[Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

If you are stuck in the Dunan Unification Wars; or wish for more details on the gameplay systems, this is the place.
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Pyriel
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Pyriel »

If you're having to do this a lot, save yourself some typing by just doing the 6AE74, size 4 bytes, and poking 07070707 instead.

In the documentation for the mod there's this: "At some point, it’s possible that recruitment data for Yam Koo, Teresa, Taki, Yuzu may get corrupted and they’ll disappear from your castle. I don’t know what causes this and whether it’s specific to the mod or not (this thread supports the theory that it might be related to the original game though: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/19 ... i/62074205). I suspect it might be from using the “Don’t give up” option a lot, so just in case, don’t use the “Don’t give up” option, always reload from your save after dying. If you still encounter this bug, please report it in the suikosource thread."

I've never seen this before. If you guys can confirm that you were using "Don't Give Up" often, it may provide a starting point. For me only if the bug is in the base game, that is. If it's a problem with the mod, psychedelist would have to fix it. Going by the GameFAQs thread, it's probably the base game, though. You had
Yam Koo - 0x64
Teresa - 0xE4
Yuzu - 0x14
Taki - 0x00
The person on GameFAQs also had Yuzu disappear, and we know their Taki was 0 as well. Not exactly bulletproof, but a fair few coincidences if the causes are different.
Rizen
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Rizen »

DenisFps wrote: Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:39 pm Hi everyone guys, i started playing this mod and i got to the fight with luca blight but i am stuck here i tried with the tips on the forum but i can not get it xD is there any specific guide or a youtube video to check, plz help me i really want to finish this game mod.
PS i dont know if it is a bug but when i use Silent lake to prevent luca from using magic nothing happens he can still use magic but i can not

check out my YT, ive put all the bosses on it. well... im at the last boss now... thatll be on soon....when its done... -.-
Rizen
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Rizen »

https://youtu.be/IeexH4UCyZo link to the last boss being done. its a little bit buggy. but here it is done at last.
perdido
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by perdido »

You don't know how delightful it was to find this mod. Been looking forwards to replaying Suikoden 2 for the longest time, but the lack of an accessible hard mod has been a problem - the infamous older hardcore mod seemed so off the deep end that I didn't get around to trying it.

From your documentation it becomes quite clear that your approach is much more rational, justified and interesting. I'm such a big fan of your justification principle and thoroughly enjoyed reading through your explanations for everything, it's all good stuff and conveyed convincingly.

But the main thing I wanted to comment on - how I'm glad to find out that the inevitable nerf/balance hammer doesn't seem to have completely neutered the "flavor" that some of the more epic characters had in this game. What I most enjoyed in Suikoden 1&2 was the feeling of a grand, epic narrative, and characters like Pesmerga and especially Georg kind of embodied that idea of how big the world out there actually is and its wars and conflicts that reach far beyond what we see in the game. Those were the characters that always stuck with me as archetypal examples of these almost mythical figures taking a little detour from their epic quests to join up with the player for a while.
So I dreaded how they would inevitably be dethroned from that "status" in service of balance... But I found that your system, though certainly redesigned with balance and freedom to choose from a larger pool of viable characters in mind, still actually has enough flexibility to allow for those characters to feel special and powerful. Georg "Prime" for example seems to have the most rock-solid combination of melee stats in the game, which is how I always envisioned the character, being known as the best swordsman in the canon. I secretly wish his tech would be a 7 as well for that reason, forming perfect 7's in melee stats, haha. (I'm talking about the growth rates in your charts) And getting such an epic, renowned warhero so late in the game would be such a downer if he didn't actually excel at something. Pesmerga is probably a bit of a downer, seeing as he's strong, sure, but the defense stats don't even seem that superb compared to others. Also taking into account the blurp that said defense gets a bit weaker in late game anyways.

Anyways sorry for the random fanboy ramble, let's just say that I truly appreciate what you've done here and can't wait to get around to playing this. Just need to beat Suikoden 1 first, and find a good hard mod for that as well...



edit: 20 hours into the mod and having a BLAST. What a triumph of a mod, feels very meticulously crafted, awesome challenge that forces you to explore your options. This is only my 2nd time playing the game, yet it's clear how much of an overhaul this is, the vanilla was extremely boring in terms of difficulty.

Some thoughts/questions: what's the point of low MAG but high affinity characters, like kinnison or tsai with earth affinity? The earth spells seem like flat % buffs, so unaffected by affinity - and the low MAG just means I have less MP to work with. Any reason to choose them for earth rune over a higher MAG character to have more MP?

I love how every character seems viable and matches their traits/lore info. Only Oulan stands out to me as oddly non-preferable in some key aspects like being in fact weaker in STR than about half of my roster(rikimaru, shiro, viktor, bolgan, amada, even hanna). I always got the impression that she was supposed to be like the resident powerhouse character, or the premier female heavyhitter? I guess she has a bunch of HP, but even in that she's outclassed by many of the beefy guy fighters. Her rune deals decent damage once, compared to let's say bolgan's rune which is stronger and repeatable. Her tech isn't higher than her peers either, in fact it's quite bad. What gives? Is this a case where there was some obscure op combo in the base game so now it's overcorrected?

Tech is indeed turning out to be the most important stat for fighters, many enemies seem nigh untouchable for clumsier characters. Interested to see how things develop and if there are ways to save low tech fighters from obsolescence. Some runes seem to hit always, some don't... wonder if there's a way to tell which is which?
psychedelist
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by psychedelist »

I'm glad you're enjoying it, thanks for that. Earth affinity only affects Earthquake. The point of having low MAG high affinity characters is variety. So that you have characters who aren't mages, but can still deal high damage with an element that suits their character. Your experience with Oulan is interesting, i think Rizen found her to be one of the best characters for at least half of the game (or maybe she was stronger in the earliest version). Her profile is "bodyguard", so def and mdef are high, the rest isn't as great. Her rune doesn't miss and is spammable when berserked. I did make some runes always hit regardless of tech. According to the docs, that includes Oulan, Zamza, Millie, Shin. Apparently i didn't do it for Valeria and Kasumi, maybe because they have high enough tech anyway, but then no idea why i did it for Shin.
soulreaver
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced

Post by soulreaver »

psychedelist wrote: Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:32 am Weird, works for me. A bunch of changes in the mod was made by placing custom code to the game's header, and then battle modules jumping into it. It was a very dangerous approach, but i tested it extensively and it never failed, so i went with it. Using a command rune is one of the things that jumps to the header, so it's definitely the source of the problem. Can i ask what emulator you're using? Could it happen by any chance that you made a save state in the main menu while using the original game with just the bugfix applied, then loaded the save state to start a new game while using the mod? If that was the case, you do need to load the game properly (without loading savestates made with any different version), but i guess it's unlikely. Or maybe loaded an arbitrary savestate, then did soft reset combination to the main menu.
will def try this. i'm curious if you would share the program you made to edit monsters etc?
Yeah, will link to it a bit later. Wonder if it needs another thread, probably not.

Edit: I went through the whole installation process now. Original game, bugfix patch (latest version), mod patch, BizHawk emulator, loaded the game (no savestates), got to the circus trio, used Fire Breath on 1st and 2nd+ turns, seems fine. I hope this is a savestate or emulator issue and we can get it to work. It would be really sad to have to get rid of all those header changes.

Edit2: Here's the editor, exe in the root folder, also source code. Character and weapon growths only work with the bugfixed game version.
Sorry to bring this up after 2 years but do you have an updated program that can edit item/armor/rune attributes as well?
dissidius
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by dissidius »

First of all congratulations for all the passion you have put in creating this mod.
I'm like 40 hours into it i think (using reset time to 0 code to be able to finish Clive quest)
Playing it on PSVita through Adrenaline as you stated in the documentation, after using eccregen on the disc image it works fine without it of course doesn't boot.
40 Hours into it and just beat the Star Dragon Sword 😂
Your mod is amazing BUT it's very very very hard 😅
In my opinion messing with way too many variables things get a little out of hand, i mean, cmon even Freed Y has better stats growth than the main character??? Every stat other than HP 😁
In my opinion altering only enemies to be 1.5 times stronger would have been much more enjoyable.
This difficult makes the game very rewarding BUT also very very very struggling....
I don't think i will be able to finish it, i mean it just takes sooo much time without no particular reason.
Relying to save states like all the time and having a difficult time to even beat "TargetLady", Viktor missing the target 7/10 that's just too much.
This coming from someone who has beaten Captain Rowd in the original not modded variant, with the mod it was easier due to Mukumuku dealing lotsa damage.
And from someone who has beaten Yiazmat in FF XII.
Cheers and thanks again for the time and passion you did put on the greatest game ever made.
Rizen
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Rizen »

This mod has issues running on bizhawk 2.8 if yours doesnt work please use version 2.3.0
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ninjaluc79
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by ninjaluc79 »

A recurring bug I am experiencing with the mod so far is the game getting messed up after using Kindness Drops.

I thought of trying something different every time, but then I got stuck after beating the first Amada duel during the Shu recruitment arc. No matter what I do, I get stuck on a black screen after winning or losing the duel.

So, I have been using your mod as base for my own as an experiment, so I have a few questions:

* Is there any way for Clay Guardian (and maybe Guardian Earth as well) to be affected by the caster's MAG and Earth affinity? Clay Guardian's flat 30 DEF buff sounds alright early-to-mid-game, but it might seem kinda weak by the late game.
* Am I better off using the bugfix version of the game as base for my own mod?

EDIT: Never mind the Amada duel bug, it's just ePSXe not playing nice, so I played through it with another emulator, PCSX, and it no longer gets stuck in a black screen.
It's not all about knowledge, but it helps.
Ghaleon
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Ghaleon »

This looks very promising... but also incredibly hard, judging from comments on here and from the doc I've read.

I may try it next time I play Suikoden 2. I have a question I couldn't find the answer for in this thread though : will gameshark codes work with this mod ?
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Pyriel
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Pyriel »

Anything that affects game data will work (codes beginning with 8006xxxx/3006xxxx etc.). Anything that affects temporary storage will continue to be hit or miss and probably mostly miss, just like always (8002xxxx/3002xxxx). Anything else is probably modifying game code or area modules, and most of that will also work, but that is where this mod makes most of its changes. Conflicts will occur occasionally. Especially with anything that overwrites code.

To my knowledge, psychedelist didn't resize any files. As a general rule, everything should be in the same locations except engine code and maybe in some cases a bit of game scripting.
Ghaleon
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Ghaleon »

Thanks for your answers !

I mostly want to use codes to raise stats here and there of my favourite characters (as I can see all of them are balanced now), and to make me invincible in case I'm REALLY stuck and would have to grind, as the game seems very hard now and I don't have much time to play.
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by ninjaluc79 »

Still using this mod as base for my own Normal Mode Rebalanced Mod, I have encountered a bug that I believe is caused by the Highland swordsman from the Highlands+Commander enemy group at Muse during the peace negotiations after defeating Luca Blight. The game locks up as soon as the swordsman begins his attack animation on ePSXe, and as soon as he lands a hit on a party member on PCSX.

I am not sure if this is a side-effect of all the tinkering I did to rebalance the mod to my specifications, but maybe I should use the base game with the bugfix patch as my base for my own.

Anyways, are all the battle commands and formulae on the executable? Or are they also on the disc files? How about the modifiers for the beasts? I see that the large beasts' DEF modifier has been changed to 3x instead of 1.5x from the original, resulting in DEF values too high for my liking, especially since the enemy attack values later in the game have become bonkers.
It's not all about knowledge, but it helps.
azrhael
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by azrhael »

i dont see any other mods besides this one & the hardcore mod. would there be any other mods that would be release any time soon.
Rizen
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Re: [Mods] Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Rizen »

sorry i should be checking this more, Psychedelist is not able to respond as much as he once was, as he has been displaced by the war.

1. please remember to use the correct emulator. EmuHawk 2.3.0. (psychedelist told me once, he did all his testing on this emulator, as it was able to read modified rom files, other emulators didnt have the capacity to and may therefore develope bugs.) link https://tasvideos.org/Bizhawk/PreviousReleaseHistory

2. The use of Clay Guardian is fine, and it needed throughout the gameplay.

3. i dont agree with using codes to raise stats on this play, would kinda make the play pointless. its already do able ive done it twice.

if i dont answer after so many weeks and u need help, find me on my Twitch. RizenGT.
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