This is also two sessions combined into one, as the first session I was just running around fighting things around Wellspring, identifying weaknesses, levelling up Alfyn so he could Inquire about things, getting JP (Southern Wellspring Sands looks better on the surface since you can regularly get JP rewards in the 130 range, but battles take FOREVER due to weird sets of weaknesses, so I still feel like Carrion Caves is better), and debating what to do next.
The only real thing of note is that I finally decided to swap around some support abilities now that people have access to a few jobs' worth of them. Currently popular is Inspiration, which has the effect "With each successful standard attack, gain SP equal to 1% of the damage you deal.". When you boost a character's standard attack to get multiple hits, Inspiration applies to each individual hit, so while the amount of SP gained is small, it adds up. This gives a virtual boost to any given character's max SP since I can just do regular attacks to recover smaller amounts of SP. I also discovered that the Thief job makes an excellent SP battery with its Steal SP and Share SP abilities. If you boost Steal SP, you can usually recover close to 100% of what you shared to another character (plus Steal SP's cost of 6 SP), and Inspiration can recover the rest. There's a big caveat to Steal SP though, that may also apply to HP Thief now that I think about it: if you kill the enemy with Steal SP, you don't get any SP. It still pops up the SP gain text, but the value is zero.
Also, everything about the Apothecary ability Amputation paints a rather grim view of what amputations must have been like before anesthesia and other modern medical technology. It's just a really powerful axe swing with a big wind-up... You get the picture, right?
Between the first bit and the rest of this, I decided to not go as gung-ho on the early-game grinding as I have been. It was getting exhausting and kind of turning me off from playing the game because of how slowly it goes. The later areas will surely have better rewards, and this way I actually get to continue the story. First order of business: find the other four shrines so I can unlock the other four secondary jobs. Second order of business: Ophilia's Chapter 2. Also, somewhere in there, make sure I have non-makeshift equipment for people now that their available weapon range is expanding. I love that the game throws you that bone, but as the description of the makeshift weapons implies, you'll want to replace them with a real weapon before too long.
In the process of running around locating the other four shrines, I noticed that it's kinda easy to get lost in Western Stillsnow Wilds, which is going to make finding all the chests in that area fun. If not for the icons on the radar I don't think I would've found the sub-area or the shrine, or at least, not without a lot of walking around fighting random battles because the area is large, open, and completely covered in snow. As in, there are no paths to help you find your way. Western Noblecourt Flats is almost the same thing, but without the snow. Nevertheless, I do now have access to all secondary jobs. Unfortunately, weapons cost money, and the good ones cost a lot, so I kinda had to stop buying the good weapons before I'd replaced all the makeshift equipment.
Anyway, with my party all decked out with secondary jobs that they either mostly know or completely know, it was well and truly way past the time to do Ophilia's Chapter 2.
The first part of her Chapter 2 is as easy as I expected it to be: no enemies, just dialogue as Ophilia performs the Kindling in Saintsbridge Cathedral. Then, while she's taking a walk around the city, she encounters some kids having an argument. Long story short, one of the kids recently lost his mother, and highly values her brooch, which another one of the kids "lost" by bumping into him. In typical "kids being dicks to each other" fashion, blame and insults are thrown at the one who is somehow responsible for "losing" the brooch by bumping into the other. Seriously, kid, if the thing means that much to you, keep it secure!
Anyway, this sets up Ophilia trying to help the kid locate the brooch. They're unsuccessful, and Ophilia goes to have a talk with the kid whose mom died. She eventually convinces him to sort of begrudgingly apologize, but then the kid who's still busy looking for the brooch runs off after a dog who apparently has it in its mouth. Said kid follows said dog straight into a forest full of monsters. Combat time!
This area was fairly easy, both in the "it's still early game and the recommended level is 20" sense, and in the "two of my characters are level 50+ and two are high 30s or low 40s" sense, but also thanks to having secondary jobs set on everyone, I have a lot more weapon options available and can hit weaknesses much more often.
I love how this game incentivizes using regular attacks. In a lot of RPGs, each character's regular attack is kind of lackluster and you only use it when you're low on magic or whatever, but here, you need to use regular attacks in order to break enemies' defenses so you can deal more damage to them. Also, support abilities that go into effect on hit further incentivize this, i.e. the aforementioned Inspiration.
Anyway, I forget how to spell the boss' name because it was full of weird foreign characters that I don't even know how to pronounce, but it was a direwolf that strengthened its guard by two hits after every time I broke it. Even though H'aanit starts out only being able to use a bow and an axe, with Warrior as her secondary the sword is the best weapon for her. I was using the Warrior abilities a lot, namely Cross Strike. At one point I threw Ophilia's Divine skill on her so a boosted Cross Strike would happen twice instead of once. Between me being overlevelled, the extra weapons afforded by secondary jobs, and the relatively low recommended level for the area, the boss went down without issue.
In the end, the kid finds the brooch and they go back to being friends again.
I guess now that I have all the secondary jobs available I should go over my party setup, so here goes:
H'aanit has the Warrior secondary and is using Heighten Senses, Inspiration, Second Serving, and Patience. Ophilia has the Apothecary secondary and is using SP Saver, Inner Strength, Inspiration, and Saving Grace. Primrose has the Hunter secondary and is using Inspiration, Eye for an Eye, Second Wind, and Second Serving. Finally, Tressa has the Thief secondary and is using Inspiration, Grows on Trees, Snatch, and SP Saver.
An interesting thing I've noticed is that the weapon you have selected next to the Attack option matters for the Eye for an Eye support ability. When I noticed this, I had the bow selected when Primrose got hit, and she countered with the bow, which happened to weaken the attacking enemy's guard. Also, attempting to target a job skill that uses a weapon will select that weapon. For instance, with H'aanit with a Warrior secondary, having anything other than the sword selected and then targeting enemies with Level Slash will switch her selected weapon to the sword.
I guess one thing that remains for me to figure out: Does having a secondary job give you access to a weapon that the character already had access to from their primary job shaft you out of a weapon slot, or do you get some sort of attack boost for that weapon since both jobs impart knowledge of how to use the weapon? If I had to guess, I'd say the former.
Anyway, I'm liking this whole "progressing through the game" thing, so up next will be Primrose's Chapter 2. I think it's going to be "all story, all the time" until recommended levels for things catch up to where my characters are.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Octopath Traveler: Session 8
I kinda live-tweeted the first portion of this session, so the first portion of this post will be a summary of that, with a few bits interjected because I didn't tweet everything.
I decided to make for Saintsbridgeunder cover of night to do Ophilia's Chapter 2, but on the way there I remembered that NPCs and side quests exist. I found the artist whose last painting is necessary for a side quest elsewhere, and I found a shrine, which was actually the second one I found, but the first one I actually bothered to venture any farther into than the bare minimum to get its icon on the world map. Turns out the shrines are how you unlock secondary jobs, and I should've continued into the first one I found, on the way to Stonegard. Anyway, I now have Apothecary available as a secondary job. H'aanit, Ophilia, and Tressa had a ton of JP sitting around from when I was being an idiot grinding JP for people one at a time, so they immediately learned all of the Apothecary skills. Primrose was the one I was swapping out for that, so she learned everything but the Divine skill. Satisfied with having done that, I left Ophilia as an Apothecary secondary (each job can only be set as one character's secondary job). My thoughts immediately turned to "hey, I should go back to that other shrine...", but continued with "...after I get to Saintsbridge.".
After setting Ophilia's secondary job to Apothecary, she gained the ability to use axes in combat. I didn't actually have a spare axe to give her, but as it turns out, the game has you covered if that's the case. The character gains a "Makeshift Axe" weapon that doesn't have any stat boosts, but at the very least enables you to use the weapon in combat until you get to a town and buy something better. Nice touch, that. Apothecary as a secondary also doesn't grant access to the Concoct menu, sadly, because that's one of Alfyn's unique abilities. Still, it allows a character to heal a single target and remove status effects, which mesh quite well with Ophilia being a healer.
Once in Saintsbridge, New Town Syndrome™ took over and I had to swap in Alfyn and Therion so I could run around and speak to, Inquire about, and Steal from every NPC possible. Inquiring about some NPCs in Saintsbridge needs Alfyn to be level 35, and he was level 32 so I decided to visit the nearby area of Farshore to do some grinding, for both EXP and JP. I haven't really been paying attention to where the best EXP gains are, but Carrion Caves JP gains are still best JP gains. Got Therion the first five Apothecary skills before setting out. Finished up a couple of the easier side quests and decided to go pick up more secondary jobs.
I now have access to Apothecary, Warrior, Merchant, and Dancer as secondary jobs. I gave H'aanit the Warrior secondary, it just made sense. She's a hunter, it's only natural that she might want to learn to wield different types of weapons to better help her while hunting. I gave Ophilia the Apothecary secondary, as its single-target revive and status effect removal mesh well, and she seems to be taking a liking to swinging a giant axe around. My party as I've been running around doing this has had Alfyn and Therion in place of Primrose and Tressa, Alfyn doesn't have a secondary yet (Dancer doesn't really make sense for his character), and I gave Therion the Merchant secondary. This way, it's like he's peddling off his ill-gotten goods, which I kinda do anyway since I steal everything that isn't nailed down.
I realized that it makes total sense which secondary jobs are obtained where: it's the same as the starting region for the character with that job as primary. Also, I finally got around to doing the most basic of math and figured out that it takes 9630 JP to completely learn a job. I doubt I'll cut it that close, but it's nice to know if I'm going to have to be choosy or if I can just go down the list learning all the skills one by one.
Getting secondary job skills, levelling up Alfyn as a byproduct, and doing Ophilia's Chapter 2... next session?
I decided to make for Saintsbridge
After setting Ophilia's secondary job to Apothecary, she gained the ability to use axes in combat. I didn't actually have a spare axe to give her, but as it turns out, the game has you covered if that's the case. The character gains a "Makeshift Axe" weapon that doesn't have any stat boosts, but at the very least enables you to use the weapon in combat until you get to a town and buy something better. Nice touch, that. Apothecary as a secondary also doesn't grant access to the Concoct menu, sadly, because that's one of Alfyn's unique abilities. Still, it allows a character to heal a single target and remove status effects, which mesh quite well with Ophilia being a healer.
Once in Saintsbridge, New Town Syndrome™ took over and I had to swap in Alfyn and Therion so I could run around and speak to, Inquire about, and Steal from every NPC possible. Inquiring about some NPCs in Saintsbridge needs Alfyn to be level 35, and he was level 32 so I decided to visit the nearby area of Farshore to do some grinding, for both EXP and JP. I haven't really been paying attention to where the best EXP gains are, but Carrion Caves JP gains are still best JP gains. Got Therion the first five Apothecary skills before setting out. Finished up a couple of the easier side quests and decided to go pick up more secondary jobs.
I now have access to Apothecary, Warrior, Merchant, and Dancer as secondary jobs. I gave H'aanit the Warrior secondary, it just made sense. She's a hunter, it's only natural that she might want to learn to wield different types of weapons to better help her while hunting. I gave Ophilia the Apothecary secondary, as its single-target revive and status effect removal mesh well, and she seems to be taking a liking to swinging a giant axe around. My party as I've been running around doing this has had Alfyn and Therion in place of Primrose and Tressa, Alfyn doesn't have a secondary yet (Dancer doesn't really make sense for his character), and I gave Therion the Merchant secondary. This way, it's like he's peddling off his ill-gotten goods, which I kinda do anyway since I steal everything that isn't nailed down.
I realized that it makes total sense which secondary jobs are obtained where: it's the same as the starting region for the character with that job as primary. Also, I finally got around to doing the most basic of math and figured out that it takes 9630 JP to completely learn a job. I doubt I'll cut it that close, but it's nice to know if I'm going to have to be choosy or if I can just go down the list learning all the skills one by one.
Getting secondary job skills, levelling up Alfyn as a byproduct, and doing Ophilia's Chapter 2... next session?
Octopath Traveler: Session 7
I began this session realizing that I had a silly gap of 126 JP between Olberic and Therion, that I could easily close by having Olberic use Challenge on a few people. I ended up with them perfectly synchronized, and a good bit of grinding later, they got their Divine skills.
After that, I ran around having Therion steal everything that wasn't nailed down. Levelling up improves his chances of stealing by a lot, so a good many things that had lower chances now had 100% chances. I've got quest items for side quests that I don't even have yet. Anyway, my filching quest took me to Stonegard, where I could also have Alfyn finally use Inquire on the townspeople now that he's levelled up. Satisfied with having exhausted path actions, I went to the tavern to continue H'aanit's story.
By the way, I love this game's use of taverns for stuff like this. You can only swap party members around at a tavern, and if you choose not to continue a story when you enter the town it's taking you to, you can go to the tavern to continue it. It's totally like the other four travellers are hanging out in the tavern, and then you visit it to exchange stories and put together a group to head out and get stuff done.
H'aanit's search for her master, Z'aanta, leads her to a townsperson in Stonegard by the name of Natalia. Before continuing on his hunt, Z'aanta stayed at her place. After a quick talk, H'aanit learns that he was headed into The Spectrewood, and sets off on his trail. Dealing with a rock slide and a weird tree enemy that was blocking the path, she eventually encounters a clearing where there was clearly a battle. Shortly thereafter, she's beset upon by the Lord of the Forest.
Breaking that narrative style for a moment, this was an interesting boss fight. It kept summoning additional plants, and part of its attack pattern involved nomming someone down to 1 HP, gaining two extra hits on its guard, and changing its weaknesses around. It was a difficult fight for me to get into a rhythm, though I did end up with a reliable setup to avoid its powerful lightning attack that hits the entire party: simply weaken its guard to the point where it has one hit left, concentrate on the summoned plants for a bit until it starts charging for the attack, then deal the last hit to break its defense and make it lose the turn on which it would otherwise unleash the attack. It has a ton of HP, it took a few hits of Draefendi's Rage to the face, and they were hitting for over 6000. It was also quite annoying with the status effects, so the battle was a careful balance of figuring out which status effects to let run their course and which ones needed to be removed straight away, followed by weakening its guard, figuring out weaknesses, and also remembering to heal people occasionally.
Anyway, the beast Z'aanta was after, Redeye, apparently has the ability to petrify things, and it's done so to Z'aanta. Fortunately it wasn't the quick form of petrification seen in some works of fiction, but rather the slow version that gave him enough time to write a note asking whoever finds it to consult a specific seer in the town of Stillsnow.
Stillsnow so happens to be where Primrose's Chapter 2 takes place. I won't be seeing it for a bit, as I currently intend to do everyone's Chapter 2 before partaking anybody's Chapter 3, and I also intend to do the chapters in the order I recruited the characters, for no real reason other than "because I can". Anyway, next session will at the very least be Ophilia's Chapter 2. So far, the chapters seem to be designed to be reasonably digestible lengths, so given my play style that mostly involves dicking around and exploring everywhere except where the game is telling me to go, I can probably crank out a chapter in a couple of hours. We'll see how well this works as I get further into the game.
After that, I ran around having Therion steal everything that wasn't nailed down. Levelling up improves his chances of stealing by a lot, so a good many things that had lower chances now had 100% chances. I've got quest items for side quests that I don't even have yet. Anyway, my filching quest took me to Stonegard, where I could also have Alfyn finally use Inquire on the townspeople now that he's levelled up. Satisfied with having exhausted path actions, I went to the tavern to continue H'aanit's story.
By the way, I love this game's use of taverns for stuff like this. You can only swap party members around at a tavern, and if you choose not to continue a story when you enter the town it's taking you to, you can go to the tavern to continue it. It's totally like the other four travellers are hanging out in the tavern, and then you visit it to exchange stories and put together a group to head out and get stuff done.
H'aanit's search for her master, Z'aanta, leads her to a townsperson in Stonegard by the name of Natalia. Before continuing on his hunt, Z'aanta stayed at her place. After a quick talk, H'aanit learns that he was headed into The Spectrewood, and sets off on his trail. Dealing with a rock slide and a weird tree enemy that was blocking the path, she eventually encounters a clearing where there was clearly a battle. Shortly thereafter, she's beset upon by the Lord of the Forest.
Breaking that narrative style for a moment, this was an interesting boss fight. It kept summoning additional plants, and part of its attack pattern involved nomming someone down to 1 HP, gaining two extra hits on its guard, and changing its weaknesses around. It was a difficult fight for me to get into a rhythm, though I did end up with a reliable setup to avoid its powerful lightning attack that hits the entire party: simply weaken its guard to the point where it has one hit left, concentrate on the summoned plants for a bit until it starts charging for the attack, then deal the last hit to break its defense and make it lose the turn on which it would otherwise unleash the attack. It has a ton of HP, it took a few hits of Draefendi's Rage to the face, and they were hitting for over 6000. It was also quite annoying with the status effects, so the battle was a careful balance of figuring out which status effects to let run their course and which ones needed to be removed straight away, followed by weakening its guard, figuring out weaknesses, and also remembering to heal people occasionally.
Anyway, the beast Z'aanta was after, Redeye, apparently has the ability to petrify things, and it's done so to Z'aanta. Fortunately it wasn't the quick form of petrification seen in some works of fiction, but rather the slow version that gave him enough time to write a note asking whoever finds it to consult a specific seer in the town of Stillsnow.
Stillsnow so happens to be where Primrose's Chapter 2 takes place. I won't be seeing it for a bit, as I currently intend to do everyone's Chapter 2 before partaking anybody's Chapter 3, and I also intend to do the chapters in the order I recruited the characters, for no real reason other than "because I can". Anyway, next session will at the very least be Ophilia's Chapter 2. So far, the chapters seem to be designed to be reasonably digestible lengths, so given my play style that mostly involves dicking around and exploring everywhere except where the game is telling me to go, I can probably crank out a chapter in a couple of hours. We'll see how well this works as I get further into the game.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Octopath Traveler: Session 6
I left off last session in the middle of getting Alfyn his last few skills, so I picked right back up where I left off. I'd been idly wondering if I could properly handle Hoarfrost Grotto now that I've levelled up a bit, and I was curious if its JP rewards would be higher, so after getting his seventh skill, I paid it a visit. The answers to those questions are yes and no, respectively. I was rather surprised to see that Carrion Caves has better JP rewards despite its lower recommended level.
At any rate, the boss of Hoarfrost Grotto is none other than the Jötunn that I needed to find for a side quest, so I fought it. Without Cyrus around to identify weaknesses and provide lots of elemental damage, the beginning of the fight was a bit rocky. The first thing it does is summon two Snow Elementals, so I had to experiment the old-fashioned way to find all the weaknesses, and then keep my party alive while taking them out. The tricky bit about Jötunn itself is that every time you break it, the number of hits needed to break it again goes up by two, at least until it gets up to 8. It didn't go up after that for me. Alfyn surprisingly doesn't have the ability to boost item usage or his concoctions, so while I was able to use a fire damage concoction to knock two hits off Jötunn's defense every time he had a turn, it deals crap for damage. Ended up shifting strategy to having Tressa donate all her BP to either H'aanit or Ophilia, so H'aanit could use her Divine skill, Draefendi's Rage, more often; and so that Ophilia could pop off large heals as necessary. Once the Snow Elementals went down, the fight went a lot more smoothly. Jötunn ended up taking three hits of Draefendi's Rage to the face before dying.
If you couldn't tell, it's open game on using Fast Travel to move around the "donut" quickly. Fights between areas have gotten to be more of a chore than anything else, and all the delicious, juicy JP is in higher-level areas anyway.
After beating Jötunn, I decided to remind myself of what the JP rewards were like in The Whistlewood, and perhaps bag myself another Flatlands Froggen VI while I was there. The JP rewards are decent, but less consistent than Carrion Caves. Being a rare spawn, Flatlands Froggen VI decided to be a butt and not spawn, but at least I killed a Cait or two. The sword-wielding mercenaries that Tressa can hire via Hired Help can apparently miss, which they did once, but fortunately I'd surprised the enemies on that fight, so Tressa actually got to go twice before the Cait had a chance to flee, and I got it on her second turn.
Later I did end up getting a Flatlands Froggen VI to spawn, and captured it much more easily this time. Walked around the world map a bit poking my head into various sub-areas just to get their symbols on the map so I could remember where they were for later, then returned to Carrion Caves to finish getting Alfyn his Divine skill. Once that was done, I decided to put both Olberic and Therion in the party at the same time to speed up the remaining grinding. I honestly don't know why I didn't combine Cyrus and Alfyn's grinding in the same manner, it would've sped things up considerably.
This session ended with the combination of my "go to sleep" reminder phone alarm deciding it didn't really feel like going off, and me getting Olberic and Therion their 7th skills each. Definitely getting their Divine skills next session, and then hopefully I won't have to grind again for a while and can actually focus on the story, where I'm still between Chapter 1 and 2.
By the way, I'm still looking forward to getting the ability to set secondary jobs. Dunno when that's going to be unlocked. Also, it feels incredibly weird that I appear to be done with JP after having completed Chapter 1, especially given that my characters are still accumulating JP. In before everyone has to learn every job skill individually and my grinding is just getting started instead of being almost done.
At any rate, the boss of Hoarfrost Grotto is none other than the Jötunn that I needed to find for a side quest, so I fought it. Without Cyrus around to identify weaknesses and provide lots of elemental damage, the beginning of the fight was a bit rocky. The first thing it does is summon two Snow Elementals, so I had to experiment the old-fashioned way to find all the weaknesses, and then keep my party alive while taking them out. The tricky bit about Jötunn itself is that every time you break it, the number of hits needed to break it again goes up by two, at least until it gets up to 8. It didn't go up after that for me. Alfyn surprisingly doesn't have the ability to boost item usage or his concoctions, so while I was able to use a fire damage concoction to knock two hits off Jötunn's defense every time he had a turn, it deals crap for damage. Ended up shifting strategy to having Tressa donate all her BP to either H'aanit or Ophilia, so H'aanit could use her Divine skill, Draefendi's Rage, more often; and so that Ophilia could pop off large heals as necessary. Once the Snow Elementals went down, the fight went a lot more smoothly. Jötunn ended up taking three hits of Draefendi's Rage to the face before dying.
If you couldn't tell, it's open game on using Fast Travel to move around the "donut" quickly. Fights between areas have gotten to be more of a chore than anything else, and all the delicious, juicy JP is in higher-level areas anyway.
After beating Jötunn, I decided to remind myself of what the JP rewards were like in The Whistlewood, and perhaps bag myself another Flatlands Froggen VI while I was there. The JP rewards are decent, but less consistent than Carrion Caves. Being a rare spawn, Flatlands Froggen VI decided to be a butt and not spawn, but at least I killed a Cait or two. The sword-wielding mercenaries that Tressa can hire via Hired Help can apparently miss, which they did once, but fortunately I'd surprised the enemies on that fight, so Tressa actually got to go twice before the Cait had a chance to flee, and I got it on her second turn.
Later I did end up getting a Flatlands Froggen VI to spawn, and captured it much more easily this time. Walked around the world map a bit poking my head into various sub-areas just to get their symbols on the map so I could remember where they were for later, then returned to Carrion Caves to finish getting Alfyn his Divine skill. Once that was done, I decided to put both Olberic and Therion in the party at the same time to speed up the remaining grinding. I honestly don't know why I didn't combine Cyrus and Alfyn's grinding in the same manner, it would've sped things up considerably.
This session ended with the combination of my "go to sleep" reminder phone alarm deciding it didn't really feel like going off, and me getting Olberic and Therion their 7th skills each. Definitely getting their Divine skills next session, and then hopefully I won't have to grind again for a while and can actually focus on the story, where I'm still between Chapter 1 and 2.
By the way, I'm still looking forward to getting the ability to set secondary jobs. Dunno when that's going to be unlocked. Also, it feels incredibly weird that I appear to be done with JP after having completed Chapter 1, especially given that my characters are still accumulating JP. In before everyone has to learn every job skill individually and my grinding is just getting started instead of being almost done.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Octopath Traveler: Session 5
This session was kind of short, so I combined it with the next day's session.
I ran around doing a lot of side quests now that I've figured out that the Steal/Purchase path actions need to be used for a fair number of them. I know they've designed it so that some side quests have multiple valid ways to finish them, but I have only knowingly encountered anything like that once or twice. One was a side quest I didn't even know existed until I inspected a building in Flamesgrace that I had apparently missed and also apparently already had the key items for both of its options, so I didn't really get to properly begin it, but whatever.
After that I ran around a bit getting JP and visiting the "donut" towns to make sure I'd exhausted my possibilities with Alfyn's path action. In the process, I explored another one of those side areas, the Whistling Cavern in the Sunlands. Curiously, just like with The Whistlewood, this area had no boss at the end. These areas give really good JP, so I might have to use them to finish off the whole process of getting everyone's skills. At any rate, it's more predictable than hoping for the random chance of a Cait joining a battle, and then being fast enough to kill it before it runs.
I then decided to head out from the "donut", to Stonegard, where H'aanit's Chapter 2 takes place. Interestingly, upon entering the town, I got the option to start that bit of story immediately, or to just enter the town normally. Being that all I wanted to do was explore and talk to NPCs and stuff, I chose not to continue the story. It was here that I noticed that some NPCs have level requirements for Alfyn's path action, so my next course of action became levelling people up a bit. I needed to get skills for people anyway, so it made sense.
My focus shifting to JP grinding, I chose the Untouched Sanctum as my spot and got Primrose and Tressa their Divine skills. Then on a whim I went back to Carrion Caves to kill the boss, and noticed that the typical JP reward there is about double that of Untouched Sanctum. I had Cyrus in the party for the Carrion Caves boss anyway, so I got him his Divine skill there. Up next: The project that is Alfyn. In addition to getting his skills, I wanted to fill out as much of his Concoct menu as possible so I know the effects of his concoctions for future use. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found good sources of all of the materials, and filling in the ones that revive party members will require me to let someone die first, but I filled in what I could while running around fighting things.
Also, after I beat the boss of Carrion Caves, it apparently became a rare spawn, and I got to fight it again. H'aanit can actually capture it, and it's a ten-star monster with a fire attack that hits everything. I successfully Mercy Strike'd it down to 1 HP with its defense broken, but a max boost Capture only had an 8% chance. Tried it once, failed, and decided against banging my head repeatedly against the 8% chance. I would've had to Mercy Strike it ten more times just to try again, on every attempt. Not saying I won't go back and try that later, but right now I just want to get JP for people. Also, Tressa was able to use Collect to get over 11,000 money from it.
I ran around doing a lot of side quests now that I've figured out that the Steal/Purchase path actions need to be used for a fair number of them. I know they've designed it so that some side quests have multiple valid ways to finish them, but I have only knowingly encountered anything like that once or twice. One was a side quest I didn't even know existed until I inspected a building in Flamesgrace that I had apparently missed and also apparently already had the key items for both of its options, so I didn't really get to properly begin it, but whatever.
After that I ran around a bit getting JP and visiting the "donut" towns to make sure I'd exhausted my possibilities with Alfyn's path action. In the process, I explored another one of those side areas, the Whistling Cavern in the Sunlands. Curiously, just like with The Whistlewood, this area had no boss at the end. These areas give really good JP, so I might have to use them to finish off the whole process of getting everyone's skills. At any rate, it's more predictable than hoping for the random chance of a Cait joining a battle, and then being fast enough to kill it before it runs.
I then decided to head out from the "donut", to Stonegard, where H'aanit's Chapter 2 takes place. Interestingly, upon entering the town, I got the option to start that bit of story immediately, or to just enter the town normally. Being that all I wanted to do was explore and talk to NPCs and stuff, I chose not to continue the story. It was here that I noticed that some NPCs have level requirements for Alfyn's path action, so my next course of action became levelling people up a bit. I needed to get skills for people anyway, so it made sense.
My focus shifting to JP grinding, I chose the Untouched Sanctum as my spot and got Primrose and Tressa their Divine skills. Then on a whim I went back to Carrion Caves to kill the boss, and noticed that the typical JP reward there is about double that of Untouched Sanctum. I had Cyrus in the party for the Carrion Caves boss anyway, so I got him his Divine skill there. Up next: The project that is Alfyn. In addition to getting his skills, I wanted to fill out as much of his Concoct menu as possible so I know the effects of his concoctions for future use. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found good sources of all of the materials, and filling in the ones that revive party members will require me to let someone die first, but I filled in what I could while running around fighting things.
Also, after I beat the boss of Carrion Caves, it apparently became a rare spawn, and I got to fight it again. H'aanit can actually capture it, and it's a ten-star monster with a fire attack that hits everything. I successfully Mercy Strike'd it down to 1 HP with its defense broken, but a max boost Capture only had an 8% chance. Tried it once, failed, and decided against banging my head repeatedly against the 8% chance. I would've had to Mercy Strike it ten more times just to try again, on every attempt. Not saying I won't go back and try that later, but right now I just want to get JP for people. Also, Tressa was able to use Collect to get over 11,000 money from it.
Sunday, September 2, 2018
Octopath Traveler: Session 4
I began this session by recruiting Therion. He's a fairly standard thief with a fairly standard story, except he gets sorta blackmailed into a quest to reclaim expensive stuff for a family of rich fucks in a town that has serious class problems. His path action is Steal, which works like Tressa's Purchase except that instead of there being a price it's just a percent chance of success (and no money trades hands for obvious reasons). Certain NPCs have items that say "Not for sale" in Tressa's Purchase menu, I imagine that Therion could simply steal them.
With all eight characters recruited, and Chapter 1 thoroughly complete, I spent some more time in the "donut" doing side quests and running around using path actions on NPCs. H'aanit and Ophilia now have all their skills; Primrose, Tressa, and Cyrus are missing their eighth skill; and I still have a fair amount of work to go for Olberic, Alfyn, and Therion. By the way, each character's eighth skill is called a "Divine" skill. Not only do you have to learn their other seven skills before you can learn it, but using it requires a full BP meter in battle.
Something that's kind of curious is that almost every explorable area has a small side area contained within it. I already kind of encountered this with The Whistlewood back in session 2, but I've been trying them ever since. I completed up until the boss in the Cliftlands area, Carrion Caves, and probably could have beaten the boss, but it prompts you to make sure you're ready and I didn't think I was lol. In my first ever usage of fast travel, I NOPE'd out of the Frostlands area, Hoarfrost Grotto, because I was in too deep and having to revive people way too often (Ophilia's Reflective Veil came in super handy, and for what it's worth I still haven't party wiped). I actually fully completed the Riverlands area, Twin Falls. The Flatlands Froggen VI that I caught in The Whistlewood helped on the boss tremendously since the boss was weak to spears and its attack is actually three attacks with a spear. These areas' entrances are sometimes hidden or off the beaten path, so I really should duck in and back out of each one as I find it so it'll get labelled on the world map, but I haven't been doing that for whatever reason.
Cyrus is working overtime identifying enemy weaknesses for me. Hopefully I'll finish the "donut" areas next session. I think I have a few of the rarer enemies around Sunshade and Cobbleston left to get fully identified.
Speaking of rare enemies, I've finally beaten more than one Cait, and not as a fluke anymore. Between levelling up and getting better equipment, I think my characters' respective Accuracy stats have improved by just enough for it to matter.
When you unlock a character's 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th skill, you get support abilities, and at this point I have a fair number of them. Primrose has a nice one that restores some SP every turn. I'm not quite sure how it calculates how much to restore, but it keeps going up as I level up. It's restoring 7 SP right now, and it'll be interesting to see just how much it will restore when it hits the inevitable cap. Ophilia has a support ability that allows her to be healed above her maximum HP (there seems to be a cap,which can be calculated by the simple formula cap = MaxHP * 1.11 and rounding to the nearest integer), which comes in handy in basically every boss battle ever. Tressa has one that halves all of her SP costs. Whenever I get the ability to set secondary jobs, which I know is a thing because of promo material showing the costume changes based on job combination, it's going to be interesting to play around with support ability combinations.
Session 5 will probably be a lot of me running around finishing up Chapter 1 side quests and swapping party members around to get all the skills and support abilities (and grinding out Alfyn's concoction list so I don't have to guess results based on vague item descriptions). I might be ready for Chapter 2 main quest stuff in Session 6, who knows.
With all eight characters recruited, and Chapter 1 thoroughly complete, I spent some more time in the "donut" doing side quests and running around using path actions on NPCs. H'aanit and Ophilia now have all their skills; Primrose, Tressa, and Cyrus are missing their eighth skill; and I still have a fair amount of work to go for Olberic, Alfyn, and Therion. By the way, each character's eighth skill is called a "Divine" skill. Not only do you have to learn their other seven skills before you can learn it, but using it requires a full BP meter in battle.
Something that's kind of curious is that almost every explorable area has a small side area contained within it. I already kind of encountered this with The Whistlewood back in session 2, but I've been trying them ever since. I completed up until the boss in the Cliftlands area, Carrion Caves, and probably could have beaten the boss, but it prompts you to make sure you're ready and I didn't think I was lol. In my first ever usage of fast travel, I NOPE'd out of the Frostlands area, Hoarfrost Grotto, because I was in too deep and having to revive people way too often (Ophilia's Reflective Veil came in super handy, and for what it's worth I still haven't party wiped). I actually fully completed the Riverlands area, Twin Falls. The Flatlands Froggen VI that I caught in The Whistlewood helped on the boss tremendously since the boss was weak to spears and its attack is actually three attacks with a spear. These areas' entrances are sometimes hidden or off the beaten path, so I really should duck in and back out of each one as I find it so it'll get labelled on the world map, but I haven't been doing that for whatever reason.
Cyrus is working overtime identifying enemy weaknesses for me. Hopefully I'll finish the "donut" areas next session. I think I have a few of the rarer enemies around Sunshade and Cobbleston left to get fully identified.
Speaking of rare enemies, I've finally beaten more than one Cait, and not as a fluke anymore. Between levelling up and getting better equipment, I think my characters' respective Accuracy stats have improved by just enough for it to matter.
When you unlock a character's 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th skill, you get support abilities, and at this point I have a fair number of them. Primrose has a nice one that restores some SP every turn. I'm not quite sure how it calculates how much to restore, but it keeps going up as I level up. It's restoring 7 SP right now, and it'll be interesting to see just how much it will restore when it hits the inevitable cap. Ophilia has a support ability that allows her to be healed above her maximum HP (there seems to be a cap,
Session 5 will probably be a lot of me running around finishing up Chapter 1 side quests and swapping party members around to get all the skills and support abilities (and grinding out Alfyn's concoction list so I don't have to guess results based on vague item descriptions). I might be ready for Chapter 2 main quest stuff in Session 6, who knows.
Saturday, September 1, 2018
Octopath Traveler: Session 3
Recruited Olberic straight away, he's probably the least interesting character to me. Typical story of war and betrayal, seeking revenge. His path action is Challenge, which is basically the same as H'aanit's Provoke.
Immediately left to continue around the "donut" to Sunshade, where I questioned the locals with Cyrus and did some side quests. Slowly beginning to figure those out. Hopefully before too long I'll have the vast majority of the "donut" towns' side quests done.
Pressed on from Sunshade to Clearbrook and recruited Alfyn. Being an apothecary, his story involves a life of mixing medicinal remedies for people. His reason for wanting to travel the world is similar to Tressa's in that it's more out of curiosity than anything else. In battle, he can mix ingredients together to make various concoctions. If you remember the Salve-Maker from Bravely Default or the Patissier from Bravely Second, it's basically the same deal. His path action is Inquire, which works like Cyrus' Scrutinize, but without the failure chance. As much as the reputation thing seems interesting and all, I think I'll stick with the thing that lets me avoid it entirely.
Ventured from there up to Bolderfall where Therion the thief awaits, but that'll be in session 4. Yeah, this session was a bit shorter than the previous two. I spent most of it playing Chapter 1 for Olberic and Alfyn after having recruited them, and given that I'm not delving too far into the stories (play the game yourself!), there isn't really much to talk about. I'm thinking I may have more to talk about for a given session once I have all the characters and just have to explore and do side quests before taking on main quests.
Immediately left to continue around the "donut" to Sunshade, where I questioned the locals with Cyrus and did some side quests. Slowly beginning to figure those out. Hopefully before too long I'll have the vast majority of the "donut" towns' side quests done.
Pressed on from Sunshade to Clearbrook and recruited Alfyn. Being an apothecary, his story involves a life of mixing medicinal remedies for people. His reason for wanting to travel the world is similar to Tressa's in that it's more out of curiosity than anything else. In battle, he can mix ingredients together to make various concoctions. If you remember the Salve-Maker from Bravely Default or the Patissier from Bravely Second, it's basically the same deal. His path action is Inquire, which works like Cyrus' Scrutinize, but without the failure chance. As much as the reputation thing seems interesting and all, I think I'll stick with the thing that lets me avoid it entirely.
Ventured from there up to Bolderfall where Therion the thief awaits, but that'll be in session 4. Yeah, this session was a bit shorter than the previous two. I spent most of it playing Chapter 1 for Olberic and Alfyn after having recruited them, and given that I'm not delving too far into the stories (play the game yourself!), there isn't really much to talk about. I'm thinking I may have more to talk about for a given session once I have all the characters and just have to explore and do side quests before taking on main quests.
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