Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[aweigh]

i never had much trouble w/ the angels because i always made sure to first speed up my party, speed them down, then have my thief remove their equipment. without their silver rapiers and their armor the angels are harmless. Sure, this isn't a 100% strategy but it's a very good one, since they have like 4k HP and take forever to beat down. if your thief is high-level and has high AGI (the speed spell has no bearing on the success of stealing, unfortunately, only affects Turn Order); those angels always got mugged super easy.

once the angels are nekkid spam Robuti on them 2 or 3 times, if you have it lay some Level Drain on them too, and 1 or 2 castings of ORATH for good measure, and they go down like fluff.

the dragons... well, they're tough, but the most annoying thing they do really is slaying your summons/ninja-clones. They don't have Group Attack which means they won't necessarily kill their target every time, althought hey do have Multiple Actions Per Turn.

however multiple actions = they tend to attack different targets on each action, thus at least there's high probability no one will actually die just be almost dead. i do admit dragon breath spam is ugh, though, if they're with company.

it was really the gazers, belials, the pheonixes and the sammaels who made my blood boil. obv. skillving too but he's just there to toughen up tower noobs. it does get fucking ridiculous in floors 19 and 20... for sure. only times i actually used the bell item which scares away fixed encounters for a while on those floors. i just didn't want to get into a slug fest with 2 ancient dragons + 10 gazers + whatever-the-fuck else.

EDIT: actually by far most annoying Tower enemies are the doppelgangers. such long drawn out fights, plus it gets very tedious real quick watching your doppelganger ninja behead your peeps.

...or shaman-doppelganger barrier you to oblivion because you fucking forgot they could do that and you began the 1st turn by spamming enterook mista like a moron. heh. Shamans are another class that really shine/come into their own in post-game.

EDIT 2: ...or the fucking doppelganger-Samurai "Swallow Kill/Return" half your fucking party! haha

btw, Matador and Exbelion , look here:

Spoiler

http://frd.li/3f88b25c51c41feefc57170ac4a9a157

link to my current ROM of 3ds gothic. obviously decrypted. runs perfect on Citra. have not tested on real hardware.

only bug i haven't bothered to fix is if you open a chest without examining/disarming it first it crashes. otherwise 100% fine.

 

[Exbelion]

Thankfully black dragons always appear alone, and yes Doppelgangers are a pain since no mahamaha and 0 exp.
And thanks for the rom, I cant wait to play the 3ds version and see all new enemies, weapons and everything :D

 

[Matador]

OMG Aweigh. You are the best!

Downloading.

 

[aweigh]

i really recommend using this build of citra (in case, like me, your PC is shit):

- Citra-QT-Mingw-18-04-2017 is a modified branch of the "official" build except with Visual runtime files needed (it'll prompt you for them when you execute it): http://www87.zippyshare.com/v/n0oHquVg/file.html

- link to the gbatemp forum post containing the link in case you don't trust me or whatever: https://gbatemp.net/threads/citra-unofficial-chinese-builds-discussion.431974/page-254

i have tried every single citra build out there and with the latest Bleeding Edge (181 as of this post) this Mingw branch is leaps and bounds way, waaaay faster/better than any other build out there right now.

With Bleeding Edge: Elminage: Gothic (decrypted, jp .3DS rom) runs on my comp at 60% "speed" in graphically intensive dungeons like the ice or wind caves (those who've played it know), and Etrian Odyssey: IV's b1f runs at approx. 75% "speed"...

With Mingw-18-04-2017 build Gothic runs at 100% speed, any dungeon, any situation, and EO IV runs at 85-100% depending on what's going on (battles in any version are obviously 100%).

 

[Haplo]

- Human Thief -> Ninja, Mysterious bag. Dual wielding Kunai and Dawn Sword.
After playing Elminage original I NEED beheadings, it's like cocaine. If you don't hear the sound effect from time to time or watch the Big enemy dissapear I think you are not playing right this game. She is very bad disabling traps, they have nerfed ninjas trap defusal from original, or is my sensation?

Well, Thieves are significantly better at this. That said, it's mostly level and Luck dependant. After multi-classing, your Luck (as well as other stats) went to base value, which is very bad for trap disarming. When you manage to raise it plus gain some levels, Ninja will be perfectly competent at disarming. Of course when in doubt, the Alchemist spells are a huge help. Alchemy disarming supposedly always works. Alchemy identification has a small risk of failure... but personally I don't think I have seen it fail. Plus if you're into Summons, it seems a lot of them are pretty great at trap ID/disarming also. Even when they don't have the Thief skill!?

- Human Priest -> Lord, Stronghold. Flamberge.
Pretty standard, you need healing or you are fucked. He can fight too.

Ah, yes. I consider that a mistake, albeit a very common one. In base game Lord's resistances are very low and nigh useless. In post game his healing and damaging demons/devils falls faaar behind a cleric. Neither a healer, nor a great damage dealer. A Valkyrie is a great DD at least. Lord isn't great at anything. Sure his resistance boost could become usefull, eventually. But then in the post game a Medal of Power could have been used to change class once the bonus means something (still not worth loosing superior healing IMO). You have a Bishop, so it's not bad, I suppose.

 

[aweigh]

Haplo

Everything you say is technically correct but...

dude, I can't count the # of times my level 3000000 ninja got my party wiped (or same-thing-as) while playing thru Ibag's Tower. The trap trigger %'s are sky-high in the Tower (also in previous 2 dungeons too, but in the Tower they're all upwards of 75%); since you can't DIOMANTE out of the Tower and the only escape is hoofing it on foot (good luck, hehe) or using HONEY RESTORER spell (which is limited in its usage) that means that you really have to consider whether or not you want to risk your ninja fumbling a fucking chest and paralyzing the 3 chars in your party who have cleric spells (because of course you didn't bring items!).

basically i want to express: do not under-value the usefulness/necessity of a pure Thief's trap skills. After level 100~ or so a pure Thief is actually a much better option for disarming chests than magic spells because:

- High Portal spell has a ceiling cap of 95% probability of not triggering the trap. this was done intentionally by the designers.
- only a Thief can potentially (after the trap dice rolls and the formula calculations all resolve) get a trap-disarm "result" equivalent to 100%. (i.e. only a Thief can have the potential to never set off a trap, whereas spells will always have that 5% chance).

On top of that (oh, btw, it is the spell for disarming which can fail, as I just explained: spell identification of traps is always true. And, also btw, if a trap is identified via Alchemy magic it gives the character who does a manual "disarm", be it thief or whoever, a bonus to his dice roll when attempting it)--

-- like i mentioned previously regarding my tactic for dealing with those Arch-Angel enemies: thief's ability to unequip enemies of their weapons/armor can render some potentially infurtiatingly difficult encounters down to "reasonably easy/managable" levels, which in context of Tower terms... i think its more useful than the Ninja's beheading since high level enemies all have like 75% beheading resistance (or more).

(obv. that doesn't mean shit if the enemy is non-Humanoid and has no gear to remove, but still, another point in favor of the thief, as regardless of gear or not like i said the behead resistances skyrocket inside the post-dungeons).

As for the Lord....

well, honestly, during my first few playthroughs i would've called you crazy, especially ocnsidering the Lord's access to elite tier gear like the Holy Sabre (stolen from tower enemy) or that 1 hammer that has dmg-spread highger than the Golden Axe (but is less accurate and its dice-rolls for damage are very lopsided)-- BUT after finally conquering Ibag's Tower i realized that you are right in that the Lord is a "bad" class.

- the Lord is less effective at damage than all of the other dmg-type classes, i.e. Fighters, Valks, Ninjas, Sammies and even Hunters (with post-game top tier bows ofc...) out-DMG a lord every time.

- the Lord doesn't get special armor, unlike the Shaman or the Samurai or the Ninja or even the Valk (female Valks, yes i know valks must be female; valks can get "special" female only armors throughout the game that don't necessarily give lowest AC but have super high bonuses in terms of resistances and shit; one of those armors can be found in Tower, stolen if i remember correctly from the 1st floor valkyrie master enemy).

(so that means Lords end up w/ same AC as a fighter, and will deal less DMG).

- They get cleric spells. Cool.

- They get special resistance UP (useful... somewhat). it will be mostly "useless" throughout the game until the Lord reaches a high enough level (proibably right around the time you unlock volcano/royal tomb/sanctum dungeons); and then finally you'll begin seeing benefit of Lord shrugging off ailments.

- And finally the one thing that makes a case for having the lord in the party (and it's a doozy): their Sama ability Court Sanctuary spreads their Spec. Resist. UP ability to the entire party with a slight cut for the others int he value. Once that Lord is level 100+ that means EEEEEEEEEEVERYBODY will have 50% (and counting as the Lord continues levelling) versus ALL AILMENTS (including beheading).

...that is INSANELY good. However: that is also not really all that great. If you bother to take the time to grind some Ores in soldier of gods dungeon and are smart in how you distribute the enchantments for everybody you can make sure everybody has a good amount of resistance % versus the shit that matters: beheading and petrification and... CHARM. Motherfucking CHARM.

draining is whatever as if it happens I always immediately reload the game (3 levels?? fuck that), so just make sure to spam psi drain 1st turn and if someone gets drained hit reset button.

sleep/poison/confusion/silence/paralyze are not necesary to devote Ore points to resist. All of those wear off via the affected char's Recovery Rate percentage (so it's not a bad idea to have 1 or 2 chars with 50% or more Recov. Rate. via enchantments).

Beheading/Petrify/Charm are the only 3 that are party-wipers. So if you grind Ores and have ahigh level Alchemist that will squeeze out more points out of them via Synthesis skill and enchant everybody's shit smartly, then you no longer need to have the Lord's Court Sanctuary, which means:

- dump that Lord and instead get a better DMG dealer, like say, a level 100 Fighter using the Golden Axe dealing 3k damage per attack or dual-wielding Lavelus and that dragon sword one.

(it's what I ended up doing when I finally realized I needed to deal more dmg and the only char who wasn't pulling their weight was my Lord, so I dumped him and made a Fighter and pumped 2.2 million GP into him when creating him to level him up, then got him a golden axe and that was that).

EDIT: another "realization" I came to thanks to the experience of clearing the Tower was that having a high level pure Cleric is very very very useful. They can contribute with some good dmg thanks to them having access to elite-tier Hammers/maces/clubs, they can have good AC thanks to being able to equip heavy armours, but the main thing is: inside the tower it's very important that your resurrection spells don't fail, as having someone turn to Ash means you need to cast MIRACLE to revive them, OR go back to town which is very bad if you're about to make progress.

secondly the high level pure Cleric if equipped with enchanted Dark Seal +4, or better yet a Rainbow Charm, (or a Death Staff, cursed item, comes with insanely high Dark element attack %), will absolutely wreck enemies like Stargazers who are weak to instant-death spells.

And it goes without saying the pure Cleric can spam IMMOLARATI and then have a buddy use MIRACLE to wish back the cleric's MP for super-cheap OP "boss-breaking" strategy. The Immolarati/Miracle combo spam is like, the most OP thing ever in any elminage.

(because only Clerics deal full dmg via Immolarati, btw. Bishops/lords/valks deal 50% less dmg using Immolarati, and the lord/valk deal 25% only, so it's useless for those classes to use it; only the Cleric can bring the pain w/ it).

 

[aweigh]

you know, with all the changes they made to item stats in the 3DS version it's a damn shame they didn't fucking fix the abysmal state of WHIPS.

Whips are the weapon your back-row chars should in theory be using but in E: Gothic for whatever reason all the fucking whips are super innacurate and deal shit DMG. You'd think, then, their purpose is to inflict ailments but nope even the ones with an ailment for a name like charm whips or silencer whip (sealing whip i think it's named) have a low % of triggering: fuck the freaking sealing whip, which is a Top Tier Level whip (!), the chance to silence the enemy is less than 25%. ugh.

it wouldn't be that bad if they all didn't come with massive ACC penalties, but then since they DO come with massive ACC penalties that means it's DOUBLE USELESS to have your back-row chars use them because back-row chars are usually caster-types, and caster-types don't fucking gain extra attacks / to-Hit bonuses as they level !

that means even if you enchant that charm whip all the way up to 9000 thhousand charm % get ready for this to happen:

- Johnny-the-Bishop attacks Sammael with Charm Whip !!!
- Johnny missed!!!!!!!!
- SAMMAEL TRIGGERS SWALLOW KILLER (a LOL is suddenly heard all the way from starfish devs office)
- Johnny-the-Bishop just got beheaded!

repeat ad nauseum.

EDIT: y'know what my Alchemist and Bishop were rocking for my final Tower runs?

they were DUAL WIELDING SHIELDS BABEH!! hell yeah. Dual-wielding each 1 small shield i think it is, the only one they can fucking equip, and the 2nd shield for both chars was the cursed shield (only other shield that they can equip), so it required uncursing.

had to use some 40+ point Ores on those 4 shields but the result was worth it. FINALLY those two chars had "LO" AC :D

 

[Haplo]

aweigh,

I think that value of 50% party-wide Status Resist from the Lord at level 100 isn't accurate? I though it was FAR less. Like half that? Of course it does increase with level.

Regarding trap disarming, my Ninja does pretty well since I've maxed her Luck. Not perfect, mind you, but better then I expected. And MUCH better then immediately after her recruitment (I was worried then). And yeah, I mean at the Tower. Actually I'm not convinced at all that the traps at the Tower are tougher then elsewhere. Her success rate seems to only increase with level and progress, never drop.
And sure, many enemies at the Tower boast high Behead resistance... but some pesky enemies do not. I believe Stargazers, Death Scythe, Tomoku and most dragons (except the damn Black) come to mind. Also Terrors, Nago, Wargod, Sentinels, Arch Demons and Demon Lords, plus humanoids.

 

[aweigh]

have you finished the tower yet? i ask because it's not the majority of enemies one needs to worry about, it's specific ones. and the ones that are problematic all have good resistances (and in 99% of the cases always 1 specific resistance that is much, much lower than the others, hinting towards what the player should do to dispatch them; such as skillving's 30% weakness to confusion and stargazers low resistance to instant-death and petrification, etc, etc).

as far as tower chests being "deadlier", oh they are, indisputably it's in the game files, but i agree with you that it, in reality, it's all quite random. the way the game resolves most of its formulas can be somewhat wonky as forexample:

- a char w/ 80% resist to beheading (like say, a char you just equipped with Pinpoint shield which is a tower drop shield w/ 80% resist to behead) -- you'd think he'd almost never get beheaded right? 80 percent is a LOT. but in reality it pretty much doesn't almost even matter: 80 percent or 40 percent the beheadings come when they come and there's no real way of saying "Ok, NOW I am safe!".

(of course obviously 100% = 100% and that is literal)

or take for example the aforementioned ninja trap disarming: they get a smaller bonus on the dice roll to disarm traps (thief skills +1, which is what thief class has, receive a +10 on the d100 roll involved if i remember correctly, and thief skills, what ninja/hunters/bards have, receive no bonus, and lastly those WITHOUT thief skills have a NEGATIVE correction on the results of the roll)

those formulas are in the jap wiki, btw, it's all a bunch of shit anyway as it boilds down to:

-luck attribute value + character's Level + character's ability percentage if applicable VERSUS
-chest's "trap level", which is very real thing and each dungeon's chests go up in "trap level"
-and believe it or not the dungeon floor's floor number serves as a modifer bonus (to make it so that X-Dungeon has chests with a 50% equivalent dice roll in floor 1, and in floor 2 of X-dungeon the chests have 51%)

like i say though it's not really important at all, as the point is the ninja/hunter/bard will always have a higher chance to trigger the trap, that's all. it may be just me but as a player i always found, especially after so many hours inside the Tower, that i would get "wiped" (wiped completely or enough chars dead so as to make it impossible to continue, or worse impossible to continue OR make it back on foot) than i ever got wiped from encounters.

an encounter you can control (obviously) as, i mean, it's a fucking fight. the chests are way more annoying.

PS: also another thing regarding using beheading versus tower enemies; remember that your party members need to land an atk on the enemy in order to trigger a beheading, obviously, and this means their attack can trigger the enemy's skills like, say, Sammael (and many others) Swallow Return, which will not only nullify the atk you just did (never even getting the benefit of landing it even) but then immediately make your party member receive the enemy's attack which, as with Sammael, almost definitely end up beheading the party member.

just an example of how tricky shit can get. of course, one way to make sure that won't happen is for the char with the beheading properties (prolly your ninja) to have selected the ex-skill Swallow Killer. SK functions as a normal atk and carries all of the same properties the char's normal atk would entail with the bonus of not triggering the enemy's Swallow Return.

personally i think the real, true best way to properly defend against beheadings is simply to lower the armor class. to get beheaded they need to land the attack, and THEN an attack's "property" needs to resolve versus the armor class a 2nd time (this applies to ALL both player characters AND enemy attacks).

(this is why an enemy with 80% or so beheading like the Tower ninja the one who has the Ninjato Sword for stealing, can land multiple atks and not behead you, and/or land 1 single atk and behead you; the beheading resolves versus the armor class even if the enemy's atk, or your atk on the enemy, lands DMG-- think about it... otherwise that ninja dude would behead eighty percent of the time which is ridiculous).

leaving aside resistances we also have fuckers like Belials and Ancient Dragons who have high resistances to everything, TONS of hit points, high Turn Recovery, VERY LOW armor class, and have fucking BRACE. i don't think i ever in my life, EVER, managed to land a Beheading on a Belial! EVER! it ALWAYS came down to a down and dirty slug fest of whittling belial's AC via debuffs, buffing up my party's hit rate, lowering his speed and then raising my party's speed in order to guarantee my party atks first and then finally ganging up on him with melee attacks, and Neo Zadaar blasts thanks to the spell count reaching double digits due to the buffs/debuffs.

...and that's only versus 1 belial, heh. I think belials have low resistance to sleep or something like that, but it doesn't even matter because comes with very high Recov. Rate so they clear out of the ailment in 1 turn.

heh, everything i'm typing about is not meant to negatively shed light on anything of the game, completely the opposite: all of this i think you'll agree, all of this "discussion" and shit about ways to do what to whom, only speaks to how well designed the game is.

the one thing i'd say maybe they went a tiny bit too far is with giving Group Attack to enemies like Stargazer who have chance to Behead in the mid-range of values, attack multiple times, come in packs often (usually a fucking row of 3 or 4), have very high AGI so they attack before most parties and (THANK GOD) they can't use Lightning Strike (that would be fucking INSANE) they CAN however use Pursuit and their attacks have a chance to poison or sleep or confuse i can't remember; one of those. (if they don't just simply behead).

none of all that even mattering anyway because after one of your dudes gets hit 6 times by a stargazer the only way they'll survive is: 1) Brace, or 2) having a ton of HP, more than 1k definitely.

i am against having to have tons of HP to survive anything, that's "bad" design. Of course, armor class also reduces damage TAKEN, btw, (each attack from a weapon, i.e. the "swings", the "hits") each "hit" from an atk has to resolve versus the character's armor class which acts as a correction modifier to the end result and will (when the attack fails the d100 roll) TAKE AWAY damage done to the character. that's why low AC = attacks deal less dmg to you.

i wanna show you the stats on the tower enemies cos i know you'll find them interesting, lemme upload the .csv files (need to be viewed in excel-type software, i use LIBRA suite), and link them. all sorts of interesting shit like what A.I. routines enemies use (Skillving uses a routine called "Intelligent", heh, which means that Skillving can heal when needs to, heal others, revive others (i.e. smart enough to know when enemy companions of his are killed), smart enough to use DEFEND option when CPU detects that your chosen actions might kill (obviously the game "reads" your commands first and THEN has the enemy choose his/her options)...

...while an enemy like, say, a Slime uses a routine called "Random". literally. LOL. that routine cana ctually become very deadly if the enemy has spells/items, and most of th e game's mage-types have that one, "Random", because imagine if they used enterook mistak every single round, since enemies DO NOT RUN OUT OF MP, it would be very bad design! so they just cast it when the roulette fell on it, for them.

 

[aweigh]

there's even a routine specifically to make the enemy target FEMALE CHARS first! Hellmaster demon enemy for example uses that one. So yes, gender matters in this game even beyond gear selection or class selection. Fucking amazing.

 

[aweigh]

BTW, I translated the majority of these files' columns into english, so they should all be legible. This is not necessary for in-game translation but I did it anyway since someday someone else other than me might want to look at them and thus they'd want them in english.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pd2u7lke0zko676/chrtmplt.csv?dl=0 = file with the complete data values for the game's races

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zu15ia1sz9y3vv/exp.csv?dl=0 = file with the experience table; shows exactly how fast/slow each race gains exp at which levels and via what class

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q131lbe1kc2bhgf/item.csv?dl=0 = the master item file; has all of the data on every item, such as hidden values that don't show in-game like the dices used for each weapon. (cursed weapons tend to have a special correction modifier which TAKES AWAY from their damage dealt! this is something player would normally NEVER learn about).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8zgwlb6cwv3snqz/treasure.csv?dl=0 = treasure file. shows the Trap "Level" percentages for each dungeon's floors, and additionally on the right side is the "loot table" which shows specifically what item is inside what "chest tier" in a given floor. the numbers inside the treasure chest brackets, like say 1 2 1 1 1 2 3, correspond to that item's "data number" from the item file linked above.

1 = Longsword
2 = Uh, wow I forgot. I think it's the Hundred Sword.
3 = Rusty Longsword.

etc. So when you see a number inside the treasure chest "brackets" you reference it with the master item file.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/buetuxyus98wp3i/sp_text.csv?dl=0 = the "SP" file; the numbers here correspond to the SP effect and are referenced by the master item file. Example:

- in the master item file the high king's sword, under the column BA (titled as "SP Effect"), will show the value 74
- if you look in this SP file, scroll down to 74 entry and it'll show (my translated descriptions) about how the HP will rise, etc.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/unvxd567cy6fixp/trap.csv?dl=0 = the master trap file; has the values regarding how each trap "works" and the dice rolls or in dungeons and dragon terms, the DC value that needs to be beaten by the character disarming.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f62448ve2br9w2d/monster3.zip?dl=0 = lastly, a zip file with the 3 enemy files, tons of interesting info here. The first file, Monster1.CSV, should have the entire column which denotes what means what translated into English, btw, otherwise it would be hard to understand. the 2 others i left in japanese.

btw, all of this shit can be edited and the PC version will automatically load the modded files and override the default ones when you place these edited .csv files in the Elminage.exe directory.

EDIT:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8k1gdaixc1e59we/routine.csv?dl=0 = the file with the Routines / AI for enemy behavior. it's complete in english (google-translated, sure, but still.. english).

 

[Dorarnae]

the disarm chest spell is 100% in elminage. the only game I saw where it failed was wizardry empire 2 on pc. all other jp wizardry/clone ect, I've never seen that spell failed and I played each elminage like 6 times.
thief can fail no matter his lvl ect, the spell to disarm is more safe.

 

[Exbelion]

Hey aweigh, since you are good modifying the game's files on the 3DS port, can you make Diomente usable in the tower? That would make navigating the tower like 1000 times easier, or make automapping posible <:3 (or infinite maps could be easier XD)

 

[aweigh]

you know, i did indeed try, very hard! and back when playing thru the Tower on PC! unfortunately i could never get that to work. I tried a ton of shit like:

- I tried replacing the Honey Restorer spell, spreadsheet values AND its scripts (i.e. all of it, same way I made that "new" spell in the 3DS rom) with Diomante so that-- er, let me explain: I tried to make HR spell behave like a Diomante spell. A clone of it, but with a different name. Didn't work. Whatever game scripts are being used for the HR/Dio spells are ones I have not been able to find.

- I tried replacing the (inside the dungeon data files) values/info that seemed relevant (i.e. like the sections that were clearly meant to represent whether X/Y square was a normal tile or something else, etc); but alas i tried replacing the Tower's floors' values with values from other floors/dungeons and but it just made the game crash.

so i gave up on that. As for infinite maps? dude, that mod was made long ago already (for PC ver) by the guy who wrote the hex editing guide in the "american" elminage gothic wiki. If you mean you want inifinite maps for the 3ds rom then all you have to do is go into options and go to the 3rd category (the feedback text scrolling below in the screen will describe everything, btw, in english) and go to the option that says:

"do you want infinite maps?" and move it to the other position. that is one change the 3ds ver. comes with. They also added an option to turn off characters gaining+1 years in age when resurrected or turned to ashes, which is extremely useful.

As for increased EXP, like i said, 3ds rom has option to donate GP but it's easy enough to edit the XP table just let me know. (would require uploading another rom).

as for automapping i don't know what you mean. 3ds ver. they added back in the alchemy item "Angel's Finestral" which makes a mini-map show on-screen (if you have it in inventory). You know what i talk about if you played elminage: Original, which you did. You can just make that and have the minimap.

There's an option in the options menu that allows making the minimap bigger/smaller, if i remember correctly, but i never use minimap, not even on Original, so i never tried it.

They added a compass (a real one, for cardinals) that is not able to be removed aside from hacking the game's textures. I don't think it really serves any useful purpose as in 3ds ver. comes w/ menu option to make maps infinite already so... i don't think this is a game/series which requires the player to know where north is, basically.

BTW, the "Vardian" race (unlocked when you recruit Anastacia, which i explained how-to in that PM convo) is a completely new race and it replaces the Goblin race from Original/Gothic. The Goblin race is usable in PC version of Gothic but it requires editing 1 game file, as it is not normally allowed to be used in default game (only devilish via the well in sanctum dungeon and magic dolls via dat one quest).

Vardian's attributes are beyond OP, more so than Ogres, as they come with natural "8" AC instead of standard 10, which means vardians will always be -2 AC "better" than anyone else, except fairys who come w/ native "5" AC. additionally their stats are basically: take the stats from a Human, i.e.. all 8's/9/s, and then add +2 or +3 to every single stat. And that's vardians.

Ogres are more interesting as a race (also available in pc ver. of Gothic but require editing the races file) as their STR/VIT is insane (15 base for both, max of 25 !!) but their other stats are very low (i.e. ogres will make horrible thieves/casters/etc), and they come with built-in 50% Recovery Rate (for recovering from status ailments in battle) and everyone else comes with 30%.

magic dolls come with very low stats (racial max for every one is like 16-18, which is slightly less than humans, who already have terrible stats), but Dolls come with naturally built-in 50% resistance to mage/cleric/alchemy spell schools. (yes, end-game enemies will use magic essence and probably bypass that shit, but it is still very good).

Dolls in the 3ds version (don't know if in PC ver) also come with natural resistances to some ailments, but i forget which ones. I think it's petrification or paralyze.

One change i would make to 3ds ver. is doubling all enemy HP and raising the amount of turn recovery for everye enmy that has that. I'd leave their AC values as they are as AC affects so much shit (ailments, dmg, etc, etc) that tampering with it is recipe for breaking the balance.

let me know if you want to change something else. BTW, something somewhat related to the Diomante thing you asked about i could do is make Honey Restorer 100% re-appear every time the char levels up (because sometimes it doesn't fucking re-appear even on the next level-up). since inside Tower chars gain levels very very fast it would make for at least knowing you can always just use HR and re-learn it immediately on next level up which will prolly be that very moment at the town inn.

EDIT: hmm, i had an idea. I could try to edit the Bell item (alchemy item) that removes fixed encounters, ytou know theone, right? So, maybe I can edit it to make it so that when you use that item instead of removing the encounters it makes the enemies affected become player controlled. Er, i know sounds like a weird modification but the point would be to allow the player be able to use that Bell item and have complete freedom of mobility through that floor of the Tower; i.e. something similar to the freedom of mobility that Diomante would bring.

it will probably work because the item comes with the scripts already for only affecting the floor you're in and only affecting the fixed encounters in that floor AND the script/trigger/flag to make the item STOP DOING ITS EFFECT as soon as you leave the floor. That means then when you move out of that floor the enemies go back to being CPU-controlled.

i'll go ahead and do that and see if it works (it probably will). Ironically enough I have tried finding a way to make summoned monsters you have contracted be Player-Controlled but haven't been able to! since the contracted enemies are the same enemies you fight normally their data is inside the normal game monster files, and i haven't been able to find any field/colum/value/flag/etc whatsoever that would hint at making then player controlled when acting as a summoned entity.

Lastly, another very interesting addition to 3ds version is that they "fixed" the Monster Adventurers. In 3ds version ALL enemies have a specificed and actual race (chosen from the 13 in-game races, human-to-vardian spread) so for example:

- in 3ds version a female zombie will reborn as a monster-adventurer as a Devilish race (possibly! depends entirely on the enemy, Starfish really spread out the races for all enemies), but in general they follow logic; for example a demonic enemy will reborn as devilish 100% and a beastman enemy (like a mermaid or whatever) will 100% guaranteed be born as a Werebeast (probably, depends on the enemy, like i said, some are unique).

in the PC version they ALL defaulted to human if i remember correctly, or am I wrong? even if they did be reborn in PC version as different types of races, fact still remains they went thru all enemies in 3ds version and assigned all of them a "logical" race for rebirth.

This allows for an extra layer of planning for when you are making your dream-team of reborn monster adventurers as you can plan ahead what races you want in the party.

(i mention this, as always, because it's something else that can also be changed if anyone wants to). There is a whole inventory field for every single game monster that is blank which i am 95% sure is the inventory they get when reborn as a Monster Adventurer. in elmi original / 2 / 3 they would sometimes some enemies be reborn with "special" items and/or good shit, whereas in gothic PC version if i remember right they all spawn either w/ Blank inventory, or with like a longsword/leather armor combo).

EDIT 2: oh, 3ds version also already comes with much lower values for the enemy's resistance to summon contracting, btw. so like w/ the maps; there's no need to lower them

 

[aweigh]

one thing i've been doing is assigning each char. class specific skills/ex-skills/abilities in order to make them more "unique", like say:

- right now in my current 3ds rom of gothic i made Fighters come with BRACE built-in, but nobody else can use/pick Brace. ever. Only fighters get brace!
- thieves can use the ninja's "start encounter already hidden" ability. heh. (i love thieves).
- hunters can dual-wield weapons (seems logical! legolasss)
- I modified the valkyrie's Holy Lance Art sama-ability (allows valk to equip 2-handed Spear in MAIN slot, and then equip a sub-type weapon in the SECONDARY slot); i modified the skill to also allow the exact same shit, but instead of spears with 2-handed axes, swords, hammers, maces and clubs.

Then I gave this new modified "Lance Art" skill to Lord, in order to fix the Lord class. Their weak point is Lords don't contribute anything, or rather they don't do what the other elite classes and the fighter can do in battle as well as they can, and the thing they contribute (the Sanctuary skill) is of debatable value...

...so I gave lords the valkyries sama skill but instead of equipping 2-handed spear + sub-weapon, the Lord now uses 2-handed sword/axe/mace/club + a sub-weapon (or a shield).

- lastly, I gave Summoner class access to Phys ATK Power Up sama-ability in order to make them damage-dealers, AND i made summoners able to equip almost the same shit as Fighters can equip. I want to turn them into a sort of Beast-tamer type class instead of what they are currently which is just spamming contract over and over, not doing anything in battle damage-wise AND to top it off no spell castings.

- gave Bards and Shamans the identification ability.

- gave Clerics, Lords, and Samurai ability to enchant weapons (Forging ability).

- gave Hunters access to alchemy spell school but only starting at level 36. heh. They'll get alchemy spells... sure... right after kiling cyclonus, heh.

- made musical instruments "accessories" instead of weapons so they can be equipped in accessory slots and thus save space in the INVENTORY (!). removed their "weapon values" and made them un-breakable so shaman/bard can simply equip 2 music instruments (or 1, whatgever) as accessories and have that shit at the ready for using in battle without having the player worry about the precious inventory space.

- considering making the same change as with the music instruments but with the books. as they are currently 100% useless why not make them accessories as well and have them basically function as the "instrument items" but for bishops/alchemists/mages/clerics ! that way they can always have 2 books equipped like, say, white scriptures book (casts rafalima spell in battle when used) and a 2nd book, like say, Dark Scriptures (casts Ramisama spell in battle when used) in the 2nd accessory slot.

this way they'll have those ready for use in a pinch wihtout having to give up the weapon slots (as the books / music instruments are completely useless as weapons to begin with), and double benefit of not using up inventory space.

finally been thinking of just making the game unwinnable by giving every single game access to miasma wave.

if any of these changes seem like something you want in your playthrough lemme know so i can uploaqd you an ROM with these changes (or whatever other changes you want).

 

[aweigh]

Exbelion

i got one more of the 3ds npcs! only 1 more left. I just recruited "Hu", ogre-race Brawler. to recruit him you have to fight him + random enemy (in my case was a ice dragon) in b2f of the ice cave, after having at least mapped-out the 1st floors of rosalie ruins + the green Light Cave.

here are some pics of him, the other 3ds npcs, and random items they added (they added back in spell-scrolls, like in Elmi: Original):

 

[aweigh]

ONLY 1 MORE LEFT: the brother of Hu, ogre-race Hunter class char named "Fu". pictured above. my goal is to beat the Ibag's Tower for a 2nd (and final!) time using exclusively/only the 6 npcs in the 3ds version.

originally was gonna also NOT change their classes but... you know.

BTW, the 3ds npc companions come with ex-skills that cannot be changed, either when you class change them or if you use the added option in 3ds version to pay money to change your ex-skill.

no idea why they did that. Thankfully REM comes w/ swallow killer, but the others... man. Fucking Wynd (mysterious child in PC version) comes with motherfucking IMITATE.

jesus.

 

[Haplo]

have you finished the tower yet? i ask because it's not the majority of enemies one needs to worry about, it's specific ones. and the ones that are problematic all have good resistances (and in 99% of the cases always 1 specific resistance that is much, much lower than the others, hinting towards what the player should do to dispatch them; such as skillving's 30% weakness to confusion and stargazers low resistance to instant-death and petrification, etc, etc).

I did not finish the Tower. Put the game on the side. Deepest I got was level 18. Things got really intense past level 15 and it mostly became a RNG thing what enemies I roll. If its a group of Gazers, I'm gone. Beliar with buddies (other then Gazers)... perhaps manageable, but do I really want to expend half my offensive spells for 1 fight? Guess I would need to grind a few levels. Fighting enemies 50 levels higher is not healthy. Moar HP is always good, and so would be an AC 16 points lower on my Ninja and Brawler. Maybe the Gazers would actually miss sometime then. Plus my ambition is to catch one of those fuckers sometime and let them taste their own medicine... amplified by Blood Oath. Need level 170+ for that though.
And with higher level, the Attack would also be better - I wouldn't need to lower the enemy AC so much with spells to reliably hit them (dragons, wisps, I guess even Gazers), thus helping with spell conservation.
Didn't feel like grinding, so I put the game away.

PS: also another thing regarding using beheading versus tower enemies; remember that your party members need to land an atk on the enemy in order to trigger a beheading, obviously, and this means their attack can trigger the enemy's skills like, say, Sammael (and many others) Swallow Return, which will not only nullify the atk you just did (never even getting the benefit of landing it even) but then immediately make your party member receive the enemy's attack which, as with Sammael, almost definitely end up beheading the party member.

just an example of how tricky shit can get. of course, one way to make sure that won't happen is for the char with the beheading properties (prolly your ninja) to have selected the ex-skill Swallow Killer. SK functions as a normal atk and carries all of the same properties the char's normal atk would entail with the bonus of not triggering the enemy's Swallow Return.

Yeah, I hate that. Love when Behead triggers on first attack on Death Scythe, but hate when he swallow return beheads my random guys, because he can't locate the Hidden Ninja, but still counter-attacks someone. So I mostly try to kill him with Swallow Killing Valkyrie and spells now. Works all right.

personally i think the real, true best way to properly defend against beheadings is simply to lower the armor class. to get beheaded they need to land the attack, and THEN an attack's "property" needs to resolve versus the armor class a 2nd time (this applies to ALL both player characters AND enemy attacks).

Very true. But I need to level grind to lower the AC on my Brawler plus Ninja. Can't do too much with Alchemy, as I do not have a dedicated post-game Alchemist to boost the ore AP (and boosting AC is the most important function of this class I believe).

leaving aside resistances we also have fuckers like Belials and Ancient Dragons who have high resistances to everything, TONS of hit points, high Turn Recovery, VERY LOW armor class, and have fucking BRACE. i don't think i ever in my life, EVER, managed to land a Beheading on a Belial! EVER! it ALWAYS came down to a down and dirty slug fest of whittling belial's AC via debuffs, buffing up my party's hit rate, lowering his speed and then raising my party's speed in order to guarantee my party atks first and then finally ganging up on him with melee attacks, and Neo Zadaar blasts thanks to the spell count reaching double digits due to the buffs/debuffs.

...and that's only versus 1 belial, heh. I think belials have low resistance to sleep or something like that, but it doesn't even matter because comes with very high Recov. Rate so they clear out of the ailment in 1 turn.

Yeah, they are a royal pain. I mostly nuke them down with Ziakalad (my Don Mag has like +200% all elements, +50% Mark of Destruction plus the Mage class boost, War Rite is possible via Summoner; Nue Samurai only has +200% Thunder, with possible War Rite). Too low AC to bother to effectively lower, too many spells needed. That said, their Magic Resistance sucks, as I don't have Magic Essence. And obviously I can't chain fight them, because I expand too many resources on such a fight.

the one thing i'd say maybe they went a tiny bit too far is with giving Group Attack to enemies like Stargazer who have chance to Behead in the mid-range of values, attack multiple times, come in packs often (usually a fucking row of 3 or 4), have very high AGI so they attack before most parties and (THANK GOD) they can't use Lightning Strike (that would be fucking INSANE) they CAN however use Pursuit and their attacks have a chance to poison or sleep or confuse i can't remember; one of those. (if they don't just simply behead).

none of all that even mattering anyway because after one of your dudes gets hit 6 times by a stargazer the only way they'll survive is: 1) Brace, or 2) having a ton of HP, more than 1k definitely.

i am against having to have tons of HP to survive anything, that's "bad" design. Of course, armor class also reduces damage TAKEN, btw, (each attack from a weapon, i.e. the "swings", the "hits") each "hit" from an atk has to resolve versus the character's armor class which acts as a correction modifier to the end result and will (when the attack fails the d100 roll) TAKE AWAY damage done to the character. that's why low AC = attacks deal less dmg to you.

Yeah, AC really is critical. I don't have enough thus far.

i wanna show you the stats on the tower enemies cos i know you'll find them interesting, lemme upload the .csv files (need to be viewed in excel-type software, i use LIBRA suite), and link them. all sorts of interesting shit like what A.I. routines enemies use (Skillving uses a routine called "Intelligent", heh, which means that Skillving can heal when needs to, heal others, revive others (i.e. smart enough to know when enemy companions of his are killed), smart enough to use DEFEND option when CPU detects that your chosen actions might kill (obviously the game "reads" your commands first and THEN has the enemy choose his/her options)...

Thank you, aweigh. The .csv exports are interesting. In the past I have used your files to check loot locations for example (there seem to be errors in the jap wikia).
But regarding the most stats of most monsters, the English Wiki does a good job, I've found. Well, except the active/passive skills and number of actions per turn, most of which are missing. Still, it's a really good resource and easy to browse, including listing enemies present in each dungeon. Particularly interesting is the part about enemy Resistances/Status Attack rates.

...while an enemy like, say, a Slime uses a routine called "Random". literally. LOL. that routine cana ctually become very deadly if the enemy has spells/items, and most of th e game's mage-types have that one, "Random", because imagine if they used enterook mistak every single round, since enemies DO NOT RUN OUT OF MP, it would be very bad design! so they just cast it when the roulette fell on it, for them.

That's very interesting and explains some literally brain-dead actions I've seen enemy monsters perform. And partially maybe why Skillving is so deadly

 

[Haplo]

Lastly, another very interesting addition to 3ds version is that they "fixed" the Monster Adventurers. In 3ds version ALL enemies have a specificed and actual race (chosen from the 13 in-game races, human-to-vardian spread) so for example:

- in 3ds version a female zombie will reborn as a monster-adventurer as a Devilish race (possibly! depends entirely on the enemy, Starfish really spread out the races for all enemies), but in general they follow logic; for example a demonic enemy will reborn as devilish 100% and a beastman enemy (like a mermaid or whatever) will 100% guaranteed be born as a Werebeast (probably, depends on the enemy, like i said, some are unique).

in the PC version they ALL defaulted to human if i remember correctly, or am I wrong? even if they did be reborn in PC version as different types of races, fact still remains they went thru all enemies in 3ds version and assigned all of them a "logical" race for rebirth.

Nope, on PC most monsters would be reborn as "Devilish" Race. Dragons tend to become Dragonnewts. "Adventurer" classes tend to become humanoids. Mostly humans, but also some Elves. But Devilish race are the majority.

 

[aweigh]

thanks for clarifying that Haplo! yeah, as you say, all they added in 3ds ver. was they "overhauled" the races enemies spawn as, i.e. they added some races to some enemies that suited them more and also some of the 3ds enemies were... uh, re-raced.

Giant-type enemies ALL get reborn as Ogre-race now, which is a race you can start w/ in 3ds version. it's an OP race, and it's not new: ogre and goblon and magic doll races been in Elminage since Original. In fact, the freaking Stats are the same!

PC/real version of elmi: gothic simply decided to not allow player to use ogre/goblin(renamed to Vardian in 3ds ver.) races as, quite frankly, they're fucking stupid OP.

OP in that there is literally zero reason to ever use any other races with maybe exception of a werebeast or maybe a Newt for their breath, otherwise there is literally no reason not to make a party with only Ogre/Vardians(Goblinoids). it would be the most autistic/optimal race choices

i'm looking thru the monster123.csv files right now and there are quite a few that are pretty funny, but it's nothing interesting. If they had overhauled their INVENTORIES upon rebirth... THEN we would have some hot new content, but all this race stuff is just a lil bit more of what was laready there.

 

[aweigh]

the one mod i want to make is to go thru EVERY SINGLE ENEMY and fill out/overhaul their inventory

go thru all 390~ some enemies and make sure even a lowly Slime has a potion and then...

...then make sure to add to every one of them the appropriate AI routine so they can use their shit. the VAAAAAAST majority of enemies, even in the "revamped" 3ds remix, all just use the "random" routine. Super lazy.

to make the entire thing perfect then one can tweak enemy placements.

i didn't link this one, but there is another file "monster_raw.csv" which holds the flags/values for how many mobs have a % probability of spawning in a given dungeon's floor (it's all laid out in a spreadsheet).

then it shows the same for the 2nd enemy row, and then the 3rd row (obviously in the file you can see how they become less probable to spawn as the rows get more crowded).

if one wanted to, one could change that shit to make it so that you can just pick and choose EXACTLY which enemies will spawn WHERE.

EXAMPLE: going thru the Tsun-Kurn caverns and making sure that the player ONLY encounters groups of 3 bandits in 1st row, 3 mages in 2nd row, 3 clerics in 3nd row, and

 

[aweigh]

btw, regarding "grinding levels" in tower, no, that is what MIRACLE is for.

inside Tower = you use MIRACLE like it's going out of style.

it will ALWAYS "even out" because tower XP.

EDIT: obviously i mean from Tower floor 16 and upwards. i.e. once Gazers show up. From that point on it's time to use MIRACLE every time you feel you need to. As simple as that. Those floors/enemies give so much XP the loss in levels will almost never ever come out negative. honestly i can't imagine any other way!

EDIT 2: ORRRR, instead of doing that instead have a high level Herbalist

use magic herbs.

don't have herbs, nor miracles and need to revive? remember that REVIVAL TONICS (as well as ALL items) utilize the same attribute/element modifiers as the spells do. if a char with high HOLY ATK ATTRIB. % uses the revival tonic then it will have a very very high % of resurrecting.

not a cleric replacement, obviously, but it's there! magic herbs, btw, each restore 3 MP to everybody in party to all spells/spell levels.

 

[aweigh]

Haplo

dude, i think i just blew my own mind right out of whatever sanity it had left. I just realized you can select a single-target even if using a multi-target spell, at least so far i can do this with healing spells.

example: i was just now casting rafalima and was mashing the keyboard and i noticed i was cycling through individual portraits. is this new to the 3ds version?

the interesting thing is, though... what i want to know is if it's possible to poison yourself. It's something i've been wanting to accomplish via modding the game files in order to make Drunken Fist be viable. The upgrade in power that skill grants is retardedly good (Skillving has it, btw, and if you've ever poisoned him accidentally cos of your party's Hunter... well, you know exactly how strong he gets when drunken fisted)--

--however, in elminage i have never found a way to target party members with non-healing spells. I can easily modify the existing poison spell to make it target the party by swapping out its "range" values with the "range" values from one of the healing spells... but i dunno, i just want there to be a way in-game that makes Drunken Fist skill make sense.

it's the only ex-skill in Gothic, literally, that i haven't been able to find a good way to make use of it. seriously. the only one! it grants a huge power boost but you gotta have the enemy poison you first, it's dumb.

anyway the rafalima-spell-highlighting-only-one-party-member thing, probably a 3ds thing? but then again i have never before mindlessly mashed the "d-pad" / "buttons" while casting it so...

the only other ex-skill i have not been able to find a use for (and also how the fuck it WORKS) is LAST STAND. I have no idea wtf last stand does. Increase EVASION? (such as when you use MIRACLE to boost party evasion, which, btw, is NOT the same modifier as AC; it is a SPECIAL modifier that is granted in circumstances like miracle / maybe-last-stand-who-knows).

does it increas ARMMOR CLASS? i have not been able to see any AC numbers rise as my buddies die. Never.

so yep, only those two skills. every single other skill i've found a use for. every single other skill is 100% combat viable and NOT a trap of any kind. only last stand and the Fist are what some would call a trap.

 

[Exbelion]

Those devil and angel woman look awesome ♡

 

[aweigh]

it really goes to show what an incredible difference can be made when the art style decides to go for "good" instead of "animu".

heh. gothic has by far the best "graphics" out of any elminage...it's all about dat atmosphere man. compared to "Ibun" no one would think it's the same devs !