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Any recommendations for party members in DQ3? It looks like you can hire and fire at will but are you just intended to experiment with different party compositions?
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Aug 15, 2021 23:41
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Elephant Ambush posted:Any recommendations for party members in DQ3? It looks like you can hire and fire at will but are you just intended to experiment with different party compositions? Everyone starts at level 1 so you're best off picking a party and sticking with it, for the most part. Soldiers are the most durable class. Bring one if you want a heavy equipment wearing HP sponge. Martial artists are real good in DQ3 - they go fast, hit hard, and have a high crit rate. I'd suggest keeping one. Mages are good for AOE trash clearing, and for boss debuffs. Sap is very useful for increasing the damage your physical damage dealers do, and Oomph/Bikill is a great buff for them as well. Priests are healers and group defensive buffers. They get insta-kill magic that's actually kind of handy in the late game but it's not 100% guaranteed to work so it's a dice roll. Having a priest around is handy, but your hero gets a good selection of healing magic so you do have the option of just making your hero the main healer instead. (There's also a late game item called the Sage's Stone that any party member can use for AOE healing for free.) Merchants are unnecessary except for plot. When you need one for plot, you can just make one. Thieves are a neat class that's new to the SNES version. They attack fast, get cool out-of-battle skills related to enemy encounters and treasure chests, and they get a nice selection of AOE-supporting weapons like boomerangs and whips. You'll reach a shrine later that allows you to change jobs, and when you change, you retain any spells learned in the last job and a portion of your prior stat gains even after you go to level 1 in the new job. This means you can, say, take a priest and re-class them to soldier and they'll be a soldier with healing spells. There's a special class that you can change to called Sage that has a lot of nice equipment options plus all of the Priest and Mage spells. It normally requires an item that you get a limited number of (the Zen Tome, or Book of Satori, or whatever this translation patch calls it), but if you take a goof-off, they can re-class to Sage without needing that.
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Aug 15, 2021 23:53
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Elephant Ambush posted:Any recommendations for party members in DQ3? It looks like you can hire and fire at will but are you just intended to experiment with different party compositions? I always use a Martial Artist in every class DQ for whatever reason. My playthrough of DQ3 started with MA/Priest/Gadabout and became MA/Sage/Sage.
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Aug 15, 2021 23:54
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Elephant Ambush posted:Any recommendations for party members in DQ3? It looks like you can hire and fire at will but are you just intended to experiment with different party compositions? Around the midgame you have the opportunity to change your characters classes anyway, which resets them to level 1 and halves the stats they had in their former job before changing (meaning, a level 30 fighter changing to a wizard or cleric means they start as a level 1 wizard or cleric but with the stats of a level 15 fighter). So... It's not really permanent. Starting off with a basic fighter, monk, cleric and wizard is fine. Only thing I suggest is to have a merchant on hand, doesn't need to be in your main party but just have a merchant available to recruit as you'll need one to progress the story.
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Aug 15, 2021 23:57
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Elephant Ambush posted:Any recommendations for party members in DQ3? It looks like you can hire and fire at will but are you just intended to experiment with different party compositions? If you want a strong team for much of the game, start with Fighter/Soldier, Priest, Goof-off. Just keep in mind it'll be a little rough until you can class change since you can turn the goof-off into a sage without needing the item from the tower north of Dharma/Alltrades, allowing you to have two sages in addition to your Fighter/Soldier. If you're playing the NES version a soldier is better than fighter due to gear limitations. Hero/Soldier/Sage/Sage is extremely powerful, especially if your Soldier was class-changed from a Priest since that means even your melee character will have Healmore and a few buffs to toss out in emergencies. Or HealAll/Revive if you don't class change for a long time but two Sages will have that covered well enough imo.
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Aug 16, 2021 00:12
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Elephant Ambush posted:Any recommendations for party members in DQ3? It looks like you can hire and fire at will but are you just intended to experiment with different party compositions? Martial Artist trumps Warrior because they'll hit harder, act sooner, and Agility contributes to Defense anyway so Warriors aren't even particularly great at the one thing they're supposed to be good at, Thieves can carry you for a lot of the game thanks to their access to Whips and Boomerangs (and also handy dandy exploration spells), and then a magic user of some variety, I personally prefer a Healer (it doesn't really matter because you'll eventually turn them into a Sage and they'll have access to both Mage and Healer spells)
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Aug 16, 2021 00:23
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Thanks everyone. I'm gonna use Martial Artist, Priest, and Goof-off then. Feels weird not having an offensive mage right away but doing different things is interesting.
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Aug 16, 2021 00:30
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The book that lets you turn into a sage is also a rare drop from an enemy around the North America equivalent continent. There's a second copy very late in the game in the remake versions as well.
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Aug 16, 2021 00:43
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Is Sage in DQ3 literally a straight upgrade to Priest and Mage in DQ3 or do the earlier classes have some unique spells like in DQ9?
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Aug 16, 2021 00:49
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My recommendation for a first-time DQ3 party is (hero)-soldier-pilgrim/priest-mage who will eventually be 'promoted' (trying not to spoil) once he gets an important spell at about level 20. I prefer soldiers to martial artists because there is some great gear, some of which casts some fine spells, that soldiers can use but fighters cannot. DQ3 remakes do a really good job of making a lot of classes viable and interesting. Whenever I play it, I always wish that I could have a bigger party. Inspector Gesicht posted:I definetly won't make the mistake of using save-states. I'll second this. I did that on the translated SFC version and it royally hosed me. I had to abandon the run. I really hope that the remake next year has the content from all previous versions, including the board game and the stuff unique to the GBC one. I will be genuinely disappointed if it doesn't. Inspector Gesicht posted:The personality thing seems like a waste of time. I just sell the drat books. I also do not care for that system. I would enjoy the game more without it. Fake Edit: I feel slightly silly now for trying not to spoil.
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Aug 16, 2021 00:51
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Evil Fluffy posted:If you want a strong team for much of the game, start with Fighter/Soldier, Priest, Goof-off. Just keep in mind it'll be a little rough until you can class change since you can turn the goof-off into a sage without needing the item from the tower north of Dharma/Alltrades, allowing you to have two sages in addition to your Fighter/Soldier. If you're playing the NES version a soldier is better than fighter due to gear limitations. personally i started with fighter and class-changed her to a soldier later, when equipment availability was a problem for fighters. you end up with a character that's basically a hero in terms of speed and strength. fighter/priest/goof-off is definitely the way to go for a starting party tho, imo. goof-off gets to be surprisingly reliable eventually, a few levels before it's eligible for class change, and you won't miss your 4th character slot before then as the game starts out pretty gentle. your goof-off will also retain their high luck score through the class change, which makes them less vulnerable to status effects. Commander Keene posted:Is Sage in DQ3 literally a straight upgrade to Priest and Mage in DQ3 or do the earlier classes have some unique spells like in DQ9? no benefits to staying priest or wizard, sage is just straight up priest + wizard
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Aug 16, 2021 00:52
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Haha the Goof-off owns
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Aug 16, 2021 01:32
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Hokuto posted:I'm sorry, what? Did this post from back in May offend you somehow? Did something bring this on? I was catching up on the thread when I saw it pop back up and forgot "A few pages" of posts in this thread aren't like...a few hours or a day or two ago but weeks cause this thread is slow. But also the point stands, it's not really dark at least in the way people talk when talking about 'mature fantasy'. We tell our kids stories that are more somber and sad and dark than a lot of fantasy poo poo for adults it's just usually less visceral or graphic that makes the difference. ZenMasterBullshit fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 01:37
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Dragon Quest III: SNES Played on 3DS. Personalities affect your growth rates so definitely don’t do this unless you know it’s a crappy one. It’s generally not like a hugely impactful thing but it would suck to stumble on the Sexy personality that gives a cumulative +70% and sell the book because it was “useless”, or end up with a martial artist with a bad speed growth. https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dragon_Warrior_III/Personality
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Aug 16, 2021 01:39
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Jazerus posted:personally i started with fighter and class-changed her to a soldier later, when equipment availability was a problem for fighters. you end up with a character that's basically a hero in terms of speed and strength. I think there are a couple of items sages can’t wear that priests and wizards can, but all of the important stuff is usable by sages in addition to decent melee weapons like the zombie killer and I think they can wear stuff like magic armor, so sages are more durable and melee better than the two other classes.
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Aug 16, 2021 04:16
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Evil Fluffy posted:I think there are a couple of items sages can’t wear that priests and wizards can, but all of the important stuff is usable by sages in addition to decent melee weapons like the zombie killer and I think they can wear stuff like magic armor, so sages are more durable and melee better than the two other classes. I remember sages and pilgrims having almost identical equipment choices (wizard obviously has very few), but that's going by memory and checking a guide.
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Aug 16, 2021 04:17
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Class change in the original NES DW3 is kind of a trap due to how stat growth works (you eventually lose most of the bonus stats from your first class) and because there’s no post-story endgame. The remakes make class change more worthwhile though.
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Aug 16, 2021 13:27
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If I remember right, the growth rates in the old version were randomized but gradually correct themselves when they’re too high/low for what the vocation is “supposed” to be at, right? Doesn’t 4 work the same way? Which feels like it’s really punishing you for using the stat seeds ASAP.
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Aug 16, 2021 14:30
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whydirt posted:Class change in the original NES DW3 is kind of a trap due to how stat growth works (you eventually lose most of the bonus stats from your first class) and because there’s no post-story endgame. The amount of XP to hit level 20 in DQ3 is maybe 1-2 levels worth of XP at the end of the game since you'll be pushing level 40 (or higher) if you aren't running constantly. Class changing just cuts your stats in half but you start gaining stats like normal again once your new class's level is at or past the range their stats are covering. So a goof-off who class changes won't see much, if any, luck gains because they'll still have 122 luck at level 1 due to likely capping at 255 luck before class changing, but a wizard/pilgrim who turns into a soldier will start gaining strength and vitality pretty quickly since those stats will be pretty low after the change.
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Aug 16, 2021 14:45
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I just gave all the seeds to the hero because theu're not changing any time soon. I got the boat in III and feel fairly directionless.Where Final Fantasy would have plot-doors this has beef-gates. It's a sandbox but decades before questlogs were a thing. The checklist feature from the FF pixel-remasters would do wonders here. I have no idea how people were supposed to find the medals in 1996. I'm pretty reliant on VG maps.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:10
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Inspector Gesicht posted:It's a sandbox but decades before questlogs were a thing. Game manuals of the era tended to encourage us to take notes. If a NPC says something that seems like it points to a destination elsewhere else, jot it down. I recently acquired a Famicom, CRT monitor and flash cart; once I get around to playing the various 8-bit RPGs I've never experienced before, I also bought a spiral notebook for just that purpose. DW3 originally came with a map/monster/item/spells poster plus a full strategy guide in case you get stuck. There's no shame in using any of those materials. The world map especially. There's a town south of Portoga that you can only reach by ship. Also a coastal shrine along the way that might have some clues. Check both out to start.
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Aug 16, 2021 18:13
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TurnipFritter posted:Anyway crossing my fingers for a Dragon Quest Builders 3 announcement next year. I'm... worried about a DQB3 in a way. Much of the B2 team is still there, but some have moved on, including Niinou, and I don't know how vital he was to the overall direction of the game. But losing key staff, at all, from the project that made a game as near-perfect as DQB2 makes me worry a potential B3 just won't measure up entirely.  It almost seems like a no brainer that a Builders 3 will happen after 2 sold the way it did (crested over a million sales, which it clearly wasn't expected to do), but...
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Aug 16, 2021 20:11
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SpaceDrake posted:I'm... worried about a DQB3 in a way. Much of the B2 team is still there, but some have moved on, including Niinou, and I don't know how vital he was to the overall direction of the game. But losing key staff, at all, from the project that made a game as near-perfect as DQB2 makes me worry a potential B3 just won't measure up entirely. I'd be curious to know what their projections were for DQB2 and how much their expectations of smaller-scale projects have been skewed by Octopath selling over 2.5 million copies when they were probably expecting 1/10th that.
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Aug 16, 2021 20:18
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Started DQ7 (3DS) over the weekend after trying to play it as a kid when it got the psx release. Currently on the volcano island and enjoying it. Excited to get to jobs but I understand that's a while off and DQ's combat has never really been the main draw for me anyway.
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Aug 16, 2021 20:19
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The next time grinding comes up as a topic, we should probably put in how many levels people are getting at a time or where they're stopping, because I'm curious as to how much effort people are doing for that.
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Aug 16, 2021 20:37
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Ofecks posted:Game manuals of the era tended to encourage us to take notes. If a NPC says something that seems like it points to a destination elsewhere else, jot it down. I recently acquired a Famicom, CRT monitor and flash cart; once I get around to playing the various 8-bit RPGs I've never experienced before, I also bought a spiral notebook for just that purpose. DW3 originally came with a map/monster/item/spells poster plus a full strategy guide in case you get stuck. There's no shame in using any of those materials. The world map especially. We missed out on DWIII for the NES in Europe, but I saw a copy later and that big fat guide book that come with it was something else. I almost bought one secondhand in recent years just for the nostalgia factor.
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Aug 16, 2021 20:38
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RareAcumen posted:The next time grinding comes up as a topic, we should probably put in how many levels people are getting at a time or where they're stopping, because I'm curious as to how much effort people are doing for that. my rule of thumb in obviously grindy games like DQ is to just grind to the point where you can buy the best equipment in the latest town, except for stuff that's obviously a ludicrously expensive easter egg. this usually doesn't take that long (fast-forward helps for old games) and you are basically assured that the devs took that exact power level into account while balancing - they may have consciously made it easy for that power level, or maybe it's the minimum required level and you're going to face a big challenge, or you are at exactly the intended level and will face a moderate challenge, but no matter what, you'll probably be able to overcome whatever is in your way at that point. obviously there are games with complex mechanics that don't necessarily line up with this strategy, like SaGa, but it's a straightforward approach that works for most of the classics.
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Aug 16, 2021 20:47
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Evil Fluffy posted:I'd be curious to know what their projections were for DQB2 and how much their expectations of smaller-scale projects have been skewed by Octopath selling over 2.5 million copies when they were probably expecting 1/10th that. Given the way they  ed about 1.1 million happening, I would suspect their projections were a fair bit lower than that.
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Aug 16, 2021 20:59
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If you roll into town and you can't afford all the best gear, your rear end is heading back into the field with the upgrades you can afford. If you can't make it to the next town with that mishmash, head back and spend what you earned in the attempt. Grinding is for when you want to try fighting the superboss.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:00
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I'm very much in a 'get the best available gear, then move on' camp. I just played a really good hack of FF1 from the NES that has two really good items in Melmond, right before the fight with Lich the 1st of 4 fiends, and it was very much worth it. Thing is, most old RPGs don't have a lot of content and grinding is a sort of padding to make the experience more rich. Maybe I'm old enough to be of a generation where people still had an attention span - I really don't know. Having played games that are almost nothing but grind, such as EverQuest, my basis of comparison is perhaps skewed and modern gamers just cannot stand a few hours of tedium. I might be a generational thing similar to the evolutional path wherein games from the 80s were all brutally hard (often to compensate for lack of content), but now people are older, have busier lives and they don't have the time or inclination to bang their head against brutal difficulty for hours on end.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:07
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Jazerus posted:my rule of thumb in obviously grindy games like DQ is to just grind to the point where you can buy the best equipment in the latest town, except for stuff that's obviously a ludicrously expensive easter egg. this usually doesn't take that long (fast-forward helps for old games) and you are basically assured that the devs took that exact power level into account while balancing - they may have consciously made it easy for that power level, or maybe it's the minimum required level and you're going to face a big challenge, or you are at exactly the intended level and will face a moderate challenge, but no matter what, you'll probably be able to overcome whatever is in your way at that point. I ask because I'm a leveling addict because a lot of the games I played would keep giving you the barest incentives to keep aiming for more levels and so I just keep fighting stuff long after I have passed the point I need to be to win the fight safely. Pokemon evolving and giving you new moves, FFtactics mastering abilities and letting you swap to a new class or weapon sooner, DQ8 and 11 giving you skillpoints, The World Ends With You leveling your weapons or digesting food for better stats, getting a chance to roll the dice on stat increases in Fire Emblem, etc.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:09
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Jazerus posted:my rule of thumb in obviously grindy games like DQ is to just grind to the point where you can buy the best equipment in the latest town, except for stuff that's obviously a ludicrously expensive easter egg. this usually doesn't take that long (fast-forward helps for old games) and you are basically assured that the devs took that exact power level into account while balancing - they may have consciously made it easy for that power level, or maybe it's the minimum required level and you're going to face a big challenge, or you are at exactly the intended level and will face a moderate challenge, but no matter what, you'll probably be able to overcome whatever is in your way at that point. Yeah I think most people do this, myself included. I don't buy the super expensive stuff because not only is it a huge time sink to grind gold but you always inevitably find something of a similar power level in the next big dungeon. So I skip the expensive stuff and don't always max out on the medium price stuff either. Usually when grinding gold you get enough levels to learn a cool spell or two which help with tougher enemies in the next dungeon. And hey if I get wiped early on in the dungeon I sigh loudly and go back to grinding money for better gear. This almost never happens though. I have no problems grinding for a while for money because at the very least you're getting levels and spells out of it which is parallel progress. The thing that destroyed my interest in DQ2 was that in the area before the final castle, you are literally grinding for levels and stats only. You already have all the spells and gear you need for the final dungeon (except maybe a Mink Mantle) so when you grind there you're not multi-tasking so to speak. You're just making the numbers get big enough that you can make it to the final castle and beat it. There's no reason to explore that area. There's no treasure to find or anything. So you basically just go back on forth on the island with the shrine for 2 or 3 fights before going into the shrine, healing and saving (which takes less time than healing people manually). Over and over. For a couple hours. That's the most boring thing ever. The opposite example I always think of is FF9. I had no problem grinding the gently caress out of that game because before the endgame you still need levels, magic spheres to equip more skills, money, and some of the skills to learn from the late game gear. That's doing 4 things at once and if you know that lvl 5 Death works on the dragons above that one dungeon it doesn't seem like a chore to get everyone ready for the last area. JustJeff88 posted:but now people are older, have busier lives and they don't have the time or inclination to bang their head against brutal difficulty for hours on end. For me it's definitely this. When I was a kid in the 80s I had no problem grinding because I was a kid and had nothing else to do and I wanted to beat the game. Now I'm older, married, have a house and dogs and all that and I have enough real life chores as it is. I don't want to spend too much time on virtual chores unless I can accomplish multiple goals in parallel. Elephant Ambush fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 21:10
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My grinding mentality is that I don't run from fights since most jrpgs are tuned such that if you just fight everything in your path you'll be in that sweet spot for difficulty. Then if I get my rear end kicked I examine the options available to me, with grinding always as a last resort. DQ11 was great for that since if I died to a boss I'd mess around with the forge to upgrade my gear, and if that didn't work I'd tinker with the skill tree to try to figure out something that'd work against that specific boss.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:22
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Jazerus posted:my rule of thumb in obviously grindy games like DQ is to just grind to the point where you can buy the best equipment in the latest town, except for stuff that's obviously a ludicrously expensive easter egg. this usually doesn't take that long (fast-forward helps for old games) and you are basically assured that the devs took that exact power level into account while balancing - they may have consciously made it easy for that power level, or maybe it's the minimum required level and you're going to face a big challenge, or you are at exactly the intended level and will face a moderate challenge, but no matter what, you'll probably be able to overcome whatever is in your way at that point. I can't think of any RPGs that were designed with "you need to buy the best stuff in town before proceeding" in mind. Hell, in DQ3 that'd mean grinding* around Allahan until you can buy chain sickles and full leather outfits (  ) which will absolutely bulldoze the area and sealed tunnel. You are not expected to have stuff like broadswords and half plate on the hero/soldier or a spear and chain mail on your priest before leaving the area around Romaly either. You buy what you can afford from exploring and move on. DQ2 is sorta an exception but that's mainly due to DQ2's original release being a massive tire fire.* or abusing the soldier recruitment trick to sell a bunch of leather armors until you can buy the best gear for your level 1 team, who will *still* bulldoze all the enemies in the area with that gear.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:23
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Buffs in DQ11 are amazing. Buff reduces damage by like 60% percent or something, it makes everyone super tanky, it's nuts.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:32
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Baramos looks far goofy to be a threat. He's basically a reptile Hans Moleman.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:32
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Always be buffing (and debuffing)
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Aug 16, 2021 21:33
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Baramos looks far goofy to be a threat. He's basically a reptile Hans Moleman. Proud tradition of big bads in DQ games looking like goofy morons.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:45
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Mustached Demon posted:Proud tradition of big bads in DQ games looking like goofy morons. Rhapthorne is the goofiest one. Great, I get to fight an ugly hot air balloon.
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Aug 16, 2021 21:58
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Baramos looks far goofy to be a threat. He's basically a reptile Hans Moleman. Baramos is gonna kick your rear end when he reads this dude. Watch out
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Aug 16, 2021 22:22
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