Triangle Strategy Thread

[Corrobin]

Sorry for not talking despite it being my thread! I'm really loving this game, having fun playing around with the characters, and I really hope they do more with the basic ideas via sequels. 

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, Corrobin said:

Sorry for not talking despite it being my thread! I'm really loving this game, having fun playing around with the characters, and I really hope they do more with the basic ideas via sequels. 

No apologies necessary.

My main hope for any sequels is that they stop using the name 'Triangle Strategy' and come up with an actually decent name. What were they thinking? At least 'Octopath Traveler' had a ring to it; 'Triangle Strategy' is just a dumb name that makes one think the game's about trigonometry.

[Corrobin]

The obvious solution: next game has more than 3 'Convictions', they up it to Square Strategy. Or Rectangle Strategy. 

I kid, I kid.

Gotta say, to the guy who was worried about Ezana's weather manipulation stuff? Don't be. Archibald, in my money the best archer in the game, gets a weapon upgrade that makes him deal more damage with the Raging Winds weather effect active.

[zuibangde]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, what's this I heard about Roland being a glass cannon? Is there some trick to boosting his damage output? Because his damage has consistently been terrible for me even when I did regularly use him.

I think it's more fair to say that he's designed to be a glass cannon but kinda falls short. He has the defenses of a glass cannon but doesn't do so much damage that makes him stand out a lot among the others. Certain characters such as Seranoa, Ezana, Frederica, Rudolph all hit as hard, if not harder than him and have other skills that are more useful than his. I pretty much only use Roland just because I like him as a character...

However...(major story spoiler regarding a recruitable character; click at your own risk):

 

If you made a correct choice in the story and have enough conviction points, Maxwell will join your party and he COMPLETELY renders Roland useless. They have similar skills except Maxwell does way more damage, have good defenses, can jump around the map and doesn't have weakness to spears. Once I got him, I basically used Maxwell as a replacement for Roland.

Edited March 19, 2022 by zuibangde

[MagicCanonBalls]

Not yet got the game as I am on a tight budget this month. But I wanna know how difficult would it be to recruit characters without looking at guide (excluding golden route). The 1st demo only has 3 recruitable and I still managed to only recruit 1.

[Dark Holy Elf]

In general, most recruits in the game either

(a) join based on "points" you accrue from making certain choices. You'll get the large majority of these as the game goes on regardless of what your choices are

(b) split-path based on what route you choose at various branches.

If you have your eyes set on certain specific characters in advance you'll want a guide, and as you noted getting the "golden" route will probably also require a guide, but you'll get lots of characters without one.

[vanguard333]

10 hours ago, zuibangde said:

I think it's more fair to say that he's designed to be a glass cannon but kinda falls short. He has the defenses of a glass cannon but doesn't do so much damage that makes him stand out a lot among the others. Certain characters such as Seranoa, Ezana, Frederica, Rudolph all hit as hard, if not harder than him and have other skills that are more useful than his. I pretty much only use Roland just because I like him as a character...

However...(major story spoiler regarding a recruitable character; click at your own risk):

  Reveal hidden contents

If you made a correct choice in the story and have enough conviction points, Maxwell will join your party and he COMPLETELY renders Roland useless. They have similar skills except Maxwell does way more damage, have good defenses, can jump around the map and doesn't have weakness to spears. Once I got him, I basically used Maxwell as a replacement for Roland.

Yeah; I'm still early in the game and I can say that Roland's damage output is underwhelming. I think they reduced his damage output because of his high movement and because he's built around being able to hit multiple enemies with his attacks, and that's mainly how I use him: a high mobility unit that can strike multiple opponents so long as those opponents are all in a line.

[Fabulously Olivier]

On 3/8/2022 at 5:33 PM, vanguard333 said:

I finally tried some of the demo for Terrible Name (I know the actual name is Triangle Strategy, but with a name like Triangle Strategy, I refuse to call it anything other than Terrible Name). 

  Reveal hidden contents

First of all, the gameplay overall seems fine so far; I actually quite liked the individual character turn order system, but the controls are a massive pain. The game will show the player a million different things about the gameplay, but won't tell the player a thing about how the controls operate. I accidentally ended a character's turn twice simply because I was trying to figure out what each button does in this game; why is something like "end the character's turn with not even so much as an 'are you sure you want to end the player's turn'?" mapped to multiple buttons (+ and B); something like that shouldn't be mapped to any buttons because something like that shouldn't even be in the game; there should always be at least an "are you sure" in case of an accidental button press. Fire Emblem understands this; why not this game?

Moreover, the game is so cluttered with indicators for various things that should probably be mapped to toggles, but then it won't show stuff like enemy movement range; it'll only show movement-&-attack range as all one thing (where Fire Emblem at least differentiates movement and attack by color). I spent what I played of the first chapter largely confused.

Finally, the save system: I'm someone who much prefers to be able to save at any point in a tactical RPG. This game tells the player that you can save at any point outside of battle, there's an auto-save system, and that there's a suspend-save during combat. All fine, I guess, except it doesn't say where the suspend-save is in the menu, or even how to access the menu during combat! Who thought this was a good idea?! I didn't finish the chapter, as I was having a rough time due to all of this, so, because I couldn't find the suspend-save, I have made literally zero progress.

 

 

Call it by its synonym - Pyramid Scheme. You're welcome.

[vanguard333]

11 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Call it by its synonym - Pyramid Scheme. You're welcome.

Yeah... That isn't a good name either. 🤣

 

Anyway, as something of a medieval history enthusiast, I must say that I like a lot of the armor designs in the game; from what I've seen, nobody's running around in weird floppy leather armour like you might see in a 'historical' film; instead, characters are wearing stuff like gambesons (padded cloth armour), mail and plate, and the plate armour doesn't look ludicrously oversized or anything like that. There is of course still the problem of none of the named characters wearing helmets, but other than that, I'm honestly rather impressed by what I've seen in the game so far.

I was especially impressed when I saw artwork of General Avlora holding her greatsword, and it actually looked like a proper zweihander; they didn't go the typical fantasy route of giving her a sword twice as long as herself with a blade the width of a door; it looks like an actual greatsword one would see in a museum.

[Alastor15243]

Bright side of developing a hatred of Roland by the end of the game? I get to explore the "surrender Roland" path I initially didn't have the stomach for! I have to say it's a lot more interesting. It feels like "surrender Roland" is canon, and everything weird and annoying that happens in "protect Roland" is the game clumsily conspiring to make sure enough of what happens in the other route still happens so canon can continue. That's honestly one of the game's biggest weaknesses, that the diverging paths leading to the same conclusion aren't always well handled and create a general air of pointlessness.

[zuibangde]

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah; I'm still early in the game and I can say that Roland's damage output is underwhelming. I think they reduced his damage output because of his high movement and because he's built around being able to hit multiple enemies with his attacks, and that's mainly how I use him: a high mobility unit that can strike multiple opponents so long as those opponents are all in a line.

I'm currently in NG+ and his weapon skill (completely ignores enemy's defense stat) is able to hit around 300-400 per enemy. As a comparison, Seranoa is able to do high 100s - 200s using Hawk Dive. With the help of Qauhaug, Julio and Medina, he'll able to do it multiple times consistently, but the only problem is him surviving until his next turn. So honestly, his biggest issue is his squishiness as there are a lot of enemy units that have ranged attacks and his mobility isn't so good that he can avoid them. 

Edit: forgot to mention that other than his weapon skill, all his other attacks/skills are utterly underwhelming. 

To avoid spoilers (since I don't know how far you're in now), there is a map mid game where he is a mandatory unit to use and he actually was one of the more useful units in taking a huge chunk of HKP off from the boss with his weapon skill.

50 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I get to explore the "surrender Roland" path I initially didn't have the stomach for! I have to say it's a lot more interesting

How the story unfolds by surrendering Roland is so much better! I'm currently choosing all the options that I didn't choose (usually the less 'moral' options) and I'm discovering that it provides a lot more insight to Roland's development and internal conflicts. I'm finding myself to be more sympathetic towards him now and he's honestly one of the more complex characters of the cast. 

My biggest gripe with Seranoa and Frederica is that they seem too 'perfect'' to the point that it's boring. 

---

On a completely different note, I finally figured out how to use Decimal and honestly he's becoming more useful than I expected?  Obviously not S tier but every time he instant kills an enemy unit, I giggle like a maniac.

Edited March 19, 2022 by zuibangde

[Lyn]

I'm still pretty early in the game. It is fun so far. The art style is nice, and I like the gameplay.

(Talking to cats is cute.)

Edited March 19, 2022 by Lyn

[Etrurian emperor]

58 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Bright side of developing a hatred of Roland by the end of the game? I get to explore the "surrender Roland" path I initially didn't have the stomach for! I have to say it's a lot more interesting. It feels like "surrender Roland" is canon, and everything weird and annoying that happens in "protect Roland" is the game clumsily conspiring to make sure enough of what happens in the other route still happens so canon can continue. That's honestly one of the game's biggest weaknesses, that the diverging paths leading to the same conclusion aren't always well handled and create a general air of pointlessness.

Yes the surrender Roland route just feels so much better. The Falkes chapter feels a more more intense and high stakes than the alternative. Cordelia's arc too gets a lot more development if you just give Roland up. I think the battle in the harbor is also a lot better then having to deal with Telliore since it foreshadows Aelfric, it gives Exharme more screentime and you don't have to deal with Telliore who's kind of a loser. 

I the game often conspiring to get the same result regardless of your actions is definitely a big weakness. That you become a saint no matter what you do with the Roselle feels weird since the game goes out of you way not to reward you for making a very big sacrifice. In the next stage the capitol gets destroyed no matter what you do, even when taking the peaceful routes. When going with Benedict plan the whole city got destroyed by a flood, but my brother took the stealthy option which still ended up a ruined city. And in my new game plus route I went with Frederica's gibberish plan to limit the damage and yet somehow the town is still wrecked. 

[Alastor15243]

31 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yes the surrender Roland route just feels so much better. The Falkes chapter feels a more more intense and high stakes than the alternative.

Frankly in that part I prefer the epic defense chapter a decent bit more. It's everything that comes after that I prefer the surrender Roland route for.

Spoiler

I genuinely hoped I'd have gotten a chance to fight at Landroi's side, but the game threw in Telliore to mandatorily distract me.

 

[vanguard333]

I just completed chapter 7 after choosing to protect Roland. I'm not sure what I was expecting; I guess I was expecting one of the loss conditions to be the enemy seizing the gate or something like that; it is a defense chapter after all. Instead, it's "defeat all the enemy units, you lose if all your units fall".

For me, the entire fight was basically just Serenoa and Erador standing on the left stairs tanking the enemy attacks while everyone else supported them. I chose not to use any of the oil traps, so the archers were a pest. Still, outside the archers that are already on the far roofs, I don't see how the oil traps would be very useful; none of them were where the fighting ended up happening. 

Overall, I'd say that it was a very fun and intense chapter.

[Corrobin]

Thing I'd like/want in a sequel to the game (spoilers):

Spoiler

-New setting and characters. Norzelia is fun and all, but I wouldn't want to play another game involving Glenbrook, Aesfrost, and Hyzante. It's fine if salt and iron stay important, but visit a new world with new countries, conflicts, and Convictions. (Hey, alliteration!)
-More mysticism and magic in the world. I did like the general low-fantasy vibe, but I feel like you could bump up the magic a tad and still keep the political focus. Some monsters to fight, either tamed for armies or 'wild', maybe not have the only religion in the land be a complete scam, etc.
-More mounted units. It's a crying shame that the only horseback fighters are Roland and Hossabara, and the only hawk units are Hughette and Flanigan. There could be so much more kinds of fighters if they mixed and matched with more weapon types. Speaking of weapon types...
-Streamline and differentiate the weapon types more. The game has 4 sword users and 4 archers, and yet there's only one whip user, one whip user, and one hammer fighter. Some characters have weapon types that make sense like Giovanna's pickaxe and Milo's fans, but... a racquet? a telescope? And what's the difference between a rod and a staff? Merge those two. And I feel like a whip should have a little more than one range. Also, spears have a neat 'can hit 2 people via the default attack' niche, it's a shame you only get two of them.
-Do more with the environment and weather types. As it stands, in the base game, only the mages (Frederica, Corentin, Ezana, Narve, Giovanna) and Trish with her Fire Arrow skill can really affect the environment without having to use items, and only Ezana can effect the weather. Some characters benefit from specific terrain or weather (Roland gets +1 Move in clear weather, Frederica gets more Fire damage when it's clear, Archibald gets more damage when it's windy, Giovanna loves specific terrain types, Ezana can pick between wind or thunder damage being boosted in specific weathers, Travis gets a strength boost from standing on fire), but I feel like it's not enough, somehow.

 

[vanguard333]

Does the choice made in chapter 8 matter at all, beyond just points toward a particular conviction?

I wasn't expecting a branching choice immediately following a branching choice; does that mean this chapter has four different versions?

[Alastor15243]

9 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Does the choice made in chapter 8 matter at all, beyond just points toward a particular conviction?

I wasn't expecting a branching choice immediately following a branching choice; does that mean this chapter has four different versions?

Yes it does mean that exactly.

[vanguard333]

2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes it does mean that exactly.

Okay. Thanks for the info.

What about the first question (is there any particular importance to the choice in chapter 8)?

Edited March 20, 2022 by vanguard333

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Okay. And as for the first question (is there any particular importance to the choice in chapter 8)?

All of the possible paths for chapters 7 and 8 conspire to have basically the exact same end result, so Chapter 9 is basically always the same with minimal story changes. This is true of every single one of these splits except the final one at the end of the game.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Alastor15243

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

All of the possible paths for chapters 7 and 8 conspire to have basically the exact same end result, so Chapter 9 is basically always the same with minimal story changes. This is true of every single one of these splits except the final one at the end of the game.

I see. Thanks for the information. I wasn't really wondering about story consequences though; I was more wondering if there's important info/a specific character/a good item that you can only get with one particular path in chapter 8 or something like that.

Edited March 20, 2022 by vanguard333

[Alastor15243]

13 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I see. Thanks for the information. I wasn't really wondering about story consequences though; I was more wondering if there's important info/a specific character/a good item that you can only get with one particular path in chapter 8 or something like that.

I don't know about the items you find in different exploration sections, but I know there are only two route splits that have characters gated behind them. The first, and the second to last.

[Etrurian emperor]

All in all I quite like Hyzante compared to other evil theocracies. It being Arabian Night themed helps set it apart from all the evil Vatican inspired theocracies and its a nice touch that Hyzante is mostly mercantile and monopolistic rather than strictly dogmatic. 

[vanguard333]

I recently reached chapter 9. I figured based on the dialogue that the decision to try to report the salt transport was the obvious solution that goes poorly while transporting the salt is the seemingly bad idea that ends up a great idea; something that reinforced that idea in my head was that the three people in opposition of it all had "it would be easier to convince a brick wall".

Unfortunately, I also figured this from (spoilers):

Spoiler

Having accidentally spoiled myself on the existence of the secret fourth route and knowing that choosing to transport the salt is required to unlock that route.

So, I tried to go for that one, and not only did all three of them reject my persuasion despite being "deep in thought", but even the originally-undecided Anna voted against it despite having certainly sounded thoroughly convinced (though she also said "deep in thought").

So, a little googling revealed that I said the right words to persuade Anna but my Utility must've been too low (I only unlocked a character that apparently requires 275 utility at the start of the previous chapter and I need 400 to convince Anna).

First of all, what's the point of listing her as "undecided" if she's going to side against a particular decision by default; isn't that basically lying to the player?

Second, there have been extremely few opportunities at this point in the game to significantly raise utility through votes and such, so demanding 400 utility is basically telling the player "we don't want the player to do this until new game plus".

Third, the site said I could farm utility points by doing a couple of mock battles and making sure to grab loot, exploit weaknesses, and use quietuses. After doing that for a long time, I still didn't reach 400 (I know because I didn't unlock two characters that are unlocked by having 400 utility), so I checked another site, and it said that doing that stuff only raises utility by one or two points. So, I'm basically stuck: I can't have the vote go the way I want it to go unless I farm points for hours if not days; sarcastic "Yay!".

EDIT: After multiple hours of farming utility points, I got just enough to be able to persuade Anna, and only Anna.

 

I also learned that, apparently, for every losing vote made, the player loses ten points in that vote's conviction. …What?! That doesn't make any sense.

 

Anyway, is it clear that I really don't like choice systems in games where the game assigns arbitrary numerical values to those choices? If they really wanted this conviction system, then they should've kept the scales and ditched the numbers.

Edited March 22, 2022 by vanguard333

[Saint Rubenio]

I think Decimal might be the best unit in videogames.