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!

Grandia ReDux Complete Demo Release

Merry Christmas! While ReDux Complete is still being finished in some areas, I have decided to release an earlier demo as I’m sure many people would like something to play for the time being! Not only that, but this is a good opportunity to gather feedback outside of previous testers. Feel free to fill in the feedback Q&A and post it either here in the comments or by email (cwdluna@hotmail.co.uk). Preferably the latter, but it doesn't matter too much.

Here is the rundown for the demo:

- This demo goes up to the Serpent boss fight in the Typhoon Tower. The Lama Mountains will be unavailable afterwards (it’ll still be on the map, but the game will not allow you to proceed).

- The demo is set to normal difficulty.

- Otherwise the demo is (mostly) complete. Some rare drops are inaccessible (either because they are locked to hard mode, or certain item types aren't enabled yet – offhand poisons being one of them, which is exclusively rare). Some descriptions on items/equipment may or may not be complete either or be inconsistent.

- For those who have been testing previously, spell/item balance will be a couple patches behind (Because yes, Tremor/Quake are still broken and I’m a bad person).

- Remember to patch an original version of the game (Disc 1) as always. Keep an original backup etc etc…

- Save files made for this demo will be perfectly usable for the full game. Some character equipment/stats may be slightly tweaked for the full game but not enough to require a restart.

KNOWN BUGS

- Camping Tent currently does not work (buy Resurrection Salves instead).

- If a character’s MOVE is exactly 30 during the Squid King or Ganymede boss fights, then that character will freeze/bug out during ‘Suck In’ (This bug is also present in the original game, so fixing this will be tricky).

Q&A for the demo:

GENERAL

1)   What’s your favorite improvement/change to ReDux Complete?

2)   What do you think still needs improving?

3)   Any new aspect you dislike or should be reverted?

4)   Overall thoughts on the demo?

 SPELLS/SKILLS

1)   Thoughts on the new SP system?

2)   Do you feel invoke is useful and does it better balance MP constraints?

3)   Any overpowered spells or skills you feel exist?

4)   Any underpowered spells or skills you feel exist?

5)   What’s your opinion on the new spells or specific ones?

6)   Could spell availability be tweaked for certain characters (Should X character have X spell for instance?)

ITEMS/EQUIPMENT

1)   General thoughts on the item/equipment revamp?

2)   Any over/underpowered items/equipment that could use tweaking?

3)   Any equipment niches/types you feel could be added (or needs removing perhaps)?

4)   Any item slot you feel could use a bit more variety still (for certain characters specifically)?

5)   Your thoughts on the movement stat changes?

ENEMIES/DIFFICULTY

1)   Overall thoughts on difficulty and enemy balance?

2)   Any specific enemies you feel could use tweaks?

3)   Which bosses you feel could use improvements (in terms of balance/strategy factor)?

Feel free to answer those questions (no matter how brief!). Your opinions matter!

***********************

DEMO IS HERE!

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Enjoy!

Glossary of Terms (Equipment)

Here is a list of terms for properties. This should be useful for understanding the effects of each piece of equipment in the game. Each property has been placed within an appropriate category.

Basic Statistics

[ATK] = Increases physical attack damage
[DEF] = Reduces physical damage taken
[ACT] = Increases speed on the IP gauge
[MOVE] = Increases movement speed

Attack Modifiers

[Combo+] = Increases your amount of combo hits by 1
[Critical+] = Increases your amount of critical hits by 1
[Volley] = Increases your amount of combo hits by 3
[Range+] = Increases attack range with basic attacks
[Fury] = Increases the amount of SP gained when attacking (~33%)
[Might] = Attacks will knockback the enemy
[Stun] = Chance to stun the enemy briefly when attacking
[Break] = Chance to reduce the enemy's defense when attacking
[Ignore defense] = Ignore the enemy's physical defense when attacking
[Pierce] = Ignore weapon resistance when attacking
[Absorb] = Restores a % of maximum health when attacking
[Warp] = Warp to the enemy when attacking
[Cursed] = Chance to damage self or other allies when attacking
[Slayer] = Ignores both physical defense and weapon resistance when attacking a certain type of enemy

Status Effects

[Poison attack] = Chance to inflict poison when attacking
[Plague attack] = Chance to inflict plague when attacking
[Para attack] = Chance to inflict paralysis when attacking
[sleep attack] = Chance to inflict sleep when attacking
[M.block attack] = Chance to inflict magic block when attacking
[S.block attack] = Chance to inflict skill block when attacking
[Confuse attack] = Chance to inflict confusion when attacking
[S.death attack] = Chance to inflict sudden death when attacking

Defensive

[Block] = If damage taken is lower than a certain value, reduces damage taken to 0
[Counter] = Reflects damage taken when attacked
[Sturdiness] = Reduces IP knockback when attacked
[Temper] = Increases the amount of SP gained when taking damage (~50%)
[Lucky] = Chance to warp away from enemy attacks, avoiding them completely

Resistances

[Magic resist] = Reduces damage or effects of all elemental skills and spells
[Fire resist] = Reduces damage or effects of all fire type skills and spells
[Water resist] = Reduces damage or effects of all water type skills and spells
[Wind resist] = Reduces damage or effects of all wind type skills and spells
[Earth resist] = Reduces damage or effects of all earth type skills and spells
[Status resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with all status effects
[Poison resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with poison
[Plague resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with plague
[Para resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with paralysis
[Sleep resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with sleep
[M.block resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with magic block
[S.block resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with skill block
[confuse resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with confusion
[S.death resist] = Reduces chance to be inflicted with sudden death
[Crit resist] = Reduces chance to be cancelled during an action

Special

[Magic+] = Increases the potency of magic spells
[Skill+] = Increases the potency of moves/skills
[#% spell haste] = Increases spell casting speed by #%
[Psyche] = Reduces the SP cost of skills
[Regen] = Restores health in combat over time, based on maximum health
[Weapon EXP+] = Doubles weapon experience recieved
[Magic EXP+] = Doubles magic experience recieved
[Gold+] = Doubles gold gained on killing blow

Still Alive + Features Overload!

For those who are still following (and wondering why on earth I haven't updated!) it looks like I decided to go further with the project than originally planned. And thus, more cool features (and lots of testing required to keep them balanced) have been made. Also, time restraints have meant I haven't been able to finish earlier as well (this was also unexpected, but I'm not going to dwell on it). However, progression is looking good, and I'll release an early patch for testing soon!

I might as well mention some of the on-the-go additonal features:

Difficulty modes. I've been working on multiple iterations and by release there will be three modes (each a separate patch). Casual, normal and veteran modes. Save files at any time will work on them and you can switch freely. The reason why it is important for me to work on them before release is because of item/spell balance. Perhaps individual tweaks aside, I need to accommodate for all three on the standard mode.

Rare loot for almost every enemy in the game. This also ties into the difficulty modes (more on that later) but the amount of sheer items I've added into the game because of this is well... quite substantial. More item types as well (see my equipment post from earlier) were also added too.

Changes to mechanics. For example, there's now a physical element type where some enemies are resistant against weapons. This took a lot of testing, as it needed to be balanced against physical defense. There are tons of benefits to this addition, especially late-game (where defenses needed to be over-tuned, making combo attacks very weak).

And more (my hopeless decision making -- or testing feedback on moves/spells etc...). I apologize for the silence, as I know some people have been waiting for a while.

So don't worry, I haven't stopped the project or anything! I've only remained quiet because the extent I wanted to take the project was still in flux. However I've now locked down pretty much everything so it shouldn't be too long.

Update + Videos

Haven't posted in a while so I'd thought I'd give a brief update.

It seems like Complete will take a bit longer than I'd like. But I should have a release due early next month.

So here's a video showing the Rock Bird!

Boss fights should be fairly different in Complete. In the original ReDux, boss fights are/were generally very bursty and could take you down fast unless you made use of stunlock or enough outright damage to take them down quickly.

In Complete, bosses are much more of an endurance test. They may not be able to burst you down as fast, but neither can you to them. This means that longevity of your resources matters a great deal more. Moves have more strategic use due to the new SP system, rather than being fire and forget. Hopefully this improves the flow of boss battles overall -- making them a longer-term struggle rather than shorter make-or-break situations.

Video #2: Rangle Mountains

Abilities page is now complete!

A list of statistics for all the moves/spells in the game is now shown on the 'abilities' page.

More to come, notably items and a similar re-structuring of the enemy page. 

Grandia ReDux Complete #3: Magic

Magic is a rather big topic so I'll likely post some further details elsewhere. In any case, here's the rundown.

Different Types of Mana

Magic from the original Grandia to ReDux currently functions very similarly: In regards to MP you'll have three different pools -- each containing spells that are catagorised into being weaker or stronger than others. Weaker spells would be LV1, and stronger spells would be LV3. It was a simple enough process, and mana management simply came down to balancing weaker spells with stronger spells. The problem with this is that often times, the way you could use your mana was often confused and you could say -- a bit overbearing. There wasn't really any focus into balancing spell usage with similar types, since they were split into different pools. And using weaker and stronger spells was never really a choice for the same reason. Ultimately, you had 297 mana to use healing spells if you wanted to, or 297 mana for damage spells. This just made it easy for someone to essentially not care about which spell they were using. Take Alhealer and Alhealer+ for instance. One is clearly stronger than the other. However, both are seperated into different pools of mana, so you therefore have 198 mana to use both, while having little compromise on which spell you wanted to use at any given time, other than balancing mana in each specific pool.

A better way to balance this however is to scrap the idea of splitting spells based on power, but instead seperate them into defined types. If Alhealer and Alhealer+ shared the same pool of mana, then there is suddenly a need to think about what spell is appropiate to use. If you overheal with Alhealer+, your entire mana pool for healing spells takes a noticeable hit. Again, this works for say, Burn, Burnflame and Burnflare. All of these spells now share the same MP pool. What this means is that these spells can be balanced closer to eachother while offering a choice on whether extra power is essential. Previously, if you ran out of mana to use Burn, you would still be able to use Burnflame and vice-versa. Thematically that didn't make much sense and had to balanced oddly. Therefore, instead of three pools of mana separating power, they are now separating types of spells:

LV1 = Support Spells.

LV2 = Basic offensive spells.

LV3 = Advanced offensive spells.

'Basic' and 'Advanced' simply refer to the elements of the spells. Fire, Water, Wind and Earth are catagorised as 'Basic' while Explosion, Lightning, Blizzard and Forest spells are catagorised as 'Advanced'. This does not occur for support spells however.

Mana Restoration

This is fairly similar to the SP system changes mentioned in the previous post. What was also mentioned is 'Invoke' a new SP costing ability that all magic users have. To put it simply, 'Invoke' is a spell that restores a flat amount of mana to the user. This costs SP as well as having a fixed cast time. Again, this means that spells generally cost a lot more than they used to, which means that you'll need to invoke fairly often in order to restore your mana. However, because of the SP cost and long cast time, you'll need balance normal attacks with other skill usage in order to do so.

In boss fights, you'll require careful management of both resources inbetween areas of downtime. MP and SP items are no longer avaliable in combat, individual management is even more essential. Most of the reasonings behind this change was echoed within the previous post. 

New Spells!

In ReDux Complete there are also many new spells to learn! As well as tweaks and overhauls of the currently existing spells too.

Shield - A single target buff that increases defense. Earth element.

Star - A single target buff that increases Max HP. Explosion element.

Restore - Restores all health to a single ally. Forest element. Was previously Boost.

Bubble - A single target damage spell. Water element.

Bubbling - A damage spell that targets all enemies. Water element.

Wrath - A single target damage spell. Forest element. Was previously Craze.

Howlspin - A single target damage spell. Wind element. Was previously SHHH!

Confuse - Inflicts confusion on a single enemy. Water element.

Meltdown - Inflicts heavy damage on multiple enemies. Fire element. Was previously Fireburner.

Haste - Increases the IP of one ally. Wind element.

Runner - Has now returned!

Curse - Inflicts plague on a single enemy. Blizzard element.

Torment - Inflicts plague on multiple enemies. Blizzard element.

Shock - Inflicts paralysis on multiple enemies. Lightning element.

Spell Progression

Spells are now also recieved at a much more gradual pace than they used to. Higher level spells are especially recieved much later than they did before. This is so progression remains consistant across all areas in the game. You'll still be learning new abilities even near the end of the game, so progression does not come to a halt much earlier! In addition, higher level spells have room to be even more powerful or useful as a result. You should feel satisfied when learning them!