|
theshim posted:
...Really?  Cripes, I could've sworn she was. After checking to see if she triggers Zeri's Darcsen Pride and then taking a quick look at the wiki. ...I guess she isn't. Huh.  How the hell did I misread that? I could've sworn she triggered it, but I guess I jumped the gun a long time ago based on her hair color and it carried over all the way until now. I suppose it explains why the ribbon in her hair isn't in a Darcsen pattern. I'll, uh, just go and edit that then. -- Anyways, I credited you for that, hope you don't mind. I can't really help the information overload if I'm to let the readers pick out units, since I want them to have access to any information they'd need on the subject. I honestly only expect people to skim a lot of it, which is fine by me. The only possible substitute I've ever had for Mischlitt is Alexis, and that's because he's really effective at destroying that one particularly annoying type of armored unit we won't see until later. Mischlitt rules. The Flying Twybil fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Oct 29, 2019 |
#
?
Oct 29, 2019 01:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 04:46 |
|
|
I'm tempted to dump all six votes on Marion, because she is one of the very few characters in this game tha I like. I guess I should try and diversify a little though, so: Marion x4, Coleen, and I guess Sofia, because I do indeed hate Avan. Team Avan Sucks won't fit, so I have no vote for team name.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2019 02:43
|
|
|
I vote for Team Anime
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2019 02:55
|
|
|
We presently have these votes: Primary Units: Marion - 4 Mischlitt - 3 Helmut - 2 Noel - 2 Sofia - 2 Franca - 1 -- Melissa - 1 Erik - 1 Reiner - 1 Coleen - 1 Team Names: Team Bad - 1 Team Anime - 1 Voting will stay open for 2 more days, at most. Still plenty of time to get a unit you've taken a liking to on the board, or to resolve the team name tie!
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2019 03:14
|
|
|
This:SSNeoman posted:I vote for Team Anime Lotte +2, Melissa +2, Anisette, Joachim
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2019 03:26
|
|
|
We presently have these votes: Primary Units: Marion - 4 Mischlitt - 3 Melissa - 3 Helmut - 2 Lotte - 2 Noel - 2 -- Sofia - 2 Franca - 1 Erik - 1 Reiner - 1 Coleen - 1 Anisette -1 Joachim - 1 Team Names: Team Bad - 1 Team Anime - 2 Team Anime is in the lead! I'll keep this open until this evening is over, then. After that, it'll be about two to three days for the next update. E: A small formatting edit, because I can't count to six, apparently. The Flying Twybil fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Oct 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2019 14:04
|
|
|
Alright, the voting's done for now, expect a new update within a few days (1-3) or so. Our team shall be Team Anime! Our six frontliners for the time being shall be: Marion, Mischlitt, Melissa, Helmut, Lotte, and Noel! -- Quite a lot of scouts in this group, but I'm not complaining- this will be a great offensive team. If I need an engineer, it will end up being Sofia, as she had the highest (and only votes) of the engineers. Healing won't be too necessary this early on, so its up to chance on my part if we do see her any. Something I haven't decided yet is whether I should poll for units after every set of battles, or should I wait until the end of a chapter to do so. Either is fine with me, but I'm leaning towards polling at the end of chapters. If anyone has an opinion on that, feel free to give it!
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 02:07
|
|
|
Unit voting should definitely be per chapter or every few chapters/game months. Every mission is way too much. I think there are 15 or 16 main story missions in VC2, plus 30 or 40 "free" missions which sometimes may as well be story. Not to mention extra and character missions. I'm not sure how many missions you intend to show in LP form.The Flying Twybil posted:Quite a lot of scouts in this group, but I'm not complaining- this will be a great offensive team. Scout supremacy! 
Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Oct 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 03:57
|
|
|
Psycho Knight posted:Unit voting should definitely be per chapter or every few chapters/game months. Every mission is way too much. I think there are 15 or 16 main story missions in VC2, plus 30 or 40 "free" missions which sometimes may as well be story. Not to mention extra and character missions. I'm not sure how many missions you intend to show in LP form. That was my thinking as well. I'm probably going to every mission possible in LP form, though some may be reduced to a matter of short updates, such as the later training missions that pop up each month. I enjoy writing out the strategies and such I take for each map, so even if that's a bit of an undertaking I'll still have fun with it anyways. (Well, aside from the missions that are purely a pain more than anything.) Strategies for A-ranking some missions may be written down to short asides with a few screenshots if they're relatively uninteresting, but I'll be going for Not to worry about scout supremacy though, since Marion and Mischlitt have higher votes than the scouts I'll be trying to use them a bit more often than I normally would. Obviously, Mischlitt might be a tough pick for the Maneuvering Exercise, but she'll be perfectly usable for the Combat Exercise. I'll try to give Noel some attention as well, even though lancers are pretty situational.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 04:49
|
|
|
Are you planning on 100%ing this? I ask because as a person who owned this game and really wanted to do that, I found that way lied pure madness. Hell even trying just to get 100 percent in the scrapbook is a nightmare that I was sadly never able to complete thanks to one particular achievement involving money.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 18:29
|
|
|
cokerpilot posted:Are you planning on 100%ing this? I ask because as a person who owned this game and really wanted to do that, I found that way lied pure madness. Hell even trying just to get 100 percent in the scrapbook is a nightmare that I was sadly never able to complete thanks to one particular achievement involving money. I may attempt straight 100% later on, but we'll have to see as time goes on. For now it's mostly just a casual completionist playthrough where I also show how to do A-ranks. It really depends on how I feel by the end of all of this. I've never had problems making money, but something is telling me that this achievement is probably some ridiculous amount, right?
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 18:54
|
|
|
The Flying Twybil posted:I've never had problems making money, but something is telling me that this achievement is probably some ridiculous amount, right? The Graduation Album medal (not the Graduation Medal, which is different) requires you to get 20 Medals and 10 million Dct. Farming missions that can be completed in 1 turn only pay out about 18k I think. There may be faster money making methods involving farming equipment/rewards and selling those, but you are still looking at trying to grind to 10 mil at a pace of maybe 20-30k every 5 or 10 minutes. gently caress VC2 and it's grind heavy bullshit. VC3 unfortunately retains some of that with mastery grinding medals, but VC3 has no money medal.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 20:56
|
|
|
Psycho Knight posted:The Graduation Album medal (not the Graduation Medal, which is different) requires you to get 20 Medals and 10 million Dct. Farming missions that can be completed in 1 turn only pay out about 18k I think. There may be faster money making methods involving farming equipment/rewards and selling those, but you are still looking at trying to grind to 10 mil at a pace of maybe 20-30k every 5 or 10 minutes. Urgh, that sounds awful to do. We'll see if I'm crazy enough to do it once I've finished the game. The grind itself is unavoidable, unfortunately.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2019 21:22
|
|
|
Update 4: Move and Shoot Exercises.jpg) .jpg) What!? This never happened, why do I have these titles on my original file? I savescummed!  -- Music - Briefing Anyways, back to another episode of How I Found My Brother, where we proceed to shoot dudes in the face because there was too much text last time. The poll was answered and our main team members for this chapter are Marion, Mischlitt, Melissa, Helmut, Lotte, and Noel. They will always be the units I'm first to rely on in combat.  This is the full group I will be taking into this chapter, consisting of the non-removable protagonists, our main six, and the other units that were voted for. Magari and Alexis are present to fill in the remaining slots, chosen on personal preference.    First up, the Combat Exercise. This mission is an elimination mission, requiring me to take out all enemy units. It's very easy.  The only two units I'm putting down initially are Melissa and Marion. The game always gives you a warning about this, but the only downside to not filling all your deployment slots is having to spend CP if you're using someone for defense, but even that's minor as you'd need to move them anyways to have them be crouching The primary reason I'm doing it is because of that enemy camp very close by. Calling in units from that base once captured will save me some AP and that's great. With that, let's head on in.  Music: Exciting Battle  Tutorial: Morale- Morale increases the chance of positive potentials activating. If it hits 0, you lose. Morale is gained on taking out enemies and capturing bases while it is lost on having units go down or if your own bases are captured.  The first thing I do is move Marion up to take out this crouching scout and capture their base.  : "My pleasure, sir!"  : "Enemy sighted!"The enemy in the distance is a crouched shocktrooper, and that's always a problem.  There's also a scout off to the side here. Marion's taking bullets from both sides, but you'll notice she hardly takes any damage from rifle shots thanks to being a shocktrooper.  Marion responds in kind by point-blanking this guy. She only needs 6 out of 20 shots to hit, and there's no doubting that at this distance.  He eats dirt, as expected. : "A clean hit!"  I quickly follow up by capping the base.  She'll wait over here for now. Melissa's up now.   : "Roger."  : "Hmhm! Even I can barely find me..."She immediately triggers one of her potentials. I send her around to deal with that pesky scout off to the side.   : "Hey...!" : "You asked for that."It goes well.  I move her in sight of this shocktrooper for no reason. You'll note his icon is a bit different, and he has a CP point on it as well- he's a commander like Avan. If we take him down, the enemy loses 1 max CP.  Scanning the map, Marion's in sight of two more enemies- the last ones on the map, actually. A crouched shocktrooper and a standing scout. Before I take action again, I wanted to show this screen off.  This ranks each character's participation in the current map, defining how many credits they get at the end of each map. The top two get more for being MVP and Runner Up. I'll explain what this all means later.  This just shows you how much each action is worth. Anyways, back to the fight!   : "On my way."Let's bring in Mischlitt so I can show off Armor Techs.  Techs don't have the best AP in the world, but their shield and armor makes up for that.  Their shields block about 95% of all projectile types in the game. However, they've only got melee attacks in a game about guns. If that sounds dumb, that's because it kinda is, but wait until you see what ridiculous stuff they end up with later.   : "There are walls we cannot break."Moving her forth and past the shocktrooper, you can see the kind of damage she takes when hit from behind. Here she's also triggered a negative potential, Insular, which lowers her evasion...which doesn't really matter.  Aside from being able to destroy sandbags, Techs also have a huge swing on their weapons.   Case in point.  I end her turn right here. She'll be fine as we've got more than enough CP to beat this map in one round.  : "Engaging the enemy."Well, actually, let's finish this guy off.    : "A perfect hit!" I end with her blocking this guy's bullets so I can turn him around. Techs end their turn by kicking at the ground a bit with their feet.   : "Noel here!"Just to show off lancers, I give Noel some time to shine.  Valkyria Chronicles has spear shaped rocket launchers.   : "Please hit!"   ...They're not as powerful against humans as you would think. Lancers are mostly for armored target slaying. However, just like Armor Techs, their attacks have a knockdown effect that prevents enemies from counterattacking.  Girl lancers tap their foot against the ground a few times. Dudes just raise their lances kinda like a flag. Oh, and all the lancers, Noel included, are probably ripped given how well they handle these things.  : "I'm ready to go!"Noel needs a chance to get a few credits here, so I let her take out the commander.  : "I'm feeling good, really good!"  These shots were intentionally captured to be as obscured as possible.  I questioned the use of grenades, but doing this to a fellow student can't be legal. His face is smoking for crying out loud!   : "Hey, I got 'em!"Commanders also have a little effect of a CP icon breaking apart when they're taken out.   (Avan says this for nearly every elimination mission-) Music: Reward  Well, that one was easy enough. That wasn't done as optimally as possible, but I had fun, so I guess that counts.  These are just crafting materials for new weapons and stuff. We'll see some of that mechanic soon.  And here's the amount of credits everyone got! Their credit ranking just gives a character a placement, like 1st (MVP), 2nd (Runner Up), and then 3rd - 6th. Whichever place they're in determines how many credits they get, I think. I'm pretty sure the type of credit is RNG. I don't really know how this system works, just that it's grindy as hell. We'll see what they're used for at the end of the update.  Music: Faint Youth  Well, we're back in our room, but we've got a few more options this time. Stats lets us check various statistics about missions completed, unit types used, etc. Yearbook lets us look at information we have on characters, as well as view any personal events we've already seen with them. Class Notes is just all the tutorials we've seen so far. Squad Name, well...   WE ARE TEAM ANIME...Anyways, let's go to sleep.  Oh, look, it's raining.  Hey, we've got some new stuff available. I'll cover this at the end of the update. -- Music: Briefing  Battle time, again! This mission is all about getting from one point to the other, which is why we'll bring our other two scouts, Helmut and Lotte. Not much else to this, so let's get to it then! Music: Exciting Battle  Another line we'll be seeing often.  First thing we see is a standing shocktrooper not far ahead of us. We can't avoid him because they blocked off that side path on the map.  Across the large trench is a scout waiting at the base we're here to capture.   : "Underway."We have to take action at some point, so I send in Helmut.  This is what I meant when I said the side path was blocked off. You can see these little steel barricades on the map, represented by brackets.  After ignoring a tutorial where the game tells us about grass, I crawl into the grass here. Crawling is about as effective as crouching, but has the benefit of also concealing where you're at.  Going commando, Helmut crawls forth and triggers his Sighting potential after seeing another enemy.  It's not a big accuracy increase, but it's something.  : "I don't miss."After promptly whiffing one into the wall behind the trooper, he proceeds to land the other four shots dead on.  : "Target destroyed."Like so.  I have to end his move as his AP runs out just before he reaches the sandbags.   : "Sure, dude!"Time to send in Netzel.  All the girls wear skirts in their combat outfits now, instead of that just being for captains. It's mid-January and this is a terrible idea.  Do you see how Helmut's name is in the upper right corner? This means he'll join Lotte when she attacks for an Assist Attack. For it to work, both units have to be standing somewhere close together and able to reasonably aim at the same target. It practically doubles damage, so be sure to do it often if you can.  : "I'll assist."At this distance, Lotte probably wouldn't win this on her own. The likelihood of all headshots at this range is very low. Even though the AI controlling Helmut aims for the chest, it's still good damage.   : "Death toll skyrockets!"With two headshots from Lotte and quite a couple bodyshots, this trooper didn't know what hit him.  To end, Lotte moves up...  : "I'm afraid I can't allow you to live."...And Helmut starts moving up as well.  See that little block on the ground there? That's a land mine. You step on them, you go boom. The damage they deal is more than enough to one-shot most characters at this point in the game. An armor tech can disable them, but we can easily sidestep these.  Around the corner, Helmut sights yet another trooper. Unfortunately, his AP ran out before he could approach a reasonable range. Attacking from this distance is mostly pointless (thanks to counterattacks), so I end his turn where he stands.  ...And I immediately move him again. He should have enough AP to reach the grass.  He sights a few more enemies while getting shot in the side. It's enough to dive for the grass, though.  Blue lines of sight mean they can't see him. Which is good, because they'll have a very low chance of ever dodging his attack.  I shimmy up through the grass and toss a grenade behind this guy.  : "You're in the way."The exclamation mark means this attack is a surprise, therefore the enemy will not dodge it.   Did what I wanted it to!  Last CP for the round- I need to get Lotte to clear this guy off of Helmut.   : "Here goes, full throttle!"Going well enough...  Aiming for the foot, just in case he tries to dodge...  Easy enough...  : "Death toll skyrockets!"But I'm just stuck out in the open! Curses! Ah well, she's got Helmut to back her up. His interception fire should be more than enough.   The scout from the flag moves up. If this looks odd, it's because the base flags actually have line of sight.   Somehow he gains an AP Use Up debuff? Either way, he goes to attack Helmut and whiffs completely.   It was a bad move on his part.   Lotte takes action first this time so we can even out their kill counts.  The game interrupts me to say that I can climb watchtowers and ladders. I'm skipping most tutorials at this point.  You know, that's a cool shot of Lanseal in the background. Really adds some immersion to the field.  : "Gallian girl attacks!" Her voicelines are some of the best. : "Got one!"This dude eats grass, but it ends up the same as if he ate dirt. Oh, and we hit morale level 4.    Lotte runs around the crate and prepares to take the flag on her next action.   ...Which comes after Helmut takes out the last guy. Woo!  : "On it!"*No commentary needed.   We'll also be seeing this line a lot, but even more than his other lines. Base capture maps are really common in this game. Music: Reward    And Team Anime gets the spoils of victory. Helmut was ahead of Lotte by one point in terms of credit value. The weapon materials won't be used for a while.  We're not ending it here, just yet. We've got a story battle to do tomorrow, so why don't I rewind time a bit and show off R&D and the Drill Grounds? --  Music: Everyday Life of the Class  Welcome to R&D. This lady right here is Lavinia Lane, and we'll get a proper introduction to her later. For now, she'll work on improving our gear.   Field suits are the defensive gear worn by Scouts, Shocktroopers, and Engineers. The other classes have their own specialized versions. We might've been able to afford this if I didn't continue the LP on the wrong save by accident, because it still has one mission listed as B-rank.  The only thing we can afford for the moment is an upgrade to the Gallian rifle, adding a measly 1 point to both of its damage stats and its accuracy.  Basic equipment like this gives you an option to auto-equip it to everyone in your squad. Choosing not to will only replace the guns of units still using the inferior model.  Some enemy Aces drop weapon plans that let us make specialized guns. These special guns are different from the main tree of guns and only produce 1 at a time. I'll cover it more when we actually get a chance to make one. As a last note, the X-series of weapons typically inflict status effects on shot. Unfortunately most of them are inferior to straight firepower. With that, let's hit the Drill Grounds.  Music: Royal Military Academy  Remember our ol' pal, the Drill Instructor? He takes care of leveling up our classes and allowing us to promote units.  Leveling up classes applies to all units of a specific type. This increases all stats at marginal levels, but affects every unit of that type. Every five levels we also get a new order.  I throw a level into scout and shocktrooper each because they're my most versatile units at the moment.  On to changing classes! We can do this for every unit, but I'm using Avan for an example as he has the power of free choice to be any unit type he wants. The general rule for all promotions is that the left option maintains the base mechanics of the class and just does an overall stat improvement with maybe a few goodies. The right path always changes something about the mechanics of the class. In this case, changing to sniper severely drops HP and AP, but gives them a powerful, long-range sniper rifle to use instead.  To promote into a different class, a unit needs a certain amount of credits from participation in combat. Only certain credits are handed out by each mission, and which ones your units get seem to be random- being MVP or Runner Up just gives you more of what RNG decided. This is where the big grind of the game is, and there's so many ways this system could have been done to make this better. For now, we'll have to put up with it. Now, have a montage of the details of every currently visible promotion!   (Very good at one shot, one kill, and can easily take out tough enemies from far away. Awful mobility, though.)   (Has special machine guns that have huge ammo capacities and are amazing at base defense.)   (Instead of rockets, has long range, high powered grenades. Ineffective against armored targets.)   (Drops their healing abilities to provide damage and defense boosts instead)   (Gets a high-damage sword instead of the winky pick, ridiculous defense. Can upgrade into something even more ridiculous.) ...And that's it! But that's not all for the update, as I have more reader particpation for you all! In the future we'll choose promotions for our units, but for now, we need to decide what class type will Avan be? I know I didn't use him in this update, but he will always have to be with us and he will be actively participating in missions. Choose wisely, or...don't! I don't really mind what class he's put into, I'll manage to find a way to have him be usable. Will this be the end of scout supremacy? Next time on A*N*I*M*E: things get real!
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2019 16:33
|
|
|
Since hes the boring protagonist we'll ignore as much as possible I suggest giving him shocktrooper into gunner so that he can defend the base camp while he sits in it providing cp.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2019 18:56
|
|
|
FoolyCharged posted:Since hes the boring protagonist we'll ignore as much as possible I suggest giving him shocktrooper into gunner so that he can defend the base camp while he sits in it providing cp. In doing that, he'll also maintain his health bonus, so he'll basically be unkillable at that point. And yes, it would also mean I'd be able to almost exclusively leave him on camp defense duty.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2019 19:49
|
|
|
Go down the Fencer path because everyone knows that the Hero always wields a sword!
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2019 21:43
|
|
|
Fencer What does an AI know about freedom? Heh.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2019 22:47
|
|
|
The Flying Twybil posted:
It's rarely a good idea to fill every deploy slot. Your home base is usually out of the way or is easily defendable by a Heavy Gunner or a Trooper. Your usual strat for this game is blitzing enemy camps with a single unit and then deploying units from them. If you fill every slot at the start then you can't deploy new units without retreating others (which might cost you CP if they are not near a friendly camp). You will also waste a ton of CP if you try and move up every unit from home base. There are a handful of maps where deploying all that you can is helpful, but for the most part the AI doesn't prioritize home base capture (unless it's wide open and also can be reached in 1 unit movement), so just leaving a token defence force is enough to ward off instant fail.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2019 23:30
|
|
|
Psycho Knight posted:It's rarely a good idea to fill every deploy slot. Your home base is usually out of the way or is easily defendable by a Heavy Gunner or a Trooper. Agreed all the way. Blitzing is typically the strategy I go with, even on defense maps. I would like to note that certain enemy units will take more than one unit of action to capture a base, including home base. This AI is typically limited to defend maps, but I'm sure it'll happen elsewhere. All boss units and V2s will take more than one action if they feel like it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 01:21
|
|
|
Of note is that Anthem Corps are actually insanely good. I forget if this is the case in VC2, but in VC3 their equivalent can buff a host of stats at once, most importantly shots in a clip and gun range. These are incredibly strong buffs. And then there's Fencers. Such a stupid, stupid concept, and such an amazing and powerful class I typically just left Avan as a Scout and almost never actually used him, so what the heck, make him a Gunner.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 01:41
|
|
|
With that, we're currently tied between Gunner and Fencer for two votes each! (I was actually hoping for either of these classes, so that's a happy coincidence!) Gonna need a tiebreaker vote! Will Avan be Boring Link or Very Stationary Rambo? E: theshim posted:Of note is that Anthem Corps are actually insanely good. I forget if this is the case in VC2, but in VC3 their equivalent can buff a host of stats at once, most importantly shots in a clip and gun range. These are incredibly strong buffs. The only Anthem Corps I had in my first playthrough was Magari. I put her down that path to lessen the effect of her Stage Fright by simply popping her in at a base, throwing buffs on units from there, then immediately putting her on standby again. From what I remember, the horns only give Infantry+Armor Damage up, and Defense up. Both effects are very strong and make Fencers and Gunners even more ridiculous. The Flying Twybil fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Nov 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 02:01
|
|
|
Gunner
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 02:10
|
|
|
Gunner
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 03:18
|
|
|
Stationary Rambo (Gunner) it is! For you two folks who voted Fencer, don't worry as at least two of our Techs will be Fencers in the future. You'll get to see some sword swingin' action on some of other (some would say, more interesting) units. Next update will be in a day or two, where we finally see an equal amount of words and guns!
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 05:14
|
|
|
Got all the recording done for the next update, but by goodness will it be another long one. To make up for that, here's an early taste:  
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2019 20:27
|
|
|
I decided to cut this update into two because this would've gotten really long otherwise. Update 5: It's For Real This Time Welcome back folks, we've got actual story again this time, but maybe not that many words. (It's a lie, there will be many words)   Spent the rest of our exp on leveling engineers. Got a relatively bad order in return.  The first real thing on our schedule is that Avan was voted to be a shocktrooper so he could become a gunner and play only a defensive role in our military. Let's do that.  Welp, that's about it.  His health is still beefy and his class potentials changed. I know he has Close Combat, but I really didn't bother checking. Done with that, let's get going!  Anyways, it's snowing at Lanseal and we need to go to class. Let's do that. -- Music: Everyday Life of the Class   You can see most of Class G in here. Try and see if you can pick out who's who.  : Barf. History is like my worst subject. ...That was a pretty good burn, not gonna lie.  : Hey, shut up! : Mm? Avan, you dropped this photo. : Oh, man! Thanks for catching that. It must have fallen out of my notebook. Yep, it's time for another round of "Leon's the bestest".  : Yup! That's my big bro, Leon!They're really trying to make sure we remember him.  : He's amazing at everything. He's totally my hero....And that's precisely why Leon is a boring subject. We really don't seem to learn anything about him aside from how great he was.  : I mean, he's strong, super dependable, and smart too! And he's like the nicest--Avan's really letting his inner fangirl out here.  : Pipe down. Class is about to start. Alright, I guess I can get behind some-- *Loud tower bell ringing*      *Various murmurs of "Huh" and "what"* Music: War Preparedness  Rene: Here we go... Magari: What? Reiner: Not again.  *Spoken by Avan* Alexis: You heard the bells.     *Spoken by Brixham*  Gah, what happened to you, Brixy?   : The Lanseal Royal Military Academy is responsible for policing southern Gallia.Yeah, they're sending in a bunch of misfit high schoolers into potentially lethal battle. Lanseal sucks. : It falls on us to address any threats that arise in our jurisdiction. : But wait, you can't mean-- Yeah, pretty much. : That is correct. : What?! But that's... We're not...: Two years after peace with the Empire, Gallia's defenses are still ragged. : That leaves you cadets. The creme de la creme of Gallia's youth.Just wait, it gets better. And by that, I mean worse.  : War is not so kind as to spare those with no will to fight. : Rrgh. I guess there's no getting around it.I figured Avan would protest this more, but then again, he's a rash kid who looks up to his war hero brother. : Meet me in the briefing room as soon as you're prepared to leave.--  No reason to hesitate, let's get at it. -- Music: Royal Military Academy   : As class chair, command in the field falls to you, Avan.I'd like to note that it's probably not the best idea to send a kid with one month of military training to command a unit, but whatever.  : Right, I gotcha.: Your mission today is to drive the rebels out of the Arlem region.   : I expect you to win. Thinking of how to go about that is your job.Yeah, they're sending a bunch of teenagers out to fight a tank, with no help. Lanseal is still incredibly irresponsible, even if Gallia's backed up against a wall with this civil war. Also, Brixy sucks too for being no help in this. : That's easy for you to say! Their lives are all hanging on this!: Such is the nature of war. The exact same applies ot the rebels as well.: If you don't wipe them out, they'll gladly see you dead. : You act like it's easy. Fine! I'll get us through this without a scratch.That we will. This mission is really a pushover if you have experience with the game and you know how to approach it.   Yeah, Brixy has eyes. He only opens them when he gets serious. Music - The Rebel's Assault -Incoming war crimes-            : With me! : Treated like objects, just because they're Darcsens... : Hey, we've got an incoming rebel squad! : We'll never make it against a group that big. We're all gonna die. Real inspiring words there, Avan.  : "It'll work out"? How can you say that with no grounds to back it up?Music: Theme of Class G   : "The most violent waves lay bare a man's worth the fastest."Unfortunately, Avan, they're kinda looking for assurance of your worth as a leader right now. : Those are my brother's words. Now listen good-- you give up and it's over.: And if I know anything, it's that we weren't meant to die here today.: That means we can't give up, which means we fight! Those are my grounds.I don't find Avan's speech here to be particularly rousing- it's kinda basic and boils down to "Watch me, I'll be a good leader! We ain't dyin' here today!"   : It's like Avan says. So long as we don't give up, there's still hope. And for some reason, I find Cosette's mini-speech somewhat more inspiring. Maybe it's just because I like her and Avan is still, well, Avan.  : I'm with you. I'm no ready to end it here. I'll fight.: Just how exactly is that speech supposed to get us through this alive?: An appeal to emotion and some circular reasoning? You've got to be kidding.Yeah, that about sums it up.    : That's probably at the tope of their chain of command, issuing orders.: Destroy that tank, and you behead the squad. : B-But how?: There. : Right. I saw several of them littered about the area.: Fueling stations for the villagers' farm equipment, I'd wager.: If we lure the tank near those containers, then set them off with gunfire... : That's perfect! We can use the blast to take out the tank!: Zeri, you're a genius! I know I try not to bash Avan that much, but does anyone else get the idea that Zeri is a better fit for commander here? Regardless, he's still the team's tactician.  I suppose the one consideration though is that Avan actually cares about teamwork and Zeri hasn't shown himself as being that much of team player. --- Music: Briefing   Alright, story mission time! Arlem Village will be a common staging ground for missions,    This is also the first in maps where we can deploy units in more than one area from the start. Avan is force deployed in the cavern while Zeri and Cosette are force deployed in the town area. The trick to this mission is to take the waypoint base in the cavern first, as the tank we need to reach is easily accessible from there.  The only preparation I make is to put Marion with Avan. The cave isn't too long, and two stormtroopers will have the necessary firepower to blitz it. -- Music: Liberation Battle New battle themes! Get used to hearing this one quite a lot.    Welcome to the first real battle of the game! Since there's so many enemies around and Zeri won't be doing anything but defense, I send Cosette to standby. Those scouts would end her if I left her there.  Here's the map that has the tank on it. That camp to the lower left connects to the one on the Village map and the tank is near that little ragnite container icon on the map. Considering the low reward value and low number of enemies worth anything on this map, I'm just going to worry about taking out the tank to end the mission as quickly as possible.  The cave will get us to that upper right camp- it's just a march northwards covered in enemies. We could go around, but the fastest way is straight through them. I send in Avan first to scout out the enemies considering he has about as much health as a lancer and Marion doesn't.   Moving up, there's a trooper just around the corner and a scout not too much farther from him.  : "Comin' at ya!"I opt to take out the trooper as he's closer. Shocktroopers are surprisingly okay at getting headshots.  : "Enemy down!"Allied Radio Chatter: "Yes! Now we can move forward!" This is consequently the first mission to introduce the radio chatter effect. It only happens on maps where we're taking the role of the miltary instead of doing training exercises.   Using the last of his AP, Avan moves up and ignores the scout. There's two more shocktroopers waiting for us here, one of them a commander unit. That little boost in HP makes him very hard to kill while crouching, believe it or not.  : "My pleasure, sir!"Let's get Marion moved up.  : "I shant lose!"Firmly set on the belief that she's stronger than scouts, (read: she is,) Marion triggers her Scout Killer potential.  I aim for the foot because late game has made me paranoid.  : "Thank goodness!"Allied Radio Chatter: "Nicely done." He does not survive.  Marion ends inches away from Avan...  ...and I take another action with her. I've got a plan here.   Dodging interception fire, I contemplate grenading this guy from his position, but his boosted health means I can't kill him in one turn regardless of what I do with Marion alone.  Opting to move up some more instead, I approach the other shocktrooper and aim for the head. Marion's taken quite a good bit of damage from this, but a scout would have easily been KOd here.  Enemy Radio Chatter: "They got one of us! ...Watch your backs guys!" Somehow, she hits the first 4 shots without missing, taking this guy out with 4 times that to spare. We also occasionally tap into enemy radio- it's a bit more crackly, but it also suggest the rebels aren't well trained.  : "Yeah, I feel great!"Swapping over to Avan, this puts me down to 2 CP points left. He triggers Close Combat, one of the class potentials he got when he swapped class, allowing for this plan to go more smoothly.  Yes, this is what I wanted! Assist attacks are great provided you can get the positioning right to make it work.  : "Please, allow me!" This guy just got shredded. Taking him out in one turn like this is a major timesaver since the grenade->shoot face strategy uses 2 CP.  I bring Avan up to this corner where the flag is. I don't have enough movement to make another assist attack work, but I'll be fine.  : "Enemy sighted!"Bringing my CP count down to one, I move Marion up to clear the enemy off the flag. Allied Radio Chatter: "I-I can do this. Just stay calm!"   : "Prepare yourself!" Early game scouts are easily wiped by grenades, so this was a more assured kill than trying to gun him from here. Enemy Radio Chatter: "Gah! Who are these guys!?" You're getting beaten by highschoolers. It's just sad.  With my last CP, I bring in Mischlitt to help defend for no particular reason. If I just moved Zeri to crouch it would be about the same result. I didn't get Avan/Marion to capture that flag just yet because we can still get A-Rank next round and I don't want the enemy to recapture the base from underneath me. They're bound to have someone on the other side, so I'd rather wait. There's no reinforcements on this map either.   I have her destroy the nearest sandbag to stop the enemy scouts from taking cover. After that, I park her right next to Zeri where she'll be practically immune to gunfire. Crouched armor techs brush their shield off, by the way. Enemy Radio Chatter: "Hey! What's your situation there?" Music: Return Battle At this point in the game, the enemy usually has a corresponding battle theme on their turn. This is one of my personal favorites thematically as it manages to have quite the intimidating beat to it.   The enemy first begins the futile effort to take my base with scouts only. This one's a blatant cheater that walks through this sandbag.  He aims for Zeri because he's standing, but he actually triggers his evasion chance and immediately drops for cover. I can't remember if I've already explainted it, but this is all evasion does: dropping you to prone (like in grass), providing the defense bonus from being prone, and prevents knockback from most sources. It's great if it happens on your units, sucks awfully if the enemy does it.  Zeri's counterattack bans this man for defying the Fictional-Geneva laws on breaking immersion and being a cheater.  Scout number two bites it identically.  Scout number three comes from far away and out of hiding to shoot at Zeri from a distance just too far for him to counterattack. Shame.  Maybe realizing it's wasting it's time, the AI begins moving an unseen unit in the cavern but still ends up wasting its time. Music: Liberation Battle  Alright, time for us to end this little skirmish.  : "Taking action now!" I give Marion the capture because I'm just gonna leave Avan there and she's done for this map. Allied Radio Chatter: "Good. This should make things easier!" I'm waiting for Brixham to come over the radio. He will from time to time.  Zeri of all people comes to give me a tutorial from across maps about retreating units, another mechanic I've already talked about. Enemy? Radio Chatter: "I missed! Fall back and regroup!" Allied Radio Chatter (Lady): "Enemy spotted!"  : "Underway."Spawning in at our waypoint base, you can see I was right in assuming they'd have an enemy watching it. I bring in Helmut mostly to scout, but also because I thought he could handle this shocktrooper.  For the first time so far, Helmut lets me down by putting the first bullet in this guy's shoulder and whiffing the last two into the wall behind him. He eats half his HP in sub-machine gun fire in return. Allied Radio Chatter: "Don't panic!. Maintain formation and circle around!"  Running around to check the position of our true target, he eats only a few more bullets but nearly goes down thanks to not having the camp bonus. That there is the back of the Rebel tank. The dark blue canister is the ragnite containers mentioned in the story, but they aren't really more than a scarcely used gimmick. That other blue thing, the rectangle on the back of the tank? That's it's radiator. All but one tank so far in Europan history has suffered the catastrophic weakpoint that is the exposed ragna radiator. Planting explosives on those deal way more damage than shooting tanks in the front. A lancer will one-shot most tanks if they can launch a rocket into it's radiator. Long term, lancers are tank assassins, being used as small units who can sneak behind tanks to wipe them in one blow.  The game doesn't tell you about this strategy yet, but I've played VC1, so I already know it. Now you do too. Anyways, here's a close-up of Helmut's face.  : "If those are my orders."Every character also has a low health line, and Helmut's is appropriately hardcore. I'm giving him a chance to make up for that poor showing here.  : "Good."He doesn't make the same mistake twice.  I wouldn't normally do this unless I was very sure that the unit in question would make the shot, as I'd retreat them otherwise. I knew he had this one though.  : "I'll show you what a man of the Empire can do!"...See why I didn't take the main path now? 2 shocktroopers, 1 scout in a sniper tower, and a forward facing tank? Doing this the normal way is a lot more difficult.  Because I've got CP to spare, I wanted to show off that you can't climb a sniper tower if someone's already on it. Allied Radio Chatter: "All core units, follow the front guard!"  : "I'm ready to go!"I could waste another CP doing whatever, but I'd rather be safe and not immediately assume this tank will go down in 1 lance shot. (Some won't later on.) Oh, and it lets Noel do her intended job instead of sticking lance grenades into people's faces.  : "Being alone is just so...lonely!"If ragnite canisters only have 1 HP, they seem like a massive hazard to have around. Anyways, let's not waste the farmers' fuel supply and do this the proper way.  Note that boss enemies don't tell you their health numbers. This is really aggravating later. Time to end this!   Obliterated.  Radio Chatter: "-Sha! That's a relief."  That we did, Avan.   drat, we salvaged the hell out of that tank!  Look at this weirdness: Zeri got runner up but he got only got two total credits! ...How did he get that anyways? I figured Avan or Helmut would. For gunner, we'll need to get Avan the Support X credit and a Certificate. His arms requirement should be filled by now. --- Music: Theme of Class G  *Spoken by Joachim*  : I still can't believe we really beat the rebels all by ourselves.Look at his face- he really doesn't know what the hell is going on it seems. Poor guy. : We did it, Avan! : 'Course we did! I told you guys we could do this!: And thanks, Zeri.: For what?He actually sounds a whole lot friendlier now as he says this. : I never would have come up with that plan. You saved the day, man.Too bad we didn't actually use it. It's also nice that Avan doesn't take credit for this- at least he's not a glory hog. : I just offered a bit of logic. You might try it yourself sometime. He gets cut off even before he hits the second word. Avan's portrait sort of bumps into his twice. : Wha--? Stop that! Get your muddy mitts of my face!: Ah ha ha ha! That looks like fun! Let me in, too!Her portrait does the same.  The neat thing about the voice acting here is you can tell that as much of a serious person Zeri tries to be, he's actually having a bit of fun here.  They also do a good job with the filtering on the voicelines to make them sound like a radio but still easy on the ears. ...But Brixham's always easy on the ears, even if he is a bit of a jerk sometimes. : Hm hm! I'm pleased to see your first operation end in success, Avan.: Class G, you are clear to return to Lanseal.: Roger that. All right, guys, time to go home! : Aye aye, sir! -- Alas, Zeri shall not escape schoolyard hijinks so easily. And neither shall we! Another update shall come soon, but we've also reached the end of a month! Normally I wouldn't ask this, but do we want to bother voting for new units? Yes or no? We haven't seen any of our current units' stories yet and the missions now only start counting towards those. If we're voting for new units, save your unit votes for next time as we've got incoming character development and a new student! Next time on Hardin's Isle, we recieve the perfect means for a 3 turn tour!
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 15:12
|
|
|
Go ahead and keep the ones we've got. The early missions dont really give people time to shine anyways.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 17:38
|
|
|
The Flying Twybil posted:Normally I wouldn't ask this, but do we want to bother voting for new units? Yes or no? I say no. Nobody has failed us yet (except almost Helmut. Shameful.), so they should stick around. This is one of the big reasons I hate VC2 so much. This is not a series that lends itself to a school setting. It's goofy "Avan is a moron" style anime hijinks (as well as other 'wacky' anime tropes we'll see later) one moment, and then we're watching civilians being shot dead in the street as part of an ethnic cleansing. You also have command of an entire squad being determined at random. There are lives at stake and this trash bin of a military academy just throws command over to a moron that only passed the entrance exam through dumb luck. What's worse is that this makes the antagonists look laughably unthreatening. This is a well armed rebel faction with experienced battle tested commanders being outclassed by a bunch of loving high schoolers who piss their pants at the word "tank". The militia is made up of young conscripts as well, but the big difference there is that the squad leaders actually received officer training. They also had veterans of the first war taking part. There was at least someone of general competence holding the reigns. VC2 gives us Avan.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 17:52
|
|
|
Psycho Knight posted:This is one of the big reasons I hate VC2 so much. This is not a series that lends itself to a school setting. It's goofy "Avan is a moron" style anime hijinks (as well as other 'wacky' anime tropes we'll see later) one moment, and then we're watching civilians being shot dead in the street as part of an ethnic cleansing. You also have command of an entire squad being determined at random. There are lives at stake and this trash bin of a military academy just throws command over to a moron that only passed the entrance exam through dumb luck. This fits perfectly with everything else I've seen of the Gallian Army.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2019 23:30
|
|
|
Psycho Knight posted:This is one of the big reasons I hate VC2 so much. This is not a series that lends itself to a school setting. It's goofy "Avan is a moron" style anime hijinks (as well as other 'wacky' anime tropes we'll see later) one moment, and then we're watching civilians being shot dead in the street as part of an ethnic cleansing. You also have command of an entire squad being determined at random. There are lives at stake and this trash bin of a military academy just throws command over to a moron that only passed the entrance exam through dumb luck. The biggest issue with this game plot-wise is simply this right here, I'll admit. The game jumps back and forth tonally so much to the point I really struggle to take it seriously. The intro to the game puts Avan as a heroic kid trying to follow in the footsteps of his brother as he protects his hometown. And then it just goes progressively downhill in seriousness from there. I have a natural tolerance for "slice of life" type things in games, even high school hijinks, but I'm starting to get increasingly salty as time goes on it seems. I think my initial mild stance was just from not remembering that much of this game. I'm trying to be optimistic where I can, but the game's not giving me much to use to defend it with. I don't remember if the game ever addresses the "why" factor of not being able to raise the militia to deal with a civil war- this is directly harming the lives of the citizens, you've got unauthorized military use going on, and you're relying on a fancy boarding school to handle this? It's incredibly incompetent, and I can't currently fathom as to why Cordelia wouldn't just shut down this whole problem immediately. Like I said, I'm getting saltier in regards to this game. Hwurmp posted:This fits perfectly with everything else I've seen of the Gallian Army. I mean, the militia was nearly the only competent people in the entire military in VC1, so yeah. It's amazing that Gallia has managed to last this long. Next update in a couple of days. I've gotta make portraits for people the hard way, and that's always a slow process.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 00:01
|
|
|
The Flying Twybil posted:I mean, the militia was nearly the only competent people in the entire military in VC1, so yeah. It's amazing that Gallia has managed to last this long. I got the impression that Gallia, prior to VC 1, had been hanging out in Not-Europe relying almost entirely on trade, diplomacy, naturally defensible geography, and not having anything worth taking in order to stay independent. So the Gallian military was there largely to protect against the specter of a peasant uprising and to take the failsons of the aristocracy. Then it turned out Ragnite was useful, and suddenly the Gallian military actually had to be good for something.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 00:54
|
|
|
The Flying Twybil posted:The biggest issue with this game plot-wise is simply this right here, I'll admit. The game jumps back and forth tonally so much to the point I really struggle to take it seriously. The intro to the game puts Avan as a heroic kid trying to follow in the footsteps of his brother as he protects his hometown. And then it just goes progressively downhill in seriousness from there. Progressively downhill is putting it lightly. We just heard that the militia can only be called on against invasions. I mentioned it before that trying to use a militia in a civil war is problematic. With that said, it is still stupid in this case, although the reason why is story spoilers at the moment (assuming I am remembering the details of the VC2 late game correctly). People are being gunned down in the streets and villages burned to the ground, that seems worthy of a militia employment in the name of peace keeping. The Flying Twybil posted:I mean, the militia was nearly the only competent people in the entire military in VC1, so yeah. It's amazing that Gallia has managed to last this long. Ratoslov posted:I got the impression that Gallia, prior to VC 1, had been hanging out in Not-Europe relying almost entirely on trade, diplomacy, naturally defensible geography, and not having anything worth taking in order to stay independent. So the Gallian military was there largely to protect against the specter of a peasant uprising and to take the failsons of the aristocracy. Then it turned out Ragnite was useful, and suddenly the Gallian military actually had to be good for something. Hwurmp posted:This fits perfectly with everything else I've seen of the Gallian Army. The Gallian Military of EW1 was commanded by strong leaders and apparently kicked a lot of rear end during that war, so they at least used to be good. EW1 had leaders like Belgan Gunther and General Kankkunen (Welkin's war hero dad and the mysterious old gentleman in the cemetary, respectively). Hell, according to the design works, General Damon's grandfather was an accomplished general back when Gallia was an empire. The only reason for the shittiness of Gallia's military during VC1/3 seems to be because of Borg getting elected as Prime Minister. Borg is the one that makes Damon a general, despite the fact that he was only a militia squad commander in EW1 and was a failure even at that. VC1 spoilers which may have been the point all along. Borg sabotaging Gallia's military was probably part of his plan to usurp rulership of Gallia. Squad 7 pushing things back is when he turns to cutting a deal with the Empire or the Atlantic Federation. Psycho Knight fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Nov 6, 2019 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 01:26
|
|
|
You prob don't remember how dumb this game was because it's a portable title so there can be a lot of time and chaff between missions which means only the main story beats matter. It's when you do something like an SSLP that all the flaws really start to come out.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 03:32
|
|
|
Hmmmm. The civil war is racial supremacists so is it possible the militia leadership is deliberately staying out because they also hate darcsens and want the rebels to win? Sure they might have an old law backing them up, but they're refusing to letting it be changed?
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 09:21
|
|
|
Poil posted:Hmmmm. The civil war is racial supremacists so is it possible the militia leadership is deliberately staying out because they also hate darcsens and want the rebels to win? Sure they might have an old law backing them up, but they're refusing to letting it be changed? I'm not going to say it's not a possible outcome, but we've already got a few units in our team (Helmut and Marion) who are prejudiced against Darcsens but don't support genocide. I'd imagine Welkin or Rosie from VC 1, both being prominent names in Gallia and the militia, would openly speak out against all of this, but they never really have anything to say about it. I mean, the Archduchess herself is a Darcsen who's already pushed the boundaries of the law before. Using military in general to deal with a civil war is pretty bad and might make her come off as a tyrant (happens all the time in the real world), but I don't know if that's worse than idly sitting by while people fall as casualties. The only form of policing they're using is the members of a single boarding school numbering 300 at best, many of whom aren't even legal adults, to fight off the rebellion. Either the alarm bells must be ringing every day or the rebels are an equally small number of people. Regardless, we should probably wait to continue discussing the oddities of this plot when we actually meet our antagonists and see what they're getting at with this whole civil war thing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 15:09
|
|
|
Yeah that's true. I just have a very very VERY low opinion of the Gallians and their military after the first game. And the third. And technically I've seen a let's play of this game too before but it was years ago and I can't remember anything at all except one or two minor things (not going to say what of course as that would be spoilers).
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 20:18
|
|
|
Gallians are just lucky that everyone who invades them are somehow even less competent at war than they are.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 20:24
|
|
|
Huh, I just noticed something when I decided to play along. They actually bothered to do different sprites here if you swap avan's class. He got the shocktrooper logo on his back in my play.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 22:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 04:46 |
|
|
FoolyCharged posted:Huh, I just noticed something when I decided to play along. I was actually wondering if they did- I just really haven't bothered looking. It's not really hard to do development-wise considering they're using the same method they do for the faces: eyes, mouth, headshape/ body position as a separate sprite layered over each other. It's a lot easier to do because it lets you save on space/copying at the cost of a bit more processing. That's why, for instance, the Rune Factory games on the DS didn't use that method but 4 did because it had access to the more powerful 3DS. If you're playing along you'll also probably note that not everyone's portrait in my LP matches every scene in the game. It's minor, but I'll fess up to being lazy on it. (Doing these things manually is draining when I have to stop every time we meet someone new.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2019 23:36
|
|