[From hack to indie] Path of the Midnight Sun

[Haku]

Wow, this looks amazing! Really well done Alfred! :D Can't wait to play it.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Haku

[ThisProfileNoLongerUsed]

A playable Brigand? Shut up and take my money!

Looks great, Alfred!

[NobodiePichu]

I Want it even more!!!!!!

seriously just call me up if you need another beta tester cause this looks great so far!

Edited January 13, 2014 by ShinyPichu

[Matt Snow]

Man I thought this was a patch :/

Anyway this looks awesome :D. I didn't see Vennobennu say this, but you can replace the Valni Chapters and maps as if they were normal ones, so you could theoretically use them to skip over the world map. Though unlike him I haven't been able to disassemble any of them.... :|

Edited January 13, 2014 by Matt Snow

[Siegmund]

Alfred, this looks awesome! Looks like you really are putting in great effort to make something unique. I am really looking forward to the different/new gameplay aspects that you put in there, as well as the new classes and everything.

Can't way to play it. Good luck!

[Alfred Kamon]

Wow, this looks amazing! Really well done Alfred! :D Can't wait to play it.

Teh-eh, thanks~

A playable Brigand? Shut up and take my money!

Looks great, Alfred!

Ok gimme your money. Since we're talking about Brigands...

Ahah thanks! =]

I Want it even more!!!!!!

seriously just call me up if you need another beta tester cause this looks great so far!

I don't need any more betatesters because I play my own chapters at least 100 times each since all of my teammates also are betatesters already. And I'm pretty sure that most events have already been tested enough by now. But thanks for the offer! Stay tuned. =]

Man I thought this was a patch :/

Anyway this looks awesome :D. I didn't see Vennobennu say this, but you can replace the Valni Chapters and maps as if they were normal ones, so you could theoretically use them to skip over the world map. Though unlike him I haven't been able to disassemble any of them.... :|

Heeeh... you will still have to wait a little bit for that, I suppose. Mostly because I'm waiting for mugs/music/proofreading.

Hmmm.... that's quite interesting. I'll get into the Tower in the next days, so hopefully I'll be able to let you know.

Alfred, this looks awesome! Looks like you really are putting in great effort to make something unique. I am really looking forward to the different/new gameplay aspects that you put in there, as well as the new classes and everything.

Can't way to play it. Good luck!

Indeed I am trying to make something unique. My primary intention as a FE fan was to create something that felt fresh and not "more of the same". I've been analysing a lot of data and polls around here for quite a while, gathering information on what people liked/disliked about GBA FEs. Personally, I've tried to make this hack both challenging and entertaining, but I'll humbly leave you guys the right to judge it when you'll actually play it~

As I can see from the poll, only about 15% of the members loved the Tower of Valni / Lagdou Ruins.

May I ask you why you didn't like it, then?

Were the monsters too weak?

Was the impossibility to save frustrating?

Were the maps boring?

Edited January 14, 2014 by Alfred Kamon

[Tamanoir]

Teh-eh, thanks~

Ok gimme your money. Since we're talking about Brigands...

Ahah thanks! =]

I don't need any more betatesters because I play my own chapters at least 100 times each since all of my teammates also are betatesters already. And I'm pretty sure that most events have already been tested enough by now. But thanks for the offer! Stay tuned. =]

Heeeh... you will still have to wait a little bit for that, I suppose. Mostly because I'm waiting for mugs/music/proofreading.

Hmmm.... that's quite interesting. I'll get into the Tower in the next days, so hopefully I'll be able to let you know.

Indeed I am trying to make something unique. My primary intention as a FE fan was to create something that felt fresh and not "more of the same". I've been analysing a lot of data and polls around here for quite a while, gathering information on what people liked/disliked about GBA FEs. Personally, I've tried to make this hack both challenging and entertaining, but I'll humbly leave you guys the right to judge it when you'll actually play it~

As I can see from the poll, only about 15% of the members loved the Tower of Valni / Lagdou Ruins.

May I ask you why you didn't like it, then?

Were the monsters too weak?

Was the impossibility to save frustrating?

Were the maps boring?

Every time I hear you talk about this project, I get even more interrested !

Keeps up the good work ! That looks pretty great ! (and the fact it's on FE8 makes it even better)

One of the main problem I think is money. One of Valni and Lagdou's goal is to train your units (taht'sa problem actually shared with skirmish here)

The problem is you will probably use tons of weapons to get at the summit. You may peek some weapons in chests (there's areason why Rogue are so important) and some get dropped, but you still need to take enough before going there. Te impossiblilty to save between chapter makes you'll often just makes a few couple of stairs each time. And ennemy's gold drop is ridiculously low. Not even enough to buy a new Iron Weapons.

This is the main reason I always Arena Abuse to Hell, or uses the Gorgon Trick to have everyone using Dark Magic (And let's not even talk about the Dragonstone who makes Myhrr a dead weight...).

There's also the chests but most of the time, the content isn't that great (things you could have perfectly bought if you had enough money).

You can obtain some interresting units, but most of the time you'll take their loots and never use them again, becase you don't have a lot of reasons to use them.

And as a challenge, the puzzle part is interresting but their are mostly tedious and boring.

Basically, it's a good idea that is poorly implemented as it is.

The reward, whatever it is (it can also be a different experience of gameplay), should be more important.

There's no reason to use it besides to train our trainees (or to max the Support Room).

Edited January 14, 2014 by Edea the Brave

[Vennobennu]

I haven't played the Lagdou Ruins to completion, but I can say that the Tower wasn't very interesting as a tactical challenge, since all the monsters, beyond having bad stats, had randomized equipment and positions; which generally leads to feeble Bonewalkers with Iron Swords running around, completely helpless against you.

That and it sort of felt like cheating to use it, since it steps entirely outside the level curve that the main chapters try to enforce. I like the concept of bonus maps meant to challenge you, though I don't know if having access to sych during the main story is a great idea. Perhaps you could make generic characters specifically for skirmishes and Valni that don't give experience. Any postgame dungeons could have full xp gain though.

[The Iron Rose]

I loved playing the Lagdou Ruins and Tower after I already beat the game. I really enjoy that kind of post-game content, and the fact that you got secret characters out of it all, I thought was fantastic. I totally abused the dark magic glitch, and/or just gave everyone iron weapons up until floor ten. It was a lot of fun for me, especially since when SS came out I played it with several other friends on the original GBA. I had a great time earning enough money to max out all my characters with the secret shops. They were a trial and a half to get through, especially since one fuckup meant you had to repeat the entire thing, but I liked it well enough and had a lot of fun with it. One of the best moments that I can recall is wiping my best friend's team with a fully maxed out Lyon. Was hell to get there in the first place, but a lot of fun for postgame content. Just my opinion though, and I voted yes on the poll.

[eclipse]

Tower - yes, many of the enemies are hilariously easy

Ruins - I had to actually prep (that means put a bunch of weapons in my convoy, and dole out things like Javelins/Hand Axes like they were going out of style), and I wound up using Riev to cheese my way through the final floor. Perhaps I would've been slightly less salty if those THRICE BEDAMNED GORGONS didn't exist.

Overall - If shopping existed like FE10 and onwards, and if there was a way to save between the maps, the Ruins would've rocked.

Edited January 15, 2014 by eclipse

[xShadow_Wolfx]

I have a good feeling about this one, it looks/sounds like it will be great and with all the work you're putting into it i'm sure it will be.

And on the Valni/Lagdou note, i personally only really used Valni and that was for grinding/promotions and i only ever completed the ruins once (i'm bad with actual tactics) i'm gonna throw in my 2cents and say if you could figure out how to dissasimble them and turn 'em into more story/campaign levels i'd wait for that :)

[Shadowrion]

As I can see from the poll, only about 15% of the members loved the Tower of Valni / Lagdou Ruins.

May I ask you why you didn't like it, then?

Were the monsters too weak?

Was the impossibility to save frustrating?

Were the maps boring?

See I did like the idea of the Tower/Ruins, but the Tower was too easy and the maps were rather simple, while the Ruins had a crazy number of units on some maps, but not exactly a tactical challenge. Also I wouldn't have minded the not being able to save if the maps were fun to repeat, but I found myself giving up every now and again just because I didn't want to have to play the same lame maps. If the maps were more interesting (more trick tiles, more of a maze, heck changing up the victory conditions would be nice too) then it would've been a much better feature!

[Wayward Winds]

Well, the Tower was rather... dull. Same tileset all the way up, and the maps tended to boil down to the same general design. Not to mention it was far too easy to abuse. Maybe there should have been a fee for entering or something.

The Ruins? ...shudder. I never did finish that accursed place on a no-causalty run; I managed to get to the last level once, and then found Artur biting the dust because I couldn't clear out a safe zone amongst all those draco's. (My strategy - advance everyone in one direction so I'd have my back to a wall, then clear out the rest as they came for me. Everyone was 20/20, and even Artur's Slayer skill couldn't save him.) This was back on the GBA itself, so I couldn't use save states, and that loss pretty much ended my desires of clearing the place. It was doable right up until that last level, and then... not so fast Bucco, who's your sacrifice?

No, the difficulty was just way too high. On the other hand, it did at least vary the maps to keep itself interesting. The no-doors-only-breakable-walls maze, poison traps, the occaisonal open level, a Water Temple level, some volcanic wasteland towards the end... and the Draco Zombie Altar of DOOM. Apart from the sadistic difficulty at the end, I enjoyed it a lot more than the Tower and the skirmishes.

Oh, and yes, the inability to save was especially bad. I wouldn't have minded that last floor defeat if I'd had a save that allowed me to just try again. But twelve long floors with only the suspend/resume function was just cruel. Not as bad as the original Tactics Ogre, where you had to clear close to a hundred floors of the Palace of the Dead (no saving or quicksaving) in one marathon sitting, but still cruel.

...What Serenes needs is an option to select multiple answers in polls ("Tick all features of FE8 that you enjoyed"). Because I reckon the Tower and Ruins weren't that hated.

[Robert Stewart]

...What Serenes needs is an option to select multiple answers in polls ("Tick all features of FE8 that you enjoyed"). Because I reckon the Tower and Ruins weren't that hated.

Uh dude

You can already do that.

[X-Naut]

In the one run I played of Lagdou I found it challenging, but not overly hard. The hardest places were when swarms of enemies attacked at once and Gorgons later on, but it was nothing impossible. I don't remember the last floor being all that hard either, it was just a matter of busting out effective weapons and rotating the attackers so that they can heal. And this was a run with eight characters fresh out of the final chapter, one of them base Saleh (nobody else could heal and Floor 1 showed me I'd need him) and on Hard Mode. The biggest issue is probably the no saving clause for cart players.

Never touched the tower so I can't give feedback.

[mmKALLL]

I haven't even completed SS, but I generally disliked skirmishes and the tower because of the extra xp - thus leading me to skip them altogether. In my opinion, the game was much more interesting by getting xp only from the chapters themselves, and I never played it enough to see the postgame either, so..

I would be interested to see what you'll make out of them, but in my opinion they shouldn't be a pathway to grinding or becoming stronger; there are enough methods to do that as-is. The idea of having things like that purely for the challenge, additional content and some extra stuff feels like an excellent one, however.

[Alfred Kamon]

I apologize for the lack of update, but I was working on something (which you can see at the end of this post).

I always appreciate all your comments and support, thank you for answering and voting the poll!

Every time I hear you talk about this project, I get even more interrested !

Keeps up the good work ! That looks pretty great ! (and the fact it's on FE8 makes it even better)

One of the main problem I think is money.

Thank you very much! ^^

Hmm.... Money, you say? I'm not too sure. In FE8 you got a lot of money during the main story, and if you managed to clear the ruins you got at least 50'000 by selling the gems.

However, I see what you mean. Most people would save money to buy those stat-boosters rather than investing on weapons, so it's understandable to use cheap weapons through all the ruins, also due to the general weakness of those monsters that really don't make for a challenge.

I suppose I'll make the stat-boosters cheaper and the secret shops accessible only in postgame. That will help the player get both weapons and stat-boosters, while leaving intact the difficulty of the game.

I haven't played the Lagdou Ruins to completion, but I can say that the Tower wasn't very interesting as a tactical challenge, since all the monsters, beyond having bad stats, had randomized equipment and positions

Monsters are way stronger in Midnight Sun, and you usually need different strategies in order to beat them. You can't just charge at them with an Iron weapon, it doesn't work any more.

I loved playing the Lagdou Ruins and Tower after I already beat the game. I really enjoy that kind of post-game content, and the fact that you got secret characters out of it all, I thought was fantastic. [...] I had a great time earning enough money to max out all my characters with the secret shops. [...] One of the best moments that I can recall is wiping my best friend's team with a fully maxed out Lyon. Was hell to get there in the first place, but a lot of fun for postgame content. Just my opinion though, and I voted yes on the poll.

Hmm, I think I won't release any post-game characters. However, I appreciate the fact that you enjoyed playing through the ruins to get money for the stat-boosters. That's exactly what I did too, and I liked the idea to have maxed out characters.

I'm 100% sure you couldn't use Lyon and those other unlockable characters in the Link Arena, though. So it's impossible that you wrecked your friend's team with him, unless I'm forgetting something.

Ruins - I had to actually prep (that means put a bunch of weapons in my convoy, and dole out things like Javelins/Hand Axes like they were going out of style)

Really, eclipse? Apart from the javelins/hand axes, which you couldn't buy in the prep.screen shop, I can't see how you had to prepare yourself with "a bunch of weapons" for the ruins.

I have a good feeling about this one, it looks/sounds like it will be great and with all the work you're putting into it i'm sure it will be.

[...] i'm gonna throw in my 2cents and say if you could figure out how to dissasimble them and turn 'em into more story/campaign levels i'd wait for that :)

Thanks!

Sure, that's the idea. If I could make the floors like some sort of story chapters, that'd be cool.

I found myself giving up every now and again just because I didn't want to have to play the same lame maps. If the maps were more interesting (more trick tiles, more of a maze, heck changing up the victory conditions would be nice too) then it would've been a much better feature!

Well, the Tower was rather... dull. Same tileset all the way up [...]

Interesting.

Indeed it was boring to play through 10 tedious maps (that's half of the game!) with the same tileset the whole time.

I think I'll make the maps more interesting / fresher, then.

[...] I don't remember the last floor being all that hard either, it was just a matter of busting out effective weapons and rotating the attackers so that they can heal.[...]

I'm of the same opinion... now.

Back then, I was an inexperienced player and the dragons on that floor wiped out my team, making me lose 3-4 hours of play.

It's idiotic to make 9 floors totally easy and then make the final one challenging. Also, of a "bad" challenging type. There are many ways to increase difficulty rather than putting overpowered dragons everywhere. In my opinion it was stupid and unfriendly towards the average player. It's ok to make ridiculously hard chapters sometimes, but not after hours and hours without the possibility to save. That only causes frustration.

[...] In my opinion, the game was much more interesting by getting xp only from the chapters themselves[..]

Yeah, I agree. That's why I could either: a) keep the chapters challenging and remove Valni. b) make the chapters really hard and keep Valni.

But again, "b" is a much less controllable variable. I can't know if the player will use Valni to get slightly stronger or if he will use it to become overpowered. Also, I would force him to grind in order to beat my chapters. Meh, no... I prefer to remove Valni at all, and put something else in its place.

Well, I've answered to everybody, I think!

Nooow... it's time for the update I was talking about at the beginning of this long post, right?

Eheh, here you go~

[Book of Ereshkigal]

That has to hurt :c

Effective bonus+devil effect eugh

The, uh, screen is showcasing the new battle frame... right?

Edited January 21, 2014 by L95

[Alfred Kamon]

That has to hurt :c

Effective bonus+devil effect eugh

The, uh, screen is showcasing the new battle frame... right?

Yup, Devil Blade, Devil Fork and Devil Scythe are effective against "religious" units, while keeping their natural devil-reverse effect.

It seems there'll finally be a reason to use Devil weapons, lol.

but uh, yes, I mainly wanted to showcase the new battle template. It took me 30+ hours to do/insert it. ;w;

[Matt Snow]

Awesome new battle frame. Also Black Pegasus finally!

Sure, that's the idea. If I could make the floors like some sort of story chapters, that'd be cool.

If by this you mean use them to make more story chapters, then it's really easy, just treat them as you normally would. The only problem is that you can't save during battle prep. And that for some reason I can't change the chapter name.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Matt Snow

[Alfred Kamon]

Thanks, Matt.

Anyway I think it'd be more complicated than that for various reasons. I don't want to make the characters repeat the same things every time you enter the ruins, it'd be stupid. Sure, it should be easy to get around that with permanent event IDs, but most of them are already used for the world map events, and I'm not really sure which ones are free to use / how I could check.

[Shadowrion]

Glad to see you've made the Devil weapons more interesting!
Never found myself risking the attack with it very often if at all.

Also I agree with Matt on the Battle Frame and Black Pegasus compliment, kudos for both indeed :D

[eclipse]

I'm the kind of lass that LIKES to ORKO things, which sure as hell doesn't work with strict Irons in the ruins. . .ahem.

I like the new battle frame! I can see what I need to, and the pattern doesn't interfere. Also. . .please tell me that's a dude with black wings!

EDIT: Or pegasus knights finally got around to wielding swords!

Edited January 22, 2014 by eclipse

[Alfred Kamon]

Glad to see you've made the Devil weapons more interesting!

Never found myself risking the attack with it very often if at all.

Also I agree with Matt on the Battle Frame and Black Pegasus compliment, kudos for both indeed :D

Thank you very much! :D

I'm the kind of lass that LIKES to ORKO things, which sure as hell doesn't work with strict Irons in the ruins. . .ahem.

I like the new battle frame! I can see what I need to, and the pattern doesn't interfere. Also. . .please tell me that's a dude with black wings!

EDIT: Or pegasus knights finally got around to wielding swords!

Ahah OK! =]

Thanks for the compliment and... yes, that's a male pegasus knight! still using the female animation, cough cough

By the way, I should credit MK404 for the sword-wielding pegasus, he did that animation and it was in ASD already.

[Crimson Red]

Cool stuff, more hype only took fifty hours