Staff of Ages (SoAXNA v0.1 out now!)

[cado36]

I feel like such a noob for asking, but what do the different colors for the stats mean?

I had a lot of fun playing the first two chapters, nice work! Guess I'll wait for v1.6 to come out soon to continue.

[InvdrZim13]

I feel like such a noob for asking, but what do the different colors for the stats mean?

I had a lot of fun playing the first two chapters, nice work! Guess I'll wait for v1.6 to come out soon to continue.

They correspond to how high the unit's growth is in that stat (hit select to see the actual growth rates).

Also, 1.6 is ready, DL it here, you don't have to make a new save, but I'm gonna say make one anyway because units changed and stuff.

Edited October 23, 2016 by InvdrZim13

[cado36]

They correspond to how high the unit's growth is in that stat (hit select to see the actual growth rates).

Also, 1.6 is ready, DL it here, you don't have to make a new save, but I'm gonna say make one anyway because units changed and stuff.

Thanks! I'm excited to keep going. Best of luck with the next release!!

[TheNiddo]

Finally got imgur to work, unit breakdown time! But one minor note before that: Chapter 1-10. Felt like there were one or two waves of reinforcements too many. Got to the point of "okay enough already you can stop now I get the picture. Let me move forwards please."

[spoiler=Post Game Units Breakdown]

Belle was, overall pretty solid. She was absolutely the only unit I could use against the final boss of this demo: everyone else was getting slaughtered even attempting it if they had to eat a counter attack at all. She had a nice 4 or 5 turn 1v1 with healer support until Charles came in and popped him. As it was then I finally realized that the boss had reverse triangle and not just super dodging skills.

Anyhow: solid. A tad weaker than I would like, but never really a liability.

My Owen spent most of the game speed and defence screwed. Didn't get that last point of speed until the last map, same with the last two points of defence. Still, he was an absolute cannon. Point at enemy, enemy died.

My first play through where he wasn't crap! Overall superior to Owen, and the best out of the Lords. Great speed, decent damage, actually had Res which was a rarity in this game. Loved his tome, used it all up.

*Had one Strength Booster

Started off with several bad level ups and I was afraid I was going to have to bench him. He pulled through by mid game though. Never particularly tanky, needed help with his strength, but was a very flexable unit. I really hope you guys cut down on the fighters and add in more soldiers/mercs early game now that he no longer has any swords. Early game Eagle + Lance locked + Fighters = not a good time.

*Had one Resistance Booster

Amazing strength, good defence, enough speed to not get doubled and to double any soldier carrying a heavy lance. Very key character for Belle's side.

I like the unique staffs for her class. Made her overall more usable than Oona to me, as I could heal a hall blocking unit without putting her in counter attack range. Decent stats overall, though for a 50% magic growth I didn't hit it very much.

Very much a glass cannon type character. Fairly solid if fragile at first before her speed growth kicks in, though I kinda feel like her growth rates should be swapped with Sofia.

*Had a Defence Booster

Aaaah Lily. Lily, Lily, Lily. I wanted to like her. I really did. But like I said previously: she doesn't have speed or defences. And she really needs one or the other. I kinda understand why her defences might have started off low, to make sure she's not too similar to Kate, but her overall bases don't carry her enough. Right now, outside of strength and hp, her growths are comparable to Federica's. Who is a prepromote.

To me, there are two options. The first is to bump up her defence and resistance growths by 10% each. That puts them at 35% and 45% respectively. Drop her speed by 5%. This combination would further reinforce "this is a tanky flier". She wouldn't become the tank, that's still Darius' role between his superior defence and hp growths. And Lily would still have more speed than him thanks to her base amount. But it would let her stand out from Kate without overshadowing her.

The other option is to go full Oswin on her: give her absolutely amazing base stats and then leave her growths as in. I'm talking adding 1 skill, 2 speed, 3 luck, 2 def, 3 res. Maybe a few points of HP as well. Her bases, if going this route, should be enough to carry her for several chapters even if you weren't to use her at all. And by using her, her overall slow growths are still enough to let her stay competitive when combined with her bases. Would also make her a rather unique character stats wise, you don't have an Oswin anywhere.

Marques is a thief. His growths act as such. Perfectly happy with him: can dodge tank in a pinch and can deal decent damage with a steel sword, but you ain't using him for combat beyond that.

*Got a Speed Booster

I have a soft spot for knights. Love the fact he has 5 movement. Don't know how I feel about him turning into a sword knight, I tended to use him to tank cavaliers and fliers in particular. Lance is a better option for that than a sword. It also means he has no ranged option which hurts him. Makes him a less effective tank if he can't chuck stuff back at pesky soldiers with javelins or whatnot.

*Was hexed. Max HP is actually 31.

Solid all around unit. Mine was a tad strength screwed. Maybe knock 5% off of his hp and put it on his res to make him even closer to a true, all around unit. Either that or give him another point or two in his base res. Certainly not necessary overall, though I do feel that the team as a whole has a serious res problem. Not even the lords have good res, and they're classes that traditionally do: mage and pegasus knight.

Harold was my most screwed over unit. In 4 levels he got 1 skill, 1 speed, 3 res, 3 hp. He growths look fine, and its great to finally have a unit with good res that isn't a healer, but mine just got screwed over hard. I think in normal situations he's going to be a very valuable addition to the team.

The more all around good unit of the fliers compared to Belle's fragile speedster and Lily's... wanna-be-strength-based standings. Very useful. If you do make Lily a more Oswin like character, I'd suggest bumping up Kate's speed growth and defence growth by 5% each, just to make sure that it doesn't take her too long to be competitive with Lily. But otherwise she's a great unit, and as it currently stands is basically "Lily but better".

She's a prepromote. What did ya expect. Fun fact: anytime she could double attack with her Thunder tome, the first strike missed. Only used her for two maps, but it was a weird repeating pattern.

I used him for the first two maps I had him in, and then the final map. First unit you get that can really try to build res. Overall a pretty solid unit, I just wasn't interesting in using an archer much this time around. How short bows work really helps them out, though I'm still petrified of sending him towards the front lines with that defence.

Didn't get to use him much, but I liked what I saw. The tankerish swordsman, though Darius is taking that role from him now. Those two might overlap a lot actually. Hrm.

Glass bones run in the family apparently! Veeery much liked her bases, growths were good though like I said I couldn't help but wonder if many they should be swapped with Grace's.

Got benched almost asap. Certainly helpful in the very early chapters but, if he doesn't hit his growths well he's getting left behind. Nothing I'd say I would want changed either: Good hp, strength and speed growths, okay skill and luck. Needs to get lucky quickly.

Good unit. Just wanted to play around with the new staffs more than I wanted to use her. While she does give you a unit with res that can attack early on, her growths are very much approaching prepromote. She's basically Frederica with better skill/speed/luck in exchange for less defence. Balances out her overall utility, but they're barely good enough to keep her in the game. But, they ultimately are good enough I feel. As long as she doesn't get even slightly screwed.

Fun hack overall, looking forwards to the next release. Do feel like the group as a whole struggles against magic a tad. If some of the ideas went through that would no longer be a problem. But as it is, there's only two reliable combat units who can really take a hit from magic and largely shrug it off (Stark, Harold), with another three units who can pull it off if they get a tad res blessed (Sawyer, Axel, Lily) and Oona who can preform that duty in an emergency. Chances are high you only have two options, which can cause problems.

Edited October 23, 2016 by TheNiddo

[Sayaka]

Well have patched 1.6 and beginned a new , but short after the beginning

eagle gets screwed from that lance users , swords is no problem that is he missing sometimes, but well i will beginn a new again and dont use eagle again the axe user is really good but against swords he get a doubleowned one

oh well

i and my luck

[InvdrZim13]

Finally got imgur to work, unit breakdown time! But one minor note before that: Chapter 1-10. Felt like there were one or two waves of reinforcements too many. Got to the point of "okay enough already you can stop now I get the picture. Let me move forwards please."

[spoiler=Post Game Units Breakdown]

Belle was, overall pretty solid. She was absolutely the only unit I could use against the final boss of this demo: everyone else was getting slaughtered even attempting it if they had to eat a counter attack at all. She had a nice 4 or 5 turn 1v1 with healer support until Charles came in and popped him. As it was then I finally realized that the boss had reverse triangle and not just super dodging skills.

Anyhow: solid. A tad weaker than I would like, but never really a liability.

My Owen spent most of the game speed and defence screwed. Didn't get that last point of speed until the last map, same with the last two points of defence. Still, he was an absolute cannon. Point at enemy, enemy died.

My first play through where he wasn't crap! Overall superior to Owen, and the best out of the Lords. Great speed, decent damage, actually had Res which was a rarity in this game. Loved his tome, used it all up.

*Had one Strength Booster

Started off with several bad level ups and I was afraid I was going to have to bench him. He pulled through by mid game though. Never particularly tanky, needed help with his strength, but was a very flexable unit. I really hope you guys cut down on the fighters and add in more soldiers/mercs early game now that he no longer has any swords. Early game Eagle + Lance locked + Fighters = not a good time.

*Had one Resistance Booster

Amazing strength, good defence, enough speed to not get doubled and to double any soldier carrying a heavy lance. Very key character for Belle's side.

I like the unique staffs for her class. Made her overall more usable than Oona to me, as I could heal a hall blocking unit without putting her in counter attack range. Decent stats overall, though for a 50% magic growth I didn't hit it very much.

Very much a glass cannon type character. Fairly solid if fragile at first before her speed growth kicks in, though I kinda feel like her growth rates should be swapped with Sofia.

*Had a Defence Booster

Aaaah Lily. Lily, Lily, Lily. I wanted to like her. I really did. But like I said previously: she doesn't have speed or defences. And she really needs one or the other. I kinda understand why her defences might have started off low, to make sure she's not too similar to Kate, but her overall bases don't carry her enough. Right now, outside of strength and hp, her growths are comparable to Federica's. Who is a prepromote.

To me, there are two options. The first is to bump up her defence and resistance growths by 10% each. That puts them at 35% and 45% respectively. Drop her speed by 5%. This combination would further reinforce "this is a tanky flier". She wouldn't become the tank, that's still Darius' role between his superior defence and hp growths. And Lily would still have more speed than him thanks to her base amount. But it would let her stand out from Kate without overshadowing her.

The other option is to go full Oswin on her: give her absolutely amazing base stats and then leave her growths as in. I'm talking adding 1 skill, 2 speed, 3 luck, 2 def, 3 res. Maybe a few points of HP as well. Her bases, if going this route, should be enough to carry her for several chapters even if you weren't to use her at all. And by using her, her overall slow growths are still enough to let her stay competitive when combined with her bases. Would also make her a rather unique character stats wise, you don't have an Oswin anywhere.

Marques is a thief. His growths act as such. Perfectly happy with him: can dodge tank in a pinch and can deal decent damage with a steel sword, but you ain't using him for combat beyond that.

*Got a Speed Booster

I have a soft spot for knights. Love the fact he has 5 movement. Don't know how I feel about him turning into a sword knight, I tended to use him to tank cavaliers and fliers in particular. Lance is a better option for that than a sword. It also means he has no ranged option which hurts him. Makes him a less effective tank if he can't chuck stuff back at pesky soldiers with javelins or whatnot.

*Was hexed. Max HP is actually 31.

Solid all around unit. Mine was a tad strength screwed. Maybe knock 5% off of his hp and put it on his res to make him even closer to a true, all around unit. Either that or give him another point or two in his base res. Certainly not necessary overall, though I do feel that the team as a whole has a serious res problem. Not even the lords have good res, and they're classes that traditionally do: mage and pegasus knight.

Harold was my most screwed over unit. In 4 levels he got 1 skill, 1 speed, 3 res, 3 hp. He growths look fine, and its great to finally have a unit with good res that isn't a healer, but mine just got screwed over hard. I think in normal situations he's going to be a very valuable addition to the team.

The more all around good unit of the fliers compared to Belle's fragile speedster and Lily's... wanna-be-strength-based standings. Very useful. If you do make Lily a more Oswin like character, I'd suggest bumping up Kate's speed growth and defence growth by 5% each, just to make sure that it doesn't take her too long to be competitive with Lily. But otherwise she's a great unit, and as it currently stands is basically "Lily but better".

She's a prepromote. What did ya expect. Fun fact: anytime she could double attack with her Thunder tome, the first strike missed. Only used her for two maps, but it was a weird repeating pattern.

I used him for the first two maps I had him in, and then the final map. First unit you get that can really try to build res. Overall a pretty solid unit, I just wasn't interesting in using an archer much this time around. How short bows work really helps them out, though I'm still petrified of sending him towards the front lines with that defence.

Didn't get to use him much, but I liked what I saw. The tankerish swordsman, though Darius is taking that role from him now. Those two might overlap a lot actually. Hrm.

Glass bones run in the family apparently! Veeery much liked her bases, growths were good though like I said I couldn't help but wonder if many they should be swapped with Grace's.

Got benched almost asap. Certainly helpful in the very early chapters but, if he doesn't hit his growths well he's getting left behind. Nothing I'd say I would want changed either: Good hp, strength and speed growths, okay skill and luck. Needs to get lucky quickly.

Good unit. Just wanted to play around with the new staffs more than I wanted to use her. While she does give you a unit with res that can attack early on, her growths are very much approaching prepromote. She's basically Frederica with better skill/speed/luck in exchange for less defence. Balances out her overall utility, but they're barely good enough to keep her in the game. But, they ultimately are good enough I feel. As long as she doesn't get even slightly screwed.

Fun hack overall, looking forwards to the next release. Do feel like the group as a whole struggles against magic a tad. If some of the ideas went through that would no longer be a problem. But as it is, there's only two reliable combat units who can really take a hit from magic and largely shrug it off (Stark, Harold), with another three units who can pull it off if they get a tad res blessed (Sawyer, Axel, Lily) and Oona who can preform that duty in an emergency. Chances are high you only have two options, which can cause problems.

I'll have to look at the RES stuff but I dunno if we'll make any changes if we determine that they're fine as they are.

Glad you liked it!

[MaestroFE]

I love this hack so much,but lost motivation at last chapter cause im dumb and forgot to buy weapons.So i only have low swords and no heal anymore,i didnt pay attention,so iam asking,are we gonna be able to use our last save for the next part or not ? cause if not im just gonna wait for the next update to play the whole thing.

[InvdrZim13]

I love this hack so much,but lost motivation at last chapter cause im dumb and forgot to buy weapons.So i only have low swords and no heal anymore,i didnt pay attention,so iam asking,are we gonna be able to use our last save for the next part or not ? cause if not im just gonna wait for the next update to play the whole thing.

v1.6 will be compatible with the next release.

[edge999]

So far I'm having a lot of fun with the second part of this hack. It's very well made

I'm on chapter 1-10. There's a unit who I believe is recruitable named

[spoiler={option}]

Kate

I don't want to miss out recruiting her. Am I supposed to talk to her with someone or just beat her and she joins later? Can't seem to with Belle.

[InvdrZim13]

So far I'm having a lot of fun with the second part of this hack. It's very well made

I'm on chapter 1-10. There's a unit who I believe is recruitable named

[spoiler={option}]

Kate

I don't want to miss out recruiting her. Am I supposed to talk to her with someone or just beat her and she joins later? Can't seem to with Belle.

You use Rika to get her.

[edge999]

You use Rika to get her.

Right on. Thanks for the fast reply. I'll deploy her.

[Minimo]

Im in the last chapter, just seized the throne but after that the screen goes black. Does the patch ends at this point? Because im seeing pictures of routes and dialogue after seizing the throne, which i dont get.

[InvdrZim13]

Im in the last chapter, just seized the throne but after that the screen goes black. Does the patch ends at this point? Because im seeing pictures of routes and dialogue after seizing the throne, which i dont get.

There should be things going on after you seize, send me a save or a savestate and I'll take a look.

[InvdrZim13]

Alright so it appears that the asm routine we were running to restore a unit's HP when they were hexed is making the game just go to black instead of running the ending event. If you're affected by this issue, download v1.6.1, patch it over a clean ROM, rename it to whatever you named your old ROM, open up the save, end the chapter again, and it should work fine.

[Webber88]

So I was using cheats, as one does. To get master seals and such. As well as items and weps. And I noticed that on some of the Allies they can use the staff that halves hp on Allies. Also I'd like to know how to rank up my Lords without turning then into Erika and eiphram classes, also I think that all the special classes, clerics, thieves, and others should get more paths to upgrade into to make the choices you make feel like it matters more, or just to give players options. Btw I feel I should add that I do love the rom

[Webber88]

So I was using cheats, as one does. To get master seals and such. As well as items and weps. And I noticed that on some of the Allies they can use the staff that halves hp on Allies. Also I'd like to know how to rank up my Lords without turning then into Erika and eiphram classes, also I think that all the special classes, clerics, thieves, and others should get more paths to upgrade into to make the choices you make feel like it matters more, or just to give players options. Btw I feel I should add that I do love the rom btw staves give more do than the rods. Also maybe a bug but you can't access one the flier that becomes the Griffin flier by pressing r.

[InvdrZim13]

Also I'd like to know how to rank up my Lords without turning then into Erika and eiphram classes

You don't. The promoted animations aren't ready, This shouldn't come as a surprise given no promotion items were given during act 1 and they won't be promoting normally anyway.

Also maybe a bug but you can't access one the flier that becomes the Griffin flier by pressing r.

I don't even know what this means.

[Webber88]

So the flier Kate I can't access her stats page while in combat. I can access her stats page while at the planning stage but not after the chapter started.

[InvdrZim13]

So the flier Kate I can't access her stats page while in combat. I can access her stats page while at the planning stage but not after the chapter started.

I'm having no issue accessing her stats, whatever bug that is was fixed

[urug99]

Might be helpful to know what you actually did to kate, since the bug is most likely due to you altering her stats with items... I had no trouble with Kate either, although I've only had her for a couple chapters now.

Not sure what you mean by having "more options" for special classes, but in vanilla FE8 they both have 2 classes to promote to. Not sure what zim has planned, but not sure we really need more than 2 options. I do think it'd be neat to see some more customized promotion options for the generic classes tho. (I always thought thieves would be cool with a bow)

Enjoying it so far guys, it's been taking me a while but I'm almost there =P

[InvdrZim13]

Might be helpful to know what you actually did to kate, since the bug is most likely due to you altering her stats with items... I had no trouble with Kate either, although I've only had her for a couple chapters now.

Not sure what you mean by having "more options" for special classes, but in vanilla FE8 they both have 2 classes to promote to. Not sure what zim has planned, but not sure we really need more than 2 options. I do think it'd be neat to see some more customized promotion options for the generic classes tho. (I always thought thieves would be cool with a bow)

Enjoying it so far guys, it's been taking me a while but I'm almost there =P

There was an issue with Kate's Griffon Rider promotion option, we've since fixed that. Although if you do break something in your ROM through cheats, it's your problem and not mine.

There's actually ~3 promotion options for most classes. Except thieves because any third class we tried to think of felt shoehorned in and lame.

[urug99]

Nice 3 promotions huh.... and Kate gets a griffon!? So are these new options all new promotions or do some crossover to the other classes? I'm curious to see what you end up doing with the lords too, especially belle, since I doubt she is gonna get rid of her stead. I don't really see her wielding axes either, possibly a lance, but I'm thinking shes gonna get a bow or staff. (actually since this is SoA I'm betting she will get staves)

[InvdrZim13]

I'm curious to see what you end up doing with the lords too, especially belle, since I doubt she is gonna get rid of her stead. I don't really see her wielding axes either, possibly a lance, but I'm thinking shes gonna get a bow or staff. (actually since this is SoA I'm betting she will get staves)

That'd spoil the surprise

[Alusq]

She gets 15 mov :Lilina: :Lilina: :Lilina: :Lilina: :Lilina:

Edited November 6, 2016 by Alusq

[TheNiddo]

Hrm, 3rd thief option...

Cutpurse: can't use lockpicks or open locks without keys, but automatically steals a stealable item off of an enemy when attacking them/stealing an item doesn't end their turn (which ever one is more easy to program). Caps would probably be marginally higher than a Rogue's overall, with lessor promotion gains.

In theory able to steal multiple items in one turn if you go with the second option, or able to at least steal + kill in one turn with the first option. Rogues have more utility, Assassins have more killing power.