Polishing the World Link Series

[SealedDarkness]

All right, first things first...

I'm not going to pretend I've exhaustively researched formulas, movesets, typing, abilities or minmaxing. This doesn't mean I'm a noob- I've played a lot of pokemon and a lot of touhoumon hacks. It just means that I tend to focus more on the story and gameplay, instead of dissecting the game for it's core components. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, as you all seem to know what you're doing. I only became interested in doing this because I personally love the concept behind these games and find the execution is poor.

Secondarily, thank you all. You have all presented wonderful arguments both for and against the concept of ZTouhou and scaling in general. I am aware this game should both have teeth and I am also aware that at the moment, it's difficulty curve lies somewhere between a sheer cliff and a grindfest of weaker touhou.

First things first- the ZBoneka are indeed unfair. Not only that, but from what I've seen, Achiya seems to have followed the logic train of "I have three wonderful sprites and three ok sprites, so I'll make two alternate forms and leave the okay sprites in, which now look pretty bad compared to the new sprites." Which is something I admit I have a problem with.

That said, what would you all suggest I put in their place? What would be a nice reward for all of you, a final continuation that isn't just a "I used this to fluff the dex" boxfodder mon or a "You get this and win the game" sort of thing? I admit, some of the appeal is probably to have these wonderful special forms, so I am hesitant to remove them entirely. Yet it would be unfair for you to work and scrape and look up guides to see how to get a ZReimu only to suddenly find that she's not quite as good as you had hoped.

Thirdly, would adding another area between Muenzuka and the Reimu fight make it more manageable? Achiya herself admitted that there were more areas that could be added, so perhaps we can just insert something to give it more flow? Perhaps a trip to the underground, or a tour of the Sanzu River? It would leave Reimu with a few claws while not only diversifying the number of touhou you can obtain, but also leaving you with higher levels and giving more of that pleasant gensokyo experience.

On the World Link side, I see all the complaints about railroading in that nitpick thing and...well, I agree. Railroading is never fun, especially with something that advertises exploration like this. So, in the interests of expanding the world and making it more fun, I propose to remove the roadblocks and leave in the levels of the touhou and the trainer's levels as well, making it easy to (with proper timing!) pass them by walking, like in Blue version. Hopefully that will also reduce grind and boredom, as when you're tired of exploring in Hoenn, you can skip along to Kanto and find a few new teammates that way.

As for the Vocaloids and other non-touhou touhou...I believe the most sensible way to deal with them is to replace them with actual Touhou, but the specific one is up for grabs. This means that there are slots open- slots for whatever touhou you can think of, provided you can find a decent sprite for it. Please note that all touhou sprites must be 64x64 in size or they will not fit.

Keep in mind that I'm willing to listen to any and all suggestions, complaints, whatever, but I really will need help and I won't move without knowing what you guys want. I'm not trying to build the WL series for me- Achiya did that and that's why this thread exists... I'm trying to build it for everyone, so that anyone who plays can have a good time.

[Starxsword]

Mewtwo is a legendary who was intentionally made to be ridiculous, and Mewtwo's base Special Attack is 154. Mewtwo's BST is 680.
That's 310 less than the Zero Boneka, and if we are considering ZReimu, ZReimu has 16 more base Special Attack than Mewtwo, has the SAME base Special Attack as White Kyurem, while ALSO having almost twice the amount of effective durability.

It seems like you intentionally ignored the my earlier post about scaling up. I know Mew Two is ridiculous, which is why I am using it as an example.
Most pokemon in pokemon games have stats around 500 to 600 and Mew Two and many legendary pokemon top that with 680 stats AND has very good moves. Most legendary pokemon have a unique move that is very powerful.

For comparison purposes, 680 base stats is about 23% more than 550 base stats. Most Last Words have around 680 stats or more, the equivilent jump would be to 840 or so.
Please refer to the damage formula if you somehow think this is flawed. Zero touhous cannot be used by the player until the very end after you beat everything.
This is the comparison I am basing it on. Don't use 310 less than zero boneka, use relative comparison, because in pokemon stats scale by multiplication. You want to compare 680 and 990, then do so with percentages. 990/680 = 1.4559. So 990 is 45.59% has 45.59% more stats than 680.
Do note, even this comparison is FLAWED, because I have not included IV and EV trainining. For really accurate comparison, you have use specific numbers and compare them.

i just fucking mentioned 3 fucking moves that made Dragonite viable prior to Multiscale and you went and shat all over it with your failure to consider tier meta. Ubers and OU are completely different from each other, don't even mix them together. Oh and did you know Dragonite's the only Dragon-type with a priority move who isn't Rayquaza (that move is ExtremeSpeed, WHICH I FUCKING MENTIONED EARLIER)?

What the hell? None of the moves you mention tell me how Dragonite will SURVIVE one hit against an ice pokemon. All I see on your list of moves is swap dragonite out if he meets ice pokemon or a fairly strong pokemon that knows ice beam or ice punch, because he will be OHKO. Dragon Dance sounds nice, if he can survive one hit first.

I see, I will be damned now, because there is a strict tier list of all pokemons. It makes me wonder about this supposed balance that I hear about.
Howabout that Wobuffet, is it still on the banned tier? It only as a mere 405 total stats. Or does it's pathetic stats make it useless in 5th gen?

Stop hiding behind the fucking damage formula and talk about how it works in actual practice, please.

The "fucking damage" formula as you helpfully "mentioned" is to prove that stats scale by multiplication. How does it work in practice? We will have to use specific pokemons/touhoumons to compare.
Which ones would you like to compare?
If we can't use specific ones, we can only use theoritical comparisons with theoritical numbers.

[Lightmaster]

Hmm... first things first... I have a question, SealedDarkness. Did you read Agastya's nitpicks?

Also, if you're looking for 10D sprites, you can extract them from Touhoumon Emerald, IIRC. Besides, I think you should remove the unnecessary Last Words (in other words, Last Word evolutions from characters that doeen't appear in Imperishable Night) and put the remaining Last Words (for example, where's LWriggle, LKeine (for both her human and Hakutaku form), LTewi and LKaguya?) In that matter, you can always rename the legendaries to something like... YUtsuho, HSuwako / TSuwako and NKanako (Y stands for Yatagarasu, H and T stands for Hisoutensoku, and N stands for Nuclear. The three initials stands for a common theme between them).

And if you're hesitant in removing Zero puppets... I think you can do this: Make Last Words accesible to the player, but as alternate forms (and with less BSTs,,, preferibly like between 550-580 BSTs, I dunno... maybe less), and make the Zero puppets in the BST range of 660-720 BSTs, or something plausible like that, but making them CPU-exclusive. The player shouldn't have access to playable Zero puppets... that would break the balance of the game. Besides... Zero Puppet and Last Word puppets should be only seen during the Post-game content for both games (in other words, post-league), so don't put them early in the game.

Besides, now we're talking about BSTs and balance, reduce the BSTs of Tensoku to 600 or less than 600, and give EFlandre another ability rather than Pure Power (Insanity or Intimidate, whatever ability works better with her). Also... look well into wonky movepools. There are some puppets with poor movepools considering their typing, and also, reconsider some changes on puppet types, like Sasha (Ghost / Dragon takes a better benefit of her physical attack) and Mitori (I have seen other hacks where she is Water / Steel. She doesn't have any reason for being Water / Dragon, besides the reason of Touhoumon hacks lacking Dragons).

The last thing I'll mention for now is a nitpick I have, and is the matter of music. A lot of the music from both Touhoumon games sounds... not so Pok?mon-ish... and some melodies sounds rather noisy and unfitting. Sure, I have to admit Aichiya did a good job in inserting .wav tracks, which I think, it's a strong point, but... I need to say this. I'm not fond of the usage of certain midi-ish tracks in both games for certain areas. For example, I don't like the Captain Murasa mix used as the Gym Leader music in Touhoumon World Link (the remix of Fate of Sixty Years in the style of RSE Gym Leader music fits it better), neither that crappy mix of Last Remote used in places like Mt.Chimney, which I prefer the theme used in the original RSE games instead. Anyway, try to look which melody would fit better in each area, if the original song used for that area in RSE, or a Pok?mon-ish Touhou arranged song, and besides... some areas in Kanto have the wrong music in some routes and areas. IIRC, Alice in Wonderland wasn't used until the postgame areas, and I think the gym leaders in Kanto should have the U.N.Owen was her? mix of the Kanto Gym Leader music used in the original 1.5 games, instead of the Captain Murasa theme I mentioned previously. Welp... the music matter could be a pain in the tail, but I'm just mentioning the issues I have with this aspect. If you think you can't do that, then no problem.

And... about Wobbuffet...

Howabout that Wobuffet, is it still on the banned tier? It only as a mere 405 total stats. Or does it's pathetic stats make it useless in 5th gen?

Not exactly... Wobbuffet in Gen V isn't actually in ubers... because of the changed mechanics for Encore (now it only last three turns always, not from three to five turns). That was a hard blow for him, besides... Gen V actually brought a hyper-offensive metagame, which makes harder to Wobbuffet to stand up easily against beasts like Chandelure and such (those are the reasons why Wobby is actually BL, in other words, banned from UU, and actually kind of usable in OU, but threatened easily by lots of threats). And speaking of Chandelure... his hidden ability is Shadow Tag, so when that ability will get released, he will prove to be an excellent Revenge Killer, trapping and killing almost any threat with his high Sp.Atk power and the right coverage moves, and IIRC, he's actually banned from the Dream World OU tier in Smogon, so... there you have it.

Well... that's all I need to say... at least for now.

[Shadowlit]

I have actually been creating a speed run route for touhoumon another world so I can attest to the whole Ztouhou issue very well with a ton of testing.

Overall the game is extremely balanced after defeating the Zreimu part and no other Zfights or LWfights are an issue what so ever so long as you use some thought. Basically so long as you don't play like you do other pokemon games and actually use some strategy such as status or stat up moves you will have no issues. The problem with the game currently is that the zReimu fight is too hard for the point in the game where it is although still very beatable. My current speed run route involves using EMarisa at level 40 to win with dragon meteor. The problem with the game is that there is only enough trainers to leave you at level 35 at around 75% exp and you need to hit level 37 to use the 3 rare candies to hit 40. Plus the way the story drops you off at muendaka would lead you to think you are supposed to head further east towards the sanzu river which would easily give you the needed experience for the fight. I have thought of the idea of using sanae instead though I haven't figured out how to run the earlier parts of the game efficiently but I would say that only that zReimu is an issue and I don't think it needs to be removed either neither do any other z forms.

There is plenty of room for additional content to relax the gaps such as adding in a 10D story arc, the cave on youkai road leading to underground, sanzu river etc. but the difficulty of the game does not need to be killed by removing zero forms.

Also for those wondering about the ghost method it is not reliable at all as it only has a 2% encounter rate also you need to use its 30pp lick + max ether + regular ether which takes forever and even then you have to be at least level 35 with marisa to win out over struggle.

What my opinions are that is needed for the game is 2 extra story arcs before the zReimu fight in order to give enough exp to hit roughly level 40 without needing to fight every single trainer or hit around level 35-40 on multiple pokemon if you do intend to casually grind. Then the kanto region needs to be reworked as to not feel like a total lazy rehash (really just simple remapping of the routes while keeping events the same would do it). After that adding story arcs for other games in different places to give more places to go and provide more experience for leveling up on. Then the story of the game as a whole needs some working on to make it flow better such as changing the script for the kanto region to be more about inquiring as to the nature of the "boneka" in the real world and other "supernatural" events, that would make the game really feel like a completed work. finally its just the basic fixing glitches and tweaking a few pokemons movesets such as marisa not learning thunderbolt in another world etc.

For those wondering I have cleared the entire game around 14 times and my current record (and the current world record as far as I know) for a single segment time is 10 hours from start to clearing the gensokyo league although that was on a non TAS test run to make sure the route worked so I took it really casually and took a ton of breaks so I expect to hit around 7-8 hours to complete the game with my current route.

Speed Run Route: http://pastebin.com/rvngFEQa

PS. I look forward to your work and if you ever need someone to help with mapping or writing dialogue I have some experience with that and if I am not busy i might be willing to help out.

[trancehime]

What the hell? None of the moves you mention tell me how Dragonite will SURVIVE one hit against an ice pokemon. All I see on your list of moves is swap dragonite out if he meets ice pokemon or a fairly strong pokemon that knows ice beam or ice punch, because he will be OHKO. Dragon Dance sounds nice, if he can survive one hit first.

Gen4 has Yache Berry if you care SO MUCH about those kind of tools.

In practice, Dragonite actually rarely gets OHKOed by Ice type moves unless you're intentionally fielding bruisers like Weavile which a Life Orb ExtremeSpeed from Dragonite is almost guaranteed to do serious damage or OHKO back anyway.

And if you're so much in disbelief of "being one-shot by Ice attacks?"

Deoxys-A.

I rest my case.

I see, I will be damned now, because there is a strict tier list of all pokemons. It makes me wonder about this supposed balance that I hear about.
Howabout that Wobuffet, is it still on the banned tier? It only as a mere 405 total stats. Or does it's pathetic stats make it useless in 5th gen?

Actually it's everyone else getting better. And Encore being nerfed.

The "fucking damage" formula as you helpfully "mentioned" is to prove that stats scale by multiplication. How does it work in practice? We will have to use specific pokemons/touhoumons to compare.
Which ones would you like to compare?
If we can't use specific ones, we can only use theoritical comparisons with theoritical numbers.

I'll get to this when I have actual time to sit down and crunch numbers. :|

[SealedDarkness]

All right, it's clear that in the very least I'm going to have to strip Reimu of her ZReimu. As for the music, I'm going to have a problem with that, mainly because I'm not sure how to do that, but I'll keep an eye out for good replacements in the meantime.

I did read the nitpicks through, from start to finish, and I have to say they enlightened me as to a few points I missed. I'm definitely going to have to heavily nerf ZTouhou, although I'm uncertain as to what the exact stat values should be. I'm also removing Destroy, as it's just about the cheapest thing I've heard of. I'm not terribly sure what should go in that gap, but for now I'm at least taking it off the moveset of all Touhou.

Also, I think I'm going to change some of the typing in the alternate forms. I remember being really shocked when GMystia was a normal/flying instead of steel/flying and disappointed that basically all the SSTouhou were Psychic/Water. Sara and Mitori are already changed.

I agree that it's kind of stupid that touhou that did not even have a Last Word in the first place have Last Word forms. I'm going to take those out as well, since they seem to be whatever Achiya thought he needed for the plot at the time rather than what would make sense, would be most interesting or fun.

Finally, does anyone even care about the Dark Touhou? Having them as alternate evolutions is fine, but if they're just going to be unappealing recolours who is even going to want them? (Especially when we have ZTouhou kicking around making everything broken.) Also, has anyone ever SERIOUSLY used a Yukkuri-anything ever? I understand that just because it's a part of the universe fanon, you want it in, but if it serves no practical function in the game, what's the point? Also, does anyone care about that Alphi-chan thing or whatever? I'd consider it just another "Nontouhou in a touhou game" but I think it's kind of cute that they only appear in the Gap Zone and I'm not sure what drives their variations.

If nobody cares about the Dark or Yukkuri Touhou, I'm going to consider pulling them out in favor of TD Touhou.

One last thing: Would it be sensible to make ZBoneka unobtainable in WL, but leave them in as the last "Reward" in MMW? I'm a sucker for being able to have as many Touhou as possible. I'm nerfing their stats either way, but I'll at least leave them above average and I may even let them keep their movesets, albeit with a little editing.

[Shadowlit]

If content is added so the natural level progression leads to around 35ish then I think it would be fair to replace Reimu's zReimu with an lReimu and bump up the levels a bit. That way Reimu is still a massive threat which it really feels like she needs to be at that point in the game without being too absurd.

As for destroy I can agree with taking it out especially as on of the final fights in the gensokyo league has quick claw destroys specifically to screw you over which is just annoying. It really serves no purpose other then to punish the player for missing or just having bad luck.

Many alternate forms do need to be changed around but I don't really like the concept of removing the Last Word forms from many of the characters as the multiple forms and options gives a lot more depth and options for the characters, maybe change the name so it isn't always "Last Word" but the concept of a final form should change and possibly have more added. Honestly I loved how there were all the different forms like Dark and SS forms to choose from and customize how you wanted the character to work for you but maybe change some of the forms that are redundant or useless and get more creative with evolution methods like different stones then just sun/moon and maybe add happiness and stuff like that into the mix to give a little more experimentation with things. The other silly side characters like kendama, mimi-chan, alphichan, etc. are fine but they should be replaced in favor of new forms and new 10D characters.

Also I very much have to disagree with nerfing the ZTouhou as honestly the zReimu is the ONLY one that is an issue due to a lack of ability to prepair for it adequately but all the rest are perfectly fine and how it is set up right now is that the gensokyo fights are the hard ones that include ZTouhou while kanto is a bit more "dumbed down" so you have plenty of ability to prepair for the harder fights in the game.

As for making ZTouhou unobtainable except in MMW I think that is a great idea as it makes MMW a lot more desirable to play and promotes interaction between the games.

[Lightmaster]

Oh, right... I forgot about those. You can remove Alphichan... just a problem... Alphichan is in the Unown slot, so... yeah... be careful with that. And you can remove those Yukkuris and remove the Dark Touhous if you think it's necessary, but we'll see what do the others have to say.

Also, talking of the additional Last Word puppets, you can actually blame AnjiruSensei for that, because World Link takes Scarlet Emerald as a base. Also, about the unnecesary dark forms, it's also AnjiruSensei's fault, but even then, a lot of the Dark puppets were replaced in WL by other puppets. Same thing with some Last Word puppets.

And, about the values for the Zero puppets... take as reference the total BSTs Arceus has (720), that should be your ideal limit. Also, the prize part could be good... except you can trade the Zero puppet to the other three games, so IMHO... make the Zero puppets only CPU-exclusive, and remove any event it could give you those (like exchanging Zero Coupons and such).

[XephyrEnigma]

make the Zero puppets only CPU-exclusive, and remove any event it could give you those (like exchanging Zero Coupons and such).

This wouldn't be fair all the same way though. In fact, this is what agastya was addressing earlier. There's nothing saying you shouldn't be able to have something like this if it's available to the AI.

[SealedDarkness]

All right, here's the best thing I can think of for the ZTouhou situation. It seems a lot of people think they're overpowered and a lot of people think that they're no good for the main game. But people also think they're okay.

How about this: I'll have ZTouhou exclusively in the final area of MMW and make it so that when you get the last Tome, Patchy gives you a ZTouhou and opens the option to go to that insane final-challenge thing. I'll remove all ZTouhou before that, replacing them with relevant Touhou that are other alt forms with powerful movesets, but at the end we can have them stocked to the brim.

Keep in mind that if I DO scale the ZTouhou, it's going to be to the higher level of legendaries, and I'll be giving them as good a moveset as possible. (Or as good a moveset as you all can think of, since I don't pretend to know everything about what would be best.) So yes, they WON'T have a BST of 900, but they will probably be at or around Arceus's level.

I think it would also be pretty nice to open up rematches with all major characters (Remilia, Sakuya, Meiling, etc) so that you can grind on them if you need exp. Then of course, I will add in their ZTouhou at the re-challenge point. Of course, if I do this, there's the problem of "WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE A REWARD AT THIS POINT" but maybe it can be the a Shiny ZTouhou of your choice.

I like the idea of Reimu getting an LReimu and requiring you to be at 35ish. Also, would it make sense to make it so that you have to visit Tenshi (and possibly Iku) in Heaven rather than just...having her show up? Heck, you could probably even meet Suika there- didn't she move in or something? I feel a plot point could be made of it. Maybe an earlier introduction of fly or something...

I'm toying around with the idea of forcing the player to advance by jumping back and forth from Kanto to parts of Gensokyo, perhaps making it so that you get to new and previously inaccessible areas of each by using gaps or something. That'll take a lot of work, though.

On the subject of Last Forms...I really don't think it's fair that we're essentially playing favorites with the mons giving random ones alternate forms and leaving out what people may want, but I have a much (stupider) personal reason. I'm an artist at heart, and I value aesthetics highly. With all the alternate forms we have, some of the normal lines get 1.5 where they could easily have 1.8. Now, if we could have a pixel artist of good skill come in and work on these, fine, I'll be more than happy to have as many forms around as can fit But I'd rather have a good looking Chibi -> Normal -> EX progression than a mediocre line followed by a few fabulous looking alternate forms, especially since you're more likely to see a Remilia than a ZRemilia in normal play.

Also, petty and irrelevant, but does anyone want a PC-98 Alice in the game? It probably makes about as much sense as having a LKana or whatever, but there's a nice Chibi -> Normal set of sprites in here and I figure we've got Hakureis and Kirisames so why not...?

[heroictype]

Hi!

It's the person who's patching up the translation again. We appreciate all your suggestions and are looking forward to putting them in place. However, we're having some issues with the tools, and would like some help. I think most of it boils down to this: None of the Advance programs (Map, Text Editor, etc) work with the World Link or Another World versions, and we still get errors trying to run Marisa's Magic World with them. It looks to be a problem with the Roms, not the programs, because a few other programs work.

 I'm still having the same Text Edit error as in my above post, and I still can't get the necessary files registered, even using the proper permissions. Advance Map has begun giving Keshi a message saying, "ERROR (EStringListError) List Index (242)." Also, the YAPE program doesn't work for MMW, but does work for WL and AW. I think it pulls up an error like "Unhandled exception has occured in your application. InvalidArguement=Value of '0' is not valid for 'SelectedIndex' Parameter name: SelectedIndex".

We'd love a fix for these programs, but if that's not possible, suggestions for other romhacking tools would be very much appreciated!

[Lightmaster]

You need to modify the headers, swanreaper. WL and AW have their Unedited Header versions. MMW... sadly doesn't have it, you need to modify the header of MMW to the original header it has Pok?mon Ruby (the USA version, IIRC). For that, you can use RHEA (Rom Header Editor Advance).

And I think those are good ideas (except the one with LReimu, I think EReimu is perfectly fine, always she have a kickass moveset), SealedDarkness., especially the rematch thing, because you need a lot of grinding for the latter areas. I dunno what others have to say about that. Also, I like the idea of adding PC-98 Alice, and I can say... why don't you add the Kazami forms (PC-98 Yuuka) too?

[Shadowlit]

If you are using Advanced Map 1.95 it has been posted that it does not work with the hacks for some reason so you have to use 1.92 as for the others I am not sure what to say other then to make sure you have patched over the patch with the unedited header so that the programs can recognize you are loading the correct game, but from the sounds of it it seems like you already got past that part so I am not entirely sure.

Personally I have been using "GBA Pokemon Game Editor" which is just a collection of other tools compiled into one interface with the addition of using YAPE.

Also for the idea of going back and forth between Gensokyo and Kanto I think there are many opportunities for the plot to lead into that direction such as maybe following Mamizou into Gensokyo to lead into the ten desires plot or something. And the maps of kanto could be reworked to have back and fourth development work better.

Also this would require a lot of work but could turn out amazing if done right but you could drop kanto completely, replace Professor Oak with a university professor with "you" "green" "other rival" as club members researching the appearance of bokeka and such. This would allow you to drop the "omg main character has amnesia!" plot and actually have some story development as you go around collecting the tomes (maybe have snippets of the nature of the boneka from each tome as you recieve them). As I see it this change could lead to a much more solid and enjoyable story line which seems to be the pull of Another World while World Link is more of your exploration game and MMW  is a collection based sub-game for the other two.

[heroictype]

You need to modify the headers, swanreaper. WL and AW have their Unedited Header versions. MMW... sadly doesn't have it, you need to modify the header of MMW to the original header it has Pok?mon Ruby (the USA version, IIRC). For that, you can use RHEA (Rom Header Editor Advance).

The issue is, we are using the unedited header versions. So, with that, I've been really stuck. We checked in RHEA and the unedited headers all matched the clean games.

[Starxsword]

The point my many posts, as I have repeatedly pointed out that BST isn't the end all of stats. Yes, it is very important, but it is not necessarily what breaks the pokemon. Wobuffet is an example I used, because it has poor BST, at 405 and YET it still managed to be banned.
Compare this to someone like Dragonite, who ISN'T banned and has 600 BST. We are talking about a 195 difference in stats.  Or 48% change in stats from 405 to 600. 48% is the type of jump you see from 680 to 990, which is Legendary to Zero.

I put so much emphasis on move sets, typing, etc. because those are equally important. If you look at some Last Words caught, they have fairly poor move sets. And some ZTouhous also have fairly poor move sets.

A simple example would be a pokemon with 250 Base Speed. Pokemon that have 200 base speed would be no different from pokemon that have 1 base speed. Those 200 stat points are irrelevant, since they will not help you go first. It is these relative comparisons that must be made in order to consider what is and is not balanced.
We cannot just look at stats, we must look at move pools and abilities.
Everyone knows Pure Power is nuts. A pokemon at 80 Attack with Pure Power can achieve a has higher effective attack than a pokemon with 180 attack.

As I have already mentioned, if Reimu's pokemons were lower level, it would have been fine. ZReimu would not have been a threat. Level formula + some status effects can effectively shut down ZReimu (Will O Wisp) is the best here. However, you need the levels first, in which the Reimu fight is on the high side. This causes the necessary grinding or you lose scenario.

[Shadowlit]

I agree with Starxsword

Also if you look at the majority of A F and Ex forms the base stat totals average around the 600 mark which is much higher then what the average is for pokemon and there are many choices that can fight on par with the zero forms without much problems.

SSUtsuho has some nasty sp. atk and can usually 2-3 zero forms FYoumu has the same situation only arguably better. EParsee or EYukari can stall out every battle in the game with toxic or voodoo without issues Kongala with bulk up can literally sweep the entire game barring 2 or 3 fights in the gensokyo league. Anything with chance to set up won't have any issues, jsut because normal pokemon games are so stupidly easy that you don't need to bother using stat up moves or x items doesn't mean that it SHOULD be that way. Their are only really 3 zero forms that are unfair in their design.
-Zero Youmu insanely high base attack stat + pure power makes zYoumu completely broken thankfully you NEVER see this in the game unless you get one yourself.
-Zero Sanae Though not necessarily broken throwing out a random omegaguard out of no where is unfair to the player as the battle comes without real warning to prepair for it.
-Zero Yukari One of the easiest fights to actually win but the overdone bulk is a little annoying as you'll need around +6 attack to kill it at any decent rate because of that speed dump and full restore spam, though honestly just fixing the full restore spams of the trainers would make zYukari not that bad.

The zero Reimu fight is ONLY broken due to where it is in the game because of the lack of ability to prepair anything good for it. 2/3 of the starters get waxed by it without getting to level 35-40 no other encounters can really deal with reimu solidly baring MAYBE Sunnymilk with wisps but then  your battling full restores curing burn and there is a lack of trainers to grind on to level up, hell the problem is so bad that in my speed run I deliberately die on Aya2's Aya 5 or 6 times to farm up the exp needed to hit level 37 by the end of the trainers.

Really though as long as you play the games with half a brain it is not an issue at all with the exception of zReimu. Sure you can't just use ANY combination of your favorite characters but with a little planning of forms you can easily use many of our favorites without ever needing to trade for LW forms or anything as when I beat the game on my first run I only had one last word form a F form a SS form and all the rest were E forms and I didn't have any issues (I believe I used LWYukari EParsee SSUtsuho FYoumu ESasha and Sariel) and for my speed run I use Marisa till Reimu then beat the entire game with Kongala but catch LKanako for the 2-3 battles that Kongala can't set up on.

[trancehime]

I'm not going to say anything on the matter anymore, instead I will just point out some things

-Zero Youmu insanely high base attack stat + pure power makes zYoumu completely broken thankfully you NEVER see this in the game unless you get one yourself.

Champion Blue has one if you pick Sanae as your starter.

-Zero Sanae Though not necessarily broken throwing out a random omegaguard out of no where is unfair to the player as the battle comes without real warning to prepair for it.

I think a random omega guard is broken enough, not to mention that Aichiya has a hard-on for Sanae so of course he's going to give her the most broken ability in the game.

-Zero Yukari One of the easiest fights to actually win but the overdone bulk is a little annoying as you'll need around +6 attack to kill it at any decent rate because of that speed dump and full restore spam, though honestly just fixing the full restore spams of the trainers would make zYukari not that bad.

Or you could just use Toxic. But then >Full Restore spam

The zero Reimu fight is ONLY broken due to where it is in the game because of the lack of ability to prepair anything good for it. 2/3 of the starters get waxed by it without getting to level 35-40 no other encounters can really deal with reimu solidly baring MAYBE Sunnymilk with wisps but then  your battling full restores curing burn and there is a lack of trainers to grind on to level up, hell the problem is so bad that in my speed run I deliberately die on Aya2's Aya 5 or 6 times to farm up the exp needed to hit level 37 by the end of the trainers.

see this makes some sense

[Starxsword]

Champion Blue has one if you pick Sanae as your starter.

That must be a hard fight then. ZYoumu is the only one I would worry about going up against, because of Pure Power + high attack. She may not have a strong move set, but Pure Power offsets that.

I think after the change to all Ztouhous having 990 BST, ZYoumu got buffed. I remember having ZYoumu prior to the change and her stats were not 990. I saw an increase in my attack and some other stat areas. So, I assume ZYoumu has around 900 BST or so, lower than the other ZTouhous, probably because of Pure Power.

[Lightmaster]

Well... I think you have your points already expressed, so I won't try to argue with you anymore. It seems you're okay with the existance of the Zeroes. Maybe you think the Pok?mon games are easy, but there's a lot of people (like Tranceko, Levi and me) who don't like or enjoy that crushing difficulty, and IMO, the Zeroes needs to be balanced (as SealedDarkness want to conserve them), but if you think 990 BSTs are okay, then that's fine for you.

But I think I can agree with you in something important:

I put so much emphasis on move sets, typing, etc. because those are equally important. If you look at some Last Words caught, they have fairly poor move sets. And some ZTouhous also have fairly poor move sets.

That's really important in the hour of modifying mons and trainers. A trainer isn't hard just because it has Double Team or just because it has very powerful moves. For example, the trainer has a powerful puppet, but the moveset can be pretty bad because the moves doesn't cover his strengths. Let's say... someone has Tail Glow, which in Gen III and IV is a Nasty Plot-like move, and the rest of the moveset doesn't take advantage of the Tail Glow boosts, making the entire moveset completely pointless. Also... let's say there's a puppet designed to tank his opponent, but the moveset the trainer uses has only offensive attacks. Those are examples of wasted potential in CPU trainers,

And in the topic of bad typings and poor movepools, I think almost everyone agrees Reisen always get the short end of the stick. Her Zero form is Poison (when she should have been Psychic or maybe a typing combination of Psychic and something else), and their movesets are also lacking of good variety, too, which is sad. That's also a part of the balance: Making everything perfectly usable for the player, and giving them good movepools and good typings, so nothing is useless. And in the trainer's part, giving them kickass movesets, so trainers aren't a laughing joke either.

BTW...

I think after the change to all Ztouhous having 990 BST, ZYoumu got buffed. I remember having ZYoumu prior to the change and her stats were not 990. I saw an increase in my attack and some other stat areas. So, I assume ZYoumu has around 900 BST or so, lower than the other ZTouhous, probably because of Pure Power.

In fact, ZYoumu shouldn't have 990 BSTs like the others, but less. She's easily the most broken Zero, due to Pure Power, and her typing takes advantage of the physical attacks: Fighting / Ghost. Actually, her BSTs distribution is like this:

150 / 240 / 130 / 160 / 130 / 180

So,, with Pure Power, she can reach a theorical Base ATK of 533,1 (if EVs in ATK are 252, it's Adamant, and IVs in ATK are equal to 31), if the value is the correct one. And I forgot to mention... the champion's ZYoumu has Choice Band, so with that, it can reach a base ATK of 726 (if nature is Adamant and with IVs in ATK equal to 31. No EVs). Pretty scary. Isn't it? If the values are incorrect, someone tell me.

Well... that's all for now.

[heroictype]

So, we're making progress! We're using the packaged GBA  Pokemon Game Editor thanks to Shadowlit's suggestion, and so we've begun constructing some pieces. I'm going to be primarily handling the technical inquiries, and here are the main issues we're coming across:

- Using the Game Editor's Attack Editor and Ability Editor features does not function properly. The Attack/Ability names show up as strings of gibberish, as seen here: http://i47.tinypic.com/a4rddz.png

- Using YAPE, MMW still gets an "unhandled exception" error listed above.

- Using Advance Mart, WL and AW do not open properly; they register as being read, but nothing pops up in the program to edit.

- Using A-Tack, an error of "no offsets found" appears for all games.

Also, we still can't get Advance Text to work. It seems to just be a generally buggy program. So, I'd like to know if anyone could help me figure out how to actually edit the script/hex code to change the text directly using XSE? I don't think it will be that hard to do, if I can just get the script to display, but here's what I get when I open the ROM in XSE: http://i49.tinypic.com/33o2qn6.png

It's just a blank area, essentially, where I think the script is supposed to be to work with. And it's my understanding that you should just be able to open it and go, so I'm not sure what's going wrong.

Lastly, if anyone with general knowledge of hex coding can offer any advice for... Well, any of it, really, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions and help!

[SealedDarkness]

I've started working on some of the Trainers and will start doing stats and abilities both in WL and AW, since they currently work.

So far I've gone and stripped Reimu of her Full Restores. I've also taken the healing items from everyone up to her, but if you all think that's too much, I can replace them with potions. I've replaced her ZReimu with an LReimu, and I've given her the moveset of Razor Wind, PWJ Needle, Razor Wind and Brick Break for now. I'm not sure if I've utterly neutered her, but if you fine folks can suggest a better moveset, I will put that in place immediately. I have not edited movesets at all, mind.

Next is that I am accepting suggestions on BST distributions, learned moves and abilities for all ZTouhou. I will be keeping them ingame, but I will be lowering their BST to straight 720 and reworking their attacks and abilities. Please bold all suggestions so I can see them better. Please also try to provide an explanation as to why such a moveset would be viable. We're trying to avoid the "BECAUSE IT IS SUPAH POWAHFUL" strategy here as that's what got us in this rut.

I also want to ask if anyone would mind if I just quietly ripped the original maps from Emerald and used them to change back all the weird things Achiya did to the routes in WL? Unless you guys would rather just have me edit them slightly.

Also, one last thing. I'm willing to consider the suggestion that non IN LastWord touhou be kept in under another name, but one way or another I'm going to have to remove at least two to accommodate for the TD touhou. On that note, does anyone have the sprites for Chibi Futo? UnLZ keeps messing it up by fragmenting and repeating the image so I can't grab them from the original game. I'd also kind of like to think of some rhyme and reason for whatever these nonlastword touhou are, given that the original distribution appears to be "Whatever works, yo." It would be nice to give some love to some of the more obscure/older touhou, as popular ones like Reimu and Sakuya already have a lot of forms and a lot of love, so maybe we can go on that. But again, it's mostly you guy's call.

[Shadowlit]

I'm not completely sure what problem you are having with the attack editor as it works perfectly fine for me baring that I don't really understand the unlabeled effects. Also the same goes for the text editor, unfortunately I have no idea how the scripting code works so I can't help with XSE.
http://i49.tinypic.com/rrobjk.png
http://i49.tinypic.com/345kghw.png
Possibly try deleting your current patched versions and re patching everything through again?

Also the edited maps in WL are fairly terrible with the exception of that sound test thing though honestly they are so lazily done that it might just be easier to edit them manually, but sure about that though so just do what's easiest.

Also for scrapping some of the Lforms maybe have some standard of where they appear in the game? for example Yamame has a LW form and doesn't really need one. I would love for Parsee to have one as shes my favorite but probably doesn't deserve one. =p

For LReimu's moveset possibly PWJ Needle, Musou Tensei, Brick Break, and for the final attack maybe Steel Fist Extrasensory or Shadow Ball PWJ and Musou Tensei both have stab and play off each others abilities so long as the AI works for it. Also I would recommend giving Reimu Super Potions and Full Heals for the fight. in fact give most of the fights super potions at least as the 50 hp is not enough to fully heal up not too far into the game and contrary to the whining in the nit picks Super Potions are fully available to the player after you give the Scarlet Tome to Patchouli.

[SacredWind]

well, i do not seem to have any problems with the programs you have.

I have all the 1.8 files, ripped directly from aichiyas touhou puppet play enhanced for use in advanced series.
link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ol2v8sijjcxmctk

And i've got a new link for aichiyas tools (uoloaded myself ) : http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?gwi5t7j038mt6fd

and i think you replace kedama, hoshizako (the star thing in PC-98/PoDD), Tori (bird related to mystia?), Suppa tenko ran, suppa tenshi (Oh god delete them please! my eyes burns?), EAMokou (why an ex advent?), Tewi (H)/(L) (why two middle evos. of tewi?) and vocaloids with others, like chibi kasen or tenma etc.

[ttly not agastya]

You're probably better off starting on a clean Fire Red ROM instead of simply piggy-hacking AW - that way you'll know where everything is.

There are many places in Ai's notes where he forgot where he inserted data and that makes working around things a bit of a nightmare.


Also, the AI will refuse to use Power Jet Needle as long as it has moves with higher BP - it runs damage calcs and just goes for the option that will produce the biggest number. This leads to the AI sending things with 4x weaknesses in on something that just used the move that slaughters them just because they have a SE attack that'll hit harder than a different team member's SE attack.

[heroictype]

Sorry, guys! The past few days have kind of gotten away from me...

SacredWind


I have all the 1.8 files, ripped directly from aichiyas touhou puppet play enhanced for use in advanced series.
link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ol2v8sijjcxmctk

And i've got a new link for aichiyas tools (uoloaded myself ) : http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?gwi5t7j038mt6fd

This should be amazingly helpful. Thanks so much for the tips and tools!

Also, on the upside, I finally got A-Text to open. The problem I'm having now is with the .ini file. I've looked into it, and it sounds like I'd somehow have to compile/edit one almost from scratch? It gives me the option to create one when I open the ROM in the program. However, I imagine there's an existing one somewhere... The game has the text already in it, but I'm just not sure how to find the right file. And Google has not really been my friend in this.

[Lightmaster]

Well... I need to say this, but... don't use A-Text. That tool is buggy and it messes badly with the dialogues and offsets. Believe me, I used that tool and it screwed badly some dialogues. If you wanna modify the dialogues and text, use AdvanceMap in conjunction with XSE. That's my suggestion.

[heroictype]

Well... I need to say this, but... don't use A-Text. That tool is buggy and it messes badly with the dialogues and offsets. Believe me, I used that tool and it screwed badly some dialogues. If you wanna modify the dialogues and text, use AdvanceMap in conjunction with XSE. That's my suggestion.

I'd be willing to try it, but I'm not sure exactly how I'd go about doing this? Also, I get the same error I posted about above when trying to use XSE (nothing opens up):

So, I'd like to know if anyone could help me figure out how to actually edit the script/hex code to change the text directly using XSE? I don't think it will be that hard to do, if I can just get the script to display, but here's what I get when I open the ROM in XSE: http://i49.tinypic.com/33o2qn6.png

[Lightmaster]

Hmm... did you setup the script program in AdvanceMap? You have to select the directory where's placed XSE, and besides, to use it, you need to select any event from X area in AdvanceMap that could have text included (for example, the sign tables in the towns and other places), Yeah, it will be a long process, but that's better than using A-Text, I think.

[heroictype]

Okay, apologies for the delay! Unfortunately, Keshi is going to become quite busy with a lot of IRL stuff. So, it's mostly going to be translation work for a bit, until that's sorted out! Still, we're going to keep things moving.

Hmm... did you setup the script program in AdvanceMap? You have to select the directory where's placed XSE, and besides, to use it, you need to select any event from X area in AdvanceMap that could have text included (for example, the sign tables in the towns and other places), Yeah, it will be a long process, but that's better than using A-Text, I think.

I got this to work! However, I have one remaining question. Basically, there are times when text shows up in the script like this:

"#org 0x1F3B41
trainerbattle 0x5 0x171 0x0 0x829CA7C 0x829CACC
msgbox 0x829CAF6 MSG_NORMAL '"I'll resume training tomorrow.\nLe..."
end"

or

"'---------------
#org 0x291D11
lock
faceplayer
special2 LASTRESULT 0xB9
compare LASTRESULT 0x1
if 0x1 goto 0x8291E0B
compare LASTRESULT 0x2
if 0x1 goto 0x8291E2F
compare LASTRESULT 0x3
if 0x1 goto 0x8291F5C
msgbox 0x82922F4 MSG_YESNO '"I'm the Day-Care Lady.\pWe can rai..."
compare LASTRESULT 0x1
if 0x1 goto 0x8291D56
msgbox 0x8292416 MSG_KEEPOPEN '"Oh, fine, then.\nCome again."
release
end"

The bold lines being the ones I'm not sure about there. It seems like the text just trails off, even in the script itself, but that's not all she says in the game. How do I edit past where it cuts off, as in those examples?

[SacredWind]

Okay, apologies for the delay! Unfortunately, Keshi is going to become quite busy with a lot of IRL stuff. So, it's mostly going to be translation work for a bit, until that's sorted out! Still, we're going to keep things moving.

I got this to work! However, I have one remaining question. Basically, there are times when text shows up in the script like this:

"#org 0x1F3B41
trainerbattle 0x5 0x171 0x0 0x829CA7C 0x829CACC
msgbox 0x829CAF6 MSG_NORMAL '"I'll resume training tomorrow.\nLe..."
end"

or

"'---------------
#org 0x291D11
lock
faceplayer
special2 LASTRESULT 0xB9
compare LASTRESULT 0x1
if 0x1 goto 0x8291E0B
compare LASTRESULT 0x2
if 0x1 goto 0x8291E2F
compare LASTRESULT 0x3
if 0x1 goto 0x8291F5C
msgbox 0x82922F4 MSG_YESNO '"I'm the Day-Care Lady.\pWe can rai..."
compare LASTRESULT 0x1
if 0x1 goto 0x8291D56
msgbox 0x8292416 MSG_KEEPOPEN '"Oh, fine, then.\nCome again."
release
end"

The bold lines being the ones I'm not sure about there. It seems like the text just trails off, even in the script itself, but that's not all she says in the game. How do I edit past where it cuts off, as in those examples?

well, there should be the rest of the text just under the script, as far as I know.
example:
 '---------------
#org 0x16582F
msgbox 0x817D80D MSG_FACE '"Technology is incredible!\pYou can..."
endd


'---------
' Strings
'---------
#org 0x17D80D
= Technology is incredible!\pYou can now store and recall items\nand POK?MON as data via PC.