RPGM LonaRPG [v0.9.3.0 Beta] [EccmA417]

[DocTrollan]

If you think mage Lona can drop 15 points into SCU and not be too weak for shit, it's clear you're way overleveled for content. Balance isn't just about what they can do when shit is completely maxed, especially in a game like this that doesn't have enemies scaled up to a maxed out Lona yet. You need to compare builds at a similar level, the game isn't balanced well for max Lona or even super high level Lona. If mage Lona can kill shit easily, so can pretty much any other build at that point is the problem. Actually most builds will beat mage Lona at similar levels by far. The issue often isn't just raw kill potential, it's how practical it is.

1: The issue with the fire staff isn't its damage or it's charge time alone, it's that it only shoots fireballs. The bow has the charge up, the normal attack, and the arrow rain. The normal attack makes up for the charge up's long cast time and gives it versatility. There's no offhand magic attack out of the buyable trio that makes up for not having a quick attack like the bow's normal attack, leaving the fire staff weak to quick enemies.

You use frost staff, it's quick, but the damage is too low against some enemies. You use fire, the cast time is too long to use against anything but zombies outside of the initial ambush or if you get lucky enough to stun medium speed enemies. Quick enemies will still wreck you. Lightning is obviously difficult to use against medium/fast speed enemies. Even swapping around staffs and spellbooks doesn't cover the holes magic currently has (not to mention the weight restriction for a mage makes that really suck).

2: Yeah, you're really overleveled if you think the water book is a free get out of jail card. There are enemies that it only does 1 damage to at appropriate levels and the stun doesn't last long enough to deal with any quick enemies. It's actually a guarantee you'll get hit when using it against some enemies because of how long it takes to finish the animation before you can move after casting it. The frost book fell off pretty hard with the addition of some enemies.

3: Lightning is really strong damage wise like fire, the issue with lightning isn't damage, it's that it's not all that practical. It's incredibly strong for ambushes but can get you killed in live combat with how easily it can also hit Lona. This one would be difficult to balance well, but I do really enjoy trying to use it since it has the most potential for destruction. It either feels useless or broken/OP atm. I'm not sure how to fix it without changing it pretty drastically.

4: It's a chance at stun, not guaranteed. Though yeah, the fire spellbook stun is one of the better spells now. It's better than the frost aoe now in my opinion.

5: As I've already mentioned, building into stealth or a ranged or melee build or something gives you access to a wide variety of weapons that all work well. Mage has to build for only magic damage until you're far overleveled for what's currently available in game. That means magic needs to be able to deal with about everything on its own. Frost is the quickest attack, fire is the most straight forward damage wise, and lightning is a bit of a complex mess, though it's fun, but they all have weaknesses that the offhands don't cover completely. Mainly the offhands are support spells and not really meant to deal straight up damage to quick enemies, unlike the bow that has multiple attack speed options built in.

6: Overall I feel like stealth is the strongest build, though I haven't tried sword and board since the changes (It seems a lot better now that it stuns enemies on a successful block. ). Stealth has a built in mechanic to avoid being swarmed like other builds that helps it tremendously. Play well and you should almost never have to deal with more than one enemy at a time. No other build really gets that in the same way. You can negate the range advantage enemies over you, you can negate the numbers advantage they have over you. Stealth is incredibly well rounded and rewarding to play. It makes the other combat styles seem super incomplete.

TLDR: Magic has holes in it that the other builds don't have. The issue often isn't pure kill potential (we all know fireballs are strong) it's filling those gaps in what it can do with various setups. I'd love to see people saying magic is fine post a video of them using it in battles, then try a non magic build in the same situation. The issue with a lot of magic spells isn't numbers, it's mechanics (and usually dealing with quick enemies that jump around). Though the frost mainhand is an exception, it could probably use a numbers boost.

People keep pointing out how strong magic can be, and don't point out how weak it can be. You can cherry pick strengths of any build and make it seem OP. Your list of weaknesses magic has is far too short. Not to mention skipping over "collateral damage" like it's a minor thing, when using certain magic in escort missions and shit can be an auto failure, forcing you to use frost mainhand and try not to hit who you're supposed to be saving.


Yep...over leveled.

If I had doubts about making a guide for all levels as mage Lona, this comment may be what led me to doing it.

Overall I feel like stealth is the strongest build

Honestly, I think the problem with your entire post is that you assume this game's AI treats giant lightning strikes, chain lightning and fireball explosions differently from a silent arrow. Because it doesn't. You are not less stealthy if you drop literal nukes in Lona RPG. Yes, I know the Longbow doesn't break stealth. The fireball staff does it for half a second. Big whoop.

Stealth is just mandatory in this game always, and companions are... quite frankly, majority too poor to be worth it after level 15. You should never YOLO in combat in this game. Though to address your points:

Yep...over leveled. People really need to mention their levels when talking about how OP something is, lol.

All of what I wrote is relevant from level 15 onward. For what bloody reason do you think I just started at level 80? My post is entirely based on the leveling progression.

If you think mage Lona can drop 15 points into SCU and not be too weak for shit, it's clear you're way overleveled for content. [...] Actually most builds will beat mage Lona at similar levels by far.

The 15 points in SCU was a hypothetical that you can do, yes, if you play the game for longer than normal. No fucking shit.

I made a damage comparison because the bow with its piercing shot chargeup shot that takes 2-3 times as long as a single fireball, does less damage with 15 more points in attack and with happy mood. And it's the strongest attack physical Lona has. So no, the other builds don't 'beat mage Lona at those levels by far'.

Stop memeing and stop making assumptions about the level of content I tested this out at.

Nevermind that spells ignore mood.

1. The fireball staff is your strong baseline, but if you only have it - which may be the case because you need that damned thing called "money" to buy it if you don't get lucky with chests - then yes, you have a weapon that has an inherent weakness in exchange for damage. Being quick is where I recommend a combination of the water book and the fire book. The aimed fire book attack is extremely quick and can catch charging enemies ahead of time, but it requires more practice and skill to pull off than throwing knives or arrow main attacks, in exchange for very often stunning the enemy.
   
   
2. I cannot actually think of a single Get out of Jail free card in this game. It's just that the book is better at it than any of the physical counterparts because it does a one tile knockback. Especially now that Eccma wants the shield parry stuns to be nerfed again as according to recent patch notes, well... I wouldn't rely on hoping for shield stuns and heavy shield knockback too much to get out of that situation if you ever land in it.
   
   Do not get cornered by multiple enemies in this game. Period. But the enemies that do it best and most are the crawling fast fishkind, abomination flesh demon hounds and fast bandits. Against the crawling fish and the abom flesh hounds the water book does a lot of damage, especially if you keep investing into WIS. The book sucks against orkind specifically, but I can't recall a single time they surrounded me in a long time.
   
   
3. Lightning is a luxury that I only ever pick up in the levels 25+ when I have a fire staff, fire book and water staff on me. Its practicality is very dependent on where you are. Throwing down a pylon at max range, throwing a lightning on it and then another one can kill three enemies real quickly and it lends itself well to... yes, the dreaded sprint. I died probably 20 times before I got solid with it and another 50 before I mastered it, but now I use it as almost exclusively my choice high level equipment because being overleveled can be fun.
   
   
4. Agreed!
   
   
5. Physical has to deal with everything 'on its own' too. You have the bow, your 2 tile and 1 tile melees, throwing knives and the really fun backstab / quick slash from the offhand knife next to shields. Mage Lona is capable of using Wooden and Bone shields still, even if I personally do not choose to. You lose the option of the bow and any effective melee in exchange for 4 types of staff (one aoe, one quick single target, one melee but with a chargeup and one that makes weak acid puddles) and 4 types of book (one with the highest aoe dps in the game, one stuns, and one a quick enemy / trash knockback that deletes flesh demon bugs and an on-demand tentacle minion)
   
   
6. Agreed! There is not a single build in this game that I don't dump at least 3 SCU points into. Enemies in this game get alerted to an arrow as much as they get alerted to a giant fireball that causes a nuclear mushroom cloud. And I think the game is 100% meant to be played this way entirely. And that is why the leather set from Fishtopia and the tribal facepaint is what I use on every iteration of Lona I play, because you yet boatloads of stealth for free. Even on mage Lona the first thing I do after getting a fire staff and water book is buy a ticket to fishtopia and buy the leather set, assuming I can afford it.

Honestly, mage Lona's biggest issue is the blatantly obvious 1-15 levels where you are completely trash. During that time period I tend to level and make money by hiring Indy and letting him whip the hell out of 20 skeletons over and over again.

 

[SwordofHeaven]

The latest patch fixed the rally ability crashing the game while towing captives for me, but now I'm getting other problems like being unable to get the girl from the last Noer Orckind quest to follow me out at the cave exit (gives error and screen goes black, can leave cave but girl doesn't follow so unable to finish quest).

Spoiler: cave rescue exit bug

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Another issue I'm having since the last repack was Cecily in Noer tavern constantly having an quest mark over her head after her initial rescue, before the Milo quest is available and after it is completed. It didn't impact recruiting her as a companion so I ignored it, but now after applying the patch she and Grey Rat do not respond to the rally ability's follow/wait command. They only change follow/wait if I interact with them manually. All other companions appear not have this problem

Spoiler: Cecily+Grey Rat bug

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Trying to buy all of an item (shift+Z) at Elise clinic gives this message too, but doesn't appear to cause anything aside from a little lag.



All tested on modded and unmodded versions of patch.0.5.8.2.6 + LonaRPG.Beta.0.5.8.5.repack with old and new saves.

Used to play on Doom mode mostly but giving up with all the frequent bugs. Too many things can go wrong that I have no control over.
Guess I'll just hold off playing till the next branch.

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

This is where I just plant a pylon in the north room center with mage cocona and throw lightning at it. Kills all the orcs but leaves the skeletons alive because they almost only die from stamina damage. I tend to be out through the north exist before the large orcs from the eastern rooms can make it even vaguely near the chaos.

A fine idea but I don't really want to spec into magic. Collateral damage would be my biggest problem. This is why I've gone into traps instead.

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

patch.0.5.8.2.7

Spoiler: Changelog

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roll back to 0570 if it still unstable.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[AiFrame]

Good to know.
We also made some MTL-mod, to load that kind of translation. It works as follows:
- Each time the content of Text class queried, we check prepared string for chinese language. If it's true - we imply it's not yet translated and go to specific MTL folder in Text dir. From there we read file with same name and search for same key to map. If it's there - we return content of that key, if it's not - the original chinese will be shown.
- And all this is complitely ignored, if game reads from CHT folder (game language set to chinese)

That way, whenever Sogoi Soy Boy translate something new - we will be seen it, but if it's not - we'll still get some sort of translation from our MTL. And no more merging translations every new patch, saves alot of time.

And i complitely forgot the mod itself.
Me dumb.

Usage - unpack to your Lona game folder. No replacement promts should pop up.
Usage of usage - keep your third-party translation in Text/MTL.

You can even replace the entire content of EN with content of CHT, if you have doubts it's working.

This archive uses translation form here https://f95zone.to/threads/lonarpg-v0-5-8-2-4-beta-eccma417.49993/post-6384191
So now, then you download new release, u just copy-paste this mod and play, so your EN folder stays clean.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

If I had doubts about making a guide for all levels as mage Lona, this comment may be what led me to doing it.



Honestly, I think the problem with your entire post is that you assume this game's AI treats giant lightning strikes, chain lightning and fireball explosions differently from a silent arrow. Because it doesn't. You are not less stealthy if you drop literal nukes in Lona RPG. Yes, I know the Longbow doesn't break stealth. The fireball staff does it for half a second. Big whoop.

Stealth is just mandatory in this game always, and companions are... quite frankly, majority too poor to be worth it after level 15. You should never YOLO in combat in this game. Though to address your points:



All of what I wrote is relevant from level 15 onward. For what bloody reason do you think I just started at level 80? My post is entirely based on the leveling progression.



The 15 points in SCU was a hypothetical that you can do, yes, if you play the game for longer than normal. No fucking shit.

I made a damage comparison because the bow with its piercing shot chargeup shot that takes 2-3 times as long as a single fireball, does less damage with 15 more points in attack and with happy mood. And it's the strongest attack physical Lona has. So no, the other builds don't 'beat mage Lona at those levels by far'.

Stop memeing and stop making assumptions about the level of content I tested this out at.

1. One thing I don't get is how many people seem to think that magic isn't strong or endgame viable.

From what I can gather, every single person that Timid Caster Lona a 'weak build' has tried to do nothing but the water melee aoe wave 24/7.

You started out your post by trying to start shit with anybody with a different opinion than yours, so don't whine when people call you out on your shit, lol. You've already tried to backpedal from how hard you were going on magic being OP. Feel free to reread your original message, maybe you forgot.

Timid Caster Lona seems to me like it is the strongest build in the game.

• Pure caster Lona using a Fire Staff outdamages the railgun bow with 15 points less investment - with half the chargeup time
• water book makes it impossible to die to getting cornered (and so does the reduced HP damage you take) as long as you have blue pots
• When I first equipped the lightning gear I thought it was terrible. Turns out it has insane lategame scaling - the lightning book can quite literally oneshot abomination nests if you plant a pylon on the nucleus. With the Overkill trait you will have 100 stamina at the end of an encounter if you started it with 20
• Omnidirectional on-demand aoe stuns at rock throwing range? I got you fam
• Long distance lightsource making? For sure!
• Multiple damage pulses that kill Abomination insects means that lightning just wrecks aboms, and worst case you always have your water book
• Sea Witch Minions scale with WIS and hit for 50 damage per punch in the highest levels. And they stay after you transform back to human Lona, giving you two supercharged minions for the cost of a blue potion.
• Also you swim in money. A mutated mushroom eventually sells for 640 instead of 400 TP. The effect is the least on coins.
• Last but not least, you can escape almost every single random encounter that isn't flesh demons with the 'Talk' option.

The only advantages of Physical Lona has are less collateral damage because you aren't such a god of destruction and baseline stealth with backstabs / the bow, which are made redundant because caster Lona can *choose* to dump 15 points into SCU and will still do more damage than the longbow if she really wants that.

Where did you mention "stealth being mandatory"?

water book makes it impossible to die to getting cornered (and so does the reduced HP damage you take) as long as you have blue pots

Turns into:

1. I cannot actually think of a single Get out of Jail free card in this game. It's just that the book is better at it than any of the physical counterparts because it does a one tile knockback. Especially now that Eccma wants the shield parry stuns to be nerfed again as according to recent patch notes, well... I wouldn't rely on hoping for shield stuns and heavy shield knockback too much to get out of that situation if you ever land in it.
   
   Do not get cornered by multiple enemies in this game. Period. But the enemies that do it best and most are the crawling fast fishkind, abomination flesh demon hounds and fast bandits. Against the crawling fish and the abom flesh hounds the water book does a lot of damage, especially if you keep investing into WIS. The book sucks against orkind specifically, but I can't recall a single time they surrounded me in a long time.

You forget what you said the other day? You were overzealous with the magic love and I tried to bring you back down to earth, that's all. Don't cherry pick strengths of a build and ignore its weaknesses when talking about balance and keep rational, you were better about that in your second message (at least initially). You're still missing the part where the balance debate isn't just about raw damage. There's more to the game than what build can hit harder with a single attack.

Still comparing the bow charge up to the fireball when it's apples and oranges. The bow has normal attacks for follow ups, the fire staff does not. I don't want to get into repeating myself over and over again, just trying to keep people honest/rational here. If you're going to keep comparing only the strengths of builds and ignore the weaknesses, you're either ignorant about what the other builds can do, or you're intentionally being dishonest.

You can disagree with me all you want, I don't care about that, but straight up ignoring the differences in weapon types is what I have a problem with. If magic requires SCU to be successful, then that's still a balance issue because physical builds don't require magic. I've played many physical builds without stealth as well. The whole point of my post is "If you need to invest more points into a magic playstyle for it to be viable, there's a balance issue", which you've already agreed with by saying SCU is needed.

You've also been judging magic's power against enemies far weaker than you. with your comparisons in the first message. You may have leveled as a mage, but why then are you only comparing the high level Lona with your damage achievements? Where's the part in your initial message where you mention only being able to deal 1 damage to enemies with frost spells? If you've leveled as a mage and fought enemies at appropriate levels, you should be mentioning those walls you hit. Why are you only listing the best feats possible when discussing balance? Just some examples of why I had such a problem with your initial message. Like I said, if you take any build at level 70-80 and mention what it can do, it would look OP. That's not helpful.

On top of all that, one of my biggest issues was you glossing over how easily you can kill your allies and escorts with a lot of spells. That's kind of a big deal that I hope is addressed at some point. It might not bother you to ignore allies or blow up the people you're supposed to be saving, but it does bother me. I feel like it restricts you a ton when playing as a mage. More balance issues, bye bye fire and lightning spells during a lot of quests.

 

[SwordofHeaven]

Bug during Cecily slave convoy quest

Upon entering the map getting this error (attached error log)


Doesn't crash game and can proceed, but getting another bug right where you meet Adam

Screen goes black and cannot continue quest. Moving up just gives the same message. No error log generated for this one.

Also, Cecily+Grey Rat respond to rally call correctly in the first rescue quest warehouse, but everywhere else they don't.

This is on unmodded LonaRPG.Beta.0.5.8.5.repack & patch.0.5.8.2.7
Just created new save file with some stats/items and speedran to this pont to check (killed Adam).

 

[demongoddesslilith]

Do the 5.8.2.x patches need to be applied sequentially, or can we just apply the last one?

 

[IqmaL31]

Welp I'm new to this game and somehow I'm stuck at the tutorial... It asked me to open menu and put skill on the skill slot but after I've done that nothing happened

 

[SwordofHeaven]

Do the 5.8.2.x patches need to be applied sequentially, or can we just apply the last one?

Just the latest one
patch.0.5.8.2.8

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Appears to fix the issues that were brought up before.

 

[るlaze]

Some of the dialogues from the quest to team up with Lisa to bring her to South army camp/Hope fortress didn't show, instead these pop up.

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

Eccma is just pumping out patches like some sort of diarrhetic cheetah. And he was thinking that 05826 was going to be the last 058x build.
patch.0.5.8.2.8
As SwordofHeaven didn't bother posting the changelog, here it is.

Spoiler: Changelog

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Also, I'm attaching it here in case some people have issues with MEGA.

 

[thehotness]

How do you bathe with cocona? When I speak to her I only have the options of team up and forget it. After i team up with her i only have the options of disband and forget it. I bathed with her once for the quest and petted her head once, how else do i progress to get the double bed?

 

[AiFrame]

Some of the dialogues from the quest to team up with Lisa to bring her to South army camp/Hope fortress didn't show, instead these pop up.

View attachment 1372019 View attachment 1372020 View attachment 1372021

This means there is no such entries in your localization files.
Try replace entirely content of Text/EN from latest build.

How do you bathe with cocona? When I speak to her I only have the options of team up and forget it. After i team up with her i only have the options of disband and forget it. I bathed with her once for the quest and petted her head once, how else do i progress to get the double bed?

To pet - chose dialog option "Pet"
To bath - chose dialog option "Bath"
urawelkom

 

[jefxxxyxyz]

How do you bathe with cocona? When I speak to her I only have the options of team up and forget it. After i team up with her i only have the options of disband and forget it. I bathed with her once for the quest and petted her head once, how else do i progress to get the double bed?

has to be done during the day when she is in her room, after she had the maid outfit, after you do the church fight, and she can't have been raped

 

[tokilli]

i used search with "detection" and "scout" and couldnt find an answer, so the question is this, does increasing scout level, also decreases enemy detection range or not?

 

[AiFrame]

i used search with "detection" and "scout" and couldnt find an answer, so the question is this, does increasing scout level, also decreases enemy detection range or not?

def process_player_target(target,distance,signal,sensor_type)
   if(signal > target.scoutcraft*1.5)
      ...
   elsif (signal > target.scoutcraft)
      ...
   end
end

Don't be tricked with "distance" attribute. It's not used in this function.
However, there is an entire logic on "Signal" attribute, different NPC have different sensors and on each action that Signal calculates with range, strength and all, also different layers of 'Perception'
So... with some input "signal", if that "signal" > your scoutcraft (1:1) - enemy will lost your target and move near last known location.
And if that signal > your scoutcraft * 1.5, enemy will stick to you and attack.
So each point in SC will effectively reduce the range of aggro.
For instance, if you have 5 and signal was some noise of 8, enemy will attack you straightforward, because 8 > 5*1.5 = 8>7.5
But(t), if you encrease your SCU to 6, 8 > 6 and 8 < 6*1.5 (9) --- so the enemy will be just "alerted", maybe turn around and move to check if it's "must've been the wind"
Also, bonus from equipment helps.

U asked for this

 

[tokilli]

def process_player_target(target,distance,signal,sensor_type)
   if(signal > target.scoutcraft*1.5)
      ...
   elsif (signal > target.scoutcraft)
      ...
   end
end

Don't be tricked with "distance" attribute. It's not used in this function.
However, there is an entire logic on "Signal" attribute, different NPC have different sensors and on each action that Signal calculates with range, strength and all, also different layers of 'Perception'
So... with some input "signal", if that "signal" > your scoutcraft (1:1) - enemy will lost your target and move near last known location.
And if that signal > your scoutcraft * 1.5, enemy will stick to you and attack.
So each point in SC will effectively reduce the range of aggro.
For instance, if you have 5 and signal was some noise of 8, enemy will attack you straightforward, because 8 > 5*1.5 = 8>7.5
But(t), if you move away for 1 cell, the same signal will be calculated as 6, so the enemy will be just "alerted", maybe turn around and move to check if it's "must've been the wind"

U asked for this

so it affects it i just wanted to know, if not i would just leave scout at 3 , thanks for the answer glad to know i didnt wasted my points

 

[brazilla]

def process_player_target(target,distance,signal,sensor_type)
   if(signal > target.scoutcraft*1.5)
      ...
   elsif (signal > target.scoutcraft)
      ...
   end
end

Don't be tricked with "distance" attribute. It's not used in this function.
However, there is an entire logic on "Signal" attribute, different NPC have different sensors and on each action that Signal calculates with range, strength and all, also different layers of 'Perception'
So... with some input "signal", if that "signal" > your scoutcraft (1:1) - enemy will lost your target and move near last known location.
And if that signal > your scoutcraft * 1.5, enemy will stick to you and attack.
So each point in SC will effectively reduce the range of aggro.
For instance, if you have 5 and signal was some noise of 8, enemy will attack you straightforward, because 8 > 5*1.5 = 8>7.5
But(t), if you encrease your SCU to 6, 8 > 6 and 8 < 6*1.5 (9) --- so the enemy will be just "alerted", maybe turn around and move to check if it's "must've been the wind"
Also, bonus from equipment helps.

U asked for this

get the same thing as I trace the code.
wanna add up something on the npc detection/signal strength: it depends on sensor type and their SCU

Sensor Type
eye: human, moot, non hostile fishkind ppl
nose: Abomination, animal
close nose: moon worm, meat toilet
multi: goblin, fishkind, deepone
multi_short: undead


Sensor Strength
Multi(eye + nose) > eye(better front vision) ~= nose (better side vision) > multi_short ~= CloseNose

 

[jefxxxyxyz]

get the same thing as I trace the code.
wanna add up something on the npc detection/signal strength: it depends on sensor type and their SCU

Sensor Type
eye: human, moot, non hostile fishkind ppl
nose: Abomination, animal
close nose: moon worm, meat toilet
multi: goblin, fishkind, deepone
multi_short: undead


Sensor Strength
Multi(eye + nose) > eye(better front vision) ~= nose (better side vision) > multi_short ~= CloseNose

there are meat toilets other than Lona?