Adding things...

[Cless]

So I was thinking... you guys have seen the Load option added to the main menu (it still has a quirk that needs to be worked out, but still). So I tried really hard to think about what else could possibly be added aside from hacking in manual/multiplayer without the accessory prerequisite.

Then I came to thinking... an additional difficulty mode? I won't guarantee anything, but I think I could fairly easily add in difficulty modes that go beyond Mania in terms of difficulty. If I could add this mode, I'd probably call it Unknown, inline with other Tales games that have modes beyond Mania. The enemy stats would be 4x Normal (Hard is 2x, Mania is 3x).

If you have a gameshark or use an emulation cheater that accepts gameshark codes, you should be able to modify the difficulty level with the following code:

300882BA 00??

?? values:

00 Normal
01 Hard
02 Mania
03 "Unknown" (proposed)
04-FF Even harder difficulties (really high ones could probably cause overflows or crash the game)

Although personally, I think Mania is plenty brutal enough, but maybe some out there are thirsty for something even more insane (impossible?).

The most difficult part though is the Monster List stat display. For some reason the stats go nuts if you use a difficulty setting greater than Mania. I have yet to look into it. It's perfectly fine when you actually fight enemies though.

...thoughts?

[Kogahazan]

There are those who really love a challenge. I feel that if it's it really is easy to add it and it doesn't end up being too cumbersome to implement, then why not.

[Cless]

Another thing I'm contemplating on:

The Monster List. In Japanese, the entries are organized in alphabetized kana order. When translated, you lose that and it gets messy and disorganized.

If I figure it out logically, I could completely re-arrange the monster list to be in English alphabetical order. Essentially, the enemies will appear in a different order than in the Japanese version, but you get it naturalized in English.

The biggest hurdle though is probably figuring out how it the game sets the flags of enemies you encountered. We'll see, though...

...sounds good, right?

[Kajitani-Eizan]

if you can figure it out, yes, it's a very good idea. if for some reason someone is concerned about the change in monster numbering, there can always be a monster list correlation file or something.

[Demon000]

Personally I don't care about having more difficulty modes, but certainly there's some people that would love it.
As for the monster list I think it is more common to see them organized by their power or the order in which they appear on the game (Obviously with the bosses list at the end). That's the common way but that doesn't mean you have to do it like that (It must be even harder, I guess).
As for my opinion, I really don't mind in which order they are.

[Cless]

Well, I think alphabetical would be by far the easiest method of finding what you want to look at. That's how it was, anyway. Right now it hardly makes sense that Iron Golem is the first thing in the list and Lilith is in the 200s. The way to find things is to cycle through the whole thing, which kinda sucks.

I'm bored since there's little else left for me to do with the project.

[Demon000]

How about the orbs? Any news on that?

[gyozilla]

i dunno if all these changes are gonna be for a mod patch. anyway.

difficulty - dont care, it's not really making AI smarter, just turns every grunt into bosses.
hah, how about when you get unknown, you can have 5 active charas?

someone out there might like adding in a zero encounter option for scout orb (or a higher % on the magic mist).

the outlandish:
i personally think this aged game needs equip during battle (or switch active chara during battle), but thats way hard to code. and perhaps some way to tell during battle if youve already spect-ed a monster so you dont waste them (or maybe even hit up the monster book during battle to reference weaknesses). adding in the whole grade system from psp would probably be hell too.

[Cless]

i dunno if all these changes are gonna be for a mod patch. anyway.

I was actually going to include them in the translation patch if I can figure it all out. Alphabetized monster list should probably have been a standard in a localization anyway IMO. I think it's a nice touch either way.

"Unknown" difficulty would be an accessible extra after you have a cleared game star on a save like Mania. Even so, it, in no way (obviously) could possibly make things additionally advantageous for the player, unlike free manual/multiplayer... unless it somehow creates something that can be exploited (but that seems quite unlikely, as a 4x multiplier cannot possibly overflow any of the monster stats. All stats are signed, and the max possible HP is around 8 million (being a 24-bit number), Attack/Def is 32k (16-bit number)... etc. No enemy's stats even come close to that at 4x).

Hell, on top of that, I could probably add another 5x multiplier difficulty, but I'm not sure what it could be called... ToDr used something called Evil, but that seemed to be a Mania replacement...

difficulty - dont care, it's not really making AI smarter, just turns  pevery grunt into bosses.
hah, how about when you get unknown, you can have 5 active charas?

someone out there might like adding in a zero encounter option for scout orb (or a higher % on the magic mist).

the outlandish:
i personally think this aged game needs equip during battle (or switch active chara during battle), but thats way hard to code. and perhaps some way to tell during battle if youve already spect-ed a monster so you dont waste them (or maybe even hit up the monster book during battle to reference weaknesses). adding in the whole grade system from psp would probably be hell too.

No encounters for Scout Orb is probably possible without too much work, but not something to include in the translation patch.

Equip menu for battle is probably the next most possible thing, but is clearly beyond my ability. On top of that, battle menus are lower horizontal resolution than the main menu (and I'm not sure how the game would respond if you tried hacking it to the main menu resolution). The main equip menu tends to use the entirety of the horizontal res...

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Hell, on top of that, I could probably add another 5x multiplier difficulty, but I'm not sure what it could be called... ToDr used something called Evil, but that seemed to be a Mania replacement...

CHAOS.

i have my own suggestions, too...

Ludicrous
Excessive
Gratuitous
Kilimaniajaro

[Goshi]

Hell, on top of that, I could probably add another 5x multiplier difficulty, but I'm not sure what it could be called... ToDr used something called Evil, but that seemed to be a Mania replacement...

There's lots of things, though I like

Lunatic
Doomsday
Impossible

CHAOS.

i have my own suggestions, too...

Ludicrous
Excessive
Gratuitous
Kilimaniajaro

Yeah those are good.

As for as other additions may have a way to register formations like in Tales of Eternia. Its tedious having to manually change your formation each time you get a back attack or surround attack. This would probably end up being difficult to do though.

[Cyllya]

Hmm, if you could make it so that the existing Mania is available before beating the game, adding extra difficulty would offset the balance issues created by free manual/multiplayer, I think. (At least for people who didn't want it to be easier.) The more I think about it, the better the free manual idea sounds anyway. I never use Manual in ToP due to needing the technical ring, and I assume that's why I like ToP-SFC's battle system better.

"Gratuitous" does seem like a nice difficulty mode name.

[gyozilla]

"HELL!"

[Cless]

Most of the suggestions are a little long since there's not a lot of space, but... look!



Mania just not hard enough for you? :D

btw... I think "DOOM" makes Mania look like a cakewalk. I swear some enemies are much more aggressive (but I could be wrong). Those doom guards in Dhaos' castle in the past have 26k HP and do nothing but swing endlessly at you.

I'm sure some people will get some amusement out of these. Now, to go work on the glitches these extra modes cause in the monster list menu...

[Demon000]

"PAIN"

[Cyllya]

btw... I think "DOOM" makes Mania look like a cakewalk. I swear some enemies are much more aggressive (but I could be wrong). Those doom guards in Dhaos' castle in the past have 26k HP and do nothing but swing endlessly at you.

Hmmm, maybe the AI is designed to make use of their stats to determine their actions.