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Update 25 - Immunize is still way too good. Okay, so, first thing's first - we've changed up the party, to Richter, Musashi, Jill, Alvis and Alex. This means that we're no longer quite as horribly overlevelled, and are, in fact, underlevelled! This also means that we have a bunch of equipment to buy. Also, that I feel less bad about immunize abuse.     Seriously, equipment makes such a big difference, it's not even funny.  Also, guess who saved after resting long enough for bosses to respawn, but not after killing them all for a boss-rush style video, that wasn't uploaded because it came out a bit poo poo?  "Pretty sure this thing already died..."  "Don't you start."  Boss Battle Theme - Dyed in Blood  With our much-less overlevelled team, this thing is kind of a beast. It deals 53 damage to Alvis, despite him being on the back row, and under the effect of immunize!  I also don't think I showed this off yet, but it has an attack that simultaneously reduces the party's accuracy, AND tries to blind all of them. This is very annoying - even Alvis' spells kept whiffing.  Fortunately, we win!   Okay, three of us win.  This fight was... unpleasant. Jill's role consisted of spamming immunize whenever it got low so we wouldn't all get horribly crushed, while everyone else spammed high-damage attacks in the hopes of killing it before it killed us. This bodes well! "So much for our big, strong front line..."Stratum 3 theme - The Thousand Year Old Woodlands  Dang fading text! If you can't see it properly, this floor's name is 'The Soldier's Washbasin' - appropriate, with the healing fountain over there!   "Treasure over there! Whose the best swimmer?" "I don't think that's an option. We're all wearing armour, and if we take it off, we'll get eaten alive." "Your sacrifice will be remembered." "No! Let's just find a way around." Oh god! Horrifying new enemies are not what you want to see when you're on low health and TP!  "That's the biggest bug I've ever seen! Not counting that huge ant thing, but bugger that. We should try and capture one for experiments!" "Eh. Seen bigger. Fought bigger." This is why I feel less bad about immunize abuse on this floor. All that damage was from 1 hit from our new enemy. This game is really designed around keeping mostly the same party, as far as I can tell, so changing out almost everyone like this results in us being underlevelled, and fodder for the enemy encounters. Immunize helps even things up, though!  It would be better if this healing fountain wasn't off in the middle of nowhere, though.  "Ooh. Future shortcut!" "I'm pretty sure we could just blast through and make it a current-shortcut..." "Nah! This way, we have something to look forwards to!" "Besides, we might miss treasure!"  "I guess we could live without THAT treasure..."Actually, much as I complain about healing items, we kinda need them on this floor. We're underlevelled, the healing well is a pain to get to for most of the floor, and Jill's TP is limited. I've abandoned going for Caduceus for now, to instead focus on getting her TP-regen - I forgot how bad things can get when the only TP-recovery item you can buy heals about 15 TP, and we don't have Keyser around.  "Bats! Watch out for ledges!" "Uh, what?" "Uh. Sorry, I'm not sure what came over me."  "You know, for someone normally so full of stories, you don't look so good..." "Pah. If you spent less time flapping your lips and more time doing your job, I'd be fine."Yeaaah. We don't really have a tanky character, or a particularly great multi-damage option, on top of being underlevelled. The results are not pretty!  From its place in a nearby brush, it closely watches your every move. Who would be here, this deep in the Labyrinth...? Ren and Tlachtga, perhaps? But they are usually more direct, never hiding themselves in shadow like this... Apparently, the narrator has forgotten we're supposed to be looking for a mysterious shadowy thing. Given the time between updates, I'm not really surprised. You mentally debate over whether to approach the shadow or pay it no heed.  "Yes! Maybe we'll get to go back to the Radha and get paid early~"You take a tenuous step toward the shadow, but it instantly withdraws into the trees. "Awww..."You resolve to keep an eye out for the unknown shadow from now on in your travels. Choosing 'no' gets us this: "You decide not to take heed of the shadow in the distance. After a while, you reason, the shadow will lose interest in you and wander away. Forgetting about the shadow, you continue your adventure." As far as I can tell, this choice affects precisely nothing.   Spot the difference in these images. This floor has an interesting gimmick! For a certain area, there are a few FOEs hanging around like ninjas - if you spend more than 1 round in combat, they appear, and start advancing on your position a turn after they appear. FOE theme - A Sudden Gust of Wind Before Your Eyes   "Careful! This thing looks tough!" "...Nevermind."   Thunder burns TP like there's no tomorrow, but with it, Alvis hits like an absolute bastard, it's great.  Not much damage, no, but do remember this is with both immunize on us, and an arm bind on it - these things can be nasty if you don't shut them down fast.  Still, it eventually goes down! Victory theme - Get the Treasure  And, fittingly, the one who landed the killing blow gains a level! Stratum 2 theme - The Vast Primeval Hidden Grove  "Ewwww. Something about those worms gives me the creeps."They have an ability that's basically anti-immunize, lowering our resistance to all elements, and those big bugs hit HARD. This is not a fun team for our party to run into.  "...Huh. I'd thought a good shock to the system would let me capture it..." "Looks more like you fried it."These things are vulnerable to lightning, making Alvis' SCIENCE even more useful for just tearing through.  One other fun thing about those hiding crab FOEs...  as soon as you take a single step when you're outside of battle, they vanish. To actually fight them, you have to stay in combat 'til they're next to you, or already fighting you, so you can move into them.  "New whip! I almost feel bad blowing our cash on a new one back in town..." "...Suddenly, I don't feel quite so bad." Oh gently caress these guys. Why?    Oh thank goodness. This is an absolute godsend, we can now warp wire back to town, heal up, and come back. This floor takes a lot out of you! I've had to use up both of our Amrita IIs, and now have no real method of TP recovery, beyond regular Amritas, which... suck, frankly. If you're playing along at home, don't make a load of characters like this. It's fun for the LP, and I wouldn't feel right doing it any other way, but jeeze, it adds a lot of unnecessary pain. Then again, this is an Atlus game, so if you ARE playing along at home, you're probably a fellow masochist.  ...Also if you're playing along at home you've probably finished by now given my pace. Whoops.  So very, very tempting. But... no. Our team needs levelling, even if it does mean slogging through monsters they're not really prepared for.  "One of these chests HAS to have something good in. It has to! ...Right?" "I'm starting to wonder, honestly."  "More crabs! It's a pincer attack!" "..."   Oh hey, it's a non-ninja FOE! It's also the reason that this update is late! Playing the game while half asleep, getting into a fight with an FOE and accidentally hitting 'defend' when you mean 'run the gently caress away' does not tend to go well. The party wound up getting wiped, I deleted all the images in a huff and it took ages to muster the will to play through it again.  Sneaking past it, however, is both easy and very useful. "Oh, blessed relief!" "This labyrinth might be (thus-far) bereft of undead, but were it not for this, I think we'd be joining the ranks of corpses down here." Speaking of slipping by, you can just go around the outside of the room, being careful to avoid them (they don't track you, and follow a set path), and follow this straight path down to the stairs to the next floor. Nice, safe, and easy. It's definitely the more sensible thing to do, especially when half your team is quite underlevelled.  gently caress that, though. Jill needs a new purse, and I need revenge on these bastards for wasting a couple hours of my life.  Muckdiles are scary bastards. They're ugly as sin, can hit the whole party obscenely hard, and are high enough level that richter and Musashi aren't going to be causing much damage. If you can get lucky and bind their heads, great, they lose their bite attack which hits everyone. If not, things might get rough.  "Pah! I've seen fiercer attacks from poodles!"Or you can use a boosted immunize to absolutely neuter them for 5 turns. I promised not to abuse it too much on bosses, and have been trying to give the game a fighting chance in general, but gently caress these guys, this is a grudge match, and I won't rest 'til they're luggage. "Stealing schwarzenegger lines? Really?"Shaddup, that one cracked me up.  I say 'they' not because they're from Tumblr and I'm very sensitive towards their special gender, but because there are three of the bastards running around. Who all go hostile and chase you once you start a fight." "Bring it on! The way this one fights, you'll break your teeth trying to chew me 'fore you actually do anything!" "Yeah! Also, I bet your hide goes for a tidy sum~" Even with boosted immunize, you still have to be very careful here. Remember, immunize lasts only 5 turns, and we're not likely to get another boost unless we're lucky - the ridiculous resistance boost we have will go from ~85% to 60% in a couple of turns.  "You're luggage!" Hey! Of course, another one's just around the corner.  Equally of course, Richter gets hit while immunize is down and instantly dies. Great.  Annnd we're rapidly finding ourselves up poo poo-creek. Apparently, if they focus their attacks rather than using their whole party attack, they can kill Musashi through non-boosted immunize. Or it got a crit. I'm... not 100% sure what happened here, honestly, but it's not good.  Fortunately for us, with a mix of Jill's revival magic and a Nectar 2, we can get our frontline back in the game before the forced row-switch that would make everything go completely to poo poo. But surely they'll immediately die again, what with their low health, lack of immunize, and the Muckdile having an on-all attack, right?  "Yeah, about that... I think we'll be fine."  Victory theme - Get the Treasure  I believe the technical term for that much experience is 'a shitload'. "Oooh, they really did drop their hides! Score!"With that, though, I need a break. As does the party! See you next time, which... might be in a little bit, as I have coursework I need to do, that I'm putting off to write about videogames for the internet. Priorities! (also, procrastination may result in me working more on this, who knows.)   Richter's doing pretty well! I'm trying to get his various binding-related stuff up to about 5 each, and I put a point in Atk-up for the easy +10% attack. Once I've got Cuffs up to the same as its sibling skills, I'll max attack up, then go back to maxing those, ecstasy and climax.   Musashi is Musashi. One trick pony, but a trick that often has brutal results.   At the other end of the scale, Jill is all over the place. I sorta want to rest her, remove the now-mostly-useless points in patch up and atk up... eh, we'll see. As I mentioned earlier, I'm focusing on TP Up for her, so she can get TP Regen asap.   Alvis is going for TP Regen too - he already deals a LOT of damage if something's weak to thunder, having him able to do that more than a couple of times on a floor would be nice.   Last but not least, Alex is focusing on Apollon, because it is great. After that, Multihit, and after that... I dunno, honestly. Maybe focus on passive stuff, seeing as those are the main things she uses? We'll see! New Shop Stuff! Got a whole bunch today.  For 1x Carapace, from those crazy giant green bugs, and 1x Shred Nail, from those equally crazy giant red bears, we get a fairly decent sword! They claymore gives a decent attack boost, at a reasonable price. A carapace and a glass eye (from hexfrogs!) Nets us this thing - if you want to decrease the encounter rate, say, for sneaking around a team of survivalists to farm with, and don't have the necessary skills, this could be handy! Might also be handy if you're messing around in a previous stratum for some reason and don't want to deal with this game's sometimes-ludicrous encounter rate. Generally, I prefer not to use these, but I was tempted!  Holy poo poo, this thing is a monster. With a Death Claw from the Royalant, and a Red Hide from one of those crazy red bears, we get a sword that gives a massive attack boost. I can't wait to stick this on Dietrich and Hector! Of course, they're not in the party right now, so I have to.  5 bat wings, from those irritating bats, and 5 bone shards from guardants and servants gets us a pretty ace bow! Very nice boost to attack, and that's all it really needs.  Armour that goes on literally anyone, and provides pretty great defense with no downsides? Very yes. It does require 2 red hides, though, so hunt those bears!  Armour that turns everything but the 3 mage classes into heavily-armoured monsters? VERY yes. Requires 1 red hide, and 3 carapace.  Slightly more class-specific than the surcoat, but a few hundred en cheaper. We have better stuff for the two classes that the Coatrdie wouldn't go on, so them not being able to wear it is a nonissue, and saving a few hundred en is always nice, so yay! Takes 3 bat wings and 7 elastic to make.  For one bug nest (again from those crazy green insects) and 3 elastic, we get the Gum Aspis! It's not as good, defennse-wise as the Heat Aspis, but can be equipped by a few more classes, and comes with volt resistance. It's a slight improvement over the oval aspis for classes that can't use the heat aspis, so it's not exactly a bad pick if you have money to burn!  Turn into Speedy Gonzales with the Mocassins! +5 agi is very nice, +3 def is... not entirely terrible, and they'll go nicely on a medic who wants to get their healing in asap. Requires 3 red hides to make!  This thing sucks, and is overpriced. 15 HP is not going to make much difference at this point! Annoyingly, it's the only thing we get for selling gator skin from muckdiles. Aside from the 2100 en for each skin we sell.
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Jul 27, 2013 05:43
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It's too bad you didn't get the Royalant's rare drop. I hope you get lucky, it's amazing 
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Jul 27, 2013 06:07
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Bellmaker posted:It's too bad you didn't get the Royalant's rare drop. I hope you get lucky, it's amazing Ahaha. I almost forgot about that - not that the Royalant has a rare drop, but just what it becomes. Yeah, I'm going to have to do some farming, I think. Maybe I really will rest Jill, see if I can get some points left over to stick in Scavenge.
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Jul 27, 2013 10:30
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Bonus Update - A bit about rare drops Welcome back! We won't really be making any progress in this update, nor will there be anything in the way of character interaction but I will be talking about some of the mechanics behind rare drops, and showing off the 'rest' mechanic a bit. We will also getting our hands on something fun, so there's that!  So, I kept talking about doing this, and I finally decided on doing so - Jill had a few wasted points in Atk-up and patch up, the latter of which doesn't heal enough to be useful anymore, and I wasn't going to have enough points left over from stuff to get Caduceus.   Two prompts lets you know that resting really is serious business.  Ouch.  That is a LOT of skill points, though. The only reason I eventually decided to go for this is that Jill was our highest-level party member, and her level is always going to be fairly decent, given that she's never really out of the party.  Here's how her skills look after her little rest. They're still a bit... all over the place, unfortunately, but a lot of medic skills require a bunch of points in skills I'd rather not put points in, so bleh. I'm already wondering if I could get by without Revive, and just buy lots of Nectar/Nectar IIs... it might be something to consider later.  Seeing as this isn't really a main update, and I need a team capable of downing a tough-ish opponent fairly easily, we're sticking together a team of our toughest members. Also Serasmus, because fire damage is good, and he's still low enough level to gain a few levels quickly so I can stick Scavenge on him.  And with that, we launch ourselves into combat with the Royalant once again! Much like Fenrir, this thing has a rare drop, which can only be gained by getting lucky. I forget if I've talked about drop mechanics in this game, but it never hurts to go over things again. Any enemy can have up to 3 'slots' for drops, with some being rarer than the others. When it dies, the game starts at the rarest 'slot', and works its way down through the more common ones if you don't get that drop. If you do, you don't get the stuff in the lower rarity slots. So, for example, say an enemy had three possible drops, at say, 5%->25%->50% drop rates. It would first check to see if you got the 5% drop - if you did, there'd be no way of getting the 25%/50% drops. If you didn't get it, it'd move down, roll on the 25%, then the 50% if you failed that, and if you fail the 50% roll, you're poo poo out of luck and get nothing. This results in items that aren't in the highest slot dropping slightly less frequently than their drop rate might suggest. On top of that, there are conditional drops where it only rolls on the conditional slot if you kill the enemy in a certain way. Scavenge is a very good ability to have, most of the time. When the person who has Scavenge kills an enemy, all drop rates are increased. Having too much scavenge power can result in you kinda screwing yourself out of getting lower-slot items sometimes, I think, but that's not really an issue here - non-conditional rare boss drops are a huge pain in the arse to get, because it's basically the devs going "gently caress you, get lucky." - to compound the annoyance, you have to sleep 14 days between every attempt. Hope you have a random level 1 guy to make sure that inn costs don't get ridiculous!  Unlike with Fenrir, I didn't just get lucky on my second try and get the drop. Oh well, can't be that bad can it?  Damnit. Also, I switched Hector out for Musashi because Defender didn't really make much difference, and more damage is always good. He proved my amazing decision-making powers by dying horribly.  Goddamnit.  gently caress.  gently caress.  gently caress. Also, I switched out Musashi for Richter seeing as I got the feeling this was going to take a while, and he needed some levels.  So, naturally, I get the drop on the run after I make the change. I'm not complaining though, because god drat does that get tedious, especially because the party isn't powerful enough to just effortlessly plow through the fight, it takes some time each time.  So now, you might be wondering why it's worth the effort. It doesn't sell for that much, after all.  Ahahaha.  This bastard is why. It just requires the Ant's Jaw to make, so all you need for it is to get lucky with a Royalant. Look at those stats. Just... look at them. ...Also annoying that it gives +15 Luc which would've been quite helpful when trying to get it. Still, there's no way we can afford that!  Oh wait nevermind, grinding is a thing.   Looks like everyone's favourite maybe-senile samurai has just becomed death, destroyer of worlds.  This is his regular attack, now. Somehow, I'm not quite as worried about this party's collective level anymore.  Thanks to Bellmaker for reminding me of this! 100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jul 28, 2013 |
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Jul 28, 2013 12:33
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Jesus. That's a ridiculous attack boost. How far are we through the game anyway?
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Jul 29, 2013 04:19
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It looks like jesus just broke the game again. Anyone want to take bets on how long before the game returns the favor? Again that is.
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Jul 29, 2013 04:20
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AccidentalHipster posted:It looks like jesus just broke the game again. Anyone want to take bets on how long before the game returns the favor? Again that is. Knowing this series? The next floor.
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Jul 29, 2013 04:45
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BlazeEmblem posted:Knowing this series? The next floor. Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves here... after all, we still haven't finished this floor yet.
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Jul 29, 2013 05:27
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W.T. Fits posted:Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves here... after all, we still haven't finished this floor yet. I honestly think 13-15 were the easiest floors for me in the game, but then again this was about the point I discovered the joys of having five whole characters able to deal physical damage. Thanks Cadeuceus!  The next stratum though, yeah... 
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Jul 29, 2013 05:33
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SSNeoman posted:Jesus. That's a ridiculous attack boost. We still have a fair bit left to do! Just in terms of floors, there are A total of 25 floors for the main-game, and then 5 more that are for the postgame. So we're on stratum 3 out of technically 6. Different floors take different amounts of time and have different amounts of actual content to talk about in them, and I don't perfectly remember quite how much stuff there is on every floor. I do remember that some of the later floors get ridiculously unpleasant, though. Plus that's not taking into account things like sidequests, extra bosses and so on! So... we're a fair way in, but there's still plenty left to go! 100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Jul 29, 2013 |
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Jul 29, 2013 14:14
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Update 26 - Flower Power So it turns out my desire to procrastinate from doing actual work means I will be working on this more. ...Yay...? Stratum 3 theme - The Thousand Year Old Woodlands  "Hah! I knew we'd find something down here."I was getting annoyed at having a hole in my map, so I figured I might as well go grab this. Plus, TP healing is always good!  Ahh, so much better. This game leaves me a bit twitchy if my map isn't complete.  W.T. Fits posted:Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves here... after all, we still haven't finished this floor yet. Sorry, dude. The stairs are right past those muckdiles!  "Sounds ominous." "Ooh, flowers big enough to support five armed and armoured adventurers! As valuable as they are implausible." "Let's try riding them, for science!" "What. Why would that work?" "Never in my life have I felt less manly. "  "You know what? I give up. Logic clearly doesn't mean a thing down here."So that's the gimmick of this floor - we get on flowers, that take us somewhere! We have no real way of knowing where the flowers will take us, other than the fact that all of them carry us in a straight line forwards from their starting position. Every single one, apart from the very first one you find, which instead just carries you off down a path you could've easily walked instead. Atlus!  "DIE MONSTER! YOU DON'T BELONG IN THIS WORLD!" "KREEEEE!" "Satisfied?" "It's just not the same. " Oh hey, if we can ever get our farmbots to survive the first few floors of this stratum, we can get some chopping done.  "What." "Ah, a swordfish! Back in my homeland, young swordsmen would train against such foes." "What. That- ugh. Alvis, if that's a fish, fry it for us." "With pleasure!"Turns out that water/metal isn't a great mix for dealing with electricity. They're heavily resistant to physical attacks, though - Musashi only hits for around 100 damage. Considering he one-shots bats, moriyanas (those giant bugs) frogs, and basically everything that's not an FOE, and not heavily resistant to physical attacks, this is a pretty big deal. What I'm saying is, BlazeEmblem posted:Knowing this series? The next floor. You weren't THAT far off. It's not exactly broken the game back, but it's thrown up something that makes his new sword much less impressive.  "I'm never going to get the smell of these things off myself..." "Maybe if you tried wearing a shirt, you'd have less to worry about  "There is waaay too much flower riding in this place. It makes it a huge pain to navigate.  "Oh joy. More crabs waiting to ambush us. My new sword will tear it a new one!"  "Sure did. Alvis?" "On it."Alright, imagine for a second that you're all relaxed. You're walking through this stratum, fairly relaxing music playing, easy enough enemies, and a relatively chill floor full of flowers. It's all calming... right up until Ominous goddamn music (Red and Black) starts blaring at you, and this girl shows up.  "AUGH!"As you look about in wonder, a shadow suddenly appears before you.  As the shadow steps into the light, it is revealed to be a youthful-seeming girl. She looks like a cross between a parrot and the Joker, and the only thing you see fit to mention is that she looks young? Quality narration. Her glare at you, however, smacks more of malice than innocence.  The girl disappears as quickly as she came. Could she be the humanoid life form...? Nah, I'm sure she's completely unrelated. GeneralYeti posted:
She's the goddess of fertility and sexuality, what else could she be other than a child-parrot-clown?  Then again, Atlus did also bring us Shin Megami Tensei so it's good to see they're at least consistent about doing rather unique takes on mythology. You cannot shake off the feeling of unresolved business in the forest, and decide to go deeper. "Yeah! Loot is calling to us, we can't just turn back now!"Stratum 3 theme - The Thousand Year Old Woodlands    "Clearly, when asking didn't work, she tried to drive us off with godawful treasure." "Eh, at least we can sell it." "Ooh! True." "Huh. Flowers, waterfalls, tranquil water... this place is kinda pretty." "Ooh. Maybe if we get bored of adventuring, we can set up shop here. Maybe make some little houses, promise people the best view in the world!" "Endless swarms of monsters tend to not make for great real estate." "That's why we offer to let people pay for protection once they're settled in!" "...You're incorrigible." "Aww. The way down already? I was getting used to killing vampire bats." "They're not even that kind of vampire, you know." "Feels like it's the closest I'm going to get down here." "Aaanyway... we should probably keep exploring. We're likely to miss something if we just go down straight away. Besides, I want to study the local flora some more, these flowers are fascinating!" "More treasure! I'm already glad we didn't just go straight down." "Seems the treasure has a guardian, though." Oh hey, it's an enemy we killed three of in a row back in the previous stratum. My hunger for their blood and/or skin is not yet sated, though.  "Let me see if I can fix that."   ...Jesus. 1230 damage. No one else can even come close to that. That Hachi sword is ridiculous, and the only requirement is that you get lucky! (and have a decently-levelled Ronin, and the time to grind for some cash) Now, it might seem like a good idea to go out and make a team of something like 3 ronin, a medic and a troubadour, but Hachi has a mechanic that hasn't really shown up yet - once you buy one, you need another Ant's Jaw to make another. Be my guest if you want to farm the Royalant long enough to outfit several ronin, but I wouldn't, because gently caress that noise.  It goes down like a chump right afterwards.   "Even the loot is pretty great! Today is a good day after all!"I'll say. Hamaos are buyable, but cost over a thousand apiece, and heal 300 HP and 50TP, which is huge. 800 en is a pretty decent amount of cash, too. All in all, this is a good haul!  "Gross." "Gross, but practically shining with science! We must take it with us!" "Fine, but you're carrying it."This thing drops fairly infrequently from meltworms. It's worth picking up!  Somehow, I either completely failed to notice the existence of this flower up until now, or it only appears once you take the flower opposite it. If it's the former, I'm na idiot and made myself backtrack through this drat floor way more than I needed to.   "Great. Now these flowers are loving with us, we've already been here, and there's no flower to ride back!" This floor has so many dead ends and one-way things, it's not even funny. I tried using walls to mark out the paths flowers travel, but it's still wound up as a horrible clusterfuck on my map.  Anyway, this flower leads where we need to go. We just take it up, move around the top of the map a bit aaand...  Voila! "Oh great, now we're back on the previous floor!" "We're on the other side of the river, though! Turns out no-one DID need to swim to get that treasure."   The below gathering point is a Take point, but for some reason, the map showed up black in that screenshot. Besides the gathering points, and some loot, there's nothing all that notable up here, so here are the highlights!    Not bad, for someone who won't be using their TEC score. Still, the real treasure up here is one I skipped over, because it's a good point to end the update:   It releases a low pitch and a dazzling glow, as if resonating with something... Perhaps it opens the purple crystals entwined with ivy, seen elsewhere in the Labyrinth. I never thought about this when playing, but even though it's true, that's still kind of a leap of logic. I don't see people wearing jewelry and assume it must be the key to their house... eh, it's a videogame. Anyway, yeah! We now have a method of unlocking those And if the thing that should be there WAS there, it would be horrible.   I can finally bring Richter's bondage-related abilities to the point he can cause ecstasy! That's... that's a thing. Whether I'll be going for it or not, I'm not sure, his binding still isn't super-reliable. Regardless, I've got the prerequisite skills, now, so it's an option!   Musashi your sword costs about as much as the rest of the party's equipment combined, and left us horribly poor, but it was oh so very worth it.   Jill can finally start getting TP regen! Yaaay. Although I should probably put some points into Refresh again... less yay.   Alvis can also get TP regen on his next level!   So, a funny thing happened with Alex, apparently she'd levelled a bunch of times with me completely failing to notice this, and I looked at her skill list and she had about 5 points to spend. Apollon's now nicely maxed out! New shop stuff!  The scale helm isn't much to write home about - a chunk of defense, and no real additional benefits. It's not TERRIBLE, it's just not great. It IS very cheap though, so if someone's stuck in sucky gear and you're cash strapped after buying a weapon for 24,000 en, for example, it might come in handy. It requires a fish scale from those Sworder enemies.  Basically bear gloves for casters - decent defense, and loses the strength boost, but has slightly more Tec. They're not bad, and require 1 Fish Fin (also from Sworders) and 7 elastic.  DISCLAIMER: Not actually that great. Requires 5 carapace to make, but you should hold on - there's a better axe you can get at around the same time. We've not gotten it yet, as we've apparently not killed enough vampire bats. Also it's an axe, so it sucks, and you could theoretically just save up and buy the meteor axe.  Oh, dachi. Not bad if you don't have the free one given to you by a quest, and don't want to grind for hachi... so it's not super likely to come in useful from the shop, unless you're running several ronin for some reason. Requires 3 Shred Nails and 5 Bug nests.  Requires a crab leg, found on cutcrabs and also at 3rd stratum mining points for some bizarre reason, and 5 shred nails. It's also a lot worse than the shred whip, so just get that instead!  So, we take shining rainbow goo from a worm, and use it to make something utterly fabulous. No comment. Connotations aside, this thing is amazing - great defense for your casters, and a nice TP boost to boot! Only downside is it makes me feel like an idiot for buying those Cotardies. It requires a shining goo, found on meltworms somewhat infrequently, and 7 bat wings, found on woodbats and vampbats.  Only for two classes, and sacrifices the HP boost of the Full Armor, but gives an absolute poo poo-tonne of defense. This thing is great. It requires 3 fish scales and 7 carapaces. Just for completeness sake, this thing. Takes an Ant's jaw, the rare drop from a Royalant, and requires you to get a new one each time you want to use it. It also requires ALL OF YOUR MONEY. It is, however, completely worth it, because it turns Ronin into gods of death against single opponents. Seriously, 1230 damage against an FOE. What the hell. Also serious thing for a sec: I tend to just upload updates as soon as they're done, which is what leads to my rather erratic schedule - I play the game, write an update, then post it right away. As a result, I tend to fall into the "It's been HOW long since I updated?" schedule - but when I get into the groove (or have something I'm trying to avoid doing) it can wind up like this, with me updating very rapidly. Is this particularly a problem? Like, should I try to stagger updates some and keep things more regular, or does anyone mind if I just kinda keep going as I'm going? 100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jul 30, 2013 |
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Jul 30, 2013 00:29
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Just keep doing what you're doing. The irregular update schedule doesn't bother me, which is likely related to the fact that whenever any other LP mentions its update schedule, I tend to go "oh this LP has an update schedule?" I don't really pay attention to that.
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Jul 30, 2013 00:59
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For what it's worth, I'm having no problem keeping up with the thread. Also, Kupala is the Slavic goddess of fertility and sexuality  Not sure why that makes her look like a parrot clown, though.
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Jul 30, 2013 01:24
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GeneralYeti posted:For what it's worth, I'm having no problem keeping up with the thread. Thanks! I've edited that in. ...Also,  ? That's... well, I suppose at least they didn't see the 'fertility and sexuality' part and go the Mara route. A child-parrot-clown fertility symbol is weird, but it's still better than a penis-parrot-clown.It's a drat
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Jul 30, 2013 03:38
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... those eyes...  ... welp, guess I'm not going to get any sleep tonight. 
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Jul 30, 2013 04:43
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I don't mind having an erratic update schedule. Besides, most LPs I've seen with a schedule either miss update times often, or just give up on their schedule as they get further in the game.
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Jul 30, 2013 05:49
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Update 27 - Lord of the Ocean Welcome back! Today is going to be a fairly short update, but we still have a fair bit to get done! "Before we go any deeper, though, let's use that key we picked up to find more loot!"Stratum 1 Theme - The Green Green Woodlands  Sounds like a plan to me.  Man, been a while since we were here, huh? Now we can finally find out what lies beyond this door.     "Bah, nothing new or exciting." "Still, we'd run out of Nectar II. This might come in handy." "C'mon! Still more doors to go!"Stratum 2 theme - The Vast Primeval Hidden Grove     "...I guess it really IS a good thing we got that Nectar II."          "Money, healing, gear... there's something for everyone! This is the best key ever!" "Meh." "Aww, cheer up. Maybe the next door will have undead behind it!"Stratum 3 theme - The Thousand Year Old Woodlands   The last door for us to mess around with for now, unless I'm forgetting one!  "Doesn't look like it. Mostly just bugs and frogs." "Ah well, you win some, you lose some." There are a couple of FOEs wandering around here.  Nothing we can't handle, though.  "Oooh. We can buy these things, but they're not cheap. I'll take this!" "Why? There are plenty of other people who can use it." "Oh, so you want the fabulous rainbow coat so badly you must have the first one we find...?" "Complaint withdrawn. I can wait."There is actually some more to do back here, but it can wait. Or, more to the point, it sort of has to wait.  With all that out of the way, time to make some actual progress!  "Hey, Musashi, thousand en says it's a boss floor!" "No bet. I forbade myself from gambling after getting banned from every casino in Etria." "Huh. I didn't even know we had one..." "But before the boss, even more treasure! Treasure that's actually good, too!" I'm not even complaining about this. The upcoming boss is weak to fire, so...  The boots are pretty decent, also.  Even with your experience thus far, the presence is stronger than anything you've faced. Are you ready for anything? Have you prepared yourself to confront any creature? If you have confidence in your skills, then open the door and meet your fate!  "Oh, looks like there's nothing here, we can all go home."Red And Black  It's as if an ocean was suddenly trasnported to the middle of the forest. Within the blue-tinted oasis, you see a distant shadow. You slowly approach it...   "Tresspassers from the Sealed Lands! By what right do thou desecrate our sacred ground? Thy presence here violates the ancient pact between our peoples! I have warned thee, but thou paid me no heed. Face then the guardian of our holy land!"With this, the inhuman girl gives a sharp, high-pitched whistle. The sound resonates through the forest, and a huge creature appears in rseponse. "Hear me, Cotrangl! Smite these vile intruders!"Such is the girl's cry before vanishing into the forest, but you have no time for pursuit! The monster that flies through the air as easily as swimming is about to attack! "Called it."Boss Battle Theme - Dyed in Blood  I wound up doing multiple takes for this fight, for a variety of reasons - also, ignore the fact that the party are a bit injured, I quickly reloaded to heal up before taking him on, because this boss isn't exactly easy. Take 1 - Avoiding cheesing!  To open things up, we'd have to be stupidly lucky for any binds to work (which is the problem with Dark Hunters, really.), so Richter will be attacking normally - that's why we're setting his weapon on fire.  Musashi prepares himself to ruin the boss's poo poo.  And here's where the two takes I kept diverge. In this, Jill opens with Salve II rather than immunize - she's slower than the boss when using a skill, so it will still fire after whatever attack he uses. We have no way of knowing who he'll hit, so healing everyone, while potentially wasteful, makes sure no one is missed out.  The boss isn't weak to thunder, despite being a fish, so Alvis isn't going to be super useful here. Still, every little helps!   And last but not least, Alex prepares to whack the boss for a huge chunk of damage in several turns.  Well, things are off to a lovely start. Blizzard hits multiple characters for quite a bit of cold damage, with a chance of sending them to sleep, which is exactly what you don't want against a boss like this. This is one of those status effects that would be protected against by having a protector using level 5 Anticold or whatever it's called all the time!  "Whew! Healing just in time." "Hold still. This might sting, but soon, you won't feel a thing. Ever." Jill is basically going to be doing this all fight.  "Maaan, waiting for Apollon to land is the worst thing."   Pictured: Musashi being a goddamn monster.  Flood is the other reason having a protector spamming anticold here is a good idea - it hits everyone in the party, or tries to, for quite a bit of cold damage. Still ,we're all in one piece. Naturally it missed Alvis, so he doesn't get to wake up. In retrospect, though, with his mediocre health and taking extra damage form being asleep, it would've probably killed him.  The vast majority of that damage was from Midareba - Cotrangl has about 7000 health, so taking off huge chunks like that is very good.   Might not hit quite as hard as Musashi's ridiculous katana triple-strike, but Apollon is still great.  Even Richter's flaming whip is hitting pretty hard!    Musashi, meanwhile, continues emasculating everyone.  Man, we've taken down more than half its health already, at this rate, maybe this will be over quickly and painlessly!  Oh. Nevermind. Meet Tackle, the third trick up Cotrangl's sleeve - it hits one party member for a huge amount of physical damage. Neither of our frontliners can survive it. That's the thing with Cotrangl - thus far, most bosses have had some kind of gimmick, like Fenrir/Royalant's approaching wolves, the king of the jungle summoning poo poo, but Cotrangl has none of that. It's just a hard fight, and if you underestimate it, it'll beat the crap out of you.  "Maaan, do you know how valuable these things are?" "Oh come ON!"If I'm honest, this could be going better.  Apollon continues to be great.  Cotrangl continues being a dickhead.  Sod it, you win, game! I tried!  COTRANGL used TACKLE!  It was super effective! RICHTER fainted! "I don't think he just fainted..."Doesn't matter, no one who matters for this fight is down.  Yesss. Now I don't have to worry about Musashi dying instantly.  Man, you're asleep all fight and that's the best you can manage when you wake up? Alvis, I am not pleased.  NEWS JUST IN: Immunize is still great.  Yeah, this fish is just about fried. This turn, Musashi should easily be able to put it down. "Hah! You will taste defeat at my-"   Oh hey, nevermind.   Damnit. That's the thing's rare drop, and it's actually not what I wanted to see! I'm not sure if Cotrangl works like the previous stratum's boss, where he doesn't respawn until the next boss is defeated or something along those lines, but... well, ice spine lets us create the best bow in the game, but only one of them, and at a cost that we have no way of paying right now. This drop has a condition, too - simply don't kill the boss with a fire attack, and it has a chance of being yours. I'd prefer the other drop, however, seeing as that will be less dramatic, but more affordable. So, take two! Take 2 - Immuniiiize  "Oh tits, a giant fish!" "gently caress that noise." Yeah, honestly, this fight just becomes kinda pathetic at this point, it can barely hurt us aside from tackles and/or getting lucky with putting people to sleep.  Quite a difference in turn-count!   gg no re  Thanks to making sure Richter killed it with fire, we avoided getting the supposedly harder-to-get rare drop. ...yay...?  The shadow behind the collapsing horror has apparently already escaped. But where it lurked, you find a stone tablet engraved with a mysterious language. If it came from the unknown shadow, it may be a useful clue. Radha Hall might know more... And for now, that's all folks! I'll probably be keeping the second take as the one I actually roll with, because I got the item I wanted... unless anyone can confirm if this guy respawns on a timer the way most FOEs and such do, rather than needing the next boss to die first? 100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jul 30, 2013 |
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Jul 30, 2013 22:35
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Jill and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat someone please draw this
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Jul 30, 2013 23:24
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theshim posted:Jill and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat All I want to know: Who's the Pharaoh?
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Jul 30, 2013 23:36
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We don't think the strange humanoid is even worth reporting to the council?
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Aug 1, 2013 03:20
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Glazius posted:We don't think the strange humanoid is even worth reporting to the council? Adventurers tend to have interesting brains, prone to completely forgetting what they're supposed to be doing as soon as something interesting shows up. Our team is no exception!
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Aug 1, 2013 07:04
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100percentjesusfree posted:Adventurers tend to have interesting brains, prone to completely forgetting what they're supposed to be doing as soon as something interesting shows up. Our team is no exception! Onward to the next Sanctua-- ooh a butterfly
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Aug 1, 2013 15:11
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Raitzeno posted:Onward to the next Sanctua-- ooh a butterfly
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Aug 1, 2013 15:16
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New update is more or less ready! This page is pretty heavy with images, though, anyone mind helping me push things to the next page? (Also, I, too, would totally love to see Jill and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat.)
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Aug 6, 2013 17:06
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We've got a good number of posts to go. Maybe we can use this time to yell at me to update EO3 
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Aug 6, 2013 17:14
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theshim posted:We've got a good number of posts to go. Update EO3 Nah, you raise a good point, it might be a wee bit too far from being on the new page to ask people to try and push us there - I'll give it a bit of time, then post the update anyway if we don't make it. I mostly just don't want to make pages that take forever to load! Unfortunately, procrastinating from doing actual work has given me seemingly endless motivation to go through dungeons. I could open discussion for something that's going to be coming up in my next update, actually - there might just be a spot for a new party member opening soon, and I'm still not 100% satisfied with how I handle character creation. First-come-first-served runs the risk of leaving people out, especially with how we're reaching the limits of both guild size, and how many characters I'm willing to train up, but I can't really think of a better method. If anyone can, and thinks it's worth doing, feel free to suggest it! If everyone still thinks that things are fine as they are, then... well, I'll keep doing it the way I am, I guess. I dunno, are there many people reading who want to make a character, still? (Who haven't already made one, of course.)
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Aug 6, 2013 17:22
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Eh, none of the classes seem useless enough for me to want to make one.
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Aug 6, 2013 17:34
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100percentjesusfree posted:If everyone still thinks that things are fine as they are, then... well, I'll keep doing it the way I am, I guess. I think it's been working out fine so far. Personally, I don't see a need for a new character; is there some class that you want to show off?
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Aug 6, 2013 17:40
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We still need to see Serasmus more. He's a cool dude and I regret not voting for him during the last vote. If you're super worried about people missing out, do what Bobbin Threadbare did for the Academagia thread and have people have the option to create a character and vote. That way, everyone wins, right?
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Aug 6, 2013 17:45
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It seems to me that starting a new character and grinding him/her up to par is kind of pointless by now.
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Aug 6, 2013 18:10
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Dirk the Average posted:I think it's been working out fine so far. Personally, I don't see a need for a new character; is there some class that you want to show off? There is, actually! There's one more class we haven't had access to up 'til now, which will change soon, and it's only fair to at least try to show all of them off!
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Aug 6, 2013 18:14
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100percentjesusfree posted:There is, actually! There's one more class we haven't had access to up 'til now, which will change soon, and it's only fair to at least try to show all of them off! Well, then we definitely need a new character!
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Aug 6, 2013 18:22
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Update 28 - Hexer? I don't even know 'er! Whoops, I got impatient. Sorry!  "Well, that just happened. Let's see what else we can find before we go back..." "Just the stairs, I guess."So, care to place any bets on what the next stratum will be? So far, we've had a forest, a jungle, and a rainforest/ocean thing, all teeming with vegetation and such. Surely the next stratum will continue this theme!  Or not. If you guessed 'a desert', you've either played this before, are prescient, or are GeneralYeti. [8:36:41 AM] Jesus Free: alright, then TAKE A GUESS, 5 goon points if you win [8:36:46 AM] Jesus Free: goon points may or may not have any cash value [8:37:15 AM] Jesus Free: Thus far we've had forest, jungle, and whatever the gently caress the third stratum was supposed to be (some kind of very blue rainforest) [8:37:18 AM] Jesus Free: So next up iiiis? [8:37:25 AM] GeneralYeti: .... [8:37:26 AM] GeneralYeti: hm. [8:37:57 AM] GeneralYeti: I'll have to guess. [8:38:12 AM] GeneralYeti: Let's go with a Desert. [8:38:17 AM] Jesus Free: Ding, you win! [8:38:27 AM] GeneralYeti: wait WHAT Stratum 4 theme - The Withered Forest  "We can explore here more later - for now, let's take this back to the Radha, and get paid." Radha theme - Festival of Worship    "If I'm not mistaken, this engraving is some language beyond our ken. I shall assign the Radha's best researchers to it. With enough study, we may gain insight into this girl's precise nature." "She threatened us, then sicced a huge fish on us. I think we can hazard a few guesses." "We'll keep the tablet safe at Radha Hall. You should continue with your investigations. Ah, and how could I forget? We have a reward for your hard work, of course." "...I think she's actually drooling."Now, rather than leaping into the new stratum, there's one particular thing I want to pick up there. But if I just did that, this update would be awfully short, so first, sidequests! Bar/Shop theme - The Lounge Where We Speak Of Tomorrow    "This is another request from Lady Pompadrille. She was so pleased with the Old Choker that she wants you to get her a Tusk Charm, too. I know those tusks are tough to come by, so good luck." We've had this unlocked for ages. The game kinda underestimates our ability to handle FOEs! (This thing is got from an Armoth drop, if you forgot!) "This hardly feels like a quest." "Who cares? We're getting paid."   "So, this is the Tusk Charm... I admit, it's beautiful. It does feel a little... primitive... but I'm sure the Lady won't mind. I'll see that she gets it. Thanks!" The reward isn't that bad, either. 20 TP is pretty significant, and it's not like the quest is actually hard.   Skipping over these for now. The 100 Shell comes from those big turtle monsters, and they're mostly dead, so I need to give them some time to respawn, and the other quest involves dicking around in the new stratum. I'm also avoiding the new Feat of Strength quest, because it involves solo-killing one of those crabs that hang around being invisible in the third stratum, and that is a pain in the rear end to do.  This one looks manageable though.  "You say that every time! You're not supposed to start repeating yourself 'til you're at least my age!" "This is a request from Jackson Restaurant. The chef there wants to break culinary gruond by using Bug Nests in his new recipe." "What. I've heard of bird-nest soup, but..." "Now, I think I heard a patron saying you can get them from the Moriyanas on the 14th floor. Three of those, and you should be set. I wonder how a dish like that would taste, though..." This quest also makes a lot of sense to do at the same time as the previous one, for reasons that will become clear soon.  "You say that every time! You're not supposed to start repeating yourself 'til you're at least my age!" "This time, the merchant Ian wants samples of everything you can chop on the 13th floor. It's going to take a while to chop everything... so good luck." So, obviously with us doing some chopping, we're going to need our team of elite farming robots. Stratum 3 theme - The Thousand Year Old Woodlands  Our team of farming robots who cannot loving stay alive. Also, it's worth noting - yes, there's a Chop point on this floor. No, you shouldn't just try using that and think it'll be good enough. It has slightly different materials to the ones on B13f, and doesn't count as a result.  "Well... here we are! Get to doing whatever it is you do!"  Here's why it makes sense to take these sidequests together - Chop points in B13f hand out bug nests like candy.  "Ooh, looks delicious!"  "...The sea is a tree, now?"The sea branches are comparatively rare - we only found on in 20+ chop attempts. ...Which is annoying, because we now have to come back here again. Ugh.  While we're down here, and there's a Take spot right behind us, so we might as well check out what we can get for using those in this stratum.   Meh, we already had both of those. And the rare drop is...  REALLY?We were, fortunately, lucky enough to get another one after I tossed some glass eyes out, but this still irked me. Bar/Shop theme - The Lounge Where We Speak Of Tomorrow  PRO-TIP: Do not accidentally sell off the poo poo you gathered, or you'll have to go do it all again. If you're really into the habit of just dropping by the shop to sell your loot and buy a new warp wire every time you come back to town, it's quite easy to accidentally do this.   "Pretty much the ultimate healing item, in exchange for a few bug nests... not bad!"Just in case I've not shown it off already, Hamaoprime is basically an Elixir, restoring full HP and TP to one character. "Welcome back, kids. Ah, I see you got the three Bug Nests, just as requested. The Jackson chef will definitely be pleased to see these. I dunno, though... Is a meal made from these going to taste good at all?" You know, pointless as most of these choices are, I kinda love that the game sort of subtly encourages you to think about what personality your party members have. Or you could just mash A through them if you don't care. Still, it's kind of a nice, if ultimately pointless feature. "Hell yes. Trying new, crazy foods is always fun!" "Then you really do have braver souls than mine. Maybe once it's ready, I'll find time to give it a try..."Alternatively! "What, are you crazy? No!" "I agree... Maybe it'll turn out all right, but I'd still hesitate to try it."   "Welcome back, kids. What'd you find? A Bug Nest, Strawberry, and a Sea Branch? I bet you could find other useful things in the forest, even if no one's requesting them. Well, I'll make sure our client gets these. Thanks for your hard work."I'm glad we got this done for several reasons - strawberries are a very good thing to have sold, for reasons that will soon become apparent.  Also, as mentioned, the Chop spot on this floor holds a slightly different rare drop, hence it not counting for the previous quest. Stratum 4 theme - The Withered Forest  "Alright! Back to work." "Finally. I was getting sick of messing around. Back in my homeland, our families would've cut open their stomachs out of shame for how long we're taking."  "Huh, that sand is moving awfully quickl-" "llyyyy!" "Ugh. Something tells me this floor's going to be a huge pain..."Yup. The gimmick of this floor is conveyor belts. Oh joy. Conveyor belts that we have no way of really marking on the map, no less. Fan-loving-tastic. There's some stuff to do here, but there's one thing I want to do first, which involves taking a very specific route.       I really, really hate this floor. I hate conveyor belts in any of these games. I double-hate conveyor belts you can't loving mark so you forget where they go, get yourself confused and wind up going in circles for ages, especially because my memory is godawful. Uuugh. It's better in future titles, where they give you more stuff you can stick on the maps, so you can mark things down better, but in this game... ugh. If you're playing along at home, and get sick of conveyor-belt bullshit, Gamefaqs has some really handy maps. They do contain spoilers for FOEs and stuff, though, so use at your own risk!  Here's what I was after, though. The black-clad, flame-haired girl notices your presence and turns to you slowly.  "You, from Runaway... You've come far..."You wonder how the quiet, wide-eyed girl with the small voice came to be here. You consider whether you should ask the shy girl, or leave her to her own devices.  Yes  In answer, the girl's gaze shifts to the flowing sands. "I've waited here alone for you. I pass the time by listening to the sand..."The flame-haired girl fixes you with her powerful, unnerving stare. Bah, it's nothing on that parrot-clown girl's. "I'm worried for Ren. She's bound too much to her past... It will crush her someday. Someone must expose the truth of the Labyrinth before that happens."The girl's hand emerges silently from her cloak, holding a small golden bell. "This is the cursed bell of my kind. May it aid in your journey from here on."The timid girl hands you the bell without another word, then goes silently on her way.   No    From here, the conversation continues as before. "Something tells me we should take this bell back to the guildmaster!"  "They're known as hexers, and there arent' many of them to be found on this continent. I don't know where you got it, but with that cursed bell, you can register hexers now. Go ahead, try it."A new class, the Hexer, can now be created! And with that, we have the final class in the game unlocked. Give me a little time to write up a class rundown, and character creation will open up, for possibly the last time in this LP, unless I delete some farmbots and there's real call for a new character or two! So, with it being the last time, should I do anything differently? Should it just be first-come, first-served as it has been, or what? Either way, it's time for... New shop stuff! Big haul today! Such is the cost of doing chopping/taking, I suppose.  Oh my. The Body Aspis is a very nice boost for our tankiest characters, giving a total of +17 defense, if you factor in the Vit boost, and some ice resistance. It requires a Red Blade from Killclaws, 3 bug nests, and 9 carapaces... it takes a while to get all the stuff for it together, but it's worth the effort.  Made from 3 Ant Honey, which drops from Servants and can be found in Stratum 3's Take points. It's expensive, and I'll never remember it exists. If you really need an attack boost, it might come in handy, but like most buff items, it'll never really see use. This, on the other hand, is just lovely. Quick and effective TP recovery! It's a bit pricey, but definitely good to have it available. "It's also delicious!"Requires 1 Strawberry, and 1 Ant Honey.  Uh. I never really use Boost-recovery items, to be honest. So, no comment. Boost isn't a bad mechanic, but I've never really bothered fiddling with it too much.Requires 2 strawberries!     All gained from selling a Narcisus, from the B14f Chop point. Do you have a protector with level 5 in the Anti-*element* skills? If yes, these are mostly useless. If no, you probably won't survive the post-game. I'm probably never going to use these.  Hey, we got a free one of these earlier! It requires a Stab Shell, a Rock Coral, and a Sea Branch, the three rare drops from the item gathering points in stratum 3, not counting the narcisus. It's not BAD, but I wouldn't buy one. It's pretty pricey!  For 3 fish scales, and 3 blood fangs, we can get a glove that's pretty nice for physical fighters, and reasonably cheap. Nothing mindblowing, but nice to have!  7 fish scales, and one fish fin nets us a boot that can give a non-caster character a pretty huge speed boost. Not bad, if you feel a character is lagging behind! So, yes, that's us for now. Not doing a stat update, because I'll be doing a larger one in a bit, when I open up voting for who to take into the next stratum with us! Now, remember, I still want some feedback on how to handle a new character - I dunno, how many people are even still interested in making one? I don't want to leave anyone out, but there are only so many slots we have! (...And only so many characters I'm willing to grind up. )
100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 19:20
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Like I said, it seems to be fine as is, but if you really think you're stopping people from being creative, hold a vote. At this point, though, I'd err on the side of doing as little work as possible.
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Aug 6, 2013 19:40
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I think the voting idea sounds good; like do the class overview, show off the portraits, and then take submissions and the thread votes on the one they want to see in the LP.
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Aug 6, 2013 19:48
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When I first heard it, I actually didn't care for the fourth stratum theme. Not sure what I was thinking! As far as the new character, I'd just let someone throw it out there. There's no real way to do full audience participation in these threads and it's simpler to just roll with the first one you get.
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Aug 6, 2013 20:34
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Class Discussion - Hexer  So, hexers. The last class you unlock, and... I think they're generally seen as the weakest class in the game. From what I understand, this was changed in EO2, by instead making them completely broken, but... well, in this game, they're not great. I talked a lot about how status attacks that are tied to physical damage tend to have low accuracy, earlier, but hexers are pretty much pure status-attackers, and in times when you really need their stat-attacks to work, they'll often fail to. Still, they come with some debuffs that, as far as I know, are not resistable, so that's always something! Plus, they do have one damage-dealing technique, even if I'm not 100% sure how it actually works. In the Japanese version, they were known as Cursemakers, for obvious reasons. I will admit, I've not really used Hexers much in the past. They come really late in the game, when you prboably already have a party that synergises well, and their abilities seem to be... not great against FOEs and bosses, which is when your combat effectiveness REALLY matters. Perhaps I'm wrong! I was certainly wrong about not being a fan of survivalists, Alex has blown away my previous 'meh' opinion on them, and is hitting like a champ. I'm still not crazy on Ronin, but if you can get Hachi for them, they're hilarious - maybe I was missing something about Hexers, too. This LP is teaching me a lot, so we'll see! Skill list HP-Up TP-Up HP-up is interesting - it starts at 10%, as usual, but grows at 2% per level, suddenly jumping to 28%(!) at level 5, then 50%(!!) at level 10, giving a hexer 1.5x as much health as they should have. Not bad! They're never going to be super tanky though. TP-up is the usual 30%, but still not bad if you need more TP - which, as a caster, they might well do. Curses Their 'prerequisite to do anything' skill, Gamefaqs claims this skill does nothing aside from be a prereq, whereas another site I use claims it increases the accuracy of curses slightly with every level, starting at 10%, growing by 1% per level, then jumping to 19% at level 5, and 30% at level 10. Stagger An odd little passive skill, has a chance of stunning all enemies at the start of combat. It starts off at a 16% chance, grows by 1% per level, and jumps to 22% at level 5, and 30% at level 10. It requires Torpor and Corrupt both at level 5. We've not seen either of those yet, though! Sapping Requires Curses at level 1, and costs 3 TP to start (4 at level 3, 5 at level 5). Sapping is actually a pretty nice skill - I don't think it's resistable or avoidable, and it's a debuff to enemy damage. Combine this with immunize and defender, and you'll be even more hilariously un-scratchable than before. Starts out as a 20% Debuff, grows by 3% per level up to level 5, then slows down, only growing at 1% per level from then on, finally jumping up to a 40% reduction in enemy strength at level 10. (What the hell is up with the weird patterns of growth in this game?) One thing that I like about this is that it's essentially another defensive buff that isn't taking up one of our valuable buff slots! Frailty Take everything I said above, and apply it to the enemy's defense instead of their attack. Handy if you're having a hard time scratching an enemy! Leaden Take everything I said above, and apply it to speed instead of defense/attack. Not as good, in my opinion - turn order is generally less of a game-breaker than damage dealt/received. Still, it's not exactly useless! Blinding Requires Curses level 2, costs 6tp at first, then grows by 1TP per level up to level 5. It attempts to cause the Blind status to all enemies, starting with a 50% chance of doing so, then raising by 1% per level, jumping to 59% at level 5, and 70% at level 10. Blind... isn't really all THAT crippling, and it suffers a problem common to a lot of status effects - you're probably better spending the turn trying to just kill whatever you're using it on, rather than maybe making it miss its attack or whatever. It does try to hit all enemies, which is something? I'd probably pass on it, though. Relapse Requires Curses and TP Up at level 3, starts off costing 4 TP, grows to 5 at leve 3, 6 at level 5. It's a curse similar to the attack/defense curses, in that it's not a status effect, but rather than hitting a stat, it instead makes enemies take longer to recover from status effects. It starts off making them take 10% longer to recover, then grows by 3% per level, jumping to 28% at level 5, and 50% at level 10. If you're doing a lot of status-attacking and want to make sure it sticks, I guess it's useful! Cranial Abdomen Immobile Each require Curses at level 5, and follow the TP-cost formula of Sapping. Each of these simply tries to bind a body part, head, arms and legs respectively. The accuracy formula is the same as the Blinding formula - they're much more accurate than a Dark Hunter's binds, but cause no damage in the attempt. Even so, binding can be pretty handy, if you can get it to land! Making enemies unable to use their best attacks is always hilarious, plus, if you have a hexer and dark hunter working together, it can be much easier to set up an Ecstasy attempt from the Dark Hunter. Torpor Requires Curses at level 6, and follows Blinding's TP-growth formula. Also its formula for accuracy! This attempts to send an entire group of enemies to sleep. If you can make it land, this would actually be pretty good - a sleeping enemy is an enemy not busily eating your party, after all, plus, even if you do wake them up with a hit, you'll cause double damage. Corrupt See the above skill? Replace 'sleep' with 'curse' and there you have it. It does require Curses at level 7, though. Curse isn't a super useful status to have on monsters, for reasons I've mentioned earlier - essentially, it does damage to an enemy based on how much damage you take. You don't want to be taking bigs hits, and enemies often have quite a lot of health, while dealing comparatively quite a bit less damage. Not TOTALLY useless, but not amazing either. Still, a status effect causing a bit of extra damage per turn is still kinda helpful! Revenge Requires Curses at level 10, and follows the TP cost growth formula of the above stuff. I'm... not sure how this works, in all honesty. The idea seems to be that it curses an enemy so that, if the Hexer takes damage, the enemy will then take damage equal to the hexers max HP - their current HP + (some percentage based on skill level) The amount of bonus damage starts at 10%, growing by 2% per level, suddenly jumping to 32% at level 5, and 65% at level 10. I can see this being useful against a boss, perhaps, especially because this isn't a status effect, as far as I can tell, so it can't really be resisted. I'm not really sure if this is how it works, this is just the idea I get. As I said, I've not really used hexers extensively. Evil Eye Requires Curses at 10, costs 8TP to start, grows by 1TP per level until it costs 12TP at level 5, and follows the accuracy growth formulas of the other 'status' curses. It causes the Fear status to a single enemy, which sometimes prevents them from acting. By itself, it's not amazing, but some of the hexers other skills tie into it. Paralyze Requires Evil Eye at level 3, costs 10TP to start, and cost decreases by 1 per level. Essentially, this guarantees all enemies under the Fear status will not get a turn on the turn its used. This would be much more useful if not for Evil Eye being single-target. Betrayal Requires Evil Eye at level 5, costs 10TP to start, cost decreases by 1 per level. This forces all enemies under the 'Fear' status effect to attack other enemies at random. Again, would be excellent if not for Evil-Eye being single-target! Still potentially useful, if you go for a Fear-focused build. Suicide 'Commands a terrified enemy to take its own life' - one of my favourite attack descriptions in the game. Requires Evil Eye at level 10, and does the usual 'start at 10TP, decrease all the way down to 1' cost pattern. This causes all enemies under the Fear effect to play 'stop hitting yourself' with themselves, attacking themselves. They hit themselves once at level 1, twice at level 3, and 3 times at level 5+ If you can get Fear to land on a boss, this would be pretty hilarious. Good luck with that, though. Lure Requires Evil Eye at level 1, and makes the encounter rate higher, because it apparently wasn't quite absurd enough already. It starts off costing 2 TP, grows to 3 at level 3, and 4 at level 5. It Initially lasts 16 steps, but that grows by 2 per level, jumping to 30 at level 5, and 50 at level 10. Initially, it sets the encounter rate to 130%, but at level 6, this starts increasing, too, growing to 135% at level 6 and 7, 140% at level 8, 145% at level 9, then finally 150% at level 10. Mine It's mine. Gather ye minerals. Anyway, with that, character creation opens up, to anyone who wants a hexer! This last one will be a bit different - if you want a character, feel free to suggest one! Then, after a few days, the thread can vote on which character it would prefer to see get added to the roster. Either that, or just... suggest characters, and if you're reading the thread and see a character you like, quote it and say so? Or, if no one cares, we'll just go with whatever. Regardless, I should really stop updating and work on my coursework. I don't know, I'm no LP-scientist. Alvis would be ashamed. Probably not quite ninja edit, nearly forgot portraits. 
100percentjesusfree fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 20:50
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Koenig Portrait 3 A smug bastard who's completely full of himself. He could explain to you what it is he does, but it's not like you'd actually get it. It's a really ancient, obscure branch of cursing that you've probably never even heard of. Was exploring the labyrinth before it was popular. Still does so, but only ironically. Also, totally not a vampire.
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Aug 6, 2013 21:26
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Portrait 2 - Mistral A quiet and ditzy hexer whose curses seem only to work with an accompanying trip. Seems used to conversations and likes talking, but refuses to talk bad about anyone. Monsters, on the other hand...
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Aug 6, 2013 22:23
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Portrait 4: Shizu Quiet and self-assured, she'll explain what she's doing, but only if you ask. From a faraway land where loud chatter is polite, she's scandalized by the Runaway Guild.
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Aug 7, 2013 00:17
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