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

Goddamn the production values in EO Millenium Girl are really nice. Static art, dungeon graphics, and animated monsters looking gorgeous on my N3DS XL. Lots of voice acting is a plus for me too. Wasn't expecting being able to swap between classic tunes on the fly either. I love how the new music mix sounds like it's from a 70's or 80's anime. Anyway, best $10 I've spent in a while.
 

kagamin

Member
Goddamn the production values in EO Millenium Girl are really nice. Static art, dungeon graphics, and animated monsters looking gorgeous on my N3DS XL. Lots of voice acting is a plus for me too. Wasn't expecting being able to swap between classic tunes on the fly either. I love how the new music mix sounds like it's from a 70's or 80's anime. Anyway, best $10 I've spent in a while.

My FM tunes are always on baby, I love the FM mixes of the new songs in EOU and EOU2.
 
My FM tunes are always on baby, I love the FM mixes of the new songs in EOU and EOU2.

I will probably be going 50/50. Digging em both so far. Glad to hear EOU2 has this feature as well. As someone who nerds out to comparing classic vs new song variations in games like Ys I&2 and Brandish this was a pleasant surprise for me to see on the config menu.
 

Rutger

Banned
EOU2 improves the grimoire system considerably, but the system in EOU is not really that bad. IMO it gets unfair flack by people who didn't try to understand it (and again if you are not playing on expert mode you kind of don't even need to really understand it, because you don't really need the boosts you get from them if you're not playing on expert).

The hate for EOU's grimoire system is very reasonable. It really stands out as a mess after EOIV perfected sub-classing. A needlessly complicated fusion system and a terrible distribution system that is made slightly less awful if you have a version of the game that has the item duplication bug, it's just a chore to get anything nice with it.

EO2U made a ton of improvements to grimoires, they can even be called a decent mechanic now, but the reliance on the RNG to obtain anything still makes them feel like a step down from sub-classes.

I'm more a fan of the more focused feeling of a character that can only gain skills from one other class and the need to plan out their skill points, but being able to mess around with any skill, even monster skills, is fun too. It's too bad they went about it the wrong way, they need to get rid of the RNG for obtaining grimoires.
 

omlet

Member
The hate for EOU's grimoire system is very reasonable. It really stands out as a mess after EOIV perfected sub-classing.

I don't think anyone 'round these parts has ever argued that it's better than subclassing, or that EOU2's version isn't an upgrade. I definitely prefer subclassing like how EOIV did it. That said, it also makes sense to chose not to try to add subclassing in to the Untold 1 and 2 because the classes featured were not originally designed with subclassing in mind. EOIV was designed from the ground up with subclassing in mind.

Yeah, the randomness of grimoire stones can make getting the ones you want a chore, but if you know how the stones creation works and use items and buffs that are there to be taken advantage of, you can get the ones you need without too much effort. I think it's perfectly fair that you need to put a little effort into farming the best stones.

And like I said, you can ignore the feature if you want for pretty much the entire game unless you play on expert mode, and if you're doing that I think it's fair to make the assumption that such players are going all-in. Seriously, the only thing truly offensive thing about the system is the 7 Kings Grimoires (and again you don't even need to bother unless you're a serious completionist).

Also, how is fusion complicated? It's pretty simple... Maybe the in-game explanation of it was lacking (I don't really remember how the game explained it when it introduced it) but it was never confusing to me.
 

Rutger

Banned
I don't think anyone 'round these parts has ever argued that it's better than subclassing, or that EOU2's version isn't an upgrade. I definitely prefer subclassing like how EOIV did it. That said, it also makes sense to chose not to try to add subclassing in to the Untold 1 and 2 because the classes featured were not originally designed with subclassing in mind. EOIV was designed from the ground up with subclassing in mind.

Yeah, the randomness of grimoire stones can make getting the ones you want a chore, but if you know how the stones creation works and use items and buffs that are there to be taken advantage of, you can get the ones you need without too much effort. I think it's perfectly fair that you need to put a little effort into farming the best stones.

And like I said, you can ignore the feature if you want for pretty much the entire game unless you play on expert mode, and if you're doing that I think it's fair to make the assumption that such players are going all-in. Seriously, the only thing truly offensive thing about the system is the 7 Kings Grimoires (and again you don't even need to bother unless you're a serious completionist).

Also, how is fusion complicated? It's pretty simple... Maybe the in-game explanation of it was lacking (I don't really remember how the game explained it when it introduced it) but it was never confusing to me.

I never said that anyone was saying that grimoires are better than sub-classing. My point was that the system feels worse right after a game that had something perfect.

I don't understand the argument that not adding sub-classes makes sense because the classes weren't built for them. The Untold games did some rebalancing for those classes, moreso in Untold 2, but more importantly, sub-classes would be a better fit than grimoires in this case because they don't give us up to 70 free skill points to put into skills of any class.

As for the fusion, I just feel it kind of silly requiring three grimoires, the last one doing nothing but deciding what equipment bonus the grimoire has. That was probably done because of the low storage limit and how many useless ones we'd get. Seeing EO2U's system of just equiping the one skill really makes the whole fusion thing in the first game look pointless. So it's not really complicated in the since that it's hard to understand, but rather that it's extra work that adds nothing.
 

spiritfox

Member
One thing that really bugs me going from EO2U to EOU is that grimoires don't boost a skill that the class has. Instead it's just an additional skill with the own level. My god EOU's grimoire system is so poorly thought out.
 

omlet

Member
If you play on Classic it's not explained at all.

I thought Rosa explained it on classic mode. Maybe not, it has been a while.

One thing that really bugs me going from EO2U to EOU is that grimoires don't boost a skill that the class has. Instead it's just an additional skill with the own level. My god EOU's grimoire system is so poorly thought out.

Well, in the case of mastery skills they do but yeah EOU2 did it better.

Anyway, I hope EOU1 and 2 are the last we see of grimoire stones and we get back to subclassing goodness with EOV/EOU3 or whatever's to come.
 

Nachos

Member
Hopefully we get a Blue mage class in EOV.
A talking grimoire stone. Girl portraits have bows taped on top and lipstick hastily smeared on.

Yeah, the randomness of grimoire stones can make getting the ones you want a chore, but if you know how the stones creation works and use items and buffs that are there to be taken advantage of, you can get the ones you need without too much effort. I think it's perfectly fair that you need to put a little effort into farming the best stones.

And like I said, you can ignore the feature if you want for pretty much the entire game unless you play on expert mode, and if you're doing that I think it's fair to make the assumption that such players are going all-in. Seriously, the only thing truly offensive thing about the system is the 7 Kings Grimoires (and again you don't even need to bother unless you're a serious completionist).
I agree with everything you've said except these points. It absolutely isn't trivial to get specific set-ups if you leave the game to handle things for you. Let's just look at the factors involved:

  • You have to trigger a grimoire chance at all. This doesn't happen very frequently in the first place, especially compared to Untold 2, and even if you get a chance, there's no guarantee that it'll actually yield anything.
  • The level of the stone is variable. Untold 2 also does this, but it's a lot more generous with how it weighs giving stones of higher level. Untold 1 is way too stingy.
  • There's only one type of grimoire chance. This makes it a lot harder to know what type of stone you'll get, as your pool of possible skills includes your active skills, your passive skills, and the enemy's skills. This alone makes it a lot harder to get a specific skill, especially since masteries automatically unlock skills you might not even use.
  • Grimoire stones not only have varying capacities, but the chances of getting a gold stone with all seven skill slots available, even with the freebie gold stone you find to boost your chances, has to be 10% or less, before factoring in anything else. This is probably the biggest possible bottleneck for getting decent set-ups, because at least with all seven slots, you can throw a wide variety of low-level skills on.
  • The cordial effects that influence grimoire chances are secondary, rotating effects. This means that you have to rely on even more luck just get improve your luck elsewhere.
  • You get a few items for improving chances, but all of them are consumable, and most of them can't be bought until the post-game. Some of the more useful ones require drops from bosses like the dragon clones, meaning that if you do things legit, you have to sleep multiple days just to get another one. Not to mention that not even these are guaranteed to work 100% of the time.
  • I'm probably forgetting something else.

Untold 1's grimoire system is a bunch of low probabilities compounded upon each other. It's telling that even after using the glitch to duplicate farming items indefinitely, that only makes farming good stones tedious instead of outright impossible/unreasonable. The king grimoires are actually the easiest things to get in the game, because if you do everything properly, you have about a 30% base chance of getting one, and it's guaranteed to be max level. It might take a few tries, but it's automatically easier because it's not subject to most of these factors.

One thing that really bugs me going from EO2U to EOU is that grimoires don't boost a skill that the class has. Instead it's just an additional skill with the own level. My god EOU's grimoire system is so poorly thought out.
They actually did for some of the skills. It just mostly applied to the masteries (except swords, for whatever reason) and specific passives. But yeah, the game tells you none of that.
 

omlet

Member
Or a hexer. Or both.
I tried to warn you to keep your party you had! But no, you had to landshark your protector!

But yeah, lots of party-wide elemental attacks, a protector is great for that area. Also you will maybe want one for the dragons too, for the same reason.
 

Rizzi

Member
Or a hexer. Or both.
I tried to warn you to keep your party you had! But no, you had to landshark your protector!

But yeah, lots of party-wide elemental attacks, a protector is great for that area. Also you will maybe want one for the dragons too, for the same reason.

It's fiiiine.
 

Rizzi

Member
So I went back and killed the Wyvern. That body armour seems kind of useful. Shame it costs 100k though. :<
Oh.
Uh. Hmm. Looks like I'm gonna need some way to block a lot of ice attacks. >.>
 

Zweizer

Banned
Best Etrian (alternatively known as Teach or Teacher).

JmobbnR.png

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Anteo

Member
I'll have to get a protector up to level 70 first I guess.

what is your party again? iirc each dragon had a werid gimmick to them, one of them would unleash a hard hitting AoE attack when you got over a certain amount of buff on your party for example. Other had his AoE every X turns, so you could defend on the proper turn. I dont think you really need Protectors. You still need an inventory full of recovery/support items, as the party own skills are rarely enough to finish the fight. Kind of what happens in Expert mode when you get to the Stratum Boss too early, either grind or spam medicas.
 

Rizzi

Member
what is your party again? iirc each dragon had a werid gimmick to them, one of them would unleash a hard hitting AoE attack when you got over a certain amount of buff on your party for example. Other had his AoE every X turns, so you could defend on the proper turn. I dont think you really need Protectors. You still need an inventory full of recovery/support items, as the party own skills are rarely enough to finish the fight. Kind of what happens in Expert mode when you get to the Stratum Boss too early, either grind or spam medicas.

Landsknecht, ronin, dark hunter, medic and alchemist.
 

Anteo

Member
Landsknecht, ronin, dark hunter, medic and alchemist.

Ouch, you cant even buff your party to increase their defense. Yeah... I guess you could try some anti elemental charms? Does your party have any way of lowering the enemy stats? Like decreased attack or defense? I think the alch has some?
 

spiritfox

Member
You can use Immunize, coupled with a Mist, I guess. If you're on Normal It shouldn't 1-hit together with an elemental charm, but you'll have to heal ASAP.

Ouch, you cant even buff your party to increase their defense. Yeah... I guess you could try some anti elemental charms? Does your party have any way of lowering the enemy stats? Like decreased attack or defense? I think the alch has some?

Alch has Ele Def down but that doesn't do anything against the Breath attacks.
 

Anteo

Member
You can use Immunize, coupled with a Mist, I guess. If you're on Normal It shouldn't 1-hit together with an elemental charm, but you'll have to heal ASAP.



Alch has Ele Def down but that doesn't do anything against the Breath attacks.

Well at least they can increase their damage output.

Also, which one was the weakest? iirc, the ice one was the one that didnt like buffs, the fire one had insane damage output, and the thunder was.. well, just there. I definitely never started with the Ice one because of his skills.
 

tuffy

Member
They've kept making figures, I suppose, but they're very inconsistent. EO I and II had four regular PVC figures from Wave based on the character portraits. Then they did four EO I and II Nano super-deformed figures. Then EO III got a bunch of miniature gashapon-type figures covering most of the classes. Finally, EO IV got a couple of snap-fit figures from Kotobukiya.

I'd be happier if they'd go back to doing fixed-posed ones based on the portraits again.
 

spiritfox

Member
They've kept making figures, I suppose, but they're very inconsistent. EO I and II had four regular PVC figures from Wave based on the character portraits. Then they did four EO I and II Nano super-deformed figures. Then EO III got a bunch of miniature gashapon-type figures covering most of the classes. Finally, EO IV got a couple of snap-fit figures from Kotobukiya.

I'd be happier if they'd go back to doing fixed-posed ones based on the portraits again.

Yeah I mean the fixed posed ones. The Koto kits are not my cup of tea, and the minis just suck.
 

Rizzi

Member
Cons: Walk Speed, battle speed. 3d effect is weird

Other than that, I'm sure you will love the changes to dungeon crawling on this game.

The walk speed doesn't really annoy me yet. I never run in dungeons anymore, I tend to miss things if I go too quickly. What's up with the battle speed? I never turn 3D on anyway I can't see it.

It has an airship and better skill trees. I'm happy already. :p
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
The airship is part of the problem with EO IV, despite the fact that I generally like the overworld. The major problem with the game is that the divided up dungeon is lame as hell. Almost none of the gimmicks work and the floors are mostly tiny.
 

Anteo

Member
The airship is part of the problem with EO IV, despite the fact that I generally like the overworld. The major problem with the game is that the divided up dungeon is lame as hell. Almost none of the gimmicks work and the floors are mostly tiny.

I dont remember having that experience? Like what gimmick didnt work? I remember most people said they could cheese the 4th dungeon by killing the FOEs, but I was so underleveled and had little damage output so I never could
 

Anteo

Member
There is always a main dungeon, and some side dungeons, the main dugeon has the right difficulty curve, some quest make you go to the side dugeons for whatever reason.
 

Zweizer

Banned
The side dungeons seem a lot more difficult.
Is there a reason to use knives instead of swords on a nightseeker?

Unless the game tells you otherwise, it's usually better to do the main dungeon until you're stuck or something before tackling the side ones.

Daggers if you want your Nightseeker to be faster, Swords if you want to deal more damage.
 
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