End of Eternity / Resonance of Fate

[DragonHeart]

Bringing this thread back up because I just started playing this game and...I totally don't understand the combat system. >_>; The one true downside to renting, you don't get a manual with the game. I tried doing the tutorials at the arena but it doesn't do a very good job of explaining there either, imo. Just wondering if anyone's got some useful tips/hints.

~DragonHeart~

[Andromeda]

I just played the tutorials and that explained everything I needed to know about the combat. But I will grant you that the combat is a little difficult to get into, but once you're in it is very easy. Steep introductory learning curve.

Anyway, without really know the trouble areas I try to go over a little of everything. I fortunately finished up it recently after taking a long break from it. So it is fresh in my mind.

You have two types of movement when your character comes one. You can just move around and every time the character moves your action meter on your name depletes in addition everything on the enemy side comes alive and attacks or moves. (If you've played Valkyria Chronicles it is exactly like that except that here when you stop the combat ceases from the enemy).

The other type of movement is through the hero action/hero gauge at the bottom of your screen appearing as red jewels/gems. A full complete red gem means you'll have on hero action you can take. This actions are completely linear you set an end point and your character will run to the end and your action meter on your character suddenly is proportional to how far away to the end point. The long the end point the more time you have.

The thing to remember is that during hero actions you can attack endlessly so long as you're moving. When not in hero actions you can only attack once. So once you fire your turn is over.

Your three characters are all required to take a turn before your "round" ends and it refreshes. However, you can take your turns in any order you wish. So you can flip through them. You can also have them take no action and that'll eat up their time. If they don't move and don't attack the enemy won't either. So it is good thing to remember when you need to use your submachines and your pistols have to wait. No sense wasting their time when you need to get in scratch damage.

Anyway, next things everything have two types of health scratch damage and real damage (I forget what the other is called). When things start everything has full health and is protected by scratch damage. A pistol will only ever do like 5 to 15 damage, no way of making it do more. The submachine is your damage dealer and sole purpose is to hit the scratch damage health. When you fire your submachine you'll deal scratch damage to your opponent. When that happens it exposes their actual health to being hurt. At this point you'll see two colors on the meter green and blue I think. The blue is how much scratch damage you've done to it and that can be knocked off. This is where the pistols comes in. A pistol can only do 5 damage, but when you have exposed health that suddenly changes. All that blue you have exposed will get taken off with a single bullet and you've suddenly done 5+1000 damage with a pistol, or whatever it is.

The flow of combat is you soften things up with the submachines to expose health and then come in with the pistols to take it way. If you let exposed health go without hittting it then it will regenerate over time. And the regeneration can be pretty quick if you're moving around.

When the enemy runs out of health they are dead, but that is not the case for your characters. That hero gauge comes into play again. The gems (bezels) are worth 1000 HP per. So when you completely lose all of your health the game will automatically consume bezels to refill your health to full. So if you have 4500 HP you'll lose 5 bezels. When you have no more bezels you go into a critical state and every damage you take is permenant. And you'll start to see that meter of health of yours disappearing with each pistol bullet. And when you die that time it is permenant and it is game over, anyone dies it is game over. Also when you consume bezels they get tossed out on the field in quarters. You'll have to run around to pick them up and return them to your hero gauge, but it won't refill the bezels to be used again. Also if the enemy picks up a quarter they'll be regened a sum of health. So it is really bad when they pick it up.

The only way to restore bezels for use is to wipe a meter of health. I say this because it is not so simply to say. If you kill someone you'll get a bezel, but killing is not required to gain a bezel. When you break gauge an enemy their health meter gets segmented. When this happens it is no longer one meter, but two meters, they still have the same health, but it is two meters now. Meaning if you totally kill them you'll get two bezels restored and not one. The most a normal enemy can have is five or six meters. Which means that you can really restore bezels fast if you know what you're doing. Also remember that armor and body parts, those additional meters also function the same way and restore bezels and can be broken as well.

About pistols other use in combat, the break gauage. I just talked about it, so here is how you make it happen. Pistols have a bonus effect when used that gives them a chance to break an enemies meter. This will end up depending on where you are hitting on the enemy, so you may end up breaking a body part or armor, but it is important for a couple of reasons. The first is that anytime you break a meter the enemy is stunned (so this is the strategy you'll use against tough bosses keep them stunned). The second is you want to break meters a lot so that you can get more bezels out of that meter.

Continuing about pistols and weapons in general. That circle that rotates around is very important. When it comes a circle that means you have 1 level stored up in the game. Think of it as 1% and this won't mean a lot until you get to 5%, but then you'll have a 5% chance of getting break. The percentage is capped out by the current skill level with pistols. So if you have an 8 for your pistols you can only go up to 8 levels. Once that happens it'll stop making circles and you'll want to fire, because you're not gaining anything.

Remember, while you're in a hero action you won't consume your action meter. But if you're not in a hero action pulling out your weapon and those circles start spinning action is being consumed from your meter. So when not in a hero action you probably won't be able to use all of your levels unless you have high speed or acceleration on the weapon equipped. Remember if your action meter is empty and you haven't fired you lose your turn. So be fast when it is getting low. When you're in hero actions it won't matter so just let it charge up so long as you have the distance and you usually will.

Also remember that as you level up your weapons they'll get additional bonuses that have a chance to be called. They won't always call, at least until you get to 100% then certain ones will.

Another note about hero actions. During a hero action you can jump, which might not seem that useful, but there is a lot of reasons to do it. The first and most obvious one is that you're coming up to a wall and you need to clear it so you jump. The second is if you jump near the end of your hero action you can artificially extend your time because the character has to complete the jump. So if you're on flat ground and don't need the air hold off on until then end. Near end game up you pull off two 50+s in a hero actions doing that. Another reason to jump is that it gives you a better aim on the enemy. If you have a fully charged submachine and are over top an enemy firing it will probably hit every single armor location as well as their own body. Which means you just done massive damage. Also when using pistols and you have the body ready to die, but the armor is in the way jump will get you to that body location to get that very satsifying one shot kill bullet. The next reason to jump is to do a smackdown on an airborne enemy. When you're on the ground you have a chance to lift enemies up, especially with submachines. However if you go into the bonus wheel where it stops everything and you have to get the timing right the chance to then them flying into the air is very high. Once an enemy is in the air you can shot them from above and it will slam them into the ground dealing real damage to all locations of their body. Also it will drop silver and gold chips just like shooting them into the air. Getting them into the air will drops tons and it is the best way to make money in the game and slamming them down will net a good amount as well. So long as they bounce back up from the smackdown you can smackdown them again and again. So you can dribble an enemy a lot during a hero action.

Another thing about hero actions. You will probably notice at some point they'll use blue and flash. When you have your character hero action between your other two characters this will add a hero point to you. Above all of your characters this number is kept track of. Every time you complete this successfully without moving or missing this will keep increasing. However, for every second or whatever the time is that you move a point from the hero points will be taken away. When you miss it in a hero action just cross off all of the points because it is not likely you'll have any remaining at the end. The purpose of the hero points is to do a tri-action. Which is a hero action with all three characters going at the same time and a triangle is draw to their positions. So imagine having three hero actions going at the same time, but it won't consume bezels do to a tri-action. The length of your tri-action is based on how many hero points you have stored up. So with a lot you can go on for a really long time, with a little it'll be very short.

Tri-actions work in that one character will act and then the rest will act afterward. All of their circle charge up at the same time though. So you'll see the circle split into three segments and it keeps track of them all together. When one goes the next will go shortly and you have a brief window where you can decide to act earlier if you want the angle you have. After the shooting finishes it starts cycling again until you're out of points.

Don't forget about your weapons equipment. You can do a lot of modifications to them to get more speed and accuracy out of them. The circle speed and accelerate are affected here. The speed is the overall how quickly the circle completes and the acceleration is have quickly it speeds up as you finish. Because with each level of a circle completed it will get faster. When the circle is starting acceleration won't matter, but the speed will. So you want to be fast on the speed so you get the first circle completed. Once the first one is completed it'll keep getting faster and faster and the acceleration really starts kicking in.

The way you level up your weapon skill is by doing damage with it. If it is a submachine it will be your scratch damage. For Pistols and grenades it will be based on actual damage. I don't know if damage converts exactly into exp, but it is simply to say that if you deal a lot of damage you'll get a ton of exp. 1000 damage is like 1000 exp, it is probably not that exact, but it is pretty close. I think level of the monster impacts it a little as well.

Your own character level is a sum of all three weapon skills. So you will start as lv 3 and can be lv 300. Your health will increase when you level up, so that means when your weapon skill level. So a way to get an early jump on extra health to survive is grind away on the areas you are lacking. So if you have 20 pistols and 20 submachine, but only 5 grenade. So in with grenades, it'll be faster to get grenades from 5 to 20 than it will be to get 20 to 22.

Grenades end up be a little bit of a wild card. You will eventually have a massive selection of grenades and they will all have different affects that they do will do monsters. One of the best ones are the ones that stun, because you can get an automatic stun on bosses. This will be very important to use on strong bosses that you can't take down. When you are fighting in the ice or wooden monsters malotofs are your best friend as they will deal continuous scratch damage ignoring armoring. Poison is even worse because it eats away at both meters. So it is really bad news for yourself. Freeze will just freeze an enemy, I don't think it makes them weak or easier to damage. Lightning will make it difficult to increase your circle, so you will likely only ever get one or two levels before you're out of time. Also be aware of containers on the field. They can provide the same effects if you blow them up near enemies or yourself.

Also remember that all interactable things in the field has health, meaning it has scratch health and real health. So that wall you're shooting through for protection will only last for so long. In a weak fight it will never be something you worry about, in a boss fight expect them to go away if you stay hidden behind them.

Eventually you'll get to use energy stations. They also provide bonuses and effects to the battles, but only on the hexes that are colored. The way they work is that you have to connect a set number of colored hexes to the station. Once that happens the bonus is activated and any time you get into a battle on that colored hex connected to that station you'll gain that bonus. The same goes for dungeons. So if you put a color hex over a dungeon the dungeon will gain that effect. The effects can be less encounters, more exp, better drops, faster regen, double fire damage, etc.

You will only have a few bezels when you start, but you will eventually get more bezels. They will only be quarters, but eventually you will have 15 bezels after one playthrough if you get them all I think. So that is a lot of room for mistakes and tons of hero actions. Once you get a few more bezels it is best to just always do hero actions. They will get you a lot more damage and killing time than anything else. However early one you'll probably end up just consuming them too fast that you can't get anything done. Using one or two will be fine, but it will also mean you lose 2000 HP you could regain if you get killed. So it is a balance thing.

Realizing how long I have been writing this makes me realize how truly complex combat is for the game. However, it is tons and tons of fun once you get it going. I hope this helps you out. If you have something more specific just ask and I'll answer it.