Very cool mod. I'm find the music a little loud compared to the other sound effects in the game. I can of course adjust the sliders in the menu, but compared to normal StS the sound levels seem unbalanced.

Ghastly's ability to grant intangible for only 5 health, then 1 or 2 more turns to use it again, feels just a little over-tuned. I have no idea what you have planned but if ghastly proves to be game-winning then I think a fair nerf would be increase its stamina from 3 to 4 and the stamina cost from 2 to 3. That way it takes 2 whole turns to use it a second time instead of just one. Less powerful without ruining the gimmick.

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

Very cool mod. I'm find the music a little loud compared to the other sound effects in the game. I can of course adjust the sliders in the menu, but compared to normal StS the sound levels seem unbalanced.

Now that you mention it, I do agree that the music in this mod is a bit louder compared to base StS. I can adjust it down a little in the next update.

Originally posted by AgentPhil:

Ghastly's ability to grant intangible for only 5 health, then 1 or 2 more turns to use it again, feels just a little over-tuned. I have no idea what you have planned but if ghastly proves to be game-winning then I think a fair nerf would be increase its stamina from 3 to 4 and the stamina cost from 2 to 3. That way it takes 2 whole turns to use it a second time instead of just one. Less powerful without ruining the gimmick.

Gastly actually used to be at 4 Stamina with a 3 cost Intangible move, but then I buffed it because it felt a bit weak with those numbers. Since the most common stamina heal is 50% (rounded up), at 3 Stamina with 2 cost, it would get back enough Stamina to use its Intangible move, but at 4 Stamina with 3 cost, it would not. Keeping Gastly in to heal its Stamina also has the opportunity cost of not using any of your other Pokemon's moves for a couple turns, which isn't a non-trivial cost. If I need to nerf Gastly, I'd rather increase the HP cost of its moves (maybe make Dream Eater costs 2 HP instead of 1?)

I think combat feels a little slow. Not sure if anyone else is getting that. Can't quite put my finger on it, but combat feels a lot more drawn out than the normal game. Maybe it's the animation speed, maybe it's the kind of attacks and amount of HP the pokemon have.

Some bugs and feedbacks

1. Not sure how the targeting work but Pokemon could use better targeting. Ideally lowest health monster and whether if it can break the enemies block. In the Digletts fight it's annoying to constantly order them to switch target every turn

2. Pokemon seem to be counted as enemies instead of a separate ally class.
- Effects that hide enemies intent such as Runic Dome also Hide the ally pokemon's intent
- Don't know if it's intended but wrath also double pokemon damage

3. Removing Diglett enemy block doesn't update ally pokemon intent damage correctly

4. Alakazam's Magic Guard Power doesn't work on card effects that were modied by outside sources such as Chimera Cards

5. Saving and reloading multiple times gradually turning off the game sounds

6. Saving and loading cause the order of captured pokemon to be reversed

7. The legendary birds 0 cost moves are op imo. Infinite use of free foresight, hologram. Moltres move also allow you to view the draw pile in order, give a similar effect to frozen eye. Also agree with Gastly being op

8. I can't reproduce this but picking pokemon when in full slots sometimes soft lock the game from continuing. And sometimes allow to pick the pokemon an extra time for total of 7, but force you to remove one after the end of the next combat

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

I think combat feels a little slow. Not sure if anyone else is getting that. Can't quite put my finger on it, but combat feels a lot more drawn out than the normal game. Maybe it's the animation speed, maybe it's the kind of attacks and amount of HP the pokemon have.

Combat being a bit slower than base game is probably inevitable since your Pokemon will be taking an action every turn, which eats up time. In addition, you will spend extra time deciding which Pokemon/moves to use that you wouldn't normally have to in a different act.

Originally posted by Mumei:

Some bugs and feedbacks

1. Not sure how the targeting work but Pokemon could use better targeting. Ideally lowest health monster and whether if it can break the enemies block. In the Digletts fight it's annoying to constantly order them to switch target every turn

2. Pokemon seem to be counted as enemies instead of a separate ally class.
- Effects that hide enemies intent such as Runic Dome also Hide the ally pokemon's intent
- Don't know if it's intended but wrath also double pokemon damage

3. Removing Diglett enemy block doesn't update ally pokemon intent damage correctly

4. Alakazam's Magic Guard Power doesn't work on card effects that were modied by outside sources such as Chimera Cards

5. Saving and reloading multiple times gradually turning off the game sounds

6. Saving and loading cause the order of captured pokemon to be reversed

7. The legendary birds 0 cost moves are op imo. Infinite use of free foresight, hologram. Moltres move also allow you to view the draw pile in order, give a similar effect to frozen eye. Also agree with Gastly being op

8. I can't reproduce this but picking pokemon when in full slots sometimes soft lock the game from continuing. And sometimes allow to pick the pokemon an extra time for total of 7, but force you to remove one after the end of the next combat

Thanks for the detailed feedback and bug reports! I'll address them one by one:

1. Right now your Pokemon choose targets randomly. When I first made the Diglett encounter, I had the idea that it would "teach" the player the importance of choosing your Pokemon's target manually, but in hindsight, the hassle of retargeting every turn for that encounter would become annoying after encountering it several times. I'll update the ally Pokemon's targeting so they will prioritize enemies with no block and then low HP enemies so the player doesn't have to retarget as much.

2. Thanks for pointing out Runic Dome, I had forgotten about that :P. As for Wrath, the way it's implemented in the code is closer to "All characters deal double damage." Personally, I thought this interaction was a neat bit of incidental synergy with your Pokemon so I decided to leave it as is.

3. Will be fixed, thanks.

4. Will be fixed, thanks.

5. I tried save-loading multiple times, but I didn't notice any substantial decrease of in-game sound volume.

6. Will be fixed, thanks.

7. For the birds' moves, I wanted to try creating a cycle of 0 stamina weakish card-manipulation type moves, and I figured that their lack of direct impact on the encounter and lack of actual card advantage would keep them in check. Moltres showing the draw pile in order is unintended and will be fixed. Similar to Frozen Eye, Articuno's Scry 4 requires a fair amount of thinking ahead for the player to benefit from it, and I don't think the average player would utilize it to its fullest extent to warrant nerfing it at this time. As for Zapdos, I agree that the reusable Headbutt effect every turn has the potential to get out of hand very quickly, especially with cards like Rampage - for now I decided to nerf the effect to "Shuffle up to 2 cards from your discard pile into your draw pile". This way, the general theme of the move remains while being less immediately beneficial.

8. I think someone posted a similar bug in the bugs thread, but I wasn't able to reproduce the issue. Lemme know if you find a way to consistently encounter the problem.

Thank you for the quick update! The sound bug only happens with this mod on so idk what could be the cause. Are you using the Save & Quit button then Continue?

Originally posted by Mumei:

Thank you for the quick update! The sound bug only happens with this mod on so idk what could be the cause. Are you using the Save & Quit button then Continue?

Yes, I tried using Save & Quit -> clicking Continue on the main menu multiple times.

It's possible the sound bug is due to a conflict with some other mods (I tested with only this mod and its dependencies enabled). Could you provide the list of mods you were using at the time?

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

I think combat feels a little slow. Not sure if anyone else is getting that. Can't quite put my finger on it, but combat feels a lot more drawn out than the normal game. Maybe it's the animation speed, maybe it's the kind of attacks and amount of HP the pokemon have.

Would it be simple (I don't know) to add a -25% or -50% health mode to the pokemon to see how it feels?

Originally posted by Darkglade:

Originally posted by Mumei:

Thank you for the quick update! The sound bug only happens with this mod on so idk what could be the cause. Are you using the Save & Quit button then Continue?

Yes, I tried using Save & Quit -> clicking Continue on the main menu multiple times.

It's possible the sound bug is due to a conflict with some other mods (I tested with only this mod and its dependencies enabled). Could you provide the list of mods you were using at the time?

I was using only this mod and its dependencies too

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

I think combat feels a little slow. Not sure if anyone else is getting that. Can't quite put my finger on it, but combat feels a lot more drawn out than the normal game. Maybe it's the animation speed, maybe it's the kind of attacks and amount of HP the pokemon have.

Would it be simple (I don't know) to add a -25% or -50% health mode to the pokemon to see how it feels?

Simply reducing enemy HP would like that would make the encounters far too easy. You could try using the SuperFastMode mod to speed up animations and see if that feels better.

Originally posted by Mumei:

Originally posted by Darkglade:

Yes, I tried using Save & Quit -> clicking Continue on the main menu multiple times.

It's possible the sound bug is due to a conflict with some other mods (I tested with only this mod and its dependencies enabled). Could you provide the list of mods you were using at the time?

I was using only this mod and its dependencies too

In that case, I'm not really sure what the problem could be.

Originally posted by Darkglade:

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

Would it be simple (I don't know) to add a -25% or -50% health mode to the pokemon to see how it feels?

Simply reducing enemy HP would like that would make the encounters far too easy. You could try using the SuperFastMode mod to speed up animations and see if that feels better.


Ill give it a try. That said a lot of STS base game enemies have 25, 40, or 80 Hp, whereas it seems like a lot of pokemon have 80-120 and you have to fight multiple at a time. Obviously, your pokemon give you a slight damage increase, but you could argue that is offset by the lack of a neow option

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

Originally posted by Darkglade:

Simply reducing enemy HP would like that would make the encounters far too easy. You could try using the SuperFastMode mod to speed up animations and see if that feels better.


Ill give it a try. That said a lot of STS base game enemies have 25, 40, or 80 Hp, whereas it seems like a lot of pokemon have 80-120 and you have to fight multiple at a time. Obviously, your pokemon give you a slight damage increase, but you could argue that is offset by the lack of a neow option

In terms of how much "power" your Pokemon give you, for Act 1 I am aiming for them to provide roughly 1 energy + 1 card worth of value each turn on average (so even stronger than a boss relic, essentially). The Pokemon obtained in Acts 2 and 3 will be stronger than those of the previous Acts to help the Pokemon stay relevant as the player grows in strength.

Personally, I feel that your Pokemon should be able to more than make up for the lack of a neow option (assuming the player puts in the effort to obtain multiple Pokemon and use them effectively). I also ran a quick test to compare the TTK (Turns to Kill) for the easy encounters in this mod vs basegame and these were the results (Ironclad starter deck, A0, only used Squirtle basic attack in pokemon fights, piloted the deck to minimize damage while still being efficient):

2 Digletts - 4 turns
2 Louses - 3 turns

Rhyhorn - 3 turns
Jaw Worm - 3 turns

Vulpix - 4 turns
Cultist - 4 turns

2 Rats - 4 turns
Small Slimes - 4 turns

While the sample size is somewhat small since I only did each encounter once, it still shows that on average, the TTK for both base game easy encounters and this mod is 3-4 turns. I could slightly reduce the HP on some of this mod's easy encounters to help ensure that the TTK remains 3-4 turns even with some crazy HP rng, but if the encounters still feel sluggish it's almost certainly due to the extra time spent on animations that this mod has.

Originally posted by Darkglade:

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

I could slightly reduce the HP on some of this mod's easy encounters to help ensure that the TTK remains 3-4 turns even with some crazy HP rng, but if the encounters still feel sluggish it's almost certainly due to the extra time spent on animations that this mod has.

Okay so playing with 4x speed and I might have narrowed down what's throwing me off, though can't be sure. When you play a card in STS the attack animation on the monster plays at the same time your character moves. With the pokemon they play an animation AND THEN the attack animation plays on the foe.

Maybe if they were simultaneous?

Originally posted by Lord Cameron:

Originally posted by Darkglade:

Okay so playing with 4x speed and I might have narrowed down what's throwing me off, though can't be sure. When you play a card in STS the attack animation on the monster plays at the same time your character moves. With the pokemon they play an animation AND THEN the attack animation plays on the foe.

Maybe if they were simultaneous?

Thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't noticed that the pokemon animations were noticeably slower than the animations of enemies in base game. The issue should be fixed now.