Great weapons have had their might buffed a little, but have been raised to B rank. Melanie’s base Axe rank has been raised to B correspondingly (Argo’s has meanwhile been nerfed to C). I’ve also made some other slight adjustments to chapter 8x and other chapters.
Thanks to some help from ZoramineFae, a few maps in the hack (specifically prologue, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 8, and chapter 9) have been updated to look much better than they used to! Chapter 9 has also had some gameplay reworks along with the visual overhaul. I’ll be attempting to visually update other maps similarly in the future, but first I want to completely restructure Alexander route Chapter 13, and I really need to just completely throw out the current map for Chapter 3 and start it over.
3 Likes
More visual updates to maps, this time done by me! Chapters 4, 6, 11E, 13xE, 13xA, and 21x have all received updates to look nicer and less monotonous.
3 Likes
Fixed an error with not importing the proper map animations for the improved castle tileset I switched to, and made a few more adjustments to chapter 9.
Final wave of updates to chapter 9!
1 Like
Chapter 9x as also now been revised a bit to make it slightly less of a nothing chapter.
1 Like
Major reworks to chapter 10! Adjusted map layout, enemy placements and behavior, etc. Along the way, I have also buffed Troubadours to 7 mov (their promotions remain 7 mov still) and buffed the Twinblades to 40 uses.
Detailed summary of chapter 10 changes:
- Sophia now has a constant +14 Res barrier during this chapter.
- At the start of the chapter, you are given an item that can be used to silence Beta for one player phase. (If not used, the item disappears after the chapter.)
- Initial enemies are now more aggressive, with many changing from “wait until in range” AI to “wait one turn, then move” AI. Enemies previously on “move in 2” AI are now set to start moving on specific turns based on events.
- The Falcoknights that spawn near the Twins are now turn-based instead of zone-based.
- Map layout has been made more open.
- Titan now spawns in the middle of the map so you don’t have to backtrack to recruit him. His NPC allies have been buffed.
- The turn 5 Assassin reinforcements by Titan’s old spawn point have been removed.
- Beta now starts moving on turn 10.
- On turn 13, if the map is still going, a familiar face shows up as a temporary player unit to help finish things… but once he appears, Bias, Pittacus, and Myson flee the map, preventing you from getting the items they drop.
Unfortunately, I have also identified a bug in my outdated version of SkillSys, which I intend to try to fix soon but is not fixed at the moment. My old version of SkillSys checks for weapon-based skills based on the first item slot, not on what weapon is actually equipped. While uncommon, this becomes relevant on enemy phase if you have a non-weapon in your first slot, perhaps as a result of trading or, more commonly, as a result of staff use, and auto-equip a weapon in a lower slot, as this does not actually change your inventory order. This bug affects the critical prevention effect of Bronze weapons and the follow-up prevention effect of Bennett’s Brynhildr. Until I find a way to fix this, be careful when enemy phasing with these weapons, especially on staff users.
Alright, NOW the weapon-based skills thing is actually fixed, turns out there was a game-crashing error in my fix before that triggered in every chapter except the one I was testing in.
I have also added a function where the game now automatically enables the Danger Radius ranges of enemy siege weapons at the start of each turn. I may also soon update it to do the same for moving bosses.
UPDATE: Automatic start-of-turn danger radius highlighting now also applies to moving bosses!
One last Chapter 10-related update: if Sophia died before the chapter, she still returns as playable during the chapter, but is set back to being dead at the end. She also gets a temporary prf weapon during that chapter with boosted monster effectiveness, allowing her to contribute somewhat even when untrained and accounting for the “she’s not shown in preps, what if she doesn’t have enough weapon uses left” problem. I felt it important for people who lost her and/or didn’t train her to still have a unit in that slot who was able to do something, instead of having one less unit deployed or having useless base level Sophia unable to do anything.
Small bugfix: the reduced-mov Falcoknights in chapter 8 are now properly weak to bows.
Small update: Mogalls and Arch Mogalls are now weak to bows.
Final chapter 10 update for real this time, I swear.
Beta now starts moving slightly earlier (turn 8 instead of turn 10)
Byleth appears slightly earlier (turn 10 instead of turn 13)
The secondary bosses flee at the start of turn 10 enemy phase instead of turn 13 player phase
The two Vexshadow Sorcerers near Beta are now turn 7 reinforcements, instead of starting on the map and aggroing turn 5
Using the Binding Flames now warns you first that Beta will gain speed while silenced. If you say no to using it, it also now gives you a warning that canceling will still use your action (limitation of how the item’s set up), and gives you an extra opportunity to quit and resume from autosave to regain your action.
1 Like
Chapter 3 has finally been totally reworked! Same story concept, but a completely different layout, and Kalin now joins automatically at the start instead of showing up later. Some other slight adjustments have been made as well:
- Willow now joins with a Vulnerary
- Chapter 2 now has some of your units start slightly closer, and I’ve removed a couple enemies that were unnecessary/overkill.
- Archie now has a Swordreaver instead of a Steel Axe so Alexander can hit him reliably
- Enemy Viskam tomes -1 might.
- Elys +5% Def growth, since I realized I may have nerfed her ever so slightly too much with the increase in enemy strength.
3 Likes
Some balance adjustments to the early game, yet again:
- Tinker now joins with a Speedwing instead of a Red Gem, so you can guarantee someone hits the 9 speed benchmark for Chapter 6 Brigands. Neyna now drops a Blue Gem instead, and chapter 6’s ending now gives 2500 less gold. (Why this instead of Neyna dropping a Red Gem? Two reasons: makes players less likely to lock themselves out of recruiting Ares, and blue gems have a particular story relevance for Neyna which will be revealed later in the game.)
- Chapter 6 Brigands have 1 less Res so Jay can ORKO with the Levin Sword
- Chapter 6 Mercenaries and Mages have 1 less Speed.
- A couple enemies have been slightly adjusted in positioning in chapters 5 and 6.
- Ashley has 1 more base Speed
- Kalin has 1 more base Luck
3 Likes
Small updates:
- Swapped a couple weapons around on ch6x enemies
- Realized I’d accidentally buffed the wall-breaking axe fighters in chapter 7 to the point where they were breaking the walls a turn earlier, deleveled them slightly so they don’t
- Sophia’s alternate promotion is now Basara instead of Sage – Bishop is still generally better, this probably makes the choice even more one-sided than before, but now you have an option to make use of her funny Strength growth if you want.
4 Likes
Accidentally introduced, caught, and now fixed a bug where a few classes’ moving map sprites went missing. Also added a door in front of the boss of chapter 7 to enable getting the Member Card a little faster.
4 Likes
A preliminary Easy Mode is now available! Details:
- Enemies slightly reduced in power. -2 autolevels in chapters 1-10, -3 in chapters 11-19x, -4 in chapters 20. Unfortunately, due to a bug in my old SkillSys, this does not affect enemy Magic stats, but it affects everything else.
- Various enemies and reinforcement groups have been either removed outright, or show up later than on Normal.
- Certain enemies have weaker weapons.
- Certain enemy behaviors are changed.
- Anti-turtle incentives and timed side objectives are now a bit looser.
- EXP gain is boosted by 1.2x.
Chapter-specific Easy mode changes
Prologue: No changes
Ch1: No changes
Ch2: Pegasus reinforcements removed, Hammer enemy turned into Iron Axe
Ch3: Removed Cavalier reinforcements from behind, Ven starts moving a turn later.
Ch4: Reinforcements from the forts spawn a turn later, one sword Engineer near Jahid and Kai removed.
Ch5: Removed right-side Viskam enemy, all turn-based reinforcements appear one turn later.
Ch6: Removed Wyverns, Halberd Berserker, lower-right Steel Axe Berserker, top-right Archer, bottom-left Cavalier. Turn 4 Berserker reinforcements downgraded to Brigands.
Ch6x: The enemy that steals the Vexshadow tome waits a turn before moving.
Ch7: Removed two Archers in center of starting area.
Ch8: Removed turn 4 Assassin and Falcoknight, removed Axereaver Gargoyle and Swordreaver Tarvos from late reinforcement group.
Ch8x: Removed Wyverns, Pegasus reinforcements spawn a turn later.
Ch9: Removed starting Wyverns, two outside Mages, central Axereaver Armor Knight, and turn 5 Pegasus reinforcements. The big reinforcement wave from behind spawns one turn later.
Ch9x: The strong monsters now only move if you’re in range.
Ch10: Removed starting Pegasi, half of each flying monster pair, and the Longbow Archers. Byleth appears on turn 2 instead of turn 10, and Myson/Bias/Pittacus no longer flee.
Ch12E: Removed a large number of starting enemies and reinforcements. Weakened enemy Purge Bishops and reduced uses.
Ch12A: Removed multiple reinforcement waves. Maliz now has Flux instead of Nosferatu, and -2 speed to maintain the same AS. Ballisicians downgraded to regular Ballistas instead of Ballistas+, Bolting Sage reduced uses.
Aside from the autolevel and EXP changes, which are global, the only chapters to have direct enemy layout changes are chapters up to 10, and both chapter 12’s. I will likely make other easy mode adjustments to other later chapters in the future, but for now I’m fine with this.
Easy Mode has not been fully tested. As it is a strict difficulty decrease from Normal, I do not plan on testing it extensively in the same way I have Normal Mode. Despite its name, it is still probably not going to be easy, but the intent is for it to be friendlier to more casual/less experienced players. To that end, if anyone has specific suggestions for changes, please let me know!
On a side note: Anna now has +1 base speed, and chapter 3 Ven now has only 15 speed, aka “doubles Felakhos but no longer doubles Anna”.
EDIT: Another small change: Arthur now has 1 more speed as well, still nerfed from his old 4 but buffed from his previous 2. He also now has funny 110% HP growth instead of 90% HP growth because funny big HP stat. I have also buffed the promo gains of both Paladin and Great Knight by 1 point of Strength. Paladin also gets 1 more point of Speed now (which doesn’t make much difference on either Cavalier, Arthur won’t have much speed anyway and Maxwell will have a ton of speed anyway, but it’ll make Arthur get doubled ever so slightly less often as a Paladin), and GK now gets 1 less Res (for purposes of GK vs General balancing on Vox, Arthur getting +1 or +0 Res won’t make much difference with how bad his Res is). Basically, nothing really changes about how Arthur performs for most of the game, but he’s got slightly better long-term potential, as I received feedback that he didn’t feel rewarding to have trained.
ANOTHER EDIT: Seteth now has 1 more base HP to barely avoid the 2HKO from chapter 8’s Dark Mages.
3 Likes
A couple of major changes:
- New character: Lysithea now joins as a playable unit after chapter 8! Chapter 9 was in need of a unit who could ORKO Mercenaries, and Ven is missable. As you might expect, Lysithea has a ton of Magic and not much else. Her stats are slightly different than her NPC appearance for balance reasons.
- New mechanic: difficlty switching! At the start of every chapter, the game now asks if you’d like to change difficulties. You can switch it to any of the existing difficulties at any time.
- I have also added notifications on the World Map after every chapter where the cleared node has shops, and warnings before chapters 9 and 16 that you will not be able to return to the world map for a bit after entering them.
And also some minor tweaks to chapter 9 and some other places.
EDIT: Fixed a bug with difficulty switching causing event skipping to glitch out, nerfed Lysithea slightly, and added Restore staves to the preps shop.
4 Likes
Great Knights, with the exception of Felakhos, now have 7 mov, as they probably should have had from the beginning. Promotion gains have been adjusted accordingly.
1 Like
Bug fix: made a mistake with the “Buddy promotion” setup for Kai causing Buddy to not upgrade when Kai promoted in a newly-started save. Fixed.
Balance adjustment: various nerfs to Arthur have been reverted, the increase in enemy attack power (particularly Mercenaries and Steel Swords) was enough to balance him by itself.
Various other tweaks have been made as usual. Also, Vox has a new portrait!
2 Likes
I’ve added two extra deployment slots to chapter 10. It’s very unlikely to have that many fully-trained units at the point, but filler units can still help finish things off, and it gives you a little more flexibility in switching people’s starting positions around.
Also, fixed a mistake that was causing Lysithea to disappear from the team at the start of chapter 10, she’ll reappear if you reload chapter 10 in the new patch.
1 Like