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Quackles posted:Interestingly, the member of the Anti Crew that is likely to be the most trouble to deal with is the Anti Medi Guy in the back. You'll see why when I detail the Crew's stats in the next episode. Oh my poo poo, I can only imagine. 
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Nov 30, 2019 13:20
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chitoryu12 posted:This might be the first game I've seen that's completely against grinding. Pokemon Reborn. If your Pokemon goes above a certain level, they stop obeying. Unlike Paper Mario, nothing gives zero exp, so you're absolutely likely to get your Pokemon to suddenly stop obeying in the middle of important fights.
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Nov 30, 2019 18:06
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That Anti Squad is one of the two fights in this game I never beat in last version. (I still haven't gotten around to trying this one, and I'm not sure when I will; I've currently been distracted by Pokemon, among other things.) The other was a postgame superboss. I've seen some interesting strategies for it, it is in fact beatable, but you more or less need to do some very specific things. I managed to get through it using heavy savestate abuse to get the results I wanted from things like Kooky Cookies and Stopwatches, but that didn't feel fair so I didn't keep the save file I did that on (I mainly did that to verify the reward was still Power Plus). I still don't have a good idea of what strategy I'd try on a more legitimate attempt. I don't really mind that fight being ridiculous because (well, at least last version) it was clear the rest of the game content wasn't balanced expecting you to have the Power Plus, so it's strictly a bonus challenge you can attempt whenever. As for the prevention of grinding, honestly, that was a feature in the original game (enemies stop giving Star Points as you get higher levelled relative to them) and I'm glad the hack doesn't upend that too much. It would probably make them scale the difficulty much worse if you could have more HP and/or BP than expected at any given point...
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Nov 30, 2019 22:12
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Bruceski posted:The Elder Scrolls games, I'm not sure if it's all or just some of them but enemies scale with level. The problem is that they scale to keep pace with someone pumping combat stats so if you spread your focus around you start falling behind. It started with Oblivion, who also implemented it the worst. In Morrowind you were just liable to get a Golden Saint or whatever to the face if you went the wrong way. Nothing so idiotic as random bandits in full daedric/glass armor.
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Dec 3, 2019 13:45
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Part 25: Saving Private Tayce   Music: The World Revolving (Shy Guy Orchestra) I made this remix for this moment. It doesn’t appear in the game, sadly, but may you enjoy.  I can do anything!♠ This is an Anti Guy. His attacks are so intense that he’s also called Deadly Guy. Like other Shy Guys, he will do a sneak attack if we block his first hit. But if you don’t block his attack, you’ll be shrunk for a while! I guess whether or not to block is based on your strategy. Do you take less damage, or more damage? I bet there’s a way to do both, though. But how?We’ve seen Anti Guy before. He attacks for 16 damage, then again for 10 if his first attack was blocked. All his attacks inflict a long-duration Shrink. That’s about it. Anti Guy is 40% weak to Shrink, which lasts 1 turn less on him. He is 20% weak to Stop, Dizzy, and Sleep, which last for 2 turns less. He’s also 20% weak to Paralyze, but lasts for 3 turns less - practical immunity.  Hee, hee, having fun? Join the club!♣ This is a 007 Guy. A seriously blacked-out camo Shy Guy. Also known as James Bond Guy. They're fitted with some light combat armor and swing their hammers with extreme prejudice. Their aim with a slingshot is perfect. They will hit you no matter where or how you hide. So I guess you have to decide which is worse; hammer or slingshot?007 Guy has 3 Defense, and attacks twice when using his hammer. The hammer does 8 damage, and removes your commands if you don’t block. Meanwhile, his slingshot pierces invisibility and does 12 damage, and inflicts a 6-turn Shrink. All of 007 Guy’s attacks have a 5-frame randomization, and he’s immune to Zap Tap. 007 Guy is 45% weak to Shrink, which lasts 1 turn less on him. He is 20% weak to Paralyze and Stop, which also last for 1 turn less.  These curtains are really on fire!♦ This is an Inferno Guy. An elite warrior that cloaks himself in a white fire. It burns intensely, but it's still fire, so water should do the trick. These hotheads do some extreme damage! Better work 'em over before they bring the heat. Say, what do you think the gold color in the fire is? Is their fire just that special?Inferno Guy attacks for 18 damage. Ouch! He takes 2 extra damage from water and ice attacks, and 1 extra damage from explosions. Inferno Guy is 40% weak to Shrink, which lasts 1 turn less on him. He is 20% weak to Stop, which lasts for 2 turns less. He is 10% weak to Sleep, Dizzy, and Paralyze, which last for 1 turn less.  Who keeps spinning the world around?★ This is a Dandy Guy. What a spiffy looking guy! Too bad they're super evil. They make you dizzy with their dancing, or they might do a triple kick in your face. There's no way to tell, so try to prepare for the kick, since the startup is the same. They're elite dancers, but their real claim to fame is the outfits. Or maybe that's just my opinion.Dandy Guy’s triple kick does 5 damage, 3 times. His dizzy spin Dizzies Mario for 1 turn, and debuffs Mario’s Defense by 1 for the rest of the fight (like Lee’s air toss). Dandy Guy is immune to Zap Tap, as well as Star-elemental damage (Star Storm and the Shooting Star item will bounce off him). Because Malpractice Guy is above him, he can’t be jumped on until Malpractice Guy is removed. Thankfully, Dandy Guy does not summon anybody, though dummied-out enemy profiles he could summon do exist. Dandy Guy is 45% weak to Stop, which lasts 2 turns less on him. He is 20% weak to Sleep and Paralyze, which last for 1 turn less.  Please, it’s just a simple chaos.♥ This is a Malpractice Guy. They're Medi Guys who trained in causing diseases, not just curing them. Their attacks will poison us, and their hovercar is immune to being shocked by the likes of a Volt Shroom. I wonder if they’ve even been to a real med school. I bet they haven’t.Malpractice Guy has 3 Defense. He attacks for 6 damage, and is immune to Zap Tap. His attack inflicts 3 turns of Poison. After he attacks, he’ll either heal one party member for 12 or all party members for 6. Malpractice Guy is 50% weak to Dizzy, which lasts a normal amount of time. He is 25% weak to Shrink, which lasts a normal amount. He’s also 25% weak to Paralyze, but it lasts for 2 turns less on him. He is 20% weak to Stop, which lasts for 1 turn less. https://lioncheese.com/AntiGuyDustup.mp4  As you’d expect, our doom is swift at hand.  When we come to, well— it’s time to take the train! We will be leaving the Anti Crew fight until much, much later in the game, so it’s time to get back on our current goal: helping out poor Tayce T.   The track’s torn up to the left, so we have to ride the train going right, to Pink Station. We can set the train’s direction by jumping on the switches at the stations.   And off we go!    Pink Station! Pink Station! There’s the switch to change tracks. I have to admit, this Toy Box is a pretty cool place. If I told Goombaria about this, I’m sure she would be so jealous.Pink Station has paths leading to the left and right, too - and the track is torn up, so we can’t go on until we hit that big lever on the far left. Which way should we go?  The train station attendant gives us a crucial clue! We’ll need to get the Frying Pan from the path on the right side before we can get to the lever.  Before we head out, there’s a hidden Star Piece in this room…  And a chest that has the Post Office’s missing Mailbag.  In this room, a big block structure is in the background. This part of the room is new in Master Quest.    We could climb the blocks for a Super Shroom, but our inventory is full (the Dried Fruit we grabbed to fight the Anti Guy) so we leave it be. Instead, we grab a few Coins lower down.   We fight a Sky Guy a little ways on, using our normal tactics.   It turns out there was a Star Piece hidden behind the big block structure! We nab it.  Further in, the path splits into two levels; lower and upper. (This archway was where the room started in the original game.) There appears to be no obvious way to get up there…   Until we spin-jump on a jack-in-the-box by a wall and it launches us up there!   We first head to the left, where we saw a chest; but end up ambushed by a Sky Guy. This one has a Spy Guy and Medi Guy in tow, creating quite the formidable formation.    Parakarry Air Lifts the Medi Guy away, then we Power Smash the Spy Guy both to get it into KO range, and to stop it from using its hammer.    After we block the barrage of stones coming our way, we take out the Sky Guy with jumping and Bow’s help.     The Spy Guy attacks us again. We heal up with Dried Fruit (thanks Medicine Man!), then Bombette gets through that 2-Defense Spy Guy armor.   The Sky Guy drops a Mushroom, which we eat immediately - our HP is still a bit low.  Proceeding to the chest, we find our prize: the Defend Plus badge! This badge decreases the damage Mario takes from each attack by one, even if he doesn’t (or can’t) block.  Better yet, Master Quest has lowered its cost from 6 BP to 4! We’ll probably be keeping it equipped permanently from here going forward, so I take off HP Plus and put Defend Plus instead.    When we head back to the right on the upper level, there’s a dead end and another jack-in-the-box. It catapults us back down to the lower level, past the wall that blocked us earlier.  The road leads to another dead end a little further on… but what’s that Shy Guy doing back there?    Aha! A secret door!  We end up fighting the Shy Guy, who has a Groove Guy in tow.    After we KO the Groove Guy, the other enemies attack! It’s Defend Plus’s turn to shine, as we take only 3 and 1 damage, instead, of the 4 and 2 we were expecting. [  We KO the last Shy Guy...   ...and go on our way.  A little further on, past the ‘dead end’, is another chest. This one has the Ice Power badge! Not only is Mario’s attack boosted by 2 against fiery enemies, Mario can also jump on them without taking damage.  It is a little bit more expensive to equip than in the base game, though. There, it only cost 2 BP to equip. Here, it costs 3.  The end of this area is in sight! Ahead of us is the second story chest, guarded by a fearsome…   …Thunder Rage. Thanks, Princess!  We grab it— and Tayce T’s Frying Pan! Let’s bring this back to her straightaway.     Our trip out of the Toy Box is uneventful.    You saved it from the Shy Guys! Thank you so much, Mario! <3 For that, I’m going to make you something extra-special! <3 On returning Tayce’s frying pan to her, she makes us a Cake as a thank you.  This is my most delicious Cake. One taste of it won my late darling’s heart…<3 I swore I would never make it again, but you’re very special, Mario. Just one bite will make anybody go ga-ga!The thing is, we’re not going to eat this Cake ourselves.  On returning to Pink Station, this time we go left.  This room is divided into a front and back section by the railroad tracks.   On our way through, we get sniped by another Spy Guy.   Our first move is removing the Medi Guy, and jumping on one of the Sky Guys to set up a next-turn KO.  We flub some blocks and get Shrunk, but we still take less damage thanks to the Defend Plus.    Bow KOs the Sky Guy we jumped on. A Refresh, and we’re good to go.     After KOing the other Sky Guy, the pressure is (almost) off. We KO the Spy Guy with Goombario’s Charge and other loose damage.     With the Spy Guy sorted out with, we resume our journey. In the next room there’s a railroad crossing! But just who is that on the tracks?    I don’t know why. I’m just an ordinary, food-loving Shy Guy. Sigh… I’m hungry… Gourmet Guy’s kind of a picky eater. Fortunately, we know the way to his heart: sweets! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um2tLFGF3O0  Once the dust settles, we’re left with a Cookbook. This is going to be very important.    Through the railroad crossing we go! We zoom past a Groove Guy on the rear side of the tracks, and hit a hidden block with a Dizzy Dial.    In the next room, we dodge another Groove Guy - but a Pyro Guy waits in a block fort up ahead.  Time to try out Ice Power!    The Pyro Guy turns out to be three Pyro Guys and healing support. After Kooper gets the First Strike, we try hammering the front Pyro Guy - and it KOs him, doing 6 damage! (The snowflakes indicate Ice Power is working.) (Parakarry detaches the Medi Guy from the formation.)   After the Pyro Guys attack us (Defend Plus and Zap Tap doing sterling work), the frontmost Pyro Guy is in KO range thanks to the chip damage.   We jump on him, and down he goes in a single attack! From here, the battle is easy.   Through the archway at the right end is our goal: the big lever!    With it, we can now travel deeper in the Toy Box - but we’re not going to take the train further in just yet. Instead, we’re going to give this Cookbook to someone who can truly make use of it.   With this Cookbook, I can use two kinds of ingredients at once and make even more fabulous dishes for you!Tayce T.’s not kidding! With the Cookbook safely delivered, we can now make recipes that combine two different ingredients. Let’s see what we have in our inventory…   We’ve got some Cake Mix and a Fire Flower, both looted from the Shy Guy playground, to hand. Mix ‘em together, and they become…  A Fire Pop! It hurts Mario for 1 HP, but restores 20 FP.  A similar result happens if we combine Cake Mix and a Volt Shroom - we get an Electro Pop! This restores 15 FP, and also electrifies Mario like a Volt Shroom. Interestingly, while the Master Quest team didn’t change the Electro Pop’s parameters, they did fix a longstanding bug with the item. In Paper Mario, Electro Pops don’t actually restore 15 FP. Instead, they set Mario’s FP to (Mario’s HP + 15). This is no longer the case in Master Quest.  At this point, we go and raid our overfull Shop Box. A lot of items in there have been waiting for this moment.  Slathering a Mushroom with Honey Syrup gives us a Honey Shroom, which combines the effect of the two.  If we use Maple Syrup instead, we get a Maple Shroom - the increased FP regen of the Maple Syrup comes in handy!   Using Super Shrooms or Volt Shrooms instead gives Honey Supers and Maple Supers. None of the ‘syrup + shroom’ combo items so far have been altered from the original game.   After a quick trip to restock on Cake Mix, we keep on cooking. Tossing the Apple from the crates in Boo’s Mansion into the mix yields an Apple Pie! Though it looks more like an apple turnover… Apple Pies only restored 5 HP and 15 FP in the base game. Master Quest has bumped it up to 7 HP and 20 FP - not a bad deal.  Combining Cake Mix with a Mushroom, on the other hand, yields a tasty Shroom Cake. (A Super Shroom also works in place of a Mushroom.) In the base game, this restored 10 HP and 10 FP; however, its stat line has been changed to be more like the new Apple Pie, giving out 8 HP and 20 FP. Sorry, Apple Pie - you’re already outclassed.  Cooking has other uses than just making dessert. We can upgrade a Mushroom to a Volt Shroom by cooking it with a Koopa Leaf. (A Goomnut also works, as does Dried Fruit or a Strange Leaf from Boo’s Mansion.) Volt Shrooms aren’t that useful by themselves (Pro Mode, the hack Master Quest uses as a base, changed the electrify duration to only 1 turn and the MQ devs never bothered to change it back), but they can substitute for Super Shrooms in some recipes.  Now, if we upgrade a Volt Shroom by cooking it with another Koopa Leaf, we get… wait a second! What’s that Sweet Shroom doing here? In Paper Mario, cooking a Volt Shroom (or a Super Shroom) with a Koopa Leaf, Goomnut, or Strange Leaf would yield the almighty Life Shroom - which would restore 10 HP when Mario keeled over. Here, in Master Quest, Life Shrooms can no longer be cooked. Any recipe that would yield a Life Shroom now gives us a Sweet Shroom instead. In vanilla Paper Mario, you’d make a Sweet Shroom by cooking together a Life Shroom or Ultra Shroom with Cake Mix. It would restore 30 HP and 20 FP. In Master Quest, Sweet Shrooms restore 20 HP and 40 FP instead - not quite as good HP-wise, but still a very good deal.  There’s another silver lining to this cloud. Sweet Shrooms sell for 50 Coins!! For the cost of a Mushroom (8 Coins at the north Toad Town store) and two Koopa Leaves (free), we can make a profit of 42 Coins per Sweet Shroom, which means our cash flow problems are permanently over. On top of that, most of Tayce T.’s other baked goods sell for anywhere between 10-25 coins or more, so we can refill our wallet in a pinch by turning Mario into a baked-goods salesman.  Remember the Lemon and Lime from Dry Dry Desert? Bring a Lemon and Cake Mix together give us a tasty Lemon Candy. In Paper Mario, you could bribe the chest Anti Guy with it. Here, all it does is restore 5 HP and 15 FP (unchanged from the base game).  You can make Lime Candy the same way, substituting a Lime in place of the Lemon. It restores 20 FP, and is also unchanged.    It turns out the Strange Leaf from Boo’s Mansion can feature in a lot of recipes. Cooking it by itself yields a Dizzy Dial - but only once Tayce T. has the Cookbook. Trying before that will yield a Mistake.  Cooking a Strange Leaf with an Egg yields a Boiled Egg. This item has been massively buffed since its Paper Mario days. There, it restored 8 HP and FP. Here, it restores almost twice that much! Not bad for a humble egg.  Finally, cooking a Strange Leaf with Dried Fruit from the desert yields a Fire Flower, of all things!  To complete the Egg-Leaf-Fruit resonance, cooking a Fire Flower and an Egg together yield an Egg Missile. This isn’t edible - it’s a bomb Mario can throw! While it does 6 explosion damage in the base, game, Master Quest has buffed it so that it does 8 damage.   It turns out Strange Leaves even work as a dessert… sort of. Adding one to Cake Mix yields the Strange Cake, which, uhhhhhh…. Okay, this’ll take some testing to explain.    The Strange Cake, now that the Master Quest devs are done with it, is supposed to restore 1/2 bar of Star Energy, as demonstrated in the above picture. However, there is a persistent rumor that (due to bugs, not deliberate design) it can misfire and restore an entire bar, or drain 1/2 bar instead. I think I’ll just use Focus, thanks! (In the original game, the Strange Cake had a chance to make Mario Electrified, Invisible (for 3 turns!), or put him to Sleep. This was also the case in Master Quest until the most recent patch. However, the Kooky Cookie, a related item, was used for easily beating certain bosses due to its long Invisibility turn count. As a result, both it and the Strange Cake were changed.)  Speaking of the Kooky Cookie, it’s easy to make one with Cake Mix and either Maple Syrup or a Koopa Leaf. In Paper Mario and the last version of Master Quest, Kooky Kookie’s restored 15 FP and had the same effect as the Strange Cake: making Mario Electrified, Invisible, or putting him to Sleep. The Kooky Cookie got used to great effect against various bosses, so it was changed. Unlike the Strange Cake, the Kooky Cookie always restores 1/2 bar of Star Energy properly - supposedly.   Speaking of Koopa Leaves, it’s possible to beef up our old Spaghetti recipe (made by cooking just Dried Pasta) by adding a Koopa Leaf to the mix. The combination is locally known as Koopasta. Koopasta has been buffed from the base game. There, it restored 7 HP and 7 FP like an old-style Boiled Egg. Here, it restores 10 HP and 15 FP - making the Egg a better bet, but it’s still a higher-quality healing item.  An even better thing to do with Dried Pasta is to combine it with Dried Fruit. This nets us a Yummy Meal! This delectable dish restores 20 HP and 20 FP - unchanged from the base game. (There are several other ways to make a Yummy Meal, but most of the rest are pretty prohibitive - involving Ultra Shrooms or Iced Potatoes from Chapter 7.)  There’s also a cut-rate counterpart to the Yummy Meal, the Bland Meal. All it needs is a Koopa Leaf and a Goomnut - but it only restores half as much HP and FP as a Yummy Meal, so the ease of getting the ingredients isn’t as worth it. (Like the Yummy Meal, there are a lot of other ways to make a Bland Meal. Swapping out the Koopa Leaf for a Fire Flower or Strange Leaf (but keeping the Goomnut) will make one one. You can also take Dried Pasta or an Egg, and mix in a Mushroom, and a Bland Meal will result. More combinations are on Super Mario Wiki.)  Tayce T.’s repertoire of desserts still isn’t exhausted. Flavoring Cake Mix with a Goomnut (or Egg) yields a Big Cookie. This restored 20 FP in the base game, but Master Quest has made it absolutely monstrous in size, boosting its recovery to a whopping 30 FP! Now that’s a sweet treat.  Meanwhile, mixing Honey Syrup into Cake Mix gives Honey Candy. It was on par with the Big Cookie in the original game, restoring 20 FP - but unlike the Cookie, it’s unchanged in Master Quest. Oh well!    That’s most of the recipes we can make, but there is one oddball that doesn’t fit in anywhere. Remember how cooking a Strange Leaf and Dried Fruit gave us a Fire Flower? Well, cooking a Volt Shroom and Dried Fruit together gives… a Thunder Rage??? Cooking can be awfully strange sometimes.   Finally, there are a trio of recipes that, right now, we can only make once. We grab an Ultra Shroom from our box, and the Iced Potato from the shop storeroom.   Cooking the Ultra Shroom gives a fine Shroom Steak. Its recovery (30 HP, 10 FP) is unchanged from the base game, but it’s a lot more difficult to make now - the recipe consumes either an Ultra Shroom or a Life Shroom, and both are currently in very limited supply.   The Iced Potato turns into Potato Salad when Tayce does her magic. It restores 10 HP (unchanged from Paper Mario) and looks unremarkable if you don’t know the secret.   The secret is: if you give a Shroom Steak and a Potato Salad back to Tayce, she’ll turn them into the legendary Deluxe Feast!! This is the second-best healing item in the game, surpassed only by the even-more-legendary Jelly Ultra. It restores 40 HP and 40 FP, and its stats are unaltered from the original game. Of course, the catch is, this is the only Feast we’re going to get until Chapter 7, where we become able to easily get Iced Potatoes in or around Shiver City. Even then, it’ll be limited until we get a consistent supply of Ultra Shrooms.  Phew! After that cookingstravaganza, our money woes are solved and our inventory is stuffed full of yummy treats. Now that both those problems are solved, it’s time to do all the post-chapter 3 stuff we’ve been putting off.  Forwards! Badges: 45/90 (New: Defend Plus, Ice Power) Recipes: 37/50 (New: Apple Pie, Big Cookie, Bland Meal, Boiled Egg, Dizzy Dial, Deluxe Feast, Egg Missile, Electro Pop, Fire Flower, Fire Pop, Honey Candy, Honey Shroom, Honey Super, Kooky Cookie, Koopasta, Lemon Candy, Lime Candy, Maple Shroom, Maple Super, Potato Salad, Shroom Cake, Shroom Steak, Strange Cake, Sweet Shroom [Life Shroom variant], Thunder Rage, Volt Shroom, Yummy Meal) Star Pieces: 62/202 Chuck Quizmo’s Quiz Questions: 18/64 Game Overs (this time): 1, to the Anti Crew. Game Overs (total): 15. SUMMARY OF CHANGES FROM MAIN GAME (in this installment) • Mysterious chest in Shy Guy’s Toy Box now guarded by the Anti Crew - see below. • Anti Guy: 16 Attack (10 on follow-up if first attack is blocked), attacks shrink. • 007 Guy: 3 Defense. 8 Attack hammer, 12 Attack slingshot. Attacks twice with the hammer, which removes commands. Slingshot shrinks, and pierces invisibility. Attack timing slightly randomized. • Inferno Guy: 18 Attack. Weak to water, ice, and explosions. • Dandy Guy: 5-5-5 Attack triple kick. Also has a dizzy spin that leaves Mario Dizzy for one turn and debuffs his Defense by 1. Immune to Star-elemental damage - he’s already a star! • Malpractice Guy: 3 Defense. 6 Attack, which poisons. Heals the Crew each turn for 6 HP per member, or one member for 12 HP. • Two-level room to the right of Pink Station in the Toy Box now just a bit longer! • Defend Plus badge 2 BP cheaper to equip. (They must have known we’d need it.) • Ice Power badge 1 BP more expensive to equip. Because it’s a nice badge. • Electro Pops bug-fixed, now properly restore 15 FP like they’re supposed to. • Apple Pies now even more flavorful. (+2 HP, +5 FP.) • Shroom Cakes now sweeter but slightly less healthy. (-2 HP, +10 FP.) • Life Shrooms no longer cookable; recipes that would make them give a Sweet Shroom instead. • Boiled Eggs determined to be much better for you by top Toad scientists. (+6 HP, +6 FP.) • Egg Missiles much more spicy. (+2 damage when thrown.) • Strange Cakes much more strange. (No longer inflicts status effects on Mario. Instead, restores or drains Star Energy.) • Kooky Cookies now kookier. (Still restores 15 FP, but no longer inflicts status effects on Mario. Instead, restores Star Energy.) • Koopasta enriched with extra Koopa Leaf puree, even better for you. (+3 HP, +8 FP.) • Big Cookies are even bigger! (+10 FP.) Next Time On Master Quest: We go do Koopa Koot’s shopping.
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Dec 3, 2019 14:00
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Paper Mario is a very easy game so I never really bothered cooking up recipes with Tayce T. I guess if there's one good thing Master Quest does is it makes that part of the game a hell of a lot more useful. Also I'm kind of surprised the devs actually kept the Defense Plus badge there.
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Dec 3, 2019 14:46
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I honestly expected you to add a Tayce T. Recipe Count to the post-end summary. No?
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Dec 3, 2019 14:48
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Let's Play! > Mario Gets Cooking - Let's Play PAPER MARIO: MASTER QUEST (Blind!)
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Dec 3, 2019 15:20
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Paper Mario? More like Baker Mario  
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Dec 3, 2019 17:51
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Cooking Mario: Master Quest
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Dec 3, 2019 18:29
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If I put food on top of another piece of food, will I become the best cook in my town too? BEHOLD! My famous cheese on a cracker!
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Dec 3, 2019 18:37
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See with this kind of healing item access I can understand a difficulty spike, since with double dip you can easily top yourself off. I mean if you don't mind the player running back and forth across areas.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:27
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Well, it finally happened. They finally nerfed Kooky Cookies (and Strange Cake). I'm surprised it took them this long, really; you'll remember my surprise when I noticed they hadn't been before. Honestly, I think I like the change even if I was always toying with strategies that involved them; making things less RNG dependent tends to be good for promoting strategic play, and oddly it makes me less offended on Repel Gel's behalf. It's interesting seeing items restoring Star Energy, too. I don't think they're particularly useful, but it's a neat idea we didn't have before (outside of TTYD's Trial Stew, anyway) and I'm sure someone will find a way to make good use of it. Defend Plus and Ice Power open up a lot of options; playing last version I definitely remember feeling extremely relieved once I had them. The various Shy Guy encounters felt reasonable rather than oppressive, etc. I'm pretty sure I never removed Defend Plus except for very specific boss strategies where I needed every last FP, and I definitely appreciate it being reduced to 4 BP. Although I suppose it's possible to argue that it largely functions as a tax on your BP since a lot of encounters do seem to be balanced assuming you're wearing it...
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Dec 3, 2019 21:53
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The Kooky Cookies were also bugged in the base game!  While they functioned properly on the field, if you used them in battle, they accidentally call the FP restoring function twice, resulting in a 30 FP restore, even if the game says it only restored 15. Seems like Master Quest fixed that though?
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Dec 3, 2019 21:59
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:If I put food on top of another piece of food, will I become the best cook in my town too? Growing up instead of commercial cereal for breakfast we'd add milk to oats and raisins. We called it Oats with Milk and Raisins. I'm not sharing the secret recipe for Cheese Over Tuna on a Hot Dog Bun though.
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Dec 3, 2019 22:30
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Araxxor posted:The Kooky Cookies were also bugged in the base game! Wow, interesting! When I tested, I think it restored 15, but I don't remember XD DACK FAYDEN posted:I honestly expected you to add a Tayce T. Recipe Count to the post-end summary. No? It's there! After the badge count but before the star piece count.
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Dec 3, 2019 23:12
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Ramos posted:The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Let's Play! > Mario Gets Cooking - Let's Play PAPER MARIO: MASTER QUEST (Blind!) Gets Fattened
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Dec 3, 2019 23:48
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So... we're not allowed to have a Power Plus, but Defend Plus is fine? I don't understand what the difference is.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:10
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bio347 posted:So... we're not allowed to have a Power Plus, but Defend Plus is fine? I don't understand what the difference is. defend plus reduces the damage by one. Killing something reduces the damage by a billion, because it's dead and can't hit you anymore.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:13
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Grapplejack posted:defend plus reduces the damage by one. Killing something reduces the damage by a billion, because it's dead and can't hit you anymore. I want someone to use this defense in a murder trial
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Dec 4, 2019 02:17
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Grapplejack posted:defend plus reduces the damage by one. Killing something reduces the damage by a billion, because it's dead and can't hit you anymore. Pretty much. It's a golden principle in a lot of games. Good offense is typically better than a good defense because the faster the fight is over, the less damage you take overall.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:25
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Grapplejack posted:defend plus reduces the damage by one. Killing something reduces the damage by a billion, because it's dead and can't hit you anymore. Having a Defend Plus that's inexplicably cheaper to equip than vanilla means that the enemies will absolutely start dealing a point more damage than you'd maybe expect. Probably not in the Toybox aside from perhaps the bosses, because you're still fighting the same dudes, but assuredly going forward. The same thing would be true of the Power Plus (enemies would have more health than you might otherwise expect, or occasionally an extra defense point)... but apparently that's a bridge too far?
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Dec 4, 2019 02:26
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bio347 posted:So... we're not allowed to have a Power Plus, but Defend Plus is fine? I don't understand what the difference is. Cause hitting enemies harder is universally better but taking one less damage is better against multi-hit moves instead of damage spikes. If you take a single 10 damage hit, you now take 9 damage. If you were to take 3 damage 3 times you now take 2 damage 3 times, meaning 3 damage less overall. I expect we'll see more multi-hitters now, esp since we got the cookbook and the badge's equip cost has been lowered. The reverse logic for power plus doesn't apply to you because your damage output isn't as stupidly buffed as the enemies' in this hack.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:32
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Still with the randomized attack timing.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:32
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bio347 posted:So... we're not allowed to have a Power Plus, but Defend Plus is fine? I don't understand what the difference is. I think you're looking at things the wrong way round. It's not that the Power Plus was too strong, so the Master Quest developers locked it behind an impossible fight. It's that the Anti Guy fight is a prime place to put a super difficult optional boss, since that's what it is in the original game. Given that, they couldn't rely on the player having the Power Plus badge, and there wasn't any particular reason to move it somewhere else either.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:34
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Grapplejack posted:defend plus reduces the damage by one. Killing something reduces the damage by a billion, because it's dead and can't hit you anymore. Rabbi Raccoon posted:I want someone to use this defense in a murder trial I mean, that's basically all of Danganronpa.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:36
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Discendo Vox posted:Still with the randomized attack timing. lol if you think this is bad you just wait.
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Dec 4, 2019 02:39
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Grapplejack posted:defend plus reduces the damage by one. Killing something reduces the damage by a billion, because it's dead and can't hit you anymore. And this is why DPS are just extremely proactive healers.
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Dec 4, 2019 10:38
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Quackles posted:It's there! After the badge count but before the star piece count. 
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Dec 4, 2019 20:31
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Araxxor posted:Pretty much. It's a golden principle in a lot of games. Good offense is typically better than a good defense because the faster the fight is over, the less damage you take overall. The best defense is overwhelming firepower.
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Dec 5, 2019 05:36
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Man this hack looks super neat. It's really clear a lot of thinking and effort went into it. I know the thread isn't very high on it, but I think part of this is not thinking about how it's not just the numbers that have changed. It's the gameplay style. The best way to think about the original Paper Mario is that it was a 'theme park' game. I think Discendo Vox mentioned it at some point, but a lot of the focus in it was on new, rapidly rotating content, and going through a dungeon was supposed to be a relatively quick, leisurely thing. Master Quest isn't built in that style. It has dungeon crawler DNA written all over it. Something like 'go back every few fights to heal' seems like total bullshit in the original PM's style of gameplay, because it's not part of the fun, but in a dungeon crawler, 'find a way to progress ever deeper into the dungeon while safely navigating your way back out' is absolutely, positively part of the fun because it lets you evaluate your own increasing skills and adaptation. This isn't trying to say 'lol you guys don't get it, git gud', so much as...'managing to stay sharp and consistent across a longer play session and executing properly is part of the fun of this game type'. It sounds like MQ Jr. strikes a balance between the two styles in turn, by keeping the highly tactical nature of the fights but easing up on the execution/high attrition danger of them as well. I would definitely not compare it to FFT 1.3, because, at least so far, it doesn't seem like the game was built on following the One True Tactic the developers ingrained into their playstyle the way playing Sandbag was in that hack. The only really mean spot where the balancing act kinda failed seems like the Forever Forest to me...but it's possible maybe using Parakarry to remove the Fuzzies via Air Lift might make things better? Not sure if that's an option there. EDIT: And Buzzar's speed-cycling, though that sounded like a bug. Transient People fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Dec 6, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 04:09
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That's a nice impression to have but I'm pretty sure in the LP they're running from or avoiding almost any encounter that doesn't feature a new enemy, which you don't see. The way you described it makes it sound like the marsh cave from Final Fantasy, which runs on entirely different progression systems. You can't really grind in Paper Mario because enemies eventually stop giving experience, whereas in a traditional dungeon crawler you get a little deeper every trip because you get stronger every time you go, and you take less detours for chests and such.
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Dec 6, 2019 05:28
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MR. J posted:That's a nice impression to have but I'm pretty sure in the LP they're running from or avoiding almost any encounter that doesn't feature a new enemy, which you don't see. ...Which has nothing to do with mastering the dungeon, which is what I'm trying to argue the hack is about. And that does, in fact, include running from disfavorable fights. You don't need to gain levels to gain player experience with each formation, to try things out and go 'ok, so for this fight I wanna open with Airlift, this one calls for Screech, this other one seems like a good Multibonk fight', etc. Though the dungeons clearly have an 'enemy phase' where things feel punishing and a 'player phase' where you hold most of the cards, the main form of progression seems to be learning the tricks to neutralize formations efficiently, similar to how you'd try out various things in a roguelike to get past a spot until you break through...albeit much less punishing. Progress here is marked as much by literal spatial progression as it is by getting chests, and definitely more than it is by getting levels it feels like. Otherwise the hard mode challenge would be impossible, tbqh. EDIT: To put it in other terms, this kind of hack is what's usually called 'high-end/hardcore content'. It's built on the same kind of rush and processes as hardcore raiding in an MMO, or competitive gaming in a MOBA or fighting game. For games with that focus, tension is good, long periods of execution are good, and failure is good, because the point isn't to finish the game immediately or in one go -- it's to learn and push your limits. It's not content for everybody because most people don't enjoy being stressed (in the sense of a stress-test, more than emotional distress, though that can be a part of it depending on how you handle it), or made to repeat something over and over again until they get it right and refine it to an artform. But to say this is a bad sort of game just because its objective is, in fact, to force the player out of their comfort zone and expand their skillbase much more aggresively than a normal game is wrong. It's no better or worse a way to game than any other. It CAN be poorly executed (the Boo fight miniboss we saw being a terrific example, though probably a lot less so post-nerf), but it shouldn't be considered badly designed due to being hard. Rather, it should be called badly designed if the skill element is minor instead of being obligatory and at the forefront, if it can be bypassed by a simple exploit or play pattern, if it's luck-based in ways that can't be mitigated or, most of all, if it doesn't allow for player expression in how it's solved. Even if there's a clear kind of solution, there should always be a variety of personal touches a player can apply to make the playthrough 'theirs'. If a hardcore game doesn't allow for that, THEN it's badly designed because it misses the whole point of letting players who think they've mastered a game complete it in a way that's highly personalized and specific to them. Transient People fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Dec 6, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 09:08
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MR. J posted:That's a nice impression to have but I'm pretty sure in the LP they're running from or avoiding almost any encounter that doesn't feature a new enemy, which you don't see. I actually fight most enemies I run into for my own amusement, even if they don't give Star Points. The exceptions are if they're obnoxious enough that I don't have a good way to handle them if things go sour (Groove Guys, for example - or Pokey Mummies back when I was doing Dry Dry Ruins), or the whole formation is dangerous enough that I'll just have to run back to the nearest Heart Block due to being low-HP afterwards (fewer formations than you'd think). If I end up in an undesirable fight by accident, I typically run for it. I've gotten good at button-mashing. As for the content of the LP: I don't always (or even usually) detail every fight I get in if you've already seen the enemies or formations involved, as I don't want you to get bored. And yeah... honestly, what gameplay progression feels like in Master Quest, spoken as someone who's been playing it, is that you get beat up a lot early on, then you learn enemy tattles and how to handle them... and then, typically midway through each level, there's some sort of new badge or ability that really gives you the ability to properly take on enemies you couldn't before effectively. Some examples include: • Mt. Rugged: The Damage Dodge badge halfway up the mountain. Later, Quake Hammer, and Parakarry's help. • Dry Dry Desert: Group Focus badge, allowing for better Refresh juggling. Also, the Super Block at the Oasis. • Dry Dry Ruins: The Super Hammer, and also the Super Block in the ruins. • Chapter 3: Quick Change. Quick Change is so good. To a lesser extent, the Super Boots. • Toy Box: The Defend Plus badge in the Pink Station wing, and Tayce T's cooking. I'm sure we'll run into many more examples before the game is over. Quackles fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Dec 6, 2019 |
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Dec 6, 2019 10:13
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Yeah! It makes me happy to know I didn't totally imagine the difficulty progression there.  I actually was on the 'hack is bad' train until the Boo chapter, I think. That one had a really blatant instance where things got much easier (I think it was when one of the hammer badges was acquired? EDIT: Nope, Quick Change, got chapters 2 and 3 mixed up) which made me go back to reread and see if the chapters were following a difficulty spike-difficulty drop-difficulty peak at boss pattern. Turns out they are! And that's pretty good design since it lets the player get a rest before the home stretch that's meant to test them as hard as possible. And the best part is it's not done by making the enemies easier, but by letting the player get stronger and face the same enemies as before, so it really feels like you 'conquer' the dungeon once you have the key item! Fake edit: One last thought and I'll stop being annoying about this: a lot of what the hack does starts making so much more sense if one compares it to something like an MMORPG's raids and story content. Using the example of Final Fantasy 14, which I'm most familiar with, you have the main story (which here would be base Paper Mario), then you have the Extreme Mode solo bosses, which require practice and thinking but are generally clearable within an hour or two of practice (which would be comparable to Master Quest Jr., which may force a few restarts but can generally be adapted to if you're the kind of person who wants a challenge without having to dedicate lots of hours to achieving system mastery), and then you have the Savage Mode raids, which will generally take players between four to ten hours to figure out, which usually translates to at least two or three long play sessions. Master Quest definitely feels like it's in the same boat as those -- it's long-lasting, difficult stuff where the developers did not expect nor want players to succeed on the first few attempts because it'd mean they failed to provide what the audience wanted, but simultaneously it tries to be fair and not punish you for wanting to have fun or innovate your battle tactics. It doesn't always succeed, but based on what Quackles has shown us, it feels like it does hit the mark more often than not.
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Dec 6, 2019 10:37
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Transient People posted:Yeah! It makes me happy to know I didn't totally imagine the difficulty progression there. Heck, the pattern is pretty obvious in the Toy Box chapter too. Tackling the wandering Shy Guys visibly became a lot more manageable the minute Quackles picked up the Defense Plus badge and made some of Tayce's recipes (I dare say he's turned the tables on the random encounters and is beating the crap out of them, as of that last update).
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Dec 6, 2019 13:17
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KieranWalker posted:Heck, the pattern is pretty obvious in the Toy Box chapter too. Tackling the wandering Shy Guys visibly became a lot more manageable the minute Quackles picked up the Defense Plus badge and made some of Tayce's recipes (I dare say he's turned the tables on the random encounters and is beating the crap out of them, as of that last update). Yep. Recipes and Medicine Man means I can just heal to full whenever. I still run away if a formation has more than one Groove Guy, though. XD
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Dec 6, 2019 22:19
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I believe the challenge key design was in the base game. Master Quest's design isn't so clever- it relies too heavily on qualitative restriction and seeking the One True Path, coupled with execution requirements that (with the explicit example of randomized attack windows) introduce unaccountable randomness to outcomes.
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Dec 7, 2019 01:09
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Discendo Vox posted:I believe the challenge key design was in the base game. Master Quest's design isn't so clever- it relies too heavily on qualitative restriction and seeking the One True Path, coupled with execution requirements that (with the explicit example of randomized attack windows) introduce unaccountable randomness to outcomes. It was, but it was also meaningless. I remember using Goombario and Parakarry exclusively when I first played through it, because Charge and Multibonk was so blatantly the best pick for dismantling hard enemies and Parakarry didn't care about any protections, for example. The fact all the other partners were left to rot is a good indicator of how this kind of things was unnoticeable in PM -- likewise, I don't think I /ever/ made a single food item with Tayce T, not even basic ones. Why bother, when simply moving forward was all that was needed to win? By raising the difficulty, these things that existed in base PM are allowed to finally matter, instead of being drowned by the sheer power of basic first-order strategies relative to the difficulty of the game.
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Dec 7, 2019 01:26
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| # ? May 22, 2024 16:57 |
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Difficulty isn't a knob you just turn upward.
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Dec 7, 2019 07:14
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