MarkyJoe1990

Welp. No work for the next few days. Might as well finally make my reply to the start of Episode 5.

Before I reply to the LP, lemme reply to the other posts first... I'll take my time replying to the actual LP though. I've been sitting here for, like, hours, and I need a break.

And finally. The reply. This includes the bit about that pivotal moment I mentioned back in Episode 3.

Don't worry, dude. Fire away! I'm okay with it. Episode 4 part 1 replies.

Part 2!

Episode 3 reply part 1.

He didn't reveal why, and there is a good reason for that. Just wait.

Part 2!

Replying now.

And so it begins!

Eh? What are you talking about? Reisen can control light, sound, mind, and a few other kinds of waves. With this in mind... she can transform into your worst fears. I'd be pretty scared of that!

Finally! I am back from work and can make my reply! What do you mean by this? Naaah. I know how I would do the glitch rath thing. It would just take a lot of effort. Even though The Corruption Of Roy comes with its own guide, it's not very helpful, but I'd also rather you play the hack blind to see just how merciless it is. Use savestates, but keep in mind that some of the traps I designed so that you don't realize you messed up until it's too late and you save stated way past the point where you needed to do something right. =X It's simply not a hack worth looking at or analyzing. It has no valuable place in my history as an FE hacker. Not sure if I mentioned this yet (I was writing up my post before work. 5 hours later, I have to redo this post), but Chronicles of Lussaria was a collaboration project. I wanted to give the other members a chance to design chapters in it, and as a result, I needed something to do while I waited. That's where Project Shoe Shine came in. I merely did it to waste time and try out some gameplay ideas. It tries too hard to be funny, and the level design is kind of unfair. A lot. However, it comes up with a lot of neat ideas never seen in other hacks. Just. Not with good execution to boot. I think if it just gets polished up, it'd be fantastic. I find it hard to get back into hacking mainly because of depression problems. If I had the drive to do anything, I would want to get back into FE hacking. But all I can get myself to do is play Project M, watch videos, and occasionally compose music. Tactician Hell I feel is the precursor to Ragefest. Also, getting 100% is impossible, you can at the very least beat the chapter with all units alive. I've seen it be done. Jeez. This whole cutscene is super long winded. I know you said this chapter is bad, but I honestly think making your units start defenseless is a pretty neat idea. The chapter has some replay value in seeing how many things you can get/how many units you can keep alive. And thus, that day, MarkyJoe1990 learned another lesson about level design from his mistakes. Don't clusterfuck the player with enemy units. Also, don't be lazy and spam the same reinforcement event every turn to make a chapter "hard". With that said though... For someone who said this chapter wasn't hard... losing twice? =3 I think there's a certain intrigue on how the map design looks actually. It makes no sense, and the fact that you can't open certain doors, or reach certain areas I think adds a sort of... alien sinisterness to its design. Like you're trapped inside a place you don't understand that is clearly hostile and unsafe. Imagine a whole hack with indoor maps of false hallways and unreachable doors and just... dangerous things happening for no explained reason. There's just something creepy about that to me. If I were to modernize this hack, I'd probably just expand upon the concept more. I'd still have unopenable doors, chests, and other things. Of course, I'd still make some things accessible, but I'd still want to give the player that feeling like they're missing something and could be going into the next battle horribly unprepared. The concept just sounds really interesting! I mean, okay, the hack as it is right now is still not good, but it has potential to be like something we've never seen before. - Yes, the Sol Katti is in fact inside the unreachable chest. I think it's buffed like the rest too. - The mage door never opens. - The reinforcements don't stop until an unrealistically high amount of turns pass. Like. 9999 or something. When I saw this... I got really depressed. Lots of bad memories flooded back into my head. I'll explain as you go through the game, but... yeah. This hack came near the end of the era of happy, optimistic markyjoe.

I might use FEXNA when it comes out, but I'm not sure. I'm pretty comfortable with the GBA Rom, and FEXNA has a lot of features that - while nice - I don't really need them. Though, it would certainly be nice to not have to worry about space. And uh. Alright. Go for it, man. Also! I forgot to answer the second part of Zoruad's question! Of my hacks, what is the one I dislike most? That's kind of a tough one. It's probably a toss up between The Corruption of Roy and Project Shoe Shine. The Corruption of Roy is a Ragefest submission, but it takes itself way too seriously. It also has bits of silliness that don't gel well with its dark atmosphere. The level design is just. awful. I hate playing it everytime I go back to it. While I complained that Chronicles of Lussaria is too deliberate in its design, The Corruption of Roy takes that to the extreme in Part 1. You have almost no choice in how you play assuming you're trying to get everything. The only real choice you're given is to train up Lilina, but while her fire power is extremely good, and the bolting tome trivializes segments in part 2, her paper thin defense and the extremely limited supply of weapons makes it barely worth it, if at all. And everything just takes. so. LONG!! Part 1 takes, like, 25 turns to complete, and then you have to slowly and very procedurally obtain the restore staff to deal with Hujix in part 2 while searching for a switch that requires loads of trial and error to find because lol Ragefest. The dialogue, while occasionally funny (IE: Sophia recruiting Shigeid) and providing extra characterization for some of FE6's cast (IE: Sophia and Cath talk), is otherwise very stilted and very inorganic. "Sophia?" "Yes, Lilina?" Who the hell responds like that? Also Roy's transition from pretending to be nice to Sophia to WAHAHA I'M EVIL is so abrupt that it just leaves me dumb founded. The story has some interesting bits. I've always liked Roy as a character and think people don't give him enough credit. Being able to put a dark twist on his character was cool, and I think I actually did a good job making sense out of it and explaining Roy's character in general. But jeez. Why oh why did Roy have to become a cartoon villain when you actually meet him? There's so much build up before that point, and for that to be the climax? It's such a shame. Now. Despite these faults, I do feel that this hack was important to my progression as an FE hacker. I try very hard to analyze, discover, and learn from my mistakes, and it's thanks to this hack that my writing skills matured enough to make something like Chronicles of Lussaria. I feel the idea behind the hack has potential (Roy going insane), but I executed it poorly because of my inexperience with story writing, and if it wasn't a Ragefest submission, I might have designed the maps for sane people. As for Project Shoe Shine, this... hack is just really really poorly designed. It was made during the phase in my hacking exploits where I was becoming really depressed and self hating, and losing motivation to be productive. The result is that the chapters are very clearly rushed and not well thought out. Archerville is clearly incomplete (What do you do with the prisoner?), and Berserkerland or whatever it's called is way too hard, and reliant on your units not getting RNG screwed at the start of the chapter. Perhaps this is worse than The Corruption Of Roy because of how pointless it is, and how little I improved from doing it.

If I ever get back into FE hacking, I am definitely going to use him in the future, so please refrain from stealing unless it's for Ragefest. =D You are correct. There weren't many tutorials back then, so some things had to be learned through trial and error. I never got the hang of changing enemy positions and adding units through the nightmare editor. Though, with that said, the hack would have been bad no matter what. You can't make a reskin of Lyn Mode interesting with just nightmare. Or. You can, but you would have to be very skilled at enemy positioning and modifying stats for balancing and difficulty. And the only person I know of who pulled that off was DLuna with his FE6 Redux, one of my favorite hacks. But alas. That's about as far as you can go with something like that. Even then, how many people want to replay FE6 when they could just play a shiny brand new game like Midnight Sun (Another one of my favorite hacks)? ... Also, if you want help FE hacking, you should come on over to my forums. I have a section dedicated to helping guys like you out, and I've calmed down ever since I took a break from the Fire Emblem Community. I have a lot of FE hacking skills, and I've been around for about 7 years. Not to mention, when I am not at work, I'm pretty much always available. Weeeeell... Here's the thing. Super Hard Lyn Mode is still Lyn mode. It still uses the well thought out maps of the original designers. Old Fire Mumblem replaces those lovely maps with those of an amateur. ... You can probably see where I am going with this. The one I like most is a toss up between Fire Mumblem: Revised Edition and Chronicles of Lussaria. I feel like FM:RE was where I finally established my level design style: give the player a buttload of stuff to do and encourage risky, fast play for the highest rewards. It's also the hack I most regret not finishing. I had so many ideas at the time, and I was still good friends with BuringPenitentEngine, who was the guy I had LP my hacks back then. His opinions helped inspire me to improve and make more content for him to play. I had so much momentum that could have helped me finish the hack. I still have the map for Chapter 5, which looks amazing. In fact. Lemme show it off here. With Chronicles of Lussaria, My level design skills were the highest they had ever been, and by making The Corruption of Roy, I learned a lot about how not to write a story (I also looked up a lot of story writing stuff). The comedy writing in that hack was wittier and more consistent than anything I wrote before, and I almost perfected my level designing skills. I say almost because I feel Chronicles of Lussaria was too deliberate in its design. If you wanted to get everything, the solution had very little flexibility, and a very important part of gameplay is allowing the player to express themselves through their strategies and movements. Disregarding that though, the maps, including the unreleased chapter 2, are very fun to play. CoL has a massive amount of maps that never made it into the game, well over 30, and there was a plethora of chapter ideas I had planned. I would redesign maps constantly because I wanted the level design to be as good as possible, and my determination was higher than it had ever been. ... Until I was crushed by depression, self hatred and guilt. I still have most of those maps by the way, and maybe in the future, I will show them off. SO I thought about the idea of modernizing Super Hard Lyn Mode, and these are a couple of ideas I came up with. Obviously, there would be custom Maps, events, and cutscenes. Also rebalancing. ASM!! Fire Mumblem/Chronicles of Lussaria's Bonus Task System might be implemented. Changed cutscenes would be inspired by the original game, including class choices, certain enemy types, etc. Characters from Lyn Mode would still be in, but some other FE7 characters would show up, like perhaps Eliwood. Also, I would also give Guy and Adam proper portraits and have them join your team. Guy would probably be an archer instead of a myrmidon with bow rank. I would remove all glitches, but use them as inspiration for the game's plot. For example, remember how suspending the game on certain chapters makes Glitch Rath appear? Instead, I would have him teleport in every few chapters, say "...", then disappear. At some point, he would join your team, and his personality and dialogue would be all glitchy and weird. Alternatively, I might have him as a gimmick for a few chapters. He'd show up, and suddenly the whole map looks like a jumbled mess, changing terrain and making the battle more difficult. If you defeat him or he leaves, the map reverts back to normal. Evil Lyn would be explained in the most absurd way possible. Something like The Fooker mastered the art of stem cell research and used Lyn's DNA to create a clone of her as her ultimate challenge. One of Lyn's allies would be a spy who would obtain this for him (Or perhaps Eliwood, seeing how he is The Fooker, would leave your team and reveal himself as the villain), and when you fight the two Yogis, that would be foreshadowing to this event. First chapter, Lyn would have a weapon called "Hair tentacle" that allows her to attack her foes with her hair (animation included). However, because Lyn uses so much conditioner and shampoo, her hair is soft and cozy, and deals no damage to the enemy. She would then never use this ability again. Perhaps Evil Lyn uses it against her and can actually damage with it, causing Lyn to lament never training up her Hair Weapon Rank. Batta would move and have much higher stats, enough that you can't beat him without terrain advantage. Seizing the throne while he's still alive would trigger a funny dialogue and kill him. As an optional strategy, you can steal the throne and beat him for EXP and maybe extra goodies. Inside Out man would be a boss, or an enemy type that you fight every now and then, kinda like an elite mook. He'd also have a portrait, showing him in all of his grotesque close up glory. The sniper from that chapter where you hit the switches would have her own portrait, a boss icon, and her own dialogue. She'd have a ditzy, self-absorbed personality, and her boss quote would be something like... "I'm gonna kill you! But first... SELFIEEEEEE!" It would actually be hard. Though, not too hard, since I want people to still play it and laugh at all the weird ass shit I do. But perhaps I'd have an "even harder" mode that makes the game truly live up to its title. That's all I got for now. I am interested in doing this, but... I dunno. Lately I've been finding it hard to get back into FE hacking. Still. The thought of the game getting a remake... just seems awesome.

Markyjoe replies, Bonus Episode!

Back from work. Time to reply to things. Alright. Preparing my next reply.

Here's how it works. in FE7, the game calculates if you will hit first. If you do, crit is calculated. Crit of 134 is really just 100. So Lyn has a 54% chance to crit or miss. =X

More replies. Getting used to Serenes Forests's weird quoting system by just imitating TheMoniker's method. And now I gotta prepare my next post. =X

They don't have an animation.

More replies!

Reply time again!

Reply time! You are correct. I did do it on purpose. >.>' You might have noticed how absurdly good the cavaliers are in this hack... Here's the thing. At the time, I felt cavaliers were bad because their stats weren't as high as foot units, so I "balanced" it by making their bases/growths about as good as a foot unit. >_< I really hate this chapter Luck gives 1 Hit, 1 Avoid, and 1 Dodge. Speed gives 2 Avoid. This guy has a max of 54 avoid, but his weapon is weighing him down by two points, reducing it to 50. That character. Is based on my real life friend named Guy. This was around the time I still made comics, and I made him a character in it. He was a swordmaster, but in real life, he practices the bow. So when I put him in this hack, I made him a myrm with bow skill. ... And thus, another mystery solved. INSIDE OUT MAAAAAN!!! I've never played Ostian princess, but... Basically, these glitches are caused by the tutorial. I think the hack includes a save or something, but I forgot, and I think the readme explains how to get around some of these if you don't or whatever. It's been so long since I've touched the damn hack. >_< Nooo! The greatest plot twist has been revealed! SADNESS. I made this hack before I had an opinion on level design and whatnot. This hack sort of helped me figure out what things aren't fun. When an enemy has 0 HP, nothing damages them. When the game calculates damage and you deal more damage than their remaining health, the game merely adjusts your damage so you deal exactly their health. Hence no damage. GLITCH RATH HYPE! Can't wait to have to awkwardly explain the appearance of her promotion's battle animation. ;-; Archers? With one range!? You fool! That ruins the whole point of Archers! *murders pastjoe1990* I think this is another instance of me trying to balance the game knowing that Lyn's growths are ridiculously good. I think.

Okay. So lemme explain a couple of things. The cavaliers with buttloads of defense are indeed called phantoms. I just didn't know how to edit the text to make it so in-text. I think I made them like that because I wanted to make magic more useful or something. Not sure. I loved fiddling around with stats a lot in this hack. Many of the enemies have weird palettes because I changed them to actual character palettes. I don't remember why, but it blessed us with Inside Out man (Shout outs to BuringPenitentEngine for the name), so I don't care.

I believe I made Super Hard Lyn Mode at 17 or 18 years old.