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


InvdrZim13

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2 hours ago, Tharja123 said:

Do you have anyone you ship in staff of Ages

We as devs don't really take sides in shipping, really. Even characters who are implied to already have feelings for each other (like Grace and Nero) have alternate romantic options should the player pair them differently when supports come out.

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21 minutes ago, InvdrZim13 said:

I'm pretty sure if I answer that's just called what's canon.

Boh (Sawyer exclusive character) canonically promotes to Druid because Shannara.

And yeah, that's it. We don't take sides, but we do eat popcorn and watch.

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Want to see some of what's in store for Act 2 of Staff of Ages? Tune in tomorrow around 2-3pm EST where we'll be joining Mangs in showcasing what's in store for you in Act 2!

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1 hour ago, InvdrZim13 said:

Want to see some of what's in store for Act 2 of Staff of Ages? Tune in tomorrow around 2-3pm EST where we'll be joining Mangs in showcasing what's in store for you in Act 2!

UGGGGHHHHHH I wanna watch it so badly, but I don't wanna spoil myself for what's in Act 2!!! 

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I apologize for sounding impatient/entitled. I didn't want to spoil myself on the story so I didn't watch the stream. I just got excited when I heard that there was going to be a "direct" which meant I was kind of expecting a new update or at least a release date. Keep up the good work and I will play it whenever you complete it.

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28 minutes ago, Tempo said:

I apologize for sounding impatient/entitled. I didn't want to spoil myself on the story so I didn't watch the stream. I just got excited when I heard that there was going to be a "direct" which meant I was kind of expecting a new update or at least a release date. Keep up the good work and I will play it whenever you complete it.

Current estimation is summer but the last estimation was last chrismas so release dates don't mean a whole lot.

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Replayed the latest release, have to say that I think the drop in difficulty compared to the earlier version I played was welcome. Really nice job, everything seems pretty well polished and thought out, kudos to the dev team for putting together some fun and tough maps. I never felt the maps were unfair. I like that you aren't afraid to arm the enemy with strong weapons either. I've seen some critical feedback about the overall difficulty of the hack, and I didn't think it was too overwhelming. I definitely had to play slower than I normally would, but I never felt like the challenge was insurmountable or that the only way forward would be to sack units.

The writing has definitely gotten better too, think the Federica stuff makes way more sense in this version than it did in the older version. Of the characters that get loads of screentime, Owen is probably my favorite and plays the 'straight man' really well with the cast of more extreme personalities like Sawyer and Belle.

If I have any constructive feedback on units, it's that I found Eagle hard to use - generally in mainline FE games, cavs are sturdy and hard hitting enough to fill a number of roles, in addition to their utility with mounts, however, between a force-deployed Belle, and Lily (and her gargantuan strength), I found Eagle a little too mediocre to really fit in anywhere, because he was inferior to the other mounted units I had without the perk of being able to fly. Perhaps I was unlucky or didn't give him enough of a chance, but even early on he was the least impressive unit. I'm curious if buffing his growths or bases slightly (I think skill was the only stat I had above 10 by level 7 besides HP), would help make him more viable. He was a pretty easy choice to bench. Again, I may have simply gotten poor level ups with him and great level ups with others, but in both runs of the game I've done, Eagle has been fairly disappointing.

Harold also doesn't really stand out, considering there isn't a ton of differentiation between magic (not your fault), and Sawyer and Owen are both story-relevant so you are encouraged to use them. Federica has a ton of advantages over Harold and they join at the same time.  Perhaps if Harold joined a little earlier, that may allow him to shine a bit more so that the player can see his growths a bit. His skills are nifty, but he still doesn't offer anything advantageous over the other magic users. I'm sure if I tried to use him, he would be fine, but considering the difficulty of the hack peaks during the time he's around, it's hard to justify using a unit without any clear benefits over others who fill a niche much more clearly (Stark as your bow user, Darius as the armor, etc.) I get it if he is a backup character should someone get screwed, but it would be nice if there was more incentive to use him up front. 

None of the characters felt overwhelmingly powerful either, no one was able to consistently one shot without an effective weapon, but I'd say Stark, Charles, and Darius were by far the most useful characters in my army, but I still needed to be somewhat careful with them. I like that no one could juggernaut, and also liked that there were no master seals in Part 1 - I capped Darius and Stark during the final chapter, and most of my army was around level 13-18. On the flip side, I think I just got unlucky with Belle (9 strength at level 13?), but she grew progressively more irrelevant as my other units snowballed and she stagnated. I definitely had a bad Owen (many 1 or 2 point level ups), but he was still a perfectly serviceable mage, even if he was mostly doing chip damage.

Additionally, I think more incentive to use Marques on the Kate map would've been nice. The following chapter there were a few stealables on opposite sides of the map, which I liked a lot. I'm a big fan of this and look forward to having to make more difficult choices about what I want without knowing what comes later. Similarly, I liked that the Restore staff was available in the shop and the game threw a ton of status staves at you in the final act, rewarding the player for making the investment, taking only the hint that you can buy this as a reason to purchase it.

Looking forward to v1.8! Watched the Mangs stream and am looking forward to trying the Owen route first. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hooray my finals are done. Hopefully I'll be able to sneeze out the last two maps, get everything tested and fixed, and get all the art that needs to be in done within a few weeks.

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I really enjoy the changes made so far, and I'm really looking forward to the finished product. In particular, I really enjoy the story. More so than even the main Fire Emblem series, SoA does a great job addressing the subjective nature of war and in creating great anti-villains. Seneca is far greater than just about anything IS has done, especially the first part of Radiant Dawn. What I'm anxious for is seeing how you handle Oberon. It seems like it will be really easy to get him wrong. You do a great job with gray villains so far, so I hope that you are able to keep him above the normal "evil for the lulz!" attitude that many FE villains have. 

As a minor critique, it would be nice to see the hexing rod curable with a restore staff. In order to give it some more power, increase its usage to three, along with its hit rate. Therefore, a staff wielder could use it to fell tanks, but not ruin a tank for the rest of the chapter. 

I further hope that it might be possible to do the branching paths simultaneously, akin to Radiant Dawn and Echoes. Then players could take up the job of rationing characters between the two different parties. I always thought that FE Sacred Stones would have been better for the simultaneous Erika and Ephraim paths. That said, I do understand if this is asking for too much. If the paths are not simultaneous, it would be cool if you had to fight the character that you did not choose. For example, if I choose Sawyer, then perhaps Owen under the orders of Federica gets possessed or just goes full on Bramimond. He seeks out order and peace, whereas Sawyer seeks out radical freedoms, perhaps even destroying the monarchy itself after becoming so disillusioned with how the monarchy can so easily be manipulated to serve personal ends. If something along these lines is done, then SoA will also blow FE Fates completely out of the water. 

It is also cool how the situational dialogue works so far. It is definitely unique and adds a lot to chapters in ways that normal supports might not. Especially if you decide to go with cannon paired endings (i.e. Belle and Charles, Owen and Oona, etc.) then a bit more fleshed out talking options might be a good way to explore certain relationships more in depth as opposed to covering a lot of interactions in a shallow manner. 

As for everything else, the unit design is amazing, the reliance on theft for resources (and a good thief unit for this purpose) is clever and interesting, maps require forethought and strategy, and overall I cannot praise this enough. This really seems not only professionally done, but a masterpiece of turn based strategy. Keep up the great work, and I'll continue checking teh site daily for the release of part 2. 

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I really enjoy the changes made so far, and I'm really looking forward to the finished product. In particular, I really enjoy the story. More so than even the main Fire Emblem series, SoA does a great job addressing the subjective nature of war and in creating great anti-villains. Seneca is far greater than just about anything IS has done, especially the first part of Radiant Dawn. What I'm anxious for is seeing how you handle Oberon. It seems like it will be really easy to get him wrong. You do a great job with gray villains so far, so I hope that you are able to keep him above the normal "evil for the lulz!" attitude that many FE villains have. 

As a minor critique, it would be nice to see the hexing rod curable with a restore staff. In order to give it some more power, increase its usage to three, along with its hit rate. Therefore, a staff wielder could use it to fell tanks, but not ruin a tank for the rest of the chapter. 

I further hope that it might be possible to do the branching paths simultaneously, akin to Radiant Dawn and Echoes. Then players could take up the job of rationing characters between the two different parties. I always thought that FE Sacred Stones would have been better for the simultaneous Erika and Ephraim paths. That said, I do understand if this is asking for too much. If the paths are not simultaneous, it would be cool if you had to fight the character that you did not choose. For example, if I choose Sawyer, then perhaps Owen under the orders of Federica gets possessed or just goes full on Bramimond. He seeks out order and peace, whereas Sawyer seeks out radical freedoms, perhaps even destroying the monarchy itself after becoming so disillusioned with how the monarchy can so easily be manipulated to serve personal ends. If something along these lines is done, then SoA will also blow FE Fates completely out of the water. 

It is also cool how the situational dialogue works so far. It is definitely unique and adds a lot to chapters in ways that normal supports might not. Especially if you decide to go with cannon paired endings (i.e. Belle and Charles, Owen and Oona, etc.) then a bit more fleshed out talking options might be a good way to explore certain relationships more in depth as opposed to covering a lot of interactions in a shallow manner. 

As for everything else, the unit design is amazing, the reliance on theft for resources (and a good thief unit for this purpose) is clever and interesting, maps require forethought and strategy, and overall I cannot praise this enough. This really seems not only professionally done, but a masterpiece of turn based strategy. Keep up the great work, and I'll continue checking teh site daily for the release of part 2. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
23 minutes ago, AzuraxCorrin(M)4Life said:

Hi wondering if I could make a fanfiction using the staff of ages characters will be on wattpad promise to mention you

I mean sure, you don't exactly need permission for fanfiction.

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I want to say this is my first comment on the site, how do I get this game to run on the VisualBoyAdvance Emulator, I can't get it to run the rom but the emulator can run a normal Sacred Stones rom, any advice?

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22 hours ago, CNU said:

I want to say this is my first comment on the site, how do I get this game to run on the VisualBoyAdvance Emulator, I can't get it to run the rom but the emulator can run a normal Sacred Stones rom, any advice

Edited by Street Hero
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