Elibean Nights

[Ansem]

Technically my comparison works because you're still losing some fire power. Additionally, it depends on how you were positioned at the time. I placed my Kent and Sain behind Lyn, and they got hit by a couple of dudes. Also, my Florina got attacked and was brought down to 1 HP.

Ah, I assumed you were comparing a mushroom to something useful, like losing a unit or something.

And you've said it, it depends how you're positioned. I went back to play it to see the hit rate of the Warrior with the Halberd, it was 57%(so basically its dodgeable). Personally, I equipped the Knights with their ranged spears, brought Florina near Lyn and equipped her with her silver sword(less weight and all) and attacked Khitan with Rath(longbow). Now I am aware this is your first time playing the game, but I do not believe this is everyone elses. A lot of people have followed this project for a very long time, and chances are they saw the ambush coming. Consequently they would position their units effectively.

Though I cant say that I'm not interested to see what you have in store for EN as a whole. I have seen your works in the past and they seem decent to me.

@Hectors Tale: I agree with Cam, though I also believe this can be fixed. The battle with Yorrick needs to be harder. He occupies one half of the map and moves towards our units equipped with Bolting making him easy prey. Perhaps if the bolting were removed and a few more units were placed around/in front of him, the battle would seem harder. It was boring lugging Hector across the map with no opposition(Oswin slaughtered everything, the hardest units were the Mageknights that doubled him which Eric got around to taking care of).

[CT075]

my two major complaints about hector's tale is that the enemy spacing is such that you can pretty much have hector and oswin cut a bloody swath across the map and pretty much not give a shit (you even have serra if you need a panic button), which would be fine except they're both armored foot units so it takes forever. once orun and eric show up it's a bit better but eric blows and orun is only slightly more mobile. the other complaint is that the entire top part of the map is pretty useless aside from one fe4 gag and eric

[Ansem]

my two major complaints about hector's tale is that the enemy spacing is such that you can pretty much have hector and oswin cut a bloody swath across the map and pretty much not give a shit (you even have serra if you need a panic button), which would be fine except they're both armored foot units so it takes forever. once orun and eric show up it's a bit better but eric blows and orun is only slightly more mobile. the other complaint is that the entire top part of the map is pretty useless aside from one fe4 gag and eric

I didnt have too much of a problem with Hectors/Oswins movement since Serra has a rescue staff(she goes forward, rescues Hector, Hector moves). It would be nice to have a few mounts but I believe Arch wants to keep the Tale consistent(Ostia has knights, the only Ostian that are near Hector during the time of this tale are footsoldiers, Matthew, Serra, Oswin). I agree with the complaint regarding the map, however. I'd also like to add that Dawson's/Yorrik's AI make them easy to defeat. If it were Yorrick that were stationary and Dawson that moved(only if our units were within ranged), the map would be challenging and consequently more entertaining.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Bacteriophage

[CT075]

serra only speeds it up a little bit because she's on foot too

like you do it once and then she's behind you, and if you wait for her to catch up you only gain like one square compared to what it might've been had you just charged forwards

(and then there's the obvious problem of putting serra in front)

[Miacis]

Also, some other random questions:

Is this guy supposed to be somebody important? Also, why is he talking about Crossbows?

What tale is Sigurd located in?

Sigurd Siglud is in Lyn's Tale. Try visiting odd places around the map before killing Khitan, you'll find him easily.

(And you might find a secret sword too, if you return the chief to his ger...)

As for the crossbow guy, I think it's a reference to FE7x, since both games are sharing their canon. Not sure if the guy himself is someone important though. Looks like a random villager to me.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Miacis

[MarkyJoe1990]

Ah, I assumed you were comparing a mushroom to something useful, like losing a unit or something.

And you've said it, it depends how you're positioned. I went back to play it to see the hit rate of the Warrior with the Halberd, it was 57%(so basically its dodgeable). Personally, I equipped the Knights with their ranged spears, brought Florina near Lyn and equipped her with her silver sword(less weight and all) and attacked Khitan with Rath(longbow). Now I am aware this is your first time playing the game, but I do not believe this is everyone elses. A lot of people have followed this project for a very long time, and chances are they saw the ambush coming. Consequently they would position their units effectively.

Though I cant say that I'm not interested to see what you have in store for EN as a whole. I have seen your works in the past and they seem decent to me.

Just because people have played the hack before doesn't mean it's okay to employ an unfair tactic. And no. This isn't my first time playing. I made a video series on this hack, and complained about this a long time ago as well. I knew it was coming. The reason why Florina was in range was because I wanted to move her to the mountains so she wouldn't be in danger and I leave her to contribute absolutely nothing to the chapter. Of course, I forgot that nomad troopers spawn near her, and she wasn't close enough into the mountains to be out of their range, so she was brought down to 1 HP.

Basically, since I didn't memorize where the units spawned, she got the stuffing kicked out of her. Granted, she has an elixir, but if the enemies spawned with one extra strength, that'd be the end of her... and THAT IS a possible scenario, by the way. If both troopers have a total of 34 strength, then she's at the mercy of luck. And this is because I didn't know they'd spawn EXACTLY there. So this is still an invisible coin block scenario.

I hope you're not referring to The Corruption of Roy. That hack was awful. The only public content I've made that I think still holds up is Chapter 2 of Fire Mumblem Revised Edition, and maybe the one chapter I made for the Help Me Help You Project. By my standards today, it's probably too slow, and a little unfair in my book.

Edited September 7, 2013 by MarkyJoe1990

[CT075]

i am honestly all for compromising a bit of gameplay (especially if it only really causes like two turns worth of empty movement to be redone) to make the world and story feel more immersive

besides, the map is obviously meant for you to kill khitan before the reinforcements spawn

[Robert Stewart]

Sigurd Siglud is in Lyn's Tale. Try visiting odd places around the map before killing Khitan, you'll find him easily.

So is Sigurd in one of the houses?

Sigurd Siglud is in Lyn's Tale. Try visiting odd places around the map before killing Khitan, you'll find him easily.

(And you might find a secret sword too, if you return the chief to his ger...)

Knew that.

As for the crossbow guy, I think it's a reference to FE7x, since both games are sharing their canon. Not sure if the guy himself is someone important though. Looks like a random villager to me.

Okay. It's just his sprite didn't look like a typical generic villager sprite to me, but I guess he's supposed to be a generic Illian merc?

Edited September 7, 2013 by shinpichu

[Miacis]

i am honestly all for compromising a bit of gameplay (especially if it only really causes like two turns worth of empty movement to be redone) to make the world and story feel more immersive

besides, the map is obviously meant for you to kill khitan before the reinforcements spawn

Also, I'm pretty sure Florina hints in dialogue that she needs to hurry towards Lyn. If you do just that and Talk with her, you'll considerably reduce her odds of dying.

In fact, I'm pretty sure you can't get any of your characters killed by the initial ambush, if you do that. Really, all that ambush does is give you a randomized amount of starting NPCs, and I'm pretty sure the map is easily doable even with the worst possible outcome.

So is he in one of the houses?

Yep. In fact, all three Amigops are in houses/villages. Generally far away from the action, actually.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Miacis

[Ansem]

Just because people have played the hack before doesn't mean it's okay to employ an unfair tactic. And no. This isn't my first time playing. I made a video series on this hack, and complained about this a long time ago as well. I knew it was coming. The reason why Florina was in range was because I wanted to move her to the mountains so she wouldn't be in danger and I leave her to contribute absolutely nothing to the chapter. Of course, I forgot that nomad troopers spawn near her, and she wasn't close enough into the mountains to be out of their range, so she was brought down to 1 HP.

Basically, since I didn't memorize where the units spawned, she got the stuffing kicked out of her. Granted, she has an elixir, but if the enemies spawned with one extra strength, that'd be the end of her... and THAT IS a possible scenario, by the way. If both troopers have a total of 34 strength, then she's at the mercy of luck. And this is because I didn't know they'd spawn EXACTLY there. So this is still an invisible coin block scenario.

I hope you're not referring to The Corruption of Roy. That hack was awful. The only public content I've made that I think still holds up is Chapter 2 of Fire Mumblem Revised Edition.

The ambush is such a minor setback that it does not matter. You're also operating under the suspicion that someone will make the same mistake you did/place Florina around the same area/have nomads that spawn with enough Strength to take her down. If were to add all those odds up, the chances of that happening to anyone else is very small. And I doubt the point of the ambush was to kill Florina off. It was to make the chapter seem spontanous. The same predictable, turn by turn progression is boring and easy. The ambush was a nice way to start off the little skirmish, it was a decent touch. As for the gameplay vs realism argument, a mixture of both is needed for a good game. And by adding the ambush, Arch succeded in doing this (for this tale at least)

One of the earlier versions of Fire Mumblem that I watched a long time ago. It revolved around the three lords and Nino, it reminds of back in the days when YT worshipped Nino. While it may seem terrible today, at the time it appealed to a lot of people (if I remember correctly from the comments sections), and I guess that holds sentimental value.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Bacteriophage

[MarkyJoe1990]

The ambush is such a minor setback that it does not matter. You're also operating under the suspicion that someone will make the same mistake you did/place Florina around the same area/have nomads that spawn with enough Strength to take her down. If were to add all those odds up, the chances of that happening to anyone else is very small. And I doubt the point of the ambush was to kill Florina off. It was to make the chapter seem spontanous. The same predictable, turn by turn progression is boring and easy. The ambush was a nice way to start off the little skirmish, it was a decent touch. As for the gameplay vs realism argument, a mixture of both is needed for a good game. And by adding the ambush, Arch succeded in doing this (for this tale at least)

One of the earlier versions of Fire Mumblem that I watched a long time ago. It revolved around the three lords and Nino, it reminds of back in the days when YT worshipped Nino. While it may seem terrible today, at the time it appealed to a lot of people (if I remember correctly from the comments sections), and I guess that holds sentimental value.

Turn by turn progression isn't boring and easy. It's only like that if you design it poorly, or to purposely be boring and easy.

However, the whole spontaneous thing, alongside the low chances of death, do seem like valid points. I don't recall ever losing units to this ambush. That said, I'm going to design it so that you WON'T lose any units. Just maybe some damage to your units and some dead NPCs.

I don't feel Old Fire Mumblem holds up. The only good chapter in it is Chapter 5 (The one with Sophia and Karel), and even then, it's rather bloated. I don't feel particularly attached to it either, but I tend to hate everything I do anyway because I always feel like I can top it. =\

Anyway, I wanna discuss some things with the community here. I'm not arrogant enough to assume that everything I do is correct, and I want to ensure that this chapter is acceptable quality.

I'm working on the redone version of the chapter right now. I'm changing the map, but I'm abiding to Arch's wishes on the ambush.

My plans are as follows:

- Make the map smaller and less bloated

- Make the player desire to rendezvous with Guy and Dayan by placing Guy and Dayan in an unfavorable scenario.

- Get rid of the possibility that the player's units will die from the "Grand Ambush" as I'll call it, but otherwise leave it mostly untouched. functionally.

- Make Wallace and Florina valuable to the chapter instead of just serving as bonus content.

I plan to make the player want to rescue Wallace with Florina and place him in a spot where he blocks off the enemy units from reaching Guy and Dayan.

- Give the units weapons that adhere to what I'm aiming for (No Sol Katti for Lyn unless I can somehow give it a point/use)

- Make the chapter's pace flow quickly, so it doesn't drag on or otherwise feel tedious.

Here's my map, currently. It's unfinished.

[NICKT™]

Ugh, why are so many of the frames in this game so bad?
Erk's talking frames are horrendous.
Also, Kent's blinking frames effect two pixels near his sideburn.

For a hack that's garnered such attention and even has an option to donate on the first post, this is really sloppy.

EDIT:
Whoever thought of bringing back Ephidel, fuck to the yes, man. That was awesome, god he's creepy looking now though, my god..

Edited September 7, 2013 by NICKT™

[Miacis]

Ugh, why are so many of the frames in this game so bad?

Erk's talking frames are horrendous.

Also, Kent's blinking frames effect two pixels near his sideburn.

For a hack that's garnered such attention and even has an option to donate on the first post, this is really sloppy.

Man, you're going to explode once you reach Kent's Tale if those ticked you off so much. Hervor's armor was eaten by the transparency beetles.

It's a beta. Arch is mostly working solo and on whichever sprite donations he can garner. No need to become agressive without taking the time to at least understand the context.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Miacis

[Ansem]

My plans are as follows:

- Get rid of the possibility that the player's units will die from the "Grand Ambush" as I'll call it, but otherwise leave it mostly untouched. functionally.

- Give the units weapons that adhere to what I'm aiming for (No Sol Katti for Lyn unless I can somehow give it a point/use)

- Make the chapter's pace flow quickly, so it doesn't drag on or otherwise feel tedious.

The other things you plan on changing, while I personally dont agree with them, I'll put the feeling aside because I want to see how the tale fares with your changes. As for these three, you wont have to change much for the first one, perhaps give the second nomad a short bow instead of a steel bow? This would dash any chances of Florina dying. I always felt as if Sol Katti was there for that extra power. Its pretty much a free critical, warriors and berserkers(rath's tale) are easily dispatched by the sword. And I believe the chapter was already fast paced to begin with. These are my insights however. Others may feel differently. Personally, I would side with the last thing I mentioned the most, I dont believe the chapter needs to be shortened.

[NICKT™]

Man, you're going to explode once you reach Kent's Tale if those ticked you off so much. Hervor's armor was eaten by the transparency beetles.

It's a beta. Arch is mostly working solo and on whichever sprite donations he can garner. No need to become agressive without taking the time to at least understand the context.

I really don't believe that there's suddenly going to be an influx of graphical changes between this 'beta' and the full release. I'd have taken uniformity over new looking mugs, appropriate or no, it's jarring seeing such a stylized and detailed Lyn when standing next to Rath, then there's Kent who had a haircut and new armour standing with Sain who is still sporting the exact same hair, it's like whoever did the graphics kept changing his mind throughout and wasn't sure of what the overall concept was and what they were doing with the mugs. Seeing Erk also, in his talk with Pent, that alone just is so unnerving due to the graphical quality between the two. If Arch couldn't have gotten updates for all mugs then he should have just left them all as the originals.

'Sides, I know it's only a fangame, but when you've got a Paypal donation link on the front page? You've got to step up your game, considerably, when you pull a thing like that into the mix.

[MarkyJoe1990]

The other things you plan on changing, while I personally dont agree with them, I'll put the feeling aside because I want to see how the tale fares with your changes. As for these three, you wont have to change much for the first one, perhaps give the second nomad a short bow instead of a steel bow? This would dash any chances of Florina dying. I always felt as if Sol Katti was there for that extra power. Its pretty much a free critical, warriors and berserkers(rath's tale) are easily dispatched by the sword. And I believe the chapter was already fast paced to begin with. These are my insights however. Others may feel differently. Personally, I would side with the last thing I mentioned the most, I dont believe the chapter needs to be shortened.

As I thought it over, I stopped feeling strongly about it myself. The player's going to feel annoyed trying to protect Guy and Dayan.

So I'm going to start the map over from scratch. Instead I'm going to try and make all the units contribute something since making two a detriment seems like a really bad idea in hindsight.

I think what I'm going to do is design this like a late-game FE13 chapter. Spread the enemies out, but position them in a way so that attacking one puts you in the range of another. And then it's a matter of deciding which "string" of units you want to deal with.

This will take advantage of the map's enormous size, and it will make all units useful in some way since they'll have to lure more enemies towards them if they don't want the enemies to swarm the other units. The trick will be to place the characters far from each other, and make the ideal strategy to get them all to group together... or something like that. I'm still ironing out the details.

Additionally, I think I'm going to make the boss move after a certain number of turns so the player doesn't have to trudge a unit up there to him.

Edited September 7, 2013 by MarkyJoe1990

[Ansem]

Fair enough, I'll just watch now, but I should remind you that there is an accomplishment for taking Khitan down before the reinforcements arrive. Unless you/Arch plan on retconning the whole acheivment for taking him down, I suggest placing him within range of your units.

[MarkyJoe1990]

Fair enough, I'll just watch now, but I should remind you that there is an accomplishment for taking Khitan down before the reinforcements arrive. Unless you/Arch plan on retconning the whole acheivment for taking him down, I suggest placing him within range of your units.

Tch... forgot about that. Dammit.

[Ansem]

I think the tale is fine, and you said it before, the only problem you had was the spawnforcements, and it is really unlikely that they would take down a unit. The boss is within range and cut be cut down easy, Rath and Dayan can handle themselves. Mayhaps you try your hand at Hectors tale? You'll probably need Archs approval for it, but I believe that tale has more glaring issues than Lyn's.

[AstraLunaSol]

@nickt lol it's like a donation pool of mugs

erk is from nih lyn is from ak and kent is from ak, lowen was mine, etc

Edited September 7, 2013 by AstraLunaSol

[Miacis]

I really don't believe that there's suddenly going to be an influx of graphical changes between this 'beta' and the full release. I'd have taken uniformity over new looking mugs, appropriate or no, it's jarring seeing such a stylized and detailed Lyn when standing next to Rath, then there's Kent who had a haircut and new armour standing with Sain who is still sporting the exact same hair, it's like whoever did the graphics kept changing his mind throughout and wasn't sure of what the overall concept was and what they were doing with the mugs. Seeing Erk also, in his talk with Pent, that alone just is so unnerving due to the graphical quality between the two. If Arch couldn't have gotten updates for all mugs then he should have just left them all as the originals.

'Sides, I know it's only a fangame, but when you've got a Paypal donation link on the front page? You've got to step up your game, considerably, when you pull a thing like that into the mix.

I'm pretty sure that the hack started as same-portraits-only, but people seemed to love it every time a new portrait was revealed from a different artist. I'm personally not too fond of most of the new portraits that have too much of a different style, but since the whole game is kind of a patchwork of things, I don't think it's as utterly catastrophic as that.

(Plus, in case you haven't noticed from the current discussions, the current priority is more "fixing the events that are breaking apart at the seams and getting this game done" than graphical continuity.)

And I honestly wasn't aware of a rule on the internet that claims having a Donate button on a website is a guarantee for X amount of quality. A Kickstarter page maybe, but that button you see on every web page nowadays...?

Edited September 7, 2013 by Miacis

[Robert Stewart]

Yep. In fact, all three Amigops are in houses/villages. Generally far away from the action, actually.

Well, I knew where Quan/Eldigan are. Though somehow, me meeting with Sigurd didn't trigger the achievement(even though I was sure I'd met with Eldigan, but it was in an older release, so maybe that had something to do with it....).

Also, could you(Arch) think about maybe adding something introducing Toni in between Lyn's and Rath's tale? She kinda just pops up in Rath's tale, and everyone acts like they know her. I was very confused.

[MarkyJoe1990]

I think the tale is fine, and you said it before, the only problem you had was the spawnforcements, and it is really unlikely that they would take down a unit. The boss is within range and cut be cut down easy, Rath and Dayan can handle themselves. Mayhaps you try your hand at Hectors tale? You'll probably need Archs approval for it, but I believe that tale has more glaring issues than Lyn's.

In my critiques, I also stated that Lyn's tale is boring and requires very little care in how you handle your units. You can set your units up on either a gate or tree, giving them weapons with range, and then hit "End turn" for the next several turns until only a few enemy units are left.

But at the same time, while I find this design boring, having to fix this WHILE adhering to Archibald's wishes, and retaining all the content within is so limiting in what it allows me to do that maybe I should just stop before I make something completely redundant or barely improved.

[CT075]

i'm sure most chapters in most fe games can be just waited out if you're really persistent about it

i honestly don't see the issue with having chapters that can be waited out; before you give me "it's boring" then don't wait it out. "why should i not just wait it out" again loops back to "because it's boring"

like i could play mario world with the cape and just fly over every level but i don't (despite it being a very simple way to play the game that does it's job of winning) because it's boring

Edited September 7, 2013 by CT075

[MarkyJoe1990]

i'm sure most chapters in most fe games can be just waited out if you're really persistent about it

Most Fire Emblem games give you a reason not to though. Chapter 14 of FE7 Hector Hard Mode for example. You risk losing Erk, Priscilla, and an Iron Blade if you just wait things out

Basically, it makes different strategies valid based on what you're willing to risk.

EDIT: Oh... you edited your post. Well let's see what you say in response first, and I'll reply again. =\

Edited September 7, 2013 by MarkyJoe1990