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Update L - Featuring: The bar Music: Atlantica - The Emerald Afterglow   Understandable, now that Valerie is hitting her stride. Ryo: Thank you so much! Seeing you fight made me fall in love with Unit 13 all over again! I'll make sure “7th Demon III Code: BFD” passes the project proposal meeting! Here, this is a small token of my thanks! You obtained 5,000 Az! You obtained Super Upper x1. The Super Upper is an accessory that gives a 1.2x bonus to EXP and SP. Ryo: I'm still getting more ideas, even now... I gotta hurry back and finish up the project proposal~!  Just... make sure you put some money into gameplay balancing. Trust me on that one.   Music: UE77 Tokyo  Now we never have to go back to Atlantica ever again.  Music: UE77 In Ariake  And since heading back shoves us into the Portal room, we get forced into a cutscene.   Hmph, there is no need for your concern! We are not some luggage to be toted around as you please! *chuckle* It appears as though she hates me. Don't worry, Mr. Yuma. Jil's just naturally hot-blooded~. However, this is an issue affecting our homeland. Therefore, it's only right that we see it through to the end~. I see... I suppose if you truly have such great determination, you may join. Welp, you guys should seriously get—   You brat...! What are you doing here!? This isn't a playground! I-I know, but... I came up with a plan... There's no way a plan made by a brat is gonna be of use to us!That's kinda rude considering the entire reason she got hired was because she's that good of a navigator. Just listen...! I'm sure... it well [sic] help you! ...IMG]http://lpix.org/4326718/Valerie.png[/IMG] *nods* Grrrr! You're way too soft on her, Unit 13! Well, spit it out! What's this plan of yours? W-Well, I'd like you all to take a look at this.  Yeah, I tried to make a mock-up of the layout using whatever info I could get my hands on. I can guarantee at least 84% accuracy, though.  This is incredible... They weren't kidding about those skills of yours... S-So, as you can probably tell from looking at the map... The blue Dragonsbane has affected the Preloma terrain quite a bit. Getting through will be tricky. What can we do? I'm just getting to that. The plan is—  Oh, so we're doing the 'explain the plan to everyone but the actual player' thing, are we? Well, there are a few flaws here and there, but I think that'll do for now. R-Really!? Yup. This is gonna be a real test of your navigator skills, though. You alright with that? *nods* Yeah... I want to do it. I will make this work!  You're like a new person. I'm going to change... I don't want to keep regretting my mistakes!~ I'm in love~! ...! Valerie... You shouldn't joke about that kind of stuff... Y-You were serious!? I-I see...~~ OK! *giggle* I'm going to work really hard!  Nagamimi and I will be your navigator team! We'll explain everything once you get there! Unit 13 nods. Music: UE77 Tokyo  With that, Preloma is finally unlocked.  It has... a lot of dragons.  But we have two things to do before we can head over there.  You obtained Large Scallop Bento x1. System Message: Also, I heard that in this world, you exchange your “number” with those you care about. Here.  System Message: You can now invite Ulania to the Skylounge! First is getting Ulania's ID.  And second is calling everyone up.  Music: A Place to Come Home   I wonder if it's OK for someone like me to be in here...  You might not be mature enough. Th-That's what I thought...! This isn't somewhere for a child like me... I wish I was an adult... I wish I was mature enough to come to a place like this alone with you, Opal...~ You fit in really well. R—Really...!? I wonder if I'm more mature now... *giggle* ~~ U—Um, I know! You're supposed to order drinks in these kinds of places, right? What do you want, Opal? Gimme a stylish cocktail. Wow, you're so cool! I hope I can get interesting drinks like that when I'm an adult... But for now... I guess I'll get some orange juice. Excuse meee!~ Let's share the Big Soda Special. Wow, look at that picture! There's ice cream in it, and even fruit! *giggle* But our foreheads might bump together if we drink it at the same time... Excuse meee!  Are you sure you're OK with paying for everything...? *nods* Thanks for the drink, then! I had a lot of fun today. Let's do this again, Opal!  I don't have much time. We will have to have our conversation standing here. He said I should learn how to live like a normal young adult.  Leave it to me! You have my thanks!~ I'm not sure I can help... Maybe some slang words, or popular songs...~~ Hm, what should we cover first...? Ah, I know. Could you tell me how young people spend their free time? Have fun all over town! I see... I usually go into the city for my missions. I suppose this thing you call fun is the key to acting like a young person. What do you do when you have fun? And... what is fun in the first place?~ Sleep all day long. You sleep... all day? How could you be that physically exhausted!? *shakes head* There must be some sort of terrible disease going around... *shakes head* So that means... even though you are perfectly healthy, you choose to sleep... for the whole day? That sounds like a waste of twenty four hours that you could be working.~~    Please teach me more next time.   It felt as though you were summoning me, so I came here. This device can contact others, even from afar... How useful! I wonder how long it took to create such a grand civilization without the aid of a Star Crystal. It is imperative that those of us from Atlantis learn as much as we can from your village of Tokyo. I wish to learn more about the strength of your civilization... Please, teach me more in the future. *nods* *giggle* I am pleased. I will be looking forward to it. Now, you might think that we can go to Preloma now.  But wait, there's more!  Turns out that the level 2 Skylounge also opens up a second date scene for everyone. Which is really god drat weird, considering that the Skylounge upgrade unlocks during the Intermission, but we can't get our first ID until Chapter 4.  She can make us work as hard as she wants. Labor unions are a thing of the past. I appreciate the work you do. Of course! You'd be a fool not to be grateful for the Almighty Nagamimi! Though I guess being a corporate slave at Nodens isn't so bad.~ Why are you still working here? ...? I've gotta work to live. Aren't you humans the same way?~~  ...Excuse me???  That's a hell of a fact to tuck away in an optional conversation! It'd be a pain in the rear end to try and live on my own.  I thought you were a rabbit... ... I'm a mega-cute Nagamimi-type alien life form! How many times do I have to tell you before it finally gets through your thick skull!?So, like, is Nagamimi possessing a stuffed doll? Do they just naturally look like that and F!Hacker's doll is a complete coincidence? Is there any relation to the Hypnos sisters? Can Nagamimi turn into a True Dragon if they get sufficiently pissed? What's the deal here? ~ It's weird to hear you say it. Eeheehee... I'm a super rare Nagamimi-type alien life form. You'd better treat me well. I'm gonna go. You can just stay here and sit on your fat rear end for as long as you want. But... next time, let's meet somewhere we won't get interrupted.  I actually brought some allowance money with me today. I'm kinda like an adult, right? *giggle*Allowance? Are you not getting paid for your work here, Mio?  Order anything you want! You choose, Mio! H-Huh? I have to choose...? U-Um, well... Orange juice: 1,000 Az... Iced coffee: 1,500 Az... Wh-Wh-What!? Are in stores for adults this expensive...!?~ Let's get the fruit platter. Alright! Umm, so the fruit platter is... H-Huh...? This has to be some kind of mistake. It says it costs 10,000 Az...~~ I'm sorry, Opal... I only have 1,500 Az with me... Even though I'm trying to act like an adult, I'm still just a little kid... There's no need to rush. You're wrong...! I want to be an adult as fast as I can, or else I...~ You're good how you are now. You're wrong... I'm not good. I want to reach your level as fast as I can. I...~~  But I also know how weak my body is... No matter how much medicine I take, I keep getting worse... I'm sad now...   I'll save up so I can try and act like an adult when I'm with you, Opal... Will you... wait for me? *nods* *giggle* I'll see you later!  I told the admiral I'd be with you, so we have as much time as we need. That seat appears to have a good view. Let us sit. It was a very educational experience, learning about how young people live. I was given the day off yesterday, so I tried to practice, but I could only manage thirty minutes. It seems that I am most relaxed while working on a mission.Was Yuma's ID originally meant to show up before Chapter 5 or something? Because this is one hell of a 180 from Mr. "Emotions will cause you to lose sight of your objective."  I believe that spending time in such a useless way is completely unnecessary for me... Maybe uselessness is important? Both time and the activity of a human brain are finite. It would be a waste to use them on that which has no use. Rather than sleep, I would prefer to spend my time absorbing new information, like in our talks. ~ You have to rest sometime. Rest... Speaking to you like this is enough of a rest for me.~~ I suppose I can understand the admiral's intentions. Experience is everything. Oh, that's correct... There is one more thing I wish to ask of you, Opal.  It hangs here for a second. Around 70% of my research led me back to the idea of romance. I cannot begin to comprehend the reason why.  You do have a point... I knew you would understand!~ You know nothing, Yuma. Hmph... That is exactly why I asked you the question.~~ Opal... Accompany me on a date. I cannot perform such a test on my own. Furthermore, there is nobody but you for me to ask... I guess I'll do it. Thank you! It will be of great assistance to my research!~ I'd be glad to join you. R-Really...? It makes me happy to hear you say that...~~  I'll be waiting...   Although, to be living in peace while crisis occurs outside... It's a good thing. However, I often wonder whether it is proper for me to be living such a peaceful life.~ What's wrong...? Nothing is wrong... It is simply that I often wonder whether it is proper for me to be living such a peaceful life.~~ The weary citizens of Atlantis need time to heal their damaged hearts. However, I should not share in that luxury. That is why I have made attempts to learn more about the culture of Tokyo. But...  I guess so. ~ I could never turn you down! T-Thank you, Opal... You are always so kind...~~ Then it is a promise. I shall be awaiting your invitation. Oh thank god we're nearly done.   You've gotta be tired. Let's sit down and rest. All these battles are really wearing me out. You alright, Opal? I'm doing great! You really are tough...~ I'd love a massage from someone. S-Someone...? Does that mean anyone is OK...?~~  Even if I'm gassed, talking to you pumps me right back up again. You OK with doing this again sometime?  And with that, we're finally done with the Skylounge. For now.  Meaning we can head out to Preloma. I'm sure Emel won't be too mad we put her off for so long. Next time: What has 100 power, 10 PP, and hits everything in double battles? BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Jul 2, 2023 |
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Dec 16, 2022 04:57
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Update LI - Featuring: Power Overwhelming Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  Preloma got a bit of a revamp, same as Kazan.   Let's be thankful that it's still standing~. It's gotta be from the blue Dragonsbane... And there are a ton of dragons in there, too...! Our connection's not stable, either. I wonder if Emel's power is interfering with our signal... Unit 13, over there...  Could this all have been Commander Emel's doing...? It seems she's gained even more power now that she is a True Dragon. Very well. She will serve as an adequate foe.  Don't overwork yourself. Your concern is unnecessary. You shall not steal my spotlight... I will defeat the True Draqon!~ We really should stay together... There is no need for that. I shall surely defeat the True Dragon, by myself!~~ I'll be off, then. I give it an 80% chance that Yuma does nothing but keep Emel distracted until we catch up to him.  *nods* It's time to commence the plan. Our first target is the Monument Plaza to the north! Alright, let's go!  We start off with five dragons and two rescues.  But first... Music: Battlefield - Eden  GEORGE! got one of his new Tier 3 moves. Earthquake is meant to be a high risk high reward move. It eats every bomb the Banisher has, but the damage scales based on the bombs used. If it kills the enemy, great, but if it doesn't the Banisher is stuck Reloading for several turns or resorting to bombless skills.   The problem is that Earthquake's damage is ludicrously overtuned. That's at level 2 (of 10!) and an EX boosted Life Oathed Brave Sword from Valerie is only a few points ahead, and Earthquake hits everything! Earthquake singlehandedly invalidates the rest of a Banisher's moveset, and the only thing that makes it even remotely balanced is the Banisher's low speed giving the enemy a chance to try and land an ailment before it comes out. Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  But as it stands Earthquake is just a bit too slow for dragons, so the other two teams will mostly get those.  Music: Battlefield - Furious Predator  Our first dragon of the day is uhhhhhhhhhhhh...  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...  The Gir-ragon also has Twirl, a move that hits the party twice.  Tier 3 means Yuno gets her last set of summons, with  And since I can now spend three cards in one turn, X Burn is getting a massive boost. Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  Right of the fork is blocked off by a cube.  While to the left is another dragon.  Valerie will be doing a lot of this from now on.  A new weapon for Mages.   That dragon's blocking the way to either a civilian or a cat.  This Fly Dragonica has a tweaked moveset compared to the ones at Cladeon. They keep Wind Cutter, Somersault, and Sleep Buzz, but trade UV Burn for Downer Beat which has a 100% chance of giving the party Downer.  Case in point.   But Downer is a pretty eh ailment when I have three teams I can switch between at will.  Carefree Man: But then all of a sudden, I couldn't tell left from right! Man, you really saved my life~!   We'll have to circle back for this dragon later.  Plus that dragon behind a cube.  The center path is fully open, but also covered in blue dragonsbane.    Due to the blue Dragonsbane, Preloma is currently infested with High Dragons. I think it would be way too risky to fight Emel if we just leave those alone. On the other hand, it would take way too long to hunt down each dragon one at a time... So, Unit 13 is going to split into three separate teams. That way each team can take down a High Dragon in each sector of Preloma. Dividing our strength is risky, but you guys should be able to handle it, Unit 13! Let's work together, and clear the path to Emel! *giggle* This kind of plan is called "divide and conquer.” My grandpa taught it to me!Unit 13 nods.   Sailas, you go with the 2nd team. I shall join the 3rd team. Got it~! Please let me or Jil know when you're ready to go~. Just like with Cladeon, we have a randomly appearing terminal in case you want to shuffle your party around before the split.  Also there's nothing stopping me from just clearing out this room before starting the split.  And that includes this path back to before.   With GEORGE! in front, a pre-emptive attack is basically a free win.  That dragon was literally the only thing behind the cube.  Trying to take a path forward before the split gets me yelled at.   You'll be seeing this a lot.     And one more dragon.  Steathed Stance is actually a really good pairing with Earthquake, thanks to that free defense debuff.   And that's this floor cleared out.  Now for that barrier dragon.  Music: Battlefield - Furious Predator  Oh hey, an actually unique barrier dragon! How novel!  However, War Cry went off so Earthquake will be hitting even harder.  Despite being, you know, fire, Purgatory Flame only has a 30% chance to inflict Burn. The Downer is 100%, however.  Oh hey it actually lived.  Not for much longer. Saturners also have a 1.5x DEF buff and a party attack called Judgement Thorns.  You know what we have now?  Enough Dz for the next shop upgrade. Music: Let's Get to Work!!       You obtained Quality Energy Bar x1.  We get the usual set of weapon upgrades, with two tiers for the Eden classes.  But the real prize is right here. Why?  Me, earlier this update posted:Earthquake singlehandedly invalidates the rest of a Banisher's moveset, and the only thing that makes it even remotely balanced is the Banisher's low speed giving the enemy a chance to try and land an ailment before it comes out.   And for comparison:  Aria, the fastest class in the game, is only 8 points faster than GEORGE!  And Earthquake is still nowhere near full power. Next time: Splitting the party does nothing to stop me. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jul 9, 2023 |
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Dec 23, 2022 03:33
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Banisher: Should have brought an Air Balloon, idiot      The final VFD original, the Banisher is a bit of an odd duck. They have an alternate resource like the Duelists; but unlike Duelists who start with a few cards and constantly get more, Banishers start with a full stack of Bombs but needs to spend turns restocking should they run out. To that end, their skills are most divided into two types: Bomb skills that range from decent to incredibly good, and Bombless skills that range from decent to really, really bad. Stats  Fittingly for a massive suit of armor, Banishers have the highest LF and second highest DEF of all classes, but have the second lowest MDF. They also have the highest ATK, but all of this is balanced out by having the lowest SPD of everyone. Innate Skill The Banisher begins all fights with 3 bombs. This can be increased with Bomb Bonus. Tier 1 Skills Bomb Bonus  Increases the number of bombs the Banisher starts battle with, as well as their cap. Unlike Duelist's starting hand skill which you can compensate for with Draw skills, Bomb Bonus is straight up mandatory for Banisher. A lot of their skills cost more than 3 bombs, so not investing in this makes them utterly unusable. Clap Trap  Randomly hits enemies with ranged ATK-based fire damage and a chance to inflict Burn. Random targeting makes Clap Trap a bit iffy to use on crowds, but at max level this does 4.55x damage if there's only one target, which is fairly good for a starting skill! Each hit also has its own chance to inflict Burn, which is also really strong. Hey, remember how Samurai and Agent's multi-hit attacks got slightly weaker every time they got a new hit? Yeah, add a new entry to the 'things VFD managed to powercreep' chart. Burst Attack  Hits one enemy with ranged ATK-based fire damage three times and a chance to inflict Burn. Burst Attack, meanwhile, is straight up worse than Clap Trap against one enemy. Only use it if there's something in a crowd that you really want to kill first. Dragon Buster  Hits all enemies with ranged ATK-based fire damage. Deals increased damage to dragons. Damage is modified by the size of the enemy: small takes 0.6x, medium takes 0.75x, large takes 1x, and extremely large takes 1.3x. Dragon Buster is unique in that its the first skill in the entire series that deals bonus damage to dragons, but beyond that it falls fairly flat. 5 bombs is fairly pricey right off the bat, needing two ranks in Bomb Boost to even start using, and you'll need to max it out if you ever want to use it more than once. 2.5x damage as a trash clearer is decent, but with the Banisher's abyssmal speed you'd be better off using someone else for the job. While it deals good damage against dragons, the AOE aspect will only ever come into play if a dragon breaks into a fight. And even then, the damage against dragons is nearly matched by just using Clap Trap twice for significantly less bombs. Javelin  Hits one enemy with ranged ATK-based damage. Damage has a high variance. And after the decent to good showing of Banisher's bomb skills we have... Javelin. The damage is horribly unreliable and that's all it has going for it. At the very least it has a dirt cheap SP cost. But hey, even Javelin can be good when your competition is... Over Spear  Hits one enemy with melee ATK-based damage and a chance to inflict Instant Death. This piece of absolute garbage! The only other source of Instant Death players get, and the damage is even worse than Javelin with a piddly chance to actually land it! And for the cost of getting Over Spear to level 2 you could instead fully max out Javelin! Assault Spear  Hits one enemy with melee ATK-based damage. Assault Spear hurts things. It hurts things slightly more than a single-target Clap Trap, sure, but the Burn damage will easily push things in Clap Trap's favor. Deafening Roar  Debuffs the ATK and DEF of all enemies. Actually a fairly useful debuff! The ATK debuff won't help if you're fighting something focused on MAT, but cutting enemy DEF will give the Banisher and any other physical attackers in the party a healthy boost. Having priority also means you don't have to worry about the Banisher going after everyone else gets to act. Smokescreen  Inflicts Blind on all enemies. It's Blind, it's bad. Next. Bomb Scatter  Places a buff on the party that increases fire damage dealt and the chance of inflicting Burn. Fairly middling for the Banisher themself, as most of their better skills are non-elemental, but giving fire-heavy classes like Duelist or Mage a free 30% attack boost is incredibly helpful. Exterminate  At the start of battle, the Banisher has a chance to attack random enemies with ranged ATK-based fire damage three times. Compared to Samurai and God Hand's opening AUTOs, the intent behind Exterminate is to be more useful against single enemies (like, say, dragons) compared to clearing trash. In practice, Fighting Spirit is only 0.4x weaker and has no added effect like Pre-emptive God setting up G-Depth. However, much like how Mage had two mid-battle AUTOs, Banishers instead get two battle start AUTOs. War Cry  At the start of battle, the Banisher has a chance to buff their ATK and DEF. And boy what an AUTO it is. With a 1.4x boost to ATK, War Cry is the single highest ATK buff in the game, aside from charge moves like Solid Stance. If this goes off, the Banisher will be able to kill things with an harsh glare. Reload  The Banisher replenishes their bomb count. The first of four ways a Banisher can get more bombs, and the only reliable and readily accessible one. Once you run out, you get to spend at least three turns doing nothing but Reloading to get back up to your cap of nine. At a glance, you can see that the Banisher is meant to be class that wants to quickly blitz down enemies with their bomb skills, with their usefulness tanking as soon as you have to choose between plinking with Javelin or spending several turns Reloading. I sure hope they don't have any skills which utterly trivialize this flaw! Killing React  For a number of turns, the Banisher has a 100% chance to gain an extra turn when they kill an enemy. Returning from the original game after being Nyala's gimmick for three games straight, Killing React is... just as bad as it was in 7D1! Trash fights don't last nearly long enough to warrant spending a turn to set this up, dragons fight alone the majority of the time, and bosses in this game never have adds to kill for a quick proc. The worst React in the game. Tier 2 Skills Tier 3 Skills Carpet Bomb  Hits all enemies with ranged ATK-based fire damage and a chance to inflict Burn. Now this is much better! Hits harder against trash and is significantly cheaper in terms of both MN and bombs! Rush Spear  Randomly hits enemies with melee ATK-based damage five times. Far and away the Banisher's best bombless option, you're looking at 7x damage against a single target. Granted, that's still faint praise, because the next two skills are far, far better. Comet Spear  The Banisher jumps for one turn, making all attacks and effects targeting them to miss. Next turn, the Banisher lands on a random enemy and deals ATK-based damage. Deals bonus damage to dragons. Against normal enemies? Utterly useless, just stick with Rush Spear. Against dragons? Incredibly good. 30x damage is hitting harder than EX Skills, plus complete immunity from attacks with priority that lets them ignore their slow Speed. Comet Spear's only downsides are that you can't use it back to back without reloading, and that it isn't as good as- Earthquake  Hits all enemies with ATK-based damage. Damage scales with the number of bombs consumed. Normally cannot be used with 0 bombs, but can be done during Unison. This ludicrous son of a bitch. For only slightly less damage than Comet Spear, you can instead nail everyone on the field for massive damage regardless of species. And on the off chance something manages to survive that initial volley, a single Reload will immediately let you bust out a 17.5x damage Earthquake, making it more damage efficient that Comet Spear ever will be! Literally every other skill in the Banisher's kit is inferior to just chaining Earthquake into Reload back into Earthquake forever. Even if most of Banisher's other skills are mediocre, Earthquake alone puts them right next to Rune Knight as one of the most powerful classes in the game. Give the Banisher some gear to make up for their miniscule Speed, and laugh as they can effortlessly wipe every random encounter for the rest of the game. Bomb Switch  Gives the Banisher a buff that makes them take 0.8x fire damage and reload bombs when hit with a fire attack. Now, at a glance, Bomb Switch seems really good. A hefty damage cut and free bombs, what's not to love! Well, the issue with a skill like this is that it is utterly dependant on how often you do run into enemies that use fire skills. How many of them are there? In total, there are 518 enemy skills in the game. Of those, 26 of them deal fire damage. Of those, only 12 of them belong to dragons. Of those, we've already fought and killed 4 types of them, meaning there are exactly 8 types of dragons that this might be useful against. The only major boss with fire damage is Nyala with his Golden Flames, and he's kiiiiiiiiiiinda dead right now. So yeah, Bomb Switch is a skill that sounds great, but is completely sabotaged by the overall game design. Auto Reload  Banisher has a chance to reload bombs at the end of the turn. It has a greater than usual chance to go off, and gives free bombs. Take it and laugh as every proc gets turned into a one bomb Earthquake. EX Skill Ultimate Lance  Hits one enemy with melee ATK-based fire damage. Reloads all bombs on use. Much like Rune Knight's EX Skill, you don't use Ultimate Lance for the damage. You use it for the free reload to do another nine bomb Earthquake next turn. Team Skills Charge time: 2 turns. Buddy Hits one enemy with 1.5x ATK-based melee damage and a 100% chance to debuff target DEF by 0.8x for one turn. Banisher is already specced for ATK, so the Buddy skill itself will do respectable damage. Enabling even bigger numbers from Samurais or God Hands is just gravy. Support Increase party DEF by 1.2x for one turn. A free DEF boost, while useful, still runs into the issue where your Team charges would be better spent on Unison attacks. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Jul 9, 2023 |
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Dec 23, 2022 03:37
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quote:Earthquake: 28x on demand AOE damage. There is no more weeping code. Just a pile of broken syntax. Holy gently caress what were they thinking with Banisher?! This class is weird, it's a class filled with lovely skills but also extremely broken ones. But the lovely skills don't matter when you can just spam the most broken poo poo over and over to utterly trivialize the game! Most of the kit is not worth discussing further. It's either as lovely or as good as it looks. Killing React was going to be even worse. For one thing this thing was planned to be 5 levels and RNG, capping out at a 70% activation rate.  Earthquake is so monkey brained. If this skill didn't exist, Banishers would still be strong thanks to most of their tier 3 skills, and Comet Spear would be an excellent dragon killer. In fact, jumping Banishers still draw aggro, so this could be used as a way to "tank" attacks effectively if the Banisher has the highest LIFE. But Earthquake does exist and this skill just invalidates the rest of the game. Sure the Rune Knight's Brave Sword deals more damage, but it's single target, and the way it scales actually doesn't really let it outdamage Earthquake until near the end of the game, when the Runemaster has more LIFE to work with. Even then, the fact that it's AOE lets Banishers completely invalidate every single random encounter in the game, and even dragons. And with enough setup, you can kill bosses in 1 turn. I am not joking. There is a reason why a turn count of 4 or above is considered a slow kill in this game! The power creep is just completely and utterly off the charts! But this is balanced out by Banishers being a slow class at the very least- Oh. We have a Rocket Man now. To make things even more absurd, bombs are counted as resources. Which means Unison makes Earthquake completely free for that turn. You could theoretically trigger Unison, then use Earthquake. Then use Earthquake again on the next turn. And then reload all of your bombs with Ultimate Lance, and then Earthquake one final time! All for a total of 102x damage over the course of 4 turns! Or if your entire backup teams are made up of classes that have a 1 turn charge time: Turn 1: Unison into Earthquake Turn 2: Earthquake Turn 3: Ultimate Lance Turn 4: Unison into Earthquake again Turn 5: Earthquake All for a total of 130x damage over the course of 5 turns! Of course this is all just theoretical because I have no idea what can even survive that much sheer disgusting amount of overkill in this game! There is no more broken syntax. What remains has been completely atomized into dust. This game is now nothing more than a walking simulator/visual novel if you so choose to abuse Earthquake. Combat has been completely and utterly trivialized by this point. You won.
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Dec 23, 2022 04:20
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...Excuse me, but wad da fug? I'm almost glad my Banisher doesn't have access to tier 3 skills yet, because I'm not sure I could resist the sweet siren call of POWER. At least for now, I can have fun with the move set he has.
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Dec 23, 2022 05:35
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Update LII - Featuring: The penultimate boss of the previous game With GEORGE!'s supremacy assured, we can go start the party split.  Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City     Yup! In that case, let's go~!Unit 13 nods.   The only way to keep GEORGE! from dominating the rest of the game is by forcibly separating him from the rest of the team.  Valerie can shred dragons with Brave Sword, while Aria can lock down random encounters.  GEORGE! can pretty much solo the entire dungeon. Vivian and Thomas are tagging along for moral support.  Opal... can still punch things, I guess? G3 skills need at least 2 turns of setup unless Preemptive God goes off, and that's just an eternity with VFD's speed.      Team 3 (currently filled by Valerie) is up first. Sadly, we'll have to wait a while to see GEORGE! in action.    Directly behind us is the central area we just left.    We can still head back to Nodens to shuffle parties around just like in Cladeon, so I could have GEORGE handle all three paths if I really wanted to.  But that would be boring, so Valerie and Opal will get their time in the spotlight.  We're also not allowed to head to another path.    Hey look a dragon!   Expect to be seeing this a lot.   And the other chest nearby.  Around the corner is another dragon.  Aria and Inoue didn't even attack that time. Valerie just one shot it from full.  Another dragon further ahead.   "Not Lost" Girl: I could totally find my way home without your help! Not that I won't accept the offer.   A cutscene starts when we approach the save point.  A dragon roars.  Hm... I might be able to discern which dragon it is from its roar! Incredible! I failed to realize such a thing was possible! Eeheehee... Don't underestimate her analytical ability. This'll be a piece of cake for that girl. So, take a wild guess who we're fighting today.  I think it's going to try and use attacks that can Instakill! Be careful!If you guessed 'even more asset reuse,' you were right! Insomnia was the final High Dragon in 2020-II. Consider this a sneak preview for Sympathy.   But first, you may have noticed that we skipped past a door earlier.  It's just a small room.  With a dragon.   Valerie got singled out by the dragon, so she barely missed the kill.  That's all the dragon was guarding.  The direct path to the save point is covered in dragonsbane. Which is sorta pointless when, again, there's a save point immediately after to heal off the damage.  There's no way to that thin pathway on the map from here, we'll have to loop back later on.  Kinu will get into this more when she reaches Insomnia in 2020-II, but make sure you put on death resist if you're playing along at home.  And right past the door is...  The big guy himself.     He doesn't even get some token lines from Jil or Mio, just straight into the fight. Video: Unit 13 vs Insomnia Music: Battlefield - No. 7 Incursion   Deadly Omen is Insomnia's telegraph move.  Valerie has finished leveling Life Oath, giving her LF (and by extension, Brave Sword's damage) a 30% boost.   Eh, might as well.   In exchange for putting the party down a member for the rest of the fight, Aria can deal less damage than Valerie.  Death Sentence is Insomnia's signiture move, and has a 100% chance of instantly killing the party if you don't have resists on. Of course, thanks to VFD giving 50% resists when blocking you could forego equips and try to block it, but then you're gambling on a coin flip.  Deep Inhale gives a 1.25x buff to ATK and MAT for 2 turns. Buddy skills technically have a 100% break chance, but you don't have the backline for this fight so it's a moot point.   Ah drat, just shy.   Kinu will have to get more in-depth on how Insomnia ticks when she fights it, because the poor bastard did not get a chance to shine here.  Music: Finish Them Off  Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  Good work, everyone! That's it for the High Dragon in that area! Head over to the meeting spot! Music: Destructive Curse  We then cut to a dragon.   Emel then cuts the dragon.  As I would have expected from the Dragonslayer... It is so easy for me to kill these weaklings... I will never have to rely on the people of this planet ever again... With this sword... I will exterminate dragonkind...!    Hey it's our old friend the mystery man! He's looking rather spry for... a... 19,000 year old...?  And then he vanishes like always.      Haha...! Ahahahahahaha! Oh wait he just didn't want to walk down the stairs.   Is this truly the pinnacle of your evolution after so many years of wandering the universe...? Hm... Well, dragon hunter... I wonder if you will put an end to this azure scourge...  Next time: We see what the rest of the game will be like. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Jul 9, 2023 |
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Dec 30, 2022 03:49
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So this particular fight is rather infamous in 2020-II. Namely that it has absolutely no counterplay to its instant death skill there other than wear instant death resistance equipment. Granted this part was also kind of infamous over here, as the hint that stacking 2 accessories grants immunity was not stated anywhere in VFD. Though it was in 2020-II. Aside from that it's just kind of an rear end in a top hat. In 2020-II anyways. VFD does give more counterplay as ailments can miss thanks to guarding, and are affected by evasion in VFD. Do not try this in 2020-II. You will die horribly. Otherwise just wear death resistant equipment and this boss isn't particularly notable.  Insomnia's stats in 2020-II.  Insomnia's stats in VFD. Stat wise it got completely gutted HP wise since it's a miniboss in chapter 5, rather than being the boss fight of chapter 7 from 2020-II. That being said, with the amount of power creep you just got in this chapter, I'm not sure if the extra HP would have added on that many more turns. Still this thing is pretty pathetic once you get past the guaranteed instant death, as the severely lowered HP doesn't let it do all that much before dying horribly. quote:Insomnia α (LV. 48/44) Insomnia's skillset on the other hand, is basically completely unchanged from 2020-II. Aside from adding in the relevant VFD mechanics. Oddly enough, it kind of got a buff as Bite used to be Insomnia's desperation move in 2020-II, but it uses it from the get-go here. It's AI also got nerfed aside from that. In 2020-II, this thing had a shorter attack pattern per phase, which is bad because that meant it used its stronger and deadly skills more often. VFD nerfed this by adding on extra turns to the attack patterns, which are filled with filler moves in order to make it less dangerous to fight. So it's not exactly an interesting fight in this particular game, compared to how vicious that thing could be in 2020-II. Power creep plus nerfing some infamous bosses into complete chump territory, sheesh! Let's be honest, you're basically a bunch of Super Saiyans in VFD. Trust me when I say this boss was actually a dick in its original game. Which lacked the severe power creep VFD had if I may add. Araxxor fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Dec 30, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2022 14:19
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Dang man, I don't know how to feel about this boss being nerfed. On one hand, it's kind of annoying that I don't get to tackle it at it's full strength, and don't get to experience the full challenge. On the other hand, this dragon seems like the type who would make me go "Man, gently caress this guy", put down my system, and bang my head up against a wall as I try again and again to take this jackass on.
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Dec 30, 2022 18:28
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Update LIII - Featuring: Peak Physical Performance Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  We're gonna head northeast from here and make that High Dragon bow down to us. Let's go!Up next on our party split is GEORGE!. Full power GEORGE!. ...     This map has another inaccessable path, with that dragon and rescue target next to us on it.  That dragon to the right, however, is a different story. Music: Battlefield - Furious Predator  Now, let me show you how every fight for the rest of the game will go:  Step 1.  Step 2.  There is no step 3. Also, the Dragora Yearn is a second Dragonfly type in Preloma. It has the exact same stats and level as the Draconica we saw earlier, but it trades out Downer Beat for Piercing Buzz which hits one person with Confusion. Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  To the south is a staircase.  And more dragons.  Micro Dragons have Bite, (three hits to one person) Skill Clash, (four random hits with a chance to inflict Skill Seal) and Fire Curse. (one hit with a chance of Burn)       And that's this area cleared out for now. However that one chest in the bottom right is down here and I thought it was on the other path. I come back to get it later.  Now we can move to the next area.   Hmm... Maybe that's from the blue Dragonsbane, too? The temperature is only high in that one area... The High Dragon ahead might be a fire type... I'll look into it. Hmmm... Hey, did you hear that, Unit 13?Unit 13 nods. *sigh* It's so hot~... Can we just hurry up and beat this thing~? Heat is my one weakness~. Strangely, this is the area where Valerie fought Insomnia last time.       There's an intersection in the middle of the map.   And a dragon further right.  While the south, which would lead to Insomnia's old spot, is blocked off.  More destroyed houses to the right.  And a cat just below.  The house has a ramp that leads to the lower level.  I then completely miss that this is also a ramp that leads deeper in and head back.  So ahead we go.  Nagamimi... I've finished my analysis! Trinnitro is another old face from the 2020s. This gives Trinnitro the dubious honor of being the only High Dragon fought in every game since its debut. Hmph... It's fire-based, after all. Make sure you're prepared to deal with burns! Sooooo hot~... Trinnitro, huh... I think that one has molten metal in its body~... I saw some super old book about it a long time ago~... Do you think it came back because of Emel~...?Unit 13 nods.  Just three dragons, then Trinnitro itself.  The first two dragons are directly ahead, with the obvious trick of being so close together that fighting one will inevitably drag in the second after a single round.    However: GEORGE!.  This was the only thing those dragons were guarding.  The center path is blocked, so we have to head right.    Looks like that last chest and dragon are on that ever-present missing path.  But we have a save point just before Trinnitro.  And a bit more to the left.  With a sneak peek at our latest speedbump.  I give him 3 rounds.    And again, no words. Just right into the fight against a boss that does nothing but pad out the run time. Music: Battlefield - No. 7 Incursion Video: VS Trinnitro    I'm not doing Earthquake this time.  I'm doing an EX-boosted Earthquake.  Thomas and Vivian are here too, I guess.  In one turn with no setup, GEORGE! took out half of Trinnitro's health. The catch is that now GEORGE! is effectively dead weight for a turn, while other party members could toss Valerie some heals to prep the next Brave Sword.  Vivian adds in some chip damage.   I've sorta been putting all of Thomas' SP into Volcano to boost the odds of Burn landing, so here he is matching Vivian's EX-less damage even when hitting a weakness.  Thomas heals.  Quick Regen gives Trinnitro 3% healing every turn for 5 turns. Buddy skills have a pointless 66% break chance. Heat Charge is his telegraph skill.  GEORGE! does the only thing he can right now.   And now GEORGE! has bombs.  Even at the 1-4 bomb multiplier, Earthquake is strong enough that GEORGE! has a higher damage per turn than the others just chaining Reload into Earthquake forever.  Heat Breath is your standard aoe fire attack. Body Flare is another buff skill that gives a 1.25x boost to ATK and MAT and a 1.1x boost to MAT and MDF for 4 turns. Buddy skills have a mere 25% chance to break this, but due to how stacking buffs work the game will only check Quick Regen's 66% break chance when they're stacked like this. Not like I can actually make use of that information, what with my no backline.  Considering I've been maliciously using VFD's new buff system all this time, having it turned against me with no way to get around it seems fair. A 25% DEF boost combined with Burn's 10% ATK cut utterly kneecaps Vivian's damage.  Shame it took him so long to set up that he's already on death's doorstep, making it ultimately meaningless.  Music: Finish Them Off   Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City   Ahhh~! I'm finally free from this oppressive heat... Let's go, Unit 13~!Unit 13 nods.  Music: Destructive Curse  We now return to our regularly scheduled True Dragon.  Although Yuma finally managed to find her.   ...?  *chuckle* Are you truly going to kill your own kin? lt's absurd for one dragon to kill another. What... are you... saying...!? Hmph. It seems like you can barely even understand me at this point. Why don't you just admit it? Emel... You've become the very thing you hate. ...  Hey Yuma, can you keep her busy for like 10 minutes? Thanks in advance.     Next time: Oh, how the mighty have been utterly outclassed. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Jan 6, 2023 |
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Jan 6, 2023 05:24
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puts on my shitpost capquote:Blazing GEORGE! (TV Size)
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Jan 6, 2023 05:39
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So we're gonna find Yuma critically injured, alive enough to stick into a sci-fi healing tank only to burst out and go dragon at the worst possible time, huh. Dude has zero chance of actually winning here.
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Jan 6, 2023 06:41
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Trinnitro (Trinitro in the fan translations) is uh. Rather pathetic. Unlike Insomnia, this one wasn't super notable in its previous appearances. It was moderately threatening in 2020, and pathetic in 2020-II as it was nerfed (though there was a very good reason for that.  )2020 and 2020-II posted:Trinitro It's regeneration skill was nerfed to only heal 70 HP per turn in 2020-II for some reason. VFD posted:Trinnitro α (LV. 48/44) Oddly enough the burn got a huge buff (where Insomnia's was nerfed to the ground for some reason).    Stat wise this thing has been zig zagging. Gets a hefty HP cut in 2, though its other stats get beefed up due to the game's accelerated level curve. In VFD it gets another HP cut, though all of its stats get stronger, so it's technically more powerful than it's 2020-II incarnation. Which doesn't save it from dying fast because the buffs weren't enough to keep up with the sheer power creep. As for what Heat Ball is, in the 2020s, bosses had 2 different regular attacking animations to make using a Destroyer less reliable, as they had counter attacks that procced when used against the right animation type. VFD does not have these skills, so those got scrapped. Everything only has 1 regular attacking animation. Instead the other attacking animation was assigned to a new skill to make sure the animation doesn't go to waste. Araxxor fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Jan 6, 2023 |
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Jan 6, 2023 06:43
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Update LIV - Featuring: A boss that lasts for more than 3 turns Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  Unit 13 nods.  I knew it... There's a match with some data I salvaged from the Murakumo database! So our last High Dragon for this party split is the final High Dragon from 2020. I wonder why the devs went with Trinnitro last time? Why not use another dragon with no refights like Lora A Lua or Oceanus? It can use a powerful blizzard attack! Make sure you don't freeze! Four dragons this time, but odds are at least one is out of reach for now.  This one isn't.  The problem with Team 1 is that they've just... fallen behind compared to the absolutely bonkers poo poo that is Brave Sword and Earthquake.  Like yeah, Jab into Quartetto is just as strong as ever, but anything past that requires multiple turns of setup which is just glacial by VFD's standards. If I want to fully set up, I'm looking at two turns for buffs and another two turns to hit G3 before I can even start hitting my big damage buttons!  And poor Yuno gets it even worse. Mages get access to all three elements without needing to deal with card RNG and has Mage's Consent to boost themselves, while Banisher can wipe the field in a single turn compared to the 3-4 she needs to set up her traps. I could maybe use Unison to get a free three cards for  Aiden didn't get a chance to move, but he at least has a very good payoff for his setup in lostpower.exe and can help wipe mobs with Air Assault.  Next to that cube is a path leading to the next dragon.  Rush Shot gives Aiden a big damage move, but 15 MN is a steep cost on an Agent's pitiful reserves.   The ruined house above has nothing.     Oh hey, a new dragon! Granted, the Blizzarus is actually a step down in complexity compared to its Armanus and Wall Snatcher cousins, completely ditching all buff skills (in a dungeon where enemy buffs have a chance to actually work!) for a slight bump in damage multipliers.  Also it has a fire weakness so Yuno shreds it. Don't get me wrong, Team 1 is still good, it's just that Teams 2 and 3 are better.   Backtracking to go get that last dragon.   Sorta sad how I'm disparaging Team 1 so much when a 2 turn kill would be blisteringly fast in the 2020s. It's just that everything else is that much faster.  The Physical Guard gives a 50% chance to block Poison, Paralysis, and Bleed.  And that's the area cleared out.  With a new entry point in case I need to go cash in some Dz.  Case in point. Music: The Daily Grind   Either way, a brat's still a brat! I'm gonna make her work extra hard from now on! Eeheehee... Taking a moment to check in with our navigators.  On one hand, upgrading the Cat Cafe will let me use that Fancy Cat Food to instantly top off on EX for the entire party. On the other, the Warehouse is a new floor.      With that, Nodens has been completely filled out!    You obtained Stone Guard x1. ~ Amano: I saw the evac ward earlier... There were so many people. It was even crazier than it is here.  Overly Curious Boy: Don't tell anyone I'm in here! I don't wanna go back to that stuffy evac ward!  Inconspicuous Man: I knew I didn't stand out...  Hardworking Maid: Because I'm a maid! I get anxious if I stay stationary for too long.    Retired Soldier: It makes me proud to know that I was rescued by someone so honorable.  I check in with Goht to see if I have enough stuff for his quest, but it looks like I'm still missing a few bits.  And then, on a whim, I check to see if there are new quests.  And there are???? Like, what could have possibly triggered these? Was it building the Warehouse? Did I get a new quest for each High Dragon I killed? What?  You know what? No.  The quests can wait a bit. Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  At least until I finish this party split.  Wow, that's a lot of dragons.   Oh hey, a chance to use a G3 move!   ...Wait, isn't that just a prettied up Front Punch?  Wow, really breaking out the effort for Opal's best moves, huh.   Strangely, that dragon wasn't guarding anything. There's just a dead end right past it.  While Zero Blue is directly south.    Video: VS Zero Blue Music: Battlefield - No. 7 Incursion   Been a while since I had to do an actual hack setup.   Remember when TROY procs actually made up a decent chunk of Yuno's damage?   The Freeze on Freeze Breath ticks for 30 damage, which is actually fairly nasty. That would have killed Yuno if it landed on her!   This is what Yuno can do with 2 fire cards now.  And this is  Aaaaaaand I'm now in zero danger of dying.   Blizzard sets up an attack to go off every round for the next four turns, while Cold Compression cuts all ATK-based damage by 50% and drops its fire multiplier from 1.5x to 0.51x. And unlike Trinnitro, Zero Blue still has more than enough health left to make use of it.  Case in point, that's with the MDF cut from lostpower.  This has a 0.5x multiplier, compared to Freeze Breath's 0.75x. lostpower.exe is just that good.  Aiden manages to land a blind Hack.  While Opal has to punch through Cold Compression.  Hilariously, Hack's stun chance manages to hit Blizzard.  Drill Crawler deals damage on par with a G3 Quartetto, for comparison. Which really goes to show how powerful Quartetto is for a T1 skill!  Remember when dragons could barely beat over their own defense back at Cladeon under lostpower?  Because that still holds true now.  Fire might be reduced right now, but it's still the best thing Yuno has in her hand.      It took 6 turns for Team 1 to beat their High Dragon. Teams 2 and 3 took half the time to beat theirs.  Welcome to VFD. Music: Finish Them Off  Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City     The gang's all here.   You guys are amazing, Opal. I have things I want to protect. Things you want to protect... That must be why you're able to work so hard, Unit 13.~ It was all thanks to you. *giggle* I'm just glad I can help you guys, Unit 13. But that determination... ~~ It's not because you're the dragon hunter, but because of a willpower anyone can have... It's a power we can all wield. Next time: We do everything but fight Hypnos.
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Jan 13, 2023 04:19
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BisbyWorl posted:
*Insert "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" theme here* Gilgamesh255 fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jan 13, 2023 |
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Jan 13, 2023 16:23
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Ah more asset reuse filler. Zero Blue was the last Imperial Dragon in 2020.   Its HP got a massive cut to account for the fact that it's now a miniboss, but the other stats are increased. Notably its defensive stats are much higher, as well as a sizeable speed increase. quote:Zero-Blue quote:Zero Blue α (LV. 50/46) Zero Blue's moveset on the other hand got some buffs and nerfs. Blizzard got a massive nerf since the damage is set to something even lower than it was in 2020. In 2020, damage over time abilities had their damage slowly decay over time. Not the case in VFD. The DOTs on the ailments got some buffs, but their infliction rates got lowered. Zero Blue's defense buff also got much more effective in VFD. Tail Attack is Zero Blue's old melee attack animation turned into an AOE. The real nerfs are with its AI though. Zero Blue's AI was pretty simple in 2020, and it's simple here too. Trinnitro's was mostly unchanged aside from slotting in Heat Ball. Insomnia had its attack patterns extended and stuffed with filler to make it less effective. But Zero Blue basically got lobotomized. A bunch of skills it was set to use in the original game's AI now have it set to use a regular attack instead. Skills only get used much later, making the boss far less threatening overall.
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Jan 13, 2023 17:49
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Update LV - Featuring: Trees Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  Ah, to have my team back together after so long.  Much better.  Directly north of where we were is a doorway.  Leading into another tree.   To the east is a dragon.   And another dragon.  The Stab Dragon is, surprisingly, another new dragon type. This one can hit hard with Shredding Bite, inflict a Paralysis with a 40% stun chance with Rolling Claw, hit the entire team with the same Paralysis with Roar, and give themselves a 1.15x ATK buff with Sharpen Claw. However, GEORGE! exists, so all it can do is die.  Past the dragons is a path up the roots of a tree, which would lead us to those unaccessable paths we've been seeing on the maps.  So instead I head back and go south of where we were.       That dragon wasn't guarding anything.  So we can head to the tree.  It may look like we're near a dragon, but this place has multiple levels. We'll get back here eventually.  Lena: My name's Lena! Woahhh, you're from some place called Tokyo? Tell me all about it!     And that's this section cleared out.   Our next stop is back on GEORGE!'s part of the party split.  This next dragon is...  Also new, what luck! Tower Dragons are mostly the same from 2020-II, keeping the same multipliers on their attacks and having their poison tick for mostly the same damage. They get a small buff to Jump, which now lasts 3 turns instead of 2, but uh... Jump... counts as a buff. You can, at any point, poke a Tower Dragon with a Buddy Skill and bring them crashing down to earth. This isn't even some kind of unintended interaction either, Tower Dragons get nailed with Null Action for a turn when forced to land like this!  However, GEORGE! exists, so all it can do is die.  I do like how you can see the places you were just at from up here.   Disoriented Girl: But I jumped too far and got separated from my friends~... And the game itself tells you about breaking Jump in case you didn't figure it out on your own!   The path leads into another tree hollow.  Which has a second exit.  Which just leads right back to the same map as before.    It was at this point that I realized I missed a chest on the lower level.  Eh, I'll get it later.  We then dip into where we started the party split.  For like three seconds.  Followed by Valerie's section.  Which immediately goes into a tree.  This tree has some loot.      Attack Ring III gives +8 ATK/MAT. Considering everyone is in the mid-200s on their attacking stat, there are better uses for their accessory slots.   After that is where Valerie fought Insomnia.     It was at this point that I realized that I missed another chest on the lower level.    Another map cleared.  Where GEORGE! fought Trinnitro.     Into another tree.  Myrna: I came here to stop my friend from getting hurt, but I ended up lost instead... But this one has a person inside it!       There's just nothing on the second half of the branches.  And just like that, we're back where we started.     You know, a save point and an exit means that Hypnos is almost certainly past here.  I'm sure Yuma can hold out for a bit longer while I grab those chests!  ...Wait, how the hell have I missed 10 dragons? Well, I can find them while grabbing those chests.  In fact, they're closer than you think! Remember where Opal started her segment?  Turns out there was an area transition right behind her.  Turns out that there are several areas of Preloma that are completely optional to go through! Next time: We still don't fight Hypnos.
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Jan 20, 2023 04:09
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Have we learned nothing from side scrolling games over the past 40 years? Always turn around first
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Jan 20, 2023 05:02
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Ah the tragedy of the Tower Dragon. They used to be quite infamous and fearsome. In DS they were... nothing special. Just did some damage or poisoned you. 2020 was when they started getting annoying. They had the jump ability which made them invincible for 2 turns. There was no counter to this. You just had to deal with the extended kill time. This was annoying to deal with, but getting a preemptive on them and bursting them down could bypass that. 2020-II proceeded to buff them into outer space, and made these things more nightmarish since Jump could no longer be avoided and their attacks were way stronger. They were also kind of defensive behemoths in the 2020s. Then VFD came around and nerfed Jump so hard the poor thing is basically in a crumpled pile. This is discounting the sheer power creep of basically erasing the gameplay from the game by spamming the Banisher button. Not only that, their claim to being one of the best defensive dragons is gone since their stats got nerfed to "normal" levels.
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Jan 20, 2023 06:08
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Update LVI - Featuring: Cleanup Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  Seriously, the game is already strapped for content as it is, why make at least two areas optional?     There's an area transition to the far right.  Which leads back to GEORGE!'s segment. Don't ask how GEORGE! got here without exploring the previous area.  It lets me grab this missing chest, at least.      This will never get old.   Shrewd Boy: Wait... Did I drop it while I was running away from those dragons...?     Looping back to get that other dragonsbane wall.   And that chest.      You might be asking yourself if dragons will ever get enough health to tank Earthquake.  And my answer is to that is: lol.   That's this area cleared.  And after that is a second optional area.   The funny thing is, even if Earthquake did start to fall off, Sheathed Stance is a priority move so I can always squeeze in some extra damage and a 10% DEF cut to bring it right back up.    A new weapon for GEORGE!, but inexplicably weaker than what he already has on.     Scholarly Man: It just saddens me to see the city where I spent my youth crumbling like this...   Turns out there was a chest at the start.              And that's every normal dragon in Preloma!   And the area itself clear.  Which leads back to where we started the party split.  So all that's left is grabbing that one chest where Insomnia was.  Now we can finally go fight Hyp-  Nah, I'm loving with you. Music: The Daily Grind  Kino: As promised, here's your reward! Thanks a lot! You obtained EXP Upper G x1. Yuma can be a distraction while we engage in the most time-honored of JRPG traditions: Doing literally anything else in a supposedly time-critical situation.  "Not Lost" Girl: By the way, do you know where the Infirmary is...?      Oh, and it looks like we did get a third quest after the party split!  lmao diminshed  More dragon signals have begun disappearing unnaturally... Just like last time, this request comes from Julietta... You can find him in the Director's Office. Please do your best... A Tokyo refugee seems to be looking for a special book... Please talk to Nene if you'd like more information... Myrna, a refugee from Eden, put this request in... She wants your help in stopping her friend from entering the dragon's den that is Preloma... At least this one is specifically from a civilian we rescued, rather than just materializing out of nowhere.  Heyyyyyyy Nagiri, just stopping by the cat cafe real quick before GEORGE! inverts Emel's organs with high explosives.  Byyyyyyyyyyyye.  Meow-nager Ai: It should be OK for you to use Fancy Cat Food now. Please come back fur more relaxation! You obtained Confusion Cut x1.  This is... you know what I'm not actually sure what triggers this one. Meow-nager Ai: In that case, I have a gift fur you! Your journey will purr-ogress phenomenally with this!  Oh look, another field skill held behind an unmarked conversation. Anyways, Repose acts as a 50% LF/MN heal for the front row, but only the front. Teams 2 and 3 get jack.  And this is for hitting a cat milestone. Meow-nager Ai: This is a thank you gift for all your help! I look fur-ward to working with you some more! You obtained SP Upper G x1.  As she said, we can now use that Fancy Cat Food we've been picking up.  It has the same full heal and 300 SP effect of normal Cat Food.  Plus gives EX to all 9 party members. Even with two Mind Boosters, refilling EX on everyone would take a while, so this saves a ton of time.   Shrewd Boy: By the way, I found a super rare item after I got to Tokyo. I'll give it to you for the low price of one billion Az! Huh? You don't have that much!? Sheesh, I didn't realize you were so poor...    And with our exploration of Preloma complete, we have enough stuff for Goht's quest.   Goht: Unit 13, I'd like you to meet my wife, Chiako. Thanks to these people's 'elp, I think I can fulfill my wedding anniversary promise. Chiako: You shouldn't have... Trying to keep your promise even in this harsh situation... Goht: I'm proud to 'ave you as my wife, Chiako. You married me, even though all I can do is cook. So, that's the way I 'ave to show you my gratitude. Chiako: Dear...  Goht: Please wait 'ere, Unit 13! You get a serving of my special dish. too!     The flavor was quite rich...Goht: Yes, yes. It's just as you say. ~ It was 'eavenly!Goht: That's the best praise a man can 'ear about 'is cooking. ~~ Chiako: *giggle* This is the 30th time we've had this anniversary stew. You were still just a dishwasher when you first made it... It tasted pretty terrible back then. Goht: I-I feel so 'umiliated...  Chiako: And my prediction was correct. It got better each year, and now it's just otherwordly. Thank you for the meal, dear. I look forward to next year's stew as well! Goht: Yes, of course...! Chiako: Unit 13. When Preloma is restored, please do visit our store. Goht: I'll repay today's favor with an 'earty feast! But for now, I'll just 'ave to give this as a thank you. You obtained 5,000 Az! You obtained Dragon Hatchling x1. Goht: Thank you very much!  Next time: The truth of a hero. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Jan 28, 2023 |
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Jan 27, 2023 05:38
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Update LVII - Featuring: Robocop Music: The Daily Grind  Our first quest of the day is in the Eden Ward, so we don't have to go far. Myrna: I want you to go stop my friend Nonom from leaving Kazan. She heard about this rare dragon, and now she won't stop talking about going to Preloma. But the only weapon she has is her camera... It would be suicide to go to Preloma! Please, stop her! It's sorta funny how we've had two quests for a dungeon we haven't even cleared yet.  Up next is the Tokyo Ward.  Nene: Thank you! Unit 13... You've been to Atlantis, haven't you? Is it really in the middle of the ocean!? I heard there's a giant beautiful palace there, too! O-Oh, I'm sorry. I have a new friend from Atlantis... My imagination's kinda gone wild after hearing her stories... *giggle* I really like books, too. Reading makes me feel like I can go anywhere in the world. So, I was hoping to borrow this book from Atlantis that my friend recommended... But the librarian in the Reference Room said she can't let normal people borrow it! Please, Unit 13! Could you help me get that book?  *nods*Nene: Thank you so much! You can ask the librarian for more details. It's up to you!  We don't have to leave Nodens for this, so might as well get started. Asuka: Oh, that book... This is strictly confidential, but I can tell you, Unit 13...  Asuka: They said we can't loan material that proves the existence of a civilization hidden to the world. There were lots of wonderful books in there, so I am honestly quite disappointed... ...What? So, bringing the entire populace of an entire country forward in time is all hunky dory, but the books are a step too far!? This entire quest started because the quest giver became friends with someone from Atlantis. Taking the books does nothing.  Asuka: If you want... do you think you could retrieve them? In secret, of course. And they can't even do that right, as now some of those oh-so-risky books are now just littered around for anyone to find!  Let's just go start that last quest.  The previous Investigation quest revealed that Blaster Raven was a straight up super hero, so we'll probably be seeing him again.  More dragons seem to be disappearing from the depths of the Tokyo Underground. It has to be that man... don't you think? *nods* After the first incident, I've been looking more closely into Blaster Raven. Blaster Raven was the player character in an old game called Super Blast. It was a game of doubtful quality made by a small-scale production company about thirty years ago.  That seems suspicious... Doesn't it...? Could that be a sign that another party outside of Nodens and ISDF is waiting to appear...? Just kidding! We're a bit too far into this little game for any new entrants... right? ~ Is Blaster Raven a Murakumo survivor? That can't be! Murakumo was assimilated into ISDF over twenty years ago! According to records, the youngest member at that point was 70 years old. Even if they were still alive and kicking, you can't expect an old fart like that to beat dragons!~~ Anyways, we can't leave this unattended. Go investigate right away! I'll be counting on you! How convenient that two quests both take place in the Underground. Music: UE77 Tokyo  Almost like it's the only real world Tokyo dungeon we have available or something! Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals  This signal... It must be Blaster Raven! There's nothing in the first area.  But there's something in the second.   Excellent work, ISDF. Really earning those taxpayer dollars.  Nothing in the third area.  And Blaster Raven at the end. Also there have been no changes to the enemy list here, they're all still as strong as they were during the intermission. I just pop Stealth to avoid wasting my time here.  Music: Endless Attack Cycle      You know, Blaster Raven has been built up as this big badass that's been slaughtering dragons while we're away, but he's currently 2 for 2 on getting his rear end kicked on screen.  Music: Battlefield - Furious Predator  The Evil Tyranno is the first T-Rex type dragon we've seen. It has Massive Fang (single target damage), Sideways Swipe (full party damage), Tyrant's Roar (ATK buff + DEF debuff), and Ominous Roar (crit chance buff + MDF debuff). The buffs alone make it a joke, as you can just break the buffs and leave them with a crippled defense.  However, GEORGE! exists, so all it can do is die. Music: Tokyo - Cascading Ordeals  Guess you gotta bring him back, Unit 13. He'll be dragon food if we just leave him. Music: The Daily Grind    Doctor Hori: He's still out...     You mean someone based their highly advanced combat cyborg on a retro video game? Doctor Hori: Indeed. He's deteriorated over the past twenty years, but he was clearly created with great skill.  That must mean he's really... You know who he is...? Someone who could develop a high-quality artificial body with anti-dragon weapons... There's only one person I know of who could have done such an amazing feat...~ Is he from Murakumo? ...That's right. Only one person could develop such a high-quality artificial body with anti-dragon weapons...~~  *groan* *gasp*   what????? Ayafumi Kirino, from the PSP games. Ayafumi Kirino, two time president of Murakumo. Ayafumi Kirino...  ...the man who tried to use Raven as a nickname??? Is a loving combat cyborg???  And, don't forget that this very quest mentioned that Super Blast was made by a Murakumo member. So did Kirino create a lovely video game just to give himself cover so he can run around acting like a cosplayer in case dragons ever showed up again? No matter how many years pass, I remain unable to follow through on my responsibilities... Oh, and despite Kirino living through 2020, meaning he'd know exactly what happened in the now Nyala-less timeline, we'll never ask him what happened back then. Why are you wearing that outfit? I first gave myself artificial parts after being wounded by a True Dragon years ago. But the organic parts kept aging, making it hard to continue on...~ How old are you...? My age is not important. I have lived for many, many years... That is... I can't die. I gave myself artificial parts years ago. But the organic parts kept aging...~~ So you decided to make your whole body robotic.  Why are you fighting dragons? Because... There is something I must settle... alone.~ Let's fight together! I wish I could, but... I am sorry. There is something I must settle... alone. No matter what.  I understand that you, too, go by the name Unit 13. *nods* You are very similar to the Murakumo Unit 13 I once knew. Please, protect Tokyo as they did. But you know what the funniest thing about all this is?  Doctor Hori: Don't push yourself! This quest? Optional.  If you didn't care about doing the bonus dungeon (which requires all dragons dead) you can just skip the entire Investigation quest line and never find out that Blaster Raven is actually a major character from the 2020s. Which is, you know, kinda a big deal.  Doctor Hori: I heard he was a great engineer, but he lost his right arm during a battle with a True Dragon... Well, we know his identity now, so the mystery of the disappearing dragons is officially solved! This is your reward! That is, unless you want something a bit spicier... Anyways, good work!You obtained 3,000 Az. You obtained Sp Up 500 x3.    Now to hand over those books.  Or maybe I missed a step.   Asuka: The engineering and history books are gone, but most of the novels are here! Those ISDF soldiers are so foolish! The culture of Atlantis matured in more ways than one through its literature... Mmmm... Oh! E-Excuse me... I believe the book Nene wished to borrow was The Sound of the Surf. Here you go. Please take this to her. I think the implication of just the engineering and history books being taken is that the ISDF were lying their asses off, and just wanted to get their hands on anything that can teach them about Atlantean military stuff.   There we go.  Nene: I'm going to read it right away♪ Ahhhhhhh...! It's written in the alphabet from Atlantis! I totally can't read this! ...But it's OK. My friend can teach me, and I'll read it little by little each day! Thank you so much, Unit 13! Here's a present! You obtained 3,000 Az! You obtained Healing Aloe III x3. You obtained SP Up 500 x3.   That's all we can do in the present day.  So that means we have to head back to Preloma for more not-killing-Hypnos! Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City  Nonom is right by the entrance.  *gestures*Nonom: Myrna's worried about me, huh...? I see... but I'm still gonna go! The albino dragon of Eden is super rare! It's like a work of art! It might fly away even as we stand here talking...  It's dangerous. You shouldn't go.Nonom: That's none of your business! I may not look like it, but I'm a well-known dragon photographer! I don't need your concern! ~ Let me accompany you.Nonom: I wouldn't be able to get a good shot if I had to deal with you guys holding me back! ~~ Nonom: Well, seeya! Say hi to Myrna for me!  Naturally, we do absolutely nothing to stop her from walking into a place currently infested by blue dragonsbane and an actual True Dragon.  We find her back in GEORGE!'s section of the party split.   I imagine dragon photographers are a dying career.     The White Dragon is literally the same one we fought in the prologue with tweaked AI and stats boosted. Just stats, mind you, the Burn on Fire Breath still deals 3 damage a tick.  Surprisingly, it has barely enough bulk to survive Sheathed Stance into Earthquake.  Key word: barely.  Nonom: Thanks to you, I got all sorts of shots of the heroes in battle with the rare white dragon! Turns out you guys are pretty cool! I'll get this developed right away! Well, seeya! Say hi to Myrna for me!   We're almost ready, Yuma! Music: The Daily Grind   Myrna: I'm sure she didn't thank you, so I'll do it instead... Thanks. This isn't much, but here. You obtained 5,000 Az! You obtained Soma-Aid x3.   Okay, surely we're done with all the sidequesting and can finally go kill Hyp-  what the actual gently caress Next time: We go fight Hypnos, surprisingly. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Feb 3, 2023 04:46
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Understandably because none of these games were localized before VFD, the revelation with Blaster Raven meant nothing to a lot of people outside of Japan. Of course if you have played those games, it's loving hilarious that this dork just turned himself into a cyborg superhero. All those words coming out of Blaster Raven's mouth, that was Kirino saying that.
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Feb 3, 2023 04:58
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 You want me to help you do what? There's nobody else I can trust with this. Richter, I need you to make me badass.
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Feb 3, 2023 05:23
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Thanks Bibsy, for completely ruining whatever dignity Kirino had with that revelation. I can't read Kinu's LP without cringing when Kirino appears now. Cause I would totally turn myself into a sentai cyborg too and I'm ashamed of myself for that.
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Feb 3, 2023 17:25
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GiantRockFromSpace posted:Thanks Bibsy, for completely ruining whatever dignity Kirino had with that revelation. I can't read Kinu's LP without cringing when Kirino appears now. mission accomplished 
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Feb 3, 2023 17:55
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All that aside,quote:The White Dragon is literally the same one we fought in the prologue with tweaked AI and stats boosted.
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Feb 3, 2023 21:31
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Kinu Nishimura posted:
Richter, I need you to turn off my cringe inhibitors!
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Feb 4, 2023 03:34
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see, kirino's biggest mistake was thinking that becoming a henshin hero would make him badass, when in fact it made him bad and it made him rear end
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Feb 4, 2023 04:48
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Hot take: Kirino was the best Murakumo support guy because he never went crazy or betrayed us and is just a nice, reliable guy through two whole games and also Blaster Raven is cool and good and I'm glad Kirino gets to live out his dorky-rear end anime cyborg dreams.
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Feb 4, 2023 06:10
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SIGSEGV posted:All that aside, Yeah that one's a bit inexplicable. The way enemy AI works in VFD specifically is that there's essentially a list of "commands" loaded up into an enemy file, command 1, 2, 3, etc. Each command number points to a specific skill ID, which is how enemies know what skills to use, and then the actual AI calls the command to use a skill. (None of the previous games do this, they just call the skill ID directly.) quote:White Dragon (LV. 2/1) and (LV. 48/44) The White Dragon actually has 2 different AI files since the tutorial version only attacks once per turn, while the stronger version has the standard attack 2 times per turn attribute. For whatever reason the stronger version of the White Dragon calls all the same skills. Not an issue for Sonic Boom and Power Charge because its stats are boosted appropriately, but the version of Fire Breath calls has the exact same burn damage, not even one of the several stronger versions of Fire Breath in the skill data table that comes with higher burn damage. As for the AIs, the two versions have different behaviors. White Dragon (LV. 2/1) posted:-Take 1 action per turn. White Dragon (LV. 48/44) posted:-Take 2 actions per turn. The level 48 version is basically normal dragon behavior since it can attack twice per turn, other then calling an oddly weaker version of Fire Breath. Given that this was a sidequest enemy, they may not have felt like updating that one part for some bizarre reason. Or maybe they forgot, who knows. The level 2 version on the other hand, recycles its AI almost entirely from the tutorial dragons in 2020-II, with some slight adjustments. Target type 44 was "attack the lowest leveled party member" (This was done to nerf a class in 2020-II. It's a bit complicated and I go over that in the 2020 LP thread.) But from what I can tell it's non-functional in VFD and essentially goes after random targets.
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Feb 4, 2023 07:00
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Update LVIII - Featuring: The Fourth True Dragon Music: Let's Get to Work!!  A Tokyo refugee by the name of Nene put this request in... Um... If I remember correctly, she's that daydreaming bookworm from before... It sounds like she's got her sights set on another niche title... Anyways, you'll need to ask the client herself for more details... Good luck... Apologizing, apologizing, apologizing. The most tiring part of work is dealing with complaints... However, trust in our company will lessen if we don't handle them. My miniscule pay will grow even smaller... The thought of that makes my stomach hurt... Anyways, I'm going to leave this complaint to you, Unit 13... The refugees in the Eden Evac Ward will give you more info. Help me, Unit 13... You're my only hope.At the very least, these two quests won't take long to deal with. We don't even need to leave Nodens for them!  Nene: I just finished reading “The Sound of the Surf”! It was so amazing! I couldn't stop crying when the protag rode off into the sunset on a whale... Oh, I'm sorry! I just can't help myself when it comes to books. Now then, about today's request... Please wait a moment!     Nice to meet you!Vio: ...!? Nice... meet... ~ What did you say?Vio: Um, I'm sorry... I can't speak... very loud... ~~ Nene: Hm, how do I put this...? She's pretty shy, but she's a really good person! Vio: ...! Nene: Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you. So, Vio sorta fell for this cute guy from Eden we met in the Reference Room... But as you can see, she's super shy. It makes it pretty tough for her to get close to him. Though we did find out that he's an avid reader. He seems to really be interested in one particular book, but the librarian won't tell us which one. He hasn't shown up in the Reference Room for a while, either... If we can get that book, it would be a great starting point for them to get to know each other! Vio: Um, please... help... me...   Asuka: You're looking for his favorite book...? *nods*Asuka: I'm sorry, it no longer exists... The book Rudy cared for most was his own work that he was looking to publish here in Tokyo... It was a report from when he went to investigate the forbidden land of Tokion in Eden. But due to the content, it was was [sic] caught during the ISDF censorship inspection. They prohibited it from being published, and Rudy tore up the manuscript in a fit of rage.  Did it really need to be censored?Asuka: ...I don't know much about its contents. However, I heard that the findings within would have bridged the gap between Eden and this world. Oh, so the ISDF doesn't want anyone to find out how the setting turns into Eden by 7D1. The bastards. ~ I want to read it.Asuka: You're interested in nonfiction, GEORGE!? I much prefer fiction and poetry to real world stories. There's much more magic to it. ~~ Asuka: Ah... I know! Before they prohibited it, the ISDF guys must have digitized Rudy's work! Their security can't be perfect given the chaotic state of things in this country. You might be able to access their data stores from a computer in the Development Room!  Don't mind me, just hacking into the loving military to get my hands on a banned book, nbd.  System Message: ... ...... ......... You successfully accessed the ISDF database!  How bad is their security if GEORGE!, who saw his first computer like yesterday, can break in with ease?     Nene: Let's read it right away!   Nene: Vio, take this and go find Rudy! Having him teach you the Eden alphabet is the perfect chance to get intimate with him! Vio: O-OK... I'll do... my best...!  I'll be rooting for you!Vio: Thank... you...! ~ Can I read it when you're done?Nene: This thing's pretty interesting, after all! We'll make a copy and give it to you, as long as Rudy's OK with it. Don't get your hopes up. We will not be getting a copy of the Tokion report. ~~ Vio: Unit 13... This is... a thank... you... You obtained 5,000 Az! You obtained Argos Medal x1. The Argos Medal is an accessory that gives +7 ATK/MAT and +5 SPD. Nene: Alrighttt! Let's gooo! To the Eden Evac Ward! Vio: ...! Nene: Oh, sorry for yelling! I just can't help myself...   One down, one to go. Lena: Haven't you noticed? It's far too hot! That box is supposed to make cold air, but it is only making hot air at the moment! I asked Sailas to fix it, but he's off sleeping somewhere. I think Jil's going to get a heat stroke! People are really going to die at this rate. Could you get someone important to come fix this? Were these quests meant to pop next chapter or something? Because Sailas and Jil are currently at Preloma. Oh, and by 'someone important'...  Lena means the president of the company.  OK OK★ I can use my presidential power to get right on that! You're going to help too, right, Unit 13? Can you report this to Julietta? She's in charge of maintenance. Oops, I mean... he★ The air conditioning's broken in the Eden Evac Ward? *sigh* So it finally happened... That floor used to be a storage room, so it's only got a crappy little air conditioner. If we're going to repair it, we'll need the piping diagram. Can you go look for it in the Warehouse? Can't Sailas just fix it? It is the Eden Evac Ward, after all. Though I bet he won't move an inch if something doesn't pique his interest. I suppose excelling in your field brings its own problems... *sigh*  Yes, yes... I think we can just substitute in some other parts we have lying around... I'll send an engineer over at once. It shouldn't take him any more than half an hour or so.~ I took care of it this time, but I'm gonna chew Sailas out later. Those who don't work don't eat! A scientist's job is to serve the public! Lena: Ahhhhh... This is like paradise! I'm so happy I could die~! Thank you so so much~! Here, this is a token of my appreciation! You obtained 5,000 Az! You obtained Burn Cut x1.  There, we're finally done with side quests and can go deal with Hypnos. But first...  I need to make a small change.  For what I have in mind, I specifically need Aiden to sub in for Vivian.  I also make sure to give everyone immunity or resistance to Paralysis and Confusion.  Music: UE77 Tokyo  I'm sure Yuma's just fine after stalling Hypnos for so long. Music: Preloma - Ruined Scholar City   pay no mind to Vivian being in this shot, I actually did this before all the sidequesting As you know, we need to get both the Dragonslayer and the Hypnos specimen. Our enemy is a True Dragon... If you hesitate, even a tiny bit, it will strike you down. Make sure your mind is made up, Unit 13.  I'll be praying for your safety!    Music: Endless Attack Cycle  This is it... Hypnos.  Ah, there you are, Unit 13. My apologies, but you won't have the chance to participate here. Grahhh!   Oh drat, he actually got the Dragonslayer.       Music: Stops  Holy poo poo, Aytel's alive!  ...For another five minutes!    Wh-What is...!? Is that... Aytel...? Music: Ignith of the Final Attack (code：VFD Ver)   M-My sister... Aytel... Why...? Let us stop this... Let us leave this planet... The dragon hunters... will handle the rest... Aytel... No... I... must... kill... I cannot... ...   Music: Stops   Music: Ignith of the Final Attack (code：VFD Ver)  Hey, Unit 13! What's going on over there!? The nu... drago... gnal... wa... abnor... Please... Please... spond! Pl... res...!     True Dragons are the absolute peak of evolutionary progress. When a matured species is unified under one will... They will evolve into the most supreme of organisms... True Dragons... Emel... Aytel... They wandered for tens of thousands of years... Their hatred... and their love... were nothing but steps on the path to becoming a True Dragon... Poor Yuma, even the actual True Dragons don't pay any attention to him.  The hatred burning in my core will soon consume all life on Earth... However, if you are truly the dragon hunter, you should be able to destroy that hatred...  No, I'll have time to think about that later! For now I have to— Urgh! Poor Yuma, taken out of the fight at the last possible moment yet again.  You took a direct hit at very short range! Please, just leave this to Unit 13! ...! Sailas... Commander Emel is not coming back... is she? Jil... I must make a request of you as well. Please... Do what you can to save Commander Emel! I'll finish this quickly! ~ I will defeat the True Dragon! That is acceptable. It is time for you to show your worth as the dragon hunter.~~     Video: VS Hypnos Music: Ignith of the Final Attack feat. riya(eufonius) (  You should absolutely listen to this. )   Right off the bat, Hypnos is a sizable step up from Haze, coming in with 13K LF (compared to Haze's 7K), 217 ATK/MAT, 151 DEF/MDF, and 80 SPD.  She's also the hardest boss in the game. Why?  Because unlike every other boss in the game, Hypnos punishes blind aggression. Therefore, I have to use an actual plan that goes beyond just pointing GEORGE! at the enemy.  I used TROY:Ice for fun, since the damage on TROY procs have fallen off so hard.  Daphne Mezereum is the reason I put Paralysis and Confusion gear on everyone, as it inflicts both to the entire party with a 40% chance, and the Paralysis itself has a 50% chance to eat your move. If this connects, say goodbye to your action economy.  And I can't really afford that when she can two shot anyone not named GEORGE!.  Mage's Consent doesn't boost proc rates, but eh.  I need to kill a turn setting up Bomb Scatter anyways.  You might be thinking that I'm going to use Earthquake.  You are wrong. My plan needs more bombs, and I won't have time to Reload if I blow them all here.   While Thomas moves to apply Volcano.  And Aiden does his thing.  A 0.7x ATK modifier from Volcano's Burn.  7x200 damage for 1400.  Much better.  Unlike Nyala who used True Dragon Meteor if you don't break his buffs, or Haze who was on a strict timer, Hypnos uses her ultimate attack at specific health breakpoints. Pushing her below 90% is her first trigger.   Which gives me just enough time to really put the screws to her.  A 0.8x ATK modifier from Deafening Roar.  And a 0.6x ATK modifier from lostpower.exe.  With all those stacked, Hypnos is now dealing literal chip damage.  This is her telegraph move, which also restores 6% of her LF. Fun fact: Due to how the game parses skill names, this move is literally called 'her sword to gather hateful energy.' You might be thinking that this is a good sign to defend.  Again, you'd be wrong.    Because with all those debuffs on her, Solitary Sword does nothing. Normally, it's a terrifying attack with 13 hits, with each hit having a 20% chance to inflict Bleed and a 15% chance to inflict Skill Seal, but I just turned it into literal scratch damage. This is the entire reason I used this party in particular, to utterly clown on Hypnos. The hardest boss in the game, everyone.  Oh, and since GEORGE! is a baller who dodged 13 chances of Skill Seal and Bleed, he can still retaliate with Earthquake. Like, the odds of that happening are 1/150, less than a single percent, and GEORGE! pulled it off like it was nothing.  For more fun, Opal's support effect means that I don't even have to worry about the Skill Seal!   lostpower still completely neuters madstrife.   Notice how she took three actions? That means one of them was another her sword to gather hateful energy. Her second LF threshold was at 70%, with the final being at 40%. This is why blindly attacking can get dicey, pushing her past multiple gates at once will make her happily spam Solitary Sword in quick succession, leaving you on the back foot until she's finished. And god help you if she lands a Daphne Mezereum just before you hit a breakpoint and leaves you completely unable to respond.  Thomas manages to reapply Volcano with no boosters on. Good job, Thomas!  GEORGE! has to *gasp* actually reload!  Deafening Roar may have fallen off, but what's left should still keep Solitary Sword harmless.  Yep. Sadly GEORGE! doesn't manage to avoid Skill Seal twice.  lol  I'm fairly sure Hypnos is below 40%, so I reapply my debuffs.   ...oh no  Looks like you all get to see what Solitary Sword should actually do!  Burn and Hack got purged, but normal debuffs stay on so it'll get a bit blunted.   Without debuffs on, Solitary Sword would deal somewhere in the ballpark of 150 damage to the entire party unguarded. Hypnos is terrifying if you don't know just how good buffs and debuffs are.  Oh, and she still has her second action to finish off any survivors with. Decuple Blades is her last attack, with a 20% chance of Instant Death. Her first two Solitary Swords have her follow up with a normal attack, but she'll always use it after her third.  Yuno's tapped out, so I have to patch myself up by hand.   That would probably one shot Thomas and Aiden.  Oh no, she knows who the actual threat here is.    Aiden tries a blind Hack and fails.    Aaaaaaand there's the instant death.  Thomas tries to stick Volcano and fails.  The problem with Hypnos is that once you lose the momentum, she can make it very hard to get it back.  But the thing is? I'm not in any real danger of losing here.  In any other game, staying stuck on recovery like this would eventually lead to you burning through all your items, at which point you just get worn away. But here in VFD?  A turn spent healing is a turn spent building Unison.          Music: Finish Them Off  And it turns out not much can survive a 9 on 1. Next time: Disrespecting the game even harder than I already am. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Feb 10, 2023 03:49
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I'm still not sure what was going through the localizers' heads with that track name. "Ignis" might have made sense. Could even be short for "Ignition". But... instead we have "Ignith", which is not a word in the English language. This does not stop the song from being a certified banger, though. They probably spent like a sixth of the budget on it.
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Feb 10, 2023 07:52
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Hypnos is a very infamous boss to all who've played the game. She's the only one who genuinely presents a challenge, even to players abusing the hell out of the broken poo poo. As Bisby said, she actually punishes you if you go unga bunga, which no other boss does. Because she stops the easiest route that people have been abusing, she ends up being a big roadblock since you need to learn a new set of tactics to deal with her properly. She is very beefy and strong. Though her ailment resistances aren't anything special. quote:4th True Dragon Hypnos (LV. 56/53) Solitary Sword is the big skill that sends players fleeing for the hills since it can severely set you back, or end the run. It's effectively a 1.95x AOE damage skill, which is huge coming off that attack stat! The fact it can't crit is your only saving grace. Even guarding, it'll put a huge dent in your party, and the skill seal can leave your party scrambling to recover. The bleed shouldn't be overlooked either, because it can be enough to finish off any unlucky party members inflicted with it after a Solitary Sword cast. Unfortunately, you can't gear up for immunity to Solitary Sword's ailments, as Hypnos has a much more dangerous set of ailments in her other skills. Daphne Mezereum just plain locks your party out of a few turns, which is a big no no. Gearing up to resist or be immune to that is a must, because that skill is also a run ender on its own. Decuple Blades is also a hard hitting attack that has a chance to kill. However, most, but not all the time, it will go after the party member with the highest HP. So you can control who's in danger that way at the very least. Hypnos operates by working off of a relatively tame attack pattern until Solitary Sword happens. If you don't burst her down hard enough, you'll end up with several Solitary Sword casts in a row instead of ending the fight. On the other hand, if you take things slowly, she isn't too bad. Take the time you need to recover before advancing to her next phase, which is the real secret to doing this fight smoothly. Which is something VFD never encouraged until now, so she has a very high player kill count. Incidentally Hypnos actually has the 2nd longest AI file of any enemy, dragon, and boss in the entire game. She also has the honor of being one of the few fights in the series that can act 3 times per turn due to how her setting up for solitary Sword works. So here it is for those still having trouble with this infamous roadblock. 4th True Dragon Hypnos (LV. 56/53) posted:Routine 1:
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Feb 10, 2023 10:54
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Well, Emel can rest easy knowing that, comparatively to the rest of the game, she went out blazing and not like a complete chump. Too bad GEORGE! is the true final True Dragon because if TDs are the apex of evolution GEORGE! reached that several updates ago.
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Feb 10, 2023 10:59
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Oh, and I forgot to mention this last time:BraveLittleToaster posted:Man, either the dragons are that chumpy, or the cosplayer is actually Blaster Raven and hiding it by cosplaying as Blaster Raven. 
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Feb 10, 2023 11:08
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BisbyWorl posted:Oh, and I forgot to mention this last time: What's the length on the prophetic posts to quote later on? Because there were like three new ones each update.
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Feb 10, 2023 11:17
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Omobono posted:What's the length on the prophetic posts to quote later on? Because there were like three new ones each update. I keep a list of funnier prophecy balls on hand.
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Feb 10, 2023 11:20
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...wait, if we killed Emel in the past, then how is she still alive to help out with 7D2? ...oh drat it, did we cause a time paradox again?
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Feb 10, 2023 15:59
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Gilgamesh255 posted:...wait, if we killed Emel in the past, then how is she still alive to help out with 7D2? ...oh drat it, did we cause a time paradox again? We're about a century past 7D1, well after everything else. We have met Aytel in the present, however, which will probably get awkward if we ever run into her again.
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Feb 10, 2023 16:03
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yeah this is theoretically the future
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Feb 10, 2023 23:37
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| # ? May 8, 2024 04:38 |
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You killed her in the future because the events of the first game took place after the events of the 2020 games. Time-line is not actually messed up by this. The events that sent part of Atlantis hurtling into the distant future though..
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Feb 11, 2023 03:27
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