Spawn tables...

Well... Got the Pale Leafhopper, that only appears when you get close enough, to spawn. But it spawned with conditions that aren't seen on the wikia. Now I'm seeing tons of Spiritlords and Dragons, with a Spiritlord/Oversoul in the Searing Cove. No rares on this map... Terrapests aren't visible when you first zone in. I think I killed about 18 of them by now, which is needed for the Ring of the Labyrinth guild. Still needs a while before that one opens up. Will probably end up opening the one in Elysion first since I don't want to finish Glenys' quest just yet. Just have enough generics for a full 18-member team. Going to give the uniques their weapons then leave them on the bench until they reach their "max" stats, then get them trained for the battles. I think I'm going to need more room on the bench. Then there's arts training, which I can't do if Sheryl's in the party... Well, I can hack her in for that purpose, then remove her when it's time to finish her quests.

Speaking of generics... I noticed that a bunch of the katana-wielders are very fond of asking for Tataraichi customizations, and that they don't stop at the balance stage. They go all the way, but only if you steer them into that direction. One of them is going for the Parrying Tataraichi and she's capable of using Mystic Arts. Probably because I've been using her as a melee unit instead of her Remedies. I'm only grabbing a ton of generics right as placeholders until I can started on recording their WAs and other specials. One thing I won't do is set it to Yakety Sax. Maybe.

Gaou says something like ”は、俺か?” when claiming an item... Leshau says a lot when he gains stats or a skill. Baulson has a really long status quote. Gabriel needs to shut up at times. Yeah, I haven't exactly used these guys before. Never really had to. Loki: やった！やったぞ！ when claiming an item. Maybe I'll compile a list at some point...?

And there's a type of compensation EXP thingy going on... I gave Rush a bunch of skills at Lv. 1, then checked on the trainer to see what had happened by the time we reach the Gates of Hell. Turns out he gets 25EXP to EVERY skill he has available to him, as long as it's set to Lv.1 or higher. That amounts to every Rank C Item Art to reach Lv. 2, and for Lotions to obtain Clearance Lotion. What I didn't get though is why he got Medical Heal. Not complaining, but it's kinda weird since he never sparked it in the first place.

*insert expletive* YOU.

The Fallen killed the team at the end of Turn 5. Rain of Blades, physical. Massive "ow" on the remaining 2 unions, which one was half-dead anyways. Also, way to steal the most painful move from Saruin. Next attempt was with several weapon upgrades later... And just decided to suicide the team at Turn 9, because seriously? They're not going to survive ANYTHING that's coming at them. So I just used a trainer to OHKO the Remnant. Didn't really hang around the Ancient Ruins since my patience with the Items Only team was wearing thin. Since I can just use the trainer to expand just how many people I have in the reserves, I can take on those challenges pretty much at any point. It just means that I have to grind in the Ancient Ruins because I'm doing my Girls-only battles. A funny thing that happened during the final battle was Reversal! playing way too early. Rank 5 since I didn't complete enough quests, and I didn't want the fight to drag on too long. Actually, I think they would have outright died at the Rank 8 fight. Healing capabilities are way too low to counter anything the Conqueror could throw at them. He summoned the Lob Omen, which was quite a pain. Kept using Mystic Mine to kill off unions. I have no idea why it went from Nisus straight to Reversal! even though it took about 10 extra turns to kill him off. His portrait wasn't even flashing red. Doesn't matter, started my new run and have the saves there in case I want to investigate it.


By the way, I'm still laughing at how they translated トールハンマー as Hammer Toll. I think that the [Thunder]+5 effect would have been a pretty big clue to have it translated as THOR Hammer instead. I think they're pronounced the same in JP, hence the confusion and misnaming. Drill/Mr. Diggs sounds like a pigeon...?


010B3030 02 -> 03. Fixes Mystic Focus "bug." Need hex editor for this. HP and MP values are fine for the PC version since there aren't any real caps to speak of.

Time: 2:07'08"77
1776935
+4: 157
+5: 29
+6: 57
+7: 8
+8: 3
x2: 270
x3: 86
x4: 30
x5: 12
x6: 1
My best score in Panel de Pon so far... I suck at this game. And managed to get a +12 right afterwards, but then screwed up so I ended up losing.

How frustrating.

Oh blazing hell... The multipliers for the 360 version are all over the place. Some of them have +8% and others have +10% at *weapon*+1. That just throws a wrench in almost everything. Bluesteel is definitely following the same route as the PC... As is the Wand/ハードロック. A bunch of others have the +10% route. Unfortunately, there's just not enough info to make a concrete conclusion on the matter. Not even the guides go into it in any sort of depth. What makes it even more frustrating is that getting those upgrades just takes too long. You need to whack something 250~300 times PER upgrade. That's normal attacks, not skills.

Also, the flattest "What" I can muster: Ninja Theory, the guys behind Heavenly Sword, are apparently working on DMC5. Uh... from what I remember, they didn't have a jump button in Heavenly Sword, and the combat was rather slow and clunky when compared to DMC4. And DMC4 was flawed to hell and back. The first one is still, and probably forever will be, my favourite. DMC2 is OK if you just look at it as an action game and not a DMC game. DMC3 was rather... I don't even know. It was good, but completely unbalanced. It's supposed to be hard, but it should be logical and gradual, not "I really want to throw my controller at the TV" hard by the time you get to the 3rd mission. Anyways, that's the newest rumour that's gotten many people a little be unsettled. And I believe that could be an understatement.

That's all for now. I did play something while eating dinner, but it's really nothing to write about. Just playing someone else's file for the hell of it. And wondering about the lack of quests finished. At least I know that Baulson is still up for hire, seeing as his quest is still open despite passing the Nest of Eagles.

Solved.

Normal/Remnant equips: +7%/+10%/+13%/+15%/+18%/+20%/+23%/+25%/+30%.
Ancient/Auld/Antique: +5%/+8%/+10%/+13%/+15%/+18%/+20%/+23%/+25%.


Why they're different, I don't know. But at least that's done. Should have been done a long time ago. I guess it makes a little sense for the rarer weapons to not strengthen as much, seeing as how you wouldn't want to use them in the first place. Most of them have sub-par stats. Anyways, those are the PC values, obtained using a trainer to change the weapon modifiers. Used 2-3 samples for the 2 categories, so I'm fairly certain that I have the right values there. It's important to note that the game TRUNCATES the final value, not round. Many games do this, so I'm not too surprised about it. It's also easier to just chop off numbers to the right of the decimal point than to round up or down depending on what rules you impose on the system. It'll probably take too long for someone to find all the 360 modifiers, unless someone is willing to go through the trouble of using 2 Remnants, at least 2 normals and a few Antique types. I'd be more than willing to during the summer... if I had a 360 to use. But alas, I don't. Nor am I willing to buy one just for the sake of testing this.


Anyways... Got absolutely nowhere in the past sessions of play~ Not even the Eldritch Dragon is falling to my army. So all I've been doing so far is just arts training on Bai Ze. Really don't think that my army's going to get anywhere if I tried to grind using the Wisdom's Echo exploit. The next best places would be the Second and Sixth Paths in Siebenbur, but even that has its limits. The absolute best would be the Ancient Ruins, but I can't access that until I kill The Fallen. I could stick the item into my inventory, but I actually want to beat it and have Wyngale ready for hire. The one thing that I'm having trouble with is Faye's lack of willingness to change wield styles mid-battle. I have all of her One-handed arts open, at Peerless, yet she refuses to use them by sticking with Mighty Triple Axel II. Weird.

EDIT: I KNEW IT. The 360 modifiers are different. For one, the +3 modifier is 15%, not the 13% that's found in the PC version. I think the +1 modifier is a little higher at 10%. This needs further testing... Might have to ask a friend about it.

EDITx2: Finished over at my Wikia profile. Now gathering the numbers/EXP required for each level.

I need a new SaGa game to play.

Six Bases and Koenigsdorf are done! None of them were that much of a problem at BR39~45. I think there's no way around gaining almost 1BR per base. I think I gained 2BR during a quest, but I don't remember which one it was. Well, either way, I haven't been upgrading their equipment, but decided to give Faye the Shielding Hawkwind and Might Splitter. It turns out that the generics don't ask about their equipment focuses, so I really don't know how the game decides what route they take. Maybe it's through their actions? I know that the JP guide has a little chart explaining that if you give them a certain focus but act against it, then they would start moving towards that focus instead. Like this: You tell them Mystic, but spend time either A) being an idiot by acting in Balance, B) focusing on hammering them with Combat Arts/weapons or C) actually doing what you're told. For ~10 battles. That's apparently all it takes for the focus switch to take place. So A) would lead to a more balanced Mystic type (could be bad), B) would just confuse them into becoming a Combat-based unit (REALLY bad), while C) is probably the intended path (self-explanatory). Now, that's only the 1st talk. The second talk can even further complicate things, but that's the idea. Not sure how badly it affects the PC version though. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the Common/Generic Leaders alter their focus depending on what they do, which isn't all that hard since they never seem to ask. It's just damn near impossible to alter it easily. Faye going Mystic when she has no MAs to speak of? Yeah, that'll go over well. She'll still be dual-wielding though. Of course, this can be bypassed if the unions are organized properly.

Actually, I've also made it past the Darken Forest events. Yay for seeing many of my units fall victim to the Enthralled status. Funny enough, they managed to kill a few of my unions. Not so fun, especially knowing that one of them could quite possibly use an AoE attack. Singleton's Snowfall immediately comes to mind. Now, the next order of business is to beat The Fallen. I really don't think I'll be able to kill it within 10 turns. I lasted 6 turns, but didn't get anywhere near the damage I needed to deal by then. I was short by at least 200K. It also kept blocking a good deal of Item Arts directed against it. It also killed Wyngale pretty early in the fight (2 turns, it's a record!). BR50, as a note. It's possible to kill much earlier, but we're talking about a bunch of ragtag soldiers here. With no MAs to speak of. Quite literally the bulk of the damage being dealt is from bombs, traps and weird mystic combinations of items. And all of them can be blocked quite easily at BR50. For the time being, I guess I can beat the everlasting crap out of Bai Ze for arts training. Doubt that I'll get anywhere fast with stats until the Frosthold FortressAncient Ruins open up, which requires me to beat the Fallen in the first place. I completely forgot about Duke Ghor's quest, but I don't really care at this point. With a trainer, I can change the BR accordingly with a new file to take on simultaneous runs.


So I also decided to visit the 360 boards... And what's this about hitting themselves with Arcana? Sounds rather amusing, and even more reason for me to try the 360 version. I want to see all those glitches and bugs with my own eyes! I already knew about fussy Torgal, but I didn't know that it was that bad. The Leraje Princeps bug was already pretty bad in my book (stops him from upgrading for a VERY long time or until you give him something better), but being stuck with both the Halphas and Gremory Dominus customizations when you tell him to go all Combat? That's really bad. Hawkarang hits for considerably more damage than Cerulean Rain due to their damage modifiers. And going by the 360 weapon stats, there's really no reason to not go for the Halphas Dominus. Overall, the stats are better. Doesn't really matter as much on the PC, since you'd be focusing on the WA more, which still leads to the Halphas Dominus. The only reason you'd go for the Gremory Dominus is to get Cerulean Rain and because of the higher MYS stat. But knowing Torgal, going mystic isn't the best choice. It feels kinda sad that the 360 board is more active than the PC board.

Also decided to grab a little something off the net, but much to my surprise, there was really nothing there. I couldn't even find any of the game's internal data. There was an empty folder for audio and the video. No textures, no voice clips, nothing. Must be the way they organized the data because the PC discs are vastly different. To the point that the disc sizes are insanely different. Maybe there's something on the 2nd disc. I want to see if I can replace the critical files from the PC version with the 360 ones. It's too much of a pain to try altering the PC files to emulate what the 360 is like. Not to mention they changed the scaling so that it doesn't hit you as hard. Unless you're playing Hard Mode.

Note: Celeron D 356 (3.33GHz), LGA775, 9400GT 512MB, 512MB RAM.

Exam period and requests.

So, I basically said "Screw it" and played some LasuRemu. Sad thing is, I wasn't even playing my saves. I helped someone get past the Nest of Eagles at BR40. I was never that high in any of my runs, but I always had better stats and better weapons. It was a little jarring to say the least when I loaded it up just to see a bunch of underleveled units. Stats and Abilities. It almost made me want to say "Just restart." Still, got through it just fine. Purposely tried to abuse David's Gae Bolg spam, but that didn't really work out at all. He only used it when the battle was almost over, and only managed to kill off Roeas and the remaining mooks. Castenea did not prove to be a problem at all, which was a plus. At least the person requesting help finally said thanks. Three days later. Anyways, I did another person's request, which was to get past the Nest of Eagles from the beginning of the game. Was supposed to be a reconstruction of the person's file, but he didn't give me anything to go on, so I played the way I would normally play if I were just starting out. Which leads me to this: WHY THE HELL IS DAVID'S UNION ALWAYS DYING?! HIS UNION ISN'T EVEN LACKING IN HP! IT'S LIKE HE HAS THIS INTRINSIC FACTOR THAT BASICALLY SAYS "HIT ME DAMN IT." *sigh* Final stats? Rush has Swift Devil's Due V. He's a freakin' powerhouse with that, along with decent Mystic Arts and Item Arts. He's really lacking in Remedies this time around, but only because I wasn't bothering with too much training. Managed to get enough people that can revive other unions. Stuck Emmy and Dave in the same union since Dave can revive while Emmy can do massive healing. I've already upgraded their weapons almost as far as I can get them, so this guy is going to be fairly well off. Only problem is? I didn't minimize BR. Then again, this is Normal mode we're talking about, and I've already minimized it in terms of how many necessary encounters while gathering materials. Well, I think it was worth the effort. The user said thanks the day I posted the save, so it's all good. I can't believe that I managed to almost perfectly mimic the guy's progress. Maybe even better than his original too with BR and equipment. Turns out the guy was gathering all the unique leaders, so that was an interesting point he made. Playing at x3.0 speed was pretty interesting too.



OK, I lied. I did play my own file. Got past the half-way point. Also did a little number crunching. Turns out that the +9 modifier gives a 30% truncated boost to equipment. That's a sizable stat boost... Still not enough to save the Nightbloom's horrific DEF and MDEF values, but it's not like I'm using Rush as a tank in the first place. It took forever for Faye to take the Shielding Hawkwind and Might Splitter, and even longer before she decided to request the Black Belt. The Base fights are up next, and everyone's getting their equips upgraded now. I'm still not actively looking for their components. Interesting thing: Faye didn't ask about her equipment focus. She's gone Combat, but with the Shielding Hawkwind in her main hand. It technically should be the Might Splitter, but it doesn't really matter. I doubt that the [Combat Arts]+5 would stack between the 2 weapons. So now she's just training up the One-Handed wield style for Hawkarang, which I should have been doing from the start. Now she's pretty far behind, but managed to get Triple Axel. I probably should start abusing Bai Ze soon for training all of their combat arts. Hired 2 soldiers with Remedies and a wield style learned, in case I really need someone to take care of some healing.

I should just hurry along with the file. Want to really start the unique run already... But I also want to make sure that I start gathering some data about the soldiers' weapons too. Their upgrade paths are somewhat different from the 360 version, and can result in a weapon capable of a weapon art. That's my reasoning to deal with the it. Sure, no one uses them, but it only helps with fleshing out the wiki. Already got that upgrading Faye's Combat Tomahawk to the Baalukian requires Iron Orex3, Spider Silkx1 and Natural Oilx1.