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Jun. 8th, 2012 09:57 amWO Blather- Okay, I'm starting to get a handle on the idiosyncrasies of this game now. So, all characters gain levels, through earning experience on the battlefield, or having growth points spent on them in between battles. (You get growth points as a reward for finishing a battle, but I am unsure of what the number you get is based on). In typical fashion, higher levels means higher stats, and as I said earlier, they get all their attacks by level 20.
However, there's also proficiency, which seems to be based on the number of enemies you kill. It goes from rank F to rank S. This seems to apparently affect the effectiveness of the officer's "unique" skill (well, semi-unique, several officers have the same skill), which basically provides a benefit to the team as a whole. Examples include, if X is on your team, your health recovers a bit for every 100 kills, or if Y is on your team, the speed of the group is increase as a whole, etc. Higher proficiency means you get more health, or more speed, etc. I guess they separated it out so just spending growth points on them doesn't get you everything.
Then there's weapon familiarity, which like proficiency is raised by just killing stuff. Basically, fight with a weapon enough (and enough is when the bar under it in the info screen fills all the way up) you get a bonus to attack with the weapon. There's 1-4 star rank weapons, obviously the more stars the better- the 4 stars have higher attacks and have a higher bonus once you've mastered it. However, there are also "big star" weapons, which are their "best" weapon. But, they start out with low base attack power- usually the equivalent of their 1 or 2 star weapon. However, their bonus once you've mastered it is huge- 4-stars get a +18 to attack, whereas the big stars get +54 to their attack. For the most part, the 5 stars low attack+54 is bigger than the 4-stars high attack+18.
There are some exceptions though, the "best" fighter guys, their 4th weapons attack power end up being so high that it +18 is a smidge higher than the big star weapons full attack power. So guys like Lu Bu, Keiji, Tadakatsu, Musashi, and Achilles.
I kinda messed up already in the game though- in my excitement that I could actually buy some of the big star weapons of folks, I ended up getting Musashi's, Zhou Tai's, and Xu Huang's, Those where the guys I was using to progress the game, but I can't use them for that right now because their attack power is way down now. I mean, I can grind on the lower levels to get the full compatibility with the weapons so they do have their best attack power, but it is a hindrance trying to beat these higher levels. Not that I don't have a sufficient pool of characters to work with, but I should've waited on the big-star weapons.
Oh, but I don't remember if it was this way in WO, but now you can over-write traits during weapon fusion. I wanna say you were stuck with certain traits on your weapons if that was the luck of the draw, and you could add a couple of more things, but you couldn't get rid of things. But now you can, which is good, because there are some traits that become useless later, or aren't useful to a particular character, etc. Because some of the traits are "character gets proficient faster" or "character gains weapon familiarity faster", obviously once you reach S-rank or master a weapon their useless, so I'm glad you can replace those. Additionally, reach doesn't work for some weapons, and honestly, I'm not on horseback enough to ever make cavalier useful.
And the fact that there's so many more elements make it very confusing, but now that I know what they do, I can make better decisions. In DW, wind damages even when they guard, whereas in SW its blast. But now, wind is wind, but blast increases the power of characters with projectile or shockwave attacks. Obviously, that's only useful for the bow and knife and gun folks, or those who have an attack ends in a big shockwave.
Getting back to cost, weapons cost gems, and the big star weapons cost gems plus a number of crystals. I believe you earn some gems for beating a level, but again, I'm not sure how they determine the gem reward yet. But, you mainly get them from successfully killing officers with triple attacks. Also, the only way to get crystals is to beat officers with triple attacks on difficulties normal or higher (and even then its only a percent chance that they'll drop it) You should hopefully be averaging two triple attacks per battle- the attack is only available once you fill up the triple attack gauge, which like many things in this game, gets filled by killing stuff, or technically, hitting stuff.
I make this distinction because some characters are better at filling this gauge than others. Killing folks with massive single blows raises the gauge, but characters who end up having high combo overkill attacks (like Wang Yuanji's c6 at close range, which will kill the opponent with 50 hits if all her knives hit, or Ding Feng's ex-attack, where he throws a bunch of bombs, which will hit enemies for several hits, or any of the characters who have a standing still musou that just hits the people around them a bunch) will fill it up faster.
The main problem is lining up filling up that gauge with reaching a big group of officers or at the very least a PC officer (who doesn't end up "withdrawing" when you kill them). Because its kinda wasteful to have your triple attack ready and use it on a single scrub officer, because you want to get the most you can from the attack since its only ready so rarely.
Of course, there are some characters who's skill, trinity, also makes it fill up faster because they can make it so the gauge does fill up a bit for every 100 kills. Which at S proficiency should be decent. So, if you're specifically crystal farming, you want to take them with you so you can get more chances to do triple attacks. According to my sources, the characters with that skill are Xiahou Dun, Ma Dai, Kaguya, Nemea, Keiji, and Akechi. I'm glad some of those are characters on my favorites list.
Heh, one thing that's DW7:XL has spoiled for me is the fact that everyone got "titles", most of which were gain health from attacking, so particularly for those characters who got that on their main weapon type, mostly speed, but the ex weapons for the Jin, my health basically never went down. So seeing my health bar partially empty is shocking.
Oh, the last system in this game is bonds- characters develop bonds toward one another through 1) being on the same team of three you take into battle and fight along side each other 2) before battles you can accept missions from other PC officers (stuff like kill 300 guys within 10 minutes, or 3 officers while keeping your health above 30%, etc), and completing them raises the bond, 3) holding tea parties or moon viewings in your camp.
So what does increasing bonds get you? Well, for one, there are a few stages that aren't available until specific characters have a high enough bond with each other. Secondly, you get a higher chance of getting lotto tickets from the character you share a bond with, which you can trade in to the weapons shop for 10 random weapons. Which given the whole fusion system, it doesn't matter what you get specifically, only that you get something useful to work with. Also, if the bond is maxed, then you don't have to defeat officers for a weapon drop, an ally will always give you a weapon for defeating a level.
However, there's also proficiency, which seems to be based on the number of enemies you kill. It goes from rank F to rank S. This seems to apparently affect the effectiveness of the officer's "unique" skill (well, semi-unique, several officers have the same skill), which basically provides a benefit to the team as a whole. Examples include, if X is on your team, your health recovers a bit for every 100 kills, or if Y is on your team, the speed of the group is increase as a whole, etc. Higher proficiency means you get more health, or more speed, etc. I guess they separated it out so just spending growth points on them doesn't get you everything.
Then there's weapon familiarity, which like proficiency is raised by just killing stuff. Basically, fight with a weapon enough (and enough is when the bar under it in the info screen fills all the way up) you get a bonus to attack with the weapon. There's 1-4 star rank weapons, obviously the more stars the better- the 4 stars have higher attacks and have a higher bonus once you've mastered it. However, there are also "big star" weapons, which are their "best" weapon. But, they start out with low base attack power- usually the equivalent of their 1 or 2 star weapon. However, their bonus once you've mastered it is huge- 4-stars get a +18 to attack, whereas the big stars get +54 to their attack. For the most part, the 5 stars low attack+54 is bigger than the 4-stars high attack+18.
There are some exceptions though, the "best" fighter guys, their 4th weapons attack power end up being so high that it +18 is a smidge higher than the big star weapons full attack power. So guys like Lu Bu, Keiji, Tadakatsu, Musashi, and Achilles.
I kinda messed up already in the game though- in my excitement that I could actually buy some of the big star weapons of folks, I ended up getting Musashi's, Zhou Tai's, and Xu Huang's, Those where the guys I was using to progress the game, but I can't use them for that right now because their attack power is way down now. I mean, I can grind on the lower levels to get the full compatibility with the weapons so they do have their best attack power, but it is a hindrance trying to beat these higher levels. Not that I don't have a sufficient pool of characters to work with, but I should've waited on the big-star weapons.
Oh, but I don't remember if it was this way in WO, but now you can over-write traits during weapon fusion. I wanna say you were stuck with certain traits on your weapons if that was the luck of the draw, and you could add a couple of more things, but you couldn't get rid of things. But now you can, which is good, because there are some traits that become useless later, or aren't useful to a particular character, etc. Because some of the traits are "character gets proficient faster" or "character gains weapon familiarity faster", obviously once you reach S-rank or master a weapon their useless, so I'm glad you can replace those. Additionally, reach doesn't work for some weapons, and honestly, I'm not on horseback enough to ever make cavalier useful.
And the fact that there's so many more elements make it very confusing, but now that I know what they do, I can make better decisions. In DW, wind damages even when they guard, whereas in SW its blast. But now, wind is wind, but blast increases the power of characters with projectile or shockwave attacks. Obviously, that's only useful for the bow and knife and gun folks, or those who have an attack ends in a big shockwave.
Getting back to cost, weapons cost gems, and the big star weapons cost gems plus a number of crystals. I believe you earn some gems for beating a level, but again, I'm not sure how they determine the gem reward yet. But, you mainly get them from successfully killing officers with triple attacks. Also, the only way to get crystals is to beat officers with triple attacks on difficulties normal or higher (and even then its only a percent chance that they'll drop it) You should hopefully be averaging two triple attacks per battle- the attack is only available once you fill up the triple attack gauge, which like many things in this game, gets filled by killing stuff, or technically, hitting stuff.
I make this distinction because some characters are better at filling this gauge than others. Killing folks with massive single blows raises the gauge, but characters who end up having high combo overkill attacks (like Wang Yuanji's c6 at close range, which will kill the opponent with 50 hits if all her knives hit, or Ding Feng's ex-attack, where he throws a bunch of bombs, which will hit enemies for several hits, or any of the characters who have a standing still musou that just hits the people around them a bunch) will fill it up faster.
The main problem is lining up filling up that gauge with reaching a big group of officers or at the very least a PC officer (who doesn't end up "withdrawing" when you kill them). Because its kinda wasteful to have your triple attack ready and use it on a single scrub officer, because you want to get the most you can from the attack since its only ready so rarely.
Of course, there are some characters who's skill, trinity, also makes it fill up faster because they can make it so the gauge does fill up a bit for every 100 kills. Which at S proficiency should be decent. So, if you're specifically crystal farming, you want to take them with you so you can get more chances to do triple attacks. According to my sources, the characters with that skill are Xiahou Dun, Ma Dai, Kaguya, Nemea, Keiji, and Akechi. I'm glad some of those are characters on my favorites list.
Heh, one thing that's DW7:XL has spoiled for me is the fact that everyone got "titles", most of which were gain health from attacking, so particularly for those characters who got that on their main weapon type, mostly speed, but the ex weapons for the Jin, my health basically never went down. So seeing my health bar partially empty is shocking.
Oh, the last system in this game is bonds- characters develop bonds toward one another through 1) being on the same team of three you take into battle and fight along side each other 2) before battles you can accept missions from other PC officers (stuff like kill 300 guys within 10 minutes, or 3 officers while keeping your health above 30%, etc), and completing them raises the bond, 3) holding tea parties or moon viewings in your camp.
So what does increasing bonds get you? Well, for one, there are a few stages that aren't available until specific characters have a high enough bond with each other. Secondly, you get a higher chance of getting lotto tickets from the character you share a bond with, which you can trade in to the weapons shop for 10 random weapons. Which given the whole fusion system, it doesn't matter what you get specifically, only that you get something useful to work with. Also, if the bond is maxed, then you don't have to defeat officers for a weapon drop, an ally will always give you a weapon for defeating a level.
