General Update & Known Bugs

Hi, everyone!

This update is meant to show some of the recent changes in Leomorn Sword (1.6). A few of these changes are just visual upgrades, while others involve Classes, Abilities, combat mechanics, new cut-scenes, Characters and the Story Background.

Visual Upgrades: Output Numbers (Combat)

Output Numbers. This is how they currently look like: HP Gain|HP Loss|MP Gain|MP Loss.

Environment. The maps for the following zones have been redrawn:

• Lochbrook Edge;
• Virannum Gardens;
• Virannum Dungeon;
• Virannum Prison;
• Mal-Weng Silver Woods;
• Interiors;
• Teleport Stations. The whole feature has been updated, it should now feel a lot simpler than before. Players do not have to interact with the Portal Keeper any more, all they have to do is step on the portal and select their destination. If they possess the corresponding Pass and can afford travelling, they are automatically teleported to their chosen destination. Otherwise they will take a step back. Players can still interact with the Portal Keeper, but only to buy the Pass corresponding to their current location: Passes are still needed in order to successfully select any destination when using the Teleport Service.
  • To move from one island to another (e.g. from NORTHDELL to ERIDEN), players will have to use the portals located in the three capital cities, because all capital cities (Panador, Mirisia, Dalonur) will be linked through a different set of portals. Moving from one capital city to another will always be free of charge and it will not require any Pass.

Characters:

Eilmorel Gladomain

I wasn’t quite satisfied with how the character of Eilmorel looked like. This is just a visual upgrade of her character, although most dialogues have been rewritten. As an in-game feature, I have also added a “Relationship” meter. Depending on the players’ choices, the relationship between Eilmorel and Lauron will either increase or decrease, having a significant impact as the game progresses. Their Relationship can go from -100 to +100. It will start being very low (currently -97). Most changes will occur automatically, but they will not be as significant as those depending on the players’ choices. Here’s an example of how the Relationship meter will display in-game, usually after cut-scenes.

The idea was to make Eilmorel look younger and more fragile, in a way, while during cut-scenes she is going to be a little more arrogant and self-aware, at least at the beginning. I’ll post a few screenshots of the new Eilmorel in-game soon.

Abilities:

Generally speaking, the Critical Hit formula has been re-written. Critical Hits will now deal 50% more damage or healing with spells, while physical attacks and all abilities scaling off Strength will deal 100% more damage.

• ()Rebirth OD: the Mystic will rise again once incapacitated (The User; no cost). Under this Status the Mystic will be automatically revived at 53% HP upon receiving fatal damage. The Status naturally wears off after 5 Turns, or when leaving combat. Removed. Not only was it bugged, but it did not make much sense as an Overdrive ability. Being revived upon receiving lethal damage would have been useful only under certain circumstances, while a general cool-down refresh for all allies (works like a multiple-target Meditation) was much more desirable at all levels. (See below).
• () Time Relapse OD (New!) Immediately refreshes all Cool-downs. Also increases Haste (+7%) (All Allies). Haste is increased for the whole duration of the fight, and the effect does not fade after a set number of turns.
• () Quietude (I, II, III) (Updated!) Heals all allies for 3.51/4.39/5.61 * 24/23/23% Mana. It benefits both from Vitality and Quietude (Status). The amount healed at L. 50 (with 4,000 MP) is: 3,368/4,042/4,940 HP. This ability has 5/5/6 Turns CD. It will still remove all of the Mystic’s buffs from the targets, including Vitality. Quietude (Status) will be applied by all of the Mystic’s healing spells (namely Rejuvenate, Renewal and Arcane Remedy, regardless of their current Rank). Quietude (Status) has now a 5-Turn duration (up from 3).
  • The reason why I wanted Quietude (I, II III) to benefit from Vitality as well as from its own buff (), is that I didn’t want players to be forced to cast any other healing spell to increase Quietude’s healing output. Besides, Vitality can only be applied on the targets upon casting Rejuvenate, Renewal and Arcane Remedy. With 2 stacks of Vitality and 3 stacks of Quietude (Status), Quietude (I, II, III) can virtually heal all allies for 6,321/7,586/9,271 HP (if not critical) but that’s not so easy to achieve, especially because the two buffs (/) have different durations. By giving Mystics one multiple-target healing spell, I aimed at making them able to heal the Party by themselves, and not as off-healers: if the healing output of Quietude (I, II, III) was too low compared to other healing classes, players wouldn’t see the benefit of building Mystics as healers. On the other hand, Quietude (I, II, III) should not depend too heavily on Vitality and Quietude (Status).
• () Arcane Remedy (I) is now learnt at L. 22. It can be considered one of the most powerful healing spells for this class, and it seemed unfair to other healing classes that Mystics would learn it sooner than L. 22. Behoma (I) and Daylight (I) are also learnt at L. 22. (Lesser Behomarā and Luminance are both learnt at L. 13, while  Quietude is learnt at L. 16. However, I consider Quietude to be more powerful, at least early game, compared to Lesser Behomarā and Luminance).
• () Furthermore, the healing over-time provided by the Mystic’s healing spells is not a percentage of maximum HP any more: it is now a flat amount, that scales with level. All descriptions have been updated. Rejuvenate (I, II, III) will heal another 419/504/616*3 (1,257/1,512/1,848) HP over time; Renewal (I, II, III) will heal another 839/1,007/1,231*3 (2,517/3,021/3,693) HP over time; Arcane Remedy (No Ranks) will heal another 1,478*3 (4,434) HP over time; Quietude (I, II, III) will heal another 447/536/655*3 (1,341/1,608/1,965) HP over time. Since these are flat amounts, they do not depend on the unit’s Mana pool. If players built Mystics to be damage dealers, increasing their Strength and equipping them with the appropriate gear, Mystics will still be able to rely on the healing over-time provided by these healing spells under Restoration Stance, even if the direct healing (scaling off Intellect) would be very low.
  • Obviously, if players wanted Mystics to be healers, they should choose to massively increase their Intellect and Spirit: in this way, the direct healing of all these spells would increase. Regardless of the players’ choices, Restoration Stance will increase the unit’s Mana pool by 15%: if the unit has, say, 4,000 MP at L. 50, under this Stance () the Mystic would reach 4,600 MP, and all direct healing done would also increase by 15%.
  • All spells applying healing-over-time effects will cancel all damage-over-time taken for all their duration. This feature, however, does not seem to work as I was hoping. Sometimes the healing-over-time stops after one turn, especially when overriding a damage-over-time debuff.
• () Lesser and Greater Behomarā (I, II, III) (Updated!) now heal the Priest as well, but not like they used to. The amount healed scales off Spirit and has no additional Mana cost (the amount healed depends on the spell’s Rank: 514/616/752 and 616/740/904). While Lesser Behomarā (I, II, III) does not apply Endurance on its targets, and has no effect on the Priest, both self-heals will have a chance to apply Endurance on the Priest. These self-heals can deal a critical hit. At L. 50, with roughly 500 SPI, these spells would heal the Priest for 2,570/3,080/3,760 HP (), and for 3,080/3,700/4,520 HP ().
• () Hoimi (I, II, III) (Updated!) will have a chance to apply Mending (I, II, III). //Mending (Status) (Updated!) does not heal for a percentage of maximum HP any more. Just like the Mystic’s buffs, it now heals for a flat amount (over 2/3 Turns), depending on the spell’s Rank. Mending (I): 629*2 Turns; Mending (II): 756*2 Turns; Mending (III): 924*3 Turns.
• () Prayer (I, II, III), Inner Light (I, II, III), Daylight (I, II, III), Luminance (I, II, III) and Sunshine (I, II, III) (Updated!) have now an increased critical hit chance (between 8 and 12%, depending on their current Rank). The icons for these abilities have also been updated.
• () Inner Light (I, II, III) (Updated!) has been substantially redesigned: it now heals the Acolyte as well as the target (can be self-cast): the amount healed has no additional Mana cost and it scales off Spirit (754/904/1,106), resulting in 3,770/4,520/5,530 HP healed (if SPI=500). This self-heal can deal a critical hit, but it has no greater chance than the Acolyte’s own Critical Chance. Even when healing themselves, Acolytes can apply Holy Aegis.
• ()Glowing Star (Updated!): reduces Cool-downs over time while gaining 18% of the unit’s Mana pool and increasing Spirit by 30% (it lasts for 4 Turns). Because of the cool-down reduction over time, the cool-down for this ability is now 18 Turns (up from 12). Here’s why: if given 3 points of cool-down reduction through equipment, Glowing Star will decrease its own cool-down by 4+(3*4=12) Turns=16, so a 16-Turn CD reduction overall before it wears off. It really has only a 2-Turn cool-down instead. The idea was to give Traben, and Trabel only, a way to cast continuously while keeping his Mana pool almost unchanged. With 4,000 MP, 18% means 720 MP restored at the end of every turn, in addition to the Mana regenerated by Spirit, which should be around 325 MP, if SPI=500(+30%)=650: that would be roughly 1,045 MP regenerated at the end of every turn (for 4 Turns). With the only exception of Sunshine (I, II, III), no ability will cost more than 1,045 MP at its maximum Rank: it means that Traben will be able to cast everything for almost no Mana expenditure. Any Status affecting Mana regeneration will stack with Glowing Star.
• () Mana Profusion OD has been changed to: Mana Overflow OD (Updated!). The amount of Mana restored scales off 304% Spirit (up from 204%).
• All buffs (e.g. Piora, Piorim’) will cost a percentage of current Mana, instead of a percentage of total Mana, to be less expensive, especially for Acolytes. Also, different buffs (and debuffs) involving Strength, Defense, Spirit and Haste cannot stack together. The last to be applied will be the only one present on the target. The same buff, on the other hand, can usually stack twice.
• Mana Well (II) (Updated!) now affects all allies, instead of just one target, just like Mana Well (III). Mana Well (I) will still affect one target. I wanted Mana Well (II) to be more attractive to players, even before its maximum Rank.
• General Physical and Magic Resistance have been added to the game, even if they can only be increased or decreased through equipment. All magic damage taken now depends on the unit’s general Magic Resistance and the corresponding, specific Elemental Resistance, e.g. Merazoma (I, II, III) will deal Fire damage scaling off the unit’s Intellect, but the damage dealt changes depending on the target’s general Magic Resistance and specific Fire Resistance.
• When affected by Sleep, Paralyse or Stun Status, all units will take 50/100% increased damage from all sources. Also, in order to reduce inequality, bosses are no longer immune to these effects, but they have a very low chance of being successfully put to Sleep, Paralysed or Stunned. In some cases, later on, they just can’t. It’s quite unusual, bosses are usually immune to all crowd-control effects, I’ll see if it works.

Known Bugs:

•  The Party system is bugged. Whenever the leading actor reaches 0 HP, the system tries to replace him/her with the next alive character as soon as leaving combat, but if the next actor happens to be Incapacitated as well, the game freezes. I haven’t been able to fix this bug yet, so I would recommend players to resurrect Incapacitated actors as soon as possible, and to build their Party so that the first actor is alive.
• Zameha (No Ranks) and Kiariku (No Ranks) dispel Sleep and Paralyse/Stun: since I didn’t want enemies to use crowd-control abilities continuously, keeping the Party permanently either sleeping or paralysed/stunned, these abilities will also make the targets immune to these effects (Sleep, Paralyse, Stun) for 3 Turns. However, there is no way to check if the target is affected by these crowd-control effects, meaning that players will be able to cast these spells regardless, not being able to dispel anything in some cases, but always making the targeted allies immune to Sleep, Paralyse and Stun for 3 Turns. I would say this is a glitch more than a bug, but it is still quite annoying.
• All damage-over-time debuffs and all healing-over-time effects will nullify one another, depending on which effect is applied last. That means that all spells applying any healing-over-time effect will dispel those debuffs, replacing DoTs with HoTs and vice-versa.
  • So, for instance, if someone is affected by Poison (Status), and Mystics apply any of their HoTs on the target (///), Poison (Status) will be dispelled immediately, and the healing-over-time will be applied instead. I do not mind this glitch so much, but it does make dispelling a bit useless. The only reason I may not want to fix this, is that it works the other way too. In the example above, Poison (Status), if applied afterwards, will cancel any HoT present on the target.

That’s about it for now! I’ll keep you posted and I hope to release the new Demo soon.

DISCLAIMER: All of the icons published within this post were either drawn or edited by me. It would be best if you PM’ed me before using them, just to be sure that you credit the right people. Thank you.