Thursday 25 September 2014

Development Update

Hey everyone. Just submitting this post to let everyone know that the full release is on its way. While I won't dedicate to a release date, hopefully it shouldn't be too long. I've been very busy recently so I haven't been able to spend as much time on it as I like, however steadily but surely, It will be in the final stages.

For now though, I can talk about all the changes that are coming for the full release. And if you wish to discuss them or offer advice, then feel free to do so in the comments. Some of these are still work in progress and I will be updating this post with future information and updates. 

                                                                                                                                                                           


Base HP Increases


Enemy base damage has increased slightly, but generally, you'll be taking more hits before dying. The purpose for this change is to merely reduce enemy burst potential -- and giving you more breathing room in-between actions, or edge cases where a single character gets focused down. Defense also becomes less essential too. This is mainly a change for the early game, of course. Current changes are listed below:


  • Justin: 124 HP
  • Sue: 93 HP
  • Feena: 161 HP
  • Gadwin: 328 HP
  • Rapp: 427 HP
  • Milda: 375 HP
  • Guido: 289 HP
  • Liete: 156 HP


Merely lowering enemy damage would have made defense and healing too powerful, so this is the ideal solution. There are also some additions to starting inventories to help out in the early game. 

                                                                                                                                                                          


Weapon ATK Changes



Weapons now have much more ATK values and therefore will become much higher deciding factors on damage output. Characters such as Feena and Liete should strongly benefit from this change and/or those who you choose to not focus on STR improvement. As a result you can be assured that your party members will always be able to do relevant damage with their physical attacks. This is partially a decision due to the general nerfs to Feena's previous strengths, such as buffing or healing. It also means that SP restoration through basic attacks will always be meaningful, even for Liete.

The extent of this change is more than you'd think. Weapons in the lategame now have up to 300 ATK. Feena and Liete's natural STR deficiencies are no longer a big factor. Do remember though that physical resistance generally means the amount damage you deal will be around the same as before, so this only really benefits them. Granted, some skill ratios have been changed around, so don't expect Liete to be dealing 5000 damage with Smite (Redshock).

                                                                                                                                                                          


Movement Changes



Many of you were concerned with movement in combat so some tweaks have been made. Base movement has been increased slightly, and Move Mushrooms have been improved for those tougher battles where you need the extra boost. In fact, buffing items are now incredibly cheap -- in essence your limits on them is essentially inventory space. Guard Mushrooms have now been added too which can certainly protect a party member being focused fired early on.  

                                                                                                                                                                          


Starting Abilities



Characters will now correctly start with the abilities they should (No more learning 20 spells at once Rapp, sorry!). As a side note, Sue now starts with Water magic, and 'Rah Rah!' is now appropriately a water skill. Additionally, Milda and Guido are also being tested with magic. More to follow on this.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Dynamic Ability Scaling


Previously, skills and spells had fixed attributes that were only altered through the Disc 1 / Disc 2 switch. Now, abilities will instead grow over the course of the game. Sue's 'Rah Rah!' for instance, will gain more healing power as you progress. This also includes the SP/MP costs of abilities. Naturally, your capacity to cast spells should remain similar as you progress, in return for gaining stronger. For the most part, this will affect healing/support spells the most, which can now scale appropriately, while having the MP costs required to reduce healing spam and keep enemy damage to a reasonable level, even on harder difficulties.

For example, let's look at the Burn line of spells. The separated values indicate intervals in the game. Note that the '+' symbol indicates the the abilities can continue to grow, but the mana cost would not increase further as a result.

Burn
POWER: 80 | 110| 140 | 180 | 220+
MP: 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16

Burnflame
POWER: 180 | 210 | 240 | 270 | 300+
MP: 18 | 20 | 22 | 25 | 28

Burnblaze
POWER: 320 | 330 | 340 | 360 | 380+
MP: 30 | 32 | 34 | 36 | 38



If you'll notice, Burn grows at a much more relative rate than Burnflame (from its base values). Same as Burnflame is to Burnblaze. This is because lower level spells are meant to be merely mana efficient and/or faster to use early on, while a spell like Burnflame is immediately powerful when you first learn it, with a high cast time to boot. Late game however, each spell will have the same cast time, and the advantage of Burnflame or Burnblaze should mainly be its area of effect, as opposed to damage. This allows lower level spells to be useful in the lategame as actual damage spells that are a bit more mana efficient. As for Invoke, it will also scale throughout the game.

Also, let's look at the basic healing spells:

Heal
POWER: 50 |60 | 70 | 80 | 90+
MP: 8 | 10 | 12| 14 | 15

Healer
POWER: 120 | 125 | 130 | 140 | 150+
MP: 18 | 20 | 22 | 25 | 28

In the same manner, Heal end ups being the mana efficient option. Barring in mind that early on, the Heal spell will be a bit faster and would have scaled from water levels. This applies to all lower level spells when learning a higher level one, so take that into account.  

Alheal
POWER: 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 60+
MP: 12 | 13 | 14 | 16 | 18

Alhealer
POWER: 70 | 75 | 80 | 85 | 90+ 
MP:  18 | 21 | 24 | 28 | 32

Alhealer+
POWER: 120 | 120 | 120 | 125 | 130+
MP: 30 | 34 | 38 | 42 | 46 


Once again, Alheal remains the most efficient. As a side note, the reason the mana costs ramp up so much on Alhealer and Alhealer+ relative to their power scaling is because of how they are boosted with either water levels or Magic+ on equipment. The maximum amount of healing is equal to twice the base power. So upon learning Alhealer, it'll only heal for 70. But in the lategame, it can heal for a possible 180. Meanwhile Alhealer+ can go from 120 to 260.

Justin only has access to AoE healing while Feena can only use single target healing (Tree of Life not included, which of course is now a weapon skill). Liete gains access to all of these spells, so her inclusion to the party immediately makes the MP costs appropriate. Rapp still no longer learns any healing spells, with the exception of Resurrect. On that subject -- Resurrect now works very similarly to Invoke. Its mana cost is surprisingly low, but the cast time is very high and there are no longer any items on Disc 2 that can revive in combat.  All Resurrection Potions become spoiled, but they sell for a lot. So don't be too conservative with them on Disc 1 unless you want the money!

                                                                                                                                                                          

Spell Reworks


  • Gravity: Renamed to Enfeeble. No longer causes paralysis. Instead, reduces the ATK level of target enemy. Bosses are still immune.
  • Stram: Renamed to Cleanse. No longer reduces ATK level. Instead, is an ally cast spell which resets all buffs/debuffs (With Vanish and Boost being gone, this will be an excellent tool for saving allies who are massively debuffed).
  • *NEW* Shock: Lightning spell which paralyses a single enemy.
  • Shock (old): Renamed to ShockAll.
  • Freeze!: No longer deals damage. Instead, reduces WIT of all enemies. Bosses are still immune.
  • Cold: No longer reduces WIT. Renamed to Chill!. Deals low damage with 100% chance to cancel attacks and massive IP knockback. 
  • Vanish: Renamed to Anger. Reduces all stats by 1 level. No longer targets allies (Clarification: With bosses dealing more debuffs and being immune to both -STR/-WIT, this is an appropriate rework. Player buffs will now 'stick' but with increased MP costs, a less powerful Time Gate, and the removal of Boost, requiring Vanish resets to balance them out is no longer needed).  

                                                                                                                                                                          

Misc


  • Quests and map events have been modified or improved. Save hint messages have all been rewritten where appropriate, and various sidequests and dialogues have been changed to offer a reward or have closure. For example, the Clara's letter quest.


  • A potential early pass of the re-translation/writing project! At the very least, a grammar/spelling check will be completed for the release (for the original text). More to follow. Will be separate for both the original game and ReDux.


  • Difficulty modes to be added. There will be three difficulty modes with the release: Casual, Standard and Expert. The standard version will be very similar to the Demo release, but slightly easier overall. Casual mode will have weaker enemies, mostly in regards to IP speed (WIT) and tweaked skills. However, all rare drops are disabled. Expert mode on the other hand, have more powerful enemies, with stronger skills, stats and more specific weaknesses you'll need to take advantage of to succeed. But in this mode, rare items/equipment have an increased chance to drop, with some exclusive to this mode.

                                                                                                                                                                          

And more...


  • A trailer will be released with the final version, and I'll be advertising and submitting Grandia ReDux to the modding/hacking community in full force.
  • A dedicated website for the project.
  • As well the above, all enemies/items/equipment/abilities will be listed on the site from the get-go.


Apologies for no recent updates -- I wanted to make sure I was at a stage where I had finalized changes for the full release, and that they've been tested thoroughly. I don't want to be making dramatic changes post release so I want to make sure it can be as good as possible. The re-dialogue/translation side project will be put on priority afterwards as planned.  Thanks for the patience!

32 comments:

  1. Hey, would this version still be compatible with the demo version? If it is, would you recommend to start from the beginning if I'd want to do expert difficulty? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Restarting will be mandatory regardless, I'm afraid.

      If you were to resume from a save, you obviously won't get the HP bonuses, or starting abilities for certain characters. If Milda/Guido gain magic for instance -- you would need to restart for that to take effect. Sorry!

      Delete
  2. Thanks for continuing to work hard on this! The demo was pretty good!

    ReplyDelete
  3. XrosBlader821 here,
    Wow that's a lot of Changes! Looks like I can tear up my Guide and start from scratch but it's not like i wasn't seeing it coming. Also need to re-record my Video series but meh I do it with pleasure.

    Anyway, dude these Changes look really interesting. I can't wait and get my hands on playing the full release. Also these Disc 2 Stats look so cool. But I really wonder how you want to balance out the whole Mana problem that People might get from casting too much. I mean Invoke only restored 30 Mana and costs 100 SP but with spells like Burnflame potentially costing 28 Mana I can't imagine feeling comfortable with it.

    It's good to see that you rewrote these Save point Hints. Also you might make a list of all these side quests since they are really missable in the game. I for example just recently realized that you can get 25G by cleaning the bath tub on the ship Oo. I played through the game like 10 times and never knew about it. Or Are you talking about Extra dungeons like the 3 on Disc 2?

    Anyway love your work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Invoke scales up to 50 MP. MP/SP scaling is mostly for boss fights, it means balancing them out is much easier.

      Event changes can be things like Justin's bedroom (which now gives more gold and a resurrection potion) or Clara's letter.

      Delete
    2. Yeah I know stuff like Justins bedroom items. So the Beefjerky guy really was just overlooked by you? :D Because in the demo he gave Boots that were kinda OP.

      Delete
    3. Clarity Shoes? Yeah, I've changed that event too. It now gives a seed of life.

      On that note, stat increasing items have all been changed:

      Seed of Life: +10 HP. Fruit of Life: +30 HP.
      Seed of Magic: +3 MP. Fruit of Magic: +10 MP.
      Seed of Skill: +5 SP. Fruit of Skill: +15 SP.
      Seed of Strength: +3 STR. Fruit of Power: +10 STR.
      Seed of Vitality: +2 VIT. Fruit of Vitality: +6 VIT.
      Seed of Speed: +3 WIT. Fruit of Speed: +10 WIT.
      Seed of Running: +3 AGL. Fruit of Running: +10 AGL.

      I should list these in the post at some point.

      Delete
  4. Something I would hope for the hard mode is that its not good enough that you know how to fight the battles, but also preparing before hand.
    What I mean is that you might fail in a dungeon due to not having that extra piece of gear that would help you in some situations or that you brought the wrong consumables.

    Now I know that you are planing on making this mode quite hard, as it should be, but i hope you considerate almost forcing players to have certain stuff to advance due to difficulty.
    Otherwise, hope it goes well with the changes you are planning!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With the game being even harder, that pretty much comes with the territory. Then again, compared to previous versions, Complete offers more strategic diversity when it comes to equipment. Many equipment types are better against specific enemies. And yes, Hard mode assumes the player knows what's coming. The Squid King now uses Bubbling instead of just Bubble. Buying a couple of extra Water Charms is extremely useful. Also, throwing a robe onto Feena etc... It'll save you a few game overs, that's for sure. ; )

      Delete
  5. i cant take the suspence anymore xP i need this release!! O_O! please Dunal! anything u need xP im just that excited :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry for the wait. =)

      I'll have a Disc 1 release shortly (Which should be 100% complete). I was going to wait until I have it entirely finished but there's no harm in releasing Disc 1 early if it's done.

      Delete
  6. Question are you still going to have the original redux versions available as well or just redux complete?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AFAIK the 3.* versions of redux will still stay avaible for download since complete is pretty much a whole new game kinda ^^

      Delete
  7. Any chance of a disc 1 release in the next couple of weeks? I'd love to play this while I have time off! Very excited!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We will get it by christmas....well the next one that is.......and it will be a demo of Disc 2.......with 50% not there =)

      PS: On a serious note, its complete when it is, i myself look this page up everyday in hope of atleast info, but as many said before only the creator knows when it will be done =)!

      Delete
  8. doubt it since christmas is near as well as new years.
    but maybe we get it around christmas like last year the demo ... its been so long huh ...
    only time will tell

    ReplyDelete
  9. SEND LIFE TO US! ARE YOU STILL ON PROJECT??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dear mr. wolfgamer
      you must have faith, and arm yourself with patience. making a sparetime project like this is like writing a novel. creativity doesnt come easy, but his enthusiasm hasn't faultered yet. and his last submission in comments and in the page strongly indicates that he's still on the project =)

      Delete
  10. Sorry for the lack of recent updates guys!

    I've refrained from posting more 'change updates' since I understand everyone might just be annoyed from me posting them as opposed to an actual release. Makes me feel conflicted.

    If people would like me to post often in regards to development then let me know! I just feel that it would be annoying to some, more than anything...

    But don't worry, I am still actively working on things and there's absolutely zero reason I'd abandon the project. It's just that I have 'full time commitments' now and I am able to work on this project less than I'd like to. It's almost a luxury at this point. =x

    I hate giving time frames so I can't suggest any particular time of release. Just know that I have a lot of passion to completely finish this!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No problem with update posts here, they actually help maintain my interest!

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. Updates are good imo, I pretty much open this site everyday anyway. Can't wait to play the final version but take your time!

      Delete
    4. I also update the page regulary as you probably know already ;)
      and i am open to discuss changes or give opinions

      Delete
    5. Take your time we are glad to hear from you on updates.
      If you rush what you're making - it wont be as beautifully done as it would've been if you took your time :)
      Ive made a sue solo video on youtube to keep myself occupied until then :) Quite fun actually making it more of a challenge. Im very excited and eager for the update but more importantly willing to wait .
      This Grandia Fan from Scotland has your approval to do whatever it is you need, you saying never abandoning the project is the most assuring thing you can say :) Keep it at Dunal!

      Delete
    6. I do have a question though - is it possible to ADD more to the game like new maps to explore , of course side quests and new characters? Probably a stretch but you don't ask you never know.
      I just think this is such a wonderful game and such a wonderful thing you're doing keeping the game fresh :)

      Delete
    7. I agree with everything said here. From another Scottish Grandia fan. Where abouts in Scotland are you from, buddy?

      Delete
  11. I am from Johnstone . 30 mins from Glasgow @ Kyozo. U from scotlAnd too?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup! I'm in South Lanarkshire, so about 45 minutes from Glasgow, myself. Been playing Redux since about 2012. It's such an awesome mod and these changes are just a huge improvement over vanilla. Complete's gonna be a blast. :D

      Delete
  12. U got Facebook budd ? If not email me on Jonathan.shaw6@gmail.com :)
    Any1 from this site is welcome to contact me and chat about the game . I could talk about it all day lol

    ReplyDelete
  13. Im still checking this daily. Hooe to hear from u soon Dunal. :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. just checking in guys... throw support in his way anyone who sees this ;)

    ReplyDelete