Recommendations for a Strategy Version.

So I want to make a "balanced" more strategic version of Golden Sun. My biggest aim is to not make a hack and heal like the original. Some of my current ideas on how to accomplish this are:
-Make weapon types more distinct and balance
-Rework the unleash system for certain weapon types
-Give alot of weapons and armor use abilites (not sure if they should be breakable)
-Rework range elemental attacks to balance with elemental physical attacks
-Make psynergy more varied (no more 3 spell trees that vary only slightly by base power; i.e. gaia, thorn, growth)
-Enemy reworking

Any recommendations on how to accomplish this or other areas that should be changed?

Hm... For equipment, you should make weaker items only usable once, but the better and rarer items reusable (but give them horrible stats).

An example of what I did was that I made the Shaman's Rod unleash Hurricane and bestow Thunderhead (not using it, but it has a 100% chance of unleash), but it lowers your attack and defense by -250-ish, so those stats are 0 until you get into the 70's for level. I also made it give you two turns, but that might be too strong.

Have a nice day.

Yeah what Salanewt did. I did something similar to that. I made the buy able weapons have single use abilities and the rarer weapons (like Witch's Wand, Shamshir, etc.) use abilities, but have the ability to break (so you would use money to be able to re-use it's abilities if desired.)

I will be doing something similar to what Salanewt said for artifacts. The single use ability on normal weapons sounds interstring though. But I plan on setting this up so that you need to think carefully about what your buying not just be able to buy everything.

What are your opinions on changing starting levels and level curves?

Hmmm...Single use abilities on normal weapons is a brilliant idea.
Also, did you heard about not having the weapons unleash but rather having bestow that unleash has psynergy? Personally I don't like the idea but having some weapons do that wouldn't be a bad idea for a strategic version.

I have not changed mine because I find it a bit confusing, but I would change their stats a bit based on build. What I mean is that the warrior types should get even less psynergy compared to those who are more like mages. The mages should get more psynergy, but less health. As for experience, those who are warrior types could level up faster, but the mage types could get better stat boosts (in some stats). I have not yet done this though.

I also heard about that. It is a good idea, but I would rather not do it myself until we can add icons (or maybe sooner if they already have icons that work for them).

One more thing, you should also fill in the gaps for the class groups.

Have a nice day.

I also remenbered something else. Try to differ the weapons, in the game axes, sword, maces, etc don't differ much between them (except for who can equip them) so try something like this:
Swords would have normal attack power but higher unleash rate than the other weapons, axes would increase defense but loer speed, light blades would be the oppposite of axes (+ speed - defense), maces would increase element resist (e.g. +5 venus resist), staves elemnt power (e.g. +5 venus power) and rod would increse both element power and resist but less than maces and staves (e.g. +2 venus resist +2 venus power)(for example).
This would make people scratch their heads on which weapon to choose.

Another idea courtesy of JamietheFlameUser:

Light Blades: +Agility, tendency to have Turns +1, medium attack power.
Swords: Second highest attack power, falling to Axes, +Defence.
Axes: Highest attack power by a longshot, -Defence, -Speed.
Ankhs: +elemental power, +luck, low attack power, PP regen.
Staves: +Defence, +elemental power, low attack power, tendency towards elemental attributes, high unleash rate.
Maces: +elemental power, +elemental resist, unleashes have a tendency towards ignoring target's Defence, medium attack power.

Nice Jamie, that's similar to what I said but better organized. Oh, and keep in mind that the +1 turn (from equipped weapons/rings/etc) kind of glitches if you try to stack it with the +1 turn bestowing djinn.

I was alsoo looking into diversify unleashes for the weapon types.
Axes: Big Damage low chance unleashes (20%-25%)
Long sword: Average damage average chance (30%-35%)
Short Sword: No idea what to do here
Maces: Status attacks with a high unleash rate
Stave: Bestowed unleashes

I was considering giving some short swords a counter strike chance

I was alsoo looking into diversify unleashes for the weapon types.
Axes: Big Damage low chance unleashes (20%-25%)
Long sword: Average damage average chance (30%-35%)
Short Sword: No idea what to do here
Maces: Status attacks with a high unleash rate
Stave: Bestowed unleashes

I was considering giving some short swords a counter strike chance

Edit: Will an admin please delete this for me?

what is this about counter strike chance? That would be a very good idea. Actually, I'd love it if you did that and let other people play it. Alot of those items need special effects like that which were never used.

Is it possible to bestow guard aura effect/chance on weapons/armour permanently? It would be cool if whenever you were attacked there was a chance of taking only 5% damage.

I do eventually plan to release this eventually, but right now I'm still brainstorming, I will probably follow Zach's example and release a beta version once I get to Lemuria.

As for the counterstrike chance I was thinking of tossing that on some shortswords instead of extra turns because I could easily see abuse of that with summons and djinn. Though may do that and have it lower elemental power. Any ideas on how I could change short swords unleashes to diversify them more?

What djinn do think are under/over powered and why?

Short Swords: First off, give them speed-based unleashes, ones that don't look like they hurt a lot. Moves like Lunar Slash (Corsair's Edge) and Mad Zephyr (also already on a short sword) look quite nice. Perhaps Twin Beaks would work well on a short sword?

Maces: Moves like Pike Assault (which can ignore defence) work well for Maces.

Djinn:
Gasp is underpowered. If I were you I'd change it to single-target, with a 100% chance of causing Death Curse instead of having it currently not effect bosses, once we have an effect editor.

Geode is overpowered. It just gives far too high a multiplier. I'd say x1.5 or x1.6 is more like it, rather than the current x1.8

Meld is underpowered. It presently only gives +25% of the user's Attack stat to the attacker. Personally, once we have an effect editor, I'd give it +100% of the user's Attack to the attacker.

Cannon is underpowered for a damage-bonus only Djinni. Either it needs a secondary effect or it needs to have a higher damage bonus.

You are one of the few people on this website who pluralizes the word Djinni correctly.

I think will Look into doing chance 2x or 3x damage for short sword unleashes. I will try out some those specific animation Jamie.

Idea for balancing Elemntal Range attacks: (Stolen and changed from GFAQ's TLA board)
So the orignal idea was take a spell series like quake which upgrades to Earthquake and Quake Sphere. for a squire these are learned at lvl 2, 4, 14. In a normal game by the time you get Piers these spells are already out of date. So the idea was remove the first level (Quake) and replace with new spell (for this example Tremor) that is stronger than the third level (Quake Sphere) with a higher lvl requirement (lets say 21). Then as the character goes to higher classes slowly replace the next lowest spell with a stronger version.

My modification is there are so many similar spells (bolt and ray) (growth and thorn) (frost and ice) that I would just upgrade one into the other.

Though ERA will still be static there will be more upgrades in power to keep them from being out classed EPA.

I'd personally give some of the spells like those that are so similar, and give them different secondary effects to make them all different. For example, Punji/Thorn are very similar. To make them less similar, I'd give Punji a chance of inflicting Stun, and Thorn a chance of inflicting Poison.

I want to do that eventually but i also want to implement my previous Idea without have a bunch of endgame spells called ???. Though I do eventually plan on doing what you said to some extent

Did you check out my ideas topic at the first GSHC? It has some neat stuff there, mostly involving alternate base classes for Felix, Ivan, and Piers. Oh, and a cool Beast Mage class idea.

And, uh, yeah, I wouldn't want a bunch of endgame spells called ??? either.

I glanced through it once, but I will take a detailed look now? I decided I'm going to start with reworking classes, especially the warrior ones.

Can someone explain to me what effects the chance of a status effect to work? I know the luck stat is involved but whose and how much does it affect?

I believe immunity to status is based on % chance-luck, but I don't know how status deliverer's luck adds to the chance.

I'm pretty sure that the luck of the guy trying to inflict the status is involved, as is the luck of the guy getting hit with the status move.

I checked gamefaqs Boards and apparently only the targets luck counts.

Still waiting for input on Classes and Jamie I read your old topic and liked the idea for Piers.

Shameless plug:

Check this post for any Djinni-related concerns and plausible fixes.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=561356&topic=51485211

Ehic wrote:

So I want to make a "balanced" more strategic version of Golden Sun. My biggest aim is to not make a hack and heal like the original. Some of my current ideas on how to accomplish this are:
-Make weapon types more distinct and balance
-Rework the unleash system for certain weapon types
-Give alot of weapons and armor use abilites (not sure if they should be breakable)
-Rework range elemental attacks to balance with elemental physical attacks
-Make psynergy more varied (no more 3 spell trees that vary only slightly by base power; i.e. gaia, thorn, growth)
-Enemy reworking

Any recommendations on how to accomplish this or other areas that should be changed?

I've already made suggestions for weapons, and for unleashes as well. See the appropriate GSDG topic.
Same goes for armor and what not.
Psynergy ideas can be found in their appropriate GSDG topic
Same with enemies.

As such, if you need any ideas, why not check them out? I know at least I happen to be taking them seriously. So long as you ignore those pervasive joke and cameo items that show up and look at the ones that people took seriously, you should be fine.

I've actually already stolen some ideas from there (especially weapon balancing), I read through gamefaqs plenty also. I was just wandering if anyone had any other opinions that hadn't been shared.

Well, are you turning this into an SRPG like the title suggests? That suggests that you're using something like the FFTA or TO system, in which case you may need to find out a totally new way to balance AoE for psynergy.