Version 0.660b
- Thread starter Teddy
- Start date
Own
Moderator
So you can only have the Oni Mask or the Noh Mask. If you open the chest in the future, it empties the chest in the past. How odd. Seems contrary to time travel mechanics, but I guess it does add replayability. I imagine 99.9% of people (not speedrunning) are going to get the Oni Mask every time, because:
1. Going by Chrono Trigger nostaglia, open chests in the future first, then the past.
2. It's right there. How do you not open it as you go by it?
It is nice for the game to have 'secret' items, though. Or items they can pick up when playing co-op with friends that they didn't get in their world, Pokemon-style. You only need one for completion % too, I assume.
Of course, I already got my Oni and Noh mask thanks to co-op~
1. Going by Chrono Trigger nostaglia, open chests in the future first, then the past.
2. It's right there. How do you not open it as you go by it?
It is nice for the game to have 'secret' items, though. Or items they can pick up when playing co-op with friends that they didn't get in their world, Pokemon-style. You only need one for completion % too, I assume.
Of course, I already got my Oni and Noh mask thanks to co-op~
Own
Moderator
None of these flowers have collision.
Also, a suggestion for dealing with the "How do I get up to the guy's house?!" problem: Once you have the flag to go fetch the key, and the statue is in it's original position, every time you walk past the statue have Bag pop-up and say... I don't know. "Maybe we can subtly influence our present with a small change to the past?"
Own
Moderator
Hard Mode single skill reports, level 24:
Whirlslash - 7 attempts, all deaths. Too slow for a boss that moves around quickly.
Heroic Slam - 2 attempts. Savage.
Summon Plant - 1 attempt, beaten soundly.
Frosty Friend - 1 attempt, a quick death. Frosty Friend takes entirely too much damage from the fans, even if put in defensive mode to regen HP. FF is in no way viable for this bossfight, completely useless. Was fun watching her drag his corpse around the ground, though.
Insect Swarm - 1 attempt, beaten easily. Who knew flies were so effective against corpses?
Shadowclone - 1 attempt, killed her in under 10-15 seconds. She never even got to do more than her initial 3 fan tosses, no special attacks at all. Shadowclone remains the ruling champion of 'press button, win game'. Kills Thorn Worms in 1 second too. Hositilis plants, 1.5 seconds. At least Ancient Statues get a single jump off. Good on Shadow of Madness for actually getting 2 hits on me. What's the downside to this skill when you can just pop the HP orbs that drop after you're done spamming the attack button? Seems kind of sad that people running Shadowclone won't experience as much of a boss battle.
I grind way faster with Shadow on Hard than I do Whirlslash on Normal, wow.
Whirlslash - 7 attempts, all deaths. Too slow for a boss that moves around quickly.
Heroic Slam - 2 attempts. Savage.
Summon Plant - 1 attempt, beaten soundly.
Frosty Friend - 1 attempt, a quick death. Frosty Friend takes entirely too much damage from the fans, even if put in defensive mode to regen HP. FF is in no way viable for this bossfight, completely useless. Was fun watching her drag his corpse around the ground, though.
Insect Swarm - 1 attempt, beaten easily. Who knew flies were so effective against corpses?
Shadowclone - 1 attempt, killed her in under 10-15 seconds. She never even got to do more than her initial 3 fan tosses, no special attacks at all. Shadowclone remains the ruling champion of 'press button, win game'. Kills Thorn Worms in 1 second too. Hositilis plants, 1.5 seconds. At least Ancient Statues get a single jump off. Good on Shadow of Madness for actually getting 2 hits on me. What's the downside to this skill when you can just pop the HP orbs that drop after you're done spamming the attack button?
Seems kind of sad that people running Shadowclone won't experience as much of a boss battle.I grind way faster with Shadow on Hard than I do Whirlslash on Normal, wow.
Shadow Clone is on our to-nerf list for after Tai Ming (or perhaps before the stable, we'll see)! I think the issues with Shadow Clone is further enhanced because it synergize well with another OP stat, namely ASPD.
We've talked about toning down Shadow Clone's damage a bit (again), and/or simply reduce 1H basic attack damage (while keeping skill damage the same).
As for ASPD, an idea going around our little office is to reduce its efficiency for basic attacks, but instead make it scale with weapon skills (where it make sense)! In other words, have all skill animations go faster with higher ASPD. The goal with this is to make ASPD an interesting stat for skills, while toning down the carnage that can be dished out by spamming the attack button. Oh, and let's not forget the basic attack input buffering I added a few patches ago - that was a pretty massive boost to ASPD/basic attack/Shadow Clone usefulness.
As for Frosty Friend, he's ironically also nerflisted, but not for boss battle prowess (we're talking about limiting his aggro potential, having him become delisted from the enemy aggro tables if X enemies are already targeting him). I'm going to play this fight with the guy to see what can be adjusted to make it playable!
With Summon Plant, I assume you prepared the playing field with a bunch of peashooters to unleash carnage upon the world? Having these guys desummon, or lose duration, at the start of boss fights might be a good idea!
We've talked about toning down Shadow Clone's damage a bit (again), and/or simply reduce 1H basic attack damage (while keeping skill damage the same).
As for ASPD, an idea going around our little office is to reduce its efficiency for basic attacks, but instead make it scale with weapon skills (where it make sense)! In other words, have all skill animations go faster with higher ASPD. The goal with this is to make ASPD an interesting stat for skills, while toning down the carnage that can be dished out by spamming the attack button. Oh, and let's not forget the basic attack input buffering I added a few patches ago - that was a pretty massive boost to ASPD/basic attack/Shadow Clone usefulness.
As for Frosty Friend, he's ironically also nerflisted, but not for boss battle prowess (we're talking about limiting his aggro potential, having him become delisted from the enemy aggro tables if X enemies are already targeting him). I'm going to play this fight with the guy to see what can be adjusted to make it playable!
With Summon Plant, I assume you prepared the playing field with a bunch of peashooters to unleash carnage upon the world? Having these guys desummon, or lose duration, at the start of boss fights might be a good idea!
Own
Moderator
It's mainly talents that synergize with each other like crazy, all relating to Shadowclone. +Crit applies to you and all shadows. So does +ASPD. And Backhander is great with high attack speed and shadowclone. Shadowclone has a high chance to proc debuffs, so +Fire on hit is good. And while you're applying a +Fire debuff, Insult To Injury is good. And to top it all off, let's smash down a DMG Pot for +20% damage to every attack, dealing thousands of damage per second.
Oooh... I like the idea of that.
Because of Arcade Mode? Because he's only really good there, he's pretty much a novelty in Story Mode.
You already added in an update a while back that made all plants despawn prior to cutscenes and boss battles. It's pretty trivial to pump them out really quick while the boss is floating around.
The G-Meister
Giga Slime
The best way to plant summon tends to be +EP regen, Boss plant, flower whip and peashooters. If the boss just happens to be standing still (which a lot of them do for brief periods of time) whacking out a huge barrage of the small ones does a very good job of caressing it to death. It's rarely safe to charge the skill due to the slow cast speed, so I'll assume that's how you beat it first try... combined with the fact that you're better than me
Also bear in mind that there are limited +ATK items compared to +MATK. Taking this into account, shadowclone is even more OP.
Also bear in mind that there are limited +ATK items compared to +MATK. Taking this into account, shadowclone is even more OP.
Just wondering how you beat the boss in 10-15 seconds on hard mode. I am also running shadowclone build and I do nowhere near that much damage. I did the fight at level 23 with lvl 6 pet and it took 5 attempts. My current stats are lvl 25/241 dmg/149% atk spd/33% crit and tai ming on hard still feels pretty difficult.
Own
Moderator
All cards, level 14 +DMG pet.
Max shadowclone.
Fall's Edge, Spinsect Armor, Angler Fish Hat, Earrings of Balance, Lightning Glove, Summer Greaves, Blindfold.
2 Adaptble, Max Surgeon, Max Brutality, Max Strength, Max Fencer, Max Burning, Max Backhander, Max Insult to Injury.
A small ocean of Damage Pots.
Double Larvarmbands give +20 CSPD, which negates the slow cast speed.
This was actually me completely misunderstanding Vilya's request, so we're going to change that (by having the Noh mask in the past chest, and putting the Oni mask somewhere else... possibly still involving the Noh mask via some 'puzzle')
Ah, that's kind of a shame. I liked the idea of having items you can only get one or the other of in a playthrough, requiring co-op or replaying via NG+ to get the others. Maybe it's best if things like that are saved until NG+ is a thing, though...
The G-Meister
Giga Slime
JamesKT
Boar
Hard Difficulty Thoughts: Everything feels fine. I wouldn't change things.
But...
Speedrunner Thoughts: The new mobs feel a bit overtuned health wise. Cursed Priestess feels fine. 30K health for a Boss feels warranted. However while the mobs are intended for Gold Ranked Skills(As Early as Lv19), you actually never hit Lv19 until mid-way through the area. 6K Health on a normal mob at this point seems a bit much imho. If the Cursed Priestess XP Gains were increased to make a Lv18 hit Lv19 immediately after the fight, the mobs probably wouldn't feel as bad. Further Speedrun testing will be done later.
EDIT: Also. The /preload command doesn't seem to have any effect on the first time loading into Tai Ming... But once again, Further Speedrun Testing will be done later. It could've been a fluke and it does work properly. Just wanted to kinda throw it out there.
The Gold Filled Chests in Tai Ming are a godsend compared to the ones in Flying Fortress. ~8900 Gold vs. 200 Gold.
Also... My ear still hurts from the Tai Ming music playing off of "Sound Effects" from the fully bloomed Power Flower. >.<
But...
Speedrunner Thoughts: The new mobs feel a bit overtuned health wise. Cursed Priestess feels fine. 30K health for a Boss feels warranted. However while the mobs are intended for Gold Ranked Skills(As Early as Lv19), you actually never hit Lv19 until mid-way through the area. 6K Health on a normal mob at this point seems a bit much imho. If the Cursed Priestess XP Gains were increased to make a Lv18 hit Lv19 immediately after the fight, the mobs probably wouldn't feel as bad. Further Speedrun testing will be done later.
EDIT: Also. The /preload command doesn't seem to have any effect on the first time loading into Tai Ming... But once again, Further Speedrun Testing will be done later. It could've been a fluke and it does work properly. Just wanted to kinda throw it out there.
The Gold Filled Chests in Tai Ming are a godsend compared to the ones in Flying Fortress. ~8900 Gold vs. 200 Gold.
Also... My ear still hurts from the Tai Ming music playing off of "Sound Effects" from the fully bloomed Power Flower. >.<
Last edited:
Own
Moderator
The HP on the mobs seem just fine to me, they're not balanced towards speedrunning. They actually feel like proper Secret of Mana-style enemies that you can't kill in a few hits and have to battle. I'm really glad that, unlike the Season Temple mobs, they don't just collapse effortlessly and actually stand the risk of getting a swing or two in without the room needing to be filled with 10 of them to do so.
Speedrunners can probably take a small time hit to grind up a max gold charge in Mt. Bloom, too. Most RPG speedruns have a section where a small grind is required for something or another. How many more mobs does it take in Mt. Bloom to get that final gold point?
Speedrunners can probably take a small time hit to grind up a max gold charge in Mt. Bloom, too. Most RPG speedruns have a section where a small grind is required for something or another. How many more mobs does it take in Mt. Bloom to get that final gold point?
Own
Moderator
5-10 minutes? Eesh. That is a boring timesink. Though maybe not as much as grinding Fairy Woods in Shining Force 2 for 30-60 minutes.
How long did it take you to complete a hard mode speedrun? Do you bother getting the easy sidequests out of the way? Chica's chicken takes only about 1 minute for +1 Talent Orb, for example.
How long did it take you to complete a hard mode speedrun? Do you bother getting the easy sidequests out of the way? Chica's chicken takes only about 1 minute for +1 Talent Orb, for example.
Own
Moderator
Flamethrower: Killed first try. Harder since she moves around a lot, even though you move too, her fans make it tricky.
Fireball: Down to 1/4 before dying. Could've beaten her if I were more careful.
Chain Lighting: Down to 3/4 before dying. So, so slow. This skill has always been kind of a joke to me, before and after the player bouncing addition. Too little damage spread across groups, way too little vs solo.
Spirit Slash: Down to 15% before dying. Wasn't being careful, though.
Meteor/Ice Spike/Frost Nova/Earth Spike/Dodging Strike/Piercing Dash/Smash/Berserker Style: Uhhh... I expect similar results to Chain Lightning. Someone else can try these.
Fireball: Down to 1/4 before dying. Could've beaten her if I were more careful.
Chain Lighting: Down to 3/4 before dying. So, so slow. This skill has always been kind of a joke to me, before and after the player bouncing addition. Too little damage spread across groups, way too little vs solo.
Spirit Slash: Down to 15% before dying. Wasn't being careful, though.
Meteor/Ice Spike/Frost Nova/Earth Spike/Dodging Strike/Piercing Dash/Smash/Berserker Style: Uhhh... I expect similar results to Chain Lightning. Someone else can try these.