Dark Cloud 2 (PS2)

2015-08-21 01:16:30 am

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

I just got another in the second stage of the star section in Starlight Canyon. Funny how I start getting them after the spheda. Tongue

Tetsero

2015-08-22 10:37:58 pm

In order to invent the Final Bomb, you'll need the following ideas :

Candle
Cinders
Oven

In order to make one Final Bomb, you'll need the following items :

Flame Crystal x7
Bomb x10
Power Crystal x3

If you go final bomb for griffin phase 1 then invent it instead of buying it. Generally you can get the flame/power crystals and some bombs in a run.

And if you can't invent it then buy it--but this is a great money save.

Unreal704

Edit history:

Unreal704: 2015-08-23 10:49:02 am

2015-08-23 10:28:59 am

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

That seems pretty reasonable. I usually get enough power crystals and flame crystals in my test runs. The only thing you would have to buy is the bombs probably. I like this idea too since it'll help with buying all of the chapter 7 georama in chapter 6 and fuel and 2 scrolls.

Qazplm

2015-08-23 08:51:59 pm

Would that really help though? In order to get the cinders picture, you have to build either a straw house or wooden house before destroying the Fire Squall and then leave the area and come back to take the picture. I feel like it would just be faster to sell everything you don't need and get the Final Bomb some time in chapter 7 before you get the last scroll for the Monica stage.

Unreal704

Edit history:

Unreal704: 2015-08-24 07:21:30 pm

Unreal704: 2015-08-24 04:12:24 pm

2015-08-24 04:12:29 am

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

You could build a wooden house right when you get to heim Rada then after you build the buggy and go to veniccio take the picture and move to mt gundor. It probably takes 20 seconds at most.

Edit: in my recent test run I had only 4 bombs going into chapter 6. So to make final bomb that would be about 1200 gilda. Which is better then 3600, but the only place I could find an oven was in polly's.

Acefrog

2015-08-30 08:44:40 am

If you wana try inventing a final bomb, it might be worth doing sindains golden paint georama and building the Straw House (Not sure if this burns, I guess so in HR) and 15 wooden fences.

I tested this the other night, and on a normal route its not worth it cause it adds like almost 2k gilda to Sindain I think? But if you invent the Final Bomb it might even it out in the long run and save a trip to going to buy the bomb.

Unreal704

2015-08-30 05:37:55 pm

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

You can use a straw house to get the cinder picture. The only problem I see would be not getting enough bombs but that's a good idea with the golden paint georama completion. It might take a bit long though :/

Acefrog

2015-08-30 06:25:45 pm

Not really, its just making a few extra things and picking the house back up later. Placing the fences doesnt have to be accurate at all

FiascoNinja

2015-09-10 06:47:50 pm

Hey, I was just thinking about running this game and discovered there's actually people working on it now!
But I've got a question: I saw someone say that NG+ is the way to go for a run. Is this true? How does NG+ affect the run as opposed to NG?

Acefrog

2015-09-11 04:55:14 am

NG+ hasnt really been fully explored tbh.. Tetsero has a route for it, but he doesnt really run it much I dont think. current WR any% already beats it by over half an hour.

But basicly NG+ is using the photo album from a previous game to invent certain stuff sooner. For example you can get the Buggy two chapters earlyer than Any%, so that saves a lot of time over Any% that only just gets it in chapter 5.

Qazplm

2015-09-11 10:28:23 am

Off the top of my head, I'd estimate NG+ to be maybe 30 minutes faster. Possibly close to an hour if we can find more optimized strats for NG+.

The buggy is twice as fast as running, plus you won't have to keep switching back and forth between max and the ridepod as much during chapters 3 & 4.

Might possibly need a different route to get the buggy as soon as you get the geostone for triggering the Gordon quest and start recruiting everyone earlier on. Would probably need a bit of grinding to get the next core first, though.

Also, getting the Machine Gun Arm to kill the Masked Tribesman in chapter 3's first floor would be very useful since it's such an inexpensive and fast weapon compared to using barrel cannon in regular NG runs.

Getting the scroll for the elephant stage in chapter 3 will also be both faster and safer than how we're currently doing it (Acefrog gets a scroll and kills all monsters with Ridepod the first time, and I use improved bombs with Monica and hope I still have enough for Gaspard). You can kill all monsters on that stage the first time extremely quickly with the Machine Gun Arm and won't need a second scroll the second time.

You also get to use the Machine Gun Arm IV starting chapter 5 instead of middle of chapter 6 which is what I think everyone uses for the rest of the game minus the final boss.

That's all I can think of at the moment. If you decide on doing a NG+ run, I can try to help with routing.

Off the top of my head, I'd estimate NG+ to be maybe 30 minutes faster. Possibly close to an hour if we can find more optimized strats for NG+.

The buggy is twice as fast as running, plus you won't have to keep switching back and forth between max and the ridepod as much during chapters 3 & 4.

Might possibly need a different route to get the buggy as soon as you get the geostone for triggering the Gordon quest and start recruiting everyone earlier on. Would probably need a bit of grinding to get the next core first, though.

Also, getting the Machine Gun Arm to kill the Masked Tribesman in chapter 3's first floor would be very useful since it's such an inexpensive and fast weapon compared to using barrel cannon in regular NG runs.

Getting the scroll for the elephant stage in chapter 3 will also be both faster and safer than how we're currently doing it (Acefrog gets a scroll and kills all monsters with Ridepod the first time, and I use improved bombs with Monica and hope I still have enough for Gaspard). You can kill all monsters on that stage the first time extremely quickly with the Machine Gun Arm and won't need a second scroll the second time.

You also get to use the Machine Gun Arm IV starting chapter 5 instead of middle of chapter 6 which is what I think everyone uses for the rest of the game minus the final boss.

That's all I can think of at the moment. If you decide on doing a NG+ run, I can try to help with routing.

FiascoNinja

2015-09-11 06:18:23 pm

I think I'm just gonna try learning the regular NG route first, since I don't know if I'll have time to investigate a new route yet. But if it'll be faster I want to try it out eventually.

Qazplm

Edit history:

Qazplm: 2015-09-13 11:08:52 pm

Qazplm: 2015-09-13 10:43:47 pm

2015-09-13 10:39:05 pm

Does anyone happen to know whether the number of chests on each floor is constant or is it a random number? I finally started working on that program for cataloging chest drops per floor and knowing this would be helpful.

Also, are doors random, or do certain floors have a guaranteed door? And does the number of chests increase by one if there's a door, or is it the same number regardless of there being a door?

Also, if anyone has anything else that would be important to keep track of, just say so in here. So far I'm planning on keeping track of number of chests and chance for a door (if needed), and a list of items that also keeps track of what items were found each time.

I could also include number of monsters, gatekeepers, and geostone information later on. Maybe even include the monster notes, shop information, and extra details about all items, although those are lower priority at the moment since they're easily searchable.

Edit: And I just now remembered that clown chests are a thing...Since it most likely pulls things from the loot table of the floor, I think it would make more sense to exclude clown chests since it always has 1 rareish item and 1 common item.

Does anyone happen to know whether the number of chests on each floor is constant or is it a random number? I finally started working on that program for cataloging chest drops per floor and knowing this would be helpful.

Also, are doors random, or do certain floors have a guaranteed door? And does the number of chests increase by one if there's a door, or is it the same number regardless of there being a door?

Also, if anyone has anything else that would be important to keep track of, just say so in here. So far I'm planning on keeping track of number of chests and chance for a door (if needed), and a list of items that also keeps track of what items were found each time.

I could also include number of monsters, gatekeepers, and geostone information later on. Maybe even include the monster notes, shop information, and extra details about all items, although those are lower priority at the moment since they're easily searchable.

Edit: And I just now remembered that clown chests are a thing...Since it most likely pulls things from the loot table of the floor, I think it would make more sense to exclude clown chests since it always has 1 rareish item and 1 common item.

Acefrog

2015-09-14 03:17:32 pm

From what ive seen from playing segmented and Randoms streams.. (At least for chapter one) The chests are a set number per stage, so for Chapter one, its eight chests and an extra if there is a channel key.

Doors seem completely random, I havent seen any patterns with them at all. See above for extra chests :

FiascoNinja

Edit history:

FiascoNinja: 2015-09-14 04:19:10 pm

2015-09-14 04:18:52 pm

By the way, in the Prima Games (or Brady Games, one of the two) strategy guide for Dark Cloud 2, I'm fairly sure it lists all the stuff you're talking about, Qazmplm. I was surprised that it wasn't already online, but I guess the documentation for this game kinda sucks. Do you want me to post that info here?

Qazplm

2015-09-14 06:35:52 pm

Do you mean things like drop rates and stuff or just monsters, gatekeepers, and geostone info? I'm trying to make documenting drop rates easier, but I plan on just including all other information that can be found online anyways and put it all into one convenient place since it wouldn't be too much extra work to implement the code.

FiascoNinja

2015-09-14 07:21:20 pm

By drop rates do you mean monster drops? Or chest items on a given floor? I'm pretty sure it has both, but I'll have to check tomorrow and get back to you.

Qazplm

2015-09-15 05:19:04 am

I meant chest items per floor, although drops per monster would also be nice to know as well. We're just trying to find any floors that have better chances to have things like the chestnut and carrot which are absolutely needed for a run as well as anything else that can speed up the run like holy water, coins, etc.

FiascoNinja

2015-09-15 04:01:49 pm

It doesn't list the chest items specifically, unfortunately, but it does list the "Georama materials found during level" (I think it means from monsters but I could be wrong), and it has a HUGE repository of every monster, what attributes and weapons they're weak against, and what items they drop. It also has the Spheda Prize List for every single level in the game, in case there are some useful things we can get from a quick Spheda game. And it has a list of weapons that can be found in certain area (e.g. Frozen Tuna in Starlight Canyon).
Too bad there's no indication that chests in specific levels drop certain things.

Qazplm

2015-09-16 02:37:10 am

Yeah, most of the information can either be found directly in the game or online. We just need to catalogue all item drops we get and use that to approximate what is the percent chance to get certain items on each stage. I'll keep working on that program to keep track of everything for now. Once it's done, we can just slowly start adding the items we got from each chest and it'll calculate how likely we are to get things like chestnuts, bandit coins, etc. from each floor.

Qazplm

2015-09-30 09:40:34 pm

So a random thought just occurred to me. I believe that in. Balance Valley you only need the first two geostones to fix Lao Chao's. You can invent the Samurai Arm or Machine Gun Arm after the second stage and have a better weapon for the elephant stage if I'm not mistaken. That might make Chapter 3 faster and a bit safer as well.

FiascoNinja

Edit history:

FiascoNinja: 2015-10-01 08:09:55 am

FiascoNinja: 2015-10-01 08:06:24 am

2015-10-01 08:05:46 am

Yep, you're right. MGA I takes 700 G and Samurai Arm I takes 800 G, so it wouldn't even be much of a difference in spending (plus it'd be a lot easier to defend with Samurai as opposed to switching from BC). The one problem is that it would either mean you come in with plenty of G or you have to buy more materials at different times.

FiascoNinja

Edit history:

FiascoNinja: 2015-10-01 08:41:56 am

FiascoNinja: 2015-10-01 08:41:43 am

FiascoNinja: 2015-10-01 08:17:55 am

2015-10-01 08:13:57 am

~~~~Also you need 30 Culture and Bruno residing for Lao Chao's Bistro too, so it might be a bit more money than I previously thought...~~ Never mind it won't be that much~~
Upon further inspection, you get the Church from the 3-7 Geostone, and Crescent-Shaped Light is from Star Items with requires the 3-9 Geostone. So it's a no-go :/

FiascoNinja

2015-10-01 08:27:02 am

Oh, also, I tested out putting houses on Wooden Stands in Heim Rada. You get a message saying "Something has changed in the future, but some of the things you placed are perishable. They won't last if you go into the future." Or something to that effect. And the stands burned down and I got back whatever I put on top of them, so it was pretty anticlimactic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Qazplm

2015-10-01 12:34:13 pm

Damn, I didn't notice that Priest Bruno was needed for Lao Chao, although it just means the MGA/SA2 can't be invented until after the Smiling Fairy stage on the Sun path. I've definitely found the MGA to be significantly faster than BC, so it can still potentially save a bit of time. Especially on the elephant stage the second time if you decide to use a scroll instead of Monica. Might try to see if I can find some fast and fairly cheap weapon that can be invented pre-elephant stage so that it can go faster.

And for Chapter 5, before destroying the Fire Squall the gimmicks of the area are the geysers which you can plug up with mud piles and the falling embers will burn any wooden buildings upon leaving the area. You can put down wooden buildings after destroying the fire squall, although we'd already be done with the georama by that point.