Vorthod Wiler

Sorry, it's been a while since I played so I can't offer exact experiences for this mission, but I'll try to help you find the problem. Are you sure there's not an alternate path or another mark or something? I'm pretty sure traps are static, as are the "interesting marks," so I doubt they would code in a mark that's inaccessible without special items. (A screenshot of the map or game screen would be helpful if possible) I'm not sure he's in this game. I've got 100% on CG and scenes and have never seen him. That being said, Rogius sounds like a male name which *might* mean he has an obscure event that wouldn't be included in scene replay, but I think the chances of that are pretty tiny.

Yep, that's pretty much my interpretation of that trap too, and considering the layout of that minimap is an absolute wreck, I'm convinced that trap was activated in this picture. Though sometimes those traps can help you find those "fake wall" doors, times like this are basically what the trap is for, making you think you see your target but faking you out.

You don't need to buy items for party members, that's for sure (it's probably a renown thing) but I know for a fact that you can unlock things in her shop by purchasing more items. I went for nearly an entire playthrough with no shop expansions until I went to the shop, purchased a few hundred pairs of underwear, slept, and came back to a shop upgrade. I then alternated sleeping and visiting and got about 4-5 upgrades in a row I think. Command will go up with higher ranks (like floor boss and such), but I'm not sure of the maximum. as for CGs, you really need to check your numbers because a lot of CGs you mentioned are unlocked in the same scenes as consecutive CGs that you did not need. anyway, for some of the prison scenes, one or two images might be unlocked by viewing that girl's scene in the "extra" events menu, but I'm not positive

Don't worry, the exact same thing threw me for a loop as well my first time through. I didn't get stuck for long, but that might have been me getting lucky and spotting it on the other side of the wall as I passed a gap.

There are four markings, each in one corner of the dungeon. Three of them are in similar locations in those four corners and therefore they can be pretty easy to find. However, while three of them are all in pretty much the same nook (just in different parts of the symmetrical dungeon), the last one is closer to the outer edge of the map than the other three are. Pay attention to the three places you've found markings, and scour the last corner of the dungeon. It should be around there somewhere. Here's me trying to explain the same thing, but with a map; If you're looking at the map of this floor (found in the first post of this thread: http://chaosmemo.net/bunnyblack/bunnyblack_4kakon.html)I think this is floor 9, so while I can't remember exactly where this stuff is, think of it like this: If the first three marks were found in places like D4, D13, and M13 (inside all of those little corners), the fourth one might actually be in N4 instead of M4 where you would kind of expect it to be. So just spread out your search a little.

Liz events happen significantly later than Maki ones, if memory serves, so you may not need a Tifur to get the Liz scenes.

I see, well I guess I just had bad luck with the books. As for the monsters, i'm sure it would be the same thing about how you need to have them in your list, but not necessarily your party. The test should probably be something like only hiring units without scenes and getting as far as you can with that. For both options, let me just say you're going through certain parts of the game too quickly. 263-268 and 273-274: 116-130:

Hmm, I think I (or anyone else really) need to test whether the liz, maki, etc. scenes require that kind of demon in your party. I certainly did have those demons for most of them, but I am fairly certain I got the slimia scene before I had a slime in my party. If I get some time, I'll see which scenes require the party members and which ones don't

- You actually can get the XXX books from the magic chests from enemy drops. I've gotten black and blue books, but not red ones yet. - I suspect selling and/or hiring new units also contribute to unlocking stuff at Rakia's. Almost everytime I unlock something, it's after one of these two actions. - How do I know if I've unlocked everything with Rakia? The latest unlock for me was Vampiric Dagger You do realize this forum has a "spoiler" tag right? Instead of putting "SPOILERS" and "END SPOILERS" in those brackets, put "spoiler" and "/spoiler" I have found absolutely no books coming from enemy drops. Are you 100% certain that's where you got those? I sell a ton of stuff to Rakia and never got an inventory increase after it, but it's possible that the hiring thing could work, since in my second playthrough I didn't really hire many new units. The Vampiric Dagger seems to be at the last stage of the shop inventory expansions. I continued trying to expand the list after that and even after literally hundreds of purchases, all I got was a short scene with Rakia thanking me for shopping so much.

There is no benefit for swapping out your party members for the later versions. All those later versions are are palette swaps that start at a higher level than the original. If your original is already at or above the starting level of the other versions, then you shouldn't switch them out unless you really like the new color. On the other hand, if you suddenly think to yourself that a Loams would be a great addition to your specific party when you don't have one, then you might consider hiring a Rubbles instead in order to save time levelling it up.

Preach it, Brother. But yeah, luckily that becomes slightly less of a problem in late game because you get more uses of those healing abilities. Until then, some people recommend giving Darx some healing abilities to compensate for the bad AI. I don't find it necessary to do that, but I don't condemn the choice by any means, so do with that what you will.

Yes, Feathers and hawks increase the range at which you can spot the colored dots on the map, but they will not do anything to fill in missing spaces in your map. That being said, I haven't really seen evidence that you have to stop at those numbers. There's nothing to indicate that you couldn't find a third or fourth hawk's feather or hire a bunch of rock hawks I...think I've met Cass in the Den of Malevolence before. I know I've met someone in the Cavern of Flame because I remember laughing at their low hp. This was all before I realized how much attention I should have been paying to it all, so sadly I don't have much more info than that.

Without actually counting. feathers seem to increase range by about 5 squares while hawks seem to do 2 or 3. Not useless, but if you don't have extra command available, you can probably recruit better things. That being said, once you get so high level that you can solo most groups with just a cast or two of full-AoE magic, having a few hawks might make your search missions faster.

I'm not 100% sure that they stack, but it certainly seems like they do because I'm pretty sure my vision range was shorter back when I had just one....I suppose I could do something scientific to actually test if they stack or not, but I don't have time to get to that right now...when I do that, I'll also try hiring that demon that increases sight range too and see if that stacks at all. Anyway, at the very least, you want to have at least one feather when you do messenger and delivery missions all of the time because they are really useful (especially if you want to find yellow units like Cass easily). EDIT: Yeah, they definitely stack. Went to the Demon's gate, reloaded, sold a feather, and went back. My sight range was about 5 squares less. I then reloaded, hired a rock hawk and revisited the gate...I don't think my sight range increased, but at that point I had two feathers and a bird, so it was kind of hard to notice the max range increasing. Since I don't know how much the rock hawk effects vision range, I can't tell how effective it was. EDIT 2: I actually found Cass in the Demon Gate in that save with the rock hawk and finally got her last scene, so here's something to confirm that she can show up when you're level 99 and after you've rescued the princess. Take it how you will and hopefully it will help us find a foothold to getting a good way to find her.

1) I have saved the princess and levelled to 99 but I have still encountered 1 cass, many Ayakas, and many Tatsumakis. I have yet to do the mission to map bueroza 14 where, to put it vaguely, everything goes to shit, so I don't know if you can encounter them after that. 2) go to the overgrown thicket...a lot. after a couple of missions you will meet her in town and then after a few more, you will run into her in the dungeon itself. 3) no idea. If numbers' are the deciding factor. I've basically gone full man mode by turning the AI to "standby" mode and wrecking everybody with waves upon waves of full AoE magic. I've killed dozens of adventurers or all sorts and only have managed to recruit warrior, rogue, and adept. That being said, I'm pretty sure I've been fighting warlords instead of basic fighters, so it looks like the higher-level palette swaps do work for the counter...if there is one. PS: you don't get a "choice" to recruit them. Rakia just decides to pop up and say "hey, an adventurer decided to join you. They're in your 'hired units' list now" and you only get one (as far as I know).

I'm also having trouble meeting Cass in my second playthrough. Perhaps she shows up less when you reach a certain point in the story. that being said, she can still show up. I have spotted her in a Cave of Bueroza 3 (however you spell that), so I think you just have to keep trying and hope the RNG doesn't hate you.

I actually kind of liked the cursed items in my first playthrough. Darks gets some decent HP from his levels, so having a single cursed weapon actually wasn't that bad, especially when you have two fairies healing. That being said, this was before I updated my patch, so I was able to use a cursed greatsword from the middle row where I was safe. Individual mileage may vary =P

tl;dr: yes. but it takes up a lot of skill points, so start with a sword or bow first until you level up a bit Here's the basics I've started picking up from my two playthroughs thusfar. Impressive stats on equipment are good in early levels, but play second fiddle to your skills in later levels. So weapon choice seems like it should be driven by the skills behind them. With that in mind, let us look at both the ranged and bladed weapon skillsets. first up, bladed. Blade dancer is a nice front row attack with some decent damage, but only gets seven uses. saint of blades is a powerful single target attack that has an issue similar to the crushing weapons post i made before...it's technically weaker than blade dance, but it's still a viable skill to use on bosses so I would still recommend it to save some uses of your blade dance. next, there's ranged weapons. Bombardier, if I remember correctly, hits the person who is in front of each column, meaning it can have the same hit pattern as a blade dance, or it can actually hit someone in the back line if the enemy's formation is poor. This is a huge help in certain fights like Tatsumaki as it allows you to damage two of his three supports without problem. Ranged weapons also have the only physical, full-enemy-field AoE in the game which is useful for that virtue alone. To contrast, let's look at blunt weapons. Blunt weapons get two separate skills of relatively comparable power compared to one such skill each from bladed and ranged weapons. however, by using daggers, you have access to both blade dance and bombardier, so that disadvantage is nixed. Blunt weapons also have a knockback skill...it's not an amazing skill and is far weaker damage-wise than saint of blades, so take that how you will. Those form the most prominent skills from those three sets, but as some closing thoughts, here are the rest of their skills. Status effects (most of these have pretty low chances or low effectiveness, but they are technically available if you want them): blades can cause berserk, insta-death, and weaken; blunt can cause insta-death and knockback(good activation rate); and bows can poison (expensive prerequisites) and instadeath. so blades come out way on top if you want status effect variety for whatever reason. Now, going for daggers is an expensive investment (skill-wise) as you will be spending points in two skill trees. So if you would like to do this. Start your game as a swordsman or archer, get those skills up a bit, and spend some points on a few healing, teleport, or support skills that you want before you go into the other weapon tree and purchase yourself a dagger. By the end of my swordsman run, I discovered daggers and put points into the ranged tree and I absolutely loved the play style, so I do think that a dagger game would be a good idea.

Oh and one thing I should mention about the crushing weapons tree. At max rank, crusher has 7 more "pow" than the basic blunt weapons skill, and slugger only has 8 more pow than crusher does (49-56-64), so the damage difference between them is actually pretty tiny. If it weren't for the fact that slugger's knockback can damage a unit behind your target as well, it would be useless. sweeper and barbarian, on the other hand, hit everyone in the front row with a pow rating of 43 and 53 respectively. But here's the thing, both of these skills hit four times on each target struck. You will do over triple the damage by using barbarian on a single enemy than you will by using slugger, and this is true whether you hit three targets in the front line, or just one. I will go ahead and say this for anyone using blunt weapons. Don't max crusher, and only max slugger if you want some way to hit someone in the middle row for half damage (admittedly useful in a lot of situations, but probably outperformed by late-game AoE magic). The sweeper and barbarian skills however, should be maxed immediately. They are incredibly powerful and make blunt very nice for front-line attacks since it gets two skills dedicated to them. Both of them can one-shot enemies even in the overlord's shrine and can do great damage on big bosses like fire demons or dragons.

What exactly do you mean by "tied to exp growth"? I was level 99 before I got my first adventurer recruit, so I don't think that's it. However, it is possible that a certain event later in the story (spoiler conversation on the previous page) might stop you from being able to recruit them.

The skill is "combat medic" (weirdly enough I've actually made that same mistake somehow...), but anyway, once you get it to level 10, you'll get access to some more advanced healing spells. As a piece of advice, since levelling each of the individual single target heals will unlock both an equivalently-powered AoE and the next rank of single target heals, focus on learning the single target heal spells up to level 10 each so that you can get to "seraphim magic" (the strongest AoE heal) with as few points invested as possible. That will save you some points in the late game to unlock some more skills without sacrificing your ability to dish out some huge health to your allies.

Story-wise that would be the most logical development, but I wasn't sure if that's how they actually coded it or not. Oh well, I'm going to be trying for king rank this time around, so I'm going to be stuck grinding for a while. Probably doesn't matter if I do it now or later in the story.