How to get better at Valkyria Chronicles?

[Shoto]

Hello community,

So im playing this game for a while and it is pretty fun. The only thing that bothers me is, that I suck at it. I always get D-Rank and loose often.

Has somebody here some general advice for new players? And what is the best strategy to win battles?

Sincerly

Simple Swordsman

[DoomyDoom]

On the most basic level - don't treat VC 1 as a "fair" strategy game. It's more of a puzzle game, where getting poor results on your first try is basically expected. Even if you're familiar with mechanics, often you simply need to know the map in advance to achieve high results.

Speaking of high results - ranks are purely a measure of "how many turns did it take you to win", discounting everything else (leaders killed, units killed/lost, tanks destroyed etc). If your question is how to get better at the battle system (and prepare yourself for 2/3/4, I guess), incrementally more useful self-imposed goals would be:
- Get A-ranks without using very broken stuff (grinding XP, Penetration & Caution orders, DLC weapons)
- The above while taking out every priority target (leader, tank, camp)
- All of the above plus no orders
- All of the above plus full wipe

Granted, people have done way more difficult challenges, but the listed is what I personally consider enough to "get" VC battle system.

Originally posted by Simple Swordsman:

Has somebody here some general advice for new players?

First of all, as I've already said, don't feel bad about not doing well on the first try. Not in this particular VC. 2 and 3 are different - closer to "fair" game where you can compensate for what the game throws at you without premeditated unit position knowledge.

Secondly, you probably want to know that VC has a bunch of mechanics it never explains well, or at all. A couple important ones:
- Defense is counted after all modifiers, including critical multiplier (x3.5 for infantry, varied for tanks). Practical application - non-crits are worthless when crits are available.
- Male shocktroopers and female snipers fire faster than their counterparts.
- Most potentials are unreliable (10% activation). Exceptions are Ultimate X (4th tier Attack/Damage/Defense/Accuracy), ones that activate on "last CP" condition and maybe a couple more I'm forgetting. There are ways to force some potentials, but that's intermediate level mechanics topic
- Line of sight rules are extremely important for determining evasion and enemy actions/decisions during their part of a turn.
- You get little value out of raw stats when leveling. For example, your total accuracy (circle size) will be vastly more dependant on your R&D tier than it will be on your trooper. Also, most troopers within a class have very little difference in hidden stats (accuracy and evasion).
- Interception is important to wrap your head around, both what it means on your turn (where you can and can't go, what can you do about the enemy facing) and on enemy turn (how should you position for the end of your turn).
- Enemy AI operates in large part on ground triggers, waypoints and "fixed" threat assessment system. If you've seen an enemy do a thing, it's generally safe to assume he will do the same under the same conditions.

EDIT: a couple more I forgot. Laaate night...
- Related to #1 - trading damage is generally worthless. Go for KOs.
- A good baseline plan nets you 1 kill per CP used. It won't always be enough for high-end runs (i.e. full wipes), but it's a good place to start.

I guess that's enough basics for now. You'll find more if you look around other threads/guides. I'm not going into advanced topics like potential buffer queue, interception and LOS (ab)use and whatnot. Right about now you probably want to hear something about

Originally posted by Simple Swordsman:

what is the best strategy to win battles?

Go in, fail, come back and play again with a firm detailed CP-by-CP plan in mind. If you're sticking to the former of the "goals" I've mentioned, you can probably improv to a decent degree. The latter two are nigh impossible to improv and get a top rank.

If/when you've got more specific questions - fire away.

[A L E R T]

cheese scout mission dlc, equip your new op wep, run through entire game with scouts only, x dee

[Shoto]

@DoomyDoom thanks, this knowledge helps alot.

[chris.ferrantegerard]

Originally posted by Simple Swordsman:

So im playing this game for a while and it is pretty fun. The only thing that bothers me is, that I suck at it. I always get D-Rank and loose often.

Ranks are rewarded solely for how many turns you take to complete the level. Do it in X turns and you get A rank. So higher rankings involves blitzing the level as fast as possible. A rank on the story missions not particularily difficult. Mostly just involves abusing scouts for speed and grenades and maybe lancers on 2-3 anti-tank missions.

[Shellbie]

Scouts.

[ertrick36]

The best thing I have to say is just keep playing. You'll get the hang of it. Even if you get D-rank, you can play the most recent skirmish maybe once or twice and still be able to buy everything currently available.

The thing about VC's ranking is that it's less about actual strategy and more about simply finishing the mission quickly. So you don't necessarily suck, it's just that you don't know the meta to this game/don't employ it. And to that, I just say that kind of thing simply isn't for people first starting out; I should know, I often only ever got C-ranks the first time I played.

Another piece of advice I have for you is more a reminder that you can save during battles. That's useful if you maybe just made one slightly bad move and it cost you the mission or something like that; then you don't have to play through an ENTIRE map on account of one small mistake.