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I really, really want to beat this game... but it's gotten to the point where I hate the random battles and difficult enemies, to the point that I can't play it any more. I just end up dying all the time.
From what I have managed to see, I do like it. I'm sure the rest of it would've been amazing! Also, love your use of the RTP.
This post has been edited by amanda2324: May 31 2012, 10:07 AM
I really, really want to beat this game... but it's gotten to the point where I hate the random battles and difficult enemies, to the point that I can't play it any more. I just end up dying all the time.
From what I have managed to see, I do like it. I'm sure the rest of it would've been amazing! Also, love your use of the RTP.
Thanks, if I had more time I would go back and do nonrandom battles for Bloodsphere but I'm just too busy right now, and with how long the game is it especially would take too much time. I am in the planning/early stages of doing another RPG Maker game, and this time I already went ahead and made sure eventing non random battles was one of the first things I did. I'm glad you enjoyed the rest of the game though!
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Would it be faster to just up the walking count for random enemies? So if it's set at like every 30+ steps, you could just change it to 50+ steps for each map? It would still be random, but not as frequent.
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So I take it you're not going to get that chest in Chagriss's Den if you didn't get it before saving Tarik? The switch no longer opens the first gate.
I rather disliked that dungeon as a whole to be honest, the randomized encounter system made it too frustrating to run around and figure out how to open the gate with the chest inside.
I wanted to go back after saving Tarik, but I suppose that's not going to be possible?
Ahh, the switch used must have messed up the ability to finish that puzzle. The item inside the chest is a more powerful sword for classes that use it so it's not anything essential (sorry that you aren't able to get it now x_X)
What you say about that dungeon is also why upping the random encounter rate won't do much, that Dungeon had one of the lowest encounter rates in the game but it still adds up :/. Maybe I should have a disclaimer that says at the beginning "Just pick easy mode so you can skip fights that happen" lol.
This post has been edited by Alex898: Jun 18 2012, 11:54 PM
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QUOTE (Alex898 @ Jun 19 2012, 12:52 AM)
Ahh, the switch used must have messed up the ability to finish that puzzle. The item inside the chest is a more powerful sword for classes that use it so it's not anything essential (sorry that you aren't able to get it now x_X)
What you say about that dungeon is also why upping the random encounter rate won't do much, that Dungeon had one of the lowest encounter rates in the game but it still adds up :/. Maybe I should have a disclaimer that says at the beginning "Just pick easy mode so you can skip fights that happen" lol.
Well, since I just finished the game; I suppose I should put down some of my thoughts in general; which includes how I felt about the random encounters.
Overall - The game itself is pretty well-polished and there's a good amount of diversity in terms of maps and areas to explore. The progression and side-quests are also a good way to not only level up a bit via back-tracking, but also get some good items or gold. The story also had some unique twists that you don't see all the time, although some parts are more cliche than others: their are also plenty of key instances where I found myself not expecting that to happen, especially when it came to Kira. The character roster was also impressive and I liked how everyone gained exp, even if they weren't in the active party.
The following categories are primary concerns I had(in no specific order);
Defense and Encounter Rates - Now what I found intriguing about the system you had in place was not about the battle system itself (though, I had fun with it throughout the game, so not saying it wasn't good), but rather the encounter rates and how your character stats worked;
Defense; Is static in the sense that you don't gain any, except by better equipment, which meant that the damage dealt to your party would always be a set amount, which you could do very little to augment (via accessories). This meant that as I progressed to newer areas or returned to them via story progression: every monster would do more damage by a fair amount.
Now the problem I have with this is that I had a mage and cleric as part of my main party at around level 30, but I noticed that their magic defense did little to nothing in lowering magic damage, even when I had up to 200+ from the best equipment in the game. It wasn't until I got "someones" cape that I was truly able to decrease the amount of magic damage in general that my cleric was taking; about 50%-ish less. Everyone else would take either the full amount or close enough to it that the magic defense they had was negligible. Which is bad for my mage as it translates to her taking 1200+ damage from magic and 1400+ from normal attacks by the time I get to Rein Castle. It just made the mage/cleric characters very very squishy and I'm just glad most of the encounters focus down my two tanks most of the time.
Encounter Rates; Reminded me almost of Black Sigil; except that game just had a really high rate, while this is more erratic if anything. I was confused as to how the encounter rate worked as sometimes I'd go into battle, take 2 steps in any direction; then another battle triggers. I've even had 5 encounters trigger once; one step after another, but that was way early on in the game. Though it wasn't as prevalent as the game progressed; it still occurred from time to time, and during the second half of the game: each encounter became very challenging, so to have 2-3 encounters happen so soon, even if the maps aren't that big was still a bit trouble-some and tedious. These rates are especially notorious when you get to chapter 17+ and each encounter requires you to heal up after-wards.
Viability of Magic - I realized when I received the cleric character that magic wouldn't be a luxury that you could abuse, as the cost requirements are quite steep. Skills in general required a good amount of SP, but you gain a lot more SP later on to balance out the costs, however, there were some concerns I became aware of as I progressed further along.
Magic; The problem I ran into was the fact that at a certain point: the more advanced forms of magic you learned required a much higher cost than what you could afford in the long run. Now you can off-set this by getting Stamina Orbs and most likely max out your SP or get it high enough, but at 500 per orb; that's not very financially plausible, unless you farmed for quite a while. Rather, it would be wiser to up your INT and make sure you deal enough damage to use spells less, but then another problem arises: the cleric/mage classes become harder and harder to maintain and relying entirely on SP based abilities requires a ton of SP potions. I came to the conclusion that the steep difficulty curve coupled with the humongous cost to use level 3 dark magic/white magic would require you to invest into quite a bit of potions, but it also meant that those magic-based characters were not very viable.
Later on; monsters you face have 3,000 to 7,000 hp; now that's just for 1 monster, and each encounter by then bunches 4-6 of these beasts together per fight. Combine that with the erratic encounter rates and I ended up having to use SP potions after every 4th encounter. Unfortunately, it only gets worse when you start getting into areas where each opponent has 10,000 to 20,000 health and you can only do about a max of 5,000-7,000 (assuming they have a weakness), or around 4,000-4,900 on average. I ended up using 2-3 Holy 3's AND level 3 black magic spells per encounter by then, which meant you needed a steady supply of SP potions, or else be forced to switch out those characters, as they're dead-weight without mana, but mana costs are so high and monsters have too much health. Which is why I did not see the cleric/mage class as very balanced or viable in general; I did use both of them throughout the game though, as AOE abilities in healing and damage were very crucial in late-game, they just felt extremely under-whelming along the way.
Farming - With the way how defense works in the game, and how even the first chicken mobs early on can actually over-whelm you; I ended up farming a lot. Now this isn't a complaint, but I just realized that the way you have the game setup: it is quite essential to get as far ahead of the curve as possible, since you'll never get enough defense, which means you need to balance out the amount of damage you take from mobs by dealing even more damage and preventing them from even touching you.
That being said: I believe I got Lucian to level 10 off of the chickens alone, before meeting up with the cleric, and every new town; I'd just grind 5 levels before continuing, however, at some points I just steam-rolled through the dungeons, since I had that damage/speed advantage. However, that quickly diminishes as the stats of future encounters ramp up rather quickly; to the point where grinding no longer mattered all that much. Once you max out INT for the mage; she's still capped at a bracket of 5000-8000, while monsters continue to exponentially get stronger. I even used a plethora of strength orbs and INT orbs, but the curve seemed to now be at a point where unless I grinded out 10-15 levels: I wouldn't get anywhere, and with my mage capped at 999 INT; she was at her limit. I stopped farming at about level 50, due to the difficulty of mobs, which required 2000 or more mana from both my magic users per encounter. Ended up finishing the game at around 71-73, though, but the point is: the stats you gain per level up becomes moot, when the monsters can still belittle you in packs. You'd have to farm for a lot of orbs just to match the pace of the difficulty, and even then: some characters have a low damage ceiling; like the two magic users. I was still at about 650-700 Strength for Lucian and Zane; but there damage output was far superior for that amount, and they still had room to grow. It just goes back to me seeing magic-based characters in your game as under-whelming compared to your physical based ones; I mean Zane was hitting criticals of 10k.
Bosses - Large punching bags if you're over-leveled like me; even the final boss was uneventful; besides being able to dish out the highest magic damage values in-game, it still didn't pose much of a problem. I have the complete opposite experience however, when it comes to the normal encounters; especially the one with two banshees and two dark servants, as well as the ghosts from that haunted house, compared to those: the bosses were cake-walks with just a lot of hp, but no bite. The only boss to even remotely give me some issues was Drake, but a few good poke in the eyes made his elaborate sword combo's look like a hopping contest.
Ambushes - Not so important early on; but is a life or death event from chapter 17 and onwards. When you get encounters with things like 4-6 Reinian's who can paralyze and deal 2000 damage on anyone; losing out on that first turn can drastically effect how you progress. Even having pre-emptives that late in the game doesn't change much; yes, you do mitigate 1 turn of damage, but you still expend a reasonably large amount of resources to still down them, and have to hope you don't miss too much. The pre-emptive/ambush encounters for bosses on the other hand; aren't that big of a deal, because there's usually only 2-3 mobs involved, and you know it won't kill you to lose that turn and it's a good advantage of you get that extra turn to prepare, but those concepts feel unnecessary and very detrimental when applied to just random encounters. Having 6 opposing monsters go first, coupled with static defense that guarantee's they do a set amount of damage on you just makes me mentally say: "Well, glad I saved in that last room", because it turns the encounter into a complete gamble at that point, and if you get ambushed before reaching that next save crystal; it makes things seem even more depressing.
Story and Erik - There were some events in the games story that I personally thought could of been handled differently, and Erik....
title
Natasha; Loved the concept behind her and the personality she had throughout. The finale between her and Aireon however, really felt off; in the sense that neither of them ever understood one another. Natasha was grounded in her beliefs till the bitter end; that she would always be inferior to Aireon, when Aireon would never understand Natasha's true feelings, it was ended in a pretty crummy way in my honest opinion.
Natasha could of survived and both her and Aireon could of sorted out their differences; or atleast finally get to see each other for what/who they are and build on what either of them have been going through, since they met to where they are now, and maybe even start anew; Natasha doesn't even need to be a playable character and she could still give Aireon the necklace as a means of a new pact of friendship. I just felt a lot of potential was lost when Natasha just died like that and even then: Aireon still didn't understand her or comprehend the pain she went through to be in her shadow, yet unable to see her own accomplishments to be able to make it as a Knight on her own merits.
Having watched Natasha refuse to get healed, and Aireon STILL not comprehending what she was going through just made me cringe.
Lucian/Kira; All that build up and time spent just felt like a big let-down. Lily requiring that sacrifice just added to that cop-out answer to just die and give up. Kira's demise after all that torment was also tragic. I suppose this does open up an avenue for a sequel, but the way things ended made me wonder what this entire journey was about and if there could of been some alternative ways to go about it. I'm not saying I was expecting a happy ending, but this was just wrong on so many levels for me; you make a woman suffer and the only comfort she gets is to kill herself in-front of her lover, while in turn; said companion decides to give up his own life to seal the bloodsphere, and does so not as a valiant gesture to do what needs to be done for everyone's sake, but because he just gave up on living. Then everyone splits like nothing happened and only the mage pays any homage to the two.
Erik; I found him to be a rather awkward character. He started off pretty solid as a bandit and during the 3rd encounter, when he reveals his dark past also made for a very good premise behind the event battle. However, when that battle is interrupted: he basically backs down entirely and too easily, as if what he was fighting for didn't matter and that he just "suddenly" sees Lucian as a good fellow and wants to join him. He didn't question Claire in an effort to hold onto his grudge, which would of been a better way to go; to let the player know that he's willing to lay his life on the line for vengeance, only to transition into another dialogue with Claire and how;
These actions won't bring them back, and do you think they would of wanted you to justify their deaths like this?!
Sounds cliche, but it also gives a lot more depth and understanding for me on how Erik is willing to fight for what he believes in, even should it be mis-guided at times and how he'll never forget what he's been through.
Another event I had some conflicts about was the conversation he had with Aireon moments after she killed Natasha: he told her to forget and contain her outrage; coming from a guy who had to watch his family/friends slaughtered and being the sole survivor, I didn't expect him to say that, nor do I feel it was appropriate. I also felt Erik's dialogues with Aireon at times were rather awkward; I understood what he was trying to say, but the way he said it looked weird when I read it.
Miscellaneous:
- I completely forgot to go back to that port city, where you get to choose whether you want to help the pirates or the trade company. There was a green chest in the captains room, but I never figured out how to get it open, what was inside and were you supposed to back-track at a later time to get it?
- ....I wanted Lolita to be a party member D=!
- Were there alternative endings or something? I read somewhere that having multiple saves would be a good idea as there are branching events, but the only one I came across was the pirate/trade company side-quest, and the split when you're in that cave with General Kaim.
/Pagebreak--------------------
That's about it. These are just my personal opinions and take on the game as I played through it, again, I thoroughly enjoyed playing it, but there were just some moments where I ended up questioning the validity/emotional moments of certain story elements or how the game worked in general, but I didn't make the game or had any part of it, so I'm also fairly certain those elements were deliberate and had another meaning entirely of being there, which I could of over-looked/didn't understand, so I apologize if what I said above offends in any way, as I didn't mean to come across as such with my statements >_<.
This post has been edited by lethitax: Jun 19 2012, 03:14 AM
Wow! You would have been a great beta tester to have had when I was making the game because that is _ALOT_ of helpful intformation! The magic was the hardest thing to balance for me and it's clear it ended up underpowered. When I first went through the magic did alot more damage, which posed problems for me at the time when Lily could pretty much singlehandedly mow down entire groups of enemies with her level 3 magic. I kind of wanted to incorporate item usage as being something you would need to use just as much as skills or attacks (hence the high SP costs) so to make planning and bringing alot of items along as a critical part of the game. In retrospect I definitely think I went too hard on the player with the battles overall as it is a challenging game (one of the reasons the "Easy" mode was added in literally as the game was finished).
One thing I'm curious of was if you did get the 8th party member to join you? His abilities make a huge difference and I also feel like I might have made him too essential for the later portions of the game because it is clear it is much harder if you don't have him. His abilities are stat buffs that last for several turns, such as increasing attack of all party members by 150%. This can be stacked with some of the party members (Such as Cyrus) abilities to boost there own stats to create huge damage situations. (Such as with Cyrus, he can do massive damage with the stat boosts in place). The bonus party member was someone who was hard to balance because his abilities were quite good, but that is all on me for the game developer for struggling to make the game too hard/too easy based on if you get a secret character.
The recommendation for extra saves was mostly because the game did not have a "Save anywhere" system so I find it is good to have backup saves so you dont get stranded at a savepoint. Those were the two main branching options and then there is unlocking the extra party member as well. Branching story paths is something that I am really interested in and I sort of had some practice with it with Bloodsphere. My next RPG Maker game I am making is going to be all about Branching Story paths and multiple endings now that I was able to get the hang of it.
Story Wise, I was planning on doing a Godfather II style Sequel/Prequel that would have a storyline that jumped back and forth between a prequel where you played as Gabriel (Aireon's Father), Darius, Karoes and Marco during the war with Nobungia. It would give alot more background and development to Darius and Karoes's rivalry as well as more of an explanation as to what the bloodsphere is and how it was created. This all was going to be in the game, but i axed it when I wanted to do a prequel, then ironically enough after finishing it I decided against a prequel because I wanted ot move foward to do a new game with a fresh plot utilizing all the experience I got making this game. The sequel aspect would pick up 15 years after Bloodsphere and have you playing as a protege of Sirena's who is tasked with finding a way to destroy the Bloodsphere, and the Cataclyst, once and for all.
I really appreciate everything you said, you were very thorough and had a lot of good points. As said, I want to start a new RPG Maker Game that fixes all the problems I had with this one. I'm really not having alot of time to work on it but I am getting the foundation together in my freetime as of now. If you would be interested as a tester let me know. You really know your stuff and it would be great!
This post has been edited by Alex898: Jun 19 2012, 12:30 PM
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I didn't try out everyone XD. I also got Boyd, but imagined that he wouldn't be very viable. Never took into account his aoe buff and stacking it with Cyrus's attack buff. I just didn't enjoy using Cyrus early on, because of how slow he was. Would of taken quite a bit of Speed Orbs to get him up to date. Which by end-game would be 420 minimal. But, I can imagine the obscene damage output.
I suppose the reason why I stuck with Zane, and the mage/cleric, was because most of the other characters were physical based. Sure they had their own unique quirks and moves, but overall; they still stuck to the physical damage formula, so I wanted to change things up a bit and see what a mix of physical + magic could do. I also wanted a reliable AOE attack that didn't miss every other time; like windmill does, and I knew I'd need lots of healing with how steep the difficulty was, which is also why I went with the mage/cleric.
Although the cleric for some dungeon/areas was more or less dead-weight as not everything is weak to Holy and her INT growth was "meh" compared to the mage's, I still brought her along just in-case something went wrong. As for the mage: I doubt I even had to pump up her INT to 999, since she would of gotten there sooner or later anyway, but I wanted to see the max damage I could do with Ultimate II, which was about 6000-8,000.
Speaking of damage: It isn't capped at 9999 like most RPG's, so theoretically; that would be a really obscene amount damage you could pull off with that Boyd + Cyrus combo.
Hmm, I also wanted to talk about the evade rates; even though I got the version of the game where they were tweaked to happen less often; encounters starting at the Black Marsh and onwards are still quite dodgy. I've had mobs dodge two triple attacks and 4 normal attacks in a row, luckily I still had magic to rely on, since that never misses. This is very problematic when you get to the Red Moon Tower though, and buff mobs appear that cast Regen; you can't afford to miss often, or you end up expending way more resources than needed to finish off a single random encounter. Healing everyone for 3800-6000 per turn meant that my Mage was only doing 2000-3000 damage per Ultimate, and the rest had to be made up with Zane's Focus + Blitzkrieg. I ended up eventually just focus firing down the Priestesses, before dealing with anything else.
I still have so much on my mind about this game if you couldn't tell XD! I forgot to mention the great puzzles you had implemented, lock picking was fun, especially for that certain super hard to open chest; it was also nice of you to reset the combination for lock-picking, so you weren't stuck with one pattern per try.
I'd be open to trying out any new games you have, though I do enjoy exploring and grinding, so I may not be the best tester if you need someone who can get you answers to problems ASAP.
By The Way -
I wanted to mention the different lighting effects you had in some maps were interesting, and then there was the Laevaethins(sp) cave and the town where Salty Sam was; to name a few, that just seemed hell-bent on making me go blind, or was a little hard to watch for long periods of time @_@.
Character/Story
Was there a way to recruit Lolita? How were you supposed to open that green chest in the pirate captains room? What decided whom would be in your party, when the Catalyst sent everyone to their dream worlds?
This post has been edited by lethitax: Jun 19 2012, 08:51 PM
I didn't try out everyone XD. I also got Boyd, but imagined that he wouldn't be very viable. Never took into account his aoe buff and stacking it with Cyrus's attack buff. I just didn't enjoy using Cyrus early on, because of how slow he was. Would of taken quite a bit of Speed Orbs to get him up to date. Which by end-game would be 420 minimal. But, I can imagine the obscene damage output.
I suppose the reason why I stuck with Zane, and the mage/cleric, was because most of the other characters were physical based. Sure they had their own unique quirks and moves, but overall; they still stuck to the physical damage formula, so I wanted to change things up a bit and see what a mix of physical + magic could do. I also wanted a reliable AOE attack that didn't miss every other time; like windmill does, and I knew I'd need lots of healing with how steep the difficulty was, which is also why I went with the mage/cleric.
Although the cleric for some dungeon/areas was more or less dead-weight as not everything is weak to Holy and her INT growth was "meh" compared to the mage's, I still brought her along just in-case something went wrong. As for the mage: I doubt I even had to pump up her INT to 999, since she would of gotten there sooner or later anyway, but I wanted to see the max damage I could do with Ultimate II, which was about 6000-8,000.
Speaking of damage: It isn't capped at 9999 like most RPG's, so theoretically; that would be a really obscene amount damage you could pull off with that Boyd + Cyrus combo.
Hmm, I also wanted to talk about the evade rates; even though I got the version of the game where they were tweaked to happen less often; encounters starting at the Black Marsh and onwards are still quite dodgy. I've had mobs dodge two triple attacks and 4 normal attacks in a row, luckily I still had magic to rely on, since that never misses. This is very problematic when you get to the Red Moon Tower though, and buff mobs appear that cast Regen; you can't afford to miss often, or you end up expending way more resources than needed to finish off a single random encounter. Healing everyone for 3800-6000 per turn meant that my Mage was only doing 2000-3000 damage per Ultimate, and the rest had to be made up with Zane's Focus + Blitzkrieg. I ended up eventually just focus firing down the Priestesses, before dealing with anything else.
I still have so much on my mind about this game if you couldn't tell XD! I forgot to mention the great puzzles you had implemented, lock picking was fun, especially for that certain super hard to open chest; it was also nice of you to reset the combination for lock-picking, so you weren't stuck with one pattern per try.
I'd be open to trying out any new games you have, though I do enjoy exploring and grinding, so I may not be the best tester if you need someone who can get you answers to problems ASAP.
By The Way -
I wanted to mention the different lighting effects you had in some maps were interesting, and then there was the Laevaethins(sp) cave and the town where Salty Sam was; to name a few, that just seemed hell-bent on making me go blind, or was a little hard to watch for long periods of time @_@.
Character/Story
Was there a way to recruit Lolita? How were you supposed to open that green chest in the pirate captains room? What decided whom would be in your party, when the Catalyst sent everyone to their dream worlds?
Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Character/Story
Nope, Lolita was just a minor boss character. I can't remember which chest you are referring too, IIRC there is one you have to open if you choose to help the merchants in that sidequest. The characters sent to the dream worlds are story based for character development purposes (its always the same)
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May 7 2012, 11:10 AM
