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Quintar Racing is either an exercise in frustrating perfectionism or an exercise in learning how to cheat like a motherfucker. Considering that Quintar Breeding means doing a lot of racing, the latter is generally a much, much better idea. There's a Steam guide that is very helpful in this regard, and once you learn what to do 4/5 of the races are simple. That 1/5 remains a waking nightmare, but, hey, you only need to do it once! Warlocks can also use Rapiers, so Windsong is mostly a Warlock weapon. You're generally better off with a staff with both Mind and Spirit, but it's not a bad fallback if you want a shield for some reason. Warlocks can remove enemy buffs with Dispel, it just comes at the cost of also removing one debuff.
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May 6, 2024 18:51
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Pierzak posted:If you mean that one near that one racing track, that can only mean you're already a broken shell of a man long since devoid of any ability to feel regret. The tree. The rest of it is accurate regardless probably.
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May 6, 2024 19:23
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Einwand posted:I remember using mimic to copy fierce stance from that one accessory, and another one we haven't seen yet without the downsides associated with the actual accessory, but mostly it's not the best gimmick. Mimic is an extreme edge case class, coming far too late to be able to justify casual use. Mimics own abilities are so niche that there's really no such thing as a "general" setup - you have a number of other, faster and easier options to fill that role for casual exploration, which puts Mimics role strictly in the realm of "weird poo poo". Understandably so - if Mimic could equip multiple sub-commands, they would almost entirely be THE superior platform for caster classes by virtue of being able to equip all gear and gain multiple passives. Instead, it becomes a solution in search of a problem and because of the flexible nature of the game, there aren't really many problems where a plan using Mimic is a more fun and/or elegant solution versus using some other more sensible and coherent plan.
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May 6, 2024 20:34
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I was pretty burnt out on this game by the time I got to the final boss and wound up using a memey mimic build to see the credits.
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May 6, 2024 21:40
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Hello, I know far too much about the intricacies of how Mimics work:
Anyway, I think everyone is broadly correct that a single Mimic isn't great for general use, and you really need multiple if you want to get up to Shenanigans.
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May 7, 2024 00:29
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PurpleXVI posted:
Put an ice weapon on someone and have them do a target-all physical. It doesn't say "the next ice spell"... Also, I finally got unlazy and finished out the last few cheevos for this game last night. 
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May 8, 2024 03:01
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Raitzeno posted:Put an ice weapon on someone and have them do a target-all physical. It doesn't say "the next ice spell"... A fair argument, but there's still only a 50% chance of actually sticking the status per target, which I find... unsatisfying, especially since most of the ice-elemental weapons don't really have top-tier numbers, so they'd be a step down outside of the gimmick. Also next update is shorter than planned because I forgot what an absolute rear end the Meat Tunnel boss was, which is weird because I could swear I rolled him over pretty quickly on my first playthrough.
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May 8, 2024 03:08
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Update 25: Tunneloscopy So, shorter update today because the Meat Tunnel Boss(tm) roadblocked me for roughly an hour of real time. What a fucker. Anyway, before I head down to the Capital Jail to get to the Meat Tunnel, I stop by to visit a few old pals in the alleyways of the capital.         The only thing I feel sad about is that I will not be given more chances to smack their dumb faces around. They'll loiter here and bemoan their fate for the rest of the game. Anyway, onwards, and downwards!   Hamza: If your meat tunnel has a giant oozing rift in the side, please see a doctor immediately. Charity: Wow you're really not making me want to head in there. Hamza: Good thing you don't get a choice, inwards! Charity: Yeugh.    Hamza: A boss in your meat tunnel? It's more likely than you think. Charity: ...can we please just beat this thing quick so he'll stop? Vanessa: On it. In addition to the boss there are a couple of diamond deposits here you could probably skirt the boss and pick up without starting the fight, if you're not ready for the wrangle but feel you need them.    Anyway, the boss... The Conscript.    He consists entirely of mean tricks. Bone Crunch is a paralyzing, heavy-hitting single target attack that IGNORES DEFENSE, meaning that without a physical damage reduction debuff or buff, it will one-shot everyone, including Hamza. Hocus Pocus randomly drops conditions on everyone, though it seems that if you hit him up again right after reverting to a home point without altering any classes, buying stuff, etc. the seed for Hocus Pocus remains set and he drops the exact same conditions on you. I wonder if the same is the case with Anubis and you could "pre-scout" his wall changes that way? Doom Song we've seen before from Tira, the main difference is that the Conscript has the HP pool to be casting it more times, and as far as I know there's only one Instant Death immunity item in the game, the Hope Cross, and only one instance of it. It's a steal from the ninja dojo boss, so I got it out of the Lost & Found and put it on Tau, but I keep forgetting he's got it on and pointlessly dispelling his Doom Song debuffs anyway. Joke's on me, I guess.  Lastly, Goop Expand shaves off 90% of a target's current health and is, resultingly, really only a problem if Hocus Pocus drops a damage-over-time condition on someone like Burn, Poison or Bleed.    We're going to need a better plan, which I slowly come up with over like ten attempts or so.   Step one: Tau gets the Blank Pages and immediately starts the battle by setting off Tira so everyone can tank two shots of Bone Crunch without getting hit. I briefly experiment with making Vanessa a Ninja to dodge the hits with that one Ninja scroll skill, but because it's only a +90% dodge, not a 100% dodge, the loving Conscript semi-regularly lands his swings anyway, the fucker.      Nice try, you oversized anal polyp, no hits for you.   Pinga effectively defuses the first cast of Doom Song and scrapes off any remaining Hocus Pocus effects, too. After this, it gets tough. Thankfully Charity has a self-condition-remove from being a Dervish, though it only takes off one condition, so if she also has a leftover from Hocus Pocus it's up in the air which one goes off. I also sometimes let Vanessa die with a Reraise on from Hamza because that resets her Threat entirely. It's about those big brain plays.  And for one of the first times ever, I get some use out of AP Transfer since Hamza isn't doing much attacking, he's mostly casting Reraise and Healing Breeze/Steeling Wind from the Valkyrie repetoire.  I've got him under 25% health, judging by his health bar colour, but Tira's all out on Hamza and I'm having trouble keeping up with the Doom Songs, and Vanessa just hit the big boy with an Eye Gouge a couple of rounds ago, meaning she's picked up enough Threat to be unable to hit him with most of her Rogue skills. So I'm down to having her just Attack and...   Charity: Oh my God, did we do it? It feels like we've been down here forever. Fighting in this muck and slurp and goop and urgh. Was it worth it? Hamza: EVERY FIGHT IS WORTH IT, THE HARDER THE BETTER. Vanessa: Can you lug my corpse a bit closer to him? I wanna see if he's got anything, I think I see something in there...  Vanessa: What? What the gently caress is this? Tau: Maybe it keeps engineers away from you. Vanessa: I expect comments like that from Hamza, not from you. Tau: Look, it's some sort of inscrutable monster organ now lodged in our collective inventory, I'm trying to look on the bright side. Anyway, the purpose of the STEM WARD is mysterious for now, though I'd wager a lot of people curious about the Meat Tunnel end up picking it up well before the place they actually need it, much like we did. It will eventually have a reason to exist. For now, let's clear up a little bit of jungle content while we're here, because I can never remember how to find the appropriate area from the outside.         Let's elevator up into the dark part of the Jidamba Tangle.          We didn't get into any fights last we were here, and that's entirely because the enemies in the "deep" part of the Jidamba Tangle are dangerous even as green flames if your setup for them is wrong.  Exhibit A, what happens when you bring physical attackers here without the no counterattacks ability from the Samurai.             Like so many areas in the game, the main navigational advice is to get height and then maintain and increase that height, as long as you do that, you're usually going the right way.         Aside from quest items, this area also has a couple of very high-level pieces of gear. The Raven's Cloak is kind of what you'd expect from a Light Armor, no surprises, but it's got big number.       The Mettapodd gives you a brief window to erase it before it transforms into a nastier, insect-themed enemy. Thankfully I have a great setup for it.      It always starts off with Harden which protects it against physical attacks, so I have one round to smash its magic defenses, paralyze it with Guaba for more action time and then erase it with a Typhoon.       This makes three keys from the Tangle so far: Canopy, Foliage and Cave(though I feel its a missed chance not to call it the Root key to keep the theme going). Now to find somewhere to use them.          On the way I flub a jump and meet the Meat Eater, one of my favourite enemy sprites. I love how the center of the flower has a humanoid shape, it's great. Whoever's the artist for that one deserves some praise.      Charity: Ooooh, ancient jungle temple! Tau: How do you know it's a temple? Charity: Everyone knows that all the overgrown buildings you find in jungles are always temples. Who ever heard of an ancient, forgotten grocery store in the deep jungle? Tau: ...I want to argue but I don't feel like I can.      While not obviously useful, I think this may go on Hamza when I loop back to take care of the Crag and Rampart Demons.        The top of the structure is patrolled by Temple Snakes who can be very nasty if you let them get off their combos. 45% of your max health in damage per turn or losing two actions, in addition to some pretty pinchy base damage, is where they start. Thankfully Ioske and Guaba both give us some breathing room and let us take them out.       Tau: Well either this is one hell of a grocery store, or you were right. Charity: Thank you, I'm something of an expert on temples and mysterious structures. Vanessa: Then can you tell me where the loot is? Charity: It's inside! Vanessa: Thank you for the insightful wisdom.     It's worth it to climb up on top of the temple, too, because the dev knew that it's important to put important things on top of other things.      One of the best bows in the game, in case I ever feel tempted to bring Hunter out for a spin again(honestly? somewhat unlikely!).       And another fire resistance item. Worse than the Flame Guard, though, because a lot of things that deal fire damage are also partially resistant to fire damage themselves.        Time to find a way in.        Predictably, this is where our keys come into play.    Though it's worth coming here as soon as you can to pick up the Jidamba Tangle map if you're new to the game. It's sort of southwesternish on the subcontinent.          It's possible to get a bit confused about where the last key goes, because it's not on the same level as the other two doors and the main entrance.         Of course the Canopy Key's lock is above the Foliage and Cave.       Next Time: I beat up the Crag Demon and Rampart Demon, I show y'all how to get the fourth mount early, and then I get the fourth mount the proper way: by going through this dungeon. I think it's a fun one.
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May 9, 2024 16:14
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Fun fact! If you cross reference the layers of the world map, you'll see that the spot where Conscript has broken through is directly below Skumparadise. Given that the Corruption enemies in the Capitol Pipeline are also mushroom based, it stands to reason that Conscript is the reason Skumparadise is Like That.
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May 9, 2024 18:39
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Congrats on the early Conscript kill! It's pretty well-designed as part of an open-world exploration game. Even if you ignore all the spooky vibes of its environment, you're supposed to look at its skills, say "what is this nonsense," and then leave it for later. The fact that it drops nothing immediately useful is also similarly discouraging, if you're the spoiler-searching type. Nudging the player to go somewhere else without putting up a wall is an important thing to do! Warlock helps for that fight, since Dualcast is IIRC the only non-Pingu way to remove statuses from multiple characters in a single turn. It's expensive, but Doom Song is the main lose condition of the fight, so it's worth it. I never actually did the fourth mount early strat. It would make the dungeon where you get the fourth mount normally way easier, though.
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May 9, 2024 19:07
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Cattail Prophet posted:Fun fact! If you cross reference the layers of the world map, you'll see that the spot where Conscript has broken through is directly below Skumparadise. Given that the Corruption enemies in the Capitol Pipeline are also mushroom based, it stands to reason that Conscript is the reason Skumparadise is Like That. That IS interesting, I actually had no idea. There's a lot of stuff that's implied about the world and I do kind of appreciate that no one ever steps out from behind the curtain and does a lot of explaining or lore dumping on you.
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May 9, 2024 19:32
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Einander posted:Congrats on the early Conscript kill! It's pretty well-designed as part of an open-world exploration game. Even if you ignore all the spooky vibes of its environment, you're supposed to look at its skills, say "what is this nonsense," and then leave it for later. The fact that it drops nothing immediately useful is also similarly discouraging, if you're the spoiler-searching type. Nudging the player to go somewhere else without putting up a wall is an important thing to do! I always considered the Conscript to effectively be one of the "end game" bosses, for reasons that will make sense when PurpleXVI gets there. That isn't to say that you necessarily need to be at the level cap with fully kitted out gear - the speedrun of this game is kind of charming in that way. The game reaches a point after which you can't simply grind as a solution to your problems (although the accessibility options provide the ability to adjust the level cap if so desired), and the game is varied and flexible enough that you can go real far without even being close to the level cap because having a good plan makes such a big difference in successfully tackling bosses. There's even option under Assist Options to reduce the difficulty of non-boss encounters, which I really like conceptually if all you want to think about is the bigger set piece fights. As far as the fight itself is concerned, this has been mentioned before, but combining Warlock with Nomad to take advantage of Therapy Stance (turn single-target cures into multi-target) is the most efficient way to remove statuses from multiple characters in a single turn. It doesn't require Dualcast (which is prohibitively expensive to sustain) and is more or less the One Easy Trick for this fight, such as it is. Valkyrie itself is pretty helpful here as well, for Steel Heart.
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May 9, 2024 19:44
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I remember those plant monsters in the jungle being some of the actual worst random encounters in the entire game, truly just miserable to fight regardless of if your team is good against them or not. Conscript is a boss I barely remember because I never managed to get into the tram way until remembering it existed while doing final endgame clean up activities, so it just kind of got destroyed by a fully optimized endgame setup.
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May 9, 2024 21:11
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Cattail Prophet posted:Fun fact! There's one more even funnier fact about it, but it's one best left for the absolute end/postgame.
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May 9, 2024 23:42
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Update 26: Fish & Fraud So, first thing up is killing off the Ramparts and Crag Demons. Neither of them are very interesting fights, because we've already fought bosses very similar to them.       The Rampart Demon bears a superficial similarity to the Conscript in that he has a big "gently caress everyone" spell in Fire Breath and Bone Crunch to rip through single targets. You get peace when he's casting his single target fire spells which do notably less damage. As long as someone can mess up his magic offense(Aegis will do that) and prevent him from landing physical hits(Eye Gouge from Rogue), he's more or less neutered.        His unique drop is Auduril which is a pretty decent weapon... but usually your physical attackers will be doing tanking duty, too, so I generally found myself going for single-handed weapons so they could wield shields.    The Crag Demon is just Small Ramparts Demon for the most part, except slightly faster so you will generally want the Blank Pages on someone who can Guaba him or Blackout to knock out his fire magic(I could have done that against the Ramparts Demon as well but never really found it necessary).      But in my opinion he drops something FAR more important. We met someone ages ago who wanted to trade a Crag Demon Horn for an "SoJ". Let's see if he's still up for that trade.       +10% MP is super good on any caster, especially if they're also bringing the Summoner's +20% MP passive. The Thunder Damage bonus is also alright, though the only Thunder damage spells are the Guaba Summon and the Wizard's. On a physical attacker it'd just be a flat +10% damage, unless of course an enemy happened to be weak to Thunder, but Crystal Project's endgame isn't very heavy on exploitable elemental weaknesses.  Anyway, now for what I think is probably the biggest cheat/exploit in the game. I think it's entirely intended that you CAN do this, but it's supremely sequence break-y. You may notice we are at the shrine above the Salmon Run, so some folks know what's coming.      Just walk up to the counter and rent a salmon as usual...    Oh! But what's this? We're not following the Salmon Run track?????? Impossible! It's been mentioned a few times before but when you're doing the Salmon Run nothing keeps you on route. Hopping off the fish stops the race, and so does running out of time, but otherwise? Go wild! In this case, we're gonna head east.       We need to head roughly northeast to Shoudu Province. If you're doing this early in the game, you probably want to follow the coast more, but that gives you less time to spare.        Sea Skimmers are the reason to be careful at low levels, we're almost at max level(60) and they're still blue flames to us, if you do this as early as possible, you're gonna be seeing red flames instead.         Once you hit the shore west of Shoudu Province, follow it east.     When you find THIS cave(which will be revisited later, it hides a Summon challenge), start heading south out over the open sea.       There's a sort of curve where the seafloor drops away, this is a good bit to look for, head all the way down and continue south.      What you're looking for is this sea vegetation which indicates a deeper cut into the sea floor.       I've never gotten here with more than ten seconds to spare, no matter how well I learn the route.     And there you go. If you did this early, you could now find your way to ALL sorts of good poo poo. You could swim over to the Jidamba Tangle and sneak some coastal chests, you could find stuff under the sea, you could use the various rivers(like the ones in Delende and the Spawning Meadows) to sneak on to later areas and, once again, grab gear while dodging the enemies. It's worth noting that the rivers in this game are relatively "realistic." None of them are just a severed chunk of water, all of them connect to other rivers and eventually the ocean, so the Salmon is probably the strongest piece of mobility you could possibly have.  But that never happened! (or did it?) Back to our regular programming!   Hamza: Finally, some real dungeoning.        Vanessa: Not exactly requiring much brainpower so far, though. Hamza: Good! That must mean it's a real warrior's dungeon! I can't wait to fight some stuff!      Hamza: See? This is what dungeons should be like. Just a nice straight path with enemies to fight, maybe a platform to jump on. Lemme get this guy. Vanessa: ...you know this is super suspect for a late game dungeon, right? Tau: I bet there's gonna be a pit. Charity: Or maybe secret enemies we can't see!    Actually chunks of the wall will just sweep out and smack us into the drink.    Most of the enemies down this side are Temple Spiders who, inexplicably, never seem to use their Spin Web ability.  So the trick here is that any time you can see "extra" spikes at the bottom, the low layer of blocks is gonna fly out and you should inch up until they sweep out and run past before they come back in again. NEVER jump, because there are also second-layer blocks that wanna bop you and you cannot see where they are. Slow and methodical wins this race.           Star Sparks show up in a few formations and can complicate matters by making everyone resistant to magic and better at magic murdering. My solution to this is generally just getting as much magic damage out as I can before they pull their mean trick and then cleaning up with Vanessa and Hamza.     Hamza: Bah, traps, moving blocks. Charity: I thought it was fun! Tau: If someone puts up traps to keep us out... at least it means there's something there we should be interested in? Vanessa: Now you're learning, the places to go are where people try to keep us out, not where they invite us in.      Fire Bugs aren't a serious threat. They can hit hard, but considering they're a single target they're easy to pump full of conditions if they really give you trouble, and they don't really have the health values necessary to be a THREATENING single target.   Getting through this first level of the Jidamba Eaclanaya(does that even mean anything?) requires you to press a button down the west, south and east corridors and then exit down the north corridor.     The gimmick down the east corridor is that the "low" platforms drop when you stand on them, so I just fly past them on an owl instead.        On the north side I make use of the fish instead since it's very precise to owl past, if you even can. Charity: Wait, when did we get a fish to ride? I mean, not that I mind, it's at least got two eyes, but- Vanessa: Don't think too hard about it.   Past another Firebug, that one is sorted, too, not too bad a challenge. Time for the south passage.    Hamza: Alright, this one won't catch me off guard. Onwards!   Hamza: Ha ha! Missed me! Evil boxes.    Hamza: ...traitorous cubes...    It's hard to communicate what happens here. First I manage to jump over the blocks behind me that rush out to shove me into the spikes, ending up on top of them, but before I can move onwards, they're yanked out from under my feet, and then as I try to find my footing, they smash me forwards again into the floating flame.    I feel like enemies that do have special elemental mechanics, like the Star Flame, are somewhat let down by Crystal Project having a lot of elements which are mostly segregated by class. There are very few elemental crossovers. For instance, Ice is limited to the Nomad, Warlock, Summoner and Fencer. Water is only Nomad, Summoner and Fencer. Fire is only Wizard and Summoner. Thunder is Wizard and Summoner. Air is Dervish and Summoner. Earth is Dervish and Summoner. This means that unlike, say, a game like Final Fantasy 5 where your Black Mage has most of the relevant elements, except a couple segregated to the Blue Mage and Geomancer(Earth, Water, Air) or White Mage(Holy), and you're almost guaranteed to have some amount of Black Magic along for the ride most of the time, it's entirely likely the elements defining some enemy's abilities just don't exist at all in the fight. Anyway if this floating dickhead is trouble just use your Cleric to cast Blackout and pretend he can't do anything.     Oh, yeah, and when you cross over to the other side, the loving cubes on THAT end sweep out and shove you back into the loving chasm. There's some real malice in the design of this particular little jumping challenge and I genuinely cannot explain how I make it work. I think the only way I ever get it to work is if I "fly" on to the blocks sweeping out from behind, then launch the owl off those on to the top of the blocks waiting to shove me back.  And immediately we get another intersection, let's head left.    Hamza: So many battles... Vanessa: We don't have the HP and MP for all these, Hamza Hamza: B-but... Vanessa: There could be a boss at the end! You wanna show up for a boss unprepared? That'd be rude. Hamza: ...I guess.      There are a lot of small battles here that can drain your resources, but you can avoid most of them if you know how to fly the Owl right, or you could also brute force through them if you have enough consumables to top up between fights.      Unless you come here early it should be trivial to have the damage output to rip through this angry foliage with minimal consequences.      Our reward is one of the best swords in the game, and in some situations absolutely THE best. There aren't a lot of fire-heavy boss battles left, but there are a few situations where it would be relevant, if you were still having trouble with the Rampart Demon, for instance, it would absolutely be useful.     Hamza: ...more enemies I'm not allowed to fight, huh? Tau: Do you really never get enough of fighting? Hamza: I think winning fights is fun! It's a sign of making progress, just like Vanessa feels getting more stuff is making progress. Vanessa: ...I mean, I can't really argue, I like it when the inventory numbers go up.           Going east is the necessary passage, it's the last button needed to unlock the elevator down to the last level.    Charity: A dead end...? No, wait...       A tricky little piece of treasure that's easily missed, one of THE best, only beat out situationally, pieces of Light head armor. The Celestial Crown is just generally good, great Resistance, good Defense, buffs you a bit in everything.    Small patrols of Temple Snakes rush from side to side in these little holes on either side of the corridor, but if we duck into the first one, we can find a prize at the end.    I'd say it's somewhat important since the last level of the Jidamba Eaclanaya isn't... quite labyrinthine, but having the map makes it easier to make sure you're not missing anything, and there are some things down here you really don't want to miss.       For some reason we have to push three buttons again after having already pushed three buttons. I don't really get why.    Hamza: Ugh, water. Tau: What's your problem with water? Hamza: Well there's always so much of it and so comparatively few enemies, it's like... like they're diluting my fights! Tau: Wow, a reasonable critique of something for once. Hamza: Also you can't really platform underwater, either.     Check north before doing anything else, because it contains the Weaver crystal and the Weaver is... probably the one class I could most classify(ha ha!) as a straight power upgrade to everything else you're doing. Weaver   The Weaver's inherent ability is that their first turn-consuming(i.e. non-stance) action of a fight is multi-target, even if it would normally be single-target. So you could have a Weaver/Fencer with Duel Ready rip out a battle-field wide barrage of guaranteed-crit Nighthawks or something similar. A Weaver/Nomad with some start-of-fight AP buffs could rip out a party-wide Shimmertide and make them magic-resistant for the rest of the fight, etc. It's a really good ability for fighting mobs, if nothing else. But that's not all!   Slow and Haste are basic workhorse abilities, and they have a whopping four-turn duration, which is super long for buffs/debuffs, too.   Dust gives your Rogue a mulligan on the initiative order when it comes to interrupts and blinds. It's just generally awesome. I'm not sure how it interacts with someone who's charging an ability, but I think it might zero their charge time and get it off immediately. Daze is as useful as it is on the Shaman, but sadly here it doesn't come with Poison and Damage to boot. But still, good!   The Delay abilities seem initially useless but can be important for making sure a given character goes before someone else, for buffing purposes, for instance. Very situational, though.   I feel like I hardly need to explain how useful these two are, but in particular Status Amp can have some funny interactions with intentionally short-lived abilities like the Aegis' Crystal Form.   I don't think I've ever used Stability, but Statis is a clear pick for a Rogue/Weaver who wants to pick their own place in the init order.   Rewind is very situational, but can sometimes save your bacon. Quick doesn't really need explaining, it's the "gently caress you, and gently caress you very quickly"-spell. If it has a weakness it would be its cost, so I'd probably only use it much on a Dervish/Weaver who'd have a good bit of passive MP regen as the fight went on.   Lastly... there's the reason the Weaver is such a good loving class. These two passives. Fast Cast means your mages(and Beastmasters...) effectively get 1/3rd more damage out in the same time, and Pre-Emptive guarantees that you get in your first-round buffs and debuffs before the other guy starts taking control of the field, and maintaining momentum(not getting slowed down by having to heal and clear debuffs, etc.) is very important in longer fights. You can easily get on the back foot and spend more time staying alive than getting the other guy dead if you slip up. Also, we now have all the classes in the game. Congrats us!    Let's check out the gimmick of this floor. See the fish? We can ride that fish.      We're supposed to enter here fishless and each fish gives us a temporary timer to reach another fish to reset the timer or dry land to not melt on.   However, we've got our own fish. We're not plebes who need a rental.      Enemies lurk in the water in places, but they're generally less threatening than anything else in all of Jidamba. Easily trampled and no obstacle to our looting.            And what looting it is! There aren't a LOT of things down here, but the ones that are include some approaching what you'd call "best in slot" items in other games. Vanessa: I never knew fish had this good stuff, maybe I should take up fishing. Charity: Sadly, the best loot you get from fish in the real world is a nice meal. Vanessa: And this, folks, is why we play videogames. I want wands of mystic power, gold bars, ancient tomes, not a tuna steak.          Though there are also some duds, like the Flameseeker. You could EITHER have a Mind bonus from another wand that boosts all spells, or you could have this thing that boosts half of one class(Wizard) while weakening the other half of the same class. Maybe there's some sort of cool combo with a Ninja that has the Use Wands passive and they've got the Flameseeker in one hand and a good wand in the other and you drop some very brutal Flares, but that'll also cut out a huge chunk of your max MP and you could also just wield two non-specialist wands that way instead. I am not sold on it.      As always, a few buttons need pressing to advance.                 Charity: Another book! Can we at least read this one? Vanessa: It's a shrink-wrapped mint first edition. It'd tank the value. Charity: ... Vanessa: Also we're underwater, I don't think the ducks would want it if it's water damaged just because you're nosy.          Hidden next to that weird preview elevator accessible from the Continental Tram is the Stardust Wand. The only magical abilities that can miss are Air spells, which can be pretty goddamn annoying. But a way around that is to equip the Hunter's "Perfect Vision" passive instead. It appears that when it makes attacks over 80% chance of hitting ALWAYS hit, that includes magical attacks(Air spells always have a 90% chance of hitting). It's otherwise not too impressive, but decent enough.         "Checkpoint" fish on a pillar for some reason.        And more buttons to progress.      Vanessa: drat, I can't believe someone beat us to this chest. Tau: But we- Vanessa: Truly, an outrageous crime. Tau: You sai- Vanessa: A shame nothing can be done about it.     Charity: The ocean is terrifying, but that's kind of what makes it so cool. Tau: With you on the terrifying, not so much the cool.   Charity: There could be anything down here! Monsters, treasures, treasure monsters, underwater caves, mysterious lost kingdoms... Tau: Squid. Charity: Squid? Tau: Horrible things. All those tentacles and eyes and yeugh. Charity: Well, squid are tough to animate, what're the odds they'd put those in this game?     https://soundcloud.com/bit-by-bit-sound/tidal-tribute I really loving love the Deep Sea BGM. It's super chill and at the same time keeps you moving, makes underwater adventuring a joy. Hamza: ...there are a lot of places we can go now. Vanessa: Down rivers, up waterfalls, into mysterious dungeons. Charity: Around the world under the sea! Tau: ...but not too far under the sea, right? So where do we go next? A: Resolve the mysteries of the Quintar Reserve and utterly annihilate my sanity, turning me into a weeping husk of a person. B: Finish off the Sky Arena C: Find that third book and check out the Sequoia Athenaeum D: Explore under the ocean(Bosses) E: Find the last three Summons F: Explore under the ocean(Miscellany) G: Find some hidden loot I bet a lot of players never even knew was there
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May 14, 2024 20:47
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G for hidden loot!
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May 14, 2024 21:14
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I'm gonna say get the summons
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May 14, 2024 21:20
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If you give me the ability to vote for you to annihilate your sanity, you can't really blame me for picking it! It's like being upset with someone for pressing a self-destruct button.
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May 14, 2024 22:02
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G HIDDEN LOOT Show me the stuff I missed!
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May 14, 2024 22:23
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Hidden loot is usually the best loot.
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May 14, 2024 22:36
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I 100%ed the game but you've shown me things I missed time and again so I vote hidden loo- -haha no gently caress your sanity, raptor grinding it is. also looking forward to you showing me shortcuts and time-savers and making ME go insane from the shame of grinding that poo poo (the rest is for you to feel better after that loving chore) ed: I explored everything I could including like half of Jidamba on the rental salmon trying to get inside or reach the shrine the "conventional" way since walk -> swim -> fly is the one true jRPG transport progression and nobody would do otherwise, right? Also the open ocean turning from HERE BE SEA SKIMMERS, CERTAIN DEATH AWAITS zone marked with a row of skulls into a grinding spot was the biggest milestone in the game for me. Especially given the above. Pierzak fucked around with this message at 00:03 on May 15, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 23:24
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B: You've waited long enough for the rematch
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May 15, 2024 01:34
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loot looot loooooooot
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May 15, 2024 02:39
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The timers on some of those optional salmon challenges are incredibly tight, so much so that even if you haven't cheesed your way into the violin room, I'd almost recommend just sticking to the critical path at first and coming back once you have your own fish to grab all the loot you missed.PurpleXVI posted:
You might just be killing them too fast? It does cost 12 AP after all. Anyway uhhh F.
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May 15, 2024 04:17
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Get the hidden loot!
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May 15, 2024 05:38
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Encounters in the temple are so, so much easier than encounters outside it. Ignoring encounters outside pretty much entirely is recommended; you can catch up on experience inside. Weaver is especially notable in the randomized runs, especially if you also get Scholar. Preemptive Fast Cast Sleep Aura trivializes pretty much every random encounter. It's also a class with Knives, so if you haven't done the cube yet then it's good to stick your Rogue in the class a while so they can Haste and Slow in that dungeon. Plus, Weaver/Rogue can start every encounter with all-target Sleep Bomb, which is Preemptive Fast Cast Sleep Aura except free (because you can only Sleep each enemy once per fight). The salmon puzzles in that dungeon really are excessively demanding. The temple is probably the most annoying dungeon to me for that reason. E, Summons. Might as well.
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May 15, 2024 07:53
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Well, I do enjoy annihilating sanity... but I'm still hoping you're going to LP Lands of Lore 1 at some point so I'll be nice Go get that hidden loot.
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May 15, 2024 08:28
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Einander posted:
Weaver's the other part of the general wombo combo for dealing with random encounters while exploring. Using Weaver + Beastmaster with Equip Axe to throw out a multi-target Jugular at the start of combat (to stick Death Sentence on everything) then following up with Sleep Aura, will handle the majority of encounters without giving them the opportunity to take a single turn. You can use Weaver/Rogue to sleep bomb as well, if you really are averse to spending MP. It's not the only way to accomplish this sort of thing; it's just what I ended up using. G: Find some hidden loot. I'm intrigued.
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May 15, 2024 10:11
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Ashsaber posted:B: You've waited long enough for the rematch 
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May 16, 2024 05:45
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Next update: The Hidden Loot that I imagined a lot of players missed and the remaining three summons Update after that: Sky Arena and then... the Quintars. The loving Quintars. They might end up taking two updates depending on how much I want to die.
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May 19, 2024 00:33
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If I ever play this game again I'm probably just going to download a mod that lets you skip what's coming in Quintar town. Once was enough.
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May 19, 2024 03:16
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I extremely do not regret skipping quintar shenanigans and just doing some nonsense to avoid doing it.
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May 19, 2024 03:51
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Chillgamesh posted:If I ever play this game again I'm probably just going to download a mod that lets you skip what's coming in Quintar town. Once was enough. I mean, minigame skip is already an assist option. The other half of what you need to do is kind of a hassle too I guess, but it's not that bad imo once you understand how everything works.
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May 19, 2024 04:16
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Cattail Prophet posted:I mean, minigame skip is already an assist option. The other half of what you need to do is kind of a hassle too I guess, but it's not that bad imo once you understand how everything works. lmao, okay, I will show off the minigame ONCE, but you're insane if you don't think I'm putting on minigame skip for the rest of it and abusing the hell out of it.
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May 19, 2024 10:26
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Chillgamesh posted:If I ever play this game again I'm probably just going to download a mod that lets you skip what's coming in Quintar town. Once was enough. When I replay this game I'm gonna cheat quintar grinding so hard, with zero regrets. (I know minigame skipping is a thing, but there are still the delays to deal with)
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May 19, 2024 21:44
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Update 27: Summon Cleanup & Incidental Looting Alright, so, it's looting time! I'm not sure how super hidden the following loot items are considered by most, but I feel like they're things that a lot of players might miss for one reason or another. Primarily among those reasons that you need the Salmon mount for all of them, and you can absolutely finish the game without the Salmon.  We'll start off at the Mercury Shrine above the Spawning Meadows.       Because we're taking a trip upriver.       You'd probably never think to come back here unless you were showing up to get the Scholar's Seal(which both requires getting all the Scholar skills from enemies, easy, and grining up 25 Learning Points to get all their Scholar abilities, a bit less easy), but there's something where the river starts.     Inside the tree is the Autumn's Oath which... I mean it's handy for a few things, for instance an enemy inside the Ancient Labyrinth drops one of the best Book items in the game and you might want a drop booster for that, but by this point you're going to have a lot of the relevant drops already. But once again, if you get the Salmon as early as possible, you can have this item for most of the game and then it could make a difference in being able to afford gear improvements early or getting more gear drops from enemies.    Next, we're starting off from the Callisto Shrine, since it's the easiest place to get to all of Delende from. Mercury Shrine is horizontally nearby but a bit low, and we're going somewhere high up.    From the sky, this heart-shaped pond would certainly get your attention, but without the Salmon you couldn't really dive in and discover what's at the bottom.     While there are two Rapiers with slightly better attack strength, I would rate the Chartreuse as the best Rapier in the game outside of niche applications for the +80 Luck which is a really titanic boost.     Next, we land behind Ganymede Shrine and climb another waterfall.       This peak is also pretty good for reaching stuff in the Quintar Reserve, since there are a few places that otherwise require some tricky or tedious jumping. Off-screen I use it as a jumping off point to collect some more Quintar Sheddings, leaving me one shy of the 10 I need.      And thus we get the Spring's Oath, another +50% drop rate item, hidden away atop the mountain behind the Ninja Yashiki. Once again, if you had both the Spring and Autumn's Oaths from as soon as you could "cheat" your way to the Salmon, this would really leave you drowning in a bunch of useful stuff.     At Sara Sara Bazaar is something I imagine almost everyone had completely forgotten by the time they got around to the Salmon, because you'd generally have very little reason to come back here.    But there's this pirate's loot lying just off the pier! It's kind of weird that all the materials are silver, though, since it comes, for legit players, so late in the game. Especially considering there's also one piece of gear...   Which is in my opinion the best piece of Medium headgear in the game! So I do slightly wonder if the silver drops are an error. Still, it can help patch out some holes if you've not been religiously hunting down every single mineral item. We're not done yet, though, there's one more loot area I think a lot of people miss!     Southeast of the Sara Sara Bazaar pier is the final fisher encounter of the game! The first two you kind of run into just by playing the game and doing what you're supposed to, and neither of them really have anything meaningful except I think the second can yield a bit of gold stuff, but the third one actually has a couple of quite high-tier drops.    Always use the Super Rod and go through each of the three Lures until you get one or two "big" results from them.       There are a few duds, and the salmon are one of the "generic" drops, but our first nice drop is the Fairy Ring, a nice tank item.     There's a bit of Diamond Dust and the "Murgleys," another high-tier Rapier. Slightly higher damage than the Chartreuse, but it exchanges the massive Luck bonus for Spell Lifesteal and a little bit of MP boost. Might be good for a Warlock but I think I'd generally rather give them a wand, unless I was running a Fencer/Warlock or and the spells were mostly for debuff removal.     Z-Potions and Zethers are the biggest HP/MP recovery items in the game, and Plate of Whale is the biggest HP bonus heavy armor in the game, though it has a notably worse actual Defense than many others(about half of the best ones), no Resistance boost and its only miscellaneous benefit is the bonus HP. It's a lot of bonus HP, for instance for Hamza it would be close to a +50% boost. For Defense-ignoring attacks, it could be the difference between getting one-shot by the Rampart Demon or Conscript and surviving.    This also seems to be a good point to interject some bonus stuff that's popped up back in the Capital, though due to the big red exclamation mark announcing it, I figure most people end up finding this.            The Mage Masher and the Eclipse are a pair of very powerful daggers. There are a couple of daggers that do slightly more damage, but don't have the great bonuses. If you roll lucky on Blinds and Silences against the right bosses, a Rogue can completely lock them down. The only dagger I'd date as an objectively superior choice is a "semi-hidden" one which has the potential to do a LOT more damage, we could technically have had it already, but it'll be better with a bit of setup first. But with that, I'd say we've claimed all of the "just lying around" surprise loot that people might easily miss as they play through the game. The remainder of the loot will require some work, some swimming or, sigh, some quintars. So to put that off, let's get some summons!     Hamza: Finally, some fights! What's the point of free loot you don't have to fight for? Vanessa: Do you even have to ask that?         If you swim west of Shoudu Province along the coast, you can find a cave immediately under the Ninja Yashiki which hosts the first of the last three summons and absolutely one of the easiest all in all.         The thing about Pah is that all their abilities are spells, and all of them have Charge Times. I did a bit of grinding off-screen to get everyone all the Weaver passives, so now I can pre-empt Pah massively and...      ...start out by locking down the boss, loving up their scripting since they can't get their all-reflect effect off like they're meant to, then having Vanessa, who now got several turns of saving AP to start with, Trick Slash every cast of anything actually dangerous out of the way.   Having negated the all-reflect cast, I can also Daze Pah with a Bio 2 from Charity and blast them with Star Flares from Tau, which gives me more time for interrupts and does tons of damage respectively. So what's my reward for this?     An incredibly situational summon! Now, it does have a very low Charge Time compared to the other summons, especially considering that Tau now has the -35% Charge Time ability from the Weaver class, which means that it's less something you cast when a fight starts(like Carbuncle in Final Fantasy or Tira from this game) and more something you whip out just when the boss is about to cast his big "fucketh thee uppe"-spell. The MP regen for the entire party isn't bad either, so I would say I'm probably still more likely to cast this than, say, Pamoa, in a given fight.    The next, and notably more interesting, summon is best approached from the entrance to the Jidamba Eaclanaya.       Make your way to the top.       Get on to the cliff edge west of it and make your way north. There are a few not-very-noteworthy treasures up here, too, including some diamond mineral nodes, but that's not what we're here for.     Gee I wonder where they got that name idea from.      So! The big thing is that the Revorbs do a bit of offense and can revive Juses, while Juses can do a lot more offense and revive all of the Revorbs at once! There are a good few number of ways to handle this, for instance you could take out the Revorbs one by one and then lock down Juses OR you could do this.     VIOLENCE. VIOLENCE. VIOLENCE. HIGH SPEED. HITTING EVERYONE. ALL THE TIME. I made Vanessa into a Weaver/Hunter so she can start off with a hitting-everyone-with-Quickshot attack AND then a Barrage to double down on the hit-everyone murder.     But you need to be real good at it, in this case I popped off Niltsi a bit too early and didn't manage to negate the Mass Revive, so this attempt was a flub.      So it took me two tries. But really I mostly do this brute force approach because the first time I encountered Juses I bounced off them and their dumb orbs several times, so I have a lot of murder thirst reserved for this fight.   Juses is a useful panic button to have, but generally my experience is any time you need a "revive everyone"-button you're hosed anyway, because it'll put everyone low on the init order when they come back, at which point a lot of serious bosses will beat their asses immediately anyway before anyone can deploy lockdowns, defenses, etc. though the party-wide reraise does give you a bit of a safety net.  For our last summon: back to Sara Sara Bazaar.     Southeast of the coast there's a little cluster of sandbars you can use as a guidepost when trying to find this guy, because he's probably the most easily missable summon, in my opinion.     A bit farther southest the seafloor drops away, and if you drop down with it, you can find this kinda cool-looking "coral tree" hosting the last bastard we gotta beat.        The goal here is, obviously, to kill Coyote. As a rarity, the Mind's Delusion will actually run away an action or two after you kill Coyote. However, the big trick is that Coyote pops Atmoshear, making your attacks random, and if you hit Mind's Delusion, it sees your character and goes "lmao, dead."     Coyote hits pretty hard himself, though he doesn't have any "one shot" attacks if you do a bit of buffing and debuffing. Mind's Delusion is your real threat here. But how do we deal with it?     There are a lot of potential ways you could tackle it, involving grace, finesse and clever planning.  I, instead, go grind Greenjackets above the Jidamba Tangle, who in my opinion are the best way to get job points quickly, you can count on 1.5 per pack and there are four packs in the branches, so you don't need to reset too often. The reason I grind is so everyone can get enough Samurai LP to learn Unreactable, which counts for all kinds of attacks. gently caress that murderous fart cloud, since it doesn't actually use Death except as a reaction.         Time for a lot of violence. Tira also helps because one of Coyote's big attacks is a physicall. Other stuff you COULD do would be to cast Guaba and Niltsi, since Mind's Delusion can't really respond with Death, a spell, while paralyzed or silenced. You could cure the Confusion status with Pinga or normal anti-debuffs. Rogues have a couple of attacks that don't trigger counters. Atmoshear itself sadly doesn't have any Charge Time, so you can't interrupt it. There's also the Hope Cross which could let, say, your Dervish still do their target-all attacks while just no-selling the Death casts. Pah could also have some use to give you a couple of turns' safety from Death since it's a spell, though sadly both Coyote and Mind's Delusion are immune to instant death so it's not a magic solution to the fight, and there's the one reflection shield you could slap on someone. So between the Hope Cross, the Reflection shield on your tank and a Rogue with mostly no-reactions attacks, you could have THREE out of four immune to Death shenanigans. Interestingly enough, the Mind's Delusion keeps casting Insult. I wonder if it affects the chance of Confused targets hitting it? Because despite being random, I felt like notably more than 50% of "Confused" attacks hit the Mind's Delusion.      I manage to nuke the Mind's Delusion before it runs away, too, just on principle. gently caress youuuuuuuuuuu.    Coyote is, uh, bad as a summon. Probably about the only one that is a genuinely self-sabotaging cast. You pretty much NEVER want to drop Confusion on enemies since that takes away your chance of managing threat and who gets attacked. If more bosses cast buffs or heals on themselves and their allies, instead of being big solo enemies, Confusion could have a role in getting their beneficial effects off-target... but that doesn't really happen, and Confused abilities are still locked to being either enemy or ally targeted. But we're done! We're doooone! We've got all the summons! So what are we doing next?  Charity: Oh, I know! Hamza, you've been itching to get back to the Sky Arena, right? Hamza: It's like you read my mind! It's something that's ALL ABOUT FIGHTING and we didn't complete it! It's been driving me insane! Tau: I didn't know you cared so much about fighting, Charity. Charity: Well, I don't, but as a good friend, I care about what's important to Hamza! Tau: So it's got nothing to do with what we might be doing instead? Charity: I have no idea what you're talking about.   I had originally planned to do the Sky Arena for this update, too, but with the grinding I did off-screen to cap off Scholar, getting everyone Unreactable from Samurai, getting everyone the speed boosts from Weaver... my recording time was already bloating like crazy. It'll be the soft intro for next update and then afterwards you'll learn why I've been whining about the Quintars all LP.
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May 24, 2024 23:33
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PurpleXVI's approach to these bosses:
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May 24, 2024 23:57
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When you said this update was going to be hidden loot, I half-expected that you'd be doing the bastard fast octopus, just so you could pregame some suffering before the Quintar Update. I have never actually gotten that item and I do not regret it. OP, did you get the Nomad's Emblem from the fishing south of Sara Sara? Available in the same set as the Fairy Ring. It's a Water boost accessory and you're officially about to hit the Nomad endgame point. For ability grinding, I always hunted down the mushrooms in Shoudu. With Owl and the crystal for Ganymede Shrine there's a good number you can just drop down onto from above, which keeps them from running. At that point you just need the Blank Pages and some way to lock them down. It's probably not maximally efficient, but you get to them quickly and they're a reliable kill.
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May 25, 2024 01:43
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Coyote's one saving grace is that if you're just looking for a screen clearer, it is both cheaper and faster to cast than the other offensive summons, has the best damage formula to boot, and water is probably the easiest element to boost lategame without sacrificing casting stats.
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May 25, 2024 01:47
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Einander posted:When you said this update was going to be hidden loot, I half-expected that you'd be doing the bastard fast octopus, just so you could pregame some suffering before the Quintar Update. I explicitly saved Underwater Loot(tm) for a separate post since loving around underwater is a somewhat longer adventure. And you're right, I did not, in fact, get the Nomad's Emblem. It's a generally useful item that slightly boosts Mind(offense magic) and Spirit(buffs/heals, monk stuff, summons) while also giving a 20% bonus to Water damage. I guess it might make Nomads good? Maybe? Possibly?
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May 25, 2024 01:58
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