Master of the Wind (Complete!)

[ArtBane]

Sorry we sorta lost touch. We will hopefully be able to use your faces eventually. Right now the art situation is sort of a mess since we are still pushing on with the next arc even though art from the last arc is still missing. It would not be so easy to just form an art team either. There would be conflicting styles and as it is I have enough trouble managing one artist.

Thanks for the review by the way. I think you will like the direction we are taking for the characters you are unsure of. Like you said it is too early to make a call on Laurel. And even though Gabriella is popular we have different plans for her.

 

[Volrath]

I always appreciate your thoughtful input, Raven. ArtBane has showed me the facesets you drew, and I was pretty pleased with them all, though of course eventually they will need to be colored/inked and all that jazz. That's our major problem really...it's the coloring that seems to never get done. We have Torin and Zala battlers penciled from Arc III for example, but they never were fully completed. Now on to the plot points/characters you discussed in your spoiler.

Spoiler: more detailed discussion ahead

Laurel to me seemed "Oh and you'll need a white mage, here" :\ I don't hate her or anything... she jsut seemed sorta tossed in.

Believe me when I tell you that nobody has worried about that more than me. Ask ArtBane or Wumpi or anyone else I talk to regularly about the game. In terms of the party dynamics, more curing was necessary, I won't lie about that. I liked Laurel's modesty because it was different than the others. Cade's opinionated, Bones is grumpy and Finley is rude. I thought it'd be a good contrast to have someone who didn't have a big loud personality. She's only around for the last hour or so of Arc III, so you don't see much of her. She has a great deal of screen time in IV, and some prominent character weaknesses come into play. Sweet though she may be, she's hardly a saint. She also gets her own mini-game!

About Auburn, one problem may be that her relationship with Cade and overall story make sense to me of course, but it may not be conveyed as well as I would like. The reason she always talks so freely with Cade is that she senses they have a great deal in common. This confuses her, because on the surface, they look very different. She doesn't know that he is Shroud, and thus doesn't know that he lives just as violent a lifestyle as she does. But since she thinks Cade lives a boring life as just an armor salesman, she sees that as a ticket out of the EK career. She wants that boring life, and it's a fair judgment to say (at this point at least) that her tenderness with him isn't completely altruistic. There's still a lot more to her than what has been shown...a lot.

In any case, I'm glad Gabriella provided you with some satisfaction when it comes to female characters. We have big plans for her as well, as you can imagine.

 

[RavenTDA]

Well as far as art I the way that I suggested setting the team up it wouldn't be that big of a difference in the style because they are differnt devisions. Especeailly things like having someone else clean line work. I hate doing that myself and it does take a good chunk of time (Well for me at least). Though you have to ask Enkur since he's the lead there. See what he thinks. Though it's not a big deal filling in art later on. I suggest just going forward with the next arc and if you're close to finish VI why not start art for V and then go back?

Spoiler: More on the girls

See I think you have Auburn all figured out in your head (especailly after what you said), but it's the way that you are executing her is the problem. After reading your explination of her I think I see her character a little better but fro her on scene it's not really that way. The character IS there but you'll just have to figure it out how to show it.

My biggest suggestion is having her less tell how she is/feels and have her do stuff and react to things. That's better than lengthy dialogue I think for her. Seeing characters react to same things differtly is pretty big for characterization. Like even though it was frivilous in one of the towns an NPC says a joke and Bones and Finely react very differnt. "must not laugh" "must not kill" was really funny to me but it also gave in characterization. Try something like that more. You already got it, it's just a matter of doing it for her.

 

[Doctor]

Spoiler: Related to the previous spoilers

Raven, come and join the Cade/Gabriella shippers! Seriously, though, Auburn's characterisation bothers me too. She feels somewhat... forced, like some big cosmic author-diety is writting her lines.

 

[ArtBane]

Well as far as art I the way that I suggested setting the team up it wouldn't be that big of a difference in the style because they are differnt devisions. Especeailly things like having someone else clean line work. I hate doing that myself and it does take a good chunk of time (Well for me at least). Though you have to ask Enkur since he's the lead there. See what he thinks. Though it's not a big deal filling in art later on. I suggest just going forward with the next arc and if you're close to finish VI why not start art for V and then go back?

Enkur and myself aren't too huge on the idea of having other people working on the same art. There is the added difficulty of setting up and managing the art team as well. Right now I am more concerned about other aspects of the project. There will be a time for focusing on just getting the art done. For now Enkur is working on just getting the necessary battlers done for the next arc.

 

[Starwinderbeta]

The concert songs have always been Heroes and Spirit Never Die by Masterplan.

Does Spirit Never Die actually play in one of the games?

 

[Rye]

O_o isn't that what plays when you fight at the concert?

 

[ArtBane]

Heroes plays before the fight and Spirit Never Die is the song that plays during the battle.

 

[rataime]

I'm 10 hours into the game, still loving it, but something surprises me : it seems that the vast majority of positive status changes (buffs) are 100% stop at turn 4, 100% success, and boost to 125%. It strikes me as odd, as there's in fact quasi no point at all in using some them : you won't do more damage, you might lose mana (if buffs + 4 attacks > 5 attacks), and the main thing is you are likely to use one or more of those turns to do something else.

For example, Intensify is, in fact, useless, and more of them might be.

So could those skills rely more on luck, for example 50% chances of stopping starting at turn 3 ?

 

[ArtBane]

The main point of intensify is to use it with regular attacks. It becomes even more impacting if you break the physical defense of the enemy. You could be doing more damage than you would with your skills in certain situations. Intensify will only slightly increase skill damage so if you use it for that then I agree it is not very useful. I will look into the affects of making the buffs more random in battles. Some may become overpowered if not kept in check but others may benefit from a more random turn span. In any case, thanks for the input.

 

[EmuMaster2002]

I think I played all three arcs without ever having used a physical attack, except when I run out of magic, and maybe a bit at first.

You could say that Squall is the "shotgun" and attack is the "pistol".
Err... in Doom terms, that is.

 

[rataime]

The main point of intensify is to use it with regular attacks. It becomes even more impacting if you break the physical defense of the enemy.

True, but maths don't lie : you usually can't make more damage using Intensify with the way the skills are set up now. I used it once, though : when fighting against the monk student (err...my memory is failing me), it can be useful while his counter-attack is active.

EmuMaster2002 is right, I quasi never use normal attacks. On the minus side, I spend all my money on ethers...':|

 

[Volrath]

In my own experiences testing the games, I tend to use Intensity quite often and I find it extremely useful. There's not much reason to cast it on Shroud, but it can be lethal in conjunction with Stoic's double attack. If you get a critical hit with Intensity on, that's the good stuff...especially if the enemy in question has had his defense broken. With Intensity, the double-attack is often just as good (if not better) than most of Stoic's skills, especially given that Bone Cleave isn't always guaranteed to hit.

Of course, I know the game well enough to have an idea of the approximate HP of each enemy, so I tend to eschew magic and break out physical attacks when I know a foe's HP is getting low. I will admit that I'm hardly an authority on any of the detailed battle talk that comes up every so often here. I usually don't think about the specifics of it very much.

 

[ArtBane]

I have had this argument before with another person who took the more mathematical approach. Certainly the numbers don't always justify the two turns it took for Stoic to Intensify himself and Bull Rush the enemy compared to using Bone Cleave. But there is the added randomness of critical hits that Volrath mentioned. There is also another chance for Stoic to get a hit if one of his attacks misses. There are a lot of things to factor in besides just the numbers. I like the satisfaction of getting heavy hits on an enemy even if it took a few turns to set-up. I think it's well worth it when you can pull it off.

(If you don't like using physical attacks now you may change your tune when you get Call of Arms).

 

[Shiro]

I feel like the odd duck out. I use a lot of physical attacks. Even with Shroud, since he has a decent attack. I think there were certain items I equipped to boost attack instead of other stuff, like magic.

Though I equip high magic abilities for Shroud during boss fights since all he can really do is heal.

I use intensity quite a bit myself. I guess I'm just really stingy with ethers, being that I haven't used very many.

 

[Roman Candle]

I changed strategy a lot throughout the games. At first, I pretty much opened every fight with willy willy and blood letting. I'd use bull rush once those wore off, and then bone cleave, (for hard enemies), or attacks with Stoic, getting Shroud to mainly heal or willy-willy again. I did use a lot of physical attacks, but I didn't use intensity much, I have to say. It didn't seem to help that much, and it was either a case of bull rush and then waste a turn of defence-break using intensity, or waste a turn of intensity by casting bull rush. I did buy endless ethers though ^_^

 

[Shiro]

Bull rush was helpful at times, but the problem is it missed too much. It was just far too unreliable for me to use. Stoic tends to be the one of the group with MP still left over :P

 

[EmuMaster2002]

I just made good use of heal fairies, so Mp almost never became an issue. As long as I had a bed to retreat to I never ran out of magic.

Yet I still equipped Shroud with the best spears available at any given time, for some reason.

 

[rataime]

You should equip Shroud, as some of his skills depends on his strength.

By the way, I think I found a database bug :
The item Cat Collar (obtained by crafting) is plain useless (no boost). I think you intended to make it +45 EVA.

 

[ArtBane]

It should put on an auto state that increases your evasion. I think you may be one of the first people to get that item so it hasn't been fully tested. I'll be looking into it. Once again thanks for your close inspection of the game. It amazes me that you have been able to figure out what you have without looking at the actual database.