- Chapter 4 -
The Long Climb
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- Level 30 -
07/08/2023
After finally unlocking and mastering all additions available for Dart, there's basically no tangible metric of progress other than levels... This is in one way awesome because I achieved the most important leveling-based goal in the game, but also there's no more of these milestones to count on, is only levels, and the EXP curve is exponential... To put it on perspective, I haven't even reached 25% of the whole challenge, I'm a little bit over 10% in fact.
And speaking of milestones, the only other metric I can go with is Gold, but that's just a nebulous projection of what I could do once I get to certain shop. I'll highlight when I reach those milestones, even tho I can already buy 3 Legend Casques and 3 Armors of Legend, which is already OP as can be.
Regardless, the challenge is still the same, and I'll still walk the whole way through. The hill will only get steeper, and by God I WILL climb it >:)
- Level 31 -
05/09/2023
Well, it did take me a month, and was actually focused on other things so I didn't actually grind that much, I went hard on it the past few days after going soft on it for like a week at most.
There isn't much to add to this honestly, I just got another level and the hype for eventually getting to a point where I can take no damage from the enemies in the Forest made me document Dart's specific stats so I can expand upon the TLoD wiki page on Status... Yeah, I started at Lvl 30, but I can emulate the game and grind up the early 30 levels with fast forward and get to level 29 without much hassle, but that's a side thing born from knowing how high Dart's defense has to be to block all damage natively.
I actually wonder if Dart's base stats are enough to completely block off the weakest damage possible. :P
- Level 32 -
05/11/2023
Phew! Two months it took me, but I finally got to Level 32!
I had to take it slower this time, in fact there's a lot of work I've been doing while grinding this level, and if things go well, I may have less time to grind, but I will keep on going because dammit I love the grind.
BTW, Dart still takes 1 HP from a Berserk Mouse attack, the weakest enemy in the game... I think this has been the case since around lvl 20 or even lower, would even say lvl 10 but I honestly don't know, but man the hype to become literally unkillable is lovely. Don't remember off the top of my head if I said it before, but I remember my characters taking 0 damage from a Berserk Mouse near the end of Disc 1, so I know with proper stats it is possible. What's left is seeing when that will actually be.
- Grinding Plans and Some Stuff -
12/11/2023
So I thought of adding more updates in-between the levels if there's anything noteworthy... In fact, I have said this before, but now I'm putting it into action.
The point here is just some progress on the grind, having devised a plan to get small grinds to amount to a big result. I have 5000 EXP to go from level 32 to level 33, which, considering that fights yield either 4, 5, 9 or 10 EXP each, means it takes between 500 and 1250 battles to reach that level, which does sound horribly plentiful, but I did the sensible thing and split it into chunks. Of course I divided it into 5 1000, which is far more reasonable since that equals between 100 and 250 battles, and I have actually gotten a thousand EXP in a single day... I may be remembering wrong, but I think I have gotten close to TWO thousand EXP in a single day, but that was a very VERY dedicated day. But I decided to divide it further since a thousand is still a big number and can't guarantee that every day nor is it very inviting, so of course I went further. 500 EXP is between 50 and 125 battles, and I decided this is the ideal EXP gain in a single day. And since I can reliably get 500 EXP in a single day, I can do it in two sets of 250 EXP, which equals between 25 and 63 battles, also seen as four sets of 125 EXP, which is between 13 and 32 battles, and doing 32 battles is no problem at all, I can do that in less than an hour, if not less than 30 minutes, so doing that four times in a day makes it so I can get 5000 EXP in the span of 10 days, and I have no restrain to prevent me from going for another set of 125 EXP if I'm on the hype train, which did happen. Grinding while playing something else I got 1000 in a single day like 2 days ago.
So this plan is proving itself to be really helpful and has given me the best results so far, and while I am busy these days, it does help me from preventing the grind taking much longer than needed.
Oh, and also you may have noticed how I have not healed at all for a bit. I took around 200 damage cumulative, which BTW means that I got hit almost 200 individual times while getting that 1500 EXP, and I decided to not take time healing for a while for two reasons:
1) I want to see if I can reach a point where I level up and get enough Defense stats to prevent all damage BEFORE having to heal at all, although experience with this challenge makes me think it won't happen :P
2) Defending heals 10% per turn, and Healing Potions heal 50% each, so I can heal the damage of literally OVER A THOUSAND BATTLES in less than 2 minutes whenever I want, so I will just let the number get down to the 10s before I get back to full health for the hell of it. It also provides a small subtle hint of how much battling I've done, which is a pretty tangible way to see how much effort I'm actually putting in, and that's reassuring.
So yeah, this is where I am... You can tell these are the thoughts I have while losing the sense of time and attention while I grind. It is far more enjoyable than it seems, to be honest :P
- Level 33 -
15/11/2023
The things one can do with proper devotion, eh?
Another level down, and I think in record time... Maybe not, but considering it used to take me a month to get a sigle level when they were half as hard or less to achieve, I think I'm shaping up good and getting into a very nice groove. This to me marks a great precedent since now, to me, a thousand EXP is no big deal. I saw that the next level is gonna take like 5000 EXP and I was like "Eh, nice!". Sure, with my plan of 500 EXP per day it will make it much faster, but honestly, if I got a good grasp on what I'll be doing in the day and keep in mind the grind, I can easily knock down 500 EXP in less than two hours, thus I can get 1000 EXP in a day without much issue, and yes, when I achieve full efficiency I can absolutely get 2000 EXP down in a single day... Maybe even more in the future, but honestly getting even a single thousand in a day on demand is a great achievement for me, and it does give me great expectations and hype for the coming months. I don't wanna oversell nor overpromise... But I'm looking forward to lvl 40 already, and that's a great promise since it is the next great milestone.
Oh, and I still take 1 damage from Berserk Mice, so I will have to heal soon since I got down to under 300 HP while getting to level 33, no way I'll survive to lvl 34 before without healing.
- Level 34 -
28/11/2023
... Man, leveled up twice in a single month, that's awesome!
Also, I set the PS3 to 4:3 aspect ratio, which somehow fixed the memory card utility thingy :v
6 thousand EXP is needed for the next level, which is still not THAT bad. Some days I can grind 500 EXP, some I can 250, some days I can't get any grinding, and on some I have gotten 2000, so level 35 can either take over 10 days or as little as 5, and if I take the initiative to work in a specific way, I feel one day I'll find a way to get even more EXP in a single day.
On different metrics, I have gotten over 240 hours, which means this file has lasted longer than 10 days straight. I think several hours of that have been spent on idle, but still, I do think at least 200 of those hours arae of somewhat consistent grinding.
I am also about to get to 100 thousand gold! Getting to shops is going to be quite the trip.
And finally, I am thinking about collecting Detonate Rocks. These items, dropped sometimes by Goblins, hit all enemies, so I may actually use them to kill enemies when they come in pairs... I was doubting using these because of the 5 gold they sell for, because those add up, but I think the time saved from turns will be more worth it... But Goblins only spawn in the first area of the Forest, where there's suboptimal encounters. In the 2nd area there's only 1 Assassin Cock, 2 Assassin Cocks, 1 Trent, or 1 Trent and 1 Assassin Cock, those are all the encounters, ranging from 4 to 10 EXP per fight. In the first area there's 1 Berserk Mouse, 2 Berserk Mice, 1 Berserk Mouse and 1 Assassin Cock, or 1 Assassin Cock and 1 Goblin, ranging from 3 EXP from a single Berserk Mouse, to 9 EXP from the Goblin Chicken duo, but Goblins MAY drop a Detonate Rock... You know what? Imma experiment with this. There may be more encounters in the first area that I don't know of as of yet, but if the Detonate Rock may help grinding faster the duos in the 2nd area, it may just be worth it... Also, I can't buy items that attack all enemies at once, so that's why I'm overthinking this.
Also I'm still taking 1 HP from the Berserk Mouse.
Until next time! :D
- Level 35 -
20/12/2023
I actually got to this level 2 days before the day of posting, but here we are now.
I got the level during a stream, then I just... Sat on posting it, BUT I have more to show than just a new level!
Remember all the rantings and thoughts about proper grinding on the previous entries? Well now I have given them proper form and have put them down on paper.
The best option for grinding seems to be to grind in Area 3.
The area is fairly comfortable to move around despite all the entrances that lead from one path to another, but the trees limit movement enough to allow Dart to approach encounters without getting tripped by the environment.
Area 1 is fine to run around, nothing special. Area 2 has a problem because the log bridge is an encounter-free area, and thus stepping on the log, which is a big portion of the whole area, slows down the rate of encounters. Not great.
Finally, the items so far I've just sold fo a small boost of gold, but now I see some use in them. While Healing Potions could have use since 2 of them tops you off, but 10 uses of shield does the same and that takes less than 2 minutes and I only need to heal like once a MONTH so it's no issue to just use the shield, and Pellets would at most be a way to spice up the fights because they just attack a single target the same way a normal attack does, and everything dies in 1 hit anyways. Detonate Rocks offer something unique though: Attack all enemies at once, and that could cut short many fights against enemy duos since those may get dragged on for several turns if the enemies get an advantageous start, so the Detonate Rock cuts it short, which can streamline battles to allow more fights per hour.
So that's the grinding plan: Area 3 has the greatest EXP yield, half of the encounters are Goblins, which may yield Detonate Rocks which may speed up grinding.
So that's where I'm at now! I am able to get like 250 EXP in a single hour if I keep a relaxed yet steady pace, so I think I found the ideal place to grind for this challenge, at least with the limitations I've set for myself. Here's to plenty more levels!
- Level 36 -
04/02/2024
Ho boy, it has been a busy beginning of the year!
I have been grinding here and there. January was a very eventful month for me and just recently I finished some of the more pressing things I had to do. Among these things were some new type of commissions that I had to correct and save urgently, was hectic but a lot of fun. Another thing was meeting again with a friend of mine, I told him about his challenge and... It was funny to see his face reset to a blank "Are you for fucking real" stare over and over again, it happened like 5 times in total as I was describing everything that goes into this challenge... In fact, I sent him the pictures of this entry as soon as I took them :3c
Other thank that, Dart had a maximum of 2756 HP in Lvl 35, and since he got 1865 HP at the level up, that means he was hit almost a thousand times before leveling up, because I don't heal unless it's necessary or I level up. It took Dart 891 whacks to level up once, let's see how much it is for the next one! :P
Not much else to talk about. Dart still takes 1 damage from Berserk Mice, and I got a bit faster at grinding per sitting. A little bit over 6 thousand EXP to go.
- Level 37 -
08/02/2024
MAN!
Lemme sum it up this new entry with two sentences:
> I got THREE THOUSAND experience points in a single day, today. This is my new personal record.
> It took me LESS THAN A WEEK, four days to achieve this level up, something that used to take me MUCH longer before is now something I can reliably do constantly.
This is a big deal because getting levels has never been more challenging, yet I can actually get a new level, even possibly two in a single week. Considering that before I was so slow, a much easier level would take me over a month to reach, it goes to show how much I've learnt and improved in doing this challenge.
I am not yet even at the 1/4 mark of this challenge, but I am actually approaching that mark faster than I expected.
Besides all that, my big next goal in terms of grinding speed, is being able to get 5000 EXP in a single day. I think I could potentially even reach 10000 in a day, but that would be a perfect grinding day, and honestly, I think that would even get boring.... Oh well, we'll see. I don't know if I will keep this pace right now, but now I know I can quickly get down at least 1000 EXP in a single day unless I forget about grinding.
Oh yeah, I also got over 300 hours on this save file :P
- Level 38 -
19/02/2024
Here we go with another level!
Not very much to see, at least nothing truly new. Dart got over 3000 HP, it took me less than a month to get this level. Seems like the consistency of my current method is paying off. By the way, my method is having the PS3 on Picture-In-Picture mode on my PC, yes I use a TV as a monitor, and grind one handed as I do other stuff, usually drawing, and boy I can get like 3 fights easily without noticing, and even today I was doing something on my PC while lightly paying attention to the game and I saw how I had gotten 300 EXP, so it really helps to make the grind more chill and efficient.
The next entry will have a special message, as we approach the next big milestone, and a lot more is to come with that milestone.
See ya soon, guys!
- Level 39 -
29/02/2024
And so we have reached level 39!
Alright, this entry will be not so much about how things are on THIS level or what I have unlocked, as I think there's not much on the level up itself. This entry is about the leve that is to come, as that one will be the last entry of this chapter.
I have been working on a lot of things on the side, but the coming level is so important for this challenge that I must give it a proper entry, which means I gotta take care of other things before I get to the next level, otherwise they will keep getting delayed and that's no good, they have been delayed enough. I have to finish an animation, after that I must finish a commission, and there's a video I promised to have out in the near future, and some few other things. I know that postponing will lead to more and more postponing, so it may take a while before I get to the next level, but is the responsible thing to do.
So, until then, I hope to close this chapter appropriately, and will try my best to do so.
- Level 40 -
12/09/2024
Why I will get to the Maximum Level at the Earliest Area of The Legend of Dragoon
