Has anyone ever tried hardcore/ironman EO variants?

[Benkyo]

[Lord Mutton Chops]

[Maxine MagicFox]

[scy]

[Benkyo]

[Benkyo]

[scy]

[Benkyo]

How would level caps work? If you hit a certain level you have to go down a floor?

By no backtracking I really meant no encounter grinding - to go directly from the stairs to a quest point you already mapped, then back out again, wouldn't matter at all, and neither would mapping dead-ends. Hanging around on a floor until a collection/kill quest is done would be off-limits though.

Good point about the quests. Allowing a return to town when you hit a new floor wouldn't break things much though.

Enforcement shouldn't be an issue. Anyone wanting to try such a pointless endeavour in the first place isn't likely to cheat, and bragging rights would be limited to such a small audience anyway!

Surely if you are used to a high damage output and highly tuned parties, something like an under-equipped Prince, Monk, 3 guys (perhaps including a Hoplite, Buccaneers or even a Farmer) party might be harder than you think? I'm sure the money and gear shortage alone would ramp up the difficulty pretty fast.

The rules as given might well mean you have to take a shitty party to succeed in the first place, but what would a shitty group challenge entail, and how would you eliminate grinding?

To clarify the goal again, the idea is to make completion, or even stratum completion, as near to impossible as I can, while trying to eliminate grinding. Just making completion more challenging just results in a longer, tedious game, as you said. Posting your result when your ten guys wipe should be frequent enough to get a kind of score chart up.

I *think* that limited access to money and better gear would maintain the challenge after level 10, but you may well be right about the power of Princes.

[Benkyo]

Well, more significant problems are probably

a) a limited community
b) even more limited interest
c) people without PC/memory backup options are excluded

But I remain hopeful.

Enjoying the discussion, anyway =)

[scy]

Level Cap per Stratum most likely; Resting necessary if you go above the cap. Even with pretty tight level caps, some extra leveling would probably be necessary to break them anyway. Would require some playtesting to see what's reasonable for caps.

Incidentally, Monk and Phalanx both are pretty good options for the challenge. Prince(ss) as well. Why? Monk can ignore Weapons (Fist) and Plate/Heavy Armor for the Phalanx/Princess is cheaper than Medium armor. I'll give you the Farmer as dead weight though for this kind of challenge. I find Pirate to be a very useful class for the game and especially for this kind of challenge as they're TP self-sufficient (and decent damage to boot).

I'd like to note that I've finished EO3 (well, main game wise ... putting post-game off for the US release) and, if not for my Ikkitousen Pirate or badly timed Shinobi Cloning, my death count on non-learning encounters is in the single digits. Royal Veil pretty much guarantees that you'll always have full HP which is very useful in general. My groups for the games are pretty much built around this kind of challenge inherently. Well, that and breaking things (EO2 Riot Gun + Dominate) I guess.

Edit: I should also mention that, in general, I find the EO series to be pretty close to the "easy" side of difficulty ... a vast difference to most people.

EditAgain: Thinking of a group that'll maximize survivability for this kind of challenge:

Phalanx/Monk|Shinobi, ?/?, Pirate/Warrior
Ballista/Princess, Princess/Ballista

For the missing spot, Monk makes the first few Stratums easier and then becomes less-useful as the game progresses. Warrior is a bit generic but is probably the best damage-based choice here. Alternatively, only two in the front row and a back-row Beast King/Princess for even more ridiculous passive healing but I find that main to be relatively useless in general. Zodiac/? for some better damage is an alternative though no consumables makes it a bit harder to make them super useful; /Ballista lets them at least do something when not casting I guess.

I suppose Monk will end up being the choice if only for some means to cure status ailments (and "free" Weapon upgrades~) though I can't think of too many situations that you'll need it in the main-game. And, well, that's what Phalanx/Monk may be for ultimately (that and keeping itself alive with Pilgrim's Deed) though I kind of want to try the Evasion tank TP restoration engine of a /Shinobi.