The GWJ JRPG Club - Q2 2020 - Bravely Second: End Layer

Thsi game got m hooked since the start.... i am currently playing it (After having finished FE Fates Conquest)
Does the friend thing still work? If so i owuld like to add someof you

Darkhaund wrote:

Thsi game got m hooked since the start.... i am currently playing it (After having finished FE Fates Conquest)
Does the friend thing still work? If so i owuld like to add someof you

It still works, as a lot of us have added each other so far. You can find the friend codes of anyone who's posted them so far on the first post.

EDIT: I used a Special Move vs. a boss on a whim and it did like 3200 damage. I now have a much better idea why they are useful.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Have people messed much with the Abilink stuff? I linked people to some of my characters and they immediately had all sorts of upper-level job skills. It felt a little bit like "Here, take all these advanced job skills," and defeated the fun of leveling up. So I unlinked everyone and am going without for now.

The friend system is designed to make the game easier. You can get powerful attacks and advanced jobs way earlier than you normally could, and friends help make your town easier to rebuild which has other advantages. They can also bring powerful Ba'als that are harder than the end game bosses.

But like some of the game's other features that scale the difficulty up or down—like controlling the encounter rate or chaining combat encounters—it's entirely optional. This game is a really good example of how to offer players systems to organically find a level of challenge that they enjoy and shape their own experience. If you prefer a more traditional JRPG experience and character development, just ignore those extra systems.

Thanks...

if it is not toooo late.. add me to this.. i am currently on it

Here is my code

2208-8764-1363

You have been added to the list! I'll add you to my own friends list whenever I get back to my 3DS.

I booted the game last night, played a bit of the intro, and I'm now on the world map, and that's about as much as I've played so far. Animal Crossing has been consuming my life lately. I was going to play more this afternoon, but I took a nap instead.

Thank you!

Sundown wrote:

Still in Chapter one and making progress. Everyone’s at level 18. I did first sidequest where you choose a new class to unlock. I went with the Thief, since I prefer spell specialists to generalists and have never really liked Red Mages all that much. The enemies in that dungeon were also annoying, since they were the first ones that started throwing status effects around. I then did the next dungeon at the bottom of a crater.

...

Yeah, I'm the same way with Red Mages. I almost always find them underwhelming. At least in Bravely Default, the Red Mage was mostly useful for the passive abilities it gained, which combined really well with other jobs. It had several different skills that either gave you free BP, or gave you a chance at free BP, upon certain triggering conditions.

My favorite of those...

Spoiler:

...was a skill that gave you one BP when you evaded an attack. That combined nicely with the Ninja, which had a move (Utsusemi) that guaranteed you would evade the next physical attack -- and lasted until someone attacked at you. You could also pick up other passives that would boost your stats when on evading, and give you a free counterattack when evading. The self-buff, free counterattack, free BP essentially let you get three actions for the price of setting up one evade.

Last night, I got the Catmancer Asterisk! The look, and the nature of the Asterisk holder you beat to get it, makes this feel like one of the sillier jobs, so far, in Bravely Default or Bravely Second. But in essence, this is the game's Blue Mage. I know there are a bunch of powerful abilities that will unlock -- and I love that after getting the Asterisk, the diary contain entries to tell you which enemies use the moves you can earn. So I'll probably try to find some of those abilities before progressing with the story.

Fighting the Asterisk holder reminded me of how powerful physical jobs can be, and how sometimes you can make an effective build that doesn't feature magic. And also, how much buffs make a difference. I had been using a split party, with a Summoner (Yew), a Charioteer (Edea), an Astrologian (Magnolia), and a Thief (Tiz). But before the boss fight, I made Yew a Thief and swapped Tiz back to Fencer. Using spellcraft on Magnolia's astral magic, I was able to apply a party-wide physical attack buff. The characters hit for huge damage, and it was over pretty quickly after that.

I also loved Big Bad Burglar, which I borrowed for Yew from an Abililink with Mr GT Chris. This gave Yew a physical attack boost each time he stole, including using Steal Breath to heal himself. Crazy powerful!

Ooh, I like that. I got the astrologian but haven’t done anything with it yet. That may change.

Off-topic, but I just have to say it:

Amoebic did a fantastic job with your Stan, LastSurprise!

I jsut meet Edea... the game has me hooked so far. Do not know what took me so long to play it

This is really fun, so well designed and thought out.

I got to Level 11-12 with my party last night, picking up the fencing and bishop jobs in the process. I switched Tiz to a fencer and Magnolia to a bishop, and on we go.

It's funny how just a little mechanic change can make a world of difference. I love the ability to tweak the frequency of random encounters. I wanted to grind up a level before reaching the next boss fight last night, and so I just cranked up the random encounters to 100%, ground away for 10 minutes, and bing! And being able to turn them down to zero means you can press on in new areas without having to worry about making it back to whatever save point you left behind.

I've never been a fan of random encounters--it goes against my innate need to "clear" an area of enemies--but this is really well done.

Oh... I guess i MISSED that part... let me find that configuration to tweak the random encounters. The game is alot of fun so far

Darkhaund wrote:

Oh... I guess i MISSED that part... let me find that configuration to tweak the random encounters. The game is alot of fun so far

If you just found Edea, it isn't a thing yet. You'll get it in a bit, and the game will let you know.

Ahhhh.thanks... thing is i played late last night and was half asleep, i THOUGHT I might missed it.

EDIT.. All of a sudden (I do no know what I did) Edea my Blackamge... has tooltip in orange that appears when I want to cast an offensive spell, such as HEAT, frost etc. that says "Craftable". What is this and why and how did it appear suddently. seems this game hast ALOT of micro systems lol. Any explanation will be appreciated.

I have my party up to four and have progressed through to about level 11.

I too am loving everything they have done around the grinding and the random encounters. The ability to turn up the frequency, chain them together and grind out a few levels quickly, while really engaging with the combat system to try and get the higher multipliers, then turn the battles off and really explore the dungeons is fantastic.

Even the set up of the job system feels very tailored to trying out different jobs without any min/max type penalty for investing some time in the "wrong" job.

I'm looking very forward to picking up some of the other jobs mentioned above.

Darkhaund wrote:

Ahhhh.thanks... thing is i played late last night and was half asleep, i THOUGHT I might missed it.

EDIT.. All of a sudden (I do no know what I did) Edea my Blackamge... has tooltip in orange that appears when I want to cast an offensive spell, such as HEAT, frost etc. that says "Craftable". What is this and why and how did it appear suddently. seems this game hast ALOT of micro systems lol. Any explanation will be appreciated.

These are different variations on the spells you can cast.

By default all the spells I have seen hit all enemies, but these variations allow you to use the same element to target a specific enemy (for higher damage), or target all enemies with the same name (to focus on weak points). I believe these are unlocked as you level up the wizard job.

Cronox wrote:
Darkhaund wrote:

Ahhhh.thanks... thing is i played late last night and was half asleep, i THOUGHT I might missed it.

EDIT.. All of a sudden (I do no know what I did) Edea my Blackamge... has tooltip in orange that appears when I want to cast an offensive spell, such as HEAT, frost etc. that says "Craftable". What is this and why and how did it appear suddently. seems this game hast ALOT of micro systems lol. Any explanation will be appreciated.

These are different variations on the spells you can cast.

By default all the spells I have seen hit all enemies, but these variations allow you to use the same element to target a specific enemy (for higher damage), or target all enemies with the same name (to focus on weak points). I believe these are unlocked as you level up the wizard job.

Thanks for the explanation so very much.

EDIT ... I have another question.
Some -not all- of m jobs have their corresponding level ad thena gray little arrow pointing right and then another number in ORANGE... What is this.

For example with Yew...

Freelaner it shows Lv 4 > 10
Wizard 4 > 10
Charioteer 1 > 10
Fencer 1 > 10

But Bishop does not show that...
Any info on this?

I believe you are using Abililink. You probably have one of your friends paired with Yew, and so you gain the benefit of the job levels they’ve acquired for him. The numbers in grey are the levels you have, and the ones in orange are the ones they have. And, your friend apparently never leveled Yew as a bishop.

I played another half hour last night, just moving the story along some and arriving at the university/learning town (forgot the name). Still level 11-12, still having fun.

LastSurprise.. yes.. that is right.. now that you mention it... both of my characters with the orange level are the ones with Ablink... I dont remember anywhere in the tutotiral that explained such thing.

Also.. I HAD thegame on casual and decided to put it to normal... it was toooo easy -for now-

Finally completed the Prologue last night. I like the game (although do not like Yew and still am meh on Tiz as characters), but I just have such a hard time making myself play a 3DS game when my PS4, Switch, and PC are all staring me in the face. Feels like such a waste a time to play on a handheld system when better systems are available. Growing up my Gameboy, Game Gear, etc. were always only for playing while traveling, so maybe that is part of my block. Really wish this game was available on Switch instead.

Hopefully I can force myself forward and get some good progress this week.

If you have to Force your self on a game or something that should be pleasant it is not with it.
Happened with me with Lufia Curse of the Sinstrels... i got that game as a gift on the DS.. my oh my what a HORRIBLE GROTESQUE game... i had to put it down!

I currently find that playing on my 3DS is much more convenient given the crisis we are currently at. Between my business, and helping around the house chores, kids etc... the ability to just close the 3DS and take it with me downstairs etc is practical.

Bravely Second is a fabulous game.... but if you are not ENJOYING IT... stop and look for something else

I’m 18 hours in and just started Ch. 2 with everyone’s at lv. 27. I got a few chances to powerlevel, so my levels and time may not be the same as yours, depending on how you play.

I picked the summoner class from the second sidequest, and gave it to Yew to work on, since he’s my magic attacker. Honestly not too impressed so far, but having a single big attack is nice to have. I’m also still amazed at the damage output of Tiz the Thief. I don’t normally think of the Thief class as a damage dealer, but here we are. If I wasn’t keeping Edea as a Charioteer to try to get to Quad Wield eventually, I might jump her over to Thief as well.

I tried the Astrologer/Bishop thing with Magnolia for awhile, but she had no offensive capability and was entirely a support bot. I liked the support options for boss fights, but for general use I think I’m going to flip her back to Bishop/Wizard to give her damage output. And I’m still keeping Freelancer on Tiz, just to have someone who still has Examine, since once I know an enemy’s weakness, when I’m off grinding I use Yew’s supereffective elemental darts from his time as a Wizard to oneshot most enemies. And the darts are usually my strongest attacks, even when they aren’t super effective. Darts are great.

I also have some comments on a new mechanic around the base that popped up around halfway through ch. 1, but I’ll put it in spoilers just in case someone wants to be totally blind.

Spoiler:

I also killed my first Ba’al on the moon (which is a crazy thing to type out unless you know what I’m talking about). I had to put it under fire using all of our ships to bring it down from level 18 to level 1, and only then could I even do damage to it when I fought it (I tried fighting it when it was level 17; it has 11000 HP and took no damage even from attacks it was weak to). But once at level one, killing it was easy, and we got a TON of experience and JP, plus an item that gave Yew a huge stat boost. So as people get their ships on the moon, be sure to upgrade them and then update your online data so hopefully everyone can have a bunch of well leveled ships fighting for them. Updating your data is good anyway, since once a day you get more people for the base by doing it. Right now I see a bunch of level 1 ships for each of you I added, since I think the game creates one for each friend, even if they don’t have their own ships yet. GT Chris' high level ship is really doing a lot of work for me so far.

I managed to beat a second one while working in the end of chapter dungeon, and everyone got one or two level ups from it. It’s hard to overstate how useful fighting those things is for power leveling, and thus how important it is to let your 3DS just be in sleep mode all the time so they can be weakened and to fall in killing range.

Does it affect if I have a character a specific job? I mean will a Wizard be as efective regardless of who it is or are certain charcters more adept to certain jobs.

I am still torn as to what jobs assign to who. Currently this is what i got

Yew - fener
Tiz - Freelancer
Edae - Wizard
Magnolia - Charoteer

Darkhaund wrote:

Does it affect if I have a character a specific job? I mean will a Wizard be as efective regardless of who it is or are certain charcters more adept to certain jobs.

I am still torn as to what jobs assign to who. Currently this is what i got

Yew - fener
Tiz - Freelancer
Edae - Wizard
Magnolia - Charoteer

I think Yew and Magnolia lean a bit towards better magic and more MP, while Edea and Tiz lean more towards physical attacks, but the stat differences aren't significant, so you can mix and match as needed. Anyone can be whatever you want them to well enough.

Thanks for the tip...

I currently have no healer.... so ill see what i can o in the next few levels!
Game is very fun so far

Malkroth wrote:

Finally completed the Prologue last night. I like the game (although do not like Yew and still am meh on Tiz as characters), but I just have such a hard time making myself play a 3DS game when my PS4, Switch, and PC are all staring me in the face. Feels like such a waste a time to play on a handheld system when better systems are available. Growing up my Gameboy, Game Gear, etc. were always only for playing while traveling, so maybe that is part of my block. Really wish this game was available on Switch instead.

Hopefully I can force myself forward and get some good progress this week.

This is interesting. I was thinking the exact opposite the other night as I was playing BS. I was thinking that the 3DS is relaxing to go to now because it's so disconnected from everything, kind of why I like the Kindle for reading because there are no distractions. And I really like that I can just flip the cover open and start to play in like 2 seconds, no matter where I am. Because I'm working from home all the time now, my home office has morphed into a complete workspace, so it's harder for my mind to disassociate from work there. Escaping to the 3DS in the living room, or somewhere else in the house has been really positive for me.

I suppose the Switch is like this too? (I don't have a Switch yet, so not sure.)

Guys... Where is is good to level up some jobs? I made changes on my characters and would apprecia pointers