maggiekarp's play through thread

[maggiekarp]

Here are my notes so far!

CRIMSO NACHOES NOTES

- In debug room, cannot run down if running to the left. Ergo, cannot move diagonally easilly. Haven't tried elsewhere yet.
- Marle's line about the Moon being wonderful made me laugh, but probably not in the way you intended.
- "Don't sleep in tomorrow! I..." I what? Maybe there should be a pause or something, I dunno.
- I think it's funny that Marle has to bend over to kiss Crono's face. The dude is hella short. I don't think you can fix this.
- Didn't Bandeau live in the past? Should be told where Elisa is.
- I really want to know what that soldier says. I hope it's good news on the war front :>
- Lemonade stand HP/MP restore chirp sounds off too early.
- If Guardia has to train their soldiers at the park I can see why they would lose the war
- Why is the Judge giving joints (pickles) to people in the park
- Dalton attacked me in Leen Square (where Gato lives), said "TEMPORARILLY DISABLED", killed me, then flickered out of glitchy existance. I then had to move around as Crono's corpse. I had not saved before this, but thankfully I was normal when I left the room.
- Hero statue sprites at Leene Square are ugly to an offensive degree. If you want, I can fix these for you. Please. Lucca's disfigured face will haunt me to my dying days.
- Are Lucca's Telepods fused to the ground? No one's used them since, why are they there?
- Back room in cathedral should use different floor tiles
- Why has the kitchen turned into a meeting room, where are they getting food, you know if the soldiers weren't well-fed in 600 AD they would have lost- Ohhhh I see what's going on here
- I dislike that Poore's fanfare is the beginning drum riff for Ayla's theme repeated twice fast. It irks me.
- Ingrus is a dumb name
- Lucca's accidental gate graphics are ugly.
- Gang arriving at Belthesar's pad scene flickers before transition, music re-start is jarring
- Magus's "...Soon, Alfador." line is very disconcerting. I kinda like it.
- Magus tells Dalton he'll regret it twice, but I don't think that convinced him at all
- Enemies ARE too hard, or characters are too depowered. Magus should not die against a Beast.
- Beast should not jump over hills.
- Okay Magus dying like a bitch was funny the first five times but don't you want people to see the rest of this game?
- Magic guard doesn't work. Died again. Hate game.
- Won't stop dying. Used several Tonics for one battle. Got attacked twice while waiting for turn. Died again.
- Turned off game.

[Agent 12]

Wow!!!

You're going all out very nice!

-I commented about Debug room and gato exhibit was mentioned in Lenophis thread
-I'll let Zeality commend on the dialogue issues (he's the resident dialogue expert)
-You're right about not being able to fix the kiss, cept maybe Marles tall
- Bandeau, ....hm i'll toss this to Zeality again i didn't name him maybe he's an ancestor.  Just to warn you some names were chosen as like personal real life friends if you see any weird ones in the future.
- Lemonade Stand  confirmed bug:  I added this to the data base thanks!
- The park made me laugh   It's probably going to stick around though sorry
- The pickle stand has been around since the very first CE release I'd feel bad moving it.  Nice catch on it being the judge I didn't recognize him for a long time
- The hero statues aren't new sprites, but event commands that make them that color (same with the ozzie statue in medina fair). I think the hero stand is a cool little addition though and not too far fetched after the CT original release.  I feel like players will be like heck yea finally some recognition here.  If everyone agrees it's dumb though I guess we can remove it.
- The telepod stuff still being there....um I wouldn't be opposed to removing them...um If zeality or 99 give me an OK on this we'll consider this a bug otherwise...um..they're heavy
- I like the floor in the back room....if zeality and 99 both don't like it we'll consider this a bug.  Did you have a replacement in mind?
-  There isn't really anywhere else in guardia castle to have a meeting and I think it'd be corny for them to have conveniently built a meeting room.  I don't consider it that far fetched to have a meeting there though, it is the world greatest chef
-  The fanfare, imo,  was one of the most ingenius event coding "hacks" i've ever seen.  I didn't do it I think 99 did.  Again if zeality and 99 both vote this as a bug we can remove it (i doubt 99 will though )
-  Um...i don't have qualms about ingrus?  Do you have a replacement name you'd like to suggest?  It's risky to change names this late in the game cause you have to find all occurrences of the name and change them.
-  I'll look into the accidental gate...but it may just be that you aren't far enough in the game to realize what that gate's ugliness signifies
-  Flicker is a bug (added it to the data base) .  There's a story behind the music restarting, you know in CT original how the song actually ENDS during the title screen (right now it infinitely repeats) I'm trying like hell to make the song end...right now it's in a state where it just restarts... we actually have a thread in kajar asking for help http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,6966.0.html if the song is still repeating and it's the day before the release please come to my house and kick me in the shin then say "JP IT"S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD JUST GIVE UP ON IT"
-  I read the beginning of the "soon alfador" bug and was about to rant about how i like that line..then i read the end
-  haha yea.....i kind of agree that tellling him twice isn't going to get anywhere.  Zeality can you take a look at this?
- I made a thread about the difficulty....i really do feel like i let you guys down here i'm sorry it's so hard
-  they jump OFF the hills   trust me.....it's way better than what it was before.


PHEW keep up the detailed bug reports. 

--JP

[maggiekarp]

Little less in-depth commentary this time.


- Restarted.
- Magus has the letter to Bandeau's wife I forgot to give to her. WHOOPS.
- At level 3 now, Beast battle less of a Rape, still nerve-wracking.
- Oh what the blue fuck is this, Golem Boss?!
- Attempting to level up, trying not to waste tonics in battle.
- Died in Dalton's dungeon, when game restarted at the downstairs save, the Epoch music continued until I left the dungeon.
- hey lol here's an idea how about the enemies give you less experience as you progress through the game lol ct was way too easy bros this was not a good idea
- I hate the last tombstone.
- Dalton means "THOSE" events years ago.
- Dang, Marle's a mega-bitch to Porre.
- Mage says he's casting Chaos, but casts Lock instead.
- Ocean Palace Ruins are ugly.
- Turned off game after failed run-in with Martellos and Skeleton.


[edit] Sorry to be so rude in my commentary, by the way. This hack is actually quite enjoyable so far, I just really dislike losing every other battle.

[Agent 12]

* Spatial/temporal items:  yea, thats a theme of the game haha, i really don't know how to fix it and it's something we did talk about. There's several chapters where this is going to happen...pretend the entity did it
* Savepoint Music:  Bug'd
* Exp:  This is kind of a big deal/point of beta testing.  Is it really less though?  I was pretty sure that I referenced CT: original enemies exp when doing this especially at first.  Later on there's an event in the game that kind of threw this out of whack by screwing up the 1 to 1 mapping of chapters so i start giving away a ton of exp....or maybe it was tech points.  Anways rant over....when i easify the game i'll add more exp but it'd be super awesome of you to tell me the ratio it's off by (i.e. they should be giving 10% more exp).
*  Mage being an idiot: BUG'd
* Ugly ruins....it's really hard to make a "destroyed" room when the tileset was built for a spit shined ocean palace.  Um....i'll look at it but no promises.  Zeality we should probably mention this in the FAQ cause it's a legitimate reaction when you first see some of our maps

--JP

Edit:  Dalton doesn't know grammar:  BUG'd

Don't worry about being rude....I clearly err'd wrong with making the game to difficult there's like what...5 people who have beta tested and I think 4 of them have complained about the difficulty.  PLUS it's super good testing to make sure we can handle people saying bad things about the game (which is bound to happen in internet land)

[maggiekarp]

It seemed to me like the number for experience points went down as I progressed through the game. Try your best not to go with what the original value was in the game, try to go with what will help the current story progress. Magus seemed to get more EXP from the Beasts than he did from the arguably more difficult Lashers, that felt weird.

Basically have enemies that correspond with the level your character should be around at the time. Having Crono fight enemies from half-way through the game when he's at a lower level than he was before the Yakra fight in the original game is... really TOO difficult. It's not a challenge so much as "pray you won't die this time".

I know you're all late in development on this game, and fixing the battles or enemy stats is a big thing, but no one's gonna want to play a rom hack that drives them away with its difficulty.


I'm probably gonna have another play through once I finish so I can write every thing that comes to mind. It's good to know I can be rude, my stream-of-consciousness notes tend to be!

[ZeaLitY]

Bandeau

Banta's the one you're thinking of; Bandeau's bona fide 1000 A.D. in CT.

- I dislike that Poore's fanfare is the beginning drum riff for Ayla's theme repeated twice fast. It irks me.

With 18 free slots, one of the musical ideas I'm thinking about is a Porre theme. It's hard not to just rip off "The Troops March On" from FF6. Still, I guess the fanfare would precede the actual theme.

BY THE WAY, DO SUBSCRIBERS TO YOUR PHOTOBUCKET GET TO SEE ANY "SPECIAL" ART

[justin3009]

Create a duplicate tileset for Ocean Palace Ruins and just link it up in the area and edit them piece by piece.

[Agent 12]

A few things:

I know you're all late in development on this game, and fixing the battles or enemy stats is a big thing, but no one's gonna want to play a rom hack that drives them away with its difficulty.

Changing enemy stats is super easy.  Changing enemy stats correctly w/o a save right in front of the enemy at the expected "average level" with the expected average equipment with the expected party......is not easy.  But....i mean the enemy stats/flow is pretty much the major point of having this beta so mention it.....but please use percentages/srm file like i've mentioned a couple times so it's not just me shooting in the dark.

Basically have enemies that correspond with the level your character should be around at the time. Having Crono fight enemies from half-way through the game when he's at a lower level than he was before the Yakra fight in the original game is... really TOO difficult.

Well i mean the enemies are the same, the stats of the enemies shouldn't be though.  I really do think this was just a case of me willingly making the game hard.  It may not seem like it but every enemy you see has had the stats hand adjusted, and it sounds like will have the stats hand adjusted again.  The lash experience thing is a legit complaint though.  It may have been me upping the experience beasts give to make it so you level up quicker in beast forest and not adjusting everyone elses experience.

With 18 free slots, one of the musical ideas I'm thinking about is a Porre theme. It's hard not to just rip off "The Troops March On" from FF6. Still, I guess the fanfare would precede the actual theme.

Wow did we really end up with 18 slots? Do we know the size of the songs in those slots....I'd rather, when possible, replace a song that "fits" into the space of the song it's replacing than mess with repointing it to empty space that could theoretically get eaten by TF later (though music should be the last thing we do, you never know if we'll have to release a showstopping bug fix later on).  We can take this discussion to IM or in the other board.

Create a duplicate tileset for Ocean Palace Ruins and just link it up in the area and edit them piece by piece.

Really should have had Zeality keep track of tilesets we used when he did his playthrough.....There's definitely quite a few up for grabs.  Magus castle, and the lavos battles mind immediately.  But I find it really unlikely we'll find someone willing to go through and do the work.  We've been asking for graphics help for about a year now and noone has stepped up.  For the most party the ocean palace ruins came out bearable, there's other maps that are worse and that Zeality has made work items to fix up.  I'll take a gander at the ruins to see if maybe there's something I can spice up.

--JP

[Chrono'99]

We've been asking for graphics help for about a year now and noone has stepped up.

Damn true Human Glenn would be playable by now if someone had drawn his sprites...

[Romana]

- I dislike that Poore's fanfare is the beginning drum riff for Ayla's theme repeated twice fast. It irks me.

With 18 free slots, one of the musical ideas I'm thinking about is a Porre theme. It's hard not to just rip off "The Troops March On" from FF6. Still, I guess the fanfare would precede the actual theme.

How about a reversed (or lower pitch) Guardia fanfare? Like, the first few seconds of trumpet from the castle theme or something.

[maggiekarp]

-Restarted
- Decided this time to level up with the Mages attacking the reactor. Dislike that this might be the only way I get past the Ocean Palace later, but thankful for Atropos healing.
- During this grinding session I decided to turn off the ZSNES sound and listen to my own music. A Chrono-based game should not make me do this Suggest that the leveling up throughout the game be made easier, so that grinding isn't necessary and desired to be done at this relatively easy point, and the music used in this section does not become tiresome. This particular track should only be used in short segments, like running down a hallway, nothing involving battles.
   - A note on grinding in CT: it's okay to an extent. I myself grinded a little in Magus's Lair until Crono learned Lightning 2, which helped in my strategy.
- Save point near Atropos makes no sound during Mage attack.
- Used Magic Tab and Power Tab on Crono. Sad because I never really doled out the tabs until the fight with Lavos, and even then I used them sparingly... They're for customizing a favorite character, they shouldn't be necessary for victory.
- Mage battles much easier around level 7, crit rate seems to have improved, but I hate that I feel compelled to keep fighting so the next area doesn't kill me too hard...
- Atropos should have Yes or No options to the purchasing of items.
- Grinding should not be necessary. I grind this much I expect to be able to punch out every enemy I face, not BARELY escape a game over. Sorry I'm not talking about the story so much, the battling distracts me.
- Baby bro woke up. Taking a break.

[Agent 12]

Are you using the new patch?  Was chapter 1 easier/too easy? 
Did you try going to the reactor?  I toned down martello and the skeletons that you said were killing you.

That chapter is not really meant to be a place to grind at all....it doesn't even make sense plot wise, if OP is that much of a problem the bug is with OP not with the music in that chapter. It just seems weird cause noone else seems to have complained about the OP enemies so I dont want to tone them down that much....unless they aren't going down the left/right paths of OP and you are?

I also don't necessarily consider being forced to use tabs a bug? Is this a general consensus (other people feel free to comment here or PM me)

--JP

[maggiekarp]

Well I should probably mention my thread here, while it'll have some bugs every now and again, is gonna be mostly used for my opinion of the game. How enjoyable it is over all. Stats aren't a bug so much as a "this doesn't seem like it would be fun to others either" sort of thing.

I'll try out the new patch before I post again, though.