Valkyria Chronicles™

Valkyria Chronicles™

144 ratings
"Quality of Life Fixes" gameplay mod
By DoomyDoom
A mod for those who are looking for a vanilla-like experience with mostly QoL changes, rather than mass-scale gameplay reworks.
Highly recommended (by yours truly) for players coming from newer VC games, looking to play the original for the first time.
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Overview
Coming many many moons late, a mod for those who are looking to play VC1 in close to original state, but don't want to suffer the common grievances that come with it.

This mod does not aim to rebalance the game completely and fix possiblity of Scout Rush/Demopen etc. This is intended mostly for people coming from VC4, or anyone who doesn't want Gallian Crossfire or Imperial Onslaught's level of changes.

Overall, this should be easier that vanilla VC1 in terms of difficulty, as virtually all changes benefit the player and there is virtually no "compensation" for AI side. And yes, it's wrong to call it QoL. I know.


The changes are kept to a minimum, mostly addressing several common biggest annoyances:
  • A-rank requirements
  • Sniper and Lancer inaccuracy until very late in the game
  • low class AP for everyone who isn't a Scout
  • low Edelweiss AP
  • Ghirlandaio Ladder Fix is included


Changes that deviate from vanilla include:
  • Introduction of intercepting sniper rifle branch for players.
  • interception angle change for Shocktroopers
  • Shamrock is not quite as worthless
  • Limited Tank ammo (similar to Imperial Onslaught or VC4)
  • slightly higher potential activation rates and QoL on when certain potentials activate

There are virtually no changes to any damage or defense values, orders, map unit placements and such. The detailed changes are provided below.
Installation instructions
Download links:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h1Mh9I4Vim1YYF2NeEOtqbHgZLbEJs_S/view?usp=sharing


Compatibility:
  • This is compatible with visual mods (no canvas, hi-res textures and such).
  • This is incompatible with any other rebalance mod unless said mod only changes DLC content.
  • This is incompatible with any fan translation patch.


To install, copy "data" directory from the archive over Steam installation (..\SteamApps\common\Valkyria Chronicles\).

To uninstall, delete data\mx directory from your game and verify game on Steam to redownload.
Detailed changelist
Unit base stats
Gallian Class AP
Class
Old (Base+Elite)
New (Base+Elite)
Scout
900 (800+100)
900 (750+150)
Sniper
300 (250+50)
450 (350+100)
Engineer
650 (600+50)
750 (600+150)
Shocktrooper
450 (350+100)
600 (500+100)
Lancer
400 (350+50)
600 (450+150)

Imperial Class AP
Class
Old (Base+Elite)
New (Base+Elite)
Scout
860 (780+80)
900 (800+100)
Sniper
300 (250+50)
unchanged
Engineer
600 (550+50)
unchanged
Shocktrooper
420 (320+100)
500 (400+100)
Lancer
370 (320+50)
400 (350+50)


Shocktrooper interception angle:
90->120 degrees

Gallian Snipers interception angle:
0->45 (only works with Brondel M101X sniper line)
Imperial snipers do not intercept.

AI units get smooth uniform/Def rating progression, increasing tier by 1 every 2 maps, instead of jumping tiers 1,2,4,7,10.


Why this?
Probably the most desired change for VC4->VC1 players, ability to actually go places with all of your classes.

Shocktrooper interception is easier to set up for players and slightly more noticeable from AI.

Nobody who plays VC1 uses Brondel X ever, so I changed that into intercepting sniper. No enemy murdersnipers from Gallian Crossfire/Imperial Onslaught.

Imperial APs slightly cleaned up from weird numbers.

Unused uniform tiers is just a thing that bothers me a lot. It is weird jumpy thing in VC4 as well. Players get a lot of buffs, so I have to give AI at least a little something.

Hidden characters
Emile, Lynn, Musaad, Audrey and Knute are no longer "hidden" and can show up randomly in HQ as any other character. You don't need to go look up a guide on how to unlock them. Just keep playing and visit HQ every now and then.

Why this?
Don't you just love killing off arbitrary characters, or not spending your money on R&D to save for that one character? Ugh.
Weapons
Sniper rifles:
Accuracy improved across all player-available models
Brondel M1__X - able to intercept-fire, range 700->1200 -> 700-800

Lances:
Lancaar/Theimer (R&D lance): accuracy improved 110-80 -> 60-35
Ace/Royal lances: accuracy improved 80-55 -> 60-40
Mortar lances: firing arc changed, range up 200 -> 250-275

Why this?
Basic QoL changes for atrocious Lancer/Sniper aiming.
Some Brondel X and Mortar Lance love on the side. I allowed these two changes to deviate from vanilla since nobody uses them ever and it's just sad.
Tanks
Edelweiss:
AP 350-450 -> 450-650, based on body upgrades.

Shamrock:
1 CP movement cost, stats unchanged.

Tank main cannon (both Edelweiss and Shamrock):
Accuracy improved 100-70 -> 80-50
Now has limited ammo - 2 (improvable by R&D ammo parts)


Why this?
There won't be a 1CP MBT in my mods. Ever. It's not alright, and I won't change my mind on that matter. Edelweiss gets only sane AP and accuracy buffs.
Tank ammo now works similar to VC4, giving slightly more value to those ammo parts.
Potentials
Base activation rate:
0.1 -> 0.25

Humanitarian, Klutz, Moody, Jam Jinxed, Maintenance Lazy:
Activation rate 0.1 -> 0.05

Activation triger changes:
Undodgeable Atk: activation On attack -> at the start of move
Critical Shot: activation On attack -> at the start of move
Ambush Spotter: activation On entering grass -> at the start of move
Concentration: activation On attack -> at the start of move
Neutralize: activation On attack -> at the start of move
Penetrator: activation On attack -> at the start of move

Why this?
There is no equivalent to VC2/3 or VC4 morale mechanics in VC1, thus base rate goes up so you can see potentials more often. Some crippling negatives kept low.
QoL for a set of potentials that you'd rather know that you have before attacking.
I opted to not change potentials beyond that, including dysfunctional ones (e.g. Stealth, Perfect Dodge), to not step too far into "rebalance" territory and keep it as much as originally designed.

Maps, ranks and rewards
Ghirlandaio Ladder Fix is included in this mod, you don't need to install it separetely.

Most main game A-ranks have been increased by 2 across the board. This includes story missions and Easy/Normal/Hard Skirmishes.
Tutorial is increased by 1.
Flower Of The Battlefield (Welkin's report) is unchanged due to 8 turn limit.

DCT/XP Rewards for main game content have been taken from current Imperial Onslaught (roughly 50% base, 25% rank, 25% kills).

Expert and DLC content is unchanged.


Why this?
The second highest complaint about VC1 after garbage AP is rank restrictions forcing Scout Rush. Ex and DLC ranks are kept as slightly more difficult content for those who want it.
Fixes/Updates log
31-07-2020
  • Fixed ranks for map 02 (Defense Of Bruhl) and map 03 (Retreat from Bruhl) to correctly be 1 above vanilla.
  • Fixed Undodgeable Shot activation condition to correctly work for all classes, not just Scouts.

07-08-2020
Fixed missing CP badges on Alicia/Rosie/Largo after 31-07 update.

18-02-2021
Fixed incorrect Imperial Scout and Lancer AP.
Closing words
I hope you enjoy playing it.

I don't enjoy vanilla or near-vanilla 1 anymore (or rather, can't), so I have only tested that it works on a bare minimum level. If you find that some of my changes seem to not match the patch notes, please inform me, but please make sure to include a save file. I don't have saves of this mod for each chapter on hand to quickly test stuff.

As usual, don't redistribute without crediting me, yadda, yadda.
75 Comments
Bubby.y 8 Feb @ 12:20am 
rated up thanks for your work
DoomyDoom  [author] 19 Jan @ 12:44am 
??? You could always play this port with a gamepad since day 1. If you mean tank controls - nothing is changed about that.
Noobslayer 18 Jan @ 11:17pm 
Does this make it so that this plays similarly to VC4 or do I have to get used to playing with the weird keyboard controls?
Festusmcracken 27 Oct, 2024 @ 1:35am 
Thanks for those links. I wanted to look into increasing the range for Shocktrooper guns. I want to actually use them. I'm hoping I just need to tweak some values.
DoomyDoom  [author] 18 Oct, 2024 @ 4:53am 
https://github.com/dhavard/ValkyrieEdit

It's not a program without limitations, my other mod (imperial onslaught) included manual hex-editing. A lot of that.

There's a newer program: https://github.com/Pherakki/MXEEditor
It has better capabilities, but it hasn't really been battle-tested in real mod-making since I'm slowly working on VC4 and have 0 plans to go back to editing VC1 any time soon.
Festusmcracken 17 Oct, 2024 @ 5:19am 
How would I go about modifying this mod? What did you use to edit the .mxe files?
NoOne_ReaVen 27 Sep, 2024 @ 11:35am 
So has anyone ever encountered a bug or misshab during upgrading your Grenades from T2 to T3? I already bought the Type B-M5 but everyone is still using the Type B-M2 even the Rifle Mounted Version from the Scouts are still stuck at T2, please if anyone knows a solution I would appreciate it.
DyleriousT 13 Sep, 2024 @ 10:44pm 
playing this right now, so far its great
futurafrlx 8 Sep, 2024 @ 5:17pm 
Will definitely try this on a second playthrough!
What A Beautiful Duwang! 13 Jun, 2024 @ 5:33am 
Really nice mod. Personally I would've left the hidden chars as they are but that's not a big issue. 1CP Shamrock is a game changer, definitely the right decision to leave Edel at 2CP. Improved accuracy for snipers and lancers really just reduces save scumming, let's be honest. One change I might make is making base CP 2 points higher but reducing the extra CP from Alicia, Largo, and Rosie - being basically forced to deploy these chars always rubbed me the wrong way.