In Ranger's Guild, the lootable bookshelf is not lootable

Item shops were not accessible at all on my first attempt to play.  Weapon and Armor Shops were.  My second attempt shops worked.  Don't know what is going on there

I selected Dual Blade from Ryu's Ranger Skill tree and it gave me a second "Attack" menu option during battle.  One attacked once, the other twice, but there wasn't a visible way to differentiate them.  Maybe make the second "Attack" command "Double Attack"

When I got Triad Blade, ALL of my Attack commands vanished and I was unable to attack at all.  Only Guts, Abilities, and Items were available.  The first fight I went into when this occured was the HR Director.  I thought it was a gimmick for the fight so I ignored it.  Went out to fight a rando battle and was still unable to attack and died due to not being able to do any damage.  Lost all progress because I hadn't saved.  

Only been playing a couple hours and I love it.  FANTASTIC JOB!  Just some kinks to work out.

Small typo -

Thunder Mastery on the Dragon Whelp talent tree says it increases Fire damage.

Larger issue -

I selected 'Only save at Dragon Statues' in the beginning, but trying to save at a statue still have the 'Save' option greyed out, and can't select it.

Edit:
Auto save wasn't triggering either.

South of the first town, by the beach slope, there's a purple butterfly (looks like) that adds Lvl 30 Jean to your party if you interact with it.

Edit:
Is the Den of Evil supposed to be an empty, repeatable plot of random gem treasures?  No enemies in there, and you can just keep going in and out to get more chests to spawn. (I guess the no enemies bit only applies to the first one actually)

Should the quests from the Ranger's guild be repeatable? Just grabbed them again after finishing them all.

Edit_2:
In the Colosseum city (second city), going in the house just east of the church actually takes you into the house connected to the Inn, just south of it.

Used 'Revert' to change back from the Earth Whelp, but the character sprite stayed as a dragon. Functionally, he changed back to human abilities.

(edited for clarity and a few typos)

Hi knightmarish_Games, first time forum poster, I was very excited to see this project come up - and have played up to and just past the Tunlan character quest. I know this is a bug-reporting forum, but I hope you don't mind a bit of wider feedback/review as part of this.

(Spoilers for story and gameplay up to mid-late game?)

What I love:

• The passion behind this, seriously, there's an excellent foundation here, and your additions felt in the spirit of Breath of Fire (added scene where Mina's coach is attacked, inner thoughts of the Capitan well monster, emerging lore around the 'role' of the Highland kingdom were nice touches). Loved that Yua has more of a place alongside the adventure - surprised you didn't opt to integrate her as a character (as opposed to Mixie). 
• Added cross-party character dialogue. Great concept - I wonder if there could be a future 'lore/story' section that saves these little 'achievements'. When I switched areas (moving across buildings/zones) I found I accidentally cancelled some and thus missed a number of these.
• That you are planning to expand on story aspects. I felt I progressed through sections of the game relatively quickly (dungeons are shorter: Nimfu's tower/Simafort).  I remember Taga Woods begin quite the new-player's gauntlet, and in my playthrough, I accidentally skipped it. Script is refreshed, but overall experience is shorter. To balance this, I love the fact that you coded a more open experience, with the tease of multiple endings - and thus, the quest system is great.

A couple bugs or beginner hiccups that I experienced, that are hopefully suggestions for next update (because the core concept is wonderful).

• Glad to see StasisCell87 identify Ryu's Attack issue - same happened here, (had two Attack commands, then non) but I wasn't sure what the trigger point was. I thought it was a consequence of upgrading the DragonBrood or WrymGuard Skill trees and I am reassured that progress in one tree, isn't meant to lock you out of another. 
• Should I have access to three carpenters, or just two (brickhome & arabic)? I couldn't enter the treehouse at Capitan, and the other carpenters did not provide explanation on what their style offered. Afterwards, the 'carpenter' home/hub in township is also locked and I cannot enter it (Arabic township style option) <-- I'm guessing this is a work in progress?
• A number of pathways have invisible walls/barriers, and you need to find ways to 'walk through walls', or at least take unintuitive routes in order to gain access to loot/npcs. For example, Holy Shaman in Tunlan is located at the Inn, but reaching her is a puzzle. I kept coming back here trying to access her (top right by the beds). First I managed to walk west through walls, travel north through the black, then east, and then stuck. Second, I went west, then south, then east, then back up north through the wall to reach her. Another example is the loot at Rand's home town (top right building). 
• Soft-lock: I went for Mina/Nina's Windia Great bird quest. Mina joined after dialogue with King. Instead of going into what looks like portal in Mina's recruitment room, I went exploring and accidentally triggered Mina's transformation scene in the south west tower (Opps!?) Autosave triggered immediately upon entering the room - so I was committed to this choice. The problem is, for whatever reason, I now have Mina as a playable character, but cannot transform into the Great Bird. I can trigger Jean's Frog and Rand's ball... but cannot find the keyboard or gamepad input to turn into the great bird.
• Hard-lock: tried to revert back to an earlier save to test the Mina/Nina event. My game hard-locked on the in-game character menu screen when trying to look at Aspara's equipment (Loading... error cannot load: ryu.img).  I closed the game, and when I tried to 'continue' and re-load my save game  from start menu, it attempts to load the autosave by default and encounters the same hard-lock (Loading... error cannot load: ryu.img). So, at this point, I think I have to start a new game, or maybe even re-download/re-install the game?
• Readme. file - can we have one?  
  • Could there be a 'beginners' file that helps to explain some of your vision and guide here? Explain the button/keyboard commands for abilities (which might help to identity if something has been locked?). I wasn't aware that I needed to 'use' monster spoils/loot for it to appear as a cooking ingredient until far later. Maybe this could be achieved via in-game prompts when new features/events are triggered (like a quest update that records some of these major developments and acts as a tutorial bank), or a .ini file that also allows us to identify/change keybindings?

• Combat Balance:
  • Encounter rate for hybrid playstyle (on-map and random encounters) is a bit hyperactive. Should new players avoid this and focus on on-map encounters only? Early game random encounters was a bit wild and affected the pacing. Difficulty was initially high for the Ryu/Bow story segment as I was getting used to the combat systems and Mt Fuji encounters were constant. By the harpy boss fight - difficulty was straightforward, by giant cockroach and minions, a breeze. At Colosseum, Ryu felt pretty unstoppable. The township recruit with muscles was a nice feature to offer the option to turn encounters off, but its effect wasn't always consistent, or at least, by that point - I was at Level 70+ around Simafort). 
  • Level progression (got to level 115 before soft-lock). Should a level cap be introduced, so that players lean more on gems/crests/etc. to get stronger in the late game? Perhaps leveling could be linked to the quest system?
  • Equipping Sana (Fire shaman) to Ryu turned him into something godly. Lin caught up to with Devil Shaman and they just tear things up (trivialising the difficulty). Nina had a mid-game section where her Kirin was boosted to clean up anything. I realise I have to 'self-regulate' the boosts I give, but I'm not sure how best to do this without understanding or overcooking the progression system. I think the rewards/gains associated with gems and Shamans could be: reduced, removed, or maybe locked behind a late game progression event. 
  • Groups of regular mobs tend to be more challenging than boss fights. Lin (Devil shaman) or Ryu (Fire shaman) can chip away in a few hits. 
  • All the above is very tricky stuff to get right, so I still had fun, despite these swings. I guess I would want to know more about the 'intended' way to play this, according to your vision/progression. 

• Character roster - I wanted to experiment more with the cast of characters, but with 10 characters and a huge range of equipment load-outs now, it feels like a bit of a crowded house. Personally, Aspara is 'always' in my party because I am trying to ensure I don't miss any of the lore abilities. In fact, I accidentally got her early on (before Capitan), thanks to Ryu equipped with Fire (Sana) Shaman. Would love to experiment more with characters with purposes/balances I don't quite understand (Mixie - Hex? , Bleu - small skill roster, and Rand occasional menu-based healer). Typically, Ryu - Lin - Aspara - Nina/Sten are my go-to party for fast nuking of mobs. 
• I love the idea of Ryu's skill tree. Is there an opportunity to expand this for the other characters? Maybe completed quests give skill tree rewards instead of the dragon statue? (for managed progression). 

Again, this experience was a joy of nostalgia that I didn't realise I needed. So thank you. I'm very keen to see how this project develops further and thank you for making it publicly available. 

Thanks again knightmarish_Games , one for bugs and balance:

Bugs:

• Soft-lock: There's a mid-game manillo shop that's accessible via Jean's Frog. Its also accessible overland on the tile just above it (south of the ranger's house). Problem is, if you accidentally enter from above, when you leave the shop, you end up on the reef tile below and cannot get back onto the land tile behind the cave entrance. 
• Soft-lock: Colosseum. Doing bare-minimum grinding/upgrading, I got to the R-66Y fight in in the tournament of champions. Couldn't damage the knight/robot and had no debuff at that point. When I lost, autosave takes  me right back to the start of the match. I had to reload an earlier save and got a couple skill points to learn 'Sunder'.  With that debuff, no problem afterwards. 
• In hometown, the bottom right home does not have any enemies to fight if you're set to 'modern encounters'. I know you use the zombie as your main dungeon sprite, any thoughts to diversifying these later to things like the cockroaches from Simafort dungeon, gongheads from hunting grounds, moving statues from Windia basement, or creatures from below the well? Maybe the Goblin that appears in the hunting ground can be an encounter that comes in and out of the trees/rocks?
• Rand's SacredHeart command - you've explained in-game what it does, but I don't seem to observe any effect when he uses it. If its supposed to act like a 'scan' ability, should it to reveal the enemy elemental characteristics (the ones that are revealed below them when they are hit with the right element)?
• Monsters with buffs, tend to reapply these liberally (vanish & stealth) - is there a '%' chance to activate certain commands in their AI script? Certainly the difficulty of some fights (bandits) would increase if they were balanced more towards applying pressure to the party. I note enemies like Bugbear have a changed sprite when they are at low HP - does that prompt any stat/script change? It would be interesting to see them get a spike in speed/strength when under threat "Bugbear is enraged!". 

Balance:

• As you get closer to final release, you'll probably find that its easier to balance the game around one set of 'encounter style', as opposed to giving the player too much choice. Less work for you to focus on tweaking balance against one, and the player can always 'grind' the modern encounters by exit-reentering. Alternatively, 'random encounters' could have a 'max encounter per area instance' to reflect the system BOFII had with Queen Tunlan's body or Mt Fuji. 
• Is there a 'wait' or 'guard' command in the fight menu? This would allow for some strategic Lore learning (Spar) once you're overpowered against enemies, or at least plan against enemy high-counter rates. If I want to experiment with other characters, this can help to allow me to play around with Mixie or Jean's elemental attacks. Maybe wait helps to charge CP, and Bow's Auto-Crossbow requires an extra wait charge to 'reload'? 
• Overall reduction of EXP. I've tried to progress very modestly to Capitan, and I think by the time I got to upgrade my village, I was levelled to late 40s. 
• Boss HP/stats would benefit from significant buffing. Argus was easier than the Colosseum matches (solo Ryu) immediately preceding him solo. Joker who? - Nina wasted him. The way the natural progression flows, the earlier, the tougher. I.e. the first gang fight in the Cave was the most challenging part of Joker's dungeon, just as the first group of zombies in Mt Fuji. 
  • This one is really hard if you're planning for both full-party and SOLO adventuring. Maybe Ryu has a skill set that is overpowered, but damages all targets on the field (including party members)? Could a Dark Dragon skill tree be tailored to fit the SOLO story experience? (the quicker route to power/victory, but at a cost, as like BOF:DQ?) I remember Rei in BOFIII refused to use the Weretiger form with Teepo/Ryu in the child story because of its chaotic nature.  This allows for buffed bosses, while making party/non-party adventures feasible? Perhaps to allow further  integration into a party dynamic, there's an ability that siphons the HP/MP of any party members (contributing to a cost/benefit dichotomy)? 
• You mentioned Mixie's HEX ability, and its an interesting mechanic. Do any boss have self-regeneration where this would be a viable strategy? I wonder if the 'bubbles' that are locked behind an element/attack type - could serve a  greater strategic role here. Like the Joker can only initially be damaged by poison. Once that bubble is burst, he takes on all types damage?  Nina has certain bubble spells like this, but Kirin trumps most fight options for her, and boss' aren't aggressive enough to employ that defensive style. Perhaps Dies/Mixie can act by changing/manipulating enemy elemental weaknesses.
• More buffing/debuffing strategies. <-- I think this would help support a wider pool of characters and abilities. BoFIII/IV teased this a bit where Eye-Goos were blinded for extra experience, or Treans could be lit on fire, changing their attack pattern. Maybe the boss Argus  has to be blinded/slowed in order to slow down a barrage of attacks?  He's got multiple heads, in his case, are three heads any better than one? If you're playing SOLO Ryu - maybe hunting ingredients can offer weapon oils/poisons or consumables to achieve this? The would add a richer purpose to the cooking mechanic, and play into Ryu and Bow's "ranger/monster hunter" theme .
• I guess I'm thinking this because you've already presented an interesting elemental affinity system with each of your monsters (Rand can supposedly identify them, Jean can reliably hit any of them), you've also got this interesting 'bubble'/HP elemental sponge'  mechanic <-- as a result, I think it could be expanded so I am forced to problem solve my encounters a bit more.  Is there a way to code [Check: IF not FIRE element, COUNTER with SUNDAR?] Probably a massive headache to code, however - but it would slow down boss encounters and force some strategic thinking. 

Now, I think I've overwhelmed this bug report forum so I'll give it a rest. These are all easy suggestions to make, but totally different to actually try to implement! 

All the best, and thanks again.

[Edited some typos and added detail around overworld dungeon sprites,  skill trees - and their relationship to story themes and narrative mechanics]

[Spoilers]

Wow, what a change! A much smoother and more calculated experience! I won't be able to look at this again until next week, but the experience has shifted significantly (for the better). 

Bugs

• I forgot to mention that the area where you meet Jean/Mixie has no encounters if you are on the 'modern' encounter version - and my memory from 3.0 remembers some flies in that area teaching a couple lores. Could the frog sprites be an encounter? Havn't faught any gobins or slug mages yet, and they are passable as frogs.
• Same issue with Nimfu's tower.  What about 'shadows' on the floor for 'mob encounters' - akin to what you placed in the secret library to get Deis?
• You mentioned limited sprites in BOFII - agreed, the suggestions I gave were based on what I remember to be available in BOFII's field (Gonghead & BugBear from hunting grounds, there's a paladin sprite from underground Eva church, cockroaches & flies from simafort, even a static Lizard sprite at the top of Evrai). I don't remember much from BOFI in that respect (mice, cochroaches, frogs, Bleu's Spirit guardians, the Gremin sprite from Robot & Gust, various Dark Dragon soldiers, and... typhoon bug from the Prima? Actually, for underwater segments, could a transformed Manilla fish sprite work for encounters?

3.2 Balance: [Up to and completing rescuing Suzy the pig]

• Progression was much smoother. Since I know the original game front-to-back, an increase of difficulty/strategy is attractive and rewarding. It also fits with the idea of 'modern encounters', so I can plan the terms of engagement. I finished the first section at Level 5 - which was perfect. 
• Due to low rewards of Zenny and Exp., I felt the incentive to clear the township house, the beginner quests, and the hunting grounds. How that flows on through the rest of the game, I'm excited to see as this develops (in the meantime, you've added the BOFI Ryu where players might need a boost in stats).
• I still 'cheated a bit' in selling a few yum-yums, but 500z each is more forgiveable and, now that the strategic elements have all changed, having relics and defensive equipment was a must. 
• thrilled to see you implement the oils idea. Again, made fighting mobs part of the strategic plan towards prepping for boss fights. Used the freeze oil for the assassin quest in Hometown, flame for the cockroaches and it gave Ryu some strategic value. 
  • Could the Ranger skill tree consider changing a few skills to increase potency, duration, or 2nd tier effects of oils? For each skill tree, there are some skills that fit into the 'why bother' category. Like the first skill for ranger that is a straight +50 to health. 
  • You've already got a 'camping mechanic', here's a nice reason to expand on it as a zone you can wrap to and cook. Perhaps, like BOFIII/IV,  recruited/guest characters are visible and continue to add value via:
    • Guest progression reminders/feedback  (like St Eva church)
    • Maybe Bow helps you craft poisons and antidotes, Sten helps you make elemental traps
    • Rand/Katt sells foraged goods?
    • While that might step on the role of township, these vendors could also be available here (via same character or another npc)
• I knew to upgrade Ryu for Dragon Guard, and ensure that he could take some hits for Bow. The 'guard' command is fit for purpose (increasing CP). I still went to Mt Fuji with the upgraded weapons [Lucky Bow/Wood Sword], so I can't say if it would have been too tough if I hadn't, but I really liked that I needed to prepare ahead. 
• I 'had' to use Bow's hunters paw for a counter battles - the group of five cockroaches, a group of zombies - and that's great. Healing consummables had a role early. 
• First zombie encounter saw Bow die, and me escape - that was a nice early exposure to how I might need to strategise here.  Backtracked to Hometown after I got some Zombie initial monster spoils to make some oil in order to delve deeper.
  
• Harpy fight was.... fun! If they had focused on me exclusively, I may have been toast, but the back-and-forth fight kept it interesting and I think it lasted somewhere between 8-10 rounds (compared to 3-4, that's good!) Old version, I was levels 10+ here, now I'm Level 4 - great. 
• Cockroaches were a battle of attrition as fights are toughest at the start when there are lots of mobs. When you have back-to-back fights and autosave - players can find themselves in a bind if they move from one fight to-the-next at low HP/MP. This happened to me, didn't keep up Ryu's health, and so had to start the second fight with Big Roach all over again. Auto save keeps my HP/MP stats the same, so I can see potential soft-locks whereby I enter the next round with critical health and not enough speed/resources to do anything. While I like the added challenge of this sort of gauntlet, should autosave stop triggering between boss sequences, so if we die, we have to start from the beginning (and manage our resources appropriately)?

Ryu Skill trees (lots of suggestions)

• Ranger
  • Suggestion of expanding the focus of oil,  attacks, and options for GUTS? Guts = a range of focused tier 1, tier 2 upgrades to specialise in: counterattack up, add MP, add HP, siphon from enemies (or allies), cleanse status debuffs, charge next attack.
• Light Dragon
  • The current progression forces me to have each elemental before I can upgrade individual elemental dragons. What if these were exclusive branches? Or at least the elemental dragons were branching paths that converged again at the final tiers? Meaning, I could invest 5 skill points into Flame dragon buffs without unlocking Ice Dragon, and then go back after Fire mastery, and unlock Ice. Perhaps offer an exclusive 'either' Wind or Earth dragon [support vs endorance]? Maybe these Wind/Earth aren't separate transformations... but Dragon Gene/Essence abilities that would go across transformations? 
  • I think there should be greater penalty for using and sustaining dragon transformations. Could breath attacks cost CP, thus Dragon Ryu cannnot reliably deal special damage each turn?  What if Dragons have a  single target [Elemental Claw] Attack, and a multi-target [Elemental Breath] CP? Once transformed, Ryu cannot directly select alternative transformations, but actually needs to use "Revert" first? This would be more in line with BOFI, III, IV and mean that there is a two-turn transition penalty to changing elemental strategy.  Also, unlike BOFIII, Ryu wouldn't automatically "Revert" at low CP (keeping to his current mechanic), he would continue to have the basic  single target Elemental Claw] and he would occasionally have to [GUARD]  to recharge breath attacks. Perhaps the breath attacks are really expensive and do not lend themselves to 'early battle' access.  Progress through the game/skills would alleviate that somewhat. Perhaps a Tier 2 or 3 Light Dragon is BOFIII's equivalent of Trigon, giving him access to the primary elements?
  • Could the WrymGuard paladin style skills be shifted here or Ranger to build a theme around party support?
• Dark Dragon
  • Would the BOFII dragon sprites have potential to find a home here as the instant nuke abilities that came at a significant user or party member cost? This would be a nice contrast to Light Dragon which rewards patience in accumulating CP for big breath attacks.
  • Alternative, maybe  an ability with a charge-up or party member HP/MP siphon cost that is released when Ryu reaches critical HP, party members die, or a two turn wait? (would make Bow's story role quite tragic, if so (being a loyal but broken dog)- but fits into Barubary's morality of might make right and evolving through the suffering of others/self)
  •  Maybe Ryu has 'barrage/confusion' abilities that give him extra attack commands, but in berserk and can target enemy/ally alike?
• Could Ladon or a late game NPC reset skill points if the skill point allocation was tightened? 

I guess, what I'm suggesting here is that:

- Ranger has value and importance to all character playthroughs and styles, with a range of attack/support/debuff options. Essential for everyday mobs, and feeds into a range of party roles and boss strategies.

Following, game progression allows mastery in one of the below, but locks out/limits the other. In essence, its a sort of 'paladin/dark knight paradigm for Dragon abilities and class role'.

- Light Dragon is elemental attacks, with party support. More defensive/long battle design - focusing on CP charging and consumption for AOE elemental. 
- Dark Dragon is necro/dark/poison/berserk/non-elemental nuke damage that is not party friendly. More aggressive, high risk/high rewards playstyle. You can still build as part of a group-party adventure, but now party members are more expendable resources, rather than allies (party members using HEXES, regens and elemental Bubbles to act as energy sources/conduits for Dark Dragon?). 

-Perhaps some characters have less to offer a Dark Dragon Ryu? Perhaps its too risky to throw a low Defense/HP character like Katt alongside him?  Or at least she can't survive a long boss battle alongside his siphoning presence? To keep with man's best friend theme, maybe Bow's "Hunters' Mark" acts as a sort of "Influence" skill we see in BOFIII where it is used to manage Rei and Failure/Infinity Ryu? For Hunter's Mark, it adds 'TAUNT/AGGRO" status to enemy target, drawing attacks from enemy and Dark Dragon Beserk Ryu? Not enough to focus all of Ryu's barrage attacks, but maybe enough to mitigate the some of risk? <-- Great for large group mob battles. Maybe Jean/Rand are HP cattle for Ryu where dark breath and dark claw attack draws and expends ally HP?  <--- Good for single target Boss battles, and converting single ally HP to AOE enemy damage via Dark Breath. Mixie/Nina can be a sort of mana battery for big attacks that use MP. Nina uses bubbles to shield party against Dark Dragon all target AOE abilities, or provide a drawpoint for Ryu's siphon requirements without harming party members?

For story purposes, as the game progresses, Ryu's Dark Dragon abilities become too costly in being able to keep himself and party members alive. If he cannot siphon from party members, he draws from his own HP/MP essence? Battles might be shorter to reflect this, sacrifices greater. 

It's like how Agni was presented in BOFI - a fusion of all characters lending their strength to Ryu to defeat Tyr. This time, however, Ryu draws from allies, transforms, but allies are still present on the battle field in critical condition - and Ryu's subsequent breath attacks hit all targets on field. Maybe the end light Dragon ability is a 'successful' fusion, like BOFI, or some act of self-sacrifice to empower allies (thinking about Ryu II's scream use of infinity before Deathevan. 

-It would be special if the transformation towards the Dark Dragon 'berserker state' took inspiration from: BOFIII warrior gene/ BOFIV/ or BOF:DQ. Might be as simple as a sort of palate re-skinning of BOFII Ryu's battle sprite. 

Integrating Light/Dark Dragon to story and economy:

• You have this morality currency that pops up (some sort of 'heart' item?). What if this was expanded? Good story actions and battle abilities reward you with radiant hearts vs poisoned hearts? Collect so many, you can trade in for thematic Dark/Light weapons/items/spellbooks: such as Kaiser vs Tyrant final Dragon Tiers? I
• You have Lin/Nina romance options, what about party mutiny/abandonment? Could you chase away a character? BOFIV had an ending where you fought your party members (if you sided with Fou Lu), I've already had to fight Sten and Katt as part of recruitment - what if I could be compelled to do so, again? Maybe the character quests that pop-up mid/late game have a Light/Dark dialogue option at their conclusion - which develops towards different outcomes?

In closing, the skill tree is already exciting, but if you wanted to expand on it, there's a lot of ways it could support the integration of story themes/party morality choices/mechanics. 

Thanks!

Can't save for a reason and there is what I got

Before I start thank you for taking an initiative to make this fangame (since I like the BoF series).

I have found a re-equip bug in the Runes, if the player remove and equip again it's possible to stack the rune effects like the HP one (like 1000 HP to 2000, then 4000, 8000 and go on)

In my case I have found some problems when trying to buy potions in the arena and Wyndia (can't interact with the NPC or even get close to the bench).

Hi knightmarish_Games, thanks for the latest update! Also thanks for the personal acknowledgement as part of the release. I'm amazed by what you've been able to implement and adapt in such a short period of time. I've offered as much feedback as I can, directly building on what you communicated as the 4.0 changes below, so any future updates are supported to round out the mechanics and balance as best as possible. With the exciting changes to Light/Dark Dragons, I've offered some balance suggestions between Ranger vs Dragon, and skills/skill trees. 

[Feedback is upto the Joker Boss at the end of the Joker's Lair, approx. party Lvl 14] 

4.0 Changes

Auto-Save now only saves on transitioning to new maps and no longer soft locking you in battle or certain areas.

• Slightly Inconsistent – but much better!  It will sometimes autosave prior to engaging in a random mob fight (Joker’s Lair). When I died at the Joker boss fight, it as intended, , and autosave took me back to the beginning of the zone (without Nina in party) – what a relief!

Yua is now a recruitable party member that uses Boomerangs.

• Looking forward to seeing how she turned out!

Cutscene with Ray in Mt.Fubi now triggers the Light/Dark Dragon choice.

• Any chance to have this definitive choice made again later in the adventure? You know what they say: ‘just try it man, the first one’s free’.
  • What if you got a taste of both skill trees until you clear Bosch’s name and then you have to ‘pick a path’. Are you a protector, or conqueror? By the party round-table at the end of the Trout saga - You’ve had a chance to see and defeat the big bads of the world at that point (Trout, Argus, Joker, Jean 2.0) You've seen the inherent corruption/weakness of the kingdoms (Hometown, Coursair, Windia & Simafort) Does power entice?  Are these people/kingdoms worth defending if they fall to evil and their hubris so easily? 
• It would be nice to look at both sides of the skill tree – because I wasn’t ‘in deep enough’ to make a call by Mt Fubi. Just as Ganer gave you the Dragon Tear, maybe Ray gives you something at Mt Fubi from St Eva that links to the Dark Dragon skill set?

Light and Dark Points added based off Morality choices.

• Unclear how/when these are obtained. I had emerged with 5 Light side points after rescuing Lin, but before engaging with Argus. Can there be a prompt that explains when/how these are obtained. Also, I ended up with a Dark point – but can’t use it. Was it linked to party member deaths in battle? It later vanished.

Light/Dark Dragon Tree added.

• For Ryu’s SOLO section, the LightDragon ability that offers +10%HP recovery made him a bit too overpowered for TagWoods and the Arena. Oils (which were essential in the last 3.2 update, were no longer needed. Ryu’s HP recovery (and evasion) outpaced enemy damage until R-66Y – who was dangerous for his barrage attacks.
  
• I haven’t seen the DarkDragon Skill Tree yet, but the LightDragon skills (and regen ability specifically) seems like an added early game buff that makes Ryu overpowered, relative to (3.2). That said, I can see this being underwhelming by the nature of how combat plays out with barrage attacks soon after the Colliseum segment. Also, the LightDragon skill that gives all player allies.+100HP and +10MP does not appear to apply the MP bonus. While harder to code, what if the party buffs were more subtle like:
  • Spirit of the Brood -  adds +15% chance to party members’ case of surviving fatal attack with 1HP? Weaker version of GUTS for whole party, but is a passive skill and can be upgraded. Reminds be of GUTS stat (the flames) in the original BOFII
  • Dragon’s Valor: When Ryu uses a CP ability, allies recover CP relative to ½ of what Ryu spent

• Something like the above will ensure that the skill retains some functionality in the late game, while not throwing off the balance in favour of the player too much in the early game.
• I also think that whichever side (Light/Dark) you pick – four skill trees is maybe a bit of a crowd, and I would suggest that they be kept more manageable (in line with other games where skill-trees feature, usually it’s 2 or 3).

Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Earth Whelps and Dragons now have a Claw attack that uses CB to drain life and inflict Status Ailments.

• Nice change to the dragons, I will have to see how this scales over the game progression. I suspect that Dragon-use will overtake Ranger use by endgame? Through the Bosch-to-Joker Lair sections, a (Ranger) Ryu with x2 or x3 Attack is generally the favourable strategic (better DPS), compared to dragon. As for extended battles, it seems the same. Currently this is my choice:
  • Ryu x3 attack with the Fire-Oil? 
•  -OR- 

  
  

  •  Dragon Breath or Dragon Claw x1 attack with enflamed/siphon and CP cooldown?
    
    
• I want to invest in Dragons, but they are the slower approach and, presently, skill trees are a zero-sum game (points in DragonBrood Tree reduce ATK, which Ranger relies on). As the majority of Ryu's combat time will be spent in human form – it seems dangerous to undermine his ATK. Instead of a 1 point to Dragon ability increase results in ½ ATK power, what if the penalties are omitted, but overall pool of skill points is reduced, instead? Basically, I want to build up Ryu for general competence in human form, and then start investing in his Dragon forms (without feeling like I sacrifice previous gains).
  
  
• Rethinking the emphasis on DPS: The other thought is that (at present) the battle mechanics mirror BOFIII in which EX-turns (multiple actions) reign supreme. Thus, it makes sense for players to prioritise Attack x3 Ryu, with skills/BUFFs that prompt multiple-actions in turn progression – but should that be my play-style?
  • Compare 3.2 character set-ups: Bosch begins the game with Autocross-Bow, an expensive but effective 20CP attack vs. Lin’s natural 2-4 hits with normal ATK, or with Aerial Strike 2-4 hits for 5CP. Should these be toned down slightly, and base stats be raised to compensate? Individually, Ryu/Rand/Lin's ATK is average, with the multiple hits however, they stack up. 
    

• The consequence of the above, towards overall party balance, means that I wasn’t using Jean/Sten much in the previous 3.2 -  partly because I had other party members (Ryu, Nina, Rand, Lin… Aspara for Lores) who were already BUFFed for barrage-style attacks/turn actions. Jean as a sort of spellsword Paladin didn't fit that strategy (inferior damage to Lin/Nina/Aspara; inferior support to Rand). Sten, while fast, lacked the 2-4 hit barrage of Lin (admittedly he was good for some AOE disrupt attacks). So, while I haven't progressed far in 4.0, this may be a problem long term. 
  

• Enemy Barrage: It could be toned down for enemies as well: example, a group of 5 bandits will spam the Stealth ability (making them harder to hit, and drawing out the fight). When they do attack, it’s a barrage of 3-5 hits. These do nothing to someone like Rand, but for Lin/Nina, there’s a high chance of death as only a few need to connect for KO. If the Bandits hit just once, but more often, they still represent a significant threat, but now Ryu is covering for one hit per enemy, instead of 3-5. Lin has high evasion, but not high enough to warrant Taunt where she’s expected to dodge multiple barrages.
  • Toning this down could see it used as an easy “second wind” BUFF for mobs. Perhaps single mob enemies, or enemies in critical condition unlock the barrage mode? Same with party members. Maybe that’s a Ryu skill-tree bonus or relic that adds a +% chance for barrage attacks.

Rebalancing and rework on some useless Skills in trees.

• I went for the skill upgrade to get improved Oils (Ranger), hoping for the revive cooked meal to turn up. After 4 points invested, it still didn’t appear, but the +400 increased health (coupled with Light Dragon HP regen BUFF), significantly reduced the difficulty of the game pre-Joker Lair.

• What if Oil skill investment was separated from stat increase? Applied oil strikes 3 times, or last duration of 1 battle, or 20 minutes?

Ryu Dragon Whelps and Dragons cost CB to transform.

• Nice one. I noticed I still have to unlock all three whelps before I can upgrade any specific elemental. With most enemies having numerous weaknesses, Fire seems like a safe first bet and I’d rather focus on that first, then go back and work on Ice/Thunder (perhaps).

Ryu Dragon Breath now cost CB to use

• Dragon Whelps should have a CP-free ability, maybe with the added x3 cut that Ranger gets?

Ryu can now use Dragon Bone Swords that grants Ability Power instead of Attack Power.

• I want to check these out, but across my playthroughs the battle mechanics seem to privilege DPS attack/evasion/speed with the x3 attack ranger ability and the emphasis of ending battles as quickly as possible (due to no revive options).

Items are ineffective when used by Ryu in all Dragon Forms except Wind Dragon which gains a +200% Boost to all healing items.

• Great way to further differentiate the Wind Dragon – though it may seem thematically off to have chosen the Dark Dragon Skill Tree and still have access to this form.
•  Cool! I’ll have to explore this.

Ryu reverting to human now deals Health Damage; however, grants 50 CB.

•  Cool! I’ll have to explore this.

Mob and Boss Balancing.

• Joker is a threat now! Or at least killed me on first attempt. Nina still hits weakness with Thunder, but not quite as hard (maybe because I didn’t have the overpowered +100% Ability power Rune this time?) Definitely was a powerful Rune (I think Wizard) and I wonder how much reliance on Runes is required to keep her relevant over time. Does the nature of random LOOT mean that Bosses are either cheesed or challenging based on LOOT RNG – instead of strategy and character natural progression?

Monster Sprite Update Throughout all Dungeons and Dens.

• Big upgrade for immersion! I laughed when I saw Mote, however -  I suppose this head is Goblin like!

Barubary final fight is scaled correctly.

• Still haven’t made it that far – but good move considering all the changes introduced.

Ryu face bug on Auto-Save fixed.

• Excellent – first time players might not fully process the use of SLOT 1 for Autosave and find themselves in trouble (that was me, 3.0).

The Frogs in the Bog trigger random encounters.

            Nice one. I hope you add more 'modern-encounter' zones (both optional, and mandatory)

Giant island now has monsters for non-random encounters.

• Revive meal has not come through in cooking list (even when upgrading the first Ranger ability x4). I’m guessing this is a BUG

Additional Oils and Gem rebalancing.

• Revive meal has not come through in cooking list (even when upgrading the first Ranger ability x4). I’m guessing this is a BUG.

You now may Set Camp. At Camp you can romance Lin or Nina, as well companions share items with you.

• Can we use the camp fire to cook? So far, only Ryu/Bosch’s room function as a cooking spot. I also noticed that, at some point in the Ryu/Bosch segment, the camp item stopped working (made a chime sound, but no longer loaded the camp zone). Once Ryu was progressed a bit into the SOLO segment, it started to work again.
  
• When Bosch and Rand give you items – a prompt indicating what they have given you, would be helpful.

Party now heals after battle.

• Somewhat inconsistent, and takes away some of the fun in strategic resource management (consumables). The problem is,  ‘healing at end of battle’ doesn’t revive lost allies – and without a revive consumable, added to the tedium walking back and forth between Joker’s Lair and Coursair's inn. I'd prefer no healing, with more dungeon prep required (HP and revive consumable cooking).  

Tweaked Battle A.I for most monsters.

• The added Goblins in Mt Fubi are a welcome addition. In fact, any increase in mob diversity is lovely, as it gives you an option to extend dungeons in the future (where appropriate)
• Overall Mob progression from Mt.Fubi to  Argus segment is much easier. Part of that is due to what’s available to him for skills (TagWoods was as cake walk due to Light Dragon's +% self-regen, and Ranger's  2x attack), and introduced  Goblin/Spider Mob group at Mt Fubi is easier than Zombie group. Oils were no longer an ‘essential part of the strategy’ as I used it once.
  
  That said, the RNG of barrage attacks and NOT having a consumable revive option inflates the difficulty of the early game.

Monsters now drop junk that can be vendored for extra coin.

• If found LOOT could be reduced in value, this would help. Or, if there a way you can rebalance [bought cost vs sale price]. Presently, I can still sell Yum-yums and the odd consumable to alleviate any early game financial needs (cooking costs being omitted helps here). I think economic scaling is generally really tough in RPGs though. In 3.2, I thought the economic progression was pretty good until I got through Capitan (Great Swords dropping was a noticeable change, along with passing beyond the Coursair/Windia full party equiping load outs) 

Most cooking recipes no longer requires Zenny.

• Welcome change, but salt is essential for both Oils and HP/MP restore items – yet the hardest to source for the early game. Might I suggest leaving salt for the HP/MP, and for the oils have oil + unique monster spoil for each of them? Like, could Eye Goos be a mob that holds ingredient for Shock oil? Zombies have ingredient for poison oil, etc…? Maybe successful attack on enemies’ elemental weakness increases chance to drop cooking ingredient for relevant elemental oil? So Nina using Flame, might result in ‘charred fur’ spoil which can be used with Oil to make FlameOil?

Cooked Items now do % healing vs flat.

• It would seem all healing consumable (bought and cooked) heal for %. A distinction between the two would give them each their own strategic purpose. That said, I like that cooking is higher value.

Rebalanced some monster areas to be in line with no Experience growth.

• Not sure what this means… yet. I will say that the 4.0 is much easier – until I hit the brick wall that is the Joker’s Lair.  The various bandits high HP, DEF and EVA – coupled with the frequency to be in groups of 5, make this dungeon rather tedious. In 3.2, it was the hardest dungeon in the game. For 4.0, it’s a dramatic difficulty increase from TagWoods/Arena. Lin is very frail at this point in the game and, without revives, I’ve had to walk back to Coursairs about four times to revive her. Each battle takes much longer than a typical boss encounter might.

Tweaked Runes and Crests.

• Haven’t seen the more extravagant ones yet, but the ones I’ve used seem to be in the 15% (runes) and 5% (crests) category – good.

Fixed Rural Cabin warping.

Carpenters now explain their town properly. Buffs now applied.

Rural Town reworked for gathering.

Consumables now can be used at anytime. Buffs From Certain Spells and Items now can be used before a battle.

• Great, tried Mina’s Revive III and that seemed to apply itself for the first round of the Joker Boss (minions), but not Joker himself.

Banter between characters is no longer randomized (Bug fixed).

• Noticed that – excellent.
  
• CAMP BUG - Just be aware that talking to Lin at the campsite will progress without plot checks (she mentioned buying tangerines with Bosch in the second encounter). Can I talk to her at campsite without automatically initiating the romance subplot. Something like a prompt – “stay out by the fire with Lin? YES/NO”

Fixed Duplicate Party Sprites at various cutscenes.

            Briefly happened when Nina is recruited to party at the magic school.

Having Ryu in different slot no longer shows other characters speaking/romancing Lin and Nina.

            I’m sure Bosch/Sten will be disappointed ;)

Congratulations for this excellent release. You did well to balance out the power level with the equipment and some bosses that were a joke before, are now challenging again. I do wonder if Mind Hack should be this effective, I got instance where Nina and Kat could only do 1k damage when Mind hack easily get 5 to 10k reliably

I did encounter few bugs: when I fuse Nina with the shamans, I can non longer do it with the others since no matter who I choose, the fusion sequence is played with Nina

In Joker hideout, the game start saving erratically and things went back to normal only for me do discover that I can no longer do manual save at all (I'm playing with classic save) 

A few bugs I want to report. I've now lost my file two times over some things.

First off while in the well after fighting Tarripin the save apparently failed and I hadn't made a backup save only been using auto. So I had to start over.  Maybe set autosave as its own thing and let "file 1" be a hard save as I was thinking it was originally.

Second time it happened. I was in the arena and gave Rand money for the antidote, but left the room to go get supplies, do some level grinding, etc... Came back and he's blocking the entrance chanting his mantra with no way to get past him, so I can't advance the area scenario and have to restart again.

Also not game-breaking, but the cockatrice or whatever those birds are in Bunyan's woods can also soft-lock you, making you reset. If your armor is too high, pecking order just locks you into a loop where it petrifies you and they endlessly try to hit you but can't.

I finally got around to trying 4.1

It would appear the stealth skill is busted and makes it so that if you get in a fight with the Ace gang members in the hideout you basically have to close the game since the fights are non-escapable. They never do anything but keep reapplying stealth forever with no way to remove it or target them.

Hi! I know you're now working on the v5 of your game, but right now I'm playing the v4.1b, and I've found at least a bug. 

1. My Bosch just died while selecting abilities on the Ryu Skill Tree. Bosch was poisoned and I believe he was losing HP while my cursor was "walking" to select abilities in the skill tree.

2. The overworld theme seems to be random... Not sure if it's a bug or a feature, but I'm at the beginning of the game, and instead of playing the first overworld theme, it changes between the first, second and third overworld music theme everytime I enter and exit a location.

3. The same seems to happen during battle. The normal battle theme is rarely playing. Instead, it plays the Desperate Fight music theme. Is that normal?

4. It looks like I was able to walk through mountains of Mt. Fubi on the worldmap. It can be done from the south exit, by walking trough the forest on the right of the mountains, and then, walking through the mountains

Great game by the way! I had a few questions:

1. Is there a way to automatically start the game in fullscreen mode?

2. Is there a walkthrough, or a FAQ or something like this? I was wondering which Carpenter I should select, and which people to select for TownShip, and I didn't want to miss any new features or anything cool because I didn't select the right Carpenter and the right people to live in the village. Since we can already cook in our room in Hometown, is their a reason to select the Cooking Carpenter? Otherwise, I suppose the woodhouse Carpenter is probably the best choice?

3. Does choosing between dark and light dragon in the beginning changes the story, or only the abilities of Ryu?

Many thanks!

Cn I ask a silly question it might be just me but I am stuck at Mt Fubi where I do not know where to go after killing the Harpee Trio. maybe its just me and my dumbness haha more than likely is not a bug/glitch just me if someone can help :)