[VX ACE] Conquest (complete game, but no cg yet)

[Araz8631]

The fight with the king just after the princess .I belive you have to give a break so the player can recharge power and rise fallen party members.Considering it's not imidiate battle like the princess .you are just making it impossible.

[tshakudo]

Hi.May some one post a guide on how to get the forest maze done .I have tried all the ways and reached to the forth map that there are 2 ways ,up and down both of them just returnes to the starting point.help please!

When you walk into the screen, turn around and walk out the way you came in, that's the exit... stupid elves and their defying physics.

Btw, it seems half and half on things freezing at the dorf princess.... I'm one who keeps having that error pop up and close out my game.... cannot get past this fight.

[Ardelas]

When you walk into the screen, turn around and walk out the way you came in, that's the exit... stupid elves and their defying physics.

Btw, it seems half and half on things freezing at the dorf princess.... I'm one who keeps having that error pop up and close out my game.... cannot get past this fight.

Did you download the version from the 24th? I saw a lot of Guarded Strike attacks from both the dwarf princess and the dwarf king and had no freezes with that version.

[Grape_Drink]

Pretty good game so far. Following the mistress route with overlord taking non essentials since I don't have any more orcs in my party.

Had to restart on multiple occasions either because of an issue (lich king tower bug), I'd get my ass handed to me (Goblin King), or I simply couldn't find my way around (elven forest.)


I'll give it a try tomorrow with the 8/24 update. I always grind at early levels when I level up through EXP and not the story since I expect enemies to get tougher than is possible to beat by not grinding (learned this the hard way with previous JRPG-style games), so it hasn't been -too- hard, but it has been a pain in the ass.

Something that would be really nice is a recall stone or something that could take me directly to home base, even if I had to buy it. Just have it set a transfer player and move the vehicle to a proper location.

The elven forest has me stumped. I figured out that the mushrooms represent the correct path after trying every way on the first mapo (and having to restart because of dieing), proceeded to follow the mushrooms to a dead end that sends me back to the beginning. I think I managed to test every single way (or almost every one), and I can't find a way through the forest (mind you I'm using v. 8/23). I'll probably try one more time with the 8/24 update and if it doesn't work I'll just wait for enough sorry souls who can't get past it for someone to post up how to, and do the dwarf path in the mean time.

I keep seeing folks talk about goblin equipment, but when I try to get said equipment at the markets, it won't let me approach from the front. I think I read in a comment that approaching from the back works though, so I'll try that out.

Good game, but the grinding aspect is frustrating. When I play a game, I expect for most everything needed to beat it to be provided through the main path with sub-branches simply making it easier in the long run. This is especially true with conquest-style games. I like to follow sub-paths anyways so it isn't a big deal for me, but sub-quests and grinding should make a game easier, not playable.

[SpectralTime]

If by "mushrooms" you mean

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

the large red flowers,

then you are correct. However, rather than a dead end, you hit a point where

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

you have to turn around and go back the way you came to advance, since the red flower appears in front of your own branch

.

[command]

You know it's really hard with the surprise assault by those knights. You may want to put in where you can drastically weaken those attacking knights depending on how you plan your strategy.

It could be involved with that 1 option with moving the pikemen since they were included in the army specifically do deal with the knights.

I know you have in the game that this is one of several contents. It would be interesting if you were to put in areas where your protecting your conquered territory as well as attack. Like enemy territory attack's areas like the Goblin area or your chastle or even retakes some of your conquered territory while your working to force the enemy back out of your territory.

Like a quest where some conquers form another contenant invades your territory with the single idea of conquering this contenant and your suddenly on the defensive with the objective of pushing them out and finding out where these guy cane from.

Oh also do you think on some times you can have some of your guy's you recruit you can sometimes see them doing things or moving about areas in your dark chastle?

Also since you have the Overlord recruit the goblins can you put them also in your army as well? You can have them show up in areas as well to help support the Orks also. It would also show how much the Overlord gained in power by also using Goblins and their skills with orks.

You could also have a funny side plot showing some of the female goblins manage to convince you to have a female unit and show how much mischif they get into with your army as well as other towns or areas you manage to conquer.

[nweismuller]

I encountered an 'invalid octal' error immediately upon start of the dwarven princess fight that booted me to desktop.

[Grape_Drink]

Alright, I've conquered everything except the demon tower, and two top-tier towns.

Honestly, I've given up on this simply because of balancing. I've been grinding away on my characters (Overlord/Crossbow/Dwarf/Berserker) to the point where they were all going into the saint battle as level 23s. I had given them all the best equipment possible for that point (dwarven) and proceeded to give them the goddess equipment as I came across it during the battle.

Used up 40 healing kits, 12 full health potions, 15 stimulants... The king's folks are balanced pretty well. Militia are weak (but I expected that), but then the knights and horsemen battles are just ridiculous, especially with no break in between them. Aside from the fact that they attack first, they each do enough damage to take a character into the yellow, in the berserker's case it's basically a one shot kill even at level 23. The only way I could see this being fixed is if they had their first attack of the round/agility lowered + a lower accuracy, or they have their damage reduced. The charge ability is understandable at the beginning of the round, but at that point you might as well just apply a flat damage via a round 0 event since it's otherwise a game of luck hoping they don't take out one of your characters making it so you have to scramble just to keep up for the next ridiculous fight.

There's also a problem with a lot of skills enemies use. A lot of them should probably be checked as a physical attack, but since they aren't, they almost always hit even through Mu's blindness attack.

From the way I'm looking at it, the only way to conquer the town is either A. Grinding to level 30 (ridiculous proposal since I've already spent an hour's worth of play time grinding), B. waiting until the demon tower is in because it seems beating it is a requirement to have a chance in hell, or C. Getting really -REALLY- lucky and hoping the knights don't attack the same target. Ever. (yeah that third one is the least likely to happen.) The orcs must be super buffed if buffing them is supposed to be easy mode, because the mistresses are pretty powerful as-is.

I also noticed that these monsters must be getting ridiculous evasion rates, or my weapons must have a really low chance to hit. I've calculated on my berserker's axes that outside of rage, they have a 25% chance to miss at least.

Another thing is bosses. I read somewhere that the goblin king is a ridiculous one-shot-kill powerful because he has low HP... Except he's not an exception to the rule. He IS the rule. Every single boss I've fought in this game has been high DPR, low HP, or high DPR, high HP. It's pretty much a guarantee that unless I kill them in the first round, my berserker is the only way to win.

Actually every single battle has been a matter of "you better have the best equipment or you don't stand a chance in hell!" Which I really don't agree with. Average equipment should be the least needed to get through an area successfully, with the best equipment making the task easier. (so the tier prior to the best tier should be the minimum armor/weaponry needed to successfully complete the challenge.)

When I was working with game maker for the first time, it had a note in the booklet that said that designers typically get very good at their own game. This is very, very true but it doesn't mean it's easy. The best way to test if your battles are too hard is to simply use the toolset's built-in tester. Pop in average (or even slightly below average) levels, set the equipment, place in some of your characters in a given situation and blam, you can figure out rather nicely if a battle is going to be too tough for the average player. Never use the strategy you know will work for beating an enemy, because that gets into a linear path whereas only that strategy works. Always test going after different enemies first. If you can't survive outside of your typical linear strategy, then make adjustments to allow for other strategies. I found on multiple occasions that the game already expected me to know that archers, for instance, are three times as powerful as fighters in any given battle. Your average player (especially those not paying close attention to how much damage specific enemies are doing) do not know that. Point being, always assume your average player will take the "dumbest" route to beating an enemy, as it will ensure balance while granting benefits and perks to those who realize the patterns.

[daydreamer]

i almost finished the game. Good game.
are the all characters playable?
please tell me how to make Cemiel and Erika join the party.
there is no hints in case of Cemiel i wondered into elf forest but still no clue.
in the case of EriKa the imp tell me to visit her place i visited almost every house in the town and every room in the church but here also no clue.

[ijiun]

hi,

Before I begin, I apologize for my very bad english, I use google trad to help me.

So let's start,

_ Thank you for this very nice game ^ ^

Following the mistresses patch, giving all secondary slave to my overlord (so the orcs are lvl 1)

_ Knight, captain and saint general are very powerful, maybe too powerful but they are beatable.

_ Famous duellist at the entrance of castle town is really really really too powerful, my overlord level 30, mistresses (dwarf lvl 30, barbarian Lvl 28, elf Lvl 24 or mercenaire Lvl 27), everyone with the best possible gear, and i have my ass kicked.
She hits hard on all members of the group at the same time, and put two more abnormal status at the same time with the same attack, it's completely crazy. I think she needs a balancing.

_the islands of the Lich tower and the Demon tower are a problem if you park your boat in the wrong place.

[Araz8631]

The imp hints to check the saint knight living place.Does anybody know where he is refering to?

[ijiun]

The imp hints to check the saint knight living place.Does anybody know where he is refering to?

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Garrison St. astha, north west of the city, search the saint general room

[command]

I had an idea what about also having a female character that also has armor that can't be removed. Like a female character with cursed armor that goes to the Overlord because she heard a rumor of a dark individual that has armor that can't be removed.

It would be interesting to have two characters that you can't see their faces.

[command]

I also have to say fighting the captain well he uses shield bash way to many times. He seems to use it on every turn and the other knights use double strike almost every time that effectively kill my characters in almost 1 shot.

They need to be adjusted so their best attack's aren't used that often so I can get a chance to revive my characters instead of them comstantly eliminating the character I revive and on the same turn kill another character while another is stunned.

[Lucky777]

As it turns out, I picked up the game again, and while the boss of the most northern area sorely tested my patience, DISCUSSING that battle deeply tested my civility.

And yet, in both cases, I have come out unscathed - as expected of Lucky.

As I've mentioned, I'm on the "All heroines for the Orcs, all Side-chicks for the Overlord" route.

Everybody's in Saint Astha armour ("Kinghtwood"? "Nylod"? "Lightweight"? whatever) and I ran through all 50 of my full potions and all 50 of my medkits just to win.

What follows is the discussion, rigorously edited for the sake of politeness - and if any of it seems abrasive, let me reassure you: "You don't know the half of it."

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Whoever told you that the "Serious duellist" bossfight was a good idea has misled you.
It's broken.
There is potential for it to be "pleasantly challenging", but that potential is squandered in various ways.


What gives the battle potential to be pleasantly challenging?
Starless Night.

It is damaging, but predictable.
The duellist uses two attacks, then Starless Night.
(For it to be most poetic, I'm sure the desired order would be something like "Dawn, Dusk, Starless Night", but that doesn't really matter, though it's cool when it happens.)
What MATTERS is that a person who pays attention can easily figure out when the attack is coming, and block so as to mitigate the damage.
Good.

I like some challenge in videogames, and everything up to this duellist has been balanced almost exactly to my preferences, on the path I'm on.
The Shield Bashing guys in St Astha were a bit much, but still acceptable to me.
But this is about the Serious Duellist bossfight.

So in the case of the Serious Duellist, what stops the battle's potential to be "pleasantly challenging" from being realised?
Starless Night.

Specifically, the status effects attached to the attack.

Full stop.

The "Stun" status effect can't be cured by any item that I know of, nor can it be resisted by equipping any item that I know of.
It removes the stunned person's ability to act, whether to defend himself or another, or to attack his enemies.
For it to be applied to the whole party at once would be pretty silly, without more.

But in Starless Night, there IS more.
There's damage, and there's blindness.
To the whole party.

So there's high damage output, AND
i) the "stun" status, which can't be healed except through time, AND
ii)damage to the whole party (while there is no item to HEAL the whole party) AND
iii) blindness to the whole party (while there is no item to remove status effects from the whole party.)
Repeated every 3 turns, ALL IN A FIGHT where the enemy's only other attacks either blind or stun as well.

I'm sure you'll see where I'm going with this when you think about it for even a very short time.
In case you don't:
"It's a problem."


Now, there are a lot of ways this problem can be dealt with.
- The way that appeals to me most, personally - my favourite way - would be making the status effects simply not occur if the attack is blocked.
That rewards awareness of the pattern, punishes those who rely solely on the attack key, and leaves the boss still able to damage the party even through the block.

I don't know how feasible that is on a technical level, though, since I haven't ever worked with an RPGMaker engine.

- Another way is to simply remove one or other of the blinding or stunning effects.
(Preferably the stunning, I'd think, since it's the more deadly of the two.
I suppose removing the blindness alone could theoretically work too, though.)

- Another way is to introduce an item that heals the whole party, and/or an item that removes status effects from the whole party.

- Another way is to vastly reduce the likelihood of any or all of the status effects occuring when Starless Night is used.

- Another way is to space out Starless Nights a lot more, so that instead of every 3 turns, the attack comes every ... I dunno, 5 or 6 or whatever turns.

Doubtless you could come up with others, those are just off the very top of my head.


Of course, when there's a fight that pushes a game's mechanics to the limit, flaws in those mechanics show up especially glaringly.
So what else stops the battle from being "pleasantly challenging" and makes it annoying instead?
Distract them.

In a sentence, "it's not good".

Enemies ignore it with impunity, and with great frequency.

That doesn't sound like something you want said about one of the key "tactics" you try to "encourage", is it?

I'd think not.

There are lots of things that could be done to deal with that too, though.

- The one that seems most obvious would be to simply make the command more effective.
To make it do what it does already, but better.
So, for example, to make the distraction get attacked 80% or 90% - or even 100% - of the time, instead of 50% of the time, or whatever figure it is now.

But although that's an obvious answer, I don't think it's necessarily the best answer.

The thing about these commands is that they're trying to simulate things that could actually happen in a battle.
Turn-based combat isn't my favourite system (in fact, I don't like it much at all) but what it's trying to do is to simulate actual battles, in its own very stylised way.
So I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to say "use this command, and suddenly the enemy will forget that they are fighting four characters, instead of one."
Doesn't seem that believable, y'know?
Not that great for "immersion".

- Perhaps you could copy DnD, and mimick the way "marks" and "attacks of opportunity" (and immediate-interrupt attacks, for fighters) work, in the DnD system.

As to marks, that is to say, when the distraction command is active, you could make the enemies more likely to miss if they don't attack the distraction.
(As if they were attacking a character other than the character that had 'marked' them, in the DnD system).
I think it's basically something like 10% more likelihood to miss, if I remember right.
(-2 to the roll, when the operative system involves rolling a d20)
It's more complex than that, (and a 10% penalty really isn't much use anyway) but it'd be SOMETHING more than the current distraction command has.
And the current command needs all the help it can get.

As to extra attacks, maybe you could make the enemies take damage when they attack something other than the distraction.
(In this case, you'd be copying the attack that a character would suffer if that character attacked something other than the fighter-class character that had marked them, in the DnD system, or you'd be copying the 'attack of opportunity' that a character could suffer if it used a non-melee attack when there was an enemy character adjacent to the attacker.)

Those are just ideas blatantly stolen from another system, after a moment's thought.
They may be quite impracticable in the RPGmaker engine, or you may not like them for any number of other reasons.
To be sure, you could come up with something entirely original instead, but there's only one important thing to bear in mind about the current game mechanic as it stands.

That one thing is as follows:

"It's not effective."

Anyway, I'm assuming the next boss will be even worse than the duellist.
Heh.
Based on THAT assumption, I'm not fuckin' with it until this game gets balanced.
...Well.
Unless my curiosity leads me to do so, as it might.

Balance aside, the game is still good fun.
I especially liked the music for ... just about everything involved in the dwarven mines, from the overworld theme to the boss themes.
The whole St Astha pre-battle cutscene and its music were pretty awesome too.
And I'm a big fan of the "strategic" decision portion of the battle for St Astha.
(Though I don't know if those decisions ACTUALLY affect anything in the game at all.)

Actual story spoilers

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

And I'm pretty pissed about what happened to the northmost kingdom; it's a VERY irritating plot twist to have the townspeople zombified and my victory converted into yet another trial. I'd go and wring that bastard's neck right now, but I saw that it was a bossfight instead of a cutscene, and after the LAST fucking bossfight, I said
"Nope" as soon as I got whacked for like 90% of the party's hp in one hit.

[STR]

08282013 version will be up shortly. In a few words:
- Orcs route largely fleshed out with four quest, a dungeon, a boss and a final reward.
- Late-game should be easier thank to the application of a serie of nerfs and the addition of a powerfull (but costy) consumable in the elven shop to help you recover from desperate situations (as I can very well understand tha nobody likes having to redo a whole conquest due to a streak of bad luck)
Read the changelog for the details.


AllenandArth:
About never attacking with the overlord: on the mistresses and orcs route, that's kinda intended. He is a support character. On the overlord one though, the stats boosts and skills learned should progressively make him stronger and stronger until he becomes some king of a one-man army, his orcs only there to distract the ennemy and heal him with items.
About the game difficulty/need for items: it may be a bit old school, but I believe a jrpg you can play for the first time, without guide, from beginning to end, without ever seing the game over screen, can't be a good game. Because winning something that doesn't oppose you any tangible resistance can't feel rewarding. Then again, like I said and will repeat, the game is still very much unbalanced, especially toward the end, and working on that is my current priority. But even post-balance, I intend on making it fall on the hard side of the fence.

Ardelas:
Good to see someone did the third floor and liked it. I was a bit affraid it would frustrate some players.
Also, yes, Saint Astha had yet to take the nerf bat, as nobody had reached it to give me their impressions on it. Today's release should largely improve on that field (I hope I got it from "crazy difficult" to "hard but doable with enough preparation". We'll see.).

Moonblack:
Thanks for pointing out those errors. They have been adressed in the new version. As for the dwarven mine, I'm still very much balancing the game from here on but, to continue on D4nt3's answer, keep in mind that those dwarves really aren't anything special if you take away their brute strengh and resilience: even their bosses do no magical damage and inflict no statu effect. Nothing.

Arlanae:
Yeah... That one fight was clearly overboard. Not only are 3 ennemies capable on stunning you during the same turn quite something already, I also made a mistaker in the game's database that had "shield bash" always strike first. While still hard, the fight should be much more doable (and much less chance-based) in the new version.

Araz8631:
About the king fight just after the princess: I suppose I could give you a break here, yes. It would even kinda make sense considering the flow of the story, actually. Will probably see to it.

Nice and Blue:
No erotic dialogues in, sorry. For two reasons:
1: In cas the extraordinary were to happen, and someone volunteered to do some artwork or render some 3D for the game, I wouldn't want them to feel restrained by an already existing text.
2: I've always found all that grunting and talking dirty more hilarious than anything in the numerous H-games I've played, and came to despise them with time, feeling the CGss would stand very well on their own. And I'm not good enough to write well in a style I loath.

And YES, I need people to review the texts. If you are still willing, just take a pen and some paper, play the game noting everything that's not right in a scene or two, and come back here to tell me how you would modify things. It's all I'm asking.

Grape Drink:
First post:

(lich king tower bug)

Could you tell me what happened, and where? I'm very interested in that one, as nobody had problems in that dungeon so far.

Something that would be really nice is a recall stone or something that could take me directly to home base, even if I had to buy it. Just have it set a transfer player and move the vehicle to a proper location.

Definitely impossible. I did stumble uppon a script that does exactly that when making the game, but considering the number of long chains of events the player follows in some battles, letting him bail out whenever he wants would simply break his game.

I keep seeing folks talk about goblin equipment, but when I try to get said equipment at the markets, it won't let me approach from the front. I think I read in a comment that approaching from the back works though, so I'll try that out.

Adressed in the 24 version, I believe. Please tell me if that's not the case.

Good game, but the grinding aspect is frustrating. When I play a game, I expect for most everything needed to beat it to be provided through the main path with sub-branches simply making it easier in the long run.

From the last time I did a complete run of the game (just after releasing the 24), it didn't seem there was all that much grinding. Monsters now drop a lot of gold, and you've got all those chests full of powerfull weapons and armours just lying around everywhere in the side dungeons. So it really shouldn't take all that long to gear up when preparing for a conquest... It's really just about being willing to go off the beaten path from times to times, but it shouldn't be long.

This is especially true with conquest-style games. I like to follow sub-paths anyways so it isn't a big deal for me, but sub-quests and grinding should make a game easier, not playable.

From my tests, it should be the case up to the elven forest now. Then again, it is true that you'll need to grind quite a bit of gold and explore some dungeons before the dwarven mine and Saint Astha. But, again, that shouldn't be long.

Second post:
Yes, the balance isn't there yet, especially toward the end of the game. Sorry about that. Should already feel much better with today's release.
About Saint Asta: Shield bash striking first was a mistake, and that has been corrected. Also, the brave capitain won't use it anymore (don't know if you got that far). Shield Bash and Lightning Strikes, the two skills I found that where indeed not correctly tagged as physical attacks, have been fixed (thanks for pointing that out). The knights and their leaders will stay quite strong though, for both background and gameplay reasons (if all you had to fight were king's soldiers, that battle would be boringly easy), but the new healing item should prevent you from ever loosing to them due to "bad luck" so long as you bring one or two to that battle.

I also noticed that these monsters must be getting ridiculous evasion rates, or my weapons must have a really low chance to hit. I've calculated on my berserker's axes that outside of rage, they have a 25% chance to miss at least.

Nah, that's just because axes give -10% to accuracy, and Labryl uses two of them. Don't seem all that problematic considering the sheer damages she inflicts when she does hit, and the fact that her berserk rage gives her a huge boost to accuracy in addition to attack power.

Another thing is bosses. I read somewhere that the goblin king is a ridiculous one-shot-kill powerful because he has low HP... Except he's not an exception to the rule. He IS the rule. Every single boss I've fought in this game has been high DPR, low HP, or high DPR, high HP. It's pretty much a guarantee that unless I kill them in the first round, my berserker is the only way to win.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Lich king: single target, relatively low damages, poison, lots of HPs (for his level)
Labryl: high damages, low hps, no conditions.
Lysia: very high damages, support troops, low HPs and Def, no conditions
Mu: relatively high damages, one-time confusion condition on the first turn, low HPs and Defense
Goblin Hero: medium damages, medium HPs, no condition, access to a whole party attack
Goblin chieftain: high damages, blind condition, low HPs
Snake King: medium damages, medium HPs, average chances to inflict paralysis, blind and poison to the whole party
Forest Priestess: high magical damages, low HPs and DEF, self-heal, no conditions
Dwarven Princess 1: High single target attack, high defense, low-medium HPs, no conditions
Dwarven Princess 2: Same thing with less HPs, but pretty much unkillable for the first five turns of combat, forcing you into a defensive battle.

And so on, and so on. I did try to vary the bosses (though that elven priestess never quite satisfied me, so I'm still searching in her case), and I believe all of them to be beatable one way or another as of today's version. Hell, I'll evend aresay that there is an actual increase in difficulty from one boss to the next, culmnating with the last two of the main storyline (that aren't on that lis). But it is true that none of them is the "huge sac full of HPs with no way to seriously threaten the team whatsover", as I just find those boring. If it's a boss, I'll want you to feel in danger. And I don't feel in danger when all my ennemy do is apply a few condition from time to time or hit one party member each turn for a mere quarter of his lifebar while I slowly but surely deplete his own HPs. It's just, well... It's personal, but I don't find that fun. So even those of my boss who have more XP than normal are able to hurt you, albeit a bit less than the others. Like everything else, I believe it's a matter of finding the right balance between "hard" and "impossible", andd like I already assured you, I'm working on it.

Actually every single battle has been a matter of "you better have the best equipment or you don't stand a chance in hell!" Which I really don't agree with. Average equipment should be the least needed to get through an area successfully, with the best equipment making the task easier. (so the tier prior to the best tier should be the minimum armor/weaponry needed to successfully complete the challenge.)

And that should hold true up to the elven forest now. But I don't really feel like extending that to the mine and Saint Astha, as those are supposed to be hard. And I don't really feel like changing that, as it's kinda logical for things to toughen up when you're approaching the end of the game.

When I was working with game maker for the first time, it had a note in the booklet that said that designers typically get very good at their own game. This is very, very true but it doesn't mean it's easy. The best way to test if your battles are too hard is to simply use the toolset's built-in tester. Pop in average (or even slightly below average) levels, set the equipment, place in some of your characters in a given situation and blam, you can figure out rather nicely if a battle is going to be too tough for the average player. Never use the strategy you know will work for beating an enemy, because that gets into a linear path whereas only that strategy works.

I did use it. I still do. But, as those bosses always pop at the very end of the conquests, I believe having a lot of persons playing them and giving feedback like you are doing right now remains the fastest way to get a good feel at the balance. Hence the rather... ectic state of balancing at game release... and the way it improved quite radically during the first few days. So, yeah, like I've already said a lot, while I didn't give you half-maps or half-events or half-a-storyline, I did give you an half-balanced game. Sorry about that.

I found on multiple occasions that the game already expected me to know that archers, for instance, are three times as powerful as fighters in any given battle. Your average player (especially those not paying close attention to how much damage specific enemies are doing) do not know that.

Actually, I/the game expects the player to learn from his experiences. That's why the classical pairing tank/dps (fighters/archers) appears right at the beginning, during the easy Barbarian Market conquest. So the players can familiarize with that concept, and not be surprised when it pops up again with stronger ennemies.

Point being, always assume your average player will take the "dumbest" route to beating an enemy, as it will ensure balance while granting benefits and perks to those who realize the patterns.

Well, I can't agree with that, sorry. If I make a game assuming my player will always take the dumbest route, and decide he should be able to win even when doing so, then I'll just end up making a game for dumb people or, worse, that encourages people to act dumb.
So I hope that, in my game, if the player does something dumb, he will gets punished for it, learn from his mistake, and not do it again. And when he does manage to win, he'll feel clever for doing so, and he will be able to appreciate his victory. 'twould be nice, huh? Though those first versions were obviously far off the mark. But I feel the game is getting better every day thanks to the returns I got. So, maybe, someday...


Command:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

You know it's really hard with the surprise assault by those knights. You may want to put in where you can drastically weaken those attacking knights depending on how you plan your strategy.

It could be involved with that 1 option with moving the pikemen since they were included in the army specifically do deal with the knights.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

In-story, those orcs were equiped with pike as a deterrent. Remember that on the first battle, the knights just rode right through your front lines. They don't in the second.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I know you have in the game that this is one of several contents. It would be interesting if you were to put in areas where your protecting your conquered territory as well as attack. Like enemy territory attack's areas like the Goblin area or your chastle or even retakes some of your conquered territory while your working to force the enemy back out of your territory.

Like a quest where some conquers form another contenant invades your territory with the single idea of conquering this contenant and your suddenly on the defensive with the objective of pushing them out and finding out where these guy cane from.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I think we should discuss that again once you've finished the story, as it kinda explains why the factions on the continent were so weak, as well as why no outside faction was ever involved directly (aside from the size and the dangerosity of the oceans which would, with that medievalish tech, make the sending of an important army to another continent a very costy, long and hasardous entreprise.)

Oh also do you think on some times you can have some of your guy's you recruit you can sometimes see them doing things or moving about areas in your dark chastle?

Already have something like that planned, yes.

Also since you have the Overlord recruit the goblins can you put them also in your army as well? You can have them show up in areas as well to help support the Orks also. It would also show how much the Overlord gained in power by also using Goblins and their skills with orks.

You could also have a funny side plot showing some of the female goblins manage to convince you to have a female unit and show how much mischif they get into with your army as well as other towns or areas you manage to conquer.

Like the dwarves and human soldiers you can see patrolling your conquered cities side by side with your orcs, those goblins are but the remnants of the initial military force of your ennemies. The only reason those guys weren't dismissed outright is that their presence helps the population to adapt to their new ruler. So you should consider them more like a local defense group or police force than a real part of your army.

The part about female goblins asking the overlord to create a female foreign unit in their army could make for a fun little sidequests. (I say "foreign", because obviously, the goblin lobby that prevented that from happening so far wouldn't tolerate to have their nice little all-men barracks compromised... And that would give me an excuse to make those female soldiers appear in other conquered cities...) Yep. I'll keep it in mind for latter.

Daydreamer:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

You already got an answer for Erika. For Cemiel, you simply had to return to the elven forest after trying, without success, to talk to her. Normally, on the second map, you should have seen a rabbit looking at you, and then slowly walking towards the lower-left path. You were supposed to follow. If you did not, it shouldn't be too late to go take that path and pick up the quest where you left it.

Ijun:

_ Thank you for this very nice game ^ ^

And thank you for playing it. You, and everyone else.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

_ Knight, captain and saint general are very powerful, maybe too powerful but they are beatable.

_ Famous duellist at the entrance of castle town is really really really too powerful, my overlord level 30, mistresses (dwarf lvl 30, barbarian Lvl 28, elf Lvl 24 or mercenaire Lvl 27), everyone with the best possible gear, and i have my ass kicked.
She hits hard on all members of the group at the same time, and put two more abnormal status at the same time with the same attack, it's completely crazy. I think she needs a balancing.

The two should be easier in this version. Especially the second one (going from "almost-impossible" to "very hard", I hope).

[STR]

Three more answers while I was trying my best answering to everyone. Oh, well.

Command:

As the main story is complete, adding in new mistresses is kinda out of the question, sorry.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The capitain fight should be easier as to today's version, and you know also have a powerfull item to use when several party members are downed.

Lucky777:

Well, each more review I get is one more ray of sun in my life or something. Even when the reviewer is trying his best not to strangle me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

So, concerning the duelist:
Yeah, I kinda realised how brokken it was recently. That's why "Starless Night" only does half the damages it used to in the new version. What I did not realise though, was that I forgot to add "Stun" to the list of the effects the "Great Cure" in the Elven Village removes. It'll be in the next version. Sorry about that. And now that you pointed that out, I'm also thinking about adding a powerfull item to remove all afflictions to the whole party, but sold at a high price (so the possibility is at least there, like that "Salvation" item I added on today's version, which revive every downed ally to full health, but will cost you an arm). You'll want to know there is a character on the mistress route that has a spell doing just that, so it would probably be used mostly by the players on the two others.

- The way that appeals to me most, personally - my favourite way - would be making the status effects simply not occur if the attack is blocked.
That rewards awareness of the pattern, punishes those who rely solely on the attack key, and leaves the boss still able to damage the party even through the block.

I don't know how feasible that is on a technical level, though, since I haven't ever worked with an RPGMaker engine.

I'm effraid I'd have no idea how to do that.

- Another way is to simply remove one or other of the blinding or stunning effects.
(Preferably the stunning, I'd think, since it's the more deadly of the two.
I suppose removing the blindness alone could theoretically work too, though.)

Nah.

- Another way is to introduce an item that heals the whole party, and/or an item that removes status effects from the whole party.

Seems like we thought alike. I think there will definitely some kind of whole-party Great Cure on the next releasE.

- Another way is to vastly reduce the likelihood of any or all of the status effects occuring when Starless Night is used.

Well, state application is already only at 50% for both effects so...

- Another way is to space out Starless Nights a lot more, so that instead of every 3 turns, the attack comes every ... I dunno, 5 or 6 or whatever turns.

Yeah but... what about the poetry?

(For it to be most poetic, I'm sure the desired order would be something like "Dawn, Dusk, Starless Night", but that doesn't really matter, though it's cool when it happens.)

That, at least, is easy to do.

Of course, when there's a fight that pushes a game's mechanics to the limit, flaws in those mechanics show up especially glaringly.
So what else stops the battle from being "pleasantly challenging" and makes it annoying instead?
Distract them.

In a sentence, "it's not good".

Enemies ignore it with impunity, and with great frequency.

That doesn't sound like something you want said about one of the key "tactics" you try to "encourage", is it?

I'd think not.

There are lots of things that could be done to deal with that too, though.

You are the second person to tell me that "distract them" doesn't work well enough, so I'm seriously starting to wonder. What it does is upping the "target rate" of the target to 1000%, theorically making it much more likely to be targeted, on every attack but the full-party ones. It's really only the "provoke" skill you get in the vanilla RPG Maker VX Ace package.

- The one that seems most obvious would be to simply make the command more effective.
To make it do what it does already, but better.
So, for example, to make the distraction get attacked 80% or 90% - or even 100% - of the time, instead of 50% of the time, or whatever figure it is now.

Problem being, I can't go over 1000% target rate either way. So if I'm to make the skill more effective, I'll have to look at something else. Without adding a code to modify the fighting system, the only thing I could do would be to add the "substitute" flag to the effects of "distract them". Basically, in addition to attract most ennemy attacks, the character would also take the damages suffered by allies with less HPs than him. But them, I'm effraid he'll just die at the first whole-party attack a boss will throw at him.

But although that's an obvious answer, I don't think it's necessarily the best answer.

The thing about these commands is that they're trying to simulate things that could actually happen in a battle.
Turn-based combat isn't my favourite system (in fact, I don't like it much at all) but what it's trying to do is to simulate actual battles, in its own very stylised way.
So I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to say "use this command, and suddenly the enemy will forget that they are fighting four characters, instead of one."
Doesn't seem that believable, y'know?
Not that great for "immersion".

Well, yes. But I'm working with the default battle system. I simply do not have the required skills to improve on it or replace it entirely with ruby-code.

- Perhaps you could copy DnD, and mimick the way "marks" and "attacks of opportunity" (and immediate-interrupt attacks, for fighters) work, in the DnD system.

As to marks, that is to say, when the distraction command is active, you could make the enemies more likely to miss if they don't attack the distraction.
(As if they were attacking a character other than the character that had 'marked' them, in the DnD system).
I think it's basically something like 10% more likelihood to miss, if I remember right.
(-2 to the roll, when the operative system involves rolling a d20)
It's more complex than that, (and a 10% penalty really isn't much use anyway) but it'd be SOMETHING more than the current distraction command has.
And the current command needs all the help it can get.

As to extra attacks, maybe you could make the enemies take damage when they attack something other than the distraction.
(In this case, you'd be copying the attack that a character would suffer if that character attacked something other than the fighter-class character that had marked them, in the DnD system, or you'd be copying the 'attack of opportunity' that a character could suffer if it used a non-melee attack when there was an enemy character adjacent to the attacker.)

Those are just ideas blatantly stolen from another system, after a moment's thought.
They may be quite impracticable in the RPGmaker engine, or you may not like them for any number of other reasons.
To be sure, you could come up with something entirely original instead, but there's only one important thing to bear in mind about the current game mechanic as it stands.

Like I said, I'm working with the default battle system, and I simply can't do that kind of things with it.

That one thing is as follows:

"It's not effective."

Well, I played my own game quite extensively (yeah, I know, unbelievable) and, while the "distract them" might not work every single time, I'm pretty sure the extreme majority of the attacks still end up on the tank. You really only care about those that do not because they usually hurt like hell (falling on a character with less armor and no guard up). But you would be far, far worse off without any tank at all. Still, I'll start looking for a more effective substitute.

Balance aside, the game is still good fun.
I especially liked the music for ... just about everything involved in the dwarven mines, from the overworld theme to the boss themes.

Really only the base RPG Maker Music with some presence-of-music stuff thrown in for good mesure.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

The whole St Astha pre-battle cutscene and its music were pretty awesome too.
And I'm a big fan of the "strategic" decision portion of the battle for St Astha.
(Though I don't know if those decisions ACTUALLY affect anything in the game at all.)

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Quite a bit of work went on that one (and on cutscenes in general... I think I tend to use too much of those, actually.)
As for the tactical decisions, the only thing they really affect is wether or not you get a fighting chance. If you screw up, you're simply taken to a game over screen when the Saint General comes charging in from behind. Game over screen from witch the game gives you the possibility to restart directly from the beginning of the tactical battle rather to have you walk all the way back from the castle, I'd like to add. I'm no monster.

Actual story spoilers

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

And I'm pretty pissed about what happened to the northmost kingdom; it's a VERY irritating plot twist to have the townspeople zombified and my victory converted into yet another trial. I'd go and wring that bastard's neck right now, but I saw that it was a bossfight instead of a cutscene, and after the LAST fucking bossfight, I said "Nope" as soon as I got whacked for like 90% of the party's hp in one hit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Well, it's kinda intended to make you mad, yes. I'm forshadowing the main antagonist of the second episode I'll probably never make anyway.
About that 90% HPs in one it. Are we talking about the duelist, or the last boss fight? Because I tested that one just a few minutes ago, and it really shouldn't be able to do that. He is of the "HPs bag, lots of afflictions, and full party attacks" type, but said attacks should be more around a quarter of everyone lifebar than 90%. So if they are not, I've got a problem. Another one.

[Lucky777]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

About that 90% HPs in one it. Are we talking about the duelist, or the last boss fight? Because I tested that one just a few minutes ago, and it really shouldn't be able to do that. He is of the "HPs bag, lots of afflictions, and full party attacks" type, but said attacks should be more around a quarter of everyone lifebar than 90%. So if they are not, I've got a problem. Another one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I was talking about the last boss. I don't know if there's better armour than the St Astha stuff, but yeah ... even if it wasn't 90%, it was a high percentage gone in one hit.
The attack was something to do with a whipping tail or something, I think. Might check again.
Also I was on fire at the time, and I think some characters were poisoned, so the burn effect added to the poison effect might have hurt like hell over one turn.

Basically, in addition to attract most ennemy attacks, the character would also take the damages suffered by allies with less HPs than him. But them, I'm effraid he'll just die at the first whole-party attack a boss will throw at him.
But them, I'm effraid he'll just die at the first whole-party attack a boss will throw at him.

...Yes.
Yes, this is not the optimal solution.
Because yes, he probably willl.

Still, I'll start looking for a more effective substitute.

In the end, that's the most a person could reasonably request, I suppose.

Well, I can't agree with that, sorry. If I make a game assuming my player will always take the dumbest route, and decide he should be able to win even when doing so, then I'll just end up making a game for dumb people or, worse, that encourages people to act dumb.
So I hope that, in my game, if the player does something dumb, he will gets punished for it, learn from his mistake, and not do it again. And when he does manage to win, he'll feel clever for doing so, and he will be able to appreciate his victory.

I'm in full agreement with you on this occasion.

effraid

Another notice of general application, for the game and writing in general: (There are like 3 of these, but I can't remember the others right now, sadly):
"Afraid" is the word you want.
EDIT: OH, right, another one is: "Captain" is the rank in English, "Capitain" isn't English.

[STR]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I was talking about the last boss. I don't know if there's better armour than the St Astha stuff, but yeah ... even if it wasn't 90%, it was a high percentage gone in one hit.
The attack was something to do with a whipping tail or something, I think. Might check again.
Also I was on fire at the time, and I think some characters were poisoned, so the burn effect added to the poison effect might have hurt like hell over one turn.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

May I ask which version of the game you are playing on? I do remember testing the battle a few days ago and finding that one was indeed a killer, but it should have been modified in the 24, and maybe even 23 version.

And thanks for the pointers on "Afraid" and "Captain". I took note of those for whenever I'll start checking parts of the text.

[Lucky777]

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I was playing the 24 version, I believe, as it did not crash during the Dwarf Princess fight even when she used Guarded Strike.

Also: About that alleged "50% application" on starless night.

I got stunned 100% of the time, every single time, unless she missed that character with the whole attack.

As to the pointers: no problem.

I like English, and I'm always happy to help with polishing up the use of the language in a reasonably enjoyable H-game.