Fire Emblem: Decay of the Fangs [First 11 chapters]

[HHS]

Of people who have actually played, I'd like to know your thoughts on other elements of the game.

• Your stories about characters you are using.
• Which you like the most (both personality-wise and utility-wise)?
• What chapter is your favorite so far and which is giving the most trouble?
• Is it clear what is going on in the cinemas?

MBro and I have the plot outlined and have some fun/funny chapters to look forward to. A few of them will have gimmicks to them like the subchapters in 7 (magic seal, sonia water level, etc). Use spoilers where necessary.

And be nice to Auntie Henrietta.

[Mekkah]

This is fun to play so far, not finished yet. Some things that could be improved though, if you don't mind.

On the technical side:

- Opening scene in the Badon town chapter had some glitchy squares. It was fine afterwards though but you might want to look into it. Forgot to take a screen.

- The dialogue scrolls too fast. As far as I know, generally in Fire Emblem, pressing A once means one more line of text appears. In this hack I've missed out on multiple lines of dialogue and I am trying to be very careful here. I vaguely remember how this happened when I was doing text editing in some old fashioned way that involved parsing from a text document but I'm sure you're using a more convenient method.

- People grey out (as if they were moved during a player's turn) during cutscenes. I don't think that's supposed to happen, especially since it's inconsistent.

- Some enemies in that survival gaiden don't attack. Not sure if that's intentional but I thought I'd list it.

In the gameplay department:

- Your initial squad is all on foot. That's fine, of course. But then the maps get really big. Okay, fair. And then it starts raining. Please don't do that, man. I felt like I was leading an army of Ardans on an FE4 map. Through forests.

- I am not a spriter and I know what you said about not wanting to spend a lot of time on one character. But one thing that always ticks me off in Fire Emblem hacks is the lack of originality of the face sprites. I can't count the amount of times I've seen weird re-uses of Ephraim and especially Raven in fan-made hacks. When it's so easy to tell what existing characters your own character is made of, it loses a lot of charm. So when you have spare time, please give them a once-over. Tactics Universe has the same problem.

- The personalities of the characters feel a little forced, and don't line up with their facial expressions. The main guy is alright in this department, but for example the "cunning" troubadour. With Priscilla's face which makes it all very unbelievable, just like how the guy with Raven's face seems to act in a clumsy way. It's like as if you're trying to convince us someone with Louise's face is an asshole. Sometimes not only the face is the problem. The Mage you get (Matt I think) has this personality that consists of "squirrels" and "random" - so every single line he says involves either squirrels, or not making sense. It's as if it's being pushed into my face and shoved down my throat.

I'm unable to pinpoint exactly what is so irritating about this, nor can I really give a way of improvement. Other than putting in supports but obviously that's a workload you don't want to start on yet. So I'll move on to some more things I liked:

- Events. Cool. Always love it when things go beyond the usual. Very good work on this.

- Custom maps, very good work on that. I'm no mapper so I can't comment in detail but I always admire people who put entire maps together.

- Dialogue looks fine, I think I spotted only one (?) error so far (a "you're" where it should have been "your").

- It has a storyline, and one that's actually interesting.

- Pretty alright difficulty, you don't really get any broken characters and the enemies do put up a fight before going down.

Really interested in how this goes on.

edit: Might as well answer this.

Your stories about characters you are using.

First off, hardly anyone doubles consistently except John and Anni. This made me feed the Energy Ring to the former even though being swordlocked sucks. Arnold's stats are terrible but having a mount around is great. Luke is so powerful, whatever he doubles dies. Anthony is basically Oswin. If only Anni could carry him around. Chuck is great. Smith and Hannah are just healers (with Smith doing occasional magic tricks) and they're good at it. Can't see any reason to use Ryan, and I only deployed Daniel because he could hit Wyverns for double damage. Matt is alright.

Which you like the most (both personality-wise and utility-wise)?

Uh, most kills are cooperated efforts since hardly anyone can do things alone. I guess Luke and Anthony are doing the best at combat overall. Their personalities aren't doing much for me, they feel fabricated, except Chuck. But that's okay, I know it's hard to put a believable character on a screen.

What chapter is your favorite so far and which is giving the most trouble?

That gaiden was kind of hard. The map where you are headed towards the fortress of the gold hogging bandit was crazy long, same for the one where you have to talk to William. Other than some maps being waaaay too much walking around, I enjoyed them.

Is it clear what is going on in the cinemas?

Aside from the slight problems mentioned above, sure.

Edited February 11, 2011 by Mekkah

[Crimson Red]

I didn't know so many bad thoughts could actually exist >.<

Lol consider yourself officially welcomed to a home of trolls and egotistical people who are too stubborn and narrow-minded to accept other perceptions or opinions on things. We have a name for this club, it's called the internet (thankfully not everyone follows the stereotype and the levels of stupidity and stubborness vary XD).

- The dialogue scrolls too fast. As far as I know, generally in Fire Emblem, pressing A once means one more line of text appears. In this hack I've missed out on multiple lines of dialogue and I am trying to be very careful here. I vaguely remember how this happened when I was doing text editing in some old fashioned way that involved parsing from a text document but I'm sure you're using a more convenient method.

Yeah, to be safe, usually an [A] every two lines works. I try and put [A]'s where they might be an actual breath or pause in speech though, or right after punctuation, just because it flows and reads better than random line breaks.

- Events. Cool. Always love it when things go beyond the usual. Very good work on this.

- Custom maps, very good work on that. I'm no mapper so I can't comment in detail but I always admire people who put entire maps together.

- Dialogue looks fine, I think I spotted only one (?) error so far (a "you're" where it should have been "your").

- It has a storyline, and one that's actually interesting.

- Pretty alright difficulty, you don't really get any broken characters and the enemies do put up a fight before going down.

^This hack is a success then IMO lol

And considering his "attacks" have only been to one person on this topic, He is VERY MUCH just trying to help you (Mariobro) on the graphics department.

If Seph and Mariobro were good friends and Mariobro knew Seph was only trying to "toughen him up", like how seniors on the football team pick on the freshmen, that'd be different, but attacking someone the way Seph did is IMO mean and could be considered condescending or rude. Yes, that's his personality, but IMO if one can't at least try and be nice to other people, then s/he shouldn't talk to other people for fear of creating conflict.

tl;dr (not that the above was too long), if you're gonna critique, don't be a jerk asshole (I'm not saying anyone was though) while doing it. If someone doesn't want to listen to your critique the first time, then give up.

Edited February 11, 2011 by Luffy

[Nanami Touko]

If Seph and Mariobro were good friends and Mariobro knew Seph was only trying to "toughen him up", like how seniors on the football team pick on the freshmen, that'd be different, but attacking someone the way Seph did is IMO mean and could be considered condescending or rude. Yes, that's his personality, but IMO if one can't at least try and be nice to other people, then s/he shouldn't talk to other people for fear of creating conflict.

What the fuck?

The only person I attacked here was Blademaster, for talking out his ass.

Mariobro's been chatting with me in PMs about me spriting for him. Get your facts straight, bro.

And be nice to Auntie Henrietta.

His hair coming out of the headband up top looks kinda weird, but, otherwise, it's a pretty decent splice. Good job ;3

Edited February 11, 2011 by seph1212

[HHS]

I guess Luke and Anthony are doing the best at combat overall. Their personalities aren't doing much for me, they feel fabricated, except Chuck. But that's okay, I know it's hard to put a believable character on a screen.

I'm taking to heart everything you said, thanks for responding. I'm a little surprised to hear that Luke isn't developed in your opinion. (Anthony is supposed to be bland though...) Unfortunately the supports aren't 100% set up yet, that tends to develop character a bit more. But maybe you'll like Luke more as time goes on. I know you must have at least got up to 5 by now.

[Crimson Red]

What the fuck?

The only person I attacked here was Blademaster, for talking out his ass.

Mariobro's been chatting with me in PMs about me spriting for him. Get your facts straight, bro.

LOL U MAD

and you misunderstood me but it's okay because I didn't expect you to understand me so I'll just forget it

[HHS]

LOL U MAD

and you misunderstood me but it's okay because I didn't expect you to understand me so I'll just forget it

hahah, I was going to post this earlier (when Blademaster got Seph angry) but I restrained myself.

As a guy who's done a little bit of both, I still think that Mbro's coding work is harder than the spriting and storytelling that I'm doing. I guess I'm just appreciative of the work of others. I know you've helped him out in a lot of ways Blazer so thanks from both of us.

[Nanami Touko]

hahah, I was going to post this earlier (when Blademaster got Seph angry) but I restrained myself.

As a guy who's done a little bit of both, I still think that Mbro's coding work is harder than the spriting and storytelling that I'm doing. I guess I'm just appreciative of the work of others. I know you've helped him out in a lot of ways Blazer so thanks from both of us.

XD

Dat picture.

Eh. I guess it depends on the person. I spend three hours FCing a sprite, and you spend 20 minutes at the most splicing one. Let's just say that it's all hard work, and leave it at that, yeah?

[HHS]

I think that's fine. For the purposes of a hack that needs to keep rolling to keep living (as most die out when they lose momentum) I think making quick sprites that I can revisit later is productive. I'm not saying there is a wrong way, I'm just doing what gets the job done.

Someone earlier mentioned Elibian nights and I downloaded it. We're definitely not in the same canon. I really liked the delivery/storytelling concept. That too had it's flaws though... my game crashed when Rath killed the boss in his chapter...and there were things I thought were a little ham-fisted (still probably among the best hacks I've played thus far) But yeah, cannot be same canon.

[Mekkah]

I'm taking to heart everything you said, thanks for responding. I'm a little surprised to hear that Luke isn't developed in your opinion. (Anthony is supposed to be bland though...) Unfortunately the supports aren't 100% set up yet, that tends to develop character a bit more. But maybe you'll like Luke more as time goes on. I know you must have at least got up to 5 by now.

Luke is alright I guess. I'm finished with part 1 for now and he grew a little more. But I'm more impressed with the fact he's the only guy that got to level 20 (making that personal gaiden pretty much a waste of EXP, heh). It was fun seeing a somewhat darker side of Eliwood and Hector, and fighting people like Oswin, Marcus, and Lowen felt pretty weird in a good way. The prison chapter reminded me of FE5, and facing "former" allies reminded me of FE10, both very good points.

[HHS]

You can actually get a hero's crest in that chapter if you have luke talk to john. That way even if you used the previous one on another character you can still promote Luke for his grand face off. Matt will give you a silver axe. Chuck will end the chapter.

And the cavalier gives you an elixir.

Edited February 12, 2011 by HHS

[Tangerine]

I appreciate the thoughts and I took no offense at any point. I'll pm with additional info.

And this is why phones fail at forums. Please excuse my double post, if you are a mod viewing this, could you kindly delete this?

Merged your posts and edited out the extra line. Use the edit button :P.

- Your initial squad is all on foot. That's fine, of course. But then the maps get really big. Okay, fair. And then it starts raining. Please don't do that, man. I felt like I was leading an army of Ardans on an FE4 map. Through forests.

I think I hate you for that. I did not need that image in my head, why did you do it? What was your reasoning?!

Anyway, keep it clean guys. Stop arguing about silly things in his thread, and especially avoid trolling/flaming eachother or I'll warn you next time. Take it to PM!

Good luck! I'll be sure to try this out when I have more time.

[Blademaster!]

You have no idea how much effort people put into their sprites, and NO IDEA how hard it is to make a good quality sprite. Don't act like you do. It's harder to make a good sprite than it is to do event hacking. You can say it isn't difficult all you want, but your sprites suck, so, your word isn't worth much there, bud.

Map making is also harder. Feaw, SL, Hero of Time, and AstaLunaSol will agree with me on this, if you seriously want to argue this.

And, dude, did you just call FE5's difficulty fake?... Just... Just get out.

But I wont sit by while someone with barely any experience in mapping and spriting calls spriting easy, while us good spriters spend 3+ hours making a sprite look good, and good mappers spend 3+ hours making excellent maps.

Actually, I do know how much time it takes to make good sprites. I've tried spriting before, and I am familiar with the effort that people put into such things, and I do not mean to insult spriters and their work. The fact of the matter is that spriting is one of the easier parts of the hacking process. It's just very time consuming to make something look good. And as anyone with a brain should now, something that is time consuming is not difficult. Just tedious, as Celice pointed out (I do not mean to imply that he is agreeing with my opinion in his defense). The same thing could be said of map making, though between the two I'm not sure which would be more difficult. Probably map making though.

Calling FE5's difficulty fake was a term I picked up from another member on this forum (who, I do not recall, but it was definitely someone who was very well versed in FE5's mechanics, otherwise I would have regarded the comment the same way you did). It is pretty easy to abuse some of FE5's game mechanics and make certain levels that seem very difficult become really easy to the point where it's boring.

But I'm just bias towards art in general, and the thought of something that doesn't involve any real problem solving I find hard to really classify as difficult. That's just my opinion on the subject, so chill out. There's not reason for you to be getting as mad as you are.

GWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No.

DO NOT make me destroy you on that. GWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is why people like Arch ask for mugs and maps from seasoned spriters/mappers.

I'd actually be very interested in hearing about such things from you, so please PM your opinions on the matter if you have the time.

Let's just say that it's all hard work, and leave it at that, yeah?

That works too. Too put it bluntly, no matter how many times you compare different pieces of crap, it's still crap at the end of the day.

I apologize for putting things off topic more than they need to be though, and I feel bad for causing such a shit storm in your topic Mariobros.

On topic: I like the mug of the bandit guy saying "cool story bro." In your spoiler. He's got a good design.

[shadowofchaos]

I don't think anyone can dispute how much BwdYeti know about spriting.

I'm just gonna post his thought on this whole "debate" we've cluttered up Mariobro's topic with, and that's it.

[9:31:26 PM] BwdYeti: Spriting is harder, and I'm programming my own everything

Edit:

Ryru as well. And the bastard knows ASM as well as being an awesome spriter. He's the one that made the Ninian Full-body sprite I have.

[Team Banhammer]: (ryrumeli) Of course spriting. It is artistic.

[Team Banhammer]: (ryrumeli) Hacking is technical, so all in the end makes sense.

[Team Banhammer]: (ryrumeli) So one of them takes logic and knowing how to follow steps, and even abstract ideas.

[Team Banhammer]: (ryrumeli) But art takes something beyond that.

Edited February 12, 2011 by shadowofchaos

[Mariobro3828]

On the technical side:

- Opening scene in the Badon town chapter had some glitchy squares. It was fine afterwards though but you might want to look into it. Forgot to take a screen.

- People grey out (as if they were moved during a player's turn) during cutscenes. I don't think that's supposed to happen, especially since it's inconsistent.

- Some enemies in that survival gaiden don't attack. Not sure if that's intentional but I thought I'd list it.

In the gameplay department:

- Your initial squad is all on foot. That's fine, of course. But then the maps get really big. Okay, fair. And then it starts raining. Please don't do that, man. I felt like I was leading an army of Ardans on an FE4 map. Through forests.

It does? Yeah I'll have to look at that and see what the problem is, as this seems to be news to me.

Are you referring to the jail chapter for the greying out? Chuck intentionally greys out then, I can't remember other times when player units grey out, but if they do other then that one, then yeah it needs to be fix, I have a simple code that will.

Those enemies are intentionally not supposed to attack iirc.

Hah! I think I might have overdone the rain on that chapter...a lot. I'll consider heavily nerfing/removing it.

[Mekkah]

Are you referring to the jail chapter for the greying out? Chuck intentionally greys out then, I can't remember other times when player units grey out, but if they do other then that one, then yeah it needs to be fix, I have a simple code that will.

Nah, it was pretty obvious Chuck's greying out was intentional. Off the top of my head, it happens in the Badon cutscene, don't remember any others. If I play again I'll take screens of any errors I see.

Those enemies are intentionally not supposed to attack iirc.

Oh, okay. What's the idea behind that? Trying to block you from reaching the chests or something?

[Mariobro3828]

Hmmm....my original idea was to have a different AI set and I thought that was what was causing that, but now that I look at the event code it looks like I scrapped that idea. The question is now, using the change AI event code, why it doesn't seem to work well with position coordinates. I'll have to research that, thanks for reporting it.

And figures that (the greying out) would occur in a chapter that I made two years ago, when I didn't have a full understanding of event coding. Too bad that chapter was made with a now invalid format, and I can't seem to disassemble it either. Looks like I'll have to rewrite it from scratch later down the road...or at least the specific event that's causing the problems. And whatever's up with those tiles.

Now when you mentioned glitchy squares in the opening scene, are you just talking about graphical glitches that go away after you go off screen and come back? If so, that's usually caused by excessive camera movement, which I can fix.

On the topic of stupid graphical glitches, there's this one on chapter 7 above Paul's cell....it has nothing to do with the map I tested that and I can't seem to find anything else that would be causing it. Not to mention, it wasn't there when I made the chapter! It just randomly appeared....frustrating. But it doesn't affect anything other being one hideous "puke inducing" tile.

[Mekkah]

Now when you mentioned glitchy squares in the opening scene, are you just talking about graphical glitches that go away after you go off screen and come back? If so, that's usually caused by excessive camera movement, which I can fix.

I think so, yeah.

[Feaw]

I have a question; I'm at chapter 8x now, and I have several people almost at lvl 20 and still lots of stat up items, so my question is; will all items, them being in characters' inventories or Jacob's tent, be still available in part two?

EDIT: And will Anthony ever join the team again, even if you keep him alive (PM me with details if you don't want to post spoilers) ?

Edited February 13, 2011 by Feaw

[HHS]

The first question is easy enough. Yes, all items will return. Don't stress out about saving good weapons for later.

As for Anthony. Depending on what happens to him in your game he may or may not return. The game will branch with a Geitz/Wallace type chapter much later. And there is no wrong answer about how you handle his situation, neither path will punish you.

[Feaw]

So defeating him in 8x won't affect anything, but somewhere later the branching will allow him to return or not?

[HHS]

So defeating him in 8x won't affect anything, but somewhere later the branching will allow him to return or not?

I should explain I suppose.

Not getting subchapter 8x will result in him returning later. Getting chapter 8x will have him replaced with another character in part 2.

Edited February 13, 2011 by HHS

[Feaw]

Oh okay. Hmm... well I kinda want him back since I don't really like Ryan, and havent used him at all, but ah well, that other character may as well be good. And maybe there's another Knight/General who'll join.

I can't wait for the first part 2 release =).

[HHS]

Actually I should check with Mbro if we want to have it be if he gets killed you get the other guy or even playing the chapter makes you get the other guy. Odds are we're going to have it be killing him and not the chapter because there are some goods in there. For now, I'd keep a save prior until I can confirm with him what he's coding into it.

[Feaw]

Too late, I've already killed him and saved in the scene of Spez and William talking, right before the end of the demo. But it doesn't matter, I'm really curious to who that other unit is (don't spoil it for me, though).