Known Bugs & Beta Testing

[Agent 12]

It won't be intrusive at all Zeality in fact it's almost expected haha.  With the code shift that came after Demo 2 (mainly thanks to chrono 99) each chapter is much more "compartmentalized"  so that a change in one chapter doesn't cascade into other chapters.....hopefully haha. 

--JP

[CyberSarkany]

I added something to the report thingy that could be misunderstood:
"During the ending, exits like the Singing Mountain one should be closed."
What I mean it that All areas that are not important(like hunting grounds or Lavos' crash site) should be closed in the OW map. With  Singing Mountain I actually meant all the areas with enemies(these are the ones you reach when searching for the Drum parts). In order to do it, we might, after entering the Singing Mountain, switch directly to the waterfall with the reptite and start the dialog? This would prevent the player from walking around the singing Mountain.

What I missed in the Ayla part of the ending was some kind of "welcome back, chief" party. I mean, they are the people that know how to party. Maybe during the party, people tell her that there is/are still reptites, for example on Singing Mountain. She leaves, maybe saying she is going to end it? So the player might think she will kill the reptite(that's what the reptite presumes anyways), but in fact she wants to end the war between their species(which she does, by offering peace or something).

~~~

About TPs, I think we should raise the TP at the beginning until mid-/ endgame, maybe about 3/2(one and a half)? I'm not sure about how many tech points are needed for each tech, but it somehow seems unbalanced(considering you get everyone rather early to join your party permanently).

Also, what about new techs? I think Magus' shouldn't be the only one with new ones. Marle definitely needs a new last tech, maybe Hexagon Mist, which is the ultimate water attack anyways. I know we can't use player's techs for enemies, but how about the other way around?
Anyways, I would suggest at least one weapon-tech for Marle and Lucca(I'm not sure if Techs like Napalm or Fire Toss are in any way attack based), because that would make them more useful in my opinion. Maybe even a double tech where they jump around and shoot every enemy.

~~~

About the last Kashmir fight: Maybe we could make more use of his illusionary skills? The cloudy backround is a good idea, but it seems like it is not really important in the fight. He should have a confuse/all tech, because that's what he did to Glenn and Magus and it would seem logical for an illusionist to make the enemy attack themselves. Also, maybe make the backround switch, kinda like the Lavos fight, and him switch elemental strength and weakness(without telling the player)? Maybe even attacks? Another question is, can enemies be inserted during the battle? Like, Kashmir summoning a Golem to help him or whatever? I'm not sure if it could be used the same way, but during the last Lavos fight, the left and main part also reappeared after being summoned. Like the Guardian Boss in the destroyed future summoned his bits after they were destroyed.
This would make the fight much more interesting and worthy of being at the end of Ct:CE. We could argue that this is the real Kashmir, with enhanced power thanks to Zeal, while the one fought in Chapter 4 was a mere illusion with only a part of Kashmirs none-enhanced power?

Also, the 2nd Zeal fight should be in a different location. while the backround looks really cool, it just doesn't seem to fit the final battle. I think we have lots of different areas available, because it's the DBT and he could just teleport you to a different place or whatever.

Also, maybe tint the Lavos Spawn Red and Darker, like the Time Devourer is?

[Agent 12]

Ayla:

haha i was really confused by that singing mountain bug.  I was like..but singing mount IS the last area.  I like that ending alot more and its a great opportunity to use some sprites that we havent used yet (the prehistoric band).

TP:

Doing this playthrough I definitely agree about the TP thing.  I think what I did was have them all start with their first 3 techs but hand out TP as though they  don't have any techs yet.  I'll do this in one massive bug squash. 

Techs:
The thing with magus is it was really easy to do his because we didn't have to worry about screwing up double techs.  Double techs currently aren't editable, and we should probably assume that they won't be before the release.  Techs share alot of their code so it's very possible that a double tech is just stealing the code from the single tech.  For example...Frog's Cure 2 is just using the code base of Marles Cure2.  So if we replace marles cure 2 with marle running around in a circle, suddenly when ffrog casts cure 2 he's running around in a circle.  That being said I i agree that Marle definitely needs some new techs but i dont think we can replace life2 because it's important for the triple tech lifeline and in general it's a really useful tech.  I want to replace haste with Haste 2 which cast haste on everyone.  I was also going to give Lucca Protect 2 so omnishield isn't THAT dominant over it. 

I really want to give marle a hexagon mist like attack but the only options....are cure2 which frog is staling and life2....we MAY be able to nix life2 I dont think it's stealing code from life...and we could argue that robo doesn't have a life spell.  We could also make Life maybe a little more useful?  We don't have room to give it the graphics that life 2 has but we could probably have the person start with more HP.

Kasmir Fight:

Glad you liked the clouds.  It was actually sort of an accident because you can't fight in a room where you manually set palettes (which i had to do because whenever all 7 PC's + 1 npc are on screen you have to manually set palettes).   So i had to add that little teleport to a location.  I'll have to check how the final fight does the background switching that's a really good idea.   When i first thought about it I thought the summoning idea  was impossible.   Those examples you listed are simply the "revive" command which only brings back the enemy doesn't summon a new one.  Then I remembered there is a "change enemy" command in enemy AI.  We could start off with something like...one of those rock enemies sitting there and clear out the AI to nothing, and give it a huge amount of HP.  then (we'll definitely have to test this) we may be able to randomly (like 10%) have a textbox appear that says Kasmir is summoning! and then randomly do a change enemy command on that rock.

And (this is the key)
in the Kasmir + flame AI if the number of enemies is less than one (so you either killed the rock or the summon) have him revive the rock.    So the battle would be something like this

Start with kasmir and rock with huge HP

Case 1:  Kill the rock
    Kasmir revives rock return to above
Case 2:  Randomly triggered change in AI event
    Random enemy appears
    Kill random enemy
    Kasmir revives rock

That really might work .  Excellent Idea cyber.  I'm going to jot down the some AI notes just so I dont forget.


Zeal: 

yea I wasn't thrilled myself with the zeal fight background.  If anyone has any ideas let me know.  If we do the background switching we should really do it for one fight or the other not both.   


Time Devourer:

Yea i want to switch palettes for this and the reptite time travellers.

--JP

AI NOTES

Kasmir:

if(num enemies is <= 1)
     Revive Rock
New Kasmir AI HERE


Rock:
Do nothing
if( random)
    Choose random action
    change enemy 1
    change enemy 2
    change enemy 3

--JP

[CyberSarkany]

I currently have serious computer  trouble, and I'm not sure when I will be able to get it working again. Hopefully won't take more than a few days...

[CyberSarkany]

Fixed my PC more or less, so I will start my next run making a weapon/equipment list. Hopefully I will get it done until October...

[Agent 12]

Fixed my PC more or less, so I will start my next run making a weapon/equipment list. Hopefully I will get it done until October...

Good to hear!  That is definitely something I noticed.  Here are some thing to watch out for:

1) equpiment is obtained in wrong chapter
2) equipment is not a good price (magus was the worst for this i think)
3) equpiment has wrong description
4) Use one of those slots we talked about to give equipment special stats

--JP

[CyberSarkany]

Sadly I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted, so here is how far I got:

Prologue:

Weapons, (User)[atk, crit%, status inflic.]:
- Lead Sword(C)(Start Crono)[3,10,none]
- Shima(C), 350 G, Porre Shop [7,10,none]
- Ivory Bow(Mar), 850 G, Porre Shop [15,20,none]
- QuantaShot(L), 800 G, Porre Shop [7,20,none]

Helmets(User, blank if everyone can use it)[def, status inflic.]:
- Skull Cap(Start Crono) [3,none]
- TopEnd, 200 G, Porre Shop [8,none]


Armors(User, blank if everyone can use it)[def, status inflic.]:
- Brigandine(Start Crono) [5,none]
- Nautishell, 300 G, Porre Shop [10,none]
- XocotlSuit(Male only), 520 G, Porre Shop [16,none]

Chapter 1:
Weapons:
- Erebos(Mag)(Start Magus)[40,10,slow(deactivated)]

Helmets:
- Iron Helm(Start Magus) [14,none]

Armors:
- XocotlSuit(Start Magus)(Male only) [16,none]
~~~
Chapter 2:
Weapons:
- Flintlock(L)(Start Lucca)[5,20,none]
- YewBow(Mar)(Start Marle)[3,20,none]
- Snipeshot(L), Chronopolis, Melchior Area Chest [15,20,none] -> will later be sold at the same place, Also to early for the 3rd weapon(Lucca didn't even have a fight yet)
- Hoarfrost(Mar), 4200 G, Colliseum [40,20,none] -> available to early
- QuantaShot(L), Porre Camp [7,20,none]
- Ivory Bow(Mar), 1002 AD Castle, left side tower in throneroom [15,20,none]
- Strainer(R)(Start Robo)[20,10,none]
 

Helmets:
- WingedHelm, 6500 G, Colliseum [29,none] -> should get it later, not this early
- Iron Helm, [14,none]

Armors:
- Cabrakan, 1200 G, Colliseum [32,none]
- Cabrakan(Robo Start) [32,none]
~~~
Chapter 3:
Weapons:


Helmets:
- Knavehelm, Ocean's Palace Ruins [17,none]

Armors:
- Flexiform, Ocean's Palace(unsure) [18,none]
~~~

Chapter 4
Weapons:
- ClashVice(R), 3500 G, Melchior [25,10,none]
- Snipeshot(L), 1200 H, Melchior [15,20,none]
- Gilt Sword(G), 1100 G, Truce Shop 602 AD [10,23,none]
- Belly Shot(Mar), 1700 G, Truce Shop 602 AD [20,20,none]

Helmets:
- KnaveHelm, 700 G, Truce Shop 602 AD [17,none]
- Iron Helm, Denadoro Plains [14,none]

Armors:
- XocotlSuit, 520 G, Truce Shop 602 AD [16,none]
- XocotlSuit, Castel 602 A.D.(left tower of throneroom) [16,none]

Some Other things I noticed:

- Casino: Maybe instead of money use Points you can purchase and trade in, otherwise people will be rich in a few seconds. Note sure if the old "Silverpoints" have been modified to battle points, if not, maybe use them?

- Chapter 1 should maybe a bit easier. Considering it's some kind of opening of the game, it might seem to hard for casual gamers(hard to judge from out point fo view). The amount of time you have to leave/reenter the beast forest just to gain a few needed levels in order to defeat the first boss for example seems too long. Maybe already start with level 3 or give more exp or something.

Chapter 4:
- Kashmir always targets Glenn(if alive) when countering. Intentional?
- Kashmir should maybe have fewer HP, fighting him takes ages...maybe make it 3/4th? Or switch his AI after like 50% of damage taken, so it doesn't seem so repetetive (magic, magic, heal, heal and repeat...).


Also, I won't be able to help much during the next few weeks(maybe even months), because work starts in october and I won't be home except some weekends, nor do I have a way to use a PC during the time I'm not home. That hopefully changes in the next few weeks. I will try to get this list done during weekends, but I can't promise that it will be done fast.

[Agent 12]

This list looks very well done.  I'm not sure if you are doing this but make a note if it's not already sold at the store but you would like it to be.  I'm going wo work on the assumption that unless you make a note I dont need to change the actual shops themselves (i'll only be changing the stats of the weapons not where you obtain them).  Are you keeping this list in some sort of file?  If so i'll wait for you to finish making htat file and just have you upload it.  I'd like to do this in one fell sweep rather than incremental updates.

Out of curiosity how the casino making you rich so quickly?  It may actually be a bug.  In my experience i actually lost money there.


Chapter 1:

yea I agree it is a bit of levelling up at the beginning.  Um....I'll probably take the more exp route.  We've had some issues changing magus level in the past (the ** glitch).  Can you file a bug for this?

Kasmir:

He probably has th etarget as "closest" and since glenn is always PC1 he'll always be closets.  I can make it random....again file a bug (if you haven't)
Consider it done (another bug)

Definitely focus on work when you need to.  We all know that I had priorities comes up last year.  You've already been more than we could have dreamed for this project.

--JP

[CyberSarkany]

Casino: I'm not sure how much you actually win in roulette and stuff, I just considered the Slot machine to be very easy(I think you win 1000 G each turn?) to win because of it's rather slowness.

I will go on with this list in a file on my PC, and I will update here once in a while with my progress.

[Agent 12]

Hm I never tried to game the Slot machine before.  Perhaps I should just basically make it randomly select three of those characters instead of letting the player stop it.

--JP

[CyberSarkany]

Just a short stopping by to say I won't be able to work on anything until new year if everything works smooth. If it is too close to the planned release, someone else should do the weapon/item stuff.