Lucina Patch

[Ema Skye]

Hey everyone. I'm a bit new to this whole Rom Hacking stuff, so if you're coming here expecting something amazing like Elibian Nights, you'll probably be disappointed. I've done this patch completely with Nightmare, most of which was self taught. So I am kinda proud of this patch, even if it isn't anything super amazing.

I think most of us can agree that Sacred Stones is a pretty easy game, even on the hardest difficulty setting. You've been given excellent characters like Seth and Franz from the beginning, and you eventually can trivialize the game with units like Saleh, Gerik and Cormag. I think it's safe to say that FE8 is pretty unbalanced in terms of characters.

Which is where this patch comes in.

I've been working on this patch with two main ideas. The first is to make it so that the game itself is harder, which I think I've done rather good at with tweaking enemy bases and such. The second is to improve character viability so that no one has to say "Marisa sucks" or "Amelia is terrible". Every character in this game is perfectly usable, making this a rather nice patch for drafters and casual players alike.

So Lucina, can I have screenshots?

Why certainly.

Eirika has been given a rather small durability buff to ensure better survival in the prolouge, and her growths are rather nice as well.

Seth is back, although he's rather different. He's now longer the game clearer from the word go. He's still an excellent choice for a character though.

Gilliam here replaces Seth. Starting off as an armor knight, Gilliam normally has difficult gaining EXP and he's usually benched rather quickly due to poor movement and lance-lock. But by joining as a promoted unit, all of his problems from before are gone. He's crutch for about half the game, and his growths aren't spectaclar to avoid creating a second Seth.

Moulder, Natasha and L'Arachel have all been given a level increase (starting at levels 6, 8 and 12, respectively). This makes promoting them much less of a hassel.

Generic Soliders were previously a joke. But now with increased bases, they are both rather strong and difficult to double. But they're still the weakest of the generics.

Gilliam's Silver Lance is the best way to take down the boss, but even then it's hardly guaranteed.

Other Misc. Changes

- All magic tomes have been reduced to FE6 weight (for example, Elfire weighs 5 instead of 10). If a tome didn't exist in FE6, it's weight was estimated.

- Fimbulvtr has had its might reduced to 9, but it has become a Hero weapon. This turns it into an excellent boss killing weapon for anyone with A rank Anima. Expect bosses to use this too.

- Trainees have been promoted!

- To make the characters more diverse, one of the potential cavaliers in vanilla FE8 has been given a class change. I'll let you figure out who.

- As a special treat for drafters, characters who normally cost turns to recruit come with a rather nice bonus for recruiting them. Recruit Marisa for a nice reward.

- Archers and Snipers have become more powerful. To compensate for lacking enemy phase action, Neimi and Innes both have incredible potential on the player phase. But watch out because the enemy archers do too.

- Various characters have received new base levels and their base stats have been adjusted accordingly.

- The Warp Staff has been reduced to a 3 use staff.

- All S rank weapons now have 50 uses.

- Several tier 2 classes have modified caps, including Sniper, both Assassins, Rouge and both Mage Knights.

Growth Rates: http://gyazo.com/920...ccfc63a113d960b

Base Stats: http://gyazo.com/376...2eb7ecfad6a132f

Download Link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/6v582a

Do you have any ideas for this new hacker? Do you think this patch is too hard? Too easy? Do you think some characters need to be buffed? Let me know. Only your feedback can make this patch better.

Thanks to: Jedi, ZM456, Esme, Refa, Ice Sage, Shin and Percilugh for playtesting, and to Serious Bananas for showing me how to use edit generic's bases.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Lucina

[eclipse]

Whatever you do, please don't touch the BerserkerDruids in Chapter 14 Eph. I am fond of them, even if those jerks keep berserking my staffbot.

[Jedi]

As a tester of this hack up to the Route Split I must say I quite enjoy it, its somewhat rougher and Neimi's new growths <3

Soon as Lucina is fully done I've agreed to at the very least host the first draft of it

Edited August 9, 2012 by Jedi

[ZemZem]

I feel you did quite well with this patch. Of course, I'm not too far yet since you updated the patch (had to start anew since I got the old one), but I like the changes. (Especially to L'Arachel!)

[Arch]

expecting something amazing like Elibian Nights

I started with Nightmare edit-only hacks too .

I'll definitely be giving this a shot. Anything to spice up FE8's gameplay is definitely a plus. FE8 was my first game in the series, so it holds a special place for me, but even still, it's a little bit easy after you've beaten it once.

[Mikado]

Nerf Selena.

I must say, not far in myself, but I'm enjoying the patch keep up the good work! Can't wait to see which potential cavalier was given a class change.

[Ansem]

This is really good.

[Jimmy_Smith]

I play to chapter 7 and it's pretty good so far.

Challenging but not too difficult, great work.

[cyron]

ross is to good he trivializes the game

[Taku]

Do you have a list of the updated growths? Although I suppose I could open it up in Nightmare and look.

I'll take a whack at the hack...I'll slap myself for that one.

[Ema Skye]

I will be making a growths/bases spreadsheet sometime, but I want to finish the game itself first.

I've recently finished Ephraim route, and so the patch is in the OP. Again, please continue provide feedback for me.

Thanks for the kind words everyone. =)

Ephraim mode is generally a harder mode in FE8, and the same applies here. Expect lots of status staves, seige magic and silver weapons as you get closer to the end. Some of the Eph Route bosses have their AI changed, making them harder to fight. And speaking of bosses:

Edit: Due to an oversight on my part, both Joshua and Rennac had unfitting bases (Josh's were too bad, Rennac's were the opposite). The OP has been updated with a new patch that fixes both of them.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Lucina

[MrNugent]

This patch is quite fun to play. Lyon can actually fight you!

[Feaw]

> 16 defense

> 15 speed

._.

Isn't Gheb supposed to be bulky as hell, but also slow as hell?

Anyways, this looks quite interesting.

Don't think this will be hard enough for me, but I could always give it a try (and I probably will).

But overall I respect the changes you're implementing.

EDIT: I always love long ranged magic enemies, so I'm glad you're having more of those =).

Edited August 11, 2012 by Feawture

[Fala]

What are the changes to the classes?

[Ema Skye]

It's mostly just been changing the caps, and the Rouge class got a buff to their bases.

[uyet]

is this the latest version or are you still updating things?

[Ema Skye]

That's the latest version, but it certainly won't be the last.

[Ema Skye]

whoops accidental triple post

Edited August 13, 2012 by Lucina

[Ema Skye]

whoops accidental triple post.

Edited August 13, 2012 by Lucina

[Shin]

Phantom Ship might be a little too hard, especially in a draft scenario... those gargoyles.

[Chaotic_Soma]

Have you had a chance to play with Elincia's FE8 patch on this forum?

It is also I guess what you'd call an "inflation" patch that makes the game harder, changed some growths and added in some new weapons such as a series of weapons that had buffs against "monsters" but were weaker than regular weapons with a slight critical boost.

You should have a look at that for some ideas!

Though the difficulty on that game got too hard though, I played it on Hard Mode, Ephraim route but it got too difficult, if you take cues from that one and don't go too over board I believe you should end up with an amazing hack!

On topic though, I hope you might change the text for Seth and maybe make him the knight in charge of Eirika's protection as opposed to Knight Captain because as a Cavalier it seems weird with him being a "Captain".

Or maybe give him a locked weapon called, "Knights Sword" that helps show that he is the Captain?

Just food for thought!

[izanagi61]

lunar ips just told me that the patch wasn't an ips file so i can't patch. same with ipswin. can you reupload with an .ups version? preferably in an archive.

[Midleiro F.]

Hello! I really like this mod. So far I'm on chapter 12 of Ephraim's route. Just some thoughts on some previous chapters:

The boss in Ephraim Chapter 9 can't use his killer bow because he has a D rank. I'm not sure if it's meant to be that way, but it makes it so easy to kill him from distance with a mage.

The boss in chapter 10 is very strong, and the weapons he carries just make it worse. I'm not sure it's possible to get the Knight's Crest because he'll OHKO one of the cavaliers on the 2nd turn, and I had to manipulate the RNG so that Duessel wouldn't die. I also had to kill him and finish the chapter much too early, missing out on Cormag, but it doesn't matter because Cormag sucks now compared to "you know who".

First time on the ghost ship I got pwned hard, but then I restarted and used Duessel to finish off pretty much everything on the second boat and the rest went very smoothly. Love the itens on L'Arachel hehe.

Overall I love the mod. I wish Gilliam wasn't promoted though, sometimes I like to use him, to me he could just remain an armour knight and it would be fine. I didn't use him at all in chapters 1-8.

[Ema Skye]

Hey Everyone. Just a quick announcement.

I'm in the process of updating the patch. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please post them here or notify me via profile message or PM. All ideas will be considered and replied to.

[izanagi61]

try more reclasses for the enemy bosses. vigarde and fado should be kings, reiv fits better as a druid or summoner. callaeche could be a warrior seeing as he's not really heroic etc. you could also import some old classes like king, dark druid and the FE7 tier 2 lord classes. you can use them with on the secret characters. it'll make recruiting them mean more than just another body. there also a couple of custom animations you might be interested in. like axe dragonlord, sword armor, alternate axe gen ( he swings axe instead of throwing it. ) altering TOV to be less abusable would be nice.