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Valkyria Chronicles PC |OT| May the bloodline live forever
- Thread starter Durante
- Start date
Elfforkusu
Member
He gave me retreat the first time!
I HOPE YOU END UP IN ONE OF THOSE GRAVES OLD MAN
I have done about 10 Skirmishes and yet he won't offer me retreat.
I even bought Sniper Support to get him to shut up.
Now he has nothing to offer me he says.....he must be senile.
Also, I got Vyse and Jann in my initial batch of recruits!
The random number generator apparently loves me.
Well evidently not broken enough for Expert skirmish mode. My whole squad just got stomped by an Imperial scout and shocktrooper...
Ruhm is still broken on Expert skirmish missions. As hard as they are, doing them with and without is night and day.
Passive Assassin
Member
Naggiar 2
what...
I usually don't mind fanservicey stuff in games, but I kinda wish they had designed Selvaria a bit differently. For instance, the second cutscene in chapter 15
Then again, this is a game with a flying pig so I shouldn't really be surprised that the game is a bit ridiculous in some ways.
which is fairly dramatic with Maximilian giving Selvaria the order to sacrifice herself, gets a bit less dramatic when the final shot of the cutscene is a closeup of Selvaria's large boobs bouncing up and down as she sits down.
Then again, this is a game with a flying pig so I shouldn't really be surprised that the game is a bit ridiculous in some ways.
Unknown Soldier
Member
If they didn't want you to save mid-mission, they wouldn't have given you the option.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
I don't save during missions I consider it cheating.
You son of a Imp.
Yeah, I found that also very irritating and absolute unnecessary. Who was there at this point in the story and thought "Hm, yeah, I think this scene is missing bouncing boobs."
Everyone should play as they see fit.
Albeit I fail to see where the cheating is in saving.
texhnolyze
Banned
It's like save-stating on emulators.
I kinda consider it cheating as well, but what can I say. Perhaps I'm just suck at the game and/or don't have that much time to spend (restarting the mission from the beginning).
I found a good way to handle the mine field in the first mission during chapter 15.
Jann truly is the real hero of the game.
I move an engineer in to disarm mines, but she gets shot down after disarming a couple. I move Jann in to rescue my engineer, and that's when I get a brilliant idea, why don't I have Jann "disarm" the mines?
First mine, Jann goes flying and take a bit of damage. Second mine, Jann goes flying and lands exactly on the camp flag so I can capture it immediately.
First mine, Jann goes flying and take a bit of damage. Second mine, Jann goes flying and lands exactly on the camp flag so I can capture it immediately.
Jann truly is the real hero of the game.
I fell though the world in one mission though (Behind her Blue flame mission 2). If I didn't have a mid mission save I would feel so pissed. That mission is so long.
The difference is, speaking purely from a game design perspective, having saves vs checkpoints vs nothing is an intended feature and difficulty balancing takes that into consideration. This is true of virtually any genre of video game.
Save states never are a part of design documents.
That being said I get the impression that VC was designed around not relying on mid-battle saves, even if some of the missions are decidedly long.
texhnolyze
Banned
Ah, indeed.
Now I remember it, most strategy game like this have mid battle save system. Fire Emblem, Super Robot Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc.
Mid-save on tactical combat games seem to be more of a western thing. XCOM, Jagged Alliance, etc. And indeed in those games the whole save scumming vs PRNG seeding issue became its own prolonged topic of discussion and even an acknowledged feature, with Enemy Within actually having an option to turn it on or off.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Well some of the missions are built around scripted events which can easily screw your mission up after an hour or more, so if you don't have a mid-mission save have fun starting it over from the beginning. Chapter 7 is a notable example of this, you're close to being done and then suddenly it's possible for your whole squad to die in a turn with no warning.
Basileus777
Member
Unless you are using it to save scum, how is it cheating? The game feels designed with mid battle saves if anything given the length of battles.
The idea that you need to restart hour+ long battles if you fail or you're cheating is pretty absurd. It's only cheating if you are abusing it.
è£ ç²æªé¬¼ææ£
Banned
I played through the game on PS3 without ever realizing you could save mid-battle. Game also didn't really feel like it was made with this feature in mind, there are some longer and some very short battles. If I knew it was possible to save-scum I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.
Jagged Alliance 2 had a difficulty option to turn off saving during combat. X-Com 1/2 allowed you to save and load during combat, but it was deliberately fiddly because the load button wasn't available during combat so you had to quit out first.
I definitely get the impression these games were made with the mindset you weren't supposed to save/load during combat every time something went wrong.
I personally prefer never saving during combat as I like being forced to improvise when things go wrong, but I think the option should be there for the people who like having saves to fall back to.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Well I was speaking for myself really I don't particularly care if anyone else does it. I usually set some limitations on myself with some games since I feel some things are cheap. (I don't use bombs in shmups.)
I think it's an interesting design topic about how to best implement it. It's a different genre, but I think Devil May Cry series handles that aspect very well. You have consumables which makes the game much easier, but the game gives you a higher rank if you don't use them. I think they could have done that in VC. Let the player save scum as much as they want, but the more saves you have, the more it'll affect your rank. They could have re-designed the rank system around variables like this, instead of having it be solely about turns passed.
fatgamecat
Member
VC has tons of balance issues by default, but it has good underlying mechanics and level design, so it works well with challenge runs.
è£ ç²æªé¬¼ææ£
Banned
I'll also add that having mid-battle saves defeats the purpose of character perma death. I had some characters die in my playthrough of VC because I just didn't want to repeat a long mission that was in general a good run.
Same with Fire Emblem where you have a really good run in a looong mission, several characters level up, you find good loot but then something unexpected happens near the end and one of your characters dies. Now you have to consider wether to repeat all of this or make that character a sacrifice.
There is absolutely zero reason to eat a loss if you have mid-battle saves because you're not going to let anyone die, period. Just reload that save and repeat until results are satisfactory.
Same with Fire Emblem where you have a really good run in a looong mission, several characters level up, you find good loot but then something unexpected happens near the end and one of your characters dies. Now you have to consider wether to repeat all of this or make that character a sacrifice.
There is absolutely zero reason to eat a loss if you have mid-battle saves because you're not going to let anyone die, period. Just reload that save and repeat until results are satisfactory.
Dictator93
Member
Posing my question again:
are R&D Upgrades for tanks/weapons tied only to Story advancement?
Or do skirmishes, XP gain, EX-missions etc unlock the RnD too?
are R&D Upgrades for tanks/weapons tied only to Story advancement?
Or do skirmishes, XP gain, EX-missions etc unlock the RnD too?
Maybe that would be a nice idea for a possible next game. Giving the player the option of a no-save difficulty level that grants an achievement if you beat the game without the ability to save mid-battle. I mean, people can of course still ignore it, but that little extra challenge would surely be nice for those who like to play that way, while the others still can save and load happily. Essentially a Ironman mode
You mean unlocking them? Yes.
Dictator93
Member
But that means that
shamrock only gets its full upgrades towards the end of the story 
What is NG like? Extra difficulty with same units and xp?
No, it's the same difficulty for the story, but you have two additional difficulties for Skirmishes and there are things that you can only access in NG+ (The last order of the aged gentleman and a character that only joins once you beat the game). You keep everything you acquired, levels, exp, dct, people, weapons, upgrades, orders, access to everything at HQ, everything. And while you start over with the story, you only have to beat the battles again, it unlocks whole chapters instead of single scenes.But that means that.shamrock only gets its full upgrades towards the end of the story
What is NG like? Extra difficulty with same units and xp?
Dictator93
Member
NG seems to just be for people who are completionists, and who want to play Hard / Expert skirmishes.Like me.
Yeah, definitely beating this game twice and going for only A level wins the second time through.
You get the neat [possible spoilers due mission names!] statistics tab where you can see your ranks. On the next page you can also see how many soldiers you savage killed. In the second playthrough you may also play a storymission as often as you like. So don't worry if you botch it.Yeah, definitely beating this game twice and going for only A level wins the second time through.
Basileus777
Member
Perma death doesn't really have much of a purpose in VC anyway. I just played through the entire game this week and never had one permadeath, not even counting any reloads.装甲悪鬼村正;139202527 said:
xBladeM6x
Member
Especially if you cheese it properly, and only send Alicia, Rosie, or Largo into places where you're sure they might go down since they can't die.
Yes, can be done @ 60 FPS easily, and in less than 2 mins.
But it's no fun that way. Lol
Dictator93
Member
I have never had a perma-death occur due to 3 rounds of waiting between medic save. Rather, the whole retreat/perma deatht hing occured for me when a unit was downed and then subsequently "touched" by an opposing unit... thereby triggering the death.
Even then I never actually had these deaths count, because I failed the mission 1 phase later anyway. If people are getting downed constantly, that usually means I am going to fail the mission anyway.
Even then I never actually had these deaths count, because I failed the mission 1 phase later anyway. If people are getting downed constantly, that usually means I am going to fail the mission anyway.
So I edited my save to get normally unobtainable units... you know what I went for of course.
Chapter 14 Spoilers(? I mean there's a glimpse of "it" in the intro if you pay attention.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOfoP1wZrWQ
I'll prob release a guide on how to do this later. It requires a lot of hex editing tho, especially if you don't want to replace characters. Or/And I'll just release my already edited save of having
This is all for fun of course, if you want to do this for cheating purposes.... eh.
Chapter 14 Spoilers(? I mean there's a glimpse of "it" in the intro if you pay attention.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOfoP1wZrWQ
If the Valkyria's die or try to crouch or do something they don't have an animation for the game will simply softlock, I wonder if there's a way to fix that now on PC somehow. (Because of that I should of set their HP to absurd limits but eh wouldn't have that dramatic ending in the video otherwise. Lol)
I'll prob release a guide on how to do this later. It requires a lot of hex editing tho, especially if you don't want to replace characters. Or/And I'll just release my already edited save of having
Valkyria Alicia / Valkyria Selvaria (DLC) / Selvaria (DLC)
This is all for fun of course, if you want to do this for cheating purposes.... eh.
So wait, can you create new missions with this too? Or is there a mission where the layout of units look like this?
Unknown Soldier
Member
Valkyria Alicia is not unobtainable. Otherwise why would her Valkyria form have voice work? You have to reach Scout level 20, which you can get by grinding Skirmishes until your head explodes, and then let an enemy shoot Alicia until she's at less than 1/2 HP. This triggers her 4th Potential, which is Valkyria.
She does not turn into a Valkyria though, she just takes less damage.
Well, custom enemy units and positiong is possible too, since PS3 even. Whole new maps on PC now... maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To6DBtNUqFI < PS3
Busard who made that layout is the reason I was able to do edit in these units in the first place, since the save file system on PS3 to PC is almost exactly the same except the header and the fact that it's gone from little endian > big endian. He basically gave me all the values for stuff and all I had to do was find them in my own save file keeping the endian conversion in mind. Skipping the process of "oh man where the hell does the game keep unit information and oh man what does THIS value do." I asked permission for him if I could make a guide on how to do it (replace your own units, replacing enemy units sorry but I won't be doing that lol.) using his information, waiting on that.
Skirmish 9, Hard mode.
I know your joking but the only reason she says anything is because I manipulated her Valkyria potential slot with Ultimate Defense, the game uses the slots on deciding on what line to use and in Valkyria Alicia's case is forced mute if a cut-in happens. (By the way She's also T-posed in that cut-in, but doesn't look so bad unless it zooms out lol.)
I just did that yesterday, definitely possible.
(Just do a Shock rush instead of Scout rush - there's too much of a reaction fire going on for Scout to survive).
You're insulting my manhood.
Yes. for the slope go for 60fps.