[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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JonJon
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by JonJon »

First of all, thank you for this mod. I'd probably change a thing here and there to make more likeable for me, but still, awesome job! Enjoying it a lot so far but the real reason I logged in here is to ask something I cant remember correctly. In your enemies document, the Harpy boss have 2 encounters, the second one giving us a Fury rune, and possibly the only one in this mod. You do state that you cant actually fight her but either way, i really dont remember when or where that second encounter happens. Can you enlighten me here? Really dont want to miss that Rune. Thanks in advance.
psychedelist
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by psychedelist »

Player was probably supposed to fight the stronger version of Harpy if they leave the Mt.Rakutei quest for late game, after Rockaxe liberation, meaning you can't even get the good ending at that point (Futch and Humph were not recruited). You do in fact encounter stronger regular enemies if you enter the mountain that late in the game. Alas, it's not the case with the "stronger Harpy", the game simply loads the normal one, and i was unable to change it. So you have to ignore that "stronger Harpy/Fury" thing. Although it was the idea that the "stronger version" would drop Fury, you can't actually fight her anyway, she exists only as internal data and is unused.

Speaking of leaving things for late, don't leave getting Gantetsu for late (post-Tinto). Based on a report from someone playing the mod, i suspect Gantetsu might get bugged and unrecruitable post-Tinto, it's almost certainly a mod bug, but i don't know when i'll be able to fix it.
JonJon
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by JonJon »

Okay, took me some time to finally beat the Worm, despite having to use Save State a little bit. That was also the first time I used a 2 slot beast to beat a boss, that monster being Feather! Insanely huge prot with a exceptional high ATK helped me finally getting throught it. Id probably tone down that mon HP a little bit as it was nearly impossible to beat it without Save State. Also ended up using all Lightning spells from Luc, which was more than 20 iirc! Now lets its time to get angry with Luca fight. Only boss fight so far I had no problem was Pest Rat, which I beat it on my first try, thanks to Shiro with Warrior rune attached and the glass cannon Luc. That guy still my fav mage, even after some huge nerfs.
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ninjaluc79
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by ninjaluc79 »

I have been making my own "Rebalanced" mod inspired by this mod (although a bit closer to the original, an endgame level of 90 instead of 99 or 60, and none of my preferred changes yet aside from player and enemy stats), but I could not seem to update my bestiary stats after doing it the first time. Mr. Venus in the Sindar Ruins (was lv16, is now lv24 and 410hp) stays the same no matter what I do, I am worried my next updates will not update properly in my current playthroughs. So just to make sure, any updates to the ISO through the editor will only take effect by playing a new game, right?

EDIT: Also, where can I find the magic and protect/berserk data?
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JonJon
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by JonJon »

Anyone have a team or build to help me with Luca? Managed to beat him with Flik team and, believe me or not, 3 of these members were the squirrels. But after that I always lose with Viktor and I try to go with Feather + revenge earth strategy on riou team but always fail.
JonJon
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by JonJon »

Not sure if it was intentional but if you have a char with level 60 you can equip 2 Fortune runes and battle the zombies in Tinto to overlevel then to 95-96.
psychedelist
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by psychedelist »

ninjaluc79 wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:45 am I have been making my own "Rebalanced" mod inspired by this mod (although a bit closer to the original, an endgame level of 90 instead of 99 or 60, and none of my preferred changes yet aside from player and enemy stats), but I could not seem to update my bestiary stats after doing it the first time. Mr. Venus in the Sindar Ruins (was lv16, is now lv24 and 410hp) stays the same no matter what I do, I am worried my next updates will not update properly in my current playthroughs. So just to make sure, any updates to the ISO through the editor will only take effect by playing a new game, right?

EDIT: Also, where can I find the magic and protect/berserk data?
Only character-related data such as growth rates are tied to the game save, so i'm not sure what's wrong with the monsters data in your case. After making changes, are you loading the game from a save file rather than loading a savestate? Magic is in MAGI.BIN, each spell is 64 bytes, 61th and 62th are 2-byte spell power value. Protect such as what? The only thing relatively easy to modify would be armor protection. Most of defense and offense related calculations (including berserk) are hardcoded so they are hard to change.
JonJon wrote: Anyone have a team or build to help me with Luca? Managed to beat him with Flik team and, believe me or not, 3 of these members were the squirrels. But after that I always lose with Viktor and I try to go with Feather + revenge earth strategy on riou team but always fail.
All i remember is first two teams being glass cannons with sacrificial jizos, doing physical and magical unites. Viktor can't do unites in his team and sucks at hitting Luca due to low tech, so i probably put him to back row and had him toss berserk food at others or something. The last team was based around Feather in center, and anti-target on sides (front row). Feather himself can also do normal attacks when under Boost, but better have some ways of clearing that status. Should be possible to win without Feather (Humph or Miklotov in Defend-only) but really hard.
JonJon wrote: Not sure if it was intentional but if you have a char with level 60 you can equip 2 Fortune runes and battle the zombies in Tinto to overlevel then to 95-96.
Nice catch, not intended. Didn't know 2 Fortune would stack their effect.
JonJon
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by JonJon »

wrote: All i remember is first two teams being glass cannons with sacrificial jizos, doing physical and magical unites. Viktor can't do unites in his team and sucks at hitting Luca due to low tech, so i probably put him to back row and had him toss berserk food at others or something. The last team was based around Feather in center, and anti-target on sides (front row). Feather himself can also do normal attacks when under Boost, but better have some ways of clearing that status. Should be possible to win without Feather (Humph or Miklotov in Defend-only) but really hard.
Managed to do it with full jizos team, including the hero one. After that im relying a little on Save States. Id tone down bosses HP a little bit to make it more "balanced", since now it became unfair to the player at some points imo, but im playing on my phone and i cant edit, also even with save states the sensation of reward is still there so yay lol
wrote: Nice catch, not intended. Didn't know 2 Fortune would stack their effect.
About stacking, does clay guardian stack too? Example, using it twice one same char or using it after mother earth.
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ninjaluc79
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by ninjaluc79 »

psychedelist wrote: Sun Jan 03, 2021 6:44 pm Only character-related data such as growth rates are tied to the game save, so i'm not sure what's wrong with the monsters data in your case. After making changes, are you loading the game from a save file rather than loading a savestate? Magic is in MAGI.BIN, each spell is 64 bytes, 61th and 62th are 2-byte spell power value. Protect such as what? The only thing relatively easy to modify would be armor protection. Most of defense and offense related calculations (including berserk) are hardcoded so they are hard to change.
I am loading my game from save files so almost every monster data update just fine, except for Mr. Venus in the Sindar Ruins. What I meant by "protect data" who protects who (e.g. Nanami takes damage for Riou if he is at low health) and by "berserk data" who gets Berserk when certain characters die (e.g. Nanami gets Berserk when Riou dies). After a while of playtesting my own mod up to the "Saving Private Teresa" Greenhill mission, I kinda realize now why you didn't like how enemies just deal 1-3 damage with enough DEF in the original. Also realized that lower level magic in the original is too underpowered while the higher level magic is too overpowered.

My idea of buffing enemies so far is just a very simple "multiply everything by 1.5" but then that makes lower TECH physical attackers useless because they couldn't hit anything and they get countered a lot, at least until Rockaxe where we can access Thunder Amulets and Master Garbs. I have seen this less often in my mod than in yours but I still find it annoying when someone like Viktor and nerfed Riou (currently at "03" TECH in my mod) gets screwed by RNG so often by failing to hit. LUCK seems to mitigate misses as it also increases crit rate, allowing someone like Bolgan (currently at "02" TECH and "08" LUCK) to crit more often and get countered less often as a result, especially once he gets more levels.

Maybe I'll make a different thread for reporting my progress on my own rebalanced mod inspired by this one, except it's more of a "normal mode" than a "hard mode" rebalanced mod that still tries to keep things as lore-accurate as possible and as close to the original as possible. For now though, at which point of the game do you recommend giving players access to DB/DS/Fury and the higher tier elemental runes especially Mother Earth and Rage? Do you recommend giving the lone Rage and Mother Earth copies to Lucia (2nd fight) and Gorudo respectively? Or are they already provided to the player for free in the original without having to farm them (Rage from the CopperSun in Muse Area #3) and I have just forgotten about it?
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Rein
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Rein »

You get Rage from the Runemistress/teacher at Greenhill Academy after liberation.
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ninjaluc79
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by ninjaluc79 »

Rein wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:22 am You get Rage from the Runemistress/teacher at Greenhill Academy after liberation.
How about Mother Earth? I saw it as a Rare Drop from Lucia's 2nd boss fight but I am not sure if a copy of it was also given for free like the other higher tier elemental runes.
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Rein
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by Rein »

Gustav gives it after Tinto arc.
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ninjaluc79
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by ninjaluc79 »

Okay, just to recap:

Cyclone from S1 Sarah in Gregminster, Rage from Runemistress in Greenhill after liberation, Thunder from a chest in Rockaxe after liberation, Mother Earth from Tinto, and Flowing from the shopkeeper in Muse after Liberation. Is this all correct?

In that case, is it okay for a "Normal Mode" rebalanced mod to make more copies of these higher tier elemental runes farmable, or is it still better to keep them at one copy each outside of Guardian Deity?
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JonJon
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by JonJon »

ninjaluc79 wrote: Tue Jan 05, 2021 4:47 pm Okay, just to recap:

Cyclone from S1 Sarah in Gregminster, Rage from Runemistress in Greenhill after liberation, Thunder from a chest in Rockaxe after liberation, Mother Earth from Tinto, and Flowing from the shopkeeper in Muse after Liberation. Is this all correct?

In that case, is it okay for a "Normal Mode" rebalanced mod to make more copies of these higher tier elemental runes farmable, or is it still better to keep them at one copy each outside of Guardian Deity?
One copy each and some attached to chars, like Luc with Cyclone instead of Wind.
JonJon
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Re: Suikoden II - Rebalanced [hard mod]

Post by JonJon »

Btw, was Jowy supposed to be at 20 HP and no MP when fighting Gorudo? Cause first time i battled him Jowy came with full HP and MP, then i put solitude rune on Riou and now everytime i face him jowy starts this way. I managed to beat him but it still, seems like a bug to me.
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