MONEY AND BROKEN WEAPONS

[Raysler]

it seems absurd to me that it is so difficult to get money. Money is also essential to repair weapons that wear out quickly given the many enemies to be eliminated in each mission. I have now reached the point that I have all my weapons broken but not the money to repair them and therefore my run is ruined. It's not even worth doing skirmishes because they don't give you money and they're just a way to speed up the consumption of weapons.
Did the developers really make such a big mistake? Was it really so difficult to give as a reward, at the end of each mission, a quantity of gold with which to repair the characters' weapons??? mha, in 2023 if you still see these things there's really something to worry about.

[LØCØ rogax]

you get item drops that are made to be sold, that's your main/only gold income and the one you're missing it seems.

[Final Fantasy]

y that mechanick kinda sucks. so i just make starting weapos +5 and was fine most of the game until acctualy started to get money in late game. then used guud weapons for big fights and they cost 1000 to repair :D all my 6k gold went to repair just after 1 mission. so there is that.

[Noules]

You can fight with broken weapons (just no bonus to Attack and hit bonus is halved). It's actually a good idea to carry a broken starter weapon around for times when you're overkilling.

Also, it's cheaper to buy a weapon than it is to repair it. Generally speaking you want a good weapon (possibly upgraded) for emergencies, a starter weapon that you use for most of the challenging engagements and a broken starter weapon that you use for trivial combats in your inventory, with the 4th/5th slots for backups for any of those.

[xBleacheDxSungasMx]

After chapter 13 I had two +4 T2 weapons and three +3 T2 weapons, and 326 gold after repairing T2 weapons. Didn't realize buying T1 full repair cost is 125 vs buying new for 100 until some point.
T2 starts with 3 dmg more than T1 without being too cost prohibitive. Was following this post. But yeah repair cost and income farmability is absurd in this game if you don't know to stick with T2.

You can easily salvage your run by getting your money back with Cheat Engine. (Enter how much money you have, buy/sell something, re-enter money, conveniently only one memory address shows up.)

[236403mo]

I suppose they wanted this game to play like a survival horror with limited resources. Going T2 is the way to go but they could implement some mechanics to reliably get back from the bottom if someone messed up by fixing expensive stuff such as free fixes on the weakest weapon so that people could farm up for repairs if they need to.

Or at least some tutorial hint/conversation where they say that these fancy shiny powerful weapons are too much for their purses to fix and that they need to be super careful with their spendings.

Or even outright chapter locked repair progression so that high level stuff would be repairable only late game when its affordable. Easy to explain story wise that they simply have no tools or skills to fix really good stuff. I don't like this one too much though because it dumbs down the survival part.

[ChaosFred]

You have played old Fire Emblem series? Very limited skirmish which only drops common weapons, no weapon repair, no merchant. One good example of this series is Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (GBA). It is hilarious if you kill the last boss with pretty much iron lance/sword/axe, the lowest in the category. Then there also Battletech, Armored Core and Steambot Chronicles where every bullets you fire will cost you $$$.

The thing is about management where you should kill enemy in most efficient manner in terms of cost.

Save up good weapons for boss fight only. For grinding, just use lowest weapon and you don't have to OHKO the mobs, so just tank few hits. You got free potion after all, so why not use it?

[ChaosFred]

Originally posted by Noules:

You can fight with broken weapons (just no bonus to Attack and hit bonus is halved). It's actually a good idea to carry a broken starter weapon around for times when you're overkilling.

Eh, really?? I haven't tried this since my economy managed well so my party always have a basic weapon at least.

[Fenrir]

Disregard that advice from Noules. Bringing a broken weapon with you is a quick way to find yourself whiffing against enemies you'd normally hit and not killing them when they should be dead. You shouldn't have any broken weapons until endgame anyway (mainly because your money is being put towards other weapons).

As long as you're finding all the loot on the field (bronze, silver, and gold ingots), you shouldn't have a problem with money. I only had a problem with money in the second to last chapter, but that just meant I could basically just sell off all the accessories I found that I wasn't going to use since they go for 500 a pop. You'll also basically NEED to upgrade weapons to +2 or +3 in order to survive the last 2 chapters.

Until then though, I never had to upgrade anything at all and just kept cycling between weapons, using my weaker ones for finishers, and that seemed to get the job done. Never skirmished either. I finished the game at level 35-36.

[Lightbearer]

I disagree somewhat with Fenrir. Broken weapons are only useful on skirmish maps where you greatly out level (7-10+) the enemies to make-up for the accuracy penalty. I only did this 2-3 times, but it's definitely doable if you want to farm the maps with bronze and silver ores. However, it should not be done on any story map unless you enjoy dying. If you followed the advice in my quasi-guide you shouldn't touch your legendary weapons until the final 2-3 maps.

Upgrading the second weapon you receive and the first/second critical weapon should be more than sufficient to take you to the end game without running into durability or money issues. I did the same thing with selling off accessories at the end game since I bought all of the stat boosters cause I got cocky/stupid with $5K in my bank account.

[Kallous]

I fully agree man, the mechanic is stupid as all helll, idk what they were thinking

[Noules]

Using broken weapons to extend the durability of other weapons is completely viable. This is exactly what I did in my run. I'm not saying to use broken weapons throughout an entire mission, or even through most of missions.

While it's true that it's not really necessary as there's sufficient money for it not to be necessary, it's perfectly reasonable for some of your characters to switch to broken weapons when you can calculate that you don't need their attacks to clear the current fight. Sarah and Karren in particular generally have way more hit than needed, and they can proc support attacks even if they do 0 damage or miss anyway. They also burn through durability quite rapidly due to their Doublestrike abilities.

There were plenty of times when there's one or couple enemies left that didn't require everyone to attack where I intentionally swapped to a broken starter weapon and simply relied on lots of 0-durability attacks to get through, sometimes reserving a real weapon attack in case of too many misses. It's just a matter of checking the damage required and hit rates.

[Lightbearer]

You're really hitting on a key tenet of the game -- use the weakest weapon that will kill an enemy unit. Period. If not, you're literally wasting your durability when it could have been put to better use on a more dangerous or tankier enemy. And, Sarah and Karren will eat through their durability if you're playing the game optimally and having them act multiple times in a round via chain attacks and Doublestrike. That's why I recommend the low-tier critical weapons for the majority of the game, especially for them. If you're an abuser of Burning Roar like me, you need to be mindful of Urs as well.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by jdmccoy7:

I disagree somewhat with Fenrir. Broken weapons are only useful on skirmish maps where you greatly out level (7-10+) the enemies to make-up for the accuracy penalty. I only did this 2-3 times, but it's definitely doable if you want to farm the maps with bronze and silver ores. However, it should not be done on any story map unless you enjoy dying. If you followed the advice in my quasi-guide you shouldn't touch your legendary weapons until the final 2-3 maps.

Upgrading the second weapon you receive and the first/second critical weapon should be more than sufficient to take you to the end game without running into durability or money issues. I did the same thing with selling off accessories at the end game since I bought all of the stat boosters cause I got cocky/stupid with $5K in my bank account.

If you absolutely have to skirmish to make ends meet, I think you have bigger problems to worry about than broken weapons, tbh. I didn't skirmish at all throughout my entire playthrough and the only time I even had a money problem was on chapter 28 or so which is when I decided to sell off all the accessories I wasn't using anyway.

If you play smart, you'll be fine. Broken weapons shouldn't be a concern at all. You should always have a relatively weak weapon you can use as a finisher for trash mobs, then just save your more powerful stuff to one shot or focus the stronger enemies. When you start suggesting to keep broken weapons around, needing to skirmish, etc. it just reminds me of that Noisy Pixel review where the dude complained about money problems (which isn't even a thing until you're almost done with the game anyway), lack of healing (again, was never a problem), and unable to upgrade their weapons (you don't even need to until the last 2 chapters anyway and by that point, you can afford to bump a few key weapons to +2 and +3, so it's moot complaint anyway).

I don't mind people giving advice, but it just kinda makes me groan when people start peddling misinformation and claiming you have to play a specific way just to clear missions or beat the game. There's literally only 3 things you need to do.

- Use Urs as your tank and have him bait units, then jump them when they move forward.

- Whenever you attack an enemy, make sure you're linking attacks (even if it's something as simple as attacking first, THEN moving your unit to another enemy you know you'll be striking next so they can combo with your next unit).

- Be patient. 9 times out of 10, your deaths will come from overextending with a unit. There's no need to rush. It's not a race. The bonus exp you obtain from good grades is just that. Bonus. I finished the game at level 34-36 and got a C rank on most of the stages because I took longer to clear them due to being patient with my kills.

[Lightbearer]

Again, I disagree. There are many viable ways to play this game. Some people do the skirmish battles for extra materials or ore, the chance to collect missed items, or they simply enjoy grinding and the combat system. Others might not be as skilled as you and need the extra support. They are not required, but they are an option. If this becomes a crutch then I agree you might want to evaluate how you're playing the game.

The whole discussion on broken weapons was how to use them most efficiently. Everyone was offering suggestions and brainstorming. In fact, most of us were clear that using broken weapons isn't a go-to strategy and not that recommended. But, that there are certain situations where they might be a viable tool. We were exploring those conditions. I'm not sure how all of the above translated in your brain to "peddling" misinformation and insisting that you "have" to use those mechanics. What are you even talking about?

[dust.bagwx]

I have been working on a self imposed challenge project the last week. I completed the entire game on hard mode and I was only allowed to use the initial starting weapons the entire playthrough. I did upgrade them, but I could not use other weapons for any reason. I also managed to do this while looting all items in the game. I sold all looted weapons immediately after the mission ended. I did not find the challenge to difficult until the last few missions, even then I did not struggle much. I do admit sometimes I did spend alot of time thinking about tough turns throughout the playthrough. If you are interested to see how it went you should be able to find all of the videos on my steam page or the community hub. Each mission was one video.

I am considering at some point doing the challenge again on hard mode, with just the starter weapons, and never repairing them. So a broken weapon run on hard mode.