Seiken Densetsu 3 (aka Trials of Mana) Hacks Discussion

[praetarius5018]

You guys are good.  How do you people find all these errors?  I started a new game with v1.5, and I'm at Lampflower Garden, all the while looking for any errors, and I still haven't come across a situation about Chibikko error (despite having the hammer for a while now and using it often enough).  Do you guys have some sort of list you go through when looking for errors?

just flat out pure chance and bad luck:
hmsong told me about the chibikko damage bug so I went and hammered my whole team and immediatly the game reset; then I had to try 10 more times to reproduce that crash.

[Red Soul]

@HMSong:

I had an idea to diversify Kevin a bit more. Maybe Warrior Monk could get Protect Up to emphasize the black turtle's resilience and patience.

@praetarius5018:

I checked the readme for bugfix 1.6 and it seems to remove insta cast. Was 1.5 also modified to fix the chibbiko crashes while keeping insta cast, or are the crashes only fixed in 1.6?

[hmsong]

@HMSong:

I had an idea to diversify Kevin a bit more. Maybe Warrior Monk could get Protect Up to emphasize the black turtle's resilience and patience.

I thought about doing that, because I gave Power Up to Duran DD.  The problem is, Protect Up is inferior in every way to the new Magic Shield (which raises Def, M.Def, and Eva), and I gave that to Duran LL.  And not to mention that Protect Up is useless once your Def reaches 300 points (remember, I used to use bugfix v1.2, which did not raise the Def with Protect Up).  So instead, I gave Kevin LD (Warrior Monk) the new Pressure Point, which raises Atk, M.Atk, and Acc -- exactly opposite of Magic Shield.  I thought about making Pressure Point raise Atk, Def, and Acc, but I felt that it would be way too powerful.  I already made it so that Pressure Point can target other allies.

But now that I'm using v1.6 (totally flawless hack from what I can tell so far), Protect Up sounds pretty good.  I did think Kevin LD was lacking (even with the new Pressure Point), due to his inferior innate Str -- now that LL can use MT Heal Light, very few people have any reason to use LD.  Perhaps having multiple stat up skills may be good.  Maybe I'll make Pressure Point only target Kevin, and give him Protect Up.  I shall consider it for the next update.

[Red Soul]

But now that I'm using v1.6 (totally flawless hack from what I can tell so far), Protect Up sounds pretty good.  I did think Kevin LD was lacking (even with the new Pressure Point), due to his inferior innate Str -- now that LL can use MT Heal Light, very few people have any reason to use LD.  Perhaps having multiple stat up skills may be good.  Maybe I'll make Pressure Point only target Kevin, and give him Protect Up.  I shall consider it for the next update.

Thanks! I myself never used LD Kevin despite loving all his other classes, so I think maybe a bit more specialization would go a long way towards making Warrior Monk different but useful. Having a single target CS is a big step down in terms of damage output, so he needs something else.

Edit: I started the playthrough you requested, by the way. Not much to report so far at all. Hawk has been hitting for about as much damage as Angela outside of crits (expected with the nerf I suppose), but the overall pace of the game didn't change so far.

[Pethronos]

Really happy to see how you all join forces and share your different approaches and discuss about how to improve so many aspects of the game. Praetarius is right, it's a extremely flawed game, but no doubt it has charm and ambition like few others, what makes it so special and lovable, as this thread states. Thank you all.

Also thanks Praetarius for your last, more complete submission!! A proper changelog is interesting to see the evolution of a project, why the changes, etc.

[Red Soul]

Really happy to see how you all join forces and share your different approaches and discuss about how to improve so many aspects of the game. Praetarius is right, it's a extremely flawed game, but no doubt it has charm and ambition like few others, what makes it so special and lovable, as this thread states. Thank you all.

Also thanks Praetarius for your last, more complete submission!! A proper changelog is interesting to see the evolution of a project, why the changes, etc.

It's definitely a game worth being improved and played, even all these years later. Honestly even with the remake, I think the original holds up wonderfully. Even though what I personally brought to the table was just cosmetic, I was happy to make it, and hopefully others will make full use of whatever is created by everyone's combined efforts.

[praetarius5018]

I checked the readme for bugfix 1.6 and it seems to remove insta cast. Was 1.5 also modified to fix the chibbiko crashes while keeping insta cast, or are the crashes only fixed in 1.6?

No, the old versions still have that crash.
The crash existed since 1.3.
If I now started backporting those fixes I'd not manage just one hack under the "fix only" label but an ever increasing amount; this would get out of hand super fast.

[Red Soul]

No, the old versions still have that crash.
The crash existed since 1.3.
If I now started backporting those fixes I'd not manage just one hack under the "fix only" label but an ever increasing amount; this would get out of hand super fast.

That's understandable. I'm assuming it's not possible to have the cast time cancellation as a separate optional patch to add in tandem with the base bugfix?
I've been thinking and I feel a good way to keep Angela relevant in comparison to melee party members would be to make her cast time zero and leave others alone. What do you think?

[praetarius5018]

That's understandable. I'm assuming it's not possible to have the cast time cancellation as a separate optional patch to add in tandem with the base bugfix?
I've been thinking and I feel a good way to keep Angela relevant in comparison to melee party members would be to make her cast time zero and leave others alone. What do you think?

Possible, yes, but I don't think it matters.
The casttime bug is still a thing so her casttime is effectively instant as long as you have a reason to open the menu for a different char.

Imo there are 2 options:
1) set casttime to 0 so players don't get even tempted to cheat by opening the menu or having a boss cast a spell or litterally ANYTHING that pauses the main battle scene - this option was loudly vetoed.
2) assume players are responsible enough not to cheat with casttime - I don't trust that one


If we go that route I can just as well add new features like: able to switch which side you target with your spells, heal light hurting undead, running, ... yeah that goes WAY beyond bug fix and maybe minor balance adjustment.

[Red Soul]

Possible, yes, but I don't think it matters.
The casttime bug is still a thing so her casttime is effectively instant as long as you have a reason to open the menu for a different char.

Imo there are 2 options:
1) set casttime to 0 so players don't get even tempted to cheat by opening the menu or having a boss cast a spell or litterally ANYTHING that pauses the main battle scene - this option was loudly vetoed.
2) assume players are responsible enough not to cheat with casttime - I don't trust that one

Eh, there will always be naysayers, moaners and cheaters. I didn't write a review of the bugfix yet (I will, though), but I personally think zero cast for Angela (assuming non-exploitative play)  is still the best solution if a fix of the code itself isn't worth the trouble.

It's impossible to prevent people from cheating, so that's on them; if zero is too much, accelerating it a few steps could be the best middle ground but it's your baby, I'm just sharing my thoughts.

[soul_knight]

@praetarius5018

Hey, in your recent bugfix patch, for the critical hit, you used "weapon factor" to determine the power increase.  What is that?  I mean, for the characters (for monsters, it's level/4).  Is it the strength of weapons?  I don't know which is the most powerful weapon, but assuming it's Duran's final weapon (Duran LD had 334 power with the final weapon, but he had 69 power with Maia weapon, so the final weapon's at least 265 power), that means the critical hit can be as high as [17 * 265 /3], which is additional 1500 damage.  That's obviously wrong, meaning weapon factor isn't weapon power.  So what is weapon factor?

It... pains me say this, but bug report.  Matango Oil (or perhaps Counter Magic too?) causes the game to crash.

If we go that route I can just as well add new features like: able to switch which side you target with your spells, heal light hurting undead, running, ... yeah that goes WAY beyond bug fix and maybe minor balance adjustment.

Some of those sound nice, but as you said, that goes way beyond bugfix + minor balance adjustment.  Having said that, can you simply increase the movement speed during the battle stance of the controlled character?  Not quite to the point of running speed (that's too fast, and defeats the purpose of the battle stance), but faster than the default crawl speed.  Something right in between.  A minor improvement that's more of anti-frustration.  I think that falls under minor adjustment.

[praetarius5018]

Hey, in your recent bugfix patch, for the critical hit, you used "weapon factor" to determine the power increase.  What is that?

The same factor a weapon gives to your STR to calculate ATK; the starter weapons have x2, the best weapons have x15.

It... pains me say this, but bug report.  Matango Oil (or perhaps Counter Magic too?) causes the game to crash.

Of course it does; why WOULDN'T a change to crit rate make counter magic crash.

submitting update in a moment...

Having said that, can you simply increase the movement speed during the battle stance of the controlled character?

Not that I know of.

[Red Soul]

Of course it does; why WOULDN'T a change to crit rate make counter magic crash.

submitting update in a moment...

This game certainly is complicated and I know all these bugs cropping up are annoying, but for what's worth, we value your hard work and dedication greatly.

[hmsong]

@soul_knight

Good job in noticing that.  I can't believe I missed that.



praetarius5018

I know you're very tired of this game, but truly, thank you for your hard work.  I'm sure everyone here (and anyone who uses your patch) appreciates it greatly.

Just a minor bug report regarding Counter Magic (vanilla, and probably still applicable for your patch) -- whenever an enemy uses Counter Magic (Gildervine, Mispolm), they reflect Air, Fire, and Water magic, but not Earth, Light, Dark, and Tree magic.  Counter Magic works as intended (reflects all elements) when the player uses it though.  I'm not sure why that's the case, since Gildervine is only immune to Tree magic, so elemental weakness/strength doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

[praetarius5018]

Just a minor bug report regarding Counter Magic (vanilla, and probably still applicable for your patch) -- whenever an enemy uses Counter Magic (Gildervine, Mispolm), they reflect Air, Fire, and Water magic, but not Earth, Light, Dark, and Tree magic.  Counter Magic works as intended (reflects all elements) when the player uses it though.  I'm not sure why that's the case, since Gildervine is only immune to Tree magic, so elemental weakness/strength doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

That seems to be intentional.
If checks if the target is a boss unit or anything else; if it is not a boss it writes FF into the repel field (meaning all 8 elements), for bosses it only gives 0E (wind, water, fire).
No idea why, but that is what the code does.

Honestly I believe the evade modifiers were decided while drunk; most of them make little logical sense.
Examples:
ninja -98%
ninja master +8%
nightblade -57% (yes, the master of assassination evades worse than any of the mages)
magician -12%
wizard +5% (3rd highest out of all non-bosses, seriously)
high wizard -27%
specter +100%
ghost -44% (the evolved form of a typically incorporal creature, ladies and gentlemen)

bill/ben +0%
koren +15%
heath +70%(!!)
dangaard -100% (flying creature during high speed chase? free hits ofc!)

to make that even more nonsensical:
monster AGL caps out at 20
monster evade: ((1.4x AGL) + 5) x (100% + type_modifier)

there's even different monster with evade adjustment between -100%, -99%, -98%; values that can never be different with the given evade formula

accuracy is 1.5x AGL
there's a lot of monster with -85% or so evade
at max level they still can't even dodge a Lv1 Angela
just food for thought

[Red Soul]

Updated to 1.7
Thank you so much for making insta-cast an independent patch! That way, those that complained about it being a thing before won't anymore, and those that like it (like me) can use it.

[soul_knight]

@hmsong

Can you remove your No Skill Counter from your Balance patch?  It's making most bosses into a joke.  Even Black Rabite is a joke, because he doesn't use his unique "spell combo" nor Ancient.  My guess is that No Skill Counter, combined with praetarius5018's Luck skill deny, is making things this way.  But with just praetarius5018's patch, enemies can still use their skills.

[Red Soul]

@hmsong

Can you remove your No Skill Counter from your Balance patch?  It's making most bosses into a joke.  Even Black Rabite is a joke, because he doesn't use his unique "spell combo" nor Ancient.  My guess is that No Skill Counter, combined with praetarius5018's Luck skill deny, is making things this way.  But with just praetarius5018's patch, enemies can still use their skills.

Personaly, I'm actually enjoying being able to use magic and class strikes without being punished for it, for once.

In the vanilla game, only Lv1 CS was any good because it didn't dim the screen and thus didn't expose the player to insta-counters.

If possible, please leave one of the Class Rebalances as is regading this, HMSong.

[hmsong]

Okay, I'll make it optional.  I'm gonna make two packages (regarding skills), so that you can choose which one to apply.

[Red Soul]

Okay, I'll make it optional.  I'm gonna make two packages (regarding skills), so that you can choose which one to apply.

Thank you, you are awesome.

By the way, you refer to classes in branches in he readme. May I suggest you use the actual names? I say this because Kevin DL and DD were erroneously swapped around in the SNES version, and I'm not sure if your skill changes refer to Dervish or Death Hand.

@praetarius5018:
By the way on the description and readme of the bugfix you mention "fixed Kevin's Deathhand and Bashkar being mixed up in menu"  but it's actually Dervish and Death Hand being swapped around that you fixed, so you might want to correct the description on the RHDN entry and readme if you have the inclination to do so.

Also, it might be beneficial to modify the description to state that insta-cast is now independent and optional, so people don't dump bad reviews on your hard work just because they think it's included (the current description makes it sound that way).

Again many thanks for that fix too, by the way.