|
Here's some more fuel for your speculation fire: You covered all the known players very well, but there's another faction that - at this moment - is so secret and hidden that there isn't even a hint that they're around in this game. Rean has already met two of its members.Veryslightlymad posted:~ A coordinated strike by a small group of terrorists on a major financial tower coupled with a successful air attack on the primary military structure of the world's superpower? I wouldn't call it impossible. That's not a valid comparison. There's a difference between overpowering some pilots, and strolling, gun blazing, through the largest military base in a country, a base constantly at high readiness and filled with hundreds (thousands?) of troops. After that cutscene room, not only do we not see any soldiers, we don't even see one single dead body - where is everyone? There is no way that a power cautious enough to keep a 24/7 watch on Calvard in the remote Nord Highlands leaves their entire main base undefended whenever they do a training exercise. The Trails series thrives on its layered worldbuilding, so it's annoying when the worldbuilding trips on its own shoelaces, falls into an open sewer and drowns. 1. Military airships exist and have for at least 12 years, and were used quite effectively against the Erebonian Empire in the past. (Trails in the Sky) 2. The Calvard Republic has military airships, we saw them on the Nord border. (Chapter 3) 3. Technology to defend military bases from airships exists, a Provincial Army soldier brags about installing some at the Aurochs Canyon fort. (Chapter 2) There has to be some kind of way for the largest military base in the country, sitting on the border of a hostile nation to be able to defend itself from aerial attack which is better than sending exactly four (4) troops to the landing pad and sticking their thumbs up their assholes, doing literally nothing, not even raising their eyes slightly to see that the airship has an open deck with people on it. In fact, given that the terrain on the Crossbell side (the huge canyon and the steep cliffs) makes a ground assault impractical, the best way for Calvard to attack Garrellia is using airships in some manner to attack from the Erebonian side! Invoking September 11 to say "no one could have predicted this" doesn't work when an air attack (whether it be directly or ferrying troops over the mountains) is actually the most likely scenario. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Jun 20, 2020 |
#
?
Jun 20, 2020 16:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:11 |
|
|
My point is that distractions and unconventional tactics can work shockingly well for getting close to a target. But beyond that, just because something is an extremely important asset, it might not be nearly as immediately defensible as you would be inclined to think. Thirty minutes of high alert didn't save the Pentagon from being hit. Erebonia is lower tech and had less time to react. Pithy comparisons aside, you see where the Erebonian troops are. They're pulled into a fire fight against their own armor divisions. Others are likely away from the base on maneuvers in further posturing---it is not a coincidence that they conducted the live fire exercise the day before the trade conference. I'm not convinced at all that there are nearly as many troops present as you think. Garellia Fortress is long. Miles and miles long. The point of Class VII taking action now was "reinforcing this part of the fortess will take too much time". Class VII is already there, all these other troops would have to come from further along the fortess, and also through a tank battle. I also don't consider it likely that there'd be nearly so many troops, specifically at the railway guns. Every single person there is a huge security risk. They would have to be vetted much more thoroughly than just any rank and file soldier. The mooks we see cut down like chaff are likely elites. We also know the primary defense of this part of the base, the units that would have this trust, are the fourth and fifth armored divisions. That is, the divisions currently engaged in active combat against themselves . The ILF didn't just stroll in. They created an enormous distraction and also had most of the immediate defenders wipe themselves out. They attacked in a way Erebonia didn't consider possible. If Calvard had rolled up a bunch of tanks and engaged, and seemed to make the railway guns a target, more units would he en route. And since they would have had to attack from Calvard, there would have been time to see this and scramble air assets. There's probably dozens of scenarios drilled into the fortess stationed soldiers. "Our best tanks become possessed by spooky super tech and blow up most of our second best tanks" is almost certainly not one of them. What irritates me is the direction the aircraft portion of the attack comes from is misleading as Hell----the ILF attack did not come from Calvard, so why does it attack from the presumably higher guarded Calvard side? Or at least appear to? It would have had to come from no farther East than the proving grounds. Having the attack come from a logical direction would have gone a long way to showing how backfooted the imperials were here.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2020 20:00
|
|
|
Osborne Did 8/31
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2020 21:46
|
|
|
I don't want to post another wall of text, so I'll just say that I agree that using the tanks was an attack the IA was unexpecting, it was a good, clever ploy. However, because the Crossbell side of Garrellia is a cliff above a canyon with only the railway bridge across, the best way to attack Garrellia by air seems to be flying over nearby and swinging around to attack the base from the Erebonian side (which the ILF did), so therefore that should actually be the expected angle of an aerial attack. I also am somewhat skeptical that the base would be that undefended, even with an active military exercise diverting a lot of base personnel, since the ones organizing the exercise should also know that an enemy attack at that time would be a vulnerability and take preventative measures. But that's more than enough time on this topic.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2020 03:04
|
|
|
I expect that the JRPG compression is really wreaking havoc with the scale of this attack -- ten people could easily mean a hundred or more once you unpack it. Whereas 20 rogue tanks is a really big problem no matter how you look at it. It also might've come off better if it was more of a sneak attack while the tanks party hard, and we caught wind of and had to follow a narrow path they cut through an otherwise unsuspecting base. No, there's just robots everywhere.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2020 05:09
|
|
|
Level 1 Thief posted:I expect that the JRPG compression is really wreaking havoc with the scale of this attack -- ten people could easily mean a hundred or more once you unpack it. Whereas 20 rogue tanks is a really big problem no matter how you look at it. It also might've come off better if it was more of a sneak attack while the tanks party hard, and we caught wind of and had to follow a narrow path they cut through an otherwise unsuspecting base. No, there's just robots everywhere. If you think about it, Olaf's supporting force that we can see is barely 5 tanks. It's not a big force compared to 20 top-of-the-line tanks that are piloted on archaism level. Even if the full force that arrives later is actually around 20, that's still basically equivalent to an entire division's worth of tanks going rogue inside their military base, which sounds like a little under half their tankpower. On a side note, I think it's not hard to assume the ILF airships are more lightly armed than the military airships, given that their sole job was to deliver their troops onto the side. Given they're also high-speed models, not too surprising that during a crisis where half your best tanks are on a rampage and everything's focused on that, their high-speed airships can slip past the defensive net.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2020 07:22
|
|
|
 71. Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Chapter 5 End) Our revisit of the prologue ends in the most shocking plot twist yet!
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2020 08:47
|
|
|
This fakeout is indeed very stupid. I'm still not sure what the framing of the prologue accomplishes, really.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2020 11:18
|
|
|
The moral is: gun control saves lives e: lol nice bursting e again: Those hypos could just be something like epinephrine, although that's a pretty weird shape to be carrying around in your pocket. Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jun 23, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2020 11:25
|
|
|
Admiral H. Curtiss posted:This fakeout is indeed very stupid. I'm still not sure what the framing of the prologue accomplishes, really. Depends on who you ask. I have my theories that'll have to wait for IV
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2020 14:36
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ-Z_DW0AuE&t=151s The resolution to the prologue cliffhanger is just duuuuuumb. It's like when a TV show goes into a commercial break or an episode ending with a cliffhanger that is immediately resolved without any drama coming from it. It is utterly pointless and the worst kind of "in medias res" opening indulgence. Like, if your audience is going to play any significant amount of this game at all, they're either explicitly here for or have to be willing to accept an abundance of low-stakes anime high school nonsense. Trying to make things seem superficially more exciting by creating a scene that serves no purpose but to trick the audience into thinking the game will be exciting at some point in the indeterminate future just betrays a complete lack of confidence in your own material. The stakes should have been allowed to build naturally over the course of the game instead of the game overplaying its hand from minute one. It's really weird because the Cold Steel series is actually really good about restraint and saving plot beats for later games entirely when they don't make sense to cram into the current one.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2020 14:50
|
|
|
I still think, based on nothing whatsoever, that the CS1 prologue was a response to people bitching about Trails games starting slow. They end it on the guns getting a shot off since that's a nice big dramatic sting, but that's something completely different from the Crossbell side so how do we resolve that? uhhhhh maybe it's like a test fire, you know for safety very safety-conscious terrorists we're dealing with
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2020 15:10
|
|
|
Fortress - first half - Not only did Millium and Crow inexplicably appear, but Class VII also are wearing their summer uniforms, that's different this time. - Oh, and the dungeon is a different layout and 5 times longer than it was before. - "You act like anyone's going to come back to these barracks." -  You ever notice that nobody ever comes back to the Barracks?- Enemies only run if Sara is the field character because she's 5 levels higher than most enemies. - Gaius is only on two field studies, so it's a little unfortunate that he has little to say on the second one. - Re: The exploding airship - the other team has three healers - Machias, Elliot, and Alisa, and Alisa can come back from KO. They'll be fine. - I never really use Vanish because it can cost you XP in fights. - Those "Control Unit Archaisms" first appear in Sky SC, if I recall. - Arts are strong, but don't forget that they can be even stronger with buffs to ATS. But that's something which will come into play more next chapter. - Don't worry, Rean eventually does stop being quite so optimistic and happy-go-lucky. - Sara means she'll speed past the enemies and probably avoid or just not fight them. Needing to stick with Class VII and help keep them safe is slowing her down. The Fake-out - I was also very unimpressed with the 5 chapters of suspense leading up to a blank. These guns probably have ammo lined up to be fed in, and the first round being a blank does make sense, but it's still an annoying trick. - I didn't think that the guns would have been precise enough to hit Orchis Tower, but I did think there would be at least some damage from the Reinford-damaged railway guns, leading to a bit of drama. Maybe a smaller building would have been destroyed, and it would have been assumed by the general public to have been the work of the terrorists in Crossbell, something like that. This kinda fell flat. It only really works if you've never seen the Crossbell games, too. If you have, you already know nothing is going to happen. Fortress - second half - Deep Ocher is the upgraded Yellow Pendulum. I like to use it on Alisa, Jusis, or Elliot because they have both crafts and arts worth using. Emma's crafts are generally less useful, so preventing Mute is more important than both Mute AND Seal. - Fumbling the first Burst attempt was the best. It's usually not hard to build up points for Burst, but you're just killing enemies too fast to get assists. On higher difficulties, apparently, it's a lot faster to build up BP. - Bursts require two sets of ARCUS links. If you only have 3 people alive, or two people aren't linked, you cannot use a Burst. - The plus side of Burst is that everything gets hit. It's great on Sepith-up or Critical turns, or when the entire party has a +STR buff. If it kills the group off, whoever initiated it gets a unique victory quote. - Hellfire is great on both Emma and Alisa (locked fire slots). EP cost becomes almost meaningless with Ingenuity or Dragon Vein equipped. - It's very rare that the background music overrides the battle music. - On my first run, I actually had Force hit level 5 before the Victor Arseid fight, which let me get in a few more powerful hits. - The final ability of Force which appears at level 5 is pretty weak considering how easy it is to keep +50% STR up at all times, but getting 200 free CP when at low HP is awesome. - The game never says that the mystery crates contained archaisms, but I think that they had to have done so, if only because there's no way all those fit onto the airships. At the Guns - See, they're much bigger than a tank. - "If you don't want to die like a dog, don't run around snapping your fangs at everyone." - I really like that line from Jusis. I especially like that it shows that not everyone in Class VII is completely soft-hearted. - Actually, the red ones are the second weakest. - Most of the ILF leaders are, surprisingly, vulnerable to Faint, which is one of the most powerful status effects. - This is at least the second time a sword whip - a Templar sword - has appeared in the Trails series. They are extremely rare. - I had no idea you could resist a self-debuffing craft. - My first attempt at the fight on Hard difficulty took 11 minutes. It didn't change anything. But this game is turn-based so all that time spent in menus selcting and targeting enemies probably doesn't count for "real" minutes. - "Uh-oh" is right, because whenever a human boss says that, there's a high chance they're going to use their S-Craft as soon as their next turn comes up. At this point, that starts becoming seriously dangerous. - Re: "Laura is slow" - As unimpressive as Action quartz might be, you can really feel it if you don't have any equipped. - You're lucky Scarlet didn't get off her S-Craft, which can be a party wipe on higher difficulty levels. (Note that it one-shot Jusis from full health.) - Alisa is the most likely to know how to turn off the gun, she's actually seen some of the spec sheets for it. - I think that airship might be the one which participated in the attack on Crossbell. Unless those games show it was also captured or something, but I think that's unlikely. - Cheer is pretty good, it's a slight heal and +50 CP. Arts Support is, I believe, a damage boost. Deadly Assist means Assist attacks deal more damage. - Cold Steel 2 doesn't do the cheat thing with the opening. Cold Steel 3 also has a flash-forward opening like CS 1, but it doesn't have a cliffhanger. - Congratulations on making it to Chapter 6, which is my favorite chapter in the game for many reasons. The last LP only made it as far as departure day. Cyouni posted:On a side note, I think it's not hard to assume the ILF airships are more lightly armed than the military airships, given that their sole job was to deliver their troops onto the side. Given they're also high-speed models, not too surprising that during a crisis where half your best tanks are on a rampage and everything's focused on that, their high-speed airships can slip past the defensive net. The airships are the "high-speed" model, but I would imagine that a base’s anti-air and anti-tank defenses would be separate things, manned by different people for a very good reason, and that the AA would be focused on threats coming from the air. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Jun 23, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2020 15:19
|
|
|
Now that the forums might not (?) be melting down I have a delayed response on the fakeout. IMO it's clumsy as hell but not baseless. First and foremost the writing expects you to have some understanding of the Crossbell games, not just because of this but also due to subsequent plot revelations in this game and future Cold Steel titles. The dramatic question for the Garrelia Fortress "dungeon", then, concerns how the PCs stop the railway guns rather than if. Unfortunately, well...the Crossbell games are still officially untranslated outside East Asia so English-speaking players just respond with "huh what". Second, even after the fakeout you still know that the PCs are on a timer. The stakes of "stop those guns OR ELSE" are still in place. All that said, the game doesn't need a fakeout to make those stakes valid. (Crossbell players will already have seen through it as hollow, of course.) What's most relevant is the ticking timer itself. If this were presented openly and honestly it could still have worked. My ideal fix here would have been to show the railway guns slooooowly getting ready. Every time the PCs entered a new area they'd be reminded in the manner of FF5's Sol Cannon that something was up. If the designers still wanted to mess with players they could even insert the blank fire bit - so long as they quickly defused it at a lesser loss in tension. That understandably takes time to rework, however. If a modder were to instead implement a quick fix I'd instead suggest lengthening the flashforward by perhaps a minute. Have the guns fire, but also have them clearly shoot the blanks. The game still has some stakes to work with, the player still gets to wonder How Did We Get Here, boom.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2020 00:24
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Re: The exploding airship - the other team has three healers - Machias, Elliot, and Alisa, and Alisa can come back from KO. They'll be fine. ~They also have Neidhardt, who, despite what he says about his prowess in comparison to Class VII/Sara, is crazy strong. quote:- Don't worry, Rean eventually does stop being quite so optimistic and happy-go-lucky. quote:- Deep Ocher is the upgraded Yellow Pendulum. I like to use it on Alisa, Jusis, or Elliot because they have both crafts and arts worth using. Emma's crafts are generally less useful, so preventing Mute is more important than both Mute AND Seal. quote:- Cold Steel 2 doesn't do the cheat thing with the opening. Cold Steel 3 also has a flash-forward opening like CS 1, but it doesn't have a cliffhanger. quote:- Congratulations on making it to Chapter 6, which is my favorite chapter in the game for many reasons. The last LP only made it as far as departure day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ I feel like Sara's "Maybe you'll have a nickname too one day" to Laura is actually completely sincere. Sara's honestly really proud of these kids. ~ "I don't think Gaius is going to do much. It's hard to inflict things on a robot" you say, somehow not noticing that you successfully inflicted two statuses on the attack. ~ These things are highly susceptible to Delay. Between the three boys and Instructor Sara, you can actually pretty reliably get an Unscathed in that first fight with the Zephyranthes. Delay is OP as all hell. ~ Now that you have Burst, or honestly, even before then, one thing I like to do is take characters out of my party if they hit 200 CP so that I can build CP on every character before bosses. ~ Domination is good on Laura, yes. But I'm honestly shocked you didn't immediately think "I'm going to stick this on Rean because I open every fight with Gale" ~ I'm also a little sad that neither of you speculated that S is Sharon in a fun wig and contacts, because both start with S and they have the same Voice Actress. But It's too obviously not the same character. ~ Especially since Fie and Sara don't have ranged counters in CS1, Giving Gaius evade and letting him dive into groups of enemies with all his status is actually really good.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2020 05:30
|
|
|
Veryslightlymad posted:~They also have Neidhardt, who, despite what he says about his prowess in comparison to Class VII/Sara, is crazy strong. He also has a unique sword with a curved tip, (a don't know what that type is called) with a surprising amount of detail on it, even though it rarely appears. But then again, the devs also took the trouble to put stars on the bottoms of Alisa's boots, which you'll never see outside of that one scene. quote:~ That's one way of putting it. I know. It's all in the phrasing.  quote:~ Chapter 6 has the two best vocalized lines in the game, IMO. I know what one of them is, but I'm not sure about the other one, so when the LP gets to them let us know. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Jun 27, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2020 05:58
|
|
|
*opens door, leans in* Uhhh, are we still going? Richard finally leaving without burning the site down with him? I had been thinking about what to say about the LP in a big effortpost but I guess it's not really necessary now. Short version is unless you guys have a really strong consensus otherwise, if this site goes under, I'll probably just give up on the whole LP thread idea and see how being a full Youtuber goes. I'd rather not -- this subforum isn't huge these days but it's a (usually) well-behaved group of people with really well-aligned and specific interests, so it's a hell of a lot easier to find an audience when you're a total nobody. All but the absolute deadest LPs here at least have gotten some amount of decent conversation going, and this thread in particular has been far and away the most active and interesting one I've ever done. No matter how hard they try, I've never gotten the same feeling from any of the offsite attempts. Posting on those would just feel like screaming into the void, and I can do that just as well on Youtube itself. So I keep saying it, but thank you for watching and commenting! Let's try to finish this thing on a high note. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- The game never says that the mystery crates contained archaisms, but I think that they had to have done so, if only because there's no way all those fit onto the airships. The more I think on it, the more I bet that one specific odd crate we saw contained the evil C-Units the poor maintenance scrubs had to install. It doesn't explain how they managed to fit two thousand archaisms on those airships, but there were a lot of crates hanging around, so you're probably onto something. Arist posted:The resolution to the prologue cliffhanger is just duuuuuumb. It's like when a TV show goes into a commercial break or an episode ending with a cliffhanger that is immediately resolved without any drama coming from it. It is utterly pointless and the worst kind of "in medias res" opening indulgence. Like, if your audience is going to play any significant amount of this game at all, they're either explicitly here for or have to be willing to accept an abundance of low-stakes anime high school nonsense. Trying to make things seem superficially more exciting by creating a scene that serves no purpose but to trick the audience into thinking the game will be exciting at some point in the indeterminate future just betrays a complete lack of confidence in your own material. The stakes should have been allowed to build naturally over the course of the game instead of the game overplaying its hand from minute one. In medias res has its uses, but I totally agree they flubbed this one hard. Maybe if the protagonists had anything to do with it, but it happened (or, well, didn't) completely outside of their control. NGDBSS posted:First and foremost the writing expects you to have some understanding of the Crossbell games, not just because of this but also due to subsequent plot revelations in this game and future Cold Steel titles. The dramatic question for the Garrelia Fortress "dungeon", then, concerns how the PCs stop the railway guns rather than if. Unfortunately, well...the Crossbell games are still officially untranslated outside East Asia so English-speaking players just respond with "huh what". I don't really think that makes it any better though. If you haven't played Crossbell (and this is a game on new systems specifically marketed as a starting point for the series) it's a plot twist that completely farts out a moment that was billed as something really significant. If you have, then it just leaves you feeling the same thing, minus eighty hours or so of buildup. I don't want to harp on it too hard but it cut a lot of wind out of my sails for that part of the game and I hope it's just a uniquely poor decision they never or rarely do again. Veryslightlymad posted:~ Domination is good on Laura, yes. But I'm honestly shocked you didn't immediately think "I'm going to stick this on Rean because I open every fight with Gale" Gale is very good but Rean can get off like eight of them in a row, whereas SHATTER hits a single target like an orbal truck but Laura needs a lot more speed than I tend to remember to give her, so when she gets a turn I really want to make it count. Veryslightlymad posted:
So this one isn't really a big deal, but I'd generally rather not know about this sort of thing in advance. --------  72. Laaaaaame. (Chapter 6 Start) The school festival looms and it's up to Rean to decide between all both ideas his classmates think of!
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2020 13:22
|
|
|
Laaaaaame. the 7s have actually beaten the ILF at least four times now, and that's just Group A's field studies who knows how many terrorists have infiltrated Trista but then fallen into their own booby traps during the timeskips
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2020 16:29
|
|
|
Level 1 Thief posted:So this one isn't really a big deal, but I'd generally rather not know about this sort of thing in advance. Fair enough. Even though it was vague and devoid of context, I was wondering if that one crossed a little too far over. I usually try to say nothing rather than risking saying anything. Other times when I'm only going for "anything" I overshoot into saying too much (sorry END ME SCOOB). - I think the "Conference Room" / "Conference Room" might have been because possibly in the original Japanese version, the physical sign on the wall was written in English, so they needed the text bubble in Japanese for the translation. That's my guess. - Everyone at the Academy, including Towa is a military Academy student. She could indeed probably fight if needed, although I doubt she has a melee weapon as her weapon of choice. - Patrick scored in the top 10 on the midterms, actually. - "Who's going to suggest maid cafe?" EDIT: As you may have noticed after talking with students, that would be Class IV.- Fie's problem is that there's not a lot of opportunity to take naps after getting OFF the train. - Jusis would easily lose an aloof-off with Irina. Jusis puts up a good front, but he's a softie underneath. - One of Alisa's complaints about Irina is that she never spends time with or pays any attention to Alisa anymore. Irina said "Time is something you make, not something you find". Basically, if something is important, you make time for it. She basically just flat-out told Alisa to her face, "you are not important to me." The balls on that woman indeed. - "What are Alisa's hobbies?" Trails of Cold Steel is glad you asked, because it knows the answer. - If I understand things right (which I might not), Irina Reinford seems to be a pretty terrible person. I'll explain if it becomes relevant. But your comment saying "the dynamics of the Reinford Family are screwed up" may quite possibly be a gigantic understatement. - I will say that "boring" is not an adjective which describes Chapter 6. - Instructor Makarov might seem lazy, but he's actually incredibly skilled. - Megalith is game-breakingly overpowered, and you don't need it on Normal dificulty. It gets hit the hardest with the nerf bat in CS2. - Thor Master Quartz seems nice, but you can do healing and recovering EP with items. I want more from a master quartz than that. Especially because it's not actually going to outpace the damage you take and EP you spend. - Bleublanc's disguise skills are so good that they're probably supernatural. - You should be excited for this chapter, it's a very good chapter. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jun 29, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2020 18:57
|
|
|
Level 1 Thief posted:So this one isn't really a big deal, but I'd generally rather not know about this sort of thing in advance. Sorry. For what it's worth, we were probably both being more than a little misleading. I'll explain what I mean if and when it ever comes up and not before. Also, thanks for making the thread and giving us a chill place to talk to people who love these games as much as we do. Thanks for letting me see the honest reactions of people playing the game for the first time, some of which are almost literally the same things I said. And also, thanks to the other readers for being people I can talk to about this series I love. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ I don't know why I found that Fred Flintstone joke as funny as I did. ~ Makarov is very competent. Honestly, so is Mint, when it comes to the "actually understanding mechanics". She's just a space cadet and a klutz. ~ Alan IS learning from an actual swordsman--- Friedel. ~ You've heard "Ymir" before. ~ I was actually typing up a Towa having shadow clones joke and then you made one and I had to erase it.  ~ I can't be the only one who announces "Progressive Rock!" like Rusty Venture whenever it comes up, can I? EDIT Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- Thor Master Quartz seems nice, but you can do healing and recovering EP with items. I want more from a master quartz than that. Especially because it's not actually going to outpace the damage you take and EP you spend. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jun 28, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2020 19:18
|
|
|
also Rean cannot sense the Student Council because they have no souls, as should be blindingly obvious
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2020 19:32
|
|
|
-CS1 gives the PS2-era mitten hands to anyone who's not important, probably because Falcom was inexperienced with the Vita and had to make 3D character models by hand ( ). Once you get to CS2 you'll see that everyone gets proper fingers.-drat you just reminded me of the Carrying the Printer story, that's a good one if you're going for romantic cluelessness. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- If I understand things right (which I might not), Irina Reinford seems to be a pretty terrible person. I'll explain if it becomes relevant. But your comment saying "the dynamics of the Reinford Family are screwed up" may quite possibly be a gigantic understatement.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2020 05:07
|
|
|
Admiral H. Curtiss posted:This fakeout is indeed very stupid. I'm still not sure what the framing of the prologue accomplishes, really. As far as I understand, it's to fakeout Crossbell players, where (minor contextual spoilers) the fact that people were missing the first time was relevant, and the results of the in medias res was also relevant.
|
|
#
?
Jun 30, 2020 02:21
|
|
|
 73. The Ghost Next to Me Haven't Rean's poor bones suffered enough already? timestamps are in the description and i have no idea why they stopped working on any of my videos and i'm kind of pissed about it
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 09:44
|
|
|
By the by, could you perhaps upload your collection of save files somewhere and give them to me? I'm trying to investigate some of the minor bugs the PC version has and having lots of save files throughout the game would be really helpful for that. They're stored in C:\Users\[username]\Saved Games\FALCOM\ed8.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 10:03
|
|
|
Admiral H. Curtiss posted:By the by, could you perhaps upload your collection of save files somewhere and give them to me? I'm trying to investigate some of the minor bugs the PC version has and having lots of save files throughout the game would be really helpful for that. They're stored in C:\Users\[username]\Saved Games\FALCOM\ed8. edit: Removed link. You're welcome! Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jul 7, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 10:22
|
|
|
Thanks! Much appreciated.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 10:29
|
|
|
Sharon and S are voiced by Mela Lee; also congrats on winning Towa's hand in marriage
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 15:22
|
|
|
I probably completed and uploaded at least two entire LP's before I realized that the annoying low-level hum was because I never muted the microphone in line. (I wasn't using it.) Now whenever I watch my old videos I hear that hum all the time. But does your standard recording setup change all the time, requiring you to change settings, or are you just trying to get the best quality you can? - Ugh, don't get me started on the new Star Wars movies. So badly written... - *Watches U-Materials sprout wings and fly away* ... Well, I guess some people will be missing out on the final weapon upgrades now. - The Golden Bell quartz from the pawn shop is available this chapter. There's a pawn shop at the field study location so it can be obtained there as well as from Micht. - Golden Bell is excellent paired with Angel MQ. In my opinion it is a little more useful than other [Element] Bell's because Angel has the spell Fortuna, which increases ATS, and that spell is space-elemental, which means that a caster can have up to 50% damage increase without losing much time in the turn order. (And, once Angel is at level 5, almost no time in the turn order at all.) - Seraphic Ring is very, VERY good. It is what you use to stand up the entire party after the boss hits you with an S-Craft. (In CS 2, it gets added to the Angel Master Quartz as an 6th spell.) - That 1 point off a rank up is perfectly in character for Millium: tiresome and annoying. - At least you're not getting the problem I'm getting with Cold Steel - the audio for voiced lines being delayed for a few seconds (probably because I don't have the game on a SSD). - Mint Special Omega is indeed the best one. - Angelica doesn't always use her S-Craft, which is good because on higher difficulties, it will absolutely one-shot Rean even at full health. Other times, when you're trying to get her to do it, she won't and Rean can end up Evade-countering her to death. - I build Rean as an evade tank. I do that by putting Evade 2 onto him, then Evergreen. The Shining Spell also grants Insight which increases evade percentage as well. It's pretty funny watching Victor Arseid missing so strike after strike against Rean (you still lose, but you can survive a few more attacks). - There are unfortunately still some typos in parts of the game, or places where the text doesn't match the V.O. - most notably on certain events where you have like 10-12 possible characters to bring with you. - I've got a high quality version of Gaius's painting from the CS 1 Steam cards. I'll post it a little later on because it's technically got a spoiler right now. - You have successfully identified the Chapter 6 field study team.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 21:31
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:- *Watches U-Materials sprout wings and fly away* ... Well, I guess some people will be missing out on the final weapon upgrades now. I legitimately cannot remember the last time we upgraded a weapon.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 21:41
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I probably completed and uploaded at least two entire LP's before I realized that the annoying low-level hum was because I never muted the microphone in line. (I wasn't using it.) Now whenever I watch my old videos I hear that hum all the time. But does your standard recording setup change all the time, requiring you to change settings, or are you just trying to get the best quality you can? Don't have time to go into detail but it's a nice, unhealthy mix of both. edit: Okay I'm back home and don't really want to make a new post for this. I did switch microphones fairly recently, which has created its own set of changes (an exciting example is I didn't own a heavy enough stand to handle it) but what's really been crawling at my rear end is postprocessing, because no matter what I do it seems like it's completely incompatible with the next recording. I've gotten the denoising aspects about as good as I can short of "one or both of us moves and we find a studio space I can gently caress with to my heart's content" (not happening), but the real bug up my rear end recently has been with audio levels. Trying to find some sort of compression setting that is good and universal and doesn't completely wreck some frequency range in the process is a nightmare. It's an inherent contradiction -- you want parts of the audio which are at different volumes to even out and sound the same, but the fact that they're different volumes is already an indication that they're fundamentally different. At the end of a sentence you're using less air; if your head moves it completely changes what sound waves are hitting the microphone and when. It's easy enough to even out the volume but doing so without distractingly changing how it sounds midsentence is ... much more of a task. There'd actually be more room to play with it if this were just a podcast, or even some other types of game, but JRPGs in particular blast their music at top volume all the time and so keeping us above that but not so far above it that we drown out the game's voices but also not blasting out your eardrums when we talk louder is a real concern. It's a weird perfectionist streak on a thing I'm probably incapable of doing perfectly and it keeps getting me into trouble. Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Jul 8, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2020 21:51
|
|
|
The painting Gaius was working on that you thought was just some town was actually simply the academy as shown from the track field. (you can see the stairs on the left that are the ones leading down to the field) If you remember the Taito practitioners from the Sky games, you'll find a lot of recognizable stuff in Angelica's fighting style. The self-buff is pretty much a carbon copy of Zin's Distend craft, which also gave him a massive boost to attack and defense. The move where she uses a kicking motion to launch a shockwave is a less refined version of one of the moves Walter uses. (except he kicks twice and launches two shockwaves) The Zero Impact punch, which does massive damage and launches the victim across the field is used by both Walter and Kilika. Angie's Dragon Kick S-craft is a variation on Kilika's Dual Dragon Helix S-craft, both of which involved a really high jump to bombard the enemy with a dragon aura from above, except Gelica uses her feet instead of twin chakrams. No points for guessing who Angelica's martial arts teacher probably is. END ME SCOOB posted:I legitimately cannot remember the last time we upgraded a weapon. In this game, it's worth it because it adds additional effects to weapons aside from an attack upgrade. For example, you wanted to make someone a dodge tank. Rean, Fie and Crow all have weapon upgrades that gives a boost to their evade, which can stack with evade1, evade2, Shining (rare), evergreen and the insight effect.
|
|
#
?
Jul 11, 2020 20:14
|
|
|
Laura and Millium will both get a % chance of causing faint on their later weapons, I believe. Although, I might be confusing that with CS2. Alisa's upgrades all have a static +% to her critical hits. You always counter after you evade if you're in range. Rean's range is really bad. Notice he wasn't countering Angelica, who seemed right next to him. Give Wrath to Gaius in this game. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jul 12, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 05:11
|
|
|
Veryslightlymad posted:You always counter after you evade if you're in range. Rean's range is really bad. Notice he wasn't countering Angelica, who seemed right next to him. Give Wrath to Gaius in this game. This is the first I've heard of this and I'm honestly leaning towards putting it on Machias now. Erpy posted:The painting Gaius was working on that you thought was just some town was actually simply the academy as shown from the track field. (you can see the stairs on the left that are the ones leading down to the field) When I was pondering it during the video, I was thinking it might be the staircase to the train station in Celdic, but it didn't quite fit. Good to know I was on the right track though. (Celdic is a common recording test location so I'm still very familiar with it) Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Jul 12, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 10:22
|
|
|
Wrath is kinda useless unless it's on a character whose evade level is high enough to frequently trigger and since Machias' weapons give no evade bonus (unlike Rean/Fie/Gaius/Crow), nor do his element-locked slots have wind/space elements (to house evade quartz or the shining rare quartz), he kinda sucks as a counter attacker. If you want a dodge tank with lots of range, you're better off giving it to Crow since at least his upgraded weapon gives an evade boost. As for your other comment about evade: the number between brackets behind agility is the literal dodge chance. Notice it goes up with 5% if you add Evade1 into the mix and up with (another) 10% if you add Evade2. That number isn't offset by the enemy's accuracy state. It's absolute. If you get it to 100%, you dodge anything dodgeable. Always. If you get it to 50% or higher and cast Insight on yourself (through the Shining art or Heaven's Gift craft, which you'll get very very soon), you'll dodge anything that's not a) an orbal art, b) an S-craft or c) one of the rare attacks that has a perfect-accuracy flag on it, no ifs, ands or buts. So yes, you CAN keep track of your evasion.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 14:55
|
|
|
Yeah, my general strategy for Fie in CS1/2 is to get her up to 50% evade with the Shining R quartz (with provides 5% evade in addition to the art itself) in addition to whatever else I use, and then have her apply Shining to herself because there's no reason to use her EP for anything like healing or damage, and she tends to cast it in one turn, sometimes two.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 15:43
|
|
|
Level 1 Thief posted:This is the first I've heard of this and I'm honestly leaning towards putting it on Machias now. It's not a bad thought. Just be advised that Machias doesn't have much that normally boosts his evade, and he doesn't have a very strong physical attack, either. You can absolutely do this with Machias, but you have to lean all the way into it and go out of your way to boost both his evade (with quartz or items) and his physical damage. He won't be able to do much of anything else. Also, when Machias counter-attacks, it will only hit the enemy he's countering, even if its standing in a cluster of enemies he would otherwise normally hit, so if that was factoring into your decision more than just "He's got a ranged weapon", there's that to consider. Crow, as Erpy mentioned, is another choice that uses a ranged attack, and you can spend a little less tweaking his evade, but you'll have to spend even more resources tweaking his power. It's honestly easier to do this with Alisa than Crow, because Alisa has the dedicated fire slots you can use to pump all her attack power up. Hell, she's arguably one of the better choices for it, because if you keep her with Angel, she should have Shining, or, if you want, you can put Shining on her dedicated space slot. Shining/Insight significantly boosts evade. Gaius doesn't have the range of anyone mentioned, but he does have some range, and he's got more power than anyone other than Laura or Millium. It's just less work to make the set-up work. Do what you feel is right. The CS cast is really balanced, and it's pretty hard to make someone useless. Some characters at end game are impossible to make useless, because their crafts are so good, and Machias is going to be one of them. Erpy posted:As for your other comment about evade: the number between brackets behind agility is the literal dodge chance. Notice it goes up with 5% if you add Evade1 into the mix and up with (another) 10% if you add Evade2. That number isn't offset by the enemy's accuracy state. It's absolute. If you get it to 100%, you dodge anything dodgeable. Always. If you get it to 50% or higher and cast Insight on yourself (through the Shining art or Heaven's Gift craft, which you'll get very very soon), you'll dodge anything that's not a) an orbal art, b) an S-craft or c) one of the rare attacks that has a perfect-accuracy flag on it, no ifs, ands or buts. So yes, you CAN keep track of your evasion. I won't comment on if this is true in Cold Steel 1, since I haven't gotten it high enough to test, but it is definitely not true in CS3, where I had Fie up to 129% Evade and even with insight, she didn't evade everything, just practically everything (some normal attacks definitely got through). She would then counter attack for ~24,000 damage
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 18:14
|
|
|
Veryslightlymad posted:I won't comment on if this is true in Cold Steel 1, since I haven't gotten it high enough to test, but it is definitely not true in CS3, where I had Fie up to 129% Evade and even with insight, she didn't evade everything, just practically everything (some normal attacks definitely got through). She would then counter attack for ~24,000 damage I think this is still true even in CS3, it's just that certain enemy attacks (and that can include their normal attacks) are programmed to just completely ignore the evade stat. Those attacks will hit you even with Insight and maxed out Evasion, but that's because they don't take that stat into account at all.
|
|
#
?
Jul 12, 2020 21:59
|
|
|
I seem to recall that the chapter 6 bonding events are prerequisites for the final one, so you may want to switch those around if you plan on checking out more than one of them. Given that the other condition is a high enough link level (Link 5 for Class VII that's not Millium/Crow), some of the people you picked this chapter are highly unlikely to hit that mark.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 08:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 15:11 |
|
|
 74. Nothing Happened Today I'm still not convinced any schooling ever went on in this old house.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 16:23
|
|