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Walhart's FE10 0% Growths LTC Boss Run!


darkkfan
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The sequel to Walhart FE9 has finally arrived! Sorry for the delay, I ran into a few technical difficulties but I think I've got everything straightened away now (not to mention I've been away for the past two weeks so that delayed things).

As decided by this poll, I will be playing on normal mode. This means I will be focusing on LTC whenever possible. I am not an LTC professional and I am using boss units (so no healers or Jeigans) so my turn counts might be a bit higher than you are used to seeing especially for the first few chapters. Feel free to post and give your opinions on how I can shave off turns if you want!

Again, I will post videos of screen recorded runs of each chapter. As with the first one, there will be no voice commentary. I will add some text below each video that encapsulates my thoughts on each chapter. I will also update the characters section after each chapter to record my thoughts on each character. This one will be more strategic than jocose since although I doubt anyone else will do anything similar, I do want to highlight strategy. I will try to make it entertaining, but it will be more serious than the last run (no cheesy chapter titles for example). The general chapter writeup format shall be similar to the last run.

Credits to ShadowofChaos and VincentASM (for RAM and ROM hacking help respectively) for making this run possible!

The Rules:
- Normal Mode
- All units have 0% growths in all categories (units that attack using the STR stat have 100% MAG growth and vice versa)
- NO UNITS THAT ARE NORMALLY PLAYER CONTROLLED CAN ATTACK OR BE ATTACKED
- Units that are not recruited bosses cannot trade, shove, pick up treasure, open chests/doors, etc.
- Micaiah/Elincia/Ike is forced on all chapters but cannot fight or be attacked
- All player characters must be killed off or benched when possible
- Occasionally, extra characters will appear on the bench as a result of the hacks, these characters cannot fight, be deployed, or trade their weapons
- Weapons held by units that are normally player controlled cannot be used (exception for the first few chapters)

- Skills held by units that are normally player controlled cannot be removed
- This LP starts at chapter 1, due to not having any units in the prologue whose use complies with these rules'
- Nolan is, in effect, Pugo. His bases have been changed to be identical to Pugo's. Nolan/Pugo can only be promoted via master seal, and only after reaching level 14.
- None of the recruits can die
- If I cannot fill all of the deployment slots without deploying a character that does not meet all of these rules, the slot must be left empty
- BEXP is NOT allowed
- Save states are allowed in extreme circumstances, but I will not abuse them when they are not necessary
- non-boss-recruits cannot be used to block spaces or anything of the sort
- ally and neutral units are free to let fight/die
- As usual, I won't be playing for reliability since I am the only person doing this exact run, but I will try to minimize resets and save states. Occasionally, you may see rigged RNs. I try to refrain from doing this and I will always point it out when I rig an RN.
- units will be carried over between parts
- each boss will join my party the chapter after they appear in the game
- RECRUITABLE BOSSES DO NOT NEED TO BE KILLED! THEY WILL BE MOVED OUT OF RANGE ACCORDINGLY!
- Escape and "X Arrives" chapters become Arrive chapters
- BOSSES WILL ONLY BE KILLED TO SATISFY DEFEAT BOSS OBJECTIVES! THE BOSS MUST BE KILLED IN A DEFEAT BOSS CHAPTER, BUT HE WILL ALSO BE RECRUITED!

Enjoy!

Characters

Here is the list of "Recruitable Bosses" and their stats:

ScreenShot2013-08-15at123802AM_zpsbff121

Pugo


RFEE01-4_zps07f3e584.png

Base Weapon Ranks: C Axes

Thoughts:

Nolan has been turned into Pugo. He has identical bases and weapon ranks due to my hacking. I tried to change the portrait to Pugo but that didn't work. I was also too lazy to switch the level and biorhythm but whatever. For all intents and purposes Nolan is now Pugo. From now on I will refer to him as Pugo.

Pugo has pretty good stats for my first unit. His AS struggles with the weighty steel axe, but that isn't an issue in this chapter since enemy AS is so low here. Pugo doesn't double anything, but nothing doubles him either until late chapter 2/early chapter 3, and that is fixed by unequipping him and later buying him iron.

Pugo was useful for his hand axe and occasional steel axe hit when high strength was necessary to finish someone off. However, at 10 AS he will soon be doubled and ORKO'd by most enemies (he already is ORKO'd with 6 AS from the steel axe), so his usefulness is limited.



Isaiya

RFEE01-2_zps0b238f4e.png

Base Weapon Ranks: C Swords

Thoughts:

He is honestly not that great due to his low strength, but like Pugo he is 3HKO'd for the most part and, unlike Pugo, his ability to dodge fighters makes him useful. His 14 AS means that he'll be choosing between hitting twice with an iron sword or once with a steel sword most of the time.

Isaiya has been my worst unit so far. With no ranged option, he is restricted to doing low damage iron sword attacks. At 14 AS he won't be doubled for a while, but switching to steel cuts down his AS significantly. Not to mention his terrible durability means that Isaiya is barely surviving one hit from strong units like Tigers.



Zaitan

RFEE01-3_zps1a9a5ffe.png

Base Weapon Ranks: B Lances

Thoughts:

Finally, a competent melee fighter! Zaitan is like 5-6HKO'd and has a ranged option with the javelin! Plus B lances to boot (not like he'll ever get the chance to use B lances though). Zaitan has great defense and durability as well as decent strength. His speed isn't terrible since he doesn't have AS loss issues, but he won't be doubling anything ever.

Zaitan was extremely important in Chapter 4. With his high defense he could take 3 hits from a Tiger. In the future, I guess that he will be a solid rearguard for my weaker units, but I doubt he'll be contributing much to boss/escape rushes and the such.



Burton

RFEE01-1_zps4cc500f0.pngScreenShot2013-08-19at100807PM_zps07054b

Base Weapon Ranks: D Swords

Thoughts:

He is the first person I get that is fit for LTC'ing. I mean, mounted movement, best stats so far (and balanced stats nonetheless), not to mention the wind edge. He will definitely get the ch4 master seal and maybe even the discipline scroll (although maybe not since I probably won't be needing above D-C rank in swords for a while, not to mention the fact that Paladins are only one weapon type in this game).

Burton is my first promotion so far. He became a Blade Paladin. The promotion gains weren't spectacular, but it gives him some extra skill room for Discipline or Beastfoe not to mention extra movement that will definitely come in handy. He is a built LTC unit as a Paladin that should contribute to earlygame boss/arrive rushes, along with Pain and Agony.



Chapter 1:

First off, Nolan. Nolan has been turned into Pugo. He has identical bases and weapon ranks due to my hacking. I tried to change the portrait to Pugo but that didn't work. I was also too lazy to switch the level and biorhythm but whatever. For all intents and purposes Nolan is now Pugo. From now on I will refer to him as Pugo.

This chapter will be a Pugo solo. It will be an 8 turn clear. I could have wasted an extra turn to grab the hand axe, which might have possibly saved a turn in chapter 3 (I doubt it though). It mainly consists of using vulneraries and letting Pugo kill everything with his steel axe. Nothing earth shattering, I know, but that's why it's only 2-3 minutes long (unlike my previous videos which averaged 8-12 minutes).

No shenanigans here with the RNG. I'll always tell you when I rig the RNG or edit to make it look like i did so. Usually you can tell, if something looks weird it's probably because I rigged a hit/miss/crit. You can thank SoC for teaching me about RAM Hacking the battle animations.

I''l try to avoid rigging the RNG. Usually when I do it it's either because I got really unlucky (an example is that one hit near the end of chapter 3), or it would be impossible or add an extra 10+ turns if I didn't (pretty much all of chapter 2).

So yeah, the format for these write-ups is gonna be similar to the last run. Begin with weird side effects of hacking, then talk about strategy, followed by RNG shenanigans and finally with a brief character evaluation and a look at the next chapter. If you want more in-depth character thoughts look at the characters section, which should be fairly substantial, if not as content-heavy as last time.

Pugo has pretty good stats for my first unit. His AS struggles with the weighty steel axe, but that isn't an issue in this chapter since enemy AS is so low here. Pugo doesn't double anything, but nothing doubles him either.

Next chapter I get Isaiya. He is honestly not that great due to his low strength, but like Pugo he is 3HKO'd for the most part and, unlike Pugo, his ability to dodge fighters makes him useful. His 14 AS means that he'll be choosing between hitting twice with an iron sword or once with a steel sword most of the time.

Next chapter is extremely difficult. I could have taken it slow, which would have added at least 6 more turns on to the turn count. Instead, I decided on a 4 turn clear, which involved a full turn worth of impractical RNG rolls and misses.

Chapter 1 Completed:
Turns: 8
MVP: Pugo
Total Turns: 8

Youtube Link (2:41):

Chapter 2:

This chapter is a handful considering I only had Pugo and Isaiya. It probably would have taken 15+ turns and a shitload of vulneraries to do it legitimately, so I just rigged a few (ok, a lot more than a few) misses and one crit in order to get it done in 4 turns.

I send Pugo and Isaiya up the ledge, they make short work of the fighter and book it towards the escape. As per my rules this is a regular arrive chapter (that is, it is over once anyone escapes). On the second turn, they end near the foot of the stairs.

Turn three is where it really starts to get hand-wavy. I move Isaiya towards the throne and have unequipped Pugo shove him. On EP, Isaiya gets attacked 4 times and has to dodge twice (on extremely high hit rates) as well as crit one of 2 melee hits. Pugo can take 1 maybe 2 hits but gets attacked 3 times.

Well, I didn't feel like turning backwards and I wasn't gonna get sandwiched in the northwest room, so this'll have to do. I really don't like doing this (and I realize it isn't proper LTC convention), so I promise I won't be doing much (if any) more of this chicanery. Usually, if I do do something like this, I'll create 2 endings (see chapter 27 of my fe9 run).

This chapter it was mostly all Isaiya. Both of my units were 3HKO'd, but Isaiya had a better chance of dodging and critting. Plus, one particular soldier could double steel axe Pugo, hence why he is unequipped.

Next chapter I get Zaitan. Finally, a competent melee fighter! Zaitan is like 5-6HKO'd and has a ranged option with the javelin! Zaitan has great defense and durability as well as decent strength. His speed isn't terrible since he doesn't have AS loss issues, but he won't be doubling anything ever.

Next chapter should be fairly straightforward. I plug up the west side of the map with Kurth and blitz the east side.

Chapter 2 Completed:
Turns: 4
MVP: Isaiya
Total Turns: 12

Youtube Link (1:41):

Chapter 3:

Now this is a real chapter! It is my longest yet at 9 turns, hence the longest video, and it is pretty linear with the strategy I use, although there are a few subtleties.

I based this off of dondon's 0% growths hard mode strategy. I placed Kurth in the chokepoint, however in my game I was lucky enough not to have to worry about losing Aimee since she fled to the right of Kurth where she was safe.

The rest of the chapter was a charge up the right side of the map. I killed the fighter for the chest key and then had Zaitan choke the gate.

At the point where I open the gate, Zaitan's javelin comes in handy in countering the archers (this is the reason Zaitan gets MVP). I rush everyone in and kill the myrm and archer. Unfortunately, since Zaitan could not move far enough in the grass on the next player phase, I was forced to waste an extra turn on the archer and fighter.

As per the rules, Burton is moved away from combat so he doesn't get in my way, enabling him to be recruited.

Finally, Zaitan engages the armor sword. He unfortunately isn't heavy enough to shove him, so Zaitan moves to where he can counter both the armor and archer.

This is where the first and only RNG rig in this chapter's video occurs. It is completely justified IMO, unlike the last chapters'. In a vitally important counterattack, Zaitan missed the archer with an ~80% chance to hit. This would have lost me another turn so I rigged it. (Edit: There is actually another rig earlier-- one that is also justified-- when Isaiya goes to kill the fighter near the chokepoint close to the armor and gets hit with a 35% hit chance).

Like I said, I have no problem with this sort of rigging when I get RNG screwed (yes, it is possible to get RNG screwed even with 0% growths). So, if you want to get on my case for RNG rigging, do it for the disaster that was chapter 2, not for this chapter.

Anyway, Pugo kills the armor on turn 9 player phase, Zaitan kills the archer, and Isaiya escapes, signaling the chapter's end.

Next chapter I get Burton. He is the first person I get that is fit for LTC'ing. I mean, mounted movement, best stats so far (and balanced stats nonetheless), not to mention the wind edge. He will definitely get the ch4 master seal and maybe even the discipline scroll (although maybe not since I probably won't be needing above D-C rank in swords for a while not to mention the fact that Paladins are only one weapon type in this game). We'll see.

Next chapter should be pretty hard since I have to rout everyone, pick up the master seal (beast foe and seraph robe would also be nice) and the laguz have killer stats (and I have no healing save a few vulneraries and herbs). I've never really understood how to LTC a rout chapter. Well, I guess I'll have to learn!

Chapter 3 Completed:
Turns: 9
MVP: Zaitan
Total Turns: 21

Youtube Link (4:56):

Chapter 4:

This is another good chapter, perhaps even better than chapter 3. I pull off an 8 turn clear with minimal rigging, and get both the master seal and beast foe. As usual, the defeat objective here becomes "kill everyone not named Pain or Agony".

I initially attempted to send Burton left and everyone else right, but I got to turn 10 before I realized it would have been more efficient to reverse those roles. So, Burton goes right and grabs the master seal before promoting, and then fights along the northern corridor to clean up the enemies there. With his forged might iron sword, he is able to ORKO untransformed laguz and 2-3HKO most transformed ones.

Zaitan, Pugo, and Isaiya go a bit to the right initially and end up finding a good chokepoint to the left where they can turtle for a turn to take care of the residual Tigers. They then go north to claim the Beastfoe and lure individual Tigers for a quicker clear.

Around 3:37 the video looks a bit weird as far as the arrangement. Isaiya teleports between turns and it looks a bit sketchy. In reality, this was done to prevent the enemy AI from attacking Micaiah (since there was nowhere for her to hide), and it does not affect anything in terms of HP or damage taken. You will occasionally see little discrepancies like this, like people gaining an extra sliver of HP or bosses warping around or whatever. I always make sure that none of it has any bearing on the actual fighting or strategy. Most of this stuff is done for ease of editing/recruitment/protecting irrelevant characters and occasionally for RNG rigging.

Although there are quite a few suspicious misses and crits in here, I assure you that the only rigged one is at 3:37. No other hits misses, and no crits at all, were rigged in this video. I did rig the master seal pickup (the beastfoe one was natural), though, as it was a pretty necessary and completely random event.

Burton is my first promotion so far. He became a Blade Paladin. The promotion gains weren't spectacular, but it gives him some extra skill room for Discipline or Beastfoe not to mention extra movement that will definitely come in handy.

Zaitan was extremely important for the secondary group. With his high defense he could take 3 hits from a Tiger. Pugo was useful for his hand axe and occasional steel axe hit when high strength was necessary to finish someone off. However, at 10 AS he will soon be doubled and ORKO'd by most enemies (he already is ORKO'd with 6 AS from the steel axe), so his usefulness is limited. Isaiya has been my worst unit so far. With no ranged option, he is restricted to doing low damage iron sword attacks. At 14 AS he won't be doubled for a while, but switching to steel cuts down his AS significantly. Not to mention his terrible durability means that Isaiya is barely surviving one hit from strong units like Tigers.

At the end of this chapter I get Pain and Agony. These two characters should be great for LTC'ing with their high stats and move. Along with Paladin Burton, they will be doing most of my fighting. It's a shame that I banned player character skills though, since either of them could really use Volug's Beastfoe. I might change that rule if I can find instances in which it will directly cost me a few turns or more, though.

Chapter 4 Completed:
Turns: 8
MVP: Burton
Total Turns: 29

Youtube Link (6:45):

Chapter 5

Coming Soon-ish

Edited by Valhalt
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It's nice seeing these playthroughs back in action again, however I have a request. Can you switch views before you start promoting people so we can see each character's in game models in action during one of the upcoming chapters? I understand that Nolan/Pugo won't be present but it would be interesting seeing the other bosses in action at some point and seeing them dueling it out with their former comrades?

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It's nice seeing these playthroughs back in action again, however I have a request. Can you switch views before you start promoting people so we can see each character's in game models in action during one of the upcoming chapters? I understand that Nolan/Pugo won't be present but it would be interesting seeing the other bosses in action at some point and seeing them dueling it out with their former comrades?

Sure, I really wanted to do this anyway since I love RD's battle models, but I was afraid people would prefer no animations due to the time preferences from last time. However, I suppose getting a look at everyone at least once wouldn't be too bad. I might even make a couple videos with long and short versions with and without animations respectively at some point.

Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to show Burton as a Cavalier since Chapter 4 is already recorded (8 turns) and SPOILER ALERT: he promotes during that chapter.

Update: As I said, chapter 4 is completed and will be uploaded either late tonight or midday tomorrow. However, I've run into some technical problems with a certain code, so it might be a little while before I start chapter 5.

Edited by Valhalt
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That spoiler ruined my whole life. I have to rethink my life now ;_;

I've got another life-altering spoiler for ya:

I've been busy lately. I can promise that chapter 4 will be uploaded by tuesday at the latest (it will probably be up on monday but no guarantees).

WHOA!!!! Didn't see that coming!

Edited by Valhalt
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At the end of this chapter I get Pain and Agony. These two characters should be great for LTC'ing with their high stats and move. Along with Paladin Burton, they will be doing most of my fighting. It's a shame that I banned player character skills though, since either of them could really use Volug's Beastfoe. I might change that rule if I can find instances in which it will directly cost me a few turns or more, though.

I don't see any reason why not to remove the rule about using skills obtained from the regular characters. Honestly, trading around skills is a big part of FE10 and you might as well make the best use of them as you can given the limitations you are already placing on yourself. Plus it'll make it more interesting seeing how your strategies could become more complex by including traded skills into the equation.

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I don't see any reason why not to remove the rule about using skills obtained from the regular characters. Honestly, trading around skills is a big part of FE10 and you might as well make the best use of them as you can given the limitations you are already placing on yourself. Plus it'll make it more interesting seeing how your strategies could become more complex by including traded skills into the equation.

I would agree, except I have been trying to kill off/avoid recruiting a good percentage of the normal cast. This is mainly to avoid running out of space, and also to avoid units being forced (for instance I made sure I never recruited Sothe so he wasn't forced on a ton of chapters). This means that I don't get access to their skills. Now, I could go out of my way from now on to recruit and not kill the normal units without too many repercussions (I still couldn't justify ignoring recruitable enemies, but I could get around that with editing shenanigans), but in some cases it might not be worth it.

Furthermore, because I couldn't let Sothe join in order to fit all my characters in 1-3, I already missed out on the Guard scroll. I also managed to miss Meg and her skill for some weird (possibly hacking-related) reason. It's not a huge deal, but why bother getting skills from some playable characters if you can't utilize all of their skills?

I haven't decided for certain what to do, yet, but this is the reason why I considered making this rule.

Edited by Valhalt
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Could you hack in the various scrolls associated with each character into the inventory and just use them that way? Realistically adding a few items using a little coding might be easier to accommodate than all the editing and modifying that keeping alive certain units would require.

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Could you hack in the various scrolls associated with each character into the inventory and just use them that way? Realistically adding a few items using a little coding might be easier to accommodate than all the editing and modifying that keeping alive certain units would require.

Yeah, I thought of that. The only thing is since ROM hacking in items would be a pain (I'm not sure if I would even be able to use the savestate I have now if I change the ISO a bit, not to mention transferring files between my computer and VM to edit and reparse the ISO is like a 2-3 hour ordeal), I would have to resort to RAM hacking, which would require me to bug SoC again and I don't want to do that since he's a pretty busy guy and he's already helped me with a TON of stuff (besides, he already walked me through the process of trying to find character data in the RAM and it sounds almost impossible).

I could always try using one of the Gecko codes (at least for reference to find a character's address) to hack in a couple scrolls, but I'm having enough issues with codes as it is and I'm not too hopeful that that would work anyway.

So yeah, I'll give it a shot in a while, but right now getting the chapter end code to work again is my priority. After that, I'll try adding in scrolls using at least the RAM method (and possibly the ROM method depending on how much time I have), but if those don't work I'll have to decide between keeping future characters alive long enough to nab their scrolls (won't be able to get Sothe's guard and renewal or whatever meg has this way) or just keeping the rule the way it is now with skills banned.

TL;DR: It's a possibility and I'll try a couple things that come to mind, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Edited by Valhalt
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I was replaying RD yesterday. 60 turns on 1-E gg.

Yeah I am so screwed for 1-E. I'm gonna grab Jarod from 1-8 so I can get him one chapter earlier to help out on 1-E. Still, though, it'll be pretty hard without BK.

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and thus, Jarod became a veteran from Walhart!Fe9

Haha, exactly, and he will even serve the same role here (first prepromoted recruit). I even planned ahead when naming him Jarod in Wahart!FE9 for that very reason!

Update: The end chapter code still isn't cooperating. I could chapter warp to chapter 5, but then I would miss recruiting Pain and Agony which is unacceptable. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but like I said it might take a while.

Edited by Valhalt
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  • 2 weeks later...

So has there been any progress toward getting this play through up and running again?

Well, like I've said in multiple places I've been really busy lately with school and work starting up full time, plus I've kind of hit a wall with this code not working, so no progress unfortunately (I apologize, I'm pretty bummed about this too).

When I get some more time I'll run tests to determine stuff like if the code works on a clean chapter 4 or on other chapters, but assuming that doesn't work, I am probably going to have to go into the ROM and turn all the normal characters into the enemy characters (like I did with Nolan/Pugo), which would be a total pain and require a lot of time that I don't have currently. I could also try using the code on regular dolphin instead of the debugger (I'm just posting stuff here so I remember to try these things).

But yeah, if anyone knows how I can find the RAM address for this code or get this code to start working in dolphin again then that would be a huge help (not expecting anything, but it can't hurt to post it here):

Quick End Chapter {Win} (Push B and + on WiiRemote then end move)* [g6flavor]

283D78DA 00000410

003CAFFC 00000004

E0000000 80008000

Edited by Valhalt
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