What Games are you playing 2015?

[DjinnAndTonic]

What's S/L actually stand for? And RS while I'm asking about acronyms I constantly see on FFRK sites. At least I know what S\L -means-, just not sure where the acronym came from...

[Fenrir]

S/L is Stop/Load: stop the game, load the game
I think RS is record synergy? The bonus you get from using stuff from the same game as your current realm

[Excal]

And you've just mentioned one of the reasons why I love me some LFT.  Don't get me wrong, I still like vanilla, and frankly, if I just want an FFT experience without having to worry about difficulty then I'll go vanilla.  But, Gained JP up innate?  Yes please.  While I like some of the other changes a lot, that change takes the obvious and only best choice for the support slot and effectively assumes you'll use it, so have an effective second support slot for something non Gained-JP Up.

[Reiska]

If I played a normal unrestricted file of FFT now I would not have a single reset anywhere, I guarantee it.

Nitpick: This is not something you can actually authoritatively guarantee in FFT, given that there's I believe two battles which it's possible to lose before you ever get an action.  (Yardow's Save Rafa battle is the more famous one, I think certain Zaland setups can approach this if and only if you choose the Save Mustadio! option)

In the case of the Yardow fight it does require the one Ninja that doesn't have a fixed zodiac sign loading with good or best compatibility to Rafa and throwing stuff at her, I believe.

More empirically as FFT difficulty goes: I find magic CT timing to be irritating at best, and an exercise in frustration at worst, depending on the Speed spreads in play.  As an example (from LFT) this morning, I was trying to work out timing spells from a Squire with Summon Magic so as not to get mid-charged.  This is in chapter 2, so most enemies are 6-7 speed (tending more toward the latter by the chapter's end) and my Squire is also 7 speed.  So this is how the CTs line up:

SP7: 07-14-21-28-35-42-49-56-63-70-77-84-91-98-00
SP6: 06-12-18-24-30-36-42-48-54-60-66-72-78-84-90-96-00

So, on turn 1, anything with a CTR higher than 1 will get mid-charged.  This condition will (more or less; rounding error exists) persist if both sides of the battle maintain this CT differential.  If I assume that many enemies will not be able to move and act on turn 1, that means they're starting from 20 CT for their next count.  So let's assume I wait in place and do nothing with the Squire for turn 1, and the enemy moves towards me but does not act:

SP7: 07-14-21-28-35-42-49-56-63-70-77-84-91-98-00-47-54-61-68-75-82-89-96-00
SP6: 06-12-18-24-30-36-42-48-54-60-66-72-78-84-90-96-00-26-32-38-44-50-56-62-68-74-80-86-92-98-00

I can now successfully cast anything CTR 6 or lower... which still excludes most of Summon Magic, without Short Charge (and this is a little bit too early in the game to reasonably have that without some grinding, I think).

In practice, I don't make these types of considerations in heavy detail because they slow down gameplay too much in an already slow game (and waiting in place with no action means no EXP/JP gain for that period of time), thus contributing to why I tend to find Summon Magic notably less useful in LFT or WotL (where its CTs are higher enough to cause these kinds of considerations) in the absence of Short Charge.  The EXP/JP opportunity cost in passing 2 actions to make a CTR 7 line up is quite high.

I do agree Oracle is an underrated job, though.  It's quite good once you realize a female oracle can hit almost as hard as a male lancer in melee.  The only thing holding it back is that it's not particularly any less fragile than any other mage class so you may not want it getting that close, and it can be hard to find a place for the skillset in your build if you're trying to maintain a team setup that isn't fail-prone.  For instance, I usually prefer to have a minimum of 2 PCs capable of revival, and I often actually have three (for instance, right now my LFT run setup features Ramza running Guts for one revive, a Knight with White Magic for a second, and a character running Punch Art for third).

[Dark Holy Elf]

The chance of Rafa dying to a ninja's first turn is incredibly low but that's still a fair point. On the other hand, obviously if I were trying to guarantee a zero-reset file of FFT I would not save Mustadio (nor Algus; Boco maybe).

This is in chapter 2, so most enemies are 6-7 speed (tending more toward the latter by the chapter's end) and my Squire is also 7 speed.  So this is how the CTs line up:

SP7: 07-14-21-28-35-42-49-56-63-70-77-84-91-98-00
SP6: 06-12-18-24-30-36-42-48-54-60-66-72-78-84-90-96-00

Most enemies in Chapter 2 are 6 speed, so being 7 speed would make charge-based abilities much more cumbersome to use. I never really twinked my mages for speed and never outlevelled enemies so being faster than my enemies was not a problem I largely worried about in FFT (only some Summoners, who can't mid-charge your for obvious reasons, and monsters will typically be slower than a mage). This is just another bit of FFT knowledge you need to pick up, though, I'll agree, if one I personally lucked into due to preferring to twink Magic over Speed. I played FF6 right before FFT, can you blame me?

[Reiska]

The chance of Rafa dying to a ninja's first turn is incredibly low but that's still a fair point. On the other hand, obviously if I were trying to guarantee a zero-reset file of FFT I would not save Mustadio (nor Algus; Boco maybe).

This is in chapter 2, so most enemies are 6-7 speed (tending more toward the latter by the chapter's end) and my Squire is also 7 speed.  So this is how the CTs line up:

SP7: 07-14-21-28-35-42-49-56-63-70-77-84-91-98-00
SP6: 06-12-18-24-30-36-42-48-54-60-66-72-78-84-90-96-00

Most enemies in Chapter 2 are 6 speed, so being 7 speed would make charge-based abilities much more cumbersome to use. I never really twinked my mages for speed and never outlevelled enemies so being faster than my enemies was not a problem I largely worried about in FFT (only some Summoners, who can't mid-charge your for obvious reasons, and monsters will typically be slower than a mage). This is just another bit of FFT knowledge you need to pick up, though, I'll agree, if one I personally lucked into due to preferring to twink Magic over Speed. I played FF6 right before FFT, can you blame me?

Agreed, it's mostly an odd case of how Squire's (and Priest's) 110% speed modifiers in LFT can actually work against the class' utility sometimes.

This actually gives me an interesting idea for an accessory, though I don't know if it's actually possible in FFT coding: some kind of equippable accessory or hat or something with a Speed penalty on it, so you can twink your speed _down_ if desired.

[hinode]

Priest's stat spread (slightly above-average speed, low MA for a mage class) always felt like it was a liability more often than a plus in vanilla FFT. I like White Magic a lot ever since I realized how potent Holy can be in FFT, but generally prefer it on a different mage class.

Incidentally, Oracle is one of my preferred candidates for this, the general idea being that you use your MP on Holy in assassination battles but more cost effective status/cure spells in defeat all stages, with stick beats for cleanup. Works best with some equipment shuffling between stages, admittedly.

[SnowFire]

Well, per hinode, FFT SCCs are a little weird, because going with mass ranged allows some run & gun stratz that trivialize entire enemy turns.  This compensates in power a lot for the lack of variety.  (It's also a strategy I suspect a first-time player would be leery of, because they wouldn't know that FFT doesn't have very many "strong spoiling" enemies which just shut down a type of offense like in other games.  Fear of running the 5 mage team into the army of hypothetical 10 Faith Mediators with guns or something which never happens.)  I'd also propose that resets aren't the best indication of difficulty; FFT battles involve strategy and such, so mistakes can and will be punished, but what counts as a mistake is a lot more subtle than the likes of, say, SMT (you used the wrong element against an enemy you had 0 knowledge of?  burn.).  Meanwhile, sure, a Fire Emblem master will eat the occasional reset, but it'll be due to a merited RNG gamble where 3 low-probability bad events happened in a row that got a Lord killed or the like.  (And if the FE master knew it had to be a no-reset run, maybe they just bench Eliwood anyway and never let him get near an enemy, just to be sure.)  Seems more like a implications-of-the-system difference.

Anyway, back to Fire Emblem 8 Eirika Hard comments.  Despite the fact that Ciato has beaten me to the punch.

C13 - Fun map...  although talk about some screwy difficulty.  The vast majority of the game has non-moving bosses that wait for their doom, this game has a mobile boss...  that has 3-10 range...  that you have a time limit to defeat...  and gives you a new recruit who has like 2 Resistance.  I SEE.  Okay, if you're playing conservatively, you can totally ignore Pablo and Aias by sitting on the east side of the map and just murdering Aias's reinforcements as they spawn, but still, if you want glory, this is friggin' hard.  They had to throw a Warrior with a Swordslayer in there, too, so that you can just let all of Pablo's axemen get themself murdered on Colm/Marisa/Eirika/etc.  I eat a reset (thanx emulator), and should have eaten a 2nd reset, but Sage AI is apparently heal > go for a possible OHKO, so I sneak out the double boss kill anyway.  If I tried to do this on a real cart, I'd definitely have tried to edge an extra promotion first, perhaps.

Also, Saleh acquits himself fairly well as a new staff bot who can also kill things, though he's got a bit of a glass jaw.

C14 - Everyone piles on the Rennac route, I recruit him, then murder the first wave of reinforcements.  This is a pretty easy map if you play it slow; going back for the treasure to the west of your start location is annoyingly slow, though.  (Not even much point in killing the boss early since Eirika needs to Seize.) 

Also I'd just like to say that's some lameness coming from Carlyle.  Intentional I suppose, but sheesh, I thought crazed stalkers would attempt to kill their unrequited loves after being frustrated.  Like, if he wanted revenge against her for spurning his advances, fine.  But he wants to make her fall in love with him by murdering all her friends or something then kidnap her?  ...right, that's gonna go real well.

C15 - Fun times, pretty much the same as on Eph route.  Eph gets to somehow get ahead of Eirika on levels by going to the southern forts and murdering entire armies by himself, going from 15-> high 19.  I collect Caellech first, then Valter last.  They really should have made Valter move, at least, or given him AI to move to fight Eirika if she comes within range, since that's his stated motive or the like.

Oh and desert nonsense, but we know that.  Amelia is the lowest level of my main set although not by much, so she gets Metis's Tome.  (I considered MYRRH as well but no).

C16 - zzzzzzzzz.  I guess you have to move fast enough to stop the thief from stealing the NE treasure chests, and the waves of cavalry reinforcements can potentially be exciting for whoever you have holding them off, but pretty easy.  Also, where is Orson even getting the money to pay these guys?!  His rule is about to collapse on his own...  maybe Grado left him with a giant warchest.

C17 - So why do these Grado remnants fighting for Lyon want to kill random river folk anyway?!  Oh well.  Fun map anyway, get some rescue hax going.

C18 - Farming, the map.  50 XP flat for killing a gorgon egg, even to promoted units?  Ugh.  Lyon didn't lead us to a trap, he lead us to a veritable XP font, probably because he has some anime-esque "I want you to reach your full potential before I fight you and crush your hopes!" thing.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it, anyway.

C19 - Ah, Last Hope.  This map I can definitely see as maybe frustrating on a cart, what with the endless waves of reinforcements coming through the front gate.  In retrospect, I think I fought it wrong: what you want is 2 durable units with Iron weapons as far back as you can that still blocks other units from escaping, then murder everything up to the *farthest* point where 2 units can block everything, then back up and repeat.  I stayed still or only moved back & forth 1 rank a bit too much, letting the enemy wave build up.  Wasn't able to kill Riev as a result.

Oh, there was also technically a reset in that I forgot Myrrh was arrow-weak, and of course weakness hitting does wonders for smashing through her all-Def no-HP build.  (I had her in the smaller top section w/ Gerik, Marisa, & Saleh holding that off.)

Darkling Woods next!  We'll see how the new & improved hard mode monsters fare.  Stats certainly look better than some of the data from the NM monsters in the stat topic, e.g. 18 Defense Cyclops.

[VySaika]

Fiesta is what I have been doing mostly, gamewise. Beat a White/Knight/Red/Ranger chaos run, including the mighty box dragon. Tried to mimic tallychu and pseudo-llg for awhile but I just got ripped apart by some bosses and had to gain about 5 levels. Still finished the game under what I normally do by a bit, so hey.

Started up a second one. MK/Bard/Ranger/Dragoon. Okay. Lategame this team will be unstoppable. As is, 11 resets on Soul Cannon because !Animals was my only non-POTION healing, so any time my Ranger got hit with old it was basically auto-reset. Also quite a bit lower level than normal for me, finished W1 at level 16(couldn't remember if anything in Ronka had L5 death, so I gained one more to be safe). Now in W2 I can buy hi-potions, so I don't anticipate healing woes anymore. Once I make :void: this team should have a free omega win, and we'll see what I can do about boxdragon. Someone has suggested zombie my team except for bard and hide the bard. That's kinda cheese, but I may do it for the lulz anyway. Expect Equip Harp to be used somewhere in there. Harp Jumps? Maybe~

Also playing some Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Vita version. I'm slowly but surely sucking less, just managed to get the d6 unlocked and now to not touch again for a very long time. Also almost cleared a Suicide King run, got to Cathedral and made it a few rooms in before stuff just killed me.

[Excal]

This actually gives me an interesting idea for an accessory, though I don't know if it's actually possible in FFT coding: some kind of equippable accessory or hat or something with a Speed penalty on it, so you can twink your speed _down_ if desired.

FFT is hard coded to prevent equipment from giving stat penalties.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well yeah it's obviously more efficient
But it's like save state abuse

At worst, they're savestates built into the game and which were never patched out in nearly one year. At least DeNa made later bosses immune to Protect and Shell in order to mitigate the Vit-0 exploit (which I never used, but hey, some people -do- want to see Irvine dealing 90k damage with a limit), I honestly consider S/L inbuilt design (and FTP bullshit doesn't really deserve any better anyway. Fuck, they prevent it with the gatchas, don't really see why they couldn't do it with the battles themselves). Not to mention it actually always takes you to the start of the round anyway, it's more like a soft reset to me. But no real use talking about it, really.

Final Fantasy Autobattle Over Heels - Doing the JENOVA Project boss rush right now. Sample H0512 is hilariously worthless, you could actually safely autobattle it. Lost Number, with its vulnerability to paralysis and lower HP compared to its Elite iteration, isn't much better. Right now, my resources are mostly in top shape, but Materia Keeper is bound to change that. I'll see if I'll need a Mythril to fight Jenova BIRTH safely or not - I've gotten full mastery on the stages so far, but both Materia Keeper and Jenova BIRTH require Sephiroth around as a target score, so I have no real chance of mastering the rush anyway.

[Grefter]

Because Gatcha is the real money maker, Gems for resets is less likely to be the real high turn over.  It probably just isn't worth the investiture in increased number of calls back to the server.  Once per fight instead of each turn/round/whatever, much easier to maintain.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah, likely. Also, quite frankly, S/L sorta -improves- the experience, since it cuts down both on bullshit RNG frustration to a degree and also works as a life quality touch on the basis of cellphone gaming's intermittent nature. If turning off the cellphone wasted all the rounds in a fight, it'd be annoying as hell.

Final Fantasy Autobattle, And Wandering Around Lost - Still on the boss rush, up to Jenova BIRTH. I spent most of Vivi's magic charges and a Sentinel's Grimoire, but I still have overkill charges of healing, a Lunatic High limit and a couple breaks (not to mention the Mana Spring II recharges. That skill, so damn good), so I'll give it a no-Mythril go. If it doesn't work out, I'll do a one-Mythril run tomorrow or something. The bosses being overall weaker on the boss rush may make this pretty simple, even Trine was notably less dangerous this time around.

[Sierra]

Arkham Knight: Oh man, he just came back with a bigger tank, only now it's an instakill if you screw anything up, and if you do die you respawn facing him so the first thing you have to do is turn the car 180 degrees just to not immediately die. Thanks, game. Then the actual face-to-face battle is for all practical purposes just a predator battle vs regular goons. They really couldn't be arsed with boss fights at all, could they. (I'm also going to note now my complete expectation that he'll come back later to team up vs. the actual mastermind.)

I'm obliged to correct one thing re: spoilery text in previous post: Babs not dead. I guess we shouldn't take at face value everything that a drugged protagonist actually thinks he's seeing. Of course, it could just be she's a ghost since the game glitched out and her character model disappeared from subsequent cutscenes, which definitely made for some absurd looking scenarios when Batman was supposed to be carrying her around.

[Scar]

Ffrk

The leading man arrives tonight!

About time I unloaded this 100+ mithril to attempt to get his weapon.

I haven't been lucky yet. So I'm due!?!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's not how probability works.

Final Fantasy The Grapes of Autobattle - Jenova BIRTH KOed Garnet at a point where I was still putting Lunatic High up late in the battle. Oops. Regardless, I have actually more charges than I thought I did. I -think- I can pull this off without Mythril, it'd be a nice first. Of course, if that doesn't pan out, the fight should be a cinch -with- Mythril. The difference having Rank 3 on most of your tools makes.

[Scar]

No, it's not how it works....but I gotta believe!

I haven't gotten to boss rush in the ff7 event yet. I did beat all the stages except the last two with bosses though.

My ff7 team is kinda meh. Red13 is a weird character. I might just dump him altogether. Tifa doesn't have any noteworthy use really. Flower girl heals, which is nice....I guess. Cloud owns in this game and seph has his 4 star synergy sword so he hits hard too.

I might just keep cloud n seph for the bosses.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You can't sanely master the Elite event endgame without Sephiroth in your party short of serious vit-0 abuse, those target scores are too important and Jenova BIRTH has too much HP for a quick blitz. And Red XIII shouldn't even be touched if you haven't got the Diamond Pin. Not being able to break the level cap yet and having an utterly generic damage SB off a shit weapon type? No thanks.

[The Duck]

Arkham Knight isn't wholly without merit, but I think it's pretty squarely the worst entry in the series.

Cid noooooo

I "finished" Her Story. It doesn't really have an endstate (lol not a game), but there is a point where you can get to the credits that occurs once you unlock enough stuff, and the prompt is pretty much "are you satisfied with your interpretations of the events." It'd be interesting to see how each person goes through their search history to see the thread of their logic. This is one of the few games I've taken notes on and it makes you think in a much different way than most other investigation games. There are lots of threads that are kind of red herrings or just not pertinent to the actual crime in question that are only significant for completionists, but the reward comes in having these little moments of insight, whether they come from a basic knowledge of police procedurals or you just noticing some connection that isn't explicitly spoken. And given the nonlinear path that your logic can take, there are pieces of information that get recontextualized as you have more information, and that process will be different for every player. I really enjoyed the way the story unravels here.

I have concurrently been playing cases in LA Noire and the contrasts are striking. LA Noire has fairly definitive correct and incorrect answers and gives you fairly immediate feedback with the chimes and there is a fairly decisive and unambiguous criminal in a lot of its cases. That's not at all the case in Her Story, where you pursue threads as you see fit, don't get feedback as to whether a given piece of information is useful, and there's a much more ambiguous path than in LA Noire.

I'm doing this game's version of pixel hunting at this point. Getting 100% doesn't really matter and some of the clips that I'm getting at this point are kind of silly (fine I will ask every goddamn thing about coffee). I'm not 100% sure on my interpretation yet and as Fenrir says, a Vaati-like theory would be really interesting.

The game is cheap so it's worth your time if this kind of crime story/investigation is appealing. It's not for everyone though.

spoielrs tsih gaem is abuot polyamry no not really

[Sierra]

Gourry I can't tell if you're lamenting the fact that the game is disappointing or just that I'm playing mediocre games.

I mostly found out I was wrong in L.A. Noire through the chief yelling at me afterward. This might have happened a lot. Of course Cole always got plot promoted anyway because plot.

[The Duck]

The former. People are all over the place about it, with most people who are negative on it saying that it was due to fatigue. I didn't play Origins so maybe that won't affect me but it seems like the trajectory of the series has been downward (Asylum being best and everything else being a step down). I'll still pick it up at some point.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Filigree And Autobattle - After a few early botched attempts, I decided to just run from the Jenova BIRTH fight, spend a Mythril and utterly mangle it for lulsies. And utterly mangle it I did. Got Power Breakdown, luckily had the orbs to hone it to R2 and now I'll just grind for more orbs and ability honing until the Balthier event lands. Probably won't try my luck at draws until the Sephiroth event is replaced, though.

[Fenrir]

Super glad you enjoyed Her Story, Gourry.

Did you notice the things at the end of the credits because they help. I wouldn't have gotten 100% otherwise.

I am going to post increasingly spoilerish things


Did you decipher the knock code? That was my favourite moment.


I asked myself why there were so many coffee videos too, and there's definitely a real reason.

Mostly that it doesn't really make much more sense for her to say the canned phrase "No sugar, I'm sweet enough as it is" then take sugar in her coffee the next day. So...


There seem to be two camps about what was really happening: Theory one is there are two girls, theory two is there is only one total schizo. I fall in the former camp but I'm glad the ambiguity is here.
Ultimately it didn't matter much though.

Also, quite frankly, S/L sorta -improves- the experience, since it cuts down both on bullshit RNG frustration to a degree and also works as a life quality touch on the basis of cellphone gaming's intermittent nature. If turning off the cellphone wasted all the rounds in a fight, it'd be annoying as hell.

That second thing you mentioned is the reason why they can't possibly fix this, without ruining the quality of life of this game for everybody.

The only ways they could remove S/L would be:
- Having the player lose dungeon progress everytime he quits the game. Obviously terrible.
- Having the game send info to the servers even more constantly than before, making it a slog if you don't have a good internet connexion, which is a terrible idea for a mobile game.

So they're not fixing S/L, it's still very much of an unintended exploit though.
I mean you can still use it and all, I am not going to judge you negatively for this or anything, we are only talking about playing a dumb vidcon here. A dumb vidcon with FTP bullshit stamina. So I definitely understand the sentiment, I just personally don't like using glitches/exploits to get an advantage.
S/L is overall pretty similar to copying suspended saves in other games to effectively make them hard saves.


(Side note, I am definitely going to harshly judge people who copy their save file before Nier's D ending)

[Fenrir]

FFT:

Chapter 4.

You know that math teaching quest?
I turned my bard into an arithmetician/calculator because, duh, and I accepted the quest.

12 days later:
"The skills of the ninja were a great boon to us. One person can make the difference!"

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FFT:

Chapter 4.

You know that math teaching quest?
I turned my bard into an arithmetician/calculator because, duh, and I accepted the quest.

12 days later:
"The skills of the ninja were a great boon to us. One person can make the difference!"

This is the way!