I think that the most under developed characters are the magic users and maybe the changes you are making will allow them to be more useful, I certainly hope so because many gamers like to have the priest/priestess sorceress/wizard type of character their most powerful ranged and large area of attack character and so far Loren has made that type of tactic impossible. Maybe impossible is the wrong choice of word, useless might be more appropriate.

Yes I realized the mistake, indeed I also increased Mage spells damage and reduced the power. So they shouldn't be used anymore to heal only.

I have no idea what you mean by delay mode, do you mean that a character can hold a turn and have another character attack? I think where that would be useful is if you are in a fight where there is only one enemy left in the front row and it has a very low point total and your character, whose turn it is to attack has a very high attack, like Loren. if you could delay then you could take out the front row character with a weaker unit and then hit the back row, after it move into the front row, with your stronger unit. I think that most people work that out now as part of their tactics, but occasionally you just can't arrange it properly.

Yes in practice the "Wait" command, without doing any action. Quoting the email of that player:

Would be nice to have a way to "delay" in combat, stalling current turn. Several times I wanted the current actor to act after the next actor, but the only way to do this was "defend", which is a "delay 10" action.

In practice switch the movement order.

I'd like to give the new changes a try if you will be looking for testing.

Sure, I can just upload the changed files (without the need to update the whole game) so people can try the new combat / skill balance. I am not done with it yet though, but should be done in next days

An user by email suggested also to put a "Delay" action. It wouldn't be a problem to add it, was wondering what other people think, if a delay would be useful in the battle ?

You mean like you don't do anything for the turn but your next turn comes up quickly? I feel that switching positions with a party member on the same row serves alright most of the time (Delay 3, right?). Maybe a tiny delay would help if the character is significantly slower than the others, but you're lowering the impact of speed so...



I think you shouldn't add more icons than needed to the battle screen. It already gets a bit cluttered if your character learns several special skills, for example Apolli with a level 2 paralysis spell, a level 3 fire spell and a level 1 water spell is already squeezing 6 extra icons into his menu. I think Karen got a pretty long line of skills last time I played too.

The wait icon would appear when you click on the currently active character (like Defend) so it shouldn't be cluttered. Also, the Wait value isn't influenced by speed much, so adding an action "Delay" that does nothing but has a wait of 5 would work. On the other hand, I could simply decrease the Defend wait value now that I think about it!

The wait icon would appear when you click on the currently active character (like Defend) so it shouldn't be cluttered. Also, the Wait value isn't influenced by speed much, so adding an action "Delay" that does nothing but has a wait of 5 would work. On the other hand, I could simply decrease the Defend wait value now that I think about it!

Hwoa. Yeah, I forgot how much fewer icons most characters have when you click on the player side instead of the enemy side.



One interesting side-effect of lowering the delay of the "Defend" command is that you'll be able to heal your own status effects faster. I have no idea how that'll balance out yet, but if you lower the delay too much (say, to less than the 5 that a normal attack uses) then effects like paralysis will take a major hit.

Hmm you're right I hadn't considered that! I think that I won't put a delay action then since could unbalance everything!

Don't understand why people say Rei is bad, he's the best archer in the game (and probably the best damagedealing char in the game overall)



To get the most out of him you need to get sp regen gear with 10sp/turn on it. Then just spam rank 1 headshot. R1 headshot has a delay of 4, does normal damage, and unlike choke it doesn't require any status effects (and it's cheaper SP wise).



On my game Rei does about three times as much damage as Loren every battle, just to give you an idea of how good he is.

Hmm interesting, maybe I need to raise slightly the delay of Headshot then...

Well it is a little weird that right now choke and headshot rank 1 are a lot better than rank 3 (because they give normal damage), so if you are going to change this I would suggest leaving the SP cost the same, but turning the recharge times around (so give the delay of 8 to rank 1 and the delay of 4 to rank 3)



That way if you get the sp regen gear, you could choose to either burst, but go OOM, or to do slightly above regular dps, and regain SP.

Yes thanks for the suggestion, I am going to rebalance lots of skills for the upcoming expansion. The game will play quite differently, since right now the Mages are the weakest class, while after the expansion changes they should become much more powerful

Now that I've seen most of hard mode, I feel ready to share my favorite party.



Ramas (A+): He really is the answer to all you could wish for in a frontliner. With the right equipment this dwarf just cannot be killed. The only character you can get immune to everything. Well, except elemental damage. And offensively he is second only to Loren among the fighters.

Recommended skills: Crushing Blow 3, Push 1+, Rage 3, Toughness 3, Willpower 3



Loren (B+): Her damage output is extraordinary.

Recommended skills: Dual Wield 3, Knock Down 3, Push 1+, Rally 1, Toughness 3, Ward 3



Saren/Elenor Fighter (D): His/Her Hero skills are useful from time to time, most times it boils down to heal, though. The same goes for the standard Fighter branch. Well you cannot kick the main character now, can you...

Recommended skills: Life 3, Neutralize 1+, Push 1+, Toughness 3, Ward 3

Saren/Elenor Thief (E): The standard thief skills are not worth it. Not able to stand in the front he/she just crowds the backrow :/

Recommended skills: Life 3, Neutralize 1+, Ward 3



Dora (B+): Pinning shot and snipe rules. A pity some enemies (even standard ones) are virtually immune to stagger, so no pinning them. Capable of much damage nonetheless.

Recommended skills: Pinning Shot 3, Sneak Attack 1+, Snipe 3



Draco (B): Best Mage you have available. Since Mages are best when they don't cast damage spells. In that aspect he's unquestionable ahead of the other mages.

Recommended skills: Clarity 3, Cure 1, Haste 3, Phantom Form 3



Myrth (C+): It's mainly about her other virtues

Recommended skills: Clarity 3, Cure 1, Haste 3, Nature's Touch 3, Tangling Weeds 3



---------------------------------------------



Those that didn't make it into the team:



Amukiki (B): Ramas immunities are superior to anything Amu has to offer.



Apolimesho (C+): He's pretty much comparable to Myrth in any aspect but one



Rei (B): Best thing is his immunities. All in all, Dora has a tiny few tricks more at her disposal.



Karen (B+): Her Death Blow is inferior to Doras snipe; Leg Break isn't as good as pinning shot. But Focus Target and especially Whirlwind is quite strong.

Draco's Phantom Form plus pumping 3 points into skill for every level of Loren and Karen = ownage. I was able to get ten melee attacks per every one attack of a goblin with Karen with Phantom Form. Of course you have to pump magic for Draco so he has enough mana to cast phantom form over and over, but if you cast phantom form on draco, he can cast it often enough to keep Karen perma-maxed on it

You know I'm constantly amazed by the various battle tricks/exploit you're finding. Unless is something obvious like the skill-speed trick (which hopefully I balanced more in the expansion) everything else is like a reward for a well-crafted combat system

Talking of exploits: ever had a char have higher SPregen than max SP?

Hmm how that's possible!?

Lol not bad. I am not sure though I need to "fix" that. I think is more an achievement of the player to get such results!

No need to fix it indeed. Since it has no practical use. It's like ordering an All-You-Can-Eat when you're already full.



Off topic: sometimes it's really frightening how fast your replies are coming.

Well because now is 8PM here, so I am not working anymore and just checking forums/twitter

To be fair though, one really good trick for beating this game is to move fast and have really high SP regen. If your SP regen is high enough and you move fast enough, you can spam certain skills so often that you can clear out the board of enemies before they even have a second turn.



On a side note, does anyone else find Hard mode to be...really easy right now? Granted I've only picked up 1.1j and I'm restarting the entire game to get a quick feel once more but with Draco's buffed up damage, it makes the fight so far seem inconsequential. Maybe I'll wait until the litmus test fight i.e. the Lizard King fight before I say some more.

Haha see how hard is to balance. UserA=is too hard! UserB=is really too easy.

Though I have to say that you're still in the beginning. I think from chapter2 things starts to get tough