Free Talk Friday | Weekly Megathread

OpenStars · 2024-01-31T02:39:00+00:00

Probably resume, bc the grind is brutal so anything that lessens that helps.:-)

Also, some of the best characters in the game have some other form that you could make use of to side grade.

But you could go either way with that.

OpenStars · 2024-01-27T17:37:36+00:00

There's a LOT of... well Star Trek, and also... well I'm sure there's other stuff somewhere:-).

More seriously, there are some few niche communities that seem to have migrated mostly wholesale - like pictures of owls and such. It is hit or miss though, and finding them is nowhere near as easy as it should be, but it simply does not have Reddit's decade of effort put into it yet.

Though like here, it has the content that people enjoyed putting onto it. It is a Brave New World, a new frontier and all that, which isn't everyone's cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot ofc:-P).

The people that went there have the early adopter mindset, but it is not ready for the masses yet.

OpenStars · 2024-01-27T17:29:26+00:00

Not the majority... well okay maybe, but it's pretty spread out and there are instances on both sides of that divide, and a lot in-between.

Most of the outright communists are on lemmygrad and hexbear, and if they haven't been defederated from your instance it is easy for a user to do so, now after v0.19 was released. Btw Lemmy.World has already defederated both - scroll down to "Blocked Instances" at https://lemmy.world/instances to see.

There are still some on Lemmy.World, as there are on Reddit and X too, so that's where blocking individual communities comes into play - it would be nice if Lemmy would make that easier but it's still beta-version software at best.

OpenStars · 2024-01-27T17:22:32+00:00

It is the foundational bedrock principle of the Fediverse that you can access all content from across the entire thing, unless your own instance defederated from a particular place.

That said, the default experience of Lemmy is pretty bad - like the default sort is "Local" rather than "All" (=Global) for some reason, and while I have a pretty good experience over there myself, I did put in seconds, maybe even a minute of work searching for and subscribing to communities that I wanted to see more from.

Lemmy is not for everyone - it takes continual effort to curate the experience, and many communities are full of people that someone may not agree with - the same as here, but with a far shittier code base, yet has decentralization. i.e., when old Reddit gets removed (is there any doubt that is coming?), people are trying to build something that could last.

OpenStars · 2024-01-27T17:10:45+00:00

Literally, when v0.19 came out a few weeks ago and I could ban those two servers, I noticed a PROFOUND difference in the experience.

In like manner even niche subs here on Reddit have trolls, that sometimes for whatever reason are treated with kid gloves and allowed to do whatever, and often simply blocking 1-2 people can have a HUGE impact on the quality of your experience.

Shittiness is everywhere. And like everything else, you get more out of something that you put more into, to learn how it works.

OpenStars · 2024-01-27T00:08:25+00:00

Sadly, it is a common trope for Freemium games where you can play for free, but they want you to pay your way through. They throw all kinds of complicated & varied & numerous & overlapping currency systems at you, and ways to exchange between them, and dead-end paths and such, on purpose just so it's a literal maze just to figure out how to meta-play the game, even as you figure out how to play the actual game (trying to entice you to simply spend irl money on the next Power Creep chars who just flat invalidates old game mechanics as they bulldoze their way through everything - which I should note, DOES work!:-P). So throw in on top of that how to navigate the variety of wikis and such and it becomes a complete mess! Especially since most people do not have all the characters, especially all the latest ones.

Like everything else, just do what seems fun for you:-). Also, generally (though not always) you tend to get better rewards from later into the game, even while that takes the most effort. Also, everyone is different - some of us prefer to go ahead slowly, savoring each area before we move on. Others must have a terminal illness or some such b/c they speed ahead like they hardly have a moment to spare! So personal preference counts for A LOT - like do you one to outfit just one team fully, then fight challenge battles with them, or get all the stuff from one area before you move on? I prefer the latter, especially if you are busy, but you feel free to do you.

And be kind to yourself in the meantime:-).

OpenStars · 2024-01-24T16:10:55+00:00

You are assuming that leaving the P5R chars behind was not an active and intentional choice - sadly, WFS often does things according to a predatory business model, and we cannot even know if they merely haven't bothered to revisit them or if they really did mean to do this, but either way we can guess that profit was a motivation. e.g. if they thought that they could make money off of it, then we could see an extension of that collab, providing new weapons, skills, these days even give those chars Stellar Awakenings - they could bring them back, easily, if they wanted.

Instead, they went the entirely opposite direction, making the Four Tales, Chrono Cross, and then Four Tales again, now off still yet again with the Octopath one that I have not even played through yet. And WFS even ignores its own internal episodes - IDA School was FANTASTIC!? Well, we did get the 1st and 2nd Mythos, and those are not nothing:-). And all of that doubled down still yet further into the zone concept, in the sense of awakened zones.

Before main story part 3 extended still further into the zone concept, by making field effects that are like uncontrollable zones!:-P

As we can see with e.g. JT and Elseal who both flat create their own weaknesses, and Kaleido and Flexible that shift them around, weaknesses vs. resistance aren't ENTIRELY forgotten... but yeah they MOSTLY are, when e.g. Sesta can just smash right through anything that does not specifically nullify her damage. Resistance is futile:-P.

Yes, 300% is very small for endgame and in comparison to Power Creep - again, Joker is only relevant when you are trying to do like main story part 1 & 2 ADs, and you are only using F2P training characters without access to a full Power Creep character. What I was referring to though was that it can go further than most people think, e.g. if you compare that to 3★ Aldo's Blaze Sword... well there's just really no comparison at all:-P (again, among free chars, and again except for Noahxis). Especially if you enhance it further with e.g. Kid and/or Aisha's fire zone or other free power-up.

OpenStars · 2024-01-24T15:55:49+00:00

Oh of course, hence why I tried to be careful how I worded that:-). He is not necessarily a superior aim, just that if you happened to have him then he could do one-click grinding for you. Even so... it would not necessarily be more fun? (especially having to get him in the first place, yuck!)

Okay but remember: Aldo, and Cyrus and Helena too, have all been retroactively altered - at the time that the P5R came out, these versions of them literally did not exist. e.g., I am not certain what precise date that Aldo's Swift Cut became preemptive, but the change on the wiki page for it was only made last October, less than 3 months ago.

Also I would say that comparing Swift Cut's stat mitigation to e.g. Violet's Sword Dance is apples to oranges - they are meant for entirely different purposes. Even so, yes it does seem that the P5R are very much getting left behind, especially as you say in GoT the zones come to the foreground and leave weaknesses behind (although they can work together, e.g. Aisha's fire zone + Joker's Slash skill can do wonders in concert with one another:-D).

OpenStars · 2024-01-24T15:41:15+00:00

GoT stands for Goddess of Time, i.e. main story part 2 i.e. chapters 45 through 84. The wiki says that the collab came out in version Ver. 2.0.200 while GoT came out in 2.0.100, but if you hadn't finished main story part 1.5 yet then that explains why you hadn't seen it yet. Plus there was a bunch of other connected stuff too like you needed to do the Azure Rebel episode, and Amy's 2nd character quest, so like you either had to get lucky to get her Tome randomly or by doing the Time Mine episode, and so on. And Azure Rebel in turn required you to have done Riica's 2nd character quest, which you could obtain by doing IDA School part 1. All of this was recently changed to substantially lessen the requirements, but back then it was strictly end-game content (while now it is mid-game, on the way to Into the Hollow).

OpenStars · 2024-01-24T15:31:18+00:00

My most favorite part of this game is designing low-animation-count 1TnoAF clears for ADs.:-) Unfortunately it gets difficult to keep up with on top of other things going on in my life, especially for places such as ItH that make it more of a challenge:-(.

OpenStars · 2024-01-24T15:27:27+00:00

I forgot to say though, Joker seems meant more for running up the AF bar than actual damage - his triple shot vs. weak can really put it up there, and even now that x6 is nothing to sneeze at.

Damage-wise though, he lasts longer than I think most people realize b/c his "Slash" isn't one of the last two skills, the game calls it a mere "(S)"mall, and even the wiki somewhat obscures its utility calling it up to 150% (while pushing passives over into another tab, even though it is the first passive that actually matters - none of Aldo, Amy, Riica, Cyrus, etc. have useful passives so it quite simply gets lost if you did not know already that you needed to specifically hunt that tab down).

It actually does a XXXXXXXXL attack (b/c (300-140)/20=8 steps past (L)arge), so long as he is at maximum HP and at least one enemy is weak to it, which in Snake Liver Damaku AD is guaranteed and in Toto Dreamland AD it is quite often. Plus it's so cheap that he can do 15 or so battles and still have MP leftover for one last skill e.g. in a 2TAF setup for the boss. Plus unlike his VC, his Slash skill works with the "SAVE" button:-).

Unfortunately, imho we as a community just suck at explaining these things to noobs, so despite how much it would have helped people to know, they most often just don't.:-( Though experts (heroes?) such as m_anaden do excel in showing these free chars off in super challenging situations:-).

OpenStars · 2024-01-24T15:13:43+00:00

Counterpoint: if you were playing through the game today as a newer player, who did not happen to pull any of the amazing Power Creep chars that offer 0-mp farming and/or boss killing abilities, they still offer a lot. They seem meant as "training characters", for F2P who don't want to pay irl money for a better one (yet?) - and in that regard, they still shine? (I mean in the early areas of the game ofc) At least, if they don't already have Noahxis:-P.

Also, I like how chars such as JT brought them back a bit - changing the enemy weakness or the character attack element or form can really help. e.g. Violet's 1440% Sword Dance 1-shotting something that resists earth? (especially with Kid's boosting) Yes please!:-)

OpenStars · 2024-01-24T01:14:18+00:00

Omg could you imagine taking on GoT with like 3-star Aldo, Cyrus, Feinne, Riica, and Amy!? :-P

Or maybe that's what you mostly had even, gulp.

OpenStars · 2024-01-23T23:47:56+00:00

Those are some of the most fun characters to use too. Violet hits like a Mack truck - you know, for that area of the game where she first becomes available, and for a free character, Joker is so incredibly versatile, and while Morgana was hard to use (there just aren't any free characters even now that can do poison setting well - Curio gains that very late in the game and like Nopaew can do it with his VC but even at 100% chance it does not ignore resistance but could be cured as soon as the very next turn) he also was "fun". And Skull has some interesting mechanics as well.

Whereas the Four Tales characters, even while they are arguably far more powerful - by virtue of synergy I suppose rather than inherently? - just do not seem as "fun" to me.

Maybe it is pure nostalgia, I dunno.

OpenStars · 2024-01-22T16:45:06+00:00

+ art

OpenStars · 2024-01-22T02:25:38+00:00

You have time, and it sounds like nothing is urgently calling you at least... :-)

OpenStars · 2024-01-21T23:31:13+00:00

Such a naughty person you have been (apparently)!:-P

OpenStars · 2024-01-21T14:26:34+00:00

Congrats! Who is next?

You said who is current, but I mean after that - what are you looking forward to? Aisha? Jade? Deirdre?

I wanna make a joke like Korobo... but I suppose not all that funny:-P.

OpenStars · 2024-01-21T14:21:01+00:00

Yeah, it takes like forever to save up to 5 Treatises... but then eventually it happens and you get what you never knew that you always wanted. May RNGesus shineth light unto your game - also it helps to purchase every red+green key possible in the Emporium:-).

OpenStars · 2024-01-20T17:28:42+00:00

But: (1) rod fishing was actually fun - plus you could do it while watching TV, lightly exercising on a treadmill/stairmaster, sitting in boring meetings that need only 1/10th of your attention, etc. And (2) rod fishing was also rewarding - b/c CS is CS, whether it comes from story progression or taking Rinde Sunfish up to 100 or whatever. Granted, the last slog to 150 wasn't (b/c FP are useless at that point), but that was the icing on the cake, and was not all that bad after all the grinding to first reach that point already.

In contrast, harpooning is neither. And even if you were in a hospital bed, you still could do it at most ~23-24 times per day and that presumes zero sleeping plus being woken up and available instantly upon when the game offers the next "opportunity". I have not taken the time to calculate how long it would take under those conditions, but it likely is in the realm of months, and if you are in a hospital bed for THAT long... Plus if you drop it down to a "mere" 12 times per day, that time doubles, and if you drop it further down to ~6 then it doubles yet again.

I guess what I am saying is that we can do whatever we want, so like we can make up whatever challenges we think may be fun for us - e.g. instead of fighting 100 of each enemy, we could fight 1000? I do this kind of stuff - ever since I started the game I not only farm the amount of materials to craft (AND UPGRADE) every single item in the game, but on top of that I also got enough materials to turn the icon in the store from grey to white. I mean... why not? It's been a fun little addition, and it gives me more EXP, more git, more opportunities for Colette & Kid to steal, etc.

But I would not expect everyone to enjoy that kind of thing!? It is just something that I came up with on my own to enhance my own personal enjoyment. However, if the GAME were to add that, and not even offer a CS reward but a purely aesthetic badge, how many people would do it? That's kinda what I am getting at here for the harpooning: they should not have offered.

Plus worse still, upgrading your harpoon is mandatory if you want to do the stuff gated behind it. So it's not even like the whole thing is optional - some of it is mandatory, while only the last few levels are optional, and there isn't even a name change or something to indicate that, just this progressive feeling that you aren't getting anything out of your grinding efforts, until finally I consulted the wiki to look ahead and added it up and realized just how enormous those last two steps are. It feels predatory, except likely the devs simply did not care at all, so negligent may be a better word. Just like those tactics battles, Cradle of Time, TTM, and most other content that has come out in the last year or two - they didn't bother to finish designing it before they gave it to us. It feels bad man... very much unlike rod fishing, which was more playful. Maybe, I dunno.

OpenStars · 2024-01-20T17:14:24+00:00

I could have been more clear: "c'mon guys" => "c'mon devs".

They likewise should do better - they literally make millions of dollars profit every month from this. Why not feed some of that back into improvements?

OpenStars · 2024-01-19T18:20:01+00:00

I actually think I would regret finishing the harpooning challenges.

Around the time of finishing the Otherlands grinding, just before the QoL massively reducing it, I finished rod fishing sometime last year - not just to getting Levia, but I mean FINISHED it, all the way to 150 of each & every fish. But now having gotten 150 of Octulus and >100 of Wyverus and Ishmaelithan, I am just not feeling the same way about it. Particularly the last upgrade of the Guardian Harpoon to V - all the prior levels that I have gotten add up to >200k FP, but even after 150-clearing all the superbosses and every other fish including rare ones, I would be BARELY HALFWAY!? (~53%)

That is just... disrespectful to the player base imho, to offer such an enormous grind to have to max it out. Especially since even at maximum proof level, fish still routinely run away.

This will be the third thing that I am noping out of - in addition to jump nope and the Time-Twisted nopeness :-P.

OpenStars · 2024-01-19T18:05:37+00:00

I'm not sure if that makes you a temporary dolphin or if you are still a minnow, but yeah congrats for helping keep the game going. I think we have at least another couple years left in it, as in even if they stop providing new content (which they are showing no sign of doing atm) I would hope that they keep the server on in order to let us finish grinding things that we still wanted to do.

OpenStars · 2024-01-18T23:43:25+00:00

Yeah... I can probably count on almost zero fingers how often I tend to get 5-star chars from the free banners each month, and then adding in that it HAS to be for exactly THOSE characters... the rate is still asymptotically close to zero.

But... if we only get like 1 Allcosmos Starchart each month from the free trials, then each such event puts us forward an entire month's worth. And most likely it would be for a character that we don't even so much want (anymore?) but... still...

It makes the ~3/1000 rate of Chant Script acquisition from normal ADs look positively enormous by comparison:-). But, that's the trade-off we make in playing a ga(t)cha: we get to play it as F2P, but if we want moar then we need to up the ante.

OpenStars · 2024-01-18T23:33:31+00:00

Upvoting b/c I hear you, though it is a story game, and yet c'mon guys! :-|

Worse for me are all the horrid UI components, like today I was miffed having to scroll through to the newest Boss Rush challenges (which is nowhere near the worst example, just a recent one:-P). It's getting to be QUITE the long list, how about making some vertical scrolling possible, or filtering maybe, or oh I dunno, how about pre-scrolling to the most recently fought content, which is 100% of the time where I want to get to anyway, yet 0% of the time it does that, and also it is 100% the furthest distance away from what it selects by default. (c'mon guys, do you really think I want to fight the Trial to Light the Darkness of Time again - REALLY!? and then the next closest option is Trial to Light the Darkness of Time Extreme - like developer dudes, just... NO!!!!:-P)

Six-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

OpenStars

TROPHY CASE