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Crossover Crisis (demo abviable)

#11
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Double posting here, but it's been a couple days and I think the break fits here more thematically than an edit.

I've finished the demo (and admittedly went a bit further to poke around Tongue ).  It's a pretty solid start overall!  I'd definitely want to see this hack come to fruition, especially with all the effort put in already. Smile Again, I'll list off some of the things that came to mind.

-The difficulty curve seems pretty smooth so far.  It transitioned fairly well from easy to light-medium difficulty.  I feel like the randoms and the bosses alike have also gotten more interesting as well since the earlier portions of the game (and not just because they are harder).

-If you return to Mt. Kolts (dang it, still can't remember the new name Tongue ) after talking with Engie, you will see a guard blocking the entrance.  This guard will chase the party out, from where they will exit to the world map.  However, you will appear in the middle of the water.  It's hard to catch all these stupid little event changes to match up with the World Map. Tongue ROTDS missed a bunch as well.

-You may already have noticed, but Headdy is unequipped before the Lete River ride.  But at any rate, it's cool to be rolling around the scenarios with unpredictable parties. Smile

-Just before the Lete River, I went back to the room with a single bed in it.  There's a (completely unmarked and impossible to guess, really) tile you can step on towards the bottom of that room that triggers a weird cutscene (that was also in vanilla). Some of the dialogue boxes there are blank. I suspect you missed this cutscene because it's so... random...

-Apparently I have a note to comment on the enemies in Headdy's scenario, but I wasn't very specific, so I have no clue what I wanted to say. Laugh

-I triggered a fight with the Heavy Armor in South Figaro during Twila's scenario.  At one point it threw a Dark Hood at me for some reason, and the game crashed.

-You may want to reduce the EXP from the enemies in Headdy's scenario.  Because it's so much longer than the others, at this rate Headdy's group ends up at a far higher level than everybody else.

-It would be cool to see that axe from the Patapons in Twila's scenario become a Key Item when you get it.  Of course, that's probably a fair bit of effort for a minor change, so your call, obviously.

Hopefully you find the feedback useful.  For every point, feel free to take it or leave it; obviously you have the final say.  I just felt it might be helpful to give an alternate perspective, particularly when it comes to things you may not have noticed (it's a large modification, after all, noticing everything is essentially impossible).


Confused Moogles FTW
 

#12
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Absolutely useful feedback Lockirby2! I got all in a txt for fixing up when I have the time (those god damned exams).
Thanks so much for playing, and thanks for your positive feedback!! It really gets me in the mood for some more hacking. Some of the issues you mention are easy to fix (and will be fixed), others I have absolutely no clue (Terra's commands when on Mtek armor, for starters Terra's the only character I NEVER messed with her command window other than change morph to trance).

On the "bland" early game bosses, I guess I can tweak them a bit. Stubborn players who decide not to go to the back row will end with a Buttock Launcher to the face, and fighting him with only two chars might be difficult specially with no way of reviving anything, which is why it's slow.
As for Gil I made him somewhat slow in case he "Outspeeded" Bartz, making him unable to deal damage between heals and messing up when the actual battle was over. But yes, a little buff might not harm anybody.

The Optimize function for some accesories is indeed hard-coded. I found nothing on ME, so let's see what can I do...

Headdy's Heads are expensive because if you buy too many you can leave the character at the back row and do triple damage while also recieving half. I deemed it a little too op for my tastes, so I made the items expensive. I may lower the amount a bit, like to 700 from 750, but yeh.

I will tweak some of the items, like making something different for the Spy Knife and Hairband.

Shame there's no "half damage taken from certain elements" for a total Pokémon feel :D And I guess Pearl/Holy will be a Fairy type equivalent that will harm Dragons xD

Sorry I took a little long to answer, but I had to attend this real life thing. It's demanding. Thanks again for playing!


Step forward, spriters! We are also responsible to make hacks look new and fresh, we are no less important than code or ASM hackers! CHARGE!!
 

#13
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No problem! I'm know that it's a lot nicer to have people play the mod and not feel like it has been released to the depths of the abyss. Tongue A long time ago I actually held off playing alphas/betas of hacks because I thought everyone and their mom would want to play the betas anyways, but I have realized since that I was wrong, so I try to play and give as much feedback as possible.

For Soldine I think the issue may also be the script. "Attack -> Attack -> Buttock Launcher" isn't the height of excitement. Normal FF has their standard formula for many first bosses, where you have to avoid attacking at the wrong time to avoid provoking a counterattack (Mist Dragon, Whelk and Guard Scorpion all use this formula). It's really easy, which is necessary for the first boss, but it also provokes just a little more interaction from the player. I feel like this script needs a little bit of that.

I looked into the battle script for Gilgamesh. I see that you set Slow once Bartz comes out, so you beat me to my suggestion. Tongue Perhaps once Bartz appears you could just have Gilgamesh use Battle every turn? That shouldn't overwhelm Bartz. I feel like that should be the easiest part of the fight instead of the hardest anyways.

For the heads... I just feel that while it's more powerful than Headdy's other options, it's not extreme in the context of a full party (Although it's still too high for Triple Heads to be priced as low as Shurikens. I'm not saying to go that low). Especially when compared to Lilith, who can throw out 200-300 damage every turn for free (also from the back row), while Headdy gets only ~400 damage for the steep price of 750 Gil (several encounters' worth). Admittedly, many other characters are restricted to physical attacks as sources of damage at this point, moreso than vanilla, so it does improve the relative worth of the Triple Heads somewhat. But once Fire Remnants come into play, those actually destroy Triple Heads in terms of economic value, as they do similar damage, they can hit weaknesses, they can be used by everybody, and they can be used multi-target, all while costing about the same amount. This trivializes Headcase as a command somewhat. I'd argue that 300-400 might be a better price, as this would definitely outpace the Fire Remnants economically, it would make stocking up 3-4 for a boss viable at this point in the game, and it would be enough IMO to be a deterrent towards throwing them completely thoughtlessly at every random.

The main danger might be long term balance though. If Gil scales enough, 300-400 might become a pittance eventually. In that case, you'll need to put effort into keeping Headdy's physical viable, if that's what you're trying to do (Spoilers: keeping physical attacks relevant in the vanilla engine is so hard that your eyes will bleed). Unless you eventually make Headcase compete against Magic instead or something.

So many design decisions! Laugh Game balance is hard, yo!

I wasn't saying to replace the Sky Knife (I find it interesting, actually). I just think it should be moved to a chest that's after you get Bartz, who is the first character that can use it.

I'm in school right now too, so I understand your busy schedule. I actually took a bit to get around to this for similar reasons.


Confused Moogles FTW
 

#14
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Alright guys, I've been reworking, bug fixing and rebalancing the hack, which means that you can play this again and take a quick look!
First of all, the hack was recreated from scratch, this time however I've documented the patches I've used:

Code:
Multi-steal Fix
Restored Ability Names
Expansion (for LE+)
Custom Items
Dash Button
HP/MP Colors
Battle on the Big Bridge music patch
Sticky Shadow
Stackable immunities
Pincer + Row fix
Step Mine patch
Mug fix
Control menu updates more often
Auto Expiring statutes
Bottomless HP/MP from Invincibles
True Knight fix
Unaffected Rows fix
Randomosity monster encounter fix
Item Icon Expansion
SwdTech Gauge
Invert Seizure Damage if undead
Flinch fix
Backwards Jump
Dead in the Air
Game Over
Item/Magic Counter
Rippler Bug
Save Point switch
Ultimate Damage fix
Evade bugfix
Vanish doom

Changelog (in order of you guys telling me):
Bug Fixes
  • Jorji Costava no longer glitches if talked from any side; also, reworked better the dialogue to match what's going on better.
  • The Aberrant at Snoring Town is back in his place, making it impossible to enter the town again.
  • I may have missed some, but all exits to the world map now return you 1 tile away from the exit itself, so you can return to the place with a single move instead of two.
  • Spell checked the script, though there may still be some inconsistences.
  • Healing items now work properly, courtesy of HatZen's Custom Items patch; it does also mean you can use antidotes on non-poisoned people, but still.
  • Save point before the Narshe Battlefield fight is now 100% fixed
  • Soldiers marching along Kefka do not glitch anymore.
  • Terra at the start of the game can't (shouldn't) be able to have her commands removed.
  • Hawk and Hound > SoldrA and SoldrB
  • Guy that shows status effects is moved one tile up, even though in vanilla it is still down there. The vanilla coders suck at life.
  • Tweaked enemies' defense so Up Thrust and Forward Slash must be used carefully. You'll love Twila when you're facing the Sargeant and his 200 Defense stat.
  • Tweaked the equipment a bit so that there are new things. No more finding new items that you can't use right now.
  • The Remnants are no longer buy-able (at least, soon), so you better be careful about using 'em or keeping 'em for the magic-learning ability.
  • Most parent map issues should be fixed. No more appearing in the sea (or in the world of ruin!) for no reason.
  • Twila is the one unequipped for River Lete and not Headdy.
  • The piece of paper event was fully removed.
  • Heavy Armor's behaviour is corrected.
  • The Exp in Headdy's scenario was lowered, but still puts you four levels above Terra and Bartz. It's 'cause their scenarios are short as fuk. The T-A team however should be level 13/14 to keep up.
  • The ship sailing from Staleport City is fixed and now sails on water. :)
New Content
  • The game uses a modified font that takes less space, allowing a slightly better description of the intro (not that it's any less whackier).
  • Several sprites and palettes have been modified for the best.
  • One or two spells have different behaviour.
  • Lilith's phase skill is way less overpowered (though Inner Glow may take away any difficulty, you dedice).
  • Headdy's weapons now work for the back row; his stats and weapons were reduced (he's slighty inaccurate now) for balancing issues.
  • There's a new miniboss just before the Serpent Trench (the cave before was lonely and stupid).
  • Bosses (and some enemies, too!) are more dynamic. Go on, hit Soldine with his weakness a few times, and enjoy what happens.
That's pretty much it! Though you probably don't want to play my hack again for obvious reasons, I hope you enjoy the fact I'm still working with this sucker! xD


Step forward, spriters! We are also responsible to make hacks look new and fresh, we are no less important than code or ASM hackers! CHARGE!!
 

#15
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Nice progress! It sounds like things are shaping up nicely. One thought I had is that if you're willing to a boss to the Cave on the Veldt, perhaps you'd also want to add a boss to Terra's scenario? You could give him a fairly large amount of EXP to make sure that team is on par. Jacking up the EXP of the encounters in the area would be a mistake, I think, since then a savvy player could grind levels there extremely quickly if they sat around there. And you can also make it through without seeing the 1st Class/Wild Rat encounters (the only good candidate) at all. But if a boss has the EXP, they'll presumably fight it once and only once.


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#16
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Sounds real good, I'll definitely check it out again. How much farther does it go than the first release?
 

#17
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No more yet, unfortunately. There was a lot of sh*t to be fixed, as you can see with the new update

Crossover Crisis version minus 5.1
  • Applied seibaby's Vigor Normalizer tweak: in response, the whole game has been rebalanced. Character's inital stats, enemies, weapons and magic attack numbers perfected.
  • Applied Madsiur's Stamina in HP Growth Calculation. As a result, Headdy has the HP he should.
  • Added miniboss on Terra's scenario that gives a buttload of EXP for Terra and Bartz be at around the same level as the other characters. 
  • Reworked some events to better fit the scenario of the hack.
  • Physical Swdteches and Blitzes as well as Jump now correctly do less damage on the back row.
  • Blitzes have slighty new button inputs. Forward Slash is now slighty less pathetically easy, and Up Thrust is less fusstrating to perform.
  • Basuna corrected to Poisona.
  • Some sprites and portraits updated.
  • Some dialog corrections and updates here and there.


Step forward, spriters! We are also responsible to make hacks look new and fresh, we are no less important than code or ASM hackers! CHARGE!!
 

#18
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That Vigour Normalizer is going to be a huge boon, I think. It will be nice that you can actually treat a point of Vigour as roughly equal to a point of Magic instead of simply pretending they're similar as in vanilla (and most hacks).

Not entirely sure about making Jump do half damage in the back row (since it effectively takes two turns to activate to begin with), but I'll see how it plays out before making a judgement call. Tongue


Confused Moogles FTW
 

#19
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Yeah. It was so crazy that I had Forward Slash with 140 spell power and Fire was 20. It was so strange. This feels so much better.

I felt like it was necessary. Since the character comes with Jump by default (therefore with two empty relic spots) you can do crazy combinations like Dragoon's Horn + Gauntlet. You can use jump to avoid damage from all-target spells and it can't miss. I felt like SOME kind of nerf could do it good.


Step forward, spriters! We are also responsible to make hacks look new and fresh, we are no less important than code or ASM hackers! CHARGE!!
 

#20
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So how's this coming? Do you still want me to play during the stream this week? If so go ahead and PM me a download link by Wednesday so I can verify it's working. Looking forward to checking it out!
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