Feared Topic title - Demotivated.

[The HiemLICH]

Hey Koko.


Dude: Do. Not. Quit.
I for one can tell you I am interested and I enjoy it.
May naysayers be damned, you have 100% of my support.  

[J Viper]

Please dont quit. Its a very intresting patch but i have no ideas for anything.

I played the demo and loved it, so please dont quit

[Kokojo]

Decision taken.

I WILL continue CoP, but first il take a undeterminend-long-break. Dome and Cheetah are making videos, so il at least wait for their uploading.

[Mari]

I'm working on fixing his spelling and grammar errors in chapter 1. And in future chapters, too, if he wants.
I'm also gonna have to take a break, though it will be a real short one, as finals are here and I'm near failing my classes!

Events are done and I've started on job descriptions.. Still got a little ways to go!

[Cheetah]

Well I will just have to do that playthrough all the sooner then.

[jimmyjw88]

I'll try to find sometime to play and hopefully, give some good feedbacks.

[Lijj]

Can't wait til the vids are up, but really can't wait for the patch. Don't take too long of a break now.

[PLob218]

edit: I just read some of the other posts on the CoP forum and realized that some of this information maybe belongs elsewhere. Sorry for dumping it all in one post! In the future I'll look for the most appropriate place to post my thoughts before writing a screed like this

Hey, first time poster here. I just played through most of Chapter 1 (in one sitting!), and I'd be happy to lend you some feedback. Before I begin, let me say I love, love, love the patch! If my comments ever sound overly negative or nit-picky (as peer review often does) remember that overall, I think you've done superb work here. My suggestions aim only to polish what is already a very impressive project. And also, I apologize for the wall of text that's about to be unleashed; I'm pretty verbose, and this project has got me all worked up.

Now, since this is my first playthrough I'll start with some general impressions. I plan to play Chapter 1 again soon and document that playthrough in more detail. It sounds like Mari is handling typos and things of that nature, so I'll try to avoid listing them as well. ***It should be assumed that everything below this point contains spoilers!***

First, there are some wild inconsistencies with the "help text" (is that what we call it when you push Select?) for many abilities. For example, they often list a different amount of MP than the ability actually costs. I find the Defender class especially vexing in this regard (edit: I guess on the forums this class is called Fervant. I don't know if my memory is faulty or if the info on the forums is out of date, but just so you know what I'm talking about: Defender=Fervant). After reading the class description, I was pretty excited about switching my Knight to a Defender, learning Lightning Stab and Storm (sorry if the skill names are incorrect; I'm going off of memory here). But when I went to use them in the next battle (against Barinten), I was lucky that I noticed that Lightning Stab is a healing spell before casting it on the enemy! Instead, I cast Storm on him, but when it was done charging my poor defender did a little animation and.... nothing happened. No spell effect, no "Missed!" or "Guarded!," and no damage or status was inflicted on the target. Then Barinten clobbered the poor sap two turns in a row for 14 damage each time (the highest damage I've seen yet by a factor of 2!), killing the frail little guy on the spot. Let me say up front that that fight was my favorite of the chapter so far, so I'm not complaining about Barinten being overpowered at all. I'm just puzzled and disappointed by the Defender class. Neither of the abilities I've tried worked as advertised, and instead of the defensive powerhouse I thought he'd be, he's the only character who's died on me yet! He might just be the wrong Zodiac sign for that fight, but it was still disheartening. It sounds like maybe Mari is working on class and ability descriptions too, so maybe that will address some of my disenchantment with the class. I'm not sure how much of my disappointment stems from having the wrong expectations and how much of it is stuff that needs to be "fixed."

I really like that everyone has lower HP and that attacks do less damage, but one nasty side-effect I'm seeing is that it reduces the usefulness of abilities like "Magic Attack UP." I was really looking forward to my Elementalist learning it, only to see no noticeable effect on spell damage. I was doing 4-6 damage without it, and 4-6 damage with it. It made me wonder if the ability was increasing my damage by less than one and the game was just rounding it down. That's just my impression--it may have been caused by Zodiac compatibility or some other factor canceling out the bonus. Frankly, I didn't stick with the ability long enough to test it. After the first battle I ditched it for "Half MP," which I could at least be sure was doing something. Another problem with the extremely low HP levels in CoP is that it inflates the usefulness of weak attacks. 1 damage is literally the least you can do, but when enemies only have ~20 HP even that can be significant. If you can have 5 ranged attackers doing 1 damage apiece, why would you send in a melee attacker to do 3 damage at much greater risk? I know the extremely low HP levels are a design choice, and I actually do enjoy it for the most part. I just think they might be slightly too low currently.

I think the healing abilities, with the exception of Gospel's party-wide heal, are basically useless. I've never seen one heal for more than 2 HP, which doesn't feel like it's worth a turn, even with everyone's low HP. I'd like to see either a dedicated healing class that gets more bang for its buck (maybe around 6-8HP per heal?) or an increase in the difficulty of reviving fallen allies. Right now it's easier to let folks die and rez them for free (albeit with a chance of failure) than to waste precious MP and turns healing them for minuscule amounts.

I pushed the wrong button one time and accidentally exited the party screen and was forced into the next battle without being able to learn new abilities or strip down the Loot characters (which is an ingenious way of distributing loot, by the way!). I guess it's my own fault for pushing X, but there was no "Are you sure you want to exit?"-type warning or anything. Is it possible to put in a warning like that before leaving the screen? If not, is it possible to include a world map, but just disable random battles so we can't power-level? That way we could have more control over saving as well. I like to save after learning new abilities and getting equipped, but the way it stands you only get to save one time between battles.

My last criticism for now: I really don't like the name Gospel. It's too heavy-handed and too overtly religious. He might as well be named "Jesus II." I don't want to offend anyone, and I know this isn't the place for a religious debate. It doesn't matter if you're a devout Catholic or an atheist. There are plenty of great artists in literature and film who make allusions to Christ, but doing so without verging into propaganda requires a light touch.

All that being said, I am enormously excited about this project and have high expectations for the remaining chapters! The decapitation scene gave me tingles, both from the drama of the scene and excitement over the possibilities of event editing--if you can do that, what else can you do?!

[PLob218]

Just finished my playthrough, and got an answer to my closing question from the last post: What else can you do? A LOT! Again, ***everything beyond this point may contain spoilers!***

I left off during the prison battle last night, so this is going to discuss from that point forward. First of all, the prison gates are a brilliant use of the game engine that was only hinted at in the original Tactics (I believe there were only two places where you could interact with the environment during a battle: a gate you could open with a switch in one battle, and a floodgate you could open by simultaneously standing on two switches in another battle). I look forward to many more treats like this in the future chapters. The fight itself was challenging, but not too bad. I'm not sure why some of the prisoners are armed, but I like the urgency of having to bust the door down before the guard tears them apart. My only complaint is that the enemies here can break all of your equipment, which you may not be able to replace.

The puppet battle was another interesting twist on the game. I totally buy the plot setup and rushing to a given point on the map makes for an interesting new objective. I found the battle itself on the easy side, but my guys were very mobile ("Move +1" skill and boots with move +1 on them). Don't Move is annoying, but it was just a matter of waiting for it to wear off and advancing whenever I could. At no point was I afraid of dying, and the only time I bothered to attack was when I was stuck in place and there was an enemy in range (and even then it was more just a way to vent frustration than a strategy for winning). I sort of wish the enemies were a little more aggressive so that it felt more like a struggle to move forward and less of a waiting game.

The final battle was a pushover as well, but man, what a cut scene beforehand! There's nothing new about a character jumping in front of an arrow/bullet for someone, but the way you execute it here is beautiful. The camera moves, the special effects when the bullet hits, Gospel's self-recriminations... that's some groundbreaking stuff for FFT! I know I said the battle is easy, but that's not a complaint. That's kind of the point--this isn't the real baddie, it's just an impostor. And you're PISSED because your girl just died. A quick, easy battle is more appropriate from a storytelling perspective. The original Tactics barely entered this territory: balancing battle length/difficulty with the surrounding story. Even when you were supposed to be in a rush, you'd have to stop and fight a long, protracted battle (or several) to continue the story. The exception that comes most readily to mind is the roof of Riovanes Castle (which coincidentally is also sandwiched between cut scenes involving someone taking a bullet for a loved one!). My one complaint about the closing cut scene is that Gospel seems like kind of a douche when he yells "Wench!" I understand that he's upset, but he reveals some latent misogyny there that makes me question his supposed righteousness. On the other hand, if your intent is to show the unraveling of a high and mighty leader, then this is a subtle way to have the cracks start to show.

Did I mention that I'm excited about Call of Power? I'm really, truly, deeply impressed with your work, Koko. I'd love to see a cleaned-up version of this patch that incorporates some of the more straightforward suggestions from the forum users (e.g., SilvasRuin's ability translations) before Chapter 2 comes out. But either way, I'll be waiting with bated breath for the next CoP release!

[efrate]

Hey Kokojo, just gotta say I love your work.  I've tried out a ton of various hacks of FFT and yours is one of if not THE best I've played.  I love the complete revamp of basically everything, new story the whole shebang.  I want to finish ch. 1 but I am falling over asleep.  Just so you know it is very much appreciated and I like the fact that its basically an entirely new game just using a premade engine that is fantastic and amazing difficult to pull off, I cannot wait until you're pumped about it again and continuing work on it.  

spoiler

I love the cocaine as an accessory.  The quote is fantastic as well.  Looking at the sheet I see Voldemort's growth and I really hope to eventually run into him.  I wanna make him blugdeo'd for hammer as payback for certain portions of 1.3