zombero

LunaticScreamer's Lets Play Series

Ccmoose's Lets Play Series

Praetarius's Single Character Challenge Run

Casp O'saurus's Review

If there are any other series that you feel should be added here, post below with a link and I'll add it if it meets some very basic standards.

I also want to thank the people who went through the effort of making and posting these videos.  They will help greatly with tweaking and re-balancing the hack in future versions, and also just give me the warm fuzzy feelings

My own assorted development videos:

GrandBenja's Boss Fight Series:

Isak Haha's Boss Fight Series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbgWO3BrM1g&list=PLoX1WgoRelsxwq5UnCp6QZvSpnwJdmefJ

PG's Stream Vods

Nesouk Kefka's Boss Fight Series (In-Progress)

If there are any other series that you feel should be added here, post below with a link and I'll add it if it meets some very basic standards.

I also want to thank the people who went through the effort of making and posting these videos.  They will help greatly with tweaking and re-balancing the hack in future versions, and also just give me the warm fuzzy feelings.

CLICK HERE FOR THE DOWNLOAD PAGE

This is a hack of the original game designed with several primary goals in mind:

1. Rebalance many aspects of the original game.
2. Create a gameplay experience that is challenging to veterans of the SMT series.
3. Add in some fresh new enemies and skills to revitalize the gameplay experience.

This hack is intended for people who have already played (and generally mastered) the original game, and is designed to be played on Hard mode. For those who don’t fit this profile, or don’t want a more challenging experience than the original, then feel free to play on Normal mode.
This download includes a patch with instructions to apply changes to a ROM file of SMT Nocturne. It also includes a patch for the useful Heretic Mansion tool and instructions on where to get it.

Here is a list of features by category. This list is not fully comprehensive, but covers many of the more important changes:

Qualify of Life Enhancements:

• Lower quality skills are no longer more likely to transfer in fusions (I’m looking at you, Pester)
• Unlearned skills on demons and magatama are no longer hidden
• Swapping demons now uses half a press turn
• Demons can now swap themselves out
• Demons in stock gain 75% of the XP gained in battle (100% with Watchful)
• Geis can now be bought in a shop in addition to being won from Puzzle Boy
• Shop prices are now only doubled on Hard mode, not tripled
• Son’s Oath now gives Dante the Pierce effect
• Retreat is now possible (albeit unlikely) in Hard mode
• MP pools are increased by 1/3
• AoE healing now affects your entire roster, not just the active party

Difficulty Enhancements:

• After the earliest areas of the game, new and powerful enemies will show up during full Kagutsuchi
• Enemy encounter sets have been enhanced
• Enemy scripts have been enhanced
• Boss scripts have been selectively altered, and their stats have been increased substantially
• The HP of random encounter enemies scales up more over the course of the game
• New maximum of 2 -Kaja stacks on the player and 2 -Kunda stacks on enemies
• Trafuri is removed
• Tetra/Makarakarn now only affect the caster
• Estoma’s effectiveness is reduced (until you get Masakados)
• Mitama stat bonus cap lowered from +100% to +25% of base stats

Balance Changes:

• Physical skills have been improved in the early and mid-game
• Magic skills have been improved in the late-game (and magic damage no longer caps)
• Pierce now also penetrates Resist/Null for magic skills
• HP-based skills now use strength for damage, and their damage output ranges from 60%-100% of normal based on your current HP% (the power of these skills was raised a bit to compensate for this)
• Agility and Luck now have much higher impact on the things they effect
• Luck now affects the rate of ailments and instant death
• Luck now affects critical hit chance
• Luck is now the primary factor in magic accuracy (yes, Luck did almost nothing in the original game…)
• Dark/Bright Might crit rate reduced to 50%
• Might crit rate increased to 30%
• Might skills, Drain Attack, and Attack All can now all stack with each other
• Drain attack healing increased to 100% of damage dealt
• Shock and Freeze can now work on bosses and only last through one physical attack
• Tarukaja now affects both physical and magical attacks (Makakaja was repurposed)
• Tornado damage reduced from Heavy to Med
• MC’s unique Phys skills have been re-tooled and re-balanced (check ‘em out!)
• Many new skills have been placed on Magatama
• Stat bonuses on Magatama have been generally improved
• Magma Axis now treats a target’s Drain Fire or Repel Fire as Void Fire (works with Pierce)
• Resistances and skillsets of demons have been rebalanced
• Elem Boost skills reduced to +30%

New Skills (and re-works):

• Scald: AoE Light-Mid Fire damage. Lowers enemy physical attack.
• Laevateinn: Acts as Fire Boost and enhances Surt’s regular Attack
• Chill: Single target Light-Mid Ice damage. Inflicts Sukunda.
• Cocytus: 3-7 hits of Mid Ice damage. High odds of Freeze.
• Niflheim: AoE Mega Ice damage. Lowers enemy evasion.
• Zap: Single target Light Elec damage. Extremely high chance of Shock.
• Mjolnir: Single target Mega Elec damage. High chance of Shock.
• Thunder Reign: AoE Mega Elec damage. Moderately high chance of shock.
• Odinson: Passive skill that acts as Elec boost and doubles Shock chance. (unique to Odin)
• Dervish: AoE Light-Mid Force damage. Lowers enemy evasion
• Panta Rhei: AoE Mega Force damage.
• Vayavya: 3-7 hits of Heavy Force damage. Low odds of Stun.
• Antichthon: Single target Heavy Almighty damage. Inflicts Debilitate.
• Last Word: Single target Severe Almighty damage. Uses all remaining press turns.
• God’s Curse: AoE Med-Heavy Almighty damage. Inflicts random Curse/Nerve ailments.
• Sol Niger: AoE Heavy Almighty damage. Dekaja effect.
• Babylon Goblet: Sukunda effect. Mid odds of Panic.
• Soul Drain: Drains HP&MP from the enemy. (More powerful than Life Drain / Meditate)
• Fang Breaker: Single target Light Phys damage. Tarunda effect.
• Akasha Arts: Single target Heavy Phys damage. Greater damage with lower HP%.
• Primal Force: Single target Severe Phys damage. Cannot crit without Shock/Freeze.
• Skull Cleave: Single target Heavy Phys damage. Rakunda effect.
• Chi Blast: AoE Light Phys damage. Low accuracy, high crit rate.
• Earthquake: AoE Mega Phys damage. High accuracy, low odds of Stun. Cannot crit without Shock/Freeze.
• Gate of Hell: AoE Heavy Phys damage. Low odds of Petrify.
• Poison Arrow: 3-5 hits of Light Phys damage. Low odds of Poison.
• Bloodbath: 3-5 hits of Mid Phys damage. Low accuracy, high crit rate.
• Sakura Rage: 3-5 hits of Mid Phys damage. Low odds of Charm.
• Amrita: Heals all ailments on the party.
• Cadenza: Increases accuracy and magic attack.
• Heat Riser: Grants all -kaja effects twice to one target.
• Luster Candy: Grants all -kaja effects to the party. (AVAILABLE AS CONSUMABLE ITEM ONLY)
• Anti-Magic: Grants Fire/Ice/Elec/Force resistance.
• Anti-Ailments: Grants Nerve/Curse/Mind resistance.
• Void Ailments: Grants immunity to Nerve/Curse/Mind.
• Unshaken Will: Grants 2x resistance to Nerve/Curse/Mind/Death/Expel.
• Magic Boost: Acts as Fire/Ice/Elec/Force Boost.
• Arms Master: Halves the HP cost of physical skills.

Tips:

• The XP gain on player demons not participating in battle and the half turn cost to swap them in makes using more than 4 demons much more powerful than in the original game. Use this to your advantage, and think beyond your 4 active party members.
• Be mindful of helpful consumables that can be purchased from Rag’s Jewelry.
• If a non-boss battle is going poorly: see if you have a Smoke Ball to use.

v1.1 Changes:

• 1st Person view no longer requires New Game+
• Patra/Me Patra now cures Charm
• Spectre (round 1) toned down a bit
• Various minor to moderate bugs have been fixed

v1.2 Changes:

• Fixed a bug with enemy HP-based Phys damage
• Fixed a bug where ailments would sometimes have lower landing rates than intended

v1.3 Changes:

• Fixed a bug where Summon would fail after using Counter

v1.4 Changes:

• Fixed a bug related to Counter/Retaliate/Avenge
• Fixed a bug with Last Resort
• Fixed a bug with Babylon Goblet’s Panic effect not working
• Fixed a bug where Full Kagutsuchi encounters wouldn’t show up in the certain rooms in a few areas
• Anti-Elem skills now remove “Weakness”
• Altered a special encounter in the Third Kalpa due to grapical limitations
• Reworked some early game Full Kagutsuchi encounters and gave all of them the special music
• Removed Akasha Arts from Scathach (she can’t inherit Phys)
• Gave Scathach resist Ice
• The following bosses made a bit less difficult: Sakahagi, Mother Harlot, Spectre (round 1)

v1.5 Changes:

• Various lesser bug fixes

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Without counting shields 1/3 of what typed needs. And 3-4 elements in the first area should cover everything needed.

Gotcha.  Well, with the limited total item quantity and proposed element system:  I can see why untyped slots would be highly desirable.  I'm currently deciding how many typed and untyped slots to include in a system, so the tangent was relevant to my own interests.

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

So the idea was to make X-Fight hit 3 times with half damage making it always 150% of Fight but either above or below the clone depending on defense.

Sounds like the best choice from the options you listed.  Though some of what you're proposing for this hack (and some of what it appears you've done for SD3) seem like ASM hacks of a level that would make circumventing these restrictions trivial?  Unless it's all being done with rather clever data manipulations.

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

I can hardly have 12 defense items before the first boss just to cover the basics (3 elements per item category).

How many defense items does it take to cover the basics with untyped slots?

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

while a more optimal setup for the whole team would have
a1 marries a2, b1 marries c2, c1 marries b1
maybe because b2 is only 1% better than c2 for b1 but b2 is 80% better for c1 than c2

Yeah you pretty much got it.  And it's a maddening web of inheriting classes, skills, stat growths, and stat caps, along with each resulting child also being unique and having their own classes/skills/growths/caps to consider.  Combine the complications of gender, the fact that some character matchups won't mate regardless of circumstance, and an understandable refusal to engage in incest, and you get a maddening web of optimization that hasn't really been untangled yet even though the game has been out for over a year.

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

hmmm ... would I break any "sacred FF rule" by NOT having tiered magic? Or cutting X-Fight to 3 hits instead of 4?

Tiered magic is semi-sacred.  But then I've seen Chrono Trigger hacks that rename Luminaire to Holy and Dark Matter to Ultima, so apparently nothing is sacred.

X-Fight I don't think is sacred at all.  If anything, it sounds like it'd only hit twice.  Though you may as well just nerf it's power instead of its hit count so it can keep its flair?  Bonus points if the hits have more difficulty getting through high defenses.

1)  Ah, I was referring to what you're already doing (with having MP start at 0, etc.) as "scrapping" the system, so I was just saying I support that idea.  The SNES era FF MP system just strikes me of a brainless copycat of Dragon Quest's MP system.  Except in Dragon Quest games you have very limited inventories, sparse if any methods of restoring MP in a dungeon, and a significant focus on dungeon attrition, and these factors make that MP system work decently.  But in FF, with virtually limitless inventories, many MP restoring items, and less of a focus on dungeon attrition:  it just feels pointless.

5)  Sparse usage of the many elements is a frequent problem, yes.  But I would say that another frequent problem is when having so many elements makes it take too long to identify enemy weaknesses/strengths such that you don't discover them until the dungeon is basically over (or don't bother trying in the first place).  Showing the enemy element types addresses that issue, though.

6)  Hey it's not my fault if you carry an idea to its extreme!    I just like for being at the end of a game on "Hard" mode to serve as a testament to a Hard mode run that has occurred.  Rather than being some dial you could have turned up or down at any time.

7)  Well, I was only suggesting that unaugmented random encounter systems are problematic (in terms of appeal).  Examples of augments would be the BD thing or even something with minimal impact like the SMT/EO encounter radar (of green -> yellow -> red).  This isn't terribly relevant to a hack, though.  If the original game had no augments, no one is going to bat an eye if the hack doesn't either.  I only mentioned it because you're already looking to apply an augment, and I think it'll make for a nice bonus feature.

4)  So basically I was referring to the shift from "typed" slots (head/body/shield/etc) to untyped (all accessories).  I see both as equally viable, so I guess you could call this playing devil's advocate, but I wanted to point out the benefits of a typed system.  I dunno if you've played Fire Emblem Awakening or Fates, but in those games you can have your player characters marry and produce an offspring based on the parents.  However, each char can only marry one other char.  Because of this, when you have characters marry, you have to carefully consider all the other possible marriages you're giving up as a result.  If you could marry anyone freely, you'd have a lot more options to choose from, but the depth of the decision becomes a lot shallower, because you don't have so many opportunity costs to consider.  You'd just choose the most desirable partner in each individual case.

Similarly, with typed EQ slots, when you equip a helmet you're both deciding on that helmet and deciding against every other helmet.  This means you have to consider what kinds of benefits can be gotten from helmets vs. what kinds of benefits can be gotten from other types of EQ, and decide not only if this is the right choice to make for an EQ slot, but also if it's the right choice to make for the helmet slot, specifically.  So, compared to untyped slots, you have fewer build total options to consider, but the process of considering them is more complex.

Hey, nice vids!  I like the storyline behind them, too.  Dismissing the demons for Spectre's final phase is an interesting strat.  I suppose Deathtouch could make the MC a solo machine against some bosses who lack buffs/debuffs/dekaja/dekunda.

By the way, I uploaded v1.5 to romhacking.net yesterday.  This version just adds some new bugfixes.

For previous posts and discussions, visit the Insane Difficulty Archive for this hack.

Over time, I intend to move the important post information over to this forum, but this will remain the only way to view previous discussions.  Ripperoni.

1)  FF5's MP system is pretty garbo, so I like the idea of scrapping it.  I could see 0 MP cantrips working well, also.  It could ensure elements are at play for wizards even when they aren't spending MP.  It would kinda necessitate re-working rods and the like, though, since they would become rather pointless as weapons in their current state.  It'd also be cool to have some non-damage cantrips.

Using MP for a Brave/Default system sounds ugly.  Of course, this is a hack, so ugly sometimes comes with the territory, but it's still worth noting.  I also didn't personally get much enjoyment out of the Brave/Default system as a player, but a lot of players did, so I can't argue with its appeal.  I'm definitely in favor of scrapping standard ATB, though.

2)  Good idea.  It always rubs me the wrong way when a game with plot characters (i.e. not generics) uses a class system (or ff12 license grid, etc.) and then just doesn't bother making the characters mechanically unique in any significant way.  I'm fine with generic characters, but it's just that clash of differentiating the characters in the story, but not in the gameplay, that never jived with me.

3)  I feel like you should re-theme items in that case.  Potions are literally consumable, so the idea that you wouldn't deplete them by using them would be thematically strange.  Mechanically it's fine, though it introduces some problems with dungeon attrition that would have to be solved elsewhere, as you've mentioned.

4)  Not really enough information to comment in full.  But it sounds like it could strip classes of their complexity, or while increasing the quantity of EQ choices:  decrease the complexity of EQ choices.  Again, not really enough info to say whether that would be the case, that's just an impression.

5)  "The element count is too damn high!"  I really hate the 8-element system that is standard in so many FF games, it always feels bloated.  Since the game already has 8 elements, I'm not necessarily suggesting to reduce them, but I had to voice the opinion.  I like the idea of giving enemies visible elemental types, though, and that has the potential to mitigate a lot of what I dislike about having so many elements.

6)  Personal preference, but I dislike being able to 100% freely adjust the difficulty whenever you like.  I tend to prefer:  you can lower it whenever you like, but it can't be raised again, to ensure that beating the game on the hardest setting is an accomplishment.

7)  Ever since playing Bravely Default, I've tried to come to terms with how I feel about this mechanic, and don't really have an answer yet.  I do think that random encounter systems either need to be avoided or augmented, though.  So regardless of how I might feel about this specific approach, doing anything is generally better than doing nothing.

For previous posts and discussions, visit the Insane Difficulty Archive for this hack.

Over time, I intend to move the important post information over to this forum, but this will remain the only way to view previous discussions.  Ripperoni.

I'm making this thread to inform people of what's going on with this hack and with myself and what the path forward will look like.  First off, with InsaneDifficulty.com in the dustbin of history, this will be the new home for this hack.  Or at least one of the new homes.  So this is a safe place to look for future updates.

As far as hacking goes, this project is #1 on my priority list.  However, I'm currently working as the battle designer for an upcoming Atlus RPG, a project scheduled to last for one year, and that project will be my top priority overall.  It is theoretically a part time gig, but the reality is likely to be very different, and that project will be given any attention that I feel it requires, which may be all.

Hopefully this won't mean no updates for a year, but I can't guarantee anything.  One thing I do at least plan to do is to get more info about the hack posted here.

Well, with all that stuff out of the way!  I made a vid of the most recent feature that was added:

I'm going to be reworking ranged targeting and AoE damage.  The gist of it is that ranged attacks will no longer be able to target the entire field, and instead be limited to near-ish targets.  Additionally, AoE attacks (most of them anyway) will deal less damage to targets further away from the caster.  Melee targeting and enemy AI will also be getting another inspection.  Melee will be able to more easily reach under-protected rear row members, and enemy AI will (typically) be inclined to attack the targets nearest to them.  The goal of all this will be to have positioning matter much more in battle.

Yep, that is the plan.

I currently have it hard capped at either 3 or 4 (don't recall exactly which) and soft capped one level prior (you'd have to kill 100 enemies to get the last level).  The problem with 1 - 2 levels above is it isn't really enough room to be able to tank Cha/Ali, which I want to still be possible.  I also don't necessarily want to make death squads impossible, I just want them to be a weaker approach than using a full army.  I will probably be making some more tweaks to the XP system at some point, though.

Giving enemy squads the ability to spawn on towns has taken me down quite the rabbit hole of other design options for the map-based portion of the gameplay.  Under the new system, which enables the first round of enemy spawns to be on towns, the player is now faced with a fewer initial enemy squads, but earlier in the map.

Under this system, it doesn't make much sense to allow the player to deploy 10 squads right off that bat, as it'd pretty much just be a slaughter.  It also kinda didn't make sense already, because deploying 10 squads at once at the start of every stage is kind of a slog.  This leads to the possibility of requiring the player to liberate towns in order to increase the number of squads they can deploy.  Notice the 1/4 deployed squads here.

Thus, a small number of initial squads are used to grab some nearby towns to allow the player to field the rest of their 10 total deployments.  I want the gameplay to be army-focused, so I don't want it to take very long for the player to be able to field 10 squads.

My biggest hesitation with this design decision is its potential to degrade the progress that has been made toward encouraging the player to use a full 10-squad army instead of a few death squads.  But ultimately I think enough has been done to encourage this that I can afford to make some changes (like this one) that work slightly against it.

This new role for towns to play leads to the possibility of further increasing the rewards from liberating towns and temples.  As such, here are some changes being considered there:

Towns:
-Add a "Supplies" stat, this stat adds to how many squads the player can deploy
-Add a "Armaments" stat, this stat factors into damage taken/received in combat (replacing the current Morale system)
-Have a town pay tribute upon being liberated, giving new funds immediately

Temples:
-Have temples always provide a piece of equipment
-Augment the revive service they offer to also be able to heal living party members (still for a fee, of course)

These changes have the potential to inject more strategy in deciding which towns to focus on liberating, since some could give more supplies, armaments, or money.  I'm sure proximity would still be the biggest consideration, but hey it's something.

Lastly, I'm also considering more changes to how town liberation works as far as Reputation goes.  One idea I had is to incorporate OB64's concept of Ali-matching, such that you use goodly units to liberate good towns, evil ones for evil towns, etc.  Charisma could possibly replace Ali as the stat that is always beneficial when it comes to raising Rep.