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Dragonatrix posted:I was very confused when once I was reading a thing on GameFAQs for this and it had an entire section devoted to the demo because gently caress it why not? Gotta get that GameFAQs cred, chum. First one to post a guide gets the most respect!
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Oct 31, 2014 16:25
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Sloober posted:The only point I ever felt you really had to grind in this was for post game content and the initial couple of starter dungeons. After that as long as you do the requisite exploration the levels come at a decent pace to keep up with the game. I found myself grinding for money more often than levels. Like OFS said, equipment is expensive but I felt like I always needed the newest kit for my party.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:27
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YamiNoSenshi posted:I found myself grinding for money more often than levels. Like OFS said, equipment is expensive but I felt like I always needed the newest kit for my party. You have to grind if you want the really good abilities, too. Those are really only necessary for post-game content, though, I guess (and because again I just like when you hear the ding and the numbers go up)
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Oct 31, 2014 16:32
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One benefit of playing Dragon Quest 8 on an emulator is that you can use save states to game the random number generator in order to first encounter more metal slimes than usual and then make sure they don't run away before you can kill them. I once did that for a few hours to get my characters up into the 80's and then completely trashed the bonus-bonus-post-game content.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:45
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theshim posted:Another OFS LP? I'm following with gusto I'm on board with this sentiment. I can't wait to see just how badly and how quickly you break this one, Sheep. I can only assume it's going to involve the shiny new tension mechanic, because it was good enough to make it into DQ9 as well.
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Oct 31, 2014 18:23
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thefailtrain posted:I can't wait to see just how badly and how quickly you break this one, Sheep. DQ8's high-end shenanigans aren't as visually entertaining as FF games usually have, sorry. It's more extremely efficient use of resources than killing bosses before they can even move. There'll be shenanigans, just don't expect the sort of indestructible battle god nonsense FFTA had or anything.  Update 3's coming in a few. I both made sure I had update 2 ready when I posted the thread, and that I want to get to the vote for skills quickly.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:12
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 The rummaging and pillaging has had the intended effect: now I can afford the bare minimum armor upgrade for Eight! I don't need to worry about getting them fully decked out; first off, there's some free upgrades sitting in chests, like that leather shield in the well. Second, by the time I had enough gold to get everything, it'd be time to move on to the next town and get yet even better armor.  Pressing Select opens Trode's battle records. He makes fun of us for being level 1. The goal of this update is to change that. It also lets you look at the different monsters you've fought and what items you've obtained.  Start opens the party chat. It serves both as a reminder for what you were doing and to see what the rest of your party has to think.  We were using the west gate, but the waterfall cave is to the south, no?  Man Trode why you gotta be mean they opened a new door and everything.  A lot of DQ8 is judging when you need to rest. Our party's going to fight for a few minutes then sleep until next morning, to fight for a little longer then go right back into bed because the colored bars aren't full.  To a Vast World If you click only one music link for the entire LP, make it the world map theme. It is a perfect manefestation of the spirit of exploration and adventure. Besides fighting some mobs to make our numbers large enough to not die, we're also going to be poking around the Farebury region.  The waterfalls are visible in the distance. You can follow the roads to them, in fact.  We're going to go to exactly not there.  Our first random encounter is a singleton Lips. War Cry  Lips are hardier than slimes for sure, and they can lick a party member to shock them out of a turn, but they are nothing Eight and Yangus can't handle.  I suppose I'll compile these monster info screens when a region is completed. Someone do remind me to do so though or I'll probably forget.  There's little plants growing in the river. One of my goals with this LP is to have a lot of good-looking shots of DQ8's wilderness.  That might come to a premature end as this is one mean crew of rabbits and vegetables. Capsichums are on-par with Lips more or less, but Bunicorns are the toughest things in the Farebury region. They may or may not have a trick, for all I remember is the horrible stabbing.  And stabbing they do a lot. With three bunicorns attacking each round and Eight and Yangus too weak to take one out in a single round, they wear on Eight's HP really quickly.  Luckily, Eight pulls a critical hit out of his rear end. Critical hits are the greatest thing you'll ever see. They do boatloads of extra damage and ignore defense. Ignoring defense is the important part.  It isn't enough to stop the enemies from putting Eight on death's door, though!  Since there's only two enemies left, defending is the prudent option. They shouldn't be able to take 4 HP when their damage is halved, after all.  Capsichums can cast a single spell, Sap.  When it successfully lands, Sap reduces defense by half. It'd be threatening but this means the Capsichum isn't attacking and our defense values are so low right now that getting halved doesn't make a huge difference.  The defending was to ensure Yangus's Medicinal Herb got in. They recover 30-35 HP and having a few in case of emergencies (like this) is invaluable this early in the game.  Capsichums only have 4 MP so they can barely cast Sap the once.  Bunicorns are worth 5 experience each, and the Capsichum 3. This is enough to rocket the party to...  Level 2!!   The increases are minor but every little bit helps.  Strength and Resilience are base Attack and Defense, respectively. Agility determines who acts when and has a very, very, very minor effect on evasion, or so I have read. Wisdom is used in determining the power of spells, of which we have none.  Next fight isn't nearly as dangerous. Candy cats are about the same tier of strength as Capsichums, but instead of any trick they sometimes... waste their own turn.  Yangus demonstrates evasion. Most enemies have evasion stats of 0, but some have pretty good chances to dodge. We'll grow to hate them.  We're beaten up after two four-guy battles, but we don't have a map to point us back to Farebury!!  Oh, the colorful roofs and the plume of smoke make it easy to see from a distance.  While resting at the inn, Eight notices Trode hammering away at... something.  Huh, she's either talking about the same prince of Argonia that Trode mentioned, or there are a lot of engaged princes.  A bit more fighting gets Eight and Yangus to level 3. This one is more important than 2 because...  Eight gets the Heal spell. It's more or less identical to a Medicinal Herb except that it gets boosted by tension and costs 2 MP. Level 3 also comes with 5 MP.  Sadly, Eight's MP doesn't refill itself on levels. Back to the inn, because with this we can trek out quite a bit farther!  In this case, we're heading due west.  Along the way a Candy Cat demonstrates its ability to waste its own turn.  Well this is odd. We're far west enough that a few tougher enemies have joined the fray. Firespirits both resist physical attacks and have an innate damage reduction that make them far more resilient than their 9 defense would imply.  They're here to make sure you know that psyching up is a valuable tool.  For the cost of a turn, Eight's multiplied his damage by 1.7. Tension can go up to four stages: the second is +20, which is triple normal damage - technically breaking even. At the third stage, +50, you more than break even and hit for five times normal damage! There's even a fourth level that is 7.5 times normal!  Despite all their resistances, the bonus from a single stage of tension is enough to level these goobers. Handy, since firespirits can cast the basic attack spell Frizz that hits for as much as 10 damage at once.  We're at the far-west part of the Farebury region. Frist, at the top there, the castle in those ominous purple clouds is where Eight and Trode came from, the kingdom of Trodain. Whatever Dhoulmagus did there, it's left a mark. Second, the bridge between here and there is out. Given our party came from the west, I wonder what happened? Third, and probably most curious, is that brown-orange-whatever thing. While normally monsters are unseen random encounters, some special monsters appear on the overworld. I'll elect to not gently caress with him, because there's little point and it would be a dangerous fight.  Finally a satyr shows up. They're the last part of the enemies that show up around Farebury. They're nothing special.  Oh my, it's one of those mysterious chests that King of Adventure mentioned! Finders keepers!  Okay I would really like to know who put this here because who the gently caress puts their underwear in a chest in a forest near a ravine?  Regardless, it's a sizable upgrade over Yangus's default armor.  I elect to travel back to Farebury via Chimaera Wing. eventually we'll have dozens of places to which to go.  Cya later shitlords!  The fourth trek into the wilderness starts extremely improbably, as we somehow get a 1/256 drop from a Bunicorn.  This is literally the first 1/256 drop I've gotten in any of my playthroughs of DQ8.   It's nothing terribly exciting though 2 agility is a 33% increase for Yangus.  Trek #5 (because I wanted to save a 1/256 drop) has two bunicorns.  They're enough to get the team to level 4.  Eight learns the poison-curing spell, but far more importantly...  DQ8's other big thing is the skill point system. From now on, every level will carry with it a few skill points. Each character has 5 skills - three weapons, an unarmed set, and a personal quality with utility abilities. Let's get the rundown on Eight's  Swords are the requisite weapon of any noble protagonist! For developing this skill, Eight will gain the ability to slash things in specific ways. Dragon Slash deals heavy damage to dragons, of which there are many in a game named Dragon Quest obviously, for example. The other big skill here is Falcon Slash, which is more or less a free damage multiplier and a fantastic skill in general.  Spears open strong with Mercurial Thrust, which in exchange for slightly decreased damage, let Eight attack first in a round. Multithrust is a good single-target option, but the important maneuver here is Thunder Thrust. The attack either wiffs completely or scores a critical hit. Auto-critical moves, as I've taken to calling them, are extremely potent in a few situations where nothing else can even match. So much so I think I overvalue them and keep going with spears in my playthroughs.  Boomerangs focus on hitting all enemies where spears and swords generally focus on one. The abilities overcome the weaknesses in Boomerangs while giving a few elemental options for variety. You can't go wrong with 'em.  Fisticuffs isn't here for punching things. Sure, it's possible, but no weapon isn't a substitute for a good weapon. It's here for two abilities. Defending Champion is five times as potent as the defend option, reducing damage to a tenth, a very potent defensive option against physical attackers. The other is Thin Air, a subtly amazing Woosh-elemental attack that hits all enemies for surprisingly high damage that costs all of 2 MP. It's strong enough that boomerangs are considered an alternative to Thin Air.  Courage is the odd man out here. It gives Eight a few spells to round out his collection, such as Zoom, which replicates Chimaera Wings, and Holy Protection, which replicates Holy Water. It's not particularly important at first, since, well, you noticed how I defined the spells in terms of items, but eventually Eight will want to go to the top of this.  Eight's not alone in having skills.  Axes start off with the ever-handy Helm Splitter, an attack with the Sap effect of lowering defense. It's the home of the game's other auto-critical skill, Hatchet Man. Functionally identical to Thunder Thrust, the long and short of it is that we're going to have at least one of these around for the moments when they're useful beyond anything else.  Clubs have Heart Breaker, an attack that can sometimes shock an enemy out of a turn, and Penny Pincher, an attack that can steal a smidgen of gold. The problem is, every Club ability costs MP and Yangus has downright pitiful MP. They also aren't that useful, as this is a single-target weapon whose abilities mostly wiff against bosses, so we're paying for mild multipliers at the highest investment. Still, they can come in useful against some random encounters, and the MP thing is anything but unsolvable, and if a boss happens to be a robot or made of bricks or something clubs can wreck it.  Scythes are here for Stainless Steal Sickle, an attack that steals items and is a free 1/5 extra damage. Constant stealing may just net something of some value and if nothing else, it's Yangus's only ability that increases damage at no MP cost. I know that doesn't sound like a resounding endorsement but seriously Stainless Steal Sickle is really good.  Fisticuffs for Yangus is a lot like Eight's in that the point is to get Thin Air. It's cheap enough that even Yangus's pitiful MP is enough to blow away random encounters. It also has Padfoot, an ability a lot like Holy Water that stacks with it to let us travel without getting harrassed every now and then.  Humanity gives Yangus a few useful moves like his own Heal and the ability to trigger random encounters without having to run in circles. The main thing for us is Nose for Treasure, which will tell me if I'm missing some loot in a dungeon. It'd be embarrassing to miss, I don't know, cow poop because I didn't break every vase in a zombie-infested ruin. So, to summari-   two of them okay this is fuckin' riri what the gently caress So there's two votes here. Rather than blindly voting to allocate skill points, I'll offer a few builds that will cover the bulk of skill points intelligently, getting the good stuff and then getting out. Eight's skills! Fisticuffs to Swords- Get Thin Air to handle random encounters, then go to Falcon Slash Boomerangs to Swords - Get Boomerangs's good skills, then swords for Falcon Slash Fisticuffs to Spears- Get Thin Air, then develop Thunder Thrust for auto-crits Boomerangs to Spears- Boomerangs for mobs, Spears for bosses, more or less Spears & Swords- kinda gimmicky but Falcon Slash is good and so is Thunder Thrust. All of these presume developing Courage afterwards to get the high-end spells out of it. The best boomerang and best spear are mutually exclusive, but the second best boomerang is good enough for the job that it doesn't matter much. Yangus's skills! Fisticuffs to Axes- get Thin Air, then focus on auto-crits. Fisticuffs to Scythes- get Thin Air, then Stainless Steal Sickle for damage and stealing Fisticuffs to Clubs- get Thin Air, then try to rationalize using Clubs Axes & Scythes- Single target as hell, with a variety of options for hurting one guy Clubs & Scythes- the crime option with gold and item stealing that sometimes may happen maybe. All of these presume some Humanity in there for its goodies. No clubs with axes, as the best weapons of those two are mutually exclusive, and the gaps between #2 and #1 for each are too large for my tastes. I'll require at least one auto-critical ability, so if no spears or axes option is in either poll's lead, I'll take whichever has the most votes to ensure one ability. Vote here for Eight and here for Yangus! The poll will go on for at least 48 hours, so whenever I notice this thread on Sunday evening!
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Oct 31, 2014 20:25
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Anything, as long as you man out Yangus' Humanity for reasons.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:44
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I'll be interested to see how you develop your skills here. I always found levels and Skill points to be two sparse to really focus on more than two trees, which is a shame. Aw man, I loving love this game's world map, though. More games should have to-scale world maps rather than the old tropes of making the character the size of a city. Makes the grinding way more tolerable - most regions of the world have tons and tons and tons of poo poo to find, and going out looking for it all will typically get you into enough fights to get most of your leveling done. Plus it just looks fantastic.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:47
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Another good use for Axes is Axes of Evil, which gives Yangus the ability to hit a group of enemies with damage that scales with his weapon. He's not the best group-attacker in the party, but there are still certain kinds of enemy that you really want to hit all at once and not just one at a time. Also, the best thing about getting Swords up to 100 becomes better when you also get Courage up to 100, which is why I usually focus on both skills simultaneously in my runs. Boomerangs are nice, but Hero eventually gets some group-target spells on his own so they aren't necessary.
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Oct 31, 2014 20:59
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Criiiiime. We must crime
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Oct 31, 2014 21:19
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I beelined the first few levels of Boomerangs to get their first couple skills before doing nothing but swords and courage, since earlygame boomerangs are real drat good (see also how good that boomerang in the first shop was!) and it's good to have that backup MT option in case of stuff. But of course I played the game with a working knowledge of where some of the higher end skills on each character were located, although I completely ignored one tree on a later character I really shouldn't have.George posted:You missed out. The demo for FFXII was execrable, and the full game was brilliant. I picked up the game much later when it hit bargain bins, but only played a couple hours (like basically went out and fought Rogue Tomato, then saved outside Rabanastre). My biggest issues from the demo were still there (ATB being tortuously slow, enemies respawning too fast) so I shelved it. I've considered going back to it and employing degenerate power leveling tactics to speed through the game better, but so much to play, so little time, you know.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:35
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CmdrKing posted:I picked up the game much later when it hit bargain bins, but only played a couple hours (like basically went out and fought Rogue Tomato, then saved outside Rabanastre). My biggest issues from the demo were still there (ATB being tortuously slow, enemies respawning too fast) so I shelved it. I've considered going back to it and employing degenerate power leveling tactics to speed through the game better, but so much to play, so little time, you know. Been a while since I played 12, but I'm pretty sure there's an option to adjust the ATB speed somewhere in there. Look into it if you ever feel like giving 12 another shot. I really enjoyed it - gameplay-to-story ratio gets skewed in a few places (towards gameplay, of all things! There's a few points in the game where you have to hike halfway across the world with only a handful of cutscenes to remind you where exactly you're going) and I found the battles hit or miss, but I found the story and world to be really neat. Very different from the archetypical FF.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:39
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Spiritus Nox posted:Been a while since I played 12, but I'm pretty sure there's an option to adjust the ATB speed somewhere in there. Look into it if you ever feel like giving 12 another shot. I really enjoyed it - gameplay-to-story ratio gets skewed in a few places (towards gameplay, of all things! There's a few points in the game where you have to hike halfway across the world with only a handful of cutscenes to remind you where exactly you're going) and I found the battles hit or miss, but I found the story and world to be really neat. Very different from the archetypical FF. I should, Ivalice is great and such. But 50 game backlogs.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:42
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It is possible to do an all fists run of this game. It's not that much harder, but since there are only a handful of different skills it gets very, very boring.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:46
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alcharagia posted:Criiiiime. We must crime Agreed. Yangus must end this game as a mob boss.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:48
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If you don't pick Axes And Scythes for Yangus I don't want to be your friend 
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Oct 31, 2014 22:11
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Swords are boring, Spears forever.
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Oct 31, 2014 22:35
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Axes are a must for Yangus, and secondarily I go for Scythes or Humanity. As for our protagonist I find that Spear, Sword and Courage are all stupidly good, so take your pick of those. It's hard to go wrong with this game as long as you choose something to specialize in though (with one exception that's just straight up terrible but that's for later).
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Oct 31, 2014 22:51
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Eight needs spears and Yangus needs clubs so we can have them stand in as Ornstein and Smough.
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Nov 1, 2014 00:01
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I keep on meaning to get back to this game. Oh well. Let's go Boomerangs and Spears on Eight, and Axes and Scythes on Yangus. EDIT: Whoops, didn't notice the poll link. Edward_Tohr fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Nov 1, 2014 00:34
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CmdrKing posted:I picked up the game much later when it hit bargain bins, but only played a couple hours (like basically went out and fought Rogue Tomato, then saved outside Rabanastre). My biggest issues from the demo were still there (ATB being tortuously slow, enemies respawning too fast) so I shelved it. I've considered going back to it and employing degenerate power leveling tactics to speed through the game better, but so much to play, so little time, you know. Oh man, you didn't even unlock the actual combat system. I hear FFXIII takes 60 hours to get there, FFXII takes a much more reasonable but still unreasonable 5 hours or so on your first playthrough.
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Nov 1, 2014 01:28
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All these people talking about the FF12 demo. I've yet to touch it almost ten years after getting the game. Also I still regret not getting a Slime controller when I had the chance.
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Nov 1, 2014 01:37
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MelvinBison posted:Eight needs spears and Yangus needs clubs so we can have them stand in as Ornstein and Smough. I am usually all about gimmick runs and such, but man- clubs are just such crap in this game. I picked them for my first playthrough, it wasn't much fun.
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Nov 1, 2014 01:57
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Must be why the clubless builds are winning. Fistcuffs+Scythes and Axes+Scythes are tied. Meanwhile in main character business, boomerangs+swords has commanded a lead. Of 4 votes. We're only 6 hours in though so anything can change, though.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:02
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Obviously, Eight goes Boomerman with the Rangs and Yangus gets himself into the life of crime.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:03
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:Must be why the clubless builds are winning. Fistcuffs+Scythes and Axes+Scythes are tied. Meanwhile in main character business, boomerangs+swords has commanded a lead. Of 4 votes. I honestly never bothered putting points into boomerangs. They do their job well enough without having to put points into them, and are basically redundant after about halfway through the game--everybody generally has better multi-target options by that point. Swords, spears and courage all have so much more to offer as the fights trend toward two to four stronger monsters rather than larger mobs of weak-to-middling enemies.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:21
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Tuxedo Ted posted:I am usually all about gimmick runs and such, but man- Yeah, I know. That's why I voted for scythes.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:52
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Dragon Warrior III was my first Dragon Warrior/Quest game, but DQ VIII holds a very special place in my heart. Are you recording from an actual PS2, or are you emulating? Last time I tried to emulate, from the actual disk even, the cutsceens hosed up and couldn't see any of it. Love this game so much.
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Nov 1, 2014 04:27
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Boomerangs+Swords and Axes+Scythes have fairly commanding leads as the first day of November dawns. I've never really went with either before so if nothing else it'll be different.
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Nov 1, 2014 14:50
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Great news! In addition to having the best abilities, axes and scythes boast Yangus' best weapons, which is just as important IMO. My first failed playthrough of this game I went Boomerangs for the hero and ended up regretting it, but not as much as I regretted going with whips for Jessica. I had so much crowd control I couldn't do anything else. 
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Nov 1, 2014 15:23
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Booms and Swords for Eight, Axes and Scythes for Yangus. This is what I rolled with and it therefore is the best way.
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Nov 1, 2014 17:16
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How practical is it to max out everything for everyone?
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Nov 1, 2014 17:43
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ultrafilter posted:How practical is it to max out everything for everyone? Under ordinary conditions, you will get enough points to max out two skills and maybe get partway through a third. If you grind to an absurd degree, you'll likely find enough points to max out the third skill and start into a fourth. Past that, your only recourse is to grind skill seeds from very rare drops off of very powerful monsters. So it's technically possible, but realistically it ain't happening.
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Nov 1, 2014 17:48
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ultrafilter posted:How practical is it to max out everything for everyone?
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Nov 1, 2014 17:49
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ultrafilter posted:How practical is it to max out everything for everyone? It's both impractical AND impossible.
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Nov 1, 2014 17:56
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BottledBodhisvata posted:It's both impractical AND impossible. Impractical, yes. Impossible, no. You can steal Skill Seeds from the repeatable postgame bosses.
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Nov 1, 2014 18:00
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Gameshark/Codebreaker/Action Replay.
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Nov 1, 2014 18:00
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I vote Boomerangs+Swords for Eight, and Humanity+Scythes for Yangus. Oh, that's not an option? Well, then Axes+Scythes. But I want to see you max out Yangus' Humanity for, as Rabbi Racoon said, reasons.
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Nov 1, 2014 18:16
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Dragonatrix posted:Impractical, yes. Impossible, no. You can steal Skill Seeds from the repeatable postgame bosses. To put things in clearer perspective, leveling everybody up to 99 will give each character 350 skill points, out of 500 to max out skills for each character. There are 5 or 6 seeds of skill you can find during the game, for 25-30 skill points (each seed gives 5 points). And you would need 30 seeds to max out all five skillsets on each character, assuming you also bother to grind all the way to 99. But hey, if you're actually nutty enough to try collecting well over 100 seeds of skill, you probably will reach level 99 along the way. All for a handful of skills that may or may not have been useful earlier in the game, but are now utterly worthless since you've already beaten the game and already cleared all of the post-game content multimple times. In other words, don't even try. It's not worth it. Just start a new game and build your characters differently, for chrissakes. Meaty Ore fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Nov 1, 2014 18:16
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