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Messages - Ayra

#1
That worked!!! Thank you very much! It has the slight drawback of making them spawn in random location (ie. surrounded by monsters away from the team), but since it's random I can just try until I get a workable layout. Onward!
#2
Thank you for getting back to me!

Unfortunately, it's not adding the units still and I'm getting the same problem. I think I've added the lines correctly; I've added some screenshots as well as the updated .xml file.
#3
Sorry for the triple post... Is there any ways to fix a saved game...?

I just got to the optional stage where Teresa and Phoebe needs protection. As soon as the stage starts, I get a "DEFEAT" instantly, probably because they don't appear in my party list. I don't have any other save so I'm completely screwed at this point in time...
#4
Well, there's quite a bit of possible abuse lying about everywhere. I just got the golem up to the level he gets the "movement boost" skill. Stay in place, use the skill 5 times for massive experience gain, get a level up (Got a few to catch him up since he was behind nearly 10 levels on my most used chars). Get back 5 energy since you didn't move, repeat for a level up every single turn. Use Emma's Feint skill 20 times in a single turn on a boss unit to get like 5 level ups (in theory, I stopped at 2 levels in order not to ruin my game completely).

I don't think it's "bad" per say that the game offers grinding opportunities. If a player is completely stuck, they are likely to stop playing instead of restarting. Most games nowadays are balanced around the player not grinding, but there's optional stages that a player can do.

There's no optional stages here, no arena, shops are only an occasional occurence, ect. So having the possibility to get some bonus exp (as long as it's optional and not designed as in you need to exploit to win the game) is not a big problem I find (though it makes some units very hard to level compared to others).
#5
*spoilers*

I just noticed that Teresa and Phoebe are not on my party roster... Thinking about it, I'm not sure if they actually were after the bandit fortress escape. Did I miss something to recruit them? I have the golem with me so it feels like they should be on my team too... Did they need to talk to the golem during the fight? Did it bug out (it's the chapter I got the weird gray screen at the end)? Or are they simply joining at a later date?
#6
You can actually open doors..?  :o

I totally missed that! Oops... Yeah, that would have helped in making things a bit less frustrating! Well, it's okay: the only beneficiary of that on my save was Louise, but even then she's not too much ahead of the rest of my team (Level 15 vs mostly level 10 to 13 for my main characters) so it didn't break my game.

Yeah, the 8 turns is probably a good idea.
#7
The manual
http://sinisterdesign.net/Downloads/Telepath%20Tactics%20Manual.pdf

is a bit more up to date regarding the classes (It has the bandit at least).

Since I'm replying here I might as well ask a few class questions while I'm at it :)

- Is the Bronze Golem actually viable? On paper he's really interesting with his AoE attacks and his lack of weapon (so you can save on $$$), but I'm finding that 3 movement range coupled with maps where you normally are on the offense means that unless you delay the map considerably, he's just going to be lagging behind your entire team. Plus, he can't attack without energy and his energy pool is pretty small, so you have to rest often on top of that.

- Cryokineticist vs Pyrokineticist vs Photokineticist. I'm not adding the Psy Healer (either I'm not far enough in the game or I missed recruiting all of them), the Skiakineticist (same) or the Mentalist (Its skill list is so huge that it'd be unfair to the other mages). I don't have any of those three at a high level, but at this point the Cryokineticist seems to be the no-brainer choice. Able to create bridges, freezing enemies and giving massive defense bonuses. The Photokineticist has the same damage, but can't make bridge, blind is much inferior to freeze and the dodge bonus is tiny. The Pyro has barely higher damage but no utility at all. The manual doesn't indicate anything different (just says that all three get AoE attacks). Am I missing something here?
#8
Much appreciated, thank you!

It's fine regarding character development really: I was just afraid I had missed a big chunk of it due to that bug/issue.

Ah well for Sabrina... She's already carrying most of my best swords, so I guess I'll just have to hope she'll pick up the slack eventually. I wish she had Emma's Motivate skill (it's a great skill, but she's probably the best fighter overall on my team so she doesn't get too much use out of it).

Thanks for the information regarding deployment! I'll start using a few more characters instead of the same 8 all the time then (and hope it's not too late for them), which I don't mind at all since there's quite a few I like.

And kudos for Lakshmi: it's nice to see that decisions/recruitments actually change things in this game! It's more effort for you of course, but that helps in keeping a game more logical and consistent.
#9
I think the "no chest auto-loot" is fine in principle. Strategic tradeoff and all.

However, I think the game's early chests are a bit problematic. The first one is in the middle of the forest about 4 turns away. Getting it is not hard, just annoying (which is not a good thing when the game is just starting). The following stage however is more problematic...

To get the chests in the first Town stage (stage #2 if you ignore the lizardman arena training), you have to:
A) Know the mission will actually end once you kill one specific unit (unlike what the mission objective says).
B) Walk units over long distances in three different directions
C) Blow up multiple doors and trees that each take multiple hits.

That's stage #2, basically the game's introduction to a lot of concepts. Getting the chests (which is a good idea when the game is marketed and reviewed as an hard Fire Emblem-like game) is a huge annoyance and it leaves a very sour first impression of the game. I actually restarted the game multiple times due to not knowing the mission end trigger (Since it auto-saves, it means having to replay the forest stage as well as the intro): missing three chests in an hard game was unacceptable.

At least up to where I am, I'll admit the game isn't THAT hard even with permadeath and no grinding, but I had no ways to know that early on since reviews keep mentioning how horribly hard the game is (I'm aware reviews are not controlled by the developer, of course).   I could have afforded to miss those three chests, but I had no ways of knowing that. And getting those three chests was beyond punishing/annoying, especially for stage #2.

The chests afterward in the game felt fair enough actually (up to where I'm at anyway), but not those ones.

Edit: Since I'm seeing in the dev log that a demo is coming out, I really think it might be a good idea to change the chest layout in stage #2 (town stage).
#10
First, sorry about this topic! I kind of like Telepath Tactics overall, but there's a few things sapping my enjoyment and I figure some answers could help.

1) Was there a campfire scene (Where you can talk to all characters) in the two chapters following the castle escape (the one where you build a bridge for Emma and the prisoners)? I know it's a strange question, but... My first try on that stage, I did a mistake and someone died. Restart. Second try, I got the drawbridge dropped on a character and they died (the bridge did not actually appear, just 1 of my units and 4 of the enemies that died). Third try, the drawbridge did not lower; I had built under where it's supposed to appear and then the game started going very slowly, before freezing entirely with Emma 2 squares away from the end. Fourth try I purposely built away from the drawbridge and managed to finish the mission through horrendous lag. Once the mission was over, I just a picture of Emma and Sabrina over a big gray box. It stayed there for about 10 seconds, then it switched to a discussion between the bad guys. I was fed up with the stage so I just continued on and ignored what I thought I missed.
The problem is that the same thing happened on the next stage (the apple gathering stage).... Then it just popped up to the merchant screen out of nowhere. I tried quitting the game at this point and redo the stage, but it had autosaved already so nothing to do there. I did get a few scenes (like Emma with her lover and nightmare scenes) but I really feel like I missed some important stuff.

Did I miss one of the big "talk with everyone" scene....? Those are pretty much the most important scenes and while I don't want to restart the game at this point, I really don't want to have missed one of those scenes.... The only one of those I've seen so far is the very first one.


2) Is there any permanent stat boosters of any kind? While Emma has about 8 base strength (before weapons) and over 50 hit points, Sabrina has 2 base strength and about 30 hit points. Both are around level 15 and Sabrina's damage is starting to become extremely pathetic. I know whetstones gives you +1 strength for 1 fight (at 50 gold each...), but is there any way to fix Sabrina's lacking strength besides crossing my fingers and hoping for the best? It's not as if I have the option to bench her...


3) What is the standard deployment limit later in the game?
and
4) Do you NEED mages or certain classes to get through the game?

I'm worried as all heck that I'm going to end up completely stuck later on in the game. One of my issues in Fire Emblem-like games is that I like too many characters and end up using too many so I'm trying to limit myself more here. The problem is way worse than usual in this game, mostly due to the fact that all chapters nowadays seems to have a deployment limit of 8 characters. Fire Emblem is generally 12+ characters; however here the characters vary a lot more in ability than in Fire Emblem due to their usable skills so the issue is much bigger here and underleveled characters are just going to be deadweight later on.

Here's my lineup (which I'm afraid is going to crash and burn entirely later on):
Emma (Required)
Sabrina (Required)
Louise (Main healer, has so many skills that she already breaks the interface just at level 15)
Madeleine (I've wanted an axewoman since forever in Fire Emblem, so she has to be in)
Lakshmi (She's Emma's lover, she has to get in. Plus I like having having a tough bow/crossbow user for once)
Meridian (She flies. I tend to have 2-3 pegasus knights each game + 1-2 draco knight; I love my fliers. And she's a must for chests).
Harynx (She flies too. Plus you can't mitigate damage too much in this game so a second healer is great)
Harriet (She's super tough, gains strength nearly all levels and has 1-2 range)

Harriet is the only one who seems to be replaceable in my team even though she's super-solid so far. The other two most likely canditates are Scarlet (Loved her though I dislike her utter lack of strength and counterattacks) and Gavrielle (shoot + move is great, 20 max hps at level 10 is not)... So I'm basically without an attack mage. Do I need one or will I be screwed with my current setup? Will I get more deployment slots later on (so that I should swap out some units to train more) or is 8 units the standard with only the occasional chapter (like the escape one) having more?


5) Emma's lover.
Well, I'm just curious actually; this one doesn't worry me. Both main characters are female: it's a very welcome change of pace, I approve. Emma's lover is another woman, great! I'm all for it.
What I'm curious about though is that Lakshmi is very easy to miss. She's sort-of hard to save depending on how she acts. What happens if she dies? Does Emma take someone else for lover, or does all those scenes simply not exist?

As a side note, I have to give two thumbs up at having so many female characters in this game. Generally, SRPG mostly have male characters with a few females, or half-half at best. This is one of the only ones I've ever seen with so many female characters (which was not an "harem" game) so it's a very welcome change, thank you!
#11
I haven't been using him at all due to multiple reasons: his personality is iffy, I don't like his portrait and he massively underwhelmed me during the two escape chapters directly following his recruitment. He didn't move from the bench since then (though admittedly I'm not far from that point).