ROM Hacks: Skies of Arcadia: Legends Maeson Released

[Imaynotbehere4long]

I guess the idea of the developers was "He has been kicked in the ass twice, he's weak at this point and just desperate"

Funny; I would've assumed the opposite since he's fused with Zelos at that point (and Zelos has been built up as being super special awesome). Is it possible to give Ramirez 2 Pyrulen or something? Maybe give his normal attack a % chance to cause green swirly instead of down arrow? (especially since he already uses the mass-down-arrow spell)

[Maeson]

Funny; I would've assumed the opposite since he's fused with Zelos at that point (and Zelos has been built up as being super special awesome)

Just trying to make sense of the developers making the final boss so easy... I mean, you defeat them while being as big as a city, and in the next fight they're not much bigger than you, and doing way less damage than Ramirez alone. I really can't see another reason if it was intended to be like this.

Trying to change his abilities for others made the game freeze, I tried it before (My first idea was to give him the abilities he used in the battle before, but when that didn't work i tried magic, which also was futile, it also doeesn't help that there's pretty much no information anywhere). I had to go through several sceens +2 boss fights to test each time just to see the game freeze when he was going to do something, which was quite annoying too.

I even thought about changing Drilnos entirely for the enemies (as they have their own spell tables) and making it a damaging spell just for this reason alone (And then giving Ramirez 2 high Will). Or even turning Eternum into a "hit all" spell with high silver damage, problem is I don't know if the animation would make the game freeze, but that would affect other enemies and bosses, too, which would make balancing it a headache (Although I could try it at least, if Eternum is limited enough, I need to check how many enemies have such spell).

Heck, I gave the bastard 999 Power to see if it changed anything with his skills and... No, not really (it has 800 Attack as of now).

Edit: As I expected, the Eternum thing didin't work... It just harms one character, and then the game stops. Drilnos is used by too many enemies to change it.

I'm sorry. I will leave him like that for now.

Edit 2:

YEEEEEESSSSS!  At last I found how to increase Destruction's damage, oh god, I've never been happier to see 9999 damage. Now I can make it a strong move so he can use it his two fights, and finally giving Ramirez 2 something strong. Jesus, my head hurts. I need to sleep.

Edit 3:

I've been messing with this a bit more.

Destruction now is quite more powerful (Originally it was slightly weaker than a normal attack), Ramirez will use it in both on foot parts of the final confrontation, with Ramirez 2 doing more damage with it. It still retains it's special effect of removing all the beneficial effects of your characters.

Now between the last part of the final boss will be more challenging than before. I also increased his HP from 27.000 to 30.000, not that big of an increase, but after the two previous phases I think it's enough, and much less boring than the 50.000 it had in previous versions.

That's all for now. The hack will be updated in it's RHDN page.

Now I'll go to sleep. Thank god tomorrow is holiday where I live.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Whoa, congrats on finally figuring out how to modify Ramirez 2's attacks! I know the feeling when you just can't figure out how to get something to work, then suddenly it hits you and you get it working as intended (though I imagine it'd be more cathartic for you since you had to go through two bosses to test each time). I'll see if I can make more time to play this again, especially since there are still a few bounties I haven't defeated yet (the one between Vize and Lapen is still labeled as "????????").

[Maeson]

Thank you! I'm quite happy.

During tests, Ramirez 2 would do around 2500/3000 with Destruction with his 800 Attack (depending on your gear/level and if you had Silver damage reduction), which is quite decent damage as he has only 1 action for each round, and you have four (one of the reasons why bosses in the original game were easy and I wanted to add minions or another boss). Ramirez 1 would do less with it, but it still hurts and he has help and other attacks too.

About that bounty (I'll put it in spoilers just in case you want to discover it yourself):

Spoiler

You're missing the Ixa'ness Demons. You need to find a discovery, the Ixa'Ness village before they appear on the overworld.

The discovery is on an island southwest of Horteka, the island itself is covered with forests, and the village is in one of the few spots without them.

After that you should go to the black merchant to see if the bounty appears on the list. And after that you should enter Horteka (the city) and go talk to TikaTika (The guy looking outside the city, the one who imitates a bird), which will join your crew (great member!), and will also trigger the Ixa'Ness Demons to appear near the discovery.

Good Luck!

[close]

EDIT: Okay, I'm quite ashamed to say this, but I done goof with the last patches.

I need to redo them, because the exact bytes that make Destruction do the new damage didn't save in the build I used to create them. I was testing a patched iso just in case I and I just catched this issue.

If for some reason someone wants the explanation is this:

Spoiler

Destruction has data more than once in the game's code. One of it works like any normal skill, but the other one (the one that Ramirez 2 uses) has some of its data emptied, which made any attempt to improve its damage to be ignored completely. But changing some bytes (pretty much "finishing" how it should be) I found out that it could read the damage you wanted it to do.

When I made the patch, I most probably fucked up somewhere, because those bytes weren't overwrited.

[close]

I'm fixing it. I'm very sorry for this oversight. The prior patches didn't do anything harmful at all, just not fixing Destruction.

I'll get to the Pal version as soon as I can.

EDIT 2:

Okay, "crisis averted". The correct patches have been put into the RAR, and the hack's page is being updated.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Vashzaron]

I didn't see it noted as a bug so not sure if it's known or not already but that 60hz patch for the PAL version causes huge audio desync in cutscenes or stuff like special moves.

[Maeson]

Sadly, yes, the sound doesn't match the speed increase (from 25 frames to 30) and it causes said issue as the sound seems to work dfferently than in other games, and does not happen with other 60hz patches (or codes if you are using Ralph-GCforever cheats).

I was asked to do it and decided to share it, but I'm personally not that happy with it.

[Vashzaron]

Ah too bad, was hoping it was unknown for a chance there was potentially a fix for it. Personally I would rather play at 25FPS than deal with that.

Spoiler

Well with Dolphin either that or a Widescreen hack for NTSC-U that doesn't stretch the HUD, one already exists for PAL but not NTSC. 

[close]

Anyway thanks for making this hack man. As a Skies of Arcadia fan, liking it so far and what I've read of the changes in the read me and this thread. 

[Maeson]

Yeah. I think I would rather play at 25 frames too (Well, I rather play the NTSC-US version but whatever), but as I said I got asked to do it, so I thought maybe more people would like to have it, and I added it.

With other 60hz hacks I made, this doesn't happen (For example the Mario Parties, or Wario World work like they should). I don't know why exactly this one does this, but it's sad.

Anyway thanks for making this hack man. As a Skies of Arcadia fan, liking it so far and what I've read of the changes in the read me and this thread. 

I hope you enjoy it!

EDIT: Version 1.47b is being uploaded to the hack's page!

This small revision is mostly for the PAL version, as I went and looked at the list of enemy abilities and compared it to the NTSC version. There were a couple of moves that didn't had their power updated to the most recent NTSC version, so I corrected them. I'm probably getting close to a Final version, if nothing else pops up.

Until the RAR gets updated, here's my Dropbox Link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y4wx2qzsbjyt2o3/SOAL%20Maeson%20mod%201-47b.rar?dl=0

Also, I just saw the review of my hack made by evittalex.
I don't know if you will read this, but let me say: Thank you for such nice words, I don't know if I really deserve that praise, but surely, you made my day!

[Vashzaron]

Been playing up to Ixa'Taka now and yeah got to say really like what you have done here, I especially liked the close call for me that was the Executioner

Spoiler

Then my first Game Over was due to Eterni spam by a bunch of monsters   

[close]

Tiny question, is some weapon effects not listed in desc in game on purpose or because you forgot? For example Cupil Blade didn't list sleep ingame.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

I'll see if I can make more time to play this again

Nine days later...

I have another question: does Lord Bane not scale with the rest of the bounties? I ask because that was one of the easiest battles in the game (up there with pre-1.47 Ramirez 2 and Muraji). Seriously: the Ixa'ness Demons have Chak Mol, which does ~3500 damage to all and has a high chance of causing fatigue; Daikokuya has Golden Flurry, which does ~3800 damage to all and has a high chance of causing confusion; Lord Bane has Explosive Powder, which does ~2000 damage and has a high chance of causing the player laugh at how weak he is (especially after the build up in his Wanted List profile). He didn't even use the move that much; I think it was, like, once or twice in the entire battle.

At first, I didn't think that was it; I thought there was going to be another battle against him that was more difficult (especially since Vyse says that he ran away), but I checked the Sailor's Guild, and I got my bounty; I checked a walk-through, and that was the last time he was mentioned.

In fact, I intentionally didn't save after I beat him because I just know that you're going to go back and make the boss harder, right? Right??

If you can't change his stats that much, maybe you could at least start him off with some more Zivilyn Banes? Then again, a single Cutlass Fury can all but wipe out a Zivilyn Bane (~3500 damage). Maybe you could add another Lord Bane and change the bounty to say "Lord Banes"?


P.S. Is it possible for you to make Ramirez 2 scale in difficulty like the Wanted List bounties? If so, that could help keep him challenging even in comparison to the bounties.

[Maeson]

And I thought I could rest from hacking a bit!

Well, for parts:

The way the game makes these optional bosses scale is by checking the level of Vyse (of your party), and then grabs one of the different versions of the boss to fight with, the higher the level the bigger the increase in his/her/their stats.

That means if one Optional boss has a "Lvl 40" version and a "Lvl44" version, and you're, let's say, Level 42, you get to fight the Lvl44 version, and such. They're their own entry in the enemy data, and because of that they take many many slots.

In fact, I intentionally didn't save after I beat him because I just know that you're going to go back and make the boss harder, right? Right??

Well, if you ask it like that, I could consider it...

I took a quick look at the enemy data and yes, it seems that Lord Bane can't hold his badass title compared to the stats of the other bounties. I need to do some personal things right now, but I'll get to it once I come back home.

I'll increase his offense, maybe a bit more HP, take a look at his abilities, and make the Zivilyn banes he summons a bit more powerful too.

About Ramirez 2, sadly I can't, for several reasons:

The game is not programmed to check the level of the group before a boss fight.
Yo would need to create new data for the several versions of Ramirez 2, which is pretty much not possible as far as I know (If you put bigger files than the ones it expects, the game crashes, also happens with textures for example).
The game has up to 255 slots for enemies it seems (FF), and the game has already 254. The optional bosses take almost a hundred slots for themselves.

I don't know if it could be done somehow, but I freely admit that it's way beyond my abilities (which rank just above "Monkey slapping at a keyboard"). And besides, He already does ~3000 damage to the party if he feels like (I'm still happy for having found how to do it,  ).

Been playing up to Ixa'Taka now and yeah got to say really like what you have done here, I especially liked the close call for me that was the Executioner

Spoiler

Then my first Game Over was due to Eterni spam by a bunch of monsters   

[close]

Tiny question, is some weapon effects not listed in desc in game on purpose or because you forgot? For example Cupil Blade didn't list sleep ingame.

I never expected one of my things would end up being streamed. Now I'm nervous.

About the description, are you playing the NTSC or PAL version? I'll check that too, the descriptions are not very organized in the game's code so probably I skipped it or something stupid like that.

Thank you for having fun!

EDIT:

Okay, 1.48 Here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/owaazoviivh601j/SOAL%20Maeson%20mod%201-48.rar?dl=0

Changes:
Lord Bane received improvements to his stats. Now he should hit quite a bit harder, and also got his HP increased (but not by much). His Zivilyn henchmen had their Power increased slightly too.

The Cupil Blade transformation had it's description corrected, now it says that inflicts Sleep on the enemy.

Thank you both for the feedback! I'll update the hack page.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

All right, I defeated all the bounties, got all the crew members, had a slight detour when I realized that Piastol existed (so glad I didn't need all the moonfish for that), and beat the game again. Now that I'm done with the game, I have a couple more things to ask:

1) What's the new %-chance Ramirez 2 will use Destruction? He only used it once during the entire battle. Also, can Ramirez 1 use Destruction at all anymore? Just curious.

2) Is it possible to make it so that the Polly Specials, Urala's Lunches, and Ilchymixes do different things? I know there isn't a wide variety of things items can do, but there isn't a reason to switch Polly and Urala on the island (unless the player runs out of that one type of fish), and both are practically made obsolete when Ilchymis comes along since he gives the player ten Ilchymixes at once. Maybe make it so that one restores all HP, but not MP, another restores all MP, but not HP, and the last one restores all HP and MP, but only to one party member or something.

Again, great job with the patch.


P.S. If you haven't done this already, I recommend going through a full run of the game with the latest patch. I'm sure a bunch of little things have changed since you last played a full game, and it would be wise to try to see how it all comes together (especially the new Alpha Storm and new Lambda Burst).

EDIT: Is it possible to change what crew members can do? I ask because Merida is kinda useless.

[Maeson]

Both Ramirez fights can use Destruction, and the chances of him using it are random like other enemies, but he's more inclined to use Destruction if you use buffing abilities of any kind (Power up, Speed up, Regeneration, etc).

I tried fighting Ramirez 2 several times (Which is kinda boring going through all of it time after time) and sometimes he used it once, sometimes he used it more consistenly. In fact one time he kicked my ass using it three times in a row, which NEVER happened to me in years upon years of playing this game.

About the items, it was one of the things I couldn't find a balance I wanted. Your idea is similar of what I wanted at first, which was to nerf the Ilchymixes (as they're the easier ones to obtain), but I never ended up doing it. I think to make Ilchymixes healing only HP or MP, and leaving both Urala and Polly's specials being the same as they take more effort. But first I need to see if those changes would work as intended, as sometimes you could get unwanted results.

Again, great job with the patch.

Thank you!

P.S. If you haven't done this already, I recommend going through a full run of the game with the latest patch. I'm sure a bunch of little things have changed since you last played a full game, and it would be wise to try to see how it all comes together (especially the new Alpha Storm and new Lambda Burst).

EDIT: Is it possible to change what crew members can do? I ask because Merida is kinda useless.

Oh yeah, I've been thinking about giving it a complete go in it's actual state.

But I need some time for it though, and I'm rather short of it lately. Not only real life matters, but also I'm about to finish two other things I've been messing with that have being eating most of my free time, and I'm quite anxious to finish and rest from Rom Hacking for a while (I love it but it takes too much time, worst part being test-playing everything). I want to release those and go hide under a rock and forget about everything for some time, if that makes any sense. I haven't touched a game that wasn't hacking/play-testing for months.

But definitely it's on my mind and once I get to it, probably make a final version ironing out any little thing that I see (Although of course that's if I see something to be improved).

The thing with Merida is that it is a mechanic that ended being unused. At one point in development you could buy and sell ships (Which, in all honesty, could have been really, really cool to me) but we ended with two story-driven ships, so the value of the ship is, as you said, kinda useless. I thought she was needed for a Swashbuckler Rating but it seems I was making that up in my mind...

I don't know if the game will like changing Merida's effect, I never tried. Maybe give her the same ability that Pow has, and let the player have the character they like the most would be the best option, as giving her one effect from the other characters slots would break the choice-making idea of the crew member system. I'll have to look.

But again, I need to test it first, because I don't know how the game would respond.

And, as always, thanks for your feedback. By the way, Happy new year!


EDIT: Okay, here we go:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/miis0yn7yx735zr/SOAL%20Maeson%20mod%201-49.rar?dl=0

Changes:

Ilchymix now recovers all the MP from the party, and only MP. You can only use it outside of battle like before. This way the dishes made by Polly and Urala will be more useful, and no longer made pointless by Ilchymixes.

Merida now gives a passive bonus of 15 to the Quick to the ship, instead of increasing the value which did nothing. She now has something worth to offer.

Descriptions for both things were also updated too. The hack's page is being updated.

Edit 2: I updated the hack again, because of a small oversight. You can download it again by using the same Dropbox link, or wait for the hack's page to be updated to 1.49a.

[Taikocuya]

Hello revered Maeson,

I'm the guy who programmed the Skies of Arcadia Legends Examiner and I'm having to say: I'm very impressed with your excellent work and good to know that someone is using my ALX hacking tools.

However, I have one question: Did you know, that I updated the ALX tools to 2.3.0 about a year ago? I implemented many new features, which can enormously helpful and time-saving for you:

• Support of NTSC-J, NTSC-U and PAL-E
• Character skills (Super Moves and Magics)
• Character stats (EXP curves, Magic EXP curves and parameters)
• Crew members
• Enemy ship stats
• Enemy skills (Super Moves and Magics)
• Enemy stats (action patterns, encounters, events and parameters)
• Items (accessories, armors, ship cannons, ship accessories, ship items, special items, usable items and weapons)
• Playable ship stats

Best regards,

Taikocuya

[Auriga]

Maeson the Legend

Just Wanted to say a massive thanks for making this mod played through it during the version which had the turtle boss fight which would crash the game. Then you immediately fixed it. The hack itself was amazing it really added substance to some of the more underwhelming fights and made the experience way better. Just want to point out one thing which happened which others don't seem to have mentioned, when I used a healing salve 2/2 times, 2nd time to make sure, it did not apply the heal and instead fully restored my SP(Slightly Game-breaking). I realise since my run you have patched it many many times and it may be fixed by now but just felt something this perfect needs to be kept perfect. Once again I and I am sure many others thank you for the hard work you have done. 

Best Regards David (Eire) 

[thunderstorm910]

Hello revered Maeson,

I'm the guy who programmed the Skies of Arcadia Legends Examiner and I'm having to say: I'm very impressed with your excellent work and good to know that someone is using my ALX hacking tools.

However, I have one question: Did you know, that I updated the ALX tools to 2.3.0 about a year ago? I implemented many new features, which can enormously helpful and time-saving for you:

• Support of NTSC-J, NTSC-U and PAL-E
• Character skills (Super Moves and Magics)
• Character stats (EXP curves, Magic EXP curves and parameters)
• Crew members
• Enemy ship stats
• Enemy skills (Super Moves and Magics)
• Enemy stats (action patterns, encounters, events and parameters)
• Items (accessories, armors, ship cannons, ship accessories, ship items, special items, usable items and weapons)
• Playable ship stats

Best regards,

Taikocuya

The legend emerges..

[nl255]

Well having gotten around to replaying Skies of Arcadia again and using the latest version of your patch I see it has been improved quite a bit compared to when I last played it with patch 1.2.  The first boss is definitely easier/more balanced and feels less like a luck based mission than before.  I also noticed the drop rate for silvite rings seems to be higher making it fairly easy to get 4 of them before even entering Maramba as while they are no longer quite as necessary as they were in vanilla the standard Delta Shield/Justice Shield combo is more expensive so it is a good idea to get at least 4 early on.  Of course, getting Sacrum as early as possible (ideally before you go to Valua the first time, or at least before you fight the boss in the sewers) is still highly recommended and is easy to do.

Note that in this playthrough I haven't reached the final boss(es) yet or fought the bonus bounty (one of the three secrets) but I have done everything except that.

[DrROBschiz]

Hey Maeson!

Absolutely Incredible work. I have been absolutely dying to replay this game and have been hoping for a remaster or remake for years now. Thankfully we have amazing people in the community willing to breathe new life into beloved titles!

I believe I was able to apply the patch correctly but in the opening what are some of the first things I can look for to ensure that the patch is actually working? As of now I already noticed the B Button hack doesn't appear functional so I will have to look into that but it does worry me that I may have made a mistake somewhere.

Has anyone else had issues with the included B Button IPS patch for 1.5?

[Timfollery]

Hey, just heard about this patch. Seems exactly what I wanted!
Anyone tried using it with the undubbed rom by Netqork? Is it compatible?
The hash is different, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Thanks!

Undub hash

CRC-32:   EE8698CB
MD-5:   64478b011dc4ad070020d5e7495d37a0

[close]

[Maeson]

Sorry, I don't look at the forums much.

The B Button patch works on my end. Have in mind that if you tested it during the introduction after Alfonso turns on the alarms, I believe those "random battles" aren't normal, they are turned off or on by interacting with the switch. Try if the patch works once you can sail around and the encounters are normal.

About the undub, it depends entirely on if that modification shifts any data.

I would check myself, but I've been unable to find a working link to get to it, or to a patch to apply.