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B Side stuff, side stuff!
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Oct 9, 2023 21:10
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Voting B, always side stuff! If I may make a suggestion - the OP is already kind of unwieldy with the classes and unlocked abilities. Consider maybe moving the individual class sections to their own posts that you link in the OP, especially if you're going to be updating them as you go along.
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Oct 9, 2023 22:21
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I heard that advancing the main plot without exhausting all the side content is bad luck for an adventuring party
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Oct 9, 2023 23:16
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1) This game reminds me visually of Minecraft, which I don't like, but at least it has gameplay and isn't a futile diamond-hunting sandbox. 2) The carrot with the eyeball was some very creepy, creative monster design. 3) If the character called Astley doesn't eventually rickroll you, the designers are twats.
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Oct 10, 2023 01:55
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Gonna vote A. More classes = more better. So glad I'm not the only one annoyed that platforming challenges with death pits are paradoxically easier than ones without them. It's probably my single biggest complaint about the game. Oh, and Astley is a girl btw... I think. Parsing the character sprites is a crapshoot at the best of times, but I seem to remember other NPCs using she/her for her later on.
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Oct 10, 2023 04:04
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Thanks for making me aware this game exists, a generic jRPG boiled down to nicely polished mechanics seems like exactly what I need right now. Also probably tailor-made for FF5 fiesta fans. Not gonna red the thread until I catch up, but might drop in and out once in a while. serefin99 posted:Am I reading that correctly? Once you turn an assist thing on, you can't turn it back off? That... doesn't seem right to me. Yes, enabling a given assist is permanent. Some scalable assists can be adjusted back to standard game values, some just give you an option and are irrelevant unless you actually use said option (like enabling difficulty change mid-game), some are set in stone once turned on. I think it's just to keep you honest w/r/t achievements and such, though I'd still prefer having a "Has enabled assists" tag in the savegame for that.
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Oct 10, 2023 13:31
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B for side stuff first.
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Oct 10, 2023 13:34
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Pierzak posted:Yes, enabling a given assist is permanent. Some scalable assists can be adjusted back to standard game values, some just give you an option and are irrelevant unless you actually use said option (like enabling difficulty change mid-game), some are set in stone once turned on. I would probably enable Max on Level up. It's always been a grumble of mine with RPGs where stats are random on level up, which is just begging people to reload. BG is known for this, and also the wizardry games.
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Oct 10, 2023 14:40
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JustJeff88 posted:I would probably enable Max on Level up. It's always been a grumble of mine with RPGs where stats are random on level up, which is just begging people to reload. BG is known for this, and also the wizardry games. Oh no no, it's not "Max On Level Up" it's just "Max Level Up," i.e. the highest possible level is increased. I believe the default is 80. As far as I know all stat increases on level up are deterministic and decided by your primary class at level up, and there's an option later in the game to "reroll" them to match alternate classes if you want to make someone who did all their levelling as Punchmaster work as a Spellman instead.
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Oct 10, 2023 14:50
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PurpleXVI posted:Oh no no, it's not "Max On Level Up" it's just "Max Level Up," i.e. the highest possible level is increased. I believe the default is 80. As far as I know all stat increases on level up are deterministic and decided by your primary class at level up, and there's an option later in the game to "reroll" them to match alternate classes if you want to make someone who did all their levelling as Punchmaster work as a Spellman instead. That's not bad either. I've always hated random level ups because they encourage save-scumming, and I'm glad to hear that they are deterministic even though class-based stat increases have their own... foibles. I always liked the Might & Magic system where everything was simple arithmetic, and if there was a stat increase it was fully retroactive.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:28
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A) CRYSTALS, CRYSTALS CRYSTALS CRYSTALS, WE NEED CRYSTALS
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Oct 10, 2023 20:40
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Pierzak posted:Also probably tailor-made for FF5 fiesta fans. As I understand it it's pretty much the opposite. The dev went out of their way to make the game unbreakable so you have to take advantage of all the options you have.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:51
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JustJeff88 posted:That's not bad either. I've always hated random level ups because they encourage save-scumming, and I'm glad to hear that they are deterministic even though class-based stat increases have their own... foibles. I always liked the Might & Magic system where everything was simple arithmetic, and if there was a stat increase it was fully retroactive. The class-based level up thing ranges from irrelevant to somewhat important depending on how you shuffle around classes/roles and your difficulty level, but once you get access to it, retroactively assigning your class levelups is pretty straightforward. You can also freely shuffle levelups of classes you've already "paid" for as well, so if you have 20 levels of warrior and decide you want to change it to 20 levels of warlock, you can then go back to 20 levels of warrior (or switch to 10/10) at no charge. It even gets saved in loadouts, so you can set up multiple loadouts with different assigned level-ups.
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Oct 10, 2023 20:54
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B, let's do the Side Hustle(s).
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Oct 11, 2023 06:28
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Update 02: Dog Project Hamza: Are you all ready? I want to do more fighting! Tau: I guess, I still think we should go to that crystal... Vanessa: You know that's never how it works: You do everything but the objective first. Charity: And... there.   Charity's now a Warlock with a Wizard for her sub-class. Tau: Tired of being a Wizard? Charity: This outfit was just too cool, you know? Also as someone pointed out, I had not shown off the classes' inherent passives. Good point!  Warlocks' passive actually makes their apex skill usable without being too much of an MP hog. My only issue is that I think there are much better passives available.  Fighters' passive makes them a decent starting point for any other AP-using class. It means that by their second action, they can have 22 AP already(6 per turn start, 6 for an attack on the first round, +2 each turn from their passive) and no ability costs more than 30.  Enemy crits are relatively rare, so I find this ability to be a boondoggle.  An insanely good ability, even starting out Vanessa is landing crits on about a third of her attacks. That's a lot of extra damage.  I would personally prefer to prevent my HP from ever hitting "critical," but there's worse.  And this is why I largely think Wizard is better than Warlock, because overall this means you're going to get more murder per MP and I tend to find that for a lot of the bigger boss battles, by the end of them I'm running low on MP. So I want to wring as much murder out of them as I can before they're spent!     Hamza: Jumps jumps jumps love my jumps.      Vanessa: Everything's here for a reason, so even if we go off road, it'll help us when we go on road. Charity: And the more places we go, the more cool things we get to see.      Charity: Like this! I love caves.    Everyone starts with empty head slots, and it's not really worth your money to buy low-grade hats since you start finding them reasonably quickly. At this point I also remembered that Warlocks could use shields. In addition to staves and wands for wizarding, they can equip daggers and rapiers for weapons, and they can equip both light(generally wizard) and medium headgear and armor, and shields. I guess a niche for them could be a more defensive and survivable offensive magic caster, wand in one hand, shield in the other, wearing actual armor rather than T-shirts, but I always find that the best way to be survivable is to blast the other guy before he can blast you.     Tau: So much for going off-track, huh, I think I see Astley up there. Also for whoever said it, you were right: Astley IS in fact, female. The main tell with female vs male characters of Astley's class is the hair colour and hair style. The torso clothes are also different but Astley seems to have it coloured differently which threw me off.    Tau: We should at least see where they're going.           Tau: ...well she was off quickly. Hamza: Nice jumps on her. I respect that.    The two rogues are chasing each other in a circle around the crates, but as we learned with the Nans, NPC's are physical objects, thus...    We can just block them if we want to talk to them.  The Fervor Charm gives +1 AP when making basic attacks which is kinda useful early on but as time goes on you'll be mostly using skills. The chaser does not react to us taking the charm or blocking the chase, sadly. Charity: Some folks just don't know how to behave or get along.    The local merchants have a few upgrades but nothing we really crave, mostly for our body armor which has not yet seen any upgrades.      Technically you could just warp back and get all your free healing at Nan's Lodge, especially with the triple home point assist on, but I have way more important things to leash my home points to.  Tau: Come oooooooon. Vanessa: No, we agreed. Charity: Yeah, we're gonna go see more cool stuff before we go grab our first crystal.       Tau: How did anyone even get up there?! Hamza: Forbidden jumping techniques...    This area has blue flames full of wasps that drop off the trees and attack you. The wasps are just generic physical attackers with no real tricks or gimmicks aside from being flying(and thus immune to Earth attacks).   Charity: Oh my God. Hamza! Hamza: On it! Tau: Puppies! Vanessa: Gotta pet the puppies!    Charity: Never before has anything in my life been this fulfilling.  Charity: Folks? We gotta do it. Tau: You know, I'm just glad we're doing some kind of quest, I'm in.      Tau: This cave looks kinda spooky... we'll only go in there if we exhaust all other options.     See? Extremely normal.   Also the dogs' bones are sparkles like the secret herbs back in the Spawning Meadows. So we gotta find three of those.     Charity: ...the bone was that other way. Hamza: But jumps are this way!      In hindsight I think it's possible to jump from that corner ledge to that tree, I'll have to test it out later.    And I totally forgot about this chest. I'll grab it off-screen.   You can use a corner of the stump for more height.        Getting the Delende map is pretty handy, the area is a lot bigger than it looks at first.   The Storm Hood is also a pretty great hat, I think my mages in my first run ended up using it for a pretty long time, there are some pretty nasty Wind-using enemies in the game.    Hamza: New fights!  Hamza: Hey! Get back here and fight me! The flames in here actually run from you rather than seeking you out.  Tau: First bone! Vanessa: Even if we have to give them away later, I love collecting things.   Flames will move laterally first, then attempt to jump if they hit a barrier. In this case, it means that when they get pressed into a corner running from you, you can move under them and abuse their lack of air control to ensure they land on your head. Flames vary a bit in just how much vertical jump they have, these can get about three blocks' worth of air time, there are others with a lot more jumping power.   Charity: ...is that Bigfoot? Vanessa: I don't think so, he's not travelling through the astral plane and seducing us. Hamza: ... Charity: ... Tau: ... Vanessa: Hey, that's what the internet says he does!      Dwellers are slightly annoying but not very scary. Also note the new skill icons. Gears are non-magic abilities, often buffs, which means they cannot be silenced away and tend to run on AP. "Rainbow" orbs are "Blue Mage" skills which makes it very easy to see who you can learn from and to browse the archive and see which enemies, in what locations, can teach you stuff.   Charity: Giant wasps and Bigfoot. Gross and weird. Cool cave, though.      Here I caught the transition between indoors and outdoors, it's a neat effect.        Tau: Ugh, no bones here. I guess that cave is the only option.        Crystal Project is generally very good about leaving quest items in the same areas where you need them, rather than forcing you to go around the gameworld for them and forcing you to remember that John Project back in the Tutorial Zone wants half of a Goblin Scrotum to reward you with a rare item.    Vanessa: Cheer up, we might find some cool stuff in here.    Charity: This is unreasonably dark, we can't even see if this place looks cool or not.    The Soiled Den has no music, just generic cave ambience of dripping water and distant rumbling rock.   One small reward.       There aren't a lot of enemies in the Soiled Den, only two flames and they mostly seem to generate pretty easy fights.  Zoo Bats(drat, I wonder where the dev got that name) are once again just default physical attackers, but they introduce is to a new and cool battle theme. https://soundcloud.com/schematist/division-blade-rpgjrpg-battle-theme        Tau: Oh thank God, there's the bone. Let's just grab it and get out. Charity: And just when there was finally some light to see by, I love underground rivers, they're so cool. Hamza: Not even any good fights in here, just those stupid bats, bleh.   And then as you approach the last bone, a Boss Flame, larger and with a black core but otherwise obeying the same rules as other flames, rushes at you from the shadows. It is in fact possible to juke it, send it flying into the river, grab the bone and then either Home Point Stone back, run away or get killed by it and just ignore that it's down here. But we don't play like that, we don't leave any bosses behind!  https://soundcloud.com/aaron-anderson-11/289-heated-battle-loop-ogg Meet the Bone Thief, which is a cool as gently caress boss name, very sinister.  All bosses have the trait of being immune to instant kills, though there are very few player-based instant kills in the game, and taking less damage from DoT effects. Considering that most DoT effects do 15% of Max HP damage per turn, that's kind of a requirement to avoid trivializing them utterly.    The Bone Thief also packs a selection of pretty nasty skills. It does high damage, it drains MP(though it has nothing to use them on, that can still hoover your casters dry) and it can do high damage + paralyze, taking away turns.  And it always tends to lead with Marrow Slurp, the MP drain, so you want to make sure its first turn attack isn't hitting a caster.    The first turn is mostly prep: Hamza takes aggro, Charity preps herself with a buff, Tau hits the Bone Thief with a debuff that makes it vulnerable to Fire damage.       The second round sees Vanessa with enough AP to deploy Eye Gouge, which blinds the Bone Thief for one turn. Since all its attacks are physical attacks, this means...   ...that Hamza gets some breathing room. The AP charge requirements prevent Vanessa from busting it out every turn, but even if it just halves the damage that Hamza takes, that's important since he's only ever two hits from death.   If I had been extra smart, I would've fired up his Defender stance, but I wanted him to be contributing more damage.  As an interesting fact: casting healing spells also draws aggro, which is why Tau is targeted by the Bone Thief's last attack before it goes down. Hamza spent enough turns paralyzed by Bone Crunch that he fell behind on drawing aggro, and Tau spent a lot of his time keeping Hamza healed up.  Vanessa then misses a 90+% chance to hit... and the Bone Thief melts from the damage-over-time effect that Charity had applied with the Warlock's Blaze spell. All DoT effects hit at the start of a character or enemy's turn.   Hamza: drat, that was a rush. We need to be fighting more bosses. Tau: Only if you promise to be better at keeping aggro, it almost got me... Vanessa: Mediocre drops, but maybe the next one will drop something better.   It was also guarding the last Dog Bone, so let's head up to hand the Dog Trainer the quest items.           Our reward is the BONE SMASHER, which is, perhaps surprisingly, not a Warrior weapon, but instead a Staff.  It provides none of the usual spellcaster bonuses, like Spirit, that most staves do, and instead is just a sheer combat buff. Probably the ideal recipient of this would be a Monk, who can do all of their stuff while wielding a staff as well as while unarmed. However, I still give it to Tau since he gets only moderate bonuses from his current staff and it gives him something to do that doesn't drain MP.  Additionally the dogs also run in circles of joy from now on. Charity: That's the sort of thing that really makes adventuring worth it. Vanessa: Sick loot? Charity: No. Cool places and cute animals.    If we continue further south, we reach the Seaside Cliffs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOWbOnDkZIs          Tau: Feels like everywhere we go, Astley's been there before us. Charity: I think it's nice of them to make sure they talk to all the new people, you know? Vanessa: Just as long as they don't loot all the chests before we get to them, too.       Here we come across our first purple chest, which usually hold quest items, map pieces, keys, that sort of thing. In this case, a clamshell! Vanessa: Useless? If it was useless it wouldn't have a spot in our inventory.    The Seaside Cliffs have a lot of areas we can't reach quite yet. Some of them require unlocking some new traversal options and others simply involve taking the long way around.         New areas also mean new enemies! There are also a few rare enemies that I don't get to see on this turn around.     Jellyfish have a damage over time attack, which can be nasty but is thankfully never their first turn attack, and a self-heal skill which our local off-brand Blue Mages can learn. Infusion's neat because it heals both the target and caster, meaning you've never in the tough situation of a caster saving themselves or another party member as long as you've got it.    This is also our first introduction to "half height" water which is traversible without immediate melting. Being in half height water also slows your movement and shortens your jumps a bit.   There's also this odd... structure... which we can't reach quite yet. How strange. Charity: Is that an amphitheater out in the water? Hamza: ...looks kind of like it's for a sporting event. Vanessa: Sports? In the water? You're going crazy, let's find you something to fight. Tau: I think he might be on to something...   On the east side of the beach, this cliff ridge looks impassable at first glance, but...     ...like so many things, if you just look around a bit, there's a way past.     Hamza: Why are we even picking these up? They're not weapons or armor. Vanessa: Because they're there. Now keep looking for more purple chests.     Venus Mantraps were probably the first enemy that really clowned on me a bit in my first run, because I didn't bother to read their stats in any kind of detail.  Firstly, they've got a reasonably punchy counter to any physical damage.    Secondly, they've got a multi-target attack that can flatten the entire party in two shots. They're no great deal for me since Vanessa has attacks that don't provoke counters, and she can blind the Mantrap even though it doesn't appear to have any eyes, but my first time around I was rolling without a Rogue(I think I did Warrior, Cleric, Monk, Warlock until I got more classes) and that made a lot of the early game harder than it needs to be.      Past this beach there's yet another apparently-unreachable item, but as we've learned by now, apparently unreachable only either means "for now" or "until you look around a bit" in Crystal Project.    First you use the chest you just opened to get a bit more height.       And then you just jump from rock pillar to rock pillar to get the rest of the way. The pillars can be a bit tricky until you get the hang of it, but the big trick when jumping to 1x1 platforms is that your characters' shadow is always directly beneath them, so you can always use it to gauge when you're on target. Hamza: Yeah! Jumping! Hell yeah!     The Storm Cap is a Medium Armor version of the Storm Hood, trading a bit of Resistance, anti-magic armor, for more Defense, which is anti-physical armor.        The last beach enemy we see for now is the giant snail, which has the jellyfish's poison sting and nothing else that really makes it unique. Once again, starter enemies.     Cliff Wolves are not by themselves scary, but they're an early version of other enemies that WILL be scary.     They hit hard and they can generate extra AP to get a bound ahead in using their big attack which has the potential to be really nasty if the Variance rolls well. Enemy attacks with Variance on them are very rare.           Tau: Where is this even leading? Hamza: Up. Charity: I like the look of this place, it's up-y and canyon-y at the same time.    This is one of the enemy formations in the Seaside Cliffs that can give you trouble. Together these two have a lot of health, you can't blind them both at once, physical attacks against the Mantrap are dangerous and if you let the Cliffwolf collect enough AP for Fury Swipes it can be dangerous, same goes for the Mantrap getting enough AP for Thorn Barrage.    This is one of the cases where I do switch on Hamza's Defender stance and just have him Taunt everyone prior to anything else.       But ultimately what saves me from getting pretty badly messed up is Vanessa managing to Eye Gouge the Mantrap. That skill really is so loving good for smaller formations or formations dominated by one tough physical attacker.  I come out on top, but not without a few dents.        Charity: Ooooh, a mountain meadow! Tau: ...huh, you could totally miss this.    Vanessa: I think this sheep's broken.      If you're fighting appropriately levelled enemies, most of your physical attacks will be 90+% chance to hit, but a few attacks default to a weaker chance to hit and some enemies are very dodge-y, at which point the Scope Bit becomes handy.      Vanessa: I knew it! I bet they've got some really cool stuff for us. We MUST find more clamshells!    We can bump into Reid again here, at which point he unceremoniously hurls himself into the depths.    Charity: Feels like there are crystals no matter where we go. Tau: Finally, we can get on with the plot. Vanessa: Tomorrow, maybe? I need to head off and do some chores. Hamza: We fought a boss today, I'm pretty happy with that. Tomorrow's good. END SESSION VOTE A: Northern Crystal Cave(Fencer) B: Seaside Crystal Adventure(Shaman) Both, of course, with a side order of screwing around first. There's still some jumps at the Seaside Cliffs.
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Oct 12, 2023 19:14
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A for Crystal Cave spelunking.
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Oct 12, 2023 19:40
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Gotta love an NPC that specifically wants useless common items but in an exact quantity. B. Shaman time.
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Oct 12, 2023 19:49
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What a lovely chill little game, we found treats for puppies and collected shells and said hi to some sheeps  We should definitely stay at the Seaside to continue the vibe.
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Oct 12, 2023 20:07
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I bought this game a while back and occasionally go back to play it whenever i'm in an RPG mood. A for the stabby stab class
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Oct 12, 2023 23:08
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Stay by the seaside for now. This game seems like a very chill game aside from the occasional stressful fight.
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Oct 12, 2023 23:09
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Hmmm.. let's go with A. Fancy stabbings and DoTs abound!
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Oct 12, 2023 23:16
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Let's go beaching!
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Oct 12, 2023 23:32
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This is such a great little gem of a game, and it allows for so many different ways to play it. Wizard was easily strong enough to carry my party all the way through to 100%, but with everyone else rotating around gave them plenty of the spillover points to get useful abilities in other classes. By the end it was lobbing murder to the tune of 20k or so against the True Ultimate Secret Boss, but there are plenty of other great ways to exploit all the wild options the game throws at you...and there's plenty of interesting ways to exploit vulnerabilities or some of the more esoteric functions. There's even plenty of side-stuff that opens up to distract you from adventure and just have fun with it for a bit. Go explore the seaside some more. basically this game owns, but it hurts that people flunk out because of the platforming.
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Oct 13, 2023 00:17
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I picked this up after reading the OP, is gud although I 100% am not spotting jumps to the same extent you are (which makes sense) Battles take a *big* step up at a clearly defined point we're still a ways away from. Understanding the "you really don't want to take hits if you don't have to" bit, now And we're already here so let's stay at the Beach
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Oct 13, 2023 00:34
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The pursuit of magic is important! Go for B!
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Oct 13, 2023 01:12
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Let's Beach it up some more.
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Oct 13, 2023 03:10
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Glad to see an LP of this, I really enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll do a random class run… Really impressive effort by just one person.
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Oct 13, 2023 07:24
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Since we haven't even messed with Monk any yet, let's focus on getting another mage class first and go B.
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Oct 13, 2023 18:32
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Looks like a win for the beach!
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Oct 13, 2023 23:16
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Let's go to the beach, beach Nicki Minjaj
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Oct 14, 2023 19:37
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A little bit of optional homework: remember that opening monologue about "adventure"? Folks who were also in the Crosscode thread, keep an eye on what this game says about "adventure" and compare it to what Crosscode says about "the ultimate experience." I'm not quite smart enough to find the words for how they relate, but there's definitely a connection there.
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Oct 15, 2023 07:47
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Update 03: I Hate Sand So, the vote was for the Seaside Cliffs crystal, but before we go there, I wanted to go grab that thing I said I'd go grab.    And I'm glad I did! Earrings rapidly fall off in value as MP pools increase, but this early on it's roughly a 20% boost for Charity to be wearing a pair.  Hamza: Our first crystal, I wonder what that's gonna be like. Tau: It's going to come with the wonderful feeling of getting closer to the dramatic climax of our story. Vanessa: There's probably going to be some cool loot near it, too. Charity: I just hope it looks neat, that it's not just some little geode we can hold in our hands.        Before you get your hands on a map, the Seaside Cliffs are subtly deceptive, cut into several sections that don't quite connect in the ways you'd expect them to. For illustrative purposes, I'm going to take the "wrong" paths first, just like I did when I first played the game.         Charity: Whee! Tau: You seem very confident about going this way, Hamza. Hamza: Yeah, because it's the highest place we can go. Easier to start from the top and go down: basic jumping logic.    The cliffside also has a number of ominous cave entrances, not all of which we can access just yet, like this one, it requires a bit more height.    More Clamshells, we need 13 and this is about the halfway mark. Vanessa: I wonder what that guy will give us for them.              This might seem like a long underground passage just for an MP recovery item, but it restores 60MP, which is a full recharge for any member of the gang so far and a very meaningful amount for a long time yet.        Hamza: Hm, back on grass... Charity: I think this loops back into Delende.    Hamza: Works for me, I wanted to fight something new.     Rastens are big bunnies that come in medium-sized groups and whose main trick is that they can do chunky defense-ignoring attacks if you let them collect enough AP for it.   Charity: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT. GROSS! Tau: I... I just wanted to see what Steal would do! Charity: Get rid of that! Tau: I can't! There's no drop item option! Vanessa: lmao, here, lemme keep them.   Vanessa: This is why you leave theft to the professionals. Tau: ...what do you do for a living again?  Charity: Can we please turn around? Weird stuff like this doesn't happen back at the Seaside Cliffs.         These pillars are a little jumping puzzle, not a very complex one, mind you. The game does have tricky puzzles, but it goes easy on us in the early game.      Despite appearances, we can't reach the loot chest from this angle, we need to take the longer way around.     A low-tier +Strength item. If you really wanted to max damage output, you could toss both of thes ones you have accessible at this point on a Monk or Warrior for maximum punching power.        Charity: ...spooky, eerie, creepy. Hamza: Crystals are rocks, rocks are in the ground, caves are in the ground, might be a crystal in here. Tau: Unusually sound logic.         Without dropping down that hole, the cave just provides a shortcut to another part of the cliffs and the underside of that little waterfall back at the camp.        As far as I'm aware this particular monster only spawns in ONE part of the Seaside Cliffs and I haven't found my way there yet as of the end of this update. I remember finding it quickly on my first playthrough but I need to knock my neurons around a bit to remember the path over to the westernmost side. Vanessa: This goes in the logbook, possibly a good trading opportunity.     Without an Earth Bangle, all that's down here is two Clamshells and a look at a red equipment chest I thought we couldn't reach from this side. Turns out that you can just barely make a diagonal jump off that little rock sprite over to the other side, and it contains an accessory that gives +10 Evasion. Evasion lowers your chance of getting hit, but I couldn't tell you exactly how much a +10 Evasion translates to percentage-wise, since that'll also vary per enemy based on their own base Accuracy.      A lot of the Seaside Cliffs is really a hidden jumping tutorial, teaching you how to read the terrain and the limits of your basic jump.       There are 19 Clamshells in the area including these three from The Rocker, so you don't need to be obsessive about collecting them. I like that bit of leeway in design. Charity: Hey... do you want some rabbit claws in return? Please? Vanessa: No giving away my quest items!          Continuing the tutorializing, it might seem impossible to reach that chest further to the left unless...       ...you remember that chests themselves are objects you can stand on.         Hamza: Back at beach level... still no crystal. Charity: What's that red thing over there?      Tau: A crab. Charity: GOTY! Vanessa: Great, now she's going to spam us with crab memes for the next 24 hours.  The cliff wall further down the beach looks impassable, but once again...         ...as far as I'm aware there is no flat surface anywhere in Crystal Project that you cannot, somehow, get to.       Actually a good tip, it's very easy to just learn them and then forget to equip them.       Most magic damage in the game is Fire, Thunder or Ice, with Water, Wind and Earth as much rarer. However, some of the most butt-wrecking bosses, in my game, use Water attacks, so I'm always happy for something that helps no-sell them even if the Swimmer's Top is otherwise barely on par with the starter robes.          Hamza: Wait... Charity: You know, I thought this would just lead to the same place, being downhill and all. Tau: This map design is going to drive me mad. Why can't it just be orderly and linear?       Hamza: Ooooh, yeah, I think that's a new enemy! Vanessa: New enemy means new drops!  Vanessa: Now stand back and watch a master of the thieving arts. Maybe we'll get her club as a new weapon for Hamza.   Vanessa: ... Charity: I thought you said it wasn't going to be creepy this time. YOU SAID IT WASN'T GOING TO BE CREEPY THIS TIME. Vanessa: Look just... don't overthink it, alright? It's probably from her lunch pail.    Mountainesses have one trick which is to have bucketloads of HP and to hit you real hard with a big piece of wood. As tricks go, it's pretty reliable, but not sufficient to stop us.  Charity: What finest ingredients?! Milk should only have one ingredient: milk! Hamza: Maybe they mixed milk and more milk. Since it's an MP recovery item and those tend to be pretty expensive, and has its own stack separate from tinctures, ethers, etc. it's actually not a bad idea to stock up on Milk if you're in the Seaside Cliffs anyway.         Charity: At least the view is nice... at least the view is nice...          The only thing down this way is this ominous entrance. Hamza: Getting a real crystal vibe from this. Tau: What. What even is a "crystal vibe"? Hamza: ...it just feels like a place I'd hide if I was a crystal. Tau: What does that even mean. Vanessa: Don't worry, Hamza, I'd still love you even if you were a crystal.     From memory, I can only recall one crystal that I'd consider to be in the "overworld," the remainder ensconced in some form or size of dungeon. Welcome to our first one of those: The Draft Shaft Conduit. It isn't large, but it's there. https://on.soundcloud.com/nAZsk   Hamza: Enemies already, hell yeah!     Canal Rats have one formation of six of them, and a single basic attack. With a bit of grinding, they'd be no real issue, but for now they remain one.  For the simple reason that we have no way of killing all of them or drawing their aggro to a single tanky member. Enemies that haven't been aggro'ed in some way tend to pick their targets at random, which means that rather than denting Hamza's armor, they instead dent Tau's face. Tau: Not my face! It gets worse because healing party members creates an amount of aggro with all enemies, so Tau will only cement that hostility by trying to render aid to the others.     It's a formation that I can take down, but not without getting hurt.   Good thing we've picked up a number of Fenix Juices on the way, otherwise that would've been a reset on the expedition.    The Torch is a modest upgrade for Charity, mainly noteworthy for giving her the option to swat enemies with it when she's out of MP.             The second group of rats dunks on Tau again. This is rude.     Tau: Oh my stars please not a third time. Vanessa: Hmmm... okay, watch this.    Most flames are water soluble and will, if immersed in the sort of liquid that would "kill"/reset the party, be deleted. My experience is that flames removed this way will reset faster than other flames, but it can be useful if you just want to get to the goddamn crystal and don't need any more bullshit.        It's not even hard to pull it off as long as there's any water around. Some Flames are immune to this, though.       Hamza: Boss flame! Charity: Oh gosh, another one already? Tau: ...alright, if there's a boss in here, there's probably also a crystal. Good job, Hamza.    Meet the Canal Beast. He's potentially a step up in difficulty from the Bone Thief.    In addition to its basic attack it has Pressure Squirt, which is a big single-target murder spell-  -Wrap, which is a boosted version of the Bone Thief's Bone Crunch, taking the target out of the fight for TWO rounds, but doing less damage-  -Floodgate, which could wipe out the entire party in two casts-  -and Ink Blast, which is a physical attack that attempts to blind the ENTIRE party. Very rude and also very bad if it pulls that off.      The first round is pretty simple. While the Canal Beast is weak to Thunder, Spotlight gives it a bigger weakness to Fire which lets Charity do more damage for less MP since Bolt costs more to cast than Fire or Blaze.   For the next round it intends to Ink Blast us, which means it gets the Eye Gouge.  This puts Vanessa at not bottom threat, though, so I have Tau Spark Shine the Canal Beast to draw some aggro.      With Wrap up next, I save Vanessa's AP so she has other options available for the coming couple of rounds.  Because I can just Remedy away Hamza's Paralyze in a single turn, after that, though...  Flood Gate is up next, and I don't really have a good response to it, due to bad timing primarily.  If you look at the init order at the bottom of the screen, the Canal Beast has a "gray" turn, where it starts charging the cast, and a "red" turn where it casts it. If Vanessa had a turn in between those two, she could interrupt it with a Trick Slash. Higher character speed, slower attacks and some abilities we don't have yet makes interrupts like that more likely, but in this case luck wasn't on the gang's side.     Floodgate fucks us UP.  Two casts of that would dumpster the entire fight, extremely rude spell.      Hamza: We made it? We made it! Tau: ...that was easier than the rats. Vanessa: Maybe for you, I got my rear end beat. Charity: No arguing, crystals! Hamza: CRYSTALS!         Tau: What a rush! Vanessa: What'd we get... aw, another caster job?  I pretty much always had a primary or secondary Shaman on the team when I played. The primary advantage gives them a lot more durability for those fights where the tank can't aggro everything, and their spells rock. They're all debuffs, either weakening or causing damage over time, except for one spell that just has extra lifedrain, and with none of their spells being elemental, they can always bring something fun to the party. I'll paste the full details in the OP after this update.       Charity: That was fun... but we can go farther tonight, can't we?  Charity: Look how much stuff we haven't seen yet! Tau: Well... we could always take that awful rabbit path up to Delende...              The path up from the Seaside Cliffs is one of two ways past the broken bridge, meaning that if you really want to, you could just swooze past everything, ignoring all the crystals and stuff, in favour of just getting on with things. But we're not like that, this is Crystal Project so we're going to PROJECT some CRYSTALS.            Charity: What even was that interaction? Vanessa: Dunno, but it gave me a chance to get rid of some of those rabbit claws, they're starting to smell.    Before hopping on to that tree, as intended, I continue along the cliff. It can get us to a few places, but for now I just want to clear up something I bypassed earlier.     The Hive Guards are now green flames because of the levels we've collected. Progress! They'll still attack us, mind you.            They can't all be winners. It's a decent boost but nothing huge. Anyway, keep in mind that we've unlocked some new heights in the Seaside Cliffs.        Anyway, back on track...          This actually puts us above where we ran into the Indecent Dwellers earlier. Still not at the top of this particular hill, but notably higher up.       Then crossing this bridge we walked under while entering Delende.           Charity: At least she was more normal. Hamza: A girl that helps you jump... that's someone after my own heart.  People around here are still super weirdos, though.      And as always there are hidden places to jump to.      Hamza: I'll never get tired of the jumping. Vanessa: I'll never get tired of the jumping leading to new loot.        Hamza: ...think we can make that jump? Vanessa: It doesn't look like a place we're meant to go, but eh, there's no fall damage! We can smack our faces into invisible walls all day. Tau: Can't we just... oh, never mind. I have to admit I'm a bit curious, too.      Charity: I wonder how far we can go this way. Tau: ...it wasn't that hard get up here, maybe this is really the way we're meant to go.   Welcome to the Overpass, there's no music here, just the desolate sound of wind sighing through the air.    The Overpass is generally a border between other regions, but it always gives a vibe of being a place you broke into, even the times you're meant to be there, and has a number of hidden things sprinkled around, as well as being almost completely empty of enemies.      Charity: Gives me the chills. Tau: But... in a cool way, kind of? It's like exploring an abandoned haunted house. Vanessa: Oh hey, looks like someone's finally kicking loose a little. Tau: I still think we should get back on track but... haunted stuff is cool.    Vanessa: Oh gently caress I think that's a red flame.         Yeah we are SUPER not meant to be here for a good long time yet.     Another one of these weirdos. Thankfully the red flames in this area have pretty small aggro radiuses and don't patrol in any sort of super weird or fast ways, just sort of ambling around instead. Also Lake Delende, though not very lakelike, also has the Overpass wind, no music.       And a couple of loot items.         But for now it's a dead end, we lack the mobility options to get out of here without warping to a Home Point.  Charity: That was eerie, let's stick to cool exploration from now on. Tau: I wanna know what was up with that place! We should look for more of the... what was it? The Overpass?      Vanessa: This weekend, right? I'm about to pass out. I'm so sleepy. Tau: It's those energy drinks, you just go to zero when they wear off. Vanessa: We can't all have a "healthy lifestyle" with "balanced diets." Charity: Um. Hamza: The weekend sounds fine. The jumps aren't going anywhere... nor are the fights.    Hamza: And look, Vanessa's got something to look forward to, too.  END SESSION VOTE A: North to collect a CAVE CRYSTAL(Fencer) B: West to collect a MOUNTAIN CRYSTAL(Scholar, the legally distinct Blue Mage) PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Oct 19, 2023 |
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Oct 18, 2023 23:17
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Yo, what the gently caress? Also, voting B for Blue Mage.
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Oct 18, 2023 23:34
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B for a Scholar, Blue Mage it up.
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Oct 18, 2023 23:39
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MOUNTAIN CRYSTAL!
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Oct 18, 2023 23:41
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LJN92 posted:Yo, what the gently caress? Weird as that bit it, I think I can safely say that it's the only slightly greasy thing I've noticed in the entire game.
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Oct 18, 2023 23:59
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blue mage blue mage blue mage blue mage blue mage blue mage
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Oct 19, 2023 00:39
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Also let me know if you want to see someone as a shaman, unless requested I'm going to shuffle around the party a bit for general variety's sake and what I consider useful, but I'm willing to roll with any assigned gimmick.
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Oct 19, 2023 00:41
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A zubat will surely be found!
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Oct 19, 2023 00:46
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B, we may as well start collecting blue magic sooner rather than later. From what I recall it's very Final Fantasy in that there's a lot of ridiculous abilities you can learn, in both good ways, bad ways, and weird ways.
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Oct 19, 2023 01:08
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