the staff does, this is how you speak out -- you make a reasoned argument against it. This is how you will get us to listen. That goes for all the Administrators, not just me.

Bravo, sir. My hat goes off to you.

I mean, if you can find the sprite, I actually made a tutorial on YouTube for how to do it.

As an update to everyone, I received word from FFTA, one of the other former Administrators of Insane Difficulty earlier tonight.

Whatever happens from here on out, just know that this man was not to blame. He tried purchasing the site himself, but Archael would not have it.

If he comes back here, I intend to welcome him back with open arms, and I expect all of you to do the same. He loved Insane Difficulty just as much as anyone else, and he tried just as much as the rest of the Administration to save it.

58 minutes ago, Augestein said:

Yeesh. This seems like an actually difficult Pokemon game. I'll be honest, the idea of a customized party from Pokemon always intrigued me, but the games were so easy, that there was no point in theory crafting too much, and the Meta game isn't exactly fun to prepare for. So it's nice to see someone else having a hard time with this. Even if it's a challenge. 

Yeah man, no kidding.

I'll be picking this up again soon. Been on a serious World of Warcraft kick lately.

At the request of @Aura Of The Dawn I will be putting story elements in spoiler tags.

So! I've had a lot of progress since my last update. Let me just kind of get that out of the way first.

Level: 41

Bite / Dragon Dance / Twister / Wing Attack

Boy, Aether, you've grown. Delta Pidgeot learns Dragon Dance, making him a powerful sweeper when given the opportunity. I gave him Wing Attack to hopefully mitigate his fighting weakness, as that's a pretty prevalent type in Insurgence.

Level: 41

Ice Beam / Calm Mind / Thundershock / Shock Wave

Kyrie has grown a lot as well, into a beautiful bleach-blonde transvestite. She's a special monster, with Calm Mind and Ice Beam. Thunderbolt is soon to follow.

Level: 43

Calm Mind / Leech Seed / Psychic / Dazzling Kiss

Look who it is! Saphira is pretty great defensively; her EVs allow her to have strong defense, while Calm Mind both boosts her sweeping potential and covers her special defense, though I've been considering giving her a screen instead. Dazzling Kiss, combined with Leftovers and Leech Seed, makes her a pain in the ass to KO.

Level: 40

Bite / Rock Slide / Dragon Dance / Chip Away

Titan's getting there, but he's not quite fully grown just yet. Rock Slide combined with Dragon Dance has made him invaluable so far, and I expect that to continue, especially once he reaches his final form and can properly utilize his armor.

Level: 41

Flame Wheel / Iron Defense / Flame Burst / Iron Tail

Veritas is kind of in the same boat as Titan. He's got Flame Wheel and Iron Defense, two very important abilities that lend themselves very well to the type of pokemon he is. This team is designed somewhat more defensive than normal, and it's starting to show in their movesets.

Here comes a new challenger!

Crush

Delta Torterra

Water/Ground

Water Absorb (self-explanatory)

Adamant (+Atk/-SpAtk)

6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def

Earthquake / Curse / Razor Shell / Recover

This guy is an absolute monster. Earthquake, Curse (-spd / +atk / +def), Razor Shell (strong phys water), and Recover? Jesus. 

I found out that I needed to change it up a bit, since Larvesta is pretty lacking right now. So I made a new rule: I can change out to other delta/armored pokemon. I'm not sure what limitations I'm going to put on this rule, but Hard Mode is proving to be much more of a challenge (given that I'm sort of breaking pacing with this challenge) than I thought it would be. I love the soft level cap it imposes based on story progression.

There wasn't all that many noteworthy things that happened (I forgot to screenshot almost all of it because I didn't think there was any interest in this), but this was by far the best.

THAT WAS HIS LAST POKEMON! IT HELD ON USING FOCUS SASH AND PROCEEDED TO RAPE MY PHYSICALLY DEFENSIVE TEAM WITH SHADOW BALL!

This is why I was considering switching to Light Screen, because fuck this mess. It really outlined an issue with my team.

But I'm gonna continue and post more stuff tomorrow! Just wanted to give you guys an update.

Then I guess I need to do an update, don't I?

Alright, so! Time to meet the team!

Saphira

Delta Bulbasaur

Fairy/Psychic

Regenerator (Restores 1/3 HP when switched out in battle)

Bold (+Def/-SpD)

16 HP / 252 Def / 176 SpA / 64 Spd

Saphira isn't meant to be all that offensive. Delta Venusaur has great typing as well as good defenses. I plan to load her up with Leftovers and give her Leech Seed and Calm Mind, to boost both her sweeping potential and wall potential at the same time.

Aether

Delta Pidgey

Dark/Dragon

Marvel Scale (1.5x Def when inflicted with status)

Adamant (+Atk/-SpAtk)

6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd

Aether is gonna be a bit of a physical powerhouse. Not only does he have good offensive typing, but he also has access to Dragon Dance, Outrage, and Crunch, all great STAB moves with great coverage.

Veritas

Delta Aron

Fire/Steel

Heavy Metal (weight is doubled)

Adamant (+Atk/-SpAtk)

68 Atk / 200 SpDef / 240 Spd

Veritas is gonna be a physical monster. Delta Aggron has a base 180 Defense, so I figured it'd be best to beef up his special defense a bit, since he has access to Iron Defense as well. Heavy Weight is an interesting choice. There are only two moves in the game that directly benefit from this, and one is Fire, one is Steel -- both STAB moves. I don't have access to a movelist for this one as it's not in the wiki, so I can only really speculate.

Kyrie

Delta Ralts

Ice/Electric

Clear Body (can't have stats lowered)

Modest (+SpAtk/-Atk)

6 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spd

Kyrie is gonna be my main special powerhouse. She has amazing offensive typing, with access to Calm Mind, Thunderbolt, and Ice Beam, as well as Focus Blast and Earth Power for potential coverage. Delta Gardevoir was amazing in my last game, and I expect her to perform just as well here.

Titan

Larvitar

Rock/Ground

Guts (boosts Atk by one stage if inflicted with status)

Adamant (+Atk/-SpAtk)

68 Atk / 200 Def / 240 Spd

Titan is just that -- a veritable titan of power. With his armor once he hits Tyranitar, he gets a huge defensive boost, plus he's got Dragon Dance and some awesome STAB moves to pick up some huge sweeping potantial.

Vulcan

Delta Larvesta

Dark/Poison

Defiant (when stats are lowered, attack increases by one stage)

Modest (+SpAtk/-Atk)

6 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spd

Vulcan is my other special powerhouse, though she has the potential to be far more of a powerhouse than I'll probably make her into. Delta Volcarona gets access to Toxic Spikes, an entry hazard I'll probably make use of, and a ton of awesome STAB moves as well. She rounds out my team nicely.

Okay, I lied. Next time, we do stuff!

21 hours ago, ninjasdf said:

It really sucks how ID went down.  Glad you guys made it over here though.

The Administrator in me says this might not be the best idea, but you guys deserve the best. This noble, majestic mother fucker right here? @ninjasdf? The one responsible for the creation of this site?

Yeah, this mother fucker tried to buy the ID domain off Archael, for way more than it was worth, for you guys to host it as a sister site. He was offering to pay the server fees, everything. And Archael turned his nose up at it. Completely ignored him.

So yeah, it went down, and it isn't coming back. But just know that we -- ninja, especially -- tried to get it for y'all. That should tell you something.

Why is this even a fucking question?

All jokes aside, basically all Dark means is certain aspects of the story change, so you might see someone die on screen. One death is particularly gruesome, but it's not bad at all really.

So, the story begins with this asshole giving you some information about the world. Basically, instead of people with bowl-shaped haircuts and switchblades, we have cults that worship legendary pokemon, namely Darkrai, Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza. You see a bunch of others throughout the game, but those are the big ones for now. The first Augur went around and fucked shit up on these cults. He wrecked over half of them, but one day he went out to fuck some more shit up and never came back. OH MY GOD, I BET YOU NEVER SAW THAT COMING.

I'm sure.

I love this game. It does shit like this all the time without even batting an eye.

There is -- I shit you not -- a Jehova's Witness joke later on in the game.

So, the story goes that right now, you're held captive by the Cult of Darkrai, and they've got a Gengar eating your memories right now. So, you're being held by a murderous cult, you don't remember shit, and you have no pokemon. But that's okay, because your best buddy Mew is here to help you!

Mew has the ability to transform itself -- and you -- into anything you have the DNA of. I'm getting a distinct Animorphs vibe.

So we go, get the blood of a cultist who was sacrificed to summon Darkrai before, to get the ability to transform into one! This is actually pretty neat, as there's all kinds of stuff in the game that reacts to this, from different NPC reactions to opening fingerprinted locks.

Our first ritual sacrifice of the game! Woo!

But then Darkrai is like "lol nah fam, this bitch a thot" and then peaces the fuck out, because fuck Persephone. She's the leader of the Cult of Darkrai, if you didn't guess.

HOLY SHIT DID SHE JUST FUCKIN' MERC HER OWN GRUNTS?! JESUS CHRIST!

I love it.

So, you don't get Mew yet. Instead, you get the Quartz Flute, which lets you call on Mew when you need to for the DNA thing. This is not just limited to switching appearances either, as Mew can also get the DNA of other legendaries to perform abilities on the field to open up paths and access things that weren't available before! Fuck yeah.

So yeah, your new bud Damian's mom is a bitch, so there's that.

THIS IS WHY DAD DOESN'T TOUCH YOU ANYMORE MOM!!

This kid kinda reminds me of Wally, only Wally's Mom isn't a reprehensible cunt.

Welp, we go, grab ourselves a Delta Bulbasaur.

Then proceed to beat the shit out of Wal -- I mean Damian, and head out into the forest to grab a gift for the Second Augur, since he's apparently in town.

Tune in next time, when I'll actually do stuff!

So, I got my hands on a really awesome game called Pokemon Insurgence. It's a fangame which you can find here. I would get the torrent and not the installer if I were you; it's a lot faster.

Anyway, this game takes place in a new region with new versions of certain pokemon called Delta Pokemon. Delta pokemon have different typage, different movesets, but the same base stats as their vanilla counterparts. This game also features new Mega Evolutions, and follows the main series mechanics up to and including Gen VI (X/Y).

Anyway, I'm not gonna go too in depth (I may do a review on it for the front page later, who knows?), but I'm going to be doing what I'm calling a Delta/Armor run of the game.

So, in addition to the delta pokemon, you also have different armors for certain pokemon that alter their stats a bit, and make them look different. For instance, take a look at Shiny Tyranitar with his armor.

Sexy as hell, right? Right.

So, for this challenge, as the name implies I'm going to be using only delta and armored pokemon. The rule is that I have to stick to this team no matter what, and the armored pokemon cannot remove their armor for any reason. Now, you may ask, why would you want to? Well, the simple answer is because that takes up an item slot that may be put to better use with a different item in certain circumstances, such as a mega stone.

For those of you worried about difficulty, have no fear, I'll be playing on hard mode. Delta pokemon in this game can be strong, but they are by no means overpowered as you might expect.

Full disclosure though, I will be using debug mode to create my starters. Hard mode assumes max IVs/EVs, so I'll be doing the same. It also softcaps your level at certain points so you can't outgrind content, which is really cool.

The limit for my creating starters is that I'm not allowed to give them any items aside from armors (this means mega stones I have to get naturally through the story), and they cannot have moves they're unable to learn. This means that I may give some of them one of their egg moves, for instance Dragon Dance on Larvitar.

This was more just an introduction post; next post is gonna be the actual beginning of the challenge! Let's go!

Jesus, where do I begin...?

8 hours ago, Tedrainbow said:

The Hats and Helmet gives you a 50% reduction of one or more elements. But are low against an item.

The Armlet and Gauglet increases your power of elements but are low against 2 elements.

The Armor, Robe and Clothes you immune against certain elements but are weak against three other elements.

The Add-Ons absorb certain item but are low against two items.

Only weapons and Gemstone have no positive and negative effects of elementals.

Equipment with Bonus is only weapon and add-ons and Gemstone.

Some Gemstone can give you a bonus of +14 and +12 on 1 stats

All items in store and synthesis is increased by 30% of the normal price.

I will change, Also the watches have more stats than in the original game.

These changes seem really random and not focused in any way whatsoever. What is your goal here? What kind of mod is this? A difficulty mod? A content mod?

8 hours ago, Tedrainbow said:

Every normal enemy of CD 1
Adds + 3 to all stats except HP and MP.

Each Normal Boss on CD 1
Adds + 5 on all stats except HP and MP.

Every normal enemy of CD 2
Adds +6 to all stats except HP and MP.

Each Normal Boss on CD 2
Adds + 10 to all stats except HP and MP.

Every normal enemy of CD 3
Adds + 9 to all stats except HP and MP.

Each Normal Boss on CD 3
Adds + 15 to all stats except HP and MP.

Every normal enemy of CD 4
Adds +12 to all stats except HP and MP.

Each Normal Boss on CD 4
Adds + 20 to all stats except HP and MP.

Okay, so definitely not a difficulty mod. With these changes, you might as well not even mod any of the enemies, as changes this small will amount to literally nothing.

8 hours ago, Tedrainbow said:

Version 1.1

!The commands list for the following five characters has been modified.

- Zidane
a) The command 'Skill' has been replaced with 'Actio' which allows for the use of many more abilities, some of whom could only be used in Trance state before.
b) In Trance state, the command 'MIXFRA' has replaced Zidane's 'Dyne' abilities. 'MIXFRA' allows you to use 'Lancer', 'Reis' Wind', 'Chakra', and 'Aura'. Each of these abilities can be used twice in one turn like a double cast.

- Vivi
a) 'Magic' is renamed 'Mage UP'.
b) The command 'MIXFRDA' replaces Focus in Vivi's normal state and replaces 'BLK Double' in his Trance state.
c) The command 'MIXFRDA' contains Cure, Cura, Life, Scan, Panacea, Shell, Protect, Reflect, Float, Dispel, Holy, Haste, Stona, Lancer, Reis' Wind, Dragon Breath, White Draw, Luna, Six Dragon, and Cherry Blosom.

- Steiner
a) A new command, 'Mag-arts', groups together both 'SwdTech' and 'MagSwd' abilities under the same menu. More so, the abilities that used to require Vivi to cast can now be used without Vivi.
b) A new command, 'QUAM', now stands as the third action in Steiner's menu. This command contains Curse, Revive, Vanish, Magic Hammer, 1000 Needles, Pumpkin Head, Chakra, and Aura.

- Garnet
a) A new command, 'Aura Good', groups together both 'Summon' and 'White' abilities under the same menu.
b) A new command, 'MIXVIST', now stands as the third action in Garnet's menu. This command contains Fire, Blizzard, Slow, Thunder, osmose, Power Break, Armor Break, and Mental Break.

- Eiko
a) A new command, 'Magica', groups together both 'White' and 'Summon' abilities under the same menu.
b) A new command, 'MIXQUI', now stands as the third action in Eiko's menu. This command contains Goblin Punch, LV5 Death, LV4 Holy, LV3 Def-Less, Soul Blade, What's that!?, Detect, Flee, White Wind, 1000 Needles, Bad Breath, and Mighty Guard.

...Why? This seems more like a really shallow randomizer than a mod, at this point. So, not a difficulty mod, not a quality mod... What else is there?

8 hours ago, Tedrainbow said:

- All equipments can be used by every character.

8 hours ago, Tedrainbow said:

- Every ability costs 13 ability points.
- All spells affecting your characters or enemies have both a positive and negative effect on them.
- All level 1 spells cost 11 mana, all level 2 spells cost 22 mana, and all level 3 spells cost 33 mana.
- The base power of level 1 spells is 5, the base power of level 2 spells is 10, and the base power of level 3 spells is 20.
- Eidolons have more than one element attached to their damage.
- All physical and magical attacks cause poison and darkness effects on the targeted creature or character.
- All characters start with twenty-six ability points.
- All the base character names have been modified.
- Every ability cost 255 AP to learn.
- The experience required to reach level 99 is now 15 millions-the level curve has been adjusted.
- The limit for base HP is now 5000.
- The limit for base MP is now 700.
- The HP and MP of enemies is doubled.
- You now gain less experience from enemies.
---------------------------------

Every ability costs 13 AP? Why? What kind of sense does that make? That literally penalizes the player and actively discourages if not completely shuts down any kind of depth with abilities.

All spells have both a positive and negative effect on them now? Why? So when I cast Cure, it poisons me or something?

Okay, so you're trying to nerf the damage curve. I can get on board with this.

Eidolons have multi-element? Why?

All physical and magical attacks inflict poison and darkness? Why?

All the base character names have been modified? Fucking why?

Every ability costs 255 AP to learn? What the actual fuck? Why? What purpose does this serve? This actively encourages grinding.

Reduced HP and MP I can agree with.

Okay, so here's the thing. Unless you found a way to change the type of value HP and MP are, you can't have doubled the HP of all enemies, and here's why. 65,535 is the max HP that an enemy can have, and there are a few bosses that already have that maxed. This is a maxed out 16-bit value, and unless you are able to change that datatype without fucking everything else up, this is literally not possible to do.

Look, it was not at all my intention to come here and shit on your work, but this is a mod that has come from a completely unfocused and scatter-brained vision. I would be shocked if you told me you actually tested this before releasing it and said you were pleased with the changes.

If you want to link to it here, that is fine, but this mod will not be hosted on NGPlus. While there are many reasons for this, three changes combined are enough to make this call. You've increased the exp curve immensely, lowered the amount of EXP and AP you get per battle, as well as made it so that you need 255 AP for every goddamn ability in the game. That is incredibly poor design. That's not fun, that's a pointless grind that makes no sense whatsoever.

You need to go back to the drawing board with this and figure out what exactly you want to make, and for the love of god, playtest it too.

I know some people might think I'm being too harsh, but sometimes you need to hear the truth, no matter how harsh it is. 

Just now, praetarius5018 said:

Is it possible to allow the player to shift the class's focus?

E.g. your white mage has default access to the basic spells cure1, protect, etc.
And the play has then to somehow choose what he wants to primarily advance, e.g. via mutually exclusive items you can get either Cure2/3,Life OR Protectga, Hastega, Shellga.

To be perfectly honest with you, I doubt it would go in that direction even if the option presented itself.

But at this point in time, no.

Just now, Kjata said:

Not when buffs dont really overlap, or if self buffs give more statuses or also heal hp.

It still makes them worth less by default, and it makes it way easier to fully buff up the entire party, which in a way diminishes the effect of stuff like Trance Aura and Mighty Guard, not to mention Rei's Wind.

In short, I feel like that causes more problems then it fixes. Raising spirit across the board at this point in time I feel like is a better solution.

56 minutes ago, Kjata said:

I think having party wide buffs that quickly expire is a better direction than having buffs last longer.

My only problem with this is that it kind of nullifies characters having self-buffs. I feel it removes a layer of depth.

1 hour ago, Augestein said:

Early game has a ton of moments where buffs are useless because of how short they are. Garnet could literally spend an entire battle spamming protect on people and never actually manage to have the full party have it.  Which is ridiculously stupid. I mean, it doesn't need to last like... FF8 long (forever), but it could last a bit longer. 

Okay, this is fair. What about raising Spirit across the board? What else does that affect? I mean I know it affects a lot of different things, I'm more wondering about problematic stuff.

3 hours ago, Tenkarider said:

My no.1 suggestion is: MODIFY buff expiration timer!!! you don't even realize you used protect on an ally that the buff is already faded out.

Not to dismiss this suggestion, but I feel like this is one of those "get gud" recommendations.

1 hour ago, Sega Chief said:

Some things to consider:

1) FF9 has a lot more variance in its output damage than its two sister titles, 7 and 8. This will make rebalancing tougher unless you can find a way to adjust the formula and reduce the range of variance (which I recommend you do, it's not very popular). If you're reworking the damage curve then keep this in mind. An example of the modifier that's attached to damage is shown below (for enemy attacks, player attacks vary per weapon but usually have /8 instead):

Bonus = Str + Rnd MOD ([(Lvl + Str) / 4] + 1)

...

3) The game uses % modifiers for damage bonuses & penalties from abilities. While this tends to be manageable early on, it'll get more difficult later on toward end-game. If you can, try and adjust the actual value of bonuses/penalties of things like X Killer, Protect/Shell, Elemental, Back Row, etc. And keep an eye on Reflect too; a full party with Reflect can bounce a multi-target spell at an enemy 4 times without the spread penalty being applied and I think it gains a 2x bonus damage when reflected as well.

@Xifanie Me love you long time? <3

1 hour ago, Emmy said:

Replace Tetra Master with Triple Triad

Let's keep the suggestions remotely feasible. Not that I don't agree, but for now we're not touching that monstrosity. 

5 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

What "theme" or "idea" are you going for?

simple rebalance? making the game finally good? total conversion? BNW 9.0? meme overload?

Right now we're focusing on a simple rebalance. We'll delve into the rest once we've got that handled.

So, as those of you in Discord may know, @Kjata has begun work on a new Final Fantasy IX mod. Right now it's kind of a brainchild, but we hope to have something out within a few months. Since I don't start work for a few weeks, I'll be helping him out with some of the legwork.

Some ideas we've already been looking at:

• Rework damage curve
• Rework level curve
• Rework passive skills
• Remove fixed damage abilities

If you've got any ideas, feel free to post them in this thread! Though we may not use everything, we will take it into consideration if we feel it's a good idea!

30 minutes ago, Xios said:

thanks fellas.

5 days left on that drop canvas before it expires.  happy to reupload if it were to come down to it, but not the best at remembering to check in on this site.  if nothing else i wish someone would at least give monks a runthrough just so i can get my card punched  

Ludo's got a lot going on right now, so I doubt he'll be able to take a crack at it tbh.

3 hours ago, Sega Chief said:

I was thinking I could set up some weird version of FF7 (something that goes up to and ends at Midgar maybe) that has weird mechanics to it, put it out, and see who can beat it the fastest. It'd probably be something like 1h30 per run, or faster if I strip out most of the story components.

I really, really like this idea, but that's a smidge long for what I had in mind originally.

1 hour ago, Rynzer said:

I was thinking something super bite-sized, like a single level/stage for a platformer, dungeon for an RPG, and even include things like UI changes for games, music tracks, or artwork for those more artistically inclined.

Yeah, that's more or less what I was thinking.

I like the modding contest one as well, but that's definitely not going to be the first event.

5 minutes ago, Sega Chief said:

Please note that we do not, in fact, have Dank Memes.

The fuck we don't. You shut your lying whore mouth.

So, on the subject of trying to get some more activity here, I'll fully admit that I'm not all that great at coming up with events and the like, but something that seems to usually be a pretty good bet with you guys is speedrun tourneys. Now, I'm down for a speedrun tourney on a small scale, but I'm curious about a few things.

1. Does anyone have any ideas for what they think would be interesting to speedrun?
2. Does anyone have any ideas outside of a speedrun tourney that they'd like to put forth for an event?

We're really open to just about anything at this point. Once we get enough suggestions, I'll see about picking one for us to start with, and if there's enough, we might even put them on some kind of rotation.

Ideas! Post 'em! Let's go!

This actually looks pretty dope, and this is coming from someone who never played the original. I might give this a whirl.