Talk: Items in Oracle of Seasons

Relative Strength

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Originally from Swords of Oracle of Seasons/Ages

OK, so has anyone around here tested the swords' relative strengths or do they know of a guide to them? I've been testing the attack strength of the swords in my own playthrough of the Oracle Series and the results have been somewhat confusing. It kind of looks like they don't have consistent ratios between enemies, although I may be interpreting things wrong. I'm trying to put together a damage table for these games for the Weapon Strength article, but I want to make sure I get this right before I publish it. --Osteoderm Jacket (talk) 05:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm back. Further testing appears to demonstrate that they do have consistent strengths, but that the strengths of the Noble Sword, Master Sword, and Biggoron's Sword are not integer multiples of that of the Wooden Sword, as is typical in the Zelda series. (Setting the Wooden Sword at 1, it appears to be something like 1.5 for the Noble Sword and 2.25-2.5 for the Master Sword and the Biggoron's Sword.) --Osteoderm Jacket (talk) 10:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I actually tried figuring this out myself last year. And Matt did too before that, I talked to him about it a while ago. It is possible that the developers didn't set a standard relative strength when they determined how many hits it takes to kill each enemy with each sword (although you'd think it would make their job easier), meaning that it varies with every enemy. Matt tells me this is the case with Zelda II; there's no relative strength that could apply to all the enemies, period.
As for your numbers, they do work for most enemies and I came to a similar conclusion myself. But it all depends on what enemy your basing them on. For example, both the Ghini and the blue Darknut take 5 hits to kill with the L-1 sword and 2 hits with the L-3 sword. But as for the L-2 sword, the Ghini dies after 4 hits while the Darknut dies after 3.
I've been meaning to test the weapon strengths on Golden Monsters since they have the highest HP of all regular enemies in both games. Haven't gotten around to it yet, though. — Hylian King ^[*] 12:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The Ghini and Blue Darknut thing actually does work out if (as expressed in Wooden Sword hits) the Ghini's health is 5 and the Darknut's is 4.5. (This would also indicate that the strength of the Master Sword is 2.5 and not 2.25; I only suggested 2.25 in the first place because it would have same strength ratio to the Noble Sword that that sword has to the Wooden Sword. By the way, do you find it strange at all that the Biggoron's Sword is only as powerful as the Master Sword in this game?) Based on killing Darknuts with hits from various combinations of weapons (e.g. X sword hits plus Y Seed Shooter/Slingshot hits, X sword hits plus Y bomb hits, or X bomb hits plus Y seed hits), I'm pretty sure that this is in fact a Blue Darknut's health total. In other words, a Ghini has just a little bit more health than a Darknut and so there are only certain weapons that take them out in a different number of hits. And yes, it would be way more work to make the weapons do differing amounts of damage to different enemies than it would be to say "Weapon A does N points of damage" and give all enemies a health meter that each weapon takes a consistent amount from. It's not really something I'd expect them to do incidentally. A Link to the Past actually is programmed that way to some extent (see my citation on the Weapon Strength page if you're curious), but it's obvious if you look at the source that they intended a large fraction of the enemies in that game to be specifically weak to certain weapons and take extra damage from them. --Osteoderm Jacket (talk) 12:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC) (Edited 13:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC))

By the way, since there aren't multiple swords in Zelda II, what does Matt mean? Does he mean that the damage you do to enemies at a given level of attack stat is not predictable? --Osteoderm Jacket (talk) 12:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, thought of one more thing. Do you have either of the rings that allow you to punch enemies? It seems like they'd be useful for this purpose since punches are weaker than the Wooden Sword. They're only available by random methods, though, and I don't have either of them. --Osteoderm Jacket (talk) 12:53, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

1) OK, never mind! Seems like you have it figured out! :)
2) Frankly man I don't remember. The conversation took place a while ago and it wouldn't exactly be easy for me to contact him now.
3) Are you squeamish about emulation? But to answer your question, yes. Punches do 1/2 damage. — Hylian King ^[*] 13:24, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough about Matt. As for emulation, I've just never used an emulator before and I wouldn't know how to quickly set up a file where I can test stuff like the rings effectively. But that's good to know about the punches. They're probably the true "1" on the damage scale in that case, with several items being a "2" and a few things (bombs and the better swords) being higher. Thanks. You've been very helpful. --Osteoderm Jacket (talk) 13:29, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Any time! This is a pretty cool project and it's fun to be a part of it. Weapon Strength is one of the most interesting pages we have, IMO. — Hylian King ^[*] 13:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd just like to mention that I found the Fist and Expert Rings (and Moosh) in another file on my OoS cart (I bought both of these games used), so I'm working out their relative strengths now. It looks like the Fist Ring's punches are as weak as you say, while the Expert Ring's punches are four times as strong, as strong as a Bomb or twice as strong as the Wooden Sword. --Osteoderm Jacket (talk) 04:06, 27 July 2012 (UTC)