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Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (Any %) (Single Segment)

Decision: Reject

Reason: Needs better planning

https://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/950/

This run will be available for a month. After that these link(s) will no longer work.
Thread title:  
Run Information

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (Any %) (Single Segment)

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/chocobosdungeon-v_HQ.mp4

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by April 11, 2014.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.
Edit history:
Crow!: 2014-03-29 09:19:00 pm
Crow!: 2014-03-29 09:14:03 pm
What's that gemma?
A/V: Beautiful.
Cheating: none.

My background: I've played this game casually 3 times, with the last playthrough being one where I deliberately kept myself underleveled throughout.


Gameplay, short version:

The usual point of a roguelike game is to reward players for having a full understanding of all the items in the game in order to maximize the usefulness of the ones that you are randomly assigned in a particular playthrough.  This speedrun, however, doesn't do that at all.  It blindly uses curatives and the spell Holy in almost every situation.

He executes his chosen strategy very well, but until he gains the ability to purchase Hi-Ethers, the strategy itself is quite obviously not sound. 

The result is a run where most of it looks great, but ~1.5 hours of it leave the viewer cringing as fight after fight goes horribly wrong despite the runner either currently holding or having recently sold items that could have made things quick and easy.

REJECT

Long version:
Overall:

This is a roguelike game with a ~5.5 hour duration.  The "fast" game speed is very difficult to control, too.  I am in general impressed with the runner's ability to navigate the random dungeons and make reasonable decisions quickly, which is easily the most important aspect of a run of this kind of game.

There is always, of course, plenty of room for improvement.  The rest of my critique is going to focus on that, since errors and omissions are far easier to specifically identify than overall good play.

The biggest issue is that this run loses a huge amount of time due to undervaluing spell books.  He constantly sells spell books in favor of buying potions, when the spell books are both stronger and more space efficient.

Faced with a difficult opponent, he usually chooses the strategy of converting potions into half-ethers by taking hits from enemies and healing the damage in order to obtain the damage related SP bonus, so that he can eventually cast another instance of Holy.  To fund (and make inventory space for) his potion chugging habit, he sells all sorts of other consumable items, almost all of which are more powerful than the potions he replaces them with.

In most cases that he uses potions it would be far faster to use a different resource. A damaging spell book would kill some opponents outright, or a status effect would negate several attacks from the opponent (or avoid fighting it altogether).  Keeping an Ifrit magicite or two could be handy in monster houses.

The big trouble with my proposed strategy is of course that it has to adapt to whatever drops happen to occur in each specific run.  But since you have to invest time in leveling up at SOME point anyway, you might as well keep some selection of the items you encounter as you do so.


Pre-Ifrit: a turtle that probably should have been just dodged (like he does with turtles in GotW) was engaged.  Twice he conspicuously goes out of his way to pick up a card, which seems like a waste of ~5 seconds for no benefit.

GotF: He understandably blasts through the first portion of the dungeon as fast as possible, as Bombs are total BS.  Then he farms Ifrit and floor 12 repetitively for an hour until he has enough JP that he'll have Holy by the time he reaches Phoenix. I'll discuss this decision a bit since it's the core of this run's route.

Leaving and re-entering the cave carries with it a lot of "overhead" cost, with several loading screens, an empty room, and having to reselect your job.  I did some math while watching his run, and my estimate is that farming Ifrits is worth ~2x as much JP but ~1/4 as much Experience per minute compared to just running through the dungeon.

He executes his chosen powerleveling strategy rather well, and he picks up Holy in time to stomp Phoenix trivially.

There's probably time to be saved by farming normal enemies for Experience in the early game, then only stopping to farm JP once Hi-Ethers are readily available.  Until GotL, Holy seems underwhelming, and there are dueling rooms clearly worth more JP/minute later on in the game.


Meja: Looking in the menus for so long when the boss was 1 hit from dead and he was at full health is pretty bad form; he obviously didn't know that he was clear to finish the boss with physical attacks and wasted a few seconds from indecision.

GotW 5F Mog shopping: long hesitation in deciding whether to buy copper equipment.  He eventually did buy it, which didn't pay off (he got the 10F iron equipment Mog).

GotW: first part of the dungeon goes well, but the last third looks like it could use some serious strategy improvements.  It is here that his refusal to use consumable resources other than potions starts to really hurt, as enemies which inflict turn-robbing status effects are very unfriendly to a White Mage at close range.

Shirma 1 boss: Using Charge backfires horribly.  Having and using attack magic spell books would have been far faster here.

"Amouri": embarassing but not particularly time consuming errors during a turtle juke result in him taking a lot of damage.  He had a damaging spell book in his inventory vs the halted Scissors boss but insisted on walking in range to be attacked and chugging potions instead.

Shirma 2: He had multiple "fights" in a row where his strategy was to chug potions until he had enough SP to cast Escape.  There were 5 unneeded Halts in his inventory which could have at least prevented the fights from being pincer attacks, and many of the items he sold would have been relevant, too.

GotL: A scissors mini boss is made very difficult because he for some reason sold his Halts.  He spends a very long time fiddling with the menu in order to use a Scholar's Glasses that was on the ground; apparently he didn't know that the "At Feet" menu lets you use an item without picking it up.  He wastes a long time in menus checking whether a saddle he picked up was stronger than his existing upgraded one; he should have known ahead of time that it was not.

Also, as of GotL, FINALLY his strategy starts paying off.  Armed with Hi-Ethers, he can cast Holy virtually every other turn.

GotD: One Moloch fight has some questionable decisionmaking.  He continues to go out of his way to pick up PUD cards.  He forgets to uncurse his equipment before leaving the dungeon, necessitating an extremely long trek to the Church.  I'm not at all convinced that fighting Idra was worth it.  The Map Collar is a smart pickup.  He spends a long time purchasing basic potions which he immediately sells.  He spends a very long time farming JP for level 8 White Mage, despite his never using any level 8 spells.


Thanks so much for taking the time to review my run!  I completely agree about all of the lost time, especially the missed curse check at the end that lead to the church visit.  A lot of my route centers around trying to mitigate a lot of the randomness.  Casting status spells can fail and you can get cornered really easy, so I try to kill things in 1 turn because you typically only get 1 - 2 turns before an enemy is attacking you.

I will admit I do not value spell books very highly (except for poison vs the midboss elementals  in the GotW dungeon).  This is partially due to how much money they give and partially due to the fact that the effectiveness of the damage spells pales in comparison to the real thing.  The spell books seem to be significantly weaker then casting spells.  You can see this in action during the Croma fight, the scroll Holy does 115 whereas a cast of Holy does around 240 damage.  I did make use of a couple of spell books when it made sense, but I think the money they give is more valuable then the damage they put out.  Also enemies that die to poison do not give out experience. 

Magicites have an incredibly long animation (like FF8 long) and are worth a lot of money so that was my thought process behind selling them.

My original route did not power level on Ifrit.  I depended on getting holy before the boss on Shirma's first dungeon.  That boss takes 1-2 physical damage so slugging it out with him is ill advised.  That route needs to be strong enough to slug it out with Leviathan, which made an equipment upgrade necessary.  Money is in short supply etc.  I am pretty sure the job points in dueling rooms do not increase significantly until after the light dungeon (they are around 400 there vs 300 at Ifrit).  I have found that farming Ifrit gives enough experience to get to the Light Dungeon, enough money for the entire run, and enough JP to get Holy.

Also it is mostly random on whether you get a shop or a dueling room.  That is why I tend to buy pessimistically, assuming I won't get better equipment from there. 

I also want to note that the portal on floor 41 of the GotD is incredibly important.  A mog shop is necessary before attempting the final 10 floors, but getting a fight with Bahamut is almost certain death.  I was amazed that I managed to get such luck with my escape warp.  I usually have level 8 at that point, so I can just cast teleport if I run into him, but I was 5 hours into a run and I only needed one drop to get to level 8.  I got incredibly unlucky in that I didn't get a drop for like 8 or 9 battles, but I would still rather be safe.

A particular PUD card will stop spawning after you get it vs constantly getting it dropped if you don't pick it up.  I suppose towards the end that is not as big of a deal, but the risk of missing a drop twice makes picking up the card more favorable in general.

Again, thanks for watching and giving me something to think about!
Professional Shaq Fu Speedrunner
A/V is fine.

I actually bought this game up as a direct result of Poxnor doing initial routing on the game because it looked like an extremely fun game back in 2012. So
the one thing I expected was repeated grinding on Ifrit in order to grind the White Mage up. I was not dissapointed in this respect. However thats really
where my familiarity with the game ends, so beyond that, I'm just going to have to comment on it based on my honest opinion with the input from my very
casual playthrough. The following notes I've taken in chronological order as I watched the video (though admittedly not in one sitting) And yes, I watched the whole thing. If they seem out of sorts, its because I was typing them as I was watching.

I will say that was what seemed to be a bit too much hesitation and indecision at points during Cid's memories, especially during the 6th floor. However he does get absurdly good luck on waking up immediately from sleep against Mandragora which saves the run only 16 min into the run.

Freja's Memories went really well.

Pastor Roche's Memories is where you finally unlock the op job of the game, the White Mage... which is not something anybody would typically say about White Mages.

And thus begins the extremely long grind of trying to get Ifrit to appear while grinding levels in the meantime on floor's 11 and 12 of Guardian of the
Flame. Ifrit is by far the fastest way to grind levels in this part of the game and it only takes the third attempt to get Ifrit to appear the first time.

Definately needs some work menuing on the shop screens, as they aren't the best.

At the 1:53 mark, the chocobo spawns right next to the stairs that he needs to escape the dungeon. Considering the entire point this part is to grind
Ifrit, the few battles he runs around the map for seem entirely pointless and a waste of time that would be better spent grinding Ifrit/getting lucky on
a dueling circle spawning.

At the 1:57:30 mark, he tries to pick up blindness talons, knowing the inventory is full, then engages in fights instead of taking the stairs. This is
further exacerbated by him continuing left into a monster house. I suppose this did lvl the chocobo to lvl 16, but it seems entirely wasteful of time.
However he repeatadly keeps trying to pick up items into a full inventory, triggering multiple traps. He could have been on floor 16 a full three minutes
sooner. He does get a shop circle transport where he stocks up on ethers, but it seems entirely pointless. He only uses one ether on the ascent after Ifrit, and it was entirely superfluous.

Here's the thing, yes, getting the ethers makes Phoenix a complete joke, however, there has to be someplace after this dungeon to buy them. In addition, one of the enemies dropped an ether on the way up to Phoenix. Relying on one ether drop or just using potions as half ethers for this boss fight
seems like it would have been way faster than going way out of the way and wasting 3 minutes to find the portal and then buying the ethers.

With Meja's Memories, he starts avoiding combat if at all possible. Interestingly enough, no ethers used in this entire dungeon.

More menu fiddling without doing anything for like 10 seconds.

The Water Temple. Potion kicking is still coming in really good use in helping conserve magic casting.

He visits the shop on floor 3 of the water temple. The ether purchases in the Fire Temple are very clearly slower.

Poison Drink kick clearly helped against the mini boss on floor 20.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of fighting Shiva was. Bad luck im assuming on the circle spawn.

Great use of the Thunder spell book to finish off Leviathian after the two casts of Holy. I do wonder why your submission notes say three casts of holy
when it was only two though.

Make the shop trip only one trip not two. No need to just buy the saddle, go fuse it, then come back to buy the rest then go fuse the saddle. Its a waste of time. Honestly this seems like the runner forgot about buying the potions, panicked and went back, but forgot to finish upgrading equipment.

Shirma's Memories - Floor 3 - not entirely sure why you decided to go to get the spell book when the stairs are right there, in a dungeon full of monsters
that move multiple spaces in one action.

Floor 7 boss - misses charges, goes into using potions as terrible ethers and tanking tons of damage. I suppose it works. I mean if you are going
for a ton of luck, I suppose using Charge strats are pretty much the epitomy of luck. However since you were using the, take hits to convert to magic power strat, I would have rather you just did that instead. Seems like that would be faster.

Amouri's memories had a good series of stair spawns on the final few floors.

Shirma's Recollections - Takes an incredibly long time to decide what to do on floor 6 when in a pincer attack before deciding to cast a sleep spell book.
Then wastes 2 hi potions to absorb damage from another pincer attack to escape, when warps him in a room blocked by the same two enemies he just escaped from. The boss at least went down without too much trouble.

You sold halt? Why!

Guardian of the Light - Wanders around the first floor killing tonberries, even after finding the stairs.

Floor 3 skips first teleport circle despite spawning right next to it. Wanders the floor killing enemies before using it.

Floor 4 spawns right next to stairs and takes them.

Why take these immediatly and not the floor 3 teleport circle?

Floor 14 and 15 had lucky stair spawns.

Floor 16: Fiddling with the menu trying to pick up Scholar's Glasses, has no room, can't decide what item to toss, goes to take stairs, changes mind then
goes back to the glasses then discards a hi potion for them. Then you use the scholars glasses and re pick up the hi potion. Honestly with all that wasted
time and in decision would have been better served just advancing to the next floor.

Floor 20: Buys a saddle, switches to it, realizes that its worse than the one he has equipped and switches back.

Floor 30 boss - Uses the Holy spell book to finish off the shade.

Guardian of the Dark - Stocks up on Hi Potions and Ethers on floor 11 shop.

Floor 15 - Uses Dia on a moloch and it takes zero damage. I don't know if it always does zero damage, but if it does, this is a terrible use of magic.

Ifrit rematch on Floor 20 goes pretty well.

Floor 21: Tries to equip something else over his cursed equipment, fiddles with the menu, then escapes the dungeon, then forgets to dispel the curse, when he clearly saw the thing was cursed. This brain fart costs around 1:30. I'm not entirely sure that the additional equipment is really worth leaving the
dungeon for to be honest, because thats all that the escape was for. Considering that the shop allowed the runner to stock up on hi potions and hi ethers, I'm pretty sure that the escape was not needed.

Floor 30 Shiva went well. Floor 40 was fine too, but why in the world would you pick up Ramuh's card when you are never going to have to fight him again?

Then you waste your anti magic barrier item on Bahumut before using escape, when you could have easily not used it. This escape I could see as fine,
as you needed some potions to make sure you can heal, and I'm assuming, kick at undead enemies if they exist.

At this point, I don't honestly understand why you are fighting monsters. Just advance to the upper floors. If the final boss is so easy, as you say in
your submission notes, why grind as much as you did on floor 41? It makes no sense. I guess lvl 35 is better than lvl 34?

Least you got the shop warp I guess. Not entirely sure why you left the dungeon in the first place.

The boss stairs are RIGHT THERE! Why are you running away from them?!?!?!

The boss fight went okay.

Looking at the run as a whole, there is clearly work that needs to be done to improve this. The menuingitself seemed sloppy for a lot of it. In addition,
there is definately some routing issues, as there really is no need to get to Job Level 8 to cast Raise. While the runner did it once, it honestly shouldn't have been cast in the first place. There is no reason to grind to job level 8. Period. I don't necessarily think some of the mistakes, like forgetting to uncurse the equipment is reject worthy by itself, however I don't think the runner should have left the dungeon in the first place. With the routing issues and the sloppy menuing, this needs more work. However this is a very good starting place. I think the Ifrit route works just fine, other parts need work though.

I will say that I don't think that this is a bad run, it's just not ready yet.

Verdict: Reject
Edit history:
messenger: 2014-04-04 07:07:07 am
Thanks for watching the run!  I just wanted to address specifically asked issues in order to dispel some misconceptions.

Quote from JackintheBox333:
At the 1:53 mark, the chocobo spawns right next to the stairs that he needs to escape the dungeon. Considering the entire point this part is to grind
Ifrit, the few battles he runs around the map for seem entirely pointless and a waste of time that would be better spent grinding Ifrit/getting lucky on
a dueling circle spawning.

At the 1:57:30 mark, he tries to pick up blindness talons, knowing the inventory is full, then engages in fights instead of taking the stairs. This is
further exacerbated by him continuing left into a monster house. I suppose this did lvl the chocobo to lvl 16, but it seems entirely wasteful of time.
However he repeatadly keeps trying to pick up items into a full inventory, triggering multiple traps. He could have been on floor 16 a full three minutes
sooner. He does get a shop circle transport where he stocks up on ethers, but it seems entirely pointless. He only uses one ether on the ascent after Ifrit, and it was entirely superfluous.

Here's the thing, yes, getting the ethers makes Phoenix a complete joke, however, there has to be someplace after this dungeon to buy them. In addition, one of the enemies dropped an ether on the way up to Phoenix. Relying on one ether drop or just using potions as half ethers for this boss fight
seems like it would have been way faster than going way out of the way and wasting 3 minutes to find the portal and then buying the ethers.


I am trying to mitigate the need to get lucky by increasing the possibility of things I need to have happen.  There is a decent chance (around 25% by my estimation) of a dueling portal spawning on the floor 12 after a mog shop on floor 11.  Sadly it didn't happen this run, but it lets me amortize JP, EXP, and gold over time and it gives me more chances to pick up poison, halt, and gold drops.  I need be pessimistic in expecting portal luck and assume I will not get what I want half the time, so the fact that I got a mog shop on floor 3 of GotW is not something I can depend on.  Getting a mog shop on floor 15 of GotF seems to be guaranteed (or at least highly likely from my experience) so that is what I count on for my initial consumable purchasing.

Quote from JackintheBox333:
Great use of the Thunder spell book to finish off Leviathian after the two casts of Holy. I do wonder why your submission notes say three casts of holy
when it was only two though.


I wrote the submission notes from the perspective of the typical run.  I can't normally depend on having a spellbook at this point and 2 casts of holy + 1 cast of dia does not always do the trick.

Quote from JackintheBox333:
Shirma's Memories - Floor 3 - not entirely sure why you decided to go to get the spell book when the stairs are right there, in a dungeon full of monsters
that move multiple spaces in one action.


Money is scarce.

Quote from JackintheBox333:
You sold halt? Why!


Halt is used specifically for the boss fights between GotW and GotL.  I don't tend to use status effect spells outside of that because they can miss, unless I get put into really bad situations like the pincer attack on Floor 6.

Quote from JackintheBox333:
Guardian of the Light - Wanders around the first floor killing tonberries, even after finding the stairs.

Floor 3 skips first teleport circle despite spawning right next to it. Wanders the floor killing enemies before using it.

Floor 4 spawns right next to stairs and takes them.

Why take these immediatly and not the floor 3 teleport circle?


The first floors of the GotL are incredibly safe, so I used them to gain levels.  If I don't get a mog shop on floor 3, I need to conserve resources until I hit floor 11 so I can manipulate a mog shop.

Quote from JackintheBox333:
Then you waste your anti magic barrier item on Bahumut before using escape, when you could have easily not used it. This escape I could see as fine,
as you needed some potions to make sure you can heal, and I'm assuming, kick at undead enemies if they exist.

At this point, I don't honestly understand why you are fighting monsters. Just advance to the upper floors. If the final boss is so easy, as you say in
your submission notes, why grind as much as you did on floor 41? It makes no sense. I guess lvl 35 is better than lvl 34?

Least you got the shop warp I guess. Not entirely sure why you left the dungeon in the first place.

The boss stairs are RIGHT THERE! Why are you running away from them?!?!?!


Bahamut is a huge run killer.  There are very few situations where Angel Robes are actually useful and this was one of them.  I grinded on floor 41 to get teleport so that I have an answer if I run into Bahamut.  I must admit I did get unlucky in that no enemies wanted to drop JP for a very long time.  Also I noticed I was one fight away from the next level when I was at the boss stairs, so I figured it would be better to take the couple seconds to hit the next level.

I also want to stress that money is critical to this run.  If you run out of money by the end of the run, you cannot upgrade armor or buy consumables, which makes completing the game nigh impossible.
Decision posted.
I am disappointed in the decision that was made.  After dispelling some misunderstandings about how the game works, I think the run has around 5 - 10 minutes worth of mistakes.  I would also like to point out that the only posted time I could find of this run was a 6:42 RTA that a japanese runner did.  On this very forum there was estimates of it taking 7 hours. 

I would like more feedback then "Needs better planning".  I didn't see anything in the verifier responses that warranted a significant route change.  You guys do know the game is mostly random right?  I can't control floor layouts, or mog shops, or drops.  To only get one really bad floor layout in a 6 hour run is pretty ridiculous luck.  I can hope that I get around 70% (which is absurdly optimistic) of what I want and just deal with not having the other important things.  I am apprehensive about trying to submit another run, because it would pretty much look exactly like this minus the final curse check mistake and maybe a little better menu work.  Would that run be acceptable?
Not a walrus
I didn't feel like you really addressed enough of the verifiers' concerns, though you at least gave explanations for some of them. The menuing was mentioned several times as something that needs improvement, as well.

The decision isn't final, of course, and maybe the verifiers would like to come back and discuss your responses.
What's that gemma?
I'm eager to (continue to) participate in routing discussions over in the thread in the Newer Consoles subforum.

As for verification of this run, I understand the frustration, as committing time to do a ~6 hour single segment run at all is quite difficult; I have a hard enough time finding an opportunity to attempt Secret of Mana at ~3 hours.  A run this long will by necessity contain some bad RNG and execution errors, probably getting worse as the run wears on.  I'm willing (and given that I like this game so much, eager) to overlook things like movement errors, unfortunate room layouts, fumbling menus, and even the particularly time consuming cursed equipment mistake.

However, the reasons I can't feel good about linking my friends to this run are things that don't scale with the run's duration.  It learns, the hard way, facts about the game as it plays.  Time is lost to not knowing enemy HP, equipment stats, what job and experience level are needed, the proper Ether to Potion purchasing ratio for the strategy employed, when Halt and Sleep will be needed, whether Dia does damage, and so on.

These are the sorts of errors that (should) happen for only one run through the game - the runner will know better next time.  That there are so many such errors in this run will leave viewers wondering, why am I watching this run and not the next one down the line?


Also, I assure you, there's a lot more than 5-10 minutes of non-RNG improvement to be had.  It is always surprising how many ways there are to lose time in a game; games with lots of menuing are especially sneaky about making lost time not feel like lost time.  In particular, the time inefficient [sell item], buy potion, get hit, chug potion sequence of events is so prevalent in this run that reducing how often you need to resort to it by even a small percentage will save a lot of time.
So in order for this run to be accepted ( by you at least ), I need to:

1.  Memorize the bulk of the enemies stats.  By which I mean memorize the fact that shade bats have 18 HP on the tutorial dungeon type and the fact that Moloch has enough Psyche to prevent magic damage from Dia when I am level 32 or so.
2.  All of the equipment stats.
3.  Pick a mix of potions to ethers to deal with a random set of occurrences (floor layouts, undead enemies, enemies in general)  multiple times throughout the runs

I know when halt should be employed (on the iron giant shade, possibly on the next two bosses if I have them).
Sleep is not as useful because enemies wake up when you hit them.  It only lasts for a few turns, and it isn't like the enemies forget where you are, they zone in on you immediately.  It is a spell that may get you out of a tight spot for like 7 - 10 turns or so, or it could miss entirely and then you are out of luck and the run is over.

I wasn't trying to say there wasn't more than 5-10 minutes of improvement.  I was saying there was 5-10 minutes of mistakes.  I am sure there is more than 60 minutes of improvement, but that would require RNG manipulation that would last before the universe died of heat death.  If this were segmented I would completely understand you rejecting this run, but I think you are being way too critical of a single segment run.
Professional Shaq Fu Speedrunner
I'm fully aware that item drops and floor layouts are random. I have played the game after all.

I don't agree with, but can understand your decision to buy ethers when you do. It's slower, but for the sheer sake of not having runs die to Phoenix for not getting one ether drop, I can understand it. It negates the RNG for this part of the game and ensures you get more runs past the level grinding aspect of it.

Here's the thing though. You way overleveled for the final boss. Something I and the other verifier addressed. In a game where the fights take as long as they do, and where grinding is as long and drawn out as it is, you can clearly skip some of it. I know that this makes Bahumut way harder if you encounter him. Well honestly for a more optimal route I'm saying thats just something that you have to accept because skipping some levels saves a ton of time.

But yes, Crow addressed a lot of the issues far more succintly.

And since you posted before I could actually finish typing this, I'll respond to what you said.

1. You don't necessarily need to know exact stats. You need to know how many and what attacks will kill enemies.

2. Yes. You need to know equipment stats. There isn't THAT much of it.

3. Having the right tools for the job helps. While you can't control spell book drops, better item usage and management never hurts.

4. Yes Sleep can miss. But if you need to just make space, yeah, its useful for that. Its not useful to use to wail on an enemy, you are correct on that.
HELLO!
Sounds like for a run like this you really want to have charts in front of you with stats of things.
Thanks for all the feedback.

It still sounds like you think I have some choice in when I buy ethers.  The mog shops are random, I do not get to choose when they happen (unless I keep warping out of the dungeon and jumping to a 10+n floor).

Ok, I give on the point of the last experience level I gained.  It could have been skipped and it wouldn't have made a significant difference in the final battle and possibly would have saved a few seconds.  I still think you are overlooking the fact that the last boss is not the problem, it is all the enemies leading up to him.  You need a higher level to one shot most things.  If you don't one shot things, the rate ethers are consumed doubles and then that would necessitate more mog shop trips which would lead to more dungeon reloads to manipulate them into appearing and you need more money to buy them etc. etc.

I have spent years on this game and I have considered and dealt with most if not all of the issues brought up on this thread.  I suppose to someone who isn't intimately familiar with the game, my run looks wasteful.  I would like to point out that my experience level in the dark dungeon was at the threshold so that I had a possibility of not one shotting  the Bandercoeurls (the real final boss lol) on floors 21-30, I ran out of money right at the end of the run, and I was only a couple drops away job level 8 by the time I hit floor 41 of the dark dungeon.  I think that demonstrates rather precise Gil, JP,  and XP gathering.
Professional Shaq Fu Speedrunner
I'll just say this and I'll leave it at that. Yes I know whether or not the shops appears is random. Even if I didn't before I watched the run, it would have been drilled into my head during the Ifrit grinding segment.

I don't take issue with your routing. I said as much in my comments. I took issue with how you executed it. Better planning on knowing the stuff like HP, equipment stats, things like that and the run would have been far more polished. I know it must feel awful to have this run rejected. However I honestly want to see this game on this site. This is a great game and I can't wait to see the final, more polished run.