Board 8 > SaveEstelle/LeonhartFour in Different Houses: Far From Houses Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

You can recruit a few of them if you like
---

Three Houses Chapter 14 complete

Featured one of my favorite Byleth moments thus far. After the battle, Dimitri has captured Randolph, and is gleefully talking about how he promises to torture him and make him watch as his fellow soldiers are executed. Then Byleth walks up and just kills Randolph to put a stop to Dimitri's mad ranting.

Dimitri is leaning hard into this Punished Snake role. I do appreciate the increased intensity of the plot and the ensuing battles now though.
---

FE3H Chapter 3 beated

Free Time: oh boy presents and lost items. This become a part of my overarching theme of Free Time this chapter which was "omg managing motivation is a pain." Like strategically withholding gifts because motivation on a character is already maxed out and I don't want to "waste" it. Supports in a similar boat really but if the game prompts me with "X wants to talk" I let them because I don't want to feel like a jerk. Also advice box or whatever is neat. Although lol getting Claude. Don't think gaining support with him helps me! I was also a bit mad when I quickly got my next Professor Level and it said "activity points for exploration increased" but it didn't give me the point for that session. jerks. Didn't feel like too much happened here... although I noticed a few things which became relevant in the Chapter 4 Intro when I thought it was set-up for further down the line. But more on that later.

Mission/Battle: I went out to battle on one free day. Had a choice between a Level 4 and a Level 6 recommendation. Took the Level 4 one because the reward was gold and I was running low after buying everyone on the team a battalion. This actually was harder than the mission was! I had to Divine Pulse for the first time to undo 2 deaths. First Ferdinand because he's a scrub and was getting doubled with his Iron Lance. The idea of that happening is so foreign to me I didn't even check Attack Speed before sending him where I did. Had to flip him to a Training Lance like a wimp. (Actually everyone is now maining training weapons for this reason and also because they're cheap. It's the 3H version of my "Iron Weapons for 95% of the game. Steel only good for intentionally making you not double.") Then Edelgard of all people died because I assumed she was immortal and wouldn't need to be healed that turn.

Anyway, for the mission I temp recruited Ashe since we were going to crush his adoptive father's rebellion. I couldn't tell if Byleth was being sadistic or helpful in letting him maybe get some answers by tagging along. As always, split the party in two. The real enemy, of course, was Catherine and her idiot helpers. Kill stealing, being dumb, and fog of war... the perfect storm. Did get a good laugh when "the strongest Knight of Seiros" attacked a dude in the forest and missed on 4 consecutive attacks though. Almost had a disaster when I accidentally caught one of her helpers in a Move+5 Gambit and he ran towards the boss. I was paranoid enough to make sure I wouldn't get Catherine in it but overlooked that guy. Thankfully he ran back to her (and she went after some guy in the corner instead of the boss at the last second.) Had Ashe attack Lonato because I wanted battle convos/Byleth is awful and he said Rhea is a heretic who has desecrated the goddess. He refused to stand down and Byleth and Edelgard killed him.

Afterwards, Edelgard realized she was in an JRPG and declared that even if the gods are our enemy we have to continue towards our goal. She also said she's the same as Lonato and would risk her subjects in the pursuit of a greater cause. i'm sure that'll never happen. it's fine. it's not like rhea is ominous as hell and when Byleth tried to say she should praise his students she was like "Nope, I heard they were hesitant about fighting civilians. That's weak ****, sinners must die. Hope they learned what happens to those who defy the church." I assume Byleth backed out of the room slowly after that. Then Edelgard and Hubert were like "okay this next thing is a feint. they're not after rhea let's figure this out." And unfortunately I couldn't tell them that talking to Alois in Chapter 3 told me that the mausoleum is only open on THAT DAY which is obviously the target, guess I got to go "learn" that again now.
---

god why do i write so much i ran out of characters what is wrong with me.

Made Byleth's birthday 7/26 for the release date since I couldn't find reliable info on if he had a "canon" one. Found it funny that that just so happens to be the mission day/Rite of Rebirth.

Also as for the team: Byleth and Edelgard are Level 8. Petra is Level 6. Everyone else is Level 5 and promoted to whatever Beginner class I felt suited them. RNG has been screwing me on these levels-up about 80% of the time I feel. Hardly ever see STR/MAG gains. SPD a bit uncommon too. This could become worrying if it continues.
---

"X wants to talk" locations are marked on the map. You can avoid those spots if the person is already topped off in motivation so you can spend the motivation first.
---

Team Rocket Elite posted...

"X wants to talk" locations are marked on the map. You can avoid those spots if the person is already topped off in motivation so you can spend the motivation first.

That's weird. See, one time I saw a location marked like this for a support conversation (for Ferdinand) and triggered it. I was pretty sure that's what it was, but I was curious.

But then later when motivation was actually a bigger concern for me, I had Bernadetta reach C support with Byleth after eating a meal. But it wasn't marked anywhere on the map. I actually walked around for a bit in case the game needed some time to load it or something but it didn't show. I ended that Explore period and as the calendar advanced towards the mission day it stopped on a random day and said she wanted to talk. This is what I meant by "I say sure because I don't want to feel like a jerk." It triggers the support conversation then and there.

*shrug* it's not a huge deal. I'm not min-maxing to that extent lol.
---

Warp to the second floor and that should refresh the map of the main area.
---

Ah. You know, as I was writing that post I was thinking to myself, "You know, I didn't load a new area though. Wonder if that is a factor."
---

How does free time work, and how do I avoid missing anything (alternatively, how do I miss the least amount of stuff possible if I have to miss some stuff?)

---

I am perhaps not the best person to answer that since I'm not very far, but from my limited experience...

Walking around the monastery stuff generally only updates/changes with a new month. So in theory as long as you make sure to explore it once a month you should be mostly good. What I do is check the bulletin board for quests (which again, seem to only change with a new month) and walk around to talk to everyone and look for items (glowing blue points you'll see around the place, usually on boxes, you usually get items from them.)

You should probably talk to everyone you can, sometimes the conversation has a prompt you can reply to and if you pick the option they like your bond increases with them slightly so it's free support points. People you have yet to talk to are marked with a "..." dialogue bubble on the mini-map so that helps. (R brings up the full monastery map and ZR toggles the minimap size)

A handful of things do refresh weekly in explore mode though so if you find yourself there more than once a month there's a few things to check on. Gardening can be done on a weekly basis so go do that if you have seeds because gardening doesn't cost activity points and gives you Professor EXP which is the best. You won't have it yet, but starting in Chapter 3 you can unlock this advice box feature (a quest sends you to it) and that seems to refresh weekly too. So you may as well check on that.

As for the other options. Battle lets you... battle. That's good for gaining actual experience so you can keep up with the required missions. You also get rewards for winning these battles. The reward is listed on the screen where you choose which battle to fight along with a recommended level.

Seminar has one of the other professors teach your class (and possibly you.) Whoever attends (the game shows you who will attend a given lecture) will gain skill EXP in whatever skills that professor is associated with (these are also shown to you.) Anyone who attends also gains motivation (IIRC it's 50 Motivation/Half the bar)

Rest basically passes the day but with the benefit that your entire class gains 50 motivation (at least it was 50 when I tested it) That said, while weighing my options in Chapter 3 I basically determined that Rest is an inferior option to Exploring... as far as I can tell, at least for now. That's because when exploring you can invite students to eat a meal with you. You can invite two people and not only does this raise motivation, it increases your bond with them (and with each other.) If it's a meal they like it's 100 motivation/completely fills the bar too. AND it gives Professor EXP on top of it. So, like, right now I have 4 activity points to use in explore mode. I could hypothetically just invite all 8 Black Eagles to meals and raise their motivation more than Rest can AND raise support AND gain Professor EXP. Maybe something changes later to make Rest more worth it but I'd say it's just plain the inferior option. Maybe if you run out of food items for cooking?

tl;dr: I think Rest is generally inferior to Explore. Make sure to Explore at least once a month and talk to everyone and look around for the glowing blue spots for items. This could totally change over time though I'm still really early lol.
---

Thanks!

Knowing absolutely nothing, my guess would be that rest is for people who just want to skip to the next mission?

---

I didnt get anything from reading all of the history books in the monastery library. This must be how casual Game of Thrones watchers felt...!

Hopefully they explain any particularly relevant history later...

---

Yeah, I literally haven't chosen Rest the entire game. I'll usually explore first week, battle second week, seminar third week.

Rest does have an added benefit in that it restores a storyline weapon Byleth gets later, but it's really not worth it in my eyes. I haven't needed it.
---

Pretty sure no one chooses rest! Im through 5 chapters and I think the community % has been 0 every time its been an option.
---

Seminar is pretty much just better as a "skip time" option.
---

I always pick Explore unless I have paralogues or quest battles to do.
---

I might chose Explore or Battle a second time over Seminar if there's a special event on that day or Paralogues I need to power through.
---

Yeah, I'll often choose Explore every time it's available in a month if there are no Paralogues or rare monsters to fight.
---

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1163602299551473666

FFVIII Remastered September 3
---

Just preordered and applied the theme

It plays the SeeD theme song on the home screen
---

Three Houses Chapter 15 complete

I like how much grander the battle maps have become in Part 2. Also, I got a Paralogue with Petra and Bernadetta. That one was pretty fun.
---

Leonhart4 posted...

Three Houses Chapter 15 complete

I like how much grander the battle maps have become in Part 2. Also, I got a Paralogue with Petra and Bernadetta. That one was pretty fun.

Paralogue Spoilers

One of the great game "Fuck You"s with that objective bait. Think you can warp in Petra and insta-clear? Fuck You, here's reinforcements with a surprise enemy ready to wreck your shit!
---

Yeah, I had some unfortunate timing there because reinforcements literally spawned right around Bernadetta when that happened. Thank goodness for Divine Pulse...!
---

Ys VIII beated and just doing a Nightmare run to get the Platinum.

First, Adol Christin is a video game legend and it's such a disgrace nobody knows who he is. He deserves much better than being the Ultimate Loser of a contest here. He's only second to Link in my book for silent adventurers.

The music in this game is phenomenal. Sunshine Coastline is how you get people hyped to start a new adventure.

Story was what impressed me the most. Ys is such a niche series, every game is so straightforward, so it was completely unexpected to see such scale this time around, and very fleshed out characters. Each game so far you feel like you're just passing through. This time? These guys are family. And then there's Dana and everything about her is executed so well. She really elevates the story.

And finally the most important part is the gameplay. They did a very good job to make you feel excited about exploring and finding new areas. You're not just progressing for the story or to get to your next battle. You really want to see what you will find next. Brilliant world design. Battle system is a decent hack and slash, nothing too special. That is until you really start to master that Flash Guard/Move system, which makes boss fights especially an absolute joy. Besides those two core things (exploration and combat), the game has so many little systems and mechanics that contribute greatly to your success and enjoyment of the game. I want to cook because it's useful, I want to fish because it's fun and snappy, I wanna do the sidequests for the "social links" but also for the cool stuff they unlock. And then you reach the far side of the island and there's a lot more game that I won't spoil and I definitely didn't expect.

10/10. One of the greatest games of all time. By far the best in the series, taking it places I didn't know it was capable of. Oh and it's very pretty. I really dig how colorful it is.
---

Ys VIII a lot of fun. Wouldn't quite go 10/10 however. Dana is an amazing character though, she's the best.

---

FE3H Black Eagles Chapter 4 complete

Free Time: what a shock it was the mausoleum. Seteth gave me a quest that seems like it was setting up Chapter 5 though obviously I didn't know that at the time. Also woo tournaments. It was a swordfighting tournament and I sent Petra to it and she won. Steel Sword reward not ideal though. Also we can have tea parties now, that's a thing. I've only done them when a birthday pops up so far, but the prospect of stat gains is tempting... if I knew how it worked. Powered through to Professor Rank C by Exploring on the second free day too instead of battling like I planned. See, my thinking was that Battle Points is listed there so they have to give me more of those eventually and I thought maybe it'd give me one but nope. Oh well, just pushed my battle week back one. Said battle was uneventful won't talk about it. Lysithea is my first non-Black Eagle to get a support rank, she reached C support with Byleth (and Edelgard since I noticed they have a support so I'd invite them to meals together) still won't join my house but now she is interested. Progress! Marianne, Felix (on Leon's recommendation), and Ingrid are my other current recruit targets. Also now Lysithea's dot on the minimap is blue like the Black Eagles, I thought it was color-coded by in your house/not your house but guess not. Support maybe?

Mission: Argh. Game Over'd here once because I was determined to take that punk Death Knight down. He had an item drop and I don't have anyone at Level 10 to class to thief so I didn't have a choice! Rest of the battle was standard stuff so I'll omit it. The crux of the difficulty with Death Knight was Byleth was the only one who could engage him in meaningful normal combat and... not die. Edelgard could hurt him but would be doubled back and Petra could avoid being doubled but did no damage. Everyone else was just worthless. So the first try involved everyone throwing Gambits at him to try and get him in Lysithea's (temp recruit obv) Luna range. It -almost- worked, but I needed Dorothea to dodge one of two attacks coming back at her at 62% and despite the odds ostensibly favoring me... she didn't. I ran out of Divine Pulses (not all on this part of the plan) and died.

Part 2 I decided to change the strategy a bit and had Byleth duel him for as long as he could first. Retreated everyone else out of range, put Byleth next to him to provoke his attack on enemy phase and more importantly - make him mobile. Then on player phase I moved Byleth over to an avoid tile (and forced Death Knight to chase him off his avoid tile) and had Byleth use the Concoction he got from a quest to heal up so he could survive another hit - albeit at 1 HP. Now with Death Knight 20 HP lessened, I had Dorothea use her Mov+5 Gambit on everyone else (I positioned them for this so they'd all get affected) and had them charge him and unload gambits again which successfully got him down enough where Byleth could finish him with an attack. Defeated by a training sword. rekt. Anyway he seemed pleased because he's a JRPG villain and peace'd out. Turn count almost became an issue since I wasted a bit of unnecessary time setting up the Death Knight plan but it all worked out. yay byleth has a templar sword now. the knights of seiros are like a super shady gralsritter so it fits.

Byleth is at Level 11 thanks to his escapades there. Edelgard reached Level 10. Think everyone else is Level 8? I played much longer than I planned given that hiccup I had there so I bailed out the moment I hit the free day screen. Before I did though Edelgard finally let me view her support. that was pretty dark.
---

For tea parties, you basically have to pay attention to their profiles to know what they like in order to select the right options when you get to that part. Also, if you recruit someone from another house to help you on a mission for the month, their dot will turn blue for the month, too.
---

So I just now realized there's an option to restore HP between battles during tournaments. I've been winning them all without doing that thus far, but I needed it for this one, so I'm glad I noticed...!
---

I havent been able to win a tournament even with the healing :(
---

Ao no Kiseki chapter 2 beated.

Good game. Very good game. Making me hyped for the rest of Ao and also for Cold Steel 3 and 4 and also for the Calvard arc all at the same time I just want all of it right now. Also though the political intrigue was probably the main draw, I'm also really excited for the character arc they seem to be setting up for Rixia here. In other news while I was always a fan of Lechter he's very rapidly advancing on the list of top characters in the entire series. I honestly have no idea what direction his character is going in, but I really hope he's the one who eventually brings down Osborne (since I'm assuming Osborne is not going to end up "winning" though that is also a possibility).
---

The Mana Sword posted...

I havent been able to win a tournament even with the healing :(

It does get easier as your units get better, but honestly, sometimes sacrificing offense for someone with really good defense makes a difference.
---

Also I've noticed my doggo will follow Byleth's sprite on the loading screen when I move him around.
---

Leonhart4 posted...

The Mana Sword posted...

I havent been able to win a tournament even with the healing :(

It does get easier as your units get better, but honestly, sometimes sacrificing offense for someone with really good defense makes a difference.

Yeah I used Edelgard for basically all of them.
---

On the Chapter 16 mission and I just marked out
---

Getting close to Golden Deer chapter 11

Saw Claude and Ingrid's supports and will be getting their paired ending. They were great.
---

Blue Lions Chapter 16 complete

R.I.P. Lorenz and Ferdinand

But in more important news, welcome back, Dedue
---

LeonhartFour posted...

Also, if you recruit someone from another house to help you on a mission for the month, their dot will turn blue for the month, too.

oh.

...duh.

Leonhart4 posted...

So I just now realized there's an option to restore HP between battles during tournaments. I've been winning them all without doing that thus far, but I needed it for this one, so I'm glad I noticed...!

haha Petra wouldn't have won her tournament for me without it. She was fine for a while, but would have faltered at the end without it.

Leonhart4 posted...

Also I've noticed my doggo will follow Byleth's sprite on the loading screen when I move him around.

oh my god this sounds amazingly cute
---

Aw yeah Professor rank A+ get
---

Any downside to recruiting as many characters as possible?

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

Any downside to recruiting as many characters as possible?

Only that it makes it more difficult to keep everyone leveled evenly
---

No battles let you use more than 12 characters, so you can just ignore most of the cast. You can leave them unleveled.
---

And I do. I'm just saying if you want to actually try to make everyone viable, it's obviously more difficult with a larger cast. That's the only real downside.
---

Oh good, looks like they're actually going at a brisk pace with the DGS2 LP now that they've resumed work on it. Hopefully they'll actually finish it. They left off on the last part of D2-2, so I can finally see how it ends...!
---

Blue Lions Chapter 17 complete

Toughest storyline battle in quite some time, but a lot of fun.
---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGmN7En27Ks" data-time="

It might be difficult to tell, but you can see doggo's head slightly turning as she follows Byleth's sprite across the screen.
---

Finally finished with D2-2. Now I can finally see what all the hype is about with D2-3!
---

Blue Lions Chapter 18 complete

Pretty big plot points and revelations dropping in this one!
---

FE3H Black Eagles Chapter 5 complete

Free Time: Ah, we finally have quests that require me to go out and battle. And two of them, even. Got a little mad here because we have 3 free days this month. At the end of the first free day + answering a question at first instruct day I was ~290 points short of my next professor rank. Curious as to the benefits of the next rank, I went to explore on the second day (as opposed to battle to take care of a quest) and finally got my second battle point. Good news is that this let me knock out both quests on the final free day, but I was mad because if I could have reached it on the first day I could have done quests on the second, and then seen whatever new shop I opened on the third. Oh well, nothing to be done about it. Reached C support with a bunch of people too: Felix, Ingrid, Marianne, Sylvain (temp recruit since the mission was about his brother so I hung out with him this month too), and Manuela. Thought Felix might join now but still nope. No one did. Bah, just gotta keep working on it.

This month also had a bit of a theme of Edelgard's contempt for the crest and noble systems and how she means to overturn them. Mostly through story scenes but also through some fortune support timing. She reached C support with Dorothea and lamented that many nobles are incompetent while some commoners are talented and that as emperor she intends to hire those who are competent regardless of rank. She was also very sympathetic towards Miklan and saw him as a victim of the crest system, noting that despite his actions, he was a talented leader and could have been a boon to Fodlan, but was discarded by his family simply because he didn't have a crest. She also floated the idea that the only way to have a truly free society would be to abandon the goddess and crests altogether so society would move towards a meritocracy. But then Hubert was like, "uh think you might have said too much to Byleth" and ominously said Edelgard was taking a risk trusting him and would have to "take matters into his own hands."

Mission: The quest battles let me get everyone up to at least Level 10 before the fight. Hubert took the Dark Seal we got from Death Knight to be a Dark Mage and everyone else (except Ferdinand, ran out of Intermediate Seals) upgraded to an Intermediate Class. This fight almost got a bit dicey as I overextended my forces. I essentially followed my "split into two teams" strat, although this time it was "best units" and "reserve group." Best guys went towards the boss and Reserve handled the reinforcements at the start. But best advanced so far they got cut off from behind by a second wave of reinforcements so both groups ended up surrounded. Had to Divine Pulse Sylvain out of death once. Then Miklan turned into a monster. And Gilbert was an idiot and rushed to his death. Thankfully Divine Pulse refreshed uses here. Cool mechanic though with the monster. Most of the group is Level 12 now, I think. Byleth/Edelgard a bit ahead and a few guys at 11. Afterwards, Flayn went missing so that's our new job. Weird how they let a week pass before assigning it to us!

Edelgard C and C+ supports: After the fight, Edelgard had her C+ support and talked more about her past. It already sounded dark but she went into the details and yikes. She and all her siblings were imprisoned below the castle and subjected to crest experiments to give them a Major Crest to make a "peerless Emperor" and all but her died, some going insane. She also said they "violated" their bodies, and sounded like forced surgery or something. Apparently this was all done by the Prime Minister and his noble supporters, who turned Edelgard's dad into a puppet Emperor. Edelgard also said many other innocents died for this besides her family. She also revealed she too has the Crest of Flames and is determined to reform the world so that **** like this never happens again.
---

Yeah, it took me a while to get my first recruit from another House. Apparently, Sylvain will instantly offer to defect if you're playing as a female because of course he will, but he's the only easy mode one I know of.
---

Leonhart4 posted...

Apparently, Sylvain will instantly offer to defect if you're playing as a female because of course he will

lmao that's amazing

Also, this would probably be more apparent to someone playing Blue Lions like you, but I really liked the abrupt switch in Sylvain's attitude from how he is at the monastery to his no-nonsense self at the mission with his brother.

Definitely got a lot more interested in him as a character over the course of this month, though he's still behind my other recruit targets.
---

Yeah, I'm still not a huge fan of Sylvain overall, but there's definitely more to him than meets the eye. He's basically a lesser version of Zelos, in my opinion.
---