Board 8 > Etrian Odyssey 3 is a slow-paced grindfest with a boring, outdated battle system

(+) Yeah! (+)

Man, doesn't Japan have more Wizardry games than America? I don't even know how that happened.

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You have not heard the last of me...
And you never will...

I just spent like two hours doing nothing but wandering around a sea map. I didn't even get anything of note, I just wanted to fill in my damn map.

fill in maps are my weakness on the DS.

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xyzzy

fill in maps are my weakness on the DS

yesss

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i'm dumb as hell holy crap -ExThaNemesis

hahaha, awesome. unfortunately i can 100% understand that as i obsessively completed that goddamn map. hopefully though thi smeans you know the route to take, have your icons set up right, know which way the currents go, etc. explore da sea.

and in EO3 there's the usual dungeons and there's "here's a boat, go find stuff" outside of it, as what's mostly an entirely separate part of the game for you to explore. he's referring to that.


though if fill in maps are a weakness, good luck with the last two stratums. they aren't gonna be so fun to fill in. <___<;

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The future must protect the clone's past.
"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

yeah I could see that being a problem. right now all the game asks is my time. when it requires actual strategy and skill it might be a little bit backbreaking.

how long is the main quest anyway? I feel like this game could be like 200 hours. I don't know what route to take as I'm not really trying to find it right now. I'm more looking to complete my map and get some fish in the process. I can get between the currents but I run out of moves if I do that. there's probably a current that takes me there.

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xyzzy

okay, after another hour of sailing, I've now been to 3-4 towns and beaten the bird every way possible. I now have more money than I know what to do with and should probably get around to exploring the fourth floor and finding that boss.

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xyzzy

wow, I got a rare weapon for my Hoplite and the game just got significantly easier. now I'm doing 100 damage regularly and taking out floor 2 FOEs. I can get through a lot of floor 4 but I need to go back and recharge a lot.

I also explored just about all of the sailing map. I beat one of the second town quests thanks to a godlike NPC but the others were a bit too tough. currently level 10-12.

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xyzzy

though if fill in maps are a weakness, good luck with the last two stratums. they aren't gonna be so fun to fill in. <___<;

that's for sure. I wanted to make the most complete OCD-ish map but I completely gave up on the last 2 floors of the 5th stratum when I ran out of note icons to use >_<

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ya right you are case the sunglasses have 3d so i can see right threw their clothes -ertyu
(about wearing sunglasses to stare at boobs without girls noticing)

yep, hoplite and arbalist i think get some really high level weapons early on. Monk too but that takes a bit more time and knowledge. and knew sailing would solve dem money issues.

main quest is uh... hard to gauge for me as i can't see it without sailing involved. maybe 30 hours for the main game, another 15 with sailing, and possibly another 15 for extra map hustling stuff? even then i think i low balled it for a first runthrough. <__<;

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The future must protect the clone's past.
"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

augh, floor 4 boss kinda tore me apart. damn you earthquake. either way, I'd need tons of items to grind his life down.

now to figure out what to do because I don't feel like grinding at all

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xyzzy

Yeah the boss is pretty tough. For me, he was just durable. He wasn't slaughtering my party, but thanks to his high HP, he was having me run out of TP (and then items) in long battles... Does your Hoplite(tank) have line guard yet? That should be pretty helpful against earthquake. You'll beat him eventually... then further in the game you'll look back and probably kill him with a solo character (after you get far enough for him to re-spawn) and when you do, you'll have a few lulz over how much easier he was with a later-in-the-game solo character than he was originally with a full party...

Grinding really is the best thing to do at this point. If you can get your character to the point where you easily take out the sea boss bird with 1 or 2 people (not including the NPCs), you can get pretty good exp by just defending and letting the NPCs get killed, then finishing it off with 1 or 2 characters who will get boosted exp.

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ya right you are case the sunglasses have 3d so i can see right threw their clothes -ertyu
(about wearing sunglasses to stare at boobs without girls noticing)

how can you fight the sea bird again?

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add the c and back away
iphonesience

just go to the port and choose a lighthouse quest (you can actually fight each sea boss with 3 different NPC groups. The first time you kill it, you get a base reward, generally a Limit move, then you can re-kill with each of the 3 NPC groups to recieve a unique piece of equipment (quality/ usability will vary). You can continue to repeat each sea boss as many times as you want to for their normal and conditional drops (you only get each reward once though) just by going back to the port and selecting an NPC group.)

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ya right you are case the sunglasses have 3d so i can see right threw their clothes -ertyu
(about wearing sunglasses to stare at boobs without girls noticing)

should be a number of quests there. just re-do 'em. honestly, do every quest twice as sometimes there's a second reward too.

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The future must protect the clone's past.
"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

doing it. grinded out a level.

gonna go play with some FOEs just to get new drops and equips, too.

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add the c and back away
iphonesience

transcience posted...
doing it. grinded out a level.

gonna go play with some FOEs just to get new drops and equips, too.

also an excellent idea. I did lots of FOE grinding for drops... and since FOEs actually give experience in this game (iirc they didn't in 1 and 2), and not only is it exp but is f***ing good exp, FOEs basically have signs on them that say "kill me every chance you get. I make grinding fairly easy and not an extreme pain in the dick :)"

I still make decent exp/drops/cash from FOE+boss rampages through all strata and I'm pretty sure my party is either 90+ or just about (been a while since I played). Once your group is good enough to easily/consistently get conditional drops, the money is even better.

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ya right you are case the sunglasses have 3d so i can see right threw their clothes -ertyu
(about wearing sunglasses to stare at boobs without girls noticing)

they're too tough to kill to do it regularly. it'd be fine if I could auto-heal afterwards but i need to go restock after killing 2 max. I killed one on floor 3 and got a killer club for my gladiator, but I'd been training with swords. the weapons in this game are kinda crazy, I randomly get one that's 50 points stronger than everything else.

oh well. I'm at 13-16 now. another level or two and I'll be set.

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xyzzy

yeah, equipment can be a bit random. You can unlock a super-high def accessory (anyone can use) from the bird sea boss early on if you know how, but the damn thing is expensive enough to make you question what your eyes see in front of you... Is it worth it? There is only one answer, and that answer is maybe... It really depends on what you are will to do to pay for it and what you are willing to do to get that money... My advice is if you unlock something brilliant and you can buy it at a discount, it's better to pay full price if full price is less than 6 digits, because discounts exist in a limitted quantity and should be saved for the most expensive stuff...

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ya right you are case the sunglasses have 3d so i can see right threw their clothes -ertyu
(about wearing sunglasses to stare at boobs without girls noticing)

Do you actually have to make your own map of every floor, or is it only just forced for the first one to progress? Because I'm reading the first quest of this particular game is to draw a map.

Because my interest in this entire series is going to die as fast as my interest in SC2 did when Blizzard pulled the 3 game thing if you're forced to draw a map of every damned floor.

So clarification and whatnot, please

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Never underestimate the power of stupidity in numbers. ~War13104
Never stoop to the level of idiots. They will drag you down and beat you with experience.

I have no idea what this topic is about or what this game entails, but I'm always up for a slow-paced grindfest.

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http://img.imgcake.com/crimjpgpe.jpg Mo' buildings mo' problems
ocean kinda grew on me like a flesh eating ...fungus. -BIGPUN9999

You don't *have* to make a map of each floor, but good luck making progress if you don't.

If mapping out your progress doesn't sound EXCITING, this is not the game for you.

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i'm dumb as hell holy crap -ExThaNemesis

From: The Mana Sword | #073
You don't *have* to make a map of each floor, but good luck making progress if you don't.

If mapping out your progress doesn't sound EXCITING, this is not the game for you.

Fair enough. Though Gamefaqs does has maps.

Heavy exploration and whatnot is one thing. Actually having to draw three dozen maps while doing it sounds incredibly mind-numbing.

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Never underestimate the power of stupidity in numbers. ~War13104
Never stoop to the level of idiots. They will drag you down and beat you with experience.

Lol does has maps what the hell

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Never underestimate the power of stupidity in numbers. ~War13104
Never stoop to the level of idiots. They will drag you down and beat you with experience.

So Dark Spire's bad?

It looked pretty good. I was gonna try it at some point.

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Ace Detective in Sir Chris' Police
http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/5260/belikemommy.jpg

Well the mapping quests are more about stepping on each tile in an area than drawing the map, since you could just look online and copy the map. And you don't have to map the entire floor, just the part you start in.

Also, it auto maps in tiles as you visit them, you just have to draw room borders and place markers for doors, item points, traps, etc. if you want it to look better and be more useful.

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The only certain death in the universe is Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons.
Not changing this line until I beat Seven Heroes (2/24/07)

long update: currently on floor 5, pretty close to floor 6. I'm starting to get some good skills and the game feels a lot more fun as a result. I kinda overleveled and smashed the floor 4 boss.

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xyzzy

yeah, you need to have good skills to do well. Zodiac doesn't quite do it, h owever Ninja is walking 'wow these skills are pretty great." Gladiator too, but not nearly as much. there's a link to all the skills and classes you can do, but there's some spoilers in there. it lists everything per level. if you want, will link. it's quite useful to maximize your skill points and prevent resetting your character.

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The future must protect the clone's past.
"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.

I'm actively against FAQing this game. it just seems so counterintuitive to the whole adventuring experience.

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xyzzy

so how's it been in the day in between. realized you spent 4 hours sailing yet.

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The future must protect the clone's past.
"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.