Finished chapter 11: How are we supposed to automate it?

[Izibaar]

I am talking about chapter 11, so here is the SPOILER warning.

Chapter 11 is the last chapter in the current version. So, for now, it is fine to do most of it manually. If new chapters are released we will want to automate chapter 11. And I see a huge problem with the current automation and the mechanics of chapter 11.

Actually I would need some rules that depend on the visible values (like difficulty modifier) and/or a predefined order of actions. For example I use hunting once at the start (after dodging), then I save the action until later.
The "heal" action is also special, because it switches to an attack that costs lots of health.

Maybe it is already taken into account and chapter 11 will be super easy shortly after finishing it? For example, in the first runs I had to manually move back from the catapult, but in my last run I was close to finish everything I could before moving back.

[Fel]

Automation doesn't have "do X number of times" so chapter 11 is not fully automatable for now.

I only leave the automation on the dodging and tripping most of the time.
The reason being that you want to "save" the fight as much as possible so you need to use backshot (also useful before starting the second phase anyway) a few times before phase 2.
It won't happen in phase 1 but the counter should also be automated at the highest priority since it deals a lot of damage.

Phase 2's automation is also mostly up to shoot ceiling because you usually can't shoot the titan all 10 times in the current content so you need to do that manually to be sure to not die there.

Phase 3 should start with backshots up until dodging becomes a real issue with the damage it deals when failing (it helps train agility to get an extra backshot every few runs so it's not a loss).
After that you can set attack and block to the lowest automation until you die or kill the titan (the food unlocked at 20% is kind of a trap that makes you spend more lives on the chapter, great for after killing the titan though).

When you die, remember to disable the automation on attack and block.



It ends up being a fairly manual chapter compared to the others but it shouldn't be much of an issue soon after the next chapter starts (when it gets released).
At that point you will be able to pick between backshot and attack as your main source of damage and deal with the whole fight with it.

[Simbu]

If you can do all the catapult shots, automating is fairly easy. With a few generations even doing no catapult shots, just the honey should be enough. Your hp is going up like crazy in the second half of chapter 11 when you can do all optionals, and it makes things quite OP just a few generations into the post game.

Generally you just set attack and backshot to normal priority, food to high priority, trip to high priority and trip to max. Put block to low priority and counter attack to max priority.

This will cause you to fill up with food, then attack the golem until hp runs low, take an attempt at backshot once hp is too low, and then when you stop auto completing that, you will block and completely refill hp. If you block 5 times you will counter immediately and then block is available again.

That should give you 9 blocks to get past the golem even without NG+. Its faster to complete chapter 11 if you turn off backshot and manually do it when you hit 20%, but its not bad. At first its also better to have the 20% mushrooms off, but with a few generations it won't matter.

I personally am gaining like 4 million hp per generation at that point... which with belt is 16 million. It won't take long to pass 100 million total health and then you can tank almost everything. The only short term problem is the catapult, but running a generation or 2 only doing backshot should make that complete all the time, and maybe a gen or 2 focusing on woodcutting at the hut. Still catapult is nice but not entirely needed so might be faster to auto without catapult.

Over wil no NG + I think by the time you beat golem 8 times for all unlocks after it, the automation should be pretty easy. For NG+, it actually takes me a couple more generations because of catapult, but I can focus that down for some massive exp gains 1 life, and then it shouldn't be a problem.

[␥]

Yes, chapter 11 will effectively be easy when new content is released. You might still have to manually handle things for a half dozen or so generations beyond chapter 11 completion, depending on a variety of factors. You could even test this by grinding post-game for a bit instead of starting NG+, but be aware that one generation of future content will be worth a lot more in terms of instinct level & MHP progression than one generation of chapter 1-11 post game grinding.

The first major issue with chapter 11 is the mathematically asymptotic nature of the hostile action phases at 80% and 40% boss HP. Basically, in any given generation, you have a fixed amount of time before the hostile action phase scales up to dealing infinite damage per second to you. This is what causes a lot of people to die early due to not paying attention to automation during the 80% phase, for example.

In that particular phase, if you're doing all the things, it's almost entirely an issue of woodcutting, digging, construction, and hunting instinct levels. Things like reduced decay values, higher MHP, and funnel levels can slightly offset this, but are ultimately negligible. In NG+, the two XP perks and the passive jobs perk can drastically speed this up (more gen/instinct levels faster, more things gathered faster, fewer generations hitting the hostile action infinite damage bottleneck). Regardless, you can eventually fully automate everything in that phase, including the hut, without the hostile action scaling up to kill you.

For the other bit, you ultimately have to decide between agility/hunting and combat for full automation. The automation options just don't support a clean hybrid approach, so you have to run it manually if you can't strictly do only one or the other.

In future content, this will actually be the new 'river route vs mine route' toggle. When you need to prep for a tough combat task, you'll run full chapter 11 combat. When you need agility/hunting later on, you'll run full agility/hunting. If you really need a lot of combat or agility xp, you can even skip some of the 80% phase to have more boss HP to burn through. By that point you also won't be able to stall on the 20% phase to let the boss heal more, and it'd also probably be counterproductive to try spamming block/counter, unless you were trying to grind food xp instead.

Using Simbu's hybrid automation approach can let you sort-of automate things before you're able to do strictly one or the other, but it's less efficient than manual, and it can get you killed early. That shouldn't be too much of an issue by the time you complete chapter 11, though, only if you're running it beforehand.