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Highspirits: 2014-12-04 06:01:36 pm
Well to give an update on my progress.  I will be doing my first attempt at this tomorrow on twitch at Highspirits.  I met a DQ7 runner on twitch, Pingval, who uses vastly different strats than the ones you had posted Emily.  After testing them out myself, they are really good.  Pingval's PB for DQ7 is currently 12:58

For class progression:
Hero - Swordance
Gabo - Thief to knockdown, Healer to HealUs
Mari - Mage to Boom
Aira - Swordance
Melvin - Lispy to SickLick

That cuts down on 96 fights, and still very powerful.  Boom is better mid game than Stampede, and he uses Aira instead of Maribel at the end.  Melvin with Sicklick is amazing, as it effects a lot of bosses.  Drops their DEF to 0 and stuns them. 

Also a much cleaner order when it comes to pedestals, and a lot less item pick up than even the JP runner we followed earlier.  I'll post a link to my VOD when I finish the run on Saturday.  I'll also get my notes online too so you can at least see the changes.  Looking forward to finally doing my first run of this.
Edit history:
Highspirits: 2014-12-06 06:58:26 pm
Highspirits: 2014-12-06 06:12:40 pm
Highspirits: 2014-12-06 06:12:40 pm
Alright, finished my first run.  17:18:06 was my time for final hit on Orgodemir, 17:32:03 SDA timing (Raise the hoist on ship).  Very good run, I'm happy for my first attempt.

http://www.twitch.tv/highspirits/c/5629147

Some notes on the run:
-Only 2 deaths, on Inopp and Gonz and Antoria
-Was able to pull off Probina skip
-Orgodemir was very nice, Melvin died once.  Other than that, only 2 MegaMagic's and a lot of nothing
-I must have missed a trigger with Dune, couldn't get Gold Ring and shard when I needed it, need to recheck my notes
-Camera movement needs work, but that will come with better practice

Here are my notes.  I included basic directions in the dungeons as a just in case, but I rarely needed them. 

http://bombch.us/tge
Ciento Dos Huevos
Oh god yes.  I need to follow you if someone is running this awesome game.  Will be keeping an eye on this.
Quote from Highspirits:
Well to give an update on my progress.  I will be doing my first attempt at this tomorrow on twitch at Highspirits.  I met a DQ7 runner on twitch, Pingval, who uses vastly different strats than the ones you had posted Emily.  After testing them out myself, they are really good.  Pingval's PB for DQ7 is currently 12:58

For class progression:
Hero - Swordance
Gabo - Thief to knockdown, Healer to HealUs
Mari - Mage to Boom
Aira - Swordance
Melvin - Lispy to SickLick

That cuts down on 96 fights, and still very powerful.  Boom is better mid game than Stampede, and he uses Aira instead of Maribel at the end.  Melvin with Sicklick is amazing, as it effects a lot of bosses.  Drops their DEF to 0 and stuns them.

96 fights is a lot, but the main reason for my strat is not *just* Stampede (as much as I seriously love Stampede).  It's Tiptoe.  It eliminates a ton of random encounters.  Basically, the 30 or so minutes saved from grinding needs to be worth that loss... and I'm honestly just not sure either way.

SickLick's turn loss effect could indeed be really handy, but 2 Saps also reduces DEF to 0 or 1.

Quote from Highspirits:
Alright, finished my first run.  17:18:06 was my time for final hit on Orgodemir, 17:32:03 SDA timing (Raise the hoist on ship).

Not bad.  Btw, I've been using the final hit for my timing, because there are no enemies or threats in the ending.  And I was starting the timer on the first dialogue confirmation (when talking to Maribel at the beginning).

Quote from Highspirits:
-I must have missed a trigger with Dune, couldn't get Gold Ring and shard when I needed it, need to recheck my notes

iirc, the trigger for that is delivering the scholar's Package in the present.

Btw, I have a controller again, so I'm back in business.  ...But, I tend to be quite busy before Christmas, so it might be a while before I finish my run.
Quote:
96 fights is a lot, but the main reason for my strat is not *just* Stampede (as much as I seriously love Stampede).  It's Tiptoe.  It eliminates a ton of random encounters.  Basically, the 30 or so minutes saved from grinding needs to be worth that loss... and I'm honestly just not sure either way.

SickLick's turn loss effect could indeed be really handy, but 2 Saps also reduces DEF to 0 or 1.


I believe its worth it, because its more than just stampede and tiptoe.  Not having Maribel late game now, Melvin is able to sap and stun for me, which allows for much more damage with 2 sword dances.  Also, stampede is great, but not reliable.  Boom is very reliable, and it allows me to keep Maribel on charge for many fights when she is with me.

Quote:
Not bad.  Btw, I've been using the final hit for my timing, because there are no enemies or threats in the ending.  And I was starting the timer on the first dialogue confirmation (when talking to Maribel at the beginning).


I started my timing on this run on file selection, which is probably several minutes early.  You might be more correct with waiting for dialogue with Maribel, if that's the case, then my time was a few minutes lower.  Not gonna split hairs yet, the run was slow and sloppy enough to not warrant this yet.

Quote:
iirc, the trigger for that is delivering the scholar's Package in the present.


That is it, I forgot to deliver package first before going, was just a minor thing but it cost me a couple minutes.

Glad to see you have your controller again, look forward to some healthy competition of this in the future :).
Nice ! I wasn't able to see a lot of it but I'm really happy that you managed to get a run going first try. What is your general impression when it comes to overall difficulty compared to like, DQ8 (that's the only point of comparison that I have haha) ?
Edit history:
Emily: 2014-12-07 06:57:01 am
Emily: 2014-12-07 06:56:40 am
Quote from Highspirits:
Quote:
96 fights is a lot, but the main reason for my strat is not *just* Stampede (as much as I seriously love Stampede).  It's Tiptoe.  It eliminates a ton of random encounters.  Basically, the 30 or so minutes saved from grinding needs to be worth that loss... and I'm honestly just not sure either way.

SickLick's turn loss effect could indeed be really handy, but 2 Saps also reduces DEF to 0 or 1.


I believe its worth it, because its more than just stampede and tiptoe.  Not having Maribel late game now, Melvin is able to sap and stun for me, which allows for much more damage with 2 sword dances.  Also, stampede is great, but not reliable.  Boom is very reliable, and it allows me to keep Maribel on charge for many fights when she is with me.

Stampede works 2/3 of the time, btw.  And it inflicts enough damage on average, that it's generally still more powerful than SwordDanc.  (Assuming no resistance, of course, and bosses are frequently all-or-nothing on that.)  I tried using Boom in an early run, and I wasn't impressed with it.  52-68 damage against multiple targets is decent, sure, but the worst bosses are single targets.  Blazemore does 70-90 damage, and that's better against most single targets.  (Again, assuming no resistance, but Boom and Blaze resistance overlap quite a bit.)

Looking over DEF-lowering resistances against bosses where you wouldn't have Maribel, the SickLick combo should give you an advantage over Botok, Gamadius, and Belimawr, but none of those bosses are threats.  It shouldn't work at all against HellCloud or most of Orgodemir forms, and would only work rarely against HellGenie or Orgodemir's last form.

You're also dropping defensive skills like Mineuchi.  Not to mention Whistle, which speeds up the grinding in the first place...  I'm not saying that your strategy might not be better.  I'm just honestly very skeptical.


EDIT: I realized after writing this, that I could work SickLick into Melvin's skillset, and only lose end-game NumbOff.  That... would ABSOLUTELY be worth the trouble.  It makes Orgodemir's second form a little trickier, but whatever.  The off-chance of stunning Orgodemir's ridiculously over-random final form is actually probably worth it, too.  So, I take that part back.  ...And kinda wish I had learned it before.
Quote from Dreamboum:
Nice ! I wasn't able to see a lot of it but I'm really happy that you managed to get a run going first try. What is your general impression when it comes to overall difficulty compared to like, DQ8 (that's the only point of comparison that I have haha) ?

Imo, DQ7 is the hardest and longest game in the series, but it has a lot of weird mechanics that you can twist in your favor, if you know what you're doing.  I don't know how DQ8 speedruns, but compared to DQ7, it's somewhat easy in a normal playthrough.  (...Though admittedly, DQ8 does have several REALLY nasty boss fights.)
Quote from Dreamboum:
Nice ! I wasn't able to see a lot of it but I'm really happy that you managed to get a run going first try. What is your general impression when it comes to overall difficulty compared to like, DQ8 (that's the only point of comparison that I have haha) ?


DQ7 is really long, thats what it has going for it.  Most bosses after class change (about 6 hours in) become easy, I don't think I  saved once after Dharma.  Before Dharma its an RNG mess and pray you don't get crit to death.  Also, levels I believe play less of a role in DQ7 than in DQ8, you rarely had to grind for levels, its more about class skills.  DQ8 has some really hard end game bosses.  Overall I'd say the difficulty is similar, even to older DQ games, the big difference is the time, staying focused for 16+ house.
Quote from Emily:
Quote from Highspirits:
Quote:
96 fights is a lot, but the main reason for my strat is not *just* Stampede (as much as I seriously love Stampede).  It's Tiptoe.  It eliminates a ton of random encounters.  Basically, the 30 or so minutes saved from grinding needs to be worth that loss... and I'm honestly just not sure either way.

SickLick's turn loss effect could indeed be really handy, but 2 Saps also reduces DEF to 0 or 1.


I believe its worth it, because its more than just stampede and tiptoe.  Not having Maribel late game now, Melvin is able to sap and stun for me, which allows for much more damage with 2 sword dances.  Also, stampede is great, but not reliable.  Boom is very reliable, and it allows me to keep Maribel on charge for many fights when she is with me.

Stampede works 2/3 of the time, btw.  And it inflicts enough damage on average, that it's generally still more powerful than SwordDanc.  (Assuming no resistance, of course, and bosses are frequently all-or-nothing on that.)  I tried using Boom in an early run, and I wasn't impressed with it.  52-68 damage against multiple targets is decent, sure, but the worst bosses are single targets.  Blazemore does 70-90 damage, and that's better against most single targets.  (Again, assuming no resistance, but Boom and Blaze resistance overlap quite a bit.)

Looking over DEF-lowering resistances against bosses where you wouldn't have Maribel, the SickLick combo should give you an advantage over Botok, Gamadius, and Belimawr, but none of those bosses are threats.  It shouldn't work at all against HellCloud or most of Orgodemir forms, and would only work rarely against HellGenie or Orgodemir's last form.

You're also dropping defensive skills like Mineuchi.  Not to mention Whistle, which speeds up the grinding in the first place...  I'm not saying that your strategy might not be better.  I'm just honestly very skeptical.


EDIT: I realized after writing this, that I could work SickLick into Melvin's skillset, and only lose end-game NumbOff.  That... would ABSOLUTELY be worth the trouble.  It makes Orgodemir's second form a little trickier, but whatever.  The off-chance of stunning Orgodemir's ridiculously over-random final form is actually probably worth it, too.  So, I take that part back.  ...And kinda wish I had learned it before.


I think the biggest question is "is saving 30 minutes worth of grinding worth it?"  Until we sit down and time it we won't know for sure, which I might do in the near future.  Giving up whistle does slow the grind slightly, but when your grinding half as many battles it doesn't make a huge difference.

I know Mineuchi could be useful on Orgodemir, but Merm Moon does the same thing.  Fuego helm covers the sleep, and everyone will have MoonHerbs.  The biggest problem with glint is phase 2, but if everything goes right you should only have to deal with it once.  Confusion in later phases still a problem, but I rarely seem to get hit by it, and when I do its been easily removable.  I know there is the off chance it could hit the person with the Merm Moon, but I chalk it up to normal Orgodemir luck.

I know Botok, Gamadius, and BeliMawr are not very difficult, but they are still faster when you have them stripped of DEF and not needing to heal from the 1st turn.  Swordance is also a much faster animation than stampede, so while stampede may do more damage overall, its not always hitting and its taking twice as long to do the damage. 

Overall...we have 2 good strategies that will require some testing to figure out speed.  I wouldn't be surprised if elements of both could work.  You really aren't losing time getting Lipsy heart cause its about a 10 sec detour in Dark Draco's tower to get.
I did my second attempt at this game on Monday, and it ended horribly.  Orgodemir destroyed me multiple times until I ran out of ways to survive.  Run was bad, multiple deaths, failed Probina skip, and 3 broken Wizard rings after 1/2 uses.  I did still manage to shave off 1 hour from my sum of best, so that has me excited.  My sum of best is now 16:18 final hit on Orgodemir.  Will continue doing attempts every Monday for the foreseeable future.

Emily, if you are still watching, is the 16:27 final hit your SS PB still?  Cause that is definitely my first goal :).  After that, I want sub 16.
Keep at it, Highspirits!  This game deserves more attention. Smiley
Yes, I'm still here.  16:27 is still my best SS.  I know I could do a lot better, but, well, I haven't gotten it in one run yet.  Good luck, though!

I'll admit to being a little burned out on this game.  I've encountered a long string of seriously ridiculous bad luck on Disc 2... I suspect that the RNG is rigged against a freshly loaded game, but have no way of proving it.

I will finish my segmented run, most likely in 4 segments by this point, but it might be a little while.  (Btw, I got a new and vastly improved computer!  It should make recording easier, but I have to set up the recording software again.)
Edit history:
Lhexa: 2015-01-12 01:42:13 am
Dragon Warrior 3, and probably some of the other NES ones, use values from the savefiles to seed the RNG.  So you can manipulate the RNG when playing one savefile, by changing stuff (like message speed) in the other savefile.  For all I know, DW VII does the same.  If you want more details on that silliness, Darkwing Duck is the one to ask.

I, too, burned out on my DW2 segmented run and had to set it aside for now.  Burning out's rather easy to do, I suppose, but also not worth fretting over.  If enthusiasm for one project doesn't return, it'll show up for another.
After a few miserable attempts I finally got a great run in.  Finished 16:14:47 final hit.  Had 3 deaths in the run, but they were all early and didn't cost me much.  Got amazing luck on Gracos and Orgodemir. Those three deaths probably kept me from sub 16, but I'm extremely happy.  Dunno how many more times I will run the game, but with a sum of best at 15:22 right now I know there is room for improvement.  Will see how things shake out.

http://www.twitch.tv/highspirits/c/5975282
Last night I finally got a sub 16 time with this game, 15:57:11 RTA.  I think I'm happy with that time overall and will probably take a break from this game until the DQ Marathon in April. 

I had 1 death at Neris in the Arena which cost me a bit of time.  I got a bad sleep on bandits after the initial grind and actually died to them.  They only bury you into the ground, so it probably cost me less than a minute.

I got very good luck on all other bosses outside of the sleep.  Every boss was able to put 3/4 people asleep and it drove me insane, I lost probably 5-10 minutes just to being put to sleep at every corner.
Learning to Stream
Quote from Highspirits:
Last night I finally got a sub 16 time with this game, 15:57:11 RTA.  I think I'm happy with that time overall and will probably take a break from this game until the DQ Marathon in April. 


Dayum! Congrats on the Sub16! I watched your first posted run here a long while back... mind you that was because I couldn't find a Longplay to watch... and it was totally entertaining every step of the way! Now it looks like I got another 16hr VOD to enjoy ^^

Can't wait till the Marathon!
I admire your dedication to do such a long run. Now you just need to do the Japanese version to break their record.
I've been doing a run a week myself and my gosh is it ever murder on my legs. x.x;

I was thinking maybe that probina skip might be a subpixels thing!? Because I got it on my 2nd run attempt without even trying, but on my third attempt I did the exact same thing I was doing before and didn't get in in 4 save and retries..
Hey Emily, are you still chipping away at the game?  Remember that, on this site, you can submit runs even if they aren't quite the world record.  That doesn't mean you're usurping someone else's rightful accomplishment; rather, it gives newcomers something to look at and use to make their way to the current community.  Internet searches still tend to favor this site above its various would-be replacements, after all.
Hey Lhexa, I'm still doing occasional runs of this game.  I just lowered my any% time this week down to 15:22.  I'd love to submit a time to SDA but its hard finding HDD space to hold a 15 hour game.
Oh, cool!  I addressed Emily specifically because (IIRC) she already had a recorded run.  But it's good to hear that you're still working on it, too.  I'd enjoy seeing a recorded run from you, as well, but I understand if making a 15+ hour recording is just too much of a hassle.
I am horrified by what these people did to you, Emily, but I will forever remember you as the first and only person to contribute to Dragon Warrior VII speedrunning.