What Did You Do In Gaming Today

[Daxter]

17 hours ago, Wild Emotion said:

In Final Fantasy VIII Remastered on Switch I've collected 100 Death Stones from refining 10 Elnoyle cards I got as a rare result from using Card on Bite Bug. Just in case, I've stocked 10 Elnoyle cards for refining into more Death Stones later on in addition to the 10 I've already refined. It turns out if you have 100 cards of the a monster and you use Card on it you get only the rare card result. Not all monsters transform into a rare Card though, like Fastitocalon-F. Unfortunately sometimes Card doesn't work though when that's the case, but that's what the Life magic is for. ^^ One thing about this game I love is the infinite supply of magic you can Draw or refine from items in this game.  I've collected 5 Jumbo Cards as the rare transformation of Glacial Eye via the Card ability, too. Right now I'm working on getting 5 Trauma cards from Caterchipillar as the rare result from using Card on it. It's taking a lot longer since Caterchipillar can cast Berserk sometimes with Ultra Waves when its HP is low. You need to reduce a monster's HP first in order to use Card on them to turn them into Triple Triad cards. It's worth it though since the card has some considerable numbers on it, especially this early in the game. ^^ I save after each Caterchipillar encounter so I don't gain any experience points until I absolutely want to. lol Maybe I'm too intimidated by it, but either way, I'd rather not find myself in a situation I regret getting into only to find that I have no way out of it. ><

Sounds like you will be prepared for everything once you set out on your leveling!

[Daxter]

The trials of Dark Cloud continues. I am almost done with the Moon Sea which would leave finishing the Sun Giant in the Moon Factory before I am done with the area. I feel like Xiao, Ruby, and Toan are all at a good strength level, while the others still need some work. Toan’s weapon inventory remains the biggest challenge that I have though.

[Emotion Flux]

8 hours ago, Daxter said:

Sounds like you will be prepared for everything once you set out on your leveling!

Maybe. I hope so. The last time I attempted to go through the game at a full party of Level 100 it definitely didn't turn out well at all. lol Though I have a grasp of the Junction system now, I'm just hoping I can get my hands one some good Spells like Ultima. I love that one. ^^

[EnviousEnvy]

Ark Ascended

Focused more on building my wall around my base for a couple of hours. Liking how it’s turning out. I also am finally finding a place for all these damned tamed Dino’s, lol. I still have yet to build the lookout tower however. 
 

DDLV

Been redecorating each region as well as adding more stuff to my home. 

[Daxter]

13 hours ago, Wild Emotion said:

Maybe. I hope so. The last time I attempted to go through the game at a full party of Level 100 it definitely didn't turn out well at all. lol Though I have a grasp of the Junction system now, I'm just hoping I can get my hands one some good Spells like Ultima. I love that one. ^^

Well thankfully the game scales so your level never really matters outside of boss fights and Level 5 Death one way or the other. It is all about how you Junction that determines how the experience goes.

[Emotion Flux]

4 hours ago, Daxter said:

Well thankfully the game scales so your level never really matters outside of boss fights and Level 5 Death one way or the other. It is all about how you Junction that determines how the experience goes.

What do you mean it scales? I've never really understood what that meant.

[Daxter]

2 hours ago, Wild Emotion said:

What do you mean it scales? I've never really understood what that meant.

For random encounters, enemy levels match your level. So if you kept avoiding experience points and ended up getting to the end of the game with an average level of 10, enemies at that point would be Level 10 as well. Similarly, if you somehow found a way to get to an average level of 100 right now, all enemies you face would be Level 100 as well. You would face the same enemies, but they will have higher stats and I believe different Draw Magic too. New characters who join match your average level too so levels are irrelevant anytime you are not in a boss fight.

This was done to make sure whether you avoided battles and gaining experience, or over-leveled, that the difficulty remains the same where how well you Junction determines how easy fights are. However, the bosses have fixed stats so staying under-leveled is common to keep those fights interesting.

So that is why when you said you were avoiding leveling to avoid a difficult situation, I was so surprised. I get your reasoning from the perspective you have but your knowledge of the game does not really match your plan. Only if you are stuck on random encounters should you avoiding leveling up so you can get a chance to optimize your Junctions. But you are doing this at the start of the game with solid knowledge of magic, items, and it sounds like a decent feel for Junctions. If you are already trying to get Ultima, that is endgame magic. Meaning if you Junction properly, you could move forward right now without ever leveling up and beat 80% of the storyline bosses. But since I imagine you will be leveling up once you truly start, no boss will be able to beat you if you even just do decent Junctions until you get to post-game bosses. Random encounters are fundamentally easier than bosses, but punish you if you are at a high level with bad Junctions. So you will always need to keep pace with that for the full game but your level does not factor into the experience at all with them.

[Emotion Flux]

26 minutes ago, Daxter said:

For random encounters, enemy levels match your level. So if you kept avoiding experience points and ended up getting to the end of the game with an average level of 10, enemies at that point would be Level 10 as well. Similarly, if you somehow found a way to get to an average level of 100 right now, all enemies you face would be Level 100 as well. You would face the same enemies, but they will have higher stats and I believe different Draw Magic too. New characters who join match your average level too so levels are irrelevant anytime you are not in a boss fight.

This was done to make sure whether you avoided battles and gaining experience, or over-leveled, that the difficulty remains the same where how well you Junction determines how easy fights are. However, the bosses have fixed stats so staying under-leveled is common to keep those fights interesting.

So that is why when you said you were avoiding leveling to avoid a difficult situation, I was so surprised. I get your reasoning from the perspective you have but your knowledge of the game does not really match your plan. Only if you are stuck on random encounters should you avoiding leveling up so you can get a chance to optimize your Junctions. But you are doing this at the start of the game with solid knowledge of magic, items, and it sounds like a decent feel for Junctions. If you are already trying to get Ultima, that is endgame magic. Meaning if you Junction properly, you could move forward right now without ever leveling up and beat 80% of the storyline bosses. But since I imagine you will be leveling up once you truly start, no boss will be able to beat you if you even just do decent Junctions until you get to post-game bosses. Random encounters are fundamentally easier than bosses, but punish you if you are at a high level with bad Junctions. So you will always need to keep pace with that for the full game but your level does not factor into the experience at all with them.

Huh. That's interesting. I was under the impression that bosses also leveled up with your characters. At least that's been my experience.

[Daxter]

8 hours ago, Wild Emotion said:

Huh. That's interesting. I was under the impression that bosses also leveled up with your characters. At least that's been my experience.

Well they technically do but only to a point so it is not as noticeable as random encounters. I don’t remember the exact numbers but eventually bosses will stop leveling up with you while random encounters always do. However, there is never going to be a time where your level makes you unable to beat a boss. That can happen with the random encounters though.

[Daxter]

Made some more progress in Dark Cloud yesterday. The Sun Giant is built, Moon Sea is done, and final battle at the Dark Heaven Castle has been teased. I worry about a difficulty spike or swerve last level as I have only tapped into maybe 50% of what the weapon system can be. I would rather have a post game dungeon but time will tell.

[Emotion Flux]

7 hours ago, Daxter said:

Well they technically do but only to a point so it is not as noticeable as random encounters. I don’t remember the exact numbers but eventually bosses will stop leveling up with you while random encounters always do. However, there is never going to be a time where your level makes you unable to beat a boss. That can happen with the random encounters though.

Oh, ok. I do plan on getting a few items for the stronger weapons from enemies though via Mug as well, so I might hold off on leveling up until I do that.

[Daxter]

Started the last level of Dark Cloud yesterday. As expected, there is a final dungeon. So far so good but with how much of the game has not been necessary to optimize, I expect either a long dungeon or a hard one.

The weapon capacity issue for Toan rang true as I had to throw away one of his weapons to make room. My plan had been to use repair kits to grind with his weaker weapons and then absorb them into a stronger weapon since that is what the game wants you to do. But, since I randomize who gets the repair kits when I find them, it did not work out as Ruby kept getting picked. Because I am so close to the end now, I will press on with this plan for now. At least Ruby is very strong now.

[Sakura]

Another farming level ~ 6 to go until I max the farming skill out. 

[efaardvark]

Got 2 new mob heads... and two big holes in the front yard that will need filling in. 
 

Spoiler

 

[Daxter]

Still working through Dark Cloud. The last level does not have many weapon attachments so far which is concerning, but I will have to leave to free up inventory space anyway…again. I swear, inventory and resource management is half of the play time in this game. The difficulty of the last level has been smooth so far, but I have not gained access to any back floors yet so I am curious how that difficulty scaling is.

Based on how this level has been structured, I am expecting this to be the longest dungeon by far, but time will tell.

[Daxter]

The Dark Cloud grind continues. I am almost halfway done with the Gallery of Time, so I am hoping to beat the game by next week. Inventory management remains my biggest opponent but now, there is not a straightforward way to use up items unless I never avoid any damage. Finding weapon attachments remains a constant battle.

[efaardvark]

Finally got around to detailing my city's walls.  I'd wanted to get away from the traditional stone-brick look so I started with white concrete but the huge expanses of flat white walls made it a bit more of a challenge than I was prepared for.  I've never been great at making things look good either.  It did look a lot better once I got the crenels / merlons on the top and the embrasures in the walls however.  I bought a bunch of normal lanterns from the town's librarian and liberally placed those on top as well, then crafted up a bunch of soul lanterns to hang under the merlons.  All that distracts enough from the otherwise blank exterior that I think it turned out ok.  This being minecraft I'm sure I'll continue tweaking things as new ideas occur to me but at least for now I'm calling it "done".  It's functional and looks halfway decent.

 

Spoiler

 

I also went back to the "Complementary" shader, which resulted in a cool visual while collecting stuff from my allay habitat.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by efaardvark

[Daxter]

I made some more good progress with Dark Cloud. I have yet to gain access to a back floor in the Gallery of Time so I expect a large difficulty spike to happen in those areas. I am being burned with Toan’s weapon inventory now but I do not have enough weapon attachments to stop for weapon leveling, and so close to the end I do not want to make a 10 hour detour to restock and grind. 

[Sakura]

Been hanging out doing fishing on my game with some friends all day and it's been really nice and relaxing. 

[Emotion Flux]

I'm still playing Final Fantasy VIII Remastered on Switch: After collecting more Elnoyle, Trauma, and Jumbo Cactuar cards I've started actually playing cards in Balamb Garden. Since it's still before the Fire Cavern where Squall acquires Ifrit, Quistis is waiting by the Front Gate of the Garden. She'll be waiting quite a while. lol I've collected 2 good cards: MiniMog and Quistis. They definitely make playing cards a lot easier, but for the moment I'm still going after some easy pickings as far as which NPCs I play cards with. A lot of low level cards can be refined into really good items, like Gayla and Tri-Face. That's basically all I'm doing in the game right now since I've collected the 2 of strongest cards I can get at this point until I start playing cards outside of Balamb Garden. To get Zell's card from Ma Dincht though I need Zell in my party, so I clearly can't get it just yet. Using the MiniMog, Quistis, 2 Trauma, and 2 Jumbo Cactuar cards as my total hand in Triple Triad really gives me an edge. I don't like constantly hearing the Triple Triad theme though, so I'm just listening to the music from my iPod while I'm playing the game for now until I'm ready to progress the story.

[EnviousEnvy]

Dinkum

Just got the game over the weekend and spent about 4-5 hours on it total. It’s fun — gives Mine Craft and ACNH vibes. A bit slow in the beginning but after that it’s pretty fun.

DDLV

Spent a few hours on this over the weekend. Tearing apart all of the biomes and redecorating them to get ready for the new DLC. I’m stoked!!

[Daxter]

8 hours ago, Wild Emotion said:

I'm still playing Final Fantasy VIII Remastered on Switch: After collecting more Elnoyle, Trauma, and Jumbo Cactuar cards I've started actually playing cards in Balamb Garden. Since it's still before the Fire Cavern where Squall acquires Ifrit, Quistis is waiting by the Front Gate of the Garden. She'll be waiting quite a while. lol I've collected 2 good cards: MiniMog and Quistis. They definitely make playing cards a lot easier, but for the moment I'm still going after some easy pickings as far as which NPCs I play cards with. A lot of low level cards can be refined into really good items, like Gayla and Tri-Face. That's basically all I'm doing in the game right now since I've collected the 2 of strongest cards I can get at this point until I start playing cards outside of Balamb Garden. To get Zell's card from Ma Dincht though I need Zell in my party, so I clearly can't get it just yet. Using the MiniMog, Quistis, 2 Trauma, and 2 Jumbo Cactuar cards as my total hand in Triple Triad really gives me an edge. I don't like constantly hearing the Triple Triad theme though, so I'm just listening to the music from my iPod while I'm playing the game for now until I'm ready to progress the story.

I respect the commitment to the card grind.

[Emotion Flux]

3 hours ago, Daxter said:

I respect the commitment to the card grind.

Thanks. ^^

[Daxter]

The end is near in Dark Cloud. Only one of Seda’s memories remains to rebuild in the Gallery of Time. However my fear in there being one floor for each character to have to solo seems to be coming true as Xiao just had one. If that happens, I will have to take a detour for more repair kits and weapon attachments though, it may not need to be for too long. But between that and potentially having to fish to free up space, this goes from me feeling the game could be done this week, to it potentially taking until next week. Really, the resource management is the only difficulty I have but bosses prove difficult. As long as the final boss can be damaged by anyone, it will not be an issue.

[efaardvark]

Added the Distant Horizons mod to my Minecraft setup.  It eats memory and CPU cycles (all of them  ) but now I can drop my render distance to below 10 and get a nice FPS boost while still enjoying the view.