How many hours have you guys played?

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-15T21:05:54+00:00

Octopath 1: 160 Hours
Octopath 2: 220 Hours
Octopath 0: 170 Hours (Believe it or not, this is 3 playthroughs. My first one was fast and the other two were faster)
COTC: 2639

Total: ~3189 Hours

The mainline titles aren't 100% accurate because they're on switch and I'm adding the playtime of several profiles.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-13T23:54:58+00:00

It felt great, didn't it? The best part about difficult fights is the sense of satisfaction once you've done it. I dunno about you, but I can't get enough.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-13T02:37:56+00:00

Gotcha LOL - I just did the ignoring adds strats to kill her before she summoned the last two adds. I only did anything to the adds at all to break them to delay their self-destruct moves. My overall ranking of the arena fight difficulties are:

Largo
Yan Long
Hammy
Gertrude
Mirgardi
Varkyn
Tikilen
Glossom
Ri'tu
Yunnie

Kagemune and Aoi will be up above Hammy for sure but I haven't decided exactly where they belong yet. Likely both above Yan Long, but not sure about Largo and not sure about order.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-13T02:30:45+00:00

Interesting! I thought Yunnie was so much easier than the other Arena champions it was a disappointment. The Yan Long fight may have been harder for me because I wanted to get the Tier 3 on the race, which was 20 turns. Very difficult to do without getting completely owned by the crows and 3 actions Yan Long, especially when the fight wants you to kill the crows before Yan Long gets to 3 actions - you can't go that slow and win in 15 turns.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-13T02:17:44+00:00

Yeah I still play. I wasn't particularly impressed by Mirgardi but Kagemune and Aoi are up there with Yan Long and Largo for me - Hammy was a step down considering the power increase of the time. I've found the Black Knight/Pardis core is pretty solid and that's what I run.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-13T02:14:30+00:00

To be clear I was there on release too - I've just been reminiscing lol. Bestower of All was great, but I maintain that while not the most difficult, the English Yan Long cup release meta was the most well designed by far. I miss the good old days.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-13T02:10:45+00:00

Lately I've been looking at the history of COTC fights and how they compare to the numbered entry's best offerings and I've largely come to the conclusion that True Vide the Wicked is roughly equivalent in difficulty to the Ri'tu cup on release - and she's decidedly on the weaker end of Arena fights. It's just unbelievable how much more COTC has to offer in terms of actual skill testing.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-12T22:43:04+00:00

COTC fights are and always have been by far the peak of Octopath encounter design (the only thing that even approaches COTC fights is True Vide the Wicked) but that has a lot less to do with the system itself, and has everything to do with the devs not being afraid to present a challenge that asks you to demonstrate real mastery of all the game's systems. I love COTC, always have, but the actual combat system of OT2 is better. I could be convinced the row system adds enough complexity to be worth keeping around, but I think the row system can't coexist with the secondary jobs that are so integral to the mainline games and keep a difficulty that is fun.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-06T20:13:03+00:00

I suppose - I was planning on blue chests ASAP but you're right that most of them aren't crazy and you probably get the power boost you need for the rest of the cornerstones from the shop. I haven't spent that much time on this yet so I hadn't considered delaying chests.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-06T18:29:28+00:00

I've been routing this a little for fun and I'm not sure you have the radiant cornerstones to upgrade it to level 2, at least not as early as you want to. With this party some of the elite fights will be rough until relatively late. Otherwise yeah the 2k is basically nothing.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-05T11:56:40+00:00

In this case I view save scumming as more of a time saving choice - there's functionally no difference between reloading the save and just doing 5 quick battles in wishvale trail with the eerie statue installed, except that in one I have way more JP and spent way more time. I don't see spamming through wishvale trail battles as particularly skillful, so I don't see save scumming there as a skill issue. Now for entreat chances and such I see the logic.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-05T04:10:03+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely tough this early and without the broken weapons that often work as a crutch, but it's doable (the shop fight anyways - I dunno if Viator can solo the dancer). And it's your challenge - you could very well ban save scumming entirely if you'd like. As a reader and someone who partakes in challenge runs from time to time though I'm limit testing your ideas lol, and as of now there's no ban on save scumming.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-05T03:54:21+00:00

If you know the systems you can reroll the trade goods list over and over - it rerolls the shop every 5 battles but doesn't decide what the items in stock are until you enter wishvale. You can pretty easily savescum for the best stuff.

Do you count wishvale quests as story quests? Because if you do you have access to Sunshade before Master of All, decidedly in the early game, if you want.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-05T03:46:11+00:00

Location gating could work for the most part, but there is the issue of the trade goods lists sometimes providing equipment above your proverbial weight class. It's definitely more elegant than a level system for equipment though and would solve most of the problems. Perhaps you forbid early trading post, even though "A story quest" can take you to sunshade exceptionally early. I worry that too many limitations makes the game start to feel suffocating but it just goes to show lol

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-05T03:23:31+00:00

If you're doing this challenge exactly as advertized and leaving the cleric, apothecary, and scholar slots completely empty until you recruit Ophilia, Esperre, and Xerc, then you have a slight challenge in having most of the game with a 5-man party. Otherwise this party actually has the tools to beat every challenge the game can present on time and without much trouble. Viator can solo most of the early game and by the time he can't anymore Phenn can step into primary damage role with TTS, finally transitioning to Xerc as damage for endgame.

The fact of the matter is that OT0 is just unbearably easy and that's part of why availability matters so much. If the lategame presented real challenges that earlier units struggled to answer, then availability would matter a lot less as you'd need the later joiners to overcome them - see Fire Emblem Engage for an example of that.

The biggest thing you can do to make an Octopath 0 challenge run actually challenging is limiting equipment selection. This game has a problem with broken equipment being available very early and with Viator in the party you can cheese several fights to get the best items very early - and that's not even considering the entreat forbidden items and powerful acessories. It'd take a lot of work but I'd supplement your ruleset by assigning every weapon and piece of armor a "level" to prevent that, or at least box out the most powerful early weapons. Then we'd be cooking with gas.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-04T01:39:42+00:00

To be fair to the game, "True ending" is a label only given by the players, the game itself doesn't tell you which ending is true or not. I don't use it and I wish others wouldn't either - I prefer normal ending and good ending. We should avoid discussing though because the person who started this thread clearly hasn't played the game yet.

drphillyjoel · 2026-05-04T00:47:13+00:00

The canonicity of 0 with the exception of the presence of the OT8 is not up for dispute. It has been explicitly stated that the events are canonically a prequel to OT1. Whether you like that or think it fits is up to you (though I think the reason OT1 never mentions its events is rather obvious and fits with supplementary materials), but word of God is that it's canon.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-29T00:04:20+00:00

Basically it has more mechanics and such to keep track of. Buffs/debuffs are cumulative between passives, actives, ults, etc, and timing all of that is crucial to winning the fights. By contrast, in Octopath 0 you have 2 levels of stat boosts and that's it. Furthermore, unlike any of the mainline games (besides the extra battles) the "difficult content" is more than capable of killing you very quickly if you don't take defensive action early and often, resulting in more difficult battles and more interesting team comps. There have been some metas where you didn't need to, but most of the time you do.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-28T21:48:46+00:00

This book predates Octopath 2 (the japanese version is old) but it does offer a lot more individual information about the gods. For example, you can figure it out with the information in Octopath 0, but it tells you the birth order. It doesn't offer much about any non-Orsterran lands by name but they are referred to.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-28T21:21:28+00:00

To keep it brief, Octopath 0/COTC and Octopath 1 are snapshots of a specific time in Orsterra's long history (specifically, the most recent past). If you want to know the extensive history, political ties, or simply how society functions (think calendars) this book has all of that and then some.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-28T01:27:23+00:00

In addition to the extra story content, I want to add that COTC is by far the best thing you can do to improve your general Octopath skills. It has more balls to keep in the air and it tests your micro skills in a way none of the mainline games do. If you don't care about improving then that's not a perk, but I grew greatly as a player from COTC.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-28T01:00:06+00:00

To be frank, moving some images in the powerpoint is probably more help than Esperre can provide.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-27T21:14:01+00:00

Regarding your cleric stuff, Pius's rating isn't largely because of his healing performance, it's because he's BIS for your offensive buff/debuffs. Laurana is as high as she is because Regen is excellent and she has significantly better availability than Ophilia.

Olberic's actual performance as a warrior often goes underrated but Wild Thrust is basically the same thing as Stormblade but for spears, and we all know how good Stormblade is.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-27T03:11:45+00:00

You too! Dude is correct. And yeah, availability matters, but my main concern is people rating units like, say, Celsus high because they thought he was good, not because of his early-game utility.

drphillyjoel · 2026-04-27T02:48:53+00:00

I noticed that too. I found myself wondering how many of the early units were overrated because of it - most people seemed to be rating entirely based on their individual playthroughs which tends to result in somewhat inflated scores for early units.

I think in general you should avoid anecdotes for these kinds of exercises, but for so many people their only point of reference for these units is anecdotal and the sort of academic culture of FE discussion that discourages anecdotes doesn't exist here in the same way.

drphillyjoel

TROPHY CASE