Hellion

Here is the mappack for Hellion with the XTREME LFX content! Download the rar file and unzip the contents of the rar file and copy it into the Hellion folder, overwriting what's there. Let me know if it doesn't work.




Thanks to:
AznChipmunk for the cool looking level.
geodude for rad sunglasses and map idea
GreatRedSpirit for the darkness code and image.
kentona for putting it all together and making another rocking arrow tile puzzle (booyah)
hyadain for his awesome DQ3 remix

To access the Rad Sunglasses map go to the pool in the lower right section of Salidar and inspect the waterfall. There is an inscription that you need to decipher and the way to Rad Sunglasses castle will be unlocked.

DOWNLOAD: http://rpgmaker.net/games/146/downloads/1605/
(when it's approved) "Your submission, Hellion Rad Sunglasses Mappack, was accepted and is now available."

I currently have the following people helping me beta test:

captainregal
ChaosProductions
Izazie
Silently
Solitayre

(Previous testers were: Silently, Craze, Silviera and beakmanthegreat. Ephiam designed a lot of the bosses.)

I will track a master list of defects from here on out. It will be easier to manage if everyone can see what other people are reporting.

** UPDATED Dec 17th**

Still unresolved
-Just returned the signet to Reia and opened my alignment bar: Event Script referenced an event that does not exist

Completed
x- when you hire Birgette and are able to persuade her, she answers "300 is acceptable"... even if she was asking for, let's say, 4 800. You spend the right amount of money though. (2 400 in this case.) Just a detail. :)
x-A minor mistake that I found in the skill's screen of the Mind Freak: "Haste all" requires "Slow All" (it should be "Focus all".)
x-A town portal spell/scroll would be amazingly useful, and pretty easy to program.
x-After learning the skill mug, selecting its icon will provide steal gold's description instead.
x-After learning to use "advanced tools" my hero was unequipped of all gear but I was given no warning of this.
x-After you beat the Butcher, Horatio the Elder warns you that Albus wants to speak to you. But when you meet albus, he doesn't say anything special. (even if you choose to gossip.)
x-Fighting in water makes the battle backdrop look like it takes place outdoors
x-Grizzly can be learned right from the start despite not having enough ABL
x-I defeated the Shadow Demons and Pablo has claimed he would reward me for doing so, but after defeating them, he would not acknowledge they were dead.
x-I get that this game is obviously derivative of Diablo, but having the first four floors include the Butcher, the Skeleton King and a stolen sign is too overt a reference for my taste. Why steal verbatim when you don't have to?
x-It’s possible to sell the magic key. I can only guess this would have disastrous consequences
x-Julliet’s "Invisibility" spell causes the "focus" effect.
x-Julliet’s "Turn Undead" spell not only makes no sense, but it never seems to work either. Is it a joke skill? I note it seems to be a play on words. Players are going to assume it does something much different, and the spell always fails regardless.
x-Mara’s Shadowstorm spell only hits a single target but it claims to be a group spell
x-Maybe I was just really good at breaking the game, but difficulty pretty much vanished on the last few floors. Heroic ballad coupled with my party’s offense meant enemies really even got to act. Enemies probably need more debuffs/dispel abilities starting around floor 11.
x-On floor 4, the immobile skeletons seem to be sharing their pickpocket switch with other monsters (maybe amongst themselves too?), as I couldn't pickpocket any item from any of them.
x-Some (or all?) battles with magidrakes can keep muting the party even if there are no magidrakes remaining. One of the battles involves 2 magidrakes + 2 other monsters and triggered on floor 2 or 3 (maybe near water). Another battle involves 1 magidrake and 3 mushmooms, and is triggered on floor 4, by the mushmoom right below the stairs.
x-The "Mana Melody" ability is extremely broken. It needs a much higher MP cost. Right now, with an MP cost of 4, it amounts to free infinite mana for everyone, always.
x-The healslime on floor 2 still disappears if the leftmost healslime on floor 1 is defeated and foraged.
x-The test of Greed might be too obvious of a trap, I can't see anyone falling for it in its current state.
x-When opening a bag, if the bag gives me gold it seems to go into a loop and "open" again, giving me an additional item
x-Why put damage tiles in front of the shortcuts into the deeper areas of the dungeon? To punish the player for opening up shortcuts?
x-alignment wasn't changing
x-decipher mid-level scrolls leads to infinite loop if DECIPHER too low
x-top of the screen sometimes shows grass instead of rocks in swamp cave - IN BATTLES
x-treasure hunting skills were infite!
x-you can get trapped in prison: if you open the chest AFTER you bribed the warden, and the quit the menu screen, the door will be closed again, and you'll be unable to get out.
x- I'll get Arcana to stop talking about the tower once you are done with it.
x- The Dragon in the southern tower seems to not be not weak against sleep, contrary to what was written on the tablet. I used Lullaby twice, and my Hero's INT was 98.
x- The reward offered by Severus for the Icy gem Gon't match what Jive offers to get it. Moreover Severus don't sell anything as long as you still have the gem.
x- the chain of events after you find the "Journal of the Slain" seems to be a bit messy. Character A is supposed to send you to chara B, who sends you to chara C, etc. Maybe it's because I came back to town just after I found the Journal, and before I completely finished the level, but some of them didn't say anything more than what they usually did. Moreover they told me about a certain key to open a door that I didn't find yet. :P I will replay that part and make an exact report of the anomalies if you wish, but there is nothing there that can cause any problem to the player.
x-A lot of pieces of equipment could use more description. All robes have the same description and I don’t know what a Dagger of Beating does.
x-A scroll merchant in town would be nice as well. (Albus?)
x-All of the Animangus skills that he learns for the shape shifters don't work. For example the dragon skill icebreath shows up in the normal Animangus's skill selection but he can't use it. And when you shift to dragon mode it is not selectable at all. This is the same for Werewolf and BeBear.
x-Chow Yun’s Meditate ability can be used to fully heal himself on the map
x-Grizzly & uncurse de-equips the Grizzly's weapons!
x-I see now that the Mind Freak has a town portal spell. Having this spell in scroll form, or from an ally, would be nice though.
x-Icy gem quest
x-If the 1/2 menus are opened during the fade out or the beginning cutscene, the selector can be the main character until either of those menu is reopened and closed properly.
x-If the 1/2/3 menus are opened during the cutscene, the game can crash by not being able to find some event. The main character can also become the selector, but with the 1/2/3/4/5 and main menus locked. Message boxes also seem to be transparent. There aren't any encounters on the overworld either (I walked in circles for a while and even walked all the way to the Z-something tower without encountering enemies).
x-In the Caverns I think the phasing was turned on making it so my character was able to walk on everything. I looked in the editor and could not find where this happened. To fix it for me in my game I made a new event to turn it off. And made it parallel process in Town.
x-Kinglsey good ending charset
x-Mara and wands
x-Mara's special Relic
x-The menu can also be opened. I found out the main character is named Zack and the red box is named Selector like this.
x-The mimic on floor 4 still tells me I "Stole X Gold."
x-Zaldach final battle options
x-damaged items repaired?
x-darker grey font color
x-ending in general
x-neutral ending?
x-purchase scrolls
x-repair items
x-test animagus special skills for werebear/wolf/dragon - feed?
x-test auto decipher scrolls
x-town portal

Nothing being done about it
z- this one is not a bug, just a remark. As the items in the chest and bags are completely random, it's so tempting, easy and convenient to reset your game until you get what you want...what doesn't take long. It's looks a bit too much like cheating...though I don't know if something can be done about it.
z-After learning to use Master tools, my rogue could equip battleaxes. This was intentional!
z-It seems pickpocketing only reduces your allignment if you get caught? Robbing villagers should probably always reduce allignment. Robbing monsters should be fine though. It's only wrong if you get caught!
z-Mara’s magic spells have absurdly low MP costs considering how much damage they do. I'd give most of her spells a much higher MP cost even considering her unique relic. I think I'll tweak her relic instead
z-The test of envy, however, is awesome. Perhaps the type of door should be random, however.
z-There doesn't seem to be many perks to being good/evil. Being really good doesn't seem to confer many benefits over just being sort of good. Aside from hirelings, only Pablo and Arcana even seem to care. You sometimes get different conversation options. I can add more, I suppose, but it is not high on the priority list
z-config? Joy2Key
z-difficulty level I am considering creating an Expert mode by adding random encounters. The biggest issue will be EXP overloading though - you'd get a ton of EXP.
z-leveling up makes you a sitting duck to any nearby monsters. You cannot move while watching the level up message but monsters can and will surround you while it is happening. Is there any way of working around this? Umm, not really. I don't have any slick solutions to this problem. Perhaps make leveling up require user input? Like, after level up you have to hit 6 or something to apply it.
z- it should be good to make the stamina bar disappear from the screen when you don't need it anymore, even if it's not empty (for the time being, you have to wait till it has emptied and refilled again, what can take ages due to the lagging.)
z-After choosing a character, the ability and OOBS menus can be opened out of order. Opening the OOBS menu first will make the screen fade out without having to open the ability menu.
z-By the way, Stamina seems to increase only by 1, even Higgins tells the Hero that he will raise it by more.
z-LFX contest postponed to Release Something! Day IX
z-Some kind of indicator of what floor you are currently on would be nice. I completely lost track after the floor with the dark maze. maybe in v1.1
z-awareness on basins maybe in v1.1
z-cursed items uncursed? Naw - cursed items are meant to tempt you.
z-list of status effects maybe in v1.1
z-move small medals maybe in v1.1
z-stamina bar doesn't disappear. Ugh. It does eventually if you run/stop enough
z-when you ask Pablo to remove a curse, the whole party is completely unequipped, and not only the chara who used the cursed item. I changed the wording Pablo uses so this is more obvious. Doing individual items per individal party member is just too tedious at this point

I'm on the final leg of the project with only the last couple of floors to be created, evented and tested + story/cutscenes. That being said, my life suddenly got a whole lot busier (new baby + new job double whammy combo!) so my free time ain't what 'er used ta be.

Thus I am pinging the players following this game to see if its even worth it to finish.

The big mega release v0.8 only got about 85 downloads despite its inclusion in RS!VIII and me spamming like 5 forums with the game. I think that about on par with the I Expect You To Die game I made for a 3-hour contest and didn't advertise at all anywhere ever. Pretty sad.

Despite this game being a departure from the stale traditional RPG (and imho being genuinely fun to play) it hasn't had any real uptake. Hardly seems worth it to finish it these days.

Yes? No? Maybe so?

On the advice of people who responded to my last blog, I have made some additions to how OOBS can be acquired and boosted.

There is a new NPC named Higgins Obsmeister in the basement of the school. He is an aging treasure hunter who is a bit daft, but earnest. He will teach you 4 things:

1. Increases available Ability Points by 2 for a price (starting at 2500 gold, and doubling each time it is done)
2. Trains you in your weakest skill (+15 bonus!) after you reach a certain depth in the Pit (floor 8+)
3. Trains you in your cross-class skills (+5 bonus) after you reach a certain level (15+)
4. Trains you in 5 skills ONE TIME ONLY (skills depending on if you are good or evil) with a bonus equal to YOUR_LEVEL / 3 + 1

"Good" Skills:
-Disarm Traps
-Bash
-Decipher
-Stamina
-Detection

"Evil" Skills:
-Lockpick
-Hide
-Pickpocket
-Persuade
-Forage


Certain Hirelings now also give a boost to OOBS, as follows

Cristo --- Healer --- N/A
Lars --- Brute --- Bash +8
Jet Solo --- Thief --- Lockpick +5, Disarm +5, Hide +5, Pickpocket +5
Mara --- Mage --- Decipher +10
Sylar --- Pyromancer --- N/A
Julliet --- Illusionist --- Detection +9
Allanon --- Druid --- Forage +3
Thom --- Bard --- Persuade +7
Birgette --- Warrior --- N/A
Chow-Yun --- Monk --- N/A


I will be doing a new quest with an OOBS reward (like the Signpost quest). I just have to make another quest later on in the Pit.

The numbers and costs haven't really been tested yet, so they are open to change.

I'm ramping up for a full release of Hellion and am considering having a beta testing phase just before release looking primarily for balancing issues (and bugs, of course). Hellion's stat and skill growth are wildly variable, not to mention the random loot generation system, and there is no way I could test it all. Even with testers it's impossible.

In any event, I am hoping to find Mysterious Wanderers willing to play test the game. If there are no takers, I will probably opt for an open beta (but I don't really want to do that (but given the lack of activity in the Blogs, it might happen)).

Who wants to play test?