Secret of Mana, Turbo - Beta 231108

[zoolgremlin]

hmsong  Okay, just very briefly, I hex-edited both a Vanilla ROM and a Turbo one, making Earth Slide call the function normally used by Dispel Magic.  Then I cast Wall twice, once on the Girl and once again to bounce it to an enemy.  Finally, I cast the modded Earth Slide on the enemy with Wall.  In both Vanilla and Turbo, Earth Slide did indeed bounce off the enemy and hit one of my characters.  When it bounced onto the Girl, her Wall was gone, just like you'd expect.

I don't think this is something that was introduced by any of Turbo's features, or anyone else's mod/patch.  It's Vanilla behaviour.  So unfortunately, it's... not exactly a bug, since the devs didn't intend for any other spell ID, to call the [Stamina&Charge=0_AND_Remove_OR_Reduce_Magic_Effects] function in the first place.

By the way, Lunar Magic has 8 different effects it can do, not counting the dummied-out one.  Most of those effects are more detrimental to PCs than monsters/bosses, whether the Sprite or an enemy casts it.  The reason being that all monsters are immune to Pygmy and Moogle, and all bosses are immune to Pygmy, Moogle, Transform, Confusion and Sleep.  So if Dark Lich's AI was altered to cast Lunar Magic, the only two effects that would be of any concern to him are:

-  Enemy/party HP recovered
-  Raring to go!  <TargetName>'s <stat1> <stat2> <stat3> <stat4> Up!  This one is obviously bad for him.

The first one would indeed restore all PC HP, but it would restore his too, making the battle last longer for all parties, not just one or the other.  They're both playing on a level-field, in other words.  So not that bad for ol' Thannytoss.     

Also, I forget who, but someone claimed that no enemy in Vanilla casts Lunar Magic.  There is actually one that does - Mimic Box.  The reason most people don't know about it, is that Mimic Box is usually too busy being dead, or being run away from in terror, to do that.   

Not sure why you'd want Petrify's effect to be nerfed while giving the original effect to a new Saber, though, if you think the "currHP/2" effect is ridiculous.  <shrug>

Mr. X  The idea of Dark Lich casting Moon Energy on himself (something no enemy does in Vanilla) is a pretty interesting one, and intimidating too.  Just to let you know, Vanilla Dispel Magic does not remove Moon Energy, so that'd be another thing to alter in [Stamina&Charge=0_AND_Remove_OR_Reduce_Magic_Effects], if you want it to be possible.

I honestly didn't expect this thread to be consumed by discussion about rebalancing SoM.  But... I guess if Queue doesn't mind... <shrug>   

[hmsong]

Yeah, I knew that Dispel Magic piercing Wall was a vanilla behavior.  I just wanted to figure out if there was a way to make things so that other magic can pierce Wall (Buff spells, for example, so that Mech Rider III doesn't do stupid things like casting Speed Up to your party).

I'm the one who mentioned that no enemies cast Lunar Magic.  And I must say, I did NOT know Mimic Box can do that.  I've fought that thing numerous times, but I haven't seen it use it, for the reasons you mentioned.  Thanks for the info.

I want Petrify to be nerfed, because it's the 2nd spirit you get, and you'd end up using it A LOT to mow down so many enemies throughout the entire game.  And I want Shadow Saber to be powerful, because by the time you get Shadow Saber, you'd be 2/3 or 3/4 way finished with the game.  Besides, most tough enemies (esp at the final dungeon) are Shade element, so 1/2 damage wouldn't even work (in fact, it will do LESS than the normal sword swings, since Saber damage will only do 75% to those who resists).  Besides, Petrify not only [1/2 damage + melee damage], but it also freezes the victim.  Way too OP.  At least Shadow Saber won't do that.

Halving the HP from Petrify is fine (esp since Poison and Engulf were powered up like crazy), but maybe make it immune to physical damages?  Kinda like Frost.  And speaking of which, Frost sucks.  It freezes the victim, but you can't do anything to it physically (I think Magic works).  But of course, if Frost allowed physical damage the victim, then Frost would be the same as Balloon.

I wish the creators were more creative with Status Effects.  For example, Balloon would allow victims to attack in all direction, but he can't move.  Or Engulf would allow movement (while DPS thing), but he can't attack (or cast magic or switch equipment).  There are so many creative ways to make Stat Effects less boring.

[Queue]

Version 2019-09-15:
https://ufile.io/x73if8tp

Changes:
- Added Kethinov's Herbal Boost hack; the mana cost changes are split off into their own separate options just preceding it
- Implemented Magic\Blaze_Wall_-_NPC_Version
- Implemented Magic\Blaze_Barrier_-_Replaces_Blaze_Wall; 2-10 hit (based on spell level) damage shield buff, mutually exclusive with Lucid Barrier, enemies not immune to engulf will be engulfed if they land a melee hit
- Implemented Magic\Shadow_Saber_-_Replaces_Evil_Gate; mana tapping saber buff, especially useful for the sprite to use on the girl, pretty inefficient until Shade is leveled up
- Implemented Magic\Lava_Wave_-_Engulf; reverts Spell_Power_Tweaks change to Lava Wave and gives it the engulf status effect since the girl no longer has Blaze Wall
- Implemented Text\Tangled_Up_TextFix
- Implemented Bug_Fixes\Lucid_Barrier_Defense; if the target of Lucid Barrier had 512+ defense, Lucid Barrier's defense would be calculated incorrectly

Technical Changes:
- Added more searchable "SPELL DATA"-related comments in the ZPS file; search for "SPELL DATA" (without quotes) as a shortcut to find spell related defines and data tables
- Tiny tweak to Moon Saber HUD refresh code to save 2 cycles
- Optimized SSE.Func.Detrimental.Magic_Absorb
- The data shuffle buffer at $FFFF00 given a pseudo label of %[]% to make it theoretically relocatable
- Added variable case letter defines to make Proper-caser compatibility easier when adding new spell names / descriptions:
TEXT ^B l^ a^ z^ e^ _ ^B a^ r^ r^ i^ e^ r^ \end
^-suffixed letters are lowercase with Proper-caser On, and UPPERCASE without

[zoolgremlin]

@Queue  Good to see you again.  Whoa, I didn't know that Lucid Barrier was bugged like that.  Thanks very much for the latest update.   

The HUD refreshes after landing a hit with Moon Saber just fine.  Haven't checked all the spells to see if they still work the same way, after the [Spell_System_Extensions] addition, but I'm gonna check now and then get back to the table writeups.  Hope you have a good one... 

@hmsong  Sorry for the confusion, my fault for not explaining it fully or clearly.  What I should have said, was that I think the battle system checks for a spell's ID, and if it is anything other than 0x20 (Mana Magic Sprite),  0x23 (Mana Magic Grl), or 0x26 (Dispel Magic), then it will bounce off Wall if present.  It looks like changing any other spell's pointer to call [Stamina&Charge=0_AND_Remove_OR_Reduce_Magic_Effects] does not change its ID as checked by the system, so it will still bounce, despite borrowing Shade's "spell function domain", in a sense.   

I see what you mean now about Petrify, it's about making an earlier-obtained spell less game-breaking.  Sorry, didn't think of that... 



Okay, back to the spell-test and tables.  Hi ho!

EDIT:  Silly me put the Spell IDs above in decimal, despite putting 0x before them.  Corrected.

[hmsong]

Few questions:

- Lucid Barrier has "Defense" stat of some kind?  I thought it simply nullifies damage for few hits.  And does that fix the Dispel/Lucid Barrier problem?
- I'm guessing NPC versions of Evil Gate and Blaze Wall are the same as the original Evil Gate/Blaze Wall spells?
- So... does Blaze Wall also nullify melee attacks?  Or reflect spells?  Or maybe it doesn't do any of those, and simply damages the melee enemies?
- Mana tapping?  I'm guessing it absorbs MP?  So, can it even damage enemies that DON'T have MP? (such as Rabite, Mushboom, etc).

Of course, I can simply test them and find out, but you may want to put some descriptions of these new spells.  Just a suggestion.


@zoolgremlin

Thank you for your explanation.  I didn't know that's how it worked.


Indeed, I need to do some testing too.  I couldn't really test the previous version, because I had stomach problems.
September 15, 2019, 10:23:58 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
I keep forgetting to ask:

- Where is the new Sword Drop enemy in the Mana Fortress?  I don't see any kind of new teleporter.  Maybe I just suck at spotting things.
- I don't understand how [Trip_Portraits] affects the icons.  I was comparing them, and I don't see the difference.  Can someone post the pics of difference?
- How does MSU-1 work?  It says in the description that I need to download some music files (which I did).  Do I just put that in the same folder as the patch folder?  I don't get it.

[Queue]

Quick answers; intend to write more when I get the chance.

Lucid Barrier has "Defense"[...]?

Lucid Barrier has its own hit point pool and defense. When cast, spell power / target count = Lucid Barrier Health (if it's greater than the max health of the target, instead it's capped at their max health, so boy can reach 999 Lucid Barrier Health, girl and sprite 800), Lucid Barrier Defense is target's defense divided by 2, divided by target count, but it's an 8-bit value while normal defense is 16-bit, and there was no code to account for a result >255. If Lucid Barrier Health is even 1, it will eat all the damage of an incoming hit before it drops; this might be why people thought it blocked X number of hits.

Nope, haven't modified Dispel Magic yet.

NPC versions of Evil Gate and Blaze Wall = identical to vanilla versions.

Blaze Wall also nullify melee attacks?

No, you take damage as normal; it simply engulfs enemies that hit you with melee (if they're not immune).

Yes, it absorbs MP. Its damage has no relation to enemy MP; the mana absorb is separate from otherwise normal Shade element saber damage bonus. If an enemy is a ghost/undead, you'll lose mana and they'll gain but the health damage will go as normal. None of this applies to the boy, for him it's just the standard saber damage buff and Shade element.

Farmable Sword Orb is meant to be at least a little hidden; the teleporter is in the second full-size area of the Mana Fortress (after the Buffy fight). Give it one more look but I guess I can spill the beans if you still can't find it. Honestly though, it's not invisible or anything, just one of those green teleport tiles in a slightly unusual place.

For Trim_Portraits, check the corners of the sprite's HUD picture; without there should be sprite hair in the far corners outside the yellow frame, and with, those 4 pixels are transparent.

For MSU-1, it depends on which emulator you're using, as different emulators (and the SD2SNES) have different naming and file location requirements. Tell me the emulator you're using and I can help.

[hmsong]

Thank you for your explanations on what the new spells do.  I shall experiment, if my health would allow it.

And I found it.  If you hadn't told me that it was in the 2nd part (after Buffy), I may have taken a lot longer time to find it.  Also, the teleportation back sends back to the beginning of the 2nd part instead of the initial teleporter.  Was that intentional?

What exactly is HUD picture?  Is it the normal game sprite?  Or is it the face icon on the "equipped weapon"?  Or is it the pic on the status screen?

I'm using zsnes v1.51.  Thanks in advance.

Also, for the next patch set, would you consider putting Kethinov's "Harder Final Boss" patch?  And within that, could you modify a section so that the Mana Beast resists all elements? (Mana Beast's all-element resist comes from [Useful Evil Gate] patch).  And if you end up fixing that Lucid Barrier/Dispel bug, I'd really appreciate it if you replace Mana Beast's Wall with Lucid Barrier.  Mana Beast's All-Resist will pretty much make it become immune to all spells anyways, so Wall is unnecessary.  And it won't make Mana Sword Magic so ridiculously OP.  It's gonna be a LONG battle though, but in fun (?) ways.  And it'll give Popoi something to do (aka Dispel Magic) in the final battle.

[Mr X]

My bad if the rebalancing enemies stuff is consideted off topic in your thread Queue, at least for now.

The new update looks juicy. Tho I still expect in the future some enemies or bosses to use the fire wall as a shield similar to how the girl does also, preferanly after you have gained dispel magic.

Same applies for the Evil saber.

I like the mp consumption idea behind it, but as of right now I don't find the Evil Saber overall particularly useful. Evil Saber and the more useful version of Evil Gate would also go hand to hand together, 12 mp cost but restore your mp manually, works on any enemy/boss that isn't undead/shade resistant, while being able to restore mp during said boss battle, or with the amap absorb spell, just something to think about. You wont use these on the undead enemies, but they are usable on the rest.

hmsong the spells keep getting modified, I would honestly wait on balancing out enemies/bosses in general till the spells are more or less finalized.

[Queue]

My bad if the rebalancing enemies stuff is consideted off topic in your thread Queue, at least for now.

On the contrary, I'm quite pleased. Forums are for discussion. People who don't want to read it can skip it.

Still not ready for a full response post but wanted to answer hmsong's MSU-1 question before calling it a night.

I'm using zsnes v1.51.

Okay, first, we need to verify you're using the official ZSNES 1.51 because that's the only version Turbo's MSU-1 ZSNES support works on.
For reference: https://sourceforge.net/projects/zsnes/files/zsnes/ZSNES%20v1.51/zsnesw151.zip/download
The executable, zsnesw.exe, is 594432 bytes, with hashes of:
MD5: 8e3f9f4ba68261d9976a79f842b2ecdd
SHA1: 50b379484494a7da992f40cf23bcb43b4b065e77
CRC32: 9cafb85d
If you don't know how to hash a file, don't worry about it, the file size should be good enough to confirm you're using the supported ZSNES build.

In ZSNES's CONFIG \ SOUND menu, SAMPLING RATE: must be set to 44100HZ, otherwise MSU-1 audio will play at the wrong speed (too fast or too slow, depending). The ZSNES MSU-1 code simply dumps the PCM audio data straight into its sound buffer as-is, and since the PCM files are 44100 Hz, ZSNES's audio must be set to 44100 Hz.

The standard approach is to make a new folder, and put the ROM file, MSU file, and all the PCM files in it.

Now, the critical part of using MSU-1 audio with any emulator (that supports MSU-1) is how the files are named. For most emulators, including ZSNES, the audio PCM files need to have the same filename as the ROM file. For example, if your ROM file is named:
Secret of Mana, Turbo.smc
Then all the PCM files need to be named like:
Secret of Mana, Turbo-0.pcm
Secret of Mana, Turbo-1.pcm
Secret of Mana, Turbo-58.pcm
etc.

Conversely, you can rename your ROM (and its SRM save file, and any save state ZST, ZS1, Z99, etc. files) to match the PCM files.

Any of the Secret of Mana MSU-1 downloads you'll find will have them named som_msu1-0.pcm or track-0.pcm. (So that'd mean renaming your ROM and supporting files to som_msu1.smc, som_msu1.srm, etc.)

In the SoM Turbo download, in the "readmes" folder, is a file named "SoM Turbo pcm Renamer.bat" which you can try to use to rename the PCM files. It renames the files to the "Secret of Mana, Turbo-##.pcm" pattern, but if you open the BAT file in a text editor, the fourth line is:

Code Select Expand

set romname=Secret of Mana, Turbo
Which you should be able to change and save before running it to have it rename them to a filename of your choice.

If you use the renaming BAT file, make a new folder, put the PCM files in there, along with the BAT file, and run it from within that new folder. You don't want to use it in a folder containing other files that it may accidentally rename.

Ultimately, it would look like this and work in ZSNES, Snes9x, I think SD2SNES, maybe others. Folders indicated with [brackets]. Folder depth indicated with >.

Code Select Expand

[SNES] <-- this is a folder
> Secret of Mana, Turbo.smc <-- this is the ROM file
> Secret of Mana, Turbo.msu <-- this is an empty file
> Secret of Mana, Turbo-0.pcm <-- the PCM files are in the same folder as the ROM file
> Secret of Mana, Turbo-1.pcm
> ...
> Secret of Mana, Turbo-58.pcm
> Secret of Mana, Turbo-63.pcm

ZSNES has a second option for file layout. Folders indicated with [brackets]. Folder depth indicated with >.

Code Select Expand

[SNES] <-- this is a folder
> Secret of Mana, Turbo.smc <-- this is the ROM file
> [Secret of Mana, Turbo.msu] <-- this is a folder named like a file
>> Secret of Mana, Turbo-0.pcm <-- the PCM files are within the .msu-named folder
>> Secret of Mana, Turbo-1.pcm
>> ...
>> Secret of Mana, Turbo-58.pcm
>> Secret of Mana, Turbo-63.pcm

Lastly, the MSU-1 audio linked in the Turbo patcher is someone's selection of remixes. Personally, I use music ripped from the Secret of Mana remake, but that isn't something legally shared.

[hmsong]

@Queue

Thanks.  It works.

[Queue]

Ok, here goes:

hmsong
Dispel Magic ---
When a spell lands on a target, if the target has Wall, code specifically checks if a spell is number (zero-based) 0x20, 0x23 or 0x26, to decide if it should bypass wall. This happens in code at addresses $D04CB6 (CMP #20), $D04CBA (CMP #23) and $D04CBE (CMP #26). I could probably rewrite code so that it checks for some flag on the incoming spell to decide if it bypasses Wall, but that's a fair bit of work so I'd need a reason to do it; your example of buffs bypassing Wall I don't consider adequate (Wall intentionally reflects buffs, so changing it just because of one dumb boss would mean changing tons of other circumstances when instead the boss could be changed to be less dumb).

Mana Beast ---
Here's Mana Beast AI spell assortment:

Spoiler

Code Select Expand

[ManaBeast_CastSpell_Wall]
C2/9424: A92202  LDA #$0222 ;Cast Wall On Self.
C2/9427: 801C    BRA $9445

[ManaBeast_CastSpell_Defender]
C2/9429: A90502  LDA #$0205 ;Cast Defender On Self.
C2/942C: 8017    BRA $9445

[ManaBeast_CastSpell_LunarBoost]
C2/942E: A91C02  LDA #$021C ;Cast Lunar Boost On Self.
C2/9431: 8012    BRA $9445

[ManaBeast_CastSpell_SpeedUp]
C2/9433: A90402  LDA #$0204 ;Cast Speed Up On Self.
C2/9436: 800D    BRA $9445

[ManaBeast_CastSpell_LucidBarrier]
C2/9438: A92902  LDA #$0229 ;Cast Lucid Barrier On Self.
C2/943B: 8008    BRA $9445

[ManaBeast_CastSpell_DispelMagic]
C2/943D: A92600  LDA #$0026 ;Cast Dispel Magic On Current Target.
C2/9440: 8003    BRA $9445

[ManaBeast_CastSpell_LucentBeam]
C2/9442: A92800  LDA #$0028 ;Cast Lucent Beam On Current Target.

[close]

That doesn't cover the logic for how it decides what to cast. As you can see it "knows" more spells than it actually uses, and changing some of these would probably not interact well with its AI logic (e.g. it checks itself to see if it has Wall before casting Wall, but if you changed that spell, it wouldn't get the Wall buff, so would keep casting whatever spell replaces it since that spell wouldn't give it Wall).

Changing $C293D6 from BNE $93EE (RAW D0 16) to BNE $93DD (RAW D0 05) might make him start casting the other 4 self buffs, but they'd bounce off Wall. Changing $C293D0 into a jump (BRA $93DD, RAW 80 0B) to skip all the Wall logic, so he never Walls himself and just runs the other self buff logic might be somewhat functional. His AI logic (which appears to just be hardcoded and not using the boss AI scripting like the other bosses) in general would likely need some serious attention for him to suck less though.

Engulf (and Poison) ---
Next update will have Engulf damage scaled back from 1/32 of current health, to 1/64 of current health, so its damage is weaker than poison, but obviously it still paralyzes. When play testing, I found Engulf to be a bit too much, especially since I was adding it to new stuff willy-nilly. I'll probably be slapping it on the Rising Sun boomerang as well (I've been meaning to add a feature to stick some sort of effect on the 4 non-level-one weapons that don't have any effects).

20 Spell Slots ---
Not sure how possible it will be to give any of the additional spells to the player. Most spell stuff is very hardcoded. They're in groups of 6, per element, with each group divided in half for black and white (sprite / girl; intelligence / wisdom). I haven't verified, but I also suspect which elemental summon animation to show is hardcoded to be based on which of these spell groups the spell is in. Shade and Lumina also share one group with some special-case logic so the girl's spells in that group act as Lumina spells instead of Shade.

Spell Interruption ---
Pretty sure I'd said before I like this idea. Not sure yet how to make it work, but it's on my list of stuff to figure out. Overriding animations can be pretty difficult, on top of having to figure out the right way to handle checking spell casting state when taking damage to decide if interruption should happen.

Petrify ---
Yeah, petrify is a problem. I've always just had a personal rule to never use Stone Saber because it's boring (too good), but I should probably make something so that instead it's just a valid option and not stupid. Likely the first step will be to make it do 25% damage instead of 50%. Making petrified enemies immune to melee would just make it a damaging copy of frosty, making them immune to spells seems like an okay idea but I don't know that it would actually affect any gameplay decisions... maybe I can just make it increase the victim's physical defense while its on.

Status Effects ---
I'm pretty sure the reason there is so much overlap in the status effects is due to enemy status immunities. They wanted you to be able to paralyze enemy X and Y, but didn't want you to be able to simply use the same multi-targeted spell on every enemy. They gave the various forms of paralysis slight variation for flavor, but ultimately it looks like they primarily intended for them to be paralyzing. Frosty prevents physical damage due to animation issues. I suspect enemies being immune to moogle (which is fundamentally a paralysis) is also due to animation issues (enemy moogle form is like frosty form where it has a very small animation table).

Sword Orb Teleporter ---
Yes, the exit is intended to send you back to the entrance of the second floor. There's a limited number of doors in the game's data (1024 I think?); by sheer luck there was an unused one in Mana Fortress doors (a door from the Dark Lich's room back to the empty Mech Rider III fight room) that I repurposed to send you into the new area, but using up a second door for the exit would've been wasteful. Sending you back to the entrance also provides a penalty for killing the orb droppers too quickly without letting them split / self-replicate.

Harder Final Boss ---
I've been meaning to get that imported (all of Kethinov's hacks actually; it just takes time and I prioritize the ones I personally have interest in using).

Trim Portraits ---
The interface at the bottom of the screen during combat, player faces, player health, recharge %, charge bar, etc. is the HUD (heads-up display). In video game jargon, the HUD is the interface during normal gameplay that is overlaid on the gameplay view. The term comes from aircraft where information is projected onto the cockpit window so the pilot gets information without having to look away from the window (their head stays up, looking out the window, rather than down, looking at gauges, etc.).

The little face picture on the HUD is what this feature affects. Without any status effect, the sprite's hair extends to the corners of the frame their face is in; this fixes that so the corners are rounded like for the boy and girl. It also fixes some status effect pictures that poke out at some of the corners, like moogle and frosty.

MSU-1 ---
Great! Which file naming and organization did you end up using? Did you use the BAT file?

Pretty sure you're the first person to give me any feedback on that. I did the ZSNES MSU-1 stuff for my own benefit (I develop ROM hack stuff using Snes9x Debugger, Mesen-S and BSNES, but play for fun using ZSNES, and wanted to give the remake's music a fair shake, which I think is genuinely decent), so am personally happy with it, but if anyone else found issues with it I'd still want to fix them. Jamming MSU-1 capability into ZSNES was, uhm, fairly tricky, so there are some limitations that likely aren't worth improving, but I'm always interested in feedback (even if I can't or won't act on it).



Mr X
Elemental Weakness ---
Werewolf, Evil Sword, Mimic Box, and Marmablue should all be Luna element enemies, so with Balance\Luna_And_Dryad_Weaknesses On, they should be weak to Dryad.

Buzz Bee, Mushboom, Lullabud, PolterChair, Crawler, Pumpkin Bomb, Chess Knight, Mushgloom, Trap Flower, Metal Crawler, and Nitro Pumpkin should all be Dryad element enemies.

Shade / Lumina ---
While in character stats, the girl doesn't use the Shade slot and the Sprite doesn't use the Lumina slot, in spell data and related spell code, Shade and Lumina are merged into one element. The developers clearly set them up to function as a single elemental that happens to have more art and two diametrically opposed resist values.

Spell Slots ---
If I can sanely use any of the extra spell slots for characters I will, but it doesn't look terribly likely. There are lots of issues preventing it.

Dispel Magic ---
By "magic recoil" you mean the Magic_Recharging delay? That's a great idea.

Saber Buffs ---
I think you're overthinking the ease with which a saber buff can be cleared. It doesn't really matter that you can "cure" a saber buff by changing weapons; the important part of a boss casting a saber on you is that it makes you have to react in any way, even if that reaction is to simply switch weapons. The wrong way is like Trials of Mana where you get super boned if you have a party without saber spells available to overwrite one a boss casts on you; instead of being able to react to the boss's action, you basically can't do anything aside from dying to clear the buff, which is arguably a pretty unacceptable way to be expected to react.

That's my opinion though. What isn't my opinion is why it works the way it does: the end of a saber spell animation blindly overwrites the target's weapon palette but there's no code to save these new color values for reuse, so when you switch weapon, it loads up the new weapon's colors but there's no longer any info on the saber spell's colors (so to avoid an uncolored-by-saber-buff weapon, the developers set it to clear the buff on weapon change). It could be possible to save these colors and not have the buff stripped on weapon change. It would be incredibly impractical to save saber buff status per weapon. I'm not really interested in implementing either though; the way it works already is functional enough for my tastes.

(Evil) Shadow Saber ---
In my brief play-testing so far, I've found use for it by keeping it on the girl. I generally play as the girl, so directly control who she hits to avoid hitting ghost/undead enemies. I never use Evil Gate, even in its More Useful form, so didn't consider it a loss. I do conceptually like the synergy you propose would exist between More Useful Evil Gate and Shadow Saber, but again, a 4th spell for players is a tall order.



zoolgremlin
Shade / Lumina ---
I'm 99% sure the sprite and girl only getting one was an intentional design decision. It required a fair bit of code to have the two merged to be basically one elemental for the sake of data layout. Of all the requests for extended spell data, splitting these two elementals apart so the Sprite and Girl can each get three more spells, is probably the most possible, but don't hold your breath. Would have to track down all of the hardcoded stuff related to these two to get them untangled enough to shift the Lumina data down 6 spell slots, decouple the elemental names from the spell names (the elemental names use up the 8 spell name slots after Lucid Barrier), get the spell menu ring allowing both simultaneously, the magic stats screen (I expended the spell name list but not the spell description list), yeesh, just thinking about everything it would take is making me make a face like: -_-

[Mr X]

Would have been neat if multi quote existed in times as these

There are enough spells to work around, making the current existing ones useful is more than enough, than adding new ones.

I agree that the Evil Saber is best used on the girl, as long as you wont face an undead enemy. The Sprite can restore his own mp via Luna, while the Girl restores her own mp via the Evil Saber.

Regarding the Mana Beast, I remember of all my playthroughs I think only once he casted Dispel on one of my party members, since that day I have never seen it use anything but Wall and Lucent Beam. Weird despite him apparently knowing all these spells, they are either way useless for him as long as he has wall.


Dispel Magic: Yeah, Magic Recharge Delay (lol have to get used to these terms). It gives more depth to dispel.


Agreed on your assessement about Saber buffs. That is my final stance on that too. When an enemy casts a saber magic on you you are supposed to react in any way even if it means as simply as switching weapons. Against the dark lich that may be the fastest solution, you may already hitting him with physical attacks as he casts moon saber on all your party members.

In the end thats the main concept I have for Thanathos himself, he was obsessed with the lifeforce, as the Lich he is hard to kill, and he would want to get your life force which includes HP and MP absorption, which includes said spells that will do that and unorthodox meanings too like casting saber spells on your party.

He doesnt need different elemental spells to damage your party. 1-2 are enough, Evil Gate and Dispel are enough, at best dark force too as another damaging spell but not necessary for him. Not like the team has any weaknesses that he needs to be good at nothing with all these useless spells for "variety" lol.

Now he gained his new possible friend "Evil Saber"

[Queue]

The Mana Beast only casts Dispel Magic if his target has Wall on (preferentially in place of casting Lucent Beam). If not, then it has a 1/3 chance of casting Lucent Beam.

[hmsong]

@Queue

I didn't use BAT file.  I just renamed the original rom to som_msu1.smc.

Holy crap, it sounds great.  A bit slow though.

You may want to include where to find the .msu file in the description.  The link in the description only links the .pcm file.  I had to go to the original source (romhacking site) to download the .msu file.

I can sort of see why some people would not use the MSU music though.  The opening title screen music, for example, gets cut off right in the middle.  Not to mention the incredible 1.3GB size.
September 16, 2019, 11:46:44 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
I found this on youtube.  It's about the bugs in the original game.  Most of the things that were mentioned were fixed, but there were some that were not addressed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jsMY7SwLOk

[zoolgremlin]

Well well!  It looks like Queue is all in favor of everyone talking about ALL things Secret of Mana!  Soooo... I'll just pipe down and let the discussion roll wherever it goes.   

I must first of all apologize for not working on the "mythical" Table Documents yesterday.  First, I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was causing a spell to softlock or soft-reset the game.  It's just the one, haven't figured it out yet.  Then, I got to reading through various materials to see what it would take to change other things in the game, eg. ...


-     Messages on the Magic Skill menu, the ones at the bottom that say unhelpful/misleading stuff.  The hell is "Enemy's energy explodes" supposed to mean?  What about "Makes enemies/you do curious things"?  No matter, I found the data for it.

-     Boss AI, took me a while to sort through which bank those are in.  Didn't experiment with it, though, just read the bits for Wall Face/Doom Wall, Mana Beast, and Mech Rider III.  I think I know how to make kethinov's Herbal Boost patch more compatible with Wall Face/Doom Wall's AI, but I'm probably the only guy that cares about that.  So yeah... 

-     How to make base stats like Agility cap at a higher number (lower is not at all helpful, in Vanilla it's already 1).  As well as derived stats like Hit%.


... and so on, and so forth.  By the time I stopped doing that, it was midnight my time, and I was really fatigued.  So... my bad.   

Link to Google Drive Folder:  Secret of Mana Information (Vanilla)

From myself (cringe):  "If only there had been enough Shade/Lumina spell slots for both casters, <sigh>...
And... "My best guess is that lack of development time, forced Square to abandon putting in 3 more spells for Shade and Lumina."

@Queue  Oh!  I hadn't thought these comments of mine would be taken all that seriously.  It was already complicated for you just to implement [Spell_System_Extensions], sooo... I can't in all good conscience ask you to give PCs more Shade/Lumina spells than what they've got, just for me.  I may like the idea, buuuut... that's almost like programming a new game from scratch!   

Secret of Mana is not that complex a game to play, but evidently even simple games need complex code to work.  What I've read so far pretty much proves it, to me at least.

From your 04:52:32 pm post:  "I'm 99% sure the sprite and girl only getting one was an intentional design decision."

That's very interesting.  I've read about how the whole "Nintendo Playstation cancellation" thing, lead to the downsizing of Secret of Mana's development, from CD to 16Mb cart.  I'm so used to thinking of this game in terms of it being kind of... either "incomplete" or having less content than what was planned.  So I never think of it in terms of what was intentional or not.  I would just say, "I don't know... possibly."   

By the way, there are quite a number of Turbo features I haven't fully tried, including MSU-1.  They all sound pretty grand to me.  But I can't really comment on stuff like the ZSNES patch for MSU-1, since I stopped using ZSNES a couple of weeks ago, in favor of SNES9x v1.57w.  Apologies... I really admire your skills and what you've done with this project, even if I don't discuss every aspect.



Don't worry, I can still hear the spell bug and the tables calling me back.  As Danger Dolan would say, "That's it for this countdown, and avagoodone!"   

@Queue  EDIT:  Forgot to mention I like the Remake too, I've heard a lot of criticism of it, not all of it is fully justified.  The updated soundtrack is enjoyable to me, for the most part.   

[Mr X]

Oh yeah, can confirm the Wall Bosses seem to be affected by the herbal boost patch, just fought one of them and it casted herbal boost on the dead eye!

[zoolgremlin]

@Mr. X  Quite a strange thing, isn't it?  I believe it's because Wall Face/Doom Wall's AI was not changed to load the correct spell pointer, to maintain its Vanilla behaviour.  Since the one that used to be for Revivifier now points to the function for Herbal Boost (the artist formerly known as Moon Energy), what I think needs to happen is to exchange the pointer for the one that used to be for Moon Energy.  If you know how to use a hex editor, I can probably tell you which address and offset contains the value to be changed, if you would like...?

[Mr X]

Another bug, you can get two bow orbs from the chest in the fire palace, chest doesn't disappear after getting the first orb, instead closes then you can open it again for another bow orb.

zoolgremlin I still need s lot of practice to use the hex editor so probably not for that yet.

[zoolgremlin]

@Mr. X  Okay, no worries.   

About the Bow Orbs, forgive me for asking but... are you sure that you didn't miss an earlier one?  Orb Chests are actually programmed to respawn if you have less than the maximum allowed, it depends on the value of an Event Control Flag that increments at various points of the game.  The last increment is applied by the cutscene at the end of Pure Land.  Even Vanilla had that feature.  Can't remember if I ever saw it happen, back when I played on real hardware, but the Internet soon put me straight about the matter.   

Since you mention the Fire Palace, I assume you're using kethinov's Weapon_Progression patch?  If you are, that not only puts more Orb Chests in the game world, it also redefines the value of that EC Flag.  That makes the extra Chests spawn if you did get all the previous ones available.  If he hadn't done that, the new Chest events would not have worked after patching the game.

Hope you have a good one.  Cheers!

[Mr X]

Mr. X  Okay, no worries.   

About the Bow Orbs, forgive me for asking but... are you sure that you didn't miss an earlier one?  Orb Chests are actually programmed to respawn if you have less than the maximum allowed, it depends on the value of an Event Control Flag that increments at various points of the game.  The last increment is applied by the cutscene at the end of Pure Land.  Even Vanilla had that feature.  Can't remember if I ever saw it happen, back when I played on real hardware, but the Internet soon put me straight about the matter.   

Since you mention the Fire Palace, I assume you're using kethinov's Weapon_Progression patch?  If you are, that not only puts more Orb Chests in the game world, it also redefines the value of that EC Flag.  That makes the extra Chests spawn if you did get all the previous ones available.  If he hadn't done that, the new Chest events would not have worked after patching the game.

Hope you have a good one.  Cheers!

I have 3/3 Bow Orbs, I still havent fought Boreal face. I just went ahead to pick that orb for lolz, before going to the ice country, I did that before too and it didnt happen, and I am using the level 9 weapon progession balance patch. Why didn't that happen previously but now it does happen? It may not necessary be a bug but still weird a bit.
September 17, 2019, 06:53:10 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Yup, that was just because I didnt face boreal face first, but still previously I got the orb before that even happened, there was no way you would miss it either way because you still need to get salamando to proceed further in the fire palace anyway.

Previously it didn't happen, that much I can confirm.