Janus_Heldon saying you CAN seems a little... dishonest? you HAVE to leave between each fight to heal, or im gonna assume youre cheating somehow. especially the fights that are 2 fat spiders and a small one. again, unless theres some obvious strategy other than "hope rng goes well" that im missing, but judging from fulminatos explination there's not
if the dev want prevent you from exit the area and healing in the inn will block the entrance door (eg the deep cache in devil's pass) so, the possibility is by design. a thing the developer explicity allow isn't cheating.
there is a huge difference between you can only pray rnjesus and the fight is to much rng based. and the difference is often a full update equip (well, a not underleveled party too, but I don't think is the case here).
Janus_Heldon ive been playing this game since before 'simons route' was a thing, i know what shining swords are for... okay, well, i know how shining swords are EARNED do we actually know what they're for yet? last time i did a playthrough was .45 i believe, before ch5 or illustrations were added.
not a clue of the use of them for now. many have speculation, but nothing in the game outside a couple of tangential dialogue.
Janus_Heldon okay, i bought a steel shield that i gave to hilstara, which will lead to another question: whats the point of shieldwall? it says it draws attacks to her but everytime i use it it seems to GUARENTEE she's not gonna be attacked. is this just another rng thing thats apparently really working against me, or am i misunderstanding the description?
i'm not a real expert of rpgmaker mechanic, but "provoke" (the effect applied by shieldwall) increase the "weigth" of character target rate by a factor of 10 (if i understand right, starting with all the four character with 100 of "weight" provoke increase to 1000 for one and the other three remain 100. the chanche to target the three character is 100/1300 = 7.8% for each of the other three member and for the one with provoke 1000/1300 = 76.6%). the decision of each single target for the attacks are still random, and the other party member still have a probability to be targeted, they are significatively reduced by "provoke" on hilstara. the spider can multiattack, so is normal non all the attacks will be direct against hilstara.
shieldwall not only add provoke, but buff DEF as well, reducing the dmg taked (and can be staked two time), upgrade a sheild is nice, but it's the armor solt the one giving you more DEF. buy steel armor and helm for simon, aka and hilstara and give a steel shiled to hilstara and simon. it's a very huge difference in the dmg done by the spider. and obviously leave the spider as the last thing to do before leaving stineford.
otherwise no, bash doesnt seem any 'more' useful than stun, as confusion is ANOTHER rng thing. i had 2 of the spiderfights where bash stunned, but NEVER had the confusion side effect (died in both of em too) or the fights where silencing slash connects... but doesnt silence. to me it seems a lot of the 'difficult fights' in this game arent so much difficult as they REQUIRE rng to go a certain way.
in my opinion stineford's spider are the hardest fight in the game [the skittering nightmare pre-nerf was more diffucult, but it sin't in the game anymore], expecialy because you have few party members, little equipment and low level. but what you say is untrue. upgrade the equip is the true key here. you cannot overcome the rng factor, but the right equip and tatics can mitigate a lot the effect of few bad rng round, basicaly change a lot of sure lost to something like barely managed
yes confusion is harder to land compared stun [bash had only a 50% of probaility], but it's powerfull for 3/5 turns you can ignore a spider. bash can stun the enemy to, so often at least one of the two land, and avoid even one single turn of the multiattack spider can make the difference.
poison i dont worry about because it cant kill, and since these enemies are damaging some people for half to 2/3 of there life in a SINGLE HIT seems like an arbitrary thing for this fight really, as healing only seems to heal for 300-600 depending on who's doing it, so at max that heals one of the 4 hits you get if both fat spiders are silenced, but none are confused/stunned.
so, again i ask. is there any sort of ACTUAL strategy to these fights? or is it mostly just die and reset til rng goes your way? cuz thats how i passed it, spent an hour dying and reloading til the fights were done. didnt even die in the optional dungeon for the lustlord armor... again, just saying/comparing difficulty. shouldnt the optional dungeon be just as difficult, since it also gives you the lustplate and ancient lingerie? or are shining swords that much more important? (and i guess it technically came with a silk robe to, for the 10 minutes that was equipped...)
just for reference i take my save before the house and redo it all. simon, hilstara, aka and qum.
- Simon: Steel Sword, Iron Shield, Steel Helm, Steel Armor, Old Ribbon [lvl 17]
- Hilstara: Steel Axe, Steel shield, Steel Helm, Steel Armor, Thief Pin [lvl 15/16 - levelup midway]
- Aka: Steel Dagger, Aka Custom Knife, Steel Helm, Steel Armor, Headband [lvl15/16 - levelup midway]
- Qum: Dildo, Sexy Ribbon, Collar, Sexy Lingerie, Slave Pin [lvl 14/15 - levelup midway]
the tatics are the usual,
- simon silence the fat ones first, after that stun the spider [small first if they don't have any cc applied yet].
- hilstara keep bashing the small ones first, changing target after confusion land, and only if all the spider are cc'ed will use shieldwall.
- aka weaking stab the small twice (preferentially not the one hilstara is bashing if two small spider are present) after weaking all the spider switch to attak [autoattack first, forceful lunge was unlcked mid way in the house].
- qum open with a arousing kiss to aka and after that heal as needed, other arousing kiss only if all the party is 90%+ of hp [happen a few time].
never used consumable, even out of combat.i never lose a fight, only one fight simon die (forcing me to return in the inn because qum don't have the ress skill yet) and qum die on another fight (ressed by simon out of combat). basicaly i storm the house without much trouble. a double weaked spider hit for 50/60 simon/hilstara/aka (yes, 50 not 500). the fight i lose simon was a close call, but the other not. hilstara mana managment was a concern, but be forced to exit one time avoid that. in my run usualy i can clean it without return for healing.
i suppose you have simon still in is "veteran" gears, aka with leather armor and hilstara full iron. in this situation the spiders are a nightment, but the right equip can change it. yes, you can still die for a row of bad rng rolls, but it'isn't a reload ten time to have the right rng rolls in a row to win the figth.
Janus_Heldon but again, this seems arbitrary to me, cuz lets be honest, the 500 damage is if simon or hils gets hit, and theyre both in heavy armor with shields. for everyone else weakening them means going from 760 damage to 600. so with say Aka's 900hp that means she goes from dying in 2 hits to...dying in 2 hits? what was the improvement here? what changed at all, other than wasting 2 turns so that simon or hils can take 5 hits instead of 4? again, rng seems to hate me, so this guarentees aka will get hit before them anyway since i used shieldwall... no poisoning things seems a more useful thing for her to do, least then its a guarenteed 300 or so damage they take at the end of each round, even if theyre stunned or confused, and if you're really lucky poison sticks before confusion since it wont undo confusion. but again, this requuires at least 2 rng things to work for you, then requires the rng from confusion to actually make the spiders attack each other instead of attacking you anyway.
with the lvl and equip above the Max HP my party have: simon 1.6K, hilstara 1.8K, Aka and Qum 1.2K. [robin 0.8K, yarra 1.2K]. if your aka had only 900 HP you are significatively underleveld. in my saves database at level 11 she had 950 HP] my aka had basicaly a 33% more HP. so you are missing a lot of thing to do in stineford, and thus the spider are to leave as last thing to do, or you skip a lot of previous fights, and this isn't good because XP amount is finite and you cannot stop and farm few levels for closing the gap at any point of the game.
Janus_Heldon yeah i agree, im one of those 'adventurers' the game seems to constantly warn you against being and hording potions, but i'll use goo's before potions, and i still got goo's lol. but i mean, thats always been how i play rpg's. i only have to backtrack for 5 minutes to get a completely free heal, why waste items? typically i leave qum out of my party, so she's free to heal as needed afterwards, plus once the other mages start learning healing spells, it becomes a lot easier to just 'survive off magic til you hit the next inn'
when i said i think the use of consumable is a waste of time i mean i sell every potion i grab (well, i keep 3 normal hp/mana potions, and one of any other type of potion, rare and orc potions excluded) and use the Sx for upgrade the equip instead. i still have some goo's (unsellable) for the emergency.
also side note: are you the one that made the calculator? if so thank you. i wish to gods more games came with an 'interactive walkthrough' like this thing. its fucking amazing.
yes, i'm the one making (and maintaining) the calculator