|
TACTICS OGRE - DOUBLE U TEE EFF EDITION So emergency mini update because about an hour ago this happened as I was prepping to get captures for the SSLP. This a 14 minute video of the fight of our AI death bots beating King Roderick. Some spoilers for dialogue so if you really want to hold out for the official update feel free. https://youtu.be/DgcEd-wvsJg Aaaaah I have my pointer in the video, I'm so sorry!!!!! But why is this video 14 minutes long when Warren was dead in less than 2 minutes in the other videos I posted? The second time you play this battle, instead of Warren being his standard class, Astromancer, you can make him into any class you want. My theory was to make him into a ninja, give him no weapons, full defensive skills (dodge 4, sidestep 4, etc) give him field alchemy 4, and hope that he could tank with overpowered gear and excessive healing items until the cavalry came. My first attempt ended with Warren shoving doppleganger Don Quixote off a cliff comically before Deneb cooked him to a crisp. It's what I expected. I made a few adjustments to the party, got rid of some of the stronger magic users and went deep into my bench of good but not great characters. I figured the problem was that I just couldn't get a ninja with resistance high enough to withstand magic attacks. I load the battle up and say "Why not record this effort as well, there's certainly no way I'm going to get the AI to win this fight, but maybe I'll get a few funny moments to go back and check out when I'm doing actual work." I look over, after a few moments and Warren is hiding in the corner and the enemy AI is completely ignoring him. I'm not exaggerating, they might attack him twice in the entire video. It's like Warren puts on the Harry Potter cloak of invisibility and straight dips. Even when it looks like Warren is going in for suicide the enemy is like, nope, I'm going to go after those guys way across the chasm. It's utterly bizarre. My army takes a beating a couple dudes lose a heart, but the AI squad wins a battle I've been hyping up for months now because the enemy AI decides all of a sudden it doesn't care about Warren. I swear, there are no cheats enabled here, there are no hacks. This is 100% legitimate, and completely bizarre. In my many, many, hours of playing this game, I've never seen anything like this, and I had to share it as soon as I could. I'll add this video whenever I do the real update as well. But wow. loving wow. waah fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Mar 22, 2019 |
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 16:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 13:37 |
|
|
This LP and the unpleasant bits that we have seen started me thinking about a mod that I had heard of once. I couldn't remember the name, but I did some searching and eventually found what I was looking for: It's called One Vision and seeks to fix some of the more egregious problems with this otherwise fantastic game. It's not 100% done yet, but it's up to version 9.2 and seems to be still an active project, I hope, as it was updated this past October. Lower down on the page that I linked is a Google Drive post that hosts some spreadsheets about the mod and a very detailed readme. As far as I can tell, it does not change graphics nor story in the slightest and only seeks to comprehensively rebalance the game to help smooth over that which is tedious and also tone down things that can break the game utterly. I would be interested in hearing others' opinions, either on what they've read or experiences of those who have played this mod already. waah posted:TACTICS OGRE - DOUBLE U TEE EFF EDITION That was... a thing. I'm rather speechless.
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 19:52
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2019 22:20
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:This LP and the unpleasant bits that we have seen started me thinking about a mod that I had heard of once. I couldn't remember the name, but I did some searching and eventually found what I was looking for: It's called One Vision and seeks to fix some of the more egregious problems with this otherwise fantastic game. It's not 100% done yet, but it's up to version 9.2 and seems to be still an active project, I hope, as it was updated this past October. Lower down on the page that I linked is a Google Drive post that hosts some spreadsheets about the mod and a very detailed readme. As far as I can tell, it does not change graphics nor story in the slightest and only seeks to comprehensively rebalance the game to help smooth over that which is tedious and also tone down things that can break the game utterly. Tallgeese was talking about it a while back. They seemed really into it. waah's posting is making me want to play again 
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2019 02:05
|
|
|
tithin posted:Tallgeese was talking about it a while back. They seemed really into it. I have to admit that, as much as I enjoy the story, visuals and most of the mechanics in this game, seeing some of the really heinous bits and what waah has gone through has made me realise that, though I own a functional PSP, a retail copy of this game and even the huge official strategy guide for it, I could only play it via emulation with cheats. There are just too many things that I would like to do in it that are gated behind infuriating randomness, mind-numbing grind or design decisions that leave me slack-jawed at what some dev genuinely thought was a good idea. I often wonder how the SFC/PSX/SAT versions were, both the good and the infamous.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2019 03:25
|
|
|
Yeah I really like the PSX version despite its bugs and other bullshit and while the PSP version adds more stuff (the WORLD system in particular) I'd have to play a hacked-to-hell version if I ever touched it because it is so ridiculously grindy in numerous ways.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2019 04:44
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:I have to admit that, as much as I enjoy the story, visuals and most of the mechanics in this game, seeing some of the really heinous bits and what waah has gone through has made me realise that, though I own a functional PSP, a retail copy of this game and even the huge official strategy guide for it, I could only play it via emulation with cheats. There are just too many things that I would like to do in it that are gated behind infuriating randomness, mind-numbing grind or design decisions that leave me slack-jawed at what some dev genuinely thought was a good idea. I often wonder how the SFC/PSX/SAT versions were, both the good and the infamous. As someone who's played through most of the PSX version and all of the PSP version I don't like this take. The base game of the PSP Tactics Ogre is essentially perfect. Crafting can be a little rough, but to beat the self contained story as is, is about a perfect experience as you can imagine. You never *have* to take on any of the more ridiculous challenges for titles, the CHARIOT system is amazing for less experienced players, and the death system is so much more forgiving than the SFC version. The weird design decisions really only read their head when you need to min/max for some of the extreme challenges or content. My portion of the LP is by design to show the most awful and grindy parts of the game. For all intents and purposes you should be thinking of Roderick and Nybeth as you would super bosses in any other RPG. While there are bits of story gates behind the tactics ogre super bosses, no one dings the Final Fantasy series because you have to grind to all heck to beat the weapons or the dark aeon or Yizamat.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2019 14:28
|
|
|
waah posted:As someone who's played through most of the PSX version and all of the PSP version I don't like this take. I guess that we have to agree to disagree, then. I did perhaps overstate things, and I will concede that the base game is equipped with an excellent story and quite refined mechanics. However, I don't apologise for a harsh criticism of things like the highly random nature of rare drops or the tedium of the crafting system. Nothing gets better without coming to terms with its flaws, and one thing I dislike is things like unique weapons that only randomly drop if a certain mob randomly spawns in a huge dungeon that goes on for yonks. Gameplay rewards should be locked behind challenges, not challenges plus the fickle finger of fate. This is a pet peeve that I have held literally for decades and goes back to playing EverQuest at the turn of the millennium where a group could camp a rare mob that spawns randomly for hours, sometimes days, and then be thwarted when that mob didn't drop the item that they came to get. I realise that this was largely designed to extend the playtime of games in a cynical attempt to make more money off of monthly fees, so I maintain that it is unequiovocally bad design in a game for which one pays once and only once. As another example, many in this very thread have bemoaned the crafting system in this game and even shared cheats to get around the worst bits, so I think it fair to say that crafting is at least an area of concern. I will confess that my memory of some things is diluted as this LP has gone on for quite a while, but I stand confident in saying that most people would understand if I say that I as an admitted completionist/100%er type that I would probably only play this game on emulation with a few cheats and perhaps a sympathetic mod or two.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2019 18:47
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:I guess that we have to agree to disagree, then. I did perhaps overstate things, and I will concede that the base game is equipped with an excellent story and quite refined mechanics. However, I don't apologise for a harsh criticism of things like the highly random nature of rare drops or the tedium of the crafting system. Nothing gets better without coming to terms with its flaws, and one thing I dislike is things like unique weapons that only randomly drop if a certain mob randomly spawns in a huge dungeon that goes on for yonks. Gameplay rewards should be locked behind challenges, not challenges plus the fickle finger of fate. This is a pet peeve that I have held literally for decades and goes back to playing EverQuest at the turn of the millennium where a group could camp a rare mob that spawns randomly for hours, sometimes days, and then be thwarted when that mob didn't drop the item that they came to get. I realise that this was largely designed to extend the playtime of games in a cynical attempt to make more money off of monthly fees, so I maintain that it is unequiovocally bad design in a game for which one pays once and only once. As another example, many in this very thread have bemoaned the crafting system in this game and even shared cheats to get around the worst bits, so I think it fair to say that crafting is at least an area of concern. See this I can get behind. Its asinine for the game to have both rare drops and still also have the particular enemy not always show up. Having all drops helps and I don't think it would get across how awful it was if I did the post game with all drops cheat turned on. I probably should have come across gentler in my response, but the rose tinted glasses for the SFC/PSX version's way of doing things is a sore spot for me. With emulators and save states it's easy to forget how absolutely miserable the original version could be if you didn't try to break the game at every possible chance. For all the frustration of drops and crafting, they don't equal 1/100 of the frustration of having a party member permanently die to a lucky crit or a gremlin shoving them off a cliff and then having to restart a 45 minute long battle. As a completionist or power gamer, this game will drive you mad. But if the current post game was cobbled onto the old game system instead of the overhauled one we got, the CODA of Tactics Ogre would be virtually unplayable outside of cheats.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2019 19:15
|
|
|
waah posted:See this I can get behind. Its asinine for the game to have both rare drops and still also have the particular enemy not always show up. Having all drops helps and I don't think it would get across how awful it was if I did the post game with all drops cheat turned on. I hope that you haven't misunderstood me, waah, especially given my gratitude for your patience in seeing out the... let's call them "less-refined" parts of this game. I have no experience with the original versions of this game and no desire to play them as I am fully aware that those versions have even greater shortcomings. I just want it to be clear that this is not a case of rose-tinted glasses on my part whatsoever; I am merely commenting, albeit harshly, on the flaws of an otherwise splendid remake that is without a doubt superior to its predecessors. That said, it is indeed a remake and, naturally, it's much easier to do a better job the second time 'round. I also want to repeat that my understanding of the game's flaws is also blurred by the fact that this LP has been going for months and months, so I without a doubt can't articulate my concerns as well as I might have yonks ago when I was first exposed to the game's flaws. Having said all that, I maintain my position that nothing is perfect and that criticism is a powerful force for improvement, so it behoves us all to be honest about what could be better. An another note, does anyone have any suggestions on places to find a reasonably complete set of Game Genie/Action Replay codes for this game? Many have been posted in-thread, but it would be a chore to go back through the many posts and look for them. I am seriously considering starting a playthrough of this game with the not-quite-finished One Vision patch, but I may resort to a few codes if certain things prove too grating. I haven't made my mind up on this yet as One Vision is nearly done and I may decide to wait for a few months until it addresses some things, such as drops, that are still on the author's to-do list. If anyone is interested, there is a current and fairly active discussion about the mod here.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2019 20:57
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:I hope that you haven't misunderstood me, waah, especially given my gratitude for your patience in seeing out the... let's call them "less-refined" parts of this game. I have no experience with the original versions of this game and no desire to play them as I am fully aware that those versions have even greater shortcomings. I just want it to be clear that this is not a case of rose-tinted glasses on my part whatsoever; I am merely commenting, albeit harshly, on the flaws of an otherwise splendid remake that is without a doubt superior to its predecessors. That said, it is indeed a remake and, naturally, it's much easier to do a better job the second time 'round. I also want to repeat that my understanding of the game's flaws is also blurred by the fact that this LP has been going for months and months, so I without a doubt can't articulate my concerns as well as I might have yonks ago when I was first exposed to the game's flaws. Having said all that, I maintain my position that nothing is perfect and that criticism is a powerful force for improvement, so it behoves us all to be honest about what could be better. Followed the link, followed it again to and was very surprised to find a familiar image  I'm guessing the author reads this thread?
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2019 04:01
|
|
|
tithin posted:I'm guessing the author reads this thread? Probably, we Tactics Ogre fanatics tend to be devour any content we can get since we all know there will never be another game.  On brighter news, Ninja No Weapon Warren consistently works. Rodrick is dead and we have the screen shots to prove it. I don't think San Bronsa is necessary to finish CODA 3 and 4, so if there aren't any objections, I'm going to finish out the story, everyone will leave and then I'll finish out the most tedious bits of post game with no one ever reading the thread other than Tithin to update the OP every now and then. Now it's all dependent on when my kids sleep so that I can write these up! There is a light at the end of this tunnel for the CODA ladygoons and gentlegoons.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2019 13:53
|
|
|
waah posted:
This....so this. These portions of the game do not represent the game as a whole. 90-95% of the game is drat near perfect...the only issues are the crafting (which is totally skippable if so desired, and is only truly heinous at higher levels), and the post game fuckery. Sure, it's annoying that you might not get around to seeing some pretty decent extra story stuff (youtube baby  ) but that does not in any way reflect the absolute perfection that is the base game.I mean, I get why people would want to change their perceived faults within the game, or at the very least breathe new life into it...but at it's core, the game does not need any changes (outside of the crafting system maybe, the post-game is SUPPOSED to be pure fuckery so that get's a pass). Just my opinion. waah posted:Probably, we Tactics Ogre fanatics tend to be devour any content we can get since we all know there will never be another game. And now I'm sad 
mauman fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Mar 25, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2019 06:31
|
|
|
I forgot how amazing CODA 3 and 4 are and how much of a victory lap they are for you putting up with such bullshit. They're soooooo good. I'm gonna really try to bust my rear end to get these out in a somewhat timely fashion before I go back to the grind of doing a longer dungeon like San Bronsa. The battles of CODA 3 and 4 are basically you being a 6 year old kid playing with action figures throwing out cool as hell one liners and continually upping their power levels until your action figures are lesser gods. I'm so refreshed all of a sudden and I can't wait to show you guys this stuff.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2019 14:59
|
|
|
I'm glad that it's rekindled your passion for the game, but maybe you should weave those in while doing the more tedious stuff. It might help you stay fresh to do a bit of the fun stuff, go back to the less exciting parts, then come back to the fun bits etc. If you do all of the up-tempo bits now, you might go back to the other parts and burn out more quickly. Just a thought.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2019 16:59
|
|
|
WORLD EPISODE 14 – You Call This Archeology? First things first, let’s get some terrible photoshops out of the way.  Yes, that’s who you think it is, and for the rest of the LP you should read all of his lines in that person’s voice. If you can’t figure out who it is…  : I’ll take S-words for $400 Alex. And if you still can’t figure it out, the file name should give it away. Look, I gotta have a little fun sometimes. Where are we?  Right now, we are in the last hour or so of content for the CODA Chapter 2. As a very brief refresher, to get to this point, we’ve needed to complete the game along the Law path. Catiua needed to have survived, as well as the Xenobians: Canopus, Mirdyn, and Gilbert. The Palace of the Dead and all 100 floors needed to have been completed *BEFORE* beating the game, and then the completion of CODA Chapter 1. Then and only then are we able to progress the story through CODA Chapter 2 which involves, getting to through the secret floors of the Palace of the Dead and reaching floor 115. Once all of that is done, you’ll be caught up to where we are in this Let’s Play. Whew. Tactics Ogre is a game about preparation if nothing else. If you want to the best possible results, you’d better listen to your inner Alexander Graham Bell and believe that preparation is the key to success. The battle you are going to see in this update usually involves lots of time spent with the 5 stages of grief because you are at the mercy of the suicidal AI. You thought the Cistina fight was bad, this is that on steroids. As other posters have said, this fight takes all of the broken gear, equipment, and characters you’ve accumulated over the course of 100+ hours and uses them against you. However, we have one advantage this time that causes me to not have a meltdown which leads to me wanting Redrum in the worst way. I’ve mentioned it before, but the second time you do a story battle via WORLD mechanics, you can change the class and equipment of the guest character. This means if we were to go back to do the Cistina fight again, we could use her beefed-up stats and broken equipment to make her a whirling nightmare of yellow and rage. Which brings us to Warren, it’s time to prepare him for being on his own. I’ve saved as many skill points for him as a I could over the course of the game, and boosted his stats when I haven’t been trying to boost Catiua’ s. (You’ll see why Catiua’ s matters in a future update.  ). This is how Warren equipment and class before we decide to take on Rodrick.  He’s in his special class, standard power magic user build. In our last update, we saw how well that worked out for him. Let’s change that.  Warren, you’re a ninja. : Really Waah, you’re turning me into a Ninja?  : Hey it worked in Final Fantasy Tactics. When in doubt, ninja it out!: But I don’t even know how to use a katana. I’m slow, I’m old and I’m cranky. Do you hate me? : Ummmm… pancakes?: That doesn’t make any sense! This is my life we’re talking about and these Chaos Ga-  The plan here is to load up Warren with as much movement and defensive tech as we can. We’ll be stripping him of any way for him to make offensive attacks here* so that he focuses on healing himself and not Leroying into a cluster of angry Order of La Mancha troops. That means things like field alchemy IV, swiftfoot II, Dodge IV, Fortify IV, Sidestep IV, and Steelstance.    Roughly 8000 skill points later… Warren looks like this   : I feel better than I’ve felt in years! So light and airy! Right now, I feel like I can take on the whole Empire myself! : You do know what happened to the last guy who said that right? You’re not inspiring me with confidence right now Warren. But we aren’t done making Warren into something ridiculous yet. No, there’s still further levels to go.  The Crest of Fire is one of the items you get for beating CODA 2. It might be the most overpowered item in the game. It reduces your equipment weight by 10, and increases all base stats by 10, in addition to raising your HP and MP.  Slap a few more items on him, and voila, we’ve got a version of Warren that just might live long enough for us to rescue him.  Notice his RT is 74. In most cases, unless you’ve got a cursed weapon, even the fastest characters are in the mid-80s. Warren is the equivalent of a hot rod. Here’s how Canopus is currently fit out. He’s a little slow with all the gear I have on him, but he’s sitting at a 100.  But Canopus can’t go into the battle like this. His 3 hit crossbow finisher will one shot Warren and we’ll have game over and my blood pressure will spike and I’ll begin to see red and…   : Alright, I’m ready! Let’s go take down Rodrick reseal this Chaos Gate that we’re going to open because Don Quixote is an idiot for listening to strange voices. : Oh we’ve still got more prep work to do Warren. Hang on.We go back up to floor 103 in the Palace of the Dead to the shop.  And we CRAFT!!!!  We make all the Herbal Extracts. All of them.  So that we can make some mending seeds +1s into…  Mending seeds +2s so that we can  Make them into mending seeds +3!!!!! Yeah! Each mending seed +3 heals for 200 HP. But you can’t just make a Mending Seed 3. You have to do 4 separate steps to craft into a Mending Seed 3. So it’s going to suck, but we’ll make a bunch of them and be done right?  gently caress no. We are taking no chances. We need to make some mending salves +2.   They heal 75% of all HP, that should be good enough. But wait, if Warren dies, that’s game over. We’d better upgrade those to Mending Essences. So we need to buy a bunch more herbs to make a bunch more herbal extracts.  And finally, after grinding out and crafting 7 of these the legit way, we’re done.   “Waah, why didn’t you just use cheats?” : Because the CODA of Tactics Ogre is supposed to hurt. If it’s not hurting and causing you pain, you aren’t playing it right. Please dear God use as many cheats as you can if you do this on your own, you can’t possibly hate yourself as much as I do. Now, there’s one last thing to do. Don Quixote *CANNOT* have Vaintela’s Talon’s equipped. Everything I did, will be for nothing if he just walks up and almost one shots Warren anyways. So, he’ll get the good, but not broken Trueno’s Scales that we “liberated” from the Dark Knight Andoras. This is the point where I realize, we’re 4 pages into this update already and not a single sword has been swung. I apologize, but I hope that seeing all the prep that goes into this fight sells you on how seriously I take it, and all the bullshit you can expect. But enough stalling, as a wise man named Destin once said:  We send in mostly a group of my good but not broken characters.  We pass over a few bits from the last update to start the battle again. Blah blah chaos gate. Blah blah Brynhildr. Blah blah awesomeness  More awesomeness  More awesomeness  Aaaand scene: Rodrick begins the fight by summoning doppelgangers.   We only need to defeat Rodrick, just as the case was with King Dorgalua. The doppelgangers don’t drop any loot, only tarot cards.  We needed naked Canopus because he has lines of dialogue.  Warren is so incredibly far away from us. Sigh. : I was already freeing myself from the chaos gate. : Well you were taking your sweet time, you were gone a whole scale, old man! that’s our favorite hothead.: An entire scale is that how long it’s been on the surfaceI can’t find any definitive answer to how long a scale is supposed to be. I think it’s a year, but there’s no definitive answer I can find on the internet.  : Time must flow differently here and on the surface. Time Kompression here we come! Square let’s put Squall and Rinoa in Tactics Ogre 3: The SEED of Destiny.  : Pull it together, or it’s all our hides!  : And we’ve Don Quixote to thank.  … wait wat?   MODS!!!!!!! : He was bent on helping you out, and who can blame him?  : Which is why we needed you to keep us safe, old man. So finally, everyone stops talking to pay attention to the fact that there is a murderous undead king who wants nothing more than to escape and ruin the entire world. Here’s Rodrick.  That Ogre Blade is really nice. I sure hope it drops for us.    Standard descriptions and notes here, nothing we didn’t already know.  He doesn’t have any absurd or unique magic either.   Something to note here, Rodrick doesn’t have Deathproof like the Shrine Guardians and Lanselot Tartaros has. You can absolutely hit him with status effect magic if you feel like wasting your time and potentially more turns. I just wonder if this is intentional by the devs to show how much more powerful Lanselot is than even this guy, or if it’s just an oversight. There are a few things to note about this fight. This pit is 4 units wide. Meaning you need units that can move 5 or more spaces to just get right into the thick of battle. However, those Stonehenge-like blocks prevent you from overloading units directly into the fray and it’ll take a while to really get through. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that if Warren dies, it’s instant game over.  The uneven terrain on the approach to Warren is narrow and can really slow down your units as well. Nothing about this fight is stacked in your favor.  It’s time to abuse the system. Now is the time to use up all of those Wheel of Fortune tarot cards you’ve been hording the entire game. The Wheel of Fortune card gives your units Blinkwalk which will allow them to cross the chasm to engage in glorious battle.    : What is that?: King Rodrick. A king of Brigantys. He fought with Dorgalua in The Great War.  : His body is long since turned to dust.: I mean, uhh.. he’s right in front of us going on and on about vengeance and he seems kiiiiinda pissed. Doesn’t look like dust to me.  From here on out, assume anyone important is getting blink walk to get across that pit.  Yeah remember how I said this battle uses your cool stuff against you? That’s not the good guys using the Gran Grimoire to inflict pain. Warren takes a shot from Catiua, but he’s still got about 400 health. We’re doing okay so far.   I bet you guys completely forgot that Mirdyn exists huh? He’s still here, taking up space.  He’s such a grumpy old man.  : Perhaps I was wrong to confide in you after all. The fight continues, and you’ll notice something… odd.  Why is everyone ignoring Warren?  What in the literal hell is happening here?  : Rodrick used forbidden magics in attempt to achieve victory. When he died, his spirit lingered on in the world above, until it was drawn to this place.Remember, the whole “Can you handle the Apocrypha and forbidden magics?” question that could lock you out of the elemental shrine quest? This is what everyone is worried that we will turn into by going after them. This is why your chaos frame jumps up several points with the entire population of the Valerian Isles if you refuse because you aren’t being *THIS* guy. : The dark took him and the hatred within his soul. I mean I wouldn’t mind seeing Warren as an Ogre or a bad guy. I’m sure he’d make a great vessel for the return of Rashidi.   Inflicting breached on Rodrick can’t hurt. It probably didn’t help either.  Here’s the above shot so you can see how far of a gap we you have to be able to close go from the starting area to where the doppelgangers and Rodrick are. As the battle rages on, see if you can spot anything weird about this screen shot.   Turns out even as overpowered as he is, Don Quixote can’t face tank an entire army by himself. So, the Mending essences that I thought would be needed by Warren, gets chucked at Don Quixote. Turns out being able to heal up 100% of your health all at once is kind of good.  We continue to whittle down Rodrick as you start to see more and more of our army cross the gap.  Rodrick decides it’s a good time to monologue.     However, even though this is mostly our B and C teams, they still are how do you say it… uhh really loving powerful?  We use our Gran Grimoire when it’s actually useful unlike the scrub AI who used it too early. Notice, that there’s no chance for friendly fire.   It ends up taking out doppelganger Azelstan, seriously wounding Rodrick, and putting the hurt on Rudlum.  This next screenshot, look at it closely. Guys, I’m not gonna lie. This screenshot was terrifying.  I shrieked like the teenage girl in a bad slasher film. I'm not kidding, it was an actual sound of terror that came out of my mouth. I didn’t get a good shot of it because I wasn’t expecting it to happen. Warren got tired of hiding in the corner and decided to bum rush Canopus and shove him with a shield. *This is why there was an asterisk around "no way for Warren to make offensive attacks" much further up. Azlestan’s down, for the count, and now Warren is charging doppelgangers, well it’s about time to reload this battle. But instead of nuking Warren, doppelganger Catiua decides to go after my army. I begin to admit I have no clue what this game is doing or what even is going on.  But finally, with Warren way off in lala-land, we get to end this fight the only way it should end: with an overpowered finishing move from Don Quixote.     FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF no Ogre Blade. At some point I have to do this all over again so that I can show how stupid the Ogre Blade is. I’ll be doing that with cheats though when the time finally comes.  Before we get going with the post-fight cut scenes, I find it absolutely hilarious that Don Quixote is still poisoned in the cutscene. That is all.   : What’s your name?   My assumption here is the “It” is the King Rodrick revenant we just killed.   : IT’S A BIT loving LATE TO BE ASKING THIS RIGHT NOW DON QUIXOTE! I JUST CRAFTED FOR 45 loving MINUTES AND YOU CAN’T THINK TO ASK WARREN IF HE CAN CLOSE THE CHAOS GATE BEFORE YOU GO GETTING INTO FIGHTS???????  …   : I feel it would be impolite for a Xenobian to participate in the procession. That is to say, if you truly want for us to attend, you should extend the same offer to Lodis. Only if both Xenobia and Lodis stand in attendance at the crowing of Queen Versalia will your independence be true. If only one attends, the other will perceive it as a slight.  : Do you think Lodis would accept, were we to extend our invitation: That they would. Lodis is a proud country. They would not decline an invitation to a coronation. If they come, we will be only too happy to attend.  : Whatever happens, Don Quixote, know we will always be friends to Valeria. Give our thanks to Catiua.  : Thank you, Warren. Canopus.  : You owe us a visit! And - You should see the land Lanselot risked his life to build with your own eyes.   CODA 2: Fin. This LP is only covering the Law path. Helmet 10 Warehouse had an amazing LP that burnt out mid chapter 4 Chaos, and no one has bothered to even do the neutral path. San Bronsa is on the horizon.  The 12 Heavenly Generals still await. There are rumors of Blackmoor in the depths of the Palace of the Dead. The last two chapters of the CODA with their utterly insane story telling still have mysteries and revelations for us. There are tons of unique weapons and equipment from floors 101-114 of the Palace of the dead that we haven’t seen. Heck, there’s still an item that you can only get at steal level 3 or higher that we haven’t been able to snag yet.  What I’m saying is that the post-game is *MASSIVE* and we’ve still got a considerable chunk left. I’ll put up a vote next week on what you guys want to hit next even though I have a good idea of what that’ll be. Thanks for hanging along for the ride. CODA 2 CODA: When I first picked up the LP last year, my save file looked like this.  As of beating Rodrick, this is what we look like.  Thanks for sticking along for the ride. I promise y’all we’re finishing this thing waah fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Apr 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2019 19:45
|
|
|
Congrats man. I don't think I could do Coda 2 ever again.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2019 22:40
|
|
|
Good lord that's... that's the hard part done, right? >_>
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 00:26
|
|
|
So can anyone explain what kind of AI fuckery went on when the overwhelming enemy army deliberately ignored the squishy wizard who is the linchpin of this whole mission?
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 01:07
|
|
|
I will never understand why programmers can't write an AI that at least tells those characters to "run close to your allies" or, just to make it loving simple, let the player control them. I was just looking at mods for Final Fantasy Tactics and most of them specifically said "The player can now control guest characters!". I understand fully the need for an '!' there.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 02:22
|
|
|
Man, I've decided I wanna play one vision, but I cannot be arsed digging out my vita, getting it charged, checking the firmware to see if it's hacked, relearning how to update it, mod the iso, transfer the iso just so much loving effort.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 02:29
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:I will never understand why programmers can't write an AI that at least tells those characters to "run close to your allies" or, just to make it loving simple, let the player control them. I was just looking at mods for Final Fantasy Tactics and most of them specifically said "The player can now control guest characters!". I understand fully the need for an '!' there. The best guess I have is that he got made so tanky that someone else was always the squishier target. The ai doesn't seem to prioritize people you need to defend, hence the naked vice strats.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 02:30
|
|
|
tithin posted:Man, I've decided I wanna play one vision, but I cannot be arsed digging out my vita, getting it charged, checking the firmware to see if it's hacked, relearning how to update it, mod the iso, transfer the iso I'm not blaming you. I'm probably going to wait until version 1.0 is out, but I am only going to play out on emulation because I, too, cannot be arsed. Also, I want access to cheats, even with a comprehensive mod. FoolyCharged posted:The best guess I have is that he got made so tanky that someone else was always the squishier target. The ai doesn't seem to prioritize people you need to defend, hence the naked vice strats. You're right; I remember that from early in the LP. I maintain that just letting the player control them is the simplest (and most humane) option.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 03:09
|
|
|
Shitenshi posted:So can anyone explain what kind of AI fuckery went on when the overwhelming enemy army deliberately ignored the squishy wizard who is the linchpin of this whole mission? I have theories based on lots of messing with the friendly AI, and that is Naked unit = enemy AI going nuts to kill it. Warren the way he is, is such low percentages to hit with physical attacks (which is why you see few magic users that aren't slow as sin) is a poor target for the AI since it can just go a turn longer and get guaranteed hits. Magic does not follow this rule and you can't make a ninja's resistance high enough to be tanky vs magic. AI casters are weird with percentages which is why you see them continually trying to land that 3% status effect magic. Part of it is probably a holdover from the PSX version where status effect magic was absolutely deadly. The magic reason is why Deneb was not in this version of the battle. She would eat Warren alive every time no matter how much I gimped her. The last part of it, is that the AI will retaliate almost on a MMO level as far as aggro goes. When Warren has magic, hes almost always bee-lining for the enemy and then firing off spells a turn or two before any of your guys even get there. This ends with a very dead Warren. None of what I did, (other than naked Canopus) helps when you have to do this fight for real. tithin posted:Good lord Depends on what you call hard. If you plan on doing the most corner case bullshit item stacking to get skills on characters that shouldn't normally have them, then no. We are only just beginning. If you mean story wise, yes. San Bronsa is tough, but it's loving beautiful and a blast to play even though it breaks your balls. The other two CODA chapters are short and sweet, but really loving dense and are written as a love letter to the long time fans. The hard part with them will be to do them justice for how amazing they are. mauman posted:Congrats man. I hope I never have to do CODA 2 again. But as we can all see, I am all about bad decisions. waah fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Mar 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 03:33
|
|
|
Absolute madman.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 03:57
|
|
|
waah posted:I mean I wouldn’t mind seeing Warren as an Ogre or a bad guy. I’m sure he’d make a great vessel for the return of Rashidi. Something I always thought was funny is you could turn Warren into a Lich in the original Ogre Battle. It didn't require any death mechanic, so it didn't change any requirements for the good ending. Heck, it was the optimal because he was just a wizard back then; none of this prestige class nonsense.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 17:36
|
|
|
Has anyone any thoughts on Knights of Lodis on GBA? I bought that years ago from a pawn shop for some trifling sum and just now remembered that I had a copy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 18:36
|
|
|
Andyzero posted:Something I always thought was funny is you could turn Warren into a Lich in the original Ogre Battle. It didn't require any death mechanic, so it didn't change any requirements for the good ending. Heck, it was the optimal because he was just a wizard back then; none of this prestige class nonsense. In my experience the hard part was always getting the ring before he became too evil to use it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 18:40
|
|
|
Yeah that was the difficulty of Mages, they had a 10-35 ALI range when just about every other evil class had a 0 to <50 ALI requirement. Given the ludicrous overpowering of the Lich class though, that may have been intentional instead of just an oversight.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 19:14
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:Has anyone any thoughts on Knights of Lodis on GBA? I bought that years ago from a pawn shop for some trifling sum and just now remembered that I had a copy. I played it years ago. I remember liking it but I was in gotta catch them all mode and followed a gameFAQ The whole time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 19:34
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:Has anyone any thoughts on Knights of Lodis on GBA? I bought that years ago from a pawn shop for some trifling sum and just now remembered that I had a copy. Knight of Lodis owns. There isn't a branching story line like LUCT, but KoL is a great game on it's own. There are two problems with it. #1 is that it's sloooooooooooow. I don't think I could play a non emulated version without the option to speed it up in 2019. #2 is that the turn based system is different and having your whole team take a turn and then their whole team take a turn (a la Xcom or Warhammer 40k) is a bit jarring at first. There are people who say the story sucks and isnt on the same level as Tactics Ogre, but when we talk about CODA 3 and 4, I am going to be going into spoilers about Knight of Lodis and how the CODA intentionally draws some parallels between the two games. For all the hate about KoL not being canon, the CODA seems to sure think so.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 20:59
|
|
|
waah posted:Knight of Lodis owns. There isn't a branching story line like LUCT, but KoL is a great game on it's own. I will keep the speed thing in mind. My hands are so large that playing any portable that can run GBA carts is uncomfortable (I do well enough with a 3DS XL), so would probably emulate it. That lends itself well to acceleration. I've played the early Ogre Battle games, namely March of the Black Queen and OB64, a fair bit and they just didn't click for me. The only one I've really been keen on is LUCT for the PSP, whose predecessors on the SFC/PSX/SAT I have never played and never will because they are faffy as gently caress. Knights of Lodis seems very charming and reminds me of Let Us Wrap Ourselves in Cling Film - The Rewrapping, so I might have a go at it while I wait for One Vision to be completed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 21:21
|
|
|
Wonderslug posted:In my experience the hard part was always getting the ring before he became too evil to use it. The solution to all early game alignment problems in MotBQ is holy weapon + Pogrom Forest neutral encounters. A few fights should be enough of a buffer to get a wizard to lvl 10 without having their Ali go under 10. Plus, you might find a Staff or Ring to help make that Lich lol.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 22:12
|
|
|
While we wait for waah to summon up the courage to continue, would anyone care to sound off, as specifically as possible, in the differences, apart from visual of course, between the original LUCT and the PSP remake? As frustrating as the remake can be, the BS factor in the original is even more pronounced from all reports. I assume that there are not any significant functional differences between the SFC/PSX/SAT ports of the game (apart from possibly language), but I would enjoy knowing about it and perhaps waah would find it cathartic to be reminded that things could indeed be much worse.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2019 00:56
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:While we wait for waah to summon up the courage to continue, would anyone care to sound off, as specifically as possible, in the differences, apart from visual of course, between the original LUCT and the PSP remake? As frustrating as the remake can be, the BS factor in the original is even more pronounced from all reports. I assume that there are not any significant functional differences between the SFC/PSX/SAT ports of the game (apart from possibly language), but I would enjoy knowing about it and perhaps waah would find it cathartic to be reminded that things could indeed be much worse. There would be WAY to many differences. It's like trying to compare Risk to Risk legacy. There are superficial similarities, but the differences are so massive that it would take way too much to list. Bare bones - items had to be carried by the person (competing with equipment). btw, max of 4 items or equipment. Death was more or less permanent till about 2/3 through the game (and even then it's still a massive threat), none of this 3 heart plus a few turns of grace bollocks. class system was very basic. Certain classes got bonuses to certain weapons or could use certain spells, and determined stat growth, and that's pretty much it. Alignment was WAY more important, determined what classes you could pick and had a hand in certain magic use. Also, certain alignment/class combos were a trap. Never make a neutral character a priest. On a side note, Princess was stupidly strong (instead of just ok), and Lord was a joke in comparison (instead of the best class in the game). Don't get me started on the elemental system. mauman fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Apr 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2019 04:14
|
|
|
mauman posted:items had to be carried by the person (competing with equipment). btw, max of 4 items or equipment. Pardon my stereotype, but bloody hell that's awful. Having individual item bags I would be okay with, but having such a strict limit is bollocks. It make's the 8 slots for gear and items per character of the early Dragon Warrior games sound almost generous.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2019 04:44
|
|
|
JustJeff88 posted:Pardon my stereotype, but bloody hell that's awful. Having individual item bags I would be okay with, but having such a strict limit is bollocks. It make's the 8 slots for gear and items per character of the early Dragon Warrior games sound almost generous. It's very rare to wear 4 pieces of equipment, since that much equipment would make you stupidly slow. So you usually had at least 1 spot available for a healing item or an mp item if a mage. So it was bad, but not as bad as you might think. Oh, another big one is that you could only equip a small amount of spells. True spellcasters could only have like 3 (maybe 4, can't remember the exact numbers) spells. Secondary spellcasters could have only 1 (2?). Also, exorcists were NOT male clerics. They were similar, but generally worse....except when the undead came out in force (the beginning, neutral path (ewww), and long-rear end-bonus dungeon time (but there are better options at that point). Also, dual wielding had issues, and would usually get you killed. So ninja and sword masters were not good classes, at least till you realized that sword masters have access to stat magic and stat magic is based on dex.... Which can lead to some interesting shenanigans if you give Harborym petrify magic Of course, sword masters now suck for real
mauman fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Apr 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2019 06:17
|
|
|
On the other hand, boy were Virtue swords absolutely awesome. Lightsabers with near-impenetrable block!
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2019 06:23
|
|
|
Oh, here was a big one that's important from recent updates.... Forbidden magic, the magic the jackass we just fought used? It was the real deal rather than the "just a slightly larger spell radius" spell. As such I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't turn the shaman sisters into shamans. They're generally better off with their original classes (you can still do the side missions though, I think). It hit EVERYTHING on the map. And I do mean EVERYTHING. The enemy? Hit. Your guys? Hit. That jackass enemy that hid in the very corner of the map about 40 tiles away? Hit. And Dragon Magic Was Forbidden magic WITHOUT the friendly fire. Do the math. The light dragon magic in particular was stupidly good as it also acted as an exorcist spell. As a side note, as mentioned, dex determined spell accuracy for stat magic. Witches and Warlocks (the normal stat magic users) didn't have particularly good dex making them not particularly good at it. Warlocks could use dragon magic though give those bad boys to Catiua instead mauman fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Apr 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2019 06:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 13:37 |
|
|
Armor was more or less useless since it slowed you down so much in SFC Tactics Ogre. The defensive boosts offered were minimal at best, and speed here wasn't just determined by the agility stat, it was also determined by weight. It was usually best to leave characters completely defenseless in terms of equipment, and just give them weapons, accessories and items. For this reason, ninja and swordmasters were actually viable melee combat options if you followed such a strategy, and not just useful for slinging magic from the back. Enemy melee soldiers were usually completely decked out in armor and prone to missing on a regular basis. For that reason, agility was the most useful stat, since it didn't have an upgrade tarot card. It was a popular strategy to level up melee characters as ninja first, then upgrade them into whatever endgame class you want. Presance for some reason, had unnaturally good stats for an exorcist, to the point that it was recommended to not use him as a wizard at all and instead turn him into a ninja/sword master type. You can recruit anyone, anytime, so long as they're not the Dark Knights, bosses, zombies, or the palette swapped generic enemies in the Palace of the Dead and the Hanging Gardens. Meaning you could have gotten ghosts and skeletons as soon as Krysaro if you wanted, and holy poo poo, using them is tantamount to cheating. The enemy AI has some kind of script which sends them at a beeline to constantly attack your undead party members. Considering they constantly revive after a set number of turns, it's very convenient. They don't scale well relative to endgame characters but they stay useful in spite of that. Also the item limit isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. You do have a massive inventory pile to choose from, it's just that what you bring into battles is determined by how you outfit your individual characters for each battle. On another note, anyone can use any weapon. It might not be their preferred weapon, but they can still use any weapon. Using a class's preferred weapon gave them a small stat boost to their attacks, and if the weapon was an element that matched with the user's, then there was another stat boost. This made dual wielding characters ridiculously useful since the bonuses stack up. I don't think there were any female dual wielding classes though which brings me to... Males and females had gender divided classes. Those in turn were divided by a character's alignment. Terror Knights' fear aura only really worked on Law characters, worked halfway on neutral characters, and IIRC, didn't work at all on chaotic characters. It was also a passive ability. Some of the tougher Law enemies like Tartaros who was a monster in the original could be reduced to wet paper if you surrounded him with Terror Knights. But if you wanted to become one? poo poo, you had to kill thirty enemies with said character over the span of the game, and it keeps track of each character's kill score. So when the Neutral route plot unique Terror Knight joined, he had a kill score of zero and if you changed him to another class? You gotta grind him back up if you ever want to turn him back into a Terror Knight. By the same token, priests also had a limit on their kill score. If your prospective character had killed too many people but they met the stat requirements, they still couldn't change class to priests. Gunners were a one way street. Once you became one, you couldn't change back. Same went for unique characters like Deneb, whichever of the sisters you decided to turn into a shaman (so warrior types like Cerya and possibly Cistina if you trained her that way were SOL), Vice, the White Knights, Princess Catiua, Canopus, Ganpp, Lord Don Quixote if you decided to go that route and even Haborym who refused to change out of his generic sword master class. Exorcists could immediately wipe out undead on the spot, none of this knock em out and then disintegrate them. Divine Knights were the only class that could actually heal your undead characters, and to get them, a female character of sufficiently high level had to be killed, and would then revive. The character's previous "life" is still counted as a permanent casualty though. I remember the first time I saw it happen to Olivya before I had internet, I was so surprised and didn't understand what the hell just happened. I thought it was a pseudo-plot event, but nope, checked the Warren Report and she was straight up dead! Reset after that one. Liches for some dumbfuck reason, despite having to go out of your way to get them by killing a generic male character of sufficient stats while wearing an undead ring, cannot use Draconic Magic at all and have nothing to make them stand out. They're virtually comparable to Sirens, an advanced generic female class you can get simply by leveling up. Here's a big drawback for the original that has thankfully been remedied by some SFC ROM hacks out there: Only humans and dragons could change classes. All other nonhumans were restricted to their base "class," and fixed stat growths. When the later generic humans classes could both change classes AND use magic, yeah...even the best nonhumans like the lizardmen were still at a disadvantage compared to lategame party members, and especially plot uniques like Vice and Haborym who could dual-wield in addition to being straight up badasses all on their own. Even the SFC Lord which is definitely NOT worth trading SFC Princess Catiua for, someone who has the ability to use any magic and so can be customized into whatever magic demi-god you want her to be, still has the ability to dual-wield if you REALLY want Don Quixote to be a dual wielding badass and you're not playing Law, since sword masters were only available to Law classes and Don Quixote's alignment changed to match whatever path you were on. But keeping in mind with agility being the most useful stat, fairies and gremlins were unbelievably useful. Give them a bow and they're glorified glass cannons, especially with their unique magic abilities. And speaking of dragons, all the large characters like dragons/beasts couldn't use projectiles. Needless to say, they're WAY more useful in this version. I remember Brantyn had a bitchin unique holy element sword that he dropped when you fight him but he's still a goddamn squishy wizard and why they gave it to him still boggles my mind. He never uses it, instead preferring to stay in the back and summon Divine Knight reinforcements or attack you with holy magic. On another semi-trivial note, Arycelle never joined on the Law path, only chaos. Even if you didn't kill her in the fight with Vice at Rhime, she still never shows up again. And for reasons that are somewhat spoilery she is flat out unavailable in neutral. Roderick is still chillin in the Palace of the Dead, this time he's just some old ghostly sword sensei who teaches special attacks to your characters as you get deeper, who aside from Canopus and the Dark Knights, have none.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2019 08:13
|
|