Wip projects for the 7th saga (Snes)

[Special]

Yeah I guess they are horns after looking into it a little more.



But then you have images like this one that make them look like flat ears or wings or whatever...

[Zorlac]

I think レジース Lejes Rimul looks much more like a demon race in the エルナード Elnard manual:



The cover seems to do a better job as well:

[IrohDW]

Someone here has shown interest in my 7th Saga Magic and Speed code, which allows the magic and speed stats to go up to 999. I don't have an ips patch, but the source code is in my Dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dom8mg893l87g58/AAB1v-wfbud8uisBe1DqDbYKa?dl=0

I have decided to post a link to the latest version of my 7th Saga 3.0 patch as well as a list of the major ASM changes in it, and how each character plays.

7th Saga 3.0: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2rj1hsy0g5o95qu/7th%20Saga%2B3.0.ips?dl=0

ASM Changes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f015qvwd7mfpq0y/ASM%20Changes.docx?dl=0

Let me know what you guys think of it.

[Manamiko]

Let me know what you guys think of it.

You are friggin awesome. I am currently playing through on Esuna at lvl 16 in patrof, grinding up.

[Special]

I always get excited when I see ROM hacks of 7th Saga, but just skimming your doc notes... you've made 7th Saga piss easy, ruins everything I like about this game, even though there are some nice things about it like items sorted by ID's.

[IrohDW]

It is only easy if you grind. One of the important changes I made to the game was to greatly reduce the need for grinding in order to progress, especially at the beginning.

There are parts of the game that are difficult for each character, due to their differing weaknesses. Especially at the mid and late game. One thing I didn't mention in those notes is that level 2 attack spells and multi target attack spells have a LOT more spell power, so you will take a lot more damage at certain points in the game. Enemy stats are also very different (and often higher) than in the original game. Some enemies have very high physical attacks that will wreck you if you aren't at a high enough level, or don't have a good team. This is especially true for the apprentice battles. Some matchups are a lot harder than the original, but others are easier.

I've beaten the game many times with each character solo, as well as with partners, so the overall flow of the game is something that is very well understood for me. If you have any specific issues you want to discuss from your experience actually playing my romhack, let me know.

[Special]

I  disagree with the way you handled it then, it's now just another https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/843/ in a different coat of paint.

-You've removed the Magic & Speed caps from 255 to 999
-Removed any penalties of dying (Gold loss.)
-Stat growths buffed almost 33% higher, stat Seeds are also hugely buffed.
-Character Crits are hugely buffed, some even by x2, (Lux, WTF?)
-Changing the Apprentice numbers is one of the highlights of the US version, Removing an optional Superboss from the game... (Lame.)
-Exp Reduction with partner... (now it's almost impossible to not over grind and make things piss easy.)
-Pretty much all Items/Magic/Runes hugely overpoweringly buffed in some way.

Spirit of the game pretty much killed IMO, can't really comment about Enemy stats because you don't document them, but by seeing what was documented like from above, it doesn't leave me with any hope, like blanket doubled HP across the board type balance...

[IrohDW]

The magic and speed caps are not a game feature, it is an artificial limit created by storing those stats on 1 byte instead of 2. I don't understand why you would praise the game for this. It is bad game design that really hurts the more magic based characters in the endgame.

The penalty for death leads to changes in player behavior. People will reset or use savestates to prevent losing their money. This is especially important in my romhack, because you need to save as much money as you can to buy seeds at Melenam. If you die in my romhack the penalty is that you lose your time.

The character crits are a big buff to physical attacks, but due to other changes, magic attacks are far more effective in terms of dealing damage in most situations. This buff gives characters more individuality on their physical damage, and gives more uses for it. The reason Lux has such a high crit rate is because, as a robot, he can transform the shape of his hand as he attacks (he mentions this if you talk to him when the game starts). It makes logical sense that he would have a high crit rate considering this. It also fits his gameplay. Lux has the least utility of any character in the game, so the few things he can do, he MUST do well, or he would be useless. The same is true for his abilities. It makes NO SENSE for a robot to be poisoned or have their life drained from them, so I made him immune to these things. It not only makes logical sense, but it makes Lux more unique as a character and prevents him from being crippled by too many debuffs due to his low speed. Although to be fair, Defense 2 causes him far more problems than poison would.

Balancing the apprentice battles is one of the most difficult challenges I have faced in this project. If I allow the original Elnard bonuses, many characters can be killed in 1 hit due to how much more damage magic can do, and how overpowered that bonus was. Certain matchups are still very difficult because of this. Esuna can still 1HKO some characters like Wilme occasionally due to her magic crit ability. Furthermore, to say that the Elnard bonuses are a highlight is going a little far. After a certain point in the game, apprentice battles become virtually impossible.

I'm considering changing the exp reduction with partner, for awhile I had it at 25% and I'm starting to think that would be a better solution to balancing solo runs VS. partner runs. All I have to do to make the game a lot more difficult is lower the EXP gain from enemies. this is not a huge or difficult to solve problem. In fact, even as things are, there are still a few places where I expect players to grind.

I don't know what you mean by almost all items/runes buffed. The only runes that are different are light, moon, and star. Star and Light are buffed, but Moon is nerfed due to the power spell itself being heavily nerfed. The Light rune buff to magic attack as well as defense makes logical sense for what it is, and lets you feel more overpowered before the game takes it away from you. The lore of the runes is that whoever has them is basically invincible, and my changes to them fit that. The items I buffed are minor ones that you normally wouldn't use anyway (such as b fire/ice). Even with those buffs, their use is still situational. Most items haven't been changed, except to make their cost reflect their usefulness.

As for spells, many of the spell buffs also apply when enemies use them against you. For example, attack magic and poison deal a lot more damage to you, enemies use more buffs, debuffs, and higher level spells against you, and Defense2, HP Catcher, and MP Catcher are much more debilitating when used against you than in the original game. You seem to only consider the buffs I gave to the player without also considering other changes that make the game more challenging. To call my romhack another easytype is way off the mark. My version plays and feels very different from the original. It's fine if you don't like that, but let's not pretend that this is simply an easier version of the original game, because it isn't.

Here is a link to a zip that has all of the changes to the game I made in my 7th Saga Editor. This includes changes to items, character data, equipment, monsters, etc. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ehkmdjxwv78yuph/7th%20Saga%2B%20Editor%20Changes.zip?dl=0

[Manamiko]

A bad habit of mine, and you are correct that early game transitions pretty well, is grinding that may take away from some of the difficulty, but it certainly doesn't prevent it. I am running Esuna special, and even when in Pell, the despair's fire bird attack was easily dealing 60-70 dmg when cast against me and I was sporting an 85-100 hp pool. Its power stat was just as formidable. Brains and Blue Demons could also give me trouble if I wasn't careful. It isn't "easy" and it is more than the "LOL POWER/BPOWER DEF/ATK faceroll buttons" grind that most are used to. Before you pass judgement , play it through at least somewhat. I am not knocking your view, but I can say first hand that the difficulty does ramp up, you have to pay attention and actually UTILIZE turns, and everything feels refreshing. Imagine the spiders in the dungeon before the patrof apprentice battle where two spiders spawn , and they have a decent chance of popping def 2 on you, poisoning seems to occur more often, each turn zaps 10% hp and if they both hit you without a dodge or def buff up, you're dead. Just try it :3

Edit: Sorry about the off topic john

[IrohDW]

Esuna is my favorite character to play as due to her high versatility, great magic damage, and magic crits, but she is the most fragile character in the game, and her usefulness goes way down against monsters with high ice res, especially metal enemies. She can often kill her enemies quickly, but if she can't, she can die very quickly.

The greatest danger in the early game is the magic spells, particularly when enemies start using F_Bird/Blizzard1/Thunder1 between Pell and Bone. There is a big difficulty spike in the North Continent because that is when monsters start using level 2 attack spells.

Something to keep in mind is that I grouped monsters into families, and each family has different resistances to each element. The variation in elemental and status resistances is much higher than in the original game. Each monster family also has visual ques, so you can usually tell what families a monster is in by its appearance. Here is the file containing all monster families: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fsoy58fxfke4g80/Monster%20Families.xlsx?dl=0

[Special]

The magic and speed caps are not a game feature, it is an artificial limit created by storing those stats on 1 byte instead of 2. I don't understand why you would praise the game for this. It is bad game design that really hurts the more magic based characters in the endgame.

It's called balance, when you remove caps like this, and if the enemey balance don't take this into account (again, cannot comment on your enemy changes) you end up being even more overpowered then you could be previously because those caps were an upper limit of some of your power level.

to say that the Elnard bonuses are a highlight is going a little far. After a certain point in the game, apprentice battles become virtually impossible.

This is just false, someone before already said it better, so I'll just quote them.

You can't ever *really* get stuck up against a wall in 7th Saga. First of all, you only have to encounter 2 "enemy" apprentices in the game.

First, in Patrof. However while this seems incredibly daunting, the level for this apprentice is actually frozen from the first time you encounter them (technically the first time you pass through Eygus). So you can out-level that apprentice the same way you could any other boss in the game. A lot of people just overlook this fact because they assume it's a normal apprentice battle and therefore works the same.

The second encounter is the apprentice who steals the Sky Rune (yes, this always happens, you cannot "beat" them to the Sky Rune). However, in most runs you don't *have* to beat this apprentice. I don't know the exact rules, but I've found that under most situations you can almost always get them to join-up with you, instead. I think it might even be a hard rule in the game that they *have* to offer to join you (someone here can probably dispute that). Even if that's not the case, it's always possible to pick a good sidekick, kill your main character, then level your sidekick up until *they* can bulldoze the Sky Rune apprentice.

With all that said, I don't see the enemy apprentice situation as a big negative. The only way you can really get yourself "stuck against the wall" is if you let a random apprentice kill you, steal all of your runes (including Wind) and then save. But... I've never understood why anyone would *ever* do that. Even from my very first run of the game as a young child, that seemed like a pretty obvious reset scenario.

So if we discount it as a negative, then we have to ask, are there any advantages to it? Well, in my opinion, yes. The enemy apprentices working the way they work in 7th Saga gives the game an accidental baked-in "Secret Boss" situation. Instead of having to have a dedicated boss like Emerald Weapon and Ruby weapon, in 7th Saga the ultimate challenge is a level 80 Lux, or a level 80 Valsu. Even once you're long past the point where Gorsia will crumble under you, the enemy apprentices still represent a challenge, with the only catch being you have to stay in the Present if you want to tackle the truly hardest obstacles the game has to offer.

So personally... I don't know that I really *do* see this romhack as being a true "improvement" on 7th Saga as it stands today. If it makes you enjoy the game more personally then you should absolutely play it and I won't judge you for it. Games are to have fun, after all. But for me, the overpowered apprentices is generally something people worry about too much, because they don't really impact your game, by and large. Most runs, you'll only ever have to kill *one* apprentice, ever. and that's the Patrof one, whose level is frozen and they won't grow with you.

[IrohDW]

Special, all you've done thus far is complain that my romhack doesn't suit you (despite not playing it), ignore my counterarguments, and take what I say out of context. I am not going to waste my time talking to you under those circumstances. If you had read the documentation I posted earlier today, you would have noticed that enemies also have over 255 magic/speed. Your correction on being able to defeat enemy apprentices at level 80, while partially correct, has nothing to do with what I said.

It seems that your only interest is in the difficulty of 7th Saga romhacks, and in making my romhack fit your vision for the game. If that is all you care about, feel free to look elsewhere. I have no interest in the opinions of those who criticize a game or romhack that they have never played, while refusing to listen to any counterarguments.

Manamiko, I am interested in hearing about your experience playing my romhack, feel free to let me know how it is going either in this thread, or through PMs.

[Special]

You're right, I won't waste anymore of our time on this, at least not until I give it a try. Also you should go start your own thread, this one is not about your 7th Saga project so no need to hijack it, it's for what John has cooking.

[IrohDW]

I was contacted by someone in this thread asking for my magic and speed code. This thread was my only way to respond to them. It is for that reason that I posted it here. I agree that discussion on this should be moved elsewhere, so I will make a separate thread once I have the chance to make some updates to my romhack this weekend.

[Manamiko]

For those who want to compare, this is how my run has gone so far. I am lvl 29, I defeated lux *rather easily* for the sky rune * I like playing solo, makes it harder.* I just defeated the Serpent for the Moon Rune. My stats:
HP: 207
MP: 261
Power: 112
Guard: 118
Magic: 168
Speed: 140
Weapon: 65
Defend: 70

Oh, that part about wondering if its too easy. I am wearing the ice cloak FTW. I still took 60-80 dmg from Ice 2 from the boss, and with def 1 popped it still hit me for 60-80 physically. At one point I took a crit for 120+ and almost died. The enemies are not much easier, even though the ice cloak debuffed some of their attacks afterwards such as the wyrocks and knights. This is by no means easy, but it is fun

[IrohDW]

Thanks for the update Manamiko. How difficult each area of the game is depends a lot on what character you are. Serpent is easier than average for Esuna because the ice cloak boosts her ice res, and she has high magic defense. Although physical attacks still cause her problems. I expect players to beat both Doros and Serpent at around level 30, so you are at the right level for where you are.

Here are some examples of how other characters do in Serpent's castle:

Wilme will deal a lot of damage (B. Knights and Serpent are weak to fire), but if he gets hit with ice spells, it will wreck him.

Lux, Kamil, and Olvan have the easiest time, due to them having the highest ice res and physical defense in the game, but they struggle more in Doros's castle due to the prevalence of fire monsters there.


The greater variety I created by adding different enemy attack patterns, enemy abilities, character abilities, etc. means that every character's weaknesses will be exploited in some areas more than others, but every character has a hard time at some point on their journey. The difficulty of the game is different for every character combination. This makes the game very replayable, and gives the player a reason to switch partners at different areas in the game.

One neat thing I discovered when making this romhack is that the first spell in an enemy's spell list will only be cast when they are low on health. To make things more interesting, I used this to make some bosses cast more powerful spells when they are low on health (around 25% of their maxHP). For example, Serpent will cast Blizzard2, which is WAY more powerful than her usual Ice2, and is designed to catch the player off guard. Although, it is very possible to kill her before she gets a chance to Cast Blizzard2. This mechanic is also the reason enemy apprentices will always use healing spells when they are low on HP.

[Manamiko]

I took out Doros without much of an issue, but being lvl 31 his fire 2 still dealt a solid 100+ dmg per cast. I am currently fighting Metal Pison at lvl 39 sporting an hp pool of 279. One thing I always found lack luster about this fight is the only way to fight him with magic is using the B fire/Ice attempts or having a partner after the curse is cast, which is ok. I was curious if he would be a bit more lethal so the preference of his power is up to you, but at the moment, with star rune / light rune popped, his Laser 2 only hits me for 25 dmg, and phys for 50, so it isn't much of a concern. I always wished they made him far harder in the original game because, who doesn't remember how much of a bastard he was when you fought him as Red Pison and he started wrecking us if we didnt grind first 

Edit: I did not even notice it until now, but when you have multiples of equipment (such as 4 Swords, 3 Zntes, etc) which you normally wouldnt have unless you strangely hoard or you grind the sword monster out, but, when you sell it, such as the Sword that goes for 20K, if you sell more than 1 since it sells the entire pile, you only receive the gold for a quantity of 1. So if I sell 8 Swords, instead of 160k, its 20k 

2nd Edit/Update: Even with this feature of selling, I am lvl 55 *grinding a bit before I go into the past* and I am already sitting on 770k gold. Unsure of how much seeds cost at melenam, since I saw you spoiled that in another post but I cant wait. Bed time for now! P.S. N. Brains hit significantly harder than M. Pison with their lightning spells

[NARFNra]

@FlashPV
We will definitely get a translation as long as I can find someone willing to translat the text for me. I can do all of the programming but the only Japanese to English translating I can do is through google which produces poor results. There are a few reasons why I want to translat elnard to English

Hi, I know this is a really old thread and post and I apologize for necroposting, but I found this discussion while searching on google and am interested. I graduated with a Japanese degree a few years ago and have been playing Elnard to see the differences between it and the 7th Saga, and was thinking about how much I'd like to help with a retranslation project. I tried to PM you about it, but it seems your inbox is currently full... so I thought I'd try to contact you here regarding the topic. If there's another way to get in contact with you I'd love to talk about it!

[slidelljohn]

I'm definitely interested in doing this and I can start later tonight. 7th saga is the only reason i started programming and I have many plans for it.

[4ph]

Great!
Here, you will find the Japanese script, to get an idea of what it looks like for the size a script.
http://www.lltvg.com/wiki/The_7th_Saga/Script_dump