Author Topic: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth (Read 180419 times)

Zera · « **Reply #345 on:** March 30, 2010, 12:44:48 pm »

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 30, 2010, 11:36:03 am

As for customizeable stats, the only gripe I always had about them is how at the end of battles, despite how much effort you spent in raising them, sometimes you'Ll still not get the bonus if you're not lucky. I really hate that, which is why I did not like FFII NES that much. I would have prefered if there was 100% chance to get the increase providing you work out to get that increase.

As long as you know which gains are associated with with items, (you can check this under the Equip >Check screen) you can control how your characters improve. There is some variance, of course, since as many as three gains (or penalties) can be applied to a single item. If you're using swords to raise your STR, you may also find your WIS being penalized for it.

There's also a small set of default gains associated with each character. Regardless of what you have equipped, Maya always has a chance to gain a small amount of WIS. Examples:

+1 WIS, +1 AGI, +1 mHP - Maya's default growth +1 STA, +1 mHP, +1 STR - Edmund's default growth

This ranks in order of which is most likely to occur; so Maya is going to gain a decent bit of additional WIS throughout the course of the game on her own, while Edmund is going to gain a decent bit of STA.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #346 on:** March 30, 2010, 12:47:26 pm »

I like E:SoR system better. It's much easier to control and also fewer chances to end up with totally unbalanced characters

EDIT: That's of course unless you need to fight extremly hard creatures during 15-20 minutes just to get one increase of stats early in the game, though

Zera · « **Reply #347 on:** March 30, 2010, 12:57:17 pm »

You can control FF2's system, but it's not as fluid... nor does it make as much sense.

I think to raise AGI, you had to equip very light armory and evade a lot of attacks. Alternatively, you could equip two shields and waste several turns defending. Suffice it to say, the player usually ends up with a nominal amount of AGI on each character by the end of the game. This makes it nearly impossible to flee a battle or evade an attack. What's worse: You could not equip a shield, or a heavy suit or armor, without incuring something like a -80 pt. penalty to either your AGI or your evasion. I can't remember which one. I don't think these penalties were actually made known to the player in any way. There are even certain weapons that incur these kinds of penalties.

I actually brought some of that over to Escheron, but not in such extremes. I think the *idea* of equipping heavy items incurring penalties to AGI does make sense, but I only incurred penalties like -5 or -15 AGI. Axes and heavy armor are the main offenders. Axes are so unwieldy that they slightly penalize evasion. This would mostly only impact you around the beginning of the game, but isn't enough to make you wish you had never picked-up an axe in the first place. Plus, the trade-off seems fair - you get a ton of damage output, but you can't evade attacks as often as before. Relevant examples:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Axes | DAM | DEF | WIS | AGI | Hit | EVA | mHP | Character Gain --------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----------------------- Francesca | +22 | ... | ... | ... | +56 | -02 | ... | +2 STR, (none), -1 AGI Ogrish Axe | +36 | ... | ... | ... | +56 | -04 | ... | +4 STR, (none), -1 AGI Stormrender | +44 | ... | +04 | ... | +56 | -04 | ... | +2 STR, (none), -1 AGI Stonecutter | +64 | ... | ... | ... | +48 | -04 | ... | +2 STR, (none), -1 AGI Ruinous Axe | +72 | +04 | ... | ... | +48 | -04 | ... | +2 STR, (none), -1 AGI Atlantis Axe | +88 | +08 | +04 | ... | +48 | -04 | ... | +4 STR, +1 STR, -1 AGI -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armour L.4 | DAM | DEF | WIS | AGI | Hit | EVA | mHP | Character Gain --------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----------------------- Brigandine | ... | +14 | ... | ... | ... | +02 | +12 | +2 mHP, +1 STA, (none) Coat of Mail | ... | +20 | ... | -10 | ... | -02 | +20 | +4 mHP, +1 STA, -1 AGI Drachen Mail | ... | +22 | ... | -10 | ... | -02 | +20 | +6 mHP, +2 STA, -1 AGI Mirror Mail | ... | +28 | ... | -10 | ... | -02 | +20 | +6 mHP, +2 STA, -1 AGI

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #348 on:** March 30, 2010, 01:01:41 pm »

Interesting stuff. For sure, FF2 hides a lot of secrets. I will most likely need to check online for how it works and stuff in overall if I want to replay it again. I also remember the blood swords that killed the final boss in two hits or something

Zera · « **Reply #349 on:** March 30, 2010, 01:08:59 pm »

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 30, 2010, 01:01:41 pm

I also remember the blood swords that killed the final boss in two hits or something

Heh. I also carried that mechanic over to Escheron. If you find the Dainsleif, (our version of the Blood Sword, basically) it's very effective against humanoid opponents. The sword is otherwise very weak, and does not benefit from proficiency bonuses. (i.e., you don't get any attack multipliers or bonus damage under normal circumstances)

FF2's system was not only broken, but it was also buggy. There are weapon and armor properties that either don't function like they're supposed to, or simply don't function at all. An example is the Ripper dagger: It's supposed to unleash four additional attacks at something like 1/4 normal damage output. This damage would ignore the defense of the target, making the weapon extremely useful for bypassing enemy defenses altogether. In many circumstances, it was impossible to damage an enemy unless you used a specific weapon or spell. This was constant throughout the entire game. You could be attempting to hack away at a dragon with dual Masamunes in full Genji armor, and not inflict any damage to the creature. The only way you would ever harm it is if you were lucky enough to score a critical hit, which also ignores defense. In fact, dual-wielding Rippers would be more effective than any other weapon in the game - if they actually worked.

The game reports the damage bonus, but doesn't actually inflict it.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #350 on:** March 30, 2010, 02:36:02 pm »

Yeah in FF1 NES I also remember a lot of bugs too. Loads of spells that did nothing at all. I think FFVI had some broken properties, too, like under vanish status aliment, instant death spells were guaranteed to work on every enemy, even bosses.

In FF2 I am sure blood sword/energy absorb from regular attacks was broken a lot, because normally attacks would do like 1000 damage, but with energy absorbs, these attacks often did in the 5000s, even against enemies that were not that weak against that magic

, same when I got attacked.

I believe some of my calc RPGs have broken stuff too

. I think the worst part is The Reign Of Legends 2 STEAL command. The lower your LV compared to the enemy LV, the lower the chances stealing will succeed. However, a bug causes the command to work 100% of the time. I should really fix that one day

There was also a story-driven battle in Mystique RPG where you could not win at all, but IIRC this game supported New Game +, like in Chrono Trigger, or had a part with fast grinding allowing you to level up very high early in the game if you were patient enough and when trying to fight this boss at LV 99, the battle lasted a ridiculous amount of time. In this battle, the boss speed was made in a way that you would never ever get a chance to attack. At LV99, the boss attacked like 100 times or more, if I remember.

In Illusiat 7, you chosen between four characters at the game start, but in the end, it made no difference on the game. They had the same abilities and almost the same leveling up rate. They just started at different stats (on a level up you had to choose which stat you want to raise)

Zera · « **Reply #351 on:** March 30, 2010, 05:58:43 pm »

I guess bugs are just more occurrent with RPGs, given the large code base. So many statistics and integers to input...

It's kind of interesting how some bugs are so important to the balance of the game itself that they're intentionally included in later ports or remakes.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #352 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:07:55 pm »

True, it's just so many things to take care of. There can even be bugs involving skipping entire game sections. In Illusiat 3 you can skip 60% of the final battle and the entire ending part (not that there are really any ending, tho). Balance-wise, it's just very hard to have difficulty remain consistent or gradual;ly harder as game progresses. In Illusiat series, to save on RAM usage, I made enemy stats dynamic. I'll show an example eventually, in the games walkthroughs section. It's much smaller than coding each monster data one by one, but it sure leads to balance issues.

Iambian · « **Reply #353 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:31:14 pm »

Quote from: Zera on March 30, 2010, 12:44:48 pm

...
There's also a small set of default gains associated with each character. Regardless of what you have equipped, Maya always has a chance to gain a small amount of WIS. Examples:

+1 WIS, +1 AGI, +1 mHP - Maya's default growth +1 STA, +1 mHP, +1 STR - Edmund's default growth
...

Wait? There was supposed to be a default gain associated with each character?

Duh... whoops.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #354 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:32:52 pm »

(he wanted to add a Netham secret char who has stats set to reset to 1 every level

... bad iambian!)

Zera · « **Reply #355 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:45:46 pm »

Quote from: Iambian on March 30, 2010, 06:31:14 pm

Quote from: Zera on March 30, 2010, 12:44:48 pm
...
There's also a small set of default gains associated with each character. Regardless of what you have equipped, Maya always has a chance to gain a small amount of WIS. Examples:

+1 WIS, +1 AGI, +1 mHP - Maya's default growth +1 STA, +1 mHP, +1 STR - Edmund's default growth
...
Wait? There was supposed to be a default gain associated with each character?

Duh... whoops.

Err, what did you do? o_0

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #356 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:47:52 pm »

I am worried :O

Hoping it's nothing too hard to change, though

, but I guess that can happen ^^

Iambian · « **Reply #357 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:49:17 pm »

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 30, 2010, 06:32:52 pm

(he wanted to add a Netham secret char who has stats set to reset to 1 every level ... bad iambian!)

No way! Bad DJ! Bad bad DJ for expos... erh.

Getting back to the things, I've got it set up so any losses of any kind won't go below 5 for AGI, STR, WIS, and STA (in no particular order) and not below 10 for mHP. I may alter this if need be, but the lower limits are set. The upper limit is based on the rank of the monsters you are fighting.

ztrumpet · « **Reply #358 on:** March 30, 2010, 06:50:14 pm »

That sounds really cool! I'm glad this is progressing!

Iambian · « **Reply #359 on:** March 31, 2010, 11:17:42 am »

Can't take a cherry-flavoured dragon with a cactuar for an avatar seriously. No, wait. Really. Read that one aloud.

Just need to fix that one little routine, but the debug routine shows that you can correctly gain stats after the game eats the enemies. Except character-specific default gains. Still need to do that. Yes, Zera, I have the information in the design docs.

Then all that would need to be done is ... well. Handling item drops. And the liek. Gotta figure out how that will be done later (now).

Actually, now that I think about it, I might as well replace "DT Punch Bag" with "DT Netham45". Loads of HP, nonexistent everything else. No playable character cameo. Sorry.

If I had the space to do it, I probably *would* have a lobster sprite for that. If I wanted to add it in, it would only be accessible via Iambic Check's monster summon ability (coming soon!). Which means it would only be available to early beta testers. After all, the purpose of a punchbag is to determine how stat adjustments affect damage output and other conditions. Might have to go with a memory editor just for that purpose. Oh, gawd. How that would be insane. Might not do it. But who knows? </(e)ndlessrambling>

Author Topic: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth (Read 180419 times)

Zera

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

DJ Omnimaga

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

Zera

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

DJ Omnimaga

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

Zera

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

DJ Omnimaga

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

Zera

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

DJ Omnimaga

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

Iambian

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

DJ Omnimaga

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

Zera

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

DJ Omnimaga

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

Iambian

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

ztrumpet

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth

Iambian

Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth