Legend of Legaia

Drifting Skies

Edit history:

Drifting Skies: 2015-02-15 12:36:45 pm

2015-02-15 12:35:41 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

Alright, I'm starting my stream of Drake Kingdom in about 50 minutes or so; I am planning to actually start the game at 1:30 MST, but I'm going to go live about 10 minutes before to try to clear up any technical issues before the run actually starts.

I even managed to get LiveSplit working and I have a microphone now. Should be pretty exciting, or at least, that's the hope.

death_unites_us

Edit history:

death_unites_us: 2015-02-19 05:32:39 pm

death_unites_us: 2015-02-19 05:32:16 pm

2015-02-19 05:31:49 pm

4get the h8rs, always

Hey guys, you may or may not recognize me, I've been away for awhile.

I just recently revisited this game from my childhood and instantly thought about running it. I haven't done any testing myself, but running through the game I've picked up on a few things, most of which has already been talked about here.

The one thing I do wonder about though is the slots, Drifting Skies, could you tell me how long it usually takes you to buy all that you need? I'm wondering if I'm doing the slots faster than you, if I am I may be of some help.

Also, mostly talking to Drifting Skies, if you need any help with your recording soft/hardware or livesplit, let me know, I've been recording for over 7 years, and I wouldn't mind jumping on skype with you and helping out where I can.

Drifting Skies

2015-02-19 05:48:44 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

I can get 15,000 coins and exchange them for the items I need in around 15 minutes. I need to spend around 8,000 coins to get points for Xain, and then I need another 7,000 coins in Sol Tower to buy a bunch of Soru Bread so I have money for the rest of the game.

I need to make sure I have about 95,000 G when I leave Vidna, and it takes about .5 seconds to buy a single item.

In Vidna, I need to buy
99 Light Lure
99 Medium Lure
99 Heavy Lure
~80 Phoenix (I need to keep a few as safety for Songi 2 through Dohati and then for Final Cort.)
Spirit Jewel
War Soul

I can count on some errors, so it's roughly 4:30 of buying items, and 8 minutes or so on the slots?

I posted my run through Xain on YouTube if you want to see the route I have so far: (and the other two associated videos).

(Also, I have an S-Video cable now, so the hope is that there will be slightly higher quality for the full-game run. Sadly, my computer is pretty weaksauce, so I probably can't do much better than 480p resolution.)

I can get 15,000 coins and exchange them for the items I need in around 15 minutes.  I need to spend around 8,000 coins to get points for Xain, and then I need another 7,000 coins in Sol Tower to buy a bunch of Soru Bread so I have money for the rest of the game.

I need to make sure I have about 95,000 G when I leave Vidna, and it takes about .5 seconds to buy a single item.

In Vidna, I need to buy
99 Light Lure
99 Medium Lure
99 Heavy Lure
~80 Phoenix (I need to keep a few as safety for Songi 2 through Dohati and then for Final Cort.)
Spirit Jewel
War Soul

I can count on some errors, so it's roughly 4:30 of buying items, and 8 minutes or so on the slots?

I posted my run through Xain on YouTube if you want to see the route I have so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9KBTZRQaT8 (and the other two associated videos).

(Also, I have an S-Video cable now, so the hope is that there will be slightly higher quality for the full-game run.  Sadly, my computer is pretty weaksauce, so I probably can't do much better than 480p resolution.)

death_unites_us

2015-02-19 06:13:40 pm

4get the h8rs, always

Okay thanks for the info, ill try my hand at it and get back to you, although that seems pretty fast.

If you want you can give me your comp specs, recording usually isnt too bad on slow computers actually, its editing that becomes a problem. But recording in 1080 also costs money, and who has that witchcraft? As long as your recording is running smoothly then all is good, but let me know if you have any problems in the future.

Drifting Skies

2015-02-19 06:30:15 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

Yeah, the overall stream quality seems respectable; I didn't notice much buffering or de-sync on my end, although the bitrate was probably a bit high for some people on the other end. The YouTube videos aren't amazing HD quality, but given that it's a game that natively in SD quality, I consider that acceptable. I know that I was having CPU overload trying to stream in 720p, which is why I needed to cut the resolution down to something comparable to 480p (I think I was streaming at something like 960 x 540, but I couldn't stream this game at 1280 x 720.)

I think I may try to stream final boss attempts sometime this weekend, as that's probably the most stressful and difficult part of the run. It's a pretty easy run from Saryu until Songi 3.

death_unites_us

2015-02-19 07:21:58 pm

4get the h8rs, always

Yeah, streaming is much different. Its been a little bit since ive streamed but i remember needing to play with the frame rate a lot and needing a pretty good computer to run 1080p without dropping.

exileut

2015-02-19 10:36:41 pm

I am pretty sure psx outputs at 640 by 480. Streaming at a higher resolution than native won't increase quality. Bitrate and framerate will (60fps for slots and menus). And a de-interlace filter.

Ideally to achieve the best looking stream 480p60, 3500kb/s, de-interlace with amarec: https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/guide-deinterlacing-for-console-games.1771/

I have no idea how this works, probably a post process filter, but better than nothing. Apparently old consoles output something like 240p, capture cards pick up 480i. Getting a 240p60 image straight from the psx framebuffer would be ideal.

Problems:
The power of encoding PC (60fps, deinterlace filter)
Do Dazzle's even capture 60fps?
With <10 viewers, even losing one due to 3500kb/s bitrate is bad

Drifting Skies

Edit history:

Drifting Skies: 2015-02-20 12:49:36 am

2015-02-19 11:02:16 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

I believe that Legend of Legaia has a native output of 480i, or at least that's the input that my TV claims to receive, I think I can have OBS deinterlace to 60fps, but I'm not sure my computer can handle deinterlacing to 60fps, since it's weak and not built for gaming.

What will make a difference is that I bought a A/V output that has S-Video output. As a representation, the top image is in composite, and the bottom is the better-quality S-Video output. I can tell a pretty noticeable quality increase, and I think if nothing else, this will improve the quality considerably. However, I think I'm going to turn down the bitrate a bit from the ~2500 I had during the last stream to ~1600, since I won't be able to get more than 480p quality anyway and the cost of losing viewers is greater than the loss of quality, assuming my computer can get the bitrate down to 1600.

In any case, will anyone be around sometime tomorrow morning? I'd like to test some strategies for Final Cort, because I'd really hate to have a good run lost to the final boss. I want to test the fight at level 26 and level 27; if I can get a consistent kill at 26, that would be ideal since that would require only a minimal amount of grinding, whereas 27 would require a handful of extra battles in Rogue's Tower.

EDIT: I did just beat Final Cort at level 25, but I want to test the strategy a few more times for consistency's sake tomorrow morning. If I can get a solid success rate, I don't need to do any grinding, though I think taking the party to 26 anyway will give some added safety with minimal time loss.

I believe that Legend of Legaia has a native output of 480i, or at least that's the input that my TV claims to receive, I think I can have OBS deinterlace to 60fps, but I'm not sure my computer can handle deinterlacing to 60fps, since it's weak and not built for gaming.

What will make a difference is that I bought a A/V output that has S-Video output.  As a representation, the top image is in composite, and the bottom is the better-quality S-Video output.  I can tell a pretty noticeable quality increase, and I think if nothing else, this will improve the quality considerably.  However, I think I'm going to turn down the bitrate a bit from the ~2500 I had during the last stream to ~1600, since I won't be able to get more than 480p quality anyway and the cost of losing viewers is greater than the loss of quality, assuming my computer can get the bitrate down to 1600.

In any case, will anyone be around sometime tomorrow morning?  I'd like to test some strategies for Final Cort, because I'd really hate to have a good run lost to the final boss.  I want to test the fight at level 26 and level 27; if I can get a consistent kill at 26, that would be ideal since that would require only a minimal amount of grinding, whereas 27 would require a handful of extra battles in Rogue's Tower.

EDIT: I did just beat Final Cort at level 25, but I want to test the strategy a few more times for consistency's sake tomorrow morning.  If I can get a solid success rate, I don't need to do any grinding, though I think taking the party to 26 anyway will give some added safety with minimal time loss.

Attachment:

Composite vs. S-Video Comparison.png

death_unites_us

2015-02-19 11:41:01 pm

4get the h8rs, always

I can be on tomorrow morning, just post here when youre about to stream and i should get a notification on my phone. Ill be working though so i wont be 100% involved.

Drifting Skies

Edit history:

Drifting Skies: 2015-02-20 02:06:21 pm

2015-02-20 12:35:24 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

I'm going to turn my stream on very shortly (in about 5 minutes); I want to run through the final boss a few times to see if this strategy is even remotely consistent, because I was able to get a level 25 boss kill last night on the first try - if I can get this consistently, then there's zero need to do any leveling after absorbing Orb and fighting Berserker (maybe a level for Songi 2 to speed that fight up a bit), which means minimal time consumed.

EDIT: Level 25 is possible, but not consistent (2/5 successes). Will be streaming L26 and L27 attempts tomorrow.

death_unites_us

2015-02-20 04:56:40 pm

4get the h8rs, always

2/5 isn't great odds at all unfortunately. Maybe there's something we can do to make it easier without leveling up.

Sorry I didn't catch the stream, work tied me up. Might be able to catch tomorrow, if not I'll at least catch the replay

Drifting Skies

2015-02-20 05:01:57 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

I will have one additional Lost Grail and 2 additional Wonder Elixirs compared with what I had in practice, and I will be very close to level 26 already because I have to do some additional grinding in the first two and a half hours of the game (mostly for the Viguro x2 fight). So what I did today is a worst case scenario, and the actual run will be that much safer. However, the limiting factor at this point appears to be the use of Doomsday; I win if Cort doesn't use it and lose if he does, so I need to plan a strategy that wins even if he uses Doomsday, and I think with the extra items, it's closer to a 2/3 chance that I get the win. Optimally, I'd like to try to get a 90% success rate or better - at that point, I'd say it's sufficiently safe to do in single-segment, and if I get one death, it's not the greatest capstone to a run, but I think I can live with it.

death_unites_us

2015-02-21 08:20:12 am

4get the h8rs, always

Yeah, a death in this game isn't too punishing luckily. If I can get on while you are streaming I'll try to help. Is there no way to nuke him before doomsday goes off?

Drifting Skies

Edit history:

Drifting Skies: 2015-02-21 10:11:50 am

2015-02-21 10:09:09 am

steak Steak STEAK!!!

There's no real way to predict when he decides to use Doomsday, other than that he doesn't seem to use it while he is at full health. It may be on a timer, but I also don't think that's correct either.

I'm going to start streaming in about 10 minutes, but instead of just working on Final Cort, I am going to play the run from after Koru through the end of the game, so I have a full practice run in (I've already done practice videos on the other portions of the game, but I want to make sure I have a manageable single-segment strategy for the final boss).

Good news: It's practically guaranteed I will have L26 for the actual run. Bad news: Getting to L27 requires another 20,000 EXP, which means 9-10 more fights in Rogue's Tower. That's probably not worth it, since Juggernaut's animation is 53 seconds long.

Other news: I should be getting a PS1 today, so I can at least do some testing regarding if the summon animations are the same length or not between the two consoles.

Drifting Skies

Edit history:

Drifting Skies: 2015-02-25 01:07:27 pm

Drifting Skies: 2015-02-25 12:58:22 pm

2015-02-25 12:47:35 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

Managed to do some research regarding levels in this game.

Notably, between all the forced encounters in the game, there's approximately 165,000 EXP that I will have by the Final Cort battle. Given that I will have to do a bit of grinding in the early game to survive the first few battles, I really only need about 3,000 more EXP for level 26, so that will be the level I will use on Final Cort; this requires that I use Juggernaut magic twice against the three enemy battles in Rogue's Tower, which give about 2,100 EXP apiece.

I think the Wonder Elixir in the Ancient Path can be skipped, which is the longest one to acquire since I don't have as much leeway as far as running from battles at that point in the game. I was able to beat Final Cort with only five of them, and I even managed to survive Doomsday at level 26.

Accessory setup that seems to work for this battle is:

Noa: Lost Grail / Lost Grail / Life Armband
Vahn: Life Armband / Defender Chain / Mettle Goblet
Gala: Lost Grail / Mei's Pendant / Defender Chain

You can get the second Life Armband by talking to Mei in the final dungeon; this costs about 45 seconds, but it's necessary so Vahn can survive Doomsday with 5 Wonder Elixirs and a Shield Elixir (deals ~ 1900 damage while Vahn has around 2100 max HP).

I will probably split the coin farming into two segments since my eyes seem to get a little fatigued after awhile and I can't seem to maintain my visual focus for long enough to get 20,000 coins. Also, I will probably get most of the accessories in Karisto treasure chests that aren't absurdly far out of the way, since more points on the Point Card only serves to make Final Cort easier/safer. Should make sure to buy a bit of extra armor for Vahn compared to the stuff he can get in Sol - this will serve to make Final Songi a bit safer since he can't equip +HP accessories or the Defender Chain since he needs two slots for Evil Talisman and Spirit Jewel.

One thing I'm not sure about is whether it's a good idea to get the Vitality Ring in Karisto Station. It requires warping to Karisto Station after Zora's Castle, which costs about a minute. But it's 25,000 G when sold, so... Wavering on whether I will get it. Probably will on Saturday just for safety's sake since more points means a safer fight.

Other than that, I think the route is pretty much finalized at this point, and it's just a matter of not screwing things up along the way. Most of the difficult parts of the run have been made considerably safer / easier and I think the route is close to optimized by now, so we'll see how well everything turns out on Saturday. Certainly hoping as many people as possible will turn out.

Also, may do some extra practice streaming this evening. Probably in about six hours; I need to do research this afternoon for my paper due in three weeks.

Managed to do some research regarding levels in this game.

Notably, between all the forced encounters in the game, there's approximately 165,000 EXP that I will have by the Final Cort battle.  Given that I will have to do a bit of grinding in the early game to survive the first few battles, I really only need about 3,000 more EXP for level 26, so that will be the level I will use on Final Cort; this requires that I use Juggernaut magic twice against the three enemy battles in Rogue's Tower, which give about 2,100 EXP apiece.

I think the Wonder Elixir in the Ancient Path can be skipped, which is the longest one to acquire since I don't have as much leeway as far as running from battles at that point in the game.  I was able to beat Final Cort with only five of them, and I even managed to survive Doomsday at level 26.

Accessory setup that seems to work for this battle is:

Noa: Lost Grail / Lost Grail / Life Armband
Vahn: Life Armband / Defender Chain / Mettle Goblet
Gala: Lost Grail / Mei's Pendant / Defender Chain

You can get the second Life Armband by talking to Mei in the final dungeon; this costs about 45 seconds, but it's necessary so Vahn can survive Doomsday with 5 Wonder Elixirs and a Shield Elixir (deals ~ 1900 damage while Vahn has around 2100 max HP).

I will probably split the coin farming into two segments since my eyes seem to get a little fatigued after awhile and I can't seem to maintain my visual focus for long enough to get 20,000 coins.  Also, I will probably get most of the accessories in Karisto treasure chests that aren't absurdly far out of the way, since more points on the Point Card only serves to make Final Cort easier/safer.  Should make sure to buy a bit of extra armor for Vahn compared to the stuff he can get in Sol - this will serve to make Final Songi a bit safer since he can't equip +HP accessories or the Defender Chain since he needs two slots for Evil Talisman and Spirit Jewel.

One thing I'm not sure about is whether it's a good idea to get the Vitality Ring in Karisto Station.  It requires warping to Karisto Station after Zora's Castle, which costs about a minute.  But it's 25,000 G when sold, so...  Wavering on whether I will get it.  Probably will on Saturday just for safety's sake since more points means a safer fight.

Other than that, I think the route is pretty much finalized at this point, and it's just a matter of not screwing things up along the way.  Most of the difficult parts of the run have been made considerably safer / easier and I think the route is close to optimized by now, so we'll see how well everything turns out on Saturday.  Certainly hoping as many people as possible will turn out.

Also, may do some extra practice streaming this evening.  Probably in about six hours; I need to do research this afternoon for my paper due in three weeks.

death_unites_us

2015-02-25 01:24:07 pm

4get the h8rs, always

Yeah i mean it sounds pretty optimized, I'm glad to see you've made it safe enough to give a good attempt. I'll try to make it on if I can, otherwise I wish you luck!

Drifting Skies

2015-02-26 12:07:10 am

steak Steak STEAK!!!

I put some boss strategies for the Drake Kingdom bosses on the Knowledge Base page here: https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Legend_of_Legaia

I'm too tired to continue working on this tonight, but I am going to plan to put more stuff up there over the next week or so; I am facing some deadlines regarding outside stuff in the next few days and I am doing the full-game run on Saturday, so I apologize that I wasn't able to stream tonight like I wanted to.

level70steve

Edit history:

level70steve: 2015-02-26 07:46:20 pm

level70steve: 2015-02-26 07:45:19 pm

level70steve: 2015-02-26 07:40:37 pm

2015-02-26 07:39:37 pm

My controller is yours.

Noa can learn the Tough Love hyper art after Spiriting to 5 (nearly 6) art blocks before facing 2x Viguro in East Voz. The sequence is Down, Up, Down, Left, Right. The hyper art alone gives Noa's target an increased rate for confusion as much as the Nighto spell does. If for any reason that Noa is not able to have Terra learn Nighto, how much of a possibility would it be if Noa was able to confuse Viguro using Tough Love instead? I did notice that a few times.

Noa must have 9 art blocks in order to learn an upgraded version of Tough Love (known as Love You) which gives Noa three chances to throw her target into confusion. Most bosses would sell it, that's too bad.

Drifting Skies

2015-02-26 09:48:30 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

It's actually a very high rate of confusion. The issue is that it's critical to get it on the first turn because the party can't really survive two attacks from them at the levels you will be fighting them in a speedrun, and Noa won't have enough AGL to use five art blocks until level 10-11 or so, on average.

Nighto is a 30% absorb, and with the Ivory Book (it's in the "blocking" between Biron and West Voz), that goes up to a 60% absorb. From my experience, you'll have to fight more than enough battles already that not absorbing Nighto is quite a rarity from my experience. It usually happens for me within the first couple of battles. Just make sure to move the Ivory Book to whichever character is trying to absorb Nighto at the time.

death_unites_us

2015-02-27 12:18:48 pm

4get the h8rs, always

Well you also have to take into consideration how long it takes to summon Nighto, whereas arts are pretty quick.

Trance

2015-02-28 03:50:59 am

Tough Love would be useful after Noa's AGL is high enough for 5 art blocks without spiriting. This is only really until after Drake Kingdom is done. The only fight difficult enough to need confusion is the Viguro, which Drifting is saying requires first turn confusion to avoid death. Thus, we need Nighto.

Drifting Skies

2015-02-28 08:31:30 am

steak Steak STEAK!!!

That, pretty much. Tough Love would be faster, but we need a confusion on the first turn or we probably won't survive the fight.

Also, I'm probably turning the stream on in a bit more than an hour.

Drifting Skies

2015-02-28 09:51:45 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

New WR: 11:37:02. Will post YouTube VOD's when they get uploaded.

level70steve

2015-03-02 03:41:39 pm

My controller is yours.

Something else to add as I keep studying. I had all three face off against Koru while Vahn was at lv. 22 with only the Speed Chain to say the least. I had Noa and Gala stripped of all their gear and I had to knock them out. A gain of 45,000 ex. allowed Vahn to skip 2 to 3 levels. A point card with at least 9999 used at the first turn should knock about half of Koru's remaining HP when facing that boss. Vahn's Kemaro spell was also effective. Lesson learned!

Drifting Skies

Edit history:

Drifting Skies: 2015-03-02 04:03:59 pm

2015-03-02 04:02:53 pm

steak Steak STEAK!!!

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and the best way to level just Vahn is to equip the following equipment:

Crimson Book / Evil Talisman / XX Jewel (You can get the C. Book in the chest right along the path in the final dungeon directly after the first dive through the rapids. Switch between Ebony and Madlight Jewels every fight, since the battles always seem to alternate between Puera L3 and Gilium L3.)

Buy 20 Magic Fruits and ~30 Magic Leaves. Get a few dozen Healing Berries as well to top off Vahn's HP after every fight, because these guys in the final dungeon hit like trucks.

Make sure at least one of the other two characters has a Bad Luck Bell equipped and go ahead and remove all their armor for good measure. Save after every couple of fights as well, because this is really risky and if they tag-team and attack Vahn, he won't survive long.

Go to the room where the Final Save Point is. Have Vahn cast Juggernaut on the groups there, making sure he goes last so Noa and Gala die off every fight. With the Crimson Book, you'll get double EXP, and if only Vahn is getting EXP, he'll be getting around 30,000 EXP per fight, so you should be able to get from level 26 to level 40 in about 40-45 minutes.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and the best way to level just Vahn is to equip the following equipment:

Crimson Book / Evil Talisman / XX Jewel (You can get the C. Book in the chest right along the path in the final dungeon directly after the first dive through the rapids.  Switch between Ebony and Madlight Jewels every fight, since the battles always seem to alternate between Puera L3 and Gilium L3.)

Buy 20 Magic Fruits and ~30 Magic Leaves.  Get a few dozen Healing Berries as well to top off Vahn's HP after every fight, because these guys in the final dungeon hit like trucks.

Make sure at least one of the other two characters has a Bad Luck Bell equipped and go ahead and remove all their armor for good measure.  Save after every couple of fights as well, because this is really risky and if they tag-team and attack Vahn, he won't survive long.

Go to the room where the Final Save Point is.  Have Vahn cast Juggernaut on the groups there, making sure he goes last so Noa and Gala die off every fight.  With the Crimson Book, you'll get double EXP, and if only Vahn is getting EXP, he'll be getting around 30,000 EXP per fight, so you should be able to get from level 26 to level 40 in about 40-45 minutes.