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Roctavian posted:IIRC, it's only like an hour of play until you get to the warp wire, if that. That doesn't refute my point. You're still in mortal danger from the local wildlife during that time.
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Jun 27, 2012 20:22
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I like that the game taught me it's rules brutally and swiftly. Namely, this game will punch you in the face if you let it. Play as conservatively as possible when entering unknown territory. This will only get more reinforced when we get introduced to some new... mechanics.
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Jun 27, 2012 20:42
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Shabadu posted:I like that the game taught me it's rules brutally and swiftly. Namely, this game will punch you in the face if you let it. Play as conservatively as possible when entering unknown territory. This will only get more reinforced when we get introduced to some new... mechanics. By new mechanics, I assume you're referring to F.O.E.s? Also, probably no major update tonight - I realised that doing that hides quest early shot me in the foot a bit. A fair few early-game recipes require a bunch of Soft Hides, and while they DO drop on lower floors, I'd rather not charge off to the next floor without, say, the next step-up in armour, which requires 10 of the bloody things, so I'm just doing a whole bunch of grinding. If I get everything I want, I'll give a mini-update on what we unlocked, how the party's looking and how reviving works, after a cock-up with the farmbot team.  e. Also, would people, especially those playing along at home, like it if I post the 'recipes' for stuff we unlock when we unlock it? 100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jun 27, 2012 |
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Jun 27, 2012 20:50
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100percentjesusfree posted:e. Also, would people, especially those playing along at home, like it if I post the 'recipes' for stuff we unlock when we unlock it?
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Jun 27, 2012 21:04
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Agreed. That would be very nice. This thread has got me back into caring about the series. I've only ever owned EO3 and played it in collaboration with my wife, but because of how we were playing, I would sometimes advance the plot without meaning too, to her derision ("I wanted to do it!" sort of thing) and otherwise I would be kind of in the dark about what was happening. I mostly was trying to make a strong team and make money, while she wanted to draw the maps and see the events. In the end, we shelved it and haven't gone back. But now I'm watching EO4 and have learned of its "casual mode," which sounds like it'll leave the difficulty otherwise intact and just remove the possiblity of losing levels, key items, etc. That sounds like something I can handle. Also, the character art seems to have a bit more effort put into it, as there's more variation in size, posture and costuming between the four option than before. A little more.
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Jun 27, 2012 21:20
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Mini-Update - Death in the Labyrinth. Also, shopping! Very short update today - just showing off a few little things I've not gone into too much.  I've been doing a little grinding off screen, both to farm items (particularly Soft Hide, for reasons I'll go into shortly), and to gain some levels. The step up in difficulty between levels is usually rather harsh, especially early in the game. Anyway, I was getting the survivalists a couple of levels so they'd be able to mine when we reached a spot, and... this happened. Those who've played Etrian Odyssey will probably find this quite a familiar site - a party member beaten to death by a bunch of animals.  Getting it fixed is fairly simple, take them to the apothecary, choose to have them revived...  Then wince at the price. 30 en might not seem like much, but if you aren't using the survivalist trick to farm money, it can be quite a bit at this point. Most enemy drops sell for around 8-11 en on this floor, and the price increases as your characters level up, though only at certain intervals, apparently.. I'm confused. When your medic learns to revive people, this becomes a non-issue, but early in the game, it's a pain. We also unlocked some more stuff, so let's finally have a proper look at what we have in the store, rather than just a brief, crappy description from me! As I mentioned before, most items in the game need you to sell a certain number of things to the shop to unlock - in most cases, once it's unlocked, it stays unlocked, but certain items (generally things requiring boss/special drops) require you to make sure she'd have the unlocked requirements in stock to buy it.  An axe, which I'll probably never buy! Axe-using ladnsknechts are good for single-target damage, but ronins are usually better for that, and sword-using landsknechts have much greater versatility, so they tend to be the way to go. This requires 5 Beast Bones, which drop from moles.  The jerkin is the main reason I was annoyed at myself for getting rid of all those soft hides. Def +3 is a fair bit at this point, as most other things only give +1 - it can't be worn by alchemists, medics or Hexers, as the greyed-out letters show, but it's still very handy for our frontliners. Soft Hides are dropped by Tree Rats, Moles, and two other enemies we haven't run into, yet, and this needs 7 of them.  A small step-up from our previous swords, but not really worth the money. Unlocked by selling off 3 Small Fangs, which drop from tree rats, and an enemy we've not encountered yet.  MUCH more like it. One of the best weapons you can have leaving the first floor - it requires 1 Hardwood, found at the Chop point on the floor, and 1 Hard Shell, dropped by clawbugs.  A small step-up from the Light Whip (one of the starting items) which has only +7 attack, the Fang Whip is kinda expensive for the smallish boost it gives. However, Richter needs all the help he can get doing damage. It's made from 5 Soft Hides and 5 Small Fangs.  This... eh. It offers more attack than the other club-type weapons available at present, but the Staff gives +1 tec, which I'd argue is more important, especially at this stage. It's made from a single Beast Bone, so it's not exactly hard to unlock, though.  This isn't too bad, if you're fighting a lot of enemies that do Slashing damage. It's been mentioned a couple of times in the thread, but all melee attacks in this game have some form of 'Element' - Slashing, Piercing or Bludgeoning. The trouble with accessories like this is that you often don't know if you're going to be running into a fight with a load of creatures that deal Slashing damage, and even if I DO know one is coming, I tend to forget these exist. Fortunately, it only requires a single Soft Hide to make.  Very useful early on, this TP-increasing charm only requires a single red fruit to unlock. Red Fruits are found at chop points.  Surprise shift to the apothecary! Most of the healing items you unlock actually turn up for sale here, rather than at Shileka's - most of the items you can see there are ones he starts with, aside from Theriaca A, which requires 5 bug wings, which drop from woodflies and venomflies Speaking of those, they have something that shows up infrequently in this game, and I don't think is ever really explained too well in-game - namely, conditional drops, which are exactly what they sound like. Items which only drop when you meet a certain condition, which are often things like 'Kill the enemy with X type of attack'. In this case, woodflies and venomflies drop bug eyes when killed with (non-poison) magic, which sell for 20en apiece, but aren't really used in anything. Still, 20en isn't bad for an item on the first floor. Final thing, the party grabbed and sold off that Whitestone from the boot you saw in an earlier update - we didn't unlock anything for it, but it sold for a neat 100en. Really really final thing, this stuff won't usually be given its own update, I was just getting all the stuff we already have out of the way, and posting a sort-of update. I did do a little more than is implied in this post, but no-one wants to read about the party's magical adventure of running around in circles slaughtering wildlife.Haha, I lied about the previous edit being the last. Been experimenting a little, decided to have a stab at making .gifs of attack techniques and such - how does this look?  100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jun 30, 2012 |
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Jun 27, 2012 21:48
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That looks pretty sweet. Anyways, there is a thing about that resting spot with the venomflies but it's not for a while, the problem is that if you kill them now you don't get anything.
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Jun 27, 2012 23:12
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I think if you can figure out how to crop the map so it won't come up all the time, that's a great start.
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Jun 28, 2012 03:40
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Yeah, you're going to want to crop off the bottom screen for animations. What program did you use to make the gifs? There has to be a cropping option somewhere.
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Jun 28, 2012 03:42
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100percentjesusfree posted:Speaking of those, they have something that shows up infrequently in this game, and I don't think is ever really explained too well in-game - namely, conditional drops, which are exactly what they sound like. Items which only drop when you meet a certain condition, which are often things like 'Kill the enemy with X type of attack'. In this case, woodflies and venomflies drop bug eyes when killed with (non-poison) magic, which sell for 20en apiece, but aren't really used in anything. Still, 20en isn't bad for an item on the first floor. Question: is this is as ridiculously helpful as it is in the second game?
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Jun 28, 2012 03:51
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Genocyber posted:Question: is this is as ridiculously helpful as it is in the second game? I'm honestly not sure! I've not played Etrian Odyssey 2 all that much. Anyway, I'm using VirtualDub, which can indeed crop things -  (I... think it came out bigger cropped. Huh.) Also, Korisch... yeah, I completely forgot about that. Do you mean how it's part of a quest later, and you can get a medica as well as the standard reward if you hadn't cleared it out yet? I'm not all that upset about it if that's all I'm missing out on. But yeah, for those following along at home, don't go clear out that spot as soon as you can - for one thing, it's a hard battle for no real reward, and also for other reasons that you'll see soon enough. Even if I'd remembered that, I would've probably done things this way, honestly - first time I played this game, I think running into the swarm of venomflies was my first party wipe. Everyone getting poisoned and wailed on when I was already at low health was not a great experience.
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Jun 28, 2012 05:53
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100percentjesusfree posted:Anyway, I'm using VirtualDub, which can indeed crop things - That it did, which definitely shouldn't be happening. To be honest, I've never used VirtualDub to make gifs, but my guess is that it's not optimizing it very well. Try using another program and optimize it, maybe?
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Jun 28, 2012 06:08
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Artix74 posted:That it did, which definitely shouldn't be happening. To be honest, I've never used VirtualDub to make gifs, but my guess is that it's not optimizing it very well. Try using another program and optimize it, maybe? I am actually using an external program I found for optimising it, yeah. This one, to be precise. It may have been to do with the number of frames I dropped - the version I posted there was dropping every second frame, this one drops 2/3 frames I think, and is a fair bit smaller. 
100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jun 28, 2012 |
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Jun 28, 2012 06:21
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I opened up one of them in GIF Movie Gear to play around with it,  E: Okay, looking at the original again, there is transparency, so it's not that. Might be a reduction in colors? Someone who actually knows their poo poo about images would have to explain why. As far as I can tell, I have the same number of frames, same number of colors, we're both using transparency, but mine is 478k compared to yours being 900k. Artix fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Jun 28, 2012 |
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Jun 28, 2012 06:36
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Artix74 posted:I opened up one of them in GIF Movie Gear to play around with it, and it looks like you're not doing any transparency when you optimize. I optimized it on my end and literally dropped the file size in half by doing so. Timing looks a little fast, but I didn't really care about that since I was just playing around with file size, it's easily fixable. Wow, that's awesome! Thanks! I'll definitely have to check that out. E. Huh, that's... weird. I don't really know a great deal about image editing, this was the first time I've really made a gif for anything. Any advice is appreciated! (For those not interested in this, sorry if I'm bogging the thread down a bit with it )
100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Jun 28, 2012 |
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Jun 28, 2012 06:41
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Sorry to double post, but it's time for an update! Also, I really need a better username Update 6 - In which we get unreasonably lucky Leaving off the gifs for now, so as to avoid slowing things down any more than they already are. If anyone has advice regarding them, that'd be great, if not, then I'll keep tinkering away at them myself.   "Enough messing about. We're heading down to the next floor."  "Huh... I'd kind of expected a staircase, from how it's drawn on the map..." "...A staircase. In a naturally formed labyrinth." "It could happen!" "Undoubtably built by the undead hordes, fabricated by the master of this foul place!"  "This is ridiculous. Let's just go." "S-So... no staircase means no zombies? I guess that's a good thing..." Stepping noto a new floor and looking at that totally blank map is a really weird feeling. With nothing on it, that empty space just looks so much bigger.  "Onwards! In the name of science!"   Of course, drawing all over that empty space to make a map is a really satisfying feeling. I can't help but imagine someone trying to do a run of this game with automapping disabled, and not drawing one at all... the thought is pretty horrible An intermittent sound is coming from the brush. Something seems to be inside the tall grass before you. You peer futilely into it, wondering whether to chance it or leave the sound alone. "I see nothing wrong with sticking my hand into a moving bush!"  As a party leader, Hector pushed back the tall grass with his hands. "drat right I do. It's good to be the le-"Suddenly, Hector felt a sharp pain on his hand! The noise seems to have come from a small snake.  Hector lost 5 HP. After biting Hector's outstretched hand, it slithered off into the forest. You pull yourselves together and continue on the adventure. Oh joy, one of these. Atlus just loves to leave 'check this point and lose HP/TP/whatever points around. 5HP isn't much, but I still wonder why they bothered putting things like this in, they don't really add much to the game. Anyway, yeah, it's better just not to check this spot. "Good job, leader."  "The hell was THAT?!" "The sounds of our quarry!" "Not yet it isn't." "Science demands to know what lurks 'round that corner!"Moments afterward, you hear heavy hoofed footsteps galloping through the forest. A dreadful enemy unlike any you have yet seen is fast approaching!  For every movement you make, it makes one as well. Consider any FOEs before taking action. Ahh, the infamous FOEs. In Japan, this stood for 'Field On Enemy' or something along those lines. Their name in English is Latin, and apparently translates as "ancient and terrible nature warriors", roughly. I know nothing about Latin, so this may be a load of bull, it's just what I found via googling. I always thought of them as something much less polite, personally. They are essentially minibosses that you can see wandering around on the map. Looking through my screenshots now, I apparently forgot to take a screenshot of what they look like on the overworld map, as I'm apparently completely incompetent. I'll get one soon, though - they basically just look like floating orange balls that move around. Different FOEs can have different movement patterns, which I'll go into more detail as I show off individual ones. "Ah, that explains it. Thank you, mystery narrator!"   Aside from the venomflies we saw last floor, and the FOEs, this floor has a couple of new regular enemies. "Wonderful. Now we're killing rabbits, this Labyrinth just keeps on giving." "Actually, I'd say it's more like the rabbits are killing you."Yep. A tree rat and rabbit working together very nearly killed our tankiest party member with a hit each. This bodes well.  Noticing your presence, the soldier calls to you.  "Ho there." "I'm n-" "It's just a greeting. Shh." "Explorers, I see... How goes your adventure thus far?"After a brief chat, it comes out that he is here to help those navigating the forest. The soldier offers to sell you any of his tools you find yourself in need of. Choose the item you believe oyu will need most from the following:  You can either get a Soma here, for 100 en (a small heal for the whole party) Or a shortsword for 500. You can get a better deal on Shortswords back in town, and as I have no party healing abilities at this time, the Soma's much more tempting. "I'll take the medicine!"Hearing this, the soldier removes a small bottle from his pack. "This medicine should serve your restorative needs. As for the price... since you're licensed explorers, you may have it for 100 ental." Finally, the actual name of the currency. "Done!" "Best of luck, explorers, and I hope to see you again on your journey."Obtained Soma! This guy can only be spoken to once, though the stuff he sells isn't all that terrible to lose out on. The soma might come in handy, but the shortsword is a flat-out terrible deal. I guess it'd be useful if you hadn't unlocked shortswords yet, but seeing as you can do that on the previous floor, and they're very useful to have, coming down here to buy one at an inflated price is kind of silly anyway, especially as they're not THAT hard to get. Anyway, in an attempt to show you why fighting FOEs at this level is a bad idea, I decided to go take on the one we saw earlier. "Urgh. It doesn't feel right to run and hide from anything down here... let's go take on that thing we heard earlier." "...Sounds interesting. Just don't expect me to carry you back if this goes south."Azure_Horizon linked this near to the beginning of the thread, and it seems appropriate to link it again now. It's... it sure is a thing.  Music - FOE Battle "A deer! We're moving up in the world." "Still no signs of unlife, however."I'm not going to lie, taking these things on this early is not a good idea. They're really strong - I just happened to get very lucky in this battle. I was a bit tense, so I seem to have hosed up getting good screenshots though - I'm going to try something that was reccomended to me in future to help stop me doing that, I think. Ragelops have appeared in every Etrian Odyssey game to date, though usually named Furyhorns instead of Ragelopes, and their stats are generally pretty similar. Their AI pattern is usually (in this game at least) to follow some set patrol route without deviation, though I believe there are some that actively chase you. To sum things up - they have very high attack power, and an attack called Scream, which can cause confusion. On its first turn, it screamed and missed, then Richter managed to bind its head, while Alvin poisoned it. If you're planning on taking on FOEs as early as possible, having a poison alchemist is essential - his poison, at skill level 2, was hitting it for ~60 damage per turn, while the melee characters were hitting for single-digit damage. Second turn, it tried to scream again despite having its head bound, which just did nothing. Here's how things were looking by turn 3 -  The vast majority of that damage came from Alvis, almost entirely from his poison. The little symbols next to its name showing its status effect are Poison and Head Bind from left to right. I'm sorry this fight was a flop, I'll be sure to make major battles more narrative in future (aside from the other one I hosed up in this update) I just kind of messed up on screenshots this time. This wasn't even meant to be a battle we won, it just kind of happened   "Damnit! It was going so well, too..."And this is why fighting FOEs as soon as they become available is a terrible idea. This thing can one shot our back row members with ease, we just got lucky that it spent so many turns screaming and being useless. Thanks to that, however, and poison being absurdly good at this stage of the game...  We win. "Yes! So much for these FOEs... we'll have to make this more of a regular thing. I feel stronger just from killing it!" "I... I don't think Alvis agrees." "He'll be fine. Let's just head back to town and get him brought back." "You wish to bring him back from the dead!?" "Oh don't you start. He's not dead, just close to it."We quickly warp-wire back to town to get Alvis healed up, and I'm momentarily confused to find that the price is still 30 en. Apparently, unlike the inn, the price only rises at certain intervals. Anyway, we heal up and head back out... and before long we run into this encounter.  "KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!" "It's fine, Alvis! It's a fender, totally different cre-" "HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE POISON FOR BLOOD?! Actually seriously jot that down for me if you can, it'd be good to know."As Jill said, the Fender is a different beast to the ragelope, a random encounter enemy that can scare the crap out of you if you just happened to have a run-in with its FOE counterpart. They're fairly strong for random encounter enemies, but nowhere near as bad as the FOE versions.  "Another of these drat things?! We'll need to figure out a way of getting past them sooner or later." Just a short distance away, we run into this. Kuyutha, an FOE which actively chases the party... and is really unpleasant to fight. It doesn't bother with tricks like confusion, it just has obscenely high attack power. "Hm... I have a bad feeling about this." "Much as I prefer thunder, MORE POISONOUS BLOOD! At least this thing should be able to write with its horns for me..." Yup. Killed a frontliner, with decent defense and HP for this point, in a single hit. This thing can pretty much one shot anyone at any time, and none of us can damage it much - physical attacks do a pitiful amount of damage, Alvis' thunder attacks hit for all of about 20... and his poison, now at level 3, hits it for 80-something damage a turn. This is a LOT of damage at this point in the game, but it's really just a race of whether the poison will kill it before it kills us.  "H-Holy crap, I won!"We do. Just. This thing one-shotted people through them using defend, there really wasn't much we could do other than hope... and because I'm an idiot, I forgot to screenshot the reward screen! Jill got about 300 exp from it due to being the only survivor and levelled up, and we got a Metal Horn. To add insult to injury, the Large Fang that the ragelope dropped sold for 250 en. This metal horn sells for... 36. It is, however, used in some great recipes, so there is that. Also! I nearly forgot to mention this, but take a look at the rows - when your entire front line dies, the back line becomes your front line. This is generally less than ideal, to put it mildly, as it's basically the game's way of taking a bad situation, then helping you die even faster.  "Pleaaaase tell me we have a warp wire..." We do! And we're back, and healed up. Reviving here gives you about half your HP back. It's also of note that, now, the price for reviving has doubled to 60. Right in time to catch us after a near total party kill  "That's... enough adventure for one day, I think."New Shop Stuff!  The Hide Aspis, a new shield and a very slight upgrade over the last one, requiring ten Soft Hide to make. (I think I was mixed up and thought that the Jerkin needed 10, when that actually only needs 7.)  Ah, plate. Huge defense boost, a Vitality boost giving even more defense, at the cost of being made a little slower. Landsknechts and Protectors only, but definitely good for protectors - pretty good for Landsknechts, too, though the speed loss is kind of a pain. It's made from a Metal Horn, which is dropped by Kuyutha and another enemy we've not run into yet.  Doublets are a huge step up in defense for everyone except Landsknechts and Protectors, giving a fair boost with no downsides! It's made from 3 Hare Tails, which, surprisingly enough, drop from Hares.  Made from a metal horn and 5 Hardwood, we also get this, our first Katana... which at present is completely useless because only Ronins can use them, and we don't have any. The attack power it has, despite being the weakest Katana in the game, says a lot about how ronin operate.  "I really need to get my hands on some of that plate armour... that, and stay well away from bulls." "Shame that new sword in the shop looks kind of weird to wield. Now to get drunk, and see if I can get any beef in this town." *Sniff* "Hm... I don't SMELL dead. Perhaps this apothecary really isn't a den of necromancy after all." "Hehe. I'm a higher level than anyone else now!" "...And I'm lagging behind a little from getting wailed on by both FOEs. Despite it being the power of science that killed them. And I STILL can't get any notes on how having poisonous blood feels!"e. I just noticed looking at the last screens that I forgot to even buy jerkins for people after going to all the trouble of grinding to unlock them. No wonder we kept getting one-shotted
100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Jul 4, 2012 |
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Jun 30, 2012 02:24
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For those new to the series, note that time continues during battle. I think it's one tick every two rounds. If you're standing in the wrong place when you get a random encounter FOEs will happily join in on the fight later. Later floors tend to be all about learning the FOE movement patterns and how to exploit them while getting where you need to go. God forbid there be multiple FOEs patrolling in a route and you misstep, I'm inclined to paraphrase a Terry Pratchett line about juggling chainsaws. Missing one is the least of your problems; a few more will be along shortly.
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Jun 30, 2012 02:39
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Aw man!! This LP is so entertaining with all of those insane FOE's running around. The extra characterization adds so much charm, too. It's safe to say that I'll be listening to the FOE!FOE!FOE! theme song whenever we encounter another FOE.
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Jun 30, 2012 02:43
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Bruceski posted:For those new to the series, note that time continues during battle. I think it's one tick every two rounds. If you're standing in the wrong place when you get a random encounter FOEs will happily join in on the fight later. Later floors tend to be all about learning the FOE movement patterns and how to exploit them while getting where you need to go. God forbid there be multiple FOEs patrolling in a route and you misstep, I'm inclined to paraphrase a Terry Pratchett line about juggling chainsaws. Ah yes, this is true and I'll probably show it off in a future update. I THINK it's even worse than that, and FOEs just take a step for every turn in combat... I think it's that way in EO3, at least, not sure if it's the case in this one. In any case, yeah, only go anywhere near FOEs if your encounter-detecting-orb thing is blue. Also, thank you, HelloWinter! I've been really enjoying your LP of Phoenix Wright, too, so I'm glad you're enjoying this one.  Honestly, I'm really happy to hear anyone's enjoying it, even with me constantly making stupid cock-ups, so thank you, again, everyone!
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Jun 30, 2012 03:08
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100percentjesusfree posted:In any case, yeah, only go anywhere near FOEs if your encounter-detecting-orb thing is blue. Actually, I've found that often having a turn or two to set up on normal enemies can help you defeat FOEs you aren't supposed to be able to kill yet. It's not really relevant this early in the game, but later getting your buffs active against relatively safe enemies is really useful. It's probably more useful in EO 2, though, since in this one most FOEs after the first couple of floors are defeatable even the first time you run into them, unlike 2 which uses FOEs as roadblocks all the way through to the last stratum. I love this series so much and can't wait for 4. The feeling of entering a new stratum after beating the boss on the previous one is amazing every time. It helps that the music is always awesome, and the backgrounds really beautiful. You definitely benefit from not looking at screenshots of the later areas if you are playing this for the first time. That goes for all three games. Somehow these games manage to be some of the most immersive ones I've played for me, despite there being almost no actual plot.
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Jun 30, 2012 03:25
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This series is definitely one of my favourite RPG ones. There's just so many things in the gameplay I like. I like drawing the maps, I like the FOES, I like exploring a huge maze where everything is trying to kill you. Plus some of the areas are really interesting to look at. The series gets better with every game, at least for me. I don't think I could go back to the earlier ones after all the improvements. They're still pretty good though. Actually, on this one I got all the monsters and items in the book. Took ages, but it was a great sense of achievement. There's another nasty thing that can happen with FOEs and random encounters. Usually when you're fighting some random thing and a FOE joins in, you can run away. But if you have your back to a wall? Nope. Doesn't happen too often, but when it does, oh dear. I really like how mean they can be.
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Jun 30, 2012 03:32
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Ah, FOEs. I still have "fond" memories of my party being slaughtered and losing ~60 minutes of gameplay with my first FOE encounter in the second game.ShadeofBlue posted:It's probably more useful in EO 2, though, since in this one most FOEs after the first couple of floors are defeatable even the first time you run into them, unlike 2 which uses FOEs as roadblocks all the way through to the last stratum. It's kinda like that in 2 as well, assuming you do a certain grinding trick. I kinda wish I hadn't, though hopefully the game will surprise me with ridiculously powerful FOEs later.
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Jun 30, 2012 03:58
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FOEs are at their most dangerous when you have no idea what they can do. After the first couple encounters, you get an idea of how they move about the map, but encountering new ones can still be dangerous, especially when they can confuse your entire party or poison all of you or bind your legs...
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Jun 30, 2012 18:16
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The FOEs in EO 1 kind of just become more difficult regular enemies very quickly. In EO 2 FOEs are almost always meant to be avoided and are generally not defeatable unless you cheese them or come back later on when your stronger. 3 is kind of a mix but is generally more like 2 then 1. Then again in 2 and 3 you get a bunch of items to avoid FOEs on the mini map and such, I don't think you get any of those in the first game.
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Jun 30, 2012 19:39
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goldjas posted:The FOEs in EO 1 kind of just become more difficult regular enemies very quickly. In EO 2 FOEs are almost always meant to be avoided and are generally not defeatable unless you cheese them or come back later on when your stronger. 3 is kind of a mix but is generally more like 2 then 1. I forget if there are items for it in 1, but there's at least one skill that gives you vision of FOEs in 1. We might even see it later in the LP depending on the OPs playstyle (and if not I'm sure it'll at least get highlighted as a "Hey, this is a thing that can be done"). Item wise? Unless it unlocks from something I never grabbed in the main game floors, there's no FOE revealing/avoiding item like in the later games.
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Jun 30, 2012 23:14
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Death Dealer posted:I forget if there are items for it in 1, but there's at least one skill that gives you vision of FOEs in 1. We might even see it later in the LP depending on the OPs playstyle (and if not I'm sure it'll at least get highlighted as a "Hey, this is a thing that can be done"). Item wise? Unless it unlocks from something I never grabbed in the main game floors, there's no FOE revealing/avoiding item like in the later games. Do you mean that without that ability they can't be seen on the field, or that they can't be seen on the map?
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Jul 1, 2012 01:25
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You can see them on the field and map regardless, but the skill gives you an extended range of vision on the map and will also allow you to see an FOE in areas you may not have mapped out yet due to a fear of running into an FOE (or another reason that'll come up in the LP soon enough, I'm sure). No matter what, you're never permanently screwed by choices in this game so even if you never take said skill you can make it through the entire main game portion. It may end up requiring more grinding or be much harder than it needs to be if you decide to, say, have no healing at all outside of items, but it is still technically doable. If you run into one of those rare unwinnable situations, you can always just reset skill points which has some drawbacks. Death Dealer fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jul 1, 2012 |
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Jul 1, 2012 01:49
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A few years ago when I was first playing this game, I showed it to a roommate of mine and got slaughtered by Ragelope within a minute of him looking over my shoulder. Then he googled Ragelope and found this and we laughed for about ten minutes straight.
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Jul 1, 2012 03:23
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A note: FOEs are not worth fighting in EO2 because they give no experience In 1 they seem to give rather lackluster amounts. In 3, though, grinding on FOEs was actually well worth it once you got strong enough to do it!
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Jul 1, 2012 07:15
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theshim posted:A note: FOEs are not worth fighting in EO2 because they give no experience Not true at all (the them not being worth fighting bit, that is). They drop rare unique items that sell for a fair amount and unlock good equipment/items at the shop.
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Jul 2, 2012 00:29
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I'm not sure if the first one has the same mantis type as the second and third, but it was always a prime target for me to take out. Makes your Ronin so amazing for a good while.
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Jul 2, 2012 17:51
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Genocyber posted:Not true at all (the them not being worth fighting bit, that is). They drop rare unique items that sell for a fair amount and unlock good equipment/items at the shop. The items they unlock are decent, but they scaled into scary territory a lot harder in EO2 and took a lot longer to be worth farming. I suppose they're not totally worthless, but I found EO2's FOEs better just completely avoided. (On that note, a friend of mine did a run of EO2 killing every FOE as they came. Yes, that includes Salamox. Crazy, crazy, crazy people out there.)
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Jul 2, 2012 18:14
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Shabadu posted:I'm not sure if the first one has the same mantis type as the second and third, but it was always a prime target for me to take out. Makes your Ronin so amazing for a good while. Yeah, there are mantises. And when you first run into them, they tend to be horrible, horrible murderbeasts. Also, I wouldn't really call the amount of experience FOEs in this game give 'lackluster' - it's not super great for the challenge they pose, but it's a lot more than anything else at this point gives. Levelling up in this game is generally not exactly speedy.
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Jul 2, 2012 18:15
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100percentjesusfree posted:Also, I wouldn't really call the amount of experience FOEs in this game give 'lackluster' - it's not super great for the challenge they pose, but it's a lot more than anything else at this point gives. ...checked. Holy crap the disparity. Admittedly things give more XP and there are more ways to get it in EO3, but geez, they ramped up the exp numbers. (For reference: It takes a little over 19k exp to reach level 50 in EO. In EO3, you'll be just short of level 14. Eep.)
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Jul 2, 2012 18:47
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theshim posted:I was comparing off the top of my head to EO3's...but then it occurs to me that EO3 also takes a lot more to level, IIRC, so it evens out. In EO3's favor though, it is REALLY easy to level in spite of the boosted XP requirements thanks to a number of factors that you already mentioned, plus the Farmer. I know a lot of why I put down EO2 for so long (and still haven't beaten it, unfortunately) is that it becomes a much bigger slog in midgame than it needs to, and I can't place my finger on why because EO1 never had that issue and I've never had it with EO3 either. I can make some general assumptions as to why, but there's no sense in talking about EO2 if there's the faintest possibility that there might be an LP of it in the future. After all, we're not even past the first Strata in EO1 yet.
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Jul 3, 2012 23:53
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Doesn't FOE stand for "loving overpowered enemy"? (Also, better quality.) Pierzak fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jul 4, 2012 |
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Jul 4, 2012 01:36
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Death Dealer posted:In EO3's favor though, it is REALLY easy to level in spite of the boosted XP requirements thanks to a number of factors that you already mentioned, plus the Farmer. In EO2 you could just mad farm the bosses for experience and money if you wanted to, of course you had to get to the first boss first to do that but that wasn't really all that challenging.
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Jul 4, 2012 01:38
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goldjas posted:In EO2 you could just mad farm the bosses for experience and money if you wanted to, of course you had to get to the first boss first to do that but that wasn't really all that challenging.
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Jul 4, 2012 04:11
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Update 8 - In which I remember that armour is generally a good thing As I mentioned at the end of my last update, I had completely forgotten to buy armour upgrades for anyone, which probably had something to do with their glass-cannon-ness. I've fixed that now, everyone's decked out in rather nice armour for their next venture into the labyrinth, instead of just wandering in wearing tweed. "Back to the second floor... let's see what we can find now, hm?" "Hopefully no more FOEs." "He-llo! What's this? A new sword, maybe?" "Or perhaps a whip, to better keep the undead at bay when we finally find some!" "I'd settle for some medicine!" "And I'll settle for opening the thing! Standing around speculating is not how science gets done!"  This is either a fantastic boon, if you forgot to buy warp wire for some reason, and are on the verge of death, or, if you remember to buy warp wire obsessively, it just saves you about 100 en. Not really all that great, but eh, free stuff is free stuff!  "Not more of them! I was just getting used to having my ribs in one piece!"This is how FOEs look - like floating suns for some bizarre reason. Fortunately, as far as I can remember, these games never have you mount a charge on the sun, so it's just a strange visual choice. Also, note how, on the bottom screen, we can't see it on the map despite being able to see it in person. I believe you can only see them on the map if they're within one tile of a place where you have previously stepped, or something like that, though there are certain skills which make you able to see them from further away.  "Reaaadyyyy..."And here's one on the map, now that it's within range. "Not really, no." "Charge!" "Well, this is off to a great start."Wellll gently caress. That's what happens when its Scream attack connects - confusion. The character acts randomly, hitting party members and themselves, which is not what you want on your primary physical attacker, to say the least. Honestly, this FOE fight didn't go nearly as smoothly as previous ones.  "Mein Kopf dreht!"Dietrich's 'confused' dialogue provided courtesy of some online translator. "Snap out of it, man! Come on, let's-" "Ruhige, kleine Mann sein!" "I'll poison it! Science will bring it down before things get any wo-" "Stop moving, drat you! Let me replace all the blood in your body with delicious poison!"This is one of the 3 major downsides of poison - it can miss, and often will at the worst times. Another downside is that its damage is fairly static, so it becomes less and less useful later in the game... and the last disadvantage I'll mention a little later. Alvis actually missed poisoning this thing like, two or three times in a row  He totally needs some weird combination of those two at this point. He's died in every FOE fight so far. As you can see, this fight wasn't really going to plan - it took ages to get poison to stick, and Alvis only just managed it before he died. The fact that he DID manage it, however?  Ensured our victory. Poison is hitting for around 120 damage at this point, and ragelops have about 330 health. "...Back to town?" "Yes. Yes, I think that's a good idea. I think I stepped in a bit of Alvis...We warp on back, sell off our stuff and pay to have everyone revived - which leaves us with barely any en. "Ugh. Sorry about that... I'm not sure what came over me."  "After all that, I need a drink. Anyone with me?" "YES." "Ahh... that's the stuff. New quest, too."This is a fairly simple quest - we just have to have fought 10 different kinds of monsters, then talk to the guys at the Radha hall - unfortunately, at present, we've only fought 9, and I don't think we can actually find a 10th on the floors we have available. Still, it's not something you have to really go out of your way to do, which is nice. "And that's enough dicking about. Back into the Labyrinth, or we're never going to get anywhere!" This is a good time to talk about poison's other downside - it only causes any damage at all at the end of a turn, so the enemy is guaranteed to get an attack in before your poison's damage hits. As such, if you're poisoned, you should go all out to kill the enemy before it hits...  Because if you don't, it hits like a truck. Our tankiest characters will go down after two turns of poison damage, from the weakest poisoning enemies in the game, even if nothing hits them in between. Fortunately, ailments end at the end of battle, so winning as fast as you can against poisoners is a good strategy.  The edible-looking fruit makes your mouth water. It would be no trouble to take the fruit and eat it. "Oh-ho! More mystery fruit, I'll be taking that!"The fruit's delicious-looking exterior proved a sham, as Hector discovered. Hector lost 10 TP! "Ughhhh... no more mystery fruit for me, I think."It's worth noting that a lot of these events run off doing poo poo, good or bad, to whoever is first in the party's lineup, which means Hector will be blundering into a lot of things, apparently. Also, this fruit thing amuses me, because I can't stand oranges or anything orange flavoured.  Judging from its color and shape, it doesn't look edible. If you really wish, you can pluck the fruit and eat it. "I'll pass this time, I thi-" "SCIENCE demands you eat that fruit!" "Hey! Get of-"Appearances to the contrary, the fruit was fresh and juicy. Hector recovered 10 HP! "Huh. That was actually pretty good." "See? Scientific inquiry has many rewards."  After a bit of wandering, the crew go off to explore a small side-passage off in the dungeon. Also, do these updates feel a bit too disjointed to anyone? I know my position is jumping around a lot, but if I screenshot every uninteresting step we take, updates will wind up enormous. I'm showing the map more than I used to to try and help give some impression of where we are, at least  "Not another one! Run!"Note the colour of the FOE on the map - a red arrow like that means that it's actively chasing us, rather than just following a predetermined route.  "You picked a bad time to get in our way! Cut through!"FOEs still move a step for every turn you take in battle. Getting dragged into a fight with an FOE chasing you and one step behind you is generally not a good thing! However, there is actually one advantage to it...  Note how we're a step further away than we were before? If you kill a group of enemies in one turn, it doesn't seem to count as a turn/step, so apparently we slaughtered them so fast it was quicker than just running along unimpeded. "Hm, it seems to have stopped chasing us..." "It must be guarding something! I must know what secrets it hides!" "...It's an animal. Why would it be guarding secrets?" "Scientific inqui-" "Fine, if you're in such a hurry to get yourself killed AGAIN, let's go deal with it." "Ah! So you brazenly admit that he has died before! I kne-" "Shut up, you know what I meant." "Oh cock! Not one of these again." "Fear not, companions! I shall binds its... arms... () and cripple its attack power!" "Well, so much for that plan." "Dietrich! Get behind me, I'll handle this beast!" "...S'your neck on the line. Fine by me, though."This move does exactly what you probably think - it makes people on the frontline, including the protector himself, take less damage.  'Less' in this case is still a bloody lot, however. Still, Dietrich is now hitting it for 25-odd with his Cleaver skill, and poison is eating away at its health at 120 damage per tick, so...  Victory is more or less inevitable. "Holy crap, I survived for once! We all did!" "Eh. At least he won't accuse me of being a zombie. Now, let's see what's round the corner!" "Hah! I told you it was guarding something!" "...A giant bull was guarding a coat. This doesn't make sense, but I don't care. Can't complain about free stuff." "Ooooh, it's all fluffy and soft... it's mine! "The defense is fairly awful on it, but +3 to agility is significant, as it gives the person a significantly higher chance of getting to go before enemies, which is pretty important for a healer to do. "Right, great, we have the mythical bull-coat of softness or whatever it's supposed to be. Now let's go get Richter brought back, and hope he doesn't complain about it again." " Correction, let's sell some stuff THEN do that."At this point, I noticed that the soma we picked up for 100 en back off the guard event sells for 400. You probably should buy it even if you don't want to use it, because it's basically free money. "Still, that reminds me... we never really checked out the area around where we first ran into one of those. It's dead, so it SHOULD be safe, and maybe it was guarding something, too?" "Huh. Guess it does pay to look around."Nectar is basically the Phoenix Down of Etrian Odyssey. We can't buy it in shops, yet, and even when we can, it's expensive, so we should definitely hang onto this.  "Heh, another one of these? Might as well take care of it, we've already slaughtered the rest of the ones we ran into." "Accursed bunnies! Stop obstructing our path!" "Wait, I'm not ready! Ah crap, this is bad."It had to happen eventually. As I said, FOEs move for every turn in battle, and we took too long killing rabbits. Still, even with it catching us unawares... and confusing Richter...  "Argh, I knew it! I'm one of them, and must perish!" "He... actually whipped himself. That's impressive." It's still just a ragelope, and with all the experience we've been getting off FOEs, and Alvis' poison-tastic FOE murdering skills, we're pretty strong, so it goes down pretty easily.  "Aha! The path down... let's rest up, then continue tomorrow. Eager as I am for exploration, just walking around this place takes a lot out of you." "Now that I'm finally in some real armour, I feel much better about taking as many hits as I do." "I can say the same. I just wish the best sword skill didn't require me to waste time learning how to use an axe, too..." "Hm. At the rate this group's going, we're going to be the undead inhabiting the labyrinth... still, should that happen, I shall put us all down!" "This coat is really fuzzy and easy to move in, it's stylish AND practical!" "Hm, much as I love thunder, I seem to have mostly been developing my poisoning talents, lately. I'll have to remedy this."e. I nearly forgot to add this part! New Shop Stuff!  Our first bow upgrade! It only requires a Horn to make, which is obtained from the Furyhorns.  And an ocarina, sadly without any time-related powers, but it DOES give a huge TP boost, while being troubadour only. Like the bow, it just needs a horn to make... between this and the bow, it's almost like the game is suggesting I bring Keyser back. What say you, goons? Should Richter stay with the group a while longer, or should Keyser re-enter the fray? I'll have to grind him up a bit, and he'll not have access to his better skills yet, but I want to make sure this LP is as entertaining for everyone as possible! 100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Jul 4, 2012 |
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Jul 4, 2012 04:47
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I'd say your updates are just fine and don't strike me as disjointed at all. On that note, I'd say give the Troubadour a shot again. They can be surprisingly useful early on with a halfway decent bow.
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Jul 4, 2012 05:57
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