EMD Rantage!

[Fluffernuff]

well i picked up up without any issues. take that for what it's worth, though. the only "MD" i played before was pokeymanz, and while they share the same CORE aspects, they really are entirely different.


I also have to amend my rant about the Sovereign. while i still feel the same, i manged to have the AI actually USE their orders. though i found OTHER issues with them entirely. which is kinda good kinda bad.
They still don't affect themselves very often with their orders. this wouldn't be the biggest issue if their TP regen(and 4 of their passive skills) didn't rely on that. they're SUPPOSED to get TP when affects by a buff. the only way this can work reliably is having 2 sovereigns. Dances don't work.

they're also supposed to gain TP when a buff wears off.... on themselves. this is understandably very unreliable to do, and most times a waste of TP (wasting 2-3 orders just to affect yourself? that's 6 TP for 16-24+ TP burnt to the void). really. if someone knows how this is happening or why, I'd love to know. this is their BIGGEST issue for me...

I also discovered how "Reinforce" works. Reinforce says it heals ANYTHING in the room when their status is affected. both ally and enemy. YET.... it doesn't really. enemies only get healed if they raise their stats or give themselves some buff like regen or something. ALLIES however... well... i ran my sovereign with a protector and a landy. Provoke increases the protectors def. didn't proc reinforce. landy used vanguard, raises attack.... didn't proc reinforce. not even DANCES proc reinforce. so it has ALOT less synergy than it lets on. So as far as i know, reinforce only procs for YOU from orders... which can be bad if your healer is your soverign and THEY need healed...
on the bright side, it DOESN'T proc on enemies when they get LOWERED stats, so they aren't actually a detriment with a hexer around.

So all in all, i think they're reliable enough healers after lvl 10, but they can have TP issues and have issues healing themselves reliably. i still think they're a bit broken, but they're better than i gave them credit. currently sticking to mine as a "pocket healer" since my group kinda needs one.... and they do just a tad more than a medic would offer my group and have actual ranged healing unlike dancer


EDIT: Hong still MVP. seriously. Protectors are the best unit in the game, in my opinion. the only weakness they have is their hunger rate which is actually tolerable with a food buff and a couple items. plus Large Loafs arent THAT expensive, anyway. Thanks for being awesome, Hong

[Maxine MagicFox]

[Hong]

Just want to chime in that I have not come anywhere close to dying since I restarted like I mentioned earlier. Hopefully it will seriously pick up difficulty later on. Granted, it's not too easy that it's not fun.

[Maxine MagicFox]

I agree with everything mentioned above

[Sanyx]

Just wanted to share something.

So, I was doing the Fourth dungeon where the DOE shows up. I had a fort like in the middle of the dungeon and I was planning on getting to the bottom on this run. Well, for some reason I decided to put some members of my guild into said fort in the middle of the dungeon. Long story short the DOE attacks the fort and I have to defend it with those low level characters I had in the fort. I tried to defend it but it was a loss cause. I didn't wanted to waste my revival seeds or whatever is called, so I restarted the game. Oh boy, what I didn't know is that when you quit the game it counts it as a death. What I am trying to get is that the game really punishes you when you die, which I am ok with, but this still caught me by surprise.

I have 2 a question for you guys. Wouldn't it be better not to put any members in a fort if there's a DOE in the dungeon? Because if the DOE attacks the fort, it is not very likely that you will be able to defend it with your extra characters in the fort. Also by having empty forts, the only thing that you will miss will be the forts that get destroyed by the DOE. The second question would be, what are some general strategies when it comes to placing forts? I understand the basics, but there are some stuff that I am sure I can learn. For example, why can you place forts in some floors where you can not in some others?

Thank you, and sorry for the long post.

[Maxine MagicFox]

I've not got that deep enough yet to be able to answer your questions, but I'm sorry that you had to learn about the death thing the hard way. Yeah, that's a typical trope of MD games. The suspend save feature is a real treat. Try playing Shiren... no suspend save. You shut the game off and that's it. Game Over. Level 1.

Really sucked with Izuna because at that time my DS started to do this weird thing where it would just suddenly turn on and off completely at random for no reason at all. Yeah, super frustrating. Cause with a simple game turn off, you don't keep the levels you earned AND it takes all your items. NEVER just turn your game off in a rogue like.

[Fluffernuff]

So i've yet to fight my first DOE... however i did just get the 4th dungeons. I have my own story that just happened a few minutes ago, but...

im not entirely sure all the mechanics of fort attacks, but i would suggest having a fort in ANOTHER lower level dungeon that doesnt spawn DOEs. you wont get attacked (honestly guessing on this. not sure if its dungeon related or story related) that way you get the bonus exp without getting rofl-stomped.
it doesnt hurt to have a 1 or maybe even 2 "secondary" teams that are just as geared/leveled to have for fort defense and possibly rescue missions (im not sure how rescues work if everyones deployed to a fort)


as far as difficulty is concerned... i was having the same vibe. i designed my team in such a way to cripple enemies rather than flat out clear room after room with relative ease and throwing TP to the wind. While my team is suspect to change, ive zeroed in on a team i like and that has synergy (Landy, Hexer, Wanderer, Sovereign) I does VERY well with crippling and debuffing. it's only weakness is actually pure raw Area Damage output. 3 relatively tanky classes further helped by 2 sources of attack debuffs an a source of def up and regen

However in my last run of the 4th dungeon, i was NOT prepared for the game rearing its ugly mug. the game wanted me DEAD. absolutely murdered. I'm not too familiar with the mechanics of the games random "floor" effects, but....
I made it 5 floors in before my team just couldnt handle anymore. no healing items, Sovereign and hexer completely drained, no means of mitigating damage... i was just done.
You see, every single floor beyond the first had some kind of effect i didnt really pay attention to... it was either "a surge in monster power" or "a large abundance of amber, beware of monster attacks" or something like that. i get the feeling the monsters were hitting far harder than they usually do. and there was ALOT of them. i mean... a LOT.
Every ROOM and those next 4 floors had anywhere from 4-7 monsters, each hitting for 40+ damage(even after debuffing their damage in some cases). they might as well have been monster houses.... except they werent they were all just chillin' in there. and of course each floor had ~4 or 5 rooms or so....
i'm not sure if it's a testament to my group's ability, or a statement of difficulty or anything like that.... but like i said, my group DID make it 4 more floors under those conditions....

I'd consider that "difficulty" myself, even if it might have just been really really tragic RNG on my part.

[Maxine MagicFox]

THAT story makes me excited. I'm sorry if I'm becoming like an endless diatribe on MDs but I'm just excited for a new one and since they are so considerably new to me and such a fascinating challenge.

I can't even begin to tell you that typically the rogue games I've played are unforgiving. They do just literally want. you. dead. EMD in the first dungeon tries to tell you "heal before you go down the stairs". An integral mechanic. It was nothing to go down to the next floor and suddenly, instantly, be surrounded. There were items that caused your level to go up and to go down. And the monsters could eat those. I was once playing Shiren and this one monster was killing everything before I got it and, leveling itself up. All I would get was messages "x has leveled up" and I'm thinking "o_o omg... where... WHERE IS IT?! I'M GONNA DIE!" The game was, many times, about avoiding confrontations and making it just one more floor before finally the inevitable happened. Shiren DS actually had a rescue mechanic where if you are in a tight spot, you could send a help request online and have an internet buddy try to save you, too.

That feeling of "HA! I MADE IT TO FLOOR 9 THIS TIME, BITCHES!" permeated all the rogue-likes I've ever played. ^_^;

And much hatred to an awful, horrific RNG system that rarely, if ever, made sense. Sometimes it really was JUST pure luck that you got down to a particular floor.

[Maxine MagicFox]

:O FIRST GAME OVER!

Actually it was really stupid of me. ^_^; I took a risk knowing my odds were low, knowing I should NOT try it, but I went for it anyways. I shoulda just used my Ariadne Thread... and it sucked b/c I had two of them in my back (found one in the dungeon). But I decided to take on the boss, though I knew that it was going to kill me. I don't like my Wanderer in my group. I think he's a wrong fit. I like his skills but not in my party. I'm missing my Landy. Or something that doesn't take so much TP and can still pack a punch cuz issue was, I ran out of TP.

At least I built a fort so not all of that money was wasted. I dunno maybe instead of a Landy I might put in something else. Haven't decided yet. Anyways, I knew I wasn't ready for that boss fight. I still tried it, though. I should either warped out or worked my ass back up to floor one to leave.

[Ninten]

[Maxine MagicFox]

Shiren DS is incredibly unforgiving and I think would be a poorer choice. I really didn't enjoy it so much. The one for the Wii was a lot more fun in my opinion (I didn't finish it either though). I've only finished the two Izuna games.

[Hong]

Everything about DOEs, multiple forts, defence forces, etc. seemed so overwhelming and strange, at first. But after staging a proper DOE ambush, my mind was blown. I mean, it got kind of destroyed, but it was still cool.

[Maxine MagicFox]

I'm looking forward to them and learning how the game mechanics work. Everything about them sounds fun and threatening ^_^

[Fluffernuff]

on the topic of Forts, there's a mechanic the game brings up but doesnt explain.

you can actually have up to 8 of your guild fight a DOE. its VERY situational to pull off though. and i question its usefulness

you see, you can only hold 4 people in a fort. and even if you have 2 forts on adjacent floors, they wont "help" eachother. what you need to do is engage the DOE at the same time it enters the "Fort Floor" either by retreating from the DOE in question TO the fort, or entering the fort at the same time from another entrance.
as you could imagine, 8 units would be quite helpful.... HOWEVER... you only have direct control of YOUR group. the 1-4 you leave at the fort are completely AI controlled. and not even the party AI... the "random wandering class" type of AI. yeah. you thought PARTY AI was braindead... (i kid you not, the medic at the fort didnt heal my protector at 3 HP. they attacked for 1 damage instead...)

i question its overall usefulness, but if you REALLY need the backup, or are DESPERATE to hold the fort, its certainly an option

[Maxine MagicFox]

Finally done with dungeon 3. I put my Landy back in and went questing and actually I got way too leveled XD by the time that I got back on track...~ (I discovered the infi-quest that earns Ariadne Threads... I have six stored at the inn)

Can't wait for the DOE mechanic to open up already so I can see and understand what all the fuss is about (since I avoided the vids and tutorials about them on the net)