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Etrian Odyssey Community Thread: The Ongoing Adventures of Fight and Heal

All the FOEs and almost all of the maze bosses respawn after awhile; I can only think of three story-centric fights that can't be redone. But not to worry, that particular passage to the boss can also be accessed from the other side once he's been defeated.

And as for the pool, check the northeast end of the map.


actually, i've just checked Valley Spring just now to kick some Furyhorn ass and apparently it's NOT there according to the map? Shouldn't it have respawned by now? It's been at least 10 days hmmm....
 

tuffy

Member
actually, i've just checked Valley Spring just now to kick some Furyhorn ass and apparently it's NOT there according to the map? Shouldn't it have respawned by now? It's been at least 10 days hmmm....
It might be 14 game days to respawn, now that I think about it. But there's also a Furyhorn available at the Small Orchard if you haven't clobbered it already.
So guys were farmers any good?
They were invaluable in EO III, but usually not in main parties.
 

tuffy

Member
If I were looking to try and get into these, would it be worth getting the first one on DS or the remake of it on 3DS?
I'd start with EO:IV on the 3DS and move on to the EO:U remake later.

The interface has gotten a lot more polish on the 3DS and they've added a lot of labor-saving features to make exploration and character (re-)building much easier.
 

syncyes

Member
Oh man, I just got to the 5th stratum in EOIV, and the random mobs on this first floor are hitting my nostalgia bone so hard. I actually put my 3DS down for a second because I was so overcome with emotion.
 

spiritfox

Member
Oh man, I just got to the 5th stratum in EOIV, and the random mobs on this first floor are hitting my nostalgia bone so hard. I actually put my 3DS down for a second because I was so overcome with emotion.

I liked all the allusions to the previous games, and I wished they actually had the balls to directly link the games instead of giving vague titbits about it.
 

syncyes

Member
Welp, in...around three days I went from the 2nd stratum to beating the game. Stupid addictive series.

It did end up being a lot easier than other EOs (except for that period in the 2nd stratum when I was underleveled and my team had no synergy).

In retrospect I somewhat regret doing a link team because I feel like it trivialized a lot of the bosses. Blood Rush link + Dancer doing Rush Samba + Runemaster uses multi-hit Blood Rushed elemental with Fortress tanking all the hits was doing obscene amounts of damage and had almost no risk. I didn't feel like I was in danger at all on the final boss, which is a pretty new experience.

Beat the fire dragon last night before sleeping, debating on whether or not I should go on to the rest of the postgame.
 

Rutger

Banned
B29F in EOU finally gave me more trouble than I would like, not bad for a party I went out of my way to make less effective than they could be. Though since it was a teleport maze, brute forcing my way through was a viable strategy.

I guess it's finally time for me to rethink my party, and for the thing I've been dreading the most, the Grimoire Grind...

*sigh* why couldn't we've had subclasses instead. :/
At least I have the item duplication bug.
 

omlet

Member
Beat the fire dragon last night before sleeping, debating on whether or not I should go on to the rest of the postgame.

Yes, you should.

I guess it's finally time for me to rethink my party, and for the thing I've been dreading the most, the Grimoire Grind...

*sigh* why couldn't we've had subclasses instead. :/
At least I have the item duplication bug.
I'm very glad they didn't try to shoe-horn subclassing into the EOU games. Those classes weren't designed for subclassing.

Now, on the grimoire grind topic... depends on what you are after but for me it wasn't really that bad. Relative to my overall playtime of EO:U, deliberate grimoire grinding is a very small fraction of the time (to be fair, we're talking total playtime in the triple digits). I get the feeling a lot of people don't know the good tricks to manipulate the system.

If you haven't already done a lot of reading up on stuff, these posts might help you out.
some info about grimoire system
easy grimoire farming without item or grimoire duping and related item farming specifics
 

Anustart

Member
Why do people call the different lands stratums? Also, beat that damn boiling lizard last night. I almost had him, I was out of tp so my damage was suffering, then he started healing :( luckily I could negate the heal and lived long enough for the healing to fade away and allowed me to finish him off, barely.
 

Rutger

Banned
I'm very glad they didn't try to shoe-horn subclassing into the EOU games. Those classes weren't designed for subclassing.

Would it really have been all that out of place though? Ignoring the fact that things have been rebalanced in EOU, I still don't agree with this argument since Grimoires give us so much more at the cost of relying on the RNG.

I always saw subclasses as a natural evolution of how classes work in EO. We are given five extra skill points and access to one other class skillset, we still need to be careful about how we spend the limited skill points. Subclasses gave us more creative freedom on how we build our parties, while still forcing us to plan around the skill point limit. EOIV improved on this by giving more weight to the main class.

Grimoires on the other hand, take us back to EOIII where we could max any subclass skill we want, but instead of five free skill points we now get seven free skills, and from any class or monster. I can't think of any time where I needed more than seven skills from a subclass, so the main difference between grimoires and EOIII subclassing to me is that grimoires give me up to 70 free skill points instead of five. Not being limited to one other class is a nice bonus.

I've always felt grimoires lessen the importance of how we choose to use skill points. I really don't see how EOIV's subclass system would be out of place compared to grimoires.

Now, on the grimoire grind topic... depends on what you are after but for me it wasn't really that bad. Relative to my overall playtime of EO:U, deliberate grimoire grinding is a very small fraction of the time (to be fair, we're talking total playtime in the triple digits). I get the feeling a lot of people don't know the good tricks to manipulate the system.

If you haven't already done a lot of reading up on stuff, these posts might help you out.
some info about grimoire system
easy grimoire farming without item or grimoire duping and related item farming specifics

Thanks for this, it should be a big help.
And yeah, I'm not expecting grimoire grinding to be any worse than some of the weapon forging I did in III and IV, it just bugs me that I'll need to grind to complete my characters. Hopefully the improvements to grimoires being made in EOIIU will make this less of an issue.
 

Hikami

Member
Is Untold's story worth finishing? I'm at the 4th stratum and would rather just play Classic mode but that means I'd have to get rid of story save file of course..
 

omlet

Member
Would it really have been all that out of place though? Ignoring the fact that things have been rebalanced in EOU, I still don't agree with this argument since Grimoires give us so much more at the cost of relying on the RNG.

Grimoires on the other hand, take us back to EOIII where we could max any subclass skill we want, but instead of five free skill points we now get seven free skills, and from any class or monster. I can't think of any time where I needed more than seven skills from a subclass, so the main difference between grimoires and EOIII subclassing to me is that grimoires give me up to 70 free skill points instead of five. Not being limited to one other class is a nice bonus.

I've always felt grimoires lessen the importance of how we choose to use skill points. I really don't see how EOIV's subclass system would be out of place compared to grimoires.

It's not just re-balancing, really, IMO. The classes in EO1 and 2, and thus also in Untold, are not designed with subclassing in mind. They would have had to do a whole lot more skill redesign for every class, not simply re-balancing. Untold is supposed to be a polished version of the original game, not EO5.

Also, there aren't many skills in EOU that would even really make subclassing interesting. The only class skills that really have any cross-class importance are Action Boost, Analysis, maybe Wrath's Might and Focus or Recharge, and maybe some healing skills, like if you wanted to run a T/M. I mean, looking at my grimoire collection, only a very few of those skills are important cross-class skills... most of them are own-class skills moved onto grimoire just to free up skill points for a fuller own-class build or skills that I was just experimenting with or were like "well, it's better than an empty grimoire slot."

Don't get me wrong, I like subclassing as a mechanic better than the grimoire system so I'd rather have subclassing in any new EO games, but the Untold games are remakes of games with classes designed without that in mind so I'm glad they are largely keeping the classes from 1 and 2 how they were.*

*
I will be sad when Hexer in EO2 inevitably turns out to be like EOU version and thus nerfed.
**

**On that note, I won't miss the boring raw-stat-up skills from EO2 if they get rid of those in Untold. I mean they were useful skills but they really emphasized one-trick-pony damage dealing classes (max one or two good skills, pump more SP into making your stats stronger to make those few skills more powerful), unless, I guess, you retired like a madman into the 80s or 90s level range.

Edit:
Is Untold's story worth finishing? I'm at the 4th stratum and would rather just play Classic mode but that means I'd have to get rid of story save file of course..

You're almost done. It's worth finishing for gameplay reasons, if nothing else.

When you finish story mode you can new game plus into classic mode and carry over the story characters (which you can then use alongside classic mode characters, which is pretty useful, especially for grimoires) and other stuff like maps, loot, and cash if you want.

If you really want to just get over to classic mode, just drop the difficulty on story mode down to picnic and blitz through the rest. You don't have much more to go.
 

Rutger

Banned
It's not just re-balancing, really, IMO. The classes in EO1 and 2, and thus also in Untold, are not designed with subclassing in mind. They would have had to do a whole lot more skill redesign for every class, not simply re-balancing. Untold is supposed to be a polished version of the original game, not EO5.

Also, there aren't many skills in EOU that would even really make subclassing interesting. The only class skills that really have any cross-class importance are Action Boost, Analysis, maybe Wrath's Might and Focus or Recharge, and maybe some healing skills, like if you wanted to run a T/M. I mean, looking at my grimoire collection, only a very few of those skills are important cross-class skills... most of them are own-class skills moved onto grimoire just to free up skill points for a fuller own-class build or skills that I was just experimenting with or were like "well, it's better than an empty grimoire slot."
I didn't actually think about how uninteresting subclassing I and II classes would be.

I'm not really a fan of how the classes are designed in the first two games, so subclassing probably wouldn't have helped much. Even if I don't like how it affects skill points, grimoires might be a more interesting system for these classes, if it wasn't dependent on the RNG anyways.
*
I will be sad when Hexer in EO2 inevitably turns out to be like EOU version and thus nerfed.
**

**On that note, I won't miss the boring raw-stat-up skills from EO2 if they get rid of those in Untold. I mean they were useful skills but they really emphasized one-trick-pony damage dealing classes (max one or two good skills, pump more SP into making your stats stronger to make those few skills more powerful), unless, I guess, you retired like a madman into the 80s or 90s level range.

I for one am looking forward to the Hexer being nerfed in EOIIU, or rather, hopefully class balance is better all around than in the original. EOII's Hexer killed some of my enjoyment of that game, but I wasn't going to not use it when everything else was so much worse than it.

Though it was pretty fun watching a couple Hexers make the post game far easier than the first floor.
 
Hi. Nice thread OP. Good job.

I'm thinking of replaying Etrian Odyssey IV, but I would have to delete all my data... I can't decide if I want to do that and lose my maps and my characters, but there doesn't seem like anything else to do at the end-game. I want to replay it from a fresh start. Should I go for it and start from scratch again?

I'm also thinking of getting Persona Q. It's kind of an Etrian Odyssey game. I was thinking the price might drop after a few months, but I'm not sure if it's worth waiting for that.
 

Shiina

Member
Hi. Nice thread OP. Good job.

I'm thinking of replaying Etrian Odyssey IV, but I would have to delete all my data... I can't decide if I want to do that and lose my maps and my characters, but there doesn't seem like anything else to do at the end-game. I want to replay it from a fresh start. Should I go for it and start from scratch again?

I'm also thinking of getting Persona Q. It's kind of an Etrian Odyssey game. I was thinking the price might drop after a few months, but I'm not sure if it's worth waiting for that.

It's Atlus so it'll probably go on sale in a few months and be 50% off in half a year. If the dungeon crawling aspect of the game turns out to be good I'll probably get it when it's on sale myself.

Regarding IV I would just say go for it. Fortunately EOU2 will have more save slots.
 

tuffy

Member
I'm thinking of replaying Etrian Odyssey IV, but I would have to delete all my data... I can't decide if I want to do that and lose my maps and my characters, but there doesn't seem like anything else to do at the end-game. I want to replay it from a fresh start. Should I go for it and start from scratch again?
I've done New Game+ runs where I've deleted the map data but kept a set of freshly retired characters just as an excuse to power through the mazes again with a new party. But for more of a challenge, you could go the opposite route and keep your old maps but start a fresh new guild. It sortof depends on what you're in the mood for.
 
I've done New Game+ runs where I've deleted the map data but kept a set of freshly retired characters just as an excuse to power through the mazes again with a new party. But for more of a challenge, you could go the opposite route and keep your old maps but start a fresh new guild. It sortof depends on what you're in the mood for.

Thanks for the input. I played through casual the very first time I played through the game, so I thought I might just delete my data completely and play through on normal. I already did one New Game+ with it, but with some benefits from having played it through once.

By the way, did you like Etrian Odyssey Untold? I have a New Game+ going in that already, Classic since I did Story mode the first time. I haven't even tried Expert difficulty yet.

edit- Oh yeah, I deleted my EO 3 file a while back and I sort of regret that because I had the perfect Warrior Might team set up. Sometimes I just want to start over though.
 

tuffy

Member
By the way, did you like Etrian Odyssey Untold? I have a New Game+ going in that already, Classic since I did Story mode the first time. I haven't even tried Expert difficulty yet.
I didn't put a lot of time into Untold, to be honest. I liked how it looked and didn't even mind the new soundtrack, but I didn't care for grimoire stone randomness or the floor jump feature. Half the fun I had with IV was planning out crazy party builds and then spending a little time grinding out the experience necessary. With Untold, there weren't as many options in the skill tree and there was a bit of luck in getting a good grimoire, so it just wasn't the same.
edit- Oh yeah, I deleted my EO 3 file a while back and I sort of regret that because I had the perfect Warrior Might team set up. Sometimes I just want to start over though.
I'll bet EO 3: Untold is on the way before long, so maybe we'll all get a chance to run through it again.
 

Kasumin

Member
Reading some of the stuff in this thread reminds me of my own crazy adventures in Etrian Odyssey IV. I beat it last year, but I finally finished getting everything in it last month for the cherished golden guild card.

One of the things I had to do was kill one of the roaming FOEs in B2F of the bonus dungeon for its rare drop.
It was Flygourd, if I remember right.
I get down to the room, and BAM the FOE I need to kill is shiny. I'm thinking of leaving and coming back, but I think, "Hey, why not?" And I go for it. End up accidentally getting another of the roaming FOEs coming into the fight. I barely survive with only my Dancer and back row alive. So of course I don't get a chance to use a formaldehyde.

I come back later and get into a random encounter that lasts too long. FOE I'm after joins the fight. At this point I'm kind of at a loss for what to do. So I go, "Screw it!" And have my Nightseeker use Assassinate on the remaining enemy.

Assassinate hits, kills the enemy, then Follow Trace triggers and Assassinate hits the FOE and... kills it. And then it drops its rare drop without me using a formaldehyde.

I had to set down my 3DS and just stare at it for awhile. The chances of all that happening are so low I still can't comprehend how that happened. Moments like that really made EOIV memorable for me.
 
So i'm playing Untold and i'm at Cernunos, man he's tough. Can anyone tell me how my Medic is able to equip higher level shields (my Lvl. 29 Medic is using the Spike Shield) despite the Spike Shield saying only a Landsknecht or Protector should be able to equip it?
 

Anustart

Member
One thing that's bugging me. My nightseeker does great damage against enemies under status effects, but the problem I've run into is...it's almost impossible to land status effects on any enemy that actually matters :/
 

omlet

Member
So i'm playing Untold and i'm at Cernunos, man he's tough. Can anyone tell me how my Medic is able to equip higher level shields (my Lvl. 29 Medic is using the Spike Shield) despite the Spike Shield saying only a Landsknecht or Protector should be able to equip it?

This is something explained pretty early in the game as part of the grimoire system. The grimoire used as a catalyst during synthesis determines the equipment bonus (indicated by the grimoire's icon) granted by the grimoire to whoever equips it. This is a way to equip weapons or shields on characters that can't usually use them. Being able to equip shields on characters who aren't P or L is hugely helpful on Expert difficulty.

Good uses for this that I found in my 3 plays through the game:
  • Shields for everyone. Great for the Aspis that has Death Resistance on it to save the accessory slot in the postgame stratum.
  • Spear on Protector. Can be useful with Highlander skills on the grimoire.
  • Gun equipment for Medic or Hexer, so they can do good damage with their basic attacks in the back row.
Most skills are weapon-specific so characters like DH, R, G, Hi don't really benefit from having a different weapon type.

One thing that's bugging me. My nightseeker does great damage against enemies under status effects, but the problem I've run into is...it's almost impossible to land status effects on any enemy that actually matters :/

Subbing Arcanist will help a lot (ailment boost). Before that it will be tough. LUC stat also affects your ailment rate so you can give LUC books to your N. My N was N/A for the duration of 100%'ing the game. After that I experimented with N/B and it's amazing if you have an A or M/A in your party to nullify ailment resistances.
 
One thing that's bugging me. My nightseeker does great damage against enemies under status effects, but the problem I've run into is...it's almost impossible to land status effects on any enemy that actually matters :/

To add on the Arcanist sub advice, mobs often seem to have weakness only a certain specific ailment, which they'll hardly resist, and also sometimes have strength against certain ailments which they'll resist a lot. Bosses have a base resist to everything that's relatively high but still have some weaknesses sometimes. The issue lies in the fact you'll rarely have more than 1 skill leveled, maybe 2, so you can only apply these, which makes some bosses meh. Also once a status has been applied, mobs get a very high resist rate to that status for several turns, unless you remove it with the Arcanist super high cost ability.

I personally used my NS to proc chases on the Land, and to clear trash with venom throw. I'd also sometimes get poison on bosses, which does ridiculous amounts of unmitigated damage when it lands. Generally since the land and the runemaster needed a couple turns of "buffing" before the pain started, I'd venom throw twice with the NS to see if it'd stick. If it did, good, if it didn't, whatever.

If you want to make NS work as a dmg source of its own, as pointed out you'll want to sub arcanist, or have an arcanist do status ailment circles rather than bind(which means you'll probably want a sniper to do binds).
 

Linkark07

Banned
I'm still debating about my EO3 party.

Right now I'm on the 5th stratum and so far it has been great. But there are two slots that are making me think if I should swap some members.

Current party is: H/N, S/B
M/P, Z/G, N/Z.

I'm thinking if I should replace the zodiac and ninja and get a Gladiator/Shogun and another Shogun/Buccaneer. Thankfully sea quests exists so I could get the two new members catch up with the party fast.

What do you guys think? Stick with free meteor or replace it with warrior might (gladiator) and dual shogun?
 

Rutger

Banned
I'm still debating about my EO3 party.

Right now I'm on the 5th stratum and so far it has been great. But there are two slots that are making me think if I should swap some members.

Current party is: H/N, S/B
M/P, Z/G, N/Z.

I'm thinking if I should replace the zodiac and ninja and get a Gladiator/Shogun and another Shogun/Buccaneer. Thankfully sea quests exists so I could get the two new members catch up with the party fast.

What do you guys think? Stick with free meteor or replace it with warrior might (gladiator) and dual shogun?

Warriors Might is without a doubt the better party. Though I ran a free meteor party for the main game, and can tell you that you can finish the fifth stratum with it.

It's up to you, do you want to be unstoppable now, or wait for the post game? Warriors Might is great to have for some of the things the post game throws at you, but it's overkill for the main game.
 

Linkark07

Banned
Might go with Warrior's Might party on my second playthrough.

Right now I don't have plans on starting the sixth stratum until I get the true ending.
 
Has anybody ever tried a drone-summoning Yggdroid for EO3? Both runs I've done with an Yggdroid I had a Ninja or a Wildling, so I've never had the slot available to give it a try.
 
So I've been playing both Untold and IV recently, although I hit the Level 70 level cap in Untold just as I was starting the 6th Stratum, so that kinda killed my motivation to go much further with that one... Would it be worth it to just work through it with my Story Mode party, or should I start my New Game Plus early and then just come back to it in Classic Mode? I have kinda liked Story Mode so far (heresy, I know), so I just want to make sure I won't be missing anything by cutting it short early in order to restart in Classic Mode... Anyway, in IV, I'm up to the 5th Dungeon, and am enjoying OHKO-ing stuff with the final class I just unlocked...

Also, quoting my post about some of my controversial opinions about Untold from the other thread, since no one seemed to have seen it there (with edits in italics):

What I mean by the title ["All the GAFer-hated additions in Etrian Odyssey: Untold were actually good things"] is that, more specifically, I actually liked Untold's Story Mode, Floor Jump, and Grimoires, and didn't really mind the difficulty being easy at all. To elaborate:

Story Mode:
Many GAFers disliked how the pre-made characters had so much dialogue, and how they hampered their role-playing experience and took away from their use of their own imagination. However, only 4 of the 5 characters are like this. The 5th character, the Highlander that you get to name, remains a silent protagonist, and, in my view, being juxtaposed with 4 talkative teammates actually serves as a contrast that actually emphasizes the role-playing and imagination used when playing as the Highlander. Having 1 character be silent and the rest be talkative makes it clearer who I'm actually role-playing the character of, and makes it easier to focus on making decisions from this one point of view. Also it enables better dialogue trees than anything I've come across yet in EO IV, and I enjoy making choices in dialogue trees.

Floor Jump:
Many GAFers disliked how floor jump makes the game a lot easier and removes some of the risk from exploration. I can see this, but I still liked it anyways. I see this as coming from the different play styles behind why we choose to play the game. Many GAFers seem to play the Etrian Odyssey games as a game of "see how long I can survive fighting FOEs and other monsters", whereas I play it more as a game of "see how much of the floor I can map before my inventory fills up and I have to warp back to town", and coming from this play style, the addition of floor jumps just serves as a nice reward for completing my map. Or in other words, floor jumps are a good thing if you are only in it for the mapping and would prefer to ignore the combat, as is the case with me. (also, floor jumps don't get applied to the
elevators
on the 5th Stratum, which was kind of a pain for me as I had been growing to rely on Floor Jump, but I guess people who dislike Floor Jump probably would have found it a relief...)


Grimoires:
Sure, the interface might be clunky and hard to pick up at first, but after getting used to it, I found I prefer the grimoire system to subclassing, for a number of reasons. First, it's available from practically the beginning of the game, and you're eased into it much more gradually, as opposed to subclassing, which is just kinda dumped on you in the middle of the game in EO IV. Also, grimoires provide a lot more flexibility than subclassing does, because you can mix-and-match things instead of being limited to just the abilities of that subclass. And if you mess up your grimoires, it's a lot easier to switch, because you just equip a different one, as opposed to subclasses, where you have to rest your character and lose some levels just to switch subclasses. And one final advantage of grimoires is that they provide that sort of satisfaction that comes from copying enemy abilities that is present in most Kirby games and Megaman games.

Difficulty:
While I agree that Picnic difficulty is a breeze and makes you way over-levelled for most things, there are still some parts of it that are hard. While enemy attack/defense seems like it's adjusted for Picnic, it seems like enemy evasion/agility remains the same, which means that evasion-focused enemies, like the bees in Gladsheim Area II, are still hard even on Picnic. Also I still had a hard time with some of the optional fights, such as the golem in that secret forest area that shows up when accepting that quest to find the fake treasure, the Alraune in the secret Jungle area, and I still got wiped when I tried to fight that darn wyvern that was spitting lightning at me in the jungle when I first encountered him (I did manage to beat it when I came back to it during the post-game, though). Also, shiny F.O.E.s on the Sixth Stratum (with the red outline around their map icons) can still be a challenge, even on Picnic. So while I agree that Picnic makes the combat too easy, it still has its moments. And besides, I'm only in it for the mapping, anyways.
 

Anteo

Member
So I've been playing both Untold and IV recently, although I hit the Level 70 level cap in Untold just as I was starting the 6th Stratum, so that kinda killed my motivation to go much further with that one... Would it be worth it to just work through it with my Story Mode party, or should I start my New Game Plus early and then just come back to it in Classic Mode? I have kinda liked Story Mode so far (heresy, I know), so I just want to make sure I won't be missing anything by cutting it short early in order to restart in Classic Mode... Anyway, in IV, I'm up to the 5th Dungeon, and am enjoying OHKO-ing stuff with the final class I just unlocked...

Also, quoting my post about some of my controversial opinions about Untold from the other thread, since no one seemed to have seen it there (with edits in italics):

You could always try the quests that increase the level cap.
 

Anteo

Member
Do you guys think we will get an awesome press release like the one for EO II?

RVINE, CALIFORNIA — MARCH 27th, 2008 — Atlus U.S.A., Inc., preferred publisher of adventuring duo Fight and Heal, today announced Etrian Odyssey™II: Heroes of Lagaard for Nintendo DS™. Continuing one of the genre’s purest experiences...
 
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