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


InvdrZim13

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Farther along in the game now, still haven't gotten to the split quite yet but I'm enjoying the addition of the new enemy unit types. 

I have noticed something though when comparing two units, in particular Kate vs Lily, though I'll also throw in Belle as the other similar unit for comparison purposes. 

Lily: 65/60/40/30/35/35/45 - 310% total
Kate: 80/40/40/35/35/40/50 - 320% total
Belle: 55/40/45/50/55/20/30 - 295% total

This seems... rather lopsided. Kate has better speed, def, res, and hp growth while Lily only wins in strength growth. And while Lily joins 2 chapters earlier and has more time to grow in that sense before Kate joins, Kate's bases are better than Lily's. And then in general Kate has the best growth rates out of all 3 fliers (seems weird to me that Belle's growth rate is lower while being one of the main lords). A bit of PEMN involved here but Kate with only one level up is thrashing my level 11 Lily fairly hard. 

Lily - Level 11: 27/14/9/9/6/5/7
Kate - Level 9 : 34/9/11/11/6/9/13
Belle - Level 10: 32/10/12/13/9/5/4 - (Had the HP increase item used on them)

Lily has a clear strength advantage, but with Kate using using a stronger weapon class and a starting skill that's a lot more consistent for increasing her attack (and def even further) than Lily's starting skill due to more action during the enemy's turn than the player's turn. And then Kate beats or ties Lily in everything else. Belle is overall behind both of them but she's clearly a class cannon type unit who had a few bad level ups in this particular run so I'm less concerned about her. 

For balancing the three flying units though, I'd recommend chipping off a few growth %s from Kate. I absolutely love the fact that she actually has a Res growth as I felt in earlier versions of the game it was a struggle to find somebody who could take a magic hit well. I'd recommend knocking Kate's speed and strength down 5% each, while bumping Lily's speed up by 5%. At the same time I'd increase Belle's strength and skill growths by another 5% each. And then for starting stats I'd recommend maybe chipping of a few points of HP from Kate (say 31), as well as speed (down to 9, maybe give her 12 con so she's only losing 1 speed with a Steel Axe). I think this would give all three more defined roles when comparing among them:

- Kate would be the defensive tank who struggles with offence, but can patch it up a bit between her weapon class and her personal skill.
- Belle would be the glass cannon of the three who can't take a hit but dodges a lot and deals a lot of damage through doubles and criticals, and doubles down on it when she's below 75% HP.
- Lily would be in the middle between the two: highest strength but speed low enough to keep her from doubling consistently, but can gain a few more with her personal skill, and in general gets a lot more 1SKs. She can take a hit but she's not taking multiple in rapid succession like Kate can. 

EDIT: https://imgur.com/a/kLXDcok Is the thief in that image supposed to show up there? 

 

Edited by TheNiddo
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2 hours ago, vDroBluntz said:

In sawyers route 2-4 after u get denial and defeat the boss after they get done talking the game just pops back up to the main screen and makes u redo the mission 

That would be because that's where the game ends for the time being. 2-4 is the last chapter in the current version no matter which path you choose.

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Okay, so I haven't actually finished playing the game yet (I've gotten up to 2-3O and haven't tried Sawyer's route yet), so this comment will be my first impressions with some of the new characters for now, along with the other changes. 

Spoiler

The new 1-4 was a lot of fun! I like the meaningful decision of whether you go left for the easy route that sacrifices your ability to get the treasures, or go right and face-first into the big group of enemies in the hopes of opening all three chests. Now, onto the character and other changes. 

Upon reading the patch notes, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was this: "Steel Axe changed to D-Rank". NOOOOOOOOO why you have to do Charles like that ;~; But seriously though, Charles's main selling point before was his ability to use super-Steel axes without being weighed down. Now that Steel Axes are now D-rank, all his skill does now is make steel axes worthless to him, since iron does the exact same damage. Nowadays his massive Con is only good for not getting weighed down (much) by the slayer axe weapons, and being a mounted axe unit. The latter and him being my favorite unit in previous versions lead me to keep using him despite his stats not being very good compared to my 2.0 run with him. . 

Eagle performed so well in chapter 1 that I thought I'd actually end up using him on my main squad this time around; his skill lets him 1-round both southern soldiers on enemy phase, after all. Unfortunately, after looking at his raw stats after a few level ups, he fell behind again, so he got benched. Again. 

Axel, on the other hand, ended up being amazing. Great defenses and high speed, and reasonable strength to boot. His new skill is very nice, and he comes with a good 1-2 weapon as well. Definitely will be remaining on my squad. Ended up replacing Lily on my roster (I know I said I'd be using my Speedwings on her in a previous post, but w/e). 

Sawyer still can't catch a break with his magic growths ;~; However, his innate skill is absolutely ridiculous. Like, why is this even a thing? A buff to allies based on how many allies are near Sawyer? This leads to some ridiculously high numbers, especially when you have Marques who can double up on the benefits. 

And then there's Kate... oh, Kate. This new version of Kate is an absolute monster. Her defenses are incredible to start with, but combine them with her innate skill that reduces damage on enemy phase, and Kate proves to be a seriously powerful tank. I hadn't realized just how strong she was until 2-1O and 2-2O. In both of these levels, there's a group of pegasi/griffins out over the water, which will assail your army within a few turns. There's even an Arbalest among them in order to dissuade fliers from intercepting (though the 2-2 one only has a Brave Lance, so... doesn't really count?) Anyway. In 2-1O, Kate was able to take out the entire flight group with a few well-placed supporting shots from Stark to take out the more troublesome enemies (she even tanked an Arbalest shot to the face). In 2-2O, I was able to just send Kate over to the enemy flight group with a Hand Axe and watch as they spent the next few turns dogfighting and barely doing any damage to Kate (the only one that could actually hurt Kate during enemy phase was the aforementioned Brave Lance user, and even then, it didn't hurt much). 

It's nice that you gave Grace a weapon with built in crit to compliment her Stark support bonuses (I have her at B-support with him now, and she gets up to 40-50 crit, depending on weapon triangle). However, what's not so nice is you giving a bunch of random enemy mercenaries the same random crit weapon. I cannot tell you how many times I had to restart a level because a random merc with a Broadsword landed a random crit. Really frustrating, TBH. Giving the enemy soldiers Pikes worked out better because they're just glorified Javelins. 

Also, and this is more of a bug report: neither of the Purge Bishops in 2-3O can't actually use their tomes due to their light magic rank not being high enough. 

Edited by WhiteyMcFly
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Well I have yet to see it mentioned here or the FEU counterpart post but at least on chapter 1-F if you  ever reset the game and not restart the map then all the talk commands load up again, including the  recruitment conversations that give weapons , which also happen again.

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I like the flying pegasi magic unit (Nephalim), they look awesome.  Will they have a unique evolution like a Falcoknight who can use magic and staves? 

Loving the 2.1 patch changes so far. 

Edited by FE7 Blaze
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16 minutes ago, FE7 Blaze said:

Will they have a unique evolution like a Falcoknight who can use magic and staves? 

They should be able to promote but aren't able to which will be fixed in the next update. Magic yes, staves absolutely not, they'd invalidate every other magic user.

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On 11/17/2018 at 12:57 PM, TheNiddo said:

Farther along in the game now, still haven't gotten to the split quite yet but I'm enjoying the addition of the new enemy unit types. 

I have noticed something though when comparing two units, in particular Kate vs Lily, though I'll also throw in Belle as the other similar unit for comparison purposes. 

Lily: 65/60/40/30/35/35/45 - 310% total
Kate: 80/40/40/35/35/40/50 - 320% total
Belle: 55/40/45/50/55/20/30 - 295% total

This seems... rather lopsided. Kate has better speed, def, res, and hp growth while Lily only wins in strength growth. And while Lily joins 2 chapters earlier and has more time to grow in that sense before Kate joins, Kate's bases are better than Lily's. And then in general Kate has the best growth rates out of all 3 fliers (seems weird to me that Belle's growth rate is lower while being one of the main lords). A bit of PEMN involved here but Kate with only one level up is thrashing my level 11 Lily fairly hard. 

Lily - Level 11: 27/14/9/9/6/5/7
Kate - Level 9 : 34/9/11/11/6/9/13
Belle - Level 10: 32/10/12/13/9/5/4 - (Had the HP increase item used on them)

Lily has a clear strength advantage, but with Kate using using a stronger weapon class and a starting skill that's a lot more consistent for increasing her attack (and def even further) than Lily's starting skill due to more action during the enemy's turn than the player's turn. And then Kate beats or ties Lily in everything else. Belle is overall behind both of them but she's clearly a class cannon type unit who had a few bad level ups in this particular run so I'm less concerned about her. 

For balancing the three flying units though, I'd recommend chipping off a few growth %s from Kate. I absolutely love the fact that she actually has a Res growth as I felt in earlier versions of the game it was a struggle to find somebody who could take a magic hit well. I'd recommend knocking Kate's speed and strength down 5% each, while bumping Lily's speed up by 5%. At the same time I'd increase Belle's strength and skill growths by another 5% each. And then for starting stats I'd recommend maybe chipping of a few points of HP from Kate (say 31), as well as speed (down to 9, maybe give her 12 con so she's only losing 1 speed with a Steel Axe). I think this would give all three more defined roles when comparing among them:

- Kate would be the defensive tank who struggles with offence, but can patch it up a bit between her weapon class and her personal skill.
- Belle would be the glass cannon of the three who can't take a hit but dodges a lot and deals a lot of damage through doubles and criticals, and doubles down on it when she's below 75% HP.
- Lily would be in the middle between the two: highest strength but speed low enough to keep her from doubling consistently, but can gain a few more with her personal skill, and in general gets a lot more 1SKs. She can take a hit but she's not taking multiple in rapid succession like Kate can. 

EDIT: https://imgur.com/a/kLXDcok Is the thief in that image supposed to show up there? 

 

when comparing units you should be using average stat increases not the level ups you have had in your playthrough, giving characters a 5% buff or nerf changes almost nothing, (that's one stat point per 20 level ups), giving Kate 12 con isn't a good idea from a non-gameplay standpoint, as she would be larger than characters like Marcus. if you believe there should be actual changes, then you should suggest changes to bases. However, for the most part I feel like SOA is very well balanced, I'm certain that they have taken into account many aspects of balancing, and they will take care of necessary changes. (not trying to be rude just pointing out my disagreements with your suggestions) 

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I was focused primarily on the percentages, not my actual stat gains. I even pointed out the whole PEMN thing, the stat gains are just a set of numbers they can look at so they can see how somebody's playthrough can look like at that point outside of their testing group. I'm also aware 5% change on average is a chance of 1 level up, I did throw in a few base stat changes as well. I went with %s over the base stats for two reasons: I want small changes (which is why I mainly went with growth rates), and you have to leave room to account for the fact Lily has a chance to have a level lead over Kate (which means potentially even if Kate has better stats end game, Lily's headstart is enough to keep her in the party). 

I've suggested similar changes before for another ROM, and they made a noticeable impact for the character in question. On paper a mere 5% chance should only chance 1 stat point total. But then you have to remember that playthroughs never strictly follow the growth rates to the letter, you have to account for how moving something by 5% effects the odds of a character being blessed or cursed in their level ups as well. Or how that 5% on average lets them get that point of speed a chapter or two sooner and how that impacts things. Something I've heard before from game developers that stuck with me is that when making balancing changes you don't want to impact what you're changing by more than 3-5% at a time. I'm looking at changing the characters' total power by something roughly in that range in their respective directions for my suggestions. 

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Alright! I just finished playing through both Owen's and Sawyer's routes, so I suppose it's about time I give my final impressions on this particular patch. Seeing as I already gave a number of lengthy impressions on 2.0 earlier, I'm going to curtail my analysis to the changes I've seen, and my results with different characters. 

 

Spoiler

First off: level changes. 

1-12: Cut by three is right! This level got a lot smaller. On the one hand, it makes sense for something that's not the end of the hack to be smaller, but at the same time... this is the Fortuitan capital you're invading. I did enjoy the beginning portion where there were squads you had to fight off on both sides as you carefully advanced forward. Now the forward advance is simple. I think it's too easy to bait out the miniboss without getting in range of the other units in the area, too. I do also miss how, after you've already gotten your troops into the castle, there was a big wave of enemies coming up from the rear that you had to defend against in a 3-wide choke-point. It was fun picking out the best units to put whin each spot to deal with whatever units were about to come their way. Something I -do- like, however, is the choice to move Sofia and Nero to the east side, where the treasure room is. It lets me actually play with them a little more after freeing them (instead of before, where by the time I'd freed them I'd already cleared out most of the castle). 

O2-2: The turn limit seems to be the only change here, and from a story perspective it's a welcome one. Granted, I was able to clear out the entire map with multiple turns to spare, but I think that the level of difficulty is just about right.

O2-3: I like the total redesign of this chapter. In the previous iteration you could complete the chapter turn 1 if you really wanted to; in this version, however, that's just not possible. I like the multiple possible paths you can take here. However, something that irks me as a completionist is how the two thieves of the map scatter in two different directions, making it extremely difficult if not impossible to get Marques to steal from both of them while still having time to defeat the boss. Having to choose between a White Gem and an Energy Ring hurts a bit, but I ended up going with the former this time around. 

S2-2: Not a total redesign, but at least one change I noticed in the enemies present was changing one flier from an Arbalest to a Harrier. Definitely made Kate's life easier. However, the enemy pirate that's supposed to be the timer on the western village simply doesn't move at all anymore. Even so, I liked to pretend that I was in a rush to save that village, so I sent Kate and Julia (mostly Kate) to save it quickly. 

S2-3 This level definitely felt easier than when I played it in version 2.0. This is probably because the northwest and northeast sides alternated instead of coming at the same time (I don't actually know if this is the case; my memory of 2.0's S2-3 is a bit hazy). Anyway, Kate and Julia were able to handle the north by themselves here, whereas, after breaking through the initial archers with Charles, Horace, and Sofia, Sofia was able to handle all of the attack waves from the east by herself with her Shamshir. Axel and Sawyer handled the mercenary waves to the west, and the OTP murder squad of Grace and Stark took care of the south (and eventually the boss and his druid lackey). One change that I'm not sure how I think about is that defeating the boss ends the chapter early, unlike in version 2.0. While it is nice to have a way of instantly relieving the pressure, not realizing that killing the boss ends the chapter meant that I had to restart once in order to get all the collectibles. Also: the Nomad Troopers don't have sprites yet, and one of them had a longbow it couldn't use.

S2-4: I really enjoyed the redesign of this level! The right side of the map feels important this time around, since enemies actually come from there in a timely manner. Once I got to the point of clearing out the center, I ended up needing to spread out my forces to all corners of the map to handle the reinforcements that came from every direction. Thankfully two or three were enough to handle each side in most cases (though the north side took a little more of a presence). One of the enemy nomads had a longbow it couldn't use, though. A common theme I noticed about Sawyer's route is that in multiple instances you are encouraged to spread your forces thin in order to defend from multiple directions at once. While it is a fun dynamic, it also helps to lower the impact of Sawyer's Font of Magic skill that I'd complained about in an earlier post for being too powerful in the early game.

 

And now... the character changes! At least the ones that I noticed.

Sawyer: This guy got a full redesign of his skills, making him much more of a team player than before. Makes for some silly number increases in the early game, but in his route where the levels encourage you to split up your forces to defend from multiple fronts, it has less of an impact than I thought it would. A nice example how level design helps to keep an otherwise extremely powerful skill in check.

Grace: Changing her early game weapon loadout to the Broadsword and Zanbato was a nice quality of life change, and once I started focusing on getting the GracexStark support as high as I could as fast as I could, I was able to get Grace to play Swordmaster with just an Iron Sword (with more crits from the broadsword). It's a bit limiting having to have Grace and Stark tied at the hip in order for the former to be a strong unit, but Stark benefits some too, so that's okay. My only complaint about her is that her growths really lend her to choose Ranger as her promotion path, since that's the promotion that makes best use of her speed... but if she does, she loses access to the broadsword. 

Sofia: I put Sofia here next because she and Grace are very similar, stats-wise. Grace with a nearby B or A-supporting Stark ends up working out pretty much the same as Sofia when she holds her Shamshir. Perhaps this was due to luck being on Sofia's side this time around, but Sofia actually ended up being more powerful than Grace. I'm unsure about the choice of skill for myrmidons, since negating enemy Dodge chance isn't the most tangible of benefits (you can only really see the difference if you go into the enemy stat screen to specifically tell how much dodge they have). Her skill is very high already, so the extra hit chance isn't that necessary. I'm just glad the character from my favorite class ended up being powerful in this playthrough. Also, I really appreciate the increase in Shamshir durability; it let me use it with impunity, which helped get her kills I would have normally avoided in order to save the weapon. 

Nero: Two times I tried to use Nero. Two times he fell short of usefulness and needed to be benched. It's a shame, since I really wanted to use him so that I could stack even more support bonuses onto Grace. But Nero's base speed is simply too slow; he gets doubled by too many things, and his inherent bulk and damage simply aren't enough to compensate. For the record: I dropped Darius pretty early on, too; I already had Kate if I needed someone to hold the line, and my Axel had gotten a lot of defense and resistance this time in case I needed a second person to hold the line. In Owen's route, Edmund also proves a better tank. Nero seems like he'd make a good Hero with investment, but I didn't really feel like I could baby him. At least Sofia could get kills on her own pretty easily, thanks to her high-durability Shamshir. 

Kate: I already said this about Kate, but she proved to be an incredible enemy phase unit. Just plop her in the middle of a bunch of enemy units and watch her wreck shop. Unfortunately her player phase leaves much to be desired (especially since I got unlucky with her strength growths; hindsight says I should have invested an energy ring or two into her). I have no complaints about her. She fills the niche of resistance tank better than any other, since her defense (at least for me) was also very high. 

Lily: I unfortunately didn't give her much of a chance since I wanted to try the Axel that had for once gotten good level-ups for me. Her innate skill change to higher damage and lower attack speed does hurt a bit, though. 

Julia: And here we have the introduction of the new Nephalim class, complete with a brand new innate skill that basically makes her reverse Eagle! Out of sheer curiosity for the new class I forced myself to use her at the cost of certain other units I'd have liked to try (sorry Kane, but my axe roster was already full of Kate and Charles). I have to say: I am very impressed by how she turned out. Kinda squishy, but nicely evasive and has some good power behind her spells. Whereas the wide open maps of Sawyer's route hindered Sawyer's skill use, Julia's mobility was able to shine thanks to the map design. With the way her stats turned out, Julia pretty much became a more competent version of Sawyer (without the mage-slaying tome, of course). I look forward to when she'll be able to promote. 

Edmund: His skill changed from being better at dealing with adjacent units to him being a better mage-killer. I consider it to be something of a nerf seeing as I didn't have him fighting many mages (and when I did, the extra 2 damage never hit any breakpoints). He's still an incredible unit, though. 

 

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On 11/22/2018 at 3:57 AM, WhiteyMcFly said:

 

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I'm unsure about the choice of skill for myrmidons, since negating enemy Dodge chance isn't the most tangible of benefits (you can only really see the difference if you go into the enemy stat screen to specifically tell how much dodge they have). Her skill is very high already, so the extra hit chance isn't that necessary. 

 

 

Dodge is your Critical avoid, and doesnt affect hit rate at all.  The skill basically just makes the crit rate you see when looking at their stat screen the crit rate you will get during battle.  I am unsure if it affects enemies with the Hoplon Guard, though.  

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I noticed something on chapter 2-3S that isn't a bug, but may need to be changed. The enemies on the right are placed in a way that if you place a unit in the right spot, they can't be attacked because of the enemy movement order.  Anyone can just stand there, never be attacked, and hold the choke just fine.  This was a very helpful trick during my 0% growths playthrough, but I wouldn't mind the challenge if it was removed. Also, the nomads have the image of griffon riders on their stat screen.

Screenshot_2018-11-27-09-50-02.png

Screenshot_2018-11-27-09-50-07.png

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Hey just a bit of feedback for the new patch regarding the new infantry class only weapons: I think they are an awesome addition in the players hands making Grace and Axel much more viable, which they needed imo.

But (just in my opinion) I sort of dislike them in the enemies hands, just give them slightly higher STR/SKL/SPD if they are supposed to be scarier, I think there are too many enemies with random 10-15% crit right now, it often makes it tedious to play around them, because you either have to playerphase them or bait them with someone supremely tanky.

That's of course just my two cents, if this is what you were going for I respect it and I still think it's one of the finest hacks out there in basically all areas.

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Hey, just started replaying after getting the latest update! An observation: When I promote Axel his promotions have the wrong palette. Instead of having purple armor they all have blue palette (except for the Landsknecht one which seems to be the same color regardless of character eg, Darius). Same happens with Marques, his Assassin sprite has grey clothes and red hair and his rouge sprite is blue with blond hair. Is this intentional? As in, a TBD thing or a bug?

EDIT: Happens with Stark too

Edited by HexWall
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4 hours ago, HexWall said:

Hey, just started replaying after getting the latest update! An observation: When I promote Axel his promotions have the wrong palette. Instead of having purple armor they all have blue palette (except for the Landsknecht one which seems to be the same color regardless of character eg, Darius). Same happens with Marques, his Assassin sprite has grey clothes and red hair and his rouge sprite is blue with blond hair. Is this intentional? As in, a TBD thing or a bug?

Most promoted palettes aren't done and just use the default colors.

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