Floating Continent

Still going through my first run of BNW (1.9). Finally got through the Floating Continent.

Now, up to this point I have to say the mod has been pretty fantastic. There's some questionable dialogue or enemies here or there (too much "learn which enemies counter physical/magic and don't do that"). It has been very interesting to see formerly useless characters like Locke and Cyan become OP monsters, but I'll make another thread like that. For now, I just want to give you some feedback on FC.

Floating Continent is the first point where I thought the mod is a straight downgrade from vanilla. The high encounter rate with stronger enemies makes it a slog, and you really don't feel like exploring to find all the treasure. Atma Weapon is insane. I think I spent three or four hours on that thing with Terra/Locke/Edgar. Yes, I could have just spammed Ice 2 with Strago, but I don't like Strago. In the end, I realized that I hadn't checked Shadow's esper, and sure enough he learns float (doh). That made the first phase trivial, but the second phase is just way too RNG. Each Mind Blast and Meteo is a potential game over, and both Glare and the Raid+physical combo could one-shot anyone. If you try to heal someone who gets killed, it wastes a turn and then you're REALLY in trouble. In the end, Meteo and Mind Blast didn't give me an instant game over, and I managed to get enough damage in with morphed Terra. I'm all for boss fights that take a few tries to figure out, but this was just way too much, and each try took way too long. It would be a huge roadblock for less experienced players.

As for after that...which one of you has the mega hard on for Celes? I like the idea of fleshing parts of the story out more, but that was fanfic-level cringe. She never struck me as a brooding, borderline emo-type character. Giving her Leo's sword (with shock!) was a cool surprise (wasn't it Kefka's sword though?), but the short timer ensures that you'll die the first time when you're still figuring out that the whole sequence has been converted into a big Celes blow job. 

Finally, in WoR, after three attempts, it seems impossible to save Cid, resulting in a back-to-back Celes drama double whammy. I get that you want to put a little more focus on her character since vanilla kinda just throws her at you, but the way you went about it made her a lot less likable to me, and cheapened one of the most important parts of the game.

Consider returning to the original scenario for the FC, but keep the sword.

3 hours ago, GeradFigaro said:

Floating Continent is the first point where I thought the mod is a straight downgrade from vanilla. The high encounter rate with stronger enemies makes it a slog, and you really don't feel like exploring to find all the treasure.

Isn't this the point? Trying to show how powerful Gestahl and the Empire have become. Also this is where paying attention to weaknesses and status effects come to the fore.

3 hours ago, GeradFigaro said:

Atma Weapon is insane. I think I spent three or four hours on that thing with Terra/Locke/Edgar. Yes, I could have just spammed Ice 2 with Strago, but I don't like Strago. In the end, I realized that I hadn't checked Shadow's esper, and sure enough he learns float (doh). That made the first phase trivial, but the second phase is just way too RNG. Each Mind Blast and Meteo is a potential game over, and both Glare and the Raid+physical combo could one-shot anyone. If you try to heal someone who gets killed, it wastes a turn and then you're REALLY in trouble. In the end, Meteo and Mind Blast didn't give me an instant game over, and I managed to get enough damage in with morphed Terra. I'm all for boss fights that take a few tries to figure out, but this was just way too much, and each try took way too long. It would be a huge roadblock for less experienced players.

 

3 hours ago, GeradFigaro said:

Finally, in WoR, after three attempts, it seems impossible to save Cid, resulting in a back-to-back Celes drama double whammy. I get that you want to put a little more focus on her character since vanilla kinda just throws her at you, but the way you went about it made her a lot less likable to me, and cheapened one of the most important parts of the game.

Consider returning to the original scenario for the FC, but keep the sword.

I've never had a problem with this.

The whole Celes hard on had the opposite effect on me. But I suppose thats the great thing about opinions and..... ?

Why would the enemies on FC being strong demonstrate the strength of the empire? At this point in the narrative, we just saw that the empire is shit in the face of a handful of espers. FC is apparently the world of espers unleashed. My issue with the enemies here is the high encounter rate. When you walk three steps and get sucked into a two minute encounter, you naturally feel disincentivized from exploring. I do appreciate the way status effects are implemented here, even getting to use bserk(!) to prevent behemoth meteos, the battles are just too frequent and drag on too much.

You cannot sap or poison Atma. You can slow it but I honestly can’t tell the difference. Shadow does not have re-rise either. Maybe it was easier in an older build?

Re: Celes, do you really think it had to be that heavy handed? At this point in the game we know virtually nothing about her, just that she betrayed the empire (but not why), maybe was a spy, and saved us at the magitech facility. All this “I am a weapon, blah blah blah” stuff is totally made up and comes out of nowhere. I could buy it if her motivation was more “I can’t let the empire do this, vector is ruined, Leo is gone, etc”. She doesn’t have much, but she is very protective, and she is inspired by Locke (this is her motivation in vanilla). She NEVER broods, unless you count the (now forced) suicide sequence, and even that only came when she thought she was literally the last person alive in the entire world. 

Shadow learns Rerise through a "hidden" relic. More importantly, for Atma, you either want to equip as much status immunity relics as possible (buy them in Tzen), or bring along Mog for Forest Suite. These are your two methods of shutting down Mind Blast and Glare, which should be sufficient to get control of Atma's Phase 2. I understand potential frustrations with having to jump off the FC because one didn't know that one needed a specific set up to deal with Atma. : /

High encounter rate is something that the peogramming team keeps trying to fix. Currently, the implemented fix is not working as intended.

It is easier to save Cid than in vanilla.

As for the ending FC sequence, that, IIRC, isn't totally dissimilar to what happened in vanilla. IIRC, she had that emo side in the vanilla game to.

BNW is great because when someone new drops by to say "I love this about this mod" and "I hate this about this mod", the things loved and hated are different for each person.

4 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Shadow learns Rerise through a "hidden" relic. More importantly, for Atma, you either want to equip as much status immunity relics as possible (buy them in Tzen), or bring along Mog for Forest Suite. These are your two methods of shutting down Mind Blast and Glare, which should be sufficient to get control of Atma's Phase 2. I understand potential frustrations with having to jump off the FC because one didn't know that one needed a specific set up to deal with Atma. : /

High encounter rate is something that the peogramming team keeps trying to fix. Currently, the implemented fix is not working as intended.

It is easier to save Cid than in vanilla.

As for the ending FC sequence, that, IIRC, isn't totally dissimilar to what happened in vanilla. IIRC, she had that emo side in the vanilla game to.

Wonder if I ever saved Cid... Ah well.

But, in other words.... the high encounter rate is unintended. Think no one likes absurd encounter rates(Similar to extremely spongy bosses).
Guess the floating continent is quite a strain on ressources then.

Re: encounter rate, I did use seibaby's encounter patch v 4, i think it can be found in the report bugs thread. Not sure how much it changes the overall encounter rate, but it should increase the minimum amount of steps to 5 I think.

Just now, F-Bomb said:

Re: encounter rate, I did use seibaby's encounter patch v 4, i think it can be found in the report bugs thread. Not sure how much it changes the overall encounter rate, but it should increase the minimum amount of steps to 5 I think.

Can I just patch this over bnw? Am not too familiar with patching of roms.

You should be able to just patch it on top of BNW without any issue (matching headered/non-headered just the same). Just know that it doesn't appear to be working entirely correctly, so your mileage may vary.

Saving/killing Cid isn't hard, probably not any more so than vanilla.

Encounter rate, as mentioned above, is being worked on to try ensuring that you'll get a minimum number of steps between encounters.

I won't argue one way or the other on the script, but the most 'emo' line Celes says (according to a script dump someone posted on gamefaqs for the ios version) is:

Celes:	  Power only breeds war... It's something we'd all be better without.

This is right before she stabs Kefka. I didn't find the SNES vanilla script with 3 seconds of googling. Personally I'm not bothered by FC Celes, apparently she was extra emo in earlier versions.

Am I the only one not bothered by the level of emo Celes showed in older versions of BNW?

2 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Am I the only one not bothered by the level of emo Celes showed in older versions of BNW?

Probably. Even I think I rolled a 1 on it

10 hours ago, Nowea said:

 I didn't find the SNES vanilla script with 3 seconds of googling

The original line is "Power only breeds war... I wish I'd never been born." Pretty emo.

I do agree that the FC escape sequence is a bit of a Celes wankfest, but I don't really mind it. Vanilla already forced her to show up to save the day, but does little with it (she's just a party filler to make up for Shadow) — BNW just gives her last minute appearance more relevance.

56 minutes ago, SirNewtonFig said:

The original line is "Power only breeds war... I wish I'd never been born." Pretty emo.

I do agree that the FC escape sequence is a bit of a Celes wankfest, but I don't really mind it. Vanilla already forced her to show up to save the day, but does little with it (she's just a party filler to make up for Shadow) — BNW just gives her last minute appearance more relevance.

Yeah that's pretty bad.

23 hours ago, GeradFigaro said:

She NEVER broods, unless you count the (now forced) suicide sequence, and even that only came when she thought she was literally the last person alive in the entire world. 

As other have said, the suicide sequence isn't forced, and we actually made it easier to save him. You're either having shit luck with RNG not spawning the right fish, or you're feeding him the wrong fish.

I thought when he said "forced" he meant the delivery felt forced >.>

I'm pretty sure it's significantly easier to save Cid in BNW than in vanilla, and even then I'd argue that the attempted suicide scene was better and really helps establish the tone for early WoR.

Also, if it matters at all, Atma Weapon was the point where I first really started loving this mod. It was the first time a boss in an FF game kicked my ass without feeling totally unfair, and I was excited to change up my set-up and try again when it happened.

The Celes emo stuff is a little heavy handed, but it's a lot better imo than in vanilla where she was basically just there to replace shadow, besides, you'd probably get all emo too after being raised to be a soldier from birth, being beaten and imprisoned, and after having the one of the two people you actually care about losing faith in you and the other one dying.

11 hours ago, JohnFuklaw said:

besides, you'd probably get all emo too after being raised to be a soldier from birth, being beaten and imprisoned, and after having the one of the two people you actually care about losing faith in you and the other one dying.

Yeah. Most of the cast has something tragic to brood about, really. It's easy to forget about sometimes with the limited amount of script afforded to each character.

Cid’s death isn’t forced? I must have had shit RNG. It was giving me 1-2 fish of medium/Cid allergy speed every time for three attempts to save the poor guy. One time he died so fast he didn’t even get to say goodbye. What is supposed to happen to make it easier?

Just got to Thamasa. The dialogue at Leo’s grave - now that’s Celes. And the relic is amazing. Makes her much better for WoR.

On 5/28/2018 at 5:47 AM, SirNewtonFig said:

The original line is "Power only breeds war... I wish I'd never been born." Pretty emo.

It sounds emo when you read it out of context, because we are used to 13 year olds saying it after they get grounded. She's saying it because her birth (as iirc the first successful magitek-infused knight) has caused her to be a pawn in the middle of a power struggle between two factions that are very close to literally ending the world. That's a pretty reasonable thing to wish had never happened!

7 hours ago, GeradFigaro said:

Cid’s death isn’t forced? I must have had shit RNG. It was giving me 1-2 fish of medium/Cid allergy speed every time for three attempts to save the poor guy. One time he died so fast he didn’t even get to say goodbye. What is supposed to happen to make it easier?

Just got to Thamasa. The dialogue at Leo’s grave - now that’s Celes. And the relic is amazing. Makes her much better for WoR.

Yeah, bad rng. BNW changed it such that the good fish heal Cid up faster. The rng of what fish you get is unchanged.

I really enjoyed the Floating Continent on both my playthroughs.  The only notable complaints I had were:

1.  I kept having to redo the Ultros/Chupon fight with a sturdier party instead of the party who I wanted to level/catch up; which I was disappointed with.  It's the first time I have to pick my party, but you have to pick a relatively durable party for the sheer amount of damage Chupon/Ultros will dish out.

2. As for Celes....
 

Some games, I feel like Chupon and the IAF are the real bosses of the Floating Continent, not Atma.

In reference to the FC Celes scene, You can edit this easily in FF3usMe. Its under the battle captions which are easily edited under the enemies tab.

If you want the original script it's in the same location, just look it up using the original rom.

You can have multiple versions of FF3usMe open at once for quick reference.