Seiken Densetsu 3 (aka Trials of Mana) Hacks Discussion

[soul_knight]

Just v1.10.  No other patches.

I just tried with vanilla (at least against Land Umber, who uses Stone Cloud frequently).  Same problem.

[hmsong]

@praetarius5018

I don't know if this is even possible, but do you think you can make the stat up/down and saber have timer, just like some of the status effects?  That would make those skills WAY less OP.  Still powerful, but nowhere near as powerful.

Edit:  Okay, maybe not stat up/down, since that makes HP Up completely meaningless.  And with Power Up giving less buff, Stat Up isn't anywhere as powerful anyways.

[praetarius5018]

Just v1.10.  No other patches.

I just tried with vanilla (at least against Land Umber, who uses Stone Cloud frequently).  Same problem.

Sorry, but if it is the same in vanilla, I'll not touch that again. I'm fed up with SD3's quirks.

@praetarius5018

I don't know if this is even possible, but do you think you can make the stat up/down and saber have timer, just like some of the status effects?  That would make those skills WAY less OP.  Still powerful, but nowhere near as powerful.

Edit:  Okay, maybe not stat up/down, since that makes HP Up completely meaningless.  And with Power Up giving less buff, Stat Up isn't anywhere as powerful anyways.

It's probably possible, transshape is on a timer, but I wouldn't know how in this mess; and last time I messed with timers in SD3 (cast time) I was about to quit rom hacking completely.

I'd just embrace how powerful buffs are and balance around the player using them. You can buy most of them for cheap.

[hmsong]

Sorry, but if it is the same in vanilla, I'll not touch that again. I'm fed up with SD3's quirks.

It's probably possible, transshape is on a timer, but I wouldn't know how in this mess; and last time I messed with timers in SD3 (cast time) I was about to quit rom hacking completely.

I'd just embrace how powerful buffs are and balance around the player using them. You can buy most of them for cheap.

Damn.  Oh well.  Not a big issue.

I noticed Stone Cloud thing too.  I wonder how that happened.  I mean, this isn't your typical bug, where the devs simply missed noticing something due to lack of beta testing -- this feels like something someone went out of the way to make the Stone Cloud not work (since all other enemy's SE skills work just fine, and your own Stone Cloud works well too, and you can be inflicted by petrify SE).

[praetarius5018]

Damn.  Oh well.  Not a big issue.

I noticed Stone Cloud thing too.  I wonder how that happened.  I mean, this isn't your typical bug, where the devs simply missed noticing something due to lack of beta testing -- this feels like something someone went out of the way to make the Stone Cloud not work (since all other enemy's SE skills work just fine, and your own Stone Cloud works well too, and you can be inflicted by petrify SE).

50:50 odds they noticed in dev it caused some bug if used on the player, similar to the ghost ship save, looked at their deadline and just slapped an off-button on the boss's spell casting.

[soul_knight]

Sorry, but if it is the same in vanilla, I'll not touch that again. I'm fed up with SD3's quirks.

Damn it.  I really hoped you'd fix that.  It's a bug that makes enemy's Stone Cloud so... pathetic.  But I understand.  Thanks anyways.


@hmsong

Based on what I've seen, Berserk is just better Silence.  It's a combination of both Silence and uncontrollableness.  That is to say, it makes Silence completely pathetic, since Berserk is better than that in every way.

[praetarius5018]

Damn it.  I really hoped you'd fix that.  It's a bug that makes enemy's Stone Cloud so... pathetic.  But I understand.  Thanks anyways.

It is a very deliberate check:

Code Select Expand

$D0/D092 29 00 20    AND #$2000             check if inflicted, non-resisted status ailments contain petrify
$D0/D095 F0 61      BEQ $61    [$D0F8]
$D0/D097 A6 00      LDX $00    [$00:0D00]
$D0/D099 22 40 08 C0 JSL $C00840[$C0:0840]  does a ton of things, as well as result in X=0 for monsters and X=1 for players
$D0/D09D E0 00 00    CPX #$0000
$D0/D0A0 D0 73      BNE $73    [$D115]      if X was not-0 skip this section which applies the actual status effects
$D0/D115 A5 22      LDA $22    [$00:0D22]

[hmsong]

@hmsong

Based on what I've seen, Berserk is just better Silence.  It's a combination of both Silence and uncontrollableness.  That is to say, it makes Silence completely pathetic, since Berserk is better than that in every way.

Yeah.  I realized that recently too.  Still, it's a scarce SE, so it should be fine.  I mean, some SEs are just better than other SEs.  Petrify > everything (except Wound).  Freeze > Sleep.  Moogle = [Chibikko + Silence].  And so on and so forth.

It is a very deliberate check:

Code Select Expand

$D0/D092 29 00 20    AND #$2000             check if inflicted, non-resisted status ailments contain petrify
$D0/D095 F0 61      BEQ $61    [$D0F8]
$D0/D097 A6 00      LDX $00    [$00:0D00]
$D0/D099 22 40 08 C0 JSL $C00840[$C0:0840]  does a ton of things, as well as result in X=0 for monsters and X=1 for players
$D0/D09D E0 00 00    CPX #$0000
$D0/D0A0 D0 73      BNE $73    [$D115]      if X was 0 skip this section which applies the actual status effects
$D0/D115 A5 22      LDA $22    [$00:0D22]

Yikes.  I don't get how this works (-_-;, but if X=0, then the SE isn't applied?  So it doesn't affect monsters but affects players?  Right now, it's the opposite, no? (petrify affects monsters, but not players)  In any case, I took a look at C00840, but I'm not seeing anything obvious.  Then again, I don't know what the heck I'm even looking for.

[praetarius5018]

Should've read skip on non-0.
You could e.g. set D0/D0A1 to 00 to disable the check.
But I'm not including that since it is an intended (if dumb) feature and not an accidental glitch.

My best guess as for why they did that, is that Landumber is quite a tanky boss (highest def of the god beasts, if you're underlevel/underbuffed you won't do any damage to him) and iron claw already hits super hard (3x lv2 spell damage + sleep); if he then also has an effective instant kill in his AI rotation that might feel too cheap.
Did petrify cancel saber/buffs? I forgot.

How stable is the berserk ailment? I've had very bad experiences with control changes throw snowman.

[hmsong]

Did petrify cancel saber/buffs? I forgot.

Based on what I tested, nope.  At least for saber.

How stable is the berserk ailment? I've had very bad experiences with control changes throw snowman.

Relatively stable.  But that's simply based on empirical observation.  If P1 was inflicted with it but not the others, then it's the same as Silence, but once you choose someone else, then you can't come back to P1 anymore.  Unless you heal the SE (I had to modify Puipui Grass and its equivalents to make it recover).  And when I heal it and come back to P1, it seems to work just fine.  I'm not sure what happens if you had Berserk ailment but then was inflicted with control-changing SE (such as Snowman or Sleep).  I'm fairly certain you'd recover from Berserk, since SD3's most recent SE overrides the previous SEs.

For extra fun, you can inflict Berserk to bosses -- it makes them unable use any screen freezing skills.

Btw, how do you know how much damage iron claw does?  I figured it's another list of skills, but I have no idea how to "access" it.  I feel like I can have fun with that too, assuming I can actually assign that to players.  I at least want to see the animations, but I don't know how to see the skills after FF (which is just class-changing animation thing).

[Mr X]

I came to a conclusion that I dislike the change of Demon Breath being non elemental while changing what it effect does too. To make it worse you even gave her multi-target anti-magic, I rather just keep it fire elemental while lowering enemies enemies magic def and effectiveness, as it was doing originally, Evil Shaman gives off more mage/summoner vibes she was zero benefits lowering enemies physical attack for her spells, and she has anti-magic for that reason too - enemies that resist/absorb/reflect fire to get rid of it, so then she can debuff them.

Evil Shaman and Magus for example could work a lot better without that change you did. Then again the problem still remains you learn and max out their beneficial stats and spells at very near endgame, which is useless at that point when tou already finished 80-90% of the game.

[praetarius5018]

Relatively stable.  But that's simply based on empirical observation.  If P1 was inflicted with it but not the others, then it's the same as Silence, but once you choose someone else, then you can't come back to P1 anymore.  Unless you heal the SE (I had to modify Puipui Grass and its equivalents to make it recover).  And when I heal it and come back to P1, it seems to work just fine.  I'm not sure what happens if you had Berserk ailment but then was inflicted with control-changing SE (such as Snowman or Sleep).  I'm fairly certain you'd recover from Berserk, since SD3's most recent SE overrides the previous SEs.

My current guess is that this berserk state was supposed to be inflicted on Kevin when he transforms and then they messed up giving him a free power-up buff instead; berserk and power-up are both value 40 just in a different byte.

Also in a quick test just now, berserk was removed after getting hit. So better just use regular silence.

For extra fun, you can inflict Berserk to bosses -- it makes them unable use any screen freezing skills.

What boss did you try that on? When I tried sleep and mute on e.g. Fiegmund he straight up ignored it. Was showing the sleep bubble but jumped around and attacked as if the status didn't exist.

Btw, how do you know how much damage iron claw does?  I figured it's another list of skills, but I have no idea how to "access" it.  I feel like I can have fun with that too, assuming I can actually assign that to players. I at least want to see the animations, but I don't know how to see the skills after FF (which is just class-changing animation thing).

Put a breakpoint on the spelldamage formula, got STRx8+6 for Iron Claw and INTx8+15 for earthquake.

[soul_knight]

It is a very deliberate check:

Code Select Expand

$D0/D092 29 00 20    AND #$2000             check if inflicted, non-resisted status ailments contain petrify
$D0/D095 F0 61      BEQ $61    [$D0F8]
$D0/D097 A6 00      LDX $00    [$00:0D00]
$D0/D099 22 40 08 C0 JSL $C00840[$C0:0840]  does a ton of things, as well as result in X=0 for monsters and X=1 for players
$D0/D09D E0 00 00    CPX #$0000
$D0/D0A0 D0 73      BNE $73    [$D115]      if X was not-0 skip this section which applies the actual status effects
$D0/D115 A5 22      LDA $22    [$00:0D22]

Should've read skip on non-0.
You could e.g. set D0/D0A1 to 00 to disable the check.
But I'm not including that since it is an intended (if dumb) feature and not an accidental glitch.

My best guess as for why they did that, is that Landumber is quite a tanky boss (highest def of the god beasts, if you're underlevel/underbuffed you won't do any damage to him) and iron claw already hits super hard (3x lv2 spell damage + sleep); if he then also has an effective instant kill in his AI rotation that might feel too cheap.

Awesome.  I have no idea what any of that means, but I guess hmsong will put that in one of his patches.  But hearing what you say about Land Umber, it might indeed make him tough, but in a good way (as long as it's not one-shot).  I think vanilla Land Umber was too easy, because of his insanely low HP.  According to wiki, it has 7652 HP, while the rest has 9292 ~ 21136 HP.

[praetarius5018]

I think vanilla Land Umber was too easy, because of his insanely low HP.  According to wiki, it has 7652 HP, while the rest has 9292 ~ 21136 HP.

The god beast have an inverse relationship between HP and def. The more HP they have (relative for the current level) the less def they have. Landumber has the lowest HP and highest def out of the bunch. The problem as always is SD3s poor damage formula with atk - def and tons of multipliers applied before def.
Slap on thunder or fire saber and Landumber becomes papermache; if you don't have/use buffs and didn't grind levels like a madman you'll barely deal damage with a regular attack.
But fixing that goes way beyond the purpose of my fix patch and for a more proper rebalance I've already made a different patch.

[soul_knight]

The god beast have an inverse relationship between HP and def. The more HP they have (relative for the current level) the less def they have. Landumber has the lowest HP and highest def out of the bunch. The problem as always is SD3s poor damage formula with atk - def and tons of multipliers applied before def.
Slap on thunder or fire saber and Landumber becomes papermache; if you don't have/use buffs and didn't grind levels like a madman you'll barely deal damage with a regular attack.
But fixing that goes way beyond the purpose of my fix patch and for a more proper rebalance I've already made a different patch.

That's probably why I always thought Land Umber was easy.  I always had Thunder Saber (thank you black market).  Without that, and you had party composed of Duran L, Carlie D, Kevin L/D, and Hawk L, then you'd pretty much be doing scratch damage against Land Umber.  Even Angela may have rough time if she didnt' have enough Magic Walnut around.

[Mr X]

That's probably why I always thought Land Umber was easy.  I always had Thunder Saber (thank you black market).  Without that, and you had party composed of Duran L, Carlie D, Kevin L/D, and Hawk L, then you'd pretty much be doing scratch damage against Land Umber.  Even Angela may have rough time if she didnt' have enough Magic Walnut around.

Not a big deal to me, black market was super cheap anyway. In vanilla I even used Angela to attack physically with saber + level 1 tech rather than magic.

[soul_knight]

Not a big deal to me, black market was super cheap anyway. In vanilla I even used Angela to attack physically with saber + level 1 tech rather than magic.

Oh my.  I pretty much never gave Str stat to Angela.  I always did Vit, Int, and Pie, in that order.  Only if all 3 were maxed did I choose Str.  After applying the bugfix and Class Balance where Pie was specifically for magic def, I replaced Pie to Lck, as you don't really need much magic def.  Best offense is the best defense, and not getting countered was more important for the most battles, esp the regular enemy battles.

[Mr X]

Oh my.  I pretty much never gave Str stat to Angela.  I always did Vit, Int, and Pie, in that order.  Only if all 3 were maxed did I choose Str.  After applying the bugfix and Class Balance where Pie was specifically for magic def, I replaced Pie to Lck, as you don't really need much magic def.  Best offense is the best defense, and not getting countered was more important for the most battles, esp the regular enemy battles.

Bugfix is a different animal. Shame that for some reason the screen freeze bug happens there, I have finished a run with hmsong patches only but without bugfix, I was using her spells alot more frequently and not once happened that bug, but maybe it got to do with navigating the ring menu too fast

Also, surprisingly with her max int stat as Magus she was doing a lot of damage on Dragon Emperor. Since he doesn't have a specific weakness, I sent there on Gnome day (an element he doesn't absorb or resist), with mind up and down Earthquake was dealing about 710 damage per cast, unsure if that was the case in vanilla too without the patches or not. Maybe I have forgotten.

[hmsong]

I came to a conclusion that I dislike the change of Demon Breath being non elemental while changing what it effect does too. To make it worse you even gave her multi-target anti-magic, I rather just keep it fire elemental while lowering enemies enemies magic def and effectiveness, as it was doing originally, Evil Shaman gives off more mage/summoner vibes she was zero benefits lowering enemies physical attack for her spells, and she has anti-magic for that reason too - enemies that resist/absorb/reflect fire to get rid of it, so then she can debuff them.

Evil Shaman and Magus for example could work a lot better without that change you did. Then again the problem still remains you learn and max out their beneficial stats and spells at very near endgame, which is useless at that point when tou already finished 80-90% of the game.

The reason why I made Demon Breath into NE and Power Down, is because 1) Demon Breath is used very often by enemies/bosses by that point in game, and I wanted to weaken the effect of Counter Magic (it can't reflect NE skills), 2) I focused on enemies making YOU weak with that attack, and Power Down is more deadly to you than Mind Down, 3) I didn't want Carlie DD to be too much stronger than Carlie DL (mostly because Black Curse can be bought if you used Item Shop patch and used Carlie D classes), 4) Carlie is supposed to be a supporter, therefore she shouldn't make enemies weaker to her spells.

As for MT AntiMagic, I wanted to encourage players to use it more often, and MT AntiMagic is a great way against the mob (it removes all of their elemental strengths if you use the bugfix).  ST AntiMagic is... nowhere near useful.

Angela DD would be better without her change?  Are you sure about that?  Angela DD is undoubtedly the most powerful of all Angela classes, despite her lack of Lv3 spells.  And how would vanilla Angela DD be better anyways?  Angela DD sucked ass in vanilla.  She couldn't even MT her Lv2 spells, and had no Lv3 spell, nor any buff spells.

Also in a quick test just now, berserk was removed after getting hit. So better just use regular silence.

Are you sure about that?  I tested it just now by giving Chibikko Hammer the Berserk SE (D1B05B 40 00) and inflicting the status on my party, and then had enemies beat me up, but I'm not losing the effect.  Exactly how did you test this?

What boss did you try that on? When I tried sleep and mute on e.g. Fiegmund he straight up ignored it. Was showing the sleep bubble but jumped around and attacked as if the status didn't exist

I tried it on Koren (just gave Angela's Diamond Missle the Berserk SE -- D19950 40), and after Koren took that, all he did is teleport around and do the hand motion while changing the barrier like an idiot.

Fiegmund may recover from SE when he goes out of the screen, maybe.  I don't know much about him.

Btw, I forgot to ask you earlier, but can I use the "Stone Cloud fix" that you posted earlier?  I haven't tested it yet, but assuming it fixes the intended and has no side effect, I'm thinking about putting it in my patch.

Not a big deal to me, black market was super cheap anyway.

Yeah... I wish I could up the item price as the game progresses, like what Sin of Mana did.  Really, items are pathetically cheap by the time you get to... I don't know, Diorre.  But that's most likely something too complicated for my skills.

Best offense is the best defense, and not getting countered was more important for the most battles, esp the regular enemy battles.

I think you got that backwards -- "Best defense is best offense".  But yeah, if you use the bugfix, then not getting countered can be very effective.  I still upped the PIE though out of habit.  I just make/test stuff, rather than play the game.  Hence why I'm always looking for feedbacks.

Bugfix is a different animal. Shame that for some reason the screen freeze bug happens there, I have finished a run with hmsong patches only but without bugfix, I was using her spells alot more frequently and not once happened that bug, but maybe it got to do with navigating the ring menu too fast

That's specifically why praetarius5018 put multiple versions in his patch.  Pick and choose.  Just choose the earlier version before he put the cast time fix.  At worst, choose v1.2, as that fixes only the well known bugs.

[praetarius5018]

Are you sure about that?  I tested it just now by giving Chibikko Hammer the Berserk SE (D1B05B 40 00) and inflicting the status on my party, and then had enemies beat me up, but I'm not losing the effect.  Exactly how did you test this?

mapped Kevin's transformation from power up to berserk, watched his status ailments in ram watch, then he got hit by a carmilla and the status was gone and he could use tech again.

I tried it on Koren (just gave Angela's Diamond Missle the Berserk SE -- D19950 40), and after Koren took that, all he did is teleport around and do the hand motion while changing the barrier like an idiot.

That explains a few things. In terms of AI coding, the "small" bosses like Koren, Heath, Lugar behave more like random mobs than the proper "big" bosses.

Just for fun, try applying poison to Lugar or Heath.

Btw, I forgot to ask you earlier, but can I use the "Stone Cloud fix" that you posted earlier?  I haven't tested it yet, but assuming it fixes the intended and has no side effect, I'm thinking about putting it in my patch.

As I've written, I don't consider it a bug but a deliberate exclusion, so I'm not including. Whatever you do with the code above, is your call.

Yeah... I wish I could up the item price as the game progresses, like what Sin of Mana did.  Really, items are pathetically cheap by the time you get to... I don't know, Diorre.  But that's most likely something too complicated for my skills.

I'm not sure what you're saying. I don't have progressively increasing prices. They are static.