New to the series, new to the forums. Hello...

[isometric]

Greetings Forum! My name's Jesse, I'm a chronically unemployed apprentice plumber, and I literally just started playing earlier today. I'm somewhere between floors two and... one, I suppose. I've got characters from levels 1 through 8 and I'm loving the so far. I'd go so far as to say it's my favorite high-fantasy-themed map-based cartography simulator!

Aside from introducing myself, I also had a question: namely, could I get some sort of rough idea of when I should be descending from floor to floor? Is there a guide out that somebody can toss my way, or is it really one of those go-when-you're-ready deals? Because, I feel like my xp is too low for the floor I'm on, but I can hardly sustain myself properly on the next floor down.

Also in the interest of full disclosure, I'm going to leave my guild information here:

Guild Name: Valiance

(Current) Main Party:
Alexis, level 8 Landsketcht -> 5 Axes, 5 Swords (I'm going to make him a hybrid, trying to get allslash.)

Katarina, level 8 Dark Hunter -> 5 Swords, 5 Drain (maxing out drain, then getting other sword-based talents.)

Sophie, Level 8 Medic -> 3 Cure, 3 Salve, 3 Healer, 1 Immunize (I was told immunize is a good talent to have, but I want to go caduceus for the stun as well. Is it worth getting both? Should I max out imm before going melee? I'm not sure what to do here, honestly.)

Aria, level 6 Bard -> 2 tp up, 5 songs up, 1 bravery. Yeesh, what a mess. (I'm planning on maxing relaxing and then maxing divinity afterwards. I figure relaxing will give me far more uptime, and as a result more xp per hour than getting divinity right away. Thoughts?)

Sylvan, level 7 Survivalist -> 3 agi up, 5 bows, 1 ambush (going to grab multihit and then focus on ambush. No real long-term plan though)

Backup Roster
Sarah, level 5 Protector -> 2 def up, 5 shields (I played a protection paladin in Warcraft as well as diablo II. Gonna grab smite as soon as possible and I have no idea what to do afterwards.)

Edmure, level 8 Alchemist -> 1 fire up, 1 ice up, 1 fire, 1 ice, 5 volt up, 1 thor (I screwed up on this one. I was going to go with all the elements first, but decided to go zap-happy instead. Now I have to retire or wait till 30 to get my fire and ice back, right? Eh.)


I should probably focus on a core 5 instead of swapping around so much. Funny, I intended Dame Sarah to be my "main" but I'm not really feeling the protector.

Anyways, I'll be looking forward to many hours of drawing maps and number crunching in the near future while I stave off the boredom of unemployment. And what better place to do that then this here Golden Deer Pub. Great to meet you all!

[Kimiko]

Heya Isom! Welcome to ItL

From the fact you're calling Aria a Bard instead of a Troubadour and that you actually have the game, I gather that you're playing the European edition. Hi-5 to that No worries, the only differences between the European and N-American editions are a few translations here and there.

As for when to move on to the next floor, well, "when you're ready" sounds exactly right. Some time between reaching the stairs to the next floor and no longer getting decent experience from the current floor would be good. Finding that next floor quite tough is completely normal for this game. It didn't get its reputation of being hard for nothing

[Reynard-Miri]

My rule of thumb is to not enter the next floor until I can handle the enemies on the current floor with ease. That way I'm only ALMOST murdered upon going down those stairs.

Oh, and in case you haven't run into any yet, the game is NOT kidding about F.O.E.s. They will murder you if you fight them the first time you see them.

[isometric]

[Kimiko]

Twice? You don't have to restart all over when your party gets killed. You get to keep your map and such.

[Reynard-Miri]

I think he means after beating the game or some such.

[isometric]

Yes, that. Likely I'll probably just try to beat the second and third ones, though. Forth one's coming out on the dsi though, so I'm not sure if I'll manage to play that one.

[Reynard-Miri]

3DS, not DSI. Same problem though, yeah.

[Wolkenritter]

[isometric]

[Maxine MagicFox]

^_^ Welcome!

Personally: to me, the first one is MUCH better than the rest. :\ I just can't seem to get into the third game at all. Lack of 3DS (and no interest in purchasing one) has me rather not interested in 4 either... which is a pity considering I'm the webmaster here o_O;;

[isometric]

[Wolkenritter]

[Kimiko]

Mechanics-wise, EO2 is an improvement of EO1. More map notes and icons, ability to move sideways, etc. The story doesn't twist as dramatically, but the beauty of the third and fourth strata makes up for that I think. There are also some jokes/references in the second game that only make sense if you've played the first game before it.

The third game changes things quite a bit with having only four floors per stratum, subclassing, the sea exploration, two endings (or three if you're that persistent). Some call it an improvement, but I think it's just different from the first two games.

The fourth game again changes some more mechanics, making the exploration into an overworld of sorts and tweaking the subclassing thing.

Overall I think your choice of playing the games in order is the best

[Maxine MagicFox]