Final Fantasy: Record Keeper

[Teioh]

I made the mistake of not taking Cecil with me when I fought Golbez and nearly had my party wiped out because of it. I ended up with only Cloud standing and had to escape from the battle. I guess I was relying too much on my FFVII party to see me through I wasn't getting one hit killed when I put Cecil in my party so I'm guessing it's scripted that way. Perhaps I would have known this if I had completed FFIV

 

[Claymore]

Upcoming event...

The Pulse Fal'Cie

An irrepressible young woman steps into battle! What strange enemies lurk in the Pulse ruins?

FFXIII characters and equipment pack an extra punch in the ongoing FFXIII Pulse Fal'Cie event! Be prepared! Get new characters in the Classic Dungeons and use the Daily Dungeons to build up your party now!

Going off of the Japanese schedule, it is said that the character will be Vanille rather than Lightning.

Done quite a few runs of the Fire Powered Ship event, but it's been very difficult earning a lot of magicite shards. I've just saved up enough mostly for Lenna, Growth Eggs, Hyper Wrist and Lesser Power Orbs.

 

[ultima espio]

I don't know if there's a City of the Ancients dungeon, but don't take her there.

Haha, there isn't a CotA dungeon. Not yet, anyway. I'm pretty sure she'd survive, though. when Dark Cecil turned into Paladin Cecil, I still got to keep Dark Cecil in my party. I often use both of them together now.

 

[Claymore]

Slowly going through the event, though the Heroic difficulty is completely kicking my ass. Definitely need to step back into Hard. On the plus side though, I have finally saved up enough for an 11 draw pull and managed to obtain my first 5*, a Zantetsuken.

 

[ultima espio]

Vanille's job class is "Cocoon l'cie". You'd think they'd have at least played the game before making a character based on it xD

Also they keep calling Ultros "Orthros" :|

 

[Strangelove]

in the japanese one all the ffxiii characters so far (vanille, snow, sazh, lightning, hope) are just called "l'cie of the fal'cie/fal'cie's l'cie"

 

[ForceStealer]

Vanille's job class is "Cocoon l'cie". You'd think they'd have at least played the game before making a character based on it xD

Derp.

Yeah, and I thought the Orthros thing was odd. That translation has popped up before from time to time, but if this game is going for nostalgia, why not go with Ultros?

 

[Cthulhu]

I'm finding it hard to stay interested in this game TBF - level 19/20ish now, and progress is getting slow / annoying; I'm afraid that I'll have to redo loads of dungeons just to level / grind monies/gear/orbs/shit together, and I don't want to

 

[Flintlock]

It is a bit grindy. Particularly for mages, which is one big frustration I have with the game.

Take the current Fire Powered Ship event, for example. I know that (a) the boss at the end has many, many times more HP than any other enemy in the dungeon and that (b) it's weak to ice, so it's definitely worth taking a black mage with me. In my case, I've been using Terra, equipped with a 6-cast Blizzara and a 4-cast Watera (since I know one of the enemies is weak to water and dies in one hit). That gives her ten useful actions for the whole dungeon, but I'm saving six of them for the last round of the last fight (I've needed every single one of them every time), so she effectively has four actions for the first fourteen rounds. In at least ten rounds she's going to left with nothing to do. I could make her attack, but that might risk my Champion ranking at the end, since she's not going to kill anything on her own. I sometimes make her defend but she's pretty tough, so I usually just leave her alone completely.

If I want to do something about it, say by levelling up my Blizzara to 8-cast, I'd need 30 Lesser Black Orbs and 45 Lesser Ice Orbs. I currently have 28 and 17. Getting another 28 Lesser Ice Orbs would take me ages - I can only trade in for ten through the event - especially since I only need one more (normal) Ice Orb to be able to create Blizzaga. Of course, there's no incentive for me to create Blizzaga because it would only be a 2-cast ability, and that would make Terra even more useless, for the time being.

My three fighters, on the other hand, can attack every turn, can take down every regular enemy in the dungeon with no more than two hits, and can save all of their special abilities (like Double Cut, which is great) for the final boss. That's why my best fighters (Cloud and Sephiroth) get so overpowered; any time I'm in a long or difficult dungeon I put them straight into my party.

TL;DR: Honing abilities should be cheaper to make the game less of a chore and more fun.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Orthros is what his name is technically supposed to be.

 

[Strangelove]

there is an updating coming for the japanese version that's supposed to let you turn abilities you don't need into orbs. don't know how far behind the english system updates are from the japanese ones, but i am hoping that will help with collecting orbs from abilities you don't need because that is annoying.

if the daily orb dungeons gave more than one orb per drop, that'd make it more appealing to do them. i have done them once for the mythril prize and just forgot about then after that

 

[ForceStealer]

Blizzard Strike from Cloud does WAY more damage to Liquid Flame than Terra's Blizzara for me. Just as a note.
I agree with you about abilities though.

I'm still using White Mage, and I should replace here with Lenna (or Vanille), I've just waffled on whether I should use all my growth eggs on a character I'm not all that jazzed about. But WTMG's Pray is becoming less useful and both other characters are more versatile.

I haven't varied my party at all though. I have one party, everyone is level 30. And a bunch of characters I haven't done anything with. Tyro, Tidus, and Black Mage are about halfway there because I used them at the beginning of the game, but that's it.

 

[Claymore]

It is a bit grindy. Particularly for mages, which is one big frustration I have with the game.

Take the current Fire Powered Ship event, for example. I know that (a) the boss at the end has many, many times more HP than any other enemy in the dungeon and that (b) it's weak to ice, so it's definitely worth taking a black mage with me. In my case, I've been using Terra, equipped with a 6-cast Blizzara and a 4-cast Watera (since I know one of the enemies is weak to water and dies in one hit). That gives her ten useful actions for the whole dungeon, but I'm saving six of them for the last round of the last fight (I've needed every single one of them every time), so she effectively has four actions for the first fourteen rounds. In at least ten rounds she's going to left with nothing to do. I could make her attack, but that might risk my Champion ranking at the end, since she's not going to kill anything on her own. I sometimes make her defend but she's pretty tough, so I usually just leave her alone completely.

If I want to do something about it, say by levelling up my Blizzara to 8-cast, I'd need 30 Lesser Black Orbs and 45 Lesser Ice Orbs. I currently have 28 and 17. Getting another 28 Lesser Ice Orbs would take me ages - I can only trade in for ten through the event - especially since I only need one more (normal) Ice Orb to be able to create Blizzaga. Of course, there's no incentive for me to create Blizzaga because it would only be a 2-cast ability, and that would make Terra even more useless, for the time being.

My three fighters, on the other hand, can attack every turn, can take down every regular enemy in the dungeon with no more than two hits, and can save all of their special abilities (like Double Cut, which is great) for the final boss. That's why my best fighters (Cloud and Sephiroth) get so overpowered; any time I'm in a long or difficult dungeon I put them straight into my party.

TL;DR: Honing abilities should be cheaper to make the game less of a chore and more fun.

It feels a lot like most FF games, were mages just become useless outside of a few special circumstances. Attacking is just more powerful and economical. Though in Record Keeper's case, because of both the final score ranking, and the limited ability uses, mages become even more redundant and don't end up doing much. I pretty much just keep them in reserve to heal at the moment.

Magic should definitely come with more uses, and honing orbs should be a lot easier, though saying that, I've found that just regular playing through the normal dungeons and events has gotten me enough orbs to make the normal abilities without any excess grinding. It's only the more powerful spells, or additional uses, that I've found I had to actively seek out certain dungeons which have a higher change of dropping particular orbs.

Blizzard Strike from Cloud does WAY more damage to Liquid Flame than Terra's Blizzara for me. Just as a note.
I agree with you about abilities though.

I'm still using White Mage, and I should replace here with Lenna (or Vanille), I've just waffled on whether I should use all my growth eggs on a character I'm not all that jazzed about. But WTMG's Pray is becoming less useful and both other characters are more versatile.

I haven't varied my party at all though. I have one party, everyone is level 30. And a bunch of characters I haven't done anything with. Tyro, Tidus, and Black Mage are about halfway there because I used them at the beginning of the game, but that's it.

I try to introduce and use characters which have a synergy with each event (just because it makes it a heck of a lot easier because of the bonuses to attack and defence, plus they level up slightly quicker in their respective dungeons). For the latest event, I was already levelling up Snow, so adding Vanille I haven't had any trouble outside of the Heroic difficulty (where Anima is just stupidly hard with its megaton of HP, counters, and 1 second gap before the arms regenerate ).

Still immensely enjoying the game though.

 

[Flintlock]

Blizzard Strike from Cloud does WAY more damage to Liquid Flame than Terra's Blizzara for me. Just as a note.
I agree with you about abilities though.

I've got it equipped on Celes, but she doesn't do as much damage as Terra's Blizzara. I'm using my second-string party here, because my first (basically all the Final Fantasy VII characters) is already overlevelled. Even if I wanted to switch Terra out, the nature of the fight against Liquid Flame needs someone to be able to cast magic against it.

It feels a lot like most FF games, were mages just become useless outside of a few special circumstances. Attacking is just more powerful and economical. Though in Record Keeper's case, because of both the final score ranking, and the limited ability uses, mages become even more redundant and don't end up doing much. I pretty much just keep them in reserve to heal at the moment.

I'd have to disagree about most FF games being like that. In some of them, mages are actually the most powerful characters. Celes and Terra were also in my go-to Final Fantasy VI team, for example, because Quick+Doublecast+Ultima is unparalleled in terms of damage potential. Vivi and Eiko were strong in IX, but Dagger ended up being a bit useless, while Lulu came in handy in X in almost every other battle because of how many flans and elements are in that game. The mages in IV had their uses as well, particularly Rosa towards the end of the game where the enemies are ludicrously strong (in the DS version). All the other Final Fantasies I've completed didn't have dedicated mages.

 

[vaderSW1]

I've never really been much of one to rely on mages and magic users. I'm usually all about just using regular physical attacks. I use magic very rarely when playing the vast majority of the Final Fantasy games. I have never been a fan of using buffs and debuffs. Usually I use magic mainly for the purposes of healing and dealing damage against an enemy that is strong against physical attacks. So, the team I have in Record Keeper is 3 tanks (Cloud, Kain, and Josef), a white mage (Aerith), and a black mage (Rydia). The white mage and black mage exclusively use physical attacks until I reach the boss for whatever level I'm on. Then I unleash all of the magic, soul breaks, and any special physical abilities I have on the boss.

I really need to start leveling up the rest of the characters that I have so that I can start taking advantage of the stage synergies. It's just too easy for me to keep using my current squad since they are all level 50.

 

[Cthulhu]

Yeah I've still got pretty much the party you start off with (Black/White Mage, Tyro, Kain and Cloud); Black/White mage are situational only and TBF Black Mage can only barely keep up with damage with the warriors and only when exploiting a weakness. Being limited to just two abilities really limits the flexibility there, which removes any depth the FF games had.

I'd rather have four or five melee fighters with the occasional elemental attack if that gives a bonus, with a healer added to the mix for survivability if need be (but even that one is often only needed during a boss fight)

Also TIL the elite dungeons give you a fuckton of gil, so that shouldn't be much of a problem with leveling up weapons and such anymore.

 

[Flintlock]

So, the team I have in Record Keeper is 3 tanks (Cloud, Kain, and Josef), a white mage (Aerith), and a black mage (Rydia). The white mage and black mage exclusively use physical attacks until I reach the boss for whatever level I'm on. Then I unleash all of the magic, soul breaks, and any special physical abilities I have on the boss.

I also have a 3+1+1 party almost all of the time. I guess the difference is that my mages are anywhere from level 20 (Lenna) to 35 (Aerith) so it's not worth attacking with them. That's my frustration. Like Yop said, it would be mitigated if they could have more than two abilities each.

 

[Claymore]

I'd have to disagree about most FF games being like that. In some of them, mages are actually the most powerful characters. Celes and Terra were also in my go-to Final Fantasy VI team, for example, because Quick+Doublecast+Ultima is unparalleled in terms of damage potential. Vivi and Eiko were strong in IX, but Dagger ended up being a bit useless, while Lulu came in handy in X in almost every other battle because of how many flans and elements are in that game. The mages in IV had their uses as well, particularly Rosa towards the end of the game where the enemies are ludicrously strong (in the DS version). All the other Final Fantasies I've completed didn't have dedicated mages.

Sorry, I was typing fast and should have included a conjunction there:

It feels a lot like most FF games, where mages just become useless outside of a few special circumstances because attacking is just more powerful and economical.

Definitely agree that with certain setups and situations mages are powerful, but on the whole, when you factor MP use and charges, it's both easier and stronger overall to just use physical attacks with your hard hitters. At least, I find so in most FF games (which, I mentioned before, is one of my problems with mages in this series).

For the party, I've kept Cecil because he's a tank with healing abilities in order to supplement my main healer in boss battles. Then I can have 3 other main hitters.

 

[Flintlock]

I'd be happy to drop the black mage from my party and go with a setup like you suggested (one hybrid) if it wasn't for the balance issues I keep mentioning: there's only ever one enemy I struggle with in each dungeon, which is the final boss, so I might as well build my strategy around that. Most of the time that requires a black mage.

I'm going round in circles now so this will be my last comment for a while.

 

[vaderSW1]

I started leveling up Lenna and Terra yesterday. I'm currently running with Warrior, Tyro, and Josef with them. I'm thinking when the EXP dungeons come around tomorrow I may switch up the party again and get some other underleveled characters involved. I really need to boost up Snow, Vanille, and Rinoa.

 

[Splintered]

I got rid of my blackmage and gave Terra a sword with armor that emphasizes magic, it's probably a bad idea but I have no patience to farm 5000 orbs to make a blackmage useful.

This grind in this game is lethal.

 

[Cthulhu]

This grind in this game is lethal.

And there we have it - FFRK is just like Every Other "Free" to play game out there - except that you can't actually buy your way past the boring grind (I believe) or arbitrary time thingies and you're not actually limited enough to just go ahead and give SE money like they want you to.

What they should've done: Make it a more fun game, less grind, and earn monies by selling premium characters and gear/skins/clothing/stuff - like LoL/DotA/TF2/CS:GO/whatever, not like that other mobile game that Should Not Be Named they attempted.

 

[Selphie Tilmitt]

As far as grinding and mages go it feels more like right old school FF (think pre FFIV or maybe even old school original vanilla FFIV from waaay back when before you had built up your resources or were Tellah, not Meteo spam for you!) or similar NES/SNES games, DQ, etc where sometimes you had to grind like hell to get anywhere with EXP/levels, mages had restricted spell charges, items were limited, etc.

So a friend of mine introduced me to Bluestacks (well I kind of knew BS was a thing before but he motivated me into setting it up properly and getting RK set up too) so yeah I've been playing this

Vanille and Lenna are awesome ;3

 

[Claymore]

Woah. I never knew that existed, lol. Just tried it out and synced the app. Definitely saves my battery when I'm at home.

Been using Vanille but wondering whether to switch to Lenna after this event because of her Regen soulbreak.

 

[Selphie Tilmitt]

Oh yaay, glad you found that and that it worked out for you

I was using Tyro/Cloud/Kain/Lenna/Vanille for the longest while (White Mage before Lenna and Black Mage then Rydia before Vanille) and I managed to beat Vanille's event on Normal with this team, albeit with Vanille and Lenna the last ones standing, Vanille and Lenna duo ftw. They were quite tanky in the back row, I have them both with Luminous Robes from Lenna's event which I've been upgrading with the armor upgrading materials, and of course Vanille had the synergy boost for the FFXIII fights, boosting her stats, HP boost, etc as well. Even though I'd ran out of abilities and all my guys had went down to the boss the girls were able to whittle down it's remaining HP with bow and staff pokes from the back row with their defences and Lenna's Regen letting them turtle through it

Lenna's Soul Break is indeed quite handy I've found although it seems like it takes a while to fill up at times, and sometimes depending on the situation the regen alone won't be enough to save some of your characters if you don't have any cure spells or defensive support buffs, etcs left. Oh and she can use a bow I like her and she's been my dedicated white mage/healer for a while now. I didn't manage to get her rare Relic Draw special weapon though

However Vanille for skill level can use White Magic L5, Black Magic L4 and Support L2 (not that I have abilities at that level yet >=() while Lenna only has White 5 and Black 2. Stat wise Lenna does have more Mind for healing prowess though while Vanille has higher MAG for spell offence and seems slightly more tankier since she gets a higher overall max HP growth, even outside FFXIII dungeons. Honestly I've found Vanille quite solid so far too, I have her with Blizzard and Cure and her limit break is starting to do solid MT damage for me as well as lowering enemy magical defences so she can do more damage with her Blizzards. I sometimes have her in the front row for scrub randos as well so she can use her physical. Her unique weapon/second limit looks like it would be useful as well. She can't use bows though

I've been doing the FFVI dungeons currently, just collected enough Stamina Shards to get another Stamina Point so now I have 40 total, and got the fully restored stamina after which is nice. I replaced Kain with Wakka since honestly Kain seems to have become quite redundant and doesn't seem to be really pulling his weight anymore, especially for the FFXIII fights where all he could really do was defend since his attack damage was so piddly compared to Tyro and Cloud's really. Wakka is L14 now though and is starting to shape up quite nicely

Just got Bard and unlocked Phantom Train. Need moaaar Stamina Shaaardzzz