1st play, No Random Battles Run

after action report (well, I am in kefka's tower):

No Random Battle Run, all items, no buyable offensive items, no glitches. Infinite nonrandom battles are only allowed once per, random battles for quest lines are forced exception (gau and gogo).

As a quality of life thing, put in the NRB game genie cheat (AADC-EDA8). Otherwise you may have trouble escaping:
        2 single sealed cave ninjas + 2 floating continent double ninjas
        Gorgimera in cave in the veldt
        coverts in zoneeater
        Rhyos cave on the veldt
        phase in phoenix cave
        land worm
        most of Kefka's tower

Prepare for a huge AAR. You have been warned. First WoB then WoR, then some misc.

The dragons party wipe once a round with unblockable, unreflectable, unrunicable magic damage in excess of my HP. I'll have to spend more ELs to tank them so I figure I'll do the magimaster and raid Kefka's tower first. The magimaster probably requires spending SP from my huge bank of ... 30 SP? WHY IS THERE A CAP OF 30 SP? WHY IS EXTRA SP WASTED? WHY IS IT 30 INSTEAD OF 39 (highest spell requirement + highest battle amounts before any would be wasted)? WHY DID THE GAME NOT WARN ME ABOUT THIS? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

Does anyone have a game genie code so the SP isn't deducted while I spend SP? I don't want to grind up the exact number... Well ... AFTER spending SP the magimaster is fun. Not as fun as the 3 dream stooges though. Why does kefka's tower tell me "Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate..." ?

Anyway, I chunked through atma (it took an hour...) so I can do the same with the statues, etc. I even feel mildly competent about AI abusing the final gauntlet. But I suspect it would be agonizing and not much fun. I also never saw any hints about how to prestige class various characters. I suppose I could stop and grind the dino's as per vanilla, but I'll see if anyone can get me that above game genie code first.

I'm willing to share the save if someone want to try to grind out all 8 dragons, the gaurdian, and the statutes and put it on youtube. But I'm guessing it will be even more boring to watch (unedited) than play.

Edit: removed the sentence on float.

Edit 2: changed 1 letter and attacked a parenthetic that was talking about my NRB run, in case it wasn't understood already in the context.

So... it sounds like you tried a challenge run meant for vanilla and it didn't really go as expected. That's kind of what I'm getting from this whole post.

Kudos on getting so far when you made your first run a challenge run, but I think you've run into why you shouldn't have done that. Challenge runs like LLGs are best-suited to people who know the game inside and out, and the things you learned from vanilla don't necessarily carry over. You have to start that learning process again, and that's part of what appeals to people who like figuring out how to make those runs - it gives them something fresh to work on. The game's been beaten with levels so low Gogo joined with 0 HP, leading to hijinks, so it's not impossible. It just takes a ridiculous level of dedication and familiarity.

One thing I think you should keep in mind is that some of the things you call wrong or in need of fixing are intentional. You should adjust your expectations to include the possibility that some of the assumptions that vanilla has trained you to have may not apply anymore, because they were holding the game back. For instance, the levels at which characters join and rejoin has been deliberately altered from vanilla, and most people agree it's an improvement.

> 23000 more gp is needed if players are expected to buy the 3 available espers without random battles. 

...Why would the game expect you to play it without random battles? 

I noticed you kept making comments about why BNW isn't this or that after this comment of yours:

"I cheated/turbo'd through to include some fixes on additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake"

You do realize that anything you typed after saying that in terms of criticism against BNW is null, because you've modified the game to no longer be BNW? 

I'm sorry, but I agree with BTB: I think you attempted something from Vanilla in terms of a challenge run and applied it to BNW, and my addition to that is you did it without having even attempted to try the game normally first.

What the hell did you expect? This mod is so significantly different from Vanilla, and your comments about your playthrough seemingly reflect that you were expecting Vanilla despite somehow knowing that the game was different. You went in with the readme and printme and assumed it'd have everything you need, and you'd be right if you didn't slap on a silly restriction out of the gate.

I honestly can't take any of your criticism seriously against the game because of your challenge and personal modifications, because it doesn't reflect against normal play of the mod, and demanding changes to it in reflection of the experience you've had because of it just makes you seem... well, stupid. You personally seem really dumb for having done that. 

Your depressive statements about not knowing what the Stat Hat, Leo's Crest, or Slim Jim does? Did you even think to equip the Stat Hat? Leo's Crest? Did you see what either did? Did you attempt to take them into battle? You would have clearly seen what Leo's Crest did if you went into battle with it on Celes, or at least the biggest part of what it is. The Stat Hat, all you needed to do is unequip your helm and check the stats you got on it. Slim Jim? Did you attempt to use it in battle? Of course it doesn't look anything different from a dried meat being used in a menu. Did anything click there that made you think: "Hmm, maybe that has in-battle effects?" 

At this point I'm going to stop. You did something brave, but incredibly stupid, and went through this entire effort to post this demanding that there be changes because you dove into shallow water head first and suffered the consequences. Perhaps try the mod normally without restrictions first, then I may take anything you said here as serious feedback.

Instead of replying to your entire post, which a lot of can be attributed to you don't pay attention (Celes and Shadow both get Float, and Shadow is forced upon you for Atma), or just down right looney, BNW is beatable via LLG or whatever challenge really. Feel free to look up my playthrough on Youtube (I haven't had time to finish the last statue and then the finale with Kefka, but LLG everything else is viewable). Here's some examples.

Atmaweapon

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/120166109

Magimaster

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/153069024

Hidon

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/146702924

I needed a good laugh this morning, thanks.

Real talk: play the game without all that nonsense and then your post will be worth reading. BNW isn't vanilla dude, you can't expect to apply a bunch of vanilla fixes to it. 

This game wasn't explicitly designed for an LLG, but it wasn't designed against it either.  Many of these changes were made for good reasons, and reverting them to benefit LLG/NRB players does not make sense because LLG/NRB players probably constitute 1% of the mod's following, if that.  Furthermore, I personally find these sorts of challenge runs more interesting when the developers *didn't* have a way to complete them in mind.  Instead of just putting together the developers' clues on what to do like in most other games, you can make your own solution.  Since both NRB and LLG are doable in BNW, I'd find those challenges to be less fun with twenty extra levels.

On 10/1/2017 at 10:13 PM, BTB said:

So... it sounds like you tried a challenge run meant for vanilla and it didn't really go as expected. That's kind of what I'm getting from this whole post.

No, it did go as expected (except the cherub downs, ELs for HP and 30SP cap). But I'll be responding directly to comments, since that's the whole expectation of the above.

I apologize about the post spam, but the forum code doesn't allow me to highlight and copy paste everything into one big post. The quote blocks always fight me...

On 10/1/2017 at 10:20 PM, Bauglir said:

Kudos on getting so far when you made your first run a challenge run ... It just takes a ridiculous level of dedication and familiarity.

For instance, the levels at which characters join and rejoin has been deliberately altered from vanilla, and most people agree it's an improvement.

Thanks but yeah I don't want to put in 50 hours into a 25 hour game. As I mentioned emulators themselves have ways to help speed that process up. As for level integers of starting characters, I am aware that they have been adjusted purposely. The question is if it is a good thing. My opinion is that not having those free levels is bad. I gave a pretty detailed situation on one example where that's the case. I am open to debate on the topic, though.

On 10/1/2017 at 10:21 PM, artemi said:

> 23000 more gp is needed if players are expected to buy the 3 available espers without random battles. 

...Why would the game expect you to play it without random battles? 

Because a lack of grinding is the "control" or "baseline" for balancing RPGs. It's kind of an old standard for game development.

On 10/1/2017 at 10:55 PM, Yuyu said:

I noticed you kept making comments about why BNW isn't this or that after this comment of yours:

"I cheated/turbo'd through to include some fixes on additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake"

You do realize that anything you typed after saying that in terms of criticism against BNW is null, because you've modified the game to no longer be BNW? 

So if any player accidentally hits the turbo button once, they are no longer playing BNW?

If a player introduces sprint shoes cheat to avoid having to toggle the "hold b button causes sprint" option, they are no longer playing BNW?

What matters is what the purpose of the alteration was. Mine was purely to save time. Because you so frivolously dismissed my post, I'll dismiss the rest of yours until you go to this sticking point (which you used to dismiss dozens hour of first hand, objective play testing feedback from a heavily knowledgeable RPG gamer)

On 10/2/2017 at 8:01 AM, Kain Stryder said:

Instead of replying to your entire post, which a lot of can be attributed to you don't pay attention (Celes and Shadow both get Float, and Shadow is forced upon you for Atma), or just down right looney

I missed Phantom in my esper/spell checking. Kudos to you finding that mistake. That makes me feel better out Gau/Sabin with Stray. What else is looney, though? The RNB part? I know I'm crazy to have tried that part.

Your atma fight looked like mine (you've got less HP, but far more options due to random battles with gau & strago). I enjoyed watching it. I'm not a guide-dang-it kind of guy so I didn't, like, spend hours researching or anything. I just played. It's not like anyone else has done a NRB run of this before, though. That's why I saved my valuable feedback.

On 10/2/2017 at 8:35 PM, Lockirby2 said:

This game wasn't explicitly designed for an LLG, but it wasn't designed against it either.  Many of these changes were made for good reasons, and reverting them to benefit LLG/NRB players does not make sense because LLG/NRB players probably constitute 1% of the mod's following, if that.  Furthermore, I personally find these sorts of challenge runs more interesting when the developers *didn't* have a way to complete them in mind.  Instead of just putting together the developers' clues on what to do like in most other games, you can make your own solution.  Since both NRB and LLG are doable in BNW, I'd find those challenges to be less fun with twenty extra levels.

If you say so. My only clue was the Narshe beginner's room on LLGs. It's good to hear vague generalities about reasons for the levels, for instance, but I'll only settle for some hard specifics. I provided specifics. I presume you have some too. What are they?

I agree with you about the "make you own solution." That's why I didn't dig up BNW world guides. All I had was the game, which is why I talk about the printme so much.

Last thing: Again, does anyone have a game genie code to force the SP "cap" (shake's fist) to 30? It would save me turning off XP and grinding to the value I have recorded.

Oh. Speaking of that. I kept very detailed records about every non-random battle (excluding secondary iterations of infinite nonrandom ones). In case this is useful to anyone else, I'll just dump the plain text from my spreadsheet:

The far right side fields are if I redid the area and had different things happen (as is unavoidable in a game that almost forces save states as per the ELs upon death -> game over screen discussion).

On 10/2/2017 at 9:59 AM, Mishrak said:

I needed a good laugh this morning, thanks.

Real talk: play the game without all that nonsense and then your post will be worth reading. BNW isn't vanilla dude, you can't expect to apply a bunch of vanilla fixes to it. 

Oops didn't mean to leave you out. I'm glad you enjoyed my extreme mod (and tags? I know you liked those tags). For the record, I'm probably not going to play BNW normally, atleast until I AI manipulate all the way to the end. The only "fun" I'm missing is the random battles. The fanatics tower stands out.

Clearly I am aware that BNW!=vanilla, hence why I discuss the differences. But what fixes from vanilla are you saying I've applied, exactly? I haven't hex edited the mod or anything. I just checked my first post; I only use the subjunctive when talking about "fixes" for BNW.

Why so many posts instead of editing one larger one? 

Anyway, the amount of fixes that were made to it were detailed in the readme.  There are hundreds of changes, if you're looking solely at code; and thousands of changes if you're looking at rewritten ai, effects of items, etc.  If you want to know exactly what went into this, read the readme.

Play the game how you want to.  But why not give it at least one playthrough without any of your edits to it, so that you can see what BTB had in mind when making those changes?  

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Thanks but yeah I don't want to put in 50 hours into a 25 hour game. As I mentioned emulators themselves have ways to help speed that process up. As for level integers of starting characters, I am aware that they have been adjusted purposely. The question is if it is a good thing. My opinion is that not having those free levels is bad. I gave a pretty detailed situation on one example where that's the case. I am open to debate on the topic, though.

The xp curve and expected amount of exploration (e.g. getting items) is balanced in such a way where the player doesn't need the extra levels if most random encounters are fought.

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Because a lack of grinding is the "control" or "baseline" for balancing RPGs. It's kind of an old standard for game development.

I wasn't aware that RPGs were balanced around the baseline of ignoring random encounters completely (e.g. the main source of power/durability for the characters through the xp they give). In addition, I was always under the impression that shops in RPGs tend to be balanced assuming that... you fight most of the randoms on the way.

Essentially: Fighting some random encounters != grinding. Grinding is when you are ONLY fighting random encounters and doing the same movements/actions to cause more random encounters.

Also, if you think that RPGs, especially older ones, are designed around the assumption of the player not needing to grind... You are very mistaken

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So if any player accidentally hits the turbo button once, they are no longer playing BNW?

“Hi I'm TheRebalancer, and I'm going to introduce a strawman”

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If a player introduces sprint shoes cheat to avoid having to toggle the "hold b button causes sprint" option, they are no longer playing BNW?

What matters is what the purpose of the alteration was. Mine was purely to save time. Because you so frivolously dismissed my post, I'll dismiss the rest of yours until you go to this sticking point (which you used to dismiss dozens hour of first hand, objective play testing feedback from a heavily knowledgeable RPG gamer)

Okay... Why introduce a cheat to do something that is literally in the config menu at the very start of the game? It takes less time to go to config menu and change an option than it does to put in a game genie code. This is what people mean when they are dismissive of your opinions due to you editing the game.

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If you say so. My only clue was the Narshe beginner's room on LLGs. It's good to hear vague generalities about reasons for the levels, for instance, but I'll only settle for some hard specifics. I provided specifics. I presume you have some too. What are they?

First, the existence of an option to disable XP pretty much makes it so that players can make their run as challenging as you want. It definitely wasn't specifically designed to make challenges impossible.

Second, you provided specifics but you didn't provide a good reason for them. What's the good reason for normal play (which is what BNW is designed for) to have most characters join two levels above the party and Mog to join FIVE levels above the party? Do also keep in mind that the overall level curve of BNW tends lower than vanilla FF6.

Look at me, I responded to a bunch of posts in one post instead of spamming.

Honestly, the fact that you've been using cheats/changing things in the game for your challenge almost specifically because you haven't learned the game (BNW, not vanilla) and are hitting points with "unexpected" changes kind of breaks the spirit of the challenge. I can see adding purely QoL changes that don't directly affect the challenge, like adding auto-run or faster dialogue skipping would for a speedrun, but if you're going to do a challenge then people tend to expect that the challenge is done within the limitations of the game.

I can't speak for everybody that does challenge runs, but any time I go to start one I make sure I have all of the information needed to actually make it happen - if a game doesn't have the info I need available anywhere, then it's a matter of finding it myself through normal runs before starting the challenge as otherwise I'd likely end up in a point where the run ends early because I missed/overlooked something that would be needed to reasonably proceed. You can start some challenge runs with no knowledge of the game, but if you don't know when important items and such come up or even little mechanic tricks then you're going to hit roadblocks much more frequently that cause either grinding (not allowed in this challenge) or a new run to correct. If doing a challenge run of a mod then you can basically throw any vanilla knowledge out the window because there's no guarantee it will still be present.

In your case you're basically running the challenge as if you were playing vanilla (or at most a stat-hack that keeps the rest of the game the same), and every time something comes up that breaks your expectations/knowledge you either edit something in or completely break the challenge by going to fight things to "correct" the issue. The goal of your challenge is to not fight any random battles, and in such a challenge you need to know specifically when to get things as you have no options for grinding to fix mistakes, meaning you need more knowledge about BNW than you currently have to legitimately finish the challenge, especially seeing how often you run into something unexpected.

Also...

On 10/1/2017 at 9:36 PM, TheRebalancer said:

Monster attacks have hidden formulas that I shouldn't have to go look up. Either they should all be attack value based (so there's nothing to look up), or the formulas should be stated in the attack message. Yes, I'm serious about pasting: 80/living partymembers * Rand living PC lvl. Because otherwise I have no fucking idea what is going on.

...wat. Have you never played an RPG before? Even games with stupid amounts of in-game information tend to not tell you all of the formulas involved in-game as it's basically useless information to the average player. I can't count the number of times I needed to go through game code to figure out how something works in other games because the information wasn't available in-game or online. Not only this, but older games have much tighter space limitations which would be wasted for something like this, and it really doesn't help the average player who honestly doesn't care about formulas. That kind of information is only really important for challenges, and few challenges even need the specific formulas. You're basically complaining because they didn't design the game around your challenge.

11 hours ago, TheRebalancer said:

Thanks but yeah I don't want to put in 50 hours into a 25 hour game. As I mentioned emulators themselves have ways to help speed that process up. As for level integers of starting characters, I am aware that they have been adjusted purposely. The question is if it is a good thing. My opinion is that not having those free levels is bad. I gave a pretty detailed situation on one example where that's the case. I am open to debate on the topic, though.

Then why are you doing a challenge run? Your behavior doesn't match up with your stated goals. "I don't want to waste time, so I'm going to try and game the AI to proceed"; "I'm going to play the game as it's designed, so I'm going to apply hex edits, which are literally and exactly what cheat codes do"; "I don't want to have to look up detailed data on what attacks do, so I'm going to put myself in a position where I need to do exactly that in order to plan out my battles adequately". What's your actual desired outcome, here? And how are your actual actions contributing to it or hindering it?

In a well-balanced JRPG, a no-random-battles run is not a baseline for the game's difficulty. Period. It's possible in vanilla by exploiting loopholes and bugs that BNW has rightly closed. This is not the same thing as a no-grinding run. If you simply fight every random encounter you run into, you will likely wind up slightly overleveled. The game's random encounter rate is not absurd, and more to the point the AI for those battles has been so reworked that it's a significant part of the mod's value. Skipping them when you're trying to evaluate the game is like loading up a save before the final battle with Kefka, and complaining about the consequences it has on your playthrough is like proceeding to complain that none of the characters had any development or even an introduction (because you skipped all of it).

When you try to dig a well using a taxidermied squirrel as your only tool, you will inevitably have problems. True, it may be inconvenient that the dirt is so heavy. It may be frustrating that the squirrel's stuffing renders it flexible and a poor source of leverage. But none of those things are truly to blame for your predicament - the choices that brought you to this point were not sensible ones, and nobody is going to come help save you from their inevitable, obvious consequences.

On 10/6/2017 at 0:57 PM, Emmy said:

Why so many posts instead of editing one larger one? 

Anyway, the amount of fixes that were made to it were detailed in the readme.  There are hundreds of changes, if you're looking solely at code; and thousands of changes if you're looking at rewritten ai, effects of items, etc.  If you want to know exactly what went into this, read the readme.

Play the game how you want to.  But why not give it at least one playthrough without any of your edits to it, so that you can see what BTB had in mind when making those changes?  

Because "  apologize about the post spam, but the forum code doesn't allow me to highlight and copy paste everything into one big post. The quote blocks always fight me.." I can just use the /quote text I guess. I'll try it below and see how it goes. I did read the readme. It was amusing. What makes you think I edited BNW? Again, I have not modded the mod; my emulator file will exactly match yours (after I delete the saves).

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In addition, I was always under the impression that shops in RPGs tend to be balanced assuming that... you fight most of the randoms on the way.

It's not. I just thought it was well balanced that it's so close. No one else would be able to provide that feedback, so I thought I would.

Concerning your strawman, you've suspiciously dropped the full quote. Not only was I replying to someone who had a problem with speeding up the game with game genie codes, but I was actively saying that he can't possibly believe that. So really I was actively avoiding strawmanning him ... in two separate ways.

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Why introduce a cheat to do something that is literally in the config menu at the very start of the game? It takes less time to go to config menu and change an option than it does to put in a game genie code. This is what people mean when they are dismissive of your opinions due to you editing the game.

The answer to why I chose the sprint shoes cheat is that it saves time. You can preload it across plays and save time. The whole point of using the cheats I mentioned is solely to save time. The amount that it saves (8 hours vs 8 seconds) is neither here nor there. I purposely picked a clear-cut example of why using game genie codes should not automatically entitle dismissive responses to a playthrough that is identical aside from the speed.

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I can't speak for everybody that does challenge runs, but any time I go to start one I make sure I have all of the information needed to actually make it happen - if a game doesn't have the info I need available anywhere, then it's a matter of finding it myself through normal runs before starting the challenge as otherwise I'd likely end up in a point where the run ends early because I missed/overlooked something that would be needed to reasonably proceed.

I did the run 5 times, read everything I could get my hands on about it, but I can't simply monkeying someone else's work because no one else has done this kind of run for BNW to my knowledge. BNW is new and small.

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wat.

I'll settle for just putting it in the readme. After all, BNW has full control of all the algorithms, so there's no reason to not list it there.

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Your behavior doesn't match up with your stated goals. "I don't want to waste time, so I'm going to try and game the AI to proceed"

Almost. It more like "I know I've done everything optimally before this point (see XP list above), so either its a party swap/ strategy change or its AI manip. I only settled on AI manip as a last resort when no other strategies worked. You're welcome to try the run without using any AI manipulation and show me how easy both atma fights are for you. Just don't touch the turbo button or put in a RNB game genie code or everyone will taunt your run as "invalid" because you didn't want to step half your game time holding the run button.

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What's your actual desired outcome, here?

None. I am a blank slat. An unbiased observer, showing what would happen if anyone else tried what I am trying. I had no idea how it would go, specifically. If I had to guess when I started, it would be that atma would mulitple times in a row party-wide 1 shot and end the run. It didn't happen after I realized I could AI manipulate him.

I'm showing what anyone would encounter if they simply tried it. That's why my results are so useful (and compelling). There is very little bias in the results besides "let's try to make something agonizing not so agonizing." Apparently that rubbed a lot of purists the wrong way, along with all things "cheaty". I get it. I have friends who consider "hacks" like this "cheating" compared to "how the game was released." BNW is an abomination to them. I tell them to get over "mods", just like I've politely been doing in the above game genie discussion.

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nobody is going to come help save you from their inevitable, obvious consequences.

which is what, exactly? Failure in the run?

edit: Okay, when I use "quote=" like normal forums, it just eats the person I'm responding to. I guess I should have made several posts in a row....

31 minutes ago, TheRebalancer said:

edit: Okay, when I use "quote=" like normal forums, it just eats the person I'm responding to. I guess I should have made several posts in a row....

You can just hit the quote button multiple times, it'll insert the full quote each time and there you can delete the text you don't want quoted.

5 hours ago, TheRebalancer said:

Almost. It more like "I know I've done everything optimally before this point (see XP list above), so either its a party swap/ strategy change or its AI manip. I only settled on AI manip as a last resort when no other strategies worked. You're welcome to try the run without using any AI manipulation and show me how easy both atma fights are for you. Just don't touch the turbo button or put in a RNB game genie code or everyone will taunt your run as "invalid" because you didn't want to step half your game time holding the run button.

None. I am a blank slat. An unbiased observer, showing what would happen if anyone else tried what I am trying. I had no idea how it would go, specifically. If I had to guess when I started, it would be that atma would mulitple times in a row party-wide 1 shot and end the run. It didn't happen after I realized I could AI manipulate him.

I'm showing what anyone would encounter if they simply tried it. That's why my results are so useful (and compelling). There is very little bias in the results besides "let's try to make something agonizing not so agonizing." Apparently that rubbed a lot of purists the wrong way, along with all things "cheaty". I get it. I have friends who consider "hacks" like this "cheating" compared to "how the game was released." BNW is an abomination to them. I tell them to get over "mods", just like I've politely been doing in the above game genie discussion.

Okay, but doing things optimally involves fighting random battles, unless you can explain why the no-random-battles restriction is contributing to some other goal. That's the part you can't possibly be an unbiased observer about, because it's something profoundly weird, which you chose to do, and which is the fundamental root of your problem. It's not purity - we had some guy who edited every character to be Relm for silly reasons, and we loved Final Fantasy 6: Bob New Ross. If you can change the game to make it better, that's great and you should absolutely do it.

The problem is that the changes you made and the criticisms you have are all based around balancing your challenge run. That challenge run isn't something BNW did. It's something you brought to the table. You're absolutely right that BNW is a poor fit for a no-random-battles run. But why shouldn't it be a poor fit? The facts and evidence you've provided make a fantastic case for not doing this kind of run. They say nothing useful about how BNW could be better at what it's trying to be.

8 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

You can just hit the quote button multiple times, it'll insert the full quote each time and there you can delete the text you don't want quoted.

Thanks. I figured it out on the egg thread. The part that missed with my is that mouse wheel clicking didn't actually quote. Only the left click does. Other boards I use have both, but I only use the mouse wheel so I can manually adjust the order more easily. It's a minor adjustment for a newbie like me to make.

4 hours ago, Bauglir said:

Okay, but doing things optimally involves fighting random battles, unless you can explain why the no-random-battles restriction is contributing to some other goal. That's the part you can't possibly be an unbiased observer about, because it's something profoundly weird, which you chose to do, and which is the fundamental root of your problem. It's not purity - we had some guy who edited every character to be Relm for silly reasons, and we loved Final Fantasy 6: Bob New Ross. If you can change the game to make it better, that's great and you should absolutely do it.

The problem is that the changes you made and the criticisms you have are all based around balancing your challenge run. That challenge run isn't something BNW did. It's something you brought to the table. You're absolutely right that BNW is a poor fit for a no-random-battles run. But why shouldn't it be a poor fit? The facts and evidence you've provided make a fantastic case for not doing this kind of run. They say nothing useful about how BNW could be better at what it's trying to be.

That's fair. I don't really have a goal with the NRB, other than to see if its doable without too much time invested. Its a video game, so fun is always a consideration. It does allow a two birds with one stone. NRBs are wierd, but they have been done in other games with even more in-your-face / you-must-fight-all-monsters paradigms. Lobos Jr has a great Dark Souls 1 run doing this called "clear Lordaeron" I think.

But wait, what is the "problem" you're referencing? I've asked for nothing aside from seeing if anyone had a game genie code to save me a half hour of grinding to put the run back on track as if I had known about the 30SP cap (which I could not have possibly known about without literally taking notes on someone speedrunning this game). If no one has a game genie code, that's fine.

If by "changes you made," you mean "how I played the run", then well yeah I do give some uniquely valuable feedback. But most of the feedback is not specific to a RNB run like the ellipsis comment. But a themed run isn't me editing the game similiar to FF Bob New Ross.

The fact is, you don't know until the first person tries. If you have to learn from my mistakes and not try a NRB run, then it is a good thing I posted my experiences. I could have clammed up, not help the community, and then let the next guy feel the pain instead. See the tags (which I can't find now).

Also, FF4, chrono trigger, and FF6 vanilla are in fact great targets for a RNB run. Heck even a more hardcore game like DS3 is a good target, in my opinion. It's a better speedrunning target, but most games are.

PS. Bauglir do you play D&D?

49 minutes ago, TheRebalancer said:

That's fair. I don't really have a goal with the NRB, other than to see if its doable without too much time invested. Its a video game, so fun is always a consideration. It does allow a two birds with one stone. NRBs are wierd, but they have been done in other games with even more in-your-face / you-must-fight-all-monsters paradigms. Lobos Jr has a great Dark Souls 1 run doing this called "clear Lordaeron" I think.

But wait, what is the "problem" you're referencing? I've asked for nothing aside from seeing if anyone had a game genie code to save me a half hour of grinding to put the run back on track as if I had known about the 30SP cap (which I could not have possibly known about without literally taking notes on someone speedrunning this game). If no one has a game genie code, that's fine.

If by "changes you made," you mean "how I played the run", then well yeah I do give some uniquely valuable feedback. But most of the feedback is not specific to a RNB run like the ellipsis comment. But a themed run isn't me editing the game similiar to FF Bob New Ross.

The fact is, you don't know until the first person tries. If you have to learn from my mistakes and not try a NRB run, then it is a good thing I posted my experiences. I could have clammed up, not help the community, and then let the next guy feel the pain instead. See the tags (which I can't find now).

Also, FF4, chrono trigger, and FF6 vanilla are in fact great targets for a RNB run. Heck even a more hardcore game like DS3 is a good target, in my opinion. It's a better speedrunning target, but most games are.

 

PS. Bauglir do you play D&D?

By "problem", I mean the issue that you can't proceed without grinding. If you had known about the cap, the extra SP you would have had might have been enough to make the difference, and that's all well and good, but the fundamental issue I'm trying to point out is that you're criticizing the game for being inconvenient, when you've chosen to deny yourself the conveniences that can be gained by fighting occasional random encounters. If convenience were something you really cared about, you shouldn't have done a challenge run. If the challenge is something you really cared about, then these inconveniences are a natural part of it, including the fact that you couldn't have been aware of some of the mechanics without advance experience. That's why people who do challenge runs successfully usually play through normally once, to explore the game, test its functionality, and get a feel for what is or is not supported.

Pointing out version mismatches and that sort of thing is useful, and thank you for doing that. Stuff like pause vs. ellipsis is a matter of taste, since I believe they both take the same amount of space in the dialogue banks, but it's fine to voice your opinion. Those kinds of comments are the ones nobody's addressing because nobody has any feelings on them one way or the other. They would both be likelier to be seen if they were clearly separated from your opinions that are influenced by your choice of run, like whether or not there's a Monster-In-A-Box in the collapsing house in Tzen.

The changes you made include the cheat codes you used - if you're not aware, those work by altering the game's data. They're functionally equivalent to very small patches, and do not take advantage of any functionality that's actually built into the game. The only difference between them and something like Bob New Ross is scale and some technical details.

PS. Why do you ask?

Alright, I'll pipe back up now. When I initially aimed criticism over your editing of the mod, it had looked like you had made, or alluded to, adding or changing other things besides being able to move around faster or removing random battles. In fact, if I pull more of the quote past what I put in, it states:

On 10/1/2017 at 6:36 PM, TheRebalancer said:

I cheated/turbo'd through to include some fixes on additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake: the chest in the beginner classroom being the first (so edgar comes in at 6 not 5).

So, you also edited experience points from certain fixed encounters so you could get characters to your expected levels? The vague nature of that entire paragraph about what you did edit is exactly why I nailed that down first and responded as I did: because you edited things beyond simple quality of life (for yourself) improvements, despite your claims otherwise.

You said you would provide a rom that would match identically to a stock 1.8.6 rom. Because of the above in your original post, I don't believe that to be true, but I would welcome to be proven wrong. That is providing you don't remove any of your edits to the game that you made so Edgar or others could join the party at differing levels so you could avoid grinding to your favoured levels. 

For the record and second time in case it wasn't apparent: quality of life changes are one thing, but editing anything to give you more EXP like you did with the chest fight in the Beginners school is another, and what I was annoyed about. That led me to be dismissive of your ordeal and comlaints regarding balance in the game.

Everything before that point I did look at and scrutinize for valuable input regarding varying parts of the mod, but as I said in my post.

On 10/1/2017 at 7:55 PM, Yuyu said:

anything you typed after saying that

I should have also been more clear: anything you typed after that regarding balance of any concern. Other things mentioned after the point in question have seen discussion periodically on the Discord.

So, yes, a good portion of it is an interesting read, if not a muddled jumble. 

Off topic for here, but I did notice in a different thread that you discovered what Leo's Crest did, or at least the bulk of it. Have you managed to figure out more hidden effects besides the Mystery Egg? I know of a few effects of it myself, but I keep it to myself as requested.

On 10/7/2017 at 3:14 PM, Bauglir said:

By "problem", I mean the issue that you can't proceed without grinding. If you had known about the cap, the extra SP you would have had might have been enough to make the difference

Pointing out version mismatches and that sort of thing is useful, and thank you for doing that. Stuff like pause vs. ellipsis is a matter of taste, since I believe they both take the same amount of space in the dialogue banks, but it's fine to voice your opinion. Those kinds of comments are the ones nobody's addressing because nobody has any feelings on them one way or the other. They would both be likelier to be seen if they were clearly separated from your opinions that are influenced by your choice of run, like whether or not there's a Monster-In-A-Box in the collapsing house in Tzen.

The changes you made include the cheat codes you used - if you're not aware, those work by altering the game's data. They're functionally equivalent to very small patches, and do not take advantage of any functionality that's actually built into the game. The only difference between them and something like Bob New Ross is scale and some technical details.

PS. Why do you ask?

Because the magic system is split up, and I wouldn't know who would be useful, I basically did something very close to a natural magic run too. The only time I spent magic was during the first atma and maybe umaro. I kinda trusted the game about it being okay to bank SP, so it was basically the whole game's worth of SP that's "lost". Obviously I can turn off xp and put in a half hour, so its not that big a deal. But this would have been the case if I hadn't run from all random battles; I still wouldn't have trusted the respec option later and would have trusted the banking. Basically I put my faith in the wrong mechanic.

But again, I took detailed notes, so a few minutes of "virtual grinding" with the XP gains off would put the run exactly back on track as if I had known of the SP cap. Its not a big "problem." The only reason I mentioned it was in case there was a game genie code someone had. I did not expect such massive "anti-cheating" backlash from a ROM hack community. It can be ignored.

Also, turbo/game genie is a built in feature unless there is some Bob New Ross code I'm unaware of.

PS. I have spoken with you on other boards, potentially.

On 10/7/2017 at 6:27 PM, Yuyu said:

Alright, I'll pipe back up now. When I initially aimed criticism over your editing of the mod, it had looked like you had made, or alluded to, adding or changing other things besides being able to move around faster or removing random battles. In fact, if I pull more of the quote past what I put in, it states:

So, you also edited experience points from certain fixed encounters so you could get characters to your expected levels? The vague nature of that entire paragraph about what you did edit is exactly why I nailed that down first and responded as I did: because you edited things beyond simple quality of life (for yourself) improvements, despite your claims otherwise.

You said you would provide a rom that would match identically to a stock 1.8.6 rom. Because of the above in your original post, I don't believe that to be true, but I would welcome to be proven wrong. That is providing you don't remove any of your edits to the game that you made so Edgar or others could join the party at differing levels so you could avoid grinding to your favoured levels. 

For the record and second time in case it wasn't apparent: quality of life changes are one thing, but editing anything to give you more EXP like you did with the chest fight in the Beginners school is another, and what I was annoyed about. That led me to be dismissive of your ordeal and comlaints regarding balance in the game.

Everything before that point I did look at and scrutinize for valuable input regarding varying parts of the mod, but as I said in my post.

I should have also been more clear: anything you typed after that regarding balance of any concern. Other things mentioned after the point in question have seen discussion periodically on the Discord.

So, yes, a good portion of it is an interesting read, if not a muddled jumble. 

Off topic for here, but I did notice in a different thread that you discovered what Leo's Crest did, or at least the bulk of it. Have you managed to figure out more hidden effects besides the Mystery Egg? I know of a few effects of it myself, but I keep it to myself as requested.

It's not quoting the part where you quote me in the quote button. Ug. That's why I like to not use quote buttons on boards and instead do things manually with quote tags. You never know what they will do. "I turbo'd through to include some fixes on additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake" is off by one letter. It should have said "or" instead of "on". I've edited that letter. Anyways, the statement is correct but not very relevant. For instance when I go grind back the SP to put the run "on track" I will be using turbo to correct for one of those things I think are mistakes, or atleast oversights. Why cap the SP at all? I also tested the no-XP mode at the very end of WoB (to gain gold for those magicites that I otherwise shouldn't have by the rules of the run) after I realized the null SP gain was retained from vanilla. This way if the mod didn't have vanilla's "cheaper magicite" option in WoR, I wouldn't lose anything.

I didn't mention the null SP thing because it was a hold-over from vanilla and thus not relevent to direct criticisms of the mod, but I think that near the null XP mode (which of course limits EL) there should also be a secondary null-SP mode. This allows the SP that you would gain from newly entering characters to rack up. An example is Setzer joining after fleeing the magitech factory. You don't have the option to equip an esper on him before, so you lose some SP. Again, its a small feature request but it always bugged me that vanilla did that.

About level amounts: There's a reason its hard to follow that. I'm glad you asked. What happened was that I basically edited the rules of the run temporarily to see if it would make the atma fight any different (spoiler, it didn't). I was curious if the fight would be doable if BNW had followed vanilla's level amounts. While it did make the fight shorter, it also make the choke points harder. Specifically, because the levels went up it caused the damage formula of one of atma's attacks to go even more off the scales. That's when I knew something was wrong with the attack. Grinding is how you make the game easier, not make your TPKs even more pronounced.

That's why I so heavily disliked not knowing what was going on in the damage formulas. In vanilla, it kind of doesn't matter because levels are ... good. But in BNW levels are almost useless. What really matters is ELs. This reaks of the classic "you must use my mechanic to proceed" gaming flaw that almost all games have to some degree. For a particularly glaring example, try playing Starcraft II wings of liberty on the train mission and not using diamond backs on brutal. It's almost impossible. I spent three and a half hours grinding it out just because being shoe-horned into a bad unit type was not my idea of fun. Years later I redid the level and it took a half hour to use their (forced) tool. But I digress.

You're misreading that one sentence. I did not in fact edit "anything to give you more EXP like you did with the chest fight in the Beginners school." Do you really think I took a hex editor to an already hacked game (after decompiling it) just to maintain the integrity on a run that, frankly, no one else has the balls for? No, of course not (especially considering I've stated I don't want it to take any longer than it has to). All I did was track how much it should have given (remember that I've restarted this run many times, some in vanilla) and then fight a random battle to simulate that XP. Being off by 5xp makes no difference when character levels are re-averaged.

Sigh. Again, since I have not edited the game (only the run retroactively), of course the ROM will be the same as anyone else's. Give me an upload link and I'll throw it up for you. Zzz

As best I can tell, I've tested out every piece of interaction I can tease from the mod. I did not enjoy that process because it slowed down an already very long run. Remember that in addition to playing the game, I'm trying to ascertain if the run is even doable at all, since no one else has done it. I don't want to give up, post the details here, and then be told that somebody else did it successfully (insert dark souls meme here).  You might be able to show me things that I don't know, due to having no random battles.

Specifically, I had to make sure at each of my three choke points, that there wasn't something I was missing that would allow me to progress. I was mocked earlier for not doing my research prior to the run earlier, but that's a direct contradiction to the "go find out for yourself" mentality about certain things in BNW, but not others. And the line is arbitrary, and unspoken. But I won't rehash that here. I will say that its completely in line with my request that more enemy information be in the printme. Its BNW-only information so I literally cannot go research it if I wanted to: BNW monsters are no longer vanilla monsters.

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I cheated/turbo'd through to include some fixes or additions to the mod that I believe are a mistake: the chest in the beginner classroom being the first (so edgar comes in at 6 not 5). He should already be up a level, and sabin should be up 2.

Even with your correction, your statement clearly means "I cheated (either by modifying XP values, save editing, a game genie code, or simply by fighting an extra battle) to get more xp"

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Also, turbo/game genie is a built in feature unless there is some Bob New Ross code I'm unaware of.

wat? You're VERY focused on the whole turbo part of people's criticisms. You are acting as if using frame skip is the thing we're critiquing you on when that's probably the thing we're most okay with here. All you've really been doing is complaining about the differences from vanilla in an incoherent way while simultaneously saying "I compromised my challenge run to make up for the mod's changes"

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80/living partymembers * Rand living PC lvl

I'm going to assume, for the sake of discussion, that the formula above is accurate to the damage of the attack. 80/4*level = 20*level damage. Every level after 9 grants 20 or more HP, meaning that levels are an appropriate defense even against the attack that scales off levels. As an aside, if you're wearing a 12.5% hp booster you only need an 18 HP level for levels to be stronger than the attack scaling, so level 8. If you're wearing a 25% HP booster you only need 15 HP, so level 5. If you're wearing a 50% HP booster then you only need 14 HP, so every level past 4 would scale better than the attack does. Note that this also ignores damage variance for simplicity sake, but that's relatively minor.

In fact, I can personally vouch that HP ELs aren't needed to handle that attack as my last run had 0 ELs used on HP or MP gain. EDIT: Also, let it be pointed out that Flare Star does the exact same level scaling that it does in Vanilla FF6. This alone invalidates your "Levels don't do anything bad in Vanilla" argument. 

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In vanilla, it kind of doesn't matter because levels are ... good. But in BNW levels are almost useless. What really matters is ELs.

And you're wrong again. Levels have an exponential effect on physical damage output, whereas Vigor has a linear effect on physical damage output. Levels and MagPow scale magical damage output equally. The only place you really have a leg to stand on regarding "ELs > Levels" is in HP/MP scaling. For reference... After level 9, levels give more HP than +20 HP ELs. After level 14, levels give more HP than +30 ELs. HP +60 ELs are the only ones that stay stronger than level gain for the majority of the game, only losing out to level based HP gain after level 29 (which is in the ballpark of what the end-game is balanced for). Do also note the HP +60 are limited to late-game espers only. MP scaling via ELs does remain stronger than level scaling, but that's a pretty minor thing.

Levels grant benefits to HP pools, MP pools, Magic scaling, and Physical damage scaling, all at once. ELs only grant bonuses in up to 2 stats per EL. In addition, the player is (outside of extreme cases... more extreme than what you're doing) going to have more levels than ELs. So... you're wrong. Levels are a larger overall benefit than ELs.

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Do you really think I took a hex editor to an already hacked game (after decompiling it)...

Because FF3usME exists, because game genie codes to gain levels exist, and because FF6 save editors exist. No, you didn't "decompile and hex edit" the ROM.

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just to maintain the integrity on a run that, frankly, no one else has the balls for?

Your run's far from the most hardcore one that's been done here. LLGs have been done multiple times under multiple versions, one player has played through the game blindfolded. Both of said runs didn't need to resort to ROM editing or game genie to accomplish them. Quit acting like you're hardcore. You clearly came into the game not knowing what you were getting into and just complained and asked for cheats to get around your own mistakes in your own challenge run. 

Edit to add:

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This reaks of the classic "you must use my mechanic to proceed" gaming flaw that almost all games have to some degree

Do you go to FF7 boards and complain "The game really seems to be designed around equipping Materia" or go to Super Mario boards and complain "I really have to jump a lot in this game"? These are just 2 examples of things more 'extreme' than ELs... It's called design. If you don't like mechanics that are meant to be worked you probably don't like games, as that's kinda a central feature to them.

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I was mocked earlier for not doing my research prior to the run earlier, but that's a direct contradiction to the "go find out for yourself" mentality about certain things in BNW

There's a big difference between lacking research on what BNW changes and how before doing a challenge run compared to a desire to have... about 3 secrets that we choose to not have revealed where it can be moderated to have that be.

Really, the primary issues people have here (other than how highly you seem to think of yourself) is that you effectively cheated/broke the rules in your own challenge (while still making a big deal out of having done the challenge), complained about things you didn't test/look into beforehand and then made "corrections" for, and completely missed the point of pretty much everything that's been said.

I don't care what the challenge you're doing is, how hard it is or how long it takes to do, if you break any of the challenge rules then the challenge is forfeit. Emulator frameskip/turbo/whatever is generally accepted for challenge runs (outside of things like speedruns, where it goes against and would only hurt the challenge anyway), and I can also see adding QoL mods/codes that don't directly affect the challenge itself, but anything that breaks the rules or gives you a direct advantage is a big nope. You've already admitted to cheating, with your excuses for doing so primarily consisting of "I should have free levels here because I got them in vanilla." instead of actually learning how to do the challenge properly inside of BNW's environment.

As far as the whole "not having done a normal run first" issue, I can see doing a challenge run as your first playthrough if you actually test out each segment and mechanic separately and then reloading the challenge save after to actually do it. In basically every challenge run I've ever done I needed to go through certain battles/areas multiple times as well as test out several combinations of gear/mechanics to make it through certain parts, and some challenges basically require knowing the game inside and out to properly plan out and successfully run. For example, the SP cap you keep bitching about is something you could have very easily found if you spent time testing it rather than expecting it to work in whatever way you had in your mind. If you can't be bothered to take time to do this, then you really can't complain when something unexpected happens.

Even if you never did a normal BNW run, you could see how much experience you get from specific things by spending short bursts outside of the challenge (using the same save, just reloading later after testing) and plan things out rather than getting mad that you aren't getting the same levels you did in vanilla. BNW is not vanilla, and there is no reason to expect or require the same things that the vanilla version of the challenge should have. If I do a LLG of vanilla, I shouldn't expect the same levels doing one in BNW, especially since there's an option to turn experience off (not counting the level (re-)averaging and enemy experience differences).

Basically, all I'm seeing from your entire initial post and continued arguments is that you expected the challenge to go exactly like vanilla with the primary planning/leveling and didn't know what to do when things were completely different. So, you improvised by trying to make it match vanilla and then complained every time something new and unexpected appeared, as well as finding any little thing we say to make an argument about just to continue bitching. Since a NRB run of BNW is obviously not for you, how about playing it normally instead, or even doing an LLG? At least then you wouldn't need to worry about levels or EL.

I'm tired of the forum warrior epeen over 9000 posts. It's getting old and quite impossible to read really any of it.  So I'm locking the thread to prevent further shitposts.

Bottom line: the OP modded the mod. There's nothing wrong with this, but you're no longer playing the mod and revoke the ability to offer criticism (constructive or otherwise) of the actual mod when you do this.  Your points became invalid before you ever tried to make them.