Yumil

yeah, the blackwiev tower scene with scarlett only really works if the player character puts forward a good retort as to why Crescent's plan is bullshit, which seems to be what the dialogue is going for, but since the mc is entirely silent and not even given text prompts like the confonrtation with aurora, it comes off as extremely clunky. Caz wanting to fix some of Scarlett's issues is one of the things i'm most hyped for E6's early game revamps. I agree with Vhein, though - yeah, the events are there, but the story wouldn't work less, and in fact, would work more for some people, if the narrative acknowledged that yeah, all those events aren't just their for the convenience of the story, nearly all of Ayrith is supposed to come off as a dump.

I agree with a lot of this, but I'll just point out something about crescent : y'know, looking at the state of Ayrith, I can kinda see the idea reality's kinda shit. Like. You've got people like kuiki doing their thing and somehow no one stops them, blackview is straight up a dump, Cellia is supposedly as good as you get in the whole region and half of it is STILL a dump and the other half seems to be rich people looking down on everyone else... Celeste city and Addenfall town are like the two places that can claim to be mostly chill in the region. I dunno if it's intended to be an actual worldbuild point because the narrative never connects the dots in an explicit way, but I can kinda give a pass to random crescent grunts for subscribing to that idea that reality is shit enough a dream is preferable.

thanks now I can't unsee it.

Oh right ! I sorta always just... assumed the game would kinda cordon off level above 100 to the postgame, but it makes way more sense to spread it out a bit on the rest of the game, thinking about it. Yeaaaaah, faster xp gain would be more than welcome with that in mind.

I never really felt the grinding pain while playing e18 but that's some pretty nice changes to hear! the ev items in particular is borderline overkill and I love it. Not too sure what to make of the exp gains since I felt like Reborn was pretty well designed to get you to the appropriate levels throughout playing but hey, I trust you guys to keep it coherent. And the hard level cap would probably prevent it from being a probelm anyways.

uhhhhhh let's see -You start off on a boat with two of your friends, named Ava and Scarlett. Ava is one of the gym leaders of the region and Scarlett's apparently and idol -Plan is to Cellia City enjoy some vacations -Plan goes south when a group called the black foxes bomb the boat and leaves you stranded on a nearby island, you have to team-up with Connor, local fire gym leader AND a bit of an asshole to find Ava and Scarlett -Ava and Scarlett have been taken captive by a tribe of people led by a guy named Kukui, everyone keeps singing his praises -As you explore the village Connor and you put together kukui is basically setting himself a little cult with the help of a drowzee's hypnosis -You also meet a strange guy named Shiv, seems to have some superpowers like teleportation, is interested in the protag for mysterious reasons -Confront kukui, Shiv ultimately takes care of him after his defeat -Downtime in Redcliffe Town with Ava, Scarlett, you get your first gym battle with Connor -Scarlett decides to pick up pokemon battling too, Connor manages to stop being an ass for a second and helps her get started with that -Meanwhile you and Ava start going to the next town, you meet another guy called Hardy on the way, sets himself up as your rival, has a zorua as his signature mon -You and Ava traverse a big volcano called Vejyr, confront another group named Team Crescent -Guy in charge, Baron, is trying to obtain an artifact for unclear purposes -Baron decides the best course of action to obtain it is to kill Ava, seemingly succeeds by shoving her in the lava, he retrieves the artifact -After they leave Another gym leader steps in, name's Aderyn -She reveals she managed to save Ava at the last moment with her Xatu teleporting her right before she fell in the lava. -Aderyn needs your help with a place near her town, celeste city, called weeping hill, paranormal phenomenons keep happening there -Going there, you meet Shiv again, who explains he's sort of the cause of the phenomenons and needs your help with something. -the reason stuff is happening here is because the place lets you see the memories of other people with a connection to this place, so bits of shiv's backstory pops up -Kukui was Shiv's little brother, looked up to Shiv too much and was desperate for his approval -Shiv accidentally pushed him away too far in an attempt to make him understand there was more to life than his approbation -Kukui went on to set up his little cult thing and Shiv didn't have the heart to stop him until you came along -Crescent is also there, they're trying to retrieve something in the cave at the bottom of the hill, apparrently -actual leader of team Crescent Shows up, name's Nova. More friendly than Baron, doesn't like Shiv -Eventually you retrieve the thing everyone was searching for the Onyx Stone. -Nova and team Crescent wants it because it's an artifact that would let a Darkrai reach a state beyond mega evolution called perfection form, would be able to plunge the entire world in a dream where everyone gets what they want -Shiv wants the stone so nova doesn't get it, cause he deems that a bad thing -Essentially Nova vs Shiv is Ideal VS Reality -The artifact baron got in Vejyr is part of that plan too, can summon a Moltres that should be able to take one to Darkrai's realm -You get to choose who you give the stone to, but nova ultimately gets it by stealing it from shiv if you give it to him -Nova really wants to convince you her cause is just, up to you to decide how much you trust her overall -Second gym fight, against Aderyn, then Ava and Scarlett catch up to you and you go to cloud platform to catch an improvised plane trip to Cellia as initially planned -turns out Crescent is already there for some reason -Shiv also shows up and goes after Nova as she leaves on a Moltres -Baron, who stayed on the cloud platform, reveals someone in the group actually agrees with Crescent's ideals -turns out it's Scarlett, presumably got convinced off-screen sometimes after your first badge. -Ava decides to flip Crescent the bird and dives off the platform -Baron shoves you off the platform in turn, seem a little ticked off by the fact Nova see something special in you -You end up at the top of the Silver Rise mountain on your own, meet another guy named Tristan -Turns out he's the normal gym leader, he seems to have some self-esteem issues, complains that everyone acts like he doesn't exist -He helps you descend Silver Rise, then leaves to take care of some business on the latter part -Crossing the silver forest you stumble across the manor Shiv lived in when he was younger, optionnal stuff to do there -As you exit the forest Shiv sorta contacts you to inform you he's managed to take the stone back but Nova's still chasing him, tells you to be careful, senses a strange shadow around you -You finally reach the outskirts of Acddenfall town, meet Hardy there, fights you for the second time, his Zorua evolved since last time -You meet up with Ava once you enter the town proper -Asks you if you think Scarlett made the right choice, you can decide how you feel about it, but Ava's firmly on the Reality side. -The black foxes show up again, they're causing trouble in Addanfall Woods, you go there to stop them -You confront their second in command there, Amelia, responsible for sinking the boat at the beginning of the game -After they get out of the place you have your match against Tristan for your third badge -Tristan keeps asking you what is your dream, doesn't seem to get a response from you. -Next place to go is blackview city, there's a chance to catch an actual boat to Cellia there -on the way to blackview more stuff happens with the black fox - turns out they're after a vengeance of some sorts, Amelia cements the fact she's an asshole by killing the local village elder for trying to oppose the foxes, and hardy turns out to have joined the foxes for unclear reasons -turns out Blackview is a pwoder keg about to blow up with the foxes and crescent fighting over control of the town, you, Ava and Connor try to stop this -First order of business is to find what happened to the local gym leader, Emily, she's went missing recently -Turns out she's been captured by a local gang called the Teal Panthers, they're a small gang funded by Crescent -Scarlett briefly shows up as the girl giving orders to the teal panthers -You free Emily, turns out she's connor sister, bullies him a bit -Total war breaks out shortly after that, Ava gets a rematch against Baron, Emily faces Amelia, Connor goes after Scarlett and tries to stop you from following him, because he's convinced it's up to him to "save" her -Connor gets his ass handed to him and Scarlett is about to jump from the top of a building because apparently that's a step required to make the dream world come true -Player vs Scarlett, depending of a couple of things you can manage to get her to stop that, leave crescent and rejoin the group, or she jumps off the roof and dies for good. -Gym battle against Emily after the whole mess is cleaned up -as the crew is about to leave towards Cellia the protag mentions Tristan wanting to go to cellia too so you drop by in Addenfall to see if he's there -Ava and connor examine the house and it becomes increasingly clear something's wrong - there's had been no normal type gym leader for years now, the house looks abandoned for years, and upon examining your trainer card, tristan's badge mysteriously isn't there -Protag faints shortly after and a voice starts getting meta about the story, stopping just short of calling things plot armor -You wake up in the boat leading to Cellia with Ava and Connor, who decided to just move on to cellia and not think too hard about what just happened -They depart shortly after to another place to take care of some business, leaving you on your own to explore Cellia -Here you meet : Aurora, shiv's Sister (weird because nothing in the kuiki section of the story mentionned one) who's busy casually murdering Black Foxes thugs and is seemingly after Nova, Rosetta, Cellia Central's gym leader, who needs your help to track down the black foxes base in cellia, and Garret, cellia South's gym leader, who has a personnal grudge against the foxes but seems content with just blasting them out whenever they show up around his turf -You end up tracking down Nova in a mansion in the town center, turns out she has finally managed to get the stone back and throw off shiv. she agrees to let you take the stone back if you can beat her again, but after beating her, Aurora shows up and forces Nova to run away -You end up getting the mansion for yourself since no one is using it and it was apparently bought under a false name anyway -Garret seems to have tracked down the base of the Foxes, in the undercity beneath Central Cellia -You investigate the place and end up fighting amelia for the second time -Next up you investigate the Cellia archives to try to understand what the fuck is going on with shiv and aurora -garret follows you there, explains that his grudge against the foxes is that they apparently kidnapped his younger sister years ago -We also get some details about the big boss of the Foxes at some points, Lilith -Basically Bruce Wayne if instead of becoming batman she had settled for funding a mafia with her money to catch whoever killed her parents -You get some more details about Aurora and Shiv's backstory -Basically, shiv caught a depression when he realized his superpowers kinda took the joy out of life -Aurora on her end was doing some reasearch in the hopes to find a way to make the powers go away, got laughed off at a scientific meeting, killed them all and decided to embrace the whole superpowered psycho angle -Nova showed up in their life at one point and managed to get shiv out of his depression -then she stabbed him in the back (literally) and tried to steal both of the twins powers, only partially worked for both -Turns out the whole kukui mess is actually shiv's fault, he messed around with addenfall town for a while in depression and unearthed the onyx stone/tried to use it's powers for shit and gigs -kukui migt very well just be a random kid who got fucked over by life big time who got brainwashed by shiv -Fight breaks out in the streets of cellia just as you're done exploring the archives -turns out Aurora has managed to Corner Nova and Shiv cannot stop her, begs you to save nova, because as far as he cares, even with her backstabbing him, he still cares about her enough to want to save her despite their opposition on the whole ideal/real conflict -depending of your choices you can managed to talk Aurora down, or she kills nova if you don't. -Either way you black out once again and wake up after the mess get cleaned up, time for a tournament that leads up to a fight with Rosetta for your fifth badge -Depending of whether or not scarlett is alive, she's your second to last opponent, if she's dead, hardy replaces her. For some reason, his Zoroark isn't in his team anymore. -After your victory with Rosetta and as you're about to go to bed, Garret informs you he's done some digging in the archives and found about a theory that states the twins are actually perfectly ordinary people who are lucid dreaming because the whole world is actually not reality but a dream -as the sentence ends you wake up in some dark woods with Aurora, telling you that you finally managed to escape the dream, meaning the whole game so far was apparently taking place in a dream and that's where E4 ends, if I'm not mistaken. That was proably a bit overdetailed but that should cover pretty much all the context you need for E5. Oh yeah, and there's some ranger stuff going on but that's entirely a sidequest thing. Hope this is clear enough!

Oh THAT IS SO COOL This is gonna be the death of me but it's still gonn be SO COOL. Always wanted legendaries to feel more like a challenge to actually defeat.

Desolation isn't open source. That being said, Caz seems pretty open to external contributions from my exchanges with him, so I'd say it's definitely worth trying to get in contact with him and see if he'd approve of those features. If you want to get started on working, despite deso not being open source, the only thing you need to get working is RPG maker XP. if you have it, you can just drop a project file in the game folder and open it and you'll be able to edit the project freely. The only thing you'd need that isn't included in the game folder are the PBS files handling things like the trainers teams and so on, but those are available to download somewhere in this forum, so that's not a problem either. From there on, your only limit is your knowledge of ruby, Rpg maker's limitations, and your patience. Two piece of advice if you feel like going down this path : A) When coding new features, I heavily suggests making them as detached as possible from the current scritpts - since you'll be working on your own version of the scripts, someone is gonna have to port them over to deso's main version at some point, so the more your code is organized in a way that lets you do that easily, the better. a personnal habit of mine whenever I had to edit existing scripts (since sometimes you don't have the choice, after all), is to bracket every modifications between lines of ### where you note your name/handle, the feature this is supposed to help with, and a unique number for each modification. It makes it way easier to retrieve those modifications later on with a CTRL+SHIFT+F, and coupled with a documentation file where you list all those modifications and explain a bit what they're supposed to do, make it way easier to port code. B)Regarding the AI, if you really intend to go down that way, you might want to get in touch with Andracass from Reborn as well, since she's done a lot of work with the AI already and Deso uses Reborn's AI code and there's a lot of modifications she's passed to the Deso team since E5's release that aren't implemented in E5. the Battle AI in general is a pretty tough cookie to crack, from my understanding, so I'd just advise to wait to gain some understanding of the general structure of the scripts to try anything substantial with it. Those features sounds like some interesting ideas, honestly.I really like the better breeding one.

What a giant mood. Hang in there, Ame, we're all with you.

I'll throw in what I said elsewhere about bewear, donphan and Raichu Bewear's a pretty good candidate for High B, imo. he's got great availability, (and getting him sooner wouldn't do it too many favors considering Connor and Aderyn would trounce him) and it's kit is surprisingly good in deso -great bulk with fluffy, strong stats, and he gets access to payback and aerial ace easily, meaning he gets to check more stuff than fighting/normal would suggest -available for the tristan vibe check and the battle against Amelia earlier Donphan's a strictly worse mamoswine but mamoswine is legit great so donphan still get's a good deal of job done. really good damage output, can learn ice shard through breeding and makes a decently good use of it, sturdy's good for guaranteeing he gets a hit in on a threat, and an all around good defensive bulk. Not a carry, obviously, but a good addition to a team that needs something to spam earthquake with. Also comes right before blackview, so it's guaranteed to get in some good work against Emily. I'd suggest mid B tier Raichu is fine. I'd say High C tier, mostly because it's not available for the first battle against Aderyn which would make it substantially better for early game carry, but he's a good electric type able to pull it's weight. Outside of just all around being a decently fast electric type capable of contributing for most fights, he has a thing for ruining amelia's day, as once you deal with the cacturne, pretty much everything in Amelia's team gets 2HKO by him and he always gets a free hit in because crobat U-turn goes brrr. He's also really good for the rematch against Aderyn, for what it's worth.

gonna go with "the same base rate as reborn/rejuv", (so slightly lower than 1% IIRC) since it's built on the same code and shinies happens often enough to match that assumption.

Oh so that's what that screenshot from FE fates was about. This is amazing.

Hp 70 Atk 125 Def 70 Sp.Atk 60 Sp.Def 70 Speed 125 so basically, +35 to the ATK, and +65 to the Speed, gains ghost typing, and strong jaw as ability. edit : oops, looks like I had the order of the stats wrong, poster below me posted the correct order.

oh right, Tristan SHOULD have been around for the better part of the 45 years between the grandpa's diary and the time he disappeared. Didn't take that into account. Yeah, there's gotta be more to it, never realized that. Yeah, nevermind me, that does shoot this idea down. Although: I wouldn't say the diary is that categorical about it. The diary's written from the perspective of the grandfather, who by this point is old and bitter. Tristan may seem happy to him but it might just be Tristan doing his usual shtickof looking fine yet being actually depressed, and the old man being too bitter to realize. Tristan's story definitely does warrant being skeptical but the old man isn't an exact narrator either. I don't think Tristan's words are meant to be taken that litterally. like yeah, there's a couple of instances where he goes for "it's like they pretend I'm not here", but he does mention that in the past, getting his title of gym leader caused him to be further looked down upon, not just ignored, so it's unclear how litteral "acting like i'm not here" is, and how much he's just desperate for attention. No, he doesn't. Connor does point out that there's bunch of gym badges on the table, but he immediately does move to examining the poke ball, and there is nothing in the dialogue whatsoever that points to Connor handing you the badge at any point during the cutscene, as he doesn't even comes close to you. Them giving you the badge off screen while you're unconscious isn't impossible, but there's nothing in the text that says so. Although Hardy mentionning he does just got the badge handed to him does lend credence to this idea Connor/Ava might have given you one off-screen. I had forgotten about that detail. That being said, speaking of that conversation, the fact the pokeball on the desk is supposed to be the pokeball that contained Tristan's Lopunny despite the fact he still has the lopunny on his team does lend credence to the idea the Tristan we know isn't the tristan that lived in Addenfall.

That's hardly true, a similar blackout happens after the blackview battle, which has no direct connection to the dreamscape either. -Also, I don't buy the idea that Tristan is an artificial person, because the diaries, the house, and even ava's account, does speak of a Tristan that WAS alive about fifty years ago. And yeah, the timeline doesn't hold up, but consider the following : time doesn't flow the same way in the dreamscape than it does in reality. Exhibit A: after the events of bountilia island, we're sent to the dreamscape. We know we left no unconscious body behind, because Garett and Rosetta tells us we went missing. We are also told we disapperead for "several days", which is a weird thing to mention considering this segment is much, much shorter than our first trip to the dreamscape, where we were simply "out cold" in our bed. So it seems there two different ways to enter the dreamscape, differentiated by whether your leave your body behind in the real world, or not. If you don't, time flows much faster for you and what appears to be a few hours in the dreamscape becomes several days. -So in light of those facts, I'd argue that everything weird about tristan can be simply explained by the fact he entered the dreamscape with his body 50 years ago, for a trip that felt maybe like a couple months to him, and then came back to reality in this day and age. I'd even throw in a bonus that he's not entirely conscious of how long time has passed, considering his comment at the state of the house. -Him liking Odis as a place can be a simple result of the fact he had a sad childhood of a lonely boy and for him, the dreamscape discovery wasn't a soul-crushing discovery that nothing in your life mattered, but an escape route from "that boy no one notices" to "just a regular guy people like". -Tristan as an avatar of Darkrai doesn't make much sense to me. Let's say you're Darkrai. You're trying to fool the player into thinking the dreamscape is the real deal. You're told to find three books by Booker, which, if you're Darkrai, know is a complete liability who may cause the player to catch on to the trap. Do you : A) Follow the player around in their quest under the pretense of "the more the merrier" and then grab the books yourself when you find them and prevent the player from touching them and accessing the knowledge they contain, and maybe railroad them into avoiding the stranger aspects of the dreamscape while you're at it ? or B) Decide to split up and let the player go completely unsupervised, free to discover everything wrong about the dreamscape and also pick up the books with even more evidence in it ? Like, I know Darkrai isn't THAT smart if you decide to take a very cynical approach to everything that happens in the game, but if Tristan is like the one person he has geniune complete control over, rather than nova/shiv/aurora being manipulated but not directly controlled, then he's deadass stupid for letting that happen. -I think Tristan works much better as a character as the one person who actually finds the dreamscape a more pleasant life than real life and as such is going to fight to defend what's dear to him, than as a puppet of darkrai making such a huge blunder. -Finally, I disagree with the idea that the player is the only person who can see tristan. Ava and Connor never happened to be around when he was, which might just be a coincidence, or a "coincidence", rather than an incapacity to actually see him. Also, I'm pretty sure the trainers in silver rise who double teamed us didn't got taken down by thin air, but it's always hard to know how much you should factor in the gameplay of the game into the plot. -It's also worth remembering that so far, the ordinary badge thing is just a headcanon. Far all we know, we still don't have a real ordinary badge on us. And, quite frankly, why would Ava/Connor do so ? Your friend who's insisting they've been fighting a gym leader that's been dead for 50 years shows you their trainer card, pointedly doesn't have the badge on it, collpase as a result of learning the facts, and your first reaction would be to actually hand them the badge ? Like, I know they're you're friend, but those things are supposed to be earned in matches regardless. Until the text actually does say this did happen, the ordinary badge thing is a plot thread for the plot to resolve later. -While this theory doesn't explain the ordinary badge thing, nor that one time you spot Tristan in Cellia Central, go talk to him, and he immediately disappears, I think it makes more sense of the plot elements that have been introduced, such as the insistence on the fact tristan lived 50 years ago AND the fact the dreamscape has those weird characteristics such as the time flowing differently. I fully expect the former to be explained later down the road, and the latter to have something to do with the entering the dreamscape with your body that'll be elaborated on when the plot drops the reveal.

... I think you've got the Desolation and rejuvenation threads mixed up. you've posted information pertaining to rejuvenation. Regardless, all evolution stones in general can be bought at the Cellia central evolution items stores for a bunch of credits. a quick ctrl-f in the guide reveals that there's only one other shiny stone available in the wild, along with three dusk stones. The first dusk stone is in the cave next to Redcliffe town, next one is somewhere in blackview, and the last one in the depths of the Cellia sewers.

I think there's one at this link :

Thanks, added those to the guide !

Holy moly I never noticed until now but there are TWO black buildings in D2 Yeah, you want to try the other one, not the sky tower. the sky tower will open up later in the game. I'll edit the guide to include this precision !

Nope, Bulbasaur isn't available yet. Well, it's available if you pick it at the start of the game, but that's it. There aren't many starters that are available in the game for now. From the guide, the list if opportunities to gain relationship points with ava is : -Right at the start of the game when the game introduces the reputation mechanic, on the boat -When she asks you if you were about her at Vejyr (doing so nets you a -1 when answering no gives a +1) -Talking to her in the route 2 pokemon center is free points -When Scarlett asks you if you'd rather pick her or Ava if you had to do the whole journey with only one of them (I know I did answered Scarlett back then, and you gain points with whoever you chose and lose a point for whoever you don't, so that might have played a role) -When Ava asks you if scarlett made the right decision (answering no gives points with Ava) -After getting to Cellia for the first time, talking to her and connor before they leave -Right after the Archives sequence and Shiv/Aurora fighting in Cellia, when you wake up after the events, talking to Ava in the manor gives points -After the dreamscape trip, when ava asks you if there's something you need to tell her, not telling the truth gets you negative points (telling the truth is neutral) -The full restore moment during the battle for cellia north. so that's a potential maximum of 8 points. I seem to remember, but don't quote me on this, that you need at least 5 points in that dialogue for her to give you the venusaurite. So either you you missed a couple of optionnal prompts like on route 2 or after the archives sequence, or you gave an answer that gave negative points at some point (Vejyr, Scarlett's question).

Hey, no worries. A) Okay that one is entirely my fault- I rechecked the trainer file and indeed musharna has dazzling gleam, along with thunder wave instead of synthesis. Looking at the file and the guide, it's pretty easy to guess what happened - I accidentally listed moves from the meganium that comes right after it. I've fixed it. B) Yeah, I wasn't clear on how it worked at the time, but it turns out Ava only gives you the venusaurite if you have high enough affinity with her. Giving her the full Restore isn't strictly necessary to get it, but it may have been just enough for you to miss the check. i've added the details in the guide.

Oh, great catch ! I just checked in game myself and I indeed completely missed that ! i've updated the guide to account for that info. Thanks for letting me know !

If you have doubts on other songs, the Audio/BGM folder can most likely answer them, as most songs have their actual source/name listed in the metadatas.