Wayward Winds

Let me guess, these units are called Kolbane, and these people have little else of comparable level. I mean, my highest leveled units at the end of Ch. 14A were Seren (20+3), Lia (20+2) and Kolbane (20+2). Everyone else in my active party was between lv. 15 (Crowe, Enjolras) and lv. 18. (Renair, Arcus, Annelise, River, etc.). The only enemies I didn't tackle were about half of the Ch. 10 reinforcement rush, (and I had similar levels after 14B) so by my calculations anyone with levels that high had a seriously unbalanced party.I don't hack, so I'm probably about to suggest a load of baloney, but could you get round the Great Knight problem by creating a custom unit? It uses a Great Knight battle and map sprite, has expected stats and weapons; a Great Knight to us... but the game thinks it's a Corsair or something (suggesting Corsair because it was to all intents and purposes a fancy Pirate in FE7. Do you really need both? Adjust the Corsair details to show us a Great Knight, but hopefully still have Corsair exp gains).

Flipping heck that's a difficult one! Let's see, by console; PS1: Final Fantasy... 9? Well, whichever one was longest. Excluding FF's (seeing as they have a bit of an unfair advantage), the originalSpyro. Still my favourite of the series. PS2: I think that would be Final Fantasy 12 (grinding to beat Yiazmat, ouch!). And again excluding FF's, Sly 2. I lost count how many times I replayed that. Although Ecco, Defender of Earth's Future racked up a pretty impressive play time as well. PS3: Final Fantasy 13, or Mass Effect 2. Once I pick up Skyrim, that'll beat them both hands down as I go roaming off into the wilderness... GBC: Pokemon Gold (and then the cartridge battery ran out), or Legend of Zelda, Oracle of Seasons/Time (and then the d-pad wore out). GBA: Do you have to ask? Fire Emblem of course! Followed by the Golden Sun duology and the pair of GBA Advance Wars. NDS: Pokemon Diamond, another pair of Advance Wars, and a little game called Infinite Space that too few people know about... Gamecube: Metroid Prime 2... at least until I manage to get my mitts on FE: Path of Radiance, or Zelda; Wind Waker. Then the tables will turn! XBOX: Halo 2 and Oddworld; Stranger's Wrath... I miss those Chippunks.

Lute: A fire spell of course! Any dunce can make Excalibur look flashy, it takes a true genius to roast Draco Zombies with a single fireball! Hey, Paul, Jasmine, Maggie, Rose and any other cuckoo relatives you happen to have; why do I get the impression you're related to Zorn and Thorn?

...Wanders in, spots a hot Valkyrie chick just coming down from her sixteen day arc, does a double take, quickly digs shallow grave and watches her fall in. Stealthily uses boot to sweep soil on top. Next time I'll have a live 'un, thanks! ...Looks around, notices Vidofnir lying on the ground. Shakes head, nonchalently tosses it over his shoulder, wanders off.

...And there lies part of the problem. One kid gets hold of it, brags about it, and next thing anyone knows a load of other kids are engaged in 'the nag'. I know it works, I've done it myself as a young 'un (admittedly for harmless(ish) things like Simpsons Hit & Run). If the unlucky parent doesn't just give in to the little nuisance and buy it, then he'll probably find some other way to get his mitts on it (qoute from Ratchet; Deadlocked/Gladiator: "Remember kids, don't try this at home - go to a friend's house!") And, while it's not a game example, I distinctly remember hearing of a nasty little occurence following Saddam Hussein's execution. Two kids somehow saw the footage and thought it looked an amusing game to play. Result, one hanged kid. I'm assuming they were too young to properly understand what hanging truly meant, because the alternative is too unpleasant to contemplate. Basically, regular people probably won't become psychos from playing GTA (unless they were already leaning that way anyway), but a certain age and under aren't necessarily going to understand that what happens onscreen is not acceptable behaviour in the slightest. Really, I steer well clear of GTA and its ilk; what am I even doing on this thread? Yeek, it's an unpleasant discussion. And yet, I'm probably committed now...

...Doh. Now I'm worrying about the prospect of running lv. 20 characters around for however many chapters it takes until a suitable promotion item shows up. ...Something tells me that this will mean an enforced new save file.

Well, this may be one of the few times that bringing Marcus is a good idea. As others have said, use high crit weapons such as Guy's Killing Edge (you can and should pass that one around between attacks), Lyn's Mani Katti, Eliwood's Rapier and Hector's Wolf Beil. Assuming you still have some usage left for them. Just one lucky critical will help greatly! Use these as priority for close range attacks. Also remember that you can use mounted units such as Florina, Fiora and Priscilla to 'rescue' units that have already attacked and clear the way for someone else to have a go (while Marcus and the three cavaliers can also do this, they also tend to have good strength and can use the aforementioned Killing Edge.) In general, bows and javelins should be a last resort thanks to poor accuracy or damage). Remember that you only have from the moment you launch your first attack to the end of that particular player phase to completely deplete his health bar, because he disappears when the enemy turn rolls round. Therefore, once his Morph guards are defeated, get everyone into position before launching that first attack, and make sure it is the start of the new turn when doing so. But, don't take too long preparing, because Kishuna doesn't hang around forever - he warps away automatically come the end of turn 15 (I think; it's a multiple of 5 and no sooner than 15). Also, it may be stating the obvious but... try to defeat the Sage boss before tackling Kishuna - he's a beast when there's no Magic Seal dampening his attacks. And also obviously, try not to bring any magic users - although Priscilla has her uses if kept outside the anti-magic field, plus for the aforementioned rescue technique. Enjoy Chapter 19xx!

(This is where I get slammed for not contributing to the main reason for the thread. And possibly other things...)In my opinion, the only time using a downloaded ROM is acceptable is if you a) already legally own the game in question (and I don't include second hand purchases in that, for reasons I'll state in a moment) AND b), have not the capability to extract your own ROM from said copy. This is my position. I legally own FE7 and FE8, both purchased for £30 ($48 or 35.5 Euros), new. Not bootleg copies either. This is in addition to a GBA and DS Lite, again purchased new and both now worn out with use (mostly by FE). Nintendo have had their profit from me. Even so, while I use downloaded ROMs for patching with hacks (lacking the capability to extract my own from the cartridge), I only use them for said hacks. If I want to play base FE7 or FE8, then I'll resort to fighting with the worn out buttons of my DS. And I'll be picking up a 3DS and Awakening soon. Again, both new. Like I said somewhere else in the forum, I like to play official games legally, and I do support Nintendo. I like to think (naively) that most others have this mindset.

Thanks CT075! And I do like Maiden Quest, despite the difficulty. It makes me laugh. ...For the record though I don't want an in depth discussion on it. Not after I unwittingly provided the fuel for a major argument over on the Last Promise thread. (And I'd rather not see this thread go wildly off topic, let alone be the one responsible). Hm, what lore for houses... Pretty much the usual stuff really; general background stuff. But to narrow it down to one request, I'd like to see more on Aukema itself. I know we were mooching around in the backwaters, but we learnt virtually nothing about Aukema's normal political structure, cultural curiosities and matters of everyday living. Heck, in the prologue to Chapter 6 I think we learnt more about the rest of the world than Aukema! Despite being in Aukema! ...Plus, that gives you the next six odd chapters to slot things in, given where we're headed. The "rushing" didn't really bother me. I wasn't too keen on being swamped with glass weapons in late Onduris, but in retrospect I think it should stay. It fits with the mental image that I've managed to acquire of Onduris - that they like their combat flashy (glass), fast (low weight), vicious (high might), yet not too drawn out (low durability). So, I actually like glass weapons as a local speciality. South east nation is Gral Sethes (I think), and I believe part of its concept is that no one really knows what goes on inside its borders. So, I wouldn't expect to learn about it unless/until we actually go there.

...And Do5 has never actually been unfair about its difficulty. Unfair is things like; >FE Girls, where characters frequently miss 94% hit rates. >Or the idea of getting Sain to fight every single FE7 girl - plus a whole load of generic maids and female soldiers AND... 'Lily'. On his own. That's the premise of Ch. 2 of 'Maiden Quest', which I've yet to figure out the trick to. >Meanwhile, there's the infamous 'Matthew's Nightmare', which expects - among a whole load of other nasty little things - the player to have a literal photographic memory and the patience of a saint. >On slightly fairer grounds, the older version of League of Champions I'm grinding through at the moment just loves to drop never ending torrents of level 15 cavaliers on you with no warning (while you're likely lv. 3 or some other hopelessly low number). Or catches you between ballistae, paladins and an impossible-to-beat sniper. In a chokepoint, and it's snowing. Yes, it's tougher the the most recent version. Much tougher. So no, I'm not complaining about Do5's difficulty. At the moment I use it to relax after being walloped by any of the above, and while it may be tough, it's fair tough. As long as that trend continues, I doubt the difficulty boost is going to be that bad. This isn't a ragefest Astra's building. ...yet.

...I've got a level 19 Katrina coming out of Onduris (as in, lv. 19 counting the pre-chapter 15 level up, so she'd hit lv. 20 provided she then survived Ch. 15). She would have been a level higher, but I foolishly didn't bother deploying her in Ch. 9B - even as bait. I could always pass over the .sav file. ...No, wait, if the FEE3 video is any indication, having Katrina survive Ch. 15 would require one heck of a sentry effort. Still, the offer's there if anyone does want to test it...

(Okay, so I'm late responding. But I don't have 25/8 internet access at the moment... was that a cheer I just heard?) 1) Yeah, but those are promotion gains shown, so we'd expect that sort of growth. 2)Like anyone's going to complain if the next update gets shifted up a bit. Sure, I'm looking forward to Vishara and the presumed frosty maps within, but resolving the cliffhangers of Ch. 14 (A and B) and FEE3 are more important to me at the moment. (I'm almost regretting voting for Vishara) 3) So Seymour and Arcus aren't going to be recolours of Knight Lord and Great Lord after promotion? Intriguing... 4) You probably don't want me to beta test. I pick up on the most irrelevant things at times. Plus, I'm just starting my new year at university, and that means I likely wouldn't be able to finish in a reasonable timeframe. 5) Of course we're going to replay (even if we try going forward with our existing teams). Who knows what new freebies you've parked in, not to mention the story revamps. Even if that means replaying the equivalent of an entire FE game. (Darkwrights + Fugitive + Musain + Onduris arcs add up to something like thirty chapters. That's more than the Sacred Stones had full stop... okay, so I'm excluding the Tower and those f***ing ruins!) 6) But... isn't the original tent > wagon promotion script still going to be buried in the programming somewhere? As in, we'll still get the wagon, it'll just take longer (until Katrina hits lv. 20)? I don't think we'll mind if she spouts Merlinus' lines on promotion...

Hah, never mind the fact that a level 1 Sage Lilina can do that with a fire spell. Admittedly, mine hasn't gained a point of defence in those 20 odd levels (bar promotion gains), so there is a downside. Allowing Manakete's to counter at range two is still worth thinking about though (IMO anyway).

Well, if you want more help...

Hint; find an Anna room if you want to see it animated. The Trickster map sprite's in Do5 v. 4 as well, just green instead. Let's see, Anna rooms are in... ...And now I'm going to make another sweep of 8Ax for that...

Okay, so I'm just parroting stuff that Astra started off and others continued, but he's got probably the best approach. I've been working on a variety of fanfics and an actual novel/series that I aim to get published eventually, and one thing I've noticed with all of these projects is that like it or not, the final product is never particularly similar to the original idea. At the least, they get a great deal more complex. I guess I'll give a little detail, just to give an idea how things evolve. You'll start off with a base idea. Nothing too fancy, just a general outline. Probably the method of kicking off the plot (assassination attempt, invasion etc.), maybe a few ideas about where you want the plot to go. Initially, you'll likely be thinking that this works, and indeed it likely will. But at this point plenty of things are still in the air. Then, as you actually start writing it, you'll automatically start putting little tidbits of information into conversation to give the whole thing extra characterisation. Say, someone will refer to a quiet little port town on the middle of nowhere, that just so happens to be the place to go if you want to buy from the black market. You may well find that visiting said town becomes quite useful to the story later on, and now you've already got the place partly planned out before it's even needed. Or maybe you'll pass through a village where people just... disappear. Now, just mentioning that is probably not enough on its own, so, you'd think up something that sounds plausible given the context. Given your idea... perhaps the villagers are convinced that, given these are the people who refuse to do their mandatory time in the army, that said army has gotten into the habit of forcibly enlisting them. Okay, that'll work, you've added depth to the immediate setting (the village), and it also hints at the overall politics of the area. But, though that may seem enough, you'll soon start puzzling out... what really happens? Pretty soon, even if you didn't intend to, you'll start thinking up new threads that deal with this. Maybe the villagers were in fact right, and somewhere down the line you can use this as foreshadowing for a much later event... or not. Regardless, even if you have no intention of putting half of this background fluff into the story, you find your world rapidly expanding, and it becomes much easier to have such details in mind when writing your script. And thus, your story expands in depth. My novel was originally intended as a standalone, with threads that would allow me to easily expand it to more typical trilogy length. Even so, the first (sci-fi) book had to have a fairly detailed background built up before I could start writing in earnest - I spent about six months getting the bare bones straight in my head, although it's up to you how long you take. Just don't jump in with no thought whatsoever. I started with five plot important planets, thought up another ten or so that could be used to flesh out the background... only, this quickly expanded to close to forty. It's still increasing now. I have no intention of using most of them as anything more than one off mentions, but even so, they're there if I need them. And a couple have shown such promise as to have been granted bigger roles. Never assume that you have everything you need, and always keep considering whether these new creations can somehow enhance your work. For example, one such of my planets spawned the 'Beacon Bird'. This all black Toucan style bird is likely the laziest predator you'll meet, because its, uh, hunting method is to let its prey come to it. Namely, it eats moths, which as we all know, are usually attracted to light. The bird has a small patch of luminescent bacteria at the back of its beak; all it has to do is open its beak, and the moths fly straight in. Whatever they happen to be looking for in the light, they probably don't find it. Hence the quite common in-universe saying 'Beware the Beacon Bird'. ...So even little things such as unusual sayings can add depth. And on occasion, you may find a supposedly 'background setting' spawns something (say, a faction) that later proves to be very useful to your story. Don't worry about a sparse background, detail will come naturally over time anyway. You may incidentally, find it useful to draw yourself a map - what countries there are, where the borders and capital cities are. Pretty soon, you'll be filling in the blank spaces between these landmarks, which in turn may give you ideas on plot. And then when it comes to plotting your journey across the map, you'll have more information on which to base your decision. Even if you can't (or don't want to) insert the map into the hack, it's a lot easier to describe the world when you've got something physical to look at. This sort of thing will also work for plot. Agro's right when he says you don't want to fix everything in stone just yet. Have a set of plot critical 'waypoints' that you intend to visit, but leave most of the space between relatively empty. You know you want to get from point X to point Y, you likely have an idea of the terrain and perhaps who (or what) lives there. Start with the journey from waypoint 1 to waypoint 2, all the while considering your world and how it may affect the plot. You pass relatively near to a volcano... which happens to be spewing out ash. Hey, justification for fog of war, providing you're distant enough that the volcano can't do anything else to you. A few bandits are taking advantage of this weather - that's your immediate threat. You pass on, and players will let the affair fade in light off whatever else you've started chucking at them. But perhaps, that volcano still has its uses. Apart from the fact it's an somewhat unusual reason for fog of war (given that most FE's tend to use night-time or some sight restricting spell), why was it spewing ash? Is someone... tampering with it? Maybe, and maybe you find this creates further plot ideas. The German Luftwaffe tried in WW2 to set off Vesuvius by dropping bombs on it; who's to say someone isn't trying something similar here with lost magic? Maybe the ash was just a precursor to a full scale eruption. Hey presto, as well as expanding your world in the early stages, you've also given yourself more ideas for later in the game. It doesn't have to properly affect your plot critical waypoints either, said eruption could happen in the background and be the catalyst for why one side suddenly has far less soldiers, or why they suddenly launch an all out offensive with everything they've got (retaliation). The possibilities are endless. Of course, not everything has to have a serious affect. You don't want to drown the player in details, because they'll lose interest in getting to the game itself. Remember that this isn't a book, the player expects to have some role other than tapping the 'A' button for three hours straight. But hold on to such ideas regardless, because you may well find they slot quite well into a later story. I mentioned how my book idea had several ideas for expanding it into a trilogy. However, one of the supposed 'background worlds' later evolved into a completely different setting with its own plot. Hence I then had two trilogy ideas. But then, it turned out that they actually worked better linked, with a more unusual plot binding the two original ideas together. Hence things then shifted again, to a single five book set that made use of all of the assets (for example, book 1 follows events in a given timeframe in the original setting, book 2 for the same timeframe in the other setting, seeing how events bleed over. And then book 3 and onwards would gradually pull these different settings together). And every time, just like Astra said above, I find myself having to check through everything I've written so far, rewriting things here and there to make them fit better. And the piece gradually improves as time goes on. I think I've rambled on enough here. The point is, the story will evolve quite drastically, no matter what you do to stop it. Don't even try. Even the best writers (and I do not count myself as one of them) know that they will likely see a story go through several different incarnations before it finally makes it to print (or a released hack in your case). They go into it expecting to have to completely screw up everything they've written for a hundred pages or so, chuck it in the bin, and start over. A fair few hacks on here have done that as well. Don't worry if that happens to you, it'll get better every time. And each time you'll have more of a universe to build your story on (unless you take the Kitty of Time route; I don't think League of Champions has kept a scrap of the last version this time round). So anyway, good luck. While everything I've said may be a little daunting (as well as a frightening look at how my mind can work), it is genuinely more rewarding to build your own world than to piggyback onto another. Harder, but more rewarding. For that reason alone, I'm voting for your first idea. ...Incidentally, feel free to adapt anything I've suggested here if you like any of the ideas... although I'd rather the 'Beacon Bird' wasn't just lifted straight out in one piece. I do still intend to use that one myself after all!

Not to mention WinRAR only gives 40 days, then it's 'buy or get out'. Which was when I gave up on PC programs, and picked up 'B1 Free Archiver' for Android. Sure I have to flick an RAR file over to my phone, unpack it, then dump it back onto the PC, but it works... Oh, so that's what Anna's class is in Do5. I thought it might be (either that or a custom female Halberdier) given her unique map sprite... wait just a minute!

Snigger. Looks like we got ourselves a good old double agent...

Not to mention we seem to have a Sword Knight now. Good, that will hopefully fix up the 'General in disguise' visual bug that so, uh, bugged me. (EDIT) Oh, and much to your probable disgust, I've managed to track down one of the older versions of LoC (main character = Lee, Kale's the boss of Ch. 2, highly annoying lv. 15 cavaliers/'squires' spawning from behind for the first three chapters. No sign of Kalath yet though.). It's actually quite enjoyable. So, expect me to start trying to find these 'references' pretty soon! (EDIT 2) ...And that's League of Champs finished up to the debug. Yes, I enjoyed it. Now it's time to start the great reference hunt! (No Kalath. So she was in the still earlier versions that have been scrubbed from the web?) ...What was that frosty music used for the Player Phase of Ch. 8? (Hopefully you'll use it again if this League of Champions ever visits snowy areas. I also wouldn't mind seeing Seign, Tara, Jared or/and Icamania pop up in some capacity later; I particularly liked those four.) Right, no more sidetracking the thread from me! (Unless it's to display 'references'. You might regret suggesting this!)

I actually liked Annelise's old look. But this way she looks more 'unique'. so I can't complain too much. And she looks as tough now as her high strength and defence stats would indicate, rather than being just another flying princess. ...I guess being the last survivor of a lost kingdom (or whatever the name 'R' blurb implied), she'd have to be fairly tough to get out where no one else did. And Amelia's a definite improvement in my eyes. ...I'll have to keep an old Do5 patch around whenever the next one comes out, just so I can compare sprites (and scripts, I'll be interested to see how noticeable the changes are that 'revising' brings). "Hold up a sec!" the young woman cried at this latest description. "Didn't ya say Kolbane was a tall man, head level with a pegasi snout? I struggle to believe a mere slip of a girl could better such a height." "Ah," said the bard, a cheeky twinkle coming to his eye, "'tis a puzzlement to be sure. But for you young lass, I may be able to shed some light on the matter. "You see, our Kolbane was in bafflement too. Why, here was a lass of a mere fifteen turns of the seasons who could look him in the eye, not stare up at him from below. It almost unnerved him... until he considered to look down. The girl was on stilts-" ...the Bard broke off and ducked, narrowly avoiding a slap to the face. From his new position crouched on the floor, he observed the annoyed faces of his audience. "...I deserved that, didn't I? Oh, 'twas a fool idea to try my hand with jokes..."

Yes, and it would have gone unnoticed in my first playthrough had the following not happened: >Falcoknight attacks Lucius, gets health slashed in return. >FalcoKnight flies away. (Me: Where the heck do you think you're going? There's no forts anywhere...) >FalcoKnight lands on cave, "Pugilist pilfered". (Me: Wait, what?) > Right, I'll have that! (Heath flies over and takes the axe from the Falcoknight's dead fingers. Only then did I notice the cave was actually a 'fort' tile mechanics wise. ...And a similar event happened in the first part of Legault's tale, as a wounded wyvern rider "pilfered" a hidden bow. I didn't bother going after that one though, given how outnumbered I was at the time.

Ah. Turns out I'm just unobservant, must have been so keyed into the 'General search' that I completely failed to notice a Sniper popping up in the top right. Okay, so I can get to what was formerly known as Douglas' tale. Still can't carry things like Meteor or ArchSage Pent/Dark Druid Canas over though, thanks to the aforementioned glitches. Also, good to see the Rune Bow no longer works on Efta. No longer a pushover, now it's a case of "everyone but Pent and Louise, get the [bEEP] out of there!" And regarding the new Black Fang members, in typical Elibian Nights fashion, there is more information scattered around, lurking in other tales. Zealot's tale; someone in a house gives backstory for Everett, Pent's Tale; Hawkeye mentions Opal in one of the optional 'Talk' convo's. There's probably more such fluff as well, I haven't exactly finished checking everything yet. (Blast you Arch, Elibian Nights has given me the boot I needed to push on further into FE6!)

I can go one better (or worse). Same glitch (/s), same problem. However, on returning to the Tale Select portal, while Karel and Zealot's tales have now appeared and are playable, Douglas has not. So, I can't get to Douglas' tale with goodies or without. For the record, I'm currently using the beta v. 7. Also... Merlinus' dialogue with Marcus in 'Rebuilding Pherae' seems to have vanished, both the pre-bandit incursion one and the one that normally unlocks after Onslow and friends pop up.

Not a bug, but could you possibly move Yorrick's spawn point in Kent's Tale? He ambushed spawned, moved, fired off a Bolting at an NPC General... and missed. Okay, that doesn't bother me. What does is that the spot he moved to was right on top of the cliff in front of Caelin castle. Hence putting himself in range of the surviving NPC Ranger and Short Spear equipped NPC Paladin. He bit the dust before I could even react to his return. So... perhaps move his spawn point so he can't kamikaze like this? Because, frankly, that was a bit of a let down. ...And Raven's tale, yeek! Talk about a...

Hmm, two different types of Valkyrie. Priscilla's a classic FE7 anima user, but Natalie's the FE8 light caster... Anyway, onto issues... One more thing that doesn't work at present is the Sound Room. Attempt to play any track, and the game freezes. Also, like SwiftStrike, I can't get Legault's tale to end. A few more details: Wait on the village with any character; you'll get the little speech about how they survive to fight another day or whatnot... and then, nothing. The character stays there, allowing you to move them again on the next turn. Seeing every escape speech doesn't let things continue either. This happens regardless of whether Dieter is still standing or not. One last thing; should I be playing this on a save file transferred from v. 5? Raven and Legault's tales were unlocked from the get go from doing this, and Kent's tale is present but greyed out (because I haven't yet gone to unlock it), but would it be better just to start a new file for replaying tales? ...And now it's back to figuring out how to unlock Zealot and Karel's tales. I know I saw them in a pre-v. 5 version, even if Zealot's didn't work...