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What does Focus do that you only need it on one character? I feel like the commentary assumes I'm deeply familiar with some reference version (unhacked Dawn of Souls?) so I'm missing some context. ed: update on previous page.
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Jan 24, 2021 04:09
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From update one:quote:And they have Focus. It used to be single target and lower Evasion by 10. Now it's multitarget and lowers evasion by 25! To make up for that, its base accuracy is 64. So since it's multi-target you'd only need one person to use it each turn, I'd imagine. Are you still limited to three spells per level or did they break the limit on that?
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Jan 24, 2021 06:58
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Yeah, still 3 slots per spell level. Mostly hasn't been a problem so far, but level 3 looks like it's gonna be tough to properly distribute. TooMuchAbstraction posted:What does Focus do that you only need it on one character? I feel like the commentary assumes I'm deeply familiar with some reference version (unhacked Dawn of Souls?) so I'm missing some context. I'm presuming a general familiarity with the plot and intended order of events, for sure, and can slow that down some and include scenes in their entirety if its wanted. I think it's safe to say that no dialogue or incidental text has changed, which is why I didn't see the point beyond general "here's what we're doing now" bits. For anything mechanical, that's harder to gauge a proper baseline for. I think the best way is to cover what it was and also what it is now the first time it's relevant so as to avoid dumping too much all at once.
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Jan 24, 2021 14:01
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Personally id prefer not going over the plot too much, theres other lps if someone wants to know the story of ff1 verbatim. Not like theres much story in the first place Mechanical analysis is much appreciated tho, i like knowing how stats and spells have changed.
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Jan 24, 2021 15:02
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Yeah, it's been a while but I'm generally familiar with the basic plot outline of FF1 and will probably remember more when the LP gets there, so I'm fine with going more in on the mechanical aspects.
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Jan 24, 2021 15:08
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LiefKatano posted:From update one: Welp. I'd completely forgotten that already  Not covering the plot is fine. It's super barebones anyway.
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Jan 24, 2021 15:43
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Dragonatrix posted:...Yep, that's good enough for me. Roughly 6+(2*(Int/2)) Dark elemental damage. Some of these spell damage formulas seem needlessly complicated. How is 6+(2*(Int/2) different from 6+Int?
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Jan 25, 2021 02:55
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Truthkeeper posted:Some of these spell damage formulas seem needlessly complicated. How is 6+(2*(Int/2) different from 6+Int? The game is most likely using integer arithmetic, which involves throwing away the remainder from every division. So 14 / 2 = 15 / 2 = 7. It has the effect of making you need to get two points of Int before you see extra spell damage.
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Jan 25, 2021 03:07
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Truthkeeper posted:Some of these spell damage formulas seem needlessly complicated. How is 6+(2*(Int/2) different from 6+Int? Since it's integer division (I assume), an odd Intelligence value would be treated as one lower. I'd also imagine that internally, the /2 part is hardcoded into the formula, with the spell data only being used for the 6+ and 2* parts, since the other spell damages seen so far were in the format X+(Y*(Int/2))
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Jan 25, 2021 03:08
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04. No One Place Should Have All That Power ...Okay, fine, let's take a look at the Peninsula of Power. Off the top of my head, there's 6 possible enemies we can encounter here in a fair few formations (with two of them being quite rare). How much of that remains true is something we'll find out together, though.  I've kinda been treating random encounters mostly as irrelevant jokes so far. That stops being the case here. If I don't take these fights seriously, I am going to die.  Heck, even taking them seriously I am still going to die. A lot. That's just because these encounters are drawing from a later game area. This has always been here, and that fact has never changed.  The Minotaur Zombie is, in terms of raw damage, probably the strongest enemy here. It's bulky, does more than anyone's max HP in a single shot, has an inherent regen of about 15% its original max HP for good measure.  Oh and it can put you to sleep if you somehow survive it. Yep. Sleep is slightly changed, just to be more dangerous. It functionally reduces your Evasion to 0 and anyone sleeping now takes 50% more damage from physical attacks (it used to be a 25% increase to the attacker's, well, Attack stat). Y'know just because it wasn't hitting hard enough already.  ...Also they can come in gangs. Well that's just plain terrifying.  Needless to say, game overs come quick and often in this area. This is also not because of the mod; you have to know what fights are worth it and when you can take them after all.  So, let's say throughout an hour or so I was able to grind off other things here and able to take some down. HP is way up from 224, Attack is up a fair bit from 40, Accuracy boosted from 56, Defense more than doubled from its previous 14. Agility is unchanged, though. Magic Defense too. Evasion is actually down from 36. EXP unchanged, Gil down from 1050. Item drop used to be a Great Axe. The Viking Axe here used to be only obtainable in the Whisperwind Cove, meaning you couldn't get it without beating Tiamat. It wasn't THAT much stronger than the Great Axe, honestly, but that's still a massive change to its availability. Weakness/Resistances are almost identical to before. The weakness to  Sometimes they come with Trolls too. They're significantly less dangerous than their Minotaur Zombie friends, but with the unfortunate caveat of never coming without them. We might be able to take a Troll if we had the chance or time, but no such luck at the moment.  But once I'm strong enough to take down a Minotaur Zombie? Different story. Naturally, HP is up from 184. Accuracy is up from 46, Defense has barely been upped from its previous 12. Attack is completely unchanged, surprisingly. Agility got left the same, too, as did Evasion. Magic Defense is down a bit from its previous 100 though. Dropwise, EXP is unchanged and Gil is down from... 621. The drop is new, at least. It used to not drop a thing, so the Mythril Sword is a major boost. They used to be buyable at Elfheim, though, so it's not a super huge boost. Weaknesses and resistances are completely unchanged. They're very Dungeons and Dragons Trolls, only here Fire doesn't stop them regenerating.  I accidentally walked like one tile too far south and got into this fight. Lesser Tigers used to hang out in Melmond and its associated dungeons. They hit decently hard I guess but nothing too scary; very takeable here. They used to drop X-Potions but since they're moved earlier now they just drop Hi-Potions instead.  Of everything in the area, the Hill Gigas is more threatening than the Troll but the one thing we can get into fights with and definitely win (at first; they're my EXPinata of choice for getting strong and/or rich enough to handle the rest).  Y'know once I stop being stupid and use a sensible strategy.  Ahem. So, Gilgamesh is going to Blink to become even more of a dodge-tank.  Protect on Rab, just in case. He's not the most crucial party member here, for once, but it'd suck a ton if he dropped.  Because he's spamming Pain, basically every turn. The damage is roughly equivalent to Fire/Thunder but it's multi-target so it wins. It's not a ton or anything (~50) but it'll make things so much quicker.  The Hill Gigas doesn't do that much damage either. They're from the dungeon after Marsh Cave, after all, so we're not punching as far above our weight class as normal.  Ovelia is by far the most important party member here. Not just because she's our best healer, but that sure helps too.  Gilgamesh is best damage output (Pain's multi-targetness aside) and the AI targetting seems the same as normal. 50% chance of hitting slot 1, 25% chance of slot 2, 12.5% chance of slot 3 and 12.5% chance of slot 4.  ...Anyway, Ovelia is important because she knows Sleep and it's very effective.  Needless to say this makes it more than possible to drop one.  And that helps snowball, since we need to be less defensive as they start to drop. It does take almost all our MP to win this fight, but we easily level up because of it. Good money too, but if we want to grind that (I don't) there's better spots.  Hill Gigases have been buffed significantly more than anything else of note so far. They're still pure damage dealers but their numbers have been made notably bigger. HP (240), Attack (38), and Accuracy (60) are all increased. HP and Agility are straight up doubled, Accuracy functionally is and Attack has gone up too. Defense in an odd rarity has stayed identical. Agility (48), Evasion (48) and Magic Defense (120) have dropped by a fair chunk though. That's probably what makes them the easiest fight here, honestly. EXP is identical to before, Gil is decreased from... 879. They used to drop a Tent and now they drop a really good support item! It can only be used in combat, but Giant Tonics grant a temporary +200 to max HP. If we got one (...I got two ), it'd definitely be worth the hassle right now.Need to go back to Pravoka to use the Inn though. Gotta get HP and MP restored after all.  En route we finally encounter Werewolves! The last enemy that was formerlly around Corneria's dungeon. Regenerates some if it gets to survive past the first round, hits decently hard for where it was meant to be but nothing special. Its attacks inflict Poison sometimes, which is more dangerous now that the regular damage it does. They're even kind enough to drop Antidotes to offset that.  Speaking of Poison, here's a couple of spiders. Tarantula are upgraded but don't Poison you.  Nah, they just paralyse instead. Arguable which is more dangerous, but I think for most encounters between the peninsula and Pravoka this is lesser.  On the way back, we find some Ogres! Ogres are, relatively, the best gil fights so far. Maybe. They give more money than Buccaneers and are roughly as hard to take down.  The twist is that their basic attacks inflict Sleep now.  Ogre Chiefs are the same. They're just Ogres but with slightly more numbers after all. Ogres drop Hammers and Chiefs drop Axes. Neither are worth the hassle and are just a bit more gil.  Back on the peninsula here's the other super dangerous enemy. Winter Wolves are not scary because they hit hard. No, they're scary because they always come in packs of no less than 4. Yikes.  And they spam this, almost exclusively. It's a 25% chance, sure, but it stands out.  The damage doesn't seem that high, but it rolled pretty low here. And you're likely facing it 4+ times a round. It'd be mitigatable with NulFrost, sure, but we just now scraped a high enough level for 3rd level spells (for Ovelia and Rab) thanks to the Hill Gigases. NulFrost is 4th level. We'd need to grind to be able to use it, probably grind more to be able to afford it and then hope it goes off before Icestorm. Not really worth it here.  Although, saying that they WERE the second thing here I was able to take out (eventually). It was with judicious use of Fira and getting lucky with Ovelia's sleep in turn order but still! Stat-wise, HP is up from 92, Accuracy is up from 23, Defense increased from 0, Evasion is straight up doubled from 54. At least Magic Defense is down from 55. Attack is unchanged, because it's kinda irrelevant. Agility stayed the same too, unsurprisingly. No changes to EXP or item drop, either, but Gil is way down from 200. Resistance wise, the weaknesses to Paralysis, Poison and Sleep are new. Sleep is easily the most exploitable, at the moment, though.  The other, other dangerous enemy in the area is a dinosaur. Heck yeah! Allosauruses are the second-rarest monster here but there's a good reason for that.  ...Yep. Back to singular hits that drop folks in one-shot. One big mercy is that being a dinosaur...  They're weak to Ice! I like to think the reason they're so rare is because they keep getting owned by roving packs of Winter Wolves. Blizzard costs 6 MP (down from 8) and does roughly 12+(6*(Int/2)) damage. It used to do 20-80 damage to a single target. Legitimately the only reason its only 3rd place in my official-unofficial danger rankings is because it can only take down folks one at a time, is normally only solo here and they don't have regen.  OH NO! Okay so Wyverns are by far the toughest, rudest boys on this peninsula and basically throw out everything I said about the power scale above.  They also mitigate that by being disgustingly rare, so I didn't even count them. I was filling in the bestiary pages for the other things in the area when this gang of them saddled up.  Since their attacks are multi-hit, they make for good Slow fodder unlike everything else here. You just have to, y'know, survive first. And even then, the jerks poison you if you do.  Small mercy is that they're fairly susceptible to sleep. Although if it misses, you're eating dirt. Yeah, I'm not taking these dudes down anytime soon. I didn't even get to damage them! ...Also they can appear with Allosaurus sometimes. Yep. If he's not alone, he has these jerks with him.  So, I just popped in a full bestiary gameshark code. Surprisingly, that still works. HP's not up by much, since it used to be 212. Same with Attack being upped from 32. Accuracy's more of a boost from its prior 53. Evasion is way up from 96 too. Defense and Agility are unchanged, as seem to be a recurring trend. Magic Defense surprisingly got left alone for once. Drop-wise, EXP is actually increased from 1173! Gil, surprisingly, is up too. It used to be 50. Yeah. The White Fang drop is new for them as well; it's just Blizzara in item form so it's not worth the hassle of trying to farm. That Lighting weakness is a new addition, as well. Quake was their only resistance originally too.  Oh, Allosauruses have a dirty secret. No, it's not that it's HP is more than tripled (480). Speaking of stat changes, Attack is up from 65. Accuracy is down from 133, but you'd hardly be able to tell. Evasion is down from 60 and Magic Defense is down from 200. Defense and Agility have stayed the same as they used to be. Incidentally, they weren't originally weak to Ice. They had no weaknesses or resistances at all before. I guess this makes up for dropping their Gil from 502. EXP is unchanged, surprisingly. The biggest change of all is that no-longer-secret. Their item drop. It used to be a Strength Tonic, a temporary boost to Attack. Nothing fancy but a nice get for martial characters. Now it's a Power Plus. What's that do? A permanent 1-to-3 point boost to the Strength of whoever you use it on. I was very tempted to try and farm a couple. ...But none of this canonically happened anyway, so don't worry. Next time we're really going to Marsh Cave to see whether or not that still holds up. Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 26, 2021 02:28
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Dragonatrix posted:
Beyond the small typo (increaed), the image shows that Hill Gigas has 24 Agility in the hack. According to FF Wiki it had 48 Agility originally too, so it got halved, not doubled. quote:
Again, Winter Wolves have 45 MDef here. They had 55 in the original.
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Jan 26, 2021 02:42
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Ahh, the peninsula.  You can generally tell whether a hack is good or trash by whether they keep the PoPL or not.
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Jan 26, 2021 03:12
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I do find it a bit annoying how they gutted the Peninsula's gil drops.
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Jan 26, 2021 06:12
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Blaze Dragon posted:Beyond the small typo (increaed), the image shows that Hill Gigas has 24 Agility in the hack. According to FF Wiki it had 48 Agility originally too, so it got halved, not doubled. Well, at least it took longer than I thought to start dropping typos and transposing numbers as I read 'em. Thanks, those are all fixed now.
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Jan 26, 2021 09:27
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Dragonatrix posted:I don't think I've ever paid enough attention to realise that it only covers 3 of the "elements" and skips fire entirely. Odd but okay, I guess. Not to spoil a 34 year old game, but that's intentional. Even the original NES story had the wind go wild 400 year ago, the water 200 years ago, and the earth start rotting in the present day. Following that trend, the fiend of fire is still dormant and only wakes up 200 years early because the Light Warriors go poking around. If not for them, then the world was on a ticking clock to armageddon when all four fiends would be awake and make the world uninhabitable for people.
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Jan 26, 2021 22:49
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What's with all the sleep-inducing physical attacks...? Also I'm curious where you're getting the base game information from; none of the sources I'm finding say that Sleep increases damage taken (at least beyond what you'd get from your evasion being set to zero and thus more attacks connecting). They're for the NES/PS1 version, granted, because the GBA version is... terribly documented, but.
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Jan 27, 2021 00:22
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if you think of it less as "asleep" and more as "concussed and knocked silly" then a lot of the attacks that cause sleep make a bit more sense. big ogre, big club, big head trauma
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Jan 27, 2021 15:19
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Yeah, IIRC FF1, even in DoS, doesn't have any kind of status effect for "dazed" or "stunned" like some other RPGs do. It's less "blissful slumberland" and more "literally punched your lights out".
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Jan 27, 2021 15:29
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05. Obligatory 8-Bit Theater Reference Since we're heading west anyway, we might as well swing by the Western Keep. There's not usually much to see there, but you never know.  En route, we get into... frankly Too Many fights. I remembered Dawn of Souls having a high encounter rate, and it's around now it's coming back into sharp focus just how high. Cobras are still oneshot garbage. They have barely 30HP, poison you if they get turns (almost never) and drop Antidotes semi-often.  Speaking of which, Tarantulas are more common over here and drop the regularly too. By which I mean we get all of one before reaching the keep.  The world map design is functional enough, I suppose. I do vaguely remember where most things are but the GBA screen makes it harder to see at times. Our real goal is south, but we'll head north first.  And find Crawlers on the way. They're stronger Gigas Worms but we're capable of consistently one-shotting them with Cecil and Gilgamesh by now.  Good thing too because they inflict Blind with their regular attack. Drop-wise they give    Permanent Agility boosts?!Actually, fun fact about this item. In the GBA and PSP releases it's bugged. Because this is Final Fantasy 1 and something needs to not work properly, I guess. It increases Agility just fine, but its the associated Evasion increase that doesn't work properly. When you level up, you gain 2 Evasion when you gain a point of Agility. When you use this, you only get 1 Evasion instead. Which is still honestly more than you'll probably need, but I'm sure if you're the kind of person who cares that disincentives using these until max level.  Anyway, here's the Western Keep.  ...It has random encounters now. It used to have all of three fights in it. One boss fight and two spiked tiles.  We got random undead boys hanging out here, no big deal.  Ghasts don't paralyse on hit any more. They poison instead. Guess they're really getting into the feel of the marsh they normally inhabit.  They also can cast Fire, Thunder and Blizzard. Goblin Guards sure aren't the only enemy that's been changed in this regard after all. They're just the only ones that had gotten to show it so far. They drop Chain Mail. Basically just Gil at this point.  This totally not suspicious dude wants us to go into the Marsh Cave and find a crown. We were gonna do that anyway, so sure.  Run into a couple Shadows At this point I realised that I had an almost real amount of Gil, so its back to Elfheim we go to stock up on supplies.  Unsurprisingly, we can buy Elven Balms here and... they seem bad. I dunno, Heal isn't that great a spell so having it in item form is arguably even worse. Hopefully it's at least Healara to make it less worthless but I wouldn't count on it.  Dia(ra?) in item form here, too. This'd be pretty nice but it's way too expensive to worry about stocking up on for a while.  I just grabbed 10 Potions and Antidotes. That you can't buy Sleeping Bags or Tents is a mild irritant but we'll be fine.  Originally, Marsh Cave was a bit of a spike because it has decently tough enemies and you get poisoned like every other fight.  Gray Oozes are probably low on the threat level, at least. They have decently high Magic Defense, and resist most spells for good measure, but crumple if hit physically. Their big change is that they drop Strength Tonics now which is pretty nice in its own way.  Green Slimes are like inverted Gray Ooze. They get decimated by spells (despite also having approximately one million resistances) but huge Defense.  Thanks to how damage formulae work, this is significantly more pronounced. Appropriately, they now drop Protect Tonics which grant a temporary Defense buff. That would be very handy if we got any, but nope.  We'll check out the optional northern half of B2 first. There's a few chests up here that are easily skipped otherwise.  And in doing so, we just saved 990 Gil. Very nice! Since this weapon is original to the hack, this used to be a regular Dagger. Definitely rather have this, though.  The Venom Dagger itself seems very underwhelming, though. At least it might if you just pay attention to the Attack stat. It appears to do Poison damage, but most likely doesn't inflict Poison, and that buff to Accuracy is huge. The Evasion hit is a nasty side-effect but we'll live. Sadly, it does not do anything if used as an item. That was the first thing I tried hoping it would, because it'd justify that price tag. No such luck.  The Broadsword in the bottom left corner is still the same, at least.  Now only has 14 Attack and 6 Accuracy, which are both reduced from before. Used to be 15 Attack, 10 Accuracy. Still manages to be an upgrade though, and that's all that matters.  On the way back to the entrance, I twig on what's going on in the cave. Good thing, it's not All Poison All The Time. Bad thing, it's All Blind All The Time (With Some Poison Thrown In For Flavour). The item that cures this is the Mind Balm, since that's several rolled into one. Guess what's not sold at Elfheim! ...Remedies are 600 Gil a pop. That's not a valid alternative. ]Don't be silly.  Back to Pravoka we go, then. Stocking up on Mind Balms to deal with this nonsense. Grab a couple bags and tents while we're here, just for later convenience.  And then its right back to the cave. We gotta go south from the entrance to get to the right path through here.  This version of B2F has a bunch of chests, but they're all empty. This was the case originally, so it's not the hack being rude.  Gargoyles, however, are changed in a way that makes them very rude indeed.  Their basic attack inflicts Silence. In a dungeon that happens to have Green Slime in it. What a buncha jerks!  At least Silence is also cured with Mind Balms, but still. Gargoyles now drop Great Helms. They're an okay upgrade if you get one, but they're not worth going out of your way for. B2F is boring and has nothing else of note in it, so we'll skip to the bottom floor.  I am very glad to see this hasn't changed, at least. In an ideal world, I might need this before too long.  Last regular enemy in the cave is this upgraded Skeleton.  Which now has access to a fourth level spell! Single target +25 Attack boost. Cost 16MP to make up for it being a more pronouced buff that it was before, when it was "just" +14 for 8MP (...well, whenever it worked). Bloodbones drop Falchions now, by the way. We're a bit past the need for those at this point though.  Right, Mystic Key doors down here too. We're gonna be back for those later, then.  There's a chest somewhere on this floor that used to have a Cottage in it. I got sick of the encounter rate, so I just ran for the Crown to get it over with for now.  Spiked tile in front of the chest still has Piscodemons as its fight. Did it a couple times and it gave 3 every time, but that doesn't prove anything. It used to be 2-4 after all, so it fits right in.  Despite looking like Mages, they used to be able to cast no spells at all. And their basic attack is... very variable.  They still appear to be unable to do anything but basic physical attacks. No ailment riders I noticed either.  So, we'll just mash their faces in with our new weapons and Thunder spells. HP (84) and Accuracy (21) are both up. Attack (30) and Magic Defense (98) are both down. Nothing else has changed, statwise. EXP is actually up, surprisingly, from 276. Gil is naturally reduced from 300. Dropping a Mythril Knife is new; used to not drop anything. Dia weakness is new. Rest of their elemental/ailment stuff is identical, save for losing Petrification resistance.  Have a real boss fight coming up next, so we'll head on back to Pravoka... again... to pick up NulShock for Cecil, NulBlaze and Cura for Ovelia. Mute shuts down Astos normally, but I wanna see what he can do here and not just walk over the guy. Plus I'd kinda expect that to be changed.  Time for what is relatively one of the hardest boss fights in the real releases!  Inside a Boss Battle So, Astos was - to put it scientifically - a bit of a right bastard originally. He used to cast Death.  Mercifully, that does not appear to be the case any more. Pain is a bit anoying, but we can deal with it.  Thundara is thoroughly expected and what I bought NulShock for. More powerful than Thunder and multi-target, so mitigate that one.  ...Huh, that's new. Ice was conspicuously an element Astos did not have a spell for. Because Blizzara would be too mean, I guess. NulFrost not being really viable without a ton of grinding may also have had something to do with it.  That's not new, either, which is a bit of a small mercy.  Considering it hit almost everyone. Jerk.  This isn't new either, so NulBlaze was also a good investment.  Well, he didn't have this before!  Single target Paralysis. Base chance of 80% to work. Much more effective in his hands than ours. Not just because we normally wouldn't have access to it until we get to Crescent Lake either, which feels like its ages away.  He has Mute as well, which is also new. It's not really a huge deal, since his Magic Defense was quite pronounced before.  He also had Haste before. At least this proves it DOES still exist, which is good to know.  He had this before as well, just back when it was known as Dark.  ...And then I accidentally killed him without actually wanting or meaning to. Oops.  So, gonna reset and do it properly then.  Hm, Blizzard hits pretty consistently for over 100 damage.  Ah, that's why. HP (420) and Accuracy (42) are increased, sure, but Defense (18), Intelligence (24), Evasion (78) and Magic Defense (170) are all reduced. Intelligence has literally not changed at all for any enemy as far as I've noticed. Most things it wouldn't do anything, so no point. I figured it was being left static across the board but nope. Astos is the first to have it changed, and it's nearly halved. This straight up neuters his entire fighting style! No wonder I killed him by accident. Uh, anyway, EXP is the same as before. Gil is reduced (of course) from 2000. He used to drop a Mythril Sword, but swapped it out for Original Armour. Susceptibility to Dia is new, but that's the only change to weakness/resistances. He could still be silenced if you wanna go that route. Kinda don't see the point now...  This is also very new. Astos runs on a vague pattern, or at least used to, but each step was a selection of various spells.  This one does no damage, but poisons. Previously this was used exclusively by Manticores in the Flying Fortress at the very end of the game.  Poison's annoying but we'll deal with it afterwards. The ability to drop a buncha high-powered hits in rapid succession makes short work of this inexplicably nerfed Astos.  This saves us 1250 Gil from Elfheim, which is nice. Its new for the hack and its description implies it boosts Magic Defense. Gonna give it to Gilgamesh for now, I think.  Now we can take this back to it rightful owner and move on from this little enclosed part of the world. Best get to it, than. Best cave music, here we come! okay but no of all the bosses to nerf why would you pick astos when you want this game to be harder...????
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Jan 28, 2021 02:10
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Marsh Cave and Astos are made easier? I guess it jives with the goal of balance and preventing a massive difficulty spike. Still seems odd though.
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Jan 28, 2021 02:43
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You forgot the biggest problem with og marsh cave while describing it. You could get a ton of enemies that paralyze with their basic attacks on a random encounter and that encounter could be an ambush. Any given step could turn into a game over for the player without them being allowed to do a single thing. It was great. Excellent design.
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Jan 28, 2021 04:46
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Back in the day, uphill both ways, the snow, yada yada yada.
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Jan 28, 2021 04:47
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But I like FF1 NES being stupid and unbalanced. 
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Jan 28, 2021 09:25
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FoolyCharged posted:You forgot the biggest problem with og marsh cave while describing it. You could get a ton of enemies that paralyze with their basic attacks on a random encounter and that encounter could be an ambush. Any given step could turn into a game over for the player without them being allowed to do a single thing. Yeah, I actually straight up did forget that. The right enemies for it are even still there, but most of them just can't do it any more so it slipped my mind
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Jan 28, 2021 16:00
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That's an objectively good change.
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Jan 28, 2021 17:48
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Astos is supposed to be hard? I think ive killed him in one turn everytime, he has pathetic hp
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Jan 29, 2021 00:12
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mandatory lesbian posted:Astos is supposed to be hard? I think ive killed him in one turn everytime, he has pathetic hp He's "hard" in that he causes your characters' XP to become uneven because he has a good chance of Death'ing someone, causing your characters to level up at different times. That's as good as being defeated for OCD RPG players.
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Jan 29, 2021 00:22
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He's a total dick if you're trying to do a solo Thief run!
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Jan 29, 2021 00:46
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Schwartzcough posted:He's "hard" in that he causes your characters' XP to become uneven because he has a good chance of Death'ing someone, causing your characters to level up at different times. That's as good as being defeated for OCD RPG players. Haha, in my latest run of dawn of souls my black mage is 400 exp behind everyone else and i dont care so this tracks
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Jan 29, 2021 01:05
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mandatory lesbian posted:Astos is supposed to be hard? I think ive killed him in one turn everytime, he has pathetic hp If I remember, he has a decent defense for that point in the game combined with a low enough level that most characters won't get many hits per attack, so unless you have black or red mages, you're plinking away at him. Land mute on him and laugh though.
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Jan 29, 2021 01:28
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:He's a total dick if you're trying to do a solo Thief run!
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Jan 29, 2021 05:58
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Randalor posted:If I remember, he has a decent defense for that point in the game combined with a low enough level that most characters won't get many hits per attack, so unless you have black or red mages, you're plinking away at him. Land mute on him and laugh though. generally i roll a randomizer to set my party so i think ive always had at least one black magic user. So i guess i prob have been lucky in that regard
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Jan 30, 2021 00:06
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I don't know if it's specific to this hack or the game in general but there are a lot of bosses you can paralyze in this
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Jan 30, 2021 00:37
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Yapping Eevee posted:Don't remind me... This and the next boss are suffering. Hey, somebody else who knows my suffering! Rad.
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Jan 30, 2021 02:41
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Hi, update coming soon-ish but first I glossed over this and it's a worthwhile correction. I think so anyway. LiefKatano posted:What's with all the sleep-inducing physical attacks...? You're right that originally Sleep didn't increase damage received by 50%; that IS a change that mod introduced according to its documentation (so I'll edit it back in) for Sleep, Paralysis and a 3rd Ailment its Blind. Blind is now kind of a fucker, it just... has not come up yet. It did, however, originally increase your Attack by 25% which works out a bit differently. Damage attack formula for the original game is mercifully simple: code:Basically Attack is randomised between its displayed value and double that. In vanilla it ups the stat by 25% before randomising it if the target of a physical attack is asleep or paralysed. Now it just allegedly ups the end result by 50% instead.
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Jan 30, 2021 02:45
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06. Treasure (That Is What You Are) We've got some plot coupon exchanging to do now, so it's pretty straight forward and linear. We do have a bit of disposable income though, so let's nip into Elfheim right quick.  We'll pick up a Magical Robe and Power Staff for Rab here. Its description implies its different to before, but the only obvious change is that its Accuracy has gone up from 0. Attack stat is unchanged, oddly enough. It doesn't do anything when used as an item, so I dunno what its new description means.  After selling a bunch of garbage we don't need, we'll grab Pummel for Gilgamesh. It could come in handy at some point; have to see how it fares of course.  Nothing to do but advance the plot, so we'll sail under the Cornerian bridge to more easily get to... Matoya's Cave We've got her eye here and ready to go.  Just gotta grab these free items first.  These two used to be Potions. They're actually good now. Well, the Phoenix Down at least. The Balm saves a decent chunk of change and lets us test it easier.  Give Matoya her eye back and get the next plot coupon in return. Back to Elfheim we go!  Wake up the prince and get the Mystic Key. Now this is ultimately just another plot coupon in disguise, sure, but it has other uses too.  Like letting us loot at least one thing in every location we've been to so far. Except Pravoka. There's nothing for it in Pravoka. The items here are unchanged. The Mythril Hammer is the only one that's noteworthy, since only Cecil can use it and its a bit of an upgrade over the Broadsword. 19 Attack and 8 Accuracy puts it over the sword in both respects, which is odd. It used to be 12 Attack and 5 Accuracy, so it's just straight up better to vanilla too. The other three chests are money, money and  We'll need to nip into Pravoka right quick before we go anywhere else. Gotta buy some stuff, you see. En route, we find some Sahagin Chiefs. They're just stronger Sahagin and we don't even need to try to kill them now. They can drop Red Curtains, which'd have saved some money before since they're NulBlaze in item form.  Just getting some 3rd level spells. Rab gets Fira and Thundara.  Back in Elfheim, we'll also get Warp for... Ovelia. Since she's capable of doing actual melee damage, she can use her MP on utility stuff more. It'll be fine.  Back to the Western Keep we go. Getting to the Mystic Key door here is a mild nuisance, that explains the random encounters at least.  Especially since as we get closer to here, I swear they get more dangerous.  Or maybe I'm just imagining that. Either way, Wights don't belong here normally. I didn't get Fira for them, but it sure is convenient that I just got it either way. They drop Iron Armour. I dunno what ailment rider they have, since nothing happened beyond regular damage.  I mentioned it before in passing, but we'll be seeing a lot of spiked tiles this time around. They're just tiles that when stepped on are guaranteed to start a fight. They draw from a different pool of encounter formations than the rest of the map. I mention this now because this small room has 3 of them. Each one directly below a chest. The top two are...  Just Mummies. Random from 2-4, like the Piscodemons in Marsh Cave. They're not really threatening, except maybe if they ambush you. Their attacks have a Blind rider, which is kinda whatever still. They drop Crosiers now, which we could also buy at Elfheim. They're not really good, so I'm not worried about it though.  The other chest is guarded by Wraiths. Updated Shadows but actually dangerous this time.  Mostly because they like to spam Blizzard now. This allows them to do actual damage.  The other chests are a Falchion (whatever) and Power Staff (oops) which means these are also completely unchanged. The Steel Gloves are a decent upgrade for Cecil at least, so he can use 'em.  Back in Marsh Cave, and the chest that formerly held the Cottage now has this original armour. It's almost identical to Leather Armour, except with less weight so it has better evasion. I guess Ovelia can use it for now.  New spiked tiles in some of these rooms. Some of them are sensical, some aren't. The tile that Cecil is facing here is spiked but the one above it isn't. It triggers a 2-4 Piscodemon encounter. That's how I know.  Oh, we... we get a 3rd Magical Robe here. Giving this to Ovelia, since it's better than the Bard's Tunic. That literally lasted less than a minute. Oops. This used to be a Silver Armlet. The tile here that Cecil is currently standing on is not spiked. The one directly above this chest, however, is.  It's a bunch of upgraded snakes! They're just Cobras but with more numbers. They didn't poison anyone this time around, though, and they can drop...  ...That. Luck Plus is, well, a permanent Luck boost for someone. This is supremely underwhelming though, since Luck in this game does all of one thing. It affects your chance to successfully flee from a fight. Yeah. That's why I'm not excited about this one. It literally doesn't matter, so of course it's the easiest to farm thus far.  This, however, used to be an Antidote. It's now some original armour. The tile Cecil is standing on is spiked with another Anaconda fight. The ones either side of it are spiked with Piscodemons. This one being definitely guarded makes sense, since this armor is actually kinda good.  It's a massive boost over the Chain Mail, at 18 Defense/16 Weight. The description reads to me as granting Sleep resistance too, but since its buyable in Elfheim that might be projecting just a tiny bit. The last chest is still money, and its still guarded by Piscodemons.  Next, we're off back to Corneria! Hitting up the castle first.  Iron Armor was always here, but is a downgrade in evey way from the Watchman Mail. 15 Defense/24 Weight, which makes it actively worse than the original for no reason at all. It used to be 24 Defense and 23 Weight. Yeah, really.  Oh, this was a tent before now it's an upgrade for... just Cecil. Used to be 4 Defense and nothing else. Now it's 5 Defense and 8 Evasion. Very nice, to be sure.  There's the plot coupon we need to advance. 3 chests in the other room contain  Finally we'll hit up the Chaos Shrine's two locked doors. Cecil's standing on a spiked tile that spawns Gargoyles. Werebuster is a sword that is designed to be used againt Werebeast enemies. Bear in mind that in Dawn of Souls this actually works. It's still not worth using for that property, because... there's only two Werebeasts in the game. One of which is the Werewolf we've already outclassed. I'm still giving it to Cecil right now, because at 20 Attack/10 Accuracy it's still a straight up upgrade. It did used to be 18 Attack/15 Accuracy though.  Well, this saved us 800 Gil and lets us test it out sometime soon(ish). It did used to be a Gold Needle, though.  Ovelia's getting this one and it saves us 8000 Gil at Elfheim! It's effective against Mage enemies, which are a fair bit more plentiful than Werebeasts. Used to have 18 Attack and 15 Accuracy, just like the Werebuster. Now its used got 15 Attack and 15 Accuracy, presumably to make up for the fact that its generally more useful than the Werebuster otherwise. Also this tile that Cecil is standing on is spiked with more Gargoyles. This one is more relevant than normal, because...  We hit level 12,which means Rab gets level 4 spells. Only Rab. Ovelia's been keeping pace so far, but now she falls behind! Blizzara and Temper are definite Must Haves, let's be real, but Confuse is more of a "just in case, I guess". Oh and Gilgamesh gets Chakra now too, because we can afford it.  Finding where to go next isn't super obvious if you don't already know. NPCs are pretty good at pointing you in the right direction for the most part, though. We need to go to basically the north-western most point of the lake we're trapped in.  Going southwest from there lets us find this cave.  There's a fair bit of treasure here, including functionally money and actually just straight up money directly above this.  Normally can't get Adamantite until the Flying Fortress. I can only presume that's not changed, really.  This was here before and at this point, I've noticed that equipment... mostly... stays static in chests but regular items are almost entirely replaced. There's exceptions, of course, like how the Tent to the left here stuck around. Anyway, point is I sorta expected this so I didn't bother farming the Gargoyle spikes for one. Giving it to Cecil for sure, since it has 8 Defense/8 Weight. Originally it was 5 Defense/5 Weight. Increased Defense is, to me, enough to offset the increased Weight. Less evasion means take more hits, sure, but not like he was gonna dodge much anyway.  Half-hoped I could snag one of these early, since regular Sharks drop it now. No such luck, so no need to keep it secret any more. It's the "good vs Dragons" sword, which is actually a very encompassing category. It includes things which objectively are not Dragons such as Dinosaurs (though they're at least 80% as rad as Dragons, so I'll allow it) and... snakes... Sure. Sure, okay. Then again, this IS the same game that classifies Goblins as Giants so I'm not sure what I expected. Anyway, the Wyrmkiller! Giving it to Ovelia right away, since its stronger than the Rune Blade. Yep. 17 Attack/19 Accuracy, which is a weird combination but whatever. It ued to be 19 Attack/15 Accuracy, of course. Yeah, 19 and not 18. It had a lower chance to Crit (when that finally also worked properly) to make up for it I guess.  Ether is the same as before, but the Potion has been upped to a Hi-Potion. Eh, sure. The Mythril Mail is a straight upgrade for Cecil though. It used to be a lower Defense but also less Weight and more accessibility piece of armor to make it not objectively slapped on the Fighter right away. Not so much here. 20 Defense/12 Weight is a good combo for our armour boy, even if this does make it slightly heavier than before (for once). Formerly 18 Defense and 8 Weight.  Last two chests are just a handful of Gil and an actual free Cottage (unchanged). We'll give this guy the box of explosives we found hanging out in a castle.  Which the Dwarf there used to detonate part of the landmass above...  And lets us sail out into the open world proper! There's not many places we can actually dock this ship though. Might as well check out this whirlpool while we're here.  It's the Lifespring Grotto, which requires we beat Kraken to open up. We're a bit away from having that even up for consideration though.  Due west of there, we can find a place to actually make port.  Melmond's the last town before we take on our first Fiend! The earth here dying is a bit of a clue, really.  Spells have mostly levelled out to what they were originally, Gil prices aside. I say mostly, because this was where you'd get Diaga and Healara, instead of Diara and Protera. Protera was a level 6 spell originally, so that's nice to see early at least.  ...Firaga is still here. Haste is also here! I legitimately expected that to be made even later if anything. Granted, we don't get level 5 spell access for another half-dozen levels or so but that's a non-issue. Firaga and Scourge were here originally. Other two were Teleport and Slowra. Stun is one town earlier than before and Haste is now one town later.  Weapon store is a fair bit different, but nothing here is more expensive than the Rune Blade or Kotetsu back at Elfheim. Oh yeah, there's a katana for sale at Elfheim for 9000 Gil. Gilgamesh and Ovelia can use it. I haven't checked if its a real upgrade for either at this point though. Maybe I should.  Some decent armour upgrades, too. The real armour is more expensive than Elfheim's, so it should theoretically be better... even if Elfheim selling a Buckler for 2000 Gil that's worse than the Iron Shield it also sells proves otherwise. Nothing here compares to the Elven Cloak in costs, though.  So now we've got the Cavern of Earth to go deal with. I guess next time, we'll do that. Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jan 30, 2021 |
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Jan 30, 2021 03:44
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If I had to guess, the logic for the anti-dragon sword working on dinos is that the Japanese for dinosaur, 恐竜, has the character for dragon in it. And as for snakes, well, both snakes and dragons can be referred to as wyrms in mythology. (This is all speculative, though, I have no idea if this was the actual reasoning.)
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Jan 30, 2021 04:58
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This mod feels kind of underwhelming so far.dotchan posted:If I had to guess, the logic for the anti-dragon sword working on dinos is that the Japanese for dinosaur, 恐竜, has the character for dragon in it.
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Jan 30, 2021 10:44
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Isn't the direct translation of that kanji "Terrible Dragon" or something thereabouts?
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Jan 30, 2021 12:26
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:44 |
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I'm pretty sure it is, hence why FFVI has a character talk about a dragon in the forest when its populated by dinosaurs.
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Jan 30, 2021 14:56
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