Octopus Overlords

Jaymann wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:15 pm

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:08 pm

$iljanus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:01 pm I have a shitload of Switch RPG games that I enjoy but really need to finish. But even though I didn't buy Octopath Traveler I, I seem to be tempted by Octo II. Sigh...

They are not directly related story-wise, so you can start with either. However, you can start with #1 today.

Actually you can start with #2 demo today and be up to speed by release.

If you only want to play 3 hours in the next week. I'd start with 1, but either way works!

Actually you get 3 hours for each character x 8 = 24.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:24 pm Actually you get 3 hours for each character x 8 = 24.

I misunderstood the demo limitations. Now I have to resist the urge to skip the final secret job in OP1 and hit the OP2 demo instead...

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:23 pm

Jaymann wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:15 pm

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:08 pm

$iljanus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:01 pm I have a shitload of Switch RPG games that I enjoy but really need to finish. But even though I didn't buy Octopath Traveler I, I seem to be tempted by Octo II. Sigh...

They are not directly related story-wise, so you can start with either. However, you can start with #1 today.

Actually you can start with #2 demo today and be up to speed by release.

If you only want to play 3 hours in the next week. I'd start with 1, but either way works!

I should just finish Triangle Strategy…

(but I find it hard resisting the latest shiny bauble sometimes)

Fun bug I encountered last night: Toddler Party Mode!

I got that when I had too many followers. It went away when I left that village.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 12:16 pm I got that when I had too many followers. It went away when I left that village.

This kept up for over an hour before I finally closed and reopened the game.

Looks like OT II will release today at 9 AM PT/Noon ET.

Hell yeah!

Had a seamless transition from my demo save to the full OT II game. My party is up to level 18 and I'm ready to walk the earth.

Now up to level 28 and this game does not disappoint. Three of my characters have secondary jobs so I rarely meet any foes where I can't attack a weakness. Seems like there is more variety and reward for exploring. Also the support skills are dynamite.

Glad to hear it

I'm 6 hrs into my playthrough of Octopath Traveler I. So far, I'm not feeling it. I'm finishing my fourth Chapter 1 story to fill out my party (Therion, Ophilia, H'annit and now Alfyn). I think I'm closer to shelving it than not. But we'll see.

Baroquen wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 8:33 pm I'm 6 hrs into my playthrough of Octopath Traveler I. So far, I'm not feeling it. I'm finishing my fourth Chapter 1 story to fill out my party (Therion, Ophilia, H'annit and now Alfyn). I think I'm closer to shelving it than not. But we'll see.

It's definitely a very particular feel, and not everyone is going to click with it. FWIW, I really got hooked once I had all the characters and had opened up a couple of secondary jobs, as the battle system really comes alive when you have more flexibility.

Man, Allure (Dancer skill) is effing sweet. At night you can check NPC possessions and if you are high enough level they will gladly give them up to you. No chance of failure.

Actually it's Allure in the day time for gaining followers and Entreat at night for larceny.

LOL! I bought a boat and chose an octopus for the design on my sail. That should be required for all OO members.

I am over level 60 now. I beat my first level 40 boss and got a forbidden weapon. My general rule is I need to be at least 20 levels higher than a boss to have a chance.

As far as my recommended classes:
This gives me a wide array of weapons and spells so I like it.

Got the best bow* in the game (OT 2). First you have to finish Ochette's story, which is sad since you can't use it to complete her story. Oh well, 7 more to go.

*

Nice!

I had just about shelved this for good, but the enthusiasm of the two of you in this thread made me boot it up this morning.

Stumbled across a cait, and not knowing about it, was surprised when it popped with the 1k XP, 3k gold and 150 JP. That was accidentally fun. Then when I googled it to confirm it as OT's "metal slime", I ended up at a "Cheats and Secrets" page for the game. Turns out, I've already encountered nearly everything on the page. I'd already captured a mossy meep and salamander, and while I haven't stolen the golden axe, I did find it in the town. (Not sure I'll have the patience to reload until the 3% success rate hits).

The only thing I haven't dealt with yet are secondary jobs - which is probably fine because my characters only level in the teens so far. I'm assuming they aren't ready for 2nd jobs when they've barely broken in their first.

Anyway - the session was interesting enough to try and unlock another character. Olberic's first chapter is almost done.

I love Olberic.

If you're ok using a guide, I'd recommend looking up the regular 2ndary job shrine locations. Even grabbing one or two will give you a bunch more flexibility in battles and up their interestingness.

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:07 pm I love Olberic.

If you're ok using a guide, I'd recommend looking up the regular 2ndary job shrine locations. Even grabbing one or two will give you a bunch more flexibility in battles and up their interestingness.

I love guides. About when should I look into that? What levels?

Any time. The secondary shrines don't have bosses until you get to the 'secret' ones, so it's just about physically getting to them to nab them.

I finished the stories for my 4 main characters, though there are still a couple optional bosses I can't quite handle yet. So now I have level 73 Hikari leading a group of 3 twenty somethings. We are currently in a level 40 area where the battles only last 1 or 2 Hikari hits and everybody else levels up. Good times.

I have finished all 8 stories in OT II and beat those two optional bosses who had perplexed me. Now I am at what I consider to be the final boss that I saw people complaining about in the forums. But there's a trick to get there:

I made it to the real final dungeon of OT II, available only after: But the first boss I encountered threw me for a loop:

I am definitely at the endgame. There was that one boss that the forums were complaining about, now I have captured 2 of them and can summon them for my team. But that is nowhere near enough for the final boss, who I got to one time. I watched a video, and the method was so complicated I could barely follow it. I would probably have to level everyone to 99 and would still struggle. Not sure if I want to put in another 300-500 hours just to find out.

How many hours do you estimate you've played to get to the endgame?

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 2:40 pm How many hours do you estimate you've played to get to the endgame?

I have played 156 hours, so about 150, maybe 130 if you are not a completionist.

The problem for me now is the highest dungeon is level 55, so painfully slow leveling.

Damn, son! I am right around 90 on the first game and thought I was doing pretty well, having completed around half the side quests and 3 of 4 secret jobs.

In OT II you have to level all 8 characters to go after the final boss.

Well, OT1 has gone from an irritation to tolerable. I'm starting to enjoy it some.

I've now got all characters' Chapter 1 done, and also finished Therion's chapter 2. (That boss fight took a long time).

I visited the Scholar shrine, so now I can use Ophilia's accessory-enhanced pool of SP for healing and offense.

I spent many, many reloaded attempts to steal one of those 3% treasures off an elderly townswoman. (It was sorcerer's robe, doubling my caster's defense plus upping his elemental attack). The whole experience reminded of trying to fish up that sewer fish in WoW many years ago. Many MANY attempts...

And I created for myself, a side quest checklist with a little cut and pasting from the wiki. I wasn't able to find such a thing searching the web, and it only took about 5 or 10 mins to set up. And now I know what I've done and haven't. Plus, the hyperlinks copied from the wiki page too, so I've got instant access to the details of all of the quests.

Now I just need to decide what I want to do next - find another shrine or two, tackle another Chapter 2, replenish H'aanit's beast list (used up after Therion's Ch2 boss fight) or hit some side quests.

I finally beat the final boss in OT II with the following strategy: Other than the Epilogue there was nothing else to do except get the last battle tested weapon which has only a 2% chance of dropping, which I did.

OP1 didn't really wow me enough to finish, but I definitely enjoyed it for a bit.

I'm kinda between games until the summer deluge hits, so I'm gonna give OT2 a try.

I’ve played OT2 for about 8 hours now, recruiting 5 of the 8 characters and doing their intro stories. My general consensus is that it’s…fine.

It looks beautiful and the soundtrack is fantastic. However, the writing and stories waver between uninteresting and just flat-out bad, and it’s grindy as hell. The combat is ok, but doesn’t feel interesting enough to keep up with the grinding. And the boss battle difficulty spikes can be absolutely brutal.

I’ll probably keep messing with it, but less because I find it interesting and more because there just isn’t anything else right now that really grabs me.

Update: I've finished five of the main characters' stories. I got stuck on H'aanit's final where the boss wiped me out 4 or 5 times. I'd get him down into the red, but the triple attacks ending up overwhelming me time and again. Right when I was about to give up and go grind some levels, I beat him. Frustrating, but I'm glad that's done.

Tonight, I finished Olberic's Chapter 4 on the first try. Only Tressa, Alfyn and Primrose to go.

Then, I know there some extra "stuff" but I don't know the details. I do know that I wasn't bothering with getting all the chests (and the achievement). And I have been enjoying but won't be completing all of the side quests (and the achievement). I read about the secret/bonus shrines but they didn't interest me, so I'm probably skipping them too. So it looks like the end is in sight. Which is good. I'm ready to move on.

OMG, rant incoming...

So I'm barely tolerating this game as is. I'm traveling to discover Everhold and finish Primrose's quest when I stumble across the Shrine of the Runelord. Feeling relatively good about my party, I decide to give it a try and maybe unlock the advanced job. Now granted- I read about the abilities of the advance jobs, and I didn't care that much about them to seek them out. But hey. I was there. I was rolling. Why not.

Well first of all, it's boring enough when these bosses just have tons of HPs dragging the fights out way too long. But this guy has close to 200k? Lovely. But whatever, I'm breaking shield, chipping away, and it's fine. Tedious but fine. I finally get him down to the yellow (?) bar so I know I'm finally making progress. I check a guide to see his "late-game" abilities, and it sounds like it'll be tough, but I'm hopeful.

His Runestorm / Runelord's Resolve abilities trigger, and he puts my entire party to sleep for multiple turns, not to mention the damage. Then, he continues to wail on them one at a time incessantly, as the turns tick by without my able to do ANYthing to get back in the game. Significant damage and re-applied debuffs. Utter garbage.

Yes, it's strategy. And yes, I could have thrown some accessories on, or optimized my party to take him down. I don't think he's unbeatable/impossible. But three turns where I can't move & watch as my entire party goes from full health to Game Over - yeah, that's irritating.

Can. Not. Be. Done. With this game soon enough.

You really can't take on the special bosses without prepping for them specifically once you know what's coming. I had a similar difficulty with H'aanit's boss. They're intentionally not going to let you steamroll them like they're regular riff-raff.

The special jobs are fun and worth getting, though!

Oh I get ya. I was mainly just letting off steam, in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter. I feel like the chapter bosses have been a fun challenge, though H'aanit's boss took a number of attempts. I think I took 3 of the first 4 in the first attempt. Had to do one of the first 4 two or three times. H'aanit's was a little frustrating.

And if there is a "final boss" type encounter after all of the chapter 4s are done, I can understand if they ramp up the difficulty for that. Grand finale and all.

But nah, Balogar? If the special jobs bosses are all like that? I'll skip those if I can finish without them.

You have far more patience that I do if you’re sticking with it.