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This strategy RPG follows the story of a blue-haired sword-wielding prince of a fallen kingdom who leaves the idyllic island he was raised on with five followers to his name to strike back against the evil empire ruling the continent with an iron fist. No, I'm not talking about Marth Fire Emblem or about any game from the Fire Emblem series. We will instead be playing Vanillaware's Unicorn Overlord (NSW/PS4/PS5/XBox). Released in March of 2024, UO is Vanillaware's take on a SRPG. For a veteran Fire Emblem player, it will ring many bells and scratch many itches, being an anime game with a large cast from the same genre that has more than a few passing similarities. It has a heavy focus on the strategy part, with the cast being more than interesting enough to make you care about at least a few of them as characters in addition to whatever sick kill count they can rack up over the course of the game. If you like Fire Emblem, you'll probably also like Unicorn Overlord. Dare I say it, I might even like Unicorn Overlord's plot better than I like that of your baseline Fire Emblem. Enough about the plot. Gameplaywise, how does Unicorn Overlord differ from Fire Emblem? You have a map with objectives and enemies, and recruit playable characters who have not just classes and skills, but their own distinct places in and relationships with the setting (hirable generics aside). Aside from that, Unicorn Overlord tosses the grid-based map gameplay and permadeath out. Battles are waged with units of up to five characters, and your management of unit formations and characters' skills and equipment can—alongside the whims of the RNG—make a hell of a difference in outcomes. Every map plays out in semi-live time* and has a time limit for you to complete the map objective. The game also has an overworld where you can buy weapons and wares, see As for how all this poo poo works? Bear with me, I'll do my damndest to explain it to the best of my ability. *you can hit the pause button and deliberate as many times as you want and as long as you want, so in practice you'll be taking far longer than one, two, three minutes to finish a map What opportunities for reader interaction will there be? After an inflection point there will be more characters on my roster than there will be slots available for them, and you will be able to pick who gets cut for each map. Spoilers? please don't, or at least keep it behind spoiler tags if you really have to pop off about it Table of Contents ~Prologue~ Prologue: The Fall of Fevrith The Unicorn Ring ~Act 1~ A Call to Action: Part 1 | Part 2 Intermission 1: The Overworld A Solitary Resistance: Part 1 | Part 2 As the Tricorns Ride The Self-Effacing Sorcerer: Part 1 | Part 2 The Winged Knight  The Battle for Barbatimo
Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 20:39 on May 15, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 01:24
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Apr 11, 2024 01:24
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Prologue: The Fall of Fevrith Opening Cinematic  Now let’s begin the cycle anew…   The Fall of Fevrith …and go straight out of the frying pan and into the fire.   Onto a castle besieged…    Pay attention to that blue ring. It’s no mere trinket; you’ll see plenty of it by the time this is all over and done with.   *Ilenia doesn’t answer that one.*      And with that, time for some actual gameplay! Four separate characters move to Ilenia’s space on the map; that is to say, the unit assembles, with Ilenia as its leader, and we will be briefly in control of her five-man unit. Only very rarely will you see a solo character as its own standalone unit in this game.  You select your unit and then a destination for said unit, whether it’s an empty, directly-adjacent piece of dirt or an enemy unit all the way on the other side of the map. The game will automatically map out your unit’s path and you will have a chance to confirm. In this case, the path mapped out will take Ilenia’s unit to Valmore’s, to the south, via the west.   Your units will be detected by any enemy unit(s) whose range you enter, and will have to fight any enemy units they come across en route to their target. Now, Ilenia has a full unit of 5 and is engaging an enemy unit of 3. Now for the first battle of the game…          As you just saw in painstaking detail, battles in UO are a back-and-forth between two units until one of two outcomes occurs: either has been annihilated, or both have exhausted their Action Points (the red diamonds) and Passive Points (the blue diamonds). So each individual battle would require a ton of screens to fully document, and doing so would make every update unreadably long once we get to large maps with high enemy density and wherein both the player and the enemy have 5 characters per unit, for every unit! Once we’re out of tutorial mode I’ll just be showing particular highlights or what certain characters are capable of, or just general method behind my madness.    After beating that first enemy unit, Ilenia’s unit’s stamina drops from 6 to 5, and she continues on the path to Valmore, effortlessly eviscerating another scrub squad on the way.      And since this is our last opportunity to do so: let’s take in these names, the loyal few who were the last to stand by Ilenia as Cornia fell. The queen herself has a huge death flag hanging over her head, but who knows? Perhaps this isn’t the last we’ll see of the rest of her entourage. Anyway, once Ilenia’s unit reaches Valmore’s…   literally Ilenia:      Whether this outcome was preordained or not, let’s not forget the point of Ilenia’s last stand:  Josef is fleeing, and even though he’s doing so at his queen’s behest, to protect and raise her son, you can already tell that his taking flight will gently caress him up something fierce for the rest of his days.   Ilenia  and that sure is an evil wizard and (knowing my Fire Emblems) probable mastermind we have here         this all seems pretty bad tbh! What will our runaway prince, now in his late teens, do about it? What CAN he do about it? …Follow and find out! Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 11, 2024 01:26
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I hear the game's been going on sale fairly often as of late for $40 at Best Buy or whatnot, on both the Switch and PS. I had to wait a good while before I got my copy because physical copies were sold out at the time I'd placed my order. It definitely seems to have pretty broad popular appeal and if you're at all interested and have that SRPG itch to scratch, then by all means shoot your shot.
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Apr 11, 2024 03:22
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have not played Ogre Battle but hey, sounds like something for the bucket list once I'm through with this. and yeah I had to think long and hard about the gameplay loop and event pacing, especially pertaining to the overworld and exploration, and how to convey that. anyway, I'm aiming for Sunday at ?? o'clock for the next update. That and recording another chunk of gameplay while I'm getting my joy-con issues worked out.
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Apr 12, 2024 21:28
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 The Unicorn Ring Mk. 1 Whenever you see a screen like this, it means you’re in for a battle. You’ll get one chunk of cutscene before the battle and another after, and I’ll post them in sets of two accordingly.  Let’s fast forward ten years to Palevia, the island where Alain has been living in exile.       The two have a short sparring match, at the end of which…  ehhhhh don’t sell yourself short there Alain  We sure are fortuitous that the imperial army has left this island alone for an entire decade. Still, now that they’re here, the boys have the right idea. Because the bad guys?   They move pretty fast.  Now that’s a familiar face, albeit with a red coat of paint now.      Scarlett drops to her knees after Alain dispatches the intruders, at which point…  Hold the phone, has “the exiled crown prince is living here” even registered for the Zenoiran troops here? It seems they only had eyes for the priestess   drat the past ten years have been rough on Josef   Well I can say this much: only rarely in this playthrough will Alain be unequipping this ring.   And off we go! Our command post is at the cathedral. If an enemy unit reaches our command post, it’s game over. That gauge up in the upper left is Valor. Deploying a unit costs us one full point of valor, and we’ll do just that with Alain’s unit (with Scarlett directly behind him).    The game then prompts us to have Alain’s unit target the enemy mook’s, and the two units meet midway.   Now for a more in-depth explanation of the battle flow now that we have an actual battle instead of just Ilenia and co. stomping on a few hapless saps. Since Alain has the highest Initiative of everyone in the fight, he goes first. He expends his single AP to use his Lean Edge skill, almost taking out the Housecarl in the front line, after which the Housecarl retaliates by expending his single AP to attack Alain. Alain’s passive skill Noble Guard then triggers, reducing the damage he takes and expending his single PP.  Passive skills are reactive and automatic; they activate after a certain condition, or they can trigger either at the very start or end of a battle. Since that’s Scarlett’s one PP, she won’t be able to use Quick Heal again should Alain get hit again in this battle. By the way, she has Quick Heal by dint of her accessory; some equippables come with skills attached.   The enemy Housecarls are both faster than Scarlett but slower than Alain, so the one in the rear guard gets the next action. He misses Alain, and Scarlett uses her 1AP to purge his buddy with Holy Light. But the surviving Housecarl has one PP outstanding…   …and smacks Alain, who procs a guard, with his Parting Blow skill.   All characters in a unit gain Rapport at the conclusion of a battle. If neither unit went down, then the one with a lower percentage of its HP remaining is the loser. In this case, the enemy unit lost one of its guys and Alain was barely scratched, so… yeah. The loser will be knocked back and sent into a waiting state. Units who are waiting are immobile and sitting ducks for…  …a first strike, in which everyone in the attacking unit gets a round robin to uses their first active skill before the target can do anything. And in this case, the enemy’s defeat is fait accompli.  Whenever you win a fight, the valor gauge fills up a bit. It fills up more when you actually eliminate an enemy unit.  You get more valor by capturing enemy garrisons and, to boot, the unit capturing will regain stamina–and it tips Alain’s unit’s stamina back off at 6. Captured garrisons also serve as points you can launch undeployed units from.    Yeah, well, uh, you can tell from the sprites that Lex is currently a one-man unit and the enemy units are all two-man. He only gets in one active skill, which lacks the firepower to straight up kill one of the enemy Housecarls. Both of them will thus get to use their active skill and will get to use Parting Blow at the end of the battle. The outcome is pretty obvious, right?    Josef’s unit moves just so slightly south of where I deployed him. Now, both the enemy Housecarl unit Lex lost to and Josef’s unit will make for Lex’s position.  A unit's movement speed is determined by the characters comprising it, and needless to say, a unit with a horse in it will leave a pure infantry unit in the dust. It’s also affected by terrain type, and both infantry and cavalry units move faster on roads.   Yeah, let’s do what the game is suggesting. Anyway, NOW the game makes us privy to battle forecasts. Their damage calculations account for everything. Whether an attack hits or misses? Whether a character might end the battle with more HP than they had at the start? Whether a critical hit lands? Whether someone guards against a hit and takes less damage than otherwise? Whatever status effects and/or debuffs come into play over the course of the battle? Whether a character goes down prematurely and won’t be inflicting all the damage or doing all the healing they otherwise would have? Hell, any and all chain reactions? Everything. Even your overkill damage numbers as this screen shows. Always use these to inform your decisions.  Josef’s Slice skill gives him an extra point of PP whenever he defeats an enemy, which means drat near always at this stage of the game. Two of his passives, Holy Barrier and Holy Guard, then activate as the surviving Housecarl attacks, negating the -DEF debuff and almost all the damage incurred.  Belated introduction for Chloe, the last member of this childhood friend quartet! She’s a Soldier, positioned behind Josef, and she just attacked with Long Thrust, which would have hit both Housecarls in the middle column had the one in the front survived. But wait, that’s not all!  Josef’s last passive, Pursuit, activates to directly follow up on Chloe’s attack. Since Josef still has one outstanding AP, he’d have thereafter used Slice again had the Housecarl somehow survived.  Chloe’s passive activates at the end of the battle and heals one target. Not that Josef urgently needed it, mind you.  Josef himself may be an eternity out from actually gaining a level, but whoever else is in his unit and benefiting from his combat prowess sure as hell won’t be.  After seeing Josef in action, the two other Housecarl units hightail it outta here and our three units reconsolidate.   Unlike how using an item costs you your action for the turn in FE, in UO you can use as many items as you want on the field, free of any consequence but opportunity cost for someone else using said item. It costs you no stamina and incurs no wait time. You can even use items when you’re staring at a battle forecast screen, on the precipice of a battle, and see how (or if) that changes the outcome. To be fair, anyone not named Josef is a liability as a one-man unit. And even a unit with just Josef in it will be a liability at some point.  In literally any other context, you don’t get to transfer characters between deployed units, and trying to change a deployed unit’s leader will exact a cost. Still, Lex in the front and Chloe in the back have decent enough synergy as a unit. Lex tanks in the front row and gets healed at the end of the battle by Chloe, who can also use Long Thrust to hit any backrow enemies that Lex can’t reach.     Alright, so from now on, we have a time limit. You get a game over if the clock runs out. You win if you beat the main boss(es) in 99% of missions. From time to time there will be other victory/defeat conditions.  Anyway, I send Alain’s unit after the enemy Fighters’ unit, and Lex’s after the enemy Housecarls’. That forecast looks pretty promising, right? Well, Alain’s makes it to their target first, and and after a skirmish…  Alain’s also reaches the enemy Housecarls first, and Lex’s unit is just out of range for me to swap him in. Once Lex’s finally makes it to the target I set for them…  Lex’s unit went from beating the two-man enemy unit in one round to not even being able to put down a single Housecarl knocked into a waiting state in one fight! After every battle, the RNG resets, and the battle forecast updates accordingly. Outcomes can thus swing wildly on a dime. In this case, I would hazard a guess that in the initial forecast Chloe and Lex were both landing critical hits, while now either of them is missing their mark.  Anyway, between the few skills in their arsenal and 1AP/PP to use them, everyone not named Josef lacks killing power and you’ll need multiple bites at the apple to eliminate an enemy unit. Now, remember how I mentioned that Soldiers can attack both units in a column?  Ouch. But it’s ultimately a win, since Scarlett knocks out the frontline Soldier and she healed Alain to have more HP than he did starting the battle.   This time, the enemy Housecarl goes down (and as the play-by-play showed, either Lex or Chloe would have had to whiff a 99% chance to hit for him to have lived). Anyway, we now have our first level-up of the game!  Unlike in FE, stat growths in UO are fixed, only being modified by growth types, which I’ll list along with unit introductions at the end of every update where someone joins. Chloe’s two growth types are Guardian and Lucky, which boost her guard rate and evasion respectively. At level 12, she and a level 12 Soldier with the same growth types would have the same stats, barring any modifiers from their respective equipment. Compared to a level 12 Soldier whose growth types were Offensive and Keen, Chloe would have better guard rate/evasion and worse physical attack/accuracy. Each character also has their stats ranked, from S as the best, A as second-best, and F as the worst. So Chloe’s guard rate is, by virtue of her class, going to be poo poo no matter what, despite the favorable growth type.  Eventually, Alain’s and Lex’s units clean up the mooks, leaving only the boss. You can tell from one glance that Hodrick has very high physical defense, enough that even Josef can’t just delete him. From the forecast damage of 26, one would guess that Josef eliminates the Housecarl in the frontline and does 4 damage to Hodrick. How do we get this outcome?   hoplites dot jpg; Heavy Cover means that Hodrick takes the hit for the target and guards. Case in point, the frontline Housecarl is untouched while Hodrick only took chip damage from Josef’s Slash. But Hodrick only has one PP, and thus when Josef expends his second AP to use Slash on the Housecarl again, Hodrick can’t jump in to save him.  Any unit who attacks a garrisoned unit and doesn't eliminate them will be knocked back some, even if the attacker won the battle. What we’ll actually be doing is chucking Josef at Hodrick until he’s weakened enough for Scarlett to finish the job.  As such. It took a few swings, leaving Josef with only 1 Stamina remaining. But first, a boss conversation!    Next two level-ups for the road.   The game grades you on speed, how many enemy garrisons you captured, and how many enemy units you defeated, and this score is modified by your renown rank (and more softly spoken, by stage size). And yeah, only 11 seconds elapsed on the clock, but in practice between all the battle animations and deliberation you will, in actual time, be taking much longer to finish stages. Hell, I considered “The Longest Minute in Gaming History” for the LP subtitle before taking the low-hanging fruit.  For every 40 points, you get 1 gold added to your coffers; 10k points, 1 Honor; 4k points, 1 Renown. Pay attention to honors in particular; for reasons you’ll see before long, I’d argue that they’re a more important currency than gold in this game.  The Unicorn Ring Mk. II    Sheathing his sword and getting on his knee? Alain is making himself pretty drat vulnerable in this moment. Let’s hope it doesn’t end with him getting run through or knifed. Alain then gets back up, and…  It looks like some sort of exorcism! The ring flashes, you hear a ring, and the screen turns to blue. After which…  If nothing else, Hodrick appears to no longer be hostile. Maybe he might even be contrite? Fade to black, since some explaining is in order.    I mean hey, Alain insisted on mercy to a man who had betrayed his family and country and was more than willing to kill him, too, making himself very vulnerable to do it, and through this act of mercy discovered that his family treasure can undo mind control and who knows what else. That counts for something as to who he is and what he stands for. …the duality of  Now, raise the sails!    Units Joined  Alain Starting Class: Lord (Infantry) LV 1 Growth Type: All-Rounder Equipment slots: 1 Sword, 1 Shield, 1 Accessory Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 31 (B) Phys. ATK - 11 (C) Phys. DEF - 8 (B) Mag. ATK - 11 (C) Mag. DEF - 11 (B) Accuracy - 124 (B) Evasion - 32 (B) Crit. Rate - 10% (C) Guard Rate - 14% (A) Initiative - 18 (B) Much like a standard issue Fire Emblem protagonist, Alain starts off as a sword-wielding infantry character. His mobility is nothing special and his damage output will not be particularly special for a long while. Still, he gets a shield, the Ring of the Unicorn boosts his guard rate some, and considering his Lean Edge active skill, which heals him when he hits or defeats an enemy, meaning he has quite a bit of staying power. He’s perfectly serviceable, if clearly not amazing (yet). Now, when Alain is set as unit leader, everyone in your army will benefit from his Morale Boost leader effect, which boosts the valor gained whenever his unit defeats an enemy. Since you spend valor to deploy units and for a soon-to-be-introduced clutch mechanic, you really can’t get enough of it, ever. Fevrith Archive entry: Crown prince of the fallen kingdom of Cornia, and son of its queen, Ilenia. After losing his mother in Valmore’s rebellion, he was taken to the isle of Palevia by Josef, who taught him sword and strategy until the age of 17.  Lex Starting Class: Fighter (Infantry, Armored) LV 1 Growth Type: Hardy (+HP) / Offensive (+Phys. ATK) Equipment slots: 1 Sword, 1 Shield, 1 Accessory Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 22 (C) Phys. ATK - 11 (C) Phys. DEF - 9 (B) Mag. ATK - 9 (D) Mag. DEF - 5 (E) Accuracy - 118 (C) Evasion - 15 (E) Crit. Rate - 8% (D) Guard Rate - 16% (S) Initiative - 11 (C) Now what, exactly, distinguishes Lex from Alain? Well for one, he’s not from a unique class–he’s a Fighter. His class is slower, oriented more (physically) defensively, and actually counts as armored. Although he doesn’t no-sell all physical attacks the way Hodrick would, he also gets around faster, is faster, and won’t get owned as badly by enemy mages. Like Alain, he’s also meant to be put on the front line, and his default passive lets him take the hit for and thus no-sell enemy archers and myrmidons gunning for your dodgy but fragile units (and against archers in particular, your fliers). As a unit leader, characters in his unit take less damage from ranged assists, which will be seen after we make landfall on the mainland. Fevrith Archive entry: A childhood friend of Alain’s, born and raised on the isle of Palevia to a local fisherman. After studying the sword under Josef’s tutelage, he resolves to join Alain on his quest to liberate Fevrith.  Chloe Starting Class: Soldier (Infantry) LV 1 Growth Type: Guardian (+Guard Rate) / Lucky (+Evasion) Equipment slots: 1 Lance, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 25 (C) Phys. ATK - 11 (B) Phys. DEF - 8 (C) Mag. ATK - 8 (D) Mag. DEF - 10 (C) Accuracy - 119 (D) Evasion - 29 (C) Crit. Rate - 7% (D) Guard Rate - 9% (E) Initiative - 16 (C) It might be surprising to learn that Chloe has innate healing right out the gate and Scarlett doesn’t! By dint of her class, Chloe’s active skills let her attack entire columns of enemies (and right off the bat her Long Thrust skill has a bonus against enemy cavalry), so while her damage output isn’t special in most cases, that means she can nail squishies hiding in the back row. Speaking of, she herself should be hanging out back there. Her raw base defenses may not be worse than those of our other infantry units, but she can’t equip a shield to boost either of her defenses or her guard rate, the latter of which is pretty bad and will stay bad despite having a favorable growth type. Still, she heals, she can hit fragile units that would normally be positioned in the back row, and she checks enemy cavalry. That counts for a lot. Fevrith Archive entry: Daughter to one of Josef’s closest friends, she learned the ways of war under Josef’s watchful tutelage. As a dear friend to Alain, she often has to remind herself that she serves the prince of Cornia himself.  Josef Starting Class: Paladin (Cavalry) LV 20 Growth Type: Hardy (+HP) / Guardian (+Guard Rate) Equipment slots: 1 Sword, 1 Shield, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 2 / PP - 2 HP - 54 (B) Phys. ATK - 11 (B) Phys. DEF - 11 (C) Mag. ATK - 16 (B) Mag. DEF - 24 (S) Accuracy - 121 (C) Evasion - 14 (E) Crit. Rate - 8% (D) Guard Rate - 13% (B) Initiative - 19 (C) If you’ve played any Fire Emblem game ever, you have a pretty good idea of Josef’s schtick. He has a massive level advantage over everyone, which he will retain for some time to come. With his Templar Sword and its 15 Phys. ATK he will run roughshod on any unit with poor physical defense at this stage of the game, and hell, I needed him to chip away at Hodrick until Alain and Scarlett could deliver the finishing blow. Moreover, as a pre-promote, he has 2 AP and PP, while everyone else who joined has just 1 of each. Even though he stops looking indomitable once other units start hitting level 20, he never truly “falls off”. And it deffo helps that he has a horse and zooms across stages accordingly and even once his damage output drops to nothing special, he at least retains some healing utility. (Yes, that’s his second active skill, but had no opportunity to trigger in this stage.) And given the way UO’s battle system works, he won’t be “stealing” EXP; even when he personally gains zilch from winning battles, whatever other unit(s) you’ve put in his unit sure will appreciate the lift. Fevrith Archive entry: A former knight of the fallen kingdom of Cornia, he fled to the isle of Palevia with Alain at Queen Ilenia’s behest after the rebellion at Valmore’s hands. Recognized as a Holy Knight due to his valor and loyalty. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Apr 16, 2024 |
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Apr 14, 2024 17:27
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PurpleXVI posted:I think one thing I might have missed in the tutorial is: how does targeting and active skill use work in combat? Do you actually run it round-by-round in control? Or do you set them ahead of the fight, as a sort of script, and they all run on their own? The latter. You can pick which of your available actives and passives will be used, which ones should be used first/second/third/etc. (AP/PP allowing), and up to two conditions for who they should target. For instance, right out the gate, Josef's healing active is set to prioritize healing someone below 75% HP and his Slice skill is set to target whoever has the lowest HP. But by default, single-target offensive skills will target whatever enemy frontliner is in the same column.  so in the above formation, if there is an enemy on B3, Alain's single-target active skill will, in the absence of any player-set priorities, attack the enemy in B3. If there's an enemy on B4 and not B3, Alain will attack B4. If column B is empty then Alain will go for A3 or C3, or A4 or B4 if the entire enemy front line is empty. Chloe's first active skill attacks entire columns, and being in column A she will target column A by default; if there are no enemies in column A, she'll instead default to column B if you don't set any other priorities for who she should target. anyway the next update is going to be very short because it has three units of two to deploy and I'll have more than six characters in my roster. I'm thinking I'll post said update tomorrow evening, give some time for the thread to pick someone to bench for the stage, and then record the evening thereafter. Cattail Prophet posted:I started fresh when I bought the full game instead of continuing my demo file, and had already forgotten just how much this first battle tutorializes at you. Let me tell you, it was incredibly jarring not having the combat forecast for those first couple fights. Also not being able to select a difficulty until you hit the mainland. (Barely even a spoiler, but technically it hasn't come up yet.) nah you're good, that's not a real spoiler imo
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Apr 14, 2024 22:48
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 I think Tactical is a good, decently challenging difficulty and hell, I fit the bill here.  Call to Action Mk. 1       Well it looks like we’re holding our own pretty well–   reversal of fortune  Remember how one of the mooks who made it to the cathedral got owned when Scarlett bashed him with his staff and how the other one completely missed her?  Well uh poo poo went south fast! Zooming out to the stage…    They’re mercs, we can’t exactly outbid the empire for their services yet, and who’s to say that these particular mercs are even Cornian?   The cavalry has arrived! But we’re still in a deeply unfavorable position.  Yeah, best we regroup to Josef’s stronghold.   It’s certainly an answer to “why Scarlett”. But that can’t be all there is to it, right? This’ll be one of the early mysteries of the plot.    Guy’s got a way with words and with body language, gotta give him that  So the fort is due just east of those gates…  And the port town has fallen into enemy hands, and southwest, over the bridge, is…  Standard operating procedure for a UO stage. Now let’s deploy–    This is for the audience’s sake more than for my own, and hey, we have three new characters all from new classes, all raring to give their spiel.  The game even made quite a point of this via cutscenes!    But before we begin: we have six deployment slots and a roster of eight characters! Even with Scarlett having gotten damsel’d as soon as we made landfall, someone's still gotta sit this one out! Choose that someone here: https://strawpoll.com/eJnvvYmRxnv You have 36 hours from the time of this post to vote.
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Apr 16, 2024 02:30
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Josef it is! Will record after work.
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Apr 17, 2024 14:35
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A Call to Action: Fight! Josef’s out for the Liberation’s maiden battle and here are our units for this stage accordingly.  Now first things first, let’s take the town back. I’ll start by deploying Alain and Travis’ units.  That’s a ridiculously overkill forecast, let’s dig a bit deeper. After Alain and both the Housecarls move…  And that’s the Knight class’ gimmick: where Josef’s offensive skill gives him PP whenever he defeats an enemy, Clive’s offensive skills give him AP upon doing so. Which means…  Clive can keep chaining with Assaulting Lance until either all enemies have been defeated, or until he misses/fails to KO an enemy. After this battle, he then does the former with the other enemy Housecarl unit that had its eyes on our home base.  Now that our game over risk is eliminated, we can focus all our attention on the town. But there is a little something we have to worry about :  Once that red pawn gauge fills up, enemy-held towns/forts/tents will deploy reinforcement units.  You stop that gauge dead in its tracks by attacking the enemy stationed at the garrison.  Travis’ Passive Steal active is a two-hit attack that won’t be killing anything short of proccing two crits; its actual utility lies in stealing the enemy’s PP–well, so long as they don’t guard the skill’s first hit. So not only will this enemy Housecarl not be able to use Parting Blow at the end of the battle…  …it’s another PP for Travis to have to use his Evade passive, which forces an enemy miss for an attack that would otherwise have hit.  But against the surviving Housecarl’s Parting Blow, we get no Evade proc because he whiffed that 47% chance to hit.  The red pawn gauge has been reset and replaced by a green plus gauge, at the end of which the garrisoned unit’s surviving members will heal.  Needless to say, this is a very undesirable state to be in! Unless I have a shitload of stamina-restoring items on hand to brute force things, I can’t just have a single mega-unit juggernaut through an entire stage! luckily for me the two times a unit actually hit 0 stamina in this stage didn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things   You know what helps you avoid hitting 0 stamina and having to hit the rest button thereafter? Capturing enemy towns/forts/ruins, for which the arriving unit gets 2 stamina.    You shouldn’t be in danger of units getting knocked out in the earlygame, but hey, it’s nice to have just in case. And I’ll definitely be hoarding these as much as I can.  Anyway, now that the town is ours, I can use it as a launch base to deploy our third and last unit. I’ll be sending Lex and Chloe to capture the ruins.  Like so; per this forecast the enemy Soldiers fail to make anything stick to Alain, and since Clive is sitting in the back row and not in either their and Alain’s column he slips under their radar. But instead, I’ll have Travis’ unit attack twice and win.  Speaking of, I figure now’s a good time for Guarding 101. Everyone has a guard rate, and by default, guards decrease (physical) damage incurred by 25% when procced. Having a regular shield equipped like Alain, Lex, Josef or Clive means that guards decrease (physical) damage incurred by 50%; and if you have a greatshield like Hodrick, guards decrease (physical) damage incurred by 75% when procced. This is another thing which gives Hodrick such an edge in physical durability, whereas I really do not want Chloe or Travis, who cannot equip shields, to get hit. And since none of the enemies in this stage can equip shields, it’s another reason Travis can so easily steal all their PP with his active.  Anyway, we’ve beaten the enemy Soldier unit occupying the bridge and now we’re making a move on it. We’re getting close to the enemy command post…   We can do that by capturing and squatting on the bridge, which counts as a garrison (albeit one you don’t get any stamina or valor for capturing and which has no healing bonuses); any unit sitting on a garrison won’t lose stamina when they get into a fight. Anyway, once Lex starts approaching the ruins in the east…  Ruins are side objectives and more often than not well out of the way, but hey it’s worth sending someone over to have a look.  Both of the enemy soldier units bounce ineffectively off Travis’ unit, after which I have Alain’s unit go pick them off while they’re stuck in a waiting state.  Lex and Chloe need two rounds to eliminate the Housecarl unit garrisoned at the ruins; still, even if I had to hit the wait button afterward, no reinforcements were coming to gently caress them up anyway.  A stat-booster! This gives +1 Phys. ATK and was well worth the detour. Eventually, our other two units begin closing in on the enemy command post.  Aubin commands a unit of three (  ) and his unit is a real motherfucker of a boss for my current team. In particular, his axe grants him a skill, Crush, which inflicts stun on whoever gets hit–and whoever gets stunned is forced to skip turns, being unable to attack or to cover for allies. He’s also hiding in the back row while the two frontliners are Soldiers, who will heal themselves/each other at the end of the battle so long as they stand. Iffy physical durability or not, I’ll have to punch through both of them before getting to Aubin himself.  Needless to say, I won’t be making much headway as is, despite having Alain borrow Josef’s higher-might Templar’s Sword. it didn’t help any that Clive missed and the cav pain train didn’t get rolling as a result *one inconclusive battle later*  We had to burn one stamina impotently flailing against Aubin just to finally unlock this. After a certain point in long maps you’ll, hopefully, have most or all of your units deployed and more valor than you know what to do with. Which you will then use on these skills. Hell, some valor skills are of a nature where I’d use them over deploying an additional unit to kick off a stage.  The game maxes out our valor just so we can use this mechanic to bring down Aubin. And the first thing I’ll use it for is…   thanks man, every little bit helps  I made a few suboptimal decisions here: this boost, while nice, doesn’t stop Travis’ unit from losing to Aubin’s anyway, and after having Alain’s unit attack…  …we’re still in a situation where one enemy Soldier is standing and Aubin is still unscathed. Still, I have 6 valor left–enough for one use each of Alain and Clive’s valor skills.   Even with that damage reduction against garrisoned enemies…  12 damage is more than enough to finish off the surviving Soldier. And like with FE Engage and Sigurd’s Override skill, Clive and the others in his unit get EXP for using Wild Rush. Or hell, same with all the other offensive valor/assist skills we’ll be seeing down the pike.  Since I had set Wild Rush’s range to end right next to Aubin, Alain’s unit immediately chains right into a battle with him. Once his Soldier lackeys were finally out of the picture, Aubin himself went down pretty fast.    Anyway, we finish the map having gotten Alain and Clive to level 4, and plucked Aubin’s Vitality Talisman along with a nice chunk of gold.  A Call to Action Mk. 2  I mean hey what else was to be done, chasing after Renault and his cavalry with the rear unsecured?    Let’s see if Alain’s as good of a recruiter as the likes of Lilina or Caeda and if it’s enough to win over Aubin. Dude comes off as very cynical and very mercenary but hey, he doesn’t strike me as a bad person.  Holy poo poo it worked! Aubin’s officially one of ours now, with payment deferred until the end of the game to boot  Anyway, fort’s ours, the town has been secured, and we flipped the enemy CO. I think our guys have earned a good night’s rest. Fast forward to the next morning…    The cutscene ends by prompting me to choose heraldry and… you know what? I don’t feel much of a need to switch from the default. Anyway, with this stage finished, we have access to the overworld. There’s plenty of poo poo to do in the overworld! Which is why I’ll be dedicating the entire next update to showing it off. Units Joined  Hodrick Starting Class: Hoplite (Armored, Infantry) LV 2 Growth Type: Keen (+Accuracy) / Offensive (+Phys. ATK) Equipment slots: 1 Lance, 1 Shield, 1 Accessory Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 31 (B) Phys. ATK - 11 (D) Phys. DEF - 12 (S) Mag. ATK - 9 (E) Mag. DEF - 1 (F) Accuracy - 115 (D) Evasion - 3 (F) Crit. Rate - 7% (F) Guard Rate - 18% (S) Initiative - 4 (F) Remember what Hodrick looked like back in the prologue? He’s taken a demotion and a heavy level drop to the point you wonder if Zenoira had him spending most of the past ten years in a basement opening letters. Still, he does his job and he does it well–no-selling physical attacks and protecting his allies. Just keep him the hell away from enemy mages and other anti-armor classes. You can tell from a glance, but you generally don’t want him heading units since as an armor unit, designating him as unit leader will tank movement speed. Still, any character with rear end physical defense will appreciate his presence and his Valor Skill really comes in handy in maps with stage hazards or enemy assists that create damaging terrain. Fevrith Archive entry: A knight of the fallen kingdom of Cornia, and trusted aide to Queen Ilenia. While he fought at her side during the rebellion at Valmore’s hands, he was ultimately taken prisoner after they met with defeat. Subject to Zenoira’s magick of control, he was made to lead the Zenoiran Army’s clandestine army of Palevia. Upon his defeat, his mind was freed by Alain’s ring and he was returned at last to his former self.  Clive Starting Class: Knight (Cavalry) LV 2 Growth Type: Precise (+Crit) / Defensive (+Phys. DEF) Equipment slots: 1 Lance, 1 Shield, 1 Accessory Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 27 (C) Phys. ATK - 12 (B) Phys. DEF - 10 (B) Mag. ATK - 7 (D) Mag. DEF - 11 (C) Accuracy - 118 (E) Evasion - 8 (F) Crit. Rate - 11% (C) Guard Rate - 11% (C) Initiative - 16 (C) Fevrith Archive entry: A knight of the Province of the Ashen Blue, knighted at an early age due to his peerless aptitude and immense bravery. He and Josef have worked tirelessly in setting the stage for the Liberation Army’s eventual rise.  Travis Starting Class: Thief (Scout, Infantry) LV 2 Growth Type: Offensive (+Phys. ATK) / Go-Getter (+Initiative) Equipment slots: 1 Sword, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 18 (E) Phys. ATK - 9 (D) Phys. DEF - 3 (F) Mag. ATK - 10 (D) Mag. DEF - 10 (C) Accuracy - 126 (A) Evasion - 49 (S) Crit. Rate - 14% (A) Guard Rate - 2% (F) Initiative - 25 (S) Travis doesn’t hit particularly hard and he’s in for a world of hurt if he does get hit. Still, his schtick revolves around not getting hit, with a passive to ensure he dodges should that happen, and being as fast as he is means that he can rob a target of all their PP to start off a battle and keep using his passive when need be. His Valor Skill is also clutch this early on, since I am strapped for gold. He’s overall and particularly in this moment very useful–just so long as I watch out for Truestrike buffs, which will nail him right through his high evasion, and enemy archers and swordfighters, who have high accuracy and more than a few Truestrike-based skills. Fevrith Archive entry: A spy in the employ of Cornia’s Liberation Army. Though he spent years devoted to the art of gathering intelligence, he now finds himself thrust onto the field of battle with Alain and the others.  Aubin Starting Class: Housecarl (Infantry) LV 4 Growth Type: Precise (+Crit) / Offensive (+Phys. ATK) Equipment slots: 1 Axe, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 25 (D) Phys. ATK - 16 (A) Phys. DEF - 6 (C) Mag. ATK - 7 (F) Mag. DEF - 5 (E) Accuracy - 121 (D) Evasion - 19 (D) Crit. Rate - 7% (E) Guard Rate - 7% (D) Initiative - 19 (B) At least for the next several maps Aubin will have a niche as our only axe user, and that axe he came with is great early on with that skill attached to it. He’s decently fast and does a good amount of physical damage, even if he has mediocre durability. His biggest problem is that he’ll soon be getting competition from other axe-using infantry classes with their own particular niches. Fevrith Archive entry: The mercenary leader of a band called the Sand Scorpions, who were hired by Renault to cross blades with Alain as he pursued the kidnapped Scarlett. He held fast to his base at Fort Soligie, but was eventually defeated. Remained in the fort after his defeat in battle to buy time for his companions to escape. Once cornered, he took a liking to Alain and his lofty aims, and thus decided to join the Liberation’s ranks. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 19, 2024 21:14
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Intermission 1: The Overworld The stage we just fought in is the first area pacified, and thus the first land available to us to explore in the overworld. Each country in Fevrith has its own overworld themes! Case in point, Cornia's for day and for night. Same with battle themes, which we first actually heard on Palevia: one for the stage and one for battles.   We’ve a laundry list of tasks to do, and hey, expanding my unit capacity sounds like a pretty good place to start. Just gotta go to A fort.  New recruits will start rolling in before long and I only have so many honors to do either of the aforementioned. And hell, you saw it in Aubin’s boss fight–increasing unit capacity is a good way to get an edge on the enemy, and I’ll be locked in a constant arms race with the game to have as many 3, 4 or 5-man units as I can. I’ll be constantly wanting for honors to add new units or to increase capacity of my existing units–and this in addition to the other gameplay benefits I need honors for.   We don’t have the renown for it, but what about a 4-man unit? Oh well! It’ll be a bit of a while before we hit C renown–and mercifully, until we begin regularly seeing 4-man enemy units.   Every quest completed, whether it’s on the overworld or in battle, gets me some honors, renown, and maybe something else. For a lot of the quests that just opened up I get treatises, which give a lump sum of EXP (and thrice the base amount if you’re giving it to someone below a certain level). I’ll hold onto them for now–for the novice treatises, a certain abducted someone is the obvious choice to get them. But for the higher-level ones, I’ll ask the thread for someone to pump them all into.  Hey, that sounds familiar…    That’s UO’s incarnation of support conversations for you, as well as the associated gameplay benefits. Every character in a unit gains rapport for fighting battles and can go all the way up to A-level rapport, even if they don’t necessarily get a rapport conversation for doing so.  That kicks off another quest! We got a Vitality Talisman for defeating Aubin, and the quest’s condition is just to give it to someone.   For the purposes of the quest, letting Aubin have it back will do.   But as you can see, the option to station guards (and board a ship, if you’re at a harbor) is grayed out, and will remain so until we deliver the requested materials to restore the town. But first things first, we’re here to buy stuff. All the armories and shops in Cornia (and back on Palevia) have the same offerings–basic earlygame weapons and items–with a few other assorted special offerings.   I’ll start by buying this lance for Chloe. Not only is it stronger than her Bronze Lance, it also gives a boost to her accuracy and has a skill attached to it. What that “True” hit rate means is, it always connects–even against targets with high evasion, like thieves, and hit them despite their Evade skill. The other special here, the Runic Sword, has a magic active skill and has Phys. ATK of 8 and Mag. ATK of 14. For that, we’ll want a character who can use swords and has enough magic attack to make it not a meme. Finally, all the recruit weapons are slightly stronger than bronze weapons AND provide a slight boost to EXP gained. Still, I don’t have the gold on hand to just clear out the armorer’s stock.  For now, I’ll buy Healing Fonts, since there will be situations where I’ll want everyone in a unit to be healed a little less than I’d just want a single character to be healed with a regular Healing Tonic. The Smoked Nuts restore 1 stamina, and will come in handy in a pinch in battle. Draughts can come later, but you can chug them right before actually starting a battle to see if +20% in attack and defense stats will make a difference. You can also sell items, and the Buy Back menu lets you get these items back for the same price you sold them at if you have second thoughts. The items will go poof the moment you exit the store.    The Fevrith Archive tells us, among many other things, that Aubin and Travis are actually not from Cornia.  Anyway, you can infer from the map and from Josef’s dialogue that Scarlett’s being held deep in uncharted territory and deep behind enemy lines, and that we’ll have to fight for every inch of progress. Taking that ground from the empire will involve plenty of side quests, bring us plenty of new allies and make us (or you, the audience) make a fair few decisions. It’s also going to be a roundabout way to reach the main quest objective–to rendezvous with a Miriam, whoever she is. If it seems like I’m meandering and taking my sweet time to save Scarlett, please bear with me. Every step of our journey to eastern Cornia will be well worth it.  Across the overworld you can find these rays–they’re gathering spots.  That one I just grabbed yielded 3 Cornian Sardines, and the one Alain is now en route to yielded 3 Corvia Herbs. Now that I’ve gathered from them, I won’t be able to get any new materials from them for a good, long while, but they’ll eventually yield something for me again. Each separate nation of Fevrith has its own distinct saltwater fish, freshwater fish, ore, lumber and herb gatherables. So while these gatherables will be in high demand in the next few updates, they will be useless once we start venturing outside Cornia.  Here and there you’ll find ruins that look like temples, like this one we captured in the previous stage. You can press the A button to have a look, at which point Chloe will assist.  Hallowed Corne Ash can be used to give you 1 valor point, to revive a KO’d unit and deploy them again, or, worst case scenario, as a get-out-of-jail-free card from a game over. Thanks, Chloe!  The overworld also has these shining spots here and there. You get one of either two things from them:  An immediately and obviously useful item…  …or a Divine Shard, whose use case you’ll see after a few updates.  Going back to the town, we…need to patch things up here. Since this is our first restoration request period, we have one very easy ask.    But wait, that’s not all! We can now station a guard at Ouvrir Harbor.  What matters is having a warm body standing guard. For each town you have a guard stationed at, you get some gold and some gatherables whenever you finish a stage. Goes without saying that more gold is always nice, and more deliverables will help expedite the restoration of other towns.  Anyway, for rapport conversations–you can see that some of the hearts have a handshake interlaid in them while others don’t. To unpack, the graph means that Lex has rapport conversations with, among our current roster, Alain at C, B and A levels, only a C-level rapport conversation with Clive, and C and A (skipping over B) rapport conversations with Josef, Chloe and Hodrick. In addition, rapport conversations are tied to locations, and gatekept behind story progression since you don’t get to see rapport conversations in areas you haven’t yet A) found, and B) completed the corresponding stage for. It’ll take a while but hey, if you ask me, this model means that rapport conversations can (and often do) effectively account for the events of the story. I also get 2 honors for each rapport conversation I see, which is another incentive to actively seek them out.  Alain, of course, gets rapport conversations with everyone. You saw that his C conversation with Lex is theoretically available since we’ve taken the fort it takes place at. Now, to make a point of how rapport conversations being tied to locations means it’s gatekept behind story progression: Alain/Josef C is in Sudd Town, which is also in Cornia but in an area we haven’t been yet. Their B conversation is in a place called Rokkuros Town, and A in Burbury Town. The former is in Elheim and the latter is in mainland Albion, so it’ll be a long while before we can see Alain and Josef’s B and A rapport conversations.  Near forts, you’ll find generics with a yellow sword icon…  …which means they’re raring for a fight. They will give you a short spiel about their class and what it’s about, as well as one of their class’ signature skills.  You will then get the chance to engage their unit in a sparring match.  If you win, you get a few grand and maybe a hint from the generic about what bad match-ups their class has. Anyway, let’s see about unlocking new unit slots since we have more than enough honors for it…  that one’ll have to wait a bit. The more units you have on hand, the more honors you need to add new ones. Soon it’ll cost 15 honors a pop, and eventually it’ll be 20 or 25.…still, figured I might as well expand a second unit’s capacity to 3, since I should have more than enough to get a fourth unit by the time I hit D renown.  In addition to ruins that look like temples, the overworld also has ruins that look like towers. Here, Lex will poke around and get something nice for you.    Like this +HP stat-booster.  This is another quest! I didn’t really do many mock battles on my initial run, but just for the quest’s sake…  Well, Travis/Hodrick is a horrible matchup for Lex/Chloe, and I didn’t need to do a mock battle to know that. But a mock battle is a mock battle and I’ll take my renown and honors and go. Here’s the play by play if you’re really interested.  There were some quests in the vicinity of town telling me to use their features–restore the town, station a guard, etc–and I can pick up my rewards immediately since I already did them.   There’s something waiting for me once I’ve restored every town in Cornia (and the other countries to boot). Ouvrir Harbor is just the first town out of many, but you know what, I gotta start somewhere.  There will be far more towns to station guards at than you’ll have named characters, but another consideration for posting guards is which characters you want to give gifts to, and boost Alain's rapport with in doing so.  You bet! Though this isn’t one of the items Chloe really likes; Cut Flowers give Alain/[recipient] +30 rapport as a baseline, and for a character who does really likes that, will give double. As for what gifts the cast likes? That I have to google for; as far as I’m aware the game itself doesn’t give hints like “this character likes sweets and books” or “that character is a fitness nut” the way Three Houses did.  Any harbor town you’ve restored will also offer you a destination to sail off to. In Ouvrir’s case, we can go back to Palevia for a stint.   Thanks granny Anyway, Palevia had been, for reasons hitherto unrevealed, left untouched by war or by the empire for a whole decade. As such, its two towns do not need to be restored. That means I can just station guards here right off the bat, and indeed, I assign Lex and Chloe to the two of them.  The rich natural bounty of Palevia… and…chickens?   Every country in Fevrith has an overworld quest where a dude’s four chickens flew the coop and you have to roam the vicinity to catch them. There are two immediately due south and northeast of Palevia Town, but when I gun for the one to the south…  …thanks man. The chickens run when they see you coming, and will vanish from the overworld if you take too long. They will respawn once their spawn point is no longer on your screen, though.  Luckily, my misclick wasn’t serious enough for this one to vanish.  This one will run for the woods–be careful, or else…  yeah that’s nice Lex. Had to try again to nab this one.  Anyway, the last chicken is to the southwest. Once I catch them all, I can go back and claim my reward.  The Golden Egg is an accessory that can be equipped to a character to boost the gold their unit gains from battles, that can also be sold for 30k. Did I mention Palevia gets its own special overworld theme? Now, back to Cornia proper.  Whenever you see red on the edge of your screen, it means you’re about to enter hostile territory. There will be enemy units roaming and they’ll chase you if you enter their line of sight.  Like so- oh, well, uh, looks like poo poo’s about to go down here!             Well that’s a good segway into our next stage! Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 19:23
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oh yeah that surprised me my first go around too. For the time being Josef's current active and Pursuit passive works well enough, but the Runic Sword's definitely a good way to--thread whims notwithstanding--make use of his magic attack stat and keep him relevant in the long run once stat differences become more pronounced and his physical attack really starts lagging.SIGSEGV posted:It's a segue, actually.  but yeah, you're right about England and very specifically England for Albion; the last three countries have German, Greek and Russian (or some other Slavic language? I can't really discern the differences in the Roman alphabet with what I'm given) naming schemes. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 22, 2024 02:39
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ChaosStar0 posted:You have some shots of Chloe where there should be ones of Clive. Also never went back to Palevia, so I'll do that once I buy the game and can continue playing. 30K is nothing to sneeze at at this point. Thanks for that, missed that after like three QC passes somehow. and mea culpa on Elheim; in the English version its residents have their own language, which I thought sounded vaguely Greek on first play, but when I actually dig into it... yeah, I can't make heads or tails out of what the hell it's supposed to be. anyway next update will be Wednesday around my lunchtime, and I'll have a poll to open at the end of said update. Stay tuned!
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Apr 22, 2024 20:51
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 The game is nice enough to let you know what the primary enemy types you’ll be facing on a stage are (though it is of course by no means an exhaustive list), as well as the recommended level. Now let’s get cracking.  A Solitary Resistance Mk. 1      So yeah, that’s this stage in a nutshell: recruit the green unit before he really steps into it, capture the enemy fort, check out those shining spots, beat the boss, and figure out how to deal with Travis’ class but as an enemy while doing so.  Did a little reorganization with this stage’s enemy mix in mind. Unit 1 now has Travis up front with Aubin and Lex in the back. Aubin is there to just (hopefully) hit things hard and Lex’s specific purpose in this unit is to shield Travis from enemy Hunters, who can otherwise nail him right through his Evade skill and high evasion. Unit 2 has Hodrick up front, with Chloe in the back to kill enemy thieves with her new lance’s Truestrike skill, and Josef along to play chaperone and mop up anything else. And Unit 3 is… well, Alain and Clive, between the two of them, don’t particularly need help killing the non-scout enemy units.  Alain is the one who’ll be recruiting Rolf. Josef’s unit will bear south to capture the enemy fort, and Travis’ unit will be accompanying Alain’s and nabbing gold from enemies as we build up our valor.  I also took the time to set conditions–or, in essence, to tell the AI for my guys what to do in battle. Since Passive Steal won’t steal the enemy’s PP if the enemy either dodges or guards its first hit, I set it to target the enemy with the lowest guard rate and/or lowest evasion.  Nothing particularly witty is needed with Aubin’s skills; Crush will stun the target so long as it connects, and ideally Parting Blow will be finishing off a straggler. And for Lex, I just transferred the Vitality Talisman to him.  Lean Edge heals extra if it finishes an enemy, and this condition will help ensure it picks off the lowest-hanging fruit.  You saw from the last stage that Assaulting Lance needs to connect and KO the target to get rolling, so these conditions will help with finding appropriate targets.  I set True Thrust to only activate if there are enemy scouts (so, Thieves) in the enemy unit, since it’s a bit weaker than Long Thrust and I would prefer Chloe use the latter in any other circumstance on this map. I should reset First Aid’s condition to Lowest HP, since Chloe is now in a unit of 3 and I might want to be more selective about who she prioritizes for healing; that having been said, in practice Hodrick was the only one taking any damage anyway during this stage.  Lastly, I want Josef’s Slice and Pursuit skills to target any weakened enemies the others in his unit couldn’t finish off.  No matter what, Rolf’s three-man will reach an enemy Thief before we can reach him. Luckily they’re in no particular danger against a singular Thief.   By design, Hunters serve as a hard check against Thieves–and other dodgetanks–by giving themselves Truestrike as they use their active skill. Just so long as a Fighter or a Hoplite doesn’t intercept the blow.  It sure is nice that I still get valor when NPC units kill enemies, as an aside.  Speaking of Truestrike! That’s why Chloe’s new toy is very valuable in this stage.  The enemy Thieves have no choice but to try and steal PP from Hodrick, whose high guard rate will (mostly, hopefully) prevent that. And since they’re neatly lined up in a column…  gently caress your dodge passive and gently caress your evasion stat   A Solitary Resistance Mk. 2 Luckily for me, Rolf’s unit decided to catch a breather after having eviscerated that lone Thief, allowing Alain’s unit to catch up.   I love that  sound effect that plays whenever we slap a blue coat of paint on a red or green unit. Anyway, Rolf isn’t quite one of ours yet; sure, he’s under our control, we can even send him back to the command post to withdraw, but we can’t fiddle with his equipment or reassign him to another unit (same with the generic Fighter and Hunter in his unit, of course). We’ll see what Rolf means once Josef’s unit reaches its target. But as they get close, Alain notes these shining spots on the stage–they’re another side objective.  Now, back to what Rolf was saying: right now, Josef’s unit is falling short of eliminating the enemy unit garrisoned at the fort. Chloe is in the right place to hit a full column, but it’s unlikely that her True Thrust will have the oomph to kill the Housecarl in the rear. And no matter how I shake it, I need for Josef or Hodrick to land A hit on the last Thief if I want this over in one round. Let’s see if hitting Y and having Rolf use his assist skill will shake things up.  Wow, the battle forecast turned from falling short into overkill! Let’s see how.  Units led by bow- and offensive magic-using classes can use assist skills. Their assists trigger at the start of the battle, and the more such units in range, the more assists you can call on. A single offensive assist will never be strong enough to actually kill enemies at full health, but it sure does weaken enemies–and reset the RNG, for better or worse.  The first enemy Thief was a goner no matter what, but Rolf’s assist skill provided the critical mass for True Thurst to put down the enemy Housecarl in the back row too. Now, I still need someone to kill the Thief who wasn’t in Chloe’s column.  Hodrick tries, but only forces him to burn his last PP…  Before Josef lands a 74% chance to hit to put him down for the count.   After the battle, whatever unit(s) used assist skills will gain EXP for doing so. It will also cost them 1 stamina unless they’re garrisoned, so…what, did you think it was just gonna be free damage, no strings attached?  Now that we have some valor to play around with, it’s time to start stealing some gold from the enemy units. After that lone enemy Thief suicided into Josef’s unit, I have them check out that shining spot Alain was talking about.  It doesn’t just yield us an item, but also some valor.  Even for a unit without any Truestrike or “gently caress you, I hit” skills on hand, it’s still possible to win a fight against enemy scout units. I just need for enough hits to, despite iffy hit rates, connect.  As such, with Aubin’s Parting Blow icing the win at the very last moment.  Lex’s voiced line for leveling up pairs quite nicely with Chloe’s “Take notes, Lex”. Still, she’s the one who’s almost single-handedly cleared out the southeast of the stage.  The second shining spot yields a Miracle Fruit, which gives a level. Definitely holding onto this, since right now levels are very easy to gain unless your name is Josef (and for whom an extra level makes no functional difference in combat performance). As for that blue circle around Rolf’s unit, that denotes the area within which he can provide assists. Same with any red or yellow or green circles for enemy/NPC units who can use assist skills.  That last shining spot can be tricky, because if you gently caress up the routing you can end up walking right into the enemy command post (and thus into Gammel’s unit) en route to it. Best case scenario, you get knocked back a bit and thrown off course, and end up having to fight him again until you correct course. Worst case scenario, you actually beat him and end the map prematurely and you don’t get to reach said shining spot.  Now to make a point of how assist skills can reset the RNG: judging by this battle forecast, Alain’s unit is projected to kill two of the Soldiers, but not the last, probably because Clive will whiff the last hit.  Now we’re getting a forecast where Alain’s unit is destroying the enemy Soldier unit! The first one did not account for the enemy Hunter unit being in range and chipping in with an assist skill, while this one does. The enemy AI is programmed to always use assist skills when able, even if it’s to the detriment of the unit actually fighting. And this time, the enemy assist rerolled the RNG to be very much in my (or rather Clive’s) favor. just watch out for when the shoe’s on the other foot–when you pick a target over an initially very favorable battle forecast before actually reaching it and finding out you’re getting hosed over by multiple enemy assists  And that’s the last of…seriously, Clive? He’d have had to botch a 92% hit rate for me to get an outcome where that one enemy Soldier was left standing in that original forecast. Whatever, a win’s a win. As for the enemy Hunter unit, it then got promptly stomped by Alain and Clive.  The third and final shining spot got me a draught. At this point, Gammel’s very close to summoning reinforcements; let’s put the kibosh on that.  Let’s have Rolf’s unit fire the opening salvo.  Gammel has a special sword, Viperfang, which confers this self-explanatory skill.  So when this poisoned Fighter is up, he loses a chunk of HP. It’s possible for someone at low enough HP to die from poison (or burn). Luckily for the Fighter, status effects don’t carry over between battles. Now, Rolf and the generic Hunter in his unit are both set to prioritize the back row, where Gammel is the only combatant…   What was Gammel saying again? Something like “well why don’t you make me”?   Gammel himself may have went down, but the frontline of his unit are still alive. So this stage ain’t quite over yet.  Yes, generics gain rapport (though it goes without saying, they don’t get any rapport conversations).  Anyway, we have just enough valor left to play around with some valor skills, and Travis had already plucked his few hundred gold from Gammel’s unit.  Arrow Rain hits every enemy within its area of effect, though by now Gammel’s unit is the last one standing.   …and it does some pretty respectable damage despite being less effective against garrisoned enemies. Still, I wanted to feed this kill to Travis’ unit, since Travis is now the lowest-level member of my army, and so I had to fire off Arrow Rain again to get my desired outcome.  High evasion can’t save dodgy squishies from offensive valor skills, so this last battle ended up just being Travis delivering the enemy Housecarl a coup de grace.   And as a spoil of war, we get Gammel’s sword.   D renown is so tantalizingly close now.  A Solitary Resistance Mk. 3   Gammel’s fate–and perhaps that of his sister by extension–is for you, thread, to decide! Show him mercy, or turn him in? https://strawpoll.com/NMnQ54Mmdn6 You have 24 hours from the time of this post to vote.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:30
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 By the graces of the thread, Gammel will be a free man; will post the follow-up over the weekend.
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Apr 25, 2024 20:50
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SIGSEGV posted:Yeah, I'd just propose playing optimally because, well, I'm not going to open gamefaqs and transcribe it in your thread, that'd just be rude. how do you mean?
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Apr 26, 2024 01:49
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 A Solitary Resistance Mk. 4 Thread chose to free Gammel, so free Gammel Alain shall.   So yeah, you can beat up roaming enemies on the overworld for honors OR you can clear the stage they’re centered around, after which all the roaming enemies in the area go poof and you get all the honors you would have had you beaten them one by one. Right now we just get a piddly 1 honor per roaming enemy unit eliminated, but eventually that’ll be upped to 2 and ultimately 3 depending on our renown rank. And as Josef was saying, not only can we now walk around the area without getting chased down by roaming enemies, but now and only now can we visit the towns and fort that featured in the stage we just cleared.   THREE!! points away from D rank renown   Gammel then runs off. Had we chosen to turn him in, the town guard would have given us 10k gold as a reward. As for what would have become of Gammel, his gang would have broken him out of jail overnight, and he would still run off just like in the screenshot above, except instead of (maybe? hopefully?) turning over a new leaf, he’d be swearing that Alain and co. will get theirs someday. You can tell from that alternate scenario that this ain’t the last we’ve seen of Gammel, or of the Black Talons.   The refugees from the start of the mission are now happily back home. Even talking about how the town’s so much better now, even though we haven’t lifted a finger to restore it yet.  …looks like we’ll have to wait a bit to restore Coquillage Town in earnest.  With 22 honors on hand, we have more than enough to expand our last unit’s capacity (and it should be a good while before my roster outstrips my unit capacity again), and after the next side quest we will have enough honors to not just add a fourth unit, but to make it a three-man too. quote: Going north of town, running behind the mountain and hugging the shore, I can access that shining spot, which yielded me a Divine Shard.  Lastly, there’s a Hunter in the fort near Coquillage Town who wants a friendly throwdown. I’ll have to readjust my unit configurations if I want to win…  …because the battle is complicated by the presence of an enemy Gryphon Knight. They’re quite dodgy, hit fairly hard, and their actives are particularly specced to gently caress up cavalry. Still, much like in Fire Emblem, fliers in this game get destroyed by arrows, and all the evasion in the world can’t save them from Truestrike. And unlike pegasi, Gryphon Knights aren’t particularly speedy–hell, the one in Morris’ unit is outsped by everyone in my three-man unit above.  thanks for your 2k gold  Play-by-play, if you’re interested. We’ll be seeing a lot more enemy fliers in the next stage, due to the southwest–and the game’s just barely begun!  And hell, I barely even made it across the bridge going southwest before a NPC Housecarl started chasing me down. Units Joined  Rolf Starting Class: Hunter LV 3 Growth Type: Offensive (+Phys. ATK) / Guardian (+Guard Rate) Equipment slots: 1 Bow, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 25 (D) Phys. ATK - 13 (C) Phys. DEF - 4 (E) Mag. ATK - 10 (D) Mag. DEF - 12 (B) Accuracy - 137 (S) Evasion - 27 (C) Crit. Rate - 11% (B) Guard Rate - 8% (E) Initiative - 15 (C) Rolf is drat solid and thanks to his class, he checks a lot of problematic enemy types. Scouts and Swordfighters? Truestrike and nonetheless superlative accuracy go brrrr. Fliers? I’m sure flight instructors in Fevrith drill it into their students’ skulls to watch out for arrows. Mages? Surprisingly good matchup since Hunters actually have relatively high magic defense. Since his attacks are all ranged, you can have him single out squishies hiding in the back row. His valor skill also helps a lot with softening up enemy units and I can’t say no to more characters who can use assist skills. He does, of course, have weaknesses; he’ll die fast to physical attacks and gets shut down by enemy armors who can intercept and nullify his attacks. Still, he’s got a niche, excels in it, and I can very easily find something to do for him in most any stage. Fevrith Archive entry: A bowman who started a militia in western Cornia in order to resist Zenoiran rule. After thwarting the Black Talon Bandits outside Coquillage Town, he set his sights on reclaiming it for the good of its people. He bears not only a keen eye for hunting prey and the skill to hit his mark, but unshakeable courage on the field of battle. After working together to defeat the Black Talons, he close to formally enlist in the Liberation’s ranks.
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Apr 28, 2024 17:11
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fatsleepycat posted:No exp from overworld enemies, just honors. There is an opportunity later to grind exp on fairly small repeatable maps, and I think those maps give you small amounts of honors and renown as well. Yeah you get honors and renown each time you finish a stage, and that still applies to those repeatable stages, which also provide treatises for each clear. I'll go through them all as they appear on the overworld; I'm not going to abuse them by any means, but they're a good way to try and shore up lagging but still salvageable characters. They also scale in difficulty, with progressively higher enemy level and complexity.
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Apr 28, 2024 23:32
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 The NPC Housecarl is of course not actually dangerous; he just wants a chat.  Not with Alain, who will be playing fly-on-a-wall.    Well, that’s a bit of Travis’ backstory, and the intro for our next side quest! Let’s ride.  As the Tricorns Ride Mk. 1     We have quite a bit of vertical distance to cover from our starting point all the way down to Bruno’s camp.  That, plus a harbor town and an enemy fort to capture along the way.  One of the enemy chokepoints, as well as the enemy fort, are being held by enemy Gryphon Knight units, which are a pain to deal with for my current roster.  Now, units for this map: I did some reconfiguration with Alain/Clive adding Aubin to the back row; Travis/Lex taking Josef in Aubin’s place; and Hodrick/Chloe adding Rolf to the back row and assigning him as leader. Chloe and Rolf can slam dodgetanks between the two of them…well, had I thought to remove the “don’t use unless scouts are present” condition from Chloe’s True Thrust skill  I deploy Alain and Travis’ units first, meaning to deploy Rolf’s from the harbor town once it’s fallen into my hands. They’re very quickly met with an enemy Gladiator unit. After Travis pockets some gold from them, Alain’s unit engages.  Alain lands a solid hit, albeit one that’s not quite strong enough to seal the deal…  …and that’s a feature of the Gladiator class: they have high HP and their Bulk Up passive reflexively heals them after they’ve taken a hit.  Still, their defenses suck and this Gladiator didn’t heal enough to avoid getting taken down by Aubin. Trash defenses, low guard rate, poor evasion and low initiative all meant the second Gladiator went down to Clive’s lance before even getting an attack in.  Moving along, Travis’ unit comes into contact with a three-man Soldier unit, which doesn’t have a prayer against Josef in particular.   Stat gains in this game are fixed and this level-up isn’t going to fix Lex’s fundamental problems, but, that many +1’s at once still looks good.  At this point, I decided to have Travis’ unit pick up the shining spot near that watermill and Alain’s unit gun for the Gladiator unit occupying Thulust Harbor. Once someone begins approaching the bridge (or the watermill)...   It’s possible to start this stage without having done Rolf’s first–as in, you can sneak past all the roaming enemies and cross over into Thulust to meet Travis’ erstwhile hatchet man–but on the other hand, why would you?  That’s a not insignificant sum of gold from the shining spot!  The two Gladiators up front have a pretty hefty amount of HP compared to the scrubs Alain’s unit beat up at the start of the stage, and what’s more, they’re backed up by a Soldier who can heal them on top of their self-healing passive at the end of the battle. With either Alain or Travis’ units, I’ll need one round to take out one of the Gladiators, and a second to take out the other (and hopefully the Soldier too).  And here’s the Gladiator’s active; as you can tell from the name, it hits an entire row. It has base 150 physical potency, with an additional 50 if the user is at full HP (and this one was), while all the physical actives I have on hand have base 100 potency at most. Still, this active has base 80% hit rate, and on top of that, Gladiators as a class have crap accuracy with which to use it. And hell, enemy skills that can hit a whole row look much less scary when all my units only have a single character holding down the front row.  My original game plan was to capture Thulust Harbor and then, from there, to deploy Rolf’s unit to destroy the Gryphon Knight unit holding the bridge, but I changed my mind when I got this forecast.  Now that we’ve stolen the Gryphon Knights’ lunch money, let’s see how Travis’ unit won. As it turns out, a groundbound unit with neither Truestrike skills nor bow wielders on hand CAN still kill two enemy Gryphon Knights.  I…  just…  needed…  for…  …a bunch of sub-50% hit rates to connect…  …and for the second Gryphon Rider to drop dead from poison after having procced a Guard against Josef. It’s by no means a reliable way to beat enemy Gryphon Knights, but don’t look a gift horse in the mouth etc. etc.  Meanwhile in Thulust Harbor, it was a team effort to take down the second Gladiator, but once he went down, the enemy Soldier had just low enough HP for Clive to one shot him.  It’s in my best interests to have Alain and Clive wield recruit weapons, just so they can get that slight EXP boost.  At level 5, Alain gets a passive that lets him cover for allies like Hodrick and Lex can; it’s not really relevant for his current unit, but its most immediate use case would be to protect backrow squishies getting targeted by ranged attacks. Or heck, Clive from fliers, had I been possessed to have Alain’s unit try taking on Gryphon Knights in this stage.  Aubin on the other hand does not get a new skill at level 5, but he does grace me with his very cool level-up quote instead.  And almost simultaneously, Travis’ unit captures the first bridge and Alain’s unit arrives at Thulust town. We’re halfway there!   Well, I can’t say no to more of those.  So yeah, when one of my units garrisons and stays put, they also recover stamina in addition to HP. Even KO’d units get revived! It’s a good option if poo poo really gets dire and my hand is forced, though I prefer to keep things moving.  Now I deploy Rolf’s unit, even if I make one or two suboptimal decisions with them in this map.  Rolf himself can easily kill a single enemy Gryphon Knight, but Chloe and Hodrick lack the power or accuracy to take the second one down too in one round. With that, I then send Travis’ to squat on the southern bridge and Alain and Rolf’s units to Fort Mainteneaut.  Due to the sheer size of this map, I can’t stop either of the remaining enemy camps from deploying reinforcements. Still, I’m not particularly worried given the remaining stamina of my units.  The reinforcements from Bruno’s camp are all Gladiator units.  Given their poo poo guard rate and evasion, they’re sitting ducks for Travis to steal their PP and head off their self-healing passive in doing so. This one is a sitting duck for Josef’s Pursuit, and his buddy won’t survive three attacks+poison from Team Travis’ remaining AP pool.  Now that Travis’ unit has taken the bridge, they can tank Gladiator reinforcements all day long.   The other fort deploys Housecarl reinforcements, off which Chloe gets a level. And Rolf’s unit had eliminated that one just before…  …entering the bolstered assist skill range of this four-man enemy Hunter unit sitting on a watchtower. As for that Hunter unit’s gauge? Starting now, enemy units can also use valor skills and I would rather not be on the receiving end of them if I can help it.  Hold on, that’s not quite right…  There we go. While Clive has excellent killing power against regular infantry, I am quite reliant on the whims of the RNG to have Clive hit a bunch of enemies in a row to win battles in a single round.  And that’s that, with the only damage incurred being two arrows bouncing off Alain’s shield.   Anyway, now that Rolf has reached the enemy fort, it’s obvious what’s going on with this battle forecast: Rolf kills one Gryphon Knight, Chloe and Hodrick fail to hit the other one at all. Since I have 4 valor, I decide to have Rolf fire off Arrow Rain.  Now let's see if that’s enough to secure a KO…   gently caress it. One more Arrow Rain… …which eliminated the enemy Gryphon Knight unit.  Just before Rolf’s unit took the fort, Alain’s unit picked up this nifty item from the shining spot next to the watchtower. It’s a consumable that doubles gold gained after one battle. Full disclosure, I kept forgetting to use this during my first playthrough because it doesn’t actually move any damage numbers and made myself much poorer in the process! I sure as hell will try to correct for that this go-around. Now that we’ve captured this fort and hit up all of the shining spots, we can have Travis’ unit quit playing whack-a-mole with reinforcements and make a move on the enemy’s command post. Once they get close…   Alain might very well be onto something–we’ll see if he is after we defeat Bruno’s unit, of course.  Now, Bruno has a megaton of HP to burn through for a level 6 enemy, and his Gladiator buddy also has a beefy HP stat. Two rounds to take his unit out is the best I can hope for.   Among my roster, Travis is probably best equipped to take on Bruno’s unit, just by taking away his and the other Gladiator’s PP and thus their self-healing. The generic Gladiator then went down fast to Josef without his healing passive to mitigate damages.    Poison also helps negate some of Bruno’s Bulk Up, enough so that he doesn’t get the boost to Wide Smash from being at full HP. Still, I’ll need another round to finish the job.  Between Travis’ superlative evasion, outstanding PP to proc Evade, and Bruno’s…questionable…accuracy, it’s not like I needed to worry about Travis getting hit, let alone KO’d by a full-powered Wide Smash. With that, Travis’ unit made it out unscathed and ready to go for round two.   I was considering having Alain or Rolf’s units take out Bruno’s unit, but since Bruno has two PP as a boss and thus gets to use Bulk Up twice, it would not have been a particularly favorable outcome either way. So it fell on Travis’ unit to finish the job.   Two last levels for the road, with a very timely quote about Tricorn pride from Travis to go with it. And no, Bruno doesn’t have anything to say when he goes down.  And with that, we get a nice accessory for the earlygame to round out the mission.   loving finally  As the Tricorns Ride Mk. 2       Bruno’s deal was, in fact, exactly what Alain thought it was. Now for an actual conversation.         Recruitment unsuccessful, sounds like. Just as Travis and Alain agree that Bruno is intractable and turn around to leave…   Whodathunk that some good ol’ fashioned ribbing was what it would actually take to win the guy over?  Three roaming enemies in the stage’s area got me three extra honors for my clear. Can’t wait until our renown rank goes up again and that figure gets bumped up a bit.   Well all’s well that ends well. Now that we’re at D renown…  I can certainly hire generic mercenaries and may very well do so, although it will cost me honors. As for our roster, well, when all is said and done, I can have up to 12 units of up to 5 characters each, and the game has… over 60 non-generic playable characters. Depending on the whims of the thread, I’d definitely be open to hiring a generic for kicks. Now, as for adding more units? I’ll absolutely be doing that after we get through this last bit of cutscene. Meanwhile, in eastern Cornia…   I’ll be honest, I can’t parse this line. What persuasion? Galerius hasn’t even personally interacted with Scarlett yet and she’s here because Renault kidnapped her and took her to the other side of the country.  I feel bad for Scarlett, but no matter how I cut it, she’ll just have to wait. The Liberation will have to consolidate their forces and holdings while making their way to eastern Cornia.  Crossing the bridge from Bruno’s camp, there’s no stage or roaming enemies–just the southwestern rear end-end of Cornia (and I can even spot a roaming promoted enemy in Elheim, on the other side of the mountain range). It’s still got something for me, and something for Lex to go spelunking in.  This’ll be useful–the burn immunity part of it, especially, in the next stage I’m taking on.  A shining spot near Thulust Harbor got me this very neat item, which blocks all damage from enemy assists for a single battle.  Back at the fort, I act on Josef’s advice and make myself a 4th unit–and upgrade it to a three-man unit to boot. It feels so good to be able to finally do that again.  The additional 5 renown also nudges me along on my way to C rank renown, and the ability to make four-man units along with it.  Something’s waiting for us in the watermill! Let’s check it out.  The nice old lady gives us a small Revival Orb.  After gathering from the forests in the Thulust area and the cave near Coquillage Town, I have the materials on hand to restore the harbor town.   While stationing a guard at the freshly-restored Thulust Harbor, I noticed that the patch that dropped shortly before I recorded this stretch of the game updated Scarlett’s status from “abducted” to “unavailable”. We’ll have more to say about said patch once characters from classes affected by it join up.  All but a select handful of restored harbor towns, like Ouvrir Harbor ↔ Palevia Harbor, have ships bound for secluded shores, which have goodies waiting for you.  From Thulust Harbor I can access this islet south of Palevia. It has ruins that Chloe can procure some Hallowed Corne Ash from and a bevy of shining spots, which altogether yield three Divine Shards and a Dew of Vitality. And that’s all there is to this islet. I’ve taken the treasures and it has no conventional gathering spots, so there’s no reason to ever come back. Let’s go back to Thulust and do some shopping.  That’s a solid accessory and is well worth the 10k, and even late into the game someone is going to appreciate having a 10% boost to physical attack and critical hit rate on top of a flat +2 to physical attack.  This mission brought to you by Travis and this shopping spree financed in no small part by Travis. And holy poo poo was I glad I sank the gold to buy another two Healing Fonts come next mission. And that’s a wrap for this update. But you should get the gist of the gameplay loop by now: do stage, recruit new characters (hopefully), get more honors and renown to expand your unit capacity, find hidden goodies in the area you just fought in (hopefully), gather materials in the area you just fought in, use said materials to rebuild towns and get more honors and other goodies, station more guards to help get you more gold and materials after you beat a stage, and rinse and repeat as you make your way to the next story objective. Units Joined  Bruno Starting Class: Gladiator LV 6 Growth Type: Defensive (+Phys. DEF) / Precise (+Crit. Rate) Equipment slots: 1 Axe, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 52 (S) Phys. ATK - 14 (B) Phys. DEF - 5 (F) Mag. ATK - 1 (F) Mag. DEF - 7 (E) Accuracy - 113 (F) Evasion - 8 (F) Crit. Rate - 7% (E) Guard Rate - 8% (E) Initiative - 8 (F) Compared to Aubin, Bruno has a metric shitload of HP and a self-healing passive, and worse but still serviceable physical attack to use his active skill, which is quite strong and lets him slam an entire row right off the bat, even more so if he’s at full health. Right now, Chloe is the only other character in my roster who has skills that can hit multiple enemies, and hers are both weaker. But this comes with a price: Bruno’s other stats are all awful. Still, for all his flaws, he, alone, can hit entire rows, and that is a genuine advantage this early on. He can hop in last and wipe out a weakened row of enemies. But his main draw will start looking a lot less impressive once other characters start getting multi-target actives to play around with. Fevrith Archive entry: A Zenoiran general in command of the Thulust region. Originally a joint captain of the Tricorn Mercenaries, he was defeated and captured by Zenoira, who granted him a position within their ranks due to his immense ability. As a joint founder of the Tricorn Mercenaries, he grew close to Travis–younger brother of the group’s first captain. After Travis and his sister left the group, Bruno became the new captain, but struggled to find work for them. After the Tricorn Mercenaries fell to Zenoira, he was captured, subjected to their magick of control, and made their general in the Thulust region. Upon his defeat to the Liberation, his wits returned and he joined their ranks.
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May 1, 2024 20:20
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:I think he's referring to Hodrick here. It sounds like his plan was to wait for Hodrick to come back and then betray him, swipe Scarlett, and steal the reward. He's confused about how Hodrick "persuaded" Scarlett to come with him because he didn't stick around long enough to realize that Hodrick changed allegiance. goddammit that actually checks out completely
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May 2, 2024 02:16
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PurpleXVI posted:Are there any situations, like Gammel's, where there's an objectively right and wrong decision(in the sense that one gets you something and the other loses you something) or are they all about gaining one thing or gaining another thing? I will have more to say about that at the end of the next update (am working on it, should have it out Sunday, can say it will end with a decision).
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May 2, 2024 03:00
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 Let’s go back to the fort that served as home base back when we hit the mainland and see what’s up to the north.   We’ve got the resources and personnel to take on this quote unquote great sorcerer. Let’s forge ahead.    Travis provided us a nice overview of the stage we’re about to take on (though since this is all still the overworld and not the actual stage, it’s missing some critical elements). Archers we have indeed, and I would not dare tackle this side quest without Rolf.  The Self-Effacing Sorcerer Mk. 1    I like that Housecarl’s reaction. Like, what are you even supposed to say when the boss goes on unprompted about his mommy issues, right?      So there’s the stage–Auch is in the Thilde Ruins, on the other side of the river. There’s only one bridge in the west of the stage, meaning we’ll have to take the scenic route to reach him. En route we have one fort and three enemy watchtowers to neutralize. There’s also a total of three shining spots to hit up. And boy howdy are there a lot of enemy Wizard units crawling about. It’s rather smaller than the previous stage, but also far denser in its early stretch.  Units for this map. Josef is flying solo and will see no combat; I’ll just have him run around to visit the shining spots. I use my 3 valor to deploy the rest of my units.  That’s a lot of overlapping assist skill ranges! The enemy fort is held down by a Wizard unit, flanked by two watchtowers in close proximity. I can’t even engage the first Wizard unit close to my command post without eating an assist attack from the first watchtower, I can’t even take the first watchtower without eating an assist attack from the Wizard unit at the fort, and I will be in range of the second watchtower if I gun for the fort without neutralizing that one first. And I need to be careful of all of this, since damage from their assists won’t be factored in until I actually enter their range and fight.  Rolf’s unit ditched Hodrick for Travis, who can hold down the front line and dodge/not get murdered by enemy magic. They take that first Wizard unit within striking distance of our command post.  And assist damage? It adds up, fast, on this stage. Wizards are also the first enemies we encounter who use magic. Magic actives/passives cannot be guarded against, meaning they’ll hit for full damage, always. They’ll hurt almost everyone on my roster right now. Moreover, since Wizards’ skills are all ranged, they can target the backrow (though the enemy Wizards here mercifully did not).    Luckily for me, Wizards also have poor initiative and no physical durability to speak of, so if my whole unit can outspeed them–as is true of Travis, Rolf and Chloe–then I can, as Hodrick was suggesting, take them out before they get a chance to attack.  Healing items aside, Chloe’s First Aid is also the only source of mitigation against assist attack damage I have on hand right now, and boy howdy will Rolf’s unit appreciate it.   That’s the Watchman’s Lantern from the previous update. It ended up not seeing any use, since the Wizards all targeted the frontline (as in Alain) anyway.  Alain, Aubin and Clive all also outspeed Wizards, so they’re another good choice to take on the enemy Wizard units. Still, there’s four of them in this unit occupying the eastern watchtower and my trio only have single-target actives, so someone’ll have to eat a conventional attack after our turn’s up.  As in, a few fireballs to the face. The Wizard active is a three-hit, single-target attack, and just one hit is enough to inflict burn. If he’d targeted Clive, then Clive would have eaten some burn damage just before shoving his lance down his throat.   Auch deploys reinforcement units independent from his reinforcement gauge filling up when the first watchtower falls.  Of my three currently active units, Lex’s unit is probably the closest to dead weight.  Everyone in it has particularly bad magic defense and Bruno and Hodrick are also slow as hell to the point they would both move after enemy Wizards, after which they’d probably have taken Lex down. So the melee enemies are the only ones I can have this unit take on, as long as I keep an eye on how much assist damage they’ve incurred.  Even though Bruno is going to attack at full power approximately never in this stage due to the heavy prevalence of enemy assists, it’s still drat satisfying to see him wipe out an entire row in one stroke.  Rolf is occupying the first watchtower, Alain is moving to take the fort, and Lex is taking the last roaming enemy unit in the area.  And now that Rolf is occupying the first watchtower… lol, lmao, his critical hit assist was actually able to kill an enemy Wizard. Giving Rolf the Warrior’s Medallion is already paying dividends.  Just two magic assists is enough to take Hodrick down to 50% HP.  Still, Hodrick fears magic, not Housecarls. And that was a very appreciated cover, since my very heavily weakened Lex would not have survived getting attacked by both of the Housecarls.  Hodrick is the lowest-leveled character in my roster and this is a bad stage for him to try and catch up, which is why I’ll take what I can get with him.  There goes my first Healing Font; it comes in handy in cases just like this, where multiple members of a unit are somewhere between seriously hurt and on death’s door.  Now let’s make a move on the fort.  Aubin’s life flashes before my eyes as it’s his turn to eat a crit assist. Good thing the enemy Wizards were not smart enough to try and target him after the fact. Alain and Aubin tag teamed the Fighter while Clive took out both of the Wizards.  That’s two down the hatch in as many battles. Now it’s time to have Rolf move on, since there’s no more enemies left for him to snipe from the tower.  Fort’s ours, time to deploy Josef to run errands and chase shining spots.  The stage’s biggest pain point and highest density of enemy assists is finally behind me, so I’ll take out the second watchtower before its Wizard unit can fire off a valor skill.  Alain channeling his inner Alm upon a level up.   It is a nice touch that Auch progressively loses his poo poo the more ground we take, even if he throws another two reinforcement units at us for it. And that second reinforcement unit he deployed is in the woods–it won’t matter for this map because said unit will move in my direction anyway, but enemy ground units are invisible while in the woods.  Meanwhile, the first wave of reinforcements from Auch’s camp is about to reach the bridge–and tightly clustered as they are, I’d be remiss to not mercilessly punish that with an Arrow Rain.  That came within an inch of completely eliminating the enemy Wizard unit, and the other two are also significantly weakened. Will still have to worry about the Wizard unit’s assists, even though it has a single survivor, but this wave of enemies will be easy to roll for my three units.  From the first shining spot I get this consumable, which boosts accuracy and visibility–as in, it exposes enemies hiding in woods.    The first onslaught of reinforcements is over with, and I got these level-ups for it. Crossing the bridge and honing in on Auch’s home turf…   Another cluster of enemy reinforcements eats another Arrow Rain. Still, clearing out this wave will take a higher toll on my units since they’re covered by the assist range of the final enemy watchtower.  3/4 Healing Fonts used after an assist skill brought Lex down to 10HP. Might have suffered a unit wipeout with Lex’s crew had I not bought more of them at the end of the last update.  As an aside, this is me learning the hard way to not have Bruno hold down the front line on his own.  He was already weakened a bit by the enemy assist, and being a slow mofo with little evasion, two of the three Soldiers (the first having been blocked by Hodrick) got hits in on him before he could move. Ah well, Soldiers have mediocre physical durability, at least he doesn’t need a full-powered Wide Smash to kill-  Aaaaaaaaand he missed a 69%. Hodrick please kill the straggler.  Thank you. Also did not have “Hodrick actually kills an enemy” on my bingo card for this LP.  Travis kills one Wizard, Chloe takes out another column of two, and Rolf kills the last before Chloe heals Travis to have the unit overall end up with more HP than they started the battle with.   And that’s the last watchtower neutralized. No Auch meltdown over this one, though.  Shining spot number two, between the enemy command post and the last watchtower. Now that we’ve closed in on Auch himself…  Can’t forget to shake him down!  Or blast him and his last reinforcement unit with Arrow Rain before actually engaging.  ow. Even an enemy unit on the down and out can really lay the hurt on a slow unit with a low-defense front line.  Even with the Vitality Talisman to make him an even bigger sack of HP, Bruno is already down to just over 50% of his HP after taking Auch’s assist and two lances to the face, and this is after his Bulk Up healed him for 24HP.  At least this time he finished the job after Lex took out a first enemy Soldier. Still should have just had Hodrick take the reins in the frontline from Lex, though.  And Lex gains a level.  The last shining spot can be easy to overlook. It’s nestled in the woods and is well out of the way. And now that it’s been taken, I’ve no further cause to hold off on beating up Auch and his boys.  it is funny that he’s saying this only now, as one of my units actually engages his in combat, and not before when we blasted him with arrows and jacked all his money  Due to the relatively high enemy density, I’ve been running on incredibly tight stamina economy for this stage. But it all worked out–after all is said and done, my useful units for this map have just enough stamina to take out the boss. Alain’s unit shall engage, while Rolf’s will get some EXP by chipping in with an assist.   Even with Rolf’s assist and valor skills both…   The enemy Soldier up front is just sturdy enough that he needs to be tagged teamed by Alain and Aubin. After Clive takes down the generic Wizard…  It goes without saying that Auch hits a lot harder than his lackeys and would have shaved off over half of Alain’s HP had all three of his Fireball’s hits landed. But Clive has another AP gained through Assaulting Lance, and Auch sure as hell ain’t dodging or surviving a taste of his lance.   Hey, that’s a first for this LP–Alain and Clive have hit C rapport!  That’ll do nicely, Alain.  Well, we can’t say that the boys haven’t earned some R&R.  As loot we get this nifty staff, which comes with a skill that’ll test whether you know how to set conditions.  I sure am loving the 1.2x score multiplier from D rank renown, which pushes my score for this stage to six digits.  Same, of course, with the commensurately larger rewards, though it stings a bit that 110k points and thus the threshold for 11 honors was so close, yet so far.  The Self-Effacing Sorcerer Mk. 2  So this is the first of multiple “try and recruit stage boss OR end them?” prompts the game will throw at us. Some of the stage bosses you can do this with are, like Gammel was, a bit on the dodgier side; others are of a nature where you’ll think to yourself, “wwwwwwwwwhy would I ever want to off this person”. Just so it doesn’t come down to whether you vibe with the stage boss or not, I’ll note the obvious cost for hitting the kill button: while you can recruit a generic mercenary from the stage boss’ class to replace them, said generic will have no rapport conversations–meaning that you will, at the very least, lose out on all the honors you could have gotten for seeing the stage boss’ rapport conversations. I’ll also note that whenever the game presents you with this choice, it will offer some payoff if you do choose to kill–in the same vein as how I’d have gotten 10k gold had you chosen to send Gammel to the slammer. With that, the Wizard Auch: shall Alain show him mercy and try to recruit him, OR put him out of his misery? https://strawpoll.com/poy9W96rpgJ You have 24 hours from the time of this post to vote. Jerry Manderbilt fucked around with this message at 18:46 on May 5, 2024 |
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May 5, 2024 16:30
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Mzbundifund posted:I believe Lex’s unit leader perk only blunts damage received from physical damage assists, it’s Josef who reduces magical ones. you are correct FeyerbrandX posted:every time I see more than one housecarl my brain goes to this: haha that's great
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May 5, 2024 18:45
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/Images/1-xY1STXD.png)
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 lol drat it was almost unanimous, Auch shall get the chance to prove himself
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May 6, 2024 16:41
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bewilderment posted:I don't expect to really see any executions or rejections of recruitment, you're basically asking yeah after two polls like this I'm tempted to just make this a mercy run, and only reopen polls once I gotta bench a few guys again
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May 7, 2024 01:50
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 The Self-Effacing Sorcerer Mk. 3 Thread almost unanimously chose for Auch to live so as of now this is a  playthrough. My thread sure does, buddy.   Positive reinforcement! It works, people! Anyway, had the thread chosen to kill Auch, I would have gotten a Lapis Pendant–an accessory which bestows +1PP onto its wielder. That’s pretty nifty! Except, Auch just so happens to be one of a number of characters who can do things on the overworld. There are certain ruins in Cornia that neither Lex nor Chloe will explore, but which Auch will, and one of the items he can procure from said ruins is… a Lapis Pendant. I can delay gratification on getting one of those.  Five enemies dispatched in the vicinity of the ruins–and we will go no further north, as across the bridge there will be a substantial power spike and the enemies will be out of our league.  +15 renown, so we’re now sitting at 210.   And next up for notifications: we have to go to this location on the overworld to see Alain and Clive’s C-rank rapport conversation. Unfortunately, we can’t actually access it yet since said location still lies well behind enemy lines.  As for the ruins, they contained Hallowed Corne Ash. The shining spot immediately northwest of the ruins yielded a Divine Shard (same with the two along the coast). And since we’re in a woodland area, we can hit up the gathering spots at the trees for Cornut Lumber, in the grass for Corvia Herb, and…  Freshwater for Cornian Trout (and that cave will get me some Iron Ore). We’ve finally got the materials needed for the restoration of Coquillage Town.  The fort we took has generic Wizards for hire, as Travis had surmised before we did this stage. The Wizard units in Auch’s stage weren’t clever to fight; I just had to outspeed them, had support from assists and valor skills when they were guarded by a frontliner, and I was gold. I don’t have that in this sparring match, and this unit had enemy Hoplite in the frontline, so it had to go like this: Josef tanks a few fireballs (and avoids getting burned courtesy of his passive), Auch melts the Hoplite in the frontline, and Bruno jumps in at the end to wipe out the Wizards in the backrow. Now, when we first came to this region, we came by way of a fork in the road; what about the path leading east?   Yeah, let’s… turn back. This area is actually in the vicinity of Gran Corinne and this (level 40 promoted) enemy is guarding one of the paths to the capital. We’ll forget we ever talked to him for now, but we’ll definitely be coming for him someday.  Flames go brrr, +2000 gold  And while I’m at it, I gave Auch the staff we got from the end of his stage since it’s tailor-made for his kit. It bestows a passive which hits one enemy at the end of a battle, or ALL enemies if the target is burning; that latter condition needs a bit of fine-tuning to work, but for now these conditions will let it hit a burning enemy (and thus all enemies) or, in the absence thereof, just activate normally.  This would have been a much cleaner victory had I had Rolf target scouts (and thus KO a Thief first), but enough hits landed that I could get my 2000 gold from this generic at last.  I think I can indulge by getting the Runic Sword; I have more than enough cash on hand to do that and raid Palevia Town’s stores and restock my depleted medicine reserves. Now, we’ve kept the good people of Coquillage Town waiting long enough…    It only feels right to station Rolf here as a guard.  One last 2 grand for the road. We’ll be heading east from here for the next update.  From now on, I’ll be showing the map at the end of updates. Everything that’s entered our line of sight counts as traversed and hey, this map also shows how much ground we’ve clawed back after each stage and how much ground is left to cover before reaching the next main story objective. Units Joined  Auch Starting Class: Wizard LV 7 Growth Type: Precise (+Crit) / Lucky (+Evasion) Equipment slots: 1 Staff, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 21 (D) Phys. ATK - 2 (F) Phys. DEF - 5 (E) Mag. ATK - 17 (A) Mag. DEF - 17 (A) Accuracy - 116 (E) Evasion - 23 (D) Crit. Rate - 5% (F) Guard Rate - 1% (F) Initiative - 10 (E) Auch is our first pure mage, Scarlett notwithstanding. Mages in this game are all some degree of slow and have some degree of high magical defense. Compared to Scarlett and characters from other mage classes, Auch has a decidedly offensive bent. His actives are all going to be offensive and his first passive is a reactive, magical counter against anyone who hits him (though you can tell from his statline that his odds of surviving physical attacks are very slim). His other passives will also tie back to dealing damage in some way. So long as we keep him safely hidden in the backrow, he’ll be doing great damage since most classes are rather wanting in magic defense, and if we time the conditions for his active and weapon-tied passive right, he can have a powerful AoE attack to finish battles off. And before you ask about his growth types: there are no +Mag. ATK or +Mag. DEF growth types to speak of. Fevrith Archive entry: Upon falling to the Liberation in battle, Auch was offered a spot amongst their ranks due to his passion for research–and agreed to join in hopes of earning his late mother’s praise. Born the second son of Cornia’s esteemed House Aubrey–known best as a family of sorcerers–he was trained in the magickal arts from a young age. His father and brother yet live, but his mother died of illness years past.
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May 8, 2024 20:19
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 The Winged Knight Mk. 1      So much for decorum    That enemy level is rather lower than that of the stage we just did. The game… doesn’t expect you to go for Auch before this or the next few stages to follow.     Our groundbound units have no way of reaching that watchtower. Luckily, we have a guest unit with wings.   Our goal is to bear northeast and reach Mandrin.  Anyway, Ochlys is a Feathersword and is classified as a promoted unit, hence having two AP/PP and four equipment slots. She’s supported by a Fighter to block arrows for her and a Soldier who can provide some healing at the end of battles. Her skills are based around self-buffs and…I’d say stall tanking, but since she has 2AP/PP and such an advantage in action economy over the enemies here, she won’t be “tanking”. I’ll send her to the shining spot to the north before having her take out the first enemy watchtower.  Units for this map. Since there’s quite a few enemy Thief units lined up in columns so close to my starting position, I moved Chloe to Alain’s unit so she can fell them in one swoop with True Thrust.  This stage has a bit of (apparent) dead space directly east of our command post that’s got (apparently) nothing but a shining spot. Josef takes Rolf and bolts for the shining spot in the east, but you’ll see why I’m sending those two, specifically, there.  Travis takes Auch and Bruno for his unit.  Now that I’ve reached the enemy, I’m going to be hassled for a while by the first watchtower. Fliers in this game don’t get faster movement speed like cavalry do, but they do ignore terrain and can cross mountains, albeit with a heavy movement penalty.  There’s a consequence for doing things out of sequence: Alain, having reached level 7, is considered overleveled for this stage and his EXP gain has crawled to a standstill accordingly.  Still, another goal of this unit is to help Chloe get some more levels faster.  Shortly after the first Thief unit was dispatched, Josef’s unit picks up a nice 3k from the shining spot. We’ll have him and Rolf hang around here for a bit.  Clive joins the overleveled-for-this-stage club after Alain’s unit takes out the next Thief unit.   It’d be easy to have Alain’s unit take the enemy Soldier trio too, but I’d rather spread the EXP around and not expend his unit’s stamina that fast. But Travis’ unit is missing a je-ne-sais-quoi for this battle.  So Travis’ unit chugs an Empowering Draught…  And now they have the firepower to seal the deal. Though I’d rather have held onto the draughts as long as possible, I’d like to see how this one was fought.  It can very well be the case that +20% attack doesn’t tip the scales because the problem was that someone didn’t land a hit when they needed to, and it almost looked like that was the case here. After Bruno whiffs a hit, we’re all out of AP…   …and Auch’s passive activates at the end of the battle to take out the straggler. “How am I going to active its AoE condition if Auch just kills his target with Fireball?” is a question I was asking myself for a bit.  Speaking of Auch, since Rolf is behind Josef and Josef’s unit is screwing around near the starting point for the time being, I am going to have to burn a valor point to make him the leader of his unit since I want assist skills to play around with.   While Josef and Rolf are heading back their way, Ochlys grabs this from the first shining spot. As for her target…  Without anything to augment her movement speed, she was not going to make it to the first watchtower before the Hunter unit could blast her with Arrow Rain.  Ochlys is alive, but I’d best use a Healing Font on her unit.  Meanwhile, Alain reaches the first fort, with Auch chipping in with an assist.     Auch’s assist provided the critical mass for Alain to beat one of the frontline Fighters with a crit and for Clive to dispatch the other…  …while Chloe ices the win by killing the Hunter.  And so the unit ended this battle with more HP than they had going in.  And that’s why I had Josef and Rolf hanging around: these two thieves will use Plunder on the first of our units they can get their hands on. The thieves will try to flee the map once they’ve jacked our gold, and Josef as unit leader can reach them quickly so that Rolf can dispatch them.  Lex CAN do that with his valor skill, Provoke, but otoh he’s not even deployed and even if he was, his unit isn’t exactly spec’d to take them out.  This one, however, very much is.  Now that Ochlys has finally reached her target, let’s see her in action.  More evasion is nice, even if it won’t help against Truestrike. Luckily for Ochlys…   Her unit has a Fighter to no-sell one arrow for her, and since she got targeted, her passive activates to buff her even further all the same. The Fighter then takes out the Hunter to win the battle.   Meanwhile on the southern front: gently caress you, give us back our gold.  Just as Auch’s unit reached the second watchtower, I realized that this unit had neither Lex nor Hodrick in it. Much to my horror after Travis killed one of the Hunters…  That happened. poo poo.  I’d have also lost Auch had the last Hunter thought to target him, but luckily for me, he went for Bruno instead??  That quote sure sounds appropriate here now that he’s back at full HP. And since Bruno’s back at full HP…    Auch does just enough damage with his end-of-battle passive to knock the last Hunter out.  Praise well-earned. And as inadvertently demonstrated from this battle, KO’d characters gain halved EXP.  Anyway, that was embarrassing! Let’s revive Travis and get him back to full HP.  I still have Aubin’s unit left to deploy, and you know what I can do since there’s an enemy unit at the fringe of my deployment range?  Deploy my last unit at a spot where they can immediately engage, of course. AND win.  drat, Aubin has a  af victory roar when he’s unit leader.  ow. Three assists from Mandrin himself, a reinforcement Hunter unit, and the watchtower is rude as hell.  Now that’s more like it. Still, it’ll be a bit of a bottleneck as we punch through this high concentration of enemy assists.  Now that Josef and Rolf have finished their duties in the south of the map, I have them withdraw at the command post…  …so I can redeploy them from the fort for a piece of the action at the end.  Ochlys reaching the last shining spot is my cue to put the screws on Mandrin. Let’s set that up now.  Aubin’s unit will kill the Hunter unit at the last watchtower so that Auch can take it over. Travis will then steal 933 gold from Mandrin’s unit.   Rolf will then soften Mandrin up, while Alain uses Valorous Order to give Aubin’s unit First Strike and a buff to attack and defense.  Lastly, after my assist skill users are in position, I have Aubin chug a Liquid Fortune.   After the two assists almost completely decimated Mandrin’s unit, Aubin poked the frontline Soldier to death while Lex and Hodrick tag teamed Mandrin to seal the win.   The boost to EXP gain from Liquid Fortune is delicious.  So much that this is the first time I’ve seen someone gain two levels after one battle all LP long.    When a unit that has accelerated EXP gain wins a battle, units who chipped in with assist skills will also get a commensurate boost to EXP gained afterward.  And that’s Mandrin’s bow, though we precluded him from actually getting to use it this map.    The Winged Knight Mk. 2 Ochlys has resting bitchface, but drat if she doesn’t look like she’s going  to Mandrin’s plea.  I’ll just come out and say that if you let Gammel go, you might as well do the same for Mandrin.  Look it’s a mercy run now. With that, it’s time for Mandrin to gently caress off so we can finish our objective here: to rescue the friend of Ochlys that the Black Talons were holding captive.    There is really no reason to turn down Sharon. I’d get a staff if I did, but Ochlys said it–Sharon’s a dedicated healer and I don’t have one of those yet, and I’ll lose out on much more than Sharon herself if I say no.  +4 honors from the dispatched roaming enemies in the area, and an additional +15 renown for doing the quest. We’re less than 200 away from the threshold for C renown now.      Anyway, now that that last bit of cutscene is over with, we can do things on the overworld. Ochlys wants a word.   Hell yeah, because…  Ochlys also gives us 3 each of Dews of Strength and Dews of Protection. Now that we have a fair few statboosters, I should note that any unit can use statboosters up to 5 stat for the stat being boosted. That means if I’ve given, say, Travis 5 Dews of Strength, I can give him a Dew of Protection to boost his physical defense, but the game will block me from giving him any further Dews of Strength.   With that, Ochlys (or once she’s joined us, other angels) will hook us up with some good poo poo, and will do so for us at any church on the overworld. This is her immediate inventory–Hallowed Corne Ash, a few statboosters, Templar weapons, and a few Lapis Pendants…  …and eventually, we can buy endgame-tier equipment, the +all stats statsbooster, and Fevrite, the last of whose use case won’t come into play until lategame.  I start by buying a Lapis Pendant–the thing I’d have gotten had I decided to off Auch–for 10 divine shards. Ochlys will expand her inventory with this and she’ll want me to buy 30 divine shards’ worth of wares before she joins my party. On that note, had I chosen to let Ochlys kill Mandrin, I’d have been rewarded with 15 divine shards; by letting Mandrin go, I’ve effectively doubled the requirement for Ochlys’ recruitment. Still, I can more than make do without her for the time being, even if she did make a good showing during her one battle, and I’ll get my 30 divine shards and then some just by organically interacting with the overworld. And whenever I do get Ochlys, her level, skills and stats will scale to my party’s current strength, so there’s no downside at all to keeping her waiting. Ochlys’ future recruitment is also tied to her very good friend Sharon; if you turn Sharon down, then Ochlys won’t join you. Now, as for Sharon…  Yet another reason to let her join: she does something on the overworld.   Each country on Fevrith has five cemeteries to visit, with rewards from Sharon once she’s done her thing at all five in Cornia, and then in Drakenhold, and then in etc. etc.   Alain and Sharon also gain 10 rapport for each cemetery visited.  I give Sharon a staff with a higher magic attack stat because her healing will scale off her magic attack stat, but… holy lol, of all the things for a healer to come with. I’ll be passing this accessory along to Travis because Sharon shouldn’t be getting attacked under any circumstances anyway, but won’t rule out giving Sharon +critical accessories anyway because heals can crit and a healer who keeps firing off critical heals would be funny.  We’ve been dancing around that burg directly north of Rondmort Church, but will finally get to it next update. Units Joined  Sharon Starting Class: Cleric LV 4 Growth Type: Lucky (+Evasion) / Guardian (+Guard Rate) Equipment slots: 1 Staff, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 23 (D) Phys. ATK - 4 (F) Phys. DEF - 6 (E) Mag. ATK - 10 (C) Mag. DEF - 18 (S) Accuracy - 122 (C) Evasion - 33 (B) Crit. Rate - 2% (F) Guard Rate - 6% (F) Initiative - 8 (E) Finally, a dedicated healer! There isn’t much to be said about Sharon since it’s obvious what she does. Just bearing in mind that since she has absolutely no offensive capabilities, I’ll have to be careful what unit I stick her in. Given the unit sizes I have available, she could genuinely tank my firepower. I’ll also, absolutely, have to revise her tactics so that she doesn’t waste her Quick Heal passive healing scratches and can target her active Heal for whoever’s sustained the most damage. Sharon also can use assist skills, although hers heals. That…would have been a nice source of mitigation against enemy assists in this past stage, as well as in Auch’s. Fevrith Archive entry: A cleric of the Palevian Orthodoxy and nurse at Rondmort Church, she was taken hostage when the Black Talons attacked. She is devout and amiable, which endears her to humans and angels alike–her friend Ochlys most of all. Freed from captivity when the Black Talons were beaten, she realized that a life of prayer would not rid the world of conflict and asked to join the Liberation’s ranks as a healer.   The lore that’s hidden away in the Fevrith Archive that goes unmentioned in conversation. Josef sure has some way of gathering information for this archive.
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May 11, 2024 23:35
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Cattail Prophet posted:Very Good Friends, indeed. Oh yeah definitely; and hell, I'll note that everything after the first stage on the mainland so far has been technically optional, since it's possible to stealth your way to Miriam's position on the overworld and rendezvous with her to trigger the rescue Scarlett mission. Incidentally, I recorded up to the point where I ran out of deployment slots, and the point I got my 30 shards was... literally right after rescuing Scarlett.
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May 12, 2024 17:28
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Greenking77 posted:The Gays have arrived. I can say that Bruno will eventually have a pair of glasses.
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May 13, 2024 20:41
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CzarChasm posted:So if I have been following this correctly, we could kill off all the named enemies who have not joined outright, denied the archer, turned away this helpful healer, and in turn, be refused from getting a (specific) angel from joining our team? But we could eventually hire all these specialized classes with generic counterparts instead? You're correct (although Rolf will join you at the end of his stage if you didn't talk to him during), and you are correct; forts with generics from their respective classes tend to be made available as soon as you complete their stages. It'd also cost you a lot more honors, since that's the currency you use to hire mercenaries, and even though honors are a common reward for turning down/executing certain characters, you also lose out on a lot of honors by not being able to access their rapport conversations. And yeah there's definitely someone out there doing an all-mercenaries and/or executioner run, and someone who tried doing the final map on the hardest difficulty without rescuing Scarlett first (yes it's possible, no do not post about it itt), which looked absolutely miserable.
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May 14, 2024 02:04
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 The Battle for Barbatimo Mk. 1     And this is our first liberation quest! That cutscene would make a lot more sense if, after having finished the first stage upon making landfall, you kept going east until Hodrick warned you about how this is Mordon’s turf and you’re not ready to take him on yet. But by now, we have more than enough characters and tools at our hand to win this thing.    We will be doing no such thing  The game alerts you to the Return to Overworld option if you find out you’ve bitten off more than you can chew at this point. Anyway, we’re charging the gates from the south, though you can tell that the stage is literally just the walled city and its very immediate environs.  Units for this… well, liberation quest stages are almost all very small and it’s very unlikely you’ll get to deploy more than like 3 units. So it’s go time for Alain, Rolf and Sharon’s units.  The Hoplite units aren’t just blocking the way to the nonoperational gates, but they’re also garrisoned in Mantlets. It’ll be rude while I’m trying to break through them, but I’ll get to enjoy a bit of using them before this stage is over with.  Rolf’s unit will be taking out the enemy Housecarl units while Alain’s goes for the Hoplites.   The Runic Sword sure was a good investment.  And that was a one-shot! Still, this battle wasn’t over in one go because Clive failed to OHKO the Soldier in the frontline, Auch finished her off, and then Auch’s end-of-battle passive only hit the enemy Hunter for 3HKO-range damage.  That end-of-battle heal was strictly unnecessary but hey, it’s a nice way for Sharon’s unit to scrounge out a bit of EXP and I can be generous with their assist skill usage.  And much like when you try to attack enemy garrisons, you get knocked back if you attack an enemy Mantlet and fail to completely eliminate the unit. But since that unit only has a weakened Hunter left in it, Travis’ unit can clean him up.  After Travis’ unit kills the second enemy Housecarl unit, there’s nothing stopping me from entering the city.  With that, the two enemy Hoplite units abandon their Mantlets and move to intercept our units.    Just to make a point of it, here’s a battle forecast showing an outcome of One Very Obviously Dead Hodrick. Mordon’s active skill completely ignores the physical defense stat of armored targets, and his passive grants him Guard Seal when he attacks–meaning that even if Hodrick somehow survived getting whacked, he’d be unable to guard and would probably be easy pickings for the next enemy in line.  Having Auch target the enemy with the highest resistance to his attacks? You might think this is a galaxy brain condition, but now that Alain’s unit has been intercepted by an enemy Hoplite unit–the Hoplite himself Alain will OHKO anyway–let’s switch things up.  Let’s see how this goes, knowing Sharon’s unit won’t consume any stamina because they’re garrisoned at a Mantlet. It starts the same as the first engagement in this stage: Alain OHKOs Hoplite, Clive fails to OHKO Soldier…  And Auch targets the Hunter, who survives and is burned. This fulfills the condition for…  …well, Fire Burst would have done a clean sweep had it hit the Hunter. But Travis’ unit can finish him off no problem. (And steal 688 gold from Mordon’s unit since he’s in range.)  Alain’s unit attacks Mordon’s to stop him from summoning reinforcements.  After Alain one-shots the Hoplite in the front with Magick Attack…  Clive lands a critical on Mordon. Now it’s Mordon’s turn.  There’s something about the male Warrior’s running animation I find amusing, and the Warrior active is literally . I like that. Auch’s Fireball missing one of his three hits, funnily enough, left Mordon with just enough HP for Fire Burst’s AoE to activate.   After this point, it’s a formality: Alain’s unit one-rounds the Hoplite unit to Mordon’s right, Rolf’s cleans up the one to his left, and then Alain finishes off Mordon’s unit with Rolf providing an assist for EXP.  Can’t forget to swap out the Runic Sword for the Recruit’s Shortsword so that Alain can get boosted EXP though.   One last level up and loot for the road.   It is what it is with a small stage like this, but the rewards really feel like a pittance compared to those of the side quests we’ve been doing.  The Battle for Barbatimo Mk. 2 No really, there’s something amusing about this running animation.     Mordon made a not so great first impression, but… you know what, it sounds like he’s a beloved local fixture here. And his class is great and I can’t turn down another option to deal with enemy armors.   Well hey, the way he put it, we know he means it.  +10 renown, and no roaming enemies dispatched.  aaaaand we’ll be getting to Mordon’s handiwork later this update. Can you imagine how this poor girl’s heart would have been broken had we opted to execute Mordon? Is 30 honors worth that?  Anyway, we’ll get back to the Walled City of Barbatimo in a bit. First, let’s push a bit further east into enemy territory.  Generic Fighter-kun then issues a challenge, and…  Another liberation quest!  Barbatimo had cutscenes, a recruitable stage boss and something resembling event sequencing. Most liberation quests…do not. They’ll have no dialogue, small stages like Barbatimo, tight time and deployment limits, a generic boss, and consist of nothing but a straight shot to generic boss. Given how little content your baseline liberation quest has, I’ll be rolling them into other updates–like I’m doing with this one–unless we come across the rare exception to the rule. And hell, since the Battle for Paradis is so short, might as well link.  For Paradis, beware of this Thief unit–he’ll use Plunder on you and then high tail for the southwest.  So I start by killing them dead with Arrow Rain and then having Clive bolt back to the command post to withdraw, giving me a valor point to deploy Alain backed up by Clive and Chloe.  Clive gets a level-up as the unit rolls the enemy Hunter unit at the watchtower, giving me the valor to redeploy Rolf’s unit again. I’d say watch out for Arrow Rain, but the watchtower is so close to your command post that you should be able to reach it before you get hit.  The other thing to watch out for here is the enemy Knight unit. It WILL use Wild Rush, which will straight up KO squishier characters.  And as happens with Wild Rush, it chains right into a battle. While Chloe was maimed, she ultimately still lived to fight.  After Chloe snipes the column, Clive guns for the surviving Knight and… as it turns out, Knights are actually pretty bad at going after each other. You can see here that their passive auto-guards against one hit, meaning that unless they have low single-digit HP, they will survive Assaulting Lance and thus that said skill won’t be chaining into an end-of-battle sweep.  A singular Knight vulnerable to first strike is easy to clean up and once he goes down, all that’s left is the boss; it takes two rounds to take his unit down. With this formation, Alain having the Runic Sword and no conditions on Clive’s Assaulting Lance, round one ends with the Knight in the back getting KO’d by a Chloe crit and the frontline both being reduced to 10HP each. Alain then reequips the Recruit’s Shortsword for the coup de grace.   The boss is so generic he has no quote for when he’s defeated; he just utters the standard death grunt when he goes down.    +10 renown and 5 honors from dispatched roaming enemies.  Foraging and exploring Fort Paradis’ environs: further south is a town that’s part of a very large side quest stage, to the north is a path to the capital guarded by an enemy from the class Mordon promotes into, and on the other side of the river… we won’t be able to go there until late/endgame, but we’ll cross paths with that green character before long. Going back to the broken bridge east of Ouvrir Harbor and Fort Thessalon…   We do not have anywhere close to 30 Corsite and will have to put this one on the burner. Bridges on the overworld all require 30 of whatever their national stone is to be repaired, and even aside from quest rewards and renown, they offer access to somewhere nice for your trouble and some rapport for Alain and Mordon (or a to-be-introduced female Warrior if you don’t have him). this bridge will grant an entry point to the final stage, which is not where we want to be right now. Now, let’s go back to Barbatimo. It’s special compared to the other locales we’ve liberated.  The armory here is much better-stocked than in towns and villages and has quite a few rare offerings. The Azure Crest Shield grants an additional PP to whoever equips it, the Dove Plume increases Initiative by 10, and there’s the first tier of accuracy, evasion, guard rate and critical hit-boosting accessories, all of which raise their respective stats by 20 each. (I bought the Dove Plume, two Blue Spectacles, and the Pursuant’s Bracelet, which grants Pursuit to its equipper.)  The provisioner also has an expanded inventory with plenty of goodies.  Now, walled cities have three stars and thus, when they need to be restored, three sets of delivery requests. The first set of deliveries will allow you access to the tavern, and the third will allow you to station a guard.   And that’s 3 for 3. Let’s station Mordon here as a guard since he’s a local hero of sorts.  You can also do anything at a walled city you could at a fort. Like making a fifth 3-man unit.  The moment the tavern opens, a generic Gladiator right outside the city gates has a quest for us pertaining thereto.  In the tavern, you pick one of three meals with variable levels of rapport gain and participants. You can have any combination of characters partaking.  I have one free meal ticket, which I will use for the childhood friend trio. They’ll all gain 70 rapport with each other for this.  Wanna hear what the Liberation sounds like when chowing down? Well look no further.  And with that, Alain and Lex both hit C rapport with Chloe.  And with that, my reward for this quest is 3 more meal tickets to grind more rapport (and thus honors) free of charge! And since I can easily grind rapport now, most updates that don’t have a Part 1 tacked after them will finish with quite a few of those from now on. Now that we have rapport conversations we can actually access: I’ll transcribe them all and also link a video to ALL rapports viewed at the end of each update with timestamps for each. Rapport conversations are not voice-acted, but they are quite a bit more animated than 3DS-era FE support conversations and make use of the overworld and overworld spriting. With that, here are all the rapport conversations this update Alain/Mordon C - near Fort Paradis     And there it is; I’ll be swimming in honors by the time I’m through with all this. Clive/Josef C (3:14) - near Fort Paradis   Hodrick/Josef C (6:04) - Thulust Harbor   Alain/Travis C (7:58) - Thulust Harbor   By the way, you have an easy way of grinding rapport for Alain: giving gifts to characters stationed as guards on the overworld. Case with point in Travis, whom Alain gifted the Palevian Scriptures we got as a reward from the Battle for Paradis:   Base +60 rapport x2 because Travis likes books > +120 rapport and instant C rank. Travis/Josef C (10:33) - Fort Mainteneaut     Not a rapport, but more goodies well-hidden on the overworld. This one gives a small Camping Set, which restores some stamina and HP to all units in range when used. Chloe/Travis C (12:53) - Tent south of Thulust   Lex/Josef C (15:21) - Palevia Harbor   …and that’s it with the map sprites’ sparring.    Lex/Clive C (18:33) - Western Palevia    Chloe/Josef C (20:56) - Fort Rimitz  (this is not a misnomer, characters can and often do make guest appearances in other pairs’ rapport conversations)    Alain/Lex C (24:30) - Fort Soligie      And now that that’s all out of the way: our current holdings. We will be going back to the starting point of Ochlys’ stage and take the path heading to that fort to the east/southeast for the next update. Units Joined  Mordon Starting Class: Warrior LV 6 Growth Type: Offensive (+Phys. ATK) / Offensive (yes, they can stack) Equipment slots: 1 Axe, 2 Accessories Base stats AP - 1 / PP - 1 HP - 34 (C) Phys. ATK - 22 (S) Phys. DEF - 8 (B) Mag. ATK - 8 (F) Mag. DEF - 10 (C) Accuracy - 115 (D) Evasion - 20 (D) Crit. Rate - 2% (F) Guard Rate - 11% (C) Initiative - 16 (C) Of all the axe infantry classes in the game, I think I like the Warrior line the best. This early on, Mordon has an immediately obvious and obviously useful niche in blowing up enemy armors (and being significantly faster than all my mages in doing so!) and even in the absence thereof, crippling enemy defenses with a nice, hearty and a Guard Seal affliction. At level 10 he basically gets the Knight class’ active but even better–as in, it’s unguardable and gives +1AP if it kills. My biggest knocks against him are that his accuracy sucks–which can be remedied now that I can buy accuracy-boosting accessories, and his primary targets have approximately zero evasion anyway–and that he’s got poor evasion and not great durability, which aren’t problems so long as he stays in the back row. When that’s the worst I can say, you know he and his class have it good. His class also has a very handy valor skill which will be demonstrated in the next update.Fevrith Archive entry: Captain of the Iron Helm Mercenaries, who were hired by Zenoira to watch over the Walled City of Barbatimo due to its rich deposits of iron ore. Under his rule, the city has repelled any and all potential assailants. After his defeat, he fully expected to be put to the sword, but was spared after a local girl told Alain about what he’s done for their city. He then agreed to join the Liberation’s ranks.
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May 15, 2024 20:38
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 05:38 |
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Cattail Prophet posted:
That is correct! He comes with a Warhammer, which gives +5HP and +10% guard rate. quote:(or a to-be-introduced female Warrior if you don’t have him) And hell, this girl will also come with a hammer.
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May 16, 2024 02:22
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Warriors also have semi-exclusive access to the hammer subtype of weapons! It's not super important, but there are some nice ones to have around. Mordon starts with one that boosts his guard rate, iirc?