Starting to make a hard type for Chrono Trigger...

[OmniUnknown]

Started it yesterday night, and atm am currently past your first visit to the future.  Only making this because I have not seen something like this yet, searching this forum did not work for me, not that experienced yet, and I have spare time to burn.  I am using Crone, and Gears to work with changing enemy/equipment stats, which I am quite grateful for.  I want to increase the difficulty as much as possible, while not needing any more grinding than the original, just more strategy.

Even the first area is challenging, requiring you to at least bring some tonics with you if you want to get through.  Blue imps normally could be killed by 1 hit, could barely damage you, thus being quite easy.  Now, they take 2-3 hits depending on criticals, and at level one, by your 2nd turn you will most likely be in the 30's of hp.  I will also edit text so that the play is informed that he should always be prepared.  Sort of common sense, I know, but some people would probably rush right into the first fight without any provisions, and get themselves killed.

I really like how dragon tank turned out, and he is a lot more fun imo...  Also experimenting with magic resist/defense so that you won't always be able to eat every enemy alive by spamming magic/physical skills.  Stat changes I am making are also not always based on previous stats, but more on enemy type, level, and enemies in its area (I.e. flying types get more evade).  Not sure if I should increase/decrease rewards (exp,gp,tp), and I have also noticed that items are a lot more necessary in this version.  Any ideas on that would be helpful.

I honestly have not played Chrono Trigger in quite sometime,  so I am currently saving before each area, going through them unaltered, and then proceeding to modify the enemies+bosses.  Running through with those changes, and then tweaking them based on what I am aiming for.

Any comments would be appreciated...  Even if there has been a hard type made for it, it won't come out the same since every editor/designer's mind is different, right?  May have missed some points, but it is really late atm, and I had to rewrite this whole thing again which made me rush this second try.

Sorry if wall o' text bothers you guys.

[FaustWolf]

Compendiumites eat walls of text for breakfast.

Sounds interesting. Have you given any thought to tech editing at all? Thanks to jsondag2, we can do pretty much anything with single techs as things now stand, including adding status abnormalities to them, which might have a place in battle strategy. Just an observation.

[Agent 12]

There is a really nice "Level 0" hack.  (Not meaning to deter your hack just something you may want to know).  Can you provide a link to Crone and Gears?  Right now I use Chrono Tweaker which only takes headered Roms.  Do your tools take non headered Roms?  Crimson Echoes is currently in the enemy editing stage so I'm interested.

--JP

[OmniUnknown]

Well, got both off of romhacking.net, and here are links to them...  Not direct downloads, since there is a small description right above the download link.

http://www.romhacking.net/utils/78/
http://www.romhacking.net/utils/79/

They both are pretty user friendly too.  The current version of Chrone is able to edit every monsters stats, and the author seems to be working on an item/enemy tactics editor as well.  I do know about that level 0 hack, although that is different than what I am aiming for, since mine will keep the leveling system...

About whether they take unheadered/headered roms, they both take only headered it seems.  About tech editing, really have not fooled around with it much.  All I have seen so far, is that in the second column of cyclone, fooling around with the parameters. in unknown 6c(00,04), changes the color of the enemy when it is getting hit and how fast it flashes.  The first parameter is what effects the color they flash, and the 2nd seems to effect how fast they flash.  The lower the number the faster it flashes, although 00 does not produce any flash at all.  The variant infront for the most part seems to make you freeze if it is not on 6c.

Also, the 4th object in cyclone seems to control that slash that follows the sword when it spins around.  If you remove everything except return, you will just see chrono spinning the sword.  The third object I removed everything except return, and nothing seemed to change.

I will post a video of something funny looking I made in a second >.>...

[Vehek]

We have those on our site too.
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Other_Utilities_%28Chrono_Trigger%29.html
They only take headered roms.

Other than the problem that caused the Magus power glitch, what's wrong with JCE300GT/Blitzkrieg's CTEC?

[Agent 12]

I haven't used it since the power glitch...I just worry so much about corruption now especially corruption that isn't obvious

Jp

[OmniUnknown]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvDrLMph-JA

That is what happened when I set the variable to C4, and you can also see how that slash following the sword is gone.  >.>...  Yeah, sort of derailing from the topic, so that will be the last thing I say about that tech editor in here, hopefully.  Recording messed it up a bit, because the enemy actually moved a lot faster, leaving behind shadows of itself.  As said there, that was a purely graphical thing, so no different then a regular cyclone really.  Been only playing around with graphics on the editor so far.

[Agent 12]

Make a more detailed post about what you did in the tech editor thread (directly below this thread, say what exactly you changed to C4).  Note that your rom must be unheadered in order to use the tech editor.  I dont know how to chedk if a Rom is headered or not or I would check for it myself.


--JP

[OmniUnknown]

Hopefully am done with the chrono trigger editor for a bit, or at least going to not let it distract me so I can work on this XD.  I also really need someones opinions on what to do with experience/tech points/money...  Should I leave them the same, decrease/increase any of them, etc.  Item drops, I may alter a bit, not that sure about that yet either.

One other thought I have, using Jsondag2's tech editor, I may increase mp cost of techs a bit.  Probably not going to change any techs other than that really...  To do this though, I will have to convert my rom to an unheadered one so I can change the techs, then add a header so I can continue with editing enemies...  Will make a backup, just incase something happens though.

[OmniUnknown]

Currently, I am working on the Masamune area...  Not really sure how long this will take me overall, since I am trying for the most part to check each parties usefulness for each boss.  Trying to make sure that no boss favors one party over another too much, although they still have their own strategy, seeing how different party means access to different skills.

Just curious, how would you guys prefer me to keep you updated on this projects progress so far?  Once every few days I guess?

Anyways, here is a video of Dragon Tank I made yesterday/two days ago with his boosts, if you have not already seen it...  In my videos, is also a video of those same characters fighting an unmodified dragon tank.  I think he came out ok compared to the original, although you need a good stock of tonics at that level to take him on.  Least there are enemies in there that provide some for you if needed.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=obESVO1KMIc

Going back to work now.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I gonna leave a rating and comment on the video, but you disabled both...  Ah well.

[OmniUnknown]

Eh, it is youtubes doing.  Going through site maintenance...  When it finishes, you should be able to post a comment again >.>...

[Belthasar]

After playing Chrono Trigger over 50 times you really do look for more of a challenge =) looking forward to the full thing.

[OmniUnknown]

Eh, haven't done much for some time >.>...  Since my last update, I only just finished the Masamune area, and have not tested my changes in the prehistoric area yet.  I do plan on finishing though, just have had some unexpected things to deal with this week.  Sorry bout that.

[OmniUnknown]

Only past the first visit of the prehistoric era...  Ayla's place or w/e.  Really haven't been able to update >.>...  So many games have been coming out, that take some priority in getting finished over this : /.  Like I said before though, I do not plan on giving this up.