Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Day job is embedded programmer. Wrote device drivers and those are stable, so past 6 years or so been network/sql stuff at same company.
At home, I *was* doing the ROTK fan project.. but… back problems has messed that up in the mean time.
I do reload my own ammo…. again back probs so i don't shoot nearly as much.
I've got a 2 year old science project relating to copper plating bullets that's nearly complete (long story).
With back pain and so much time spent in bed, I've landed myself staff / mod / admin status on a 24/7 Doctor Who stream (justin.tv/tardisbluenet). Spend a fair amount of time there.
I did have other stuff going on, but it's been so long since i've gotten to do any of it that… erf :(
How my fight would have gone without the lucky duel, I dunno.
War Edge was indeed godly with the earlier version of the mod. Three thumpers being able to dish out near-crit always-hit damage to everyone was just soooooo useful. I loaded up the newer rom and noted that war edge wasn't as prolific. This definitely changes a lot of game play so I don't necessarily have a suggestion with the new tweaks :/. Although, with the tweaks, my Kanbei didn't have Thwart I don't think. But that's using the battery backed sram from a diff rom version so …. that don't count cause it'll obviously be wonky.
Dossetsu was indeed handy for a long while, especially with lotsa folks having revive but no remedy etc. By the Masamune fight, not so much sadly.
I never used Tadaoki in my play through… lower soldier counts and lower stats… he just wasn't useful.
When I wrap up my play through of the somewhat older of RoI, I'll have to give RoL another go (given the changes that have taken place), as well as other mods that have been tweaked as well heh…. and obviously FoW when it gets finished.
I went through Masamune before the recent balance changes…soooo… dunno if this applies or not.
We were about the same situation, although our party line ups were different (I skipped the body double general acquisitions… pre balance changes they weren't too useful). For me, guard'd / protect'd and war edged my way to victory.
Oh, and just to note extreme luck that made my fight completely easier… masamune dueled me and both generals died :P
I will note, that I hex edited my rom to make Steed's work (not necessary in updated rom on first page), and they are a god send. If ya aint got them on your thumpers, I'd suggest them.
Speaking of Steed mechanic.
Question for sonic penguin and midknight.
It's a table of items that grant a second attack, right ?
I've not tried it, but can I have a halberd / sword equipped, and simply HAVE a bow in my inventory and be granted the second attack ?
re: updates
I'll be attempting to finish it with my older ROM. A bit nervous about balancing changes made hehe. If it turns out to be too harsh I'll try updating.
re: enix games
am a big fan of the dq/dw series by far. still need to play 7 and 9 though. prefer dq/dw to ff, too heh. although ff1 is pure awesome sauce (the original, not bastardized later remakes). anyhoo, bonus areas were harder aye, but I don't recall every fight in the bonus areas to be impossible :P.
re: bug
dunno how most nes games are coded, or 6502 in general.
does it use some kind of cooperative multitasking kernel (unlikely given the low speed of the chip) ?
does the sound chip generate interrupts ?
basically, is there a bank switch caused by an external interrupt or cooperative task that doesn't proper restore the machine state on an x86-equivalent iret ? how expensive would a push/pop of $ED be ? 4 instructions ? how nasty is this ? executable / rom hacking in a fixed address space makes that nigh impossible to deal with, i know (unless ya have everything jump to new areas.
Quote:Ya I remember the last 2 fights of "heaven" being damn near impossible. Way harder than the Osaka battle. More like hell than heavenActually… since I've only handled 1 or 2 Heaven spiked tiles / gates / castles … and looking at the breadth of enemies available… it's looking like ALL of Heaven is going to be a royal PITA hehehe. Enemy generals have high tactic stuff (better than Kanbei even) … and most have decent STR, high AP (250/255?!) and decent AC. It looks like it'll be a fair amount of save state before encounter and then trying the fights repeatedly. I refuse to stoop to save stating mid battle.
Durrrrrr
Pack mule without consuming food – some sub-1000 soldier general, such as maybe one of the first two guys ya usually pick up in that first town.
Triggered the Lou Yang gate refresh near end of game, fought first battle in path to heaven stuff. Dunno if it's possible to go beat the game regularly without doing the heaven section (by visiting burnt castle, will try next time I play).
That first heaven battle with someone special and the fire spirits sets the tone for how rough the rest of the mod will be :P. And I think it's an always-ambush fight… so.. ya start off screwed (let alone enemey vanguard is downright brutal, cough).
Beat that (evade was handy) and ran around a bit without a smoke pot to see what kind of generals I'd face… this area does NOT look friendly in the slightest. Looked at the fight for the next spiked tile / gate / castle … have no idea if it's gonna be even possible to beat it heh.
Writing continues to be good <3
Still playing with older ROM prior to general stat tweaks and Steed bug fix. Steed fix would undoubtedly be helpful about now heh. Been debating if to use info said here in forum just to patch it in myself quickly.
First up, yeah I've hit the bugs many times throughout my play through. Usually just results in a hard lock immediately. Last one acted as described above (and i've seen it a couple times similarly)… but…. after weird flashy stuff, directional pads moved me around as if no longer in battle kinda. Even got the pushing-into-solid-wall knock knock sound effect heh. Got into a second encounter, my guys weren't drawn, and it hard locked.
Getting to level 52 (guy in first village and then priest in Yuan Shao castle) … relearned Crush tactic, which gave some extra TP and since Crush only overwrites itself… that was fine.
Looking at enemies in heaven area, looks like ya held out Chaos from the player for normal play through (none of my dudes know it). How evil of you.
Partly line up is currently:
Kanbei
Masamune
Tada Katsu
Keinji
Ieyasu
* Some 240int 4k or 5k soldier guy (don't recall name)
The guy that tells you how to beat 'thunder' (avoiding spoiler heh)
I do have a 241 and a 242 INT general floating around in billeting, I'll prolly swap them in as tactician for the extra couple TP. Was currently reducing food consumption with my low soldier 240 guy.
Dunno if I'll keep with a 7 general line up or reduce it to 6 (to again save on food, and since I haven't been power-pill-everyone.. can smoke pot everyone instead). Dunno if I'll need a pack mule or not.
I'll prolly wander around the "Plains" area a bit to see what all happens with the generals around there for recruitment possibilities… and will have to do so also if I ever beat the second fight in the heaven area. Otherwise, I really don't see my line up changing a whole lot.
Kanbei in the lead for better evade/thwart killing. Also love me some Miracle & Zeal. Masamune with protect and good stats. A couple thumpers with guard, and then Ieyasu with the evade, vigor, and spare Raise if needed.
My play style requires Kanbei.
Masamune is handy with stats and Protect.
One of the thumpers I could prolly swap out if wanted to try something else.
And Ieyasu himself can be swapped out too maybe. I imagine that 'sniper' is going to be relatively useless in the upcoming area… thus another 'war edge' user might make sense.
War Edge is still my primary damage dealer. Barrage is nice, but given end of the game smarty pants on the other side of the fence…. limited use. Same with 'Destroy'. Much of what I've seen of enemy AC values coming up…. I dunno if Blitz / power pills is gonna be useful or not.
Enemies with 'Thwart' are quite interesting. Not so much when there are 2 or 3 of them staring at you though (and that would mean they all have Miracle as well heh).
I'd have to play through it again to offer a truly fair opinion, but the reductions in Ieyasu and Hanzo seems like it'd make the fairly difficult early game that much harder ?
Although if ya lowered enemy stats, it might work out ;)
Haven't started playing for the night just yet…
And I won't update just yet etc :P
Wu settled, starting to chip away at Wei.
Writing has returned <3. Thoroughly enjoying it <3.
I noticed it earlier, but swapping the cave entrance / exits so you proceed through them bacckwards compared to normal is great… didn't know if ya did that with just a couple or not, but seems like it's a fairly common theme. I likey for the variety.
Just picked up Keiji and took out one spiked tile beyond that… maybe two, dunno. Died, saved my game, and calling it a night / morning.
Am at level 41 (I think) and know Ce Mian / Thwart… given the stuff I see other generals have in battle, I'm curious if this isn't the last tactic to learn … or if you've just stacked things against the player heh.
Haven't changed my party any… although currently have Keiji as my pack mule. Dunno if gonna have him in the main party or not.
I liked how ya did the Sun Quan fight. The two halves of the fight complement each other nicely… and isn't silly hard or anything. Did typical buff + war edge for the first half just so I could see what the second half would be and could prep for a rematch… chuckled at the Sun Quan entrance and how the second half was setup <3. Ended up beating it in the intending-to-fail first attempt. Was able to get a guard up, then some recovery to talk about in a sec… and drag the fight out for a very long time with a few turns of focus'ing, a war edge + miracle, few turns of focusing, wash rinse repeat. Early in the second half I was down to 2 guys. Raise to the rescue (and even a ressurect item once heh)! and was eventually up to 4 guys. Since that was taking forever, raise'd Ieyasu and things progressed a bit faster due to spread out damage receiving and faster TP recovery. Reason I was down to just a couple guys was caught a few unfortunate Boshidu's heh. Focus/Miracle/Raise won that fight without a doubt.
The Plains section looks like it'll be fun. Also really liking the use of the hawkwings to teleport to a place other than the castle ya just took at the end of the previous chapter etc. Nice effect… although it's handy to make sure all your weapon shopping is done before leaving it, lest the long trek back.
Didn't bother with bows or crossbows… or at least I assume Shuriken's are crossbows.
Been a bit confused about Cannons and Cyclone. Cannons doesn't seem to really be any more powerful than Flare, and Cyclone seems like a complete waste of 30TP ? Conversely, I've noted the AI hits harder than I do with tactics. Haven't figured out why yet.
Oh… and… did make some use of Evade and Thwart… and came across a condition I remember everyone discussing a year ago or so. Had Evade's up and couldn't get a guard off…. was just a bit weirded out by it but went on. Then… after picking up thwart and thinking i had the ultimate pin-the-enemy-down-combo… noted that evade or thwart undid the other. Thus…. remembered conversation about only one thing being active at a time heh. Durrrrrr hehehe.
Steeds not working: grrrr.. woulda made life simpler and also make use of the 3 or 4 of the infernal things I've got heh.
Duel being random: I agree, and it should be. I did just have Tada Katsu take out a general with 15-20k soldiers (compared to his 15k or so) in all of a single 'duel' bout apparently. Was impressed with him heh (someone challenged, duel got redirected, etc).
ROTK2 duel AI: looking back at it, it seems to be completely random. Relative WAR/STR stats do appear to affect damage done / received to a degree, but I don't recall ever seeing patterns emerge as to a bunch of scripted plot graphs for it or anything. I even recall seeing Fan Chou making VERY QUICK work of Lu Bu once heh.
edit:
Oh, with Focus / Miracle combo, did end up treking through the last third of a cave without food, using fights to heal up from starvation damage. :P
Quote:Thats what I think. I think it was the best improvement this year in modding, even though dueling is a MAJORLY cool enhancement as well.Dueling is interesting, but I find it too volatile to make use of myself.
So far, I've tried it all of maybe 3 times and got refused each time.
In the early game, my guys turned down nearly every duel the AI presented. Those my guys did accept ended up either losing or one of the combatants running away (with running away in fear being much more common).
By mid game, I had lost several, and had a few run aways.
When it was time for it within the story line, the Masamune fight was funny and I meant to mention it but forgot. On the second or turn, Masamune dueled me and he lost — made the fight much easier. *ahem* … BWAHAHAHAHA *cough* :)
Well, maybe he lost. Somewhere along the line, I did have a mutual-death outcome. Don't recall which fight it was heh.
But I agree — by far, 'focus' has been the most awesome mod enhancement to DoaE yet. 8 tactics is awesome, the life spell is awesome, the new tactics are awesome…. and playing around with some of the non-int-based stuff is also cool. But, from a game play point of view… while everything else is neat and great and stuff… 'focus' or a way of getting TP back… is just a fundamental game play mechanic change that changes 'everything'. Remind me to dig through the forum threads to see whoever first suggested it so can give'em kudos.
There's something to be said for how the game originally worked… kinda like spell charges in classic DND requiring rest to refill… kinda like an army on the march is busy with other stuff… all of those kinds of things. Sadly, any feint at 'realism' the original way the game worked ends up being a detraction in game play.
In the original (or any mod) — running into a smart general in the field would mean getting destroyed if ambushed, destroyed if failed to run away, or hoping the TP spent didn't mean you couldn't handle the upcoming gate fight(s). Similarly, running into a soldier and STR powerhouse meant trying to decide if it was worth the TP or not.
The fight to the Wu Zhang Zhao castle comes to mind (hoping to keep enough TP to survive that fight)…. or even to the next to last Castle with that insanely long trip.
Thus, you would end up with constant save stating before attempting retreat…
Now, you can deal with the fight and recoup the TP through some player-effort.
It leaves gate battles as difficult as always, but means you don't turn white or revert to cheating on your way EN ROUTE TO the fight.
With that said… I will note that Elixers seem to serve even less use in RoI. If I can just focus-grind my way while healing via tactics… what purpose are Elixers again ? While I don't suggest it in this mod, if it were possible for, say, Elixer A and C to regain HP, and Elixers B and D recover TP… it might make more sense ? Or something. This way ya get rid of the focus grinding and instead have TP regen effectively cost money and be limited on inventory space. If ya keep both focus grinding AND TP-regen-items I dunno. I don't see why not.
Not knowing how the game treats items (if it's a table look up or if it's a bunch of hard coded if's) … makes me wonder about creating NEW items or not.
Something I will note about RoI — ever since getting War Edge and where I am within the game, I've not used power pills at all. Maybe once soldier counts get high enough to where melee damage output gets better i'll be back to power pills… but for now… nope.
Also… with War Edge, most of my fights seem to be first turn of buffs (protect / guard / vigor / and now zeal / etc), and then a War Edge spam turn(s), followed by mop up. Basically I hope to survive to turn 2, hoping that I do enough damage during turn 2 to survive into turn 3. Usually by about turn 3 or 4, I'm starting to focus on healing / resurrecting while attempting to continue damage output.
War Edge cutting through Evade seems also quite brutal. Similarly, I think Bushido does as well ? Dunno about Blitz. War Edge NEVER missing also makes it the MUST HAVE tactic of the mid game.
It'll be interesting to see what happens when I get to enemies casting Ce Mian… as it is, I am EXTREMELY tactics heavy in my strategy (prolly a left over play style choice carried over from Yuan Shao / RoL). Curious if Ce Mian stops War Edge / Bushido / Blitz, etc.
Am curious to fiddle with Cyclone a bit. At 30TP cost, it's gotta have a use…. heh.
I'm surprised Nihlihak hasn't gone about making the map editing easier and not broken down into sections. I understand how things are laid out by the game engine… but… still ?
Maybe a separate window/form that shows what the entire map currently looks like while you edit a given section ?
Anyhoo…
Kotaro where ? What level are you ?
And in the ROM I downloaded from the first post of this thread, steeds aren't garunteed extra hits.
Shu settled, invasion thwarted, Masamune recruited. Peaked around 'Sea' a bit. Very impressed at the presentation. Stopping for the night / morning.
Lotsa party changes as expected. Moved Kanbei out of the tactician role cause want Miracle available, but do want a variety of generals for TP gain possibilities (so not just a 5 person party). Debating if to swap out Hanzo or not. Also, looking trough billet'd generals, saw a few surprises on soldier counts.
Typical 'trek to next encounter' for me is fighting each fight as would be 'normal' if 'tactical points were almost free', with usually isolating a nonthreatening enemy and focus'ing back towards the end if needed. When getting to expected next fixed encounter / spiked tile.. will seek out a 'safe' random encounter to focus it up.
Being able to 'focus' really does help alleviate the mad dash to next gate/castle problem that has been apart of the core of DoaE since original release. Love the addition, really do. It does drag out the game a bit with sometimes picking a fight just to 'focus' everyone for 5-10 turns…. but I don't mind. Being able to tackle some hefty general encounters while traveling and having a recourse to recover TP's which are required to fight most general encounters is just tooooooo good and makes the game more enjoyable and far less stressful regarding getting luck on retreating.
Shu was far simplified compared to the original which is fine by me… although it does mean less writing to enjoy heh. But the reward with Fluffy noooooo was well worth it and keeps me looking forward to the next section :).
Picked up a couple handy generals for Ieshia fight.
Party was:
Dosetsu
Ieyasu
Moto Chika
Hanzo
Tada Katsu
*Kanbei
Dosetsu is a fine addition to the party atm, and Moto Chika's decent HP but weird tactics spread makes him really useful (particularly, Remedy instead of Revive).
Quote:Got it. I figured people would remember from the original DOAE the towns you had to go to, but I can look into changing that.That's all fine and dandy… and sure… but uhhhh with the heavy map edits… what's where again ? :)
re: music suggestions
i'll assume the music is just a chunk of data in the rom… can it be swapped out with something from, say, megaman ? or something heh.
Anyhoo… off to look into kicking Ieshia's ass… my lord hungers for more blood…
I avoided Ieyasu for the most part — not a historical area I had great interest in. Played through Nobunaga's Ambition 1 on the NES a few times… but… the time period just wasn't interesting (and the game lacked compared to RoTK heh).
Anyhoo, was wanting something to fill time while dealing with back pain… so went hunting for DOAE mods. Was really hoping Flames of Wu was done by now but it wasn't and didn't really wanna play a beta rom… so… here I am heh.
I've been playing RoI without save stating … and generally not trying to beat my head against a wall for a given fight repeatedly (ie: relying on luck). Not particularly over grinding either… but mostly fighting every encounter etc. I was at level 11 before getting the bridge builder to join me in the first chapter tho… sneaky bastid.
I *have* grinded for money a couple times… having the Trident a purchaseable and expensive weapon (ie: just came across the regular Sword's at same price) is evil but neat. Kind of interesting for the trident money grind – needed enough soldiers in the Yuan Shao area to survive some of the nasty encounters, but that also caused needing to buy food semi-frequently. Was nice to have to balance stuff :). I ended up buying… 2 I think. Maybe 3.
I'll admit some fights have been luck based, but in general I've been just casually playing it and enjoying the difficulty curve. At times it seems harder than RoL, and other times it seems easier. RoL had some really nasty fights towards the end of the game, and with the use of 'riflemen' and such that RoI has, I can see some ending fights in this mod being evil. We shall see.
I'll prolly need to rethink my party line up when pick it back up after work tonight. Ieshia will kind of require it.
Oh, I did pick up a mysterious powder (cough)… haven't really tried it to see what it does… will be doing that tonight :). Do NOT want spoilers about it heh. Do like the shop keeper banter.. 'steal', 'no pain, no gain', 'hungry?' etc. And, no thanks to you, I have wakey wakey eggs and bakey ingrained in my head now.
I did recently buy a second Steed. Is a Steed supposed to guarantee a second hit ? IE: will it ALWAYS grant that person two 'regular attack' attempts ? Cause I noticed it didn't seem to be doing that last night.
Sooooooo… thus far my only two complaints would be:
a) while love the writing changes to have town entrance people comment about stuff… not knowing the name of different castles made the Zhuge Liang hunt more difficult than it should have been (and expensive on food).
b) use of the title music for over world music in the Shu area is going to get annoying quickly prolly. Especially since the game has been giving me DQ4-esque random encounter rates. Those opening few notes repeated constantly… then off key for the battle intro sfx…. ugh.
Those two aside, mod is still at an A+ in my book so far :)
