HSUP B TCELES - Let's Play FF1! Again!

So he question is: is Brick promoting?

If he he he'll want to stop his grind around 47, so he can get those three fast charges from ninja.

If not, well... see ya at level 50, FUKT.

Either way the last three levels won't mean much in this fight. Level 50 thief still has problems here, from everything I've read. Even getting there will be hard, as monster start to run from you at a certain point.

You people are cruel. What did Brick ever do to any of you?

It's not nice to laugh, Destil. :<

Yes they fucking can.

See, as your level goes up, the chances of monsters running away increases. Long before FUKT gets that precious third hit he needs, the critters around Elfland start fleeing from his very presence. You do not get EXP for monsters you don't kill.

It should be noted that FUKT is only now getting to the point where he can reliably fight maybe two or three battles between INN stays. Not only does he need tens of thousands of EXP per level, but his overall EXP intake is starting to plummet because he's getting less on average per fight.

Imagine it on a cartridge. 400-ish EXP as your best case scenario. 50k to next level. You can't kill anything in a single attack, and half the time the bloody monsters vanish before you can kill them.



Grindgrindgrind.


I have cranked up the EXP so much in Hackster that I'm starting to get graphical glitches on the results screen.



At L28 --

LEVEL FUCKING TWENTY FUCKING EIGHT

-- FUKT finally gets his third hit. This doesn't really improve his damage output, mind... an extra 1 or 2 per round. All it does is gives him that one extra chance at a critical each time he attacks. He's no better off against RUB or SLO2 or SLOW than he was; he still needs otherworldly amounts of luck to win.


Because he's earning thousands and thousands of EXP per fight, FUKT reaches L29 on his way back up to ASTOS. At L29, every other class is busy EYE-grinding. They've already toppled the FIENDs, looted all the treasure, gotten their promotions. The game is over for everyone else. An entire team of L29s is trouncing WarMECHs with relative ease.

FUKT is marching to fucking ASTOS. He hasn't lit a single ORB. He doesn't have a single spell-casting item. He doesn't have a CANOE or an AIRSHIP. He has seen fewer than ten treasure boxes. He's only been inside one major dungeon.

HE. IS. WALKING. TO. ASTOS.

Do you guys get it? Do you now understand? Solo THIEF is challenging in the exact same way as surviving an airplane crash. There is nothing here resembling fun. When you win, it's not because you found some inventive solution or exploited some bizarre obscure tactic -- it's because your dice finally came up sixes.

Solo THIEF is not "the next level of challenge" for me. It's not even in the same ZIP code as the other five solos. It's not pushing the game, or my abilities, to the limits. It's throwing yourself against a brick wall, over and over, and then dying of boredom.

I don't even want to think about the sheer time investment this challenge takes. I'm playing at 450% speed and have hacked the monsters to give me a guaranteed level up every fight. It still took me an entire afternoon. Legitimately getting a THIEF to L29 would take over 300k EXP. That's 1500 OGREs -- and keep in mind you're fighting IMPs and KYZOKUs for a goodly portion of that time.

And after all this... can FUKT actually beat ASTOS? Well... (Again, mute your speakers or your ears will explode.)

Isn't Fuckt is the alternate title for the first song on Radiohead's Amnesiac?

Wow, I'm glad that I never bothered continuing my challenge.


Poor Stryker.

Can't wait to see the WarMECH fight!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

That ASTOS video is absurd. This is now my favorite LP.

RUB RUB RUB RUB LOL RUB RUB RUB

Boy, what in the hell are you doing?

Stop this nonsense.

After all that grinding, FUKT still has to contend with all the problems he did before. Even at L50, if you could even find anything to fight long enough to nickle-and-dime yourself up that high, RUB or SLO2 or SLOW would be a loss.


With a great amount of luck, though, just like the PIRATEs and ZOIDBERGs, FUKT can win. Again, I must stress, this is not a shot of FUKT finally being strong enough to beat ASTOS. This is a shot of the one fight amidst 100+ failed ones that defied the obscene odds. This is the planets aligning.


Here are FUKT's final stats.

"Wait... final stats!? You're giving up!?"

Yes. I'm giving up. This is as far as FUKT goes. Did you really think I was going to play a THIEF solo to completion?

APRIL FOOL'S!!

But no, seriously folks. The harsh reality is that I'm not even convinced ASTOS is the worst part of a THIEF solo. I've completed FIGHTER and Bl.BELT solos, and while ASTOS is difficult for them both, the Earth Cave is worse. It all comes down to LICH; without spellcasting ability, the fight is reduced to a race for criticals. A pumped FIGHTER or Bl.BELT can fell LICH in a couple rounds with good attacks. Otherwise, well... let's take a look at LICH's spell order:

• ICE2 - SLP2 - FAST - LIT2 - HOLD - FIR2 - SLOW - SLEP

SLP2, HOLD, SLOW and SLEP are virtually guaranteed losses for anyone who is trying to kill LICH with physical attacks. LICH's own physical attacks are quite a bit stronger than ASTOS's, just as nasty while FASTed, and -- oh yeah -- they Stun you. Which is to say nothing of the guaranteed damage from ICE2/LIT2/FIR2, or the fact that LICH has more than twice as many HPs as ASTOS.

Oh, and if you lose, you have to go through the entire Earth Cave again, which means ZOIDBERGs, COCTRICEs, and gobs of stun-locking undead. Unlike ASTOS, who lives about twenty steps away from your TENT.

Sure, FUKT would have better weapons by that point... but his damage output would still be leagues under a FIGHTER or Bl.BELT, who can barely win against LICH as it is. (Well, I'm sure they would have no problem with him at L29, but that's beside the point.)

And then after the Earth Cave and LICH... the Ice Cave and the EYE. Oh good lord and baby jesus.

I'm sorry, but no. This is it. This is all I'm doing. The end. Fin. Exit stage right. I am simply not convinced a solo THIEF can win the game outside of savescumming, and I'm not willing to go that route. What would be the point? Anyone could do that. Even if you could get past LICH, what would the rest of the game be like? "Bane Sword. Miss. Reload. Bane Sword. Miss. Reload. Bane Sword. Miss. Reload. Bane Sword. Miss. Reload. Bane Sword. Hit! HAY GUYZ I BEAT CHAOS."

I feel like I owe you guys more than that. I feel like I owe you guys... awesomeness. For all the great LPs this forum has given me. For all the excellent conversations. For all the blog post inspiration, the comraderie, the Festivus gifts, the Fun Clubs, the avatar swaps, the Mafia games, the Twitter banter, the lulz and backpatting and more double meat than a man can handle. I owe you guys more than I can deliver with a bullshit THIEF solo challenge that sucks ass.

Let's do this game right. Let's do it for real. Let's do it... advanced.


♪♪ Main Title ♪♪

This will probably be a controversial statement, especially coming from me, but Dawn of Souls is the definitive version of FF1. I will never stop loving the NES version (not even FUKT could traumatize me that badly), but I'll be frank: it's nostalgia. It's just my childhood talking. That game is... well... unplayable. Half of it doesn't work, and the other half is obtuse beyond belief. It was crazy even by 1990 standards... how could I possibly recommend it to a new player, in 2010?

Dawn of Souls is prettier, and has nicer music. Its spells, weapons and stats actually function properly. It includes all those little lessons we've learned about how a fun, properly-balanced RPG ought to play. It's friendly. It likes you.

It's everything RPGs weren't, back in the 80s and 90s.


Build me a party, Talking Time. Give me some names. Let's put the horrorshow of FUKT behind us, and play Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls.

I can only hope that this is an elaborate April Fool's joke, because this is downright painful. I feel bad for wanting to see this in the second FF thread.

If this is just a RUSE, then I'd like to see you LP the game with a party of your choosing, and to demolish the game.

As for promoting, I think that's the only reason to play a solo thief game, since trying to beat the game with just the Dragon Sword is much what hell must be like.

EDIT: Good, it was just a joke. I can't think of any names for a potential party, but I say use a Fighter this time and a Black Belt since those are the only two classes that haven't been used in the FF LPs here.

Oh my God, you magnificent bastard.

Thief (Lock) - Monk (Gene) - Bl. Mage (Ika) - Red Mage (Lite) is the way to go. The way. Wh. Mages are anethema when you already have a healer in the party and Fighters are for sissies.

That said, you probably could finish a THIEF Solo once you got past Astos - Lich doesn't kill you outright and you theoretically could grind to the point where you can kill him in one or two crits. After that, you could clear Ice Cave, promote and rock the rest of the game as a Ninja, fasting yourself and slaughtering your way through the rest of the game. But then, I don't even want to know how much grinding you'd need to get to that point. :s

Solo Thief!

I love you.

Absolutely doable.

I've completed DoS, including all the bonus dungeons, with a party of unpromoted thieves. It was actually a lot of fun, because it involved heavy item use... a tactic not really required in any other type of run!

Yeah I know. I've actually done it (well... solo Ninja, but that's besides the point). I was just being silly.

That's okay. There has been enough pain here. This can be a silly thread now.

Heh. "BONE FUKT"

No but really, DoS Solo Thief.

Brilliant, Dr. Roadington. You can't hear me, but I'm applauding. The super-speed wheels-o-frustration were just perfect. I laughed my ass off, beginning to end.

Oh, yeah, Dawn of Souls. I think it goes without saying that the team needs at least one Thief. Other than that, go nuts -- from what I've heard, DoS pretty much beats itself, so any configuration should work.

NO MORE SOLOS

Srsly, let's play this game normally again this time.

We need to know if White Mages are any more useful than Wh.MAGEs. Bring back SKUB! With Hi-Potions and Phoenix Downs, might they be even less necessary than their 8-bit brethren?

Man, I was wondering why this LP was going so fast. Didn't realize you had to finish your updates before noon!

Technically speaking, you didn't, so your April Fool's joke was 75 minutes past-due. But I'll forgive you.

Do want. Aside from the great name, I also happen to really like Bl.Belts in Final Fantasy. Something about my original Black Belt AEF punching dragons for 900 damage in the final dungeon really stuck with me, since 20 years later it's still the image I associate with that class. I'm half tempted to play an all black belt party some day, but I'm worried that the complete lack of spells would make it pretty boring.

Four white mages and post-game content, please.

If you have a Thief you should name him FUKR.

I was about to say that the best part of the original FF1 LP was the strategic use of magic charges, combined with spellcasting items, and that DoS' shift to traditional MPs would make it less interesting. But then...

Ohohoho fixed encounters with Warmech, Shinryu, and Omega. Ohohoho.

My last DoS playthrough was 3 Monks and a Black Mage, which pretty much curbstomped everything (though I didn't try the bonus content).

If I have to have a Percy in my FF3 LP you've got to have a Percy Thief.

Yes, this. This this this.

Actually, I say you need a Fighter and a Black Belt. Between the first LP, the dueling mages one, and the misadventures of FUKT, those are the only two classes without any time in the Brickroad FF1 spotlight so far.

No Percy. Please god, no Percy.