Suikoden II

2013-02-26 10:27:01 am

Okay, bad news then, it doesn't always work Sad

When they weren't there for some reason, I left the forest, left the village, then came back and they were there.
Maybe there's a minimum time it takes for them to appear?

Lag.Com

2013-02-26 12:05:35 pm

sda loyalist

Shiro/Kinnison is on a timer. It's not particularly long, but I forget the exact amount.

Omnigamer

2013-02-28 09:09:34 am

Whereas the first half of the game is all about proper equipment and setting up for bosses, I feel like the second half will come down a lot to optimized war battles. The biggest question to ask is: can the war battles actually be optimized to a reasonable extent? Let's go over the major battles after Two River.

Muse-Matilda Border: Nothing you can do here except just hope that the refugees get slaughtered as quickly as possible. Nothing you can do to affect it (I think). Fastest just to choose not to participate.

Radat Battle: I moved my troops back every turn, and we ended up retreating before a single unit attacked. Could be good, but moving units takes a fair amount of turns as well. Probably best to investigate a more optimized solution here that moves the least amount of units and still escapes any actual battle sequences.

General Kiba Battle: Well. I'm not sure what the exact victory conditions are here, but at this point I'm doubting it will be an effective strategy to attack Kiba with his 16 defense. I went through many many turns of him being completely surrounded and didn't hit him once. Luc's magic and Fire Spears can still do the trick, but even then he has to be hit 3 times to finish him. I managed 2, but never landed a third. Beyond that, I don't know if it's a certain number of turns or if you have to kill a certain number of the non-Kiba units to advance. This could end up being one of the longer battles.

Save Ridley: Don't save Ridley.

Luca Battle: Could be really bad or really good. Might be worth loading up one unit with as much offense as possible and then just hoping you can get a hit in on him. Otherwise, waiting every turn will probably get you attacked a lot and waste time that way. This will be an annoying battle without some luck, unless there's a much better way to guarantee a hit on Luca.

Greenhill Liberation: Well, three different battles can happen here. The quickest option will be to either just wait at the castle or go with Viktor. Waiting at the castle basically guarantees a fixed time frame (I think), but going with Viktor might allow you to run away from any engagements since they retreat pretty quickly. This one will need some testing.

Muse Liberation: I will need to doublecheck whether this battle can be won early by entering the city or not. Either way, it probably saves time over battling the Karayans. So probably make this another waiting battle with one high-mobility unit to trek into the city. Having Templeton for this battle may not be a bad idea if it can be won earlier.

Matilda Liberation: Just wait out the turns on this one. May need to consider rearranging units to escape easier.

Burning Battle: I don't think you can even do anything in this battle.

L'Ren Battle: CVagts already has an excellent 3-4 turn strategy for this battle using Templton. I would go for that, since if nothing else it is consistent.

I think that's all of them.

Whereas the first half of the game is all about proper equipment and setting up for bosses, I feel like the second half will come down a lot to optimized war battles. The biggest question to ask is: can the war battles actually be optimized to a reasonable extent? Let's go over the major battles after Two River.

Muse-Matilda Border: Nothing you can do here except just hope that the refugees get slaughtered as quickly as possible. Nothing you can do to affect it (I think). Fastest just to choose not to participate.

Radat Battle: I moved my troops back every turn, and we ended up retreating before a single unit attacked. Could be good, but moving units takes a fair amount of turns as well. Probably best to investigate a more optimized solution here that moves the least amount of units and still escapes any actual battle sequences.

General Kiba Battle: Well. I'm not sure what the exact victory conditions are here, but at this point I'm doubting it will be an effective strategy to attack Kiba with his 16 defense. I went through many many turns of him being completely surrounded and didn't hit him once. Luc's magic and Fire Spears can still do the trick, but even then he has to be hit 3 times to finish him. I managed 2, but never landed a third. Beyond that, I don't know if it's a certain number of turns or if you have to kill a certain number of the non-Kiba units to advance. This could end up being one of the longer battles.

Save Ridley: Don't save Ridley.

Luca Battle: Could be really bad or really good. Might be worth loading up one unit with as much offense as possible and then just hoping you can get a hit in on him. Otherwise, waiting every turn will probably get you attacked a lot and waste time that way. This will be an annoying battle without some luck, unless there's a much better way to guarantee a hit on Luca.

Greenhill Liberation: Well, three different battles can happen here. The quickest option will be to either just wait at the castle or go with Viktor. Waiting at the castle basically guarantees a fixed time frame (I think), but going with Viktor might allow you to run away from any engagements since they retreat pretty quickly. This one will need some testing.

Muse Liberation: I will need to doublecheck whether this battle can be won early by entering the city or not. Either way, it probably saves time over battling the Karayans. So probably make this another waiting battle with one high-mobility unit to trek into the city. Having Templeton for this battle may not be a bad idea if it can be won earlier.

Matilda Liberation: Just wait out the turns on this one. May need to consider rearranging units to escape easier.

Burning Battle: I don't think you can even do anything in this battle.

L'Ren Battle: CVagts already has an excellent 3-4 turn strategy for this battle using Templton. I would go for that, since if nothing else it is consistent.

I think that's all of them.

CVagts

2013-02-28 11:49:49 am

"Let's put a SMILE on that face!"

The only issue with L'Ren is having to get Templton, which I think will be worth it. Muse liberation will need testing as well like you said, because if it can be won early, might want to get him and make a beeline for it.

Vaslof

2013-02-28 03:11:26 pm

Welp, this time Shiro and Kinnison only showed up on the third try. Figured out a way to prevent it though, just gonna go put the nest up while I'm there to spam the inn.
Might get a few levels in the forest too which will help with survivability against sickles.

I did a test run up to Abomination. Dunno if the times are any use to you guys, but here they are anyway, at least it might be fun to check out? Tongue

Safety saved twice. Lost two dice matches. Forgot to loot Fire Wall for Star Dragon Sword so lost some time there. Overall probably less than stellar menu work but it was good for a noob.
Turns out the fights are still safe with very little setting up. In Sindar I fought one battle (Riou got lvl11), then killed him off in the boss fight.
Double-beat split is right after Mist Monster because I got it before it.. And a second one on the way back, but I didn't end up using it.
Also spent some time death farming Tsai at the Highland-Muse border. It qualifies as a "end of battle" when you Let Go, right?
Though, finishing the fights wouldn't be much slower since Riou has more spells after leveling up.

Welp, this time Shiro and Kinnison only showed up on the third try. Figured out a way to prevent it though, just gonna go put the nest up while I'm there to spam the inn. 
Might get a few levels in the forest too which will help with survivability against sickles.

I did a test run up to Abomination. Dunno if the times are any use to you guys, but here they are anyway, at least it might be fun to check out? :P
Safety saved twice. Lost two dice matches. Forgot to loot Fire Wall for Star Dragon Sword so lost some time there. Overall probably less than stellar menu work but it was good for a noob.
Turns out the fights are still safe with very little setting up. In Sindar I fought one battle (Riou got lvl11), then killed him off in the boss fight. 
Double-beat split is right after Mist Monster because I got it before it.. And a second one on the way back, but I didn't end up using it.
Also spent some time death farming Tsai at the Highland-Muse border. It qualifies as a "end of battle" when you Let Go, right? 
Though, finishing the fights wouldn't be much slower since Riou has more spells after leveling up.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/TFVocZD.png[/img]

CVagts

2013-02-28 10:08:44 pm

"Let's put a SMILE on that face!"

Maybe it's just me but my double-beat split is going to be when I exit North Sparrow Pass with it on the way back, just so my splits aren't as out of control. Tongue

I've been meaning to do a test run up until some arbitrary point but I haven't gotten around to it. I'm still trying to muster the motivation to start routing the Tinto Mines and beyond.

Omnigamer

2013-03-01 02:23:41 pm

All the things

Vaslof: Your splits match up pretty well with the Japanese runner's notes, although he gains about a minute each split after Toto. It could be an effect of Turbo, but it doesn't seem like the routes are too dissimilar. As a target, Abomination should be finished before 2:30 ideally, but this will vary quite a bit with Double Beat luck. Either way, great job!

I plan to give this another couple trials tonight/this weekend. If for nothing else, I need to solidify some of the Double Head/levelling strats since I feel those are still the most dangerous points in the run.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-03-02 06:43:35 pm

2013-03-02 05:03:28 pm

All the things

Not really routing, but I've gone through the later portion of the game and tested some things.

Luca War Battle: Setting up Hanna and Shu on Valeria, and putting Tsai with Flik gave me 7/7 battles that ended on the 2nd turn. They have the best placement, and gives Valeria an ATK of 14, which is the highest possible for this battle. One way or another you should be able to bring Luca down, but sometimes the other soldiers or Kiba can move in stupid ways and block one of them.

Greenhill battle sequence: Going with Viktor is the fastest. With taking two turns to move everybody back, you finish the battle in 2:30 and don't have to do any prepwork. Staying at the castle takes 4:30 even, and going with Kiba there are no easy victory points. Entering the city does not end the battle.

Muse Liberation battle: You can cut it short by entering Muse, but the units get messed up beforehand so you have to re-set Chaco and Templeton. Templeton isn't even really necessary for this battle, but he can help. Maneuvering around the Karaya troops can be annoying sometimes, but otherwise a quick battle.

Also: I really need to play around with the Violence rune a bit more. I slapped it on Nanami for fun, but I think it can be super-consistent for some of the later bosses. For example, any of them with strong AoE magic or attacks can pretty easily knock off a pretty good chunk of health from the whole party. Violence triggers a special Berserk mode for 3x normal damage after half health (one turn), but it does work with Kindness and double-beat! I did 4500 damage on a non-crit to Bone Dragon, and without double-strike. Definitely worth looking into.

EDIT: Just rounded it out with finishing L'Ren. Beast Rune may need some extra planning for consistency... in particular, either silencing or accounting for potential status effects from either Leg. I got relatively lucky in the battle, but Stalleon had 3 status effects at one point and the rest of the cast was hit-or-miss. It could have really messed with the strategy though. I had Kahn fill Nanami's spot for the instant Resurrection rune and him being fairly beefy as it is. I also used Miklotov for Knight, but I don't think it really helped through the random battles. I will need to examine which characters/spells may be best for clearing out the forced soldier battles all throughout Rockaxe and L'Ren. Being able to just cast one spell and clear everybody is a lot better than waiting two turns for the wipe.

Not really routing, but I've gone through the later portion of the game and tested some things.

Luca War Battle: Setting up Hanna and Shu on Valeria, and putting Tsai with Flik gave me 7/7 battles that ended on the 2nd turn. They have the best placement, and gives Valeria an ATK of 14, which is the highest possible for this battle. One way or another you should be able to bring Luca down, but sometimes the other soldiers or Kiba can move in stupid ways and block one of them.

Greenhill battle sequence: Going with Viktor is the fastest. With taking two turns to move everybody back, you finish the battle in 2:30 and don't have to do any prepwork. Staying at the castle takes 4:30 even, and going with Kiba there are no easy victory points. Entering the city does not end the battle.

Muse Liberation battle: You can cut it short by entering Muse, but the units get messed up beforehand so you have to re-set Chaco and Templeton. Templeton isn't even really necessary for this battle, but he can help. Maneuvering around the Karaya troops can be annoying sometimes, but otherwise a quick battle.

Also: I really need to play around with the Violence rune a bit more. I slapped it on Nanami for fun, but I think it can be super-consistent for some of the later bosses. For example, any of them with strong AoE magic or attacks can pretty easily knock off a pretty good chunk of health from the whole party. Violence triggers a special Berserk mode for 3x normal damage after half health (one turn), but it does work with Kindness and double-beat! I did 4500 damage on a non-crit to Bone Dragon, and without double-strike. Definitely worth looking into.

EDIT: Just rounded it out with finishing L'Ren. Beast Rune may need some extra planning for consistency... in particular, either silencing or accounting for potential status effects from either Leg. I got relatively lucky in the battle, but Stalleon had 3 status effects at one point and the rest of the cast was hit-or-miss. It could have really messed with the strategy though. I had Kahn fill Nanami's spot for the instant Resurrection rune and him being fairly beefy as it is. I also used Miklotov for Knight, but I don't think it really helped through the random battles. I will need to examine which characters/spells may be best for clearing out the forced soldier battles all throughout Rockaxe and L'Ren. Being able to just cast one spell and clear everybody is a lot better than waiting two turns for the wipe.

Omnigamer

2013-03-03 12:34:13 am

All the things

Well, I finished a secondary playthrough, so now it's time for the real routing playthrough in emu so I can observe and test out several things. I have notes up to getting the True Runes so far, but there's still a bunch more to come. I will post my notes when they're a little more complete. In the meantime, let me know some specific mechanics that would be useful to look into. Some things that I think are worth looking into:

-How Spark actually interacts with characters. Does it change speed for the turn or just the turn order?
-If anything in particular has a significant effect on the timer, such as screen transitions or FMVs.
-More efficient and safe battles for Mist & Double Head. Mist Monster is fine for two turns with a revised setup, but I am considering lengthening it to 3 battles in order to keep more items. Double Head still feels much less safe than he should.
-Specifics relating to multi-hits.
-Best places/ways to level up Kindness Bearer without going out of the way to set up something. Should be pretty easy, but there are a lot of options.
-Playing around with any and every way to get around loading zones, as shown in the several YouTube videos. If it allows getting around certain story points, could be what this game needs to have sequence breaks.
-???

Let me know any other things I should look into.

Well, I finished a secondary playthrough, so now it's time for the [i]real[/i] routing playthrough in emu so I can observe and test out several things. I have notes up to getting the True Runes so far, but there's still a bunch more to come. I will post my notes when they're a little more complete. In the meantime, let me know some specific mechanics that would be useful to look into. Some things that I think are worth looking into:

-How Spark actually interacts with characters. Does it change speed for the turn or just the turn order?
-If anything in particular has a significant effect on the timer, such as screen transitions or FMVs.
-More efficient and safe battles for Mist & Double Head. Mist Monster is fine for two turns with a revised setup, but I am considering lengthening it to 3 battles in order to keep more items. Double Head still feels much less safe than he should.
-Specifics relating to multi-hits.
-Best places/ways to level up Kindness Bearer without going out of the way to set up something. Should be pretty easy, but there are a lot of options. 
-Playing around with any and every way to get around loading zones, as shown in the several YouTube videos. If it allows getting around certain story points, could be what this game needs to have sequence breaks.
-???

Let me know any other things I should look into.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-03-03 08:20:17 am

Vaslof: 2013-03-03 08:19:58 am

Vaslof: 2013-03-03 08:13:45 am

2013-03-03 08:12:38 am

It would be useful to know the animation length for different attacks and spells. Raw damage for spells can be found at Suikosource.

Lag.Com

2013-03-03 08:15:19 pm

sda loyalist

Spark makes all characters after the Sparking one attack immediately, if the Sparker uses Attack. It shouldn't modify Speed stat one jot.

I'm in America right now so I do not have a lot of my debugging tools, but if you can wait I'll try to find trigger squares on some game maps if there's some you suspect as breakable.

I've already worked out the spell format so I can post a list of the data somewhere if you want.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-03-03 11:47:15 pm

Omnigamer: 2013-03-03 11:46:59 pm

Omnigamer: 2013-03-03 11:05:39 pm

2013-03-03 10:53:09 pm

All the things

I know what the intended effect is for Spark, but I'm not convinced they might not have taken any shortcuts in the actual implementation of it. I don't actually think that it's implemented such that the speed of following characters is changed for that turn (I haven't seen a higher instance of multihits from it), but nonetheless it's something to confirm.

New route idea that I've been toying with: Use Eilie as primary Kindness bearer with Violence, skip double-strike. This way you never have to change hands on it, ever, and you still have the best effects from Kindness Early. Double-strike isn't really needed if Violence is properly routed in, and should be safer since the incoming damage won't be buffed anymore. This also means that there's no longer a need to level Nanami, but it still may help if you set her as the initial Spark bearer. New levelling strat would need to be worked on a bit more, but I believe it should be possible to level up Riou on Bunnies and give him Fire Lizard, but then Nanami will gain a ton of levels in the second soldier fight after escaping. To level Eilie, she can gain between 19 and 29 levels with minimal setup on the groups of 6 Do Re Mi elves that are all over the forests. You can give her Fire Lizard in Kuskus too to farm up deaths for Kindness. The later half will still need to be planned out, but I'm feeling pretty good with this plan. Even without leveling, it should be pretty consistent. Another Bearer would work, but finding the appropriate time to switch over is annoying since as far as I remember there are limited blacksmiths along the normal route, and even fewer with blacksmiths + runemasters. The best I can think of is in Tinto, which is the last place you'd level up your weapons normally. I'll think about all of the necessary shop visits in the later half of the game tomorrow and we'll see if there's a good place for it.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, it may not be necessary to try to hunt down certain groups for Border levelling at all. If Riou is level 11 or 12 and has Fire Lizard, you should be able to weaken him on the way to the camp, and then have him kill himself in the first battle against 4 soldiers. Then in the second, he's guaranteed to have a higher speed than the soldiers and can just cast his L2 to finish the battle. He and Nanami gain an instant 18-20 levels. It's low-30s, but should be sufficient for running away from most things. Then they can gain an additional 3-5 levels from the Do Re Mi battle. It makes running away in the trek to Kindness a little more difficult, but I think it would speed up the Border sequence by a fair bit and make it perfectly consistent since you don't have to hunt for specific enemy groups. You sacrifice levels, but I have to wonder if the difference of 10 levels will make much difference.

I know what the intended effect is for Spark, but I'm not convinced they might not have taken any shortcuts in the actual implementation of it. I don't actually think that it's implemented such that the speed of following characters is changed for that turn (I haven't seen a higher instance of multihits from it), but nonetheless it's something to confirm.

New route idea that I've been toying with: Use Eilie as primary Kindness bearer with Violence, skip double-strike. This way you never have to change hands on it, ever, and you still have the best effects from Kindness Early. Double-strike isn't really needed if Violence is properly routed in, and should be safer since the incoming damage won't be buffed anymore. This also means that there's no longer a need to level Nanami, but it still may help if you set her as the initial Spark bearer. New levelling strat would need to be worked on a bit more, but I believe it should be possible to level up Riou on Bunnies and give him Fire Lizard, but then Nanami will gain a ton of levels in the second soldier fight after escaping. To level Eilie, she can gain between 19 and 29 levels with minimal setup on the groups of 6 Do Re Mi elves that are all over the forests. You can give her Fire Lizard in Kuskus too to farm up deaths for Kindness. The later half will still need to be planned out, but I'm feeling pretty good with this plan. Even without leveling, it should be pretty consistent. Another Bearer would work, but finding the appropriate time to switch over is annoying since as far as I remember there are limited blacksmiths along the normal route, and even fewer with blacksmiths + runemasters. The best I can think of is in Tinto, which is the last place you'd level up your weapons normally. I'll think about all of the necessary shop visits in the later half of the game tomorrow and we'll see if there's a good place for it.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, it may not be necessary to try to hunt down certain groups for Border levelling at all. If Riou is level 11 or 12 and has Fire Lizard, you should be able to weaken him on the way to the camp, and then have him kill himself in the first battle against 4 soldiers. Then in the second, he's guaranteed to have a higher speed than the soldiers and can just cast his L2 to finish the battle. He and Nanami gain an instant 18-20 levels. It's low-30s, but should be sufficient for running away from most things. Then they can gain an additional 3-5 levels from the Do Re Mi battle. It makes running away in the trek to Kindness a little more difficult, but I think it would speed up the Border sequence by a fair bit and make it perfectly consistent since you don't have to hunt for specific enemy groups. You sacrifice levels, but I have to wonder if the difference of 10 levels will make much difference.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 02:32:14 am

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 02:31:27 am

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 02:30:45 am

2013-03-04 02:26:36 am

I don't know about Violence rune. You need to be dropped to under 50% HP for it to activate. That can be risky especially when it's your main dmg source. It relies on RNG. Bosses need to hit the violence rune user enough to get him under 50% hp, but not so much to kill him. If they don't, then the violence rune is useless. And even if they do eventually get him to under 50%, it might have been faster to kill the boss with double-strike attached. I'm planning to use Violence, Fire Sealing and Fire Lizard on a second physical attacker, that way you might get that extra damage, but you don't rely on it as much. Using violence until you get double-strike might be a good idea.

Good idea on the leveling. That's definitely the way to go if Lvl30 is enough compared to Lvl45-50.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-03-04 09:09:30 am

2013-03-04 06:41:15 am

All the things

I think you're overestimating the amount of damage required to activate Violence. Most bosses in that later half of the game will have strong AoE attacks and attack multiple times per turn. It should not be difficult at all to force a situation where the Kindness Bearer is hit in Turn 1, and then activates Violence on Turn 2. There is no Turn 3, and nobody else even needs to take an action. Just strip them of armor or anything else, pop them in the front row, etc.There should be no problem getting them to the required HP after the first turn for the battles that require it.

You'd only have Double-Strike for Bone Dragon and the L'Ren Bosses. Without a crit, you're still looking at 4 turns to take out the Bone Dragon, and most of the L'Ren Bosses have fairly low HP anyway. I need to crunch the numbers, but I'm fairly certain that having Double-Strike would just be overkill if you already have a good Violence strat.

EDIT: Stumbled upon this old thread. May be worth looking into? http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12462

I think you're overestimating the amount of damage required to activate Violence. Most bosses in that later half of the game will have strong AoE attacks and attack multiple times per turn. It should not be difficult at all to force a situation where the Kindness Bearer is hit in Turn 1, and then activates Violence on Turn 2. There is no Turn 3, and nobody else even needs to take an action. Just strip them of armor or anything else, pop them in the front row, etc.There should be no problem getting them to the required HP after the first turn for the battles that require it.

You'd only have Double-Strike for Bone Dragon and the L'Ren Bosses. Without a crit, you're still looking at 4 turns to take out the Bone Dragon, and most of the L'Ren Bosses have fairly low HP anyway. I need to crunch the numbers, but I'm fairly certain that having Double-Strike would just be overkill if you already have a good Violence strat.

EDIT: Stumbled upon this old thread. May be worth looking into? http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12462

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 09:27:53 am

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 09:27:48 am

2013-03-04 09:27:33 am

Takes 1min 40sec to go to Kuskus and back to get the Kindness rune attached.

Omnigamer

2013-03-04 09:35:04 am

All the things

Time out your battles with SD Sword and Abomination if you could, I'm curious to see what a ballpark estimate is for them with non-Kindness strats.

Vaslof

2013-03-04 10:03:33 am

I've got times for the Star Dragon Sword - Abomination sequence, starting at the beginning of the first boss and ending at the end of the second.

Rest in Kuskus between the two:
SDS 1:49
Enter NW 3:44
Abomination 7:50

Save spells for Abomination, don't rest:
SDS 2:15
Enter NW 2:55
Abomination 7:08

Reduce like 15 seconds if you compare to a run with perfect menu work Tongue

Omnigamer

2013-03-04 11:13:47 am

All the things

One other part that I'm having trouble thinking about is a consistent strat for the Beast Rune. It's possible to just play through him normally, but with all of the different attacks and randomness of status effects, he could be pretty tricky. However, I'm thinking it might be reasonable to abuse the Unite Spell glitch to at toss out some significant damage up-front. One Thor on the Rune followed by another Thor on Right Head and Blazing Camp on Left Head. This should crack the Rune and leave both heads in a position to get killed by the Kindness bearer. I don't think you could reasonably set up more than 3 Unites in this manner, though, considering rune slots and other character requirements. Unite participants would probably be Viki, Riou, Luc, and Flik. Stallion and Kindness Bearer will be the extras, but Stallion won't have enough MP for a Lvl 4 and Kindness Bearer will be stacked with the other runes.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 12:17:38 pm

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 12:17:22 pm

2013-03-04 12:16:13 pm

I was watching your vod Omni and decided to time the same sequence. It took you 6min 56sec, but you did fuck around for at least a minute in North Window. Let's say an optimistic 5min in that sequence, you save 2 minutes and 10 seconds. Then you save another 1min 40sec for not having to go back to attach the Kindness rune. Then maybe another 30 sec it takes to give Rina's rune to Riou. That's 4min 20sec you save, but it took you 6min 30sec to do the kindness rune trip, though you said you could do it in 5min 30sec. At the end, you have a kindness rune bearer with 3 rune slots but low level, and the Tsai method would have a kindness rune bearer with 2 rune slots but high level. Then there's Nanami, who you can get to high level, but who has 2 rune slots and you will have to swap kindness rune bearers after she leaves. I think Tsai method has the edge, but the others can't be thrown away yet. It's a close call.

Omnigamer

2013-03-04 01:03:46 pm

All the things

Eilie has only 2 slots; I wouldn't be attaching it to Rina (probably). Also, you don't need to swap Rina's rune at all since you have a Fire on Nanami for Double Head. The level of the Bearer is not all that important with the exception of Speed, but that's easily fixed by using Spark. Just bringing them along will drive the levels up really fast in the required Highlander battles.

There's still plenty of ways to play around with this; for now I'd say it goes down to personal preference. Nanami still makes the most sense for a Kindness Bearer, but carries the extra planning for taking it off of her, which may or may not be significant. Tsai is good stat-wise, but I'm starting to question how much the stats actually matter, especially if Violence becomes the norm for big damage. Multi-hits aren't actually going to show up as much with Luc Shredding later forced battles, and criticals only reduce the number of turns by one or so in an ~8% chance. Using/not-using double-strike is also still a point of contention. The best I can say right now is that we just need to do more runs and experiment a bit more to find something that works quickly and consistently. Just a lot to keep considering and trying.

Eilie has only 2 slots; I wouldn't be attaching it to Rina (probably). Also, you don't need to swap Rina's rune at all since you have a Fire on Nanami for Double Head. The level of the Bearer is not all that important with the exception of Speed, but that's easily fixed by using Spark. Just bringing them along will drive the levels up really fast in the required Highlander battles.

There's still plenty of ways to play around with this; for now I'd say it goes down to personal preference. Nanami still makes the most sense for a Kindness Bearer, but carries the extra planning for taking it off of her, which may or may not be significant. Tsai is good stat-wise, but I'm starting to question how much the stats actually matter, especially if Violence becomes the norm for big damage. Multi-hits aren't actually going to show up as much with Luc Shredding later forced battles, and criticals only reduce the number of turns by one or so in an ~8% chance. Using/not-using double-strike is also still a point of contention. The best I can say right now is that we just need to do more runs and experiment a bit more to find something that works quickly and consistently. Just a lot to keep considering and trying.

Vaslof

2013-03-04 01:42:05 pm

I had Fire Rune on Nanami in my run and those times are with that setup, that's why I included it. I was planning to skip removing the Fire from Rina. Nanami using ONE fire wall in those two fights is not worth the trouble. I'll still have to swap it from Nanami to Riou, but I don't have to go out of my way to do it, only takes a few seconds.

I'm not far enough in my tests to know how tough all the bosses are in a speed run. The main reason to level up was defense. You can Let Go just fine with Riou alone, or any of the characters that join at high level with S1 data. Btw am I right that Spark only works if both the Spark Rune user and the others you want it to affect use a physical attack?

Another contender we didn't think about for kindness rune bearer is Kinnison. He's basically a ranged Tsai.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-03-04 03:20:28 pm

2013-03-04 02:40:40 pm

All the things

Kinnison only has one Rune Slot available, so not really worth it unless you plan to double-beat only. I was under the impression that Spark only affects basic attacks, but magic and items seem to work under different rules than speed differences so it's hard to say. That's one of the things I'll test more thoroughly soon.

The reason for levelling is indeed to make characters beefier, but there are two primary considerations for it: are they useable before you have your Castle, and will you need that defense before they can reach that level normally? For the entire SD Sword/Abomination sequence, you have a fixed party. If your Kindness Bearer isn't part of that group, it's wasted levels. Even after, the immediately following Boss Battles you can end in 2-3 turns with Kindness, so just having them at the average level of the area is enough. After that you'll have caught up to the levels you could have gotten anyway. In my unstreamed playthrough, I took Tsai with me during the Matilda part of the story. He went from untrained (19) to 39 in 2 battles and no set up. Providing them with the extra levels earlier will bring limited benefit, I feel. This is why I think I will switch to doing the soldier level-up with either Riou only or both Riou & Nanami, and then I'll worry about leveling the Kindness carrier during normal forced story progression.

EDIT: Some small notes for myself.

Post-Kindness Town Stops:

-Coronet: Blacksmith
-Kuskus: Blacksmith - Put Kindness on Bearer here.
-South Window: Runemaster - Put double-beat on Bearer here.
-Radat: None (Kuskus on the way)
-Lakewest: None
-Two River: Runemaster
-Greenhill (occupation): None...?
-Rockaxe: Runemaster? Maybe Blacksmith, can't remember. - Put Spark on Stallion
-Radat, Kuskus optional on the way back.
-Banner Pass: None
-Gregminster: Runemaster - Put Cyclone on Luc, buy needed Runes. Mother Earth and Flowing if available.
-Kuskus, for Culgan event.
-Drakemouth/Tigermouth: None?
-Tinto: Blacksmith - Switch Kindness here, if necessary. Level weapons.
-Crom: ???, maybe Runemaster?
-Rockaxe assault, no shops available
-Muse: Runemaster & Blacksmith, requires revisiting. Flowing available.

After Tinto, need to set up double-strike, mother earth, flowing, maybe other runes for Unite Glitch.

Kinnison only has one Rune Slot available, so not really worth it unless you plan to double-beat only. I was under the impression that Spark only affects basic attacks, but magic and items seem to work under different rules than speed differences so it's hard to say. That's one of the things I'll test more thoroughly soon.

The reason for levelling is indeed to make characters beefier, but there are two primary considerations for it: are they useable before you have your Castle, and will you need that defense before they can reach that level normally? For the entire SD Sword/Abomination sequence, you have a fixed party. If your Kindness Bearer isn't part of that group, it's wasted levels. Even after, the immediately following Boss Battles you can end in 2-3 turns with Kindness, so just having them at the average level of the area is enough. After that you'll have caught up to the levels you could have gotten anyway. In my unstreamed playthrough, I took Tsai with me during the Matilda part of the story. He went from untrained (19) to 39 in 2 battles and no set up. Providing them with the extra levels earlier will bring limited benefit, I feel. This is why I think I will switch to doing the soldier level-up with either Riou only or both Riou & Nanami, and then I'll worry about leveling the Kindness carrier during normal forced story progression.

EDIT: Some small notes for myself.

[hidden]
Post-Kindness Town Stops:

-Coronet: Blacksmith
-Kuskus: Blacksmith - Put Kindness on Bearer here.
-South Window: Runemaster - Put double-beat on Bearer here.
-Radat: None (Kuskus on the way)
-Lakewest: None
-Two River: Runemaster
-Greenhill (occupation): None...?
-Rockaxe: Runemaster? Maybe Blacksmith, can't remember. - Put Spark on Stallion
-Radat, Kuskus optional on the way back.
-Banner Pass: None
-Gregminster: Runemaster - Put Cyclone on Luc, buy needed Runes. Mother Earth and Flowing if available.
-Kuskus, for Culgan event.
-Drakemouth/Tigermouth: None?
-Tinto: Blacksmith - Switch Kindness here, if necessary. Level weapons.
-Crom: ???, maybe Runemaster?
-Rockaxe assault, no shops available
-Muse: Runemaster & Blacksmith, requires revisiting. Flowing available.

After Tinto, need to set up double-strike, mother earth, flowing, maybe other runes for Unite Glitch.
[/hidden]

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 03:04:32 pm

Vaslof: 2013-03-04 03:02:33 pm

2013-03-04 03:01:51 pm

Kinnison has two rune slots according to Suikosource. Second is unlocked at level 35. I'm also leaning towards the same route as you, if it's safe enough. It's funny how we've come full circle: at the beginning I thought the game's easy enough without leveling, then we went through all the Matilda stuff, armadillos, rabbits etc. and now the best option seems to be very minimal leveling. If Riou gets enough magic to get a fourth level spell, then you don't need to get the kindness rune early. In fact the no early kindness rune route would be even faster if Nanami got lvl3 or lvl4 spells. Would it be a significant difference in the amount of levels she gains if she was at her original level instead of lvl12? We could kill her off at Sindar easily, and with the Highlander way she wouldn't have to do anything herself, not even take a single hit. Double Head is not a problem either, Shiro and Jowy can finish it off without trouble, even if Nanami didn't do much damage to it.

Omnigamer

2013-03-04 03:33:09 pm

All the things

The spreadsheet I've been using has him marked as having 1. Oh well.

If you leave Nanami at Level 5 and finish with both her and Hero, she'll gain 29 levels. If it's just her, she'll gain 58 levels. In either case, her MAG growth is so poor that you wouldn't get a Lvl 4, and you'd only have one Lvl 3. Not worth it since you can raise both of them to 30-32 from just doing it normally. It's easy to instead get Riou to Level 48/52 from the battle by giving her a medicine and healing him while waiting for her to die off before casting. Oh, that's another thing to look into: what actually affects escape rate and the appearance of Let Go. Riou would need to be at around level 50 to get his Lvl 4 MP (he didn't have it when I hit level 42).

Vaslof

2013-03-04 03:43:03 pm

My lvl41 Riou has 109 magic, and in a different file my lvl47 Riou has 116 magic. 100 magic is needed for the fourth spell. Maybe you got really unlucky with the growths? If Riou gets lvl48+ I think he's almost guaranteed to get the fourth level spell. That's gotta be the way to go.