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mauman posted:I wonder if it's the same one I used to get all classes to 50. Unless you used overpowered dragons and the AI, probably not. Edit, basically dragons are the best and if you save a few types until super late game to level up with unique claeses, then the unique and dragons can clear maps with 2 or 3 units.
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Jun 1, 2018 23:45
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I have finally caught up to this thread and I'm already halfway through Chapter 2L in my newly-inspired play-through. This would be my fourth such playthrough; my last three each made it to each of the three different Chapter 3's before petering out; hoping to at least make it to the "end" this time. Thanks to both Tithin & Waah for what they're doing! I've always preferred screenshot LPs but I can't possibly fathom what a major hassle this would be (even in a game like this with a built-in screenshot function).
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Jun 6, 2018 17:47
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waah posted:Unless you used overpowered dragons and the AI, probably not. Was never a fan of dragons, or beast classes. Perhaps I should try a few, they just felt like they petered out as the equipment creep shot up ever higher. That and they're melee, and melee get's very outclassed in the end-game (with a few exceptional moments).
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Jun 6, 2018 23:05
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Sorry I am running behind. The delay is in the write up. We have grinded 50 ish floors into the Potd so far. Content is coming "soon". I promise.
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Jun 16, 2018 23:06
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All good. baldurk got back to me a few days ago about archiving the thread, so I've asked him to put it on hold until you're done.
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Jun 17, 2018 03:17
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WORLD Episode 7 – Broke Down Palace So here we go, I didn’t update for a while and I’m really sorry guys. I’ll make sure there isn’t as long between updates next time.  Currently we are in the middle of the Chapter 4 Law timeline beginning a Palace of the Dead run. The Palace of the Dead Get familiar with this music, you’re going to hear it an awful lot for the next couple months. https://youtu.be/Vc8ze7HfmZ4 The Palace of the Dead (PoTD from now on) is an endurance event. You need to make sure you are prepared before you take the plunge in multiple ways. 1) Have enough goth to resupply on floors 23 and 68. I recommend at least 100,000 after completing step 2 2) Invest in at least 70 exorcism scrolls 3) Having a deep roster helps so that you can rotate people in and out and prevent loyalty issues. Though again, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem if you avoid recruiting Bakram characters as much possible. Level 1  This is your first battle. Tithin already covered what the level looks like. The most important part here is to notice if you get to fight Falfaday who we see here talking about how our arrival is unexpected.  If you do not see Falfaday, you are likely not on the path to complete the Palace of the Dead story line If you just want loot drops, this then knock yourself out, but if you plan on completing the story line for Nybeth’s loot, or for CODA reasons, this is one of the first things to look for to make sure you aren’t wasting your time.    So already you can see that the game is telling you that there are really powerful magic and artifacts in this area that people know about and we don’t. We have the benefit of playing though the 1st act of the CODA, so we know one of these bits of draconic power is a Chaos Gate deep within the Palace of the Dead.  Falfaday has a point. The Chaos Gates are means of summoning Ogres to this world. Dorugula (the final boss of the main campaign) was for all intents and purposes an Ogre. Imagine how screwed the world is if someone were to summon multiple ogres. Or worse a more powerful Ogre than Dorugula.  Well you know what we have to do ladies and gents. Murder everything in our path.   In the San Bronsa ruins, and if you recruit characters at a certain level, you’ll get level 4 elemental spells. They are the same as the level 3 spell, but the animation is bigger, more noticeably so in-game. In this case, Thunderflare 4 summons an even bigger lightning bolt.  Divine Knights are so clutch in the PoTD. They don’t care about the crappy terrain, they can really do a number to the undead without needing scrolls, and in general hit like a truck. Good bye Falfaday.  I can’t help but to think about the line from Scott Pilgrim when he beats the 4th evil ex every time I see this bit. Level 2   Next fight we have to rescue Rudlum, a Xenobian who finds himself in a tough spot. This is yet another tell that you are on the story path for the PoTD vs the non-story path.  Me too Don Quixote, me too.  For all the faults with the rare drops and the obtuseness of the PoTD and the post-game, if you really pay attention the game does give you some pretty big hints.  Our friend Rudlum finds himself in a bad spot. And just like the usual suicidal AI in this game, you know what he’s going to do.   Yup this is going well.  Yawn.  Well, Rudlum is a Lich, and Liches help in the PoTD by casting banish using Necromancy and still having very good non-dark elemental spells. However, most of my AI squad went north and Rudlum… yeah.  And Rudlum dies. God drat it. Reload the stupid map.  -Image from xLetalis’s YouTube video as seen here: https://youtu.be/42CTe86UQjg  Yeah, we know bub.  More banishing  Yeah, that’s MUCH better this time.      Well, sure, we’ll take him. Mages are always welcome late game. I don’t think he has any great lines of dialogue at any other point in the game, but he’s a welcome party addition.    Indeed. Maybe you can tell us a bit more about this draconic magic that everyone keeps babbling about. Level 3 I don’t have a shot for floor 3 intro, but let’s pretend like I do.  Now here is the tricky part that might confuse people. No matter if you are on the story path, or not, you will get this scene the first time you attempt floor 3 of the PoTD. If you miss the hidden door, then the PoTD just remains there taunting you until you determine you need to find a hidden door. I know I just said the game is usually good about giving you hints, but this is literally the first instance in the game where you find a hidden door. Every other context clue tells you that there’s much more to the Palace, but this is one of a few instances where the game is lacking. If it is your first time ever playing Tactics Ogre, by the time you get to the Hanging Gardens and learn of hidden doors, you are locked out of the PoTD story for that playthrough.    He’s got a point. If someone can make it this far alone, there is something important about them.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1khghXRGb6k     Now she doesn’t just mean this floor. She means in the entire PoTD. Think about that every time you see a screenshot with statues on it. A lot of people met their end in this place.   For those of you not up on your Jewish/Old Testament text, Ashmedai is the king of demons. So someone calling it a holy ground for the king of demons is… uh… Remember how you did elemental temples for Fire, Ice, Air, Earth, Water, and Lighting? Surprise! This is the Dark Temple, hope you enjoy your stay. The conversation we have in the next story battle will really drive home that this is the Dark Temple based on the conversation we had with Abuna Mrueva in Cortinae castle at the start of the Elemental Shrine quest.  He’s got the right idea. Be very wary Don Quixote.  …And she turns into a lamia. Note that she doesn’t have a Goku super Saiyan Aura which is the game’s way of subtly telling you she’s not really a temple guardian.     Well that escalated quickly. Xadoba doesn’t have any cool abilities or anything really to make her special. As previously stated the most important thing about her is the fact that she distracts you from the real purpose of this stage finding the hidden door. You will have to find the door multiple times depending on how often you WORLD back in time to go do the PoTD. For most normal playthroughs, where you don’t attempt to complete the CODA you’d only need to do this once.  Move a unit to this square. End your turn there, and boom, a door will open.  Once you made sure the door is opened, go beat down Xadoba.   Come on AI, you’re literally standing right next to her, and could have ended this battle. Really, the only reason I am showing this is that I think there may be a hatred factor for undead coded into the Divine Knight AI. There are other items that can lessen the chance that the enemy AI attacks your characters, so I don’t think this is too far of a stretch. But don’t worry, Arycelle will launch arrows into the boss to get us off this stage.  That’s exactly what we plan on doing. 3 levels down, 97 to go.  Tithin already showed you guys level 4, so we’re skipping it. Level 5 This is the kicker here ladies and gents. If you do not get a story battle with Nybeth on this stage, you CAN NOT resolve the PoTD story line. This is your last sanity check before you trek through the other 95 stages of pain. If you want the loot or don’t care about resolving the storyline that’s fine, but for CODA purposes, you have to see this scene on a Law playthrough. Yes, each story line is slightly different with the Neutral route giving you the most insight into Nybeth, but none of those story lines will let you complete the CODA because important characters will be dead. I know I keep beating this dead horse into the ground, but Tithin did it, I did it when I first tried to beat the Coda, and most people I know who tried to beat the CODA and burnt out did something similar. It’s incredibly easy to get caught up wanting to go through all hundred stages and not pay attention to the fact that there are also story battles that need to trigger.          Morrowind would like to have a talk with you Nybeth.              Summon darkness! CURSE YOU!!!             And then the battle starts  There’s a *LOT* to unpack here before I show you these guys getting ground into dust. If you take note of everyone I tried to bring along in this battle, you’ll see some interesting choices that I haven’t used often in this playthrough so far. I had hoped that some characters would have dialogue despite being dead in the warren report or simply unrecruited. That was not the case. They have lines but only in either the neutral route (Oelias and Dievold) or Cressida (Chaos). When I get through the whole CODA I’ll see if I still have it in me to show off their story lines. Nybeth’s been working on necromancy since we last saw him way back in chapter 1. He’s gotten a few new subjects but he can either put off death or he can make them undead. One of them is Sir Leonar. The other you’ll see shortly. Keep in mind what had to happen behind the scenes here. Nybeth had to go gravedigging for the bodies of both of his new subjects. In both cases the “best possible case” is that the were both stolen from unguarded graves. The worst is that Nybeth pretty much killed a bunch of dudes in our army that were guarding areas we had re-taken and did unspeakable experiments to their corpses. Nybeth is very much a boogieman working in the shadows. Another big thing to notice here is this bit of dialogue from Nybeth. In this case, Nybeth is talking about the undead he’s created, or the way necromancy works in Tactics Ogre in general. This is re-animation at its simplest. No memory of life, no higher function, just the agony of death for as long as the subject remains reanimated and hatred for the living. In this case, Nybeth is actually talking about the spell Resurrect (and resurrect II). Your allies can be resurrected if you get to them quickly enough, but they still will grow old and eventually die a true death. Resurrection is no means for immortality which is what Nybeth wishes for. In this case you all have seen divine knights and seen my post on all the hoops you have to jump through to make one. This involves going to the San Bronsa ruins (surprise the light temple!) and using a divine item on a skeleton to regenerate the flesh in a permanent and more desirable manner than poor Sir Leonar here. However, the main problem with this method is that it requires you to actually die and become undead. I can’t find anything to say if these characters remember their old lives, or only their lives as angels, but it helps explain why none of the main characters can become a divine knight. There you go, a ton of lore about life and death in Tactics Ogre in 3 screen shots that are easily glossed over. Stop paying attention for even a minute and you’ll miss some of the nuance that these late game quests are hitting you with.  And AI Don Quixote shows he gives no fucks by instantly slaughtering Sir Leonar before I can get a screenshot of his loadout.    Dude, don’t try to act so concerned now, you eliminated him with extreme prejudice.    I swear I’m not just adding screenshots of Don Quixote saying Sir Leonar just to mess with you. Now that I finally get a chance to stop the action, lets look at Nybeth.  Well thanks? I guess? What about the other knight  Oh… he dug up the corpse of Xaebos? Jeez Nybeth you uh… wow. Death knight isn’t a playable class, but the description here really gets across what happened to Xaebos and Leonar. Either way we quickly dispatch Xaebos… again.  Even in death Xaebos still has that smug grin    I can’t find any other bits to support this, but my understanding here is that even though the game says that the undead have no memory of their past, Xaebos’s exceptional hatred and in general being a lovely person allowed him to be more than just a mindless drone, much to Nybeth’s pleasure. King Dorugula’s boss fight at the end of Chapter 4 somewhat supports this theory. Or it could also just be like Nybeth said earlier, he just got lucky. A few summon darknesses later…          I’m so incredibly glad that you’ve contributed so much to this bit of story Don Quixote, with your saying people’s names as they disappear and… saying peoples names as they stand there and… yeah. It’s hard to capture in screenshots, but Nybeth turns into a crow and disappears. Note that the game is halfway playing by its own rules here. Nybeth uses the Ring of the Dead to turn into a lich. He doesn’t do it on the floor that you have to because he’s got the game’s plot to help him along with it, but still the method to become a lich is the same as the method any of your characters would use. Edit: Even though the Ring of the Dead is a unique item it doesn't matter to the enemy and they will use two at the same time on a later level. In the non-story version of the PoTD, it’s clear Nybeth never either finds the PoTD, or is stopped somewhere along the way so he never becomes a lich. Also, notice he doesn’t say immortality, he says “undeath”. It’s implied that as long as nothing external kills him like say an angry army lead by Don Quixote, Nybeth in lich form will continue on forever in a state of undeath. That’s all for this update. Next update we step out of the PoTD to make Catuia a demi-god in preparation for lots of floors of undead madness. Augment Light level 12 is *really* good waah fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 9, 2018 21:32
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You have to be on a certain floor to make Liches? That's very different from every other Ogre game, even vanilla TO. I'm pretty sure you usually just need to equip the Ring of the Dead, or be killed with it equipped.
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Jul 11, 2018 01:57
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Shiki Dan posted:You have to be on a certain floor to make Liches? On this version you can only make a Lich by using the Ring of the Dead on level 41 of the PoTD. There is even a story battle that shows the enemy using it to make liches on that level. Of course that directly contradicts my statements in the last few paragraphs about the game playing fair and there only being one Ring of the Dead at a time. I will have to conviently edit that out and pretend I was never wrong.
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Jul 11, 2018 02:31
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why did I ever think this was a good game.
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Jul 11, 2018 03:24
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tithin posted:why did I ever think this was a good game. Stockholm's is a hell of a drug.
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Jul 11, 2018 05:21
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In the original SFC version, Denam had the shocked expression on his face, the same one he wore when his father died, when Zombie!Leonar died. It showed that yes, he is hurt to see his superior who he respected and clashed with in equal measure, die a second time. Don't know why this version skimped out on it.
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Jul 11, 2018 06:15
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What a neat little villain. I see why he gets to make a cameo appearance in Final Fantasy Online.
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Jul 11, 2018 06:34
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Doctor Reynolds posted:What a neat little villain. I see why he gets to make a cameo appearance in Final Fantasy Online. He's even more interesting in Chaos and (especially) Neutral. It's the one saving grace for Neutral games. But it's NOT worth it just for that. As for Chaos...well....Still don't think it's worth it considering just how much you get for going Law.
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Jul 11, 2018 07:20
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I've never seen neutral, I've heard that it's very bait and switch in that it promises to be the Nybeth route, focussing on his extended family and then does bugger all with him.
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Jul 11, 2018 08:43
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tithin posted:I've never seen neutral, I've heard that it's very bait and switch in that it promises to be the Nybeth route, focussing on his extended family and then does bugger all with him. Kinda sorta He has actual prominence in the plot for a bit and then buggers off to the PoTD which is all optional as per normal. But there is a little bit of payoff if you have the (crappy) characters that join you in 3N come with you to the bonus dungeon. Despite being crappy characters the story behind them is actually decent. This might be a holdover from when they wanted to do multiple chapter fours.  Once again though, still not worth going N for this, and definitely not worth going through PoTD multiple times for (unless you're a masochist like I am  )
mauman fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Jul 11, 2018 |
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Jul 11, 2018 10:54
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For those of you with archives, here is a bit more characterization of Nybeth via the Chaos timeline and the Cressida recruitment from Helmet10's almost complete Chaos run. It's really good and honestly worth a read for the Chaos path since it covers 90-95% of the chaos story. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?action=showpost&postid=433152033 tithin posted:why did I ever think this was a good game. Because it is and you love it and in like 7 months once your burn out is over you'll get the itch to load it back up for a few days.
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Jul 11, 2018 13:14
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Is there actually a petrify effect in this game or was that statue bit more of a plot thing?
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Jul 13, 2018 02:23
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Glazius posted:Is there actually a petrify effect in this game or was that statue bit more of a plot thing? Yes, there is a petrify effect via magic or abilities.
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Jul 13, 2018 03:20
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Glazius posted:Is there actually a petrify effect in this game or was that statue bit more of a plot thing? Yeah, the Earth Temple is one big long exercise in being petrified over and over again. The good thing is that petrification of the main character doesn't result in a game over as it does in some games.
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Jul 13, 2018 16:59
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Holy poo poo how am I just now seeing another TO:LUCT LP? I religiously read H10W's crack at it and now I get to read 37 pages of goodness. Still chugging along in my all titles run. I think I have five left? I stopped when FFV Four Job Fiesta started so I'll be back at it soon.
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Jul 19, 2018 03:59
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I recently decided to start a new game of the SNES version of Tactics Ogre: LUCT, using the translation patch released years ago. I actually died during the tutorial battle. I think that's the first time that's happened. Literally had one turn. Had I the time, I would totally do an LP of this version....
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Jul 19, 2018 08:31
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Bregor posted:Holy poo poo how am I just now seeing another TO:LUCT LP? I religiously read H10W's crack at it and now I get to read 37 pages of goodness. Glad to have you here! Guys, update should be tomorrow, Monday at the absolute latest. We'll have through floor 22 of the PoTD and a teeeny tiny itty bitty little bit of grinding.
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Jul 19, 2018 20:04
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Prowler posted:I recently decided to start a new game of the SNES version of Tactics Ogre: LUCT, using the translation patch released years ago. Having played the PSX version (they're identical) I'm honestly not that surprised. The PSP tactics ogre is hard. The SNES/PSX version is ball breakingly insane. A small part of me actually misses the rather realistic take on death of the original. The (much saner) rest of me does not.
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Jul 20, 2018 00:24
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mauman posted:Having played the PSX version (they're identical) I'm honestly not that surprised. I never played the PSX or SNES version and don't care to start, but after seeing this LP I don't think that I could ever again play the game on a PSP either. Having seen the terrible crafting system, the often hellish grind, the fickle and incomprehensible factors that go into recruiting and post-game content... I could go on, but despite owning a functional PSP, a working game disc and even the huge strategy guide for this game, I could only see myself picking it back up via emulation. At this point, the thought of trying to get deep into this game without save states, cheats and the like is like asking me to grab your goggles from the bottom of a pool that you just filled with malnourished sharks with strong anti-semitic tendencies. A great game with a strong tactical core, charming visuals and tons of depth and replay value, but so much jank that being able to play "on the go" isn't even a selling point anymore. Also, the PSP has a tiny screen and dodgy ergonomics, but that's as may be.
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Jul 20, 2018 01:47
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The SNES/PSX version doesn't have the crafting system or any of the ridiculous requirements for special classes (except for the Shaman class, which is worthless in those versions anyways). Instead, you have to spend hours in training mode with your characters throwing rocks at each other just to make sure they don't fall too behind the enemy curve. Even lagging like 2-3 levels behind the enemy makes most units completely worthless in that game.
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Jul 20, 2018 01:54
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On the other hand, Angel Knights are absolutely absurd and wreck the POTD without breaking a sweat with Starion.
Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 02:11
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Shiki Dan posted:The SNES/PSX version doesn't have the crafting system or any of the ridiculous requirements for special classes (except for the Shaman class, which is worthless in those versions anyways). Yeah, the OG version definitely wanted you to min max as much as possible and then play very very conservatively. Each character also had their own elemental affinity and the state of the battlefield mattered a lot more. Oh and Hobyrim was drat near a god.
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Jul 20, 2018 04:07
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WORLD Episode 7.5 – The Mechanics Update The story update is still being worked on, but it’s too long with this mechanics update tied in with it. I figured I should finally explain what I mean by having the AI do everything for me. When I originally began the descent into the PoTD, I noticed that the AI was not doing a good enough job of clearing out undead characters in order for me to 95% automate the process. I also realized that Catuia was classed as a Princess, and I had never updated her Priest levels. In most cases, Princess is a better class than Priest, especially when you are directly controlling the characters, but in our specific case here, Priest is what I need to make this process easier. In particular this map right here, I believe this is floor 10 of the PoTD I don’t remember for sure. It’s between 7-11 for sure.   It stopped me dead in my tracks and I realized my rotation of AI death dealing machines wasn’t good enough to beat the PoTD without me having to step in. Too many undead units that need to be stilled, and my army levels were a little too wide as I had an A crew about 4 levels higher than my B and C crew. So, what do we do?  (Meals of War 2 by ChemicalAlia from DeviantArt)   Just a itsy bitsy teeeny weenie bit of grinding. I pulled the party out of the PoTD to get some sweet, sweet, power levelling in. Most of our army has benefitted from this, but I’d like to pick out a few screenshots from the 8-12 hours Catuia and my two pets dragons went HAM on anything that moved while I did other things around the house and office.  Yes, we’re doing maps with just 3 units and loving it. Let me explain why this can be done even if you haven’t grinded to an absurd level. Certain characters like Catuia, Denam, Vice, and a few others have unique classes that only they can be. No one else can be a Lord. No one else can be a Ranger. This becomes a problem with the levelling system because if you want to use those classes, you have send in an underpowered unit that the enemy AI beelines for and kills instantly. Bummer. This is where dragons and golems come in. There are 8 different types of dragons, corresponding to each element, and there are 4 types of golems: Clay, Iron, Baldur, and Stone. If you plan it out correctly, you can have a dragon or two level up through at least 60 to 70 levels with minimal effort. The way the Tactics Ogre levelling system works is that every time a unit gains a level it gains a small but permanent stat boost to all stats. It’s very similar to picking up a Tarot card in battle. Different wikis give different numbers, but I believe for the American release, each level is a + 0.1 increase to all stats. 10 levels equal a whole point boost in your stats. It may not seem like much but the difference between a character with stats in their mid-30s vs a character with stats in their mid-40s is huge. However, only units that are participating in battle when the class levels up gain the boost. If you have an army of 30 archers, and you field 12 in battle, only the 12 archers in battle will gain stat boosts when they level up. The other 18 characters get nothing. Think about how easy it is to gain the first 10-15 levels in any class once you get mid-way through the actual story, and how much quicker it is if you can field a bunch of the same units at the same time to get stat boosts, and then realize how quickly you could increase two dragons by 10 whole points just by gaining the first 10-15 levels in each class with them? Beast classes do no use weapons. At most they can equip an accessory. But when you reset to level 1, they can keep their skills, such as strengthen, true strike, resistance, etc. But most importantly, their attack power is based off their base stats. While your generic human character is dependent on weapons and armor to make them OP, dragons DGAF. Now think about how stupidly power they would be if you planned for this for the start and had each dragon and/or golem reset to level 1 so they could help level up each of your characters who had a unique class. Eventually those beasts would have base stats that made most battles trivial. That brings us to what’s happening right now with Catuia and these dragons. The dragon’s base stats are so high with VIT and RES that most attacks from enemies do damage in the low 20s at best. Most magic attacks do 1 damage.  What you get is the perfect storm to automate the game, and let it do the grinding for you. As you can see, Catuia and these dragons are a buzzsaw  Here are the options you have to let the AI work for you.  Manual, you take over control. Hit triangle while the AI is doing its thing to interrupt it’s actions if you ever want to go back to manual.  Melee is exactly what it sounds like. Units will charge to go kill whatever they can find. The AI tends to prioritize mages and archers in melee, meaning sometimes they will let powerful units right by them and totally mess up your casters. Additionally, putting melee on too fragile of a unit will result in it overextending and dying horribly. For those unit’s you’d be better off using…  Vanguard says hold the party’s front line, but what it really means is that the AI will make sure it hits some of the heavy hitters. Most of your melee death dealers should have a mix between Vanguard and melee for best results. Keep in mind that undead characters will completely screw with the AI if you don’t have a way to still enemy units. You’ll watch your army completely ignore the one unit on the far side of the map so that they can spawn camp the stilled skeletons in the middle of the map. You’ve been warned.  Ranged is self-explanatory. Anyone using a bow/crossbow/blowgun should have this be their setting.  Rear guard sucks. The unit will sit and do nothing until someone comes close to your casters or magic users. I’ve had success with it only by using it on my Cockatrice so that he kills weakened people pushing through my lines. Your usage may vary, but you probably will never use this.  Caster well, it casts spells. If you have Malitza’s staff, they will use that to get extra MP, but otherwise they’ll just nuke or cast status effect magic. Sometimes you’ll think WTF are they doing, just kill the guy, but hey, it happens.  Healer will cast spells and use items to heal your party. Will also use healing spells to hurt the undead and exorcise them when they have enough MP. They will use magic seeds/leaves at the beginning of battle just like you see the enemy clerics do, so make sure you have plenty for them to waste. The most important thing to remember if you plan on doing long term grinding using this method, make sure your characters do not have field alchemy 4 equipped. You’ll watch as the AI uses exotic healing items to heal your dudes, or repeatedly use healing leaves on characters at 90% health. This is not a method to use if you have cash problems in game. Field alchemy 2 should cover most of your healing needs without using a mending salve +2 on a guy with 60% health What are our results for all this grinding? Catuia goes from this…    To this    We took quite a loyalty hit for a gain of 14 levels at the high end and almost an upgrade on our anatomy level. It’s hard for me to really get you to appreciate how many units Catuia killed on her own during this grinding spree, but she can probably solo most 6-8 person maps at this point. Her anatomy skill should have risen faster, but she was killing everything with a single spell. This seems like the game is punishing us more than it is, but if we were playing through normally it would have taken us 3 to 4 times as long in real time, but we also would have been gobbling up tarot cards for even bigger stat boosts. Her loyalty boost is nothing that can’t be fixed, but it’s part of the reason why everyone else also got levelled up to level 47-48 to make sure my pool of characters is deep enough that I don’t run into any issues with loyalty in the PoTD. Heaven forbid I actually have to play the game instead of just take screenshots while I’m doing other stuff. Next update: More story, really. waah fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 14:19
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WORLD Episode 8 – Skeleton Crew We’ve grinded quite a bit, now it’s time to officially take the fight all the way through the depths of the PoTD and take out dear old Nybeth. The WORLD Report  Currently we are in the middle of Chapter 4 Law timeline after a quite a bit of grinding to return to the Palace of the Dead. The Palace of the Dead, again. Still Dead Version! Returning to the PoTD, you’ll see what the non-story line fights for the first few levels look like.   No Falfady, just a vanquish the enemy. However, I intentionally passed up the descriptions of the statues in the PoTD so that Xaboda’s reveal of them being fallen warriors held a little more surprise. Now, lets look at what the game tells us about them, and in typical Tactics Ogre fashion, it’s grim AF.  Well that doesn’t seem pleasant. Let’s check out the warrior that’s directly in front of Hobyrim.  The whole text reads: “A warrior turned to stone by magic. It is physically painful to look upon the fear in those sightless eyes.”   The knight to our right seems to have been turned to stone in a corner. Things obviously didn’t work out well for him, so let’s see what his description is. “A knight turned to stone by magic. He is frozen in the throes of a battle for his life – a battle he clearly lost.” What about the guy behind us with the giant gently caress off axe?  “This brigand turned to stone by magic is a testament to the dangers of unbridled greed.” Well, he almost made out alive, just one step from the door. We’ll continue to look around before we murder everyone on this stage.  “The rubble left by a fallen pillar. The pieces are too jagged and unsteady to stand upon.” Well, at least the game gives you good reason why you can stand on that square.  Welp. Wonder if he quoted Nietzsche before he was turned to stone.  “A warrior turned to stone by magic. His face is a mixture of fear of and surprise. Perhaps he was taken unwares?” Bad translation aside, man this is depressing as heck. Nothing else is interesting on that stage. Everything dies. We move on.  Level 2 looks similar though without Rudlum there to   There is no Xaboda to lecture us this time and and the door is already open. Everything dies. We move on. There’s nothing of note on level 4, it’s the same as always since there is not story battle.   No Nybeth, no Leonar, no Xaebos. Just a bunch of random dudes and stuff. Everything dies. We move on. The next few levels aren’t story levels and have no real interesting bits. There’s no point to cover them again.  This is the earliest you could recruit a pumpkin if you didn’t recruit Deneb, and to be honest, you probably came this far first anyways. The thing is though, Deneb’s pumpkins have cool unique names so you should recruit one of them instead.  Speaking of Deneb, ooh, glass pumpkin.  You have to rotate your teams enough to prevent loyalty losses. You could steam roll through the PoTD with a specialty team, but that really only works if you are manually playing and picking up tarot cards. So here, we run with all Xenobian team because … reasons.  This map, you’ll see a lot. It sucks. I hate it and I always do exactly what I did here. Put people who can’t navigate terrain easily on it. It gets recycled quite a bit and usually you start on the other end of the map with the enemy stuck on the high ground.  Don’t worry, Canopus basically solos the map. Also, Canopus is a dick who uses a 3 hit crossbow finisher on a dude with 16 health. Jeez my dude.  Don’t worry guys, you just stand there and look pretty. Using the AI isn’t always sunshine and roses.  Floor 11 is one of the better examples of why the new ability to pivot the battlefield in this game is so much better.  Here you can barely see Iuria.  The health bars show there’s a party going on in that northern area but who knows what’s really there.  Oh, wow, look at all of that. Regardless, everything dies. We move on. On another stage we get a few items to check out.  “This lamp is perfect for lighting dungeons. It is designed to feed from a reservoir of oil so that it never goes out.” It’s also indestructible. That’s a heckuva lamp.  “This water has pooled too long in the dungeon making it highly poisonous. Linger here, and you’ll be poisoned.”  “This mold grows well in dungeons and releases poisonous spores. Linger here, and you’ll be poisoned.” Again, the game does at least give decent enough explanations about why everything poisons you.  Ho. Ly. poo poo. They finally did it! FINALLY. Guys, you see the number of hours I’ve logged on this save file. I’ve played through the game multiple times. This is the first time EVER I’ve seen the enemy AI use the spell “Dominate” (It’s essentially the spell Stop for all of you Final Fantasy fans). I’m so happy right now.   … and what the Christ he does it again.  Oooh boots that make it so that you can Lavawalk. That’ll be great for all the lava maps… oh yeah. Right.   Here’s what level 18 looks like. It’s a cool little knife fight level. It’s also the only place to get Necromancer marks from other than recruiting Cressida, but only on Chaos Route, and only if you have Cressida. According to the Warrent Report, we don’t have either so… everything dies. We move on.  I think this is 16, screenshot of the floor didn’t take. Either way this is a commonly reused map and I hate it. Any map that can allow the AI to get itself killed by getting pushed off the map is not one I enjoy.  This is a narrow map and it’s repeated further on. I mention it for two reasons. One, we haven’t see it yet. Two, it’s one of the maps you have to farm Orichalcum from so that you can make Heaven’s Forks so that you can take down the 12 Heavenly Generals. gently caress this map.   Nothing special here. Everything dies. We move on.   This map gets repeated a few times as well. But I like it because it’s pretty straightforward.  And here goes our first repeated map, level 23. As you can see it’s the annoying one but it’s important because it can drop Malitza’s staff which is one of the best non-unique staffs in the game. The lamia you have to kill to get it didn’t spawn this round, but I don’t really care enough to farm it so just know it’s here and there’s a loot spreadsheet on GameFaqs that will tell you which Lamia is the right one.  Level 24 is the first instance of a shop in the PoTD. There are three shops on your way through. One here, and the others are on level 65 and level 103, in the CODA. Depending on how your clear flags, the shop keeper can either be a pumpkin golem or a skeleton. This is dependent on if you’ve completed Deneb’s recruitment quest.  Yes, you can craft here if you want. Yes, it’s still as slow as crafting other places.    You can buy a crapton of summon spells here. Most importantly, you can buy a ton of Exorcism II scrolls to help get you through this slog.  You can also buy draconic magic and necromacy magic, though sadly not the really useful spells. The items available does change in the CODA so you can buy things like Songstress scores for when you want to use Iuria’s special class.   Look, a standard map with a bunch of monsters! Check out the lower of the two cyclopses  Oooh special armor! That particular Cyclops drops the reeking armor. It’s one of just a few sets of equipment in this game. The Reeking Armor, the Odiferous Waster, the Glistening Helm, and the Musty Gauntlets are a set of equipment that will cause the particular unit to be ignored by the enemy AI in most cases because the unit smells too bad. I’m not kidding.  When you see this screen in the PoTD, you know things are getting real. Story battle time!         This is the game telling you that if you have a book of the dead and you use it on this level, you can turn a zombie or a living dude into a skeleton. Why would you want to do that? Well normally you wouldn’t but if you want in on that Divine Knight goodness, this is one of the hoops you gotta go through to make one worthwhile.    And Beelzebuth straight disappears through the floor Sephiroth style! Georges walks ever from hiding behind a pillar to say:  He already knows what’s about to happen to him. He’s just in denial… wait.. what are you doing?  Nooooooooo Summon Darkness!!!!!    Well before we go and slaughter this dude, lets look at something that’s made me laugh for at least the last two weeks.  Yes, that’s Penia the flesh golem. No, I didn’t plan this out, but man I what to shop that ‘A’ into an ‘S’ so bad because I’m really still just a little kid at heart who still thinks penis jokes are hilarious. Well what’s the description of a “flesh golem”    Holy gently caress Tactics Ogre. That’s some sick poo poo. Quick look at something else. LOOK AT SOMETHING ELSE!  Georges is a Witch King which is just the game’s way of making a special necromancer who can use Summon Darkness.  See the enemy AI wastes items too  But a Witch King is no match for a crossbow to the heart from Canopus who uses the ghost behind him as to get around minimum crossbow range.   You get Curse 2 from this story battle. The non-story battle is better because you can get Jiglya’s bracers which is part of an absolutely broken set of gear. You also can get the Crossbow Enchidirion from the non-story battle here, but that’s less useful.   No, his soul better not still live on. We killed him fair and square.   Keep in mind that Beelzebuth is the third Wicce we’ve come across and two of them have been pretty evil. Kind of gives you pause about having Deneb in our party doesn’t it?   Since I didn’t add his Warren Report last time, here we go.  Abandon what little hope ye may yet have indeed. Next update: lots of floors with the same music but not much else! Possibly I temporarily make a character into a Lich if I don’t lose patience!
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Jul 20, 2018 17:10
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 That campaign length.quote:To this I mean to be fair she's looking pretty fit for a woman pushing 50. Ace Transmuter fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 18:53
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agradine posted:
The best part is that's likely waaaaay longer than that, but time effectively stops when you are in the CODA. No matter where you go, it stays the same "day".
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Jul 20, 2018 19:19
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When you have to ignore or accept that you have to crush a host's free will to survive, you tend not to care as much about being a good guy. My theory is that Deneb was able to become .....if not "good" then "good-compatible" because all of her pumpkin research led to her learning how to transmute pumpkins into bodies for herself. She uses the castoffs as a workforce. (Still working on that "good" thing.)
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Jul 20, 2018 22:03
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That is WAY more complicated than the way I leveled all classes up to 50. One of the fights that Tithin didn't cover is right next to a waypoint. Said fight involves you being high up, and the enemies way down below (including their boss). Two (later one) bow shot later and you win the fight. Turn back the clock and do the fight again. Extra bonus is that it's literally right before you get princess/lord marks so it grinds your cash up too. Assuming you don't run into any random encounters on the way to the fight it's about 1-2 minutes per loop. I killed that poor poor Bakram Valkyrie more times than I can count mauman fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 07:23
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Possibly a stupid question, but wouldn't dutifully picking up cards in battle somewhat mitigate the need for focused grinding?
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Jul 21, 2018 18:10
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JustJeff88 posted:Possibly a stupid question, but wouldn't dutifully picking up cards in battle somewhat mitigate the need for focused grinding? Don't forget that not every enemy drops a card. Google is saying you get .1-.5 points per card, so it takes between 2 and 10 cards to level up a single stat one point. A level up only gives .1 to all stats(10 levels = 1 point in all stats), but its guaranteed and applies to all stats to potentially multiple units. If cards were the only way to level up, it would probably be even more tedious. Fortunately we can do both.
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Jul 21, 2018 19:52
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lobster22221 posted:Don't forget that not every enemy drops a card. Google is saying you get .1-.5 points per card, so it takes between 2 and 10 cards to level up a single stat one point. I knew that cards didn't always drop, but I did not realise how little each card boosted a stat. This answer my question.
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Jul 21, 2018 20:36
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JustJeff88 posted:I knew that cards didn't always drop, but I did not realise how little each card boosted a stat. This answer my question. If it makes you feel better, I'm like 50% sure stats cap at 99, and don't go into the 3 digits.
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Jul 21, 2018 20:57
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Man, I forgot how awful loyalty got by the end of the game.
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Jul 21, 2018 21:06
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JustJeff88 posted:Possibly a stupid question, but wouldn't dutifully picking up cards in battle somewhat mitigate the need for focused grinding? Absolutely. Even with how little the cards increase you can make some great gains. However, I don't think I sold you guys on how much faster running the AI is for battles. Like we are talking less than 10 minutes per battle for even the biggest of fights unless there is something weird with the AI and undead. The ability to grind by only having to check in to make sure no one lost a heart once every few minutes is completely under rated. Especially when I am doing my grinding and battles while I am at work To make this clear cause maybe I haven't, this amount of grinding I am doing is excessive and not needed for actually clearing the game. A smart and clever player can probably beat the game and complete the coda with only hitting levels in the high 30s. The AI is not smart enough to do this. Thus, we need overkill. waah fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 01:44
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The things I do for you guys. The next update should happen mid to late next week and it will cover floors 25-50. I haven't decided when I am going to do a Very Special Episode of the PoTD, but I will need you guys to pick a name for a male unit to have... experiments done to him.
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Jul 26, 2018 02:34
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