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[FE8] [Complete] Vision Quest (v2.1 21-Mar-21 - Final Release)


Pandan
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got it

i'll find my clean of that then

 

Edit; first impressions of chapter 1

IMMEDIATELY the custom portraits make the game so much better, so props for that, even if storch-mc-not-a-lord looks a pretty janky, but solid work on the portraits overall, they look fairly good, if clearly spliced for some.

The writing seems decent, though the lifestyles given of the people in the opening exposition dump seems a little arbitrary, and arckady seems like some kind of neo-anarchist, (lol) "when the rich collect taxes, they're made lords, but when the poor do it, we're thieves!"

                                                    5bc358cf4d037_communistpropoganda.jpg.9ce610ed17e2cfc848e854c9b4d7bfa1.jpg

also, holy shit the rich girl village dialogue, thats great.

now, onto the map of chapter 1

overall, i'd like to say its decent, with the one wide corridors being widened, but my main issue is that all the villages are too spread out, and its seems unrealistic to get them all within the time frame alotted (as in before the halberdier escape incentive) which is kinda annoying. i would prefer if there were fewer villages, and they were more on the beaten path, that and the enemy reinforcements aren't really telegraphed, are my main issues with the map, but otherwise its not a bad start, like i would have said the original version of this map was.

i'd give this chapter a pass, but still needs some fine tuning on the design front

 

CHAPTER 2

okay, so the map concept is interesting, what with racing to take out the brigands before they reach the caravans, but it becomes very easy with the torch, but kind of unfair without it, as this fog of war map doesn't really allow you to take time to figure out your surroundings, because the enemy is already on you and you have no space to be creative or tactical, you just send the commie down southwest with the archer, dude, have the thief, not-a-lord, and baby mage rush the bridge, and use the flier, who now has a really cool and unique personal skill, so props for that, and send her wherever she's needed, because this map just doesn't have ANY checks for her, so its a bit easy.

also, the enemies are really frail so most skills feel pointless at this point since you can just kill them before they threaten you, but still, its fine so far. nothing grievous yet

oh, and the convo at the end of ch2 is broken portraitwise for some reason so check that out if you can.

this chapter is a little too easy, and maybe even a bit boring, but its not ruinous, maybe reduce the number of enemies, make 'em a little tougher? i dunno, thats what seems like it would be fun to me.

oh and @Lowen have a look i did some reviews

Edited by (s)ad touch
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@(s)ad touch very helpful, thanks for the feedback.

On 1-1, I tried widening the corridors or removing houses to open it up, and found that it made the map a bit more difficult than I wanted for an opener, since none of your units are particularly bulky from the get go. Good feedback on the reinforcements, I can make that clearer.

Ha, get your point on the exposition. It becomes more important as the story goes on - the goal is to highlight that these people are poor, they're being taxed oppressively, and they're turning to banditry to protect themselves and their families. It tees up the initial conflict of the game, so I apologize if that is unclear.

On 1-2, yeah this one I had issues with too. I redid it from the previous version. There's the one archer that Natsuko has to worry about with the longbow, but other than that she is good in this chapter. You can thank circleseverywhere and his team for the skill, I didn't make it. 

Could make the brigands a bit tougher, but felt the difficulty drop from chapter 1 was justified since you go from fighting town guards that are trained soldiers to a group of opportunistic bandits. Will look into this more, I played around with this chapter a lot and found it difficult to balance as well as I'd like to, but I'm satisfied with the overall flow. It's chapter 2 so I'm not trying to do anything too crazy just yet. 

Keep this coming, super helpful for me.

Edited by Lowen
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6 minutes ago, Lowen said:

Could make the brigands a bit tougher, but felt the difficulty drop from chapter 1 was justified since you go from fighting town guards that are trained soldiers to a group of opportunistic bandits. Will look into this more, I played around with this chapter a lot and found it difficult to balance as well as I'd like to, but I'm satisfied with the overall flow. It's chapter 2 so I'm not trying to do anything too crazy just yet. 

at the moment, you should probably be focusing on the gameplay, not ludo-narrative dissonance. the brigands are boring to fight, they should be made more interesting. this chapter, i think the steel axe brigand by the south bridge should have a droppable hand axe. this would make him a bit harder to take down, and would provide a nice reward. some other enemies should have hand axes too, but don't go overboard. maybe 2 or 3 overall for this map. 

gonna play a bit more later

Edited by (s)ad touch
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1 minute ago, (s)ad touch said:

at the moment, you should probably be focusing on the gameplay, not ludo-narrative dissonance. the brigands are boring to fight, they should be made more interesting. this chapter, i think the steel axe brigand by the south bridge should have a droppable hand axe. this would make him a bit harder to take down, and would provide a nice reward. some other enemies should have hand axes too, but don't go overboard. maybe 2 or 3 overall for this map.

Fair point, will take a look at this again. 

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  • 2 months later...

Just played up to Chapter 9 today.

Obviously I could point out a lot of polish issues but I think you probably already know about a lot of them so I will cut this short. If nothing else, you need to fix Chapter 8. There are two issues: the first is that if you start the chapter, save at the preparations screen, and then restart, you can infinitely gain the items you get at the start of the chapter for free (Steel sword, steel axe, steel bow, and Larisa's special lance). You can fix this by either giving me the items after I exit the preparations screen or at the end of the previous chapter. The second issue is that somehow I triggered the ending event by just stepping on some random tile in Chapter 8. This is kind of a big deal, I shouldn't have to explain why.

If I were you I would play through the whole hack and note down any little issue you see, then go back and fix all of them at once.

Other than those things, I really enjoy the gameplay of this hack for the most part. It's probably the most I've enjoyed gameplay from a "regular" hack (aka not a contest hack) in a very long time. You do a good job keeping the enemies buffed up as I progress, and I was surprised by how often you pushed me to approach. The enemy placement in general was not braindead, but also not obnoxious. I also greatly appreciate you giving me lots of tools to deal with the challenges. I would take a lot of issue with the quantity of FoW maps in this hack, but you give me a pretty powerful thief, a torch, and a torch staff with multiple units who can use it really early on. Also, I am especially fond of the Warp staff, that item always makes the game a lot more fun and I think you recognized that it could be put to good use with how large some of these maps are.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/26/2018 at 11:04 PM, Pwntagonist said:

Just played up to Chapter 9 today.

Obviously I could point out a lot of polish issues but I think you probably already know about a lot of them so I will cut this short. If nothing else, you need to fix Chapter 8. There are two issues: the first is that if you start the chapter, save at the preparations screen, and then restart, you can infinitely gain the items you get at the start of the chapter for free (Steel sword, steel axe, steel bow, and Larisa's special lance). You can fix this by either giving me the items after I exit the preparations screen or at the end of the previous chapter. The second issue is that somehow I triggered the ending event by just stepping on some random tile in Chapter 8. This is kind of a big deal, I shouldn't have to explain why.

If I were you I would play through the whole hack and note down any little issue you see, then go back and fix all of them at once.

Other than those things, I really enjoy the gameplay of this hack for the most part. It's probably the most I've enjoyed gameplay from a "regular" hack (aka not a contest hack) in a very long time. You do a good job keeping the enemies buffed up as I progress, and I was surprised by how often you pushed me to approach. The enemy placement in general was not braindead, but also not obnoxious. I also greatly appreciate you giving me lots of tools to deal with the challenges. I would take a lot of issue with the quantity of FoW maps in this hack, but you give me a pretty powerful thief, a torch, and a torch staff with multiple units who can use it really early on. Also, I am especially fond of the Warp staff, that item always makes the game a lot more fun and I think you recognized that it could be put to good use with how large some of these maps are.

Thanks for playing and sharing the feedback, glad you enjoyed it overall. And you're right, there are loads of polish issues I am working through in prep for the next release, which I hope to get out before the spring here in the US.

RE: Chapter 8, which tile caused this? I caught the unlimited item thing, but I didn't notice the random tile. I've been going through as you've said, but it is hard for one person to catch everything, so I appreciate the report.

Glad you like the gameplay - good to hear the level curve isn't too punishing. Which chapters in particular stood out to you as good or bad? 

Admittedly, I am a huge fan of FoW, but also know it isn't super well-liked. Glad the resources make it more bearable. Most of the FoW chapters are frontloaded, there are only 2-3 more planned for the rest of the game after the 3 in Part I.

Glad you like the warp staff too, I received some feedback that it is too OP, but think it opens up some more interesting strats early on and allows you to move faster or compensate for mistakes that get made.

Keep the feedback coming, really appreciate you taking the time to play and share your thoughts.

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On 3/16/2019 at 3:45 PM, HexWall said:

Hey, after I finish chapter 3 and the cutscenes end my screen goes black and nothing can be done. Any help?

Try restarting and skipping the cutscene at the end, let me take another look at this.

It may be an error with how I set up the transitions.

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Hey all - team and I are making a lot of progress, I'm going to start updating the first post with periodic progress reports (and new screenshots) to show how much we have left to do. Here's the most recent one as of today:

**Progress Report as of 4/8/19**

* Text inserted for 29/30 chapters, final chapter and endings remain (supports to come after v1 release)
* All maps completed (some will be reworked w/ playtester feedback)
* 21/90 custom mugs complete, all have concept art created
* All palettes created and inserted

If you're interested in helping out w/ art and/or playtesting, let me know. Thinking of doing a private beta run ahead of a public v1 release.

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  • 1 month later...

Hey, I've played the first 5 chapters today and I'm enjoying my time so far. I'm not sure if you care but, I wanted to let you know that some of the idioms you've used (spinning your wheels; white collar banditry) wouldn't really make sense in a medieval setting since they things they are referencing haven't been invented yet. Great hack though. I'm liking the more player phase focus it has.

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Hey Pandan. I relate to your backstory a lot. I’ve played every fire emblem game I could get my hands on including every hack. Yours is great!

The only issues I have with the gameplay is some of the characters’ growths. Some seem imbalanced for their class, and while I’m sure this is to keep characters from being OP, I would personally rather have balanced characters within their respective classes and harder enemies, than the imbalanced ones (But that’s just a personal thing). I also think some of the characters in the new patch should have better growths or bases to incentivize using them, because since I already had high leveled characters of similar classes there was no reason I would use theM whether I wanted to or not. I think the enemies are a good difficulty for the stats of the characters. I think the thief girl’s growths could be better (or bases) to make her more useful, without being OP. I also haven’t wanted to use either of the wyvern knights. There is a problem with the sword peg class that won’t let it get past 10. It’s using a trainee class, likely. I like the maps, and really like some of the beginning chapters. Also, I definitely missed out on a few chests throughout the game. I think sometimes there is a glitch. 

I think some of the story events are rushed, or sudden, but I like it a lot still. It’s definitely new and fresh, and I like the political system. 

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed your hack! I played through it all, and if you have any questions about my experience, I’ll gladly answer. Just wanted to comment on it, because I liked it so much. It’s obvious you’ve put a lot of work into it. Keep it up! And thanks! :-)

P.s. I know my comments were rly general, but I hope they are helpful.

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/8/2019 at 6:40 PM, plzfe said:

Hey, I've played the first 5 chapters today and I'm enjoying my time so far. I'm not sure if you care but, I wanted to let you know that some of the idioms you've used (spinning your wheels; white collar banditry) wouldn't really make sense in a medieval setting since they things they are referencing haven't been invented yet. Great hack though. I'm liking the more player phase focus it has.

Thanks for playing! These are good callouts. As part of the next update, I'm revising the writing and dialogue to fix things like that and make the tone more consistent overall.

On 5/9/2019 at 8:34 AM, jkrellfish12 said:

Hey Pandan. I relate to your backstory a lot. I’ve played every fire emblem game I could get my hands on including every hack. Yours is great!

The only issues I have with the gameplay is some of the characters’ growths. Some seem imbalanced for their class, and while I’m sure this is to keep characters from being OP, I would personally rather have balanced characters within their respective classes and harder enemies, than the imbalanced ones (But that’s just a personal thing). I also think some of the characters in the new patch should have better growths or bases to incentivize using them, because since I already had high leveled characters of similar classes there was no reason I would use theM whether I wanted to or not. I think the enemies are a good difficulty for the stats of the characters. I think the thief girl’s growths could be better (or bases) to make her more useful, without being OP. I also haven’t wanted to use either of the wyvern knights. There is a problem with the sword peg class that won’t let it get past 10. It’s using a trainee class, likely. I like the maps, and really like some of the beginning chapters. Also, I definitely missed out on a few chests throughout the game. I think sometimes there is a glitch. 

I think some of the story events are rushed, or sudden, but I like it a lot still. It’s definitely new and fresh, and I like the political system. 

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed your hack! I played through it all, and if you have any questions about my experience, I’ll gladly answer. Just wanted to comment on it, because I liked it so much. It’s obvious you’ve put a lot of work into it. Keep it up! And thanks! 🙂

P.s. I know my comments were rly general, but I hope they are helpful.

Thanks! Glad you've enjoyed it.

Could you expand a bit more on what you mean by unbalanced?

The Sword Peg is a glitch that I've fixed - unfortunately, when i updated the skill system, class levels reverted, and the sword peg slot is the same as one of the trainees, hence why she caps at level 10. A few of the other characters had their growths tweaked, namely Ruslan and Vagelis, to help make them a bit more viable long term. 

Feedback is always helpful! Thanks again for sharing.

I'm hoping to get a new release with 23/30 chapters done soon. I had a few computer issues which set me back a bit, but I'm hoping to get the next part done w/ updates in the coming months. Stay tuned.

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Hi all,

Want to share an update here that I've made on FEU - v06 ft. 25 chapters (23 mainline and 2 gaiden chapters) is now available here: on Dropbox

Attached are some screenshots as well, most of these come from the new chapters, but the team and I have gone back and edited quite a bit of the early game as well.

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-22.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-21.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-10.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-9.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-7.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-5.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-3.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-30.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-29.png

VQ 92819 BREAKSAVE.emulator-5.png

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On 10/3/2019 at 2:15 PM, Pandan said:

Hi all,

Want to share an update here that I've made on FEU - v06 ft. 25 chapters (23 mainline and 2 gaiden chapters) is now available here: on Dropbox

Attached are some screenshots as well, most of these come from the new chapters, but the team and I have gone back and edited quite a bit of the early game as well.

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-22.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-21.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-10.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-9.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-7.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-5.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-3.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-30.png

VQ 082519 split plist palettes.emulator-29.png

VQ 92819 BREAKSAVE.emulator-5.png

I downloaded it like yesterday from FEU and it's great! I'm currently stuck on 1-7 though because Gunnar just doesn't want to appear. I've waited on his tiles with pretty much my entire army and there's no sign of him. I was going to replay the chapter again anyway since I lost the Light Brand so I can try and see if anything changes the second time.

EDIT: I replayed the map, got everything and still no Gunnar (also, is the tile with an arrow next to Zard meant to do anything?), I even checked your stream on YouTube but you don't seem to be doing anything special. I downloaded the fix you uploaded from the link on FEU but it says you have to apply it to a clean rom? Do I have to replay the game until now or is there some way of recovering my save file for the new patch? I can confirm there is no way of proceeding past 1-7 because the game goes on a loop at the end (apparently because Gunnar was not recruited).

Edited by Goddess Serra
2nd playthrough info
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On 10/3/2019 at 8:01 AM, Goddess Serra said:

I downloaded it like yesterday from FEU and it's great! I'm currently stuck on 1-7 though because Gunnar just doesn't want to appear. I've waited on his tiles with pretty much my entire army and there's no sign of him. I was going to replay the chapter again anyway since I lost the Light Brand so I can try and see if anything changes the second time.

EDIT: I replayed the map, got everything and still no Gunnar (also, is the tile with an arrow next to Zard meant to do anything?), I even checked your stream on YouTube but you don't seem to be doing anything special. I downloaded the fix you uploaded from the link on FEU but it says you have to apply it to a clean rom? Do I have to replay the game until now or is there some way of recovering my save file for the new patch? I can confirm there is no way of proceeding past 1-7 because the game goes on a loop at the end (apparently because Gunnar was not recruited).

Hey there! Sorry about this issue. There is a new patch in the dropbox that fixes this issue.

Basically, I made a boo boo with the ending events of 1-7. Gunnar also didn't show up if you initiated the Lera/Marlen talk conversation. Both these, and a few other fixes, are accounted for.

You will need to apply a patch to a clean rom, but you can use the same save. In your emulator, you should be able to "load an alternative save", and you can use the .sav file from your old patch and have it work.

Let me know if that works for you. Sorry for the troubles!

@familyplayer the dropbox link is now fixed in the first post - thanks!

Edited by Pandan
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On 10/6/2019 at 6:30 PM, Pandan said:

Hey there! Sorry about this issue. There is a new patch in the dropbox that fixes this issue.

Basically, I made a boo boo with the ending events of 1-7. Gunnar also didn't show up if you initiated the Lera/Marlen talk conversation. Both these, and a few other fixes, are accounted for.

You will need to apply a patch to a clean rom, but you can use the same save. In your emulator, you should be able to "load an alternative save", and you can use the .sav file from your old patch and have it work.

Let me know if that works for you. Sorry for the troubles!

@familyplayer the dropbox link is now fixed in the first post - thanks!

Thanks! I'll try to play this on my computer if I can manage to send my saves (and game) over there. Unfortunately I've been having abit of trouble with the Dropbox link ever since I first downloaded it as it says the folder doesn't exist. Am I the only one? I'll try to access it from either Discord or FEU and see if anything changes.

EDIT: I was able to download the patch from FEU. Now I will try playing the game on my computer's VBA for the save thing. Here's to hoping it's not too old.

Edited by Goddess Serra
Problem solved.
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Caught someone streaming this rom mod last night, I'm a fan for sure. The modified classes (mage knights, sword peg, bow fighters), recruiting red units but they turn green instead of blue is a cool idea, the portraits are solid, the dialogue ranges from nobles speaking in their noble tongues to Gelts "You stepped into my range? Idiot." LOL i'm really excited to play the completed story, so keep up the good work!

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  • 2 months later...
On 11/30/2019 at 10:23 AM, phriendlybear said:

Caught someone streaming this rom mod last night, I'm a fan for sure. The modified classes (mage knights, sword peg, bow fighters), recruiting red units but they turn green instead of blue is a cool idea, the portraits are solid, the dialogue ranges from nobles speaking in their noble tongues to Gelts "You stepped into my range? Idiot." LOL i'm really excited to play the completed story, so keep up the good work!

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words.

As an update here, we are getting close to finishing the first 'complete' build of the game, v1. I expect this will be ready sometime this year. 41 chapters, 58 characters. Looking forward to getting the release out!

Please keep the feedback coming.

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