Devil of Decline

[Serela]

Oh, yeah, that's a good idea.

[Cjd2524]

So I guess that means there is no Damage Net (ダメージネット) in this game right?, Satori wasn't able to learn this skill in GoS, one of the few improvements in NoR.

In DoD the encounters are semi-fixed from a limited pool, based on timing while entering the battle, however the "encounter outcome" is still fixed like in GoS, first battle will always play the same with same Learning, Drop, Join, etc. success or failure rate. e.g. if you manage to load a game and have the first encounter be a Yukkuri then it should be easier to make it join than just by running and killing a million of them until they join at random, note the battle outcome should be static as long as your party is (a single Lv up may modify the battle and its result).

There is a carryover outcome to any subsequent battle supposing you can match the timings, no idea at the moment if different timing but same enemy formation will modify how the battle unfolds.

Above is unconfirmed until it's tested properly. Best place would be one where Yukkuris spawn next to a load point (or any other monster with low % join rate).

[theshirn]

King Yukkuris are impossible, by the way. :T

Spoiler:

If they don't run, there's a high chance they'll use King Splash instead, which is likely to one-shot pretty much your entire party. That's before worrying about actually doing 10 dmg. I couldn't kill any until far into the expansion.

Nah, I've killed a few around level 40.  The problem is they never show upppppppp

[Cjd2524]

If someone provides me a DoD savegame with those conditions, points me to the monster, I'll look in to it.

NoR uses the RTC to choose the Encounter Pool, any encounter can be forced by freezing the OS clock, after that encounter finishes the next will be the same, and the next, and so on, game is vindicated now. This "fixes" NoR join rate (ALV is now the biggest offender), to have the Stray Yukkuri join you had to kill 1000 of them and the encounter rate is almost null (Bose thought this was a sane number), so many hours wasted.

Before anyone ask this doesn't work in DoD, and it makes DoD the one with the most grind of the trilogy.

[theshirn]

If someone provides me a DoD savegame with those conditions, points me to the monster, I'll look in to it.

NoR uses the RTC to choose the Encounter Pool, any encounter can be forced by freezing the OS clock, after that encounter finishes the next will be the same, and the next, and so on, game is vindicated now. This "fixes" NoR join rate (ALV is now the biggest offender), to have the Stray Yukkuri join you had to kill 1000 of them and the encounter rate is almost null (Bose thought this was a sane number), so many hours wasted.

Before anyone ask this doesn't work in DoD, and it makes DoD the one with the most grind of the trilogy.

What exactly do you need?  I've got a file in the final area and it's trivial to run up to the two spawns that can include King Yukkuris.

[Cjd2524]

A savegame with a place where a monster with low % join rate spawns in the proximity of a load point, said monster shouldn't have joined your party.

I have no idea how Load Points work in DoD, so if it is possible to load in any screen ignore the request, is just ideal that the monster is on the very same screen as you start, so there is no extra loading, GoS would warp you out of dungeons if you loaded a savegame after quitting the game from a room with no savepoint.

[theshirn]

A savegame with a place where a monster with low % join rate spawns in the proximity of a load point, said monster shouldn't have joined your party.

I have no idea how Load Points work in DoD, so if it is possible to load in any screen ignore the request, is just ideal that the monster is on the very same screen as you start, so there is no extra loading, GoS would warp you out of dungeons if you loaded a savegame after quitting the game from a room with no savepoint.

The closest I think I can get is two rooms away, sadly.  DoD's loadpoints tend to be at the beginning of areas.

[Cjd2524]

Is that a Yukkuri ?, the faster the enemy can be defeated the easier it's to test, if enemies can be evaded then it should be more or less the same (maybe the encounter timing gets reset after every screen transition).

Playing is the fastest way to find and determine a proper testing enviroment. How fast, starting from which "Stage" do Yukkuri spawns ?, I mean the number of Bosses counting from the beginning that I would have to defeat first if I want to encounter a Yukkuri ? (in GoS

Spoiler:

Stage 7

, in NoR

Spoiler:

the Volcano

before even the first real boss).

[Ghaleon]

There is damage net. Captain murasa learns it at like level30ish

[theshirn]

Is that a Yukkuri ?, the faster the enemy can be defeated the easier it's to test, if enemies can be evaded then it should be more or less the same (maybe the encounter timing gets reset after every screen transition).

Playing is the fastest way to find and determine a proper testing enviroment. How fast, starting from which "Stage" do Yukkuri spawns ?, I mean the number of Bosses counting from the beginning that I would have to defeat first if I want to encounter a Yukkuri ? (in GoS

Spoiler:

Stage 7

, in NoR

Spoiler:

the Volcano

before even the first real boss).

The earliest Yukkuris I can think of are in the hookshot areas, which you don't get until the second stratum, so probably at least 4 or 5 hours of playtime?  I dunno  :ohdear:

[Ghaleon]

Actually I think I bumped into a yukkuri in the first tower of the end too, which is kinda reasonable to do before the first hookshot area if enemy levels/difficulty are anything to go by (though certainly not the boss). of course, hookshot areas had them with far greater frequency.

[theshirn]

Actually beat the maingame earlier!  First time doing so.  Party levels were 42-45 or so.  Gonna tackle the expansion stuff!

[Hinacle]

i was so close(Major expansion spoilers!)

E: was her nuke stronger the more neutral land is or the less neutral is it?

[Serela]

E: was her nuke stronger the more neutral land is or the less neutral is it?

Spoiler:

It's stronger when land is active. Having dead people might be bad considering the people targetted later took double damage when you had those dead members... but I never looked into it's damage formula too hard.

In other news, I've tried a few times to locate the flag or whatever it is that lets you recruit monsters, so I could try a monster-shikigami-only run by hacking the flag to trigger at game start. I haven't had much luck in cheat engine. :T I thought I found two addresses that controlled it, but either I did something wrong or they weren't it, because triggering them to 1 on a save where they should be 0 (due to not having done that event) didn't let me recruit anything.

[Cjd2524]

I may start playing this game later after I'm done with some testing in NoR, I have some questions.

- How enemy respawning works in this game ?, I notice no respawning in the beginning even after using those restoring signs.

- What monsters can be recruited ? (All of them ?, or is this indicated in the Monster Book after a certain amount of Defeats ?)

- Do they have a fixed Recruit Rate ? (same for every monster but is exponentially harder the more rare an encounter is ?)

- Can Monsters be recruited from the beginning of the game, or is this a story element, e.g. only after a certain point in game.

I had the impression I saw Recruit Rate on the Livedoor Blog but I am unable to find it, there are too many pages for DoD alone.

[notverycreative]

I just started playing this. Picked Byakuren 'cause she's in my top 5 Touhous. Anyway, about respawning enemies, en.touhouwiki.net's section for the game says enemies in the first area don't respawn. Doesn't say anything about later.

[Validon98]

I may start playing this game later after I'm done with some testing in NoR, I have some questions.

- How enemy respawning works in this game ?, I notice no respawning in the beginning even after using those restoring signs.

- What monsters can be recruited ? (All of them ?, or is this indicated in the Monster Book after a certain amount of Defeats ?)

- Do they have a fixed Recruit Rate ? (same for every monster but is exponentially harder the more rare an encounter is ?)

- Can Monsters be recruited from the beginning of the game, or is this a story element, e.g. only after a certain point in game.

I had the impression I saw Recruit Rate on the Livedoor Blog but I am unable to find it, there are too many pages for DoD alone.

To answer the questions in order:

Enemies respawn when you use a magic circle
Monsters that can be recruited have stars in the bestiary after killing them a certain number of times
The recruitment rate is indeed fixed for each monster
Monsters can be recruited once you obtain Satori (she doesn't need to be equipped in your party), which is after you beat a Clock Tower for the first time then leave the tower after.

[Cjd2524]

Thanks, I think a Monster needs to defeated 15 times to be able to see the number of stars it has in the Bestiary.

Is Satori in one of the individual Scenarios or after ?

According to the wiki the Metal Yukkuri spawns in a Hookshoot area in Chaos Plains 1, this is right after the individual scenarios are completed, 1st Stratum I believe, however I am not sure how far from that point the Hookshoot becomes available (know where not when).

I could test with any monster, the Yukkuris are just critical tests, I got both the Stray and King in about an hour each or so in NoR whereas an user reported 50 hours just for the Stray, I can believe that number being generous.

[Serela]

The stray yukkuri in DoD has similarly little encounter rate and 1/1000 recruit rate in GoS. The hookshot areas have decent chances to encounter a yukkuri and some have a healing circle so it's only one screen transition away from enemies. I never was able to recruit the base yukkuri, so would you like my save to test? They would be trivial to kill with my lv90+ party. ...holy crap, I was going there so my save would already be at the right spot, and I ran into a Stray Yukkuri; I didn't know they could even appear there, I'd done a good chunk of grinding for Star Platinum in this area. Anyway, the goal would be a normal yukkuri, but that's a bonus :V ...and there's another normal one, and another stray, goddamn.

Okay nevermind, it just doesn't seem to want to save there. That kind of ruins the ability to test. :T Better plan, test with the King Yukkuri spawn in the final basegame area. Go down one screen and try either of the two enemies to the left. To ensure the kill;
1.Yuyuko casts Quicktime with Sakuya. If this isn't going first, have Sanae cast Rapid Stream. She has this move on two shikigami in case you want it turn 2 as well.
2.Sunny casts Banzai Attack with Rinnosuke. This is a chasing skill, so if you need rapid stream+quicktime turn 1, use it turn 2 instead for more activations. This skill should make it extra easy to get the kill.
3.Everyone has their three most relevant physical attacks equipped. Don't worry about investigating their shikigami skills imo. Kogasa's attack power is twice as high as the rest of the cast here, by the way.
4.If a turn 2 King Splash is actually worrisome and killing people, you can have Yuyuko cast Dark Illusion with Koakuma turn 1.

...okay nevermind. Somehow tell me how to make your save file ACTUALLY SAVE ON THE SCREEN. I know for a fact you can save on the healing circle/final boss screen at the end of the maingame final dungeon. I know this, I have a friend's save I can load that's on that screen. I've never been able to make my saves actually load on healing circle screens even though my friends do it. FFS.

...anyway.

The hookshot takes some hours to get. Getting Satori takes another couple hours, as you have to beat one of the Tower bosses for her event to appear. (She's recruited as you leave the tower.)

The recruit rate for monsters is fixed per -type- of monster, to be specific; there's 1/1 chance, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/64 (ugh), and 1/256 for yukkuris. 1/1000 is only for stray yukkuri, because jerk developers. There is no increase in chance to recruit enemies as you defeat more of them, just new rng rolls. So, yukkuris are nearly impossible to recruit without just getting incredibly lucky.

[notverycreative]

Alright, got through the tutorial area, I guess, so now I need to make my way through the rest of the game. Is there any kind of obvious sign that you'll be going into the towers? I heard you can't leave until you finish, so I'd like to make sure I've picked up all the treasure chests in the surrounding area before going in.

There is no increase in chance to recruit enemies as you defeat more of them

Dragon Quest 5 did that and it made recruiting stuff that wasn't a metal enemy SO much easier. Even so, you had to kill a LOT of enemies to increase the recruit rate in most cases.

[Validon98]

Alright, got through the tutorial area, I guess, so now I need to make my way through the rest of the game. Is there any kind of obvious sign that you'll be going into the towers? I heard you can't leave until you finish, so I'd like to make sure I've picked up all the treasure chests in the surrounding area before going in.

That's wrong, you can't leave via the world map when you go into a tower, but you can backtrack out through the entrance. The towers are set up like GoS dungeons in the sense they have a main section, often some shortcuts, and a way back from the end to the beginning. And it is VERY obvious when you are about to enter a tower, there's a boss in front of the entrance to a tower (only one tower is accessible on each stratum, barring the fourth stratum), and there's a whole screen devoted to the entrance of each tower, so it's extremely obvious.

[notverycreative]

Oh, okay. Cool. Hm. Game looks semi-nonlinear. I guess the goal before you handle each tower is to recruit all the optional people and open every treasure chest that you can currently reach. But there's no set order aside from enemy power levels. However, this being an RPG, I imagine you can powerlevel off of stronger enemies with the right setup.

I've already gone through as much of Chaos Plains as I can. You know how you can leave the Hakurei Shrine from the north and it takes you to a place you can't get to since there's a boulder blocking the way? How do you get to the other side of the boulder? Or should I not worry about that?

[Serela]

You can go both up and down from the Hakurei Shrine at the start. If you push boulders around, you can make new spots where you can jump off the boulders to get around. (The downwards path is easier and also gives you good gear from chests, though.)

[Validon98]

The path north of the shrine doesn't open up until you get the hookshot, because you need to use the hookshot in Chaos Plains 2 and then go behind the shrine that way, which will let you push the boulder and get a direct path back to the shrine.

[Serela]

Oh oops, I was thinking of how you can go south and north at the first map after leaving the shrine. It's also related to boulders.

[Cjd2524]

The recruit rate for monsters is fixed per -type- of monster, to be specific; there's 1/1 chance, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/64 (ugh), and 1/256 for yukkuris. 1/1000 is only for stray yukkuri, because jerk developers. There is no increase in chance to recruit enemies as you defeat more of them, just new rng rolls. So, yukkuris are nearly impossible to recruit without just getting incredibly lucky.

Yes 1/1000 is the same chance of recruitment in NoR for the Stray, it was only an hour with fixed encounters and I wasn't even trying to catch them. I see this game doesn't have Bows, welp.

Monsters are not respawning in my game ATM, this is like GoS all over again, game refuses to let me grind, until I figure the cause.

[Serela]

Monsters will all respawn if you use any healing circle. They will not respawn in the tutorial, however. It's not worth fighting that early in the game anyway, though.

[Cjd2524]

Done with NoR for good now, can now begin properly with DoD.

The Tuturial is all of the individual scenarios ?

I usually clear every enemy in all the areas I pass by just to see the spawning pool, I think the DoD wiki is more or less complete I believe, it has detailed per area monster spawning, but not per screen section, unless I'm wrong, this is usually crucial to find rare spawns.

[Validon98]

The tutorial is from the beginning up to where you get dropped off at the Hakurei Shrine after Gensokyo gets ripped apart and turned into the Chaos World.

[notverycreative]

While I appreciate that enemies respawn faster than they did in GoS, the fact that it happens every time you hit a healing spot means it's much harder to chip through an area. Especially at the beginning, because like in every other RPG, you have jackshit for offensive options starting out.