Hey guys, all the battles in EBF5 have been defined. Most of what’s left to do is stitching all of the parts together, the title menu, tons of testing and balancing, translations, and the final boss. Then after that there’s still some promotional stuff like trailers and store pages etc. But it’s getting there. People who have volunteered to translate are getting a bit impatient, but I’ll get round to contacting you soon-ish. Still need a month or so before I’m ready to organise that.
I was supposed to be buying a house, but the seller is having trouble moving, so that’s been delayed. I’m moving back in with my parents for now – hopefully not for too long, but who knows. Maybe it will be a chance to take a break from work.
But while that’s happening, you guys can tell me what you want from Newgame+ in EBF5. Like usual, I don’t want to put much work into it, but I do want it to be a fun way to replay the game. Did you prefer it in EBF3 where you could just rush through the game again with super powerful players? Or did you like EBF4’s version where monsters got much stronger and you could keep levelling up for longer? If I do that again I’ll have to balance it a bit better.
In other news, I’ve been suffering quite heavily from nostalgia lately, and have been playing lots of games on Kongregate and Newgrounds again – old stuff and new. I’m probably too young to feel this way, but it feels like a huge part of my life is over. Flash games and whatever replaces them will still be around, yet I feel that some of the magic is gone, now that they’re no longer the cutting-edge of the creative space. I feel like the old man who doesn’t like what kids these days are into, because I had better entertainment in my day. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just have to keep making games in my style and prove it.
I read through my EBF4 postmortem, and I really need to update that soon. Back when I wrote that I felt like EBF4 was a failure and that I didn’t have much future making PC games, but since then EBF4 came out and Steam and was hugely successful there. Now my problem is that EBF4 might have been the height of my career and I won’t manage to make another game that’s so successful. That’s a bit silly of thing to worry about, I suppose.
I really need to blog more. It’s very therapeutic and a nice way to connect with people. I’ve got a few long ones that I’ve been meaning to write for a while, so maybe while I’m stranded at my parents house I can write some of those. I know I’m not the best at replying to comments, but I do read them all and appreciate them.
I strongly prefer being dominate after working so hard than having a leveling NG+.
I liked EBF4 more than EBF3 hopefully next game is either new mechanics or same mostly asEBF4
About NG+, obviously EBF4. I also wanted to say that trying to find treasures should be easier and actually possible. Hidden treasures were a pain in the ass. I think treasures that are hiding behind the trees or something should be better. At least you can see them.
Also there was a treasure map you mentioned earlier? Is it a map that shows you all of the treasures in a map? For example you are in the starting point of winter themed level. You opened normal 2 chest, could find and open 1 hiding chest. But you didn’t notice the other 1 hiding chest and moved on to next map. Will the map acknowledges you about missing it or will the map just acknowledges you about shovel stuff?
I liked both of the new game +s personally so if at all possible, maybe both?
Btw I know this question is extremely late but I was wondering what everyon’s favorite boss was and if you are hoping it’ll come back as a mini boss. My favorite was the robot from the 2nd game and his gattiling gun made me laugh.
Also btw, even if old bosses won’t come back in story mode, i hope they will come back as optional bosses for getting enough medals. Of course Matt doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.
About NG+
I like it more how it is at EBF 4. Leveling indefinately is more interesting. Two thoughts I have in mind to keep NG+ more challenging and fun:
1) Allow us to set the opponents level somewhere between 0-5(so +5 monster levels max) as additional difficulty modifier, also granting some, not too much additional xp on top of more xp from higher level enemies.
2) Enable a challenge option which makes enemies enter with 1 random buff, like whenever a wave starts a Monster appears with a for example a +25% Physical Defence or +15% Accuracy buff, could also be like 2 turns of Luck or Morale or anything. The randomness is what makes this more fresh and challenging. The bonus could be a slightly improved chance to get stat foods.
I personally would like this combination as it allows give us an extra edge of challenge but doesn’t make it too difficulty for those which don’t use this modifier but still want have an enjoyable, not overwhelming NG+.
Newgame+ in EBF4 was great. Allowing the enemies to scale really makes the NG+ so much better. It allows the player to beat the game, then come back to it months later to play it again against harder enemies with the same save file they used before. It allows the player to feel a sense of progression, like they aren’t just ‘replaying’ the game again.
That said, a lot of games lately have been allowing players the option to toggle what they do and do not want to keep into NG+, such as levels, skills, gear, money, etc. This would be more work, but it would also allow a player to do a more hard reset of gold, gear, etc. while retaining their higher level and facing harder enemies, so they can still feel like they are progressing their characters while playing through the core game another time.
I personally think it would be cool to combine the New Game+ features from EBF3 and 4. As in, allow you to keep all your stuff from the previous playthrough, but also add the option to scale enemies’ levels for the next playthrough. However, it would be better to organize the checkboxes so you can tell that some require others to be active in order to work.
-Keeping weapon levels in EBF3 requires keeping weapons, though these could be made independent here.
-Scaling enemy levels would require keeping your own levels.
Other than that, I’d also like some stuff to spice up each additional playthrough, both in and out of combat. This could include extra dialogue, increased base difficulty, strengthened offensive summons, etc. I say the latter one because that summon type tends to suck in NG+ (at least powerful summons still do well at the end of the first playthrough). Or maybe base part of their power on the average of everyones’ base stats instead of the user’s level… ❓
I believe EBF5 will be as awesome as EBF4, can’t wait for it to be released!
Concerning NG+, I liked it in EBF4 but adding something to make it more challenging would be really nice. Something like giving mobs more abilities like buffing/debuffing or attacking with some cool NG+ spells or even add some level of randomness in their skillset would make going through NG+ much more interesting. It doesn’t have to be Special Specific abilities, could be something very simple but entertaining as allowing all fire mobs to cast all fire spells or cats to be able to cast any spell in the game; increase their arsenal for more excitement!
I’ll be honored to help in translations the Portugueses Brazil. :yay:
I preferred the NG+ of the 4th game. My only request for EBF5’s NG+ is that you raise the caps for skills and spells. most of my stuff was maxed by the end of my first playthrough of EBF4, so I didn’t have much else that I could work towards when I started NG+, and it also meant that I couldn’t power up my skills/spells any further to deal with the stronger enemies.
While I hate creating additional work for you, I do agree that some new dialogue in subsequent playthroughs would give more of a reason to play through a game we just finished again. You get bonus points if Natz straight up leaves the party temporarily when it comes time to fight the obligatory monster with the violating tentacle attack again. some different encounters would be nice too.
Hey Matt!
I just want to start out by thanking you for dedicating so much time towards making the game. You’re doing it all alone, and the process of crafting the perfect game is extremely, difficult, but you’ve been doing so well on the EBF series. I’ve played through all of them multiple times, and the difference in quality between the games is astounding. The level of improvement and detail with each game, as well as how fun it is, increases dramatically through each new addition.
Don’t feel as though EBF4 will be the “height of your career,” because from all the combat demos and map sneak peeks I’ve seen, you’re crafting your magnum opus of the series. Without even playing it, I can see all the things I loved about EBF4 improved upon in the game: better artwork, more advanced game mechanics, more detailed maps, etc.
I’ve been checking this site furiously for the past few years waiting to finally see the release of the game, and this is my first ever post on your site. Keep up all the hard and amazing work, everyone here absolutely loves your games and thoroughly supports you.
Sincerely,
K
Thanks!
You and your games are one of the best things happening ever in my life :stars: . I pretty much love :love: every single soundtrack and listen to them quite often. I can’t await the new EBF, but please keep your time to deliver the best possible product, just as you always do.
Thank you so much and best greetings from Germany! You, Sir, are awesome :smirk: !
Besides there are plenty of great games out there. Some AAA-titles, which actually deliver. Some less known ones. But in the end it is all personal preference. So I can’t really say much about it. It is sad, now that I am old enough to have to work to keep myself sustained… it drains alot of time, which is the saddest part.
I like the idea that Ranoche has about battles having special requirements or features to them. And I totally understand the nostalgia aspect you were talking about like playing old games. I’ve been going back and playing some of the old games on Nitrome again, like Frost Bite, Pixel Pop, and Skywire; they just don’t make their games like they used to.
For new game plus you could do something like Final Fantasy Type-0; during key missions in the game during the second playthrough, you’d be able to choose to view the mission from an alternative point, without it having any effect on the overall story. A concrete example was that in the first playthrough, you’d be forced to storm a certain fortress head-on, while in the second, you’d be able to choose to circle around and sneak in from the back. This just opened up a few new locations and encounters while most of the mission was locations from the first playthrough visited from a different entrance. You could probably do your own twist on this concept.
About translating , if you ever consider romanian , email me . And have a nice break . Take your time .
imma romanian too
probably too complicated but how about creating victory conditions in newgame+. it could make each fight more unique. still with new higher stats but to earn exp from a fight you have to follow the victory conditions. doesn’t even need to be random but each battle with a designed little gimmick
Fight must last three turns
all enemies start out buffed with a maxed stack of a buff
all allies start out debuffed with a maxed stack of a debuff
all enemies start with regen
all allies start stunned
must kill enemies in a certain order
main body damage immune until limbs are destroyed
MP costs doubled
SP cost doubled
only normal attacks allowed
I thought that EBF4’s NG+ was a great approach. The only reason I did NG+ for the third game (which I recently streamed) was to get to the all-medals-obtained secret area after beating the game on a clean game file. That being said, I feel like NG++ on EBF4 was a little overkill. Not sure how much extra work it was, but just the one NG+ was fine, with the enemies being a lot harder. The third time around felt more like the same thing as the first NG+.
I’m surprised that you thought EBF4 was a failure. It was my favorite one of the bunch! And the battle system of this game looks really solid, too, even more developed than the last one. Sure, the system is different, but I like how it was implemented this time. I just hope you’re still having fun making these games.
I prefer EBF4’s enemies and how they get stronger when you get stronger
Do not get discouraged comrade, we must go to the pair of progress or stay in oblivion, it is incredible that flash has lived so long, more than 30 years. Think about it in this way, you may find great possibilities in what you decide to follow from now on, whether unity or even java. Who knows? Remember that the fans support you. :hurray: :yay: :smirk: :shades:
Based on what I’ve seen, EBF5 should have little trouble living up to EBF4. Everything that made the earlier games in the series great seems to be present, and the scope and variety are even broader. The only thing about this game that seems like a step back is the first boss design or two. Although, what will Adobe abandoning the Flash plugin mean for EBF4 and 5’s continued availability on Steam? And what will you do next, another action game or EBF6? If you do EBF6 and maybe 7 I hope Phyrnna and/or Ronja are playable.
I think the balance was good, the problem was it really jsut depended on what level you started it at. If you rushed through first one on easy and than set it back to hardest in new game it’s almost impossible to beat anything. But if you grind to kill boss to like level 34, than new game becomes much easier til near the end. I would suggest jsut adding more damage boosts to abilities or something for new game. Something you won’t really miss out on if you never try it.
I was thinking, maybe make some preset options like Summons+100%, attack -50% for next play through. Something to kinda change the strategies up so that it feels fresh without adding more content.
Maybe for marketing you can strike a deal up with steam to promote your game at launch or something. Hope it’s even more successful than the other ones, it rightly deserves it. I’ll make a post about it on facebook when it hits, got about a thousand or so friends on there that are mostly gamers. Great work man. Can’t wait to play it.
In RPGs, I liked the idea of min-maxing a character so they can do a certain thing really well. It would be nice to have a feature were one can reset permanent stat boosting items and allocate the stats into one specific thing, like attack. Having the ability to experiment is insanely fun and in my opinion, having just random stat boosts that could found randomly in chests (like in EBF4) is no good, especially now that we have stat boosting items that caters to specific characters.
But, that is waaay too adaptable and overpowered if one can do it on the fly, so I think every time someone completes game, they should have the ability to reset and allocate stats into other fields.
Each character has 4 of their own food items for stat increases (HP, Phys. Atk+Def, Mag. Atk+Def, Acc+Eva). This is to prevent negligence toward any character’s stat boosts in favor of other characters’ boosts. Unless you decide not to use a given type of stat item in the first place.
I’d like the option to be able to choose between the two. It was fun to be able to steamroll all the bosses and enemies that gave you trouble in EBF3, but eventually, it just becomes boring and tedious killing everything and getting very little reward. Even the Zombie Hydras, Cosmic Monoliths, and Dark Golems barely give any EXP to be worth fighting eventually. I like the scaling in EBF4, but it kinda sucks that it stops scaling ends after 3 playthroughs. And you should definitely try and spice up repeated playthoughs, though don’t make the changes too drastic.
Hello Matt,
I don’t write comments or stuff usualy but your last post made me. Epic Battle Fantasy are really nice games, i once discovered EBF3 it on kongregate and it became my favorite game… Until you released EBF4.
Your characters, the story, the fight system, basicly the whole game is really nice, in some games “good enough to play but not good enough to go deep in story, wich isn’t that nice” i just skip when characters are talking for too long, here i really enjoy it. I want to go deeper in the story, it’s fun and… refreshing?
Don’t feel depressed or anything ’cause now most of people just want kinda crappy game to play on their cellphone when they have 2mn or quick games you play to when you’re really bored, you have a lot of people behind you, who really like what you’re doing and just can’t wait for EBF5.
Trust in yourself mate.
(By the way, sorry if my english isn’t right, not my mother tongue.)
I would like to game had the same permissions like EBF3 and EBF4 its be very usual and fun.
And also i want to return natalie crystal staff ( I like this staff because is really good balanced and have the special power in level 5) (Lucky star)
thank you for making the best world game :hurray:
I wish ebf would be turned into animated series where 4 kids live in a crappy flat and fight monsters everyday…
1. Matt would be…well like you I guess
2. Lance would be a psychopath that has a Valkyrie in his garage
3. Anna would be the ecologist girl that gets along with everyone
4. Natz should be the busty girl which attracts all the eyes to her boobs and gets annoyed by Lance and Matt
And they should use the dialogue they use in battles, the series should be posted on newgrounds and have a final two or three part episode where godcat takes control over the city :stars: :stars: :stars: :stars: :stars: :stars: :stars: also the city should be named by you
From what i’ve seen and read, there is no way EBF4 can even hold a candle to what’s coming next. Don’t worry about a thing, it’s gonna be a blast! ❗
EBF4 didn’t necessarily need a scaling NG+, because experimenting on a whole new file with different character setup was what was really interesting. The overpowered EBF3 run felt good after growing so much though, and it was very handy for nabbing all the achievements in a fun blitz instead of slogging through (would be remiss not to mention that the medal rooms were also big incentives for that also).
Whatever you decide though, EBF5 is gonna be hella, been following almost religiously since you announced development :love2:
Also, from such an interesting creator as yourself, the blog posts here are really cool, feels like we get to know you better. And if they make you feel good, that’s hella too! :shades:
In my opinion ur work on EBF4 was great. I really liked that harder version(im a fan of hard games) so… maybe in EBF5 it would be better to make it more harder because gameplay will last longer and it will be more interesting to fight harder and harder boss everytime we encounter them (not maybe like dark souls but close :DD) thats only my opinion, but ur doing great work and keep it up. Big respect from Croatia.
Matt, as you said before you dont want to let people miss content by not playing a second (or third) time. But thats the whole point to it why would i replay the same game with the same monsters at the exact same place, the only difference beeing the health( and damage but that doesnt cut it)?
(Besides the steam medallions that are not worth it alone)
There has to be some way to make these further playthroughs interesting, because as it was in ebf4 (health scaling only ) its just 0 fun and really not appealing to play again.
Maybe a randomiser or something. Ebf3 and Ebf4 in my opinion didnt implement this feature well.
I hope you read this Matt and do not ignore what i have to say.
Ps: Its a great game tho :stars: :love2:
-Meiko Pfaffmann
tbh, what i’d like to see in newgame+ is in the same way of ebf 4, but with additionnal contents, maybe like items and few spells, maybe spells that’s inspired from the final boss so it would seem like the soul of the characters absorbed the knowledge of it and can use it after spending a gigantic quantity of xp :ooo:
I know you don’t want peopel to feel they miss by not playing new game+, but I really agree about earning stuff from the final boss. It feels horrible to feel I am not earning anything by THIS fight.
And the 0% chance drop weapons were such a tease. I kept thinking “Maybe it’s rounded down and if I play that 200 or 300 times, coming back to the save file of right before the fight each failure I will get it.” 🙁
It will also be nice to be able to walk around in the world after saving it, without new game+, just to see how it is now (and to feel overpowered and test what you earned at the end).
Maybe adding mutators to the ng +?
Like maybe you could do some basic stuff like increasing health or other stats, but besides that maybe giving revive to every enemy or massively increasing party evade but they could be one shotted by every enemy.
EBF4’s NG+ is superior, and you should model EBF5 the same way. However, I personally would like it if the enemies continued to scale for a few playthroughs more than just the first two. I’d like it to be more like Dark Souls where it keeps getting tougher until around NG+6 or NG+7. That would be ideal for me.
I can do that but the levelling up really has to plateau at some point. Your stats will roll over at some point and go into negatives if you don’t stop levelling up.
I agree about the nostalgic part. Unfortunately, I had this feeling already about two years ago, so now, it has faded and I accepted the inspirational desert. Don’t know it this is even sadder.
Honestly the stronger enemies is what made New Game+ enjoyable for me in the first place, so yeah I prefer EBF5’s way of handling it.
*4
“People who have volunteered to translate are getting a bit impatient”
:hurray: :hurray: :hurray: cant right more~~
Take it easy, we already wait a long time, add few weeks or months not too long 🙂
I hope could found more new content in 5, not another 4. :love2:
have it so you can pick what you keep like in EBF3 and let the player also pick if the Foes Scale or not. i liked both NG+ from EBF3 and EBF4
As I mentioned before, maybe have it where, while on the first playthrough the PCs go through character development and form relationships, whether platonic or romantic, the second playthrough could have new dialogue reflecting all the character’s experiences and developments they went through before. It could even be a good way to justify meta commentary about the game, but only in NG+.
It would basically involve writing almost twice the dialogue you already planned, though, so you can just ignore this, but it would be awesome if you did it!
Yeah I don’t want people to feel like they’re missing anything by not playing the game a second time.
yeah it would be cool if in the NG+ the characters would feel like they’ve experienced it before and add new dialogue like “I think we’ve been here before”
That would add a little fourth wall breakin’…but I love those :yay: :yay:
If anything what would be a good idea is to new game + from ebf4 however it would be nice if there were special medal zones like in ebf3.
Medal areas are already in there. 😀
I wouldn’t mind either NG+ but could bring back the achievement areas like in EBF 3? I thought that was awesome, having to earn major rewards by doing acheivements
I agree! Especially the challenging baddies that were there, such an awesome little addition that I was dissapointed to see not make a return in EBF4.
That’s already in there, scroll back through my posts to find the Gallery/Mansion area!
It’s okay if you’re truly the Last Starfighter of the type of games you enjoy. It just means that if EB5 is worse than the previous ones, gaming as you know it will die forever, trapped in a viscous whirlpool of shovelware, barely-written RPGMaker tripe, and yearly dirt-colored FPSes, all filled with microtransactions, decrying microaggressions, and/or wearing microfedoras.
NO PRESSURE! 😀
I personally would like to see a choice of the two in the game, wherein you can configure enemy difficulty in NG+ to scale or not. Let the player play how they want to play, you know?
I prefer EBF4’s NG+. Mainly because I like the challenge and being able to utilize more strategies, skills and items :smirk:
Hey, don’t worry about it! I’m sure EBF5 will be a nice reboot, though I’ve been looking through the posts, and a lot of people liked the idea of Akron coming back….perhaps EBF5 could just be the start of a reboot series! Tbh, I do kind of miss Akron, even though I was kind of disappointed that he was a piece of cake compared to the cosmic monolith before him, but that’s EBF3. I know I’m probably hoping for too much, but I’m already looking forward to an EBF6, should it be announced that it’s happening. In fact, if this is going to be the start of a reboot series of the same game, then I can probably explain how the first four games are all stitched together like patchwork. There’s a bit of dissention, but I’ve noticed that there’s a general consensus that EBF2 was canon to the story, and they’re right, because of Lance being the boss. However, I’ve also noticed a lot of the same people saying that EBF1 wasn’t canon. That cannot be, because you start out in the Kitten Kingdom in EBF2, and our heroes never would’ve been there if it hadn’t been for Goku in EBF1. And as well, I think everyone just misses Akron. The nostalgia is very real. If EBF5 is just a little reboot, to see into another universe, then, again, only if, but if there is an EBF6, then it could be back in the main universe. Or people can just believe that Akron stole their memories for this and they never got them back, who knows.
I can already guarantee you that there’s fanfics.
And I can also guarantee you that there’s a lot of people out there who still call Natalie “Titan tits”. :yay:
I liked the scaling monsters in EBF 4, but I feel like the way they scaled was a bit pointless, as they only really became tankier and did not really do more damage to the player. If anything, the scaling was annoying and could be heavily improved upon. Perhaps you could make it an option whenever you kill the final boss again to enable it or not, like at the end of EBF 3. Or even add an adjustable knob for the user to scale the difficulty, or make it even more customizable and go far enough to make different knobs for HP, damage, armor, etc. Another solution could be to add post-game content to increase the willingness to play with scaling monsters.
And I think EBF 5 will be a great successor to the 4th installment: Looks nicer and has less bit-crushed sounds, new character, new attacks, new features, and tons of new baddies to demolish and loot.
Yeah, I definitely didn’t balance enemy growth properly in Newgame+ in EBF4. Definitely will need to crunch the numbers better this time.
To be honest, I’ve never played any of the EBF New Game Plus Stuff. I usually don’t bother with NG+ in most games to begin with, but the one series that I do like to do it on is the Ratchet and Clank games, which lets you start the game over with all your overpowered gear, but also lets you upgrade all that gear even further, while upgrading the enemies accordingly.
I’ve considered adding more levels to gear, but I dunno if it would be worth the trouble. I don’t want people to feel like they’re missing new content by not playing Newgame+.
Then you should play lethal RPG war begins, it has the type of NG+ where you do that too
I prefer EBF4’s take on leveling please and tanks. :smirk:
I agree, you should vlog more. I enjoy the few you already did on your yt.
Doing videos is harder than writing though! Plus my EBF5 footage gets way more views than my face, with less effort.
TBH, I prefer the EBF4 one but there are a lot of people who liked ebf3’s NG+ better… Maybe poll it on Twitter or Discord or something?