The Last To Post Wins!

[Codename Shrimp]

3 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Which makes me realize that the entire plot of VII only happens because bigger Nep-Nep decided to imprison Croire in her Nep-Note.

10 minutes ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

Did you view the post game event? The one in Heart Dimension with Big Nep?

2 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

That is grown up Peashy?

Umu, umu!

2 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Her theme, on the other hand...

Violins<3

[Interdimensional Observer]

12 hours ago, Armagon said:

Fellas, i have just killed my first Superboss on Bringer of Chaos difficulty.

Congrats! Bringer of Chaos sounds evil, but I guess thats fair being DLC. And the ability to change difficulty at any time.

13 hours ago, Armagon said:

T-elos was there because she has a passive where the more times someone is KO'd, the more damage she deals (i actually don't remember if it's for the party or of it's just for T-elos).

As in the number of times party members are KO'ed in a given fight? I think it says something about the strength of the enemy if you are somehow able to realistically benefit from such a passive.

13 hours ago, Armagon said:

Blade Combos don't last as long. You have to be really quick in setting those up. I could only get about four Elemental Orbs on the thing whereas i could get like, all of the elements on Normal Diffculty.

Isn't four just enough though for a Full Burst? More Orbs would be pointless, because Full Burst wouldn't let you continue chain attacking off of them.

 

Archaeological 5 obtained. Calores the Fire Walker was the holdup when it tried it before, but what I couldn't do with level 50 Skells, I could now achieve on foot with Reflect, and a surprisingly cheap anti-terrain augment so I could stand in ankle-deep lava and feel no pain. I was wearing a full dive suit for fashion, all the backflips of Combat Limbo and Sky High made it look as though it was a leotard. It was so ridiculous I had to change into something else.

The Trueno rematch went much quicker, thanks to Executioner. Even with fairly poor Potential, it was still quite strong. 

 

But, Lugalbanda is definitely in a higher tier of superboss.:

Spoiler

• Unusually high Evasion, so much that you can barely hit it without serious accuracy boosts.
  • Inflicts Blackout to reduce your accuracy even further.
  • Can buff its evasion even more.
• It inflicts Virus to block you from using any Ranged Art for a while. Even ones that don't do damage.
• And it can Control you, which will force you attack any living allies, or you'll just do nothing but walk around if there aren't any. You might need two Control Resist XXs for 200 resistance, which is very unusual. But I'm not sure if needing 200 Res is just because of the next thing...
• Debuff Res Down, because why not force you to waste another armor augment slot to avoid being addled?
• Access to Physical, Electric, and Beam attacks, and smaller usage of Ether and Thermal ones.
• HP regeneration too!

Oi, this is not good. A Reflect build doesn't function with all of this. I can't fit all the Reflect augments and debuff resistances on my character.

 

For the sake of enjoyment of not being stonewalled on the road to invincibility, I sacrificed the Reflect build here and took the easy way out. I went and (after Celica's) did Nagi's last Affinity Mission, which gave me the game's strongest Art. 🌺💃 

 

With proper setup, it might have taken more time to walk to Lugalbanda's lair than it to kill it.

• Initiate OD.
• Ghostwalker, ideally while it Lugalbanda is attacking to benefit from GW's invincibility frames.
• Build up OD count for the damage multiplier and tertiary cooldown, use Ghostwalker when it recharges, and extend OD once, and continue building OD count, MAX is not required.
• Let my sword perform the waltz of the cherry trees.

The first success took two of the Most Transcendent Art, but subsequent kills only needed one, and I didn't even need all five hits of it.

It still hasn't dropped the Reflect: Electric I want, but it shouldn't take that many more tries.

Now I'll have all the Reflect I need. The Gravity augment would be nice, but that superboss is even stronger I think. I'm going to hold off on it, for now.

When the mood strikes me, I'll try for crafting some level 60 Skells next, and some superweapons for them. I don't need them when my ground game is now almost perfected, but why not? Certain superbosses are a chore anyhow to try fighting on foot, due to a lack of good places to stand and slash/shoot.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

While we are on the topic of Atelier games, this is what constitutes an enemy in Atelier Totori:

'It's so adorable, I don't want to kill it', you might think. Then it throws freaking barrels at you.

From what hammerspace does this get barrels? Full-sized barrels? What is this, some first route arbitrary Normal type Pokemon that was angry it was stuck being useless, and decided to take out its aggression by learning Hyper Beam to OHKO some level 5 starter?

[Strullemia]

I never liked Peashy.

[Armagon]

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Stuff like that is what makes Lulua my favorite Atelier protagonist so far.

Honestly, same. She's just so wholesome but doesn't hold back on teasing everyone. I also like how she geeks out over alchemy, being the daughter of the most famous alchemist in the world.

3 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Make it happen IF/CH. DO IT.

Adult Peashy would make for an interesting what-if scenario.

 

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

As in the number of times party members are KO'ed in a given fight? I think it says something about the strength of the enemy if you are somehow able to realistically benefit from such a passive.

I think it's just for T-elos' driver but i'm not too sure. But i know each KO=increased power up to 500% and the level of the passive determines the starting base. So if you max it out, one KO=200% damage increase.

She also has another passive where damage increases per enemy killed but that one's more situational. Useful for fighting hordes but for singular enemies, not much. Though i suppose i could've easily wiped out the Ignas that were worshipping Kurodil for easy damage increase.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Isn't four just enough though for a Full Burst? More Orbs would be pointless, because Full Burst wouldn't let you continue chain attacking off of them.

If you Coffee with Milk, yes. If you don't Coffee with Milk, you need at least five Orbs for a Full Burst. Problem is, in BoC, Coffee with Milk uses up the Party Gauge and the Party Gauge builds up slower (for that same reason, Overdrive isn't as viable). And on that second part, more Orbs actually wouldn't be pointless. Each Orb destroyed adds to the damage multiplier. This includes the Orbs shattered upon activating a Full Burst. So it's absolutely beneficial to get as many Orbs as you can. Of course, easier said than done in BoC.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

But, Lugalbanda is definitely in a higher tier of superboss.:

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

it can Control you, which will force you attack any living allies, or you'll just do nothing but walk around if there aren't any.

What the fuck, there's a Control status effect? That sounds terrifying for the player. I know Xenoblade 1 did have a Confuse status and characters hit by it just walk around like idiots (and i think the inputs get reversed too but i could be mistaken) but Control doesn't sound like it's Confuse.

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I went and (after Celica's) did Nagi's last Affinity Mission, which gave me the game's strongest Art. 🌺💃 

Dunban is pleased.

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

From what hammerspace does this get barrels? Full-sized barrels? What is this, some first route arbitrary Normal type Pokemon that was angry it was stuck being useless, and decided to take out its aggression by learning Hyper Beam to OHKO some level 5 starter?

Honestly given how weak everyone feels in Atelier Totori, that statement about Hyper Beam isn't too far from the truth.

The enemy is basically another barrel joke the Atelier series has. Why are there jokes about barrels? I don't know but this series loves barrels. Especially since you can make your own and have them inflict some devastating effects if you synthesize right.

[Armagon]

 

[Armagon]

Everybody gangsta 'till Ophion uses Barrier Field and instantly kills you.

[Interdimensional Observer]

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

Dunban is pleased.

Seriously. It's like they turned "Born in a land of strife!" meme power from the first game into actual power.

XCX is nice enough that in addition to cooldown and aura/buff durations, it shows you the damage modifier of each Art (although it doesn't say whether bonus damage via conditionals or secondary cooldowns is added per hit or in total- maybe the latter I'd guess).

Blossom Dance being a Tension Art (meaning it requires 1000 TP per use on top of cooldown- placing some limit on usage), results in it having a high damage modifier. At level 5 (the max for an Art), it deals six hits of 700%. So 4200% total, that is very good.

There might be stronger Tension Arts out there, I don't quite understand how damage is entirely calculated. But, Blossom Dance has the one-of-a-kind feature of ignoring any enemy Attribute resistance, it'll just treat it as neutral/0. Thus, Blossom Dance (with the Core Crusher skill and an Ether Longsword for most optimal damage among other things) is the "set it and forget it" offense, it cuts through everything with ease.

 

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

What the fuck, there's a Control status effect? That sounds terrifying for the player.

It isn't too bad actually. It's pretty rare on the enemy side, just one family of Indigens that isn't common, and a handful of bosses, including: Lugalbanda, our beloved Soul Reader, and apparently the final phase of the final boss (not that I noticed it, "cheating" my way through it as I did).

The Resist augment is extraordinarily easy to make too: 2000 Miranium; 5 Cracked Claws, which are among the commonest of the common in drops; and 1 Marine Rutile, which you'll just naturally rack up via FrontierNav Probes.

I fell victim to Control against Lugalbanda on my first attempt, suddenly my Arts palette disappeared and I could do nothing to affect my character until it naturally wore off I dunno, 5-10 seconds later?

I just kept doing some slow walking, since all my allies were dead at this point. But if they weren't I'd be attacking them with my Arts, or vice versa if they got hit with Control. And, during my entire time under Control, the Overdrive timer and aura duration were still depleting, and it would be ruinous if either hit 0. Meanwhile Lugalbanda could still attack me and not break the Control.

 

The player can use Control via the Brainjack Art. And to make it a little better, you can follow a successful Control with Servant Sacrifice, that has a chance of instakilling the Controlled foe, with a nice HP/TP heal regardless. But, of course, Tyrants and bosses are immune, not everything is though.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I wanted to try the limited online mode of XCX and tackle the Global Nemeses while I could, since they spawn almost never now that the game is pretty dead. I just wanted to do it once. The stronger Global Nemesis spawns according to the amount of players doing the little hourly squad missions every day, which isn't very many players now.

The weaker one is the Telethia Plume- a weaker version of the regular Telethia the Endbringer, it has a mere 300k HP and is level 30, but it is still what I'd consider an endgame threat. Since I don't understand how I recruit other real players to take on the Global Nemeses in real time, I just fought it with my normal allies.

With Shield + Gatling Gun, I managed to kill it two or three times (explanation of Global Nemeses in the spoilers box)... 

Spoiler

GNs automatically regenerate all their health when they are killed. The battles are timed and your goal is slay them as many times as possible before you must retreat. Every kill gets you a Reprisal Points and a GN body fragments (more can be earned by breaking the GNs' appendages) you then trade for Reward Tickets. Reward Tickets let you buy any material in the game (barring the Golden Yggralith Heart- which requires your group remove the very last of thousands of points of RP off the Yggralith Zero). 

The idea being that it is easier to grind for Reward Tickets to be converted to materials via Squad Missions and the two Global Nemeses they spawn, than it is to go and kill ordinary enemies for their drops.

The point to getting enemy drops is to turn them into the best Skells and their superweapons, and to make them into amazing augments for fighting on foot and in Skells alike.

Why do that? The optional online-postgame component of XCX assumes you want to optimize your current character loadout, and then reach for more. That you want to be able to OHKO everything in every possible way with every possible setup, to put it to the utmost extreme.

...I could have gotten another kill in, but the Telethia Plume then changed to Reflect Thermal. I didn't have an augment to pierce that, and attacks of yours that get reflected pierce your own reflect and damage you. So, I ended up swapping to my gravity-attribute Shield and abusing green Arts to stay in Overdrive until the fight was over. I survived, yay! I got a Hibiscus I can wear as a headpiece for doing so, surviving the GNs is the only way to get the flowers.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Interdimensional Observer]

I then attempted the Yggralith Zero, where I got defeated the first time. The Yggralith Zero changed the weather to painful Brimstone Fire, and it had some attack that could pierce my perfect reflect. I then quickly went to make a Weather Master augment to negate the hot rocks falling from the sky, and thinking the piercing attack was Gravity from what I read, I retooled my armor to have full Reflect and 100 Gravity Resistance, which I thought would mitigate the damage.

The Internet unfortunately didn't provide me with the right answer here, Zero still pierced me. But, despite losing 3 of the four lives they give you per GN battle, I lived to the end. Sure I failed to kill it even once, I only depleted about 3/4s of its life, but I survived. On foot and all alone, with some luck, I survived this:

Spoiler

and I'm rather happy that I could.

But just to say "I" killed it once, I then went and hire three AI-controlled player characters with fully optimized loadouts, who promptly even AI-controlled got me a few YZ kills. Not winning on my own merit yes, but I consider it a gift to myself for simply surviving the second time.

 

Triple-posted to get around the Captcha problem.

[DragonFlames]

14 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Did you view the post game event? The one in Heart Dimension with Big Nep?

Yup, I've seen it.

14 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

From what hammerspace does this get barrels? Full-sized barrels? What is this, some first route arbitrary Normal type Pokemon that was angry it was stuck being useless, and decided to take out its aggression by learning Hyper Beam to OHKO some level 5 starter?

Full-sized barrels they are indeed.

As Armagon explained, the Atelier series has a weird obsession with barrels. One thing to add: Whenever you interact with one in the overworld, your character cheerfully remarks that what they just interacted with is indeed a barrel. In Atelier Sophie, you even get a trophy for it, which is of course called "Barrel!".
The joke is even in Warriors All-Stars (which references nearly every Koei Tecmo game).

11 hours ago, Armagon said:

Honestly, same. She's just so wholesome but doesn't hold back on teasing everyone. I also like how she geeks out over alchemy, being the daughter of the most famous alchemist in the world.

Yup, yup!

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Weather is just gross rn. 

Heavy showers like every ten minutes and noisy storm, so loud it hinders my sleep at night. And no change in sight till the end of next week. 

The good thing: It is perfect gaming weather and for setting up my new furniture. 

[Codename Shrimp]

 

[Codename Shrimp]

So i am at the final boss in Bloodstained atm...

25k freaking HP...
really game <.<

 

On another Note
https://gematsu.com/2019/09/atelier-ryza-sales-top-150000-in-first-week-in-japan

[DragonFlames]

2 hours ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

Weather is just gross rn. 

Heavy showers like every ten minutes and noisy storm, so loud it hinders my sleep at night. And no change in sight till the end of next week. 

The good thing: It is perfect gaming weather and for setting up my new furniture. 

That's Fall how I like it.
Due to all the wind and rain, those annoying construction noises have finally stopped and no idiots run around outside playing loud music on their phones at 3 in the morning.

50 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

So i am at the final boss in Bloodstained atm...

25k freaking HP...
really game <.<

Yiazmat says hi.
Final Fantasy is bullshit.

53 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

On another Note

https://gematsu.com/2019/09/atelier-ryza-sales-top-150000-in-first-week-in-japan

Nice!
Here's hoping the game's quality lives up to those numbers. Though knowing Atelier so far and the Gust games I've played, I'm not too worried about it.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

24 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Due to all the wind and rain, those annoying construction noises have finally stopped and no idiots run around outside playing loud music on their phones at 3 in the morning. 

Whenever someone breaks my sanctuary aka sleep, I will become very...... ... let us say spirited. I would have no issues to call the cops to get my well deserved silence. 

 

 

I just checked the stats of the enemies in hard and maddening. 

Example of a pegasus knight in chapter 14 BL:

Hard: 19 AS

Maddening: 34 AS

Me: Ok......

I mean if there are at least two modes between them, I would understand, but it is not the case. 

Maddening mode is totally possible for an expert (if I exclude chapter 13 because the developers did not think enough about the map), but for people who want a tough but not frustrating HARD difficulty like me, this game does not offer the appropriate mode. Let me say I would be even fine with the maddening stats without ambush spawn because it would let me enjoy a total blind chapter. 

From chapter 15 on I will play in hard till the end which will become too easy most likely. 

[DragonFlames]

16 minutes ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

Whenever someone breaks my sanctuary aka sleep, I will become very...... ... let us say spirited. I would have no issues to call the cops to get my well deserved silence.

Oh trust me, I feel the exact same way.
Only issue is that I lack the energy to call them at 3 in the morning.

---

Things are... going in Atelier Totori. Just recruited Mimi, who might be an even bigger Tsundere than Cordelia and I reached the Bronze rank at the beginning of the second in-game year. I think I'm doing well, but I have no freaking clue whatsoever. This game is throwing a metaphorical baby into ice water and telling it to swim, with the player being said baby.
I also ran into what I assume is a boss that caught me completely off guard (it literally came out of nowhere when I was exploring a new area), which is more than a little BS. As Armagon already warned me, it attacked twice per turn and killed Totori on turn 1, so I had no chance to use any items whatsoever... It's almost like the game's trying to piss me off at this point.
But then I listen to the peaceful/happy music, pay attention to the funny/cute dialogue or just look at the beautiful scenery and all the anger just vanishes into thin air.
The magic of Atelier games, everybody!

[Codename Shrimp]

Is it me, or do alot of new games not get final bosses right?

I know they are the final challenge and all, but do they really have to be so tanky? 

[DragonFlames]

17 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Is it me, or do alot of new games not get final bosses right?

I know they are the final challenge and all, but do they really have to be so tanky? 

It's not just you. I feel the same. They're either stupidly hard or stupidly easy when it comes to how challenging they are. That is why a final boss is only rarely simultaneously my favorite in a given game. The games where the final boss is my favorite gameplay-wise I can count on one hand.
For those interested, those games are:

• Megadimension Neptunia VII
• Nights of Azure 2
• Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
• Shining Resonance Refrain
• Bravely Default (though this one you can cheese HARD, it's pretty tough and fun to fight it "legit")

In every other game I've played, there were at least one or two bosses I liked more than the final one for various reasons.

Edited September 30, 2019 by DragonFlames

[Codename Shrimp]

I don't mind stupidly hard if the battle is short enough. See: Galbalan in Ys Oath, that's probably the hardest boss fight i even played, but it's also my favourite, however, the fight takes like 3-6 Minutes, so it's perfect. Newer Ys sadly threw that outta window for longer, but easier final fights.

Now Easy + a Million HP is just the worst imho. 

My fav. final bosses have to be:

• Ys Oath
• FE Radiant Dawn
• Ys Origin
• HGSS vs. Red battle
• Yoshi's Island

Edited September 30, 2019 by Shrimperor

[DragonFlames]

8 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Now Easy + a Million HP is just the worst imho.

I was immediately reminded of the final superboss in Final Fantasy X with that statement. Super easy fight, it's just repeating the same damn pattern over and over for an hour (the hardest part is not falling asleep), because you can do 99,999 damage to a guy with 12,000,000 HP. Worst part? He also has flunkies that have 300,000 HP each. And they respawn. And you have to kill them or else it's GG. 
F***ing sucks.

My absolute favorite FFB is the final boss of Nights of Azure 2.

Edited September 30, 2019 by DragonFlames

[Codename Shrimp]

1 minute ago, DragonFlames said:

I was immediately reminded of the final superboss in Final Fantasy X with that statement. Super easy fight, it's just repeating the same damn pattern over and over for an hour (the hardest part is not falling asleep), because you can do 99,999 damage to a guy with 12,000,000 HP. Worst part? He also has flunkies that have 300,000 HP each. And they respawn. And you have to kill them or else it's GG. 
F***ing sucks.

Just reading about it ugh

Who did think that that is a good idea?

[Armagon]

Testing to see if the stupid captcha will let me post.

[Armagon]

Ok it did, now i can get back to what i was replying to.

[Armagon]

Fellas, it's been 20 years since the best video game studio was founded.

12 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It isn't too bad actually. It's pretty rare on the enemy side, just one family of Indigens that isn't common, and a handful of bosses, including: Lugalbanda, our beloved Soul Reader, and apparently the final phase of the final boss (not that I noticed it, "cheating" my way through it as I did).

Oh that's fair then, if it's that limited.

On the subject of status effects, is it me, or does inflicting them in Xenoblade 1 actually not matter much outside of the really useful stuff like Soul Read.

 

4 hours ago, Ingrid Brandl Galatea said:

Heavy showers like every ten minutes

Ngl, that sounds like paradise for a Floridian like me.

2 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Nice!
Here's hoping the game's quality lives up to those numbers. Though knowing Atelier so far and the Gust games I've played, I'm not too worried about it.

I've seen some people who are playing it right now say it's really good. I haven't seen any major criticism yet, the most i've seen is regarding the battle system but it's less of a criticism and more of just preference. Basically, the battle system in Ryza isn't 100% turn-based and some people aren't too onboard with that. I'll link to the official website regarding the battle system since it has video and it'll probably make more sense if you actually see it. 

1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

I also ran into what I assume is a boss that caught me completely off guard (it literally came out of nowhere when I was exploring a new area), which is more than a little BS.

Let me guess: it was the behemoth in the desert.

56 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Is it me, or do alot of new games not get final bosses right?

Turn-based RPGs in a nutshell. At least in action-oriented games, i don't mind tanky bosses as much because you'll be doing lots of damage quickly and you can even just not take damage if you know what you're doing (though that doesn't mean these bosses should be placed at the start of the game. I'm looking at you, Ys 7). In turn-based RPGs, tanky bosses in general just last longer than they need to, not counting external factors like overleveling and whatnot. Not only that but avoiding damage in those games is pretty much up to chance.

[Codename Shrimp]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

At least in action-oriented games, i don't mind tanky bosses as much because you'll be doing lots of damage quickly and you can even just not take damage if you know what you're doing

Actually, i do mind them more in action games because i don't want to be pressing buttons super fast and evading attacks for like an hour. Hurts the hand man xD