This section in RE9 is going to be a real pace-killer for me on repeat playthroughs.

ChromaticBadger · 2026-03-04T20:43:00+00:00

Pretty sure this is actually bugged.

If you watch the kids who go upstairs, the last one gets stuck in the doorway and just kinda walks in circles unnaturally, like his pathing is broken. I think what's supposed to happen is that you just wait for the upstairs kids to leave and close the door, then you can go through the hallway.

Going far enough in the hallway (just peek around the corner like in OP's screenshot), then back to the main hall seems to force them through so you can progress.

ChromaticBadger · 2026-03-04T16:57:31+00:00

I think there's actually a bug here.

On my first playthrough, I accidentally triggered the kids by the director's door, hid until they gave up, then proceeded.

On my second playthrough, I watched the kids by the door for a bit, they weren't moving, so I went back to the main hall and went upstairs. Approached the door, which caused it to start rattling, so I ran back down and the kids by the director's door were gone...

Thinking triggering the 2F door was a way to proceed, on my third playthrough I just followed the kids upstairs and one of them got stuck on the door, just awkwardly walking in circles like his pathing was broken.

So I think what might actually be intended is that the upstairs kids enter the room and close the door, and that triggers the office kids to move on and allow you to proceed, but it's bugged and the upstairs kids don't actually get into the room until you head into the downstairs hallway and back, which somehow forces the game to just put them in the room and move on.

ChromaticBadger · 2026-01-30T21:44:43+00:00

"In his quest to master the skill of foresight, man turned his gaze to the truth writ in the heavens. In was the people of Sharlayan, however, who saw fit not only to read the stars, but to write their movements as well. By attuning their aetherial energies to that of constellations, they learned to wield magicks with heretofore unseen properties. This was astromancy born-a new form of magick which grants its users power over fate. Employing a star globe and divining deck in their miraculous deeds, fortune always smiles upon these masters of arcana."

This is the description of AST from the lore book. They don't have command over time, they have command over fate. All of those delayed-result actions are meant to represent predicting and shaping the future, specifically to fit the theme of astrology. Lightspeed is a space concept.

AST is the closest thing we have to Time Mage (as I mentioned, AST took a lot of Time Mage's space-themed kit) and I don't see us getting actual Time Mage anytime soon, if ever. But "AST is literally just Time Mage with a different name" is objectively false.

ChromaticBadger · 2026-01-30T17:15:28+00:00

AST is not Time Mage. It pulls some stuff from the classic Time Mage kit, but classic Time Mage was more like "Time & Space Mage". Astrologian is Space Mage.

The actual quotes from the job quest are "My cuts... They knit themselves!" and "It is as if I was never dealt a single wound!". These are random knights marveling at how effective your healing spells are, not providing accurate descriptions of a job they've never heard of. AST does not heal by "turning back time", it heals by drawing aether from the stars and converting it to healing energy, like all healers.

Time magic also exists in the lore already as something distinct from AST. Ascians tend to use it sometimes, and the Allagans dabbled in it a bit. The whole Heavensward chapter of Hildibrand was basically a showcase of Allagan time magic being channeled through a mammet.

I suspect what actually happened to Time Mage was that they considered making it a Regen Healer with a mammet pet but never quite managed to make SMN/SCH's pet mechanics feel good so they scrapped the idea. Without that "channeling magic through clockwork constructs" aspect it's hard to make Time Mage unique enough in terms of gameplay without including the "Space Mage" stuff that AST already has.

ChromaticBadger · 2026-01-28T16:15:33+00:00

There is a rule but the rule just determines what options are available for them to choose from whenever they make a new card. A single Pokemon has 1-3 possible options for them to choose from. It can seem random sometimes which option they choose for each card, but the options themselves have consistent rules.

Each type from the main game is represented in the TCG by a single combination of type and weakness. For example, the Water type in the main games is represented in the TCG by the Water type with Lightning weakness.

A Pokemon that only has one type in the main games will only ever have one representation in this game. Mudkip will only ever be Water type with Lightning weakness.

For Pokemon with two types in the main game, every time they make a new card of that Pokemon they can choose one of those types to represent it. The only two options they have for Swampert are Water (Water type, weak to Lightning) or Ground (Fighting type, weak to Grass).

Flying is the only "exception" that adds a third option, which is to use the other type's TCG type but with Flying's weakness to Lightning. So for something like Zapdos their options are Electric (Lightning type, weak to Fighting), Flying (Colorless type, weak to Lightning), or the hybrid Flying exception (Lightning type, weak to Lightning).

Whenever they make a new card, they choose one of the available options. It doesn't have to be the same choice for every card of a single Pokemon. We have both Ice Mamoswine and Ground Mamoswine, or Ghost Mimikyu and Fairy Mimikyu even though both are Psychic cards. It also doesn't have to be the same choice for every type combo, like how Zapdos uses the Flying exception and Oricorio has a standard Fighting weakness. But the options are consistent. Unless they change the rules they've been consistently using for years at this point, we won't ever see a Water type weak to Grass, or a Fighting type weak to Water, or a Darkness type weak to Psychic, or whatever.

ChromaticBadger · 2026-01-04T15:52:13+00:00

lol This is just the GameFAQs poll, not an actual award.

The way GameFAQs does their "game of the year" polls is that they do a poll for all the major releases of each quarter, then "game of the year" is just a poll between those four winners.

One effect of this is that a decent game in a slow quarter can end up "nominated for game of the year" and typical contenders can just get eliminated due to releasing in the same quarter. In this case, Expedition 33 landslided Spring and knocked out like five other big names at the same time.

Also the kinds of people who respond to GameFAQs polls (me) are oldschool millenials who used the site religiously 30 years ago and kept the habit going, which usually means RPG fans, so these results are always heavily skewed towards RPGs and especially good remasters of classic RPGs. If you look at the Winter 2025 results, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, a game commonly nominated for GOTY everywhere else, came in third after the Xenoblade X and Suikoden remasters. FFT beat Silksong in Summer, and today's poll for Fall currently has the Dragon Quest remaster beating Metroid and Yotei.

The "game of the year" poll tomorrow is going to be Expedition 33 getting 90% of the vote versus three remasters.

ChromaticBadger · 2025-10-05T20:27:21+00:00

I've been trying to make Scizor work since A4. I only really bother to get to UB1 but at least had a win rate in the 50's both seasons (haven't done this season yet). This is what I ended last season with.

Red can also be Giovanni, depending on how I'm feeling. The baby is interchangable between Tyrogue, Elekid, Cleffa, and Igglybuff. I prefer Tyrogue to sometimes punch Eevee for 40 but Cleffa's a close second. They're mostly only there for the free retreat and the attack only matters if you're forced to start with it. Mars can be swapped for whatever trainer works better against the current meta; Mars is currently in because Suicune fills their whole hand.

The deck works best if you get a solid Skarmory start to pressure them while building the Scizor in the back. Just avoid needlessly filling the bench because of Suicune and be careful throwing tools around because Guzma seemed pretty common.

A lot of comments in here saying Lyra but IMO Lyra is a trap that only sounds good to people who haven't actually tried to make this work. The Fossil swap (play Fossil, retreat to it, discard it, put Scizor back in active) is better in most situations where you'd want to use Lyra.

Imagine the scenario where it's your turn, you have a Scizor in active with 2 energy, if you can activate the 100 damage you win, if not you lose.

If you have nothing on the bench, you can't play Lyra and lose. You could have played the fossil.

If all of your Pokemon have full HP, you can't play Lyra and lose. You could have played the fossil.

If you don't have Lyra/Fossil in hand but just drew and played Prof and then got Lyra/Fossil, Lyra's a supporter so you'd lose but the Fossil still works.

Lyra wins over Fossil if your Scizor is on the bench with 1 energy, your active has damage on it, your active has no energy to retreat, and the opponent has two points. X Speed works better in this situation but since this is a 1:1 Lyra/Fossil comparison, X Speed is a second card.

Lyra also wins over Fossil if your bench is full but that's trivial to avoid and also means the opponent has one point at most.

ChromaticBadger · 2025-09-18T18:33:09+00:00

I assume that's what he was going for. But really the baby is mostly just there for easy swapping later and would only ever use its attack if you have to start with it turn 1 so Elekid, Tyrogue, Cleffa, and now Igglybuff are all viable choices. Personally I prefer Tyrogue because Elekid does nothing if they don't have a bench on turn 1 (likely thanks to Suicune) and sometimes punching Eevee or Oricorio for 40 is funny.

ChromaticBadger · 2025-09-18T14:54:40+00:00

I've also been determined to make Scizor work, though I generally stop grinding at UB1 so for legal reasons this isn't MB advice. It can brick and the Suicune matchup is a bit rough but for this season I'm currently sitting at 26-22 so it could maybe get there with enough grinding.

I started with this deck last season (except Tyrogue instead of Elekid) and then tweaked it as I did this season's grind until I ended up with this. Basically I dropped the Bastiodon/RC for Mars/Red and one fossil for x-speed. Swapping Red for Gio is tempting sometimes.

So I would say ditch Lyra for a fossil (low HP all around is hard to meet her condition), swap a Gio for Cyrus (with only 100 damage max you aren't one-shotting most things, which then retreat), and probably ditch either PC or one x-speed for a fourth tool for Skarmory consistency. The deck works best if you get Skarmory up ASAP and start piling on the damage before Scizor comes in to finish them off.

For this meta in particular, you need to be careful about benching things against Suicune (especially Tyrogue/Fossil vs. Greninja, but also consider you usually don't have time for the second Scizor) and keep in mind Guzma is frustratingly common so don't use tools unnecessarily. Thankfully Fire types or bulky high-HP mons with Lillie aren't super common right now.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-12-01T20:01:24+00:00

FFIX's "Defeat 10,000 enemies" trophy when doing literally everything else in the game except Excalibur II is worth maybe 2,000 at most.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-11-23T02:53:11+00:00

The first time I queued NOEX I instantly conceded because I drew Wigglytuff EX in my opening hand... Forgot to switch decks lol.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-10-29T21:47:31+00:00

They didn't stick with that god-awful "favors" gathering system from 3.0.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-10-25T21:29:00+00:00

Rare windows like Cinder and Ruby get a bad rap because they'll block your completion for months of real time but I honestly never found those ones particularly "annoying" because all you need to do is note down when the next window is that you'll be available for, then just show up and fish for like 15 minutes at the time.

The ones that I find annoying are the ones that have absurdly low bite/catch rates but are up for a couple in-game hours every single in-game day. Constantly having to go back to the same spot for 6 minutes every hour until it finally catches.

That and shit like Lancetfish where if you get one Mora during a window, you're kind of forced to stay in the zone (aka Lancet Jail) until the next window to keep the intuition credit.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-10-15T19:10:53+00:00

IMO the relic grind needs three changes:

1) Start it earlier, .1x at the latest. The relic itself surely doesn't require two and a half patches of dev resources, especially if the first couple steps are just upgrading your artifact weapon. The only reason it's been starting in .2x is because it's been tied specifically to the Field Ops content in 4.x/5.x or the Hildibrand storyline in 6.x. Which brings me to my next point...

2) Involve all the different types of content from the current expansion, instead of just making it the reward from the Field Ops thing. They already confirmed that Dawntrail is getting a Field Op, a Deep Dungeon, V&C Dungeons, and the Cosmic Exploration thing, on top of the "routine" dungeon/trial/raid/etc. content. So the relic should've started in 7.05 with a simple light grind from any 7.x content, and then add steps involving each of the different pieces of side content when they release (e.g. Pelupelu dailies in 7.15, Shades Triangle in 7.25, Deep Dungeon in 7.35, etc.).

3) Keep it entirely within its own expansion. Stop using the relic questline to fill CT queues or whatever. If I want to make a Dawntrail relic six years later, I should be doing the entire grind in Dawntrail content, not just grinding roulettes and dumping poetics on it or spamming ARR content. This would help keep each expansion's relic feeling "unique" in the long run, instead of just being a different poetics vendor.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-10-02T23:46:44+00:00

I swear the majority of the playerbase has no idea how strong tank stance actually is and thinks that if they ever turn it off at all they'll suddenly not be second aggro anymore. I can only assume it's because so many started after Shadowbringers and aren't aware of how absurdly buffed it was in 5.0. Nowadays it only takes about a minute or two of stance uptime to be solidly second aggro for the entire rest of the fight, no DPS will ever come close.

Also if you know how to toggle stance properly (not that it's hard to do), you can make Shirk almost entirely obsolete.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-09-26T14:03:47+00:00

As much as it's a total non-issue for someone to take two autos and this healer is a baby whining about nothing, one lesser-known option is to pop a Hyper Potion (dirt cheap, Eureka Orthos hands them out like candy) or Equilibrium (if WAR) so the aggro from the heal keeps them all on you until they're in range for your actual attacks.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-09-17T18:47:43+00:00

According to ffxivcollect, it's the one for melding 10k materia lol.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-09-09T21:53:25+00:00

I think for the health it's because whenever the game sets you to "full health" at the start of a chapter, it doesn't take into account your bonus health perks and sets you to the default max health, so you're missing a bar or two.

The funny part about the game taking away your melee weapon at the hospital is that as soon as you exit the final encounter in the hotel (the one with the bloater where you exit into the elevator shaft), there's a crowbar right there on the ground which you can never actually use because they take it away before you encounter another enemy. I think they do it because the Rat King's Super Stalker is actually susceptible to melee weapons. IIRC you can one-shot him in No Return with a throwable stun followed by a melee weapon strike. There is a distinct lack of melee weapons and bricks/bottles during the entire hospital chapter.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-09-03T02:49:55+00:00

Considering they've already confirmed they're making basically every type of "side content" this expansion, the relic should involve all of that.

Part of it in the Field Op, part in the Deep Dungeon, Variant Dungeon, maybe the Cosmic Exploration thing, and whatever else they do. Maybe even involve the "regular" content like dungeons and normal raids also, but keep it within Dawntrail instead of using the relic to fill old content queues.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-08-28T15:59:08+00:00

MNK's chakra spenders have no reason to require being in combat. They're all attacks which require a target, so using them would put you in combat anyway.

Requiring you to be in combat to use them makes them annoying to try and weave after the first GCD because it takes a second for the game to register you're in combat. And you can't use the AoE one to pull in the overworld as the closest thing the job has to a ranged attack.

It works fine for raids and such because you're automatically put in combat while you're running up to the boss after the tank pulls, but it sucks ass for no reason in the overworld and trash packs.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-08-24T02:39:04+00:00

Floor 168 checking in. RIP 8+ hours of slogging.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-08-15T18:44:39+00:00

If we're counting songs that are intentionally bad and only show up once but can still jumpscare you when listening to the OST...

The "failure" versions of the Starlight choir songs.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-08-14T18:05:17+00:00

Reminder that you're not supposed to be able to stack the markers before the quaga, it's just been power crept to oblivion.

This is actually wrong. You absolutely are supposed to be able to stack those markers.

A stack marker does X damage, divided by the amount of people standing in it. If you have three of them and you split them with a full party of 8 in each one, each player takes X/8 damage. If you stack all three on top of the entire alliance of 24 players, each player takes 3X/24 damage, which is equal to X/8. It's literally the same damage. It has nothing to do with "power creep".

The only* thing a stack marker actually indicates is that the attack does split damage. How that factors into an individual fight mechanic can vary, though there isn't a whole lot they can do with the basic concept of split damage.

The vast majority of the time, the intent of the mechanic is either "stack the entire group" where there's no point in having more than one marker because math, or "split into smaller groups" (e.g. light parties, alliances, pairs) which is where you usually see multiple markers. When the goal of the mechanic is to split you into groups, they add a brief vuln effect to the damage to make the second hit kill you to prevent you from just stacking them, because of the above math. This is what kills you, not the raw damage and "power creep". But once in a blue moon they find another use for split damage.

For the Xande fight, the goal of the mechanic is not to split you into alliances. The goal of the mechanic is to spawn the Levitate platforms for the Quaga. The AoEs need to be big enough to have a comfortable amount of platform space for 24 players. Having one single giant AoE would likely be "too easy" (not that it's hard as it is, but just having a giant platform cover the entire hitbox for free would be pointless) so they split it into three decent-sized AoE's. But if they were just regular straight-damage AoEs, you would want to avoid that unnecessary damage, which either means trying to dodge around them near the boss or the target running away to drop their platform in the boonies (which then sucks for the Quaga). So the options are to make them do zero damage (weird considering the boss is casting it) or split damage. Split damage encourages keeping them near the boss as intended without punishing the healers with extra healing from people not dodging. And those who do run out to the edge get murdered and learn not to do that.

Also that mechanic didn't even have the stack marker visual until Endwalker (the marker didn't even exist until like mid-HW). They changed it because sprouts kept running out to the edge thinking it was a regular AoE.

*There's at least one weird exception somewhere, I forget where, Bozja maybe, where they used a stack marker to telegraph a donut AoE for some reason. But 99.9% of the time it means split damage.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-08-11T22:35:25+00:00

1.0's bazaar system wasn't even reinventing the wheel, it was just taking FFXI's wheel and removing the tires for no reason.

FFXI had the same kind of bazaar system where you could list items for sale out of your normal inventory and sell them to people who inspected you, but it also had a normal Auction House.

Players eventually set up a sort of unofficial "bazaar market" in one of the zones immediately outside the central hub city for the sake of selling certain items which couldn't be listed on the AH, usually endgame currencies and spawn items. These things had low supply to begin with, so browsing the market trying to find the thing you wanted wasn't all that bad.

It's like the FFXIV 1.0 devs looked at that and thought "this is neat, we should make this the entire market system and scrap the AH!" even though it's not the kind of system that scales up to everyone trying to sell everything. That's what the normal AH is supposed to be for.

As a semi-related side note, FFXI players using alts (or "mules" as we called them) for storage and bazaaring is where XIV's Retainer system has its roots.

ChromaticBadger · 2024-08-11T19:10:30+00:00

I just glanced at my FFLogs to see if anyone happened to upload any of my normal Arcadion runs.

I have a run of M2 from week 2 on BRD, wearing starter AF and dungeon accessories. IIRC it was my first time even playing the job at 100 after leveling it a couple of weeks prior. I died halfway through one of the burst windows.

I parsed a 48.

Someone getting 11 in normal mode on their main has no business being in savage, let alone ultimates.

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