Road to 2.0

This will be the final update.

Current plans:

• prepatch english translation
• Lv60 capstone
• inbattle item usage requires 4 TP
• misc. patch to disable pop up messages for (de)buffs and ailments
• change damage colors to make it possible to differentiate between Lv1 techs, counters and (enemy) crits
• only gain once TP per attack instead of per target/hit
• invalidate the entire job discussion topic
• expand on cursed item mechanic
• expand on stat requirement for spell learning and limit known spells to 10, maybe add some spells to classes that have less than 12 spells to add some choices
• replace accessoires that remove a single weakness, their effect gets roled into the add resist accessoire
• finally get rid of the low attack scaling weapon

I love these ideas. These sound like major changes; all very exciting. Some questions/suggestions:

1) Can you expand on what you intend to do to "invalidate job discussion topic"? Most of the limitations for team building are around finding class combinations that meet certain spell requirements (mainly Heal Light and defensive buffs/debuffs). Do you plan to get rid of these limitations by making these skills more accessible or less necessary? (I also love the idea to limit the number of spells to 10 per class; 12 really crowds the ring).

2) On a related note, have you considered making the after-battle heal standard at some point (maybe at the Capstone?) instead of requiring Heal Light? This would make many more class combinations competitive.

3) If you plan to make item usage dependent on tech points, you may also want to consider a standard tech point gain for spell casting for those classes that cast more often than swing weapons. (It seems like you've already started towards this in the current update.)

4) Hawk could use a Heal Light option (Wanderer?).

5) Duran and Angela's level 1 techs only hit once, despite having two clear swings and having "Double" in the title. This is obviously a low priority issue, since there are actually some timing advantages for counterattacks that have a longer swing.

Also, I really appreciate all the hard work and innovative thinking you've put into this project over the years. I am not familiar with hex editing but I would love to help or contribute in any way possible :-)

5 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

1) Can you expand on what you intend to do to "invalidate job discussion topic"?

That's just tongue in cheak; changing the spell limit from 12 known to 10 and adding cap stones basically makes most of the info from that topic wrong or at least incomplete.

7 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

2) On a related note, have you considered making the after-battle heal standard at some point (maybe at the Capstone?) instead of requiring Heal Light? This would make many more class combinations competitive.

Capstone would be way too late for that, lv60 is like 3/4 through the game, if you made it this far without Heal Light you can just as well finish without it.

8 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

3) If you plan to make item usage dependent on tech points, you may also want to consider a standard tech point gain for spell casting for those classes that cast more often than swing weapons. (It seems like you've already started towards this in the current update.)

That's one point still open for debate.
Could make MP regen ticks also give +1 TP or something.
Feel free to throw some ideas around.

15 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

4) Hawk could use a Heal Light option (Wanderer?).

There's a hard limit of 12 per character list for potential learnable spells, all Hawks except for Ninjamaster should be at that already.

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

2) On a related note, have you considered making the after-battle heal standard at some point (maybe at the Capstone?) instead of requiring Heal Light? This would make many more class combinations competitive.

Capstone would be way too late for that, lv60 is like 3/4 through the game, if you made it this far without Heal Light you can just as well finish without it.

You are right; I usually play on Normal, so by my imagination level 60 is workable. On Hard, probably not.

Maybe the first class change is a better idea, just to make the game a little more fluid for everyone?

Importantly, a standard after-battle heal would make No Heal Light teams much more reasonable to run.

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

3) If you plan to make item usage dependent on tech points, you may also want to consider a standard tech point gain for spell casting for those classes that cast more often than swing weapons. (It seems like you've already started towards this in the current update.)

That's one point still open for debate.
Could make MP regen ticks also give +1 TP or something.
Feel free to throw some ideas around.

I was actually going to suggest the +1 TP at MP regen ticks. I still think that a spell cast should be worth at least as many tech points as a melee attack. I like the idea of the new Red Moon Horn giving TP with spells cast, only now, there's not too much a spell caster can do with those tech points. If you make in-battle item use require TP, that gives them something else to do. One way you could set this up:

+1 TP for each melee attack OR spell cast.

+1 TP at MP regen ticks; this gives the intelligence stat another purpose for fighters.

–3 TP for in-battle item use. –4 is too much; 3 item uses for a full 9 TP bar sounds more reasonable. This way, a full tech bar gives you a steady progression of 1 item use before the first class change, 2 items after the first class change, and 3 items after the second class change.

EDIT: Also, some item-associated classes like Rogue (or even Sage, i.e. Alchemist), or even the first weapon (instead of its experience bonus) or an accessory, could grant bonuses like –1 TP required per item use. This may be a good way to add a unique element to these classes.

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

4) Hawk could use a Heal Light option (Wanderer?).

There's a hard limit of 12 per character list for potential learnable spells, all Hawks except for Ninjamaster should be at that already.

Well, if you're already getting rid of two spells to make it 10 per character, you might as well get rid of one more. Personally, I would get rid of the following:

- Body Change (leave that for Rogue; though I would consider getting rid of the player's ability to use chibikko effect altogether, including Freya and the weapons; maybe Freya could add Snowman or Leaf Coat instead?)

- Lunatic (again, leave that special for Rogue and Nightblade)

- Energy Ball (I actually like this on Wanderer, but Heal Light would be more useful; maybe it could transfer to Rogue for one of his less useful throwy things)

But my main point is that by bringing other classes up to 10 spells, you may be stepping on Wanderer's toes a bit, giving them access to a spell variety that used to be Wanderer's niche. One way to fix this is by giving Wanderer an extra really useful spell like Heal Light. I know that this would step on Paladin's toes in turn as the only other Antimagic/Heal Light user, but Paladin already has room for four more abilities to compensate, and there are so many ways around Antimagic now, I'm not sure that it's as essential as it used to be. Also, I don't think that this would make Wanderer too powerful if the after-battle heal became standard.

EDIT: With Heal Light on Wanderer and –1 TP required per item use on Rogue, Light Hawk would gain some defensive versatility that would make him a more attractive alternative to Dark Hawk.

Two more questions/suggestions:

1) What are you thinking for the capstones? Would this be a completely new final class? Would it's bonuses be in terms of stats or abilities? Also, are you thinking one capstone or two for each character (one for each initial Light/Dark path)?

2) Apart from the standard stat buffs/debuffs, it would be also nice to spread out the basic elemental sabers (earth, wind, ice, fire) a bit; maybe just one saber here and there. This would make it possible for more class combinations to go for a (cast on enemy) saber/resist strategy. For example, if you want to go for a saber/resist strategy in any of the these four basic sabers, you need to bring along Dark Duran, Light Carlie, or Dark Angela, only 3 of the total 12 first class changes. Spreading these out would also make the light, dark, leaf, and moon sabers more special. As it is now, it's easier to go for a Dark Saber/resist strategy than any of the four basic sabers, being available to Dark Duran, Dark Kevin, Dark Carlie, and Light Lise, 4 of the total 12 first class changes.

By making this strategy more accessible, more players would use the resistance armor, and enemy melee damage in the endgame would be more sustainable.

EDIT: Final classes that could stand to learn one or two saber spells (with suggestions in parentheses): Paladin (Earth), Lord (Wind), God Hand (Light, maybe instead of Moon, to balance out his classes and make Dervish's saber spell unique), Ninja Master (Fire), Nightblade (Ice), Vanadis (Earth, Wind), Dragon Master (Fire), and Fenrir Knight (Ice, since her Moon and Leaf Sabers cannot be used for resistance purposes).

9 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Maybe the first class change is a better idea, just to make the game a little more fluid for everyone?

I've some plans to solve that via equipment.

9 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I was actually going to suggest the +1 TP at MP regen ticks. I still think that a spell cast should be worth at least as many tech points as a melee attack. I like the idea of the new Red Moon Horn giving TP with spells cast, only now, there's not too much a spell caster can do with those tech points.

Lv2/3 techs gain extra damage based on INT so at least for Angela they have some synergy, and even without STR investment it should be worth it for caster to keep 4 TP and try to get a counter in to reduce enemy aggro rating.

9 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Well, if you're already getting rid of two spells to make it 10 per character

You misunderstood what I planned there; characters keep their 12 spell lists but get limited to holding a max of 10.
Which 2 fall away will be decided by the player by meeting the stat requirements for the other 10 spells first.

8 hours ago, rpschamp said:

1) What are you thinking for the capstones? Would this be a completely new final class? Would it's bonuses be in terms of stats or abilities? Also, are you thinking one capstone or two for each character (one for each initial Light/Dark path)?

At level 60 the game checks which of the 6 stats is currently the highest (in case of draw choose the topmost one) and then gives a bonus based on that, the lists will be per character, not per class. E.g. for Charlie it could look like this:
STR - Lv2/3 techs inflict "wood coat" effect unless fire saber is active
AGL - enemies spawn with -20 evade
VIT - 50 maxHP, 10 p.def&m.def
INT - light&dark elemental spells deal more damage
PIE - Tinkle Rain recovers 33% HP for target when clearing a status effect
LUK - spells cost 25% MP (capped at 2) less

8 hours ago, rpschamp said:

2) Apart from the standard stat buffs/debuffs, it would be also nice to spread out the basic elemental sabers (earth, wind, ice, fire) a bit

MAYBE, but the thing is that it shouldn't be as universally applicable to perform that strategy.
They are about as spread out as the regular buffs.

Dark saber is only available on Swordmaster, Duelist, Deathhand, Necromancer and Starlancer - 5 classes, 4 characters.
Saint saber via: Paladin, Swordmaster, Bishop and Starlancer - 4 classes, 3 characters.
Elemental saber via: Swordmaster, Duelist, Rune Master, Grand Divina, Bishop and Sage - 6 classes, 3 characters.
Not too much of a difference.

Moon&leaf saber are for HP/MP regen which is useful without gearing specifically for it.

4 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Elemental saber via: Swordmaster, Duelist, Rune Master, Grand Divina, Bishop and Sage - 6 classes, 3 characters.

The Grand Divina sabers can't be used for saber/resistance, since they can't be cast on the enemy as sabers (i.e., they become the standard level 1 elemental spells).

4 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

MAYBE, but the thing is that it shouldn't be as universally applicable to perform that strategy.
They are about as spread out as the regular buffs.

Because the saber/resist strategy generally has more severe equipment requirements to get everyone's resistance to match up, I think they can stand to be spread out more than the buffs/debuffs, which have no equipment requirements (except for maybe Whitelight Ring, which is also true for saber spells). I like the idea of almost any team being able to achieve some sort of defensive buff/debuff, e.g. through saber spells, although it may mean sacrificing equipment slots to do it, especially in the endgame where it becomes a matter of survivability. When enemies are dealing hundreds of HP in damage per hit (and enemy melee occurs much more frequently than spells), a 45% melee/tech debuff is really too useful an option to consider building a team without, and this will restrict team building options.

I actually think the standard stat buffs/debuffs have a pretty good spread as they are, especially in the 1.2 update.

13 hours ago, rpschamp said:

+1 TP for each melee attack OR spell cast.

+1 TP at MP regen ticks; this gives the intelligence stat another purpose for fighters.

–3 TP for in-battle item use. –4 is too much; 3 item uses for a full 9 TP bar sounds more reasonable. This way, a full tech bar gives you a steady progression of 1 item use before the first class change, 2 items after the first class change, and 3 items after the second class change.

EDIT: Also, some item-associated classes like Rogue (or even Sage, i.e. Alchemist), or even the first weapon (instead of its experience bonus) or an accessory, could grant bonuses like –1 TP required per item use. This may be a good way to add a unique element to these classes.

What do you think of all this? I like the idea of having some way to achieve easier item usage, either through a class (Capstone?) bonus or a weapon or accessory. You mentioned in an old post that you were struggling to find something to distinguish the Rogue; a –1 TP required per item use bonus would do it. Another idea would be to have this instead as a Capstone bonus for Hawk, which might be nice way to give Hawk some additional healing power without giving him a Heal Light option.

2 hours ago, rpschamp said:

a 45% melee/tech debuff is really too useful an option to consider building a team without, and this will restrict team building options.

45%... yeah, I should nerf this.

2 hours ago, rpschamp said:

What do you think of all this? I like the idea of having some way to achieve easier item usage, either through a class (Capstone?) bonus or a weapon or accessory. You mentioned in an old post that you were struggling to find something to distinguish the Rogue; a –1 TP required per item use bonus would do it.

Here's my problem:
MP is a resource, TP is a resource.
If you can convert one resource into the other with no requirements (item, capstone, ..) there's no point to having 2 resources in the first place.
To an extend this change makes items the "spells" of melee;
you can use MP to cast heal light or def up or fireball or whatever you know.
you can use TP to perform a tech or use item X/Y/Z.

TP on MP regen doesn't work; MP regen is stopped while casting so it would NOT help casters and only buff melee.

I want to set the cost to 4 TP because I see items here as a counterpart to L1 techs
and also because you have a clear indicator then when the tech bar turns from blue to green.

2 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Another idea would be to have this instead as a Capstone bonus for Hawk, which might be nice way to give Hawk some additional healing power without giving him a Heal Light option.

Remember, capstones come late, if we discuss effects that could be seen as the core of a class/character they shouldn't come that late.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

45%... yeah, I should nerf this.

If it's possible to distinguish saber effects cast by players on enemies from those cast by enemies or those cast by players on themselves, then this effect should probably be nerfed. Otherwise it would interfere with the whole weakness/resistance balance. Nerfing it would accomplish the goal of make it less essential. If you made the defense bonus on par with Power Down, then they would be interchangeable in team building; teams could go for one or the other, or both.

Even with the nerf though, I still like the idea of spreading more saber spells out so that more teams have access to this technique. Unlike Protect Up or Power Down, it has a built in cost in terms of equipment requirements that makes it less valuable than either of those, so it should be more common. Think of it as a poorer quality version of the real thing, but achievable by more class combinations.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Here's my problem:
MP is a resource, TP is a resource.
If you can convert one resource into the other with no requirements (item, capstone, ..) there's no point to having 2 resources in the first place.
To an extend this change makes items the "spells" of melee;
you can use MP to cast heal light or def up or fireball or whatever you know.
you can use TP to perform a tech or use item X/Y/Z.

I see your point. So, an item like Red Moon Horn would serve as the requirement to let casters accumulate "item" points. I like this; you can purchase Red Moon Horn just before the first class change when multiple spells per battle become the norm.

I also like your idea of reducing the double hitters to one tech point per attack. If you set it so that you gain one tech point as long as any one hit connects, they still have some advantage in terms of tech points, although also some disadvantage because their double attacks take longer to execute. It should balance nicely.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

TP on MP regen doesn't work; MP regen is stopped while casting so it would NOT help casters and only buff melee.

Yes, I should have thought of this. There would be no point.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

I want to set the cost to 4 TP because I see items here as a counterpart to L1 techs
and also because you have a clear indicator then when the tech bar turns from blue to green.

This makes sense. But then it would be nice if there were still some way to subtract 1 from this requirement, so that a full tech bar gets you two items after the first class change and three after the second.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Remember, capstones come late, if we discuss effects that could be seen as the core of a class/character they shouldn't come that late.

If 4 TP is the standard, then you could offer the 3 TP per item use effect as a non-cumulative effect achievable by different conditions. For example, Ranger could get this effect automatically at the first class change, thus giving Light Hawk some early extra heal functionality without Heal Light, but it could also be available through equipment. If you put this effect on an accessory, then combining this accessory with the Mistscreen Charm will let you perform two item uses after three attacks, but use up all your accessory slots; still, you may consider this too powerful for an accessory. If you put this effect on a weapon, then you could nerf the character's melee as a tradeoff for granting more access to items. This would also give spell casters another way to gain access to increased item usage, since they are more likely to use a weapon with poor attack stats if it offers some other benefit. (Probably not the first weapon as I suggested earlier if you want 4 TP to be the obvious requirement at the beginning of the game, though you could give a later weapon with this effect similar attack stats to the first weapon.)

EDIT: Giving this ability to Light Hawk instead of Heal Light fits nicely with his role as the “versatile” class choice: While not as powerful as a proper Heal Light spell, it gives Light Hawk a unique edge over other classes by granting him some small extra ability to use items for different purposes without sacrificing a spell slot. This edge is important as other classes increase their own versatility by filling out their spell slots, which Light Hawk can no longer do.

38 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

If it's possible to distinguish saber effects cast by players on enemies from those cast by enemies or those cast by players on themselves, then this effect should probably be nerfed.

Not it can't, though the 45% is optimistic;
saber give +10% atk before def so it can easily be a 20-40% increase.
With resist that is then 30-40% damage reduction.

Ironically the better your def is the less the saber resist strategy helps in percentage.
If your def was so godly that it eats 90% of the damage you'd gain 0% change:
100-90=10, add resisted saber: (110-90)/2=10

41 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I also like your idea of reducing the double hitters to one tech point per attack. If you set it so that you gain one tech point as long as any one hit connects, they still have some advantage in terms of tech points, although also some disadvantage because their double attacks take longer to execute. It should balance nicely.

That is how it works. Hawk&Kevin no longer build their tech bar twice as fast but still are more likely to get the TP on strike because they'd have to miss twice to not get the TP.

24 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Not it can't, though the 45% is optimistic;
saber give +10% atk before def so it can easily be a 20-40% increase.
With resist that is then 30-40% damage reduction.

Ironically the better your def is the less the saber resist strategy helps in percentage.
If your def was so godly that it eats 90% of the damage you'd gain 0% change:
100-90=10, add resisted saber: (110-90)/2=10

Like you said though, as the difference between attack and defense grows, this debuff approaches 45%. This should be fairly consistent in high damage situations by the time you reach the endgame, i.e. when you really need it. Some more examples (from one of my previous posts):

Enemy attack 300, player defense 100: normal damage = 200, sabered/resisted damage = (330-100)/2 = 115 = 42.5% reduction

Enemy attack 300, player defense 150: normal damage = 150, sabered/resisted damage = (330-150)/2 = 90 = 40% reduction

Enemy attack 300, player defense 250: normal damage = 50, sabered/resisted damage = (330-250)/2 = 40 = 20% reduction

Enemy attack 300, player defense 280: normal damage = 20, sabered/resisted damage = (330-280)/2 = 25 = 25% increase

From these numbers, if you're taking melee damage over 150 HP without any buffs/debuffs, you should be in the 40-45% range. The funny thing is that in low damage situations, you can actually end up increasing enemy damage, but you would never actually use this strategy in those situations.

EDIT: I guess my main point with all this is that a 40-45% debuff on melee/tech damage in the endgame, when random battles become much more difficult, may be too much for a conscientious player to ignore when planning a team. This is why spreading out the basic sabers more would provide more options for team building.

I've here endgame (mana holy land) atk values from 320 (shaman) to 512 (dark lord).

28 VIT, heavy armor - 322 def, could push it a bit more if I wanted

regular 512 - 322 => 190 damage
saberd (563 - 322)/2 => 120 damage, 37% less

the shaman goes from 0 to (352-322)/2 = 15, tickle damage

40 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I've here endgame (mana holy land) atk values from 320 (shaman) to 512 (dark lord).

28 VIT, heavy armor - 322 def, could push it a bit more if I wanted

regular 512 - 322 => 190 damage
saberd (563 - 322)/2 => 120 damage, 37% less

the shaman goes from 0 to (352-322)/2 = 15, tickle damage

Still though, 37% is on par with the combined effect of Protect Up and Power Down (40%).

Another idea: Would it be possible for certain classes to gain one selectable saber spell based on stat increases? Maybe after reaching the second class change, one class for each character could learn one saber spell based on which stat you increase first (e.g., STR = Earth, AGI = Wind, VIT = Fire, INT = Water, SPI = Light, LUC = Dark)? This way, the player could select the saber spell based on their team's weakness/resistance profile if they want to take advantage of this saber/resist strategy. The choice of one saber spell would not have too much of an impact offensively, and anything that leads to increased customizability is generally a nice addition.

EDIT: I would put this selectable saber spell on Lord, God Hand (instead of Moon Saber), Ninja Master or Nightblade, Grand Divina (instead of Speed Up, so she can access this saber/resist strategy which is not possible with her final weapon), Sage (instead of Life Booster), and Vanadis.

Somehow I get the feeling you focus too much on one mechanic and ignore everything else.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

Somehow I get the feeling you focus too much on one mechanic and ignore everything else.

I agree, I do tend to over-focus on things. This can be a fault; I tend to take things to their natural conclusion and then a little further. I apologize if I came across as pushy. I'm just coming from the perspective of someone who has been thinking about team building on this mod for the past few years. You know how these things go; certain skills get classified "essential" for team building. Heal Light, Protect Up, Power Down, Mind Up, Mind Down, etc. This restricts creativity as players tend to focus on creating only teams that have access to all or most of these skills.

My main concern is that none of these skills should become too dominant in restricting team formation, to encourage player creativity. I know that you're thinking along the same lines too, by increasing options to access the after-battle heal for example, or by spreading out stat buffs/debuffs over the past few updates.

Sometimes this tunnel-vision does result in an interesting idea. I do think a selectable saber spell could be a cool addition for some classes.

Also, I did offer suggestions on several other mechanics; it's just that I tend to agree with what you have planned for most of these. But I will take your advice and try to think more broadly from now on :-)

Mostly, I'm just really excited about your ideas for 2.0. Plus, my main computer is on the fritz, so I've just been hanging out on email and chat for the past few days. I guess this means it's time to revive some old hobbies!

By the way, where does the handle Praetarius come from, if you don't mind me asking? It has the ring of a Roman emperor to it.

Wow, it's a shame that you'll stop updating this project after the final release.  Thank you for all your work.

Hmm.  For the final product, perhaps you should modify the title screen to "Sin of Mana", or "Seiken Densetsu 3: Sin of Mana".  There are other people who modified the title for this game, so I'm guessing someone of your skill can do it too.  It would really feel like it's complete.

Or just add the "Sin of Mana" to whatever title that the users use (japanese, Seiken Densetsu 3, Trials of Mana, etc) -- similar to what Queue did for his Secret of Mana Turbo (he adds Turbo at the bottom of whatever title the user uses).

And speaking of the title name, I think "Sins (plural) of Mana" sounds better than "Sin of Mana".  I'm not entirely sure why it sounds better though.  Food for thought.

10 hours ago, rpschamp said:

My main concern is that none of these skills should become too dominant in restricting team formation, to encourage player creativity.

I design down from hard mode (as in I start there and whatever happens in the lower difficulties as a result of that happens)
and tbh in hard mode I expect that the player has those skills as a minimum.
On normal which is like half damage input you can drop all of those skills without problem.

And I must say that hardmode endgame has become "too easy" for what it should be if that makes sense.
I had a Lv90 Kevin with a mere 20 VIT. Without buffs he only took like 200 damage from most mobs that weren't sabered elemental swords.
Not to ignore that he would get missed at least half the time anyway.
That is as good as braindead facetank range.
Not even any specific gear, just the medium armor from the start and 2 gauntlets.

We're talking ~50 damage vs 950 HP if he had def up on self and power down + correct saber on the mobs.
While he could still gain HP steal, passive HP regen, Sage's HP regen aura and big recovery on yellow damage hits.
Player skill has lost any relevance at that point.

9 hours ago, rpschamp said:

By the way, where does the handle Praetarius come from, if you don't mind me asking? It has the ring of a Roman emperor to it.

I hacked randomly on my keyboard, added vowels and dropped some letters until I could pronounce it. There's no deeper meaning.

5 hours ago, hmsong said:

And speaking of the title name, I think "Sins (plural) of Mana" sounds better than "Sin of Mana".  I'm not entirely sure why it sounds better though.  Food for thought.

But there is only ONE slaying of the Mana Goddess.

Quote

But there is only ONE slaying of the Mana Goddess.

True, but there are three evil factions (sort of).  Besides, there were multiple atrocities that were committed in the regular world, which is the root cause of Mana weakening in the first place.  And above all else, I think "Sins" of Mana sounds cooler.  It just... rolls off the tongue.

7 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

17 hours ago, rpschamp said:

My main concern is that none of these skills should become too dominant in restricting team formation, to encourage player creativity.

I design down from hard mode (as in I start there and whatever happens in the lower difficulties as a result of that happens)
and tbh in hard mode I expect that the player has those skills as a minimum.
On normal which is like half damage input you can drop all of those skills without problem.

This was really my only point. In the current and past versions, I considered saber/resist to be one of these functions like Heal Light, Protect Up, and Power Down that a player should have at minimum on hard mode, and by expanding access to saber spells, more teams could compete on the level for which the game was designed/intended. I also happen to really like this strategy; it incorporates more of the game's mechanics, and you have to be aware of your innate resistances and weaknesses in order to use it properly.

BUT!

I can now see that with increased access to after-battle Heal, Capstones, and other new additions, you're already adding increased customizability that should allow more teams to compete on hard mode. For example, I decided not to go with Fenrir Knight/Wanderer/Grand Divina in the current version because Magic Shield is too clunky to cast on all three players for random battles, and they didn't have access a saber/resist option. BUT, in 2.0, I may be able to run Fenrir Knight/Wanderer/Rune Master instead since there should be another after-battle heal option, I can use Fenrir Knight for in-battle heal, and Rune Master gives me access to an easy Flame Saber/resist option with Valkyrie Mail on Fenrir Knight to substitute for Protect Up during random battles. Problem solved :-)

5 hours ago, hmsong said:

Quote

But there is only ONE slaying of the Mana Goddess.

True, but there are three evil factions (sort of).  Besides, there were multiple atrocities that were committed in the regular world, which is the root cause of Mana weakening in the first place.  And above all else, I think "Sins" of Mana sounds cooler.  It just... rolls off the tongue.

By my recollection, each of the God Beast's (re-)designed A.I.s/gimmicks was originally conceived by Praetarius as based one of the Seven Deadly Sins:

By my count, this makes seven sins already; the slaying of the Mana Goddess makes eight. However, the slaying of the Mana Goddess could be thought of the ultimate "Sin of Mana".

Because the God Beasts are really the centerpiece of the game, I would probably go for "Sins" instead of "Sin", but I see reason for either. And, if it doesn't appear on the title screen, you can call it whatever you want :-)

7 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

17 hours ago, rpschamp said:

By the way, where does the handle Praetarius come from, if you don't mind me asking? It has the ring of a Roman emperor to it.

I hacked randomly on my keyboard, added vowels and dropped some letters until I could pronounce it. There's no deeper meaning.

I love this. Let fate decide. Much better story than my handle....

24 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

By my recollection, each of the God Beast's (re-)designed A.I.s/gimmicks was originally conceived by Praetarius as based one of the Seven Deadly Sins:

  Hide contents

Dolan = Wrath (do you really need to ask why?)

Dangaard = Pride (it takes three forms for him to get serious on the fourth)

Land Umber = Greed (this is a guess; Gemstone Valley, i.e. Jewels/Riches?)

Lightgazer = Sloth (spends most of the time disappearing and reappearing)

Mispolm = Envy (copies/reflects your attacks)

Fiegmund = Gluttony (eats more and more HP the longer you hang around)

Xan Bie = Lust (this is also a guess; Valley of Flames, i.e. Passions/Desires?)

 

eh, close enough

39 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

BUT, in 2.0, I may be able to run Fenrir Knight/Wanderer/Rune Master instead since there should be another after-battle heal option, I can use Fenrir Knight for in-battle heal, and Rune Master gives me accesss to an easy Flame Saber/resist strategy with Valkyrie Mail on Lise. Problem solved :-)

This is only an idea currently but:

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

eh, close enough

Wow, I only switched Envy and Gluttony, I'm pretty pleased with myself hahaha

By the way,

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

This is only an idea currently but:

  Reveal hidden contents

Also,

Dunno why that needs a spoiler, that is literally the second last point of the list.

I'm not sure what other spell would be equally important to learn. Suggestions?

Items to be removed/replaced:
-weapon with low scaling high base
-one of the 2 remove weakness helms (the other gets both)
-2 resistance armors (the 3rd gets 2 resistances instead)
-all remove weakness accessoires (the +resist will handle both)
-accessoire that gives low p.def and m.def at the same time
-accessoire that gives low bonus to accuracy and evade

This requires some thought so I will post separately as I think of things.

What about a set accessories to add a status effect (Poison, Silence, Sleep, etc.) with a strong attack? These could have a TP or MP cost to apply their effect to limit their power. You could have the stronger status effects, i.e. Petrify, cost more TP or MP. The mechanic would be similar to the low recovery strong attack with the new Wendel weapons, but more useful; this mechanic seems like it could be repurposed for other things as well.

We've already weapons that can add status effects on any base attack, other status effects cause bugs, hi there sleep..

I'm interested in further exploiting this mechanic that uses TP or MP on a strong attack, giving strong attacks another purpose.

What about a magic-sword effect? You could have a set that casts a single-target level 1 damage spell on a strong attack, costing MP instead of TP, one for each of the six main elements. It would be nice because the damage spells would offer another way to get around physical resistance, which the current elemental accessories do not, and it would fit in nicely as a final set of accessories. It would also give fighters something to do with their up-ticking MP. I don't know how easy this kind of effect would be to implement, though.

If you mean with animation and all - I'd rather not even try as that would involve the event system which barely holds together.

32 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

If you mean with animation and all - I'd rather not even try as that would involve the event system which barely holds together.

It doesn't need the spell animation; it could use the hit animation/sound from the elemental melee effects and just apply the damage at the same time as your melee strike, like when you hit Mispolm with a level 2/3 tech and get two damage numbers. The fact that you cast the spell would be indicated by the hit animation/sound, assuming you didn't already have a saber spell cast on you.

EDIT: Maybe the magical damage could be colored differently to better distinguish it? This could even be applied as a general principle, so players would know that a Hawk spell is hitting differently than an Angela/Carlie spell.

EDIT: I also like this because it offers an extra advantage to melee fighters with a high intelligence stat, apart from the minor tech bonus increase.

Another damage pop up on a base attack is not a good idea, that is kinda an expensive operation.
Especially when you consider that it could trigger twice as often for Hawk or Kevin, just imagine what would happen if both spiked a 40 MP pool at the same time into this gimmick.

This works for Mispolm since it comes from a Lv2/3 tech after the game freeze where the game should have still some breathing room and it can't be spammed for like 10 damage pop ups in half a second.

13 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Another damage pop up on a base attack is not a good idea, that is kinda an expensive operation.
Especially when you consider that it could trigger twice as often for Hawk or Kevin, just imagine what would happen if both spiked a 40 MP pool at the same time into this gimmick.

This works for Mispolm since it comes from a Lv2/3 tech after the game freeze where the game should have still some breathing room and it can't be spammed for like 10 damage pop ups in half a second.

Well, it could be done by just directly adding the spell damage into the melee damage, but this might be hard to see if the player already has a saber or an elemental accessory. Also, I'm not sure you really want to add more ways to get around physical immunity, making spells like Antimagic or negate physical immunity weapons even less important.

Another idea is to offer stat break accessories, which use strong attacks and TP or MP to break down physical attack, magical attack, physical defense, magical defense, accuracy/evasion, or buffs/debuffs (like Antimagic). You could make their success rate based on some combination of strength, agility, intelligence, or luck, so they are less reliable than their spell versions. A successful break might be indicated by a sabered strike sound.

So basically debuff on attack?
I think that goes too far, it would remove like a 3rd of the "necessity" spells from the checklist.

2 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

So basically debuff on attack?
I think that goes too far, it would remove like a 3rd of the "necessity" spells from the checklist.

I agree, it would throw off the balance. I was thinking to limit the success rate, but would players really use this if it was too unreliable?

If it is clear that noone would use it it is not worth adding obviously.
And boss fights last long enough that even a low 5% should trigger at least during the first quarter of the fight.

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

I'm not sure what other spell would be equally important to learn. Suggestions?

Thinking big-picture, something that would be incredibly useful to fill out the functions of a team would be an accessory that allowed you to invert the targets of items from players to enemies, or vice versa, just like spells. Scales and sabers could be used to achieve stat debuffs (with invert armor) or saber/resistance this way. Other items could be blocked or their effects attenuated as you see fit; this should not break the game or be used to replace other more expensive items (e.g., using Stardust Herbs in place of Specter's Eyes). Obviously, because of it's power, this accessory could be cursed/unequippable.

6 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Thinking big-picture, something that would be incredibly useful to fill out the functions of a team would be an accessory that allowed you to invert the targets of items from players to enemies, or vice versa, just like spells.

Tbh. I didn't do that because I can't figure out what to do with stardust herbs vs specter eyes - apart from that it would probably get my ok as a standard feature even.

19 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Tbh. I didn't do that because I can't figure out what to do with stardust herbs vs specter eyes - apart from that it would probably get my ok as a standard feature even.

Could the Y-button effect just be blocked on certain items? For instance, if your item ring is turned to Stardust Herb and you press Y and A, can you check to see if the item ring is on Stardust Herb and if so then cancel the effect of the Y button? (I'm probably betraying my ignorance of how hex editing works, but there must be some way to achieve conditional statements? And some indication of which item is to be used?)

Wow, this thread is turning into a huge request page.  Perhaps you people should tone it down a little.  Let the man get some rest.  Even his icon (of Duran) is stressing.

Putting aside the mechanic requests, I'll just say that I agree with the Title having the hack name.  Esp with "adding at the end" thing (so that it'd be compatible with all sorts of titles).  Your hack deserves an awesome title card.  I think Sins sound better than Sin (as hmsong said), but the better question is, what sounds better to praetarius5018?  It has to sound good to him.

19 minutes ago, Soul Knight said:

Wow, this thread is turning into a huge request page.  Perhaps you people should tone it down a little.  Let the man get some rest.  Even his icon (of Duran) is stressing.

Sorry, I was just trying to help generate ideas; I thought that was the point of the forum topic. I agree I may have gone a bit overboard. I certainly don't want to stress anyone out. I will step back for a while and let others contribute.

Oh, I didn't mean for you to stop generating ideas.  I just thought it'd be good to give some time to let the given idea to be processed.  Sigh.  It looks like I sent out a wrong message.

It’s okay - I do tend to get a little over-excited about these things. I’m honestly not good with forums. It can be difficult interpreting text messages from people you don't know, or getting a sense of how you're coming across. I think I've contributed enough for now though, I’d like to see what ideas other people have, mine are exhausted at the moment. Don’t worry, if I think of something else, I won’t be able to help myself :-)

Though after this discussion, I feel like I need to get some basic hex editing experience so I can at least know what kind of ideas make sense, I get the impression that it's quite different from traditional coding....

"inbattle item usage requires 4 TP"

Hm I think with that feature it would be nice to remove the restriction to switch ring menu to other characters if they are in the middle of attack.

18 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Could the Y-button effect just be blocked on certain items?

Technically possible but that would be arbitrary, I want to keep the number of exceptions to a minimum. The mod is complex enough as it is.

15 hours ago, Soul Knight said:

Even his icon (of Duran) is stressing.

That is a facepalm.

15 hours ago, Soul Knight said:

I'll just say that I agree with the Title having the hack name.  Esp with "adding at the end" thing (so that it'd be compatible with all sorts of titles).

Me too, but the compression of that graphic is beyond me; same for text editing in SD3.
I tried to reach out to some folks on rhdn that have messed with that but no replies so far.

15 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Sorry, I was just trying to help generate ideas; I thought that was the point of the forum topic.

It is.

7 hours ago, smileless said:

"inbattle item usage requires 4 TP"

Hm I think with that feature it would be nice to remove the restriction to switch ring menu to other characters if they are in the middle of attack.

With how frail the game engine is that is a thing I don't want to mess with, sorry.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

19 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Could the Y-button effect just be blocked on certain items?

Technically possible but that would be arbitrary, I want to keep the number of exceptions to a minimum. The mod is complex enough as it is.

I think this could be the only exception... unless you want to reduce Honey Drinks to 600 HP or something to limit their usefulness on undead monsters. I think of this exception as a small sacrifice in consistency for an awesome ability, like Rune Master's Stone Cloud being kept to single-target on her multi-target level 3 spell final weapon.

I can see enemy-targetable items being a standard feature, since flipping scales won't be beneficial until invert armor becomes available halfway through the game, and using claws on enemies shouldn't really be that beneficial anyways until you hit Lugar, when you already have your saber spells. This also gives invert armor more of a purpose.

Do you have any ideas for the weapon you're replacing? I once thought a weapon that could hit against magical defense instead of physical defense would be cool, but this might again take away from Antimagic and the ignore physical immunity/resistance weapons, and for other enemies, don't most monsters/bosses have physical and magical defense in proportion anyways (based on Lise's stats)?

I will think on the list of equipment you're planning to replace. I'm also trying to think of something cool/internally consistent for that last set of accessories, unless you want to use them for separate purposes.

32 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I think this could be the only exception... unless you want to reduce Honey Drinks to 600 HP or something to limit their usefulness on undead monsters.

Eh, worst case I can up the price of honey.
I'm currently changing the heal items to scale a bit with level; I've candy at like 70~300 currently and seeds top out around 200 without any +heal power gear.

34 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Do you have any ideas for the weapon you're replacing?

Gain superarmor during heavy attack cooldown (immune to knockback, 25% dmg reduction vs regular attacks).

34 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I once thought a weapon that could hit against magical defense instead of physical defense would be cool

Doesn't sound too useful, most mobs have relatively similar p.def to m.def.

38 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

unless you want to use them for separate purposes.

I'm not entirely set on what I want to do with the stuff.

For one armor I was thinking:
cursed, 1/2 maxMP, one map transition apply to party known buffs out of: power/def/speed/mind up, magic shield, counter magic, energy ball

For the rest I have candidates like:

1. cursed, learn Regeneration (one/all), qualifies for after battle heal; if all 10 slots are full overwrites first spell known
2. cursed, -30% HP, 2x MP, +1 MP reg speed (+25% INT based regen value)
3. cursed, during cast MP regen is NOT stopped
4. cursed, bloodborne like HP recover mechanic, LAST damage taken 1/2 stored, degrades over time with MP tick check, normal attacks restore HP by half the damage done at moon saber step
5. strong attack attack power increased by level x1.5
6. can use Lv1 techs without TP but for each missing TP it costs 3 MP
7. MP reg tick gives +1 TP

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

cursed, 1/2 maxMP, one map transition apply to party known buffs out of: power/def/speed/mind up, magic shield, counter magic, energy ball

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

strong attack attack power increased by level x1.5

Anything to make strong attacks more useful, right now quick attacks in most cases seem to put out much more damage over time. This is why I was trying to think of more TP/MP cost effects on strong attack. I think the general problem with this is that unless you are holding a directional button, it can be difficult to control strong attack vs. quick attack, so you might eat up your TP/MP unintentionally. Perhaps strong attacks could be adjusted to require a longer A button depression?

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

For one armor I was thinking:
cursed, 1/2 maxMP, one map transition apply to party known buffs out of: power/def/speed/mind up, magic shield, counter magic, energy ball

Great alternative to upkeep on transition. I was thinking earlier when you brought up the idea of upkeep - how would that work with MP-heavy single-target skills like Magic Shield? This armor could make that possible, at a cost of course.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

• cursed, -30% HP, 2x MP, +1 MP reg speed (+25% INT based regen value)
• cursed, during cast MP regen is NOT stopped

These are good, but what about an accessory to increase spell damage? Right now the only option is Crystal Ring, and it's usefulness decreases as your intelligence/spirit stats grow. I was thinking something like 1/2 maxMP, 1.5 spell damage modifier, cumulative with other effects (like the weakness modifier, or Archmage's extra 50% on weakness).

12 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Perhaps strong attacks could be adjusted to require a longer A button depression?

That is already the case.
Strong attack is supposed to be hold A until the attack triggers, quick attack release before that.
The problem is ironically the few situations where lag is absent; I needed frame advance to release A quick enough.
I must know if it is a heavy attack during an early part of the attack animation where the damage is calculated and that was in a lag free environment almost immediatly.
Direction button is just a band aid solution for that.

15 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

These are good, but what about an accessory to increase spell damage?

Do Beastman Collar, Red Moon Horn, Magatama and Earth Bracelet not count?
Also I'm a bit hesitant to give magic another big damage increase.
It has already primary stat, secondary stat, all kinds of cast time modifiers, weakness, saber bonus, mind up, mind down, ... most of which are multiplicative.
I wanna say spells are currently at a spot where they are relevant but not overwhelming - basically neither vanilla SD3 nor Secret of Mana.

1.5 times damage is a lot, and cutting MP in half is at least for Angela trivial. She can reach 40 MP, halved is 20, still enough to cast 3 explosions each at unbuffed 200~300 (300~450 with 1.5x) on a neutral target, not really a drawback.

52 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

1.5 times damage is a lot, and cutting MP in half is at least for Angela trivial. She can reach 40 MP, halved is 20, still enough to cast 3 explosions each at unbuffed 200~300 (300~450 with 1.5x) on a neutral target, not really a drawback.

Have you considered an armor or accessory that increases spell damage, but starts the caster at 0 MP? This could lead to interesting builds based more on balanced physical/magical stats so the caster can perform in melee while her MP builds through tics or MP stealing weapons/accessories. You could also include a limit on her ability to recover MP through tics, stealing, or Walnuts; maybe 2 or 3 MP per effect.

It doesn't need to be a 1.5 modifier either; 1 spell level without neutralizing the spell element may be enough. Since this would likely impact the way the player builds the caster, this item might as well be cursed.

To avoid any confusion what I'm going for with "cursed" items:
regular items have one medium sized bonus (Dragon Helm: tech damage increase) or several small ones (Headgear: weapon cooldown -10, evade +15, resist knockback from regular attacks).

Cursed items in comparison should have one huge bonus, a drawback and be unremovable.
For an example the "learn Regeneraion spell" item gives you basically a healer, the drawback is that it eats up another spell slot so you are very likely to miss out on the "high tier" spells.

Also I think a few of the L60 capstone should interact with cursed items in some way.
Something simple like +x def for each cursed item equipped.

I'm still on the fence whether I allow equipping cursed items past 60, meaning you'd have to choose them by then.
Reason being that some of the drawbacks might not matter when you only have to face the final boss/dungeon so going for the big bonus then would be abusable.

30 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Have you considered an armor or accessory that increases spell damage, but starts the caster at 0 MP?

That would be problematic. For bosses it would not matter once you are past the starting phase since by then you have to recover MP in some way anyway. And for most bosses the start is the hardest part anyway (setup of buffs and debuffs) so noone would want that.

What I could think of would be instead negative MP regen paired with an alternative MP recovery mechanic.

56 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I'm still on the fence whether I allow equipping cursed items past 60, meaning you'd have to choose them by then.
Reason being that some of the drawbacks might not matter when you only have to face the final boss/dungeon so going for the big bonus then would be abusable.

I agree on the level 60 limit. This kind of thing is already abused with Protect Ring against Archdemon.

56 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

What I could think of would be instead negative MP regen paired with an alternative MP recovery mechanic.

I like this idea. There are a few ways to do this. A simple accessory might be +1/2 spell level, –2 MP regen on tics. Equipping one accessory would get you 1/2 level of spell power, basically twice as strong as a Crystal Ring, but 2–2 = 0 MP regen. Equipping two could get you a full spell level but 2–4 = –2 MP regen. You can make this effect cumulative with other MP regen equipment to give the player the option to offset this balance.

Or, you could just have the accessory be +1 spell level, non-cumulative with the same accessory, but knock you down to –2 MP per tic; this way it only uses up one accessory slot. This is a pretty big bonus with a drawback, so I could see this being cursed. The question is whether you want to make this –2 MP per tic unchangeable or allow other equipment to alter it. With two other items giving a +1 bonus to MP regen, the caster could have the option to get her MP regen back to 0.

I like the concept of a caster selling her soul (MP regen capacity) for extra spell power through a cursed item.

Also, I agree that it's more important that this balance well for boss fights than random fights. Even during random battles though, in the late game, players should feel the lack of or negative MP regen.

18 hours ago, rpschamp said:

A simple accessory might be +1/2 spell level

My problem with spell level increases is that it has a relatively bigger on low level spells than on the higher ones.
Lv1 -> 2 is +30%
Lv2 -> 3 is +23%
Lv3 -> 4 is +18%

And considering cast time differences it would be worth even less on the high level spells.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

My problem with spell level increases is that it has a relatively bigger on low level spells than on the higher ones.
Lv1 -> 2 is +30%
Lv2 -> 3 is +23%
Lv3 -> 4 is +18%

And considering cast time differences it would be worth even less on the high level spells.

So, with spell level +1, three of Angela's classes benefit +23% on at least half of their spells, and Grand Divina benefits +30%. Any equipment that increases spell level mildly favors Grand Divina (and Ninja Master); this is also true of the existing spell level +1/neutral element armor.

I think a mild advantage for Grand Divina actually make sense in an accessory, especially if the accessory is cursed: as the versatility mage, Grand Divina is more reliant on accessories to perform her multiple roles. Equipping a spell power accessory would limit her to one other slot, and she would have to choose between Whitelight Ring, Protect Earrings, and Magatama, for example. Her other classes would not be so limited in this way. The same argument could not be made for Ninja Master, though.

If you want to eliminate this advantage, you could instead implement the spell power increase simply as a larger gear bonus to m.atk than Crystal Ring. This would also have the benefit of boosting healing, making the accessory more universally useful. Crystal Ring and the helmet both give +2 gear bonus, and the weapon and armor both give +3. What would be a fair tradeoff for a reduction in MP regen?

As before, I see two options: you could implement this as either (1) a normal accessory that gives somewhere between a +4 and +6 gear bonus to m.atk for each –2 adjustment to MP regen on tics, with the option to wear one (0 net MP regen) or two (–2 net MP regen), or (2) a cursed accessory, non-cumulative with itself, that gives somewhere between a +8 and +10 gear bonus to m.atk and a –4 adjustment to MP regen (–2 net MP regen).

I prefer option (2), the more powerful, cursed option, to save the accessory slot and make it more of a commitment. I also prefer the gear bonus to the spell level increase, due to its impact on healing and therefore usefulness to non-primary caster classes.

If the spell power increase doesn't work, I still really like the idea of some type of benefit gained by trading MP regen. I focused on spell power because it's something basic and universal to any caster, and the classes that would most benefit from increased spell power would also be making the biggest sacrifice. There could be other options, though.

59 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Crystal Ring.

It gives +2 main damage (i.e. INT) stat, at Lv 90 it got a Lv2 spell from 350 damage up to 365... yeah it could use a buff.

59 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

this is also true of the existing spell level +1/neutral element armor.

That armor gives +20~30% damage and prevents resistance, sure, but hitting a weakness is +50% damage. It isn't optimal for 24/7 use.

If you're looking for stupid OP spell damage boosts: pierce m.def.
Explosion damage vs L90 Shapeshifter went up from 365 to 553 when def was set to 0.
Shuriken vs Dark Lich: 212 -> 446

23 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

If you're looking for stupid OP spell damage boosts: pierce m.def.
Explosion damage vs L90 Shapeshifter went up from 365 to 553 when def was set to 0.
Shuriken vs Dark Lich: 212 -> 446

Negative MP regen for piercing m.def would certainly be a big sacrifice with a big payoff, and a novel mechanic, worthy of a cursed item. I think you may be joking though, I thought you said a 1.5 damage modifier was too much haha

I'm going to think on some of the other equipment/ideas you suggested. It looks like you're replacing one of the other Maia accessories; if Marble Ring will be used to teach Regeneration, then Leather Neckband should have something strong and basic too. This would be a good time to introduce a second learnable spell, if there are any good ideas.

2 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Leather Neckband should have something strong and basic too.

I was thinking trading the HP steal ring to that spot and keep the more complex effects for later.

2 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I was thinking trading the HP steal ring to that spot and keep the more complex effects for later.

I think that's sensible. Do you plan to still keep the yellow damage/luck-based HP recovery weapons from the Dwarf Village? I agree that having the HP recovery options available earlier in the game makes more sense in terms of class selection; this way a player may not be so desperate to go for a Heal Light class.

That one stays where it is though with the rework to damage colors it has got an indirect nerf.
When I wrote "yellow damage" I damn well meant it.

So it will lose counters or crits. Probably a good idea, this weapon is damn near indispensable right now. An HP steal accessory or HP regen spell can compensate.

The other way around - it will only trigger on crits and counter.

Got it. Still a great weapon for my main man Hawk who I always run on Luck-overdrive.

On 5/17/2020 at 3:01 PM, praetarius5018 said:

We've already weapons that can add status effects on any base attack, other status effects cause bugs, hi there sleep..

Is Snowman bugged on attacks as well?

Very much so.

What do you think about putting Snowman effect on Freya instead of Chibikko? As of now, there is only one way to apply Snowman, through Rune Master's Cold Blaze. Since Snowman is bugged on attack, it has to be added through a spell. Freya would be a good vehicle for another Snowman option, also in concept.

The effects of Lise's other summons make sense thematically:

- Marduk, Star Lancer - an ancient Babylonian God associated with astrology among other things, i.e. the Silence of the cosmos

- Jormungand, Dragon Master - also Nordic, but associated with the serpent, i.e. Poison

- Lamia Naga - mythical Hindu serpent, associated with charm/trance, i.e. Sleep (spelling is correct; the n at the end of Lamian is the Japanese/Hindi nasal)

But Freya? Snowman makes sense more than Chibikko: Vanadis and Freya are the most Nordic/northern-themed class and summon, and Snowman is the most Nordic/northern-themed status effect, also a pagan/Yule symbol.

I don't get where Chibikko comes in, except perhaps as a symbol of dominance. Also, we already have other weapons and spells to add this effect. Also, many players avoid this effect due to lost experience.

EDIT: This would also add something nice to Vanadis, which she needs since the after-battle heal will become more accessible.

"More accessible" is relative. The only additional option would the cursed ring.
And losing an item slot is imo very expensive.

Dunno, as buggy as snowman is (turn a needle bird to snow and the game goes to lala land)... what do other think of this?

I didn't realize that Snowman was buggy on spell with Needle Bird. (Goddamn Needle Birds. Always something.) I guess I need to play Rune Master more often. I wonder if the developers realized this too and switched Freya to Chibikko because of it.

Even with the bug, I would still take Snowman on Freya. But I certainly see why a developer would not.

Leaf Coat is another option. Freya's chariot kicks up dust, including leaves? (Leaf-ing them in the dust?) The mythical Freya/Vanadis wears a cloak of falcon feathers... not far from a Leaf Coat? For me, it's more of a stretch than Snowman, but less of a stretch than Chibikko.

Nah, Leaf Coat is meant as a special something for leaf type damage that is otherwise not too useful.

Maybe have Vanadise final weapon remove the chibiko status inflicted from Freya?

Snowman makes a lot of sense for her but due to the game going apeshit with the snowman status I think it might be better to avoid it.

as usual:
Vanadise can already do near everything.
heal, has the 4 main buffs, physical attack only slightly behind Duran, can tank if you give her a shield, maybe something else I'm forgetting.
If she now had drawback free nuking as well - when wouldn't you take her?

48 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

as usual:
Vanadise can already do near everything.
heal, has the 4 main buffs, physical attack only slightly behind Duran, can tank if you give her a shield, maybe something else I'm forgetting.
If she now had drawback free nuking as well - when wouldn't you take her?

Star Lancer has two saber spells that can be used for saber/resist, an extra accessory slot (no need for Whitelight Ring), higher physical attack, a better status effect with her summon (even if Vanadis had Snowman), and good support spells in Aura Wave and Energy Ball.

Vanadis has Heal Light. Not as important if someone else knows Heal Light. (I think the item restrictions and regen ring will balance out with respect to Heal Light's importance.)

All Lise's classes have shields.

I don't think Vanadis's nuking requires a drawback. Anyways, Chibikko is more powerful than Snowman. Just less annoying.

EDIT: I think most players would rather take a bugged Snowman that they can't use on Needlebirds than Chibikko.

29 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I get that Snowman is bugged; still I think most players would rather take a bugged Snowman that they can't use on Needlebirds than Chibikko.

It is not only needlebirds, those are one of two species where I know that it causes a crash.

If you want to argue that snowman has nothing else that causes it - after that change it would be the same for chibikko being only available via body change.

15 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

It is not only needlebirds, those are one of two species where I know that it causes a crash.

If you want to argue that snowman has nothing else that causes it - after that change it would be the same for chibikko being only available via body change.

Chibikko also has weapon effects and Necromancer's Great Demon, which Snowman does not.

Also, Snowman is a generally more useful status effect.

If Snowman were so bugged that Rune Master couldn't use it, then I would agree. But Rune Master is still a favorite of Angela's classes in Sin of Mana, largely because of multi-target Cold Blaze. Through Rune Master, it has already been play-tested.

17 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Through Rune Master, it has already been play-tested.

then explain the birds or other recently found status related crashes?

13 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

then explain the birds or other recently found status related crashes?

I can't. Are you thinking of taking away Snowman from Cold Blaze? This might be a good idea, to get rid of it entirely. Some players report stun-lock by repeat casting. Stun-lock should never be an option.

Apart from thematic arguments, mostly I don't like Snowman being stuck on one class.

Getting rid of it would certainly make Rune Master less of an obvious choice for Angela.

One option would be to make Cold Blaze inflict sleep instead. Same general effect, not (yet) known to crash the game.

10 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Getting rid of it would certainly make Rune Master less of an obvious choice for Angela.

Really? For general use I prefer Archmage, tbh.
6 elements instead of 4, and anti-magic to make sure she/her team is never element blocked (combos better for leaf coat purposes).

14 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

One option would be to make Cold Blaze inflict sleep instead. Same general effect, not (yet) known to crash the game.

If Snowman is too buggy, I think this is a good idea. Rune Master would still be awesome with Sleep.

But I think this is an important point. Lots of players love the Snowman effect, even with its bugs. Maybe start a new topic on the forum to get a general consensus on whether the bugs are worth it and decide later?

14 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

27 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Getting rid of it would certainly make Rune Master less of an obvious choice for Angela.

Really? For general use I prefer Archmage, tbh.
6 elements instead of 4, and anti-magic to make sure she/her team is never element blocked (combos better for leaf coat purposes).

Good point; honestly I prefer Light Angela, Archmage and Grand Divina are such awesome classes, and Sorceress is great for the midgame. I just said that based on the general preference of the forum.

I wouldn't Cold Blaze inlict sleep instead. Still think Rune Master will be pretty strong even without the snowman status, you still have stone cloud for petrify, single target but you can use it on the most troublesome mob you find to deal with (as long as it wont resist petrifs that is).

But yeah I think more opinions are needed for this, for me it's fine tho as long as sleep wont crash the game same way as snowman tends to do.

What I currently intend to do:
The two bird species get immunity to snowman so they can't trigger the bug.
Cold Blaze becomes the only source of snowman status.
Enemy attacks/specials that inflict it get it removed or something else.
Gear with snowman resist gets other status resist or replaced entirely if that is the only thing it does.

And the chibikko&petrify weapon probably get on the chopping block as well.

10 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

What I currently intend to do:
The two bird species get immunity to snowman so they can't trigger the bug.
Cold Blaze becomes the only source of snowman status.
Enemy attacks/specials that inflict it get it removed or something else.
Gear with snowman resist gets other status resist or replaced entirely if that is the only thing it does.

And the chibikko&petrify weapon probably get on the chopping block as well.

* nod in agreement *

Silence and Poison make more sense as melee-inflictable status effects. Petrify was too much, and Chibikko was never funny.

With immunities in place, Snowman could also go on Freya, but if you think it's too good for Vanadis, forget it. I don't want to advocate for Vanadis anyways; I don't love the class.

More new weapons to think about!

11 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

More new weapons to think about!

Defender should obviously increase defense.

14 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Defender should obviously increase defense.

Maybe a shield/aggro alternative that all characters could access later in the game? (Duran and Lise would still have better shield options through most of the game.) I like this idea since other characters could become tanks in the endgame if necessary.

This might also be a good place for your superarmor/strong-attack weapon.

10 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

This might also be a good place for your superarmor/strong-attack weapon.

Superarmor already goes on the Bastard Sword.

11 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Maybe a shield/aggro alternative that all characters could access later in the game?

I don't see why any of the other 4 would need this, at least thematically.

8 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

20 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Maybe a shield/aggro alternative that all characters could access later in the game?

I don't see why any of the other 4 would need this, at least thematically.

They may not need it thematically, but they may need it practically.

You could envision this as an alternative shield without the bonus status resistance. Maybe a medium strength weapon. Paladin may prefer this, for instance, to keep his accessories open, so he can still heal strongly.

hmmm... maybe lets compromise to Duran, Kevin and Lise having the aggro weapon and the other 3 something else

10 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

hmmm... maybe lets compromise to Duran, Kevin and Lise having the aggro weapon and the other 3 something else

Kevin but not Hawk?

EDIT: I could also see Grand Divina using this nicely, leading a team with her near-instant damage spells, pushing enemies back as they come near.

By the way, is there such a thing as negative aggro? As in, gtf away from me? Might be useful for casters :-)

16 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

By the way, is there such a thing as negative aggro? As in, gtf away from me?

Not in the way I've coded it.
Basically the AI had 2 options:

1. it checks who is closer, in those cases I simply cut the calculated distance in half
2. it selects a random target (mostly single target spells), here I simply give prio to a shield bearer

for 1. I could do double, but 2.?
Also I always find that form of aggro management stupid, I can believe it if a big guy just rubs himself into a bosses face to gain/keep aggro or basically taking his entire field of vision by shoving a shield into it.
But why would wearing a little ring make me "invisible" to him when he has already buried his claws into my flesh?

12 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Not in the way I've coded it.
Basically the AI had 2 options:

1. it checks who is closer, in those cases I simply cut the calculated distance in half
2. it selects a random target (mostly single target spells), here I simply give prio to a shield bearer

for 1. I could do double, but 2.?
Also I always find that form of aggro management stupid, I can believe it if a big guy just rubs himself into a bosses face to gain/keep aggro or basically taking his entire field of vision by shoving a shield into it.
But why would wearing a little ring make me "invisible" to him when he has already buried his claws into my flesh?

I don't think you should recode it, it works very well as you've made it.

I would just set the Defender-class weapons to aggro, like shields. It's okay if Angela and Carlie don't typically buy it; many of the weapons are specifically for fighters or casters, anyways. But making it universal would leave the option open if a non-Duran/Lise character wanted to act as a shield. This weapon is not available until late anyways, so it should only impact the endgame, mostly for Duran or Lise to refine their equipment, but perhaps also for a non-Duran/Lise-led team to pick up a useful strategy.

I see no real benefit to the casters having an aggro option, and with the split they could at least gain 1.5 caster weapon options before their class specific ones.

But then it would be inconsistent for only one weapon tier outside the final ones to be this divided..

Trust me, casters could use an aggro option; Hawk/Angela/Carlie is a thing, and I've been planning a Grand Divina-led team for a while.

But isn't like half the point of the teambuilding exercise overcoming such restrictions?

Don't think any other character needs shields, Duran and Lise are more than enough, imo.

I can see a point being made for Kevin but not really for the other 3.

I don't think shields would really fit someone that knows martial arts, monks and such

We were talking about a aggro granting weapon.

My bad, in that case yeah it could work for Kevin.

L50, 13 PIE, no heal bonuses:
regeneration - 115 MT, 143 ST
heal light - 168 MT, 210 ST

L50, 13 PIE, wendel armor:
regeneration - 138 MT, 172 ST
heal light - 191 MT, 238 ST

regeneration 8 MP, heal light 10 mp, regeneration casts a bit faster.

Old Heal Light was 9 MP and healed w/out that armor 140 MT, 175 ST or 166 MT, 207 ST with.

I guess this could work.

20 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

hmmm... maybe lets compromise to Duran, Kevin and Lise having the aggro weapon and the other 3 something else

Thinking more about this Defender-class weapon.... Maybe it would be better to just have it increase physical and magical defense, instead of increasing aggro? That way, Duran and Lise could use this and shields at the same time, directing attacks towards them and taking less damage. Right now the only weapon that increases defense that I'm aware of is the deathless one, and there is already an option for evade.

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

L50, 13 PIE, no heal bonuses:
regeneration - 115 MT, 143 ST
heal light - 168 MT, 210 ST

L50, 13 PIE, wendel armor:
regeneration - 138 MT, 172 ST
heal light - 191 MT, 238 ST

regeneration 8 MP, heal light 10 mp, regeneration casts a bit faster.

Old Heal Light was 9 MP and healed w/out that armor 140 MT, 175 ST or 166 MT, 207 ST with.

I guess this could work.

This looks good. But did you consider a HP recovery over time effect? It might be nice to distinguish it more from Heal Light, and also as an early introduction to the upkeep system.

40 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

This looks good. But did you consider a HP recovery over time effect? It might be nice to distinguish it more from Heal Light, and also as an early introduction to the upkeep system.

I'm not sure I can find a HP/s value at this point that wouldn't royally break the game.
This would stack with the HP regen ring and Sage's weapon which together already maxes at 20/s (well, "second"). So that can easily recover 100~200 HP between boss attacks, do you take that much after buffs? Is even more easy regen really needed?

I have to take care that that value doesn't reach "afk mode".

edit: 25/s, the rings stack

plans for helms:

• the 2 "remove weakness" helms get merged into one (beryl helm)
• leather helm (mixed def) becomes pure p.def
• visored helm (pure p.def) gets status resistance to chibikko/moogle, silence
• hero's crown (status resist) becomes cursed and prevents stop of MP regen during casting
• protection helm (2nd remove weakness) becomes cursed with x1.3 p.def but 0 def against Lv2/3 techs for the true vanilla like experience

Ah the old days where the Dark Lord's were able to one/two shot your entire party with their level 3 techs whenever they felt like.

15 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

the 2 "remove weakness" helms get merged into one (beryl helm)

So the same effect as the Byzel remove weakness armor? Or do you plan to change that one?

15 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

• visored helm (pure p.def) gets status resistance to chibikko/moogle, silence
• hero's crown (status resist) becomes cursed and prevents stop of MP regen during casting

A chibikko/moogle/silence resist helm would be useful. But there would only be two resist death options, undead armor and Wishbone. I can see that.

15 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

protection helm (2nd remove weakness) becomes cursed with x1.3 p.def but 0 def against Lv2/3 techs for the true vanilla like experience

I wonder if there are actually players who would want to go back to this.... Joking aside, I could see this potentially being useful on a Star Lancer team.

19 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

I'm not sure I can find a HP/s value at this point that wouldn't royally break the game.
This would stack with the HP regen ring and Sage's weapon which together already maxes at 20/s (well, "second"). So that can easily recover 100~200 HP between boss attacks, do you take that much after buffs? Is even more easy regen really needed?

I have to take care that that value doesn't reach "afk mode".

edit: 25/s, the rings stack

One option for the Regeneration spell is to have it do either HP/time OR targeted HP recovery, depending on when it is cast,

i.e., 1-5 HP/s for all party members if cast outside of battle (1/3 the effect of current Gigas Flail), an early upkeep effect that some players might prefer,

OR targeted HP recovery if cast in battle, maybe half the effect of Heal Light.

You could have it cost 6 MP so most characters could actually cast it earlier.

The net effect would be that players would have to choose whether to pay the upkeep for a small HP/time effect, or not pay the upkeep, but be able to do targeted HP recovery during battle.

This would also get players used to managing upkeep early in the game, i.e. when and how to turn it on and off; certainly they would have to make this decision at least before every boss fight.

(major EDITS to this post made 9:20 am)

4 hours ago, smileless said:

Ah the old days where the Dark Lord's were able to one/two shot your entire party with their level 3 techs whenever they felt like.

And nightblades. And bloody wolves.

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

So the same effect as the Byzel remove weakness armor? Or do you plan to change that one?

Will be the same. The current byzel armor only removes one weakness, that will be changed.

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

A chibikko/moogle/silence resist helm would be useful.

Half the resistances are on the helm, the other half will be on one armor; snowman will be irresistable.

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

I wonder if there are actually players who would want to go back to this.... Joking aside, I could see this potentially being useful on a Star Lancer team.

I mean we already have a cursed ring that removes weaknesses and resistances, so one step further to a vanilla-like-set can't hurt

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

One option for the Regeneration spell is to have it do either HP/time OR targeted HP recovery, depending on when it is cast

I went with it granting the same effect as the regeneration ring which gets doubled effect but no longer stacks.

4 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I mean we already have a cursed ring that removes weaknesses and resistances, so one step further to a vanilla-like-set can't hurt

I suppose then that these are the truly cursed items :-)

Yeah, it'll be expanded to a nearly vanilla like set, I've basically ideas for all everything except a weapon since I don't want to mark weapons as "cursed".

• armor: cursed, 2x power up buff effect on standard attacks, increased aggro build up
• helm: cursed, x1.3 p.def, 0 defense vs Lv2/3 techs
• ring1: cursed, deny elements
• ring2: cursed, can't crit or be critted, same for evade
• set bonus: 1/4 cast time

6 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I went with it granting the same effect as the regeneration ring which gets doubled effect but no longer stacks.

So the wearer of the ring learns Regeneration, which can be cast/upkeep to put a 1-5 HP/s regeneration effect on one ally at 8 mp. Do I have that right?

And does the after-battle heal effect require the wearer to have 8 MP?

After-battle effect is free, rest yes.

7 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

After-battle effect is free, rest yes.

I just meant in terms of maxMP, since the original idea was that the caster could just cast the spells repeatedly as MP regenerates to recover HP before the next screen, but they would at least need the maxMP to cast the spell. Only Angela (and maybe Carlie) typically has 8 MP by the time you hit Maia.

At an 8 MP cost, few characters could actually cast the spell by the time they have the option to equip the ring.

Ah, well I wanted to increase MP curve a bit anyway. I guess making sure you have 8 MP at 6 INT shouldn't be too much off.

7 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Ah, well I wanted to increase MP curve a bit anyway. I guess making sure you have 8 MP at 6 INT shouldn't be too much off.

This all sounds good to me; great new item. The ring could be set to teach Regeneration AT 6 INT, when you have enough MP to cast it, just like a stat requirement for a normal spell. Then there wouldn't be any weirdness; i.e. knowing a spell you can't cast.

5 hours ago, smileless said:

Ah the old days where the Dark Lord's were able to one/two shot your entire party with their level 3 techs whenever they felt like.

I have PTSD from this that kicks in sometimes during some of the later sequences.

1 minute ago, rpschamp said:

This all sounds good to me; great new item. The ring could be set to teach Regeneration AT 6 INT, when you have enough MP to cast it, just like a stat requirement for a normal spell. Then there wouldn't be any weirdness; i.e. knowing a spell you can't cast.

Nah, you should get the spell immediatly so you can see how much MP you should have and can adjust your stat gains if necessary.

1 minute ago, praetarius5018 said:

Nah, you should get the spell immediatly so you can see how much MP you should have and can adjust your stat gains if necessary.

As long as it doesn't introduce any new bugs haha, I agree this is the better route.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

And nightblades. And bloody wolves

Them too but I specifically think Dark Lord's did the most damage with their level 3 techs or am I wrong?

They one shot me the most out of that group.

21 minutes ago, smileless said:

Them too but I specifically think Dark Lord's did the most damage with their level 3 techs or am I wrong?

That is mostly a matter of mob attack power and therefor level. And the difference at the same level isn't that huge in vanilla.
I guess Dark Lords usually appear the latest so would automatically have the highest attack.
Or rather the 10% increase from their usual dark saber puts them over the edge big time.

L3 in vanilla take the attack power of the user, multiply it by 2.5 and only then subtract your def. Def is capped at 300 even with buff. So even if the mob had a measly 250 attack that would be a guaranteed 325 damage at maxed def, half the cast doesn't clear 600 maxHP at sane endgame levels.
I think the highest dark lords have around 340 base attack, i.e. "you die" damage (340x1.1x2.5 = 935 before def).

For 2.0, perhaps you can give someone Detect ability.  There is a slot, and there is animation.  Why not use it?

I know you can't really make "Analyzer" from Secrets, but you can give it AntiMagic property to it, except for your allies (basically Stardust Herb).  As in, "detect" any abnormalities.

Analyze is actually in the mod, but it has a different function in this mod than in secret of mana.

It lowers resistance to critical hits, Ninja Master and Warrior Monk have access to that spell.

7 hours ago, hmsong said:

For 2.0, perhaps you can give someone Detect ability.  There is a slot, and there is animation.  Why not use it?

Already done years ago.

how Angela could look next time:

base:        8/8/8/12/11/10
spell list:
Fireball (7 INT), Diamond Missile (9 INT), Airblast (11 INT), Ice Smash (12 INT)

Sorceress:    14/14/14/17/17/16
spell list:
Airblast* (13 INT), Ice Smash* (14 INT), Fireball* (15 INT), Diamond Missile* (16 INT)
Evil Gate (12 PIE), Holy Ball (14 PIE)

Delvar:        13/13/14/18/16/15
spell list:
Thunderstorm (13 INT, replaces Airblast), Mega Splash (14 INT, replaces Ice Smash)
Explode (15 INT, replaces Fireball), Earth Quake (16 INT, replaces Diamond Missile)

Grand Divina:    30/29/28/32/32/30
spell list:
Fireball*, Diamond Missile*, Airblast*, Ice Smash*
Holy Ball* (18 PIE), Tinkle Rain (20 PIE), Heal Light (21 PIE)
Speed Up (17 LUCK), Evil Gate* (18 LUCK), Sleep Flower (20 LUCK)
Transshape (18 INT), Double Spell* (20 INT)

Arch Mage:    29/30/29/31/31/31
spell list:
Earth Quake* (18 INT, replaces Diamond Missile), Thunderstorm* (19 INT, replaces Airblast)
Mega Splash* (20 INT, replaces Ice Smash), Explode* (21 INT, replaces Fireball)
Saint Beam* (19 PIE, replaces Holy Ball), Dark Force* (20 PIE, replaces Evil Gate), Mind Down (22 PIE)
Body Change (17 LUCK), Aura Wave (19 LUCK)
Power Down (15 AGL), Anti-Magic (17 AGL), Rainbow Dust* (20 AGL)

Rune Master:    28/28/30/32/30/30
spell list:
Thunderstorm* (15 AGL), Stun Wind (18 AGL), Thunder Saber* (21 AGL)
Earth Quake* (16 LUCK), Diamond Saber* (19 LUCK), Stone Cloud (22 LUCK)
Mega Splash* (17 PIE), Ice Saber* (20 PIE), Cold Blaze (23 PIE)
Explode* (19 INT), Blaze Wall (22 INT), Flame Saber* (25 INT)

Magus:        29/29/29/33/29/29
spell list:
Earth Quake* (19 INT), Thunderstorm* (20 INT), Mega Splash* (21 INT), Explode* (22 INT), Rainbow Dust* (24 INT)
Dark Force* (17 PIE), Lunatic (18 PIE), Death Spell (20 PIE)
Power Up (16 LUCK), Mind Up^ (18 LUCK), Poison Bubble (20 LUCK), Ancient* (22 LUCK)

All classes have potentially 12 spells but can only keep 10.
If for some reason you have already 10 spells and the next would be an upgrade/replacement - tough luck.
Once the 10th slot is filled that spell learning is finished.

4 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

All classes have potentially 12 spells but can only keep 10.
If for some reason you have already 10 spells and the next would be an upgrade/replacement - tough luck.
Once the 10th slot is filled that spell learning is finished.

Very interesting; I like the stat-based series approach. Do you plan something similar for the other characters? Grand Divina will have to be careful to get that multi-target Evil Gate!

Looks good!

EDIT: Any changes to the final weapons? Or the status effects of Rune Master's spells? More generally, are you sticking with the plan to keep Snowman and Petrify exclusive to Rune Master (weapons included)?

21 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Very interesting; I like the stat-based series approach. Do you plan something similar for the other characters?

Plan, yes. Duran&Kevin will be problematic since they barely know any spells and there is little that is thematically fitting, so giving their classes a spell choice is difficult..

I also may or may not take this opportunity to stealth nerf light Lise *cough*

21 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

EDIT: Any changes to the final weapons? Or the status effects of Rune Master's spells? More generally, are you sticking with the plan to keep Snowman and Petrify exclusive to Rune Master (weapons included)?

I see no need to adjust final weapons at this point.
Considering the buggy nature of snowman I want to keep it as limited as it is.
Considering the game breaking nature of petrify, same.

11 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Considering the buggy nature of snowman I want to keep it as limited as it is.
Considering the game breaking nature of petrify, same.

I have come to agree with you. Rune Master should keep her niche; giving Snowman to Vanadis would corrupt that.

11 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I also may or may not take this opportunity to stealth nerf light Lise *cough*

This may be the most controversial idea of the topic yet. So much for stealth! You have my support though.

I think as long as there is an option for at least one of the Light Lises to learn her four stat buffs, there will not be mass revolt.

Very interested to see your ideas on balancing Vanadis and Star Lancer; the latter may have become a bit too dominant.

2 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

This may be the most controversial idea of the topic yet. So much for stealth! You have my support though.

I think as long as there is an option for at least one of the Light Lises to learn her four stat buffs, there will not be mass revolt.

She had 7 or 9 spells, so under the 10 spell cap nothing would change.
Now I fill in some gaps. So you have to sacrifice 2 spells.

So consider this setup (still working on it):

Valkyrie:    17/16/16/15/16/14
Protect Up (11 PIE), Speed Up (13 PIE)
Airblast (12 INT)

Starlancer:    32/30/30/30/30/30
Dark Saber (18 STR), Saint Saber (20 STR), Power Up* (23 STR)
Energy Ball (17 AGL), Ice Smash* (18 AGL), Speed Up* (20 AGL)
Airblast* (17 INT), Fireball* (19 INT), Mind Up* (22 INT)
Marduke* (18 PIE), Aura Wave (20 PIE), Def Up* (23 PIE)

No matter what you do, at best you get 2 ST buffs (def up, speed up) and 2 MT buffs or 3 MTs and lose one buff completely.

Assuming you go for power up and then mind up you already have 8 spell slots filled if you went out of your way to not pick up airblast as valk.
Say you pick marduke and aura wave, that's then all 10 slots so def up won't upgrade.

In short the char/class discussion topic will have field days here.

First, I love the idea of putting Angela's level 1 spells on Lise. They're great spells and need more exposure, and Lise is a great option as the Jill-of-all-trades. (This basically covers the motivation behind my "magic sword" idea.)

Second, I can see why you "finalized" Angela first. Her relatively organized spell sets make her design options the most straightforward.

Third:

19 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

In short the char/class discussion topic will have field days here.

Is this not the ultimate goal?

Joking aside, if this becomes too rich, will you be able to resist doing a 3.0? (At least I can see the potential need for a 2.X to correct some problem that arises, since you're making so many changes here.)

Finally, off topic, do you still have a set of accessories open, or do you have plans to fill those in already?

3 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Second, I can see why you "finalized" Angela first. Her relatively organized spell sets make her design options the most straightforward.

Angela, Charlie and Hawk (minus ninjamaster) were the easy first candidates since they had already full lists so I only had to shuffle them around and maybe exchange 1 or 2 spells, like Bishop with both Holy Ball and Saint Beam is redundant.

4 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Finally, off topic, do you still have a set of accessories open, or do you have plans to fill those in already?

How is that off topic?

I still have open:
1 weapon
1 armor
2 accessoires

Others would still be exchangable if I like different ideas better.

29 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Starlancer:    32/30/30/30/30/30
Dark Saber (18 STR), Saint Saber (20 STR), Power Up* (23 STR)
Energy Ball (17 AGL), Ice Smash* (18 AGL), Speed Up* (20 AGL)
Airblast* (17 INT), Fireball* (19 INT), Mind Up* (22 INT)
Marduke* (18 PIE), Aura Wave (20 PIE), Def Up* (23 PIE)

Love the customization options here. Thematically strong too: Why would a girl who looks to the stars waste her time learning Diamond Missile?

This makes me really excited to see what you have planned for other classes.

1 minute ago, rpschamp said:

Love the customization options here. Thematically strong too: Why would a girl who looks to the stars waste her time learning Diamond Missile?

1. I was going for a classical red mage here: fire, ice, lightning
2. she is affiliated with wind, so earth as the opposite isn't as welcome
3. as a princress she wouldn't throw away precious diamonds /joke

27 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

How is that off topic?

Off class-topic, but not off-2.0-Topic.

27 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I still have open:
1 weapon
1 armor
2 accessoires

My only advice at the moment is to not finish up too quickly, if you plan to make this your last update. I'm hoping a few more players get involved and post their ideas as well.

21 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I was going for a classical red mage here: fire, ice, lightning

Grand Divina and Star Lancer will be competing for that title :-)

53 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

No matter what you do, at best you get 2 ST buffs (def up, speed up) and 2 MT buffs or 3 MTs and lose one buff completely.

Have you thought about designing Vanadis to have the option to go for the 4 MT buffs, being the most support-oriented Lise class (with Heal Light, Tinkle Rain)?

Perhaps as in giving up Heal Light to learn all 4 MT buffs?

24 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Have you thought about designing Vanadis to have the option to go for the 4 MT buffs, being the most support-oriented Lise class (with Heal Light, Tinkle Rain)?

Perhaps as in giving up Heal Light to learn all 4 MT buffs?

Not sure how I'd even do that.

I'd have to be something like:
stat1: x, x, x, heal light
stat2: x, x, def up, other buff
stat3: x, x, speed up, other buff

Would people even be ok with waiting until that deep into the stat tree before she gets the first "relevant" buff for a buffer?

Also, Vanadise doesn't get MT buffs at all.

11 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Not sure how I'd even do that.

I'd have to be something like:
stat1: x, x, x, heal light
stat2: x, x, def up, other buff
stat3: x, x, speed up, other buff

Would people even be ok with waiting until that deep into the stat tree before she gets the first "relevant" buff for a buffer?

def up, speed up, air blast as Valkyrie, then

stat1: MT air blast, x, x, x, heal light
stat2: power up, MT def up, x, MT power up
stat3: mind up, MT speed up, x, MT mind up

Doesn't work, can't have the same spell twice in the list.
Even if it did work, the MT power up would then overwrite ST power up, meaning you use 10 spell slots total and miss 0.

So Power Up and Mind Up can only be given one stat requirement, even if the first requirement is ST and the second is MT?

Just trying to see how this works for future suggestions.

Given this, I agree that putting Power Up and Mind Up at the end of their trees would kind of suck.

11 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Even if it did work, the MT power up would then overwrite ST power up, meaning you use 10 spell slots total and miss 0.

I thought that if you knew 10 spells, you couldn't learn any subsequent upgrades.

12 entries total for potential learnable spells
each spell may appear only once, doesn't matter the target type.
Overwriting/upgrading a specific skill of the prior class that no longer is in the list is ok.
Upgrading a spell from the current list is not.

Out of these 12 you can keep 10 or less if a spell from some other source takes a spell slot.

3 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I thought that if you knew 10 spells, you couldn't learn any subsequent upgrades.

That as well, but temporarely upgrading ST to MT via white light ring is still possible.

Got it, thank you.

It seems that Vanadis will end up some variety of Red Mage as well, but she should have something to distinguish her.

Maybe her focus should simply be on the basic 4 elements (earth, air, water, fire), with fewer Angela-style direct damage spells but more support spells, including some saber spells to boost her final weapon? Thematically, kind of a more support-oriented version of Rune Master?

I currently have for Lise:

base:        11/11/10/10/10/9
no spells

Valkyrie:    17/16/16/15/16/14
Protect Up (11 PIE), Speed Up (13 PIE)
Airblast (12 INT)

Rune Maiden:    16/17/16/16/15/15
Speed Down (11 PIE), Protect Down (13 PIE)
Unicorn Head (12 INT)

Vanadise:    31/31/31/29/31/29
Protect Up, Speed Up
Flame Saber (18 STR), Power Up (20 STR)
Freya* (18 PIE), Tinkle Rain (19 PIE), Heal Light (21 PIE)
Body Change (16 INT), Thunderstorm (19 INT, replaces Airblast), Mind Up (22 INT)
Holy Ball (16 LUCK), Thunder Saber (20 LUCK)

Starlancer:    32/30/30/30/30/30
Dark Saber (18 STR), Saint Saber (20 STR), Power Up* (23 STR)
Energy Ball (17 AGL), Ice Smash* (18 AGL), Speed Up* (20 AGL)
Airblast* (17 INT), Fireball* (19 INT), Mind Up* (22 INT)
Marduke* (18 PIE), Aura Wave (20 PIE), Protect Up* (23 PIE)

DragonMaster:    30/31/32/30/30/31
Unicorn Head
Jormungand* (18 PIE), Speed Down* (19 PIE), Protect Down* (21 PIE)
Ghoul (17 INT), Ghost (18 INT), Lunatic (20 INT), Mind Down* (23 INT)
Sleep Flower* (18 AGL), Gremlin (19 AGL), Anti-Magic (21 AGL), Power Down* (23 AGL)

FenrirKnight:    31/32/31/31/29/30
Unicorn Head
Leaf Saber (17 INT), Transshape (20 INT), Poison Bubble (22 INT)
Moon Saber (19 AGL), Black Rain* (21 AGL), Speed Down* (23 AGL)
Ghost Road* (17 LUCK), Mind Down* (20 LUCK)
Lamia Naga* (18 PIE), Protect Down* (20 PIE), Power Down* (23 PIE)

This is a lot to think about. I will take some time to digest this and respond later.

First impression is that Fenrir Knight will be leading my first 2.0 team.

One suggestion so far - increase the spell cost of Black Rain to 10 MP? Dark element can be a liability later in the game, but that should be made up for by having a Curse option, and it gets the extra 25% for always-MT damage. It should at least cost a couple more MP than Shuriken.

EDIT: It may also be fun to split Ghost Road and Demon Breath between Fenrir Knight and Dragon Master (only Evil Shaman gets both). Demon Breath would fit nicely thematically with Dragon Master as you have her.

19 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Vanadise:    31/31/31/29/31/29
Protect Up, Speed Up
Flame Saber (18 STR), Power Up (20 STR)
Freya* (18 PIE), Tinkle Rain (19 PIE), Heal Light (21 PIE)
Body Change (16 INT), Thunderstorm (19 INT, replaces Airblast), Mind Up (22 INT)
Holy Ball (16 LUCK), Thunder Saber (20 LUCK)

Classical Valkyrie upgrade, a level 2 ST damage spell as opposed to Star Lancer's level 1 MT damage spells, Heal Light and Tinkle Rain roughly balance out with Star Lancer's MT buffs and Marduke's ever-useful Silence. Looks good.

19 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Starlancer:    32/30/30/30/30/30
Dark Saber (18 STR), Saint Saber (20 STR), Power Up* (23 STR)
Energy Ball (17 AGL), Ice Smash* (18 AGL), Speed Up* (20 AGL)
Airblast* (17 INT), Fireball* (19 INT), Mind Up* (22 INT)
Marduke* (18 PIE), Aura Wave (20 PIE), Protect Up* (23 PIE)

Classical Red Mage, great variety of useful buffs, debuffs, Silence (though missing Poison), and damage spells. Love this one.

19 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

DragonMaster:    30/31/32/30/30/31
Unicorn Head
Jormungand* (18 PIE), Speed Down* (19 PIE), Protect Down* (21 PIE)
Ghoul (17 INT), Ghost (18 INT), Lunatic (20 INT), Mind Down* (23 INT)
Sleep Flower* (18 AGL), Gremlin (19 PIE), Anti-Magic (21 PIE), Power Down* (23 PIE)

I like the idea of making Dragon Master a more summon-centric class for Lise, but there's no option here to get both Power Down and Mind Down. Learning these two skills should at least be an option for Dark Lise, maybe at a sacrifice in this case. Here are some ideas to fix this:

- Remove Sleep Flower or Gremlin from the spell list. This way, if Dragon Master completes her INT and AGL series, she has to completely ignore her PIE series and will miss her summon and MT Speed and Protect Down.

- Set Unicorn Head to be replaced by Gremlin, Ghoul, or Ghost. Same as above: by completing her INT and AGL series, she will miss her summon and MT Speed and Protect Down.

- Switch the positions of Mind Down and Anti-Magic. This way, by learning both Mind Down and Power Down, she would be giving up Anti-Magic, a major sacrifice since her final weapon empowers it. 

- Replace Sleep Flower or Gremlin with Demon Breath, so that she at least gets a MT Mind Down option. This would be a nice mirror to Fenrir Knight having Ghost Road as an MT Power Down option obtainable earlier through a different series. If you did this, you might consider switching the positions of Jormungand and Lunatic so that she would have to choose to give up either her summon or MT Speed and Protect Down, rather than choosing to give up either Lunatic or MT Speed and Power Down (a obvious choice, to me at least).

19 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

FenrirKnight:    31/32/31/31/29/30
Unicorn Head
Leaf Saber (17 INT), Transshape (20 INT), Poison Bubble (22 INT)
Moon Saber (19 AGL), Black Rain* (21 AGL), Speed Down* (23 AGL)
Ghost Road* (17 LUCK), Mind Down* (20 LUCK)
Lamia Naga* (18 PIE), Protect Down* (20 PIE), Power Down* (23 PIE)

Ghost Road and Power Down give two options for MT physical debuff, Black Rain can Curse, all stat downs can be MT, Leaf and Moon Saber (usefulness balances out with the lack of a saber/resist option), even a Leaf Coat option. With her final weapon and shields, this class will be an awesome team leader. Love this one too.

2 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I like the idea of making Dragon Master a more summon-centric class for Lise, but there's no option here to get both Power Down and Mind Down

You need to get 13 PIE as Rune Maiden to learn the other 2 debuffs as ST.
Then as DM go 23 INT and 23 AGL; the spells after sleep flower should've been AGL as well... I blame copy-paste.

17 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

You need to get 13 PIE as Rune Maiden to learn the other 2 debuffs as ST.

I missed that! (Now I see why you listed only Unicorn Head at the head of their lists.) Looks good then. Nice class with good direct damage options, whereas Fenrir Knight focuses more on debuffs and utility spells.

17 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Then as DM go 23 INT and 23 AGL; the spells after sleep flower should've been AGL as well... I blame copy-paste.

I assumed this was the case.

19 hours ago, rpschamp said:

It may also be fun to split Ghost Road and Demon Breath between Fenrir Knight and Dragon Master (only Evil Shaman gets both). Demon Breath would fit nicely thematically with Dragon Master as you have her.

Any thoughts on this, or do you think that it would make Dragon Master too powerful? Also, do you have any changes planned to Ghost Road or Demon Breath? I think Ghost Road is fine as it is, but Demon Breath's Dark element makes it more of a liability in the endgame for an MT spell. To balance this, you could remove the Dark element (Air and Fire should be enough) or add a Curse option to it.

12 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Any thoughts on this, or do you think that it would make Dragon Master too powerful? Also, do you have any changes planned to Ghost Road or Demon Breath? I think Ghost Road is fine as it is, but Demon Breath's Dark element makes it more of a liability in the endgame for an MT spell. To balance this, you could remove the Dark element (Air and Fire should be enough) or add a Curse option to it.

I don't want it on DM as demon breath really only works well if you have anti-magic and Evil Shaman already has that combo.

33 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I don't want it on DM as demon breath really only works well if you have anti-magic and Evil Shaman already has that combo.

Well, I think that Angela's and Lise's classes look great as you have them, and I don't think we'll really know any problems until they get played for a while. I don't have much to add for Angela or Lise; I love the increased customizability and think other players will go nuts over trying different team and character builds when this comes out.

The only thing is that Earth spells seem to be left out a little so far, but I get that this is because Lise is more Wind-oriented.

Looking forward to Carlie next? Keep up the good work!

I was worried about that idea at first but I think this could actually be fun with the way the spells are being spread out.

What I have so far:

Angela

Charlie

Lise

Hawk

Biggest change there is Ninja Master.

Duran and Kevin will be a problem.
Their current incarnation have about 6-7 in most classes, so bloating that up to 12 is problematic, especially given how little spells fit them thematically..

Thanks for this; I'll have time to look over "Charlie" and Hawk later today.

48 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Duran and Kevin will be a problem.
Their current incarnation have about 6-7 in most classes, so bloating that up to 12 is problematic, especially given how little spells fit them thematically..

I agree that this requires some thought. But one option is to just leave some of these classes less customizable, and improve them in other ways.

I don't think that this is a major problem for Kevin, since he's thematically a "simpler" character with more straightforward utility through melee. He could get a stat boost to compensate, maybe a small boost to Luck, for instance, putting him statistically between Duran and Hawk.

For Dark Duran, Swordmaster should have enough spells to be customizable, and Duelist could maybe fall into the "simpler", less customizable category with his focus on level 2/3 techs.

Light Duran is trickier, but I think you could fill him out with a few more direct damage spells, sabers, buffs/debuffs, and support spells, taking care to keep him different enough from Bishop and Vanadis. For example, Paladin could get ST Holy Ball/Saint Beam and maybe ST Diamond Missile/Earthquake, while Lord could get MT Holy Ball, MT Evil Gate, and maybe Fire and Ice Sabers to give him a variety of elemental damage options.

You could also give Duran better stats; some extra SPI points for instance would make him a better shield user and help with his direct damage and heal spells. I agree that this sounds like making him more like Lise, but Lise should still stand out with her access to summons and complete buff/debuff sets.

And there's always the option to restrict access to shields again to Light Duran (like in the original), but I don't like this; it feels like taking a step backwards.

27 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

And there's always the option to restrict access to shields again to Light Duran

Not happening.

Stat bonus instead of spells are not an option either.
If I give just stats or even leave spell slots open the ring that teaches the regeneration spell wouldn't be a tradeoff. Ok, it still has a cost in the sense that it takes a ring slot but that is a small cost to get a full healer, much less than ring slot AND a potentially valueable spell down the road.

26 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

If I give just stats or even leave spell slots open the ring that teaches the regeneration spell wouldn't be a tradeoff. Ok, it still has a cost in the sense that it takes a ring slot but that is a small cost to get a full healer, much less than ring slot AND a potentially valueable spell down the road.

Good point.

Wouldn't the simplest solution then be to just limit the spell ring for specific classes so the regen ring would be a tradeoff? Set Kevin's max spell slots to 6 or 8 spells, for instance? Not every class needs 10 learnable spells, and it might make more sense thematically for some classes to have fewer.

Even then I'd want some choice there for consistency.
3/4 Kevin classes have 8 spells currently, the last 6.
So I'd at least want a cap of 7 and a total of 9-10.

Not sure this is a good idea, this is just asking for confusion.

Well, lets continue the Kevin bashing.

Hm for Duran and Kevin it's indeed problematic, but yeah for the sake of coinsistency I would still have them learn 10 out of 12 spells, like the rest of the characters.

11 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Well, lets continue the Kevin bashing.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. In the past, Kevin's spells have been limited because he did the most melee damage and didn't need the versatility to compensate. Versatility, as in number of spells learned, is it's own advantage.

That is to say, typically it was Kevin doing the "bashing".

I know you have been moving away from this model, though. If you want to fill out the spell rosters thematically, Duran should get more direct damage spells and sabers, being more of a power-minded guy, and Kevin should get more buffs and support spells, being more empathetic.

Here's a spell idea for Kevin: Use his previous "Pressure Point" spell to give him shield/aggro. (As in he becomes the point of pressure.) He can maintain this as upkeep. This gives him a novel shield option that he can use without sacrificing equipment.

If you don't like that idea, the spell can still be repurposed to help him fill out his spell roster.

19 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Whenever I look at the history of major things I've changed it feels like the majority is to Kevin's detriment, some deserved, some not.

Like forced stat recalc on map transition is half a buff (no longer loses attack power temporarely if he levels up in wolfform) and half a nerf to him (can no longer stack wolf bonuses).
L2/3 techs actually profitting from saber is probably to his detriment as the formerly dominant L1 techs got less dominant.
How about penalizing damage on dual attackers.
Fixing AGL and LUCK (crits) is also arguably to his detriment as his stats in both are not the best.
Or now me taking away the ability to gain multiple TP per attack through hitting multiple targets and/or sub-hits.
And much more stuff.

He went from the king of the arguable most OP fighting style to whatever he is right now.

17 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Here's a spell idea for Kevin: Use his previous "Pressure Point" spell to give him shield/aggro. (As in he becomes the point of pressure.) He can maintain this as upkeep. This gives him a novel shield option that he can use without sacrificing equipment.

If you don't like that idea, the spell can still be repurposed to help him fill out his spell roster.

Pressure point was already sacrificed for Archdemon.

32 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Whenever I look at the history of major things I've changed it feels like the majority is to Kevin's detriment, some deserved, some not.

Like forced stat recalc on map transition is half a buff (no longer loses attack power temporarely if he levels up in wolfform) and half a nerf to him (can no longer stack wolf bonuses).
L2/3 techs actually profitting from saber is probably to his detriment as the formerly dominant L1 techs got less dominant.
How about penalizing damage on dual attackers.
Fixing AGL and LUCK (crits) is also arguably to his detriment as his stats in both are not the best.
Or now me taking away the ability to gain multiple TP per attack through hitting multiple targets and/or sub-hits.
And much more stuff.

He went from the king of the arguable most OP fighting style to whatever he is right now.

Understood. Well, what if you give him some upkeep abilities to recover some of his melee dominance? He could use his MP to maintain some unique advantage in melee through upkeep spells. Thematically, this is kind of the point of the classically trained monk.

Pressure Point would be a natural conduit for this. Instead of my shield/aggro idea, he could use it to regain his +1 TP per hit ability, for instance, or to give him some unique bonus to hit/crit percentage or tech damage.

Other unused spells could be repurposed to different effects. These types of spells could be something unique to Kevin that Hawk could not step on, since Hawk already benefited most from the Luck fix. (Though in general I think Kevin's base Luck could be brought up a bit.)

I don't want to bash Kevin. He lost his pup... and compared to the others, he's a pretty lovable guy.

EDIT: After some more thought, I really like the idea of Kevin being able to channel his MP into regaining his OP-melee state. It could build up his spell roster and give him a unique quality, resonant with the original game. It may take some thought on how best to implement this.

24 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Understood. Well, what if you give him some upkeep abilities to recover some of his melee dominance? He could use his MP to maintain some unique advantage in melee through upkeep spells. Thematically, this is kind of the point of the classically trained monk.

No idea how I would do this in spell form.

25 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Other unused spells could be repurposed to different effects.

I've only one unused spell atm - Ancient 3. That wouldn't fit thematically on anyone but Angela and she doesn't even have Ancient 2.

4 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

No idea how I would do this in spell form.

I've only one unused spell atm - Ancient 3. That wouldn't fit thematically on anyone but Angela and she doesn't even have Ancient 2.

What about Pressure Point? I don't think this is currently being used, and it's in the original game. The spell with the wolf head icon that only Monk gets. You can still use this, right?

Just now, rpschamp said:

What about Pressure Point? I don't think this is currently being used, and it's in the original game. The spell with the wolf head icon that only Monk gets.

40 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Pressure point was already sacrificed for Archdemon.

45 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Pressure point was already sacrificed for Archdemon.

Why don't you use Ancient 3 for Archdemon instead, and recover Pressure Point for Kevin?

I just think this could be something unique to add for Kevin to address some of the misgivings you're feeling about how he's been changed. And it has a damn cool icon! Plus, this could be one of the more fun spells to playtest.

And then what exactly?

I think Kevin has strong enough melee by itself.
And technically he can use Aura Wave (at least on Death Hand, was sure at least one more Kevin class had it, huh) to convert MP into TP = more physical dps.

9 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I just think this could be something unique to add for Kevin to address some of the misgivings you're feeling about how he's been changed.

Where did I say nerfing Kevin was a bad thing?
Vanilla Kevin was stupidly OP.
Not only could he stack wolfform to have more damage per swing than Duelist Duran and attack twice as often on top of that, he also gets a free power up buff when he gets hit in wolfform. And sometimes his dual swing glitches out to make him go on a non-stop rampage.

19 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

And then what exactly?

That's up to you. Some unique buff to pin him as the king of fighters, maybe just a simple damage bonus to his level 1 tech.

I was just trying to kill two birds with one stone - help fill out Kevin's spell roster, and regain some of his lost power I thought you were saying should not have been taken away, through a unique ability.

19 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

And technically he can use Aura Wave (at least on Death Hand, was sure at least one more Kevin class had it, huh) to convert MP into TP = more physical dps.

God Hand could get this back as well.

15 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Where did I say nerfing Kevin was a bad thing?

I may have misinterpreted you. I thought you were expressing some degree of regret or annoyance over "Kevin bashing". I interpreted your invitation to continue "Kevin bashing" as sarcastic.

EDIT: Or perhaps you just meant that he has been bashed sufficiently, and should be bashed no more. In this case, limiting his spell roster would not be bashing since he already has fewer spells than everyone else.

What I meant was that he was more or less at a good place.
Considering he is one of the rarest used members in the Character/Job Party Recommendations topic (at least it feels like that, didn't exactly count) I don't think he warrent yet another beating with the nerf stick.

Got it. Sorry for misinterpreting what you were saying. If you haven't already realized, unmarked jokes have a tendency to fall flat on these boards. (EDIT: Especially today, when things got a little testy on another topic.)

If you have no plans for Ancient 3 though, it might be nice to give Kevin something unique with Pressure Point, especially with that cool wolf head icon. A unique buff would make him more attractive to players if you feel he's underused. An aggro/shield spell is still an option. Give it some thought.

21 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

If you haven't already realized, unmarked jokes have a tendency to fall flat on these boards.

That's got nothing to do with the boards but the written medium in general.

Dolan was always a touchy subject; I know that it isn't super obvious to others (why else would it be a puzzle boss) but whenever I asked back noone could ever offer a way to make it better within the constraints I have with the game, if I even get an answer at all.
And completely dropping the gimmick is not something I accept.

22 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

If you have no plans for Ancient 3 though, it might be nice to give Kevin something unique with Pressure Point, especially with that cool wolf head icon. A unique buff would make him more attractive to players if you feel he's underused. An aggro/shield spell is still an option. Give it some thought.

No idea if I'll follow this path at all but an "aggro spell" is certainly not on the table.

15 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

That's got nothing to do with the boards but the written medium in general.

Thus the importance of context. Unfortunately, context on a message board is highly subjective, largely dependent on what someone has read that day.

I honestly don't get why Dolan is such a touchy subject. Yeah, he can kick your ass, but isn't that the point?

15 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

No idea if I'll follow this path at all but an "aggro spell" is certainly not on the table.

My vote is for a Super Saiyin-style Kevin-exclusive melee/tech buff to set him apart from his closest competitor Hawk who has

1) much higher base Luck and

2) only 1 less base Strength on average.

I know wolf-form already kind of fits into this category, but he could use something else.

10 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I honestly don't get why Dolan is such a touchy subject. Yeah, he can kick your ass, but isn't that the point?

It is the point that the bosses are a challenge.
The problem they argue about is that they can't figure out what they have to do.

Maybe they are too used to prior bosses where you don't really have to pay attention what exactly the boss does?
I mean like, taking damage is just damage doesn't really matter what caused it, you heal it the same way.

15 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

My vote is for a Super Saiyin-style Kevin-exclusive melee/tech buff

So you wanna do DBGT?

I think wolfform is a good enough base, it allows him to use his higher VIT as additional attack. So if you wanna compare it like that it is:
STR+VIT vs AGL+LUCK

7 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

So you wanna do DBGT?

I think wolfform is a good enough base, it allows him to use his higher VIT as additional attack. So if you wanna compare it like that it is:
STR+VIT vs AGL+LUCK

I suppose you mean Kevin's STR+VIT vs. Hawk's AGI+LUC?

But, Kevin only gets his STR+VIT advantage at night, whereas Hawk always has his AGI+LUC advantage.

Maybe you want them to be equal in melee, but Hawk has other stat and spell advantages, so I think the melee advantage should go to Kevin, in general.

4 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

The problem they argue about is that they can't figure out what they have to do.

Since you're adjusting the damage color scheme, maybe the damage colors of the level 2/3 tech could simply be changed to counterattack colors to show that it cancelled Dolan's Energy Ball?

This would at least give the player a more direct clue that the attack specifically did something out of the ordinary.

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

Since you're adjusting the damage color scheme, maybe the damage colors of the level 2/3 tech could simply be changed to counterattack colors to show that it cancelled Dolan's Energy Ball?

This would at least give the player a more direct clue that the attack specifically did something out of the ordinary.

If it would be possible to change the damage color only when the tech does something out of the ordinary (like cancelling Dolan's buff) in any situation, that would indeed be pretty handy

23 minutes ago, Kei said:

If it would be possible to change the damage color only when the tech does something out of the ordinary (like cancelling Dolan's buff) in any situation, that would indeed be pretty handy

That's true. I suggested using the counterattack colors here because level 2/3 techs cannot otherwise be used to perform a counterattack, so it would note something out of the ordinary. But a more general "out of the ordinary" color could be used for other gimmick-breaking moves as well.

8 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Maybe you want them to be equal in melee, but Hawk has other stat and spell advantages, so I think the melee advantage should go to Kevin, in general.

What I could do would be to adjust how much damage they get out of 1 point of attack post def.
E.g. if both have 100 attack and attack the same target, Kevin may deal 25 damage per hit and Hawk only 20 or something like that.

4 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Since you're adjusting the damage color scheme, maybe the damage colors of the level 2/3 tech could simply be changed to counterattack colors to show that it cancelled Dolan's Energy Ball?

I can try.
Though, does that even help?
If I understand you right it would only show yellow if it does something.
Which is currently already shown by you not getting 999'd.
So there'd be no hint before getting a game over if you manage to land a Lv2/3 tech before he does the first energy ball (aura wave and increased tech gain items come to mind).

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

What I could do would be to adjust how much damage they get out of 1 point of attack post def.
E.g. if both have 100 attack and attack the same target, Kevin may deal 25 damage per hit and Hawk only 20 or something like that.

This could work; it could also be the bonus that Kevin gets from Pressure Point (25% sounds pretty nice). I still like the idea of Kevin maintaining his attack superiority at a low MP upkeep, akin to a Shaolin monk focusing his mental efforts on battle through mediation (rather than DBGT haha).

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

I can try.
Though, does that even help?
If I understand you right it would only show yellow if it does something.
Which is currently already shown by you not getting 999'd.
So there'd be no hint before getting a game over if you manage to land a Lv2/3 tech before he does the first energy ball (aura wave and increased tech gain items come to mind).

It would help a little, as a hint that the attack did something. A player may try multiple things between Energy Ball and Spiral Moon, and the level 2/3 tech might have been a mistake, maybe something one of their teammates did while they were focused on casting Antimagic. The counter colors would hint that you countered something, but Kei's idea of a specific "out of the ordinary" color might be even better (and could be used at Mispolm, Dark Lich, and maybe a couple other places).

If you really wanted to drop a hint, you could add a line to the README under counterattacks, something like "in certain situations, a level 2/3 tech may be needed instead to counter a specific move."

Also, I noticed something buggy with the +2 tech points on evade armor (available at the Dwarf Village). If I manage to evade twice without gaining any tech points through attacking, my tech bar is at 4 TP, but I can't use my level 1 tech at that time or for the rest of the battle.

3 hours ago, rpschamp said:

If you really wanted to drop a hint, you could add a line to the README under counterattacks, something like "in certain situations, a level 2/3 tech may be needed instead to counter a specific move."

I don't think that works.
People avoid READMEs like the plague.
Even if not, there's several hours most likely even days between reading it and needing one throwaway sentence.

2 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Also, I noticed something buggy with the +2 tech points on evade armor (available at the Dwarf Village). If I manage to evade twice without gaining any tech points through attacking, my tech bar is at 4 TP, but I can't use my level 1 tech at that time or for the rest of the battle.

I've had that report already, couldn't reproduce it.
So I either fixed it by accident (unlikely) or there's some missing intel.

28 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I don't think that works.
People avoid READMEs like the plague.
Even if not, there's several hours most likely even days between reading it and needing one throwaway sentence.

But then you could just say, "Check the README...."

EDIT: It could also go under Dolan's weakness in the monsters/bosses spreadsheet. Right now it just says "power"; you could change it to "super counter" or something slightly more obvious.

28 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I've had that report already, couldn't reproduce it.
So I either fixed it by accident (unlikely) or there's some missing intel.

It's interesting how situational some of these "bugs" are. I'm a fan of this armor, so I will keep checking it as the game progresses to see if it corrects itself at some point so I can provide more intel.

13 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

It could also go under Dolan's weakness in the monsters/bosses spreadsheet. Right now it just says "power"; you could change it to "super counter" or something slightly more obvious.

huh, what has more "power" than a L3 tech?

27 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

huh, what has more "power" than a L3 tech?

"Power" alone doesn't communicate the need to counter something; a level 2/3 tech alone won't do any extra damage, * EDIT: or have any special effect unless it's timed correctly. * "Power" might also be confusing; with "Power Up", it could simply mean that he's weak against melee, which he is in a way, since he resists every element and damage spells are mostly elemental, while melee is not.

"Charging" might by better by implying that his weakness appears while he's "charging" his killer spell.

EDIT: It's the timing, as well as the power, that's important. Maybe "power, timing" instead of "power"? Dolan can be the one exception to the one-word rule for boss weaknesses.

Personally to me the sheet with bosses strength and weakness didn't help even on a single boss. Could be I am that dumb or maybe it's the fault of the games that I played that basically laid out the weakness of a boss easily to you, or am a very casual player.

In general I had to come to this site to figure out how deal with some bosses (Dolan being one of course).

Most games today have to cater to a mass audience to be successful, and the popular wisdom for commercial game design is that nothing will make your game less successful than being too tricky to figure out.

Nintendo's "Punch-Out" ("Mike Tyson's Punch-Out" when I got it for my birthday) is my counterexample. Goddamn if those bosses didn't take some outside-the-box thinking to figure out (Soda Popinski comes to mind). And that game was so popular as to be iconic.

38 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

It's the timing, as well as the power, that's important. Maybe "power, timing" instead of "power"? Dolan can be the one exception to the one-word rule for boss weaknesses.

I'll go with your first suggestion "super counter" for now.
What a counter is at least defined here. And super is just one stage "better" (L1 -> L2/3).
Timing would imo more easily give the impression of regular counter.

6 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

I'll go with your first suggestion "super counter" for now.
What a counter is at least defined here. And super is just one stage "better" (L1 -> L2/3).
Timing would imo more easily give the impression of regular counter.

 

"Super counter" was the logic by which I figured it out: Killer Spiral Moon always came after Energy Ball, so I tried normal counters, which didn't work, so I upgraded. To me, Dolan will always be the Soda Popinski of Sin of Mana. Thanks :-)

Duran

That looks pretty good for Duran. Makes sense for Paladin to have access to some damage spell to cast if one wants to play him as a caster with his final weapon, having access to turn undead also.

Tho I would give Lord probably Counter Magic, since God Hand so far is the only class to have it, and Lord would probably benefit from it more than having a spell like Arrows.

He has already speed up, speed down, def up, power up, energy ball, life booster next to heal light and tinkle rain.
He's basically Vanadise without being Lise at that point.

True that.

20 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Duran

  Reveal hidden contents

 

base:        12/11/10/8/8/8
no spells

Knight:        17/15/17/13/14/14
Heal Light (9 PIE), Protect Up (10 PIE)
Tinkle Rain (10 INT)

Gladiator:    18/16/17/14/13/13
Diamond Saber (9 INT), Thunder Saber (11 INT), Dark Saber (13 INT)

Paladin:    31/29/32/28/29/29
Tinkle Rain
Diamond Missile (14 INT), Sleep Flower (17 INT), Anti-Magic (23 INT)
Holy Ball (16 PIE), Heal Light* (20 PIE), Turn Undead* (24 PIE)
Magic Shield (18 VIT), Saint Saber (21 VIT), Protect Up* (24 VIT)
Ice Smash (18 AGL), Speed Up (22 AGL)

Lord:        32/28/31/29/28/30
Heal Light* (15 PIE), Tinkle Rain* (18 PIE), Speed Down* (22 PIE)
Speed Up* (17 AGL), Life Booster (20 AGL), Power Up (23 AGL)
Ice Saber (15 INT), Protect Up* (19 INT), Energy Ball (22 INT)
Arrows (16 LUCK), Diamond Saber (20 LUCK), Analyse (23 LUCK)

Swordmaster:    32/29/31/29/28/29
Ice Saber* (15 LUCK), Dark Saber* (18 LUCK), Energy Ball (22 LUCK)
Thunder Saber* (16 INT), Analyse (19 INT), Saint Saber (24 INT)
Leaf Saber (20 STR), Diamond Saber* (23 STR), Power Up^ (26 STR)
Speed Up^ (18 AGL), Flame Saber* (21 AGL), Moon Saber (25 AGL)

Duelist:    33/30/30/30/27/28
Diamond Saber, Thunder Saber, Dark Saber
Ice Saber (20 STR), Mind Down (22 STR), Anti-Magic (25 STR)
Life Booster (18 VIT), Leaf Saber (20 VIT), Protect Down (23 VIT)
Flame Saber (16 INT), Transshape^ (19 INT), Aura Wave (22 INT)

 

 

(This is in response to the five class schemes you've posted so far (for everyone except Kevin), with two suggestions marked with an *.)

Since there's a lot of new information, I took a more general approach here by looking at the spread of abilities by element.

I love how you've spread out the sabers just slightly; this should help with options to access saber/resist. The balance of final classes who have access to these elements looks like this so far (with character/class names abbreviated):

Earth - D(3), C(2), RM - 6
Wind - D(2), C(2), RM, V, NM - 7
Ice - D(3), C(2), RM, NM - 7
Fire - D(2), C(2), RM, V - 6
Light - D(2), B, SL - 4
Dark - D(2), N, SL - 4
Leaf - D(2), S, FK - 4
Moon - SM, FK - 2

Nice distribution, with the basic four elemental sabers roughly 50% more common than the other four, and I imagine that one or two of Kevin's classes will pick up Moon Saber to balance it out.

The spread of direct damage spells is also interesting. The balance looks like this (including the multi-element spells):

Earth - A(4), C(3), H(3), P - 11
Wind - A(4), C(3), H(2), L(4) - 13
Ice - A(4), C(3), H(2), L(3), P - 13
Fire - A(4), C(3), H(3), L(2) - 12
Light - A(2), C(4), H(2), P - 9
Dark - A(3), C(3), H(3), L(2) - 11
Leaf - H(4), M, FK - 6

Looks pretty good. Compared to the saber distribution, Earth might be slightly underrepresented, which is thematically a little weird since it's the most basic of the basic elements. This could be solved by giving one or two of Kevin's classes access to an Earth element direct damage spell.

* Maybe Rock Fall could go on God Hand or Warrior Monk? I see this as similar in spirit to Monk's Earth Slash from Final Fantasy Tactics (though that may have been non-elemental). Kevin certainly would have the strength to push a few boulders. This would also help spread out Light Hawk's abilities a little more.

Dark might be overrepresented, but I don't see this as much of a problem, since some of these spells seem more intended to spread out access to Curse. And with so few Leaf spells, I think you've done a good job of making them more accessible.

Overall, the new class schemes look great, and I have only one other suggestion at this point:

* I never understood Leaf Saber on Duelist, thematically (my understanding is that it's a relic from Duelist's former final weapon, which consumed MP). It seems like it would be a better fit on Lord, who is more of a helper class. Also, Lord's Power Up seems like it would be a better fit on Duelist, giving him another spell to increase his tech power, and making him the only one of Duran's classes with both Power Up and Protect Down (Kevin has two). If you don't feel strongly about it otherwise, you might consider exchanging these spells between these two classes.

[numbers]
I didn't really pay attention to how those distributions end up, only that they kinda fit with the class idea I had.

Also you missed non-elemental (damage) spells.
One boss is pseudo weak to them (resist all other elements) and a few mobs could be said to be in the same boat.

14 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I never understood Leaf Saber on Duelist, thematically (my understanding is that it's a relic from Duelist's former final weapon, which consumed MP). It seems like it would be a better fit on Lord, who is more of a helper class. Also, Lord's Power Up seems like it would be a better fit on Duelist, giving him another spell to increase his tech power, and making him the only one of Duran's classes with both Power Up and Protect Down (Kevin has two). If you don't feel strongly about it otherwise, you might consider exchanging these spells between these two classes.

Leaf Saber feeds into Aura Wave. Aura Wave gives 5 TP per cast and with the global TP nerf (max once per attack) this might now actually be useful to repeatedly use.

34 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Also you missed non-elemental (damage) spells.

I also missed physical element spells, which are important in their own way, but didn't effect the kind of balance I had in mind.

34 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Leaf Saber feeds into Aura Wave. Aura Wave gives 5 TP per cast and with the global TP nerf (max once per attack) this might now actually be useful to repeatedly use.

Got it - Duelist is * feeling * the Aura Wave. I also think it will work out better this round.

Kevin

I'm not entirely sold on this.
Since most Kevin classes have like 6-7 spells currently going up to 10 (out of 12) is a major buff.
So I made his stat requirement much steeper than anyone else's, like usually it is 2-3 point between each spell here it is up to 5.

And anyone that sees the sets of Godhand/Deathhand or W.Monk/Dervish as obvious counterparts is surly imagining things.

As I said, I've no idea what to do with Kevin. There's only so little that fits him thematically.

10 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Must admit lore wise it's kinda weird seing Kevin get Double Spell.

I didn't want to give all 4 classes the same spells and "god"hand having say over the elements doesn't seem too far off to me.
Also its mostly meant as a penalty for going for high heal power early.
Kevin was imo good enough as he was and with the change he gain up to 4 extra spells for free. I needed some garbage to fill his spell slots, really.

10 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Some requirement seems weird, like Death Hand need 22 PIE for Rockfall ? A spell that scales with Luck not mentionning you get Dark Force MT for only 15 PIE which IIRC is stronger. 

Or Warrior Monk needing 25 AGL for Water Jutsu while he can get Power Down for only 18 PIE, and Power Down unlike Water Jutsu can be make MT with Whitelight Ring and isn't affected by elemental resistance, I don't know like it is I really don't see any reasons to go for Water Jutsu.

Kevin gets bonus spell damage from PIE.
But yeah, trading Rockfall and Dark Force makes sense, Power Down and Water Jutsu as well.

So take 2:

26 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

So take 2:

  Reveal hidden contents

I can see that you've given Warrior Monk and Dervish both Energy Ball and Analyze. I like this a lot. This is kind of the same idea I was going for with my Pressure Point suggestion - Kevin can maintain Energy Ball as upkeep, and add Analyze during battle, making him a critical hit master. I think the only other class with both of these is Swordmaster.

I like Water Jutsu on Warrior Monk, thematically. Who doesn't like the idea of monks meditating beneath near-freezing waterfalls?

I also like the idea of Double Spell on God Hand as kind of a Wrath of God attack.

I just have a few suggestions to fine-tune things:

- God Hand trades Counter Magic for Lunatic or Holy Ball. Being stuck on single-target, Counter Magic is kind of a boring spell, especially with Magic Shield upstaging it. I would just get rid of it all together.

- Warrior Monk trades Fire Breath for Rockfall. Thematically, this would keep with the waterfall training idea. I don't see why a monk would learn to breathe fire.

- Death Hand trades Rockfall for Fire Breath. He can learn Demon Breath later, so Fire Breath would be a reasonable precursor; plus, he already has enough elements without Earth.

19 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

- God Hand trades Counter Magic for Lunatic or Holy Ball. Being stuck on single-target, Counter Magic is kind of a boring spell, especially with Magic Shield upstaging it. I would just get rid of it all together.

I don't want Lunatic on GH since he already has Life Booster. And Holy Ball would make him too similar to Paladin.

21 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I don't see why a monk would learn to breathe fire.

He's a martial artist, OF COURSE he needs a proper breathing technique.

22 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

- Death Hand trades Rockfall for Fire Breath. He can learn Demon Breath later, so Fire Breath would be a reasonable precursor; plus, he already has enough elements without Earth.

Kevin learns Flame Saber. I'm not ok with him getting such a good caster combo (L2 spell based on AGL which helps him in melee AND same element saber).
For D. Breath you need Anti-Magic way more often and it runs on PIE after you have invested about 10 LUCK, 1/6 th of your total stat gain, just to unlock this one spell.

20 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Bashkar:    16/15/18/14/13/13
no spells

Since Dervish and Death Hand both learn Rockfall, why not also give it to Bashkar to give him something to do with his MP? With Bastard Slam, Bashkar seems like a guy who could throw some rocks.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

I don't see why a monk would learn to breathe fire.

He's a martial artist, OF COURSE he needs a proper breathing technique.

So you're turning Warrior Monk into Dhalsim? Why not give him Fireball instead to bring him closer to Ryu?

EDIT: More seriously, one of the Jutsus might be another option that uses his AGI. He already gets Speed and Mind Down, so Fire or Earth Jutsu might be a good choice. Earth Jutsu would give him another element, and also separate him a bit more from Dervish.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

1 hour ago, rpschamp said:

- God Hand trades Counter Magic for Lunatic or Holy Ball. Being stuck on single-target, Counter Magic is kind of a boring spell, especially with Magic Shield upstaging it. I would just get rid of it all together.

I don't want Lunatic on GH since he already has Life Booster. And Holy Ball would make him too similar to Paladin.

I still think that something needs to be done with Counter Magic. I don't think many players would ever choose to learn this - God Hand is going to raise PIE anyways to boost his Heal Light, so it's not like he really needs this spell. Plus, no other class can use this. Maybe make it multi-target so at least its not a off-brand Magic Shield?

20 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

And anyone that sees the sets of Godhand/Deathhand or W.Monk/Dervish as obvious counterparts is surly imagining things.

If you really want to do this, then God Hand needs multi-target Life Booster.

32 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Since Dervish and Death Hand both learn Rockfall, why not also give it to Bashkar to give him something to do with his MP? With Bastard Slam, Bashkar seems like a guy who could throw some rocks.

Not sure, it'd kinda ruin Bashkar's uniqueness.

32 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

So you're turning Warrior Monk into Dhalsim? Why not give him Fireball instead to bring him closer to Ryu?

That would change not too much.
Fireball is INT which is better on a Lv2/3 tech guy, breath AGL for L1 tech.
Don't care either way.

36 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I still think that something needs to be done with Counter Magic. I don't think many players would ever choose to learn this - God Hand is going to raise PIE anyways to boost his Heal Light, so it's not like he really needs this spell. Plus, no other class can use this. Maybe make it multi-target so at least its not a off-brand Magic Shield?

He's already Mind Down, Aura Wave, Power Up, Life Booster, Protect Down and Counter Magic which is a lot options for support.
Mind Down + Counter Magic is already maxed magic defense.
I don't think he needs more.

39 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

If you really want to do this, then God Hand needs multi-target Life Booster.

Apart from not having a non-crashing spell animation - nope, he already has more support option than I feel he should have.

3 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

47 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

Since Dervish and Death Hand both learn Rockfall, why not also give it to Bashkar to give him something to do with his MP? With Bastard Slam, Bashkar seems like a guy who could throw some rocks.

Not sure, it'd kinda ruin Bashkar's uniqueness.

I love Bashkar (awesome colors, Bastard Slam; I'm actually playing him right now), but Warrior Monk gets Power Up, making him potentially a more powerful fighter in addition to learning Heal Light.

If you REALLY want to make Bashkar unique, bring back Pressure Point for a 10-20% melee/tech boost after modifications.

10 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

Fireball is INT which is better on a Lv2/3 tech guy, breath AGL for L1 tech.

Yeah, I didn't think that through. Warrior Monk should stick with AGI. Fire Breath is fine, but Fire or Earth Jutsu might be better thematically. Plus it would distinguish him more from Dervish.

12 minutes ago, praetarius5018 said:

He's already Mind Down, Aura Wave, Power Up, Life Booster, Protect Down and Counter Magic which is a lot options for support.
Mind Down + Counter Magic is already maxed magic defense.
I don't think he needs more.

What if you made Counter Magic self-cast only, but also with an Matk boost so he could have a way to improve his Double Spell? This would make it quite distinct from Magic Shield, and give players an option if they want to increase God Hand's multi-target damage options. Like you said, he already has quite a few support options.

22 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

I love Bashkar (awesome colors, Bastard Slam; I'm actually playing him right now), but Warrior Monk gets Power Up, making him potentially a more powerful fighter

No, Monk only gets Power Up if you beat the desert area before doing the class change.
So if at all it matters for one area (desert -> snowfield -> class change).

24 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

If you REALLY want to make Bashkar unique, bring back Pressure Point for a 10-20% melee/tech boost after modifications.

Not happening. There are already WAY too many buffs. Especially since everything stacks multiplicatively.

26 minutes ago, rpschamp said:

What if you made Counter Magic self-cast only, but also with an Matk boost so he could have a way to improve his Double Spell?

So mind up?
Considering a potential auto-buff armor is still on the table - nope.

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

So mind up?

Yeah, I meant it as a Mind Up that could only be self-cast and not upgraded with Whitelight Ring, but it sounds like it's one too many buffs. And it doesn't make the spell any more distinctive since it does the same thing as Mind Up, so you might as well leave Counter Magic the way it is.

I'm also coming around to the idea of a fire-breathing monk, though I think Fire Jutsu or Earth Jutsu could be a good replacement if Warrior Monk is too similar to Dervish.

I think 10-spell Kevin looks pretty good.

On 5/15/2020 at 2:36 PM, praetarius5018 said:

expand on stat requirement for spell learning and limit known spells to 10, maybe add some spells to classes that have less than 12 spells to add some choices

I've been thinking lately about your decision to give every final class the same number of spells. It's an interesting idea, very different from the base game and most other games of this type, and I'm interested in your design thoughts.

I think I generally understand what you're going for - it's not the number of spells that matters, but how they can be used. Angela and Carlie (I actually typed Charlie), for instance, can get more mileage out of their INT and PIE stats through their spells, whereas other characters get more mileage through physical stats and may learn spells to work with those. Also, characters with complete sets like Lise or Dark Hawk can be more easily aligned with team strategies, and some spells are just useful in more situations than others. All this can be used to balance power.

I can see why you have to be very careful about what you add or subtract, or any changes made to stats.

By giving everyone 10 spells, you allow more teams to cover important skills, and roughly level the sacrifice for any unlearned spells or learnable spell equipment. Half the fun of this game is coming up with new teams and new strategies anyways, so anything to enhance this should be good as long as it doesn't lead to OP situations.

Do I have this right? Or are there other reasons?

Also, are you considering putting any other learnable spells on equipment?

6 hours ago, rpschamp said:

 

Also, are you considering putting any other learnable spells on equipment?

Only the regeneration ring (cursed) so far.
Since learning a spell should be a big(ger) deal now any item that teaches a spell would have to be cursed anyway.
And imo no spell is as big a change as healing.

6 hours ago, rpschamp said:

Do I have this right? Or are there other reasons?

More or less.

For 2.0 I wanted to cut down a bit on mechanics that are "just there".
Like you technically have a limit of 12 learnable spells but also 12 spell slots max, neither of which really matter in the game; as long as learnable <= spell slots one of those values is meaningless. Same with stat requirements for spell learning, yes it is there but in the end it doesn't really encourage a choice for the player, like most of Angela's spell require INT to learn, a stat she'd want anyway, so the learning "just happens".

Does this change lead to more viable variants of the same class? Maybe, maybe not.
Some spells are simply less valueable so it is very possible that for some classes there is an obvious "best".

Same with the cursed attribute, it is present on one ring and that's it.
That concept gets a little rework and a few more items that use, plus a potential Lv60 bonus that profits from the number of equipped cursed items.

I don't even know if this is even possible...

Can you to make the game into one giant "play as everyone" game?  In short, you don't pick who you play as in the beginning, but play as everyone.  So in the beginning, you start as Duran, and play his tutorial stage, then Kevin, then Hawk, and so on.  And somewhere in the middle, you meet other characters.  They join, then they leave after certain plot, and so on.  And after the first Mana Holyland, you can choose who you take for Mana Beasts fights (Duran in Forcena, Kevin in Moonlight City, Hawk in Oasis city, etc).  And the final dungeons would be tackled one at a time, with the first two being the "normal" characters, and the 3rd character being whomever you choose.

That would be crazy awesome, but I have a feeling that'll be near impossible since you'd have to introduce new storyline and everything.

That would not only be a ton of work, the result would also be grindy as hell.
You have the same amount of content but need to level twice as many characters - party is limited to 3 characters so you'd need to take your B-team through everything you already did and especially make up for the exp lost from not facing the bosses.

Even if that was possible, one playthrough would be 70% extra grind and over twice as long as one playthrough now.

And that ignores the plotpoint of how the fairy has to choose one idiot to survive.

Well, as far as "grind" is concerned, you can just increase the exp/gold drop (and the starting stat).  But as you said, fairy will have to choose the main character.  So you choose the first 3 character, but the other 3 will join/part along the way -- Duran in Molebear Land, Angela in Dwarf Tunnel (where you fight Machine Golems), Kevin in Ghost Ship, Carlie in Lamplight city (forgot name), Lise in Rolante Hideout, and Hawk in Rolante Castle.  I'm sure there are numerous ways to get around that, as far as plot is concerned.

If you decide to actually attempt this, then I'll work on the detail of exactly when characters leave/join (that's the easy part).

But as you said, I guess the programing all that stuff will be near impossible.

As much trouble as I have with keeping the game together as it is I'd rather not deal with massive changes like that.

It'd be another story if there were proper tools for hacking this game...but seeing how it's such a technical mess it's pretty obvious why there aren't, I guess.

I know you already improved Half Vanish so that it'll affect bosses.  But you can use the former Half Vanish's effect to Hawk's trap spells, except instead of doing %-dmg of current HP, you can have the traps do %-dmg of max HP.  Just use "0A" for the 9th byte, instead of "0B".  You can even give it some element so it'll be affected by the day (already tested and confirmed).  However, just like the original Half Vanish, it won't affect the bosses.

2 hours ago, hmsong said:

I know you already improved Half Vanish so that it'll affect bosses.  But you can use the former Half Vanish's effect to Hawk's trap spells, except instead of doing %-dmg of current HP, you can have the traps do %-dmg of max HP.  Just use "0A" for the 9th byte, instead of "0B".  You can even give it some element so it'll be affected by the day (already tested and confirmed).  However, just like the original Half Vanish, it won't affect the bosses.

The thing is, those trap spells are very useful on bosses, especially Gorva and Tzenker in the mid-game. Plus, with Arrows hitting against physical defense, Poison Bubble hitting against magical defense, and Half Vanish doing HP-based damage, Wanderer has a simple damage spell for pretty much every occasion, and it would be nice to keep that diversity.

4 hours ago, hmsong said:

I know you already improved Half Vanish so that it'll affect bosses.  But you can use the former Half Vanish's effect to Hawk's trap spells, except instead of doing %-dmg of current HP, you can have the traps do %-dmg of max HP.

He has his final weapon for exactly that effect.

And it is such a good spell ^^

4 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

He has his final weapon for exactly that effect.

Ah, so it's already being used.  I didn't see it in the change log (or maybe I missed it), so I thought I should bring it up.  I'm just generating ideas.  Then again, of course you would have figured out anything I can think of.

Another idea.  How about creating a spell which actives the treasure trap wheel? (target is enemy)  And depending on what the player selects, it activates different trap spell (or any other spell).  You can probably use the slots for Trap Level 1 and Trap Level 2 (Genova uses that).  Trap Level 1 can have Arrow, Spike, and Smoke, while Trap Level 2 can have Stone, Bomb, and Mr Death God (which slot comes up depends on Luck).  Or hell, you can also have OK slot, which is basically a dud (doesn't activate anything and ends up wasting time and MP).  On the other hand, when an enemy uses the spell on you, you can purposely select OK to make the enemy spells miss.

It'd be neat to have Ogre Mimic and Kaiser Mimic that will fight by your side (similar to how enemies can spawn enemies), but I'm guessing that's pretty much impossible to work with, given how the game can only have 3 enemies on the screen.  Not to mention you'd have to program an AI to fight by your side and attack enemies.

Considering how dangerous for the game the level up screen in the Dangaard fight is - which made me drop exp gain to 0 for him - I expect such a wheel spin to be much, much worse.

Oh.  Too bad then.  Well, it was worth a shot.  It's an interesting idea though.  Damn hard limits.

I noticed that for the 9th byte of the spell definition (the one that decides what the spell does -- damage, buff, debuff, heal, etc), some values aren't used.  12 is for fixed damage (not sure how the damage is calculated), and I think 17 is unfinished Detect spell (it tells the current/max HP of the target and perhaps weakness, but it also has some weird texts too).  Perhaps you can apply some of those for SoM 2.0.

There’s something visual that always bugged me very lots when playing Seiken Densetsu 3 … maybe someone here knows why this is the case, and maybe this could even be fixed in Sin of Mana. And I’m not talking about the menu, don’t get me started … that’s probably the very worst part of Seiken Densetsu 3 though I fear this cannot be fixed as it would probably be a hell of a job.

The second party member’s HP/MP/etc is aligned to the very right border of the screen. The third party member’s HP/MP/etc has some space (padding?) to the left border of the screen (which looks very much better). Do you think it would be possible to move that second player’s HP/MP/etc some bit to the left?

EDIT: Same is true for the shop menu, the GP/money box on the left, and Buy/Sell/Back selection menu on the right, as well as some yes/no boxes on the left (“Sent to storage?”, “Purchase this armor/weapon a second time?”). I can think of other occurences of boxes aligned too far to the right border of the screen, e.g. the ship menu (which port, yes/no) … and probably there’s one or two more.

On 6/30/2020 at 2:23 PM, fooness said:

The second party member’s HP/MP/etc is aligned to the very right border of the screen. The third party member’s HP/MP/etc has some space (padding?) to the left border of the screen (which looks very much better). Do you think it would be possible to move that second player’s HP/MP/etc some bit to the left?

No idea.

Instead I leave this here.

1 hour ago, praetarius5018 said:

No idea.

Instead I leave this here.

Oh boy, that looks handy as fuck

I take that as 4 weeks well spent

OH My that such great quality of life here.

The only thing I can't do there item wise is differentiate between the 24 class specific weapons..
so if someone has a better name than just "Champion" for those, feel welcome to write it. Char limit 15.

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

The only thing I can't do there item wise is differentiate between the 24 class specific weapons..
so if someone has a better name than just "Champion" for those, feel welcome to write it. Char limit 15.

Maybe "Ultimate" or "Unique Effect"? Alternatively just leave the original names since they'll be the only ones left with those

Well some ideas :

Duran :

Paladin : Deadly Undead

Lord : Free Counter

Swordmaster : Critical only

Duelist : Proxi Tech Up

Kevin :

God Hand : Counter Extend 

Warrior Monk : TP Heal Boost

Death Hand : Armor Breaker

Dervish : Berserk Wolf

Hawk :

Wanderer : Full Vanish

Rogue : Critical Spell

Nightblade : Desperate Tech

Angela :

Grand Divina : Painful Saber

Archmage : Super Weakness

Rune Master : MT LV3 Spell

Magus : Full MT Damage

Carlie :

Bishop : Fighting Cleric

Sage : Team Regen

Evil Shaman : Weaken Ennemy 

Lise :

Vanadis : Sabered Summon

Star Lancer : Speed Cast UP

Dragon Master : Antimagic 2

Fenrir Knight : Healing Counter

No ideas for Ninja Master and Necromancer.

14 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Well some ideas :

Duran :

Paladin : Deadly Undead

Lord : Free Counter

Swordmaster : Critical only

...

I can only have one and the same name for all of them, not one for each

7 hours ago, Kei said:

Maybe "Ultimate" or "Unique Effect"? Alternatively just leave the original names since they'll be the only ones left with those

dunno, would be weird to have a proper weapon name and then 4x effect names instead of item names

On 05/07/2020 at 4:21 PM, praetarius5018 said:

No idea.

Instead I leave this here.

This is fucking amazing.

15 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

dunno, would be weird to have a proper weapon name and then 4x effect names instead of item names

You're right. I'd go with something like Unique Effect or Special Effect then, can't think of anything better right now

7 hours ago, Kei said:

You're right. I'd go with something like Unique Effect or Special Effect then, can't think of anything better right now

Considering the history of this project I should go with something like "RTFMN" as those titles

On 7/6/2020 at 12:01 PM, praetarius5018 said:

The only thing I can't do there item wise is differentiate between the 24 class specific weapons..
so if someone has a better name than just "Champion" for those, feel welcome to write it. Char limit 15.

I would go for ???, like the seeds, since the effect is different for each class; this will direct the player to look at the docs. Champion and Ultimate are good too though.

Also, I want to agree with everyone that the new item names are awesome; this will make it much easier for new players to get into this mod.

Im going to do a write-up on my Ninja Master, Dervish, Sage team soon; after playing Angela-based teams for a long time, this has really been a breath of fresh air. And I'm already starting to think of teams for 2.0....

Or I can just accidently find a way to fit in the 24 weapon names, that works too...

2 hours ago, rpschamp said:

And I'm already starting to think of teams for 2.0....

Get out of my head!!
How'd you know enough of the changes to plan a team at this point?

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

Get out of my head!!
How'd you know enough of the changes to plan a team at this point?

I don't. I'm just thinking based on the drafts of learnable skills per class you've posted here. Mainly old ideas for teams I wanted to try, but couldn't get the right balance of skills until 2.0.

I'm not considering potential capstones, which will of course effect everything.

There are a few of these classes in particular I'm really excited about, mostly Dark Lise, Ninja Master, and Kevin....

On 7/7/2020 at 8:09 AM, Nesouk said:

Well some ideas :

Duran :

Paladin : Deadly Undead

(...)

 

No ideas for Ninja Master and Necromancer.

for now I'm going with:

What does RTFM stand for?

4 hours ago, Kei said:

What does RTFM stand for?

"Read The Fucking Manual"

This is her weapon which gives some but not all L3 spells MT ability and makes her L2 spells ignore resistance and immunity.
I've no idea what to name that weapon without being misleading.
"MT Lv3 spells" is wrong as Stone Cloud is not affected and it also ignores the other half of the effect.

8 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

"Read The Fucking Manual"

This is her weapon which gives some but not all L3 spells MT ability and makes her L2 spells ignore resistance and immunity.
I've no idea what to name that weapon without being misleading.
"MT Lv3 spells" is wrong as Stone Cloud is not affected and it also ignores the other half of the effect.

Lol'd. Yeah, the effect's too complex to resume in one word, but I think "Read the Manual" (exactly 15 characters) would look better than using an acronym for clarity purposes. 

3 hours ago, Kei said:

Lol'd. Yeah, the effect's too complex to resume in one word, but I think "Read the Manual" (exactly 15 characters) would look better than using an acronym for clarity purposes. 

But it is a rod not a book!
Maybe I should consider a certain running gag and name it "InsertTextHere!"

So since I can't add any text notification when you'd gain a capstone...

spell 9 goes into bottom right, spell 10 top right, bottom left stays empty
not pretty but what can you do with limitations...

2 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

But it is a rod not a book!
Maybe I should consider a certain running gag and name it "InsertTextHere!"

So since I can't add any text notification when you'd gain a capstone...

spell 9 goes into bottom right, spell 10 top right, bottom left stays empty
not pretty but what can you do with limitations...

If you could put the ten spells on slots 1-10 (from left to right), skip one slot and put the capstone on the last slot it'd be perfect, but you probably already tried something like that. I'd say it's good enough, you're already working miracles on this game, I'm not the one about to complain  

Yeah, it ended in the game barfing rainbows again.

Here's an idea for a spell.  I noticed that spell flag 1C (which is used for Angel's Grail to revive a fallen ally) can be used as offense and defense.  If you use a spell with that flag on a live target, then it changes the target's HP to that of power flag.  For example, if you set the power flag to C8 00, and you use it on the target (enemy or ally), it'll change his HP to 200 (at most).  This works on bosses (sadly), so you shouldn't make it for your characters to use it against enemies (it'll curbstomp all bosses).  It also has a side effect of fully restoring the MP, so perhaps your characters should never use it, even as a recovery spell.

On the other hand, bosses can use it very effectively.  On offense, the power flag can be set to 0A 00 and target everyone, so that it'll reduce all your characters' HP to 10 (very dangerous) if certain conditions are met.  And on the opposite side of the coin, if certain conditions are met, the boss can use it on himself, with power flag FF FF to restore himself completely.

I don't know if bosses (or any enemies, really) have something called MP.

8 hours ago, hmsong said:

On the other hand, bosses can use it very effectively.  On offense, the power flag can be set to 0A 00 and target everyone, so that it'll reduce all your characters' HP to 10 (very dangerous) if certain conditions are met.

Sounds like what Archdemon has already except multi-target. Not interested.

8 hours ago, hmsong said:

And on the opposite side of the coin, if certain conditions are met, the boss can use it on himself, with power flag FF FF to restore himself completely.

So Xan Bie again?

8 hours ago, hmsong said:

I don't know if bosses (or any enemies, really) have something called MP.

They have but most bosses have as part of their script curMP = maxMP every couple moments because the game becomes very unhappy (read: freezes) when a large size boss tries and fails to cast a spell.

current list of capstones:

Duran
STR - enemies spawn with -15 p.def&m.def
AGL - sword magic +atk gives 20% instead of 10% (party)
VIT - MP regen tick also restores 15 HP
INT - gain 10 p.def&m.def and +10 HP per cursed acc. equipped
PIE - 10 maxMP
LUK - increases crit rate resistance of party by 20%

Kevin
STR - enemies spawn with -15 p.def&m.def
AGL - when a weapon attack would inflict a status effect (even if immune) subtract another 100 HP
VIT - draw aggro
INT - sword magic +atk gives 20% instead of 10% (party)
PIE - recover 3 MP when using a Lv2/3 tech
LUK - party takes less damage from critical hits

Hawk
STR - enemies spawn with -20 evade
AGL - successful counterattack shortens the next damage spell cast time by 90%
VIT - 20 evade
INT - when a weapon attack would inflict a status effect (even if immune) subtract another 100 HP
PIE - using a Lv2/3 tech spreads the current saber element to the party and makes pseudo saber real unless resisted
LUK - ignore monster type specific crit resistance; critical damage +20%

Angela
STR - +1 TP gain
AGL - party casts 20% faster
VIT - primary elemental (fire, ice, wind, earth) spells heal party by 50 HP
INT - pierce 60 m.def
PIE - gain 15 p.def&m.def and +10 HP per cursed acc. equipped
LUK - weapons use LUK instead of their regular stat

Charlie
STR - Lv2/3 techs inflict "wood coat" effect unless fire saber is active
AGL - enemies spawn with -20 evade
VIT - 50 maxHP, 10 p.def&m.def
INT - light&dark elemental spells deal more damage
PIE - Tinkle Rain recovers 150 HP for target when clearing a status effect
LUK - spells cost 20% MP less, min 1 (party); does not change displayed cost

Lise
STR - 20% more attack, non-critical regular attacks deal half damage
AGL - weapon cooldown -7 (party)
VIT - enemies spawn with -15 attack
INT - can equip any weapon and armor
PIE - recover 3 MP when using a Lv2/3 tech
LUK - party takes 1/8 less damage from spells

current item changes:

*Gladius tier weapons now draw aggro (only melee) and penalize defense
*Molebear Claw and Roundel Dagger heal (maxHP x (luck+10)/512 + (luck+1)/2) HP instead of (maxHP x (luck+10)/256 + (luck+1)/2) HP
*Bastard Sword type weapons are now regular heavy attack instead of low scaling; additionally they grant super armor during power attack cooldown
*Colichimarde type weapons now gain additional crit rate based on TP x2 instead of x3
*Defender type weapons now increase p.def and set p.atk = p.def instead of inflicting chibikko status
*Dragonbane type weapons no longer inflict petrification, instead they make Lv2/3 techs deal damage like non-elemental INT-based spells and spell casting generate 2 TP; does not stack with same effect
*increased crit rate bonus of Flamberge type weapon from 7 to 18
*decreased crit rate bonus of Gladius type weapon from 0 to -100 and increased their hitrate from 10 to 20

*Leather Visor tier helms now are pure physical defense instead of mixed
*Protection Helm tier helms now give x1.25 p.def but defenselessness against L3 techs
*Hero's Crown tier helms now allow MP regen ticks during casting and spell animation but provide 1 MP less per MP regen tick
*Visored Helm tier helms now resist chibikko, moogle and silence instead of having 2 resistances that vary by character
*weakness cancelling helm for base class weakness now removes all weaknesses

*Pegasus tier armors now resists petrify, sleep, poison instead of having 2 resistances that vary by character
*Swordsman Armor tier armors are now medium level defense instead of light-medium; bonus changed to spell dodge for half damage
*the spell power increase from Skeleton tier armors is no longer capped at Lv 3.5
*Hero's armor tier armor now empowers the power up buff for standard, critical and L1 tech attacks to x2 instead of x1.25 and disables counter
*fixed Lammelar tier armor breaking techs if too much TP is gained before the user lands his first real hit
*Knight armor tier armor now provides auto-buff spell upgrade instead of its previous effect

*Dragon Ring now gives immunity to standard debuffs instead of HP steal
*Protect Ring freezes death score at 1 (no HP loss but disqualified for deathless) on battle victory
*Ancient Talisman and Marble Ring now teach a spell when equipped instead of their previous effects
*Leather Neckband now gives HP steal instead of 5 accuracy&evade
*increased base defense increase from Blackshade Ring from 7 to 10
*the elemental resistance accessoires now also cancel weakness to the same element
*increased regeneration of Mad Beast Fang but made it non-stacking

3 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

PIE - using a Lv2/3 tech spreads the current saber element to the party and makes pseudo saber real unless resisted

I don't get this one, what's a pseudo saber and how does it differ from the real ones?

By the way, oh my god it's fucking happening

I believe pseudo saber refers to the elemental strike accessories 

6 hours ago, Kei said:

I don't get this one, what's a pseudo saber and how does it differ from the real ones?

By the way, oh my god it's fucking happening

Pseudo Saber are the accessories that make your attack elemental, unlike Saber spell they don't give you the 10% damage increase that saber spell does, and IIRC they don't give the damage increase to spell of the same element.

That's right, I forgot the accessories didn't give the 10% bonus. Damn, I really need to get back into this and finish my last playthrough before this comes out

Between level 38 where you have your final class change and level 99 is a lot of space without some other bonuses. Very cool ideas overall.

Well it stick to the mod idea as it's design now it has 4 "phase"

Phase 1 : Early game up to LV18, base class access to basic equipment.

Phase 2 : Class 2 from LV18 to LV38, access to most of the equipment, character start to have more spell and build possibility.

Phase 3 : Class 3 from LV38 to LV60, access to Class 3, have access to almost everything, this is where you should focusing your character to how you want to build them regarding the spell they have, with 2.0 this will your last moment to select the Curse Items.

Phase 4 : At LV60, access to Final Weapon which should conclude your build for character (if not already), with 2.0 Curse items locked so if you haven't choose them no coming back, and Capstones as a complement for how you give stat to the characters up to that point.