How come there's no Disgaea thread in there?

[Delfigamer]

The main reason for buying Disgaea PC on Steam were exclusive hats for TF2, and a badass melee reskin. I mean, I don't even play RPGs. I wasn't even sure I would ever launch the game. Until I was left without Internet for a whole week.

...So here I am now, reverse-engineering the mathematics behind Disgaea.
Also, the healing spells are governed by floor(floor(570 + INT/5) * Tier * (1 + WML * 0.03)), where Tier is 0.25, 1, 3 or 10 depending on, well, the tier of the spell. As you can see, the spell level does not affect the healing power, though the staff mastery does. RES will only appear in the expression since Disgaea 2, though I haven't played that... yet.

Ah, of course someone will ask which girl is best girl, won't they? Samurai are cute, Pleinair is cute and the party's main power, the rest are moderately appealing and prinnies are a blast.
Speaking of Pleinair, I haven't seen her dodge a single special since she appeared in the party. Could it be that NIS nerfed her in this version? Though she's still badass nevertheless.

[Spotty Len]

Ah, of course someone will ask which girl is best girl, won't they? Samurai are cute, Pleinair is cute and the party's main power, the rest are moderately appealing and prinnies are a blast.

Very much approved. I love Pleinair.

[Tea Devil]

I've been into Disgaea for several years now, though I never really got into the whole minmaxing of stats. Gaining levels and reincarnating always seemed to do the job just fine for me. I'm mostly in it for the characters, but it was my first SPRG series and it is very good at what it does. Other SRPGs often seem lacking in comparison.

As for best girl...Raspberyl is probably my favourite. Not a huge fan of Etna in any game other than the first. But really, my favourite character is the male gunner so my opinion doesn't matter much :V

[SirSlarty]

Flonne.

LOVE AND PEACE TO ANNOYINGLY CUTE LEVELS

Though she's pretty bad for combat so I never use her.

[Third Eye Lem]

I've beaten Disgaeas 3 and 5, and I'm in the post game of each...And after spending hours of grinding, I have to ask: why do people keep saying this is the "best part" of the game? I still have to build up my aptitudes in D3, and farming for Shards/Extracts in D5 is pretty tedious. I find it hard to believe the "best part" of Disgaea is the part where you spend more time grinding than playing the main story missions. I'm not saying I hate the games, I enjoyed 3, 4, and 5, but I'm having a hard time figuring out of Disgaea's postgames are just one big joke, or meant to be taken seriously.

[Delfigamer]

Though she's pretty bad for combat so I never use her.

I'm inclined to object. In D1, she is the tankiest magic user available.

[Sophilia]

Eh, the first one's postgame wasn't so bad, aside from no option to skip animations.  But even as soon as the second, they just layered on so much other stuff besides leveling yourself and items that it became a slog to "do things right."  I find that Baal 2 generally marks the end of the sane amount of grinding in these games.  Powering up to go fight Super Carnage Baal 5 or something is just going to end in burnout.

Also Makai Kingdom/D2 Mage girl is love, snipe everyone with ice spells forever.

[notverycreative]

I don't have a PS4 so I haven't played 5, but I've beaten the other 5 Disgaea games, La Pucelle, Makai Kingdom, and Phantom Brave.

Love the series. I just wish I could figure out a way to go back to being a fulltime normal gamer instead of caring so much about these stupid stress-filled timesink gacha mobile games that ruined my life last October.

[Lollipop]

I haven't played Disgaea in forever, but is it a surprisingly fun game. It's one of the best RPG series I've played (which isn't a lot, because I don't play RPGs that often)

The game is really funny, and at some times gives off that "cliche children's show" feel.

[VIVIT]

I tried playing it once. It felt really gimmicky to me... I suppose it's an acquired taste? I like the fluff, it's just the gameplay that gets me.

[Tea Devil]

It's a pretty standard SRPG with the addition of lifting/throwing and having the ability to control your characters whenever you want to set up combos. Geo effects are the most gimmicky thing, and I can understand not liking them since they are generally laid out to your disadvantage, aside from grinding stages.

Story is totally worth going through it, in any case. Post game isn't usually important, so you can just beat the main game and feel satisfied.

[Sophilia]

Postgame usually has some really fun fight setups and arenas though.  Like D2's Priere and Zetta were cool, and D3 had the Base Full Of Baals.  On the other hand, taking the postgame to its conclusion, like I said earlier, is just going to be a test of your patience.  That said, I can't speak for the most recent postgames though, since I don't have a PS4.

[OverlordChirei]

d1 and d2 have great stories everyone should play em

[Tea Devil]

I was personally rather surprised with D3. I only bought the vita version because it was on sale because I had seen a bit of it beforehand and thought that all of the characters were awful. Then I actually played it and, well, I ended up liking it a lot.

I still don't like the weapon/skill system in D3 and D4 and was happy when they returned to having mastery levels in DD2. Kinda wish they put books in D1 PC as well, but I know they weren't aiming to do that.

[OverlordChirei]

I was personally rather surprised with D3. I only bought the vita version because it was on sale because I had seen a bit of it beforehand and thought that all of the characters were awful. Then I actually played it and, well, I ended up liking it a lot.

I've beaten 1 and 2 myself, watched my brother play 3 and 4, and seem LPs of 1-2 and 5. 4 was pretty decent storywise, and I thought the same of 3, but it really does get better. I still think Mao is the least-liked of all the protagonists, but that's not saying much, since I think it's by a small margin, and being compared to Laharl and the duo of Adell/Rozalin is pretty tough to follow up on.

[Espadas]

I still think Mao is the least-liked of all the protagonists, but that's not saying much, since I think it's by a small margin, and being compared to Laharl and the duo of Adell/Rozalin is pretty tough to follow up on.

I've yet to find anything in the Disgaea franchise that tops this, for me it's the game equivalent of the Imperial March  :dragonforce:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCQvY8kKI_Q

[Third Eye Lem]

For me, this is the song that really makes me smile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxBT-R5v2wU Is it just me, or does this sound like it could easily fit in a MegaMari stage? Maybe it's because of the tempo or something...

EDIT: Oh wait I forgot that Rock Crystal existed too I am a moron this is like the best song aaaaaa

[Tea Devil]

If we're talking music, I'm all about

Arcadian Vampire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnDFa-zbYPs
Sparking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4kOSA_Q1ew
Devil Rock Hero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJt57lAayk8

[Third Eye Lem]

Oh hey, NIS is taking Disgaea 2 Beta Applications. Go sign up already!

[Delfigamer]

After roughly a month, I returned and started a totally new game of Disgaea PC.
Pleinair joined the party as soon as Laharl woke up and came out of his bedroom. What?
The senator list starts with three dudes lv33409. Whaat?
Mega Heal is now 100 + INT... Whaaaat?
Da hell has happened with the game while I was away?

...lv98 Empusa just gave how much EXP? ...41K? Okay, that one was my mistake, guess I became too used to 300 statistitian pistols.

[Pywackett-Barchetta]

It's likely due to the patches, updates and extras added around the announcement of Disgaea 2 for PC.

I greatly loved Disgaea 4 for Valvatorez and Fenrich, but kind of found the experience slowly grating when characters I, err... much less liked got an absurd amount of screentime. The cast is really hit-or-miss and it's extremely hits or extremely misses. It was the second game I'd ever heard Troy Baker in a lead role in, at the time, second to The Boss from Saints Row: The Third. Generally I'm finding I like 3/4 of the characters but I'm not too great at the games. Disgaea Infinite, the weird VN spinoff on the PSP made entirely from recycled assets, sated that need pretty well and could use some more love.

One of my favorite things about the series is definitely Laharl, and not just Laharl, but specifically Barbara Goodson always voicing him. I was under the impression that she kept reprising the role due to genuinely loving it, and then one year at Rhode Island Comic-Con, she had a booth where she was doing autographs. Pretty much everyone was bringing over glossy pictures of Rita Repulsa and other Power Rangers merch, and I brought up a Disgaea wallscroll. She looked at it in confusion for a bit, and said, "huh, what is this from..."

And then she fangirled over essentially herself.

"Oh my god, it's Laharl!" She immediately took hold of it, drew a speech bubble over him, and wrote in it "I AM THE ONE AND ONLY OVERLORD LAHARL! AHAHAHAHAHA" and then just more consummate "HA"s than could even fit. So yeah. The VAs sound like they're having fun a lot of the time, but they truly definitely are.

[Tea Devil]

I agree that Disgaea 4 is a pretty polarising game in all respects. I love half the cast, and the other half could honestly just disappear and make the game better by doing so. I very definitely could have done without Emizel, thanks. Fuuka swerves between being somewhat amusing and being really irritating with her "it's just a dream!" shtick. It's lucky for her that's she's really powerful.

[Pywackett-Barchetta]

Yeah, I was hesitating from naming names, but I couldn't bother sticking around long enough for Fuka's constant repetition of "it's all just a dream" once we hit Desco and she was super duper squeaky voiced. (I have very low tolerance for extremely squeaky voices, which I understand is ironic because I have one but still.) Anyhoo, still doesn't change that Valvatorez and Fenrich are a gloriously hammy duo and wonderfully played (it's also worth appreciating the totally gorgeous visuals, too); I really should give the game more of a chance but with such a huge backlog it's been a tad difficult to convince myself.

[Delfigamer]

After yet another "whaaat" I decided I won't be able to sleep anymore until I figure the actual formula. And so, I hooked a debugger and, well, "debugged" the code.

Spoiler:

INT + 100 if INT <= 400;
( INT - 400 ) / 2 + 500 if INT <= 900;
( INT - 900 ) / 5 + 750 otherwise.
The last addition is not implemented quite correctly, but to see this, you have to reach INT of about 4,29e+9, which I don't think is possible in D1.

The WML multiplier is applied separately and, of course, the spell level has no effect whatsoever.
Another interesting thing is the healing is applied as a negative damage, which might be why it's affected by "ATK?%" geopanels and ninja dodging.

[OverlordChirei]

Yeah, I was hesitating from naming names, but I couldn't bother sticking around long enough for Fuka's constant repetition of "it's all just a dream" once we hit Desco and she was super duper squeaky voiced. (I have very low tolerance for extremely squeaky voices, which I understand is ironic because I have one but still.) Anyhoo, still doesn't change that Valvatorez and Fenrich are a gloriously hammy duo and wonderfully played (it's also worth appreciating the totally gorgeous visuals, too); I really should give the game more of a chance but with such a huge backlog it's been a tad difficult to convince myself.

I didn't care too much for Fuka, Desco is the bomb though. Valvatorez is probably glad to have a "little sister" that can transform into a giant sword.

[Delfigamer]

Speaking of dodging, I'm now looking into this one function more thoroughly, as it appears to be a general "perform an action" with lots of switch-case constructs for various variants of attacks and specials. It is long and, of course, composed of x86 instructions (it's not like I'm a NIS employee with access to source code, after all), so it will take time to make sense of its contents, but it's got some really interesting stuff written inside.
For instance, in the beginning of the function, there is this branch:

   if( int32_t( gameunit_target->i_664 * 0.1 ) == 106 )
   {
      int32_t hit_value = gameunit_source->i_stat_hit * random_range( 70, 100 );
      int32_t spd_value = gameunit_target->i_stat_spd * random_range( 0, 30 );
      if( spd_value > hit_value )
      {
         arg_2[arg_1*4+4] = 0;
         uint16_t( arg_2[arg_1*2+0x114] ) = 0;
         return;
      }
   }

I believe gameunit_target->i_664 contains the unit's type and subtype, and for different tiers of ninjas it assumes the values of 1061, 1062, 1063 etc. As this check happens early, it causes them to dodge all kinds of actions regardless of their nature, be it a normal attack (which is probably dodged again later on with a generic formula), an elemental spell or, you guessed it, a healing spell.
I haven't checked this value for Pleinair, but since she is known to dodge specials more intelligently (or, in my case, not dodge them at all), she has to have a different one which doesn't make her do this early dodging attempt.

[Teewee]

I remember first finding out about Disgaea from a friend of mine several years back. I think the first one I got was Disgaea 2, and I was hooked for some time.


@Delfigamer: I wonder how many of us actually got all that :v Is that C++? It looks like C++.

[Delfigamer]

It is "C++" in quotes. I look at an x86 disassembly and rewrite it to a form that would effectively do the same, but which made the developer's intentions easier to see.
For example, 64-bit arithmetic is done by operating on 32-bit parts separately, but since I know what these separate instructions achieve in the end, I can put them together and write a single addition.
Also, since I already know how the game works on the outside, I can recognize certain behaviours and deduce the meaning of some numbers from there. I named i_664 that way because it's a value at an offset of 0x664 bytes into the game unit structure and it's treated as a 32-bit signed integer; but from the way it's used, I can assume it's the unit's type, with tens meaning the general type - be it a Ninja, a Samurai, a Kit Cat, a Galactic Demon or a Geo Panel and ones representing its tier.
And lastly, my experience with programming definitely helps there as well.

[Delfigamer]

Welp, here is what I've got thus far.
Some notes on the mechanics:
- Most bonuses are additive. That includes ATK?%, DEF?%, Enemy+% and Enemy*3 (which function as +300% except for the first one, which is +200%) geo effects, as well as combo bonus and staff mastery bonus for spells. For example, for an enemy standing on an "ATK+50% | Enemy boost x6" panel with staff level 5, the spell power bonus factor is 1 + 0.5 + 5 + 0.03*5. Such bonuses are capped at -1 and 20, which allows the factor to span the range from 0 to 21.
- Combo bonus is +0.1 to attack and -0.1 to defense when performed by allies; and +0.15/-0.15 when performed by enemies.
- Special mastery factor is applied separately. Its value is determined from a table (which is also given in the link above) and it spans the range from 0.9 to 4. Therefore, theoretical maximum for the combined factor is 21*4=82.
- Disregarding multipliers, the average damage dealt by most weapons is ATK*0.5 - DEF*0.26; for guns it's HIT*0.37 - DEF*0.19; for bows it's (ATK+HIT)*0.25 - DEF*0.26. Magical attacks on average deal INT*0.33 - RES*0.18. "Attack" bonuses are applied to the left side of subtraction, "defense" ones - to the right side. Yes, ATK?% and DEF?% affect magical attacks the same way as physical.
- Some units are inherently "magic-resistant". When one is a target of a magical attack, the left-hand side receives an additional factor of 0.5. According to my observation, they usually have double RES and half DEF compared to otherwise identical "non-magic-resistant" units, though the stats and the resistivity are separate characteristics and may not always be related.
- Units may be inherently "damage-resistant". When one is a target of any attack, the resulting damage is halved. Though these are possible, I have never noticed the game actually spawning one.
- Each action has an additional "power" factor, which is applied to the resulting healing/damage. For example, different "Heal" spells have powers of 0.25, 1, 3 and 10.
- Elemental resistance is applied as yet another factor, clamped between 0.1 and 2.
- Under certain conditions determined by the unit, which I don't know exactly, the damage may be nullified. I haven't noticed such behavior in the actual game either.


...Maybe I should write a Steam guide. For instance, the fact that magic-resistant units exist seems kind of obscure, judging by questions like "why after 3*3 alpha uber star some sentinels stand with 2/3 their hp while others are dead immediately??? herp derp" and answers like "dunno i think it's because their res is abnormally high!!! hurr durr".

[Teewee]

Low-level computer programming stuff

I don't really know much about disassemblies and bit-based instructions, but I think I got the gist of it. Also, are that many people really surprised that units can resist magic in these games? I mean, the Res stat is shown alongside all the other stats; it's not hidden, like IVs in Pokemon. o_o