Author Topic: Trails to Azure - Planning topic  (Read 3227 times)

Tide

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Trails to Azure - Planning topic
« on: January 13, 2020, 07:11:17 PM »
What is says on the tin. As I am what I believe to be one fight away from the game being completed, I'm thinking about laying some ground work on the game for building a stat topic. This is going to be a bit of WIP like with CS2 where things will just build on each other until we have some answers/opinions on the questions at hand. I'll start off with some easy stuff first:

1) End game levels are assumed to be 110-112;. It's probably that the main cast of 4 may be 1 to 2 levels higher, but due to Trails XP scaling, it will be very difficult for them to be any more ahead than that, assuming some degree of usage during the final dungeon.
2) Master Quartz equipped by the characters are assumed to be maxed out.
3) Penu-ultimate weapons are assumed versus Ultimate ones as the ultimate ones require extremely limited materials (2PG) to be made. For the most part, the PCs don't care too much about this. There are a few chars who would like the ultimates but that's more due to the side effects than the actual stats.

Some immediate questions that come to mind:
1) There are 4 PCs who do not have definitive Master Quarts: Lloyd, Elie, Wazy and Noel. Between these 4, it seems to be implied by the game that Pixie and Claw are for Elie and Wazy while Shield and Force are for Lloyd and Noel. However, which one goes to whom for DL purposes isn't clear. My assumption for this is that Pixie is for Elie and Claw is for Wazy, while Shield seems to be for Lloyd and Force for Noel. However, I'm open to arguments around this.

2) Quartz options available to each PC. Each Master Quartz has a primary element and a secondary element that is usually at half the effectiveness of the primary. Due to the way the game is set up, Having a high primary element doesn't give you all the spells available in that school. You often have to mix and match up different elements to get different spells. How do people want to proceed with this? My interp is to offer primary and secondary elements to the PC but that can severely limit access to what spells they do have available.

3) For the most part, each PC has an element associated with them other than Lloyd due to having one locked element slot each in the Orbment grid. So related to the above, another option for Quartz options is to give that PC access primarily to the element they are associated with. This gets messy with Lloyd due to him not having an associated element (as noted before) and Wazy as his primary element is Space and nobody has a Space Master Quartz to start with.

Share any thoughts you might have on the above + other potential issues!
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Dhyerwolf

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Re: Trails to Azure - Planning topic
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2020, 10:52:49 PM »
Not sure, but you might be the game's only player!

For what little it's worth, I thought Lloyd had Force during the CS 2 epilogue.

Non MQ magic is setup like TitS to some degree then? I'm still of the camp of starting orbments/quartz if that's the case.
...into the nightfall.

Random Consonant

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Re: Trails to Azure - Planning topic
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2020, 11:21:54 PM »
Untrue, as I also played the game!

Hello, yes.

Quote
1) There are 4 PCs who do not have definitive Master Quarts: Lloyd, Elie, Wazy and Noel. Between these 4, it seems to be implied by the game that Pixie and Claw are for Elie and Wazy while Shield and Force are for Lloyd and Noel. However, which one goes to whom for DL purposes isn't clear. My assumption for this is that Pixie is for Elie and Claw is for Wazy, while Shield seems to be for Lloyd and Force for Noel. However, I'm open to arguments around this.

My memory on this is a little hazy but I think this is the correct assumption, although Force/Shield may well be reversed for Lloyd and Noel.

Quote
2) Quartz options available to each PC. Each Master Quartz has a primary element and a secondary element that is usually at half the effectiveness of the primary. Due to the way the game is set up, Having a high primary element doesn't give you all the spells available in that school. You often have to mix and match up different elements to get different spells. How do people want to proceed with this? My interp is to offer primary and secondary elements to the PC but that can severely limit access to what spells they do have available.

Oh hey it's a question that I still don't really have a good answer to.  That said primary/secondary based on their orbment locks and default MQ makes sense?  Unlike CS line length is a real problem for some people and even putting that aside everyone likes having HP/Act quartz at minimum so limited spell access is a problem that could come up anyways.

Quote
3) For the most part, each PC has an element associated with them other than Lloyd due to having one locked element slot each in the Orbment grid. So related to the above, another option for Quartz options is to give that PC access primarily to the element they are associated with. This gets messy with Lloyd due to him not having an associated element (as noted before) and Wazy as his primary element is Space and nobody has a Space Master Quartz to start with.

I'd probably default to Earth for Lloyd's primary element despite it being DL crap since 1) he's more or less stuck with slotting an Earth quartz in during Zero's orbment tutorial and 2) his orbment locks in his CS2 appearance are Earth/Fire, which seems as good a rationale for determining what he gets as any.  Wazy... yeah he gets kind of shafted there but speed is king and he gets the big speed MQ per your assumptions so ???.  At least it's easy enough to get him what he mostly cares about.

Tide

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Re: Trails to Azure - Planning topic
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2020, 02:36:49 AM »
There are reasons to assume Lloyd uses Shield instead of Force as his DL default:
- As noted, he's forced in Zero to pretty much equip Earth quartz at the start since its the only one available that isn't claimed
- It makes sense from a plot perspective as his Tonfas are more defensive than Noel, who's twin machine guns are definitely more offensive. This is further symbolized in some big story reveals at the end of the game
- It makes sense from a gameplay perspective as Lloyd has to be up close to do damage compared to Noel. He's also way more defensively oriented, so Shield makes more sense.

Arguments for Force:
- His element nodes in CS are Earth and Fire, of which Force in Azure is
- He has Force equipped in CS as his default (in fact, it's locked)

Funnily enough, I think Lloyd can do well with both (Shield makes him a defensive tank - Force makes him more burst offense oriented). Noel on the other hand I'm not sure does that well if she doesn't have Force.

For Wazy and Elie, the arguments are similar. Elie is a Wind locked PC and Pixie is Wind based, it works on a gameplay perspective, etc. Certainly I can see swapping these around but yeah that's kind of where I'm standing.

Regarding Quartz options...one option is to give one slot quartz available to sub Master quartz elements. So for example, Shield can allow equipping of HP 2 but not HP 3. Line length is definitely a factor, although it ensures Tio/Wazy/Elie are going to be better just because they can put together things that are more varied compared to the others. As for everyone wanting HP/Act, I agree but at the same time are you proposing that everyone loses 2 nodes to equip those as a default? I suppose that makes some sense but I wonder if it weakens the uniqueness aspect. I guess until I start putting quartz into the slots to create the skill set, weon't know for sure.

Dhyer: The problem with starting quartz is that like Snowfire noted before a) it's kind of random b) no one really remembers what PCs usually have on join/rejoin and c) might be worse than the Main/Sub quartz element distribution anyway. Also, I don't have a save nearby so I think I'd need to replay those parts all over again >.>

One other thing: Should stats be gotten for any of the other guests. Mafia-man gets a pretty strong no from him since he's really boring as PC and he wants his boss form in Zero anyway if we ever rank him. However, both Arios and Zeit have legit forms (albeit Arios is very borderline as is...still probably better than both his PC forms). Bosses if we ever do them seem simple. Campanella, Shirley and Duvalie all have rankable forms. Duvalie is notable as her CS forms aren't all that usable sans maybe one, so this gives her a nice alt. The others though I think run into CS2 syndrome where their durability is extremely nebulous. Surely Sigmund, Arios and Arianrhod are all good bosses to rank for plot reasons. But for forms, they either use one where their durability is arguably trashy OR they use one where you are allowed to lose. I mean, Azure gives you a good incentive to succeed here, but I think most of us would see these as unrankable for the most part.
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Random Consonant

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Re: Trails to Azure - Planning topic
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2020, 04:30:19 AM »
Quote
As for everyone wanting HP/Act, I agree but at the same time are you proposing that everyone loses 2 nodes to equip those as a default? I suppose that makes some sense but I wonder if it weakens the uniqueness aspect. I guess until I start putting quartz into the slots to create the skill set, weon't know for sure.

Nah not really (the stat boosts would just go into averages and I'd likely not allow spells off of them for people who wouldn't get those respective elements anyways so doing so would be a bit purpose-defeating), was referring more to not really being bothered by the more limited spell selection since in a way it's kind of an ingame consideration.

Temps are a big no from me, Garcia or whatever his face was is around for basically no time, ditto Arios.  Zeit's a little better off there IIRC but my caring on that front is utterly minimal.  As for bosses yeah Sigmund/Arios/Arianrhod are gonna get shafted a bit due to their good forms being plot-fighty (and Sigmund's is on a hard timer to boot) and therefore not really all that legal.

Tide

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Re: Trails to Azure - Planning topic
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2020, 01:26:22 AM »
Arios is at least around for a big dungeon. On the other hand, he's obviously meant to be OP during that point so using that as a basis for a dueller is kind of sketchy. I'm perfectly okay with nulling him as a rank altogether (unless someone wants to do the legwork for the "legit" final fight). This means that Doggo is the only potential rank if we go that far; I'm okay with this.

Some other thoughts that came to mind, I was noting this down as I was going through character skills and abilities:
- Unlike in CS2, this game is really generous with evade. All PCs have access to a piece of gear that grants +20% Evade on armor and +10% evade on leg wear. This means most PCs have around 30-40% evade natural if they so choose. Since Defense stats in Trails game are rather junky, the raw evade trade is usually worth it. Flip side, Azure is also a game wear enemy accuracy is certainly factored in when calculating evasion. You can be at 40-50% evade and sometimes, it feels like you are getting hit way more often. From personal experience, this suggests evade is relative to accuracy (and enemies do have it) but perfect evade trumps any accuracy calculation. For the most part, this only matters for maybe one or two of the PCs, but worth pointing out. Random, if you got a different experience, let me know. Would also be good to know what your stance on standard armors should be.

- There are actually not that many quartz varieties in general. Therefore, giving full access to 2 elements feels like it will diminish some PC variety. On the other hand, keeping main element as all quartz from that family and sub element as just garden variety quartz enhances character variety a little without completely breaking the balance. It does lead to the odd case where everyone seems to have Tear, but since HP healing from that is pretty abysmal (unless your name is Tio), I'm not super concerned at the moment. Again, would appreciate other thoughts.

- Starting CP is always an issue in Trails. For Azure, 150 feels like a good number. A couple of reasons for this:
1) The final dungeon leaves the Airship relatively close to the main boss areas. In your airship, there is a rest spot that restores 200 CP, meaning you will certainly be relatively loaded before the last final series of fights
2) Normal rest spots increase CP by +100 versus setting CP to 100. It sounds like its just semantics, but in reality, you're much more likely to be higher than 100 CP as a result
3) CP Maintenance is in general easier. There are 5 accessories that you can equip to enhance CP gain. Keep in mind that a full party in game is 6 characters, so pretty much everyone can get one. Some PCs don't even want one cause they don't touch their crafts at all.
4) Related to the above, more food items that boost CP
5) 150 has the bonus as Dhyer noted that allow PCs to still use their crafts without fear of not being able to S-craft.

- Getting back to quartz options for a second...if we instead went the one element only route, I could see allowing the OPG rare gems associated with that element. How would people feel about that? The main draw here is hoping PCs can access tier 6 spells, but I haven't checked if this was 100% possible. Lloyd is of course SoL, but since he has no locks, you could just give him quartz of every element but all garden variety, so he will be a jack of all trades, master of none type.

I think once I figure out the quartz set ups definitively, I can start getting some numbers. Random, is there a damage formula or data sheet like there was with Cold Steel?

<napalmman> In Suikoden I, In Chinchirorin, what is it called when you roll three of the same number?
<@Claude> yahtzee

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<Dreamboum> A bright future awaits us gentlemens
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Random Consonant

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Re: Trails to Azure - Planning topic
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2020, 05:18:38 AM »
re: accuracy and evasion, I honestly have little recollection as I never really equipped for... well, any sort of non-HP defense so your guess is as good as mine.

re: armor, I forget how "available" the best and second-best non-craftables are but personally in terms of what's ultimately legal I'd end up going with them being for consistency's sake with the views I hold re: equipment in general these days?  While the top end craftable armor/shoes don't require anything like Zemurian Ore they still eat up a fairly ridiculous amount of U-Materials and sepith to get for everyone.  Of course, one could argue that getting them only truly takes time as opposed to spending extra money or actually getting into fights so there's no real issue but that still involves way too much farming for my tastes.  For defaut... well, raw DEF/ADF in Azure is junk as we both know so equipping for evasion/other appreciable benefits makes the most sense to me there.

re: damage formula, Azure's damage formula is similar to CS2's but with a few differences, namely elemental resistance/weakness is applied before defense (for what little that matter), 200 CP S-Crafts have a 1.4x bonus to their mult, and buffs/debuffs only modify base stats, not adjusted ones.


https://w.atwiki.jp/ao_psp/pages/1.html <- this is the wiki I used when playing the game, has mults/delay values for arts/crafts if you need them.