12/20 Update: Classes, Abilities, States.

Hi, everyone.

Since the changes are proving to be rather comprehensive, I might say that this is “Leomorn Sword” 1.4 (codename: Yellow Green). This post contains a few links to previous improvements and a quick summary of some new changes.

• Cooking, Menu & Quest Journal, Equipment.
• Materials

• Classes & Abilities:

I am not planning to add any more classes, so they are still 6: Apprentice, Guardian, Healer, Warrior, Mage and Warlock. Guardian, Healer and Mage are the three primary classes to which Lauron will be able to upgrade as soon as he reaches Lv. 30. Later on in the game, when Lauron and his party should be around that level, I will make a Quest to be handed in to one of the three class trainers present in Mirisia, Panador or Dalonur. By handing in the Quest, Lauron will learn all the abilities belonging to that class, and – depending on which class players will choose – he will forget some of those he already knew. I will also create Tutorials showing what are the pros and cons of the three eligible classes. Players will be able to choose a class that is under-represented in their optimal party, or simply because they find it attractive.

Instead of giving each class some special ability, I have partially changed that, making some abilities unique rewards obtainable only by completing Quests. So, for instance, Eilmorel will learn Madante, Lauron will learn Raidein (Quest: Back to Northdell) Traben will learn Monkey Form (Quest: Elder Silentall), etc. Obviously, all classes will retain other abilities: so, for instance, Mages will still learn Ruura (Lv. 15); Healers will learn Ranaruuta (Lv. 23) and Megazaru (Lv. 31); Guardians will learn Iron-Cutting Sword (Lv. 33) and a new special ability, Heroism (Lv. 35).

• Heroism will give the whole party 1000 Overdrive Points. Basically, the whole Party will be able to use their Overdrive abilities twice in 3 turns (using Meditation).

• States:

Added Burning, Damage Over Time (DoT) afflicted when casting Merami, and Drowning (DoT related to Water Drop). Raidein can Stun, and Kiarii now also dispels Blind.

New Materials

I have released a new set of Materials, which are those that I am using right now for this project. If you want to use these materials for your own projects, please remember to credit.

12/11 Update: Cooking and other changes.

Hi, everyone!

This is just an update to show the progress of a few features of the game that have been improved since the last release.

• Cooking:

It always looked a little silly to talk to NPCs in order to craft potions: even if I added the option to create Disperdherb or Remedies, trying to adjust prices so that it would be convenient to craft them instead of buying them, it still looked like some sort of barter. I changed that, introducing Cooking. This is not a profession, recipes will all be given eventually, and all ingredients will be available either at the local market or to be looted from enemies. There is still food that can be consumed without being cooked first, like Chocolate (restoring 29% HP and MP), Cabbages (23% MP), Bread (31% HP) or Apples (12% HP and MP), but their effect has been slightly reduced. Instead, all recipes that involve cooking provide food that gives unique effects either in or outside combat, or both. Here’s an example:

All the items related to Cooking are burnt orange-coloured.

• Menu & Quest Journal:

These are more changes of looks. You can see above the new Menu: all icons have changed, but that’s it. Instead, all Quests now reward money in addition to their rewards. The amount of money given for completing Quests will vary depending only on level. I have moved the static part of the rewards to the Description in the Quest Journal, and used colours to emphasize names.

• Equipment:

The changes in the equipment have been a little bit more comprehensive. I have changed the slots available and made them the same for every character, which means that instead of “Shield”, the slot has been renamed to “Off-Hand”, every class can equip Gloves, and they should, I completely removed cloaks, and kept three slots for Accessories (rings, necklaces, chokers, amulets, earrings, etc.) The equipment is still related to class, meaning that all items will increase stats that are only useful to some: however, there are now 44 pieces of jewelry (up from 14) that give almost random effects, and they can be equipped at all levels by all classes. Casters have Off-Hands while melee classes have Shields, the former have Hats, while the latter have Helms. Gloves increase Defense and Elemental Resistance.

• Behomazun, minor change:

I have changed the way Behomazun works. To have a spell that restores 100% HP and Status of the whole Party seemed like a ticket to invincibility, so now this Overdrive technique will restore 64% HP (down from 100%), but it will also grant Mending Status, like Hoimi. Mending restores 20% total HP over 2 turns.

• States:

Since they were not working correctly, I removed Doom and Trouble Status.

• Virannum:

I thought Virannum to be one of the centres of power in NORTHDELL, but it ultimately looked a little dull, so I edited some of Lunarea’s tiles to change the way it looks. You can watch the video below to see the before and after.

12/3 Update: 4 New Quests.

Like I said in my previous update, I have added 4 new Quests so that it will be a little easier for all characters to reach Lv. 19 when entering the portal in Watermoor.

• Pelt Collection (Molenor, Lv. 10-14).
  The Lycanthropes that inhabit the region of Molenor are known for their high quality pelts. There’s people travelling to these lands just to poach them. Quiatra Dryadson in the town of Molenor asked you to kill at least three Lycanthropes and bring her 1 Lycanthrope Pelt. These Lycanthropes can be found in Coldmoor, south-east of Molenor.
  This Quest is an example of mixing the two types of gathering and killing quests. Players will need to kill at least 3 Lycanthropes and then bring Quiatra 1 Lycanthrope Pelt.

• Honey Jars (Meusa, Lv. 10-14).
  The Garden Keepers steal honey from the bees and then leave the jars anywhere. Janhana Eastdawn in the village of Meusa asked you to collect five Honey Jars: they can be found lying on the ground south of Meusa, namely in Westwynne Crossing and Mistmeadow. Also, while you collect them, Janhana asked you to slay four Garden Keepers.

• Marward Kalon (Erene, Lv. 15-19)
  Ravanys Woodsheart and Marward Kalon have recently had an argument; Marward left very early in the morning to go searching for legendary herbs. Ravanys asked Theremita to bring Marward his backpack. Marward should be wandering around the town of Erene, in Esteredge Crags. Theremita must be in the party.
  This secondary quest belongs to “Theremita storyline”. I thought it would be interesting to get to know her past a little: this is something that I wish to do for all secondary characters, eventually, because there is no other way to tell more about their background.

• Some Water (Virannum, Lv. 20-24)
  You found Davian Millstone lying almost unconscious on the floor, inside one of the rooms of the dungeon. He desperately needs some water. Since the dungeon was built underground, it should not be too hard to find some water gushing from the fissures of the walls.

I have also changed the percentage increases of “EXP” earned when defeating enemies: 41%, up from 36%, so now it should be much easier to reach Lv. 19 before entering the portal in Watermoor. Finally, I have increased the “EXP” rate gained by idle members, those in the reserve, that are not in the current party, 50%, up from 25%.

11/13 Update: Still Working

• Iconset redone:

The Iconset has been redone: you can see in the pictures below some of the icons that have changed.

I was not completely satisfied with how these icons looked: some of them were far too complex for my taste, while others were simply impossible to decipher. So I changed the icons for “Fight!”, “Run”, “Party”, “Arrange Party” and more. I wanted them to look a little bit simpler and closer to the action or feature that they stand for.

I changed the icons for the Quest Journal next. It now looks far better, and you can actually tell that they belong to the same Menu feature, without making the journal look too decorative. First icon, blue, Active Quests, or Pending, second one: Completed Quests, bringing back the question mark — yay! Third, red: Failed Quests — besides: have you ever failed any quest so far? I don’t think so: you cannot fail quests involving killing or gathering. I am not going to change that for now, but I am going to make Secondary Quests, later on, that can also be failed. Last category, Primary Quests, with the icon of a golden locket.

• New spells: Doruma, Dorukuma, Dorumooa.

Introducing Warlocks in LS 1.3 was only half of the work: although Warlocks could already count some unholy spells among their abilities, I still wanted to add a few more, so here are 3 new spells, all cutting the enemy’s life by a specific percentage: Doruma 33%, Dorukuma 41% and Dorumooa 54%: except, while Doruma and Dorukuma affect the target’s remaining HP, Dorumooa will cut the target’s maximum HP by 54%. These spells can all produce a critical hit, but Dorumooa is the only one that can kill the enemy in a single blow.

• States:

I renamed some States to be more coherent with the parameters. “Enhanced” has been renamed into “+ Attack Power”, whereas “Unguarded” is now “– Defense”. Also, speaking of States, Disperdherb, Shanaku and Shanaku Scrolls now correctly dispel Mini, Exposed, Doomed, Trouble and Delay Status, that could not be dispelled before.

• More Quests:

I never liked wandering around for hours just to grow up a few more levels before continuing with the game content, so I have decided to increase the amount of “EXP” earned after battle; furthermore, I am going to add a few more Quests in Molenor, Meusa and Erene, so that it will be a little easier for all characters to reach Lv. 19 when entering the portal in Watermoor.

• Dungeon: Virannum.

VIRANNUM is the first dungeon in “Leomorn Sword”. I am still drawing the maps of the different floors. Here are some pictures to show what the entrance and first couple of rooms will look like. Since I am old-fashioned, I am including locked doors, dungeon keys, mummies, puzzles and a few bosses — which means at least one before the end of it. a final boss.

LS Demo 1.3 Release

It’s finally here! I am releasing the new Demo today: “Leomorn Sword” (1.3), code-name “Turquoise” (Screenshots). You can read the following posts for a more detailed discussion about the improvements that were made.

• Messages, Items and Music;
• Database: Classes, Equipment;
• Scripts;
• Abilities: see also 6/13 Update and 10/29 Update;
• Quests;
• Item Crafting;
• “Ruura” and “Ruura Stone”.
• Also, if you are interested in a summary of previous features that have been improved, see also Battle Features and Menu Features.

• Decryption.

As you will see, this Demo has been released in a decrypted version, which means that the game itself and all its resources are now accessible. The reasons why I did not release a decrypted project before, are basically that I didn’t want to spoil anything by letting anyone see the actual project; furthermore, I am jealous of my work, including the resources that I have made, so I didn’t want players to copy and paste what took me months to achieve. However, I think that the game has become more popular now and that all players will easily recognise its style and identify any act of plagiarizing. Not to mention that there are tools out there that allow the decryption of projects, so it didn’t make much sense to keep it encrypted. Here’s a few examples of some “reviews” that LS 1.2 recently received: 1, 2, 3 (Germany), 4 (China), 5 (Russia) and 6.

I have tested the game today, and I could not find any bug: if you do, please let me know, so I can fix it. Feel free to leave comments here, or PM me using this address: leomornsword@hotmail.com.

Enjoy, and thanks for playing!

1.3 10/29 Update

• About “Behomaraa”.

As I have said in my previous update, I have decided to change the way “Behomaraa” works, being the only spell affecting up to three targets.

• “Behomaraa” will provide a new beneficial effect, called “Damage Shield”, which reduces all damage taken in the next turn by 5%. “Damage Shield” Status, since it is a rather short-duration effect, cannot be dispelled in any way, not even by “Purge”. Also, remember that all damage reductions can stack up, so for instance, casting “Barrier” will add a 10% physical damage reduction (which is 15% overall).

Since all improvements require other changes to keep the game balanced, I have decided to maintain the Mana Cost at 21% MP, but to reduce the effectiveness of the spell by 3% 7%. “Behomaraa” will heal for about 27% 23% of maximum HP (down from 30%) at the same Mana Cost. It now heals for 3285 down from 4284. If you consider the damage reduction, though, and that “Behomaraa” will heal up to three allies simultaneously, a 3% reduced effectiveness is less than the 5% damage reduction, which means that overall the spell has been improved. EDIT: after testing, it resulted that 27% HP was still too generous, because I had not considered how powerful Critical Hits can be: not to mention that Traben also has a Critical Bonus, and so does Lauron.

• Added a new Script that brings “Checkpoints” to the game.

You can find the Script here, it has been made by Zylos. Basically, it will automatically save the progress once entering a tough phase of the game, or dangerous areas of the world, allowing the player to load the Checkpoint just in case the party is unexpectedly defeated (e.g. before bosses).

• Release.

Although I have been idle for too long, to the point of almost abandoning the project, I have now decided to resume: so LS Demo 1.3 will be released next week. I wished to provide more content to the Demo, but I ended up postponing the release endlessly. However, less to play is still something to play, and since it has been too long, I will release LS Demo 1.3 as it is.

1.3 6/13 Update

Since Spirit now provides Mana Regeneration equal to 25% of its amount, it felt like other ways to restore Mana were a little too generous, so here’s an update.

• “Mana Restoration” now immediately restores 32% Mana (down from 41%) but it also recovers another 22% Mana over time.

“Mana Restoration” will give the user a beneficial effect called “Concentration”, which will recover 11% Mana at the end of every turn, lasting for 2 turns. Overall, “Mana Restoration” will now recover 54% Mana over 3 turns: except, this Status will be canceled when taking damage. “Concentration” Status cannot be dispelled by enemies otherwise, and it stacks up with the amount of Mana regenerated by Spirit at the end of every turn — although you will only see the “Concentration” pop-up. So, overall, if one character has — let’s say — 542 Spirit and 3595 MP, it means they will regenerate roughly 135 MP (from Spirit) at the end of every turn, and, if they cast “Mana Restoration” upon themselves, that’ll give them the chance to restore up to another 1941 MP over 3 turns (that means up to 2346 MP recovered over 3 turns, if not attacked). These numbers come from Lv. 60 testing.
Also remember that the beneficial effect called “Greater Intellect” increases both Intellect (14% Mana) and Spirit (150%).
“Mana Restoration” still takes 6 turns to recharge, and can’t be reused before then, unless casting “Meditation” first. “Meditation” will not cancel “Concentration” Status.

• “Mahotora”, on the other hand, will absorb MP from the enemies equal to the 18% of their maximum MP (down from 21%).
• “Mahoageru” still transfers 24% of the user’s maximum MP to one ally: since neither Mages or Healers will be given this ability, I felt like all other classes (less relying on Intellect, and supposedly having less Mana Points) shouldn’t see the effectiveness of their spells reduced.

Since I liked the idea of beneficial effects over time, I also changed the way “Hoimi” works.

• “Hoimi” will provide Healing over Time (“HoT”) equal to the 20% of the target’s maximum HP. It’s the same as “Concentration”, except it won’t be canceled when taking damage. The only way to “dispel” this new Status, called “Mending”, would be to inflict “Poison”, as the two are obviously incompatible. “Mending” Status, on the other hand, will not cancel “Poison”, which can still be dispelled only casting “Kiarii” or “Shanaku”, or consuming “Remedies”, “Ethers”, “Elixirs”, “Disperdherbs”, or “Shanaku Scrolls”. At the moment, “Hoimi” is also the only spell to provide “Healing over Time”. In later expansions of the game I might add new spells to provide HoT: I wanted “Hoimi” to be still useful when reaching higher levels. So, for instance, you might keep stronger spells for heavier damage, and simply cast “Hoimi” on everyone else, just to reduce the damage that they take overall.

As a matter of fact, I am thinking of adding a new beneficial effect to “Behomaraa”, since it is the only spell healing up to three targets simultaneously. I am still thinking about it, but in my plans “Behomaraa” could provide a damage reduction lasting for 1 turn. Please keep in mind that whenever a spell is improved in terms of Mana Cost or Healing Done, or when adding beneficial effects to its usage, everything else needs to be balanced. See 1.3 10/29 Update.

1.3 Overall Preview (Part 4)

Part 4: Quests Overhaul

“Quests are tasks given to a player that yield a reward when completed”: all exclamation points are bouncing and glowing over NPCs’ heads. Quests still can’t be abandoned, but there is no maximum of active Quests either. Using the Quest Journal players will be able to scroll through the categories “Pending”, “Completed”, “Failed” and “Primary Quests”: Primary Quests can’t be declined as their events are triggered, since they belong to the main story-line and are needed to advance, working together with Switches. It means that the world surrounding you will remain roughly the same until you carry on Primary Quests.

Whenever a Quest is completed, you’ll see a bouncing (not glowing) Question Mark hovering over NPCs’ heads: they needn’t be the same who gave you the Quest in the first place. Objectives always include the NPC to go to in order to complete the Quest: that means their names and location.

If you choose to hand in any Quest, either Primary or Secondary, you will be given the rewards specified in the Quest Journal. Remember that only active characters will receive these “EXP” points and the  TP, so perhaps you’ll consider assembling a different party depending on the average level of your characters, or, obviously, simply privileging your “favourites”.
Idle characters won’t receive any percentage of the “EXP” earned by the active party when completing Quests.

This is part of the Quest Journal’s new layout: all Quests and encounters are now related to Level. It means that you will enter “Level zones” and will be told if the zone you’re entering, or the Quest you’re accepting might be too difficult at your level.
You can see in the up-right corner of the screenshot above, highlighted in red, the Difficulty of the Quest. It can vary from 1 to 5, but it also relies on Level.
At the end of every “Description”, you’ll see between round brackets the “Level range” for the Quest. At higher levels these rewards will almost be useless: all but the “EXP” gained, being merely a percentage of current “EXP”. The “EXP” gained will vary from 10% of current “EXP” for completing Secondary Quests, to 25% of current “EXP” for completing Primary Quests.

Now the rewards: so yes, all Quests will reward “EXP”, gold or a special item, and now also Talent Points (TP). As a matter of fact, you will earn an amount of TP corresponding to those you’ll earn when you level up within that range (e.g. 5-9, 10-14 and so on), except it’s 100% for Secondary Quests and 200% for Primary Quests.
The initial amount of TP given to all characters is 9 (up from 4). At the current point of the Demo you will earn about 90~96 TP completing 19 Quests (5 of which are Primary), so I’ve calculated that overall you should be able to earn around 714 TP by the end of the game. Actually, the TP earned could be much more, depending from the number of Quests I will add, so I’m just guessing it should be around that amount.
Here’s a scheme of how these points will vary, being related to Level as well:

Level            TP rewarded:

5 > 9      ->     3 (6 if Primary)
10 > 14   ->     4 (8 if Primary)
15 > 19   ->     5 (10 if Primary)
20 > 24   ->     6 (12 if Primary)
25 > 29   ->     7 (14 if Primary)
30 > 34   ->     8 (16 if Primary)
35 > 39   ->     9 (18 if Primary)
40 > 44   ->    10 (20 if Primary)
45 > 49   ->    11 (22 if Primary)
50 > 54   ->    12 (24 if Primary)
55 > 59   ->    13 (26 if Primary)
60          ->    14 (28 if Primary)

1.3 Overall Preview (Part 3)

Part 3: Abilities

Updated 6/13/2011

This is how abilities will look like at level 60, which is the cap level for “Lemorn Sword” since vers. 1. 3. This is a level 60 Healer’s Abilities screen (outside combat):

You will see that all casters make a higher use of their Mana. The reason is that learning abilities quite early in the game progress made their Mana cost ridiculous at higher levels; the Healer’s Mana in particular was never-ending, which in turn made characters kind of invincible as long as Traben or Eilnys could heal. I wanted to make it a little bit more challenging.

I wanted all classes to make wiser, more efficient choices when using their abilities, to save their Mana, and to adjust Mana cost so that it wouldn’t become ridiculously low when reaching higher levels. I’m using KGC_MPCostAlter (written by TOMY, translated by Mr. Anonymous; you can find the script either here or here) to turn Mana cost into a percentage of the character’s base Mana. Except, it then seemed unfair that those who had higher levels of Intellect > Mana Points would suffer from higher costs for their abilities, and made it pointless to increase their Intellect parameter using Talent Points.

The tag <MaxMPCost> means that the ability in question uses an amount of Mana depending on the character’s Intellect > Mana Points, whereas the tag <PropMPDamage> means that the effectiveness of the ability is also influenced by the character’s Intellect: as a matter of fact, the effectiveness of the ability is proportioned to its Mana cost. In other words: the Mana cost becomes the real and only multiplier to determine the effective damage or healing of the ability. So, higher Intellect > higher Mana_Cost > higher damage or healing.

For instance, “Hoimi” will heal about 538 * 17% (Mana Points) + Spirit Bonus +/- 20% variance, which basically means results can change slightly. That’s about 2856 HP healed by a Lv. 60 Traben (3079 total MP, reasonably talented and equipped – no buffs).

The effectiveness of these spells is based on the assumption that all characters reaching Lv. 60 will spend some of their  Talent Points to increase their HP up to 11280 (and up to 14280 if they also manage to be well equipped). Obviously, players might not do so, but later on I’ll be making enemies dealing over 11.000 damage, meaning that it’ll be just impossible to survive those battles without reaching the maximum Stamina. Yes, if you have less HP, healing overall will feel more effective, because it relies only on Intellect, not Stamina: compared to 9999 HP, for instance, 2856 HP is the 28,5% of maximum HP, with an 8,5% increased effectiveness. Since I didn’t want players to sacrifice too many  Talent Points on Stamina, at the expense of other stats, I made it so that HP increases by 50 every 2 points. Now consider that you’ll earn 460  Talent Points when reaching Lv. 60, so if Lauron reaches 7075 base HP, it means he’ll spend 168~170 TP (={11280-7075} /50HP * 2TP) to reach 11280 HP. 168~170 TP, compared to 460 is low enough, so it doesn’t feel like sacrificing too many points. Also, consider that 460 are the TP earned only through leveling, excluding those Talents rewarded by Quests, my guess is around 714: see Quests Overhaul.

Running some tests, as intended, “Hoimi” should heal about 20% of total HP, which means that 2856 is the best to achieve. Mana cost increases for higher ranks of spells: for instance, “Behoimi” will spend 22% Mana with a base of 783 (results around 5712 – 40% of total HP healed), while “Behoma” will spend 28% Mana with a base of 923 (results about 8568 – 60% of total HP healed). Also, don’t forget that healing spells can produce critical hits (using Custom Damage Control  by Yanfly) since vers. 1.2.

Applying these changes and increasing Intellect, it became significant to add a few ways to recover Mana, both in and outside combat. Apart from potions and items consumable outside combat, Healers and Mages can cast “Mahotora”, absorbing Mana from their enemies, while almost every class has “Mana Restoration”. Some other classes (like Guardians) can use “Mahoageru”, which transfers 24% of the user’s Mana to one ally. Don’t forget that Mana Potions can be crafted and brought to battle.

The tag \CHARGE[...] adds cooldowns to the game (it’s Modern Algebra’s Recharge Skills, you can find it here). Every ability takes a specific number of turns to recharge and can’t be used before then, unless casting “Meditation”, which refreshes all remaining CDs at the cost of removing all beneficial effects from the target. Healers get a small discount, of course, so that they won’t run out of healing spells. It also means that there is no action that can be performed twice, apart from normal attacks, which makes battles more lively.

Later on in the game players will obtain some pieces of gear to wear that will reduce the time for abilities to recharge even more (see above: the tag “\RECHARGE[-1]”). It also means that a Lv. 60 Healer will be able to cast “Hoimi” at every turn (although, see 6/13 Update). Now, spending 17% Mana at every turn, healing about 20% HP every time, means the possibility to cast “Hoimi” 5 times (100% HP), without recovering Mana in any way. For example, depending on the damage dealt by the enemies, Healers could simply cast “Hoimi” at every turn, on the most injured party member and then use “Mana Restoration” every 5 turns (“Mana Restoration” immediately restores 41% 32% MP, and another 22% over time). Obviously, 20% HP healed isn’t that significant, since enemies will deal more damage than that at Lv. 60, but then again, since Healers are also pretty strong on Haste, so they’ll very likely make the first move and be able to keep everyone alive.

Last but not least, you can see above the Lv. 60 Mage’s Ablities screen (outside combat). It works exactly in the same way: except, these are damaging spells, not healing. For instance, “Mera” will deal a base of 476 * 9% (Mana Points) + Sp. Bonus +/- 20% variance: that’s about 1559 fire damage at Lv. 60; “Merami” will deal a base of 634 * 18% = roughly 4657 damage for a Lv. 60 Mage; “Merazoma”: 1318 * 26% = about 11620, excluding the buff provided by “Greater Intellect”, the enemy’s weakness to elements, critical hits and critical bonuses.

The only CON to the system is the resultant uselessness of Spirit, which will no longer play any role in the process of calculating the amount of damage and healing, not even as a “Magic Defense”, like it used to. Of course I’m looking for a solution to this issue. I’m considering requesting a Script which will take a percentage of Spirit and turn it into Mana Regeneration after every turn.

So now Spirit will provide, instead, Mana Regeneration at the end of every turn. More precisely, 25% Spirit = amount of MP regenerated. You can read this topic to see how I’ve resolved the issue.

• The Mana cost of all abilities, when equal to zero, is hidden (Hide 0 MP Cost, JFace, edited by modern algebra).