Project Octopath Traveller

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Picked up Ophelia and H'annit, they're both good and seem to complement Cyrus really well. What about you, have you seen everyone now? Am I right in thinking that you find 8 characters but can only have a team of 4 at any one time? I guess it helps to keep swapping people in and out to level them up.

Nah, I still need to go get H'aanit. Alfyn is a couple of levels away from 30 after that's done then I'll set off to recruit her.

Yeah, 8 people to recruit but only 4 on a team at a time. You are also right in what you said about swapping them in and out. It's a shame they get zero exp if they aren't in your team. Most JRPGs these days at least give characters half the exp if their not active but that's not the case here. 

[Ronnie]

25 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Nah, I still need to go get H'aanit. Alfyn is a couple of levels away from 30 after that's done then I'll set off to recruit her.

Yeah, 8 people to recruit but only 4 on a team at a time. You are also right in what you said about swapping them in and out. It's a shame they get zero exp if they aren't in your team. Most JRPGs these days at least give characters half the exp if their not active but that's not the case here. 

Ophelia's intro chapter was PAINFULLY long and drawn out. I'm enjoying the various storylines but her one was really getting tedious, so I appreciated how few words there were in H'aanit's one.

I know I probably sound dumb but it's weird being given all these side mission quests and pretty much zero guidance where to go or what to do with them. I'm used to modern games giving you dotted likes and map markers lol

[Blade]

This discussion of the game is tempting me to scrap the backlog and buy this. It sounds so so good. I have Xenoblade yet to play though!

[Glen-i]

10 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Play the game and find out.  

Nah, he's an apothecary. Mixing items and then using them in battle is no fun. There's probably some great game breaking stuff that you can mix but at the moment he's pretty rubbish.

Just ran into another Cait! 

There sure is! If you get the Merchant secondary job, you can put the passive skill endless items on him and he gets a lot better. Concoction items are still affected by Endless Items.

The game helpfully keeps track of the effects of each combination you make. And it's impossible to make a "failed recipe"

Using concoct gives Alfyn access to all 6 spell elements without any secondary jobs. They don't do much damage but for getting rid of Shield points, it's very handy. All of the offensive concoctions can also add status effects, which is nice. The healing combinations can really give Ophelia a run for her money.

The actual abilities aren't bad either. Rehabilitate is your only non item method of getting rid of status effects. Amputation hits surprisingly hard and Last Stand is one of those "Less HP = More Power" attacks that can decimate bosses with a bit of luck. Vivify is a cheaper alternative to Revive for when you only need to bring back one character. That also restores more HP than Revive.

Apothecary also has the highest HP stat of the 8 jobs.

Apothecary's downsides are the relative cost of buying ingredients and the crappy coverage (Axe and Ice is all you get if you don't use Concoct)

I normally agree with you that the item mixer is no fun in RPG's, but Octopath makes it pretty easy to use with lots of benefits. When you're rolling in money, it might be worth experimenting with him.

For the early game, he is pretty limited though.

[Hero-of-Time]

33 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

There sure is! If you get the Merchant secondary job, you can put the passive skill endless items on him and he gets a lot better. Concoction items are still affected by Endless Items.

The game helpfully keeps track of the effects of each combination you make. And it's impossible to make a "failed recipe"

Using concoct gives Alfyn access to all 6 spell elements without any secondary jobs. They don't do much damage but for getting rid of Shield points, it's very handy. All of the offensive concoctions can also add status effects, which is nice. The healing combinations can really give Ophelia a run for her money.

The actual abilities aren't bad either. Rehabilitate is your only non item method of getting rid of status effects. Amputation hits surprisingly hard and Last Stand is one of those "Less HP = More Power" attacks that can decimate bosses with a bit of luck. Vivify is a cheaper alternative to Revive for when you only need to bring back one character. That also restores more HP than Revive.

Apothecary also has the highest HP stat of the 8 jobs.

Apothecary's downsides are the relative cost of buying ingredients and the crappy coverage (Axe and Ice is all you get if you don't use Concoct)

I normally agree with you that the item mixer is no fun in RPG's, but Octopath makes it pretty easy to use with lots of benefits. When you're rolling in money, it might be worth experimenting with him.

For the early game, he is pretty limited though.

I knew you would know some strategies for him.  

I suppose with me having Tressa as my main (i'm rolling in money at this point thanks to her skill and the amount of grinding i've done) I could afford to play around with various setups for him.

Speaking of Tressa, after grinding Alfyn up to level 30, she levelled up to level 42. I wonder if she will hit 50 once I get through H'aanit's first chapter...

[Hero-of-Time]

49 minutes ago, Blade said:

This discussion of the game is tempting me to scrap the backlog and buy this. It sounds so so good. I have Xenoblade yet to play though!

It's a great game. It's very old school and doesn't attempt any of the more flashy stuff that modern JRPGs tend to do.

[Glen-i]

8 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I knew you would know some strategies for him.  

I suppose with me having Tressa as my main (i'm rolling in money at this point thanks to her skill and the amount of grinding i've done) I could afford to play around with various setups for him.

Speaking of Tressa, after grinding Alfyn up to level 30, she levelled up to level 42. I wonder if she will hit 50 once I get through H'aanit's first chapter...

I play Pokémon competitively, strategies in RPG's is what I love about a good battle system.

And boy, I had to think up a doozy for Therion's Chapter 3 boss. Definitely tougher than the other third chapter ones I've thought.

My Ophelia is level 55 now, while the others range from 42-45. 

[Julius]

Dunkeh

 

[Hero-of-Time]

13 hours ago, Glen-i said:

I play Pokémon competitively, strategies in RPG's is what I love about a good battle system.

 

Which is exactly why I knew you'd have some good tactics. I remember some of the crazy stuff you were doing the BD games, as well. We really are the complete opposites. You play the game tactically, whereas I just bang my head against the wall until I get through.  

I was doing a bit of grinding yesterday evening and this happened...

JACKPOT! I thought I would get through the whole game without it happening but there it is. I wasn't even planning on using the move but the fight I was in was taking a while and Primrose had enough BP to use it and I figured I would use  Bewildering Grace.

I managed to nab a bunch of other secondary jobs and finish off H'aanit's 1st chapter, as well as levelling her up to 30. I hate the way she speaks. It's very annoying.

That's everyone's first chapter now complete, with each of them being at least level 30. Here's where the whole team stands level wise.

I'm still not sure if I will now push on with the second chapters as I think it may be worth revisiting each of the towns and seeing what sidequests there are to clear before I move on.

[Glen-i]

Man, @Hero-of-Time You're luckier than I am. Haven't got a single X 100 multiplier from Bewildering Grace yet. I've gotten plenty of smaller ones though, so can't complain.

[Hero-of-Time]

7 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Man, @Hero-of-Time You're luckier than I am. Haven't got a single X 100 multiplier from Bewildering Grace yet. I've gotten plenty of smaller ones though, so can't complain.

I quite enjoy using the move. It has such a good risk/reward factor. I hate it when I set off to do a grinding session by using this move only to get hit with the 0 SP effect straight away. Back to the inn I go.  

[Glen-i]

3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I quite enjoy using the move. It has such a good risk/reward factor. I hate it when I set off to do a grinding session by using this move only to get hit with the 0 SP effect straight away. Back to the inn I go.  

You should consider putting Second Wind on everyone if you have the Dancer secondary job. I have, and it's basically infinite SP for me. I see you already have with Primrose though.

Combine it with Patience and it's even more SP! For some reason, it activates whenever a character takes an action, not once per turn.

[Ronnie]

Beat a Cait this morning, wow. I was like at the rewards

[Hero-of-Time]

6 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Beat a Cait this morning, wow. I was like at the rewards

I'm always gutted when one manages to flee.  

[Sméagol]

Bewildering grace has only been bewildering to me so far. The few times I used it, I got hit with debuffs.. 

[Ronnie]

Can I ask you guys how you're managing your party? At the moment I really enjoy using Cyrus, Ophelia and H'annit (have you found her yet @Hero-of-Time, very very useful!!), but I feel like I need to share the xp around so I'm using the fouth slot for newcomers and ones I'm not too keen on (Alfyn, Therion). Do you guys swap out your whole party or do as I do and concentrate on three mains.

(Actually, I don't like Ophelia that much, her heal is useful for bosses but not much else in battle.)

[drahkon]

I should stop coming to this thread.

It's torture reading about this game  

@Hero-of-Time wanna send me your Switch?  

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Can I ask you guys how you're managing your party? At the moment I really enjoy using Cyrus, Ophelia and H'annit (have you found her yet @Hero-of-Time, very very useful!!), but I feel like I need to share the xp around so I'm using the fouth slot for newcomers and ones I'm not too keen on (Alfyn, Therion). Do you guys swap out your whole party or do as I do and concentrate on three mains.

(Actually, I don't like Ophelia that much, her heal is useful for bosses but not much else in battle.)

I mentioned that I finished her first chapter when I posted this morning. You even thanked the post or were you just looking at the pretty pictures?  

I try to keep things balanced which usually means I have to keep a few low levelled characters together at a time at the cost of longer battles. Of course that was just while I was recruiting and now that I have all of the team together, as well as secondary jobs, it will become easier to manage. 

It's hard not to have people Cyrus in the team, due to how strong he is with his magic, but once you level up the other characters and give them the mage job then everything works out well.

[Hero-of-Time]

2 minutes ago, drahkon said:

 

@Hero-of-Time wanna send me your Switch?  

[Ronnie]

21 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I mentioned that I finished her first chapter when I posted this morning. You even thanked the post or were you just looking at the pretty pictures?  

I try to keep things balanced which usually means I have to keep a few low levelled characters together at a time at the cost of longer battles. Of course that was just while I was recruiting and now that I have all of the team together, as well as secondary jobs, it will become easier to manage. 

It's hard not to have people Cyrus in the team, due to how strong he is with his magic, but once you level up the other characters and give them the mage job then everything works out well.

Totally blanked out when I posted that!! I haven't encountered the secondary job system yet so maybe that'll make things easier to manage, cheers

[Ronnie]

Wow just beat a second Cait a couple of hours after my first!

[Glen-i]

4 hours ago, Ronnie said:

Can I ask you guys how you're managing your party? At the moment I really enjoy using Cyrus, Ophelia and H'annit (have you found her yet @Hero-of-Time, very very useful!!), but I feel like I need to share the xp around so I'm using the fouth slot for newcomers and ones I'm not too keen on (Alfyn, Therion). Do you guys swap out your whole party or do as I do and concentrate on three mains.

(Actually, I don't like Ophelia that much, her heal is useful for bosses but not much else in battle.)

Rotate in the lowest level characters every time I go into a town. Well, unless I'm carrying on with a characters story, then you have to have them as well.

Edited July 24, 2018 by Glen-i

[Tim B]

On 23/07/2018 at 7:22 AM, Blade said:

This discussion of the game is tempting me to scrap the backlog and buy this. It sounds so so good. I have Xenoblade yet to play though!

Exactly how I'm feeling! My backlog isn't *too* long though, maybe 20 hours in total. Also, £49.99 (I am digital only) is quite expensive for something I'm not 100% sure I will enjoy, though I have downloaded the demo and will play that first, assuming it doesn't disappear.

[Ronnie]

Wow, I'd picked up 6 of the 8 heroes, had just finished Primrose's chapter 1, breezing through pretty much every encounter and thought I'd try one of the optional dungeons in the dessert. Ouch. Made it three or four encounters in and ran out screaming like a little girl.

[Glen-i]

Chapter 3 is all knocked out. I'd talk about it, but who would I actually be able to discuss it with right now?

So instead, I'll just tell you that my Ophilia is level 63 while the rest are all at 49.