Staff of Ages (SoAXNA v0.1 out now!)

[Hawkatana]

7 hours ago, MaxBurnHeart said:

-To be honest, the worst aspect is (don't lynch me pls) Belle. Man, she's so annoying. She's almost always like "I'm gonna reclaim my country just because I'm totally right and you are wrong", which is just silly. Just like a naive little girl, with only one difference beign she can't lose. I know she showed some doubt during a story, but that's where comes Oona. "That's not true, you are the most right", "They are wrong, because your path is right" and other stuff like that. She's so stiff. If that's intended, then bleh. At least try to show some character, lady!

That was kinda the point of Belle's character, Eirika done not terribly. As for Oona, yeah I have no defence.

[Thane]

11 hours ago, MaxBurnHeart said:

-What's up with Federica? She helped Belle and her party very much, so why Owen and Sawyer suddenly treat her almost like an enemy? Sure, she was a little too nice, but comeone! From the story perspective, she literally did nothing wrong, so that came out of nowhere.

Not to speak for the developers in any way, but I believe they've said they also felt like the hostility came a bit too suddenly. However, it's very clear that Federica is scheming something, which is why Owen and Sawyer react the way they do; she's an opportunist and a manipulator in charge of the biggest spy network in the world.

[Chastlily]

On 14/05/2017 at 11:53 PM, MaxBurnHeart said:

 

-Whole story. Sometimes, it is confusing or even does not make any sense. Maybe I just missed something, but from what I can understand, this story is about a war between two kingdoms, where queen of one side of conflict does not have any intention to fight, despise her closest advisor advices. So by help of his close friend and allied lords, he just murders her and calls himself a king. Meanwhile, he starts a wildhunt, in which he wants to kill princess, but all he did was a pointless massacre of his army and ultimately lost the crown. So... yeah. Instead of preparing for inevitable war, he sends a lot of forces just for her head? I can understand why, but at the same time, didn't neightbourhood kingdom just knock for some conquest?

 

Arynden starts to show some aggressiveness towards Fortuita, however Queen Kalvesta does not wish for a war to happen so she tries to have Fortuita bear with it hoping it'll stop. Seneca's patience grows short in that regard because he personally thinks that Fortuita should answer with strength and wants to confront Kalvesta about it: Things get too heated and he eventually kills her, even if it was not his prime intention.

He does not want to kill the princess at any point, and most of the resources were not sent after her.

On 14/05/2017 at 11:53 PM, MaxBurnHeart said:

-There is no consistent in story. For examples, villagers. One time, they are wholeheartedly with Seneca, but another time anybody despise him, only to love him again. Whaa?

-What's up with Federica? She helped Belle and her party very much, so why Owen and Sawyer suddenly treat her almost like an enemy? Sure, she was a little too nice, but comeone! From the story perspective, she literally did nothing wrong, so that came out of nowhere.

 

The country isn't a hivemind in that regard and not everyone shares the same opinion.

As for Frederica: That's precisely why they're a bit upset about. Someone they barely know is very invested in helping Belle and around the end goes "Geez Louise, I guess I'll have to handle Fortuita now :^)".
That being said, the fact that she gets a little too much flack early on is something we're aware of and is going to be changed along a few things script wise.

I'll edit in more things later on, as I'm a bit busy today and have to write things short.

Edited May 16, 2017 by Chastlily

[MaxBurnHeart]

On 16.05.2017 at 3:07 PM, Chastlily said:

Arynden starts to show some aggressiveness towards Fortuita, however Queen Kalvesta does not wish for a war to happen so she tries to have Fortuita bear with it hoping it'll stop. Seneca's patience grows short in that regard because he personally thinks that Fortuita should answer with strength and wants to confront Kalvesta about it: Things get too heated and he eventually kills her, even if it was not his prime intention.

He does not want to kill the princess at any point, and most of the resources were not sent after her.

Well, duh.

Maybe I said it wrong- it's not like I don't understand what's going on. What I meant by this point is how it is executed. The opening sequence which introduced us to story was great, but later execution is... kinda lackluster? It felt like all Seneca did was murder queen and his troops without doing anything as a king. The Arynden war with Fortuita felt irrevelant after first few chapters, only to be very important at the end. It's almost like watching a film filled with a static engaging movement- at first glance it seems awesome, until you realise how bland it is. Maybe too harsh, but I don't have better comparison at the moment.

On 16.05.2017 at 3:07 PM, Chastlily said:

The country isn't a hivemind in that regard and not everyone shares the same opinion.

That's true, but we are talking about peasants. They are not exactly the most reliable followers- they may backstab you just like that if your opponent offers them a better conditions. In that case, Belle saved a few out of presumably hundreds of villages. In the grand scheme of things, that may be just a drop in the ocean of problems.

On 15.05.2017 at 11:11 AM, Thane said:

Not to speak for the developers in any way, but I believe they've said they also felt like the hostility came a bit too suddenly. However, it's very clear that Federica is scheming something, which is why Owen and Sawyer react the way they do; she's an opportunist and a manipulator in charge of the biggest spy network in the world.

On 16.05.2017 at 3:07 PM, Chastlily said:

As for Frederica: That's precisely why they're a bit upset about. Someone they barely know is very invested in helping Belle and around the end goes "Geez Louise, I guess I'll have to handle Fortuita now :^)".

That being said, the fact that she gets a little too much flack early on is something we're aware of and is going to be changed along a few things script wise.

Rika scheming something may be obvious for a player, but I was talking from story perspective. From that point of view, they may just through that Federica was a Kalvesta's childhood close friend, so that's understandable why she's helping so much.

But since it will be changed, this point may be no longer valid. :)

On 15.05.2017 at 7:53 AM, Hawkatana said:

That was kinda the point of Belle's character, Eirika done not terribly. As for Oona, yeah I have no defence.

Oh, okay then. If it was kinda the point of her character, then she's gonna need a lot of character development in future.

[urug99]

4 hours ago, MaxBurnHeart said:

Well, duh.

Maybe I said it wrong- it's not like I don't understand what's going on. What I meant by this point is how it is executed. The opening sequence which introduced us to story was great, but later execution is... kinda lackluster? It felt like all Seneca did was murder queen and his troops without doing anything as a king. The Arynden war with Fortuita felt irrevelant after first few chapters, only to be very important at the end. It's almost like watching a film filled with a static engaging movement- at first glance it seems awesome, until you realise how bland it is. Maybe too harsh, but I don't have better comparison at the moment.

Well I mean wasn't that supposed to be the point as well? I thought the war with Arynden was built up and executed pretty well. Everything up until the queen getting murdered was about them, then after the queen was murdered, Arynden took advantage of that situtation in order to covertly infiltrate and prepare for the attack in the final chapter in the act. So it was supposed to feel irrelevant, from Fortuita's point of view anyways, because the Arynden's wanted the focus to be away from the war and more on belle. They even covertly manipulated Seneca and Belle in hopes of infiltrating them unnoticed. When the opportunity arose they struck at their neck and took the staff. I mean as the player's we get information the characters don't have, and we got little hints as to what was going on, but towards the end even owen and sawyer grew suspicious that Arynden was being too quite and wondered what their intentions were.

Also it is stated that Seneca does not send even close to a majority of Fortuita's forces after belle, most of the forces are sent to secure the borders and etc.

Edited May 18, 2017 by urug99

[Captain Trek]

Hey everyone. I've been a Fire Emblem fan for a long time, but never really had a reason to do much more than lurk on this forum until now. I recently played the current release of Staff of Ages and, whilst I really liked what I saw for the most part, there was one thing in particular that bothered me which, upon doing a search of this thread, I was surprised to find that no one had seemingly brought it up yet:

What's the point of of giving the player an épée in one of the Act 1 finale chests? You'll get to use it for all of maybe half a chapter at most (and that's assuming your first one has even broken, which mine hadn't because I was suitably conservative with it) before Belle gets booted out of the story for what seems from appearances like it's going to be the entirety of act 2. 

Speaking of Belle getting blended by a tornado, I have to admit that whilst it made complete sense from a story perspective, from a gameplay perspective I'm not a huge fan of that design choice. Considering several of my best units were five or less levels from promotion at the end of Act 1-F, I greatly fear that she'll be hideously under-leveled by the time we get her back and go from being an excellent unit to being a flying Eirika or Roy. A burden to be babied along and mostly left out of the fight because she just can't compete.

Now don't get me wrong, certainly FE 7 and FE 8 did something similar, but in FE 7 you only lose access to Lyn for five chapters (six in Hector mode), and after you get her back there's still well over half the game still to go. In FE 8, both the chapters leading up to the route split and the route split itself are shorter and involve smaller, less intense battles than their Staff of Ages equivalents for the most part, meaning whichever lord you leave behind isn't quite so cripplingly under-leveled when you get them back as I fear Belle will be when she eventually returns.

Moreover, Lyn and Eirika were pretty much just middling and downright lacklustre (respectively) myrmidons, who gameplay-wise really didn't offer anything all too unique, so losing them for a while wasn't as much of a hit. Owen and Sawyer too are very similar units to at least each other, so whilst I'm not huge on losing one of them either (and the risk of coming back under-leveled applies to them just as much), they at least, if nothing else, leave less of a hole in your lineup when one of them departs. Belle, on the other hand, was unique with her flying swordie routine, offering a nice trifecta along with Lily's lances and Kate's axes and unique gameplay opportunities that are lost for as long as she's bed-ridden (unless you intend on introducing another flying swordie, I suppose). Plus it seems a shame to go to so much effort to make those lovely animations for her only to sideline them like that.

Of course, I may be biased because, from a cursory overview of the thread, it seems that I'm one of the few people who actually really likes Belle as a character (along with Oona and Charles), and doesn't particularly care for the other main protagonist quartet or the first act's main villain duo. But that's just how I feel about it and it somewhat discourages me from using Belle a lot in act 1 once this hack's act 2 becomes available.

I would also like to say that the combination of the hero standing in front of Seneca and the Dulam druid behind him is really obnoxious. I'll have to see if I can find a way around it on a second playthrough, but on my first run there didn't seem to be a good way of drawing out the hero without having a very good chance of the dulam druid polishing off whoever they went after, which means you either roll the dice (which are loaded against you), or stand around baiting out the dulam for several turns. The guy with the hexing rod, strangely enough, never actually used it. No idea if I just got lucky or if that was a bug. Also the main map tracks from the second half of act 1 and the finale of act 1 really grate on me, but you should ignore that because my taste of music is weird and unpredictable.


I also want to give this hack its due praise as well. The story's already (from what I can see in this thread) being further worked on and whilst the character portraits aren't as good as the ones in Last Promise, they're perfectly serviceable. Beyond that, Staff of Ages is really promising so far. You definitely have a knack for level design and the clever layouts and enemy placement are easily this hack's strongest points, along with the balanced character roster. Almost everyone has a niche they fill nicely. Even Stark, in a series where archers are often considered to be a bit of a joke, actually feels very necessary at certain points and generally seems to be a good unit. The only characters I would say lag significantly are Axel and Elijah, who are really just outshone by Eagle and Charles. My Harold and my Grace also felt a bit lacklustre, but not unusably so.

Speaking of Charles, he's da MAN! Seriously, I don't think I've had this much fun with an axe user since I played Path of Radiance and had Astrid maining axes after she promoted. His accuracy is a bit shaky, but he's one tanky mutherfucka by cavalier standards and creates fabulous amounts of damage when his often times ~70% to hit co-operates. Other units I like include Sawyer (whose excellent speed worked better for me than Owen's excellent attack), Stark (aforementioned), Lily (a slow, bulky pega is a nice, unique idea, and works extremely well when coming up against enemy pegas that are either being slowed down by heavy horseslayers and steel lances, allowing her to double them, or else don't hit hard enough to really threaten her), Aurora (those Festal staves were an amazing idea), and, of course, Belle (who is everything you could want out of a flying myrmidon provided she doesn't get strength screwed, which mine most definitely did not).

I find the lack of a Jagen (and pre-promotes in general for that matter) curious and refreshing. Hard mode will be tough to balance without one, but given what I've seen so far, I'd say you're almost certainly up to the challenge.

With a bit more polish, this hack will really be going places, I think. Keep up the good work!

Edited May 26, 2017 by Captain Trek

[LemonTart]

Fell in love with this hack after watching Mangs' let's play on it and eventually getting around to playing it myself.

I recognized some of the soundtrack being from Ys, Dynasty Warriors and Actraiser, but didn't manage to find the original versions of Counterattack, Usurper's Bellows and of course Snake upon the Throne, but I assume those are original songs and not remixes?

[InvdrZim13]

On 6/8/2017 at 7:40 AM, LemonTart said:

Fell in love with this hack after watching Mangs' let's play on it and eventually getting around to playing it myself.

I recognized some of the soundtrack being from Ys, Dynasty Warriors and Actraiser, but didn't manage to find the original versions of Counterattack, Usurper's Bellows and of course Snake upon the Throne, but I assume those are original songs and not remixes?

Usurpers Bellows and Snake upon the Throne are original songs, Counterattack is from Shadow of the Colossus

 

[Galastan]

On 5/26/2017 at 4:40 AM, Captain Trek said:

What's the point of of giving the player an épée in one of the Act 1 finale chests? You'll get to use it for all of maybe half a chapter at most (and that's assuming your first one has even broken, which mine hadn't because I was suitably conservative with it) before Belle gets booted out of the story for what seems from appearances like it's going to be the entirety of act 2. 

We agree and the chest's contents have been fixed for awhile in one of our beta builds. Though, we'll keep it a surprise as to what the new chest holds now!

On 5/26/2017 at 4:40 AM, Captain Trek said:

Speaking of Belle getting blended by a tornado, I have to admit that whilst it made complete sense from a story perspective, from a gameplay perspective I'm not a huge fan of that design choice. Considering several of my best units were five or less levels from promotion at the end of Act 1-F, I greatly fear that she'll be hideously under-leveled by the time we get her back and go from being an excellent unit to being a flying Eirika or Roy. A burden to be babied along and mostly left out of the fight because she just can't compete.

Now don't get me wrong, certainly FE 7 and FE 8 did something similar, but in FE 7 you only lose access to Lyn for five chapters (six in Hector mode), and after you get her back there's still well over half the game still to go. In FE 8, both the chapters leading up to the route split and the route split itself are shorter and involve smaller, less intense battles than their Staff of Ages equivalents for the most part, meaning whichever lord you leave behind isn't quite so cripplingly under-leveled when you get them back as I fear Belle will be when she eventually returns.

When everything is said and done, Belle will be absent for about as long as Hector's story Lyn (read: six chapters). While she's technically gone for seven, she'll have a sidestory chapter (no unlock prerequisites, though) that'll help her shore up some cXP and wXP. By the time you get her back, I think you'll be pleased with how well she performs compared to Roy, Eirika, and Lyn. However, I'm not sure how much we can feasibly do for the lord whose route you don't decide to go on (Zim or Dat would probably have the answers, though!)

I'm glad you're enjoying Staff of Ages. We're excited to deliver more new content and updated old content in the very near future. Stay tuned for more!

[Galastan]

Also PLS DONATE 2 STAF OB AGIS

Edited June 15, 2017 by Galastan
double post

[InvdrZim13]

Hoo boy do I have a thing for you:

Pick up the patch as soon as 1.7.1 is done

"Hello, everyone! This is Galastan, editor for Staff of Ages! We’re very excited to bring you a lot of great content for Fire Emblem E3 this fall. First, however, we’ve prepared a primer for you all to whet your appetites before taking on the first half of Owen and Sawyer’s separate adventures in the second arc of the game. Below is a brief outline of what you can expect from this round of changes.

Skills

The flagship feature in the Pre-FEE3 Staff of Ages update is one that I’m sure all of you have heard about at this point in time: the skills system! Much like modern Fire Emblem games, we’ve adopted a skill system to add a dynamic layer to combat in Staff of Ages. However, we are very aware of how bloated the skills systems are in some of the more recent games, including Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem: Fates. We’ve taken steps to reduce the impact of combat bloat, while also making every round of combat interesting.

Each character is capable of having three skills at maximum, not including class skills like Canto, Steal, Silencer, Locktouch, Dance, Crit +15, and Summon. Every character has a personal skill that interacts with their personality, class identity, or a combination of both. Additionally, every class unlocks a skill at level 10. In short, a character will have a personal skill, base class skill, promoted class skill, and any baseline class skills that I’ve mentioned above.

I won’t elaborate on what classes get which skills, but you’ll certainly notice them as you play through a fresh Staff of Ages run. And be sure to watch out for powerful skills on certain boss units, and even regular skills on generic enemies! You’ll certainly have to be careful and see what the enemies you’re up against are capable of.

Buildfile

Staff of Ages has completely moved over to the buildfile system of compiling data. As a writer, I don’t know too much about this, but I do know that your old saves will not interact with the new buildfile version of the game. You’ll unfortunately have to start over, but it puts you in a prime position to experience Fire Emblem E3 content, which will interact with your buildfile saves.

Balance Changes

Alongside a round of character balancing—of which I don’t have the specifics—many maps have been altered to better mesh with the new skills system. Some enemies have been moved around, others added, and some removed entirely. You’ll have to see for yourself on your next playthrough of the game.

Some maps that have had very significant changes are 1-8, 1-9, and 1-F. These maps have undergone development before the skills system, so they may not play out exactly the way you remember.

Story Changes

As a writer, this is the section of the patch notes that I can inform you the best about. I won’t reveal anything wholesale here, but I will provide you an outline of what’s different from before.

The biggest, most important change was that of Federica’s (NOT Frederica) character. We as a team weren’t satisfied with how she was portrayed in the 1.6.1 1-F postchapter, so she’s undergone some restructuring to better fit with our idea of her character.

The early stages of the first arc of the game have also been edited to better include Sawyer and Owen in the premise of the story. Additionally, we’ve expanded the characters of several units you’re familiar with, including Seneca and his cronies Dahl and Matteo. Kalvesta, and even the likes of Aurora, are two other characters who received several changes to make their characters more dynamic.

Overall, the story still plays out the same. Seneca kills Kalvesta, Belle flees her homeland, and forms a motley crew to retake it from the clutches of its usurper. The changes we’ve made, in our opinion, make the story a more fun and interesting thing to see play out. And we have much more to share with you in the coming months...

Art

A few portraits have been edited. Keep an eye out for them!

Music

Songs have been tweaked/improved, instruments have been changed so songs from the vanilla game and our custom songs will sound different.

The Future

What can you expect in the near future? Our FEE3 lineup includes the beginning of Owen and Sawyer’s respective solo adventures in our second arc route split. Team up with Owen as he travels to the icy reaches of Toska in the north, in a risky gambit to cut off a major supply line to Arynden, or follow Sawyer as he ekes out his own path in defiance of the woman who seized control of Fortuita following Belle’s near-mortal injuries. However, while these stories play out, who’s to say that Fortuita, and her new queen, won’t be revisited?

Power up your units with the introduction of promotion items! Every class (excluding thief and lords) has three classes to choose from upon promotion. Some will be new, others old favorites from the GBA line of Fire Emblem titles.

Meet new units! Some exclusive to the route you choose, others shared between the two! Travel with both Owen and Sawyer on separate save files to meet every possible Staff of Ages character!

Take care in building your army, trusting nobody, as we gear up for the third and final arc in the future.

 

Thank you for supporting Staff of Ages! This project is a labor of love from many talented Fire Emblem fans, artists, writers, and game developers. We hope you’re enjoying the game, and we can’t wait to deliver more exciting content in the future!

Edited June 30, 2017 by InvdrZim13

[escotanner]

Wait you guys have a Discord? ...Be there soon. Also, so hyped to try out the new patch!

[Pixelman]

Uh... whoops?

EDIT: Text glitches such as this are happening throughout the story, making it hard to follow what the characters are saying. In fact, one happens right before Seneca kills Kalvesta, which is a shame because now I don't know why he got so angry and killed her.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Pixelman

[InvdrZim13]

8 hours ago, Pixelman said:

Uh... whoops?

EDIT: Text glitches such as this are happening throughout the story, making it hard to follow what the characters are saying. In fact, one happens right before Seneca kills Kalvesta, which is a shame because now I don't know why he got so angry and killed her.

Yup, sorry about that, we're working on fixing those asap, feel free to join the discord server if you're not in it already and post screenshots of where they are so we know what to fix.

[InvdrZim13]

I'm gonna pull the link to DL this version because it looks like we missed a lot of text formatting errors when we did our edits, sorry for the inconvenience, expect 1.7.1 shortly.

[Galastan]

Hey folks, Staff of Ages editor Galastan here. We apologize about all the bugs in the previous release—I'll be the first to admit that we rushed it a tad because we were excited to deliver the new content to you all. We're working on fixing the text errors and event errors now, and we plan to have a fixed version out for you all to enjoy this weekend. There may even be a few new touches to go with 1.7.1, too, aside from the bug fixes.

Again, apologies for the inconvenience. We'll certainly take steps to ensure that our next major release doesn't have issues of this scale. Thank you for your patience!

[Valens]

Hey uh, noob af here.

Looking for a way to download this hack lol

[Renais]

So when it's released, would it be wise to go and restart? or go from where we are at and do only the new chapters?

Edited July 3, 2017 by Renais
messed up

[Darrman]

On ‎30‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 2:26 PM, InvdrZim13 said:

1 hour ago, Valens said:

Hey uh, noob af here.

Looking for a way to download this hack lol

I'm gonna pull the link to DL this version because it looks like we missed a lot of text formatting errors when we did our edits, sorry for the inconvenience, expect 1.7.1 shortly.

No download is up because the latest version was buggy. Hold on for a bit until the team fixes all the bugs.

[InvdrZim13]

18 hours ago, Renais said:

So when it's released, would it be wise to go and restart? or go from where we are at and do only the new chapters?

There won't be any new chapters in 1.7.1 but you will need to restart, old saves will not work with this version.

19 hours ago, Valens said:

Hey uh, noob af here.

Looking for a way to download this hack lol

We've pulled the download link until we fix all the text errors/bugs we came across. It'll be back when 1.7.1 is done.

 

Also, check out this Nero commission that cryopon did!

Edited July 4, 2017 by InvdrZim13

[Attila]

5 hours ago, InvdrZim13 said:

We've pulled the download link until we fix all the text errors/bugs we came across. It'll be back when 1.7.1 is done.

but i 1 2 play soa now

inb4 cavs don't get canto, but mages do

[InvdrZim13]

Okay I'm pretty sure we've fixed all the issues we were made aware of/found, so let's try this again.

Download 1.7.2 here!

Edited July 6, 2017 by InvdrZim13

[InvdrZim13]

Looks like there's one or two text errors that slipped through the cracks but don't expect an update unless there's a critical bug with one of the chapters, need to focus on cranking out act 2 stuff.

[Forsaken Mango]

I've been looking forward to this update since I finished playing this game back in January, and I can't wait to get into it! Big thank you to the Staff of Ages team for being diligent workers and continually updating this great Rom Hack, best of luck to the future of this game!

[TheNiddo]

I'm only up to chapter 4 so far, but I like the dialogue changes I've seen so far. Fleshes out things a bit more.