Thx for enjoying that mess and also trying this one out.
Yes, a problem I noticed is that player phases would take too long
and way too many player moves would be wasted just moving surplus of units.
This time unit numbers and map design serve a more conservative approach
but without compromising unit choice or limiting party building.
Also this time the maps have multiple pathways to take, promoting splitting your army in groups.
Overall the difficulty is also reduced for the main story chapters compared to before
with the end game having a natural-expected difficulty curve.
Game becomes harder on Valni Floors 2~7
and hardcore for a later expansion in the Ruins.
For more details, read the “TIP” section in the OP.
So I’ve visited some villages and read the dialogues. Sometimes the items don’t match the dialogue from the village. I don’t remember exactly which chapters, but there was one village that spoke about using the ArmorSlayer to defeat the boss, but I was given a Dragon’s Tear(second one). Then another village later on that talked about a torch staff and how to use it, but I was given another Dragon’s Tear(3rd one).
I am enjoying the hack, with the map changes, and new sprites thought! Very well done!
Ah…yes. I didn’t expect anyone to still read village conversations lol so it wasn’t a priority.
But I’m looking into it.
While I hunted down many bugs and made it bug-free, there are still several text issues to be patched on the next update.
Thank you for liking it so far.
It’s been 10 days and I have to ask in general: Has anyone managed to beat this hack yet? Has anyone cleared the post game Valni Tower? What is the progress of you players?
I havn’t fully beaten the hack yet but I would so far say in general while I really like many of the changes you’ve made, I think the early access to silver weapons just makes the game too easy (for me anyway), perhaps push them back a bit?
So far I’m really enjoying this hack. I’m up to chapter 10 on Eirika’s route with no grinding, and while I haven’t had to reset yet, it certainly is more difficult than the vanilla Sacred Stones. The main reason for that is all of the reinforcements you added that actually approach the player, so you can’t just pull all of the enemies one by one as often as you can in vanilla, though It’s still a bit of a problem. I also worry that the large amount of enemies lets your units level up a bit too much.
I sort of agree that you get access to silver weapons too early. At chapter 10 I have 22k gold, and have a few excess promotion items I could sell if I wanted more.
Even though it’s been mentioned, it’s worth mentioning again that the backgrounds are great. I’m a big fan of the new maps and enemy placement so far as well.
The equipment items are also very interesting. I like what I’ve seen of them so far. It’s nice to be able to give a small boost to either a unit you’re training, or a unit you favor.
A few excess notes:
The class description for knight still only lists lances as under their usable weapons.
You get too many dragon tears too quickly. I’d dial it back a bit.
While I miss the original Seth, this version is naturally much better balanced, I think you could bump his level down to 5.
So far the nerf to criticals have made slim swords and killing edges not worth it to use.
The distinction between light, dark, and anima magic can be felt more, and the change is appreciated.
The icons for items and weapons look really nice, and don’t feel out of place.
While I can understand why some people may not like any changes to portraits, I personally like what you did with Vanessa. It’s a small change, and keeps her character intact, so it’s inoffensive.
Perhaps I just never noticed it in vanilla, but did you give Binks a smirk in his portrait?
Thank you for your feedback. Glad you are having a great time with it.
Yes the enemies use mostly formations and form small parties
which adds an extra layer of creativity to break their ringed defenses.
Overall, the story chapters have enemies around FE6 (Roy) in difficulty
while also having the QoL features of newer games.
My aim wasn’t to make a kaizo/ RNG hard game.
However, there is a small spike in the last 3 chapters
and if you want more you can do the Valni Floors 2~8 which are for the post-game 1 content.
Which is why EXP is already reduced but you will still naturally outlevel enemies with a constant group.
Reason is that some players might want to use some extra characters here and there to have a better feeling of each one and as such spread more EXP than they planned.
But don’t worry, enemies will keep up with your units better than any GBA game.
That’s around 15 silver/killer weapons for 15 units or 7 units if you buy 2 weapons for 1 character.
Sure you could buy them all now but that would drain you from future purchases
and you might (certainly) want to reserve G for later.
Moreover, Silver and Killer weapons are also nerfed in their Might and Hit stats
to fit as “just strong for mid game”. They only “look” OP for the next 3 chapters or so.
Another reason for them being at Ch9A/10B is that
after that point the next armory is in CH17. Too much later where the game is full of promotes.
BTW, stage shops have better gear to sell than map shops
to reward those that plan ahead and also make the effort to buy during a stage.
Good to mention it. I forgot about it.
Will fix it.
Spoilers: You get 4 in Arc1, 2 in Arc2 and a last 1 in Arc3 of the story.
Total 7/20units can have it for free.
I gave them mostly early on because this effect is useless when your units are LV20/10+.
The rest you will have to get them by yourself in post-game
especially if you want to max out your units.
If I do that, he will break the game solo. Try to give him 1 level up and see what happens.
He is designed to be a classic ace in early game, drops a lot in mid game
and manages to become viable in end/post game if one invests on him with care.
His EXP curve is designed so if someone uses him too much in early/mid game
Seth will hog a huge % of the map total EXP by himself
which will cause the rest of the units to fall back.
However, you can feed him kills in end game and have him slightly catch up to the rest (he will still fall behind).
You can of course max him out easily in post game.
(He will actually max out 1st in post game)
While Critical DMG is reduced
Critical Rate will keep growing more than before. You will see end/post game
This has a 2-fold benefit:
Criticals are less cheese but still reliable towards the enemy
Enemies can actually have high Critical Rates without having those critical hits force an guaranteed death.
When enemies will hit for 20+DMG, it won’t insta kill your 60HP units.
I did 2 changes, Neimi having a hunter armor and look less rugged
and Natasha having a little more “round” hair.
As for Binks, no he is smiling always. XD
Absolutely. I’m just starting Ch 14 of Ephraim’s route at the moment. I think the changes and balance have been spot-on so far. I tend to concentrate on a group of units to take to the endgame, so they’re all pretty powerful relative to the enemies at the moment, especially since many of them have been promoted recently- but they don’t feel too overpowered, for the most part.
I’d be totally okay with stronger generic enemies, at least based on my experience so far. I think there were a few earlier chapters that were already pretty tricky, but I can’t remember off the top of my head which ones.
One thing that I just thought of, that may be just personal preference- I’d be in favor of removing the fog of war and compensating by making the enemies more difficult on those maps. I don’t find that mechanic particularly fun.
Another thing that might help balance is reducing the amount of monsters in the random battles, if that’s possible. That would limit the player’s access to XP and money as long as they challenged themselves to not abuse the tower of valni.
I see. Maybe I’ll do a small tiny boost then. Better of both worlds.
Easy do add/remove fog
but it’s part of the story and the stages were designed with it in mind.
Maybe remove it from Ch11B in the Ghost ship because of the limited movement on the deck.
It’s already hard to abuse the tower as from Floor 2 and above it’s made for post-game.
The EXP from skirmishes is already hit very hard,
as for gold it’s there to give a good incentive to do skirmishes
which are 100% un-needed for the main game.
I just finished Orson in Renais and it’s a great game, I only have some small grips with it.
Most generic enemies have a Hand Axe or Javelin for their ranged weapons. Including bosses like Caellach and Vigarde. Meaning they have very little kill threat and are only a sponge which is boring. They need a different weapon, even if it’s only specific to them they need something else
Once again generic enemies have Hand Axe galor while their hero friends are holding Silver. So there’s a big power difference between the two.
There is alot of Knights+Generals and very little ways to kill them that isn’t magic or noble weapons. There is no armorslayers that I’ve seen so far so these enemies are tiresome, not to mention most of them have lances so swordlocked units have a very run time cough joshua cough
Some class skills are useless and others are wtf
Sages can wield all magics and get a boost while doing so, not to mention they get a personal Brave tome. Mage knights get… no bonus damage from Paladins???
Warriors can destroy Generals, but they already wield axes and have high str, do they need that small boost to take them down? Not to mention nobody wants to be a warrior when you have Hero and Berzerker right there
Berzerker has a max of 20skill? I promoted Ross into one, lv1 he had max skill. Kinda let down, but their class is one of the best in the series.
Much like in the original there is very little reason to have Marisa over Joshua. She has lower stats then him in everything except spd (by 5%.) and luck notoriously the dump stat.
Some base classes have 18 as their caps or 20. The few that have 20 are alot stronger just because their strong stats get an extra 2 points instead of being capped for 2-5 levels.
Nevertheless these are my gripes, this is still very well done hack (also complete so yay)!
Thank you for your feedback, time and good reception.
I’ll check everything you said.
True and there are 2 reasons for that:
For bosses it doesn’t matter as I gave them the stats to compensate for the lower quality weapon. What matters is the final battle values on the equipment screen and those are much higher than the original. The final attack on the big bosses in mid game is around 25~30
which 2 shots unpromoted units or 3 shots early promoted units. BUT I can understand the need to buff the STR on bosses that use Hand Axe/ Javelin
The next jump is into Tomahawk/ Spear territory which is quite the jump.
VS bosses it would shut down many unpromoted units from kiting a boss (Because mid-game)
VS generics they (hand axe/ javelin) do their job: they kite the player little by little.
Another reason for finding the game “easy” is because… I made the story chapters easy.
Something everyone complained about so I promise to up the enemies in story chapters on the next update (including the mid-game bosses that use Hand Axe/ Javelin)
But isn’t your Warrior happy? “/sarcasm”
Yes it makes Warriors actually worth something.
But you are right that ARMOR killers (sword/ lance/ axe) unlock too late (Ch17 MAP Shop)
while Silver/ Killer unlock too early.
Also ARMOR killers are usable only from promotes.
Apparently I have to do some shop and weapon swapping (Ch9A/10B) Swap Killers for Armor killers.
You are right. I’ve planned a buff for them
Mage Knights get 2 specialized weapons. And they are supposed to be played by using these 2.
The problem:
They get them Ch17 (on the stage shop only) the earliest, in Ch19 secret shop and then… in post-game.
Those 2 weapons are… not gud enough themselves
Good for mentioning it.
Personally I was using Lute as a MK and she was acting as an ok mage with Fortify
and she rocked in the Valni Towers with Light Brand.
But it’s true that a MK despite the defenses can’t stand at the front line right now (something a MK should be doing)
If I take that away, you have no reason to run a Warrior.
That’s why they are “Siegebreakers”. They break those annoying GKs and Generals blocking paths.
I promise to add ARMORslayers earlier and make them usable for pre-promotes.
Also ARMORslayers get a x3 mod, while the Warrior skill is just a x2.
Depending on the weapon ARMORslayers can outdamage a weak axe-weilding Warrior
but the Warrior will damage even those with the Hoplon Guard.
So there’s a lot going around the skill and the warrior class.
Berserker gets so much DMG and CRT he is still 1~2 shotting things.
Give him supports and some accessories and holy shit somebody stop him.
Zerkers don’t depend on gimmicks; they are raw power… as long as they land the hit.
It’s a stereotype: Joshua is the attacker, Marissa is the dodger (she also gets +5%skill more)
But as an assassin she insta killed many Generals for me.
Making her a Joshua clone is meaningless. But her RES could be better (will increase+15% for total 35%)
Feed her a Dragon Tear if you find her lagging. You can get a last one in CH19.
This is a bug
All unpromoted classes should cap at 18.
I’ll recheck all un-promoted classes and make sure everyone is at 18.
If you can remember which class was that it will save me much time.
And I thank you for the feedback. Much appreciated.
Noticed a couple of minor bugs while playing through Last Hope and taking a peek at the Rift.
The Wind tome is 2x effective against the Oracle class(when wielded by a Mage Knight attacking Tethys, if that matters), probably shouldn’t be.
The enemy descriptions in the first floor of Rift are messed up, they seem like they’re taken from the options menu. “Set Control Window Display”, “Turn Chapter Goal display on or off”, “Set turn to end automatically” and “Turn music on or off” for generic Raustens, generic Frelians, Hayden and Mansel respectively. But this one’s hardly a priority, as it doesn’t affect gameplay at all.
Edit: Fixed and updated the patches above with the fix.
This bug did not exist in the 1.00 version because this is something I did in the expansion
by moving around some tables
and “Wind” was the only weapon I forgot to re-configure.
Yes, no matter what I did this is something the game refused to fix.
I did gave them the proper correct descriptions. The game refuses to display them
because of their CharID number.
Please try ignoring it.
(Or look ahead for the lulz)
“/sarcasm”