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The Road to Ruin [Complete] [v3.0.3 Released!]


Primefusion
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Yeah its a fun hack to play I had a blast playing the beta version of the 2.0 version I stopped using Torie after a while because of her stats when anything could kill her and cause a game over but she was good for Sylvia to gain xp off of her which she turned into my best unit for some reason

Edited by Crimson Chaos
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yeah i got to around chapter 9 in this hack and i just kinda lost motivation, it just feels like there's a character balancing issues.

don't get me wrong, the story is good, i like the politics, the map design is one of the best done.

i can post stats in a later post if you want, i just took one look at the map and its enemies, and one look at my remaining guys and went "yup imma do this later"

also if the growths are going to be lower? then why does nearly everyone join at a higher level then average? because there are less chances to level up, it makes getting a bad level up (which is far more common here) and with how the enemy scale, more then one bad level up can gimp a unit from being feastable on any stage onward.

biggest complaints with characters are Torie, Hugo, and corvan.

with Torie, i don't believe in the history of ever, there has been a peg knight with 9 base speed, except maybe the ones in FE2, but that's an entirely different game with an entirely different speed system so that doesn't count. all i believe she would need to be balanced is like, 2 more points of speed on base, hell be generous if you want and give her 12, that's the normal base speed of peg knights.

also another rom hack i can think of that gave peg knights shit tier base speed was Blazer's "The Last Promise", where his two peg knights had an awesome 8 base speed at level 1 and 10 base speed at level 5, and guess what? most of the time they sucked!. i dunno if nerfing peg knights into the ground is a theme with rom hacks these days, but it needs to die.

Hugo, he's suppose to be shit right? in a hack with inflated enemies by the average FE standard, we're gonna more or less make Dorcas, except Dorcas was BAD by FE7 standards, so of course remaking him here as Hugo doesn't help him at all, i remember Hugo's placeholder sprite was Dorcas so i know this must've been intentional on some level.

not to mention, Gonzales, the only other bandit playable in FE, has good speed, meanwhile here's a playable bandit who can barely outrun a Knight, once again, an easy way to fix this is to increase his base speed by a point or two so he'll stop being doubled by nearly every enemy, or keep his base low and increase his growth to around bartre's level.

and Corvan's issue is that he's a knight in general, except he gets the added bonus of not being any better at tanking then some of your other units, and being as slow as Hugo.

with him i'd say just make him abit more durable at base, maybe afew more hit points and an extra defense point, i dunno its your call.

TL:DR: maybe have units join at lower levels and give small bonuses to the above characters, because that's all they really need and i just want to help, cause this is right next to midnight sun is how good it is, and midnight sun holds the title of "favorite rom hack"

inb4 git gud

.

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with Torie, i don't believe in the history of ever, there has been a peg knight with 9 base speed, except maybe the ones in FE2, but that's an entirely different game with an entirely different speed system so that doesn't count. all i believe she would need to be balanced is like, 2 more points of speed on base, hell be generous if you want and give her 12, that's the normal base speed of peg knights.

Hugo, he's suppose to be shit right?

and Corvan's issue is that he's a knight in general, except he gets the added bonus of not being any better at tanking then some of your other units, and being as slow as Hugo.

Torie is in the midst of being rebalanced. Though I will go ahead a point out that Florina starts with 9 speed also (I'm just nitpicking here don't mind me).

Hugo is supposed to be slow though I may tweak bases a little bit. Ditto for Corvan (he actually already got a buff prior to release. Try to imagine him before, heh.)

this is right next to midnight sun is how good it is, and midnight sun holds the title of "favorite rom hack"

:o:

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Torie is in the midst of being rebalanced. Though I will go ahead a point out that Florina starts with 9 speed also (I'm just nitpicking here don't mind me).

Hugo is supposed to be slow though I may tweak bases a little bit. Ditto for Corvan (he actually already got a buff prior to release. Try to imagine him before, heh.)

:o:

florina did? damn i forgot about that lol.

Hugo gets doubled by everything starting at around chapter 7 or 8, so it really doesn't help him, glad to hear about the reply though!

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New release: v2.0.1

This minor release attempts to mitigate some character balance issues in addition to a couple item tweaks and glitch fixes.

[spoiler=Details]

Version 2.0.1:

Characters
- Vance got +1 to base Resistance and +5% to his defense growth.
- Torie got +1 to base Con, Skill, and Speed, +2 to base HP, and +5% to her strength and speed growths.
- Hugo got +1 to base Strength and +2 base Speed
- Corvan got +1 to base Speed and +2 base Defense as well as +5% to his Speed, Defense, and Resistance growths.
- Braxton got +1 to base Strength, Skill, and Speed and +2 to base Defense as well as +5% to defense growth and +10% to speed growth.
- Aaron got +1 to base speed and +2 to base defense in ch. 8 (His stats in 4x and 6x are unchanged).
- Marris got +2 to base speed.

Chapters
- 4x:
- Smoothed out the map battles at the end of the chapter.
The defeated units no longer randomly reappear briefly.

Items
- Short Blade got +10 to accuracy, is now unsellable, and now has effectiveness against cavalry
- Steel Lance weight reduced by 1 (Now 12)

Bugs and Glitches:
- Lance knights should now use the correct unarmed animation instead of the assassin's.

This information can also be found in the Release.txt file included.

If you reported a bug/glitch and it didn't get fixed you'll have to remind me again! Sorry!

The base stat adjustments should apply to in-progress saves as well as fresh saves so you'll be able to reap the bonuses right away.

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I'd just like to point out that at chapter 4 it would probably have been easier for aksum to just terminate Vances contract if they wanted to get rid of them. I understand that you need some sort of dramatic twist to get the characters to join the opposite side, but you might want to go with a better twist. also ch 3 feels unneeded in my opinion, as there's no real progression in the plot or the characters, it might be better to simply work ch 3 into ch 2 or move 4 to 3 story wise, or get some more foreshadowing going at ch 3, or something to give it more actual weight.

nice maps though prime, good design as always.

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  • 1 month later...

I've downloaded v2.0.1 and am currently playing it. I'm going to post my impressions as I'm progressing in case it's appreciated. So far I've made it to chapter 4x and am pretty impressed by how good the game is. I have two issues that I want to mention though:

* It's very easy for a new player to run out of weapons for Torie. She's the only lance user in the party for a while and the only unit that has access to a 1-2 range weapon until Hugo joins so you will end up using her quite a lot for battling [she's also one of the few unpromoted units that can double somewhat reliably].

There's only one armory between the start of the game and chapter 4, by which point I ended up with single digit uses left for both the Slim Lance and the Javelin. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody ran out of both weapons completely and left unable to fight with Torie for the whole chapter 4 because they didn't realize that they only had one chance to buy lances for her. I think it'd be a good idea to have some random enemy in chapter 3 or 4 drop a Slim Lance or an Iron lance.

* Hugo performs quite poorly compared to the rest of the party so far, even with a Hand Axe. The enemy units that use Lances so far are almost exclusively Soldiers, who are surprisingly obnoxious. They are fast enough to not get doubled by anything except Ava / Vance [whom they have WTA against] and Torie who deals poor damage. That's where one would expect Hugo to find his niche but he actually fails to 2RKO Soldiers despite WTA and he doesn't double them. That makes his performance against one of the only enemy types that he can be useful for pretty sub-par. Either nerfing the soldier's defenses a tiny bit or buffing Hugo's offensive capabilities should fix this issue. Giving Hugo a Steel Axe or a Crystal Axe could already be good enough. But his performance against Soldiers definitely needs to be improved because he's pretty worthless at this rate.

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worst part is Hugo's gotten buffed too.

but now that i read your post, i honestly think the soldiers might be way stronger then they should be, more so cause they are the "average master of none class" in pretty much every game but 9/10.

either that or replace some of the soldiers with knights. idk

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I'll go ahead and add a droppable lance in ch. 4 and maybe a steel axe in 2 or 3. However, I probably won't be buffing Hugo anymore than he already has been. He comes packing 7 speed and 10 strength at level 5 and anymore tweaks to his growths will defeat the model I've established for him: Solid strength and skill, lower end speed.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the hack!

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Yeah, after getting a bit further into the game [Ch.7 right now] I think Hugo is actually alright and it's just the Soldiers that are kinda OP. His high CON really helps him to wield virtually every axe available with no loss on spd, which is pretty awesome.

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Yeah, after getting a bit further into the game [Ch.7 right now] I think Hugo is actually alright and it's just the Soldiers that are kinda OP. His high CON really helps him to wield virtually every axe available with no loss on spd, which is pretty awesome.

while i did play on the patch before hugo got buffed, those soldiers are by far the best units on any general map without promoted units.

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So, I finally finished the game and have some input ready.

Let's get the negative out of the way first:

* Jorin sucks. His stats are under-average and he has to stick with Swords for his entire life. Can't double anything nor hit hard. Couldn't make any use of his mobility either. Turned out to be pretty much the most worthless unit despite being mounted because of how poorly he performs in combat and how rarely you get to pull off rescue drops or chains. After a number of chapters where he's not very useful he starts getting mercilessly outclassed by Braxton who's better at just about everything. Perhaps you could improve Jorin's HP, def and res growth rates because that'd give him his own niche in the game where he's bulky and mobile at the same time. If supports become a thing in this hack then Jorin definitely needs a couple of good ones to become viable. In his current state he doesn't double, doesn't hit hard but gets hit quite hard in turn.

* Before Melusine joins, Soldiers are REALLY obnoxious to deal with because you can't damage them without getting hit hard yourself. If you wanna stay safe against them you need to weaken them with 2 rounds of 2-range attacks but only Buck's Bows are reliable enough to make sure that you need no more than 3 units to deal with them within one PP. Nerfing them a bit could improve Hugo's performance and make the game more enjoyable overall.

* The first soldier in Ch.4 is awfully placed. I suspect that it was intended to be this way but I hate it and it doesn't make the chapter more difficult, just more annoying. Either place him somewhere else or change the starting positions of the player's units because this is just straight-up poor design imo. I feel the same way about the Fighter in Chapter 6 that sits in the northern dead-end. If you really put an enemy unit there, at least let him drop a reward or something >=(

* Sylvia can run into a similar problem as Torie with running out of staffs. There's only one Vendor between the Chapter Sylvia joins and Chapter 5 [where the second Vendor is located] and she will have a lot of healing to do during that time. If you fail to buy a staff in Chapter 3 you might end up getting completely screwed because you can run out of your only good means of healing units.

* While the overall difficulty of the chapters so far is a very nice change of pace compared to the official FE games, I feel like it's getting a bit repetitive towards the end. There's little room to pull off big plays, rescue chains or other cool stuff because you're always swarmed by powerful opponents right from the start of the map. With the exception of the Gaiden Chapters the ideal strategy is almost always the same - "aggressive turtling". It's getting a bit predictable because the game's difficulty is always based on a high density of powerful opponents that are often located very close to the starting positions of your units. Why not change things up a bit? Desert maps and FoW Chapters can add a lot to the challenge of beating a game without requiring an excessive density of enemy units.

And here's the positive:

* Ava has to be the best designed Jaigan I've ever seen. Despite her awful growth rates - she didn't gain a single point of str or spd in 4 level ups! - and her pitiful base str she actually turned out to be useful during the entire run. Useful enough to the point where I chose to deploy her in every single chapter without regretting it once. If you give some decent support options it might be possible to use her in the Chapters that will follow Ch.10 reasonably well. Very well done.

* Map design is generally high-level throughout the entire run. I love the design of Ch.4 where the ideal strategy is actually splitting up your party in two rather than having all units take the same path. If you fix the "problem" with the Soldier in the beginning I'd consider it pretty much perfect. Ch.8, 9 and 10 all have outstanding map design - challenging while at the same time giving the player room to apply his own strategy.

* The Gaiden Chapters are fantastic. It's too bad O'Reilly can't keep the Killer Axe from 4x and use it in 6x >=(

* Most of the units you get are pretty useful one way or another. Jorin is the only unit that REALLY needs a buff at the moment. The rest of the cast is more or less OK.

Looking forward to the next update!

Edited by Yojinbo
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Can't double anything nor hit hard

I'm pretty sure your Jorin got strength screwed since he's got a 50% growth.

He used to have a higher speed growth but that ended up allowing him to trivialize chapters.

Braxton will likely get a slight nerf since I got too excited boosting him so hopefully the 3

knights (including Aaron) will all be a bit more comparable.

The first soldier in Ch.4 is awfully placed. I suspect that it was intended to be this way but I hate it and it doesn't make the chapter more difficult, just more annoying.

Why is it annoying?

Sylvia can run into a similar problem as Torie with running out of staffs.

Heal staves will have 10 more durability next patch.

just straight-up poor design

There is no design. I just slap units down willy nilly, haha.

There's little room to pull off big plays, rescue chains or other cool stuff

My disdain of LTC is bleeding through, I guess.

Why not change things up a bit? Desert maps and FoW Chapters

I'll probably mixed things up a bit with the last batch of chapters, but not like that.

Ava has to be the best designed Jaigan I've ever seen.

I think you might just be the only person that thinks this, haha.

It's too bad O'Reilly can't keep the Killer Axe from 4x and use it in 6x >=(

Are you sure of this? Obtaining the Killer Axe in 4x causes him to start with it in 6x.

Thanks for the feedback!

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I'm pretty sure your Jorin got strength screwed since he's got a 50% growth.

Jorin's been my 2nd or 3rd best character pretty consistently in 3 or so playthroughs.

Then again, I also use Hugo and Aaron, so...yeah. That said, Aaron could use a point or two offensively (probably Speed) to keep abreast of his companions - He's been extremely tanky for me though, which I suspect is his niche.

My disdain of LTC is bleeding through, I guess.

It's really pointless to design for LTC, IMO - Most of the people playing Fire Emblem hacks don't play that way, or aren't super incredibly high skill level.

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I'm pretty sure your Jorin got strength screwed since he's got a 50% growth.

He used to have a higher speed growth but that ended up allowing him to trivialize chapters.

Braxton will likely get a slight nerf since I got too excited boosting him so hopefully the 3

knights (including Aaron) will all be a bit more comparable.

Actually, my Jorin ended up with only one less str. than average. The risk / reward ratio of him going for an attack is simply not very favorable against any enemy unit. His str. is still meh being locked to Swords and he gets hit hard in turn with no realistic chance of dodging or doubling. Braxton is powerful but not OP. Don't nerf him too much imo, a reasonable buff for Jorin and slight buff for Aaron should be enough.

Why is it annoying?

Because there's no proper way to deal with him. Only two units can reach him on the first turn to attack - Hugo with Hand Axe and Torie with Javelin. You can't kill him on the first turn. If you don't attack him you need 2 - 3 units on the second turn to kill him. You can't actually afford to do that because it slows you down too much. So you have to attack him on the first turn with Torie and Hugo [which you can only do if Javelin isn't broken by then and Hugo gets a hand axe in the previous chapter] which messes up the positioning for the next PP. Either Change the starting formation of the party so that Jorin can reach the Soldier and finish him off or move the Soldier far away enough that you can force him into attacking Hugo on turn 2 imo.

My disdain of LTC is bleeding through, I guess.

Rescue drops aren't only for LTC runs though. They can be very helpful for positioning as you can place a specific unit on a desired spot. One reason why Ch.8 is so cool is because you can use Torie to drop a unit down the cliffs to distract and combat units that would clog the "regular" way to the castle otherwise. Things like that give the player options that make the game interesting to play and have strategic value.

I'll probably mixed things up a bit with the last batch of chapters, but not like that.

The last batch of chapters are the best ones though. I think Ch4, Ch8, Ch9, Ch10 and the Gaiden Chapters are the best ones. Imo: You could decrease the amount of enemies in Ch6., make it a FoW chapter and have the Fighter in the North drop a Torch. That's one of the things I could think of to mix things up, if you appreciate that.

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Jorin balancing

I'll crunch some numbers and see what I can do. I don't want to completely overhaul his growth model (glass cannon-esque) but I may do some tweaks.

annoying soldier

I'll look into it.

The last batch of chapters are the best ones though.

Oh, I probably should have been a bit more specific. By last batch of chapters I meant the new ones that will be included in the next patch.

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  • 1 month later...

Nice hack, story definitely got more engaging as it went on. I think the characters are pretty well balanced. Jorin was solid if not amazing and my Hugo could OHKO mages and ORKO knights while being somewhat bulky. If I had to buff any character it would be Buck (archer who can't double and doesn't hit very hard without good levels is ehhh), but other people have found him pretty useful apparently.

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