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corn in the bible posted:It selects the highlighted icon on every wheel at once. Whoever made this system seriously hates humanity.
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Dec 22, 2017 22:29
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It actually works fine and I love the reel system a lot. Plus, it looks ridiculous and that is also great
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Dec 22, 2017 22:38
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You can game the reel system to make it easier, but it never stops being annoying.
Ubiquitous_ fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Dec 22, 2017 |
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Dec 22, 2017 22:48
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I guess the title really wasn’t lying when it said to embrace chaos. I couldn’t comprehend managing 5 rings at once. Why did they think it was a good idea? 
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Dec 22, 2017 23:16
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jimmydalad posted:I guess the title really wasn’t lying when it said to embrace chaos. I couldn’t comprehend managing 5 rings at once. Why did they think it was a good idea? In most situations the only way you'd get five rings going at once is if everyone cast magic and you were very lucky, and for magic the reels don't really matter. For physical attacks it'd usually max out at something like this, which is from my late-game Laura save: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/NeatSlipperyAtlasmoth-mobile.mp4 I don't think we'll get any of those people in our party for Mythe's story, though! corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Dec 22, 2017 23:23
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 This is going to be an experience.
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Dec 23, 2017 00:07
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Oh dang its the Big Horn Whats with Saga and this lil guy
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Dec 23, 2017 00:08
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 May the RNG be with you.
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Dec 23, 2017 00:17
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Despite the first update being a lot of in-depth explanations, I still found it a lot more interesting to follow along with than the current extant video LP on Youtube. I tried to get into this game, and really wanted to. The soundtrack is just so good.
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Dec 23, 2017 00:52
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It's actually their second time using a reel combat system. The first was for a Wonderswan Color RPG made by the same team called Wild Card. In that it was more just like a dice roll than a complicated roulette, but Wild Card had a lot of systems that would be sort of prototypes for Unlimited SaGa. It was also card-based, and had it's own super obtuse mechanics and ways of screwing the player over invisibly.
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Dec 23, 2017 02:13
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The roulette system itself isn't why I bounced off the combat system in this game. Honestly, it's just a visual representation of the RNG anyway. Actually, a lot of the mechanics in this game are like 95% my jam, but that last 5% just turned out to be a dealbreaker.
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Dec 23, 2017 03:01
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I am still confused. Is this the confusing part of the game, or am I bad at comprehending basic SaGa? And why is it often capitalised like that?
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Dec 23, 2017 03:29
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I am still confused. Is this the confusing part of the game, or am I bad at comprehending basic SaGa? And why is it often capitalised like that? SaGa games start off very confusing basically every game, but gradually get easier to comprehend. Unlimited SaGa is the rare example in the series of a game that never explains itself to any satisfying degree.
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Dec 23, 2017 03:37
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I am still confused. Is this the confusing part of the game, or am I bad at comprehending basic SaGa? And why is it often capitalised like that? The combat and leveling are the confusing part of the game, yes. They are also more confusing here than in other games, but some things that go unexplained in the game are unexplained because you're meant to understand them from Frontier 2. And it's capitalized like that because... I don't know, I guess they thought it looked cool? Unlimited Saga doesn't have the capital G in its logo, but all the other games do. Romancing SaGa, SaGa Frontier, etc. e: like this 
corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 03:46
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when I see SaGa I just imagine the chorus from the classic Sega logo singing out "~Sa-Ga~"
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Dec 23, 2017 04:25
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Unlimited Salsa.
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Dec 23, 2017 06:40
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corn in the bible posted:And it's capitalized like that because... I don't know, I guess they thought it looked cool? Unlimited Saga doesn't have the capital G in its logo, but all the other games do. Romancing SaGa, SaGa Frontier, etc. Isn't it capitalized like that because the two syllables in the title are Sa and Ga? As for actual meaning... gently caress if I know. Probably because it looked cool.
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Dec 23, 2017 17:30
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Unlimited Saga, Part 2: Clairvoyance Last time, we started Mythe's story and began the trip down to Loch Vaan, where Sapphire runs a fortunetelling shop. I was unable to explain combat very well due to the fact that, more or less, Mythe can one-shot any enemy right now regardless of what we do. Once we get some more party members and fight tougher enemies, it'll make more sense. Currently, we are in Zomar. It's not a particularly interesting town, though a few sidequests do start there. We could also leave and visit Longshanks. Like so:   As we visit new cities, either through sidequests or main quests, the world map will fill up with locations. However, not every character can visit every city, which means there is a limit on how many quests they can do. A few characters can eventually go anywhere, meaning they have many more potential sidequests to perform. They still won't be able to do them all, however, since storyline quests can sometimes take their place. It's good to periodically check the other towns and their shops, since they all refill at the end of a quest. We really, really, really need obsidian in this storyline, and it's relatively rare. It's unlikely that it will show up this early, and we probably couldn't afford if it it did appear, but we need seven pieces by the end of the game in order to protect our party. Mythe's story is unique in this way, since everyone else can deal without it. I also wanted mullock, but no shop has mullock. We may end up being mullock-less, which will be an issue for various reasons, but less disastrous than never finding obsidian. In the end I just bought a wooden spear, since wood is handy to have if you want to make steel or whatever.  So, it's off on another simple quest. Again, we have a few other places open to visit, like "Abandoned Castle Adventure," but Mythe is unable to do those on his own. Plus, even if he could, we want them available so our future party members can do them too!  This quest is, again, pretty uninteresting. Mythe doesn't have any exploration skills right now, which means there could be hidden treasure all around and he wouldn't be able to easily find it. Each type of area has a connected exploration skill, which expands the visible map and also can be used to search for secret items. There's still a chance of finding stuff without them, but it's pretty low.  One thing to note is the picture there in the upper left. That is supposed to show us what the current location looks like. In this area it's not very interesting, but the Seven Wonders often have unique artwork for their locations and it's pretty nice. Something notable did happen, though, which is that Mythe triggered a trap! https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ImpureSarcasticAidi-mobile.mp4 Hidden traps can appear anywhere in a dungeon, and they use a different reel from that used in combat. This one appears any time a skill check is performed, and it really is meant to be random. The game will slide the reel forwards sometimes to try and get the result you actually were meant to get or randomize the selection, much like when you do a slots attack in a Final Fantasy -- if Final Fantasy 6 doesn't want you to get Joker Doom or whatever, you can't do it no matter what. The same applies here. This happens whenever you attempt something like lockpicking or defusing a trap, and it also comes up when one triggers. Higher skills add more green success spots to the reel, and thus increase your odds. I don't think any skill actually raises your chances of dodging a trap, though; the trick is to get skills which prevent them from triggering in the first place, like Aura. I also like that every character gets their own reaction to traps, which can be pretty funny. In this case we landed on the worst panel and got the worst result possible. This can do a lot of damage, and if they're already low may even damage the character's LP in addition to their HP! I also ran into a skeleton, which should help explain some things people were confused about.  A few people wondered why we needed a Water Arts item for Mythe. Well, here's why:  When you select your commands, you pick the weapon or accessory you plan to use, and then the attack. If the equipment has an Arts ability on it, you can also select any spells of that element that your character knows. Mythe knows Purify by default, and it's a useful spell because it heals people's HP and can remove some status effects as well! As you can see, attacks cost both HP and EN, which is durability. Some attacks cost more durability, but mostly it's just 1 per attack. You have to repair things if you want to use them a lot! The durability is only used if they actually perform the attack, which is another reason why doing gun combos on weak enemies is silly -- it's overkill, and wastes your gun's precious durability.  Mythe also starts with this special armlet. It allows anyone to cast boulder, even if they don't know it, but has low durability and can't be repaired. They can be helpful in a pinch, or for characters who have good magic stats but don't know any magic yet. The other way to cast magic is through a familiar, which is a special kind of panel. If it's on your panel grid, you can cast the spells it includes solely by spending HP, which is extremely useful! However, familiars only know basic spells. Mythe has the potential to be a very good healer because he has good water growth, and Purify scales off of water. There is a much rarer healing spell that he could, perhaps, learn by the end, which is also water-based. Fingers crossed! I'll tell you more about getting magic later because there is already so much explanation, I had originally planned to get way further in the first update and then I realized everything would be so confusing for people like god drat Eventually I finished the exciting road trip and got a series of new panels to choose from! https://thumbs.gfycat.com/InformalEsteemedAlaskajingle-mobile.mp4 Left to right, the options were GUN Lv3, which I chose; lockpicking, which picks locks; sharpeye, which checks chests for traps; and weaponsmith. Weaponsmith is stupid because we're almost to a proper blacksmith who can do everything including work on guns. As you can see, the position of the panel determines which stats it increases, and how much. Gun panels actually have pretty good stat growth and can be used to raise your skill very high if you want. I have basically no idea how to build Mythe effectively so I stuck it next to the other gun panel, granting a bonus. It also raises spirit, which is pretty useless generally -- it's sort of magic resistance, except it doesn't actually block damage, just mental status effects. I'm much more worried about physical ones, which endurance covers instead; purify can cure essentially any mental effect we're likely to come across and we already have access to it!. The middle panel raises every stat at once equally, but to a far lower degree. Incidentally, Kurt's gauntlet takes the form of a special panel right in the middle which levels up over the course of his story, and this gives him solid stats but makes it hard to build him in any way you want. And in Ventus's story, Kurt joins but can never upgrade his gauntlet, making him magnificently useless as a result. Let's check out Loch Vaan!   It's Ruby! I mean, uh, who is that mysterious woman, who we've never seen before?  Welcome to Crystal Palace. So you're Sapphire? You're quite young. Look, don't expect us to be old ladies. Fortunetelling is all about sharp senses! What'd you like to know? I'm looking for a girl. Her name is Tiffon. Is she missing? People move around, so I can't always tell where they are. That's fine. I want any clues I can find. Water... Underground... A door... I've got it! It's a dried up old well. There's a mysterious door at the bottom. She's on the other side of it. The bottom of a well? She might not be there, but I'm sure that you'll find a clue!After meeting "Sapphire" we're dropped immediately into the Bottom of the Well, which sucks because it's got some really good loot in it that we cannot grab due to Mythe not knowing how to swim or pick locks. I probably should have grabbed that skill panel before, but I forgot you just get shoved in here like this.  I was an idiot for buying into that fortune-telling nonsense! There's nothing to do here without exploration skills, and since it's not a proper mission we can't get growth panels for clearing it. Strictly speaking, even if you perform actions in a quest you fail or can't finish, you still get rewarded for it when you do clear a quest, but I felt it was better to just climb the ladder and be done with it.    Welcome to Crystal Palace. What's wrong with Sapphire? I am Sapphire. How can I help you?Whoah what a twist What's going on? I wonder myself.Suddenly, Ruby is there too.  Ruby, you cannot treat fortunetelling so lightly. There could be serious consequences... I am terribly sorry, sir. I thought something was strange. No one would go to such a place. I will do the reading for you again. Please forgive my sister, Water... Underground... A door... A place related to water. A great deal of water. Yes, it is a sea.This seems far more trustworthy than the previous fortunetelling, so Mythe buys into it. A coast... That's so wide... She is behind the door. It seems the large, ornate door symbolizes the girl's ultimate objective. A coastal town, eh. If not Longshank, then it has to be Gadeira or Vaftom. The underground part must be related to the door. To an underground room? Underground... Vaftom's masoleum, or somewhere in Gadeira? Wonder which one it is. Do you have any proof that this reading is accurate? Fortunetelling is not prophecy. I cannot make guarantees. I can, for what it is worth, join you in your search. What have I come to, that I must rely on fortunetelling... I used to laugh at women who wailed madly over lost loves. Now I'm the one who's gone mad.So now, we have a second party member! Sapphire is pretty good, or at least has good potential, though right now she's pretty useless. She has a staff, which she's awful with due to having no strength, and she has a great setup for casting magic but doesn't actually know any. I bought her a sword with Deflect on it to at least keep her from dying while we go find Tiffon. Sapphire also has the Artiste panel, which both makes sparking attacks more likely (more on that later) and lets her look at more items in shops. It's very useful, especially early on. She also has a Lv4 Fortuneteller panel, though it's unfortunately right in the middle where it can't do as much good. Still, a useful skill if we find any treasure: Fortunetelling lets you spin a reel, and if you get a success the treasure chest's contents improve. You can do this forever if you want, as long as you have the patience and turns to spare, but if you hit a critical failure the treasure chest will drop to lv1 and probably also will explode, leaving you with either nothing, or a couple Kr. It's risky but, at level 4, it's actually very likely to succeed! Tiffon's in the Gadeira Inn. Thankfully we don't have to walk there, it's added to the world map immediately and we can just head there through fast travel.  You sold a photo of a girl to Fugar in Longshank, right? A girl? Oh, that photo. Sure, I sold him that. Please tell me where you got it. That's a trade secret, and quite frankly, it's none of your business. Fortunetelling again? No, that's my woman's intuition.Tiffon ran off, but we're going to follow her and recruit her in a bit. Meanwhile, Gadeira has a smithy of its own, and while we still can't work on guns there, we can work on all pretty much every other weapon. No accessories, though. And since I was broke there was no point in checking the shops anyway. Time for the first real dungeon of Mythe's story:   What are you, some kind of burglar?I hope so, because we really need someone who can do lockpicking.  So, this quest takes place in a haunted mansion! Spooky! It's actually the mansion other characters visit in the "Three Keys" sidequest, which involves exploring the mansion to find keys and open up doors (or just picking all the locks, because this game lets you do that too!) It's a neat quest which lets you skip stuff based on how you've built your characters, and if you do it right you get some unique items. However, Tiffon got here first, so she's already stolen everything. But first, let's take a look at Sapphire's stats.  As you can see, she's got pretty bad elemental growth... except for fire, which is the main damaging one anyway. She'll never be a good healer, but if you get some fire tablets you can have her burn everything regardless. She also has amazing physical stats. Low strength growth, but if you're building a skill-based character, i.e. daggers or archery, then strength doesn't matter at all. Basically it's pretty hard to mess up Sapphire unless you decide to give her an axe. But please note that I said, if you get fire tablets. Sapphire doesn't know any magic right now, and the way you learn magic in Unlimited Saga is... you find it. There's some quests that have a tablet in them, or which give you one as a reward including that well we were dropped in, and if I had had access to swimming I would have grabbed it; otherwise, you just kind of have to find them. What type of magic they teach is random, with a few exceptions. This is why it's so, so nice that Mythe has Purify already -- even if we never find another water spell for him, he can usefully heal his party and do his job. Once we get a few more party members I'll start doing sidequests and grab some magic tablets, but if they end up being something Sapphire can't effectively use we may have to just let her stab things instead. The random nature of things can be frustrating, but I like having to improvise and being able to make gimmicky characters. Sadly we have less freedom to do that here, since everyone has to be built well or they'll die, but in most quests you can mess around and have fun with the characters as you like. As long as you remember panel bonuses and check your characters' stat growth before deciding how to build them, you'll probably be OK. Equipment plays a big part in this, of course, but that's a separate issue!  North of the main room, there's a mysterious locked door. Could this be the door from the prophecy? Yes. Yes, it is. If we had lockpicking we could break in there right now, but we don't. So let's look around some more. But we won't look in the right side of the mansion because there's a tiger there that will kill us because this castle was designed for a higher level party of more than two people. He looks like this:  If you can take him on, you can maybe grab some sweet skills doing so, but I tried and was unable to defeat him.  If your protagonist dies then it's Game Over, so you should try to protect them as best you can. I reloaded my save and tried again, avoiding that room this time. West of the main room, I found a treasure chest! Nice!  Treasure chests can be locked or trapped, and at this time I had no way of telling if either is true. So I just opened it anyway, because why not? The worst that can happen is you take damage and the chest blows up. The best thing that can happen is... it turns out to be a mimic, because they can drop magic tablets and that's awesome. But it wasn't either, it just contained gold. I could have used fortuneteller to improve the chest's contents, but I forgot. This castle has lots of undead, like skeletons, but nothing is particularly difficult right now. Unlimited Saga has a level scaling system, much like Elder Scrolls, and the enemies you encounter will adjust to fit how much you've fought and leveled so far. This affects many bosses, too, but not the final story ones, meaning you can either be underleveled for them, or in Ventus's case you can overlevel and destroy them easily. In the northwest corner of the mansion, we find a room that's already been cleared out.  Tiffon's hard at work somewhere and we need to discover her secret! There's a staircase near the entrance, which leads up to the second floor. I found a treasure chest up there!  Time for Sapphire to show off her skills. A success will increase the chest's level and also reveal the new contents. If you don't like them, or are feeling lucky, you can do it again! Note that, as the chest levels up, it becomes harder to pick locks or to defuse traps as well. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/RespectfulDaringArrowworm-mobile.mp4 ...Oh. In this case it actually wouldn't have mattered. The fact it blew up means it had an explosive trap, which I have no way of clearing yet. So no matter what sweet loot was promised it was going to end with someone getting blown up by a box. Still unfortunate. In an otherwise uninteresting fight against some evil books, Sapphire does something special:    That lightbulb means she has "sparked" a new skill! Learning new skills this way is a pretty standard SaGa mechanic, even if the details differ slightly each time. The general rule is this: when you use an attack, there's a small chance of learning a new special attack based on it. The odds go up if the enemy is very strong, or if you have a high skill in using that weapon. Sapphire doesn't have a sword skill, but she does have Artiste, which you may remember also increases sparking odds. And sometimes, you just get lucky. Sapphire was using Rear Blade, which is one of the basic sword attacks. I don't intend to make her a sword fighter, but it can stun enemies and she doesn't have anything else to do right now, but from now on she'll know Double Mist as a development of Rear Blade. In every other SaGa game, that would mean she could use the new skill whenever, though it'd probably cost more MP, or HP, or whatever you pay for skills with in the game. In Unlimited Saga, it does something else, which is this:  See the blue marks on the sword reel there? Blue indicates a Lv1 technique, which in this case is the one she just learned. Land on that spot and she'll do the attack. If you have a skill panel for the weapon, then more of the spots on the reel will be special attacks, while you'll also be more likely to learn new ones! So, if someone is going to use a weapon it's good to give them a panel for it as soon as possible. Fortunately, even if you miss the special attacks the result will still deal damage, unlike with guns. Every possible attack command (weapons will usually have a couple, and you get to pick which to use) has at least four techniques; some have five. After exploring a while, the party returns to the ground floor and sees that big locked door is now open. Tiffon must be behind it!    The basement has more undead, as well as giant bees. After wandering around a bit, we run into Tiffon, who is face to face with some kind of... I don't know, weird thing? It's apparently undead.   Tiffon joined the party, too. And it's time for a proper boss fight! Alright! I promised I would better explain how HP and LP work, and this is a good time to do so. Everything in the game, from characters to monsters, has both an HP and an LP value. Maybe a good way to think of this is... if you've ever played one of those old FPS games where you have both armor and life, like Wolfenstein. Armor protects your life, right? If you get shot up and it blows through your armor, then you have to worry, but otherwise it's not a big deal because you can easily refill it with pickups. It's only death when you actually run out of life -- out of LP. Or if you play Halo, and Master Chief gets attacked out of nowhere but it only damages his shield, it's no big deal because it recharges anyway. Maybe you hide and let it refill if it gets really low, or maybe you trust that you can avoid getting hit and your health, which doesn't recharge, will still be safe. That's how HP and LP work -- HP is a disposable buffer that protects your LP, which is the important thing you need in order to stay alive. HP will refill slowly if someone isn't fighting, but with magic (Purify, Refresh, etc) you can fill it up immediately and stay safe from attack without having to retreat! In this case, Mythe got hurt by some bees earlier, and thus isn't at full HP; he's got 110 out of 140. We could heal this with Purify, if we wanted, or pull him out of battle for a bit to rest up, or just trust to his evasion skills to keep him safe. He has 8/13 LP, which is a bit more troubling, because if that runs out he dies and it's game over; however, this is the final fight of the dungeon so we're good there too. Remember, attacks also use up your HP, so it's dangerous to have one person fight without rest. Sapphire is in more or less the same position; she's not at full health, but not in real danger yet.  Tiffon is fully rested, but she has a Phobia against undead enemies. So she's useless for damage, though we could still shove her out to get beat up while everyone else heals. Now, as I said, enemies work the same way. At full HP, it's very hard to damage this boss's LP and actually kill it. We want to wear it down through attacks and then, when it's low, smash through its LP with a piercing combo or a gunshot or something like that. Skill-based weapons and attacks, like daggers, have a higher chance of doing LP damage, but do less HP damage. In a tough fight it's good to lead off with strong attacks like axes or swords, and then finish off with daggers, spears, and bows. Or just spam with daggers and hope for a lucky breakthrough! Combos also increase the odds of damaging LP, and remove the damage limit, so a good long combo can be very effective... but risky, too! There's different strategies you can adopt, and that's something I like. But suffice to say, everyone hits the boss for a while, draining its HP over time.  Sapphire learned a new move, this time for punches.  Only the people you actually give commands to will participate in a round. You can cycle through your party, letting everyone recover, or put out as many people as possible to spread out the attacks. It's good to let everyone do something, though, because Max HP increases based on how many things a character did during a quest. Eventually, Mythe combos a couple shots together and manages to break through the monster's defenses.   White numbers represent HP damage, and red are LP. This boss actually had a very low LP count, but because its HP was so high it took a while to actually hurt it. If we had someone who was very good with a piercing weapon, then a good combo from them might have finished the fight early; since we don't, we had to wear it down more slowly. After the fight, this happened:  Equipment will unlock new abilities over time. Cloth armor doesn't have much defense, but Life Protection is awesome and every cloth armor will unlock it eventually. What it does is add a 5% chance that LP damage will be negated, regardless of circumstances. It is useful in literally any situation, for any character. Some end-game special attacks target your LP directly, and if this activates then the boss wastes his turn. Plus, it stacks. Endurance also lowers the odds of damage actually reaching your LP. A tanking character will have high endurance, HP, LP and the toughest armor they can find. We don't get anyone with high LP, really, so we're going to want a lot of Life Protection, both on armor and on accessories. The former is down to finding it or buying it from shops; the latter we can do with blacksmithing... except it'll be tougher because nobody is willing to sell me any mullock! There's a high-end recipe which includes mullock and guarantees life protection, but it's becoming increasingly unlikely that we will find any. We'll have to get it from other things, instead. Anyway, we beat the boss and discovered Tiffon's secret: she's a thief. And that's fantastic, because we really needed one! It's unfortunate she's ineffective against the undead, but we'll fight lots of other things, and anyway locks aren't undead so she's useful regardless. If you want to know why she's afraid of the undead, well, that's in Ventus's story. Sometimes peoples' negative panels will disappear for plot reasons, and sometimes they won't. You'll see one example of that later in Mythe's scenario.  This is how you stole the girl's photo? That's right. I make my living selling stolen items to guys like Fulgar. Are you taking me to the Knights now? I don't care who you are. I just want to know where you found the photo.And thus, the quest is over! Everyone gets new skill panels, and I lucked out here because both Mythe and Sapphire got Iron Body, which is awesome:  Iron Body has great stat growth, so you can put it anywhere, and you should because it means your character will take less HP damage from most everything. There are non-physical attacks, but as I said before, even the final boss does some physical stuff. Iron Body is pretty rare but it'll make both of these characters live longer, and that's great. Tiffon got a bunch of stuff she doesn't need, but one of the panels was swimming and that's useful sometimes so I gave her that. The big PHOBIA panel in the middle of her grid means she has less leeway to pick up useless skills, but for the moment it fills one of the blank spaces and, hey, maybe we'll use it. More skill is always useful for a thief-type character, and that's what I want her to be.  So that's it for this update. We got two new party members, and next time we should be getting a fourth. After that, I'm planning to do some sidequests and hopefully get people to start learning magic! See you next time. corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 20:13
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I feel like the dialogue is like... half-finished. Like half of it basically just sums up as: "Let's do this thing." "OK." Like it's the first rough draft where it's just a general gist of the conversation they're meant to have rather than the final thing. Also, with gear being able to level up, does that mean it's viable to repeatedly level up your starting gear? Or are the equipment unlocks minor in power compared to the basic stats of later equipment?
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Dec 23, 2017 22:06
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PurpleXVI posted:I feel like the dialogue is like... half-finished. Like half of it basically just sums up as: "Let's do this thing." "OK." Like it's the first rough draft where it's just a general gist of the conversation they're meant to have rather than the final thing. Basically, equipment will just have up to four preset hidden abilities that unlock over time. Usually they're just "blocks X type of damage a bit" or something like that. Life Protection is cool, but our crappy cotton armor barely blocks anything else. Plus there's stuff which does that, and also is better at blocking general damage, so you'd never pick the starting equipment over that. Some equipment boosts magical damage, though, and you might go with that over better armor if you like.
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Dec 23, 2017 22:17
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Wait, so, you lose HP every time you perform an action? Even casting Purify? What's the point of healing HP if you have to expend HP to do it? I'm so confused
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Dec 23, 2017 22:21
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MachuPikacchu posted:Wait, so, you lose HP every time you perform an action? Even casting Purify? What's the point of healing HP if you have to expend HP to do it? You can have a lot of HP! If you spend 10 HP to get back 300 that's pretty good. Also you can use skills even if you have 0 HP. It can't go down any more than that so you're healing for free. corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Dec 24, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 23:54
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Characters only die in SaGa games when their LP reaches 0. Usually they get knocked out at 0 HP and any further attacks against them do 1 LP of damage but I guess in this game HP is literally just a barrier for LP, both for characters and enemies. That's weird.
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Dec 24, 2017 00:16
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Do you plan on making some .gif's of some of the flashier special techs that you spark, or videos of some of the more engaging boss battles?
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Dec 24, 2017 02:25
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Ubiquitous_ posted:Do you plan on making some .gif's of some of the flashier special techs that you spark, or videos of some of the more engaging boss battles? Some of the techs look cool and I'd like to show them off, yeah.
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Dec 24, 2017 02:46
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Unlimited Saga, Part 3: Magic Tablets Sometimes the Random Number Generator is very cruel. Well, first of all, I found some Merman Mail in a shop, which is nice.  It's got good defense and can resist water damage. Plus, since it's not made of metal, it will eventually get life protection. Better than anything else I can get right now, so that's cool. I also bought some regular scale mail for Sapphire, and made a lead knife for Tiffon. Generally, the heavier the weapon, the better the skills, though you lost deflect and parry and stuff like that if you make it too heavy. Her default dagger already has parry, which isn't as good as deflect, but I spent all my money on fancy armor so it's gonna have to do. On the way to meet up with Grace in Nivocalina, Tiffon gets a Lv3 Dagger panel and I pawn all of Sapphire's valuables to buy rocks. Mythe's gun is a pain to repair and I constantly have to pour money into quartz or serpentine or metal to fix it.   It's Grace! Grace is a completely baffling character because she starts with a bunch of high-level water spells that do almost no damage because she has terrible water stats. It's possible to do an entire playthrough and never find the spells she has for free... but she's terrible. Good metal growth, I guess. However, she has quite high HP, LP, and Endurance, plus she's got acceptable Skill as well, so we're going to make her our tank and give her a bow for crowd control. Yes, I'm very sorry to trouble you. Young men like you are no trouble at all. So the photo has resurfaced? Yes, it belongs to an aristocrat in Longshank. Then I suppose it won't be easy to recover. Do you know who stole it? I'm afraid not... By the way, how did you happen to acquire the photo? It was a gift. Ms. Pharr sent it to me, saying it was part of the spoils of her adventure. Ms... Pharr? Yes, Pharr Andales, the Gold Lion of Balke. A notable commander and brave warrior. I would like to make her acquaintance. Where can I find her? She's very particular about people. I'd better take you to her. To Iskanderia, where Ms. Pharr awaits!But we won't be going to Iskanderia, because I want to do some sidequests. Also, apparently it's very cold here. Who knew?  We're going to do Night Desert, which leaves from Wanda.  A merchant, crossing the desert by night, was attacked by a mysterious shadow. Although the merchant was able to escape the desert with few injuries, his merchandise was scattered all over the desert. Although the identity of the mysterious shadow is still unknown, it's dangerously strong. You must avoid the shadow and recover the merchandise. "I know it's small comfort, but please take this special feather, which the monster hates. It might come in handy." Received five Retreating Feathers from the merchant. So, you can see what I meant when I said this game was all about sidequests. So far our story missions have been going down a road to the end. Here, we need to explore a desert, there's a new gimmick, and you can actually ignore the merchant's advice here if you want, and kill the monster. Which is what we're going to do! So you start here, in the desert:  And you have to find the crates, which are in the desert somewhere. Later sidequests will have more involved, bespoke areas, and some have some really cool gimmicks. After a few turns, we hear a loud roar:  Worrisome, but fine. There are also monsters wandering around, some of which are new.  Tiffon is good with daggers, which is nice. Daggers are piercing weapons, so they have a much higher chance of dealing LP damage, even against enemies that still have HP left. Like this: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/UltimateBiodegradableBeauceron-mobile.mp4 Higher level skills, or high combos, make this even more likely. It also depends, of course, on the strength of your weapon or martial arts. If you build a long combo with a bunch of dagger techs you can sometimes deal 6 or 7 LP all at once! However, it's not guaranteed, and it's still good to lower the enemy's HP first. In this example, Sapphire has punched the goblin in the middle a few times, but the slime on the left is untouched: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ImpossibleOrneryDuiker-mobile.mp4 So Mythe was able to deal some LP damage even though he was just doing a kick, and Tiffon failed to kill the slime. Sad. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DefensiveGrizzledAmurratsnake-mobile.mp4 Slimes transform to attack, and each attack they can perform has a different shape. Also, Mythe's new Merman Mail is really good. Here's a slime doing a poison attack:  After a few more turns, the shadow gets closer: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DisastrousWebbedBubblefish-mobile.mp4 And then, finally, it appears!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48nrLP--fB8 It's the tiger that killed us in Tiffon's quest! We can use one of the feathers here to drive it away, or we can take it on directly. So if you do this quest early on, it's doable; if you do it later, you can get a boss to spark techs off instead. Pretty good. Mythe got a familiar panel somewhere, I forget when. It's an earth familiar, Lv2, which means it knows Earth Veil (raises your earth stat) and Detect Animals, which detects animals when you're walking around. It can also be used on animals to lower their defense a bit, though not much. They're both pretty bad, honestly. However, this tiger is an animal, so we'll use it as a setup for something else. This tiger is very dangerous. It can easy focus someone down and kill them with continual LP damage. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/CoordinatedHonoredEmperorshrimp-mobile.mp4 In addition to Deathcry, it can also use Howl, which attempts to directly deal 1 LP damage to everyone one the field. This is actually preferable because Deathcry can do 2 LP sometimes, on account of us being so weak. I almost feel bad killing it though, because look at it: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ComplexEthicalBubblefish-mobile.mp4 This cat has a lot of HP and LP, and we have to wear it down carefully. You can actually keep using a weapon in any battle past the point where it runs out of durability, because it only stops working once the battle ends. Thus, Mythe can just keep shooting his gun forever, dealing an appreciable amount of HP damage. Similarly, you can use skills even if you are out of HP. It's risky, of course, but if you want to take a gamble or absolutely need to heal right now, you can. Mythe's stats aren't great yet, magic-wise, so he can only heal about 150HP, but it's still helpful in keeping those deathcry attacks from dealing 2LP. Against a fully healed person... they deal 1, instead. Ouch. Detect Animals is a spell we can cast essentially for free, because familiars do not have durability and it's so terrible that it's very cheap HP-wise, as well. Why does this matter? Well, we're honestly underleveled to fight this boss, so the only chance is to get Tiffon a really long combo. The tiger can attack four or five times a turn, so that's essentially impossible unless we abuse turn orders using magic or slow attacks. Magic takes a long time to cast, which means if we start our turn with that it'll give the tiger plenty of time to attack... and then, when it runs out, Tiffon can spam her attacks and kill it. A good way to know when the enemy is ready for piercing attacks is to see when it starts to take LP damage from regular or blunt attacks; that means its HP must be low. You can also do this with other slow attacks, like axes or whatever. Tiffon has an axe right now, so she can do this all by herself! https://thumbs.gfycat.com/CelebratedFrigidBeagle-mobile.mp4 Why did we want to kill a boss we weren't ready for? Well, a couple reasons. Well, to spark arts, like the lightning stab seen above. Somehow Tiffon was the only one who learned anything though so it was a bit of a bust there. We also got lucky, though, because this guy dropped a magic tablet! The tiger comes back again a few turns later, but we've got plenty of feathers and there's no way anyone is ready to fight it again. It's pretty easy to find the crates if you just search efficiently, and every crate gives you another feather as well.  Find all three and the mission ends. Success! Magic tablets show up on the growth screen, like so:  This is a basic metal tablet, meaning it teaches low-level metal spells to whoever you give it to. The level of tablets depends on the level scaling, just like encounters, and we're early yet so we're not going to find anything amazing. I should probably have given it to Grace, but I forgot, so I gave it to Sapphire. Grace got a Monger skill, which lets you haggle -- awesome! I put it on the side there, rather than in her empty spot up on top, because I want to make a line of keys and so as soon as I get one of those it'd be replaced. Monger is cool, so I want to keep it around for a while.  Sadly, everyone else got pretty lame tablets, though since there's still blanks on their grids it's an upgrade regardless. For example, Mythe is never, ever going to use swords, but he'll still use the endurance this gives him:  I found a silver sword in the shop, and so I bought that and as much bestial material as I can. Bestial stuff is topaz, lazuli, ravenite, opal, and, uh... the other one, haha. Basically, anything that gives you an elemental arts skill. Silver has a chance of turning into platinum if you combine them but it's pretty low so you can either save-scum, or just do it a lot. The resultant Fairie Shield sells for quite a bit and I use it to buy stuff for repairing everything, because I broke all my weapons on the giant cat. Also, Sapphire has a magic tablet now, so we need something for her to cast with. You learn the spells on a tablet by casting others, so I have to buy her one of the expensive enchanted weapons from Loch Vaan's magic shop. It'll let her cast Detect Gold without knowing it, and also let her cast metal arts once she does. Repairing these weapons removes the enchantment, but it'll still have Metal Arts on it so she'll be able to cast her spells. Familiar spells also count for learning magic, so if you have a mage with one of those you can forgo this and just cast detect animals over and over. Speaking of Mythe, let's go get him a magic tablet. The real reason I picked Night Desert is because there's a magic tablet lying in the desert, but the tiger was more dangerous than I expected and it dropped a tablet of its own. I didn't want to risk getting two tablets that I wanted to give to the same person, and there's another sidequest that takes place there too: Lumina Stones.  A retired inventor gathered adventurers, and organized a race to gather as many Lumina Stones as possible. The goal of the retiree is to collect the Lumina Stones. He will exchange the Lumina Stones gathered by the adventurers for his latest inventions. Lumina Stones can be found around the oasis. The item rank will change depending on the number of Lumina Stones gathered. It is necessary to collect more than nine to get a high-quality item. During the race, the whistle will be blown twice, to signify that the gate for the finish line has been opened. Near the end of the tournament, the whistle will be blown three times. If you don't get back to the exit by then, you will be disqualified! That sounds kind of frustrating but there's like thirty stones lying around, plus NPCs will just run up and give them to you, so there's basically no chance of failure. Not a very interesting sidequest but we're just here to get a tablet, so it's fine. Sapphire has a tablet now so let's look at that. You have to select a magic tablet to translate in the status screen. It's not automatic so don't forget! Sapphire only has the one, of course, so we pick the metal tablet. As long as the character casts a spell during combat, this screen will appear afterwards:  Pick a spell, and they advance the bar beneath it. When it's full, the spell is learned and the list will move up, filling in the blank. If you learn them all then the tablet gives you a stat bonus. Detect Gold shows you where treasure chests are on the map (useful) and decreases the defense of mimics (literally never useful, ever). Magic lock keeps mimics from casting spells I think? I don't know why you would cast any of these spells. However, it will eventually teach Shock, which deals damage based on your metal stat so maybe I should have given it to Grace. I don't know. Grace has a bow, now, and it's about twice as powerful as anything else anyone has because it is made of Steel! Steel is just iron + wood, 100% chance of working, so it's easy to make and it's pretty awesome for weapons. Or you can just sell it, if you want! With ridiculous luck, and some mullock, you can then turn the steel into Damascus, which is the best material in the game. Damascus can also rarely appear in shops, though it'll cost you. Anyway, bows are good at LP damage just like daggers, though they obviously have a different set of attacks. She and Tiffon will be doing a lot of the work here for a while. Mythe sparks Sinker off a random encounter. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SillyQuarrelsomeEel-mobile.mp4 It's actually a pretty good attack and since it's level 1 you can do it pretty easily. Finally, we get what we came for.  By this time I had 20 Lumina Stones, so I left.   Just terrible. Anyway, this one turned out to be a water tablet. I wanted a fire one! I gave this to Mythe which was stupid since he already knows Purify, and I am an idiot. All in all, a disappointing series of tablets. Still, I'm sure we'll find some more. And with everyone either learning a tablet or setup with a good tech panel, we're in a good place to develop our characters. Next time, we'll probably go get Pharr, and who knows what's next! Stay tuned, I guess? corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Dec 24, 2017 |
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Dec 24, 2017 18:56
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While everything here is insanely pretty and it makes me see why someone would like this confusing game, can you please link to the animations instead? It's destryoing my poor connection. I can barely scroll down, and writing's much slower than it should be.
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Dec 24, 2017 19:38
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Blaze Dragon posted:While everything here is insanely pretty and it makes me see why someone would like this confusing game, can you please link to the animations instead? It's destryoing my poor connection. I can barely scroll down, and writing's much slower than it should be. I've replaced them with ones of a lower framerate, which should help. Let me know. They're gifv so it really shouldn't tax your computer, but filesize is still an issue I suppose
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Dec 24, 2017 23:12
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Ruby and sapphire Waaait Rubies are Red And sapphires are Blue *expanding  .gif*
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Dec 24, 2017 23:18
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How much time can you expect to spend on a quest or a character's storyline? I remember it felt wildly variable in Saga Frontier. Also, can you end up being screwed enough as Mythe by not getting the drops you want that it would be better to start over than keep plugging along, or can you always make it work? Is it better mechanically to play all the way through a character's story before doing another ones or are they completely separate? Since you gave the metal tablet to Sapphire, can you take it off and give it to the other lady? marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Dec 24, 2017 |
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Dec 24, 2017 23:48
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marshmallow creep posted:How much time can you expect to spend on a quest or a character's storyline? I remember it felt wildly variable in Saga Frontier. I haven't done everyone's story so I can't say. It definitely varies, though. Judy's story, for example, is pretty short, and her actual boss is pretty easy comparatively, so you could probably take it on much more quickly than if you played as someone who needs to prepare better, or as Ruby who has to do all the dungeons. The only definite number I have is that it took me 25 hours to beat Laura's story, and I left a fair number of quests unfinished. You can absolutely get screwed as Mythe because his final boss, uniquely, can cause petrify. If you're playing as Laura, the final boss causes Blackout, which is dangerous... but even if you don't get any preventative equipment, you can cure it with Purify. And that's pretty easy to get on someone by the end of the game, since it's on even basic water tablets AND high-level familiars can cast it. Purify doesn't cure petrify, though, so you need the higher level curative spell which, hey, maybe you won't ever find it. Or you can craft stuff to prevent it directly, which is better of course, but involves getting obsidian. Endurance lowers the chances of being hit by physical status effects, so I guess you could just build everyone to have as much as possible and see what happens. There's less mechanical variation than in SaGa Frontier. People do feel different because of the people they get and what they start with, and there's some differences -- Judy, for example, has unique familiars, Ventus has the carrier missions, Mythe has his guns and his pointless smithy -- but the focus really is on the sidequests and the dungeons, which are pretty much shared by everyone. Everybody does have a gimmick but they're not game-changers in the way that playing as Riki or T360 or Asellus were. It's more in line with the Romancing SaGa games in that way. If you were going to play US, then I would say just pick a character you like that isn't Armic or Mythe and see how it goes. And you can't give a tablet to anyone else, no. It'll sit on their panel until you replace it, at which point it's gone forever. e: Rigged Death Trap posted:Ruby and sapphire Sapphire actually starts with a blue carborundum armlet! And if you combine it with a red one you can maybe-but-definitely-not make BLIQS and get rich. But it probably won't do that, and it'd waste the carborundum, so I just sold it. corn in the bible fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Dec 25, 2017 |
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Dec 25, 2017 00:37
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Man I am just... I still don't get the magic mechanics. So, unless a character starts off knowing spells, they need to equip a Tablet, which basically lets them research spells, by casting spells of the same element? But the only way to cast those spells unless you already start off knowing some, is to get a magic item that can cast them, and this item will have a limited number because it has durability, and once you repair it, its spellcasting power vanishes? But to cast the spells, they ALSO need to equip a skill related to it? Or will a related skill just boost their power level? I feel like I need some sort of helpful powerpoint show accompanied by soothing music and a voiceover to get this.
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Dec 25, 2017 00:59
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PurpleXVI posted:Man I am just... I still don't get the magic mechanics. You've basically got it, there. Some characters begin the game knowing a few spells. But, if you want them to learn more, or if you want someone else to learn a spell, you need to find a magic tablet. Once you do, you can give it to any person. This part's simple: you just put it on their grid at the end of the quest. Then, you have to tell them to start learning the spells. Any time they cast a spell in combat after this -- any spell, from any source -- they'll progress towards learning the spell. The element doesn't matter. So, there are three ways to cast a spell: 1) Know a spell, and have some item equipped with the matching elemental Arts ability. For example, Mythe starts with Purify already learned, so I gave him a Water Arts accessory and he could use that to cast Purify. 2) Have a familiar on your skill panel. Familiars only know basic spells, but allow the character to cast them whenever they want. 3) Equip a special weapon or accessory that's enchanted to let them cast a specific spell without knowing it. These are expensive and flimsy and, if you repair them, they lose the spell, but any character can use them. The reason I needed to give Sapphire a special weapon was that she had no spells (#1), and she has no familiars (#2). So I bought her a knife that lets her cast a spell. Once she learns at least one spell from her tablet, she can start casting it using method #1. Does that make sense?
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Dec 25, 2017 01:14
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Ruby and sapphire This time, though, Sapphire is the one who joined the team and Ruby is the one who acts like a gigantic douchecanoe. 
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Dec 25, 2017 01:22
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corn in the bible posted:Does that make sense? I'm surprised I was as close to correct as I was, but yes, now I just need all the other stuff to seep in.
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Dec 25, 2017 02:13
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I could see myself really digging this game, since I quite like the idea of my characters maybe turning out significantly different between various playthroughs depending largely on circumstance and luck. Are all SaGa games like that? For whatever reason, it was the one Square series I never bothered to try.
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Dec 25, 2017 02:19
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Veryslightlymad posted:I could see myself really digging this game, since I quite like the idea of my characters maybe turning out significantly different between various playthroughs depending largely on circumstance and luck. SaGa Frontier 1 sort of. It was fairly easy to collect at least 10 characters for most teams when you had an active party of 5, so you could either go for balance or specialize between the multiple classes of magic or physical attacks. SaGa Frontier 2, not really. There was a revolving door of characters, but the skill pool was shared, so as long as you had the weapons and enough gear to supply the magical types to fuel magic, you could just shove gear and arts on the new body and keep going. Of course if the new body didn't have the right proficiencies you might not learn new skills, but at least you'd have someone who can heal or do whatever specialty you needed.
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Dec 25, 2017 02:40
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Romancing SaGa 2 is also getting a rerelease and is a generational rpg where your hero inherits skills and abilities from parents, so who you have the hero's ancestors hook up with and what they spend their time learning and doing is supposed to have a big impact on what you can do in the end game.
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Dec 25, 2017 02:45
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So is Mythe, the womanizing protagonist, going to end up with a party consisting entirely of women he's completely ignoring while he seeks out the (presumably dead, given the timescale involved) woman from the portrait?
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Dec 25, 2017 04:01
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I am getting that impression.
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Dec 25, 2017 04:44
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