FFVIII will be out on steam eventually. I have a pretty deep personal connection with this game. My best friend Vindall and I would sync up our vacations and run the whole game in a week once a year. (5 years in a row). However I've been without a Play Station and TV since I moved out here to CA. Now that I'll have this game again Vindall and I will be renewing our tradition and playing FFVIII, eating, and sleeping for 1 week.
This isn't your normal FFVIII run. Think TheCore style detail/logic applied to an RPG. Every magic junction, GF, and Character will be optimized, all the work we've done on the game will be posted up on google docs for everyone to enjoy. The run will be streamed by both Vindall and I. There are some options we have that I want your opinions on:
Complete Beat or Selected only?
What we call a Complete Beat means: Every Boss killed Every Side Quest completed Every Secret unlocked Every Character Level 100 3 Full sets of perfect magic (casting and junction) Every Achievement Every Card acquired (don't have to keep) Every Weapon Every Limit Break Every Item
Selected only would be choosing particular things in this list but not all.
With Pre-Grind we'll get tons of cards before the actual playthrough. This allows us to get every magic in the game (100 for each character as soon as the Refine ability for that magic type (i.e. Time Mag-RF) is unlocked. This means the play-through will take less time, but you will miss out on the grinding aspect of the game.
Straight Play-Through This means that you see it all. We won't grind out the cards to get the magic, we'll have to play through and grab magic as we go, however we can, mostly through drawing.
Squall only is easier and cuts down the grind time. The reason for this is that the enemy's level in this game is based on the average level of your party. So if Squall is level 100, and the other 2 are 6 and 8 respectively the enemies will be an average level of 38 which pretty much get 1 hit-KO'd by level 100 Squall. This makes battles hilarious and easy, but is generally less interesting than a full team build. It prevents a complete beat as well as requiring a large grind section with the dinosaurs in the middle of the night in the training area o_0
Full Team means we'll be making a team of 3 or 6 characters and try to use their strengths to win battles etc. I say 3 or 6 because we're considering making a "dream team" of the best 3 characters and not training up the other 3.
Poll: Squall Only or Full Team
Full Team (6 characters) (15)
68%
Dream Team (3 characters) (5)
23%
Squall Only (2)
9%
22 total votes
Your vote: Squall Only or Full Team
(Vote): Squall Only (Vote): Dream Team (3 characters) (Vote): Full Team (6 characters)
We will not be doing a speed run. Although it is in a list of accomplishments one could make when playing this game, it isn't very fun for us. Maybe someday, but not this time.
The streams will run continuously without commercials so everyone will get a chance to come hang out with us at some point. As the date for a FFVIII release isn't 100% solidified (might be japan only, but that's unlikely as fuck) we will be waiting for only so long before hunting down copies of the old PC port that work and doing it without steam. For now we're holding out on the HD remake because we think it would be awesome
Please let us know what you think and add any other sort of achievements we might accomplish on our run and things we could do to make the marathon more interesting/fun (this is our "vacation" after all).
@Cokefreak, that's my preferred method as well. Never pulled off a full complete beat though, done all with the exception of cards, that's my current best.
@JaKaTaK, I have an annual 100% run of FFVIII, straight from the get go with as much card playing and as little monster grinding as possible with every possible sidequest and boss done.
On August 09 2013 02:41 Cokefreak wrote: @JaKaTaK, I have an annual 100% run of FFVIII, straight from the get go with as much card playing and as little monster grinding as possible with every possible sidequest and boss done.
Sick :D When I get my junction magic etc info up I'll be very interested to compare
I'm playing through ff8 right now... how hard will you try to prevent your characters from leveling before you have access to all the gf bonus abilities? My sister is hardcore and will gain literally 0 experience before that point. She will have Seifer kill during the SeeD exam, card enemies, and petrify anyone that can't be carded. I'm not that hardcore lol.
@micro I'm not a big fan of the leveling prevention style. We will be fish farming after ifrit. (the fire fish monsters at the beach by the ifrit cave have very high AP which will get us a couple mag-rf, bonuses, and card mod). We usually farm curse spikes from creeps in the sewers as quickly as possible, but i'm not 100% sure whether or not to do that on this run. But level prevention is boring to us. It's pretty easy to win with the card grind regardless of whether or not everyone is at their lowest possible level, and the moderate challenge that comes with leveling normally is fun
On August 09 2013 03:11 micronesia wrote: I'm playing through ff8 right now... how hard will you try to prevent your characters from leveling before you have access to all the gf bonus abilities? My sister is hardcore and will gain literally 0 experience before that point. She will have Seifer kill during the SeeD exam, card enemies, and petrify anyone that can't be carded. I'm not that hardcore lol.
A couple of levels won't change anything really, maxing stats is faster and much less of a nuisance anyways with the card game on disc 4 or even with Devour than it is running away/killing off characters/etc to avoid EXP points.
On August 09 2013 03:44 nooboon wrote: WTF you mean the enemies scale to the average of your team and not the highest leveled character? Damn, I learned something new today.
Might check this out when I have time.
Yeah, it's the average level of party but with a twist, it can be 90/100/110% of the average party level.
Squall only imo, or there won't be any challenge. Already Squall only is easier than it sounds if you get good junctions and stay in the academy to play cards. 100% of the game with everything streamed.
I used to do that with my best friend, during summer I would go squat his apartment and we'd play FF 7-8-9 (when the ywere released) and other games. Amazing memories, I envy you
You can play the PC version or the PSX version on EPSXE if you don't want t owait (I'd recommend the PSX version as FF games on PC aren't reputed for their "solidity")
@MrCon Squall only is by far the easiest option. I've done 1 3 and 6 character parties and 1 is definitely the easiest due to the way the levels work in this game.
Awesommme I love FF8. I will watch it definitely. When you get to Ultimecia's Castle, make sure to beat the bosses with different teams! Always enjoyed that part the most.
Not sure yet. Vindall and I have to get our schedules lined up. Then we have to get the games. At least 2 months. I'd really like to do it in HD when it comes out for steam.
will you be leaving up a public VOD of this? I'd like watch watch, but since there is no set date I'm not sure if I'll check back in before you do this.
EPT
