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"DRPG" Stranger of Sword City

Celerity

Takes 1337 hours to realise it's shit.
Village Idiot Possibly Retarded
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
1,096
Any ninjas do it. Higher level and/or more of them cause more slowdown. If 5 mid level ones barely affects you it might be mostly fixed?
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Hirato

I tried, truly tried playing through Tale of the Forsaken land, especially because it was recommended to me by Courtier who has impeccab le taste in crawlers, but the game's animations are so slow they literally render the "experience" ot he game... completely unplayable.

I gamely made it to the 3rd dungeon using the PS2 emu's fast-fowarding options, but I eventually stopped because it is "*not"* fun in any way whatsoever playing such a rich in atsmphere, such a well-written cryptic hand of a dungeon crawler RPG that allows its elements to come alive and present a greater whole than its sum; playing a good game like that with the music in non-stop fast-foward (rendering the beauitufl soundtrack hilarious), and all that jazz... blah, decided not to play it.

However, the sequel introduced option(s) to not only SLOW DOWN all of the game animations (spell/enemies/etc), but the sequel of Wiz: TotFL also provided option to COMPLETELY eliminate the animations, thus producing a much more faithful Wizardry experience.

Perhaps someday, when Trump's grandkids are POTUS (all of them together, heh), either someone or me will have somehow, in some way I do not know how it could come about, we will all be able to play the sequel and enjoy it.

Dorarnae has played through Busin 0 in its entirety in japanese and he sayss it is not only better than TotFL, it is basically the Baldur's Gate 2 to the first game's BG 1.

EDIT: And, obviously, devs who made these games? studio is long gone! Just like every studio that makes a "dream project" 'crawler. The studio who did The Dark Spire? Having to toil away making barebone Wizardry-clnoes for japanese mobile phones in order to pay rent and food, since TDS did not sell well and that was that. Another one bit the dust.

It is ironic, int hat it is not ironical (!), that the most successful 'crawler-specific dev studio from Japan is the one who makes the shittiest and most mediocre entries and the studio who makes DAMN SURE their 'crawlers are as cuasualized as possible and:

Speaking of course... about SoSC's dev studio Team Muramasa + Exp. Inc.

Goes to show that regardless of the intellectual superiority of a sub-genre; the dumb sheep casual filthy fuckers will always not buy the good shit (like TDS, or Elminage), and instead buy completely mediocre shit like SoSC because it's "accessible".

SIGH. SIIIIIGH, WORLD... sigh.
 

Krraloth

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Nov 20, 2009
Messages
1,220
Location
Boringland
Wasteland 2
The fps killing happened in B4 lvl 6 ninjas mostly, but a group of lvl 3s with say a minor daimyo and bishops did bring it to the single digits. That is no longer the case. I didn't manage to get to B5 this weekeend so I can't say how it is at lower levels
 

Dorarnae

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
721
Hirato

I tried, truly tried playing through Tale of the Forsaken land, especially because it was recommended to me by Courtier who has impeccab le taste in crawlers, but the game's animations are so slow they literally render the "experience" ot he game... completely unplayable.

I gamely made it to the 3rd dungeon using the PS2 emu's fast-fowarding options, but I eventually stopped because it is "*not"* fun in any way whatsoever playing such a rich in atsmphere, such a well-written cryptic hand of a dungeon crawler RPG that allows its elements to come alive and present a greater whole than its sum; playing a good game like that with the music in non-stop fast-foward (rendering the beauitufl soundtrack hilarious), and all that jazz... blah, decided not to play it.

However, the sequel introduced option(s) to not only SLOW DOWN all of the game animations (spell/enemies/etc), but the sequel of Wiz: TotFL also provided option to COMPLETELY eliminate the animations, thus producing a much more faithful Wizardry experience.

Perhaps someday, when Trump's grandkids are POTUS (all of them together, heh), either someone or me will have somehow, in some way I do not know how it could come about, we will all be able to play the sequel and enjoy it.

Dorarnae has played through Busin 0 in its entirety in japanese and he sayss it is not only better than TotFL, it is basically the Baldur's Gate 2 to the first game's BG 1.

EDIT: And, obviously, devs who made these games? studio is long gone! Just like every studio that makes a "dream project" 'crawler. The studio who did The Dark Spire? Having to toil away making barebone Wizardry-clnoes for japanese mobile phones in order to pay rent and food, since TDS did not sell well and that was that. Another one bit the dust.

It is ironic, int hat it is not ironical (!), that the most successful 'crawler-specific dev studio from Japan is the one who makes the shittiest and most mediocre entries and the studio who makes DAMN SURE their 'crawlers are as cuasualized as possible and:

Speaking of course... about SoSC's dev studio Team Muramasa + Exp. Inc.

Goes to show that regardless of the intellectual superiority of a sub-genre; the dumb sheep casual filthy fuckers will always not buy the good shit (like TDS, or Elminage), and instead buy completely mediocre shit like SoSC because it's "accessible".

SIGH. SIIIIIGH, WORLD... sigh.

I only played the first baldur"s gate a little (man that's a long time ago) dunno about the second one...
anyway, Busin0 I cannot comment on the story, the first game has a really good writing/scenario, I know it's painful aweigh how slow the combat is, but at least the first game can be done very quiclky, you don't really need to grind. ( you get some pretty strong npc as you progress...)
first game is easy and it's really for the scenario you play the game....
second game is harder, can skip battle animation and few other things are faster like making your stone for learning spell. also more class, there's some kind of thief who can steal stuff from ennemies, which is nice.
 

Dorarnae

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
721
Hirato

It is ironic, int hat it is not ironical (!), that the most successful 'crawler-specific dev studio from Japan is the one who makes the shittiest and most mediocre entries and the studio who makes DAMN SURE their 'crawlers are as cuasualized as possible and:

Speaking of course... about SoSC's dev studio Team Muramasa + Exp. Inc.

Goes to show that regardless of the intellectual superiority of a sub-genre; the dumb sheep casual filthy fuckers will always not buy the good shit (like TDS, or Elminage), and instead buy completely mediocre shit like SoSC because it's "accessible".

while exp inc. dungeon crawler aren't the best, they're at least enjoyable, have a nice world/music and art . gameplay is alright (they need to improve it now though, in particular exploration...)
but I much rather play their game than stuff like class of heroes,mind zero,moero chronicle...
oh and while etrian odyssey 5 was alright overall, I kinda hate how popular the series is(well I guess being an atlus game helps a lot)
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
i agree they are very much so "Good", and very much enjoyable. I would not even bother talking about games that are objectively badly designed.

if i type with butt-hurt betwixt mine words; it is only because I feel TM / EI has so much potential to make an Elminage-quality 'crawler... and as the years pass it seems they never will. (And the thing is: they could.)
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
Concerning TDS: not being released in EU did not help. Having a very limited print killed it. It became too expensive too fast.
Couple all of that with how rampant and easy DS piracy was. Well, we saw what happened.
 

Haplo

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Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,138
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Those are all (except one of them) EXCELLENT suggestions.

However, I disagree on the two spells/skills that remove weapon-type DR (one of them is mage-class and the other cleric-class).

Why? Because the DR is so ridiculous when you hit an enemy with a weapon that does not have that enemies' "type" that it becomes unbelievably tedious not only juggling the weapon sets, but more so than that having to quick-change weapons during battle.

Since 95% of the game's fights take place outside of the "loot zones", that means that there is almost no incentive to waste time fighting trash-mobs, as it's much more effective to simply grind the "loot areas" for both loot AND experience points.

This menas that for those 95% of the game's fights your routine will invariably be, without fail:

- fight begins
- 1st round consists of your casters casting the 2 spells that remove enemy wepaon-type DR
- 2nd/3rd round consists of pressing the auto-battle button and killing all enemies
- receive no loot, and shit amount of XP

Rinse, lather, repeat. I think this alone, that which i just described, if REMEDIED in some way would better the entire game's "gameplay" to the nTH degree.

It's bewildering, really, since Team Muramasa / Exp. Inc.'s previous 'crawlers (Generation XTH: Code Hazard and its 2 sequels, Students of the Round, and Cross Blood Labyrinth) feature the exact same "system" of enemies having DR versus specific wepaon types, but unlike SoSC the DR itself is not so much of a big deal and you can steal win any fight even if you use non-type weapons.

Makes the game much more fun, since also, again UNLIKE SoSC, in their previous games all enemies have % to drop loot, and all of their previous games feature a detailed crafting/enchantment system that allows creating weapons with MULTIPLE "versus enemy" properties.

SoSC definitely has strengths, but the retarded idea of making loot available only inside designated areas and making enemies take basically no damage unless you use either the same spell(s) every battle, or constantly quick-change weapon sets just to clear a trash-mob fight (that won't give loot)... I think that is the game's single biggest problem.

However, everything else you mentioned is spot on: The veil skills are retarded and completely strip any sort of strategical depth to Lineage battles. Removing the veil system (and adjusting the bosses accordingly, obviously), would be the 2nd thing that most bigly impacts the game and make it more intellectual.

In my opinion the main elements that need improvement in SosC are:
1. Remove the retarded mechanic which scales damage dealt/received basing on level difference between your party and the enemy (makes trash fights even more trivial, makes fighting underlevelled almost impossible). Probably buff the trash a bit. Or maybe removing the scaling will largely solve the problems on its own.
2. Somewhat limit the multiclassing freedom. It's too good here. This is slightly connected with 1., as pure, single class characters will have higher current level and thus not only higher Hit and SpE, but also bigger damage due to level scaling. So the devs put an incentive for limiting multiclassing - but one I'd rather see removed. There should be other, better incentives / multiclassing maluses though.
3. Nerf Divinities. Veils are obvious offenders, but I'd also consider raising the nerf bat on Spirit Wall. Total immunity to all status effects (including beheading) for several rounds? Too good to be true, frankly.
I would cast it in any encounter where there was the slightest risk of enemies doing something nasty and it trivialized most fights.
4. Cleric's Holy Soul status immunity is also kinda too much. I mean if it was actually exclusive to clerics, then maybe okay, but many people use the overpowered multiclassing and grinding to make their parties fully immune to all status effects.

I'd actually leave the monster-type DR as it is. Note it only affects 2 races: Spirits and Undead. You generally know which enemy type you'll face in each dungeon, so you can equip your party accordingly.
Gear able to pierce the specific resistances of those 2 races is easy enough to find. The cheap level 1 party-wide spells easily remedy this if you didn't (they are actually precast before other characters move and risk wasting their attacks). You can easily repeat the commands from last fight. And late game this becomes a no-issue, as most stuff you'll use will do full damage anyway (or boosted damage).
 

Dorarnae

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
721
i agree they are very much so "Good", and very much enjoyable. I would not even bother talking about games that are objectively badly designed.

if i type with butt-hurt betwixt mine words; it is only because I feel TM / EI has so much potential to make an Elminage-quality 'crawler... and as the years pass it seems they never will. (And the thing is: they could.)

ahh yeah I agree, considering they worked on wizardry empire before...
 

Haplo

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Messages
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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I'd actually not focus on the Veils too much when trying to fix SosC. I mean sure, they are clearly OP.... but they are also an end game/post game mechanic. Before end game you don't even have access to them.
I'd rather focus on improving the whole game, from the start.

One other skill that is easily accessible and removes a tactical layer from combat IMO is Dancer's Weapon Trick. Makes positioning and weapon reach irrelevant. Narrows down the weapon choice. Worse, promotes hiding behind trash mobs and hitting the boss for full damage. And it's a freaking level 6 ability! Fairly okay on the Dancer, who is not a heavy hitter class, but way too easy to exploit for other classes via the broken multiclass system...
 

Celerity

Takes 1337 hours to realise it's shit.
Village Idiot Possibly Retarded
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
1,096
He's right about the Forsaken Land animation speeds. I have quick kills for every formation in the game. Most trash dies in 1 action, most bosses die in 2 rounds or less. You still spend a full minute watching your Assisted Spell Jakreta burninate everything.
 

Hobo Elf

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Platypus Planet
But is it completely unplayable with them? TotFL has been on my to-do list for ages now. I plan on playing it the way god intendend, on a PS2, so no emu turbo speed will be available.
 

Hirato

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Codex 2012 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
But is it completely unplayable with them? TotFL has been on my to-do list for ages now. I plan on playing it the way god intendend, on a PS2, so no emu turbo speed will be available.

You remember what it was like playing DQ7 on your 3DS?
Put that in your mind and picture the following differences.
  1. You can input the actions quickly
  2. You have a 6 person party
  3. Every action takes about 5s to animate
  4. during the post-battle prompts, pretend there is a 5 second animation between each prompt.
If that sounds fun, go ahead and play it on a PS2.
I really would suggest playing it in an emulator though so you can turbo through the worst of it.
 

Hobo Elf

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But is it completely unplayable with them? TotFL has been on my to-do list for ages now. I plan on playing it the way god intendend, on a PS2, so no emu turbo speed will be available.

You remember what it was like playing DQ7 on your 3DS?
Put that in your mind and picture the following differences.
  1. You can input the actions quickly
  2. You have a 6 person party
  3. Every action takes about 5s to animate
  4. during the post-battle prompts, pretend there is a 5 second animation between each prompt.
If that sounds fun, go ahead and play it on a PS2.
I really would suggest playing it in an emulator though so you can turbo through the worst of it.

Feels cheap to turbo through gameplay. Even if it sucks, it's still the intended way to play. I'm still buying the game so I can have it in my collection, but if it is really too annoying then I can just emulate it. Long animations aren't too much of an issue if the encounter rate is somewhat sane, however.

DQ7's main problem for me was that it was slow and boring. I might be able to sit through slow if there are at least fun / interesting tactical choices to make in combat.
 

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
I played through quite a bit of ToFL and echo the comments about the pace- and the difficulty. That was what killed it for me, it was all just far too easy and far too slow.

Plus there was a LOT of backtracking, even with short cuts and with no way of skipping dead easy trash mobs in earlier levels (afaik), it was all just sucking the fun out of it. Real shame as the atmosphere and dungeon design was pretty good, plus I remember liking the encounters you could run into in the dungeon, but the pace and lack of challenge just killed it.
 

Celerity

Takes 1337 hours to realise it's shit.
Village Idiot Possibly Retarded
Joined
Nov 20, 2015
Messages
1,096
The encounter rate is usually what you make it. I say usually because the mobs are visible and move around and if you have room you can maneuver around them. If it's a narrow hallway you're stuck fighting. You do get a move that does damage = 60% of party cumulative level, ignores defense, ignores evade that instant kills low level enemies (and at level 35+ metal slimes) but you still have slow animations.

It's also pretty easy. There's like 3 fights in the game that challenge you, aside from that the only reason you can't infinite the dungeons is because of a certain plot event. And you can just dodge that pretty easily and eventually turn it off.

I soloed the post game boss. Getting there was a lot harder, mostly because of some low level enemy with a move that has 95% accuracy and paralyzes a single character for a few rounds and ignores status resist.
 

duanth123

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wat

unnamed_thumb.png

http://www.siliconera.com/2017/02/0...revisited-coming-north-america-february-28th/

Stranger of Sword City Revisited Is Coming To North America On February 28th

new classes

reworked combat

So this is what "extremely conflicted" feels like.
 

Emmanuel2

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Now I'm really excited. I thought the new SoSC would be just additional content, but reworking the combat entirely is a pretty daring move what is essentially an SoSC xpac. I just hope it would be for better than for worse.
 

Zeriel

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Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,379
wat

unnamed_thumb.png

http://www.siliconera.com/2017/02/0...revisited-coming-north-america-february-28th/

Stranger of Sword City Revisited Is Coming To North America On February 28th

new classes

reworked combat

So this is what "extremely conflicted" feels like.


To be fair, New Interpretation DID sound like "this is the casual edition". They retooled difficulty. That's one of the reasons I wasn't hot on it. The main reason I wanted to play it was to see the soul relief events, which apparently had something to do with Kyo & Anna (who were major downers in the story originally). Only coming to Vita though, so I guess I won't be seeing it afterall.

Small edit: the changes to multiclassing sound like decline too. Skill tokens & 5 reclasses per playthrough tied the multiclassing up neatly. Removing them really makes it sound messy.
 

Dorarnae

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
721
wat

unnamed_thumb.png

http://www.siliconera.com/2017/02/0...revisited-coming-north-america-february-28th/

Stranger of Sword City Revisited Is Coming To North America On February 28th

new classes

reworked combat

So this is what "extremely conflicted" feels like.


To be fair, New Interpretation DID sound like "this is the casual edition". They retooled difficulty. That's one of the reasons I wasn't hot on it. The main reason I wanted to play it was to see the soul relief events, which apparently had something to do with Kyo & Anna (who were major downers in the story originally). Only coming to Vita though, so I guess I won't be seeing it afterall.

Small edit: the changes to multiclassing sound like decline too. Skill tokens & 5 reclasses per playthrough tied the multiclassing up neatly. Removing them really makes it sound messy.

exactly. many people complained about not getting this version of the game...while it improves on a few things, this is mostly more testing some mechanics ect.
I didn't like how you added skill slot and that you could multiclass as many time you wanted...
clocker last skill is stupid Op, I had it with everyone.
the guard system was insteresting at first but it ended up being ''guard til boss is stunned then next turn go all out''. it needs more work.
seriously I think I prefer the original game over this.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,379
wat

unnamed_thumb.png

http://www.siliconera.com/2017/02/0...revisited-coming-north-america-february-28th/

Stranger of Sword City Revisited Is Coming To North America On February 28th

new classes

reworked combat

So this is what "extremely conflicted" feels like.


To be fair, New Interpretation DID sound like "this is the casual edition". They retooled difficulty. That's one of the reasons I wasn't hot on it. The main reason I wanted to play it was to see the soul relief events, which apparently had something to do with Kyo & Anna (who were major downers in the story originally). Only coming to Vita though, so I guess I won't be seeing it afterall.

Small edit: the changes to multiclassing sound like decline too. Skill tokens & 5 reclasses per playthrough tied the multiclassing up neatly. Removing them really makes it sound messy.

exactly. many people complained about not getting this version of the game...while it improves on a few things, this is mostly more testing some mechanics ect.
I didn't like how you added skill slot and that you could multiclass as many time you wanted...
clocker last skill is stupid Op, I had it with everyone.
the guard system was insteresting at first but it ended up being ''guard til boss is stunned then next turn go all out''. it needs more work.
seriously I think I prefer the original game over this.

Good to know. Since you've played it and it's the only thing I care about, how do the soul relief events play out?
 

Dorarnae

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 21, 2016
Messages
721
wat

unnamed_thumb.png

http://www.siliconera.com/2017/02/0...revisited-coming-north-america-february-28th/

Stranger of Sword City Revisited Is Coming To North America On February 28th

new classes

reworked combat

So this is what "extremely conflicted" feels like.


To be fair, New Interpretation DID sound like "this is the casual edition". They retooled difficulty. That's one of the reasons I wasn't hot on it. The main reason I wanted to play it was to see the soul relief events, which apparently had something to do with Kyo & Anna (who were major downers in the story originally). Only coming to Vita though, so I guess I won't be seeing it afterall.

Small edit: the changes to multiclassing sound like decline too. Skill tokens & 5 reclasses per playthrough tied the multiclassing up neatly. Removing them really makes it sound messy.

exactly. many people complained about not getting this version of the game...while it improves on a few things, this is mostly more testing some mechanics ect.
I didn't like how you added skill slot and that you could multiclass as many time you wanted...
clocker last skill is stupid Op, I had it with everyone.
the guard system was insteresting at first but it ended up being ''guard til boss is stunned then next turn go all out''. it needs more work.
seriously I think I prefer the original game over this.

Good to know. Since you've played it and it's the only thing I care about, how do the soul relief events play out?

I don't really know the story because I don't know japanese but you basically do just a lil quest just to obtain a tiny extra for the normal ending. oh and you also see that elf girl from student of round during the quest.

here:
 

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