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Some data regarding Rankings and LTC


ruadath
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I wanted to share some interesting data regarding rankings obtained from my current LTC playthrough of this game on HHM. Before I start my analysis, let me note that the required EXP and Funds for achieving an S-rank without visiting any of the gaiden chapters are (assuming I calculated this correctly):

Funds: 690800

EXP: 34450

In my playthrough, I just completed Chapter 25 and have the following stats:

Funds: 106535 (this could be 16000 higher if I resorted to additional rigging to avoid using the Dracoshield and Secret Book)

EXP: 10285 (probably could be at least 10500 if I valued additional EXP over good levels, even if I just made changes to Chapter 25)

Tactics: 51 turns (only 50 actual gameplay turns)

The expected total turn count (of actual gameplay turns) for this playthrough is around 105 (I don't remember the exact number), so we are almost at the halfway point. This suggests that if I were to continue to gain EXP at the same rate, I would probably reach somewhere around 21,000 total, although this doesn't account for the fact that over 35 of the remaining ~55 turns are part of defense chapters, and thus can very much be abused for EXP. I would imagine that it is not impossible for me to get something like 25,000 EXP (if not higher) if I played my cards correctly, even without significant rigging.

On the other hand, I am woefully short on Funds; assuming I get the maximum value of items (which is impossible since I won't be reaching a large number of them due to turn counts, plus I have to spend money on promoting people and such) on the remaining chapters, I would only add roughly 480,000 to my Funds, leaving me well over 100,000G short of the S rank in Funds

What this suggests to me (and is a conclusion that I would like to discuss) is that the minimal turn count for an S-rank LTC of HHM is determined by the Funds rank and not the EXP rank. Perhaps we can calculate what this turn count value is in advance? In addition, I will note that visiting Chapter 19x for the Silver Card is most likely not worth it, since you really only need to make about 30,000G worth of purchases in this playthrough (actually probably significantly less if you don't care about training Erk's staff rank for Warp) and since it takes 4 turns to complete, which means that you really only save roughly ~4,000G per turn by visiting that map, not to mention you actually lose some money because the Elysian Whip you are supposed to get from there is found in Chapter 18.

Thoughts?

Edited by ruadath
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I believe it is reasonable to argue that wagers on arena fights average about 700 gold, and each additional turn spent using the arena in chapter 21 or 24 can give you an extra two or three arena fights depending on how you use Ninian and your flying units.

Thus, if Funds are the limiting factor on an S-rank LTC run, each additional turn spent arena grinding is worth about 2,000 gold. If, in any given chapter, you can gain more gold (or gold's worth of assets) than that by spending an additional turn, it will be well worth it, at least until you reach the threshold for 5-star Funds.

Based on that alone, the Goddess Icon and the Silver Card from chapter 19x pay for themselves, as it takes 4 turns to complete the chapter, and those two items have a total value of 12,000 gold: More than you could get by arena grinding for that number of turns, even before Silver Card discounts are taken into account.

Then, too, in chapter 31x you get more than enough gold to buy a discounted Fell Contract in chapter 32 if you so choose, adding an extra 25,000 gold to your assets.

In short, the Silver Card makes the Funds rank a piece of cake, and well worth the 4 additional turns.

Edited by Paper Jam
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What you aren't accounting for, however, is that visiting those particular chapters raises the requirement for the Funds rank by some value. In particular, visiting Chapter 19x increases your required total by about 20,000G, meaning that you immediately take a net loss of roughly 7-8k, and then get whatever benefits you do from the Silver Card split across the 4 turns (or 9 if you are visiting 31x as well).

I don't actually think additional turns spent arena grinding will be necessary for the S-Rank. What I meant by Funds being the limiting factor was rather that certain absolute LTC strats should be disregarded in favor of ones that pick up more treasure. For example, in Chapter 20, by taking 5 turns instead of 4 turns, you can pick up two additional treasures, namely the Blue Gem and Luna (roughly 17k in value, I think) in addition to gaining significantly more EXP. Similarly, taking 2 turns to complete Chapter 21 allows you to grab the Elysian Whip, Wyrmslayer, and possibly even steal Oleg's Hero Crest (not sure about this one) for roughly 20k in benefits. The Desert Chapter is another extreme example of this.

On the other hand, I imagine you would not spend 2-3 extra turns on Chapter 17 to pick up all 4 treasure chests, since the marginal gains of picking up one additional promotion item, a ~2000k weapon, and recruiting Lucius aren't really that important when split across several turns.

But I'm happy to discuss this further and maybe there is something I am missing here.

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Buying items with the silver card actually adds to your funds rank, because the full value of the item is added to your funds but you only lose half of it from your funds because you're buying it at half price, essentially meaning the you get half an items value added to funds for buying it with the silver card, or in more simple terms, the price you pay with the silver card is the amount your funds rank will increase by. Because of this, you'll want to buy as much as you can with the silver card.

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Yes, but you don't actually get any gold in HHM, right? Only the 5000G from 13x and the 30000G (I think, I forget) from 31x, which are both chapters that you don't want to visit most likely. So the Silver Card only saves you from losing money from things you have to sell, and beyond Lyn's Blue Gem which I'm pretty sure you have to sell in Chapter 16, you only need to sell about 20k (maybe less actually) worth of stuff in order to be able to buy enough Physic/Barrier/Torch staves for EXP spamming. So this is a net gain of "only" 20k from spending 4 additional turns, probably taking a loss to the EXP rank, and furthermore also losing an addition 8k gold due to the chapter funds issue.

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FE7's not too strict regarding turn counts anyway, from what I can tell. And you actually need LESS gold to 5 star funds in HHM than in HNM. A run where you get all treasures, gaidens, and recruitable characters while getting S rank is not impossible, though for middle of the road players like myself it'd probably be challenging. I've never actually tried for a good ranking because I don't care. I usually end up with a terrible tactics ranking because I like to grind supports. (Why must Matthew/Serra take so long to achieve?!)

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It really isn't very restrictive in turn counts. You get roughly 300 turns to S-rank, when based on my very rough calculations you probably don't actually need more than 130-140, if that. The point here is to try and see if I can probe that lower boundary and see just how quickly it can be done.

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It really isn't very restrictive in turn counts. You get roughly 300 turns to S-rank, when based on my very rough calculations you probably don't actually need more than 130-140, if that. The point here is to try and see if I can probe that lower boundary and see just how quickly it can be done.

Makes sense. Hell, I could even pull off Matthew/Serra in that turn limit, though I'd have to keep them glued for most of the run.

Edited by Matthewtheman
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