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May 19, 2024, 02:24:43 am

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Messages - Oldmanrinkle

1
I'm liking a bit of the stuff in the patch you're doing.. I remember a couple of text issues that I do believe were goofed by the translators. Which reminds of a few more things...

-In the Golgorand(sp?) Execution Site, Gafgarion uses Weapon Guard as his Reaction and Support abilities. There were a couple more instances where there was duplicated Reaction/Supports, but I can't place them.
-In the same battle, opening sequence, Ramza has a quirky worded sentence, something like "I are come for the princess."
-Spell blade ability "Chicken", has the wrong description (or the wrong name?) Says in the description "A Spellblade Technique that douses a unit in sticky, flammable oil." Chicken is greasy, but is it that bad it has it's own spell?

As for Deep Dungeon, I have not moved past The Switchback yet. I found Female Onion Knights with Ribbons slightly annoying, so spamming gravity when in doubt never seems like a bad option...

Also addressing only a few things in your post...

Onion Knights/Mime Skills - I thought that was intended to give them an advantage. It generally wasn't an issue through my playthroughs (I thought the mimes needed a little bit more of an edge, since there wasn't a lot of genius mime plays by the AI)

Invite - It's not a bad little buff, though it does give the option of spamming it on generics in the story or challenge fights to let them to do the dirty work for me. Haven't tried it yet in the deep dungeon over higher priority actions though.

On a few of the patch notes...

Luso's Stats- I'm interested to see which stats in particular are being buffed here. He's already a pretty solid choice in my party over generics due to his ability set.

Break Skills %- More accuracy means all the more fun with the archer! And more safeguard.

Dispose Range Reduced - Thank you good sir, that worker group in DD was a pain to try and survive with so much long-distance damage.

Gigaflare - I didn't feel it was too strong unless you clustered your team. Then again, any AoE spell is generally like that. By how much are you reducing this?

Potion Nerf - Is this to nerf auto-potion (Soulbind is generally a better option anyway), or to prevent instances where potions are healing too well in the earlier portions of the game? It's an understandable change, as seen in other patches, I'm just curious at your opinion.

On Maybes...
Disable Breeding - Would be appreciated, as generally the one monster I did capture I never needed 8 copies of.

Artemis w/ Immobilize - I'm game for this change, it would move the archers to a more support/utility role late game.

Move Magic Atk Up - This sounds like it could get a little out of hand in longer matches. Might wanna see what kinda feedback comes in before that goes into play.


And thank ya Raven for the Unit/Sprite Limit explanation! I remember reading something about a cap, but never ran into it before.
2
Ah, I came back to cover how the Deep Dungeon was going, delighted to see you replied back.
I made it The Switchback floor so far. Gotta say it wasn't too bad with certain Battle Instances. Made it with a Samurai, Dark Knight, Summoner, Mediator, and Ninja w/ Brawler. I really wish I had a full set of females for the barette, cachusha, and ribbon I had, But I had to live with just the female Mediator, though for most floors the Status Ailments weren't a major issue.

Most Battle Instances I got lucky with standard classes, and Onion Knights. I figured the easiest way to deal with Onion Knights was to calculate height and use beserk, then use the Samurai and Dark Knights to just dodge off the damage. Glad to know I was going the right way with fighting them by your response! I never bothered blinding them, as Reflexes with an Aegis Shield and Feathercloak pretty much dodged all basic magic and beserked units pretty well.

There was a curious issue at a couple floors though, where I had a unit that disappeared when starting the fight (after the formation screen). In battle, they appeared in the Unit page in battle, but there sprite was missing and their character icon was basically snowed up. The missing unit in question also appeared in the turn list, but locked the game when their turn came up. Not sure if this is my PSP specifically, or if it's something to do with the battles. Both battles had quite a few enemies in it from what I remember.

There were two floor where this occured;
1) In the Hollow, where the battle instance is all Bombs of varying types, and one Guest Chemist among them. This instance occured twice, both times making one of the 5 units disappear (first time was the Mediator, then the Ninja the next instance). I haven't tried recreating the error, or testing it by using 1 less unit (in the event that maybe the guest unit and the amount of bombs somehow exceeds the limit of units allowed in a battle instance?)
2) In the Palings, where the battle instance is a large amount of onion knights. I remember in this particular fight there were 17 units in total, meaning 12 Onions and my 5 units, one which was missing yet again, and glitched once their turn came around. I've never seen a battle exceed 16 from what I remember, so I'm still assuming in this case it's an excess of units...?

Regardless, I just restarted until I got a Instance I could fight, and with you reworking the Deep Dungeon, you may have already seen what I'm referring to (maybe?). I do know I will continue to move myself down the dungeon when I get the time again, potentially posting anything else interesting I may come across along the way.

And of course, I have to comment on the concerns you addressed~


DD Exits- I think my main issue with these was really the first floor. The bustle of the battle really kept me from doing the search, and I guess the map just switched around every time I attempted a spot I remembered.

Luso - That would explain things I suppose. I just remember him being really frail when I got him at around level 40ish I do believe, but carrying his HP quite high. His other stats remained pretty average among the generics, but that HP! It lets him do the ninja role with less of a glass cannon feel, that's for sure.

Archers - I recently got the Yoichi Bow, and it does pretty well in resurrecting the archer's potential. Even with archers dropping damage, they still a great job with support roles, and a Battle Skill Archer is extremely useful if you can find a good spot to climb to (which the Yoichi Bow does a great job with)

Monsters - Honestly I loved what the monsters brought to the table with the new abilities. Eye Gouge on goblins was definitely something interesting, and they were pretty smart with using it on characters about to get their turn. It also gave Squires a time to shine with their Salve. It also made keeping Fundamentals on at least one character for most of the story worthwhile, as salving disables was something I abused the hell out of.

Enemy Onions - Like I previously stated, I figured out beserk and dodge worked wonders against them in the Deep Dungeon. Sure, they still have a pretty nasty block/dodge %, but when they don't use their secondary skills, and just take swings at you, they aren't so bad.
I think what really makes them gripe-worthy is that Story Battle on Mount Germinas. A little close quarters, and even the status ailments aren't usually able to be pulled off before an onion knight and it's glorious mobility got ahold of a mystic or black mage...
For that battle in particular, one less onion knight or so would really keep things on the even side, as it was a matter of lucky hits through First Strike, and a couple of solid blocks to win that fight. Or even better, take away the one with the spear (that guy would deck a solid 240 on my 300 hp units...)
After that, Enemy onions shouldn't be an issue, as the rest of the storyline battles, as well as the Deep Dungeon, they start a good distance away, and really gives you the prep time to prepare a defense and lay down some status ailments if they're available.

Invite - I'm not sure how Invite is calculated, but it really does seem higher than I remember it. Generally, it was always floating the 20-30% range in battles in the original, whereas I'm getting a pretty solid 40ish number in most situations. Then again I might have just been really unlucky in the original...
Also that range increase is nice. It keeps the Mediator out of the way of most damage, and I did notice that while some abilities gained range, they lost AoE (aka Mimic Daravon), which is an understandable balance. Good work on that btw.

Defenders - Giving plenty of opportunities to grab them was nice, and it really gave a second wind to the knights as they started falling right before the first couple opportunities came by (at least this was my case as I leveled quickly farming JP, and weapons really began losing their edge).

Bow Buffs - I got ahold of the Yoichi Bow, and I'm satisfied with the move/jump bonus. It gives archers more mobility, and can really let me slip through enemies and Battle Skill away armour and stats.
As for that Artemis Bow with Immobilize... I like where you are going with that, mainly for the idea that archers move from the long-range damage to the long-range status ailments. You really wouldn't have to increase the damage too far up for the Artemis either, as the utility is the big selling point with that change.
3
Alright, so I have been playing around with this charming patch. While I have been playing mostly patches for the PSX version, the slowdown fix finally enabled me to play WOTL. I never did play WOTL before this patch, so I may have a slightly skewed sense of what this Kind of PSP really did work on (and I may reference everything by the old names). However...

I completed the game all the way up to the Deep Dungeon. The overall gameplay was very solid, and I moved pretty steadily through the storyline. I will say already that this patch and WOTL have a MUCH easier Dorter Trade City battle and Finales River battles than the original and the patches I have played.

There were a few hitches in my progression, mainly with the introduction of Black Mages (they did surprisingly solid damage before I could get a turn in), and generally the different tactics used in the battle (Generally the old change-up of damage dealers to status effects).  A memorably difficult part is the Mount Germinas, where the Ninja leader and his party of *Mastered* Onion Knights. Those thing were terrifying, dealing hefty amounts of damage, and being pretty difficult to really hit without ranged or magic (both which had a bit of a disadvantage on this map). The main problem with Mastered Onion Knights is First Strike, which really give them free rein in battle against any melee unit with a 1-tile range. Also, Celia and Lede. They're about as annoying as they were in the original, which made them tough but not unbeatable (but I did have quite a few defeats here).

Aside from that, most fights (even 1-on-1 spars) were pretty easy, and most defeats were simply the lack of proper immunity bestowing equipment.

At the current time, I'm still attempting to work my way down the Deep Dungeon, but am having a surprising difficulty locating the exit in the first area. I've encountered all 4 battles, and really can't seem to find which tile is holding the exit (It's not the same as the original default location). I don't get much opportunity to find it, especially with the difficulty of some fights *cough cough Workers cough cough* (which I read you're working on re balancing, but I still gotta poke at it).  Another thing to note is Luso. He was one of the few Uniques I used, mainly because he had the spammable Focus, owned Tailwind, and had Dual Wield in his default job. Oddly enough, he got unnaturally tanky, having well over 500 hp in most classes without equips at lv 99. Not sure what the deal is there. All his other stats seemed to scale naturally with all my Generics.

To cover a few things veliuz stated, condensed as a spoiler to avoid a dreaded wall of text...

Archers - They were nice early game, had decent damage potential and seemed okay speed wise. I didn't feel the CT reduction too much, and as the game progressed, archers seemed to fall a bit behind on damage.

Move HP Chocos - In a full team of Chocobos, the move-hp does drag the enemy turns a little, but otherwise it seems like an understandable ability. I don't see it as annoying if just a bit slow.

Money - Seemed sustained enough with 1-day Missions (which seemed like nice time-savers, though was a bit confusing in the mission text of "Will take 1 to X days"), but money was never abundant so picking items carefully was always something that needed to be considered.

OP Monsters - I can't agree on this. Monsters never seemed to be a threat unless they were mid-late game packing annoying status ailments (Berserk, Confuse, Petrify). I did like the enemies having a couple new tricks up their sleeves (not sure by patch notes if it's WOTL or patch), but it never made them feel broken or too powerful. I didn't even use a mage, black, white or time, until sometime after the Dorter Trade City. Most of the time a Monk and a couple units strapped with Item did the trick, and even a random Fundamentals made quite the difference in random battles.

Mage > Melee - 75% of the time, this seemed to be an issue. Mage AoE, Short Charge, and high power made any mage a worthy team member. There were a few instances where my physical brawls were the best way to go (small close quarters situations, or a lot of ranged, tank-surpassing units), but generally the mage was making the kills happen, or putting serious hurting on enemies.

Trial Battles - I played quite a few to agree that 11 enemies with buff abilities take their sweet time buffing their team. This had a tendency to try the nerves, but most Trials proved easier than expected. The most interesting so far was monks, where the lack of preparation on my part and the persistent revive/chakra kept the battle going for quite a long time.

OP Onion Knights - The enemy Onion Knights are rough. First Strike, High Damage, High HP along with skill sets make them quite a terror.

Orlandu - To be honest, I very rarely use Unique Classes, as they generally have few unlocked jobs and my Generics are plenty more capable which half or more of their classes unlocked. That and they generally don't have an abuse-able ability to rack up JP (aka Focus).

Mediators OP - Invitation has such a high % than the original. Had I used the mediator throughout the game, I would have just invited all the enemies and had them fight for me.

Dark Knights - I didn't get them until late Chapter 4. They don't have too much requirements, so I can see where the easy obtain attitude comes from, but even after getting them they didn't seem all that powerful...

Final battles easy - Agreed. Most of the game wasn't too hard, but the final battles seemed slightly lackluster (drop in a few Onion Knights and that should fix things).

Dancer/Bard battles -Enemy Dancers triggered so many passive Adrenaline Rushes! Bards didn't seem to do much, even when in my party (so many misses on stat augmenting chants).

Zalmo Defender - Not just  on Zalmo, but the amount of Defender-Theft opportunities was insane. I never used unique classes to enjoy them, but a Knight with a Defender was always so dodgy.

Bows/Daggers/Katanas Weak-
Bows started pretty damaging, but fell late-game. Perhaps if they had a few status ailments, they'd be a little more interesting...
Daggers seemed to be more utility for the +1 move, and they did the damage I expected from a light utility weapon. They can even pack a punch with 108 Gems... Try Air Knives + 108 Gems (it gives Dual Wielding daggers lethal damage).
Katanas were probably weak for the class that used them, which made them feel underpowered. It's mainly the lack of Phys that Samurais have that this feels the way it does.


Overall, I'm enjoying this patch except the Deep Dungeon confusion. In terms of any patch I've played, I'd give it an 8/10. It's a little rough around the edges as a patch, but it's got great potential and really adds variety to the amount of jobs I see throughout the game (along with multiplayer content to the single player, albeit a little difficult).