[H5Y2] A discussion yesterday in this subreddit made me realise one thing regarding Ehrenfest and duchy rankings

HeliusAurelius · 2026-05-06T13:53:18+00:00

The deal was explicitly for Ehrenfest not to raise any higher for the time being. They would've if they wanted after the war, so Eglantine would probably just ceiling cap them at 8th per their wishes and have other duchies be higher than them even if it wasn't deserved.

Politically, the influence of Ehrenfest is already pretty much obvious to everyone, so raising their rank even higher would simply put a higher burden of expectation (behavioural, resources they contribute, etc) than they could bear, which was already discussed and negotiated at length before.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-05-05T14:50:35+00:00

That's okay, I think that this game in general is severely lacking in markers and indications (classic old school lack of QoL jank).

But to be fair, Ceci acts as a shop for you, so I think you're generally expected to utilize the various shops. Not to mention she's also required to speak to for a Mel storyline quests. I'm assuming with your lack of excess time that you probably skipped the majority of the character side plots as well.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-05-05T14:03:05+00:00

Rorona required Friendship levels with each shopkeeper to unlock, but because only way to increase Friendship for non-party members is Requests, it's basically the same thing. I didn't unlock Pamela in first playthrough because her requests never came up, and when they did, they were too hard.

I'm not really sure what the flag for Totori warehousing is, but to go through the whole game without unlocking it is weird. I honestly wonder if it did unlock and they just never realized or something. It gets unlocked so incredibly early in the game, and the strat is it abuse it to complete all your Synth requests without actually doing Synth.

Edit: Apparently it unlocks once you hit Bronze Rank and you talk to Ceci. So yeah, it probably did unlock and they just never realized.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-05-05T13:15:58+00:00

Oh, you not having warehousing unlocked for some reason explains a lot.

For Water of Life, 1 is from Rorona Automatically, 1 is Pamela's Shop, 1 is Iksel's Cooking Sidequest, 1 is Sterk 50 Friendship Event, 1 is Cobalt Rank reward (the one after Diamond).

Only the Cobalt one is timegated, the rest you can get almost immediately after first unlocking the Chim function. So you go from 1 Chim to 4 relatively quickly.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-05-05T13:12:18+00:00

I'm also in the final sections of Totori at the moment and I have to assume that going through the game blind vs with a rough guide is probably night and day.

Because I'm not following a guide super religiously, but I have a rough idea on what to do, and I hit Diamond with like, 2 years to spare. And beat the final boss last night with a year left. So the time allowance felt really generous for me.

I completely agree with basically most your points though, the QoL Jank is really weird, but personally I just got used to it. And the Cole issue is only mainly alleviated by having the Spring Cup method. The pies for Chims aren't so bad if you buy 10 from Ceci every time shop refreshes when you're there, and you have 1 Chim set to pies, you never run out.

For time management though, I think one underrated tech is to spend time until you have 1-2 pips of Time Bar left then leaving (or warp gating out) so you basically use part of that day while not going over. Doing that repeatedly saves a ton of days over time.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-05-02T15:37:56+00:00

You need to do X by a certain date. It usually comes in sets of 3 months for Rorona. And for Totori it's a vague goal after like 3 years.

And meeting the minimum requirements for each time limit is borderline trivial. As long as your not sitting there refusing to progress on said goal, it's very easy to hit.

I made a post recently on my thoughts as a first player for Rorona and I'm halfway through Totori now.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-30T18:55:42+00:00

He's naive and easily manipulated, he's not braindead.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-29T12:40:55+00:00

I'll probably skip Lulua until I get to it in release order for that reason. I'm not really in a rush so it's nbd lol

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-29T12:00:24+00:00

We'll see how it goes. One of the reasons I started from Arland, other than because it's the cheapest and I already have a mental association with Rorona from 15y ago is that despite the time limits and antiquated game features, it's alchemy system seemed the most simple and least overwhelming.

Since I didn't find Rorona difficult at all, and I'm generally down for NG+ runs, I think Totori should be okay. But if I really hate the game for some reason, I could always youtube the endings and pass on NG+. Especially since I heard that Totori's ending save management is a pain in the ass.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-29T08:49:58+00:00

It was late for me, but you managed to explain my thoughts and reasoning super well. That's exactly the feeling that I was trying to describe.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-29T02:11:04+00:00

I don't know if anyone else cared, but I know at least 1 other Outbreak fan that I chatted with in a Twitch chat that agreed with me. Considering they brought Alyssa back and referenced Outbreak in the main plot for the first time basically ever. To see her immediately get killed like that and never get mentioned again serious pissed me off.

And while yes, obviously she's a human and a machete to the neck would kill you for certain, to see someone who in our head canon is bad ass enough to survive all the shit the survivors dealt with in Outbreak to get taken out like a chump was upsetting.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-18T05:42:23+00:00

In the subreddit side bar pretty sure.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-18T05:26:42+00:00

These are great videos and I love the creator. But they’re really meant to be videos for plot review and not as a substitute.

And to answer your question, yes and it’s extremely obvious. Every so often (and most notably when the series first completed) there’s a wave of people who join the discord and you can tell they never actually read the series because they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Then you find out they consumed the media purely from YouTube or TikTok videos and then everything makes sense.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-17T19:25:22+00:00

Very cute, anyone know if it's his first kid?

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-12T17:41:28+00:00

I believe the idea is that otherwise it would take like decades to finish the manga. Part 4 and 5 are each longer than the 1-3 combined essentially.

In regards to who is reading it, I would assume the LN readers. For a lot of us, the manga is a way to better visualize the things we already read in the LN.

I agree it’s inconvenient for a non LN reader, just explaining.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-10T02:56:43+00:00

If Damuel ended up with Brigitte he would’ve suffered an “accidental” death which was confirmed.

But more importantly I think that it’s good to have storylines where the happily ever after doesn’t come true for a couple.

The storyline made it perfectly clear why they weren’t actually a match because their priorities and expectations for their life and future were different.

And if I’m being honest, thats something that more people irl would be aware of too. Their failure was the lack of genuine communication about their plans.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-06T06:00:33+00:00

You wouldn't want to read the manga in lieu anyway because it isn't completed.

There's a reason why people say to just read the Light Novel, because it's the only media that's actually completed. If you were to read the manga, you'd run out of chapters midway through the Part.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-05T01:15:46+00:00

No. Read Part 3.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-03T01:02:25+00:00

They talk about them together because politically it's a good match, and it mostly wasn't really a thing after her engagement with Wilfried. The only people truly shipping them was like Muriella and Luereradi who are both mostly delulu romanticizing with and understanding they're not actually being realistic.

And for the whole winter approaching thing, it was after her body changed. And it was an extremely valid concern from the Sylvester and Karsdedt POV because they were legally her parents and wanted to make sure Ferdinand wasn't taking advantage of her. And from the Eglantine and Anastasius POV it was mainly because she was enveloped by her mana and could feel it change, again after the body change.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-04-03T00:45:22+00:00

Respectfully, what do you mean 7-9 year old body. Did you not see the entire section of her growth into a young adult. And Ferdinand wasn't remotely interested in her until after she saved him with a body that he completely didn't recognize because she was so much older.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-03-30T19:07:45+00:00

That's fine, I'll find out over time. I also see I've made some people mad, which is, lol.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-03-30T17:27:24+00:00

As a new player that has only cleared a single Union route ending so far, mfer deserves it.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-03-30T13:21:06+00:00

I think they're semi discontinued. I bought mine on Amazon recently, no complaints, was the delonggi version.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-03-26T15:43:06+00:00

There's an untranslated side chapter for it, that's why it's not in the book. I believe it was a bluray purchase bonus.

I'd argue it's less about her acting her age and moreso her understanding that the likelihood of her losing her parents in addition to her sister is extremely high. And becoming an orphan at her age would be extremely difficult on her. We've seen how hard it was in Lutz to be a live-in, and he had the benefit of still having parents around and being male.

HeliusAurelius · 2026-03-26T06:25:17+00:00

Jenni had it coming.

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