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Everlong

author=SiegfriedCalibur
Can I have this spreadsheet, please? Would make my work on this walkthrough much easier. As for Jack, I took some of the list from the old forums already, but I'm ready to compile the list by locations, if needed, even if I have to play for a while.

Here's a link to the spreadsheet. You want any location that has a number 3 under the FD1 to FF5 columns, the Captain Jack treasure hunts.

As I said, I have some radical suggestions concerning the story in my mind, however, if it's too excessive and tiresome to you, you don't need to do it. I wish I knew about RPG Maker and programming stuff better to help you, but unfortunately, I too am a busy man. Changing some small scenes in order to imrove narration and dialogue flow is already pretty good, so thank you for your hard work.

I'm currently limiting myself to small changes, especially where story scenes are concerned. If you'd like to do a story change write up and email it to me or send via private message, I'd be interested and could share more about what would fit with the planned but cut additions.


That is true, but I think that between Comstock and Elves, for example, you can still acquire only two so far. So adding another one to help the party would actually be a tremendous help, since it protects THREE party members from status effects. It's still a large chunk of the game.

The first Soul Seal is in Aditus Grotto in a waterfall area, just a few rooms in, red monster chest behind a statue riddle puzzle. There's a second in the room where Guardian Kuwadora awaits in Nemus Aevum, impossible to miss. These are intended to be found by the player, especially the one in Nemus Aevum. Otherwise the battle against Pandemonium is rather unfair when hit with Disaster.

Unfortunately, I don't have it anymore, since it was rewritten by another save, sorry. Nevertheless, I think it should have jumped from lvl 90 to 95 in this case, correct? If you already made some modifications, it should be fine.
I don't complain anyway, hahaha.

No problem, it won't be that difficult to recreate the situation.

Everlong

Nice. I found six or seven treasures on my past walkthroughs, this time I found five, three of which were new to me. Gonna be somewhat of a pain to compile them all, but I'll try.


I think there's 40+ locations, I have them in a spreadsheet along with Memory Beacon locations and anything else included in the Finder Display visual. The treasures are listed by location and control variable, however, not the hint given by Jack, which is probably what you want to compile.

Things like Story Mode make this island quite obsolete, and even those who want a challenge might find these monsters too easy after getting a ship. So new drops would be great motivation.


Story Mode was designed for players interested in the plot rather than battles, or for frustrated players who had enough of random encounters for the moment. To allow players the freedom to enjoy the game as they wished, Story Mode can be toggled anywhere. If used it absolutely defeats the purpose of fighting battles to level, unless monster auto balance is selected. Once the player starts using the rebirth mechanic to gain levels past the normal limit, it's assumed this difficulty option will be turned on, hopefully restoring some challenge to these types of super enemies.

The upgraded drop mechanic will only work for monsters encountered solo or with others of the same type, but this includes most foes I intend to adjust. Improved drops will probably consist of stat boosters and powerful medicine, but I might sneak some ores or other rarities in there with a low percentage to be selected as the item.

Of course, but considering how the plot in this game is very significant AND dialogue heavy, a simple soul would try to read through all of it patiently and giving maximum attention. So, a typical japanese anime cliche out of nowhere, in my opinion, ruins the narration. It makes Flidais sound like a stupid bitch, honestly. Expanding her origins and motivations, however, will greatly improve the scene.


If I rewrote the script, such as for a remake in a modern engine, I would excise much of the dialog. The reading and exposition is far too excessive. I totally understand and forgive players who run out of patience and skip through the dialog. I'm still (pleasantly) surprised when some players talk about how seriously they considered the plot and characters. The JRPG cliches used to be much more numerous, but there's still a number produced by lazy or rushed development. Definitely breaks the narrative when juxtaposed with newer dialog and scenes. Fixing the Flidais and Return to Auctus scenes is much more realistic a goal than inserting the lost character arcs.

I wanted to use character development to also give otherwise superfluous locations and NPCs purpose. For example, the player would return to the village of Situs and visit the graveyard to barter for the Grimoire from a thieves guild representative, a tense meeting where Keen is reminded he's still being hunted by other members for his transgressions. Then the party uses the Grimoire to open the Temple of Diablos, speak with him to discern the location and manner of entering the island closest to the underworld. There Vixen would perform a ritual to summon a dead treasure hunter that broke into Welana's Citadel (East Tower), so the party might learn how. Afterward, Julia's parents that betrayed Seraphia but perished in the war would appear unsummoned for a final parting. All these new or embellished locations, NPCs, and dialog would simply require too much work, though. Not just one scene can be added when multiple others depend on them.

Well then, I suppose those people who don't talk to principal characters simply only follow the main plot of the game. In this conjuction, Lunar Harp, as a reward from Arena, still can be won and delivered to musician, however. So it's not that catastrophic. Also, if the reward would be as you suggested, a Soul Seal, then players would have FAR more motivation to complete it, right?


There's plenty of Soul Seal items, and ways to acquire them. This would provide the item earlier, making battles against condition heavy foes easier, but not reducing the challenge to trivial. I was more concerned if the reward was enough motivation for a tedious quest.

Also, casting Fusion instead of Bolt skills may be a better idea, since it doesn't trigger him.


The Aegir battle is pretty early in the game to have Fusion, so I wouldn't expect most players to have access to that spell, but it's definitely superior as a non-elemental spell unlikely to trigger counter attacks.

Indeed I was. I can't remember the exact number, but somewhere between 85-87, I think. It was just before going to White Shrine.


Your heroes were definitely underleveled, but 95 is the upper adjust limit for Nemus Aevum. I checked the code and the logic is sound, but it's possible some other script is operating in parallel and causing issues. I made some modifications to prevent this, but if you have a save file from just before this error occurred, that would be extremely helpful in ensuring the error is eliminated. Otherwise, I'll have to try and recreate it.

Everlong

author=SiegfriedCalibur
I see. Interesting indeed. But still, the probability of simple random attacks is pretty low, compared to the number of skills he has in disposal. Your party would of better prepare for these skills, instead of gambling, I think.
And what happens if he is constantly being hit with pure Magic attacks?


I definitely got carried away with the Blob's action list, it's the most complex in the game. There's so many possibilities the player cannot rely on a single one being chosen.

If the last skill used against the Blob is type Magic (non-elemental): Plasma, Solar Beam, Dissolve, Mana Font, Exploder, Telekenesis, Quasar, Arcane Blast, Magnetron, Meteor, Ultima, and Caster's Folly. If the player equips Magic resistant armor, or casts the spell Shell, damage from these skills could be mitigated. No conditions to worry about either, and mostly single target.

I understand. The thing is, you ofthen don't need to cast Migraine on target in order for Psi Duel to take it's effect. Usually, your Casters are already sufficient enough to reflect it back. While with Power Duel Atrophy is a must it seems.
But it's OK, it's still pretty manageable. Thanks for the explanation.


It is possible there are monster party specific errors where the foe's Magic statistic is not set correctly. This could cause wildly unexpected damage. There's 1400+ formations, easy to make a mistake when copying and pasting. Casters resist Psi Duel easily, but a hero like Glen will get whacked unless his Magic has been boosted. That's all part of choosing party composition.


1) What's the deal with Captain Jack? Does he offer just some random gold numbers or is there something more to it in the end of the path? Because otherwise, it's more or less useless, since by this point in the game you already have enough gold, while his treasures are poor.


Currently Captain Jack chests only reward GP, but you raise a good point. It won't be difficult to include additional non-monetary treasures, similar to Memory Beacon hunting with Peregrine.

2) Is Monster Hunter Island good for something? I already killed a considerable amount of creatures there and while these cameos are entertaining, their drops are nothing to brag about.


Monster Hunter Island was meant as a level up zone with super monsters, like its Breath of Fire II inspiration. Unfortunately, it's balanced for the middle of the game, when you first obtain the Inceptum sailing ship. I wish drops could scale or change with party level, but they are static. There's a few similar areas on the world map, outside the Dreaming Forest, and the Vale of Chimera slightly southeast of Asper. I have an idea, however, that might work to upgrade the drops, but it will require some testing to make sure the DynRPG hack functions correctly.

3) Where can I find drops to trade with Isla del Sol Merchant, specifically the one who trades Maximillian, etc.?


Fungus Stump - several mushroom enemies, common to Meridion Caverns, Eridwell's Refuge, Nemus Aevum.
Ivory Horn - Meridion Caverns, enemy Hybrid.
Jelly Glob - Jellyfish in Progidium Nidus, bonus dungeon below Solus Insula, only accessible once Atlantis has risen.
Shark Fin - ship graveyard Sepulcrum Profundus, Shark enemy. Or find them in the beach hunting grounds.

Do it. It's still miles better than leaving casters behind a huge wall of crits combined with Dual-Wielding. It will not put them on the same level, but at least it will make Vetu more viable. Goddamn engine limitations...


I did some testing yesterday to confirm the game's current algorithm setup. For this bonus tier, I can make spells gain extra damage from the hero's Magic attribute while also ignoring the reduction from the target's Magic. This will help make spells more viable against bosses and super monsters.

1) The entire Driada sequence before Lupuson town. So she bombards us with insults, but after we kick her sorry ass she simply goes *B-b-but I was just testing you!* It's such an unnecessary and stupid cliche, seriously.


Frankly, Flidais is an unnecessary battle that has no plot significance and was added so the dungeon has a boss. I have a few ideas to change her motivations while adding some backstory about the dying of the land and the extinction of her kind in the war of the legendary heroes.

2) Glen's speech before venturing to Forgotten Continent. Was this a deliberate reference to Lord of the Rings? Anyway, he says almost literally the exact same thing in the Tower of Auctus not long ago. With other characters following. Yet here they are, doubting themselves again.


This is a new scene not necessarily meant to channel any prior works, but I can definitely understand any parallels. It replaced an old speech aboard the Inceptum after the failure at Auctus. I'll try to differentiate the scenes from when the artifacts are stolen to this moment, excising redundant dialog.

Also, some characters can REALLY use their own story arcs. For example, Sammy mentions Bishamon after Golem's Pass, but virtually has absolutely no reaction whatsoever when meeting him. Or is this a bug? I remember him having a different master.


The character arcs were developed on paper, but massively scaled back or cut entirely. I might have previously mentioned this as a significant personal disappointment. Bishamon was supposed to be a different character. The name was reused in Alveus. I'll fix that reference.

Glen had a further arc with his lost love, more flashbacks, dialog with Meredith during their scenario, receiving a sapling at the Dreaming Forest to plant at Kathryn's grave. Sammy's backstory would elaborate upon the Tyr-Anox occupation of Eridwell, what happened to his master and other students from the forest monastery, with a cleansing of his shame in the ruins of Eridwell Castle. Meredith's mother had dementia and lived in a sanitarium. Her wizard mentor would link her parentage to a dark past. These are a few examples, but I don't have the time to implement the scenarios and integrate them into the existing plot frame.

Sidequest Suggestion: Can we please remove Lunar Harp as a reward for Comstock Delivery Quest? I bet a big number of people just get it in the Arena at this point of the game. Seems arbitrary. Or we can remove it from the Arena alltogether.


That's actually a difficult quest to complete since it's easy to forget or miss talking to the principal characters. It's the only quest that cannot be completed later. I'm not a fan of locking unique rewards behind plot dependent actions. I will change the reward, but will have to consider a suitable replacement. Perhaps early access to a Soul Seal.

Boss Suggestion: Can we please nerf Aegir's HP again during the first battle with him? It can go on and on for 20 freaking minutes straight or more, while spamming the same things.


Aegir is a boss I'm frequently asked to nerf by players. Currently, his HP is not that high above Liquid Flame or Dokkalfar, but perhaps I should lower their totals across the board slightly. Aegir's weakness to Bolt elemental attacks can be exploited to great effect with Glen's Thunder Slash and Vetu's magic if the player then follows with a low damage hit (ex: physical attack by Meredith) to mitigate the counter skill Retaliate. Maybe it's too early in the game for complex strategy.

Further Bug Notes: Nemus Aevum, last Stone Knight. Touched it, all my characters except Glen and random four are instant lvl 99. Glen and others are lvl 95. Touched it again. Random four are now lvl 99 too, while Glen, for some reason, is still lvl 95.


If your levels changed exactly after using the Stone Knight to heal for free, there must be an error in the Story Mode level adjustment. What levels were your heroes prior to using the Stone Knight? Were you actually playing in Story Mode? Level 95 is the correct value heroes should adjust to in the second half of Nemus Aevum.

Sometimes, not often, an error -OUT OF RANGE- occurs, while you are trying to board your airship. In this case, it switches to Window Mode, then back to Title screen. After rebooting the game, it seems gone, at least for now.

Start Window Mode function does not work, if your Everlong folder changes destinations from the default one.


The Subscript Out of Range (-1) message is a rare crash bug I tried to address by completely rewriting the airship dock code, but was not successful. The code is identical to that used for the Inceptum ship vehicle, yet that never causes an error. The current DynRPG curator PepsiOtaku told me he thought to have addressed this in his project, but was unsure. His fix isn't public, and might not work for my code. I instead opted for the autosave mechanism to prevent rare crashes from erasing progress. Pepsi graciously wrote this plugin for me.

As for windowed mode, I threw that together in 5 seconds by creating a shortcut and adding a modifier to the executable path. It's not a file created by the editor. You're correct it won't function if the player installs with a different path. I might just remove it in the next version to prevent confusion and have players switch window modes using keys only.

Everlong

author=SiegfriedCalibur
I NEVER saw him attacking with a simple random attack. All my 23 attempts so far. Watched Frag's walkthrough on YT, he does the same thing - always using skills.
I noticed him having Warrior's Bane attack, so I figured all-mage party would suffice. Aside from Reversal... it totally did.


Using Physical attacks or skills against Blob results in: 2x regular attack, Retaliate, Power Duel, Overpower, Gravija, Revenge, Warrior's Bane, Rupture, Gravitron, or Crush. These attacks have different likelihoods, but the regular attack is tied for most likely with 3 other skills. This also only accounts for the Blob's random turns. The boss pattern takes priority. The Blob only responds to the LAST action type before it takes a turn. If you attack with one hero, but then cast a spell with another, only the spell counts.

I have an idea. Can we make it so it reverses your HP parameter with your AP? Now that would be interesting, I think. COmbine this with the item that protects against it I suggested in the review section, and battles become increasingly more fun, yet still challenging.
If you are going to add it, though, be warned that it should at least be in either Nemus Aevum or before it, so players can start using it with the first boss with this skill - Aquaron.


There's actually already a skill that trades HP and AP - Swap. Bosses sometimes employ this skill with AP drainage beforehand. Low or extinguished AP is swapped for HP. An AP of zero thus results in a dead target. Usually this is a single or double hit skill, but I think the Uber Daemon targets the entire party after casting Blackout for instant defeat unless the player restores AP between turns.

I was thinking about where to put the accessory for mitigating special attacks. Now that you mention it, I think I'll place it directly on the path to Aquaron in Nemus Aevum so players cannot miss the item, and are encouraged to use it in that battle to see its effectiveness.

Don't know is this a bug or not... but the mechanic behind the skill Power Duel seems odd to me. It's supposed to be some sort of antipode skill to Psi Duel, right? So Psi Duel works complete fine, Power Duel, however... still can oneshot any of my physical strong attackers even in the endgame, while it can ALSO do LESS damage to Casters than to Physical attackers. What gives?


Power Duel compares the caster's Attack against the target's value, much like Psi Duel with the Magic statistic. Damage is based on the difference, multiplied by a fixed fraction that varies by monster. If your hero's Attack is higher, the monster is damaged. This makes inflicting Atrophy a priority, to halve the foe's Attack value. Caster heroes can still achieve respectable Attack when dual wielding or enchanted with Might. It all depends on the situation, but that's how the algorithm works. Once a special attack is used against you, view the details of its mechanics in the Tactics section of the Options menu.

Thanks for your support, DJC, I will. I still will have you answer some of my questions, though, heh. Can you please tell me, where I can find Monster Drops, than can be exchanged for equipment on Triangle Base merchant?


I'm happy to answer your questions, and will do so to the best of my ability (and memory)!

The Triangle Island merchant will trade for rare monster drops from the Triangle Mountain dungeon or Phoenix Cave, both only accessible after obtaining the airship. Embalming Wraps are from Mummies, Joker Card from Jokers, Mechanical Leg from Walkers, and Rainbow Wing from rainbow Butterfly.

This trader was previously a bonus available after completing a quest to acquire a drill and expand the Valiantide Base inside Triangle Island. In the revision, that is no longer possible due to a story revision. The trader was dumped outside to remain accessible, and the drill quest replaced.

Regarding Vetu and his low damage in endgame, compared to physical fighters. Is there a way to add a special effect to his spells, like randomly doubling the damage? Combining this with Nucleus will boost him to the level with everyone else. Some sort of magical crit, maybe?


There's not much flexibility to change skill damage. If I make the hero's Magic statistic have more influence, the target's Magic causes an equal reduction. This will only result in increased damage if the caster has higher Magic. Damage would be reduced when the target has more Magic, often the case with bosses or caster enemies unless you inflict Migraine. Critical skill hits and random effects are beyond the engine's ability.

My only idea was yet another skill tier, where reborn casters get a boosted damage version for each spell. That's just a static increase, however, which won't grow with the hero's Magic.

By the way, which story scenes do you think could use a rewrite the most? I was thinking about addressing the most egregious of these in the next update if I find the time.

Everlong

author=SiegfriedCalibur
I FINALLY beat this piece of crap Blob today. On the 23rd try. Goddamn it.
DJC, a note - he used Backfire, killing three of my characters immediately, then Overpowered the hell out of Sammy. See what was I talking about here?
He also didn't use Reversal, so the battle was smooth on the final attempt.

The journey to 100% this game continues. And oh yeah, I decided to write a guide, a walkthrough, if you don't mind.

BUG NOTE: Golem Gear doesn't protect against Terror, even though it should.


Upon inspecting the (exceedingly complex) attack script for the Blob, which copies/adapts based on the last type of attack used against it, the skills Reversal and Backfire can actually be triggered randomly in certain situations.

In response to a last used skill of type Life, the Blob either casts Reversal, Pentagram, or Death. Players could actually try to exploit this counter by intentionally casting Life spells when HP is low so Reversal heals, but it's 1 /3 chance and Fatal protection is required.

In response to a last used skill of type Summon, the Blob either casts Vulnerability, Demolish, Backfire, Disaster, or Pharaoh's Revenge. Therefore, using ANY summon spell by Vixen or Drakeor is a huge gamble best avoided.

Otherwise, the Blob only casts Backfire every 72x+12 turns (after HP affecting skill turn followed by Swallow), and Reversal every 36x+24 turns (one turn after Ultima followed by Swallow). That's still a really long pattern to deal with, but the complexity of the Blob battle is a huge outlier even among optional bosses. It's the only enemy that always hits you with Backfire or Demolish three times, which is a guaranteed wipe without all four heroes alive. I'm going to change Backfire to two hits since it's part of the pattern and unavoidable.

The Blob's Overpower damage is 4/5 of maximum HP prior to reduction, but combined with Sammy's poor equipment selection for boosting defense and therefore lowering the damage, he's a hero that's going to suffer from this skill.

Physical or elemental attacks are probably a better choice against the Blob considering the skills this causes the enemy to then use. With the right equipment and spells, you can make the Blob heal you frequently with it's random attacks. Example: Drakeor with Water protect armor + casting Aura, or White Wizard spell Water Shell.

If players think Reversal is too punishing a skill, I'm open to changing it's effect to reducing HP to 1 instead of instant death when the target has full health. Or perhaps I'll make that change only for Default and Easy difficulty levels.

You're correct about the Golem Gear. Terror is the last condition on the list, so I just failed to check it along with everything else. I'll correct this bug in the next update, thanks! Let me know if you catch any other errors.

Have fun writing your guide, I'm sure a current version would be much appreciated by other players. I hopefully won't implement any new major overhauls that will eventually make it obsolete similar to a few past efforts.

Everlong Review

author=SiegfriedCalibur
How about implementing a special item that protects against Backfire or Reversal then? Like, nullifying their effect? There can be at least one in the game for such occasions. It will make battles more bearable.


That's a good idea that should not be difficult to implement. I'll add an accessory in the next update that grants immunity or reduces damage from special attacks, particularly Reversal and Backfire.

Reversal was meant to be dealt with by learning enemy patterns and never healing the entire team to full health. Unanticipated, it's an unfair skill. It's easy to forget or lose your place in a long pattern too, but the penalty is often a total wipe. It's also against conventional wisdom to not keep HP at maximum if possible.

Mitigating Backfire damage can be done through intentionally limiting attack output. This can be achieved by not casting Might, not reducing enemy defenses (Armor Break), or equipping lower damage weapons. These tactics again run counter to usual strategy, however, and apparently are another unwelcome addition to battle strategy.

I just remembered when I increased the damage cap, the resulting potential increase in damage returned against the player via Backfire and Retaliate was a major balance concern. Thanks for your feedback, I will definitely address these skills and any others that have become too extreme. I was also worried about the potential for exceedingly high damage from other skills like God's Eye that use hero statistics in calculations, which were also uncapped in a recent update.

Everlong Review

Thanks for the review SiegfriedCalibur! It's been awhile since a player posted a review, which I do appreciate, especially the criticism that helps improve the game when possible. You raise some excellent points about Everlong's design failures and weaknesses that I absolutely agree with.

Cliches - the original release was obscene in this respect. In the revisions I've tried to remove plot predictability and insert character complexity, but many planned story sequences were cut. The resulting ends were tied together in a generic manner just for a semblance of coherence to keep the story moving. The retcons also created a mess themselves. The game script would need a complete rewrite to address the situation. I'm most disappointed in the character arcs I never had a chance to include, which would have made the story more personal and engaging. Some of the writing is decent, but during my last play through I too cringed horrifically at times.

Bosses - definitely a joke for RPG veterans who know what they're doing, but I've had many frustrated players contact me about their difficulties, resulting in a nerfing trend over time. Bosses have fixed patterns in addition to random skills to reward player planning and strategy. The most devastating skills are almost always fixed to give players a chance to anticipate and cushion against unfair repetition. There needs to be recovery and regroup periods.

For example, Reversal as you mentioned is particularly nasty, but the Blob always casts it after Vulnerability, so players can prepare and actually use it to heal the team. Of course, a player doesn't know the pattern until after fighting the enemy once, just as they don't know how to prepare for elemental attacks or status effects. I REALLY wanted a plugin to allow changing equipment in battle without turn loss to mitigate this issue because I also disapprove of this mechanic. The assumption is players will at least equip their White Wizard with status and elemental protection to ensure healing and reviving in the face of the unknown. The rest of party can similarly be equipped defensively, or instead increase offense at the expense of being caught off-guard.

That wouldn't address enemy attack patterns, however, so I tried to make only optional bosses have surprises bordering on unfair. I admittedly got carried away with the length and complexity of these patterns, as well as the mechanics of some of the special skills. I often forget the damage formulas myself. That's why I added the Tactics help menu kalledemos mentioned, but that doesn't help players in the middle of battle. I also REALLY wanted scan skills to aid players in exploiting weaknesses and adjusting during battle. I did some preliminary planning, but implementation was not feasible even with DynRPG. Besides attack patterns and special skills, another issue you rightly criticized was counter attacks.

Counter Attacks - There's some serious over powered mechanics I tried to address with counter attacks. For example, Might makes physical attacks insane, so bosses usually have at least one skill to mitigate this enchantment, either by removal or damage (Might Makes Wrong). Initially these skills were part of fixed patterns only, but then I introduced the counter mechanism so enemies could respond immediately to player strategy. In older versions this was incredibly punishing, limited to using constantly triggered damage thresholds.

With DynRPG plugins, counters became more tailored, only triggered when specific skills or elements were used. This is still punishment for smart exploitation of enemy weaknesses, however, which many players have responded negatively to. My idea wasn't to stop players from using these weaknesses, but to encourage them to plan around the resulting backlash. For example, Glen can use Ice Slash and Vetu his best Ice spell against Liquid Flame for massive damage, but this will result in the counter Backfire, a truly devastating return of damage on the next turn. Therefore, these high damage skills should only be used on the same turn during a soft spot in the enemy's attack pattern, when the party is at full health, and in good position to regroup after the counter (Meredith is alive with plenty of AP for healing spells, and Justin can use items to supplement). This is admittedly an overly complex strategy, and clearly not fun for many players.

The easiest response to the counter attack grievances was to give players control of the counter mechanic and adjust it as they saw fit. In the options menu under custom monster balance, the counter attack rate can be set from 0-100%. Eliminate counters entirely and blast the bosses away if that's most enjoyable for you! The difficulty levels also have different counter percentages too. Only Hard Mode has 100% counter rate. I would have liked more ways for players to address the special skills often used as counters, such as reflecting Backfire damage, or breaking an enemy's will temporarily through accumulated damage so it cannot counter for X amount of turns, but that's beyond the engine's mechanics.

Magic vs Physical - in older versions Magic reigned supreme, but then Might came along and made Physical damage ridiculous. It was difficult to address this with the base RM2K3 formulas, since I was stuck with a particular attribute tag setup to make normal attacks scale higher (weapon multipliers are used). Thanks to DynRPG I was able to change the skills damage formula slightly to improve the Magic attribute's effect, and I overhauled how Attack and Magic change the power of equipped skills (different versions of the same skill depending on the hero's statistics, rather than level).

However, dual wielding and increasing the Attack stat limit again increased physical attack power. In response, Vetu was given the Nucleus item allowing him to double cast, but it has to be the same spell, and it takes his accessory slot (I would have liked more equipment slots). You actually can make Vetu's magic insanely powerful early in the game by ignoring defense and equipping him only with the highest Magic boosting armor, and once you learn his non-elemental spells he's actually better against enemies with high physical damage resistance or immunity, the number of which was increased in the recent update.

Vixen and Drakeor's magical summons fare worse because they cannot equip Nucelus (engine limitation with battle combo mechanic) and their spells are designed as attack all, geared for large groups rather than bosses (another engine limitation, only one target type per skill). I brainstormed additional mechanics where Drakeor could transform into dragon forms or Vixen into avatars of the gods with single attack skills, so earning their summons were more rewarding and battle effective, but these additions were never implemented.

Ultimately I agree magic doesn't balance with physical, especially at the end game. I feel the damage algorithms hamstrung me on this issue. I REALLY would have liked critical hits with magic, or double damage from reflecting spells off yourself.

Character Skills - In general I agree most skills are useless the majority of the time. They are too specific use and costly. Dispel is for rare situations where you must remove boons from bosses; regular enemies usually die too quickly for wasting a turn when you could just deal damage. I would have liked a dual effect where they also lower resistances, but there are engine limits to concurrent effects. Fatal attacks only work against weak enemies you can usually one-shot anyways. I wanted the chance of inflicting Fatal, or other status effects, to increase as heroes powered up, so you could force conditions on otherwise nearly immune monsters if you're strong enough. Again, beyond the engine's limits. By the way, ALL Fatal attacks have the same probability of working, so if it seemed Justin's skills were ineffective versus Willis', that was really bad luck.

I REALLY wanted to make physical skills base their damage off regular attacks, with a small cost for the additional status or elemental effect. This is not possible even with DynRPG because of the aforementioned weapon multipliers. Another thought was an entirely different cost system for physical skills based on building adrenaline during a fight through actions. This way it would take a few turns before the more powerful skills were accessible, but weaker ones could be more effectively spammed or used in a pinch. Not realistic to implement this with the default battle system unfortunately.

As for the other specific skills you mentioned, mass revival is rather over powered, so it never occurred to me to allow White Wizards such a skill. Phoenix is costly to cast and must be earned through a difficult bonus dungeon and optional boss. It also gives Vixen a unique and powerful skill to recommend her specifically. I included an abundance of single and multiple revive items to supplement.

Keen does have two dispel skills, that was an oversight in the last update! I recently changed Prismatic Eye to Dispel for the Fulgora fight in case Drakeor didn't have a spear equipped and couldn't dispel with Jump, thus dooming the party. I'll have to give Keen a different Skill Scroll than Dispel Slash now, thanks for catching that! You could argue Meteor Rain is expensive, so the regular Breaks for Glen are worth using if you only want to inflict a single condition, but if AP is no issue you're correct many earlier skills become redundant.

Rebirth Mechanic - I've never received any complaints about Purgatory before. I removed the Game Over result except from boss fights so that players were not punished if they forgot to save or went unexpectedly unprepared into a dungeon. Losing progress is extremely discouraging. If there are players out there who would prefer a hardcore experience, however, I could include an option to turn off Purgatory. I originally intended the use of Purgatory to necessitate a boss fight against the Grim Reaper before the player is allowed to proceed to the final dungeon, but that was cut.

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I hope my (way too long) remarks shed some light on my thought process and decision making that led to the shortcomings in Everlong you reasonably criticize. Regretfully, many are the result of engine limitations, lack of time, or years of revisions. The game is so large and complex at this point it's difficult to address fundamental issues, but hopefully the recent version 3.30 and Beta Patches have made some strides. I'd really have to switch to a new, more flexible engine to make the game I wanted to and address all the issues currently outstanding.

As to the discussion about reviews in general, let's remember Everlong is just an amateur video game made by a single person using a productive but limited engine. Review scores aren't that important, certainly when compared to valid constructive criticism. There shouldn't be any ego involved or need to compare with other games. I've tried to allow players the ability to play the game to their best enjoyment (Story Mode, custom monster balance, adjusting encounter and experience rates, etc), but if you're not having fun don't force yourself to continue playing! All games have their faults, and enjoyment is subjective.

@Euphoniac
I'm glad you really like and enjoy Everlong! I've tried to make the updates of the last few years player oriented. Many features are the result of player suggestion. Why don't you write up a review too and let us know what you think the strengths of the game are, and the areas you think need improvement? I know it can take awhile to gather and type your thoughts for a review, but I'm always interested in what players have to say, and do what I can within reason to address the glaring issues and bugs.

Everlong

@SgtMettool
I was unable to reproduce the AP Refresher bug. Just to verify, you're referring to the purple glowing totems before bosses that restore AP, correct? I'm running Windows 10, but I do have my RPG_RT.exe set to run with compatibility options, otherwise Full Screen mode performs poorly. Go to your main Everlong folder, locate the RPG_RT.exe file, right click, choose Properties at the bottom of the list, then the second tab Compatibility. I am running in "Reduced Color Mode", but you can also try other options. Let me know if any of that works. It's extremely odd that particular plugin is referenced in the error you posted since it is not called by the AP Refresher code. Any other players had this error?

@kalledemos
Are you able to start a new game fine after applying the beta patch? Is it the custom menu that hangs after loading your save, or the starting menu? If it's just the custom menu glitching, which happens when loading a save file where the player was on an updated map, try returning to the world map. This should reset the custom menu. Let me know if that works! I expect many players will experience this glitch with the latest beta patch since almost every map was updated to implement the auto save feature.

Thanks for the help with these bugs, guys, I appreciate it!

Everlong

author=SgtMettool
Hey! I started a new save in Version 3.30 and I get this message when interacting with the first AP crystal.

Did not have this problem with 3.2x

EDIT: It seems to only happen if the game is in FullScreen. I wonder if this is just a problem with 2k3 games on Windows 10?



Interesting, that's a custom DynRPG plugin causing the error. Let me check it out. I have a Windows 10 box and will see if I can replicate the crash. I know Windows 10 made changes to the DirectDraw API, which is buggy in full screen unfortunately.

Everlong

author=ephraim683
where is the water leviathan (?) ( is this even his name on the new version ) couldnt find the summoner stone on east tower was it moved?
and diablos im missing that guy as well


Meridion is the revised name for the water god. His summon stone, Shankha, was moved from East Tower to the Tower of Auctus. It's difficult to miss, with two chances to open the chest along the main path. The room is just before the giant torch puzzle. Players can also return to the Tower of Auctus later in the game if necessary, after acquiring the airship. Meridion's Temple is accessed either quickly via the airship, or through the Waterfall of Seasons near the beginning of Golem's Pass, followed by a dungeon. The Waterfall of Seasons cannot be passed until after the War of the Eclipse.

The Temple of Diablos is on the Imperial Continent, near Fons Moenia and the east entrance of Terra Cavus. It's listed on the map in continent view. The Grimoire needed to open the temple is located within Vanguard on the upper floors. Top right room on this map.

Hope that helps!