Posts: 864
Threads: 49
Joined: Mar 2008
Okay, I gave stage 1 a go. At first I tried to play Richie on Difficult, but I didn't get past Henry on Stage 1-2. Got pissed off and finished with Davis on Crazy.
Bart's D>A is definitely too weak; takes very long to cast and only summons 2 skulls. Not worth it.
Richie:
I decided to play Richie seriously through stage mode. I found that Richie is actually really frustrating to use; he absolutely needs a summoned weapon and he would drop it often, which is fine, but the problem is that in the heat of the moment you cannot choose the appropriate weapon and the controls are quite unintuitive(players would be used to the idea of using A to select a weapon). Furthermore, the weapons are largely the same and the attacks generally come out way too slow (and too low to the ground, so it'd hit weapons instead of enemies).
Oh, and his >>JA sprite has a spot between his body and arm that's supposed to be transparent but is covered up.
Stage & Meteors:
I think you went overboard with the enemies and objects spawned.
10+ bandits/hunters is way too many even if you're given energy disc orbs or milk that you have barely enough time to pick up, and even then they're actually not all that effective. Please note that enemies tend to juggle you in stage mode, more isn't always better; try to split the enemies into smaller groups that appear more times than spawning all of them in one shot.
Around 1-4 you spawned a whole mess of meteors that will replenish itself. Very bad idea. Turns out the meteor was a lot more annoying than I thought because of the groundfire that it spawns when it falls, including when you try to hit an enemy carrying a meteor. Furthermore, the meteors pretty much covered almost the whole stage and caused LF2 to reach its object limit.
Finally, there's the Asche boss fights.
Nice to see some new AI boss fights, but Asche is too 1-dimensional - in all of the fights except the first Asche simply spams one move over and over again even when you're right in his face. It'd be a lot better if you could make Asche mix up his moves a little each time, move around more or at the very least have a counter which makes Asche change his pattern every once in a while. Notably, the phase where he shoots shotgun blasts is really punishing due to the damage.
Bullet Hell doesn't translate well into a fighting game afterall.
Posts: 20
Threads: 3
Joined: Jul 2016
(08-07-2016, 12:39 PM)STM1993 Wrote: Okay, I gave stage 1 a go. At first I tried to play Richie on Difficult, but I didn't get past Henry on Stage 1-2. Got pissed off and finished with Davis on Crazy.
Thank you for playing! And sorry for pissing you off
(08-07-2016, 12:39 PM)STM1993 Wrote: Bart's D>A is definitely too weak; takes very long to cast and only summons 2 skulls. Not worth it.
I changed this to 4 because in chinese, 4 sounds like die, and also increased the height at which they appear.
(08-07-2016, 12:39 PM)STM1993 Wrote: Richie:
I decided to play Richie seriously through stage mode. I found that Richie is actually really frustrating to use; he absolutely needs a summoned weapon and he would drop it often, which is fine, but the problem is that in the heat of the moment you cannot choose the appropriate weapon and the controls are quite unintuitive(players would be used to the idea of using A to select a weapon). Furthermore, the weapons are largely the same and the attacks generally come out way too slow (and too low to the ground, so it'd hit weapons instead of enemies).
Oh, and his >>JA sprite has a spot between his body and arm that's supposed to be transparent but is covered up.
I guess I might have made him a little too reliant on weapons :x
I reduced the penalty for not having a weapon to 1TU, as well as reducing the after delay after D>A and cast time for DJA.
I also added a new melee combo skill, Strafe (15% MP). Input method: D + v + A
It can be used without a weapon, but the final hit deals more damage if a weapon is equipped.
I changed the earth and air weapons' D>A balls to make them a little more unique.
Earth will be a slow moving ball that cannot be deflected or defended against.
Air will be a faster, weaker shot that also hits behind if it connects.
I'm not sure how to make the weapon selection more intuitive though. I thought it should be so, because in the menu, attack is used to select and jump to cancel, while in game, defend is used to end some skills... Not sure if there's a way to make it use left and right?
(08-07-2016, 12:39 PM)STM1993 Wrote: Stage & Meteors:
I think you went overboard with the enemies and objects spawned.
10+ bandits/hunters is way too many even if you're given energy disc orbs or milk that you have barely enough time to pick up, and even then they're actually not all that effective. Please note that enemies tend to juggle you in stage mode, more isn't always better; try to split the enemies into smaller groups that appear more times than spawning all of them in one shot.
Around 1-4 you spawned a whole mess of meteors that will replenish itself. Very bad idea. Turns out the meteor was a lot more annoying than I thought because of the groundfire that it spawns when it falls, including when you try to hit an enemy carrying a meteor. Furthermore, the meteors pretty much covered almost the whole stage and caused LF2 to reach its object limit.
Finally, there's the Asche boss fights.
Nice to see some new AI boss fights, but Asche is too 1-dimensional - in all of the fights except the first Asche simply spams one move over and over again even when you're right in his face. It'd be a lot better if you could make Asche mix up his moves a little each time, move around more or at the very least have a counter which makes Asche change his pattern every once in a while. Notably, the phase where he shoots shotgun blasts is really punishing due to the damage.
Bullet Hell doesn't translate well into a fighting game afterall.
I changed the 10+ bandits to fewer bandits but with more lives, hopefully that should be easy enough?
Also replaced about half the meteors with ordinary rocks.
As for the boss fights, I reduced the damage of that shotgun blasts and made them only able to hit one target. Also added a counter when they get up after being knocked down, so that you'll need to move away...
I've actually played a couple of fighting games with this bullet hell thing (Hopeless Masquerade, Urban Legend in Limbo), and really liked them, so I tried to use a similar system in LF2... I guess it needs more work :x perhaps I should use it sparingly?
Once again, thanks for your feedback!
Thanks given by:
Posts: 864
Threads: 49
Joined: Mar 2008
08-10-2016, 03:48 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-10-2016, 05:09 AM by STM1993.)
(08-09-2016, 03:53 PM)AscheLeee Wrote: I guess I might have made him a little too reliant on weapons :x
I reduced the penalty for not having a weapon to 1TU, as well as reducing the after delay after D>A and cast time for DJA.
I also added a new melee combo skill, Strafe (15% MP). Input method: D + v + A
It can be used without a weapon, but the final hit deals more damage if a weapon is equipped. Its fine for Richie to be reliant on weapons, the shrafe attack wasn't needed, just put an itr on D>A. If you really want to enforce Richie's punch being weak, then lower his damage (look at Sorcerer's damage, he always deals 15 per punch and at most 45 for Super/>>A/J+A/>>JA). What does need to be improved are the weapons themselves, how they are being summoned and Richie's ability to throw weapons.
You see, the thing about Richie's weapons is that all of them have the same melee attack properties. There's only 2 variants in their normal weapon attack: either it knocks down in one or two hits, and their range. What you can do to make all the weapons more unique is to give the melee weapons some unique melee properties, not merely new moves or special effect from being thrown. For example,
* Devil Scythe is a fire weapon, meant to hit many opponents. So you could make its melee attacks burn & knock down (fall 70, otherwise you'll get a firefreeze 'bug'), at the cost of being rather low damage and easy to block.
* Spirit Sword seems like a weapon you'd usually use in general. Maybe make it fall25, so that you can actually send someone into DOP in two hits and use that to grab. Similarly, you could make the knife have fall20, so you can hit 3 times into DOP for a grab and in addition be able to hit jumping enemies without immediately knocking them down. Or maybe the earth bat can have a very overpowered fall60 attack to immediately stun someone.
* This fall thing is also one of the main reasons why people punch more than they use weapons. A weapon in LF2 is used only because it can A) be thrown B) potentially be used for massive damage combos ala baseball/milk/beer with LouisEX D>A C) it has long reach and can h it multiple opponents; but otherwise punching is preferred because punching damage is actually a LOT higher overall.
See, that makes the weapons feel a lot more different without even considering their special moves. Don't just use my examples directly though; I didn't really give much thought into how exactly the weapons should be. While we're at it change the throws too; they're all just the weapon itself being thrown with different properties, you could change that into a projectile like your 'bat' bat.
For throwing, compare throwing weapons with LouisEX, Mark, Knight to someone like Louis, Bandit, Jan. Notice that LouisEX & Mark have a VERY fast throwing animation in addition to thrown weapons moving very fast & far, while Jan's throw is completely pathetic. I think the current throwing animation speed & throw strength can be a bit different for Richie to make him really utilize his weapons.
Detonate takes way too long trigger. As soon as his hand touches the floor it should activate, maybe make the animation a bit faster too.
(08-09-2016, 03:53 PM)AscheLeee Wrote: I'm not sure how to make the weapon selection more intuitive though. I thought it should be so, because in the menu, attack is used to select and jump to cancel, while in game, defend is used to end some skills... Not sure if there's a way to make it use left and right? Last but not least, there's how to summon the weapons:
* Its precisely because people use A to select, which makes it seem really weird for you to use D's "cancel" to select a weapon.
* J is also used to cancel attacks in many cases. And you can't exactly implement direction keys in the game.
* LF2 players don't remember moves by how many buttons they need to press, they remember moves by which combination they need to press.
* Richie's weapon summon animation is REALLY slow. Most of the time I just press DvJD and be done with it.
There's also a little design in button controls: notice in LF2 that in almost every case:
D> attacks are ranged.
D^ attacks are outward or upwards.
Dv attacks are inward or downwards.
A attacks are usually simple while J attacks are usually more powerful & special.
So what you could do is make Detonate DvJ instead while Summon Weapon is DJA. While in the DJA frame, pressing the various DxA/DxJ will give you different weapons. So you could have something like this:
* DJA D>A: Maybe the spirit sword? Because its D>A is a shotgun blast for keeping people AWAY, and frankly I think its the simplest & msot versatile weapon to use. Also has the LONGEST weapon reach.
* DJA D>J: ???
* DJA DvA: Maybe the earth bat? Since its good for PHYSICALLY knocking people DOWN. Can be DvJ too.
* DJA DvJ: Maybe the ice milk? It seems defensive & resembles ice sword. Can be DvA too due to milk's tiny size.
* DJA D^A: Maybe the wind knife? Since its a puny weapon and wind RISES.
* DJA D^J: Maybe the fire scythe? Since it is the opposite of ice afterall and fire appears stronger than wind.
* DJA DJA: cancel, or an ultimate weapon?
While you're at it you can give each weapon their own unique summon animation to help people remember. Change up the summon animation; don't use the smoke effect for all of them and don't make weapons come out of the ground out of nowhere, it gets really messy.
(also you should edit out the 'ice sword' from Richie's sprite).
Last but not least, have you considered making non-summoned weapons have their own special abilities? This way Richie isn't forced to summon all the time, he can pick up new weapons on the go, especially if the player is feeling braindead at the moment.
(08-09-2016, 03:53 PM)AscheLeee Wrote: I changed the 10+ bandits to fewer bandits but with more lives, hopefully that should be easy enough?
Also replaced about half the meteors with ordinary rocks.
As for the boss fights, I reduced the damage of that shotgun blasts and made them only able to hit one target. Also added a counter when they get up after being knocked down, so that you'll need to move away... Yeah, the numbers seem a lot better now.
The shotgun blast can all hit the same target btw, but that's okay.
Actually the counter doesn't really do much since the character already has invincibility from getting up and its really easy to avoid the counter, the important thing is that the character needs to run away instead of desperately casting (i.e. the AI needs work). Currently he insists of simply using a skill. Also, the "counter" I was talking about is a countdown timer on the AI (for example, he changes what skills etc he uses every few seconds). That's why I enjoyed the first fight with Asche most; he does more than use simply spam 1 move even in the face of danger.
Posts: 100
Threads: 11
Joined: Aug 2009
One key difference between the Touhou fighting boss fights with this mod is that in this mod you can knock them down before they could actually attack.
One way to solve this would be to add (perhaps unique) minions for each boss to distract the player.
Posts: 20
Threads: 3
Joined: Jul 2016
Thanks everyone for the comments!
(08-10-2016, 03:48 AM)STM1993 Wrote: Its fine for Richie to be reliant on weapons, the shrafe attack wasn't needed, just put an itr on D>A. If you really want to enforce Richie's punch being weak, then lower his damage (look at Sorcerer's damage, he always deals 15 per punch and at most 45 for Super/>>A/J+A/>>JA). What does need to be improved are the weapons themselves, how they are being summoned and Richie's ability to throw weapons.
Wouldn't an itr end up destroying your own balls though?
(08-10-2016, 03:48 AM)STM1993 Wrote: You see, the thing about Richie's weapons is that all of them have the same melee attack properties. There's only 2 variants in their normal weapon attack: either it knocks down in one or two hits, and their range. What you can do to make all the weapons more unique is to give the melee weapons some unique melee properties, not merely new moves or special effect from being thrown. For example,
* Devil Scythe is a fire weapon, meant to hit many opponents. So you could make its melee attacks burn & knock down (fall 70, otherwise you'll get a firefreeze 'bug'), at the cost of being rather low damage and easy to block.
* Spirit Sword seems like a weapon you'd usually use in general. Maybe make it fall25, so that you can actually send someone into DOP in two hits and use that to grab. Similarly, you could make the knife have fall20, so you can hit 3 times into DOP for a grab and in addition be able to hit jumping enemies without immediately knocking them down. Or maybe the earth bat can have a very overpowered fall60 attack to immediately stun someone.
* This fall thing is also one of the main reasons why people punch more than they use weapons. A weapon in LF2 is used only because it can A) be thrown B) potentially be used for massive damage combos ala baseball/milk/beer with LouisEX D>A C) it has long reach and can h it multiple opponents; but otherwise punching is preferred because punching damage is actually a LOT higher overall.
See, that makes the weapons feel a lot more different without even considering their special moves. Don't just use my examples directly though; I didn't really give much thought into how exactly the weapons should be. While we're at it change the throws too; they're all just the weapon itself being thrown with different properties, you could change that into a projectile like your 'bat' bat.
For throwing, compare throwing weapons with LouisEX, Mark, Knight to someone like Louis, Bandit, Jan. Notice that LouisEX & Mark have a VERY fast throwing animation in addition to thrown weapons moving very fast & far, while Jan's throw is completely pathetic. I think the current throwing animation speed & throw strength can be a bit different for Richie to make him really utilize his weapons.
Detonate takes way too long trigger. As soon as his hand touches the floor it should activate, maybe make the animation a bit faster too.
Tried giving the scythe burn to melee attacks, and ended up burning myself whenever I'm too close while attacking, so I decided against that :x
I set the spirit sword's fall to 25, as well as giving it a negative dvx, causing it to pull enemies closer to yourself.
As for the knife, I made it create weak wind blades when attacking or running with it. The blades won't deal much damage, but can hit from a distance, to interrupt enemy attacks or projectiles.
I made the earth bat fall 70 and BDefend 32, increased its damage, and made it slam enemies to the ground. It probably can't be comboed with, but punishes enemies who try to defend against it.
I also gave fall 50 to holy water so that you could grab someone immediately after 1 hit, but set it to single target.
As for throwing... so far I've made the knife travel further and faster, and am still thinking of what to do with the rest.
Come to think of it, I probably need to rethink the whole weapon throwing thing after all. I never made magical weapons activate instantly when thrown because I didn't want them to be able to be activated at short range and give the opponent no chance to react, but now that you mentioned it, characters with pathetic throws would actually have an advantage in activating them...
I also made detonate a little faster again...
(08-10-2016, 03:48 AM)STM1993 Wrote: Last but not least, there's how to summon the weapons:
* Its precisely because people use A to select, which makes it seem really weird for you to use D's "cancel" to select a weapon.
* J is also used to cancel attacks in many cases. And you can't exactly implement direction keys in the game.
* LF2 players don't remember moves by how many buttons they need to press, they remember moves by which combination they need to press.
* Richie's weapon summon animation is REALLY slow. Most of the time I just press DvJD and be done with it.
There's also a little design in button controls: notice in LF2 that in almost every case:
D> attacks are ranged.
D^ attacks are outward or upwards.
Dv attacks are inward or downwards.
A attacks are usually simple while J attacks are usually more powerful & special.
So what you could do is make Detonate DvJ instead while Summon Weapon is DJA. While in the DJA frame, pressing the various DxA/DxJ will give you different weapons. So you could have something like this:
* DJA D>A: Maybe the spirit sword? Because its D>A is a shotgun blast for keeping people AWAY, and frankly I think its the simplest & msot versatile weapon to use. Also has the LONGEST weapon reach.
* DJA D>J: ???
* DJA DvA: Maybe the earth bat? Since its good for PHYSICALLY knocking people DOWN. Can be DvJ too.
* DJA DvJ: Maybe the ice milk? It seems defensive & resembles ice sword. Can be DvA too due to milk's tiny size.
* DJA D^A: Maybe the wind knife? Since its a puny weapon and wind RISES.
* DJA D^J: Maybe the fire scythe? Since it is the opposite of ice afterall and fire appears stronger than wind.
* DJA DJA: cancel, or an ultimate weapon?
While you're at it you can give each weapon their own unique summon animation to help people remember. Change up the summon animation; don't use the smoke effect for all of them and don't make weapons come out of the ground out of nowhere, it gets really messy.
(also you should edit out the 'ice sword' from Richie's sprite).
Last but not least, have you considered making non-summoned weapons have their own special abilities? This way Richie isn't forced to summon all the time, he can pick up new weapons on the go, especially if the player is feeling braindead at the moment.
Thanks for this! Takes a bit of getting used to, but makes it so much easier and faster.
Decided to go with:
D>A: Spirit sword because why not?
Fire is indeed stronger than wind because wind is meant to be faster and trickier, so D^J for fire and D^A for wind seems good.
Moreover, the whole 5 elemental weapons thing was based on the 5 elements of Wicca, in which fire and air are the "positive/yang" elements while water and earth are "negative/yin", so it seems fitting that fire/air should be assigned to up while water/earth should be assigned to down.
As for water and earth... earth is stronger because water is more of utility/defence, so I set DvA to water and DvJ to earth.
An ultimate weapon seems like an interesting idea, but I wouldn't want a single weapon to be better than all the others... :x
Also I changed the smoke colours, and used burning smoke for fire....
As for non-summoned weapons having their own special abilities, I guess its a possibility for magical weapons (as an artificer, he might be able to appraise/identify properties that others might overlook, or figure out a different way of using the weapon's innate magic), but I don't think it would make sense if he suddenly gained a new skill from picking up an ordinary non-magical baseball bat.
So far I've added the ability to use magic orbs without consuming them with D>J, or detonate (D+v+J) them for double the effect.
Also added new skills for the bat bat and magic boomerang.
For the bat bat, D>A will be a laser (just like bat), D>J will be summon bats, and DvJ will summon even more bats.
For the magic boomerang, D>A will be an energy blast, D>J will be two energy blasts, and DvJ will be two energy disks.
Woah thats a lot of changes, I hope I haven't made Richie overpowered now :x
(08-10-2016, 03:48 AM)STM1993 Wrote: Yeah, the numbers seem a lot better now.
The shotgun blast can all hit the same target btw, but that's okay.
Actually the counter doesn't really do much since the character already has invincibility from getting up and its really easy to avoid the counter, the important thing is that the character needs to run away instead of desperately casting (i.e. the AI needs work). Currently he insists of simply using a skill. Also, the "counter" I was talking about is a countdown timer on the AI (for example, he changes what skills etc he uses every few seconds). That's why I enjoyed the first fight with Asche most; he does more than use simply spam 1 move even in the face of danger.
(08-11-2016, 05:25 AM)LeoGautama Wrote: One key difference between the Touhou fighting boss fights with this mod is that in this mod you can knock them down before they could actually attack.
One way to solve this would be to add (perhaps unique) minions for each boss to distract the player.
Thanks for the suggestions!
I made the boss able to occasionally use the multishot skill from 1-3, and added a melee skill (basically his super punch), but he doesn't seem to use the melee skill much...
Also added some minions, as well as made permanent flames spawn on the ground after every phase.
Here's a random stage 1 video. Yes, I'm bad at this. On hindsight, I should probably make the bosses harder...
Full changelog:
Stage changes:
1-1:
Reduced number of enemies in multiplayer.
Jack will join you after you defeat him.
1-2:
Reduced number of enemies.
Moved healing geyser from phase 2 to phase 1.
Added bandit and hunter hostage at the start.
1-3:
Reduced number of enemies in multiplayer.
1-4:
Moved fire on ground from phase 2 to phase 1.
Added Jan and sorcerer hostage at the start.
1-5:
Added minions to boss fights.
Enabled the final boss to occasionally use his multi-shot skill.
Added a melee "super punch" move to the boss.
After clearing each phase of the final boss, fire appears on the ground permanently.
Increased HP of final boss.
Character Changes:
Janice: Recoloured clothes to a lighter shade of blue.
Bart: MP cost of "Dirge for the Deceased" reduced (30% -> 25%)
Richie:
Reduced cast time of detonate (again).
Recoloured smoke from items.
Switched input methods for Detonate and Item Creation.
Detonate is now D+v+J, Item Creation is now D+J+A
Reworked Item Creation:
After pressing D+J+A, press another of the keys to select your weapon, or press D+J+A again to cancel:
D+^+J: Hellfire Scythe
D+v+J: Gaia's Club
D+^+A: Wind God's Knife
D+v+A: Holy Water
D+>+A: Spirit Sword
Item Auxilliary Ability (D+>+J) can now activate magic orbs without consuming them.
Detonate! (D+v+J) will now double the effects of magic orbs.
Added additional moves for some magical items:
Bat of Bats:
Item Innate Blast "Bat's Laser" (D+>+A): Fires a laser, just like Bat.
Item Auxiliary Ability "Bat Swarm" (D+>+J): Summons a swarm bats.
Detonate! "Greater Bat Swarm" (D+v+J): Summons a larger swarm of bats.
Magic Boomerang:
Item Innate Blast "Energy Blast" (D+>+A): A blast of energy is fired straight ahead.
Item Auxiliary Ability "Double Energy Blast" (D+>+J): Not one, but two blasts of energy!
Detonate! "Twin Energy Disks" (D+v+J): A pair of energy disks are thrown at the enemies.
Artifact Changes:
Gaia's Club:
BDefend for normal, jumping, and running attacks increased. (16 -> 32)
Fall on normal attacks increased. (60 -> 70)
Smashes enemy to the ground.
Damage increased. (40 -> 45 for normal/jump, 50 -> 55 for run/dash)
Wind God's Knife:
When equipped, running or attacking shoots out two weak wind blades.
Travels faster and further when thrown.
If the knife itself connects, it will push enemies further back.
Holy Water:
Fall on normal attacks increased. (40 -> 50)
A single normal attack will send the target into DoP if it connects.
Normal attacks can now only hit a single target.
Spirit Sword:
Fall on normal attacks reduced. (40 -> 25)
All attacks will now pull enemies towards yourself.
AI Changes:
Asche: Increased the minimum range at which he will use "Burning Ash Blast".
Janice: Decreased the maximum range at which she will use "Overwhelming Disaster".
Richie: Changed because input methods changed, added ability to use strafe.
Posts: 864
Threads: 49
Joined: Mar 2008
08-13-2016, 06:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2016, 03:58 AM by STM1993.)
(08-13-2016, 06:23 PM)AscheLeee Wrote: Wouldn't an itr end up destroying your own balls though? Only if the ball is facing you. Its the same as trying to punch an ally's ball from behind; it won't work, but if you punch it from the front it'd work.
edit: This rule doesn't apply if the itr in question is itr kind 9, and this rule doesn't apply to weapons such as Henry's arrows.
Might give update a try later, its late. If no new posts I'll edit this one.
EDIT:
Okay, Richie is a lot more fun to play! Wind knife is actually surprisingly OP for keeping an enemy stunlocked, but eh. Only thing I found annoying is that spirit sword's normal swing would pull, which is actually a huge disadvantage since it can pull the enemies into a range where you can't hit them. I would say Detonate is still a little slow, but eh.
Personally I disagree that Water/Earth is DvA/DvJ. Water may be weaker than Earth, but it has more utility than Earth which is purely attacking - think Davis D^A uppercut vs his D^J leap. But I can live with that.
Stage mode:
I think you gave the player too many hostages. On Difficult, Jack from the beginning can last all the way to 1-5 where he might then die if he's the only guy with you. Free Jan in 1-4 and you're pretty much set for Asche even if Jack is dead. The rest of the hostages would end up making the stage trivial since they can just steamroll the enemies with their numbers without your help - exactly what happened in your own video.
I suggest that for the Asche boss fights, you make his minion have more HP. I know it seems like you're buffing his minion, but in reality it makes it easier for the player to lure the minion away from Asche, since they won't die so quickly and respawn from the right with full mana, allowing you to separate the minion from the boss. Alternatively you can change where the minion spawns.
Asche is actually pretty hard to approach during his wind-spam phase mostly because he is guarded by Jan's D^A and as the fight drags on he tends to stick to the right side of the stage where Jan spawns. Of course, all that difficulty is nullified if you have an army to send after Asche.
I also discovered that Asche has no way to cancel out of his "spellcard" attacks. Maybe that's why you don't see him try to counter often enough; I did witness him attempt to super punch once though.
I noticed that you drop milk in some parts of the stage at the end, but you usually drop it in the middle of the stage, making it easy for players to miss them. I suggest you drop the milk around 450px away from the right border of the stage (LF2 will randomly place objects within ~400px of the stated coordinate).
Posts: 20
Threads: 3
Joined: Jul 2016
Well... I added the pull back effect because I thought it would make it easier to grab, and it worked... when I tested from maximum range. I lowered that pullback a little so it shouldn't be too bad unless you're in a position where you're overlapping your enemy I guess?
I was trying to make the stage easier since it's just the first stage and there's going to be four more, but I guess I might have overdone it. So I reduced the hostage and jack HP/lives and by the time I got to 1-5 (normal), about half of them died, and the wind spam phase wiped out all that was left, so I guess it should be reasonable enough now...?
I also doubled the HP of the minions.
I kinda intended for those attacks to be uncancellable because I thought it was already hard enough to get close enough or land an attack, especially at the last two phases...
Thanks for the advice about the milk, I never knew about the ~400px of stated coordinate thing. I've changed all the milk to be at the end of the stage.
I also attempted to make a character that rewards players for comboing. (I suck at combos though) And also made some other changes...
New character: Luce!
A battlemage who wields the power of light, and excels in fast attacks and combos.
(Somewhat) comes with AI too!
+ Speed of Light:
Running speed +10%
Luce moves at the speed of light, or so she claims.
+ Resonance:
Skills can be cancelled into other skills. Doing so reduces the MP cost of your next skill.
Luce can adroitly use skills in quick succession, channeling the residual energy from one skill to another.
Laser (30% MP / Resonance: 20% MP)
Input Method: D + > + A
Fires a laser straight ahead.
IMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR!
Speed Kick (15% MP / Resonance: 10% MP)
Input Method: D + > + J
Dash forward and kick an enemy.
High Kick (15% MP / Resonance: 10% MP)
Input Method: D + ^ + A
Kick an enemy high into the air.
Pillar of Light (70% MP / Resonance: 55% MP)
Input Method: D + ^ + J
Creates a huge pillar of light around you that sends nearby enemies flying.
Self-Heal (70% MP / Resonance: 55% MP)
Input Method: D + v +J
Use basic healing magic to heal yourself.
New items: Spirit Items!
When on the ground, these items move by themselves, almost as though they refuse to be picked up...
When thrown, they travel slightly further and faster, and will deflect most incoming projectiles.
Types of Spirit Items:
* Knife
* Shuriken
* Boomerang
New item: Molotov Cocktail!
When thrown, it ignites enemies.
This isn't actually magic, but rather, science.
Item changes:
Bat of Bats and Magic Boomerang will no longer hit enemies that are too close when throwing.
(Will go past them and activate)
Spirit sword will now deflect most incoming projectiles when thrown.
Detonate cast time reduced.
Slightly reduced pull distance of Spirit Sword.
Added new skills to beer and Molotov Cocktail:
Item Innate Blast "Flame" -Short Range- (D+>+A): Ignites some of the flammable liquid to burn enemies at short range.
Item Auxiliary Ability "Flame" -Long Range- (D+>+J): Ignites some of the flammable liquid to burn enemies at long range.
Detonate! "Explosion" (D+v+J): Ignites the entire contents of the bottle and cause a fiery explosion.
Added new skill to boomerang (normal):
Detonate! "Power Spin" (D+v+J): Throws the boomerang, spinning it with such great speed that it resembles a disk.
Added new skills to Cursed Scythe:
Item Innate Blast "Skull Blasts" (D+>+A): Summons a skull which pursues enemies.
Item Auxiliary Ability "Double Skull Blasts" (D+>+J): Summons two skulls which pursue enemies.
Detonate! "Cursed Explosions" (D+v+J): Creates an explosion to your front and back. Be careful, these explosions can hurt allies!
I understand this update may come across as rather hasty and rushed, but I was researching on stuff like flammable liquids and molotov cocktails, but then I realised that my web searches might be rather incriminating, so I decided to release this ASAP. That way, just in case the police start knocking on my door and questioning me, I at least have some proof that I did it for this game.
Posts: 864
Threads: 49
Joined: Mar 2008
08-17-2016, 02:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-20-2016, 07:52 AM by STM1993.)
Quick test from Luce:
D>J D^A J (as seen from the gif) - this happens because there's a weird bug in LF2 where the first 2 inputs from DxA is saved for DxJ.
AAA A D>A
D^A >J <A
D^A < >>JA (only doable from edge of your kick range)
D^J >>JA (note: you can chain from D^A if you pause before pressing J)
Luce Comments:
* Wish her D>J were usable from rolling like Bat, and maybe have a faster recovery. Its useless for actual combos since it doesn't have fall60 or higher (its fall25), so I see no point in it having Resonance except to escape, but it IS useful as a distance-closer.
* Wish she could use D^A from grab. D^A should also have vrest so she has better crowd control.
* D^A can cancel into D^J too quickly, resulting in Luce not hitting her kick before the explosion.
* D>A isn't very useful for combos, and you don't get resonance from the superpunch/>>A kick D>A combo anyway.
* Missing wpoint for Luce's kick moves.
* Luce is powerful, but she has trouble hitting enemies who are inside her, especially since she is so reliant on the kicks/D^A for combos. She's also a little stiff to play, if partly because of the whole D^AJ bug; you can consider changing the kick's input to DvA to whole the issue altogether.
* Having Resonance for self-heal is pretty silly. Personally I don't think Luce needs a self-heal, but if you wish to keep it, please make it faster; refer to John's DvJ animation speed for reference, as well as change the input from DvJ to DJA.
Molotov Cocktail should break the instant it hits people. There's 2 ways to go about it:
1) itr kind 8 - it goes to whichever frame the dvx is. However, this will mean the molotov will "break" on ANYONE even invisible Rudolf or someone getting up from the floor.
2) Grenade system. Basically, after picking up, the molotov transforms into molotov2, which will explode when it goes into on_the_sky frames when it collides or when it hits the ground.
The ghost boomerang is weird.
Have you tried using Richie's wind knife while doing run attack >>A on a boulder/crate? Its hilarious!
Stage Mode:
* Still really easy, you can just spam >>JA to kill all the mooks in 1-hit (on average, dash attack does 70dmg), and there are still too few of them. I can beat the stage on Difficult with all hostages intact.
* I suggest lowering the number of allies again. Really should just have 2 companions at most.
* The section where there are a lot of weak enemies in 1-1 is kind of pointless. Half the enemies, double their HP.
* I played through the stage again on Crazy with Luce. In the sections where there are few enemies the x2 enemies is fine, but in the sections where you need to fight Henry or Firen its ridiculous. You can also look at LF2's stage mode for some pointers on how to balance the number & variety of enemies - use this as a pointer on how to balance the difficulties. Currently its too easy even on Difficult but has a huge difficulty spike in Crazy - that means there's a good middle ground.
* Sorcerers could use more HP.
Speaking of Firen, I really hate stage 1-4. You can't fight the bandits because they'd immediately spawn to the left or right, which is exactly where you'd be standing so you'd get run attacked in the back a lot of the time. You have Jan who can D^A you from over the rocks. Using Luce, I have no throwing strength at all, so I can't really fight back with stones. Meanwhile, the enemy just keeps throwing the meteors & stones which will RESPAWN! And to make matters worse, there will be milks in the center of all the stones, so naturally Firen will keep trying to steal the milk and drink it, prolonging it way longer than it needs to be.
* Jan in Asche's wind phase is very dangerous if you have allies with you due to Jan's D^A scaling with number of allies (maximum 7) and the wind lifting you up, making you absorb all the hits. Again, that's fine imo, just lower number of allies.
* I didn't clear 1-5 with Luce on Crazy, died in the 2nd phase with the sorcerers. Luce really needs better crowd control.
EDIT 20/08:
I decided to play Moey in stage 1 proper. He's... both overpowered and underpowered at the same time. Overpowered because of how he works against AI, underpowered because his repertoire is actually really crappy.
Being based on Sorcerer, his basic attacks have pathetic damage; punch deals 15 instead of 20dmg, his run/jump/dash attack never deal more than 45dmg where other characters have an average of 55 for >>A and 70 for >>JA.
D>A is the same as John's, especially when it gets reflected - only thing is the animation speed is even slower than John.
There's a reason why John's D>J expires after 1 hit and don't last particularly long - its to prevent people from getting bounced back & forth between both shields. Furthermore, the AI is too stupid to avoid these orbs unlike with John's shield which use itr kind 9(which can also destroy state 3005/6 balls but automatically goes to hit_d on hitting a player - Moey is weak to Henry) - so they often walk into a trap of two orbs aimed at each other for massive damage.
DvA is useless compared to D^A. They have the same really expensive mana cost & time to detonate, but D^A is a lot better in many ways: it burns so enemies can't flip out of it. It does 125 dmg instead of 75dmg. And it doesn't suffer any form of friendly fire.
D^J is probably best used to escape, DvJ is what you'd use to distract the enemy from a distance while you set up your attacks. Ultimately both have crappy damage though.
DJA pretty much makes D^J pointless; just turn it on for instant invulnerability and then A or J away as needed.
I think Moey should be revamped at some point. He's not a particularly interesting character and he's only strong in stage mode because the enemy AI is dumb.
Posts: 20
Threads: 3
Joined: Jul 2016
Thank you for the comments. For now, I started working on characters first.
For Luce, I've enabled D>J and D^A to be used during rolling. Kinda reluctant to enable D^A during grab because I wanted the whole "skill while grabbing" thing to be unique to Markus, who is probably the new Deep (almost no one uses him). Also reduced the dvx of D^A so that you can do D^A J A, and made both D^A and D>J vrest and have wpoint. D>J will also hit enemies it passes by (just like Bat)
To fix the D^AJ issue, I changed D^J to DJA, so that I could use DvA for a new skill (sort of like a strafe I guess), which you can follow up with D>A.
Her pathetic throws was an oversight on my part . As a battlemage, she should have throwing strengths higher than that of an average mage, but lower than that of an average fighter. As such I changed her throws and movement speeds while carrying heavy items to that of Dennis.
Moeyy stuff:
Not sure if anyone already knows this, but apparently John's D>A frames skip from frame 237 directly to 240. I only recently discovered that because I was sure that I changed the D>A's delay to be same as John, and was checking and double checking again... I'm guessing it's a bug that was never fixed?
Anyway, I left the animation speed the same but instead made the balls unreflectable, because I realised it doesn't make much sense that your own illusions should so easily turn against you...
Actually DvA has half the MP cost of D^A, but I decided to change DvA anyway. It now creates a pillar that does minor damage and stunlocks enemies caught inside when it explodes.
Fabulous Clone Detonation (30% MP)
Input method: D + v + A
Creates a magnificent clone which self-detonates after 2 seconds, inundating the area with its fabulousness.
Enemies in the area will nosebleed uncontrollably, taking minor damage.
I changed D+>+J to fall70 so that you can't combo between two traps. Didn't want to change to ik9 because I didn't want to make a copy of John's shield, but rather, an obstacle which when spammed all over the place, would make movement difficult for enemies. I'll need to think of some way to rework this...
I increased D^J/DvJ's damage to 50 and added 0.5 seconds of invulnerability after using them.
Not sure what I should do with the pathetic default damage though... I mean he isn't a character that's meant for physical combat, so I'm not sure if I should increase the damage to be on par with everyone else.
To be honest... Moeyy wasn't build with vs. mode in mind, and was more for stage mode... Not sure how I would make an 'illusionist/strategist' work in vs since humans don't fall for the clones tricks.
As for stage... I can barely win normal mode now I guess I'm too noob
Perhaps I'll work on stage 2 first before coming back to stage 1 later, or make stage 1 an easy tutorial stage. I know it seems kinda counter-intuitive to do stage 2 before 1, but my plan for stage 2 is probably going to be to give the player quite a few hostages throughout the stage, with 2-5 ending in something like the battle mode... Hopefully that will be a lot easier to balance if I just use the current battle mode as a reference?
Other Stuff:
Markus:
Crash punch and Rising Uppercut may now be used while lying.
Janice:
Overwhelming Disaster MP cost increased (20% -> 25%)
Fixed typo where Ice Blast was incorrectly stated as 15% MP. (Should be 20% MP)
Added new skills:
Triune Ice Blasts (40% MP)
Input method: D + J + A
Fires a spread of three balls of ice which freeze enemies.
Arctic Area (25% MP)
Input method: D + v + A
Significantly reduce the temperature in the area around you, freezing nearby enemies.
Richie:
When equipped with Freeze's sword, can use Ice Blast with D+>+A, or detonate (D+v+J) it to use Whirlwind.
Added new moves to some classic characters
John:
Multiple Energy Blasts (15% MP)
Input method: D + J + A
Fires a spread of three energy blasts with reduced range.
Retreating Energy Blast (10% MP)
Input method: D + v + A
Retreat while firing a short range blast of energy ahead.
Deep:
Charged Blast (20% MP)
Input method: D + J + A
Charges up an energy blast, sending it flying further and faster.
May be released prematurely for reduced effect by pressing 'A'.
Henry:
Imperishable Shooting (10% MP + ... )
Input method: D + v + A
Rapidly fire arrows ahead.
The shooting doesn't stop, until you press 'D' or run out of MP.
There's a reason I named it this, though (come on, tell us!)
Bow Smash (0% MP)
Input method: D + v + J
Smash an enemy at close range with your bow.
Rudolf:
Veil of Swords (2% MP + ...)
Input method: D + ^ + A
Move around and slash surrounding enemies with such high speeds that they can't see you. (John Cena?)
Press 'D' to cancel.
Swords Dance (0% MP)
Input method: D + v + A
Slash enemies around you with your swords.
Davis:
Multiple Energy Blasts (40% MP)
Input method: D + J + A
Fires a spread of five energy blasts.
Speed Punch (0% MP)
Input method: D + > + J
Dash forward and punch an enemy ahead of you.
Other changes:
Added a 'Spectate' option in character selection.
When selected, you die upon spawning, allowing you to spectate the match.
Posts: 180
Threads: 7
Joined: Aug 2016
Great mod! sprites could be better but well since you couldn't sprite no problem with this. I liked richie the most, and asche the least. i find asche's D>j useless, except against long range ennemies. you could maybe make it quicker to cast. also you may make the swirling ash turn around him and moves with him for a while, protecting him against projectiles and physical attacks, while negating its damage to not make it over powered. for moey, he isn't that strong against human fighters, but crazy strong against ai. i play against julian on crazy, get some mp, and create a clone. julian goes to it, hits it, no effect, clone explodes, repeat. i win without taking a hit. markus and janice are not creative, and bart is a bit weak. take that hein char for example, he uses a flute too and still he could do some damage, while bart's only way of doing significant damage is his skulls. janice has got good combo
posssibilities, D>J,D^A,DJA, run attack is my favourite one, as it deals very good damage, but for a lot of mana wich makes her balanced. now the stage mods. it is easy, really easy. having jack at 1-1 is really a lot, and getting bandits and hunters next makes it easy to complete it. from the whole stage, i only hate part 1-4 as the meteors: 1-make my game bug, as my computer is weak, 2- firen takes meteors, throws them, meteors respawn, repeat,
3- playing with richie, i have always my mp depleated by summoning weapons as i fall nearly everytime a meteor gets spawned. the asche boss fights are really easy too, as he tends to spam same moves, and that makes him too predictable. also, by playing him(boss asche not normal one) i figured that it was impossible for him to use D to stop his D>J and D^J, so i suggest you give the possibility to use: first D>J, then D>J and D>A, then D>J and D>A and D^A. anyway great mod and i hope you will continue the great work.
Thanks given by:
|