Mid-game gear non-existant?

[Lestrad]

So I've found myself on Chapter 4 still using Chapter 1 gear due mostly because I have YET to find a single item that has attack values higher than the sword and armor you get for free during, of all things, the tutorial.

I've come across multiple claims that crafting is what makes up for the complete and utter lack of gear in this game so I decided to see for myself. After getting up to level 3 in smithing and around 50 trust (burning through all my materials in the process) spamming wooden swords and leather armor absolutely no mid game gear has appeared under crafting requests.

With the limited number of quests (and the lack of daily quests) and the poor cash drop rate, and nearly all of the gear being clearly end-game, are there seriously no actually useful mid-game weapons, because the gold-chest gear is practically useless)??

[Lestrad]

On a side note, curious what you're refering to by "silver coin" bosses. Are you talking about those end-game world bosses in each of the zones (usually more than one)? Because those guys are waaaaay to difficult atm.

[Velmoria]

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

On a side note, curious what you're refering to by "silver coin" bosses. Are you talking about those end-game world bosses in each of the zones (usually more than one)? Because those guys are waaaaay to difficult atm.

Most of North & South are easy enough to beat even on Hard difficulty (Enemy Lv x1.5).

If those lv 30-ish Silver bosses already waaay too difficult for you:
- If your level still below them.
Understandable, you most likely rushing story without trying craft good accessories from craftsman.

- If your level above them.
You need learn the game more about how to block, dodge, utilize buff skills & building AI from Record. With "Record New" already being fixed & more frequent normal attacks, you pretty much can make a dumbly aggressive AI.
Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2194336604

[总是积极思考]

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

On a side note, curious what you're refering to by "silver coin" bosses. Are you talking about those end-game world bosses in each of the zones (usually more than one)? Because those guys are waaaaay to difficult atm.

Yes, that's it
You can start from the Nectalip in Warmia, it's so easy to beat then the next is the Aegis in the Vizeah Valley

[Tiasmoon]

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

If there is no "main" blacksmith, whose the dude at the main hub who upgrades your gear (the guy who stole Lisbeth's job)?

A random blacksmith. There's maybe a dozen others like him. He's not even the only person that crafts equipment in the capital. There's a few others in that area of the city.

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

Well, whatever. You've basically confirmed there is no point in crafting, after sinking a ton of resources (and cash) into getting that **** up to level 60 trust and level 5 smithing only to have absolutely nothing to show for it. Certainly not going to waste my time trying to level up every freaking smith I find having no idea if I'm actually going to find something better.

There is no point to leveling Trust, you have that right. But saying there's no point in crafting is wrong. Many of the better items come from Crafting.

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

And I completely disagree on the gold chests.

This is not something you can disagree with. If you call them all garbage then you have no idea how to value stats. There's much better, but nothing you would obtain from the story.

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

The problem is, they're only good for those brief periods in chapter 1 where you're allowed to free roam. Once you're out of the so-called tutorial, the gear isn't worth using at all.

Again, you dont know the value of the stats. This is very clear when you call the Nightsky Sword as being the best because it has ''the highest damage''. The damage stat is the worst stat in the game.

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

The one exception would be the armor you get in the very first cave as it has certainly been better than that leather armor you can craft (but why?) once you get to the capital.

That armor is intended to be found during Chapter 3. Its not a chapter 1 balanced armor. If you get it early by avoidign the mobs that can oneshot you, then you get armor that is much better then normal. Most people wouldnt have gotten that particular armor.

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

I'm honestly starting to realize why getting cash is such a chore in this game - there's nothing really to spend it on as the vendors are all but purely aethetic - least of those being the weapons and armor vendors. Christ, even Lost Song had gear worth purchasing from Lisbeth's shop the more you leveled her up.

You need money if you plan on buying materials for crafting more often, since crafting is unfortunately a RNG grind. That part of the game is stupidly designed. It should give maxed stats when you craft it, not some RNG amount with maybe not even the skills on the item.

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

Christ, even Lost Song had gear worth purchasing from Lisbeth's shop the more you leveled her up.

All the half decent or better items are from Golden Chests, Relic Quests, Divine Beasts, Crafting, and Raids.

The story doesnt give anything good either. (if you dont count the Armory clothes for their looks) That is not bad design per se. It beats being having to buy endgame items from a shop.

[Tiasmoon]

Escrito originalmente por Velmoria:

With "Record New" already being fixed & more frequent normal attacks, you pretty much can make a dumbly aggressive AI.
Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2194336604

I see im not the only one that did that, ahaha.

[Illanya]

I played through pretty much the whole game with low lvl gear, Evasion stat seems broken as hell, and some quite early game gear enable you to stack it (passives from gear stack with equipped passives too). Thoven in Centoria, can craft a leather armour than can have 15% evasion if you have the luck to craft one with the skill. In rulid you can get iron bangle with another 15%. Stuff like that. However the problem with crafting seems that the chances to actually get crafted what the NPC shows is really low (took me like 3/4 of the game getting a leather armour with the passive skill actually on it)

As for weapons, Silver drops are easy to get and are usually more relyable as the golden chest drops. Also you can kill the bosses as many times you like to get a better stat roll.

[Redrix]

For mid game stuff you could always just buy and use the store bought weapons and armor. I used that stuff till i got raid weapons and armor in all honesty.

[Solo Swordsman]

If you're only crafting from one specific person that's your problem. There are blacksmiths all throughout the world who craft different items. They don't learn new recipes, but you can learn their recipe from them. Also you can buy weapons from the shops near those blacksmiths. Sometimes you may even find a rare version of a weapon that has better stats.

[Admiral Smurfs]

You really dont need mid game gear unless you want to cheese the whole thing. It was more fun for me using what little I had

[Lestrad]

Escrito originalmente por Solo Swordsman:

They don't learn new recipes

*Sigh* I should have guessed all those idiots claiming "oh just level up smithing and build trust and you'll get access to better gear" were full of it. What a waste of materials. If I wasn't on my third...or fourth restart (seriously sick of Chapter 1) because of that nugget of "advice" I'd probably have to restart again and hold onto the resources for endgame. Though at this point I'll probably just skip the endgame content all together once I'm done with the story. This has easily been the worst game in the series with the possible exception of Last Song (those clunky as hell air battles ><).

Well...I guess on the "plus" side, there doesn't seem to be any reason why Kirito needs to be the person to kill the chapter bosses so since there doesn't seem to be any reasonable way to increase damage output prior to the endgame maybe I'll just stack a bunch of offensive passives on the AI and let them do all the work (though they still manage to die significantly more often than in previous games).

Unless I'm imagining things (I'll have to pay more attention) I think their gear actually levels up with the character like in Realization so that they are always appropriately geared for the moment. Though, that said...the AI still has far too much downtime where they are not attacking even after the second AI patch and the programming screen doesn't seem to have an option for 'you can see an enemy so attack it'.

Escrito originalmente por Admiral Smurfs:

You really dont need mid game gear unless you want to cheese the whole thing. It was more fun for me using what little I had

...Perhaps. Though it's not much of an RPG if you're not agonizing over your inventory screen from all the loot you've acquired. Best one-hander I managed to find was the one in the desert area (Illustrious Sword) and it was really only good as a secondary since its stats were better than the iron blade, but not as good as Night-Sky. Sadly Dual-Wielding turned out to be a huge disappointment (very clunky and seemingly no signals for skill linking) so I'm back to one-handed. Looks like I won't be using my goto Starburst Stream + Eclipse combo...

Escrito originalmente por Tiasmoon:

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

And I completely disagree on the gold chests.

This is not something you can disagree with. If you call them all garbage then you have no idea how to value stats. There's much better, but nothing you would obtain from the story.

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

The problem is, they're only good for those brief periods in chapter 1 where you're allowed to free roam. Once you're out of the so-called tutorial, the gear isn't worth using at all.

Again, you dont know the value of the stats. This is very clear when you call the Nightsky Sword as being the best because it has ''the highest damage''. The damage stat is the worst stat in the game.

Funny guy :P . Ignoring the fact that the game literally color codes the stats (green indicating the number is higher and red indicating the number is lower), counting isn't nearly as difficult as you try to make it seem. If half (or more) of the stats are red...the piece of gear is obviously worse than what you have already. Ideally, you want something that raises stats but at the same time doesn't lower any.

[Tiasmoon]

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

Funny guy :P . Ignoring the fact that the game literally color codes the stats (green indicating the number is higher and red indicating the number is lower), counting isn't nearly as difficult as you try to make it seem. If half (or more) of the stats are red...the piece of gear is obviously worse than what you have already. Ideally, you want something that raises stats but at the same time doesn't lower any.

As before: ''Damage'' is one of the weakest stats in the game. You call your current sword the best because it has the highest ''Damage'' stats. That shows you dont know the value of stats.

You dont know what good stats are, and what bad stats are. Good stats, are stats that your skills scale with. Bad stats, are stats that your skills dont scale with.

Skills dont scale with the ''Damage'' stats. Thus, it is a bad stats.

Are just drunk or high? Otherwise, why state something so stupidly obvious as:

Escrito originalmente por Lestrad:

counting isn't nearly as difficult as you try to make it seem.

[isick]

F

[Entelechia]

There's a whole lot trove of them but I guess that doesn't fit your ongoing agenda of crapping everything and anything this game offers regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

[Velmoria]

Escrito originalmente por Tiasmoon:

Skills dont scale with the ''Damage'' stats. Thus, it is a bad stats.

Actually it does affect skill damage, at least from my test. And I just found out that "Skill Power" from buff & passive is actually increase Damage stats.

(A) Max Bond [+4 Flashing Edge]
(B) Fresh crafted [Flashing Edge]
- Sword Skill = Sonic Leap (since it use only VIT)
- Buff = Beast's Bellow & Reaper's Wrath (since only measure crit damage)
- Target = lv75 Golem
- Risk = 1.2

Result:
(A) 179 Dmg stats = 17,700 ~ 19,500 damage
(B) 107 Dmg stats = 14,400 ~ 16,600 damage

[Tiasmoon]

In my own testing it didnt affect it at all. (I tested much higher differences in damage as well) maybe ill do another test at some point. I didnt use active skills for testing that time, but only equipment differences.

Did you make sure to test without companions?