Labyrinth of Touhou 19F

[Heian_Alien]

Anyone tried 12 randomly selected character runs in LoT2? What's been your experiences? Is it possible to get stuck with unlucky compositions? Do lategame characters trivialize the early game?

[qazmlpok]

I've never done a random run, but my last playthrough was with a fixed cast of 12, including 3 PLUS DISK characters and Byakuren. Late game characters definitely do not trivialize the early game. Their skill point costs are so high they usually can't do anything but their basic spellcard attacks for a long time. Doubly so for any skills that require/synergize with other skills. E.g. for Byakuren, when you recruit her normally, she can probably get 3 of her sutras right away, and you'll have access to the strategist subclass to keep the buffs up longer. You probably won't get any sutras at all until 5F or so; longer if you want to use her boost skills instead which are probably going to be more useful.

[FabulaFares]

Completely random runs are probably gonna be pretty tough, because you could end up stuck with very loopsided party compositions (e.g. too many attackers, too many tanks, too many mages), or lack certain niches (e.g. healer, de/buffer, ailments, defense piercing).

Of course you can probably still clear all the content in the game by grinding/overlevelling, but otherwise I think something like 6-8 random chars with the rest being picked consciously would probably be a better experience.

[Tori]

@FabulaFares That sounds like a better idea. I'm not sure how it would work in practice though. Maybe you wouldn't have trouble fulfilling needed roles if you randomized it, somehow, idk.

[abao]

If you get yuyuko in your random characters... about half of early bosses can just be oneshotted by lvl1 nirvana.

[FabulaFares]

Recently remembered FantasyJared made a Hard Mode NG+ save with 54 chars (all characters except Renko/Maribel, so you get to fight the 3 deformed bosses), which also has all characters start with 400 BP (so no BP grinding is required to unlock optional fights/events), so I thought I might as well post the original save and the converted Steam version.

[DeityDiz93]

Greetings! I've been following these forum threads for LoT2 for many years even back with the old forums as far back as the first game, and thought I should quit lurking, so I made migrated from the old forum and wanted to open up a less explored mechanic of this game I thought would be nice to see talked about here.

I'm here today with a method I've been using for a while now involving base stat increasing to gain more stats per level, but have come into an argument with which I had to try and dispel about my using stat boosting for stats over using EXP boosting items for stats instead, which came up after introducing someone I know into this game recently. To illustrate this, for years now I have sworn that First Aid Kits and other base stat boosting items/skills/gems increase stats gained per level, thanks to the wiki's section on growth rates and are more optimal to use over EXP boosting, which I theorize that boosting EXP actually works against this idea of mine. For reference, for every playthrough I do, I level each character's skill point based stat boosts and whenever available, then, I trade out every subclass stone for Transcendent after finding its proof to give a huge boost on every character's stats for level grinding. Eventually with the final boss beat, I refight them for 10 stat gems for every character, get Achievement 30 to give every character the Transcendent subclass, and go for any locked chest containing base stat affecting items like Main Equipment and Tomes. I have been under the impression that this will bolster stats and help keep my characters left behind in Gensokyo to stay well-rounded and boosted if I feel like swapping characters.

I theorize the most optimal time to get EXP boosting from Mr. Midnight items, Hand-on Experience/Motivated Heart, Keine's "Historian School", and Diva's "Song of Delight" is ONLY after you get Mega/Giga Boost boost every needed stat, but recently the argument I mentioned thought this theorem is not optimal, and that doubling down on EXP early was the best course of action, born I believe from the idea that this works for other JRPGs, so why not here. The argument was such that Shoes of Happiness and Training Eggs (Growth Eggs if you don't use the Steam version) are clearly superior over going for base stat boosting in the long run. I went out of my way to get evidence to prove to the contrary, but all I was unable to prove if this idea actually carried over into Plus Disk, though thankfully this hasn't been tested as it hasn't got that far for either side here. I am here today to learn, either by merit of the game's code or mathematically, which is best to go with in the end because 1) I don't think anyone on the old forum or now has talked very much about stat growth rate affecting stats significantly as far as I've been able to see, and 2) I do genuinely want to find out how to minmax optimize this game and make the best character builds possible.

Here what I did to test and prove my side right: Used a NG+ framework, waited the 256 hours out for Plus Disk Achievement 2 "God Player" for the +2,000,000 money, should've got Achievement 28 "Slapping Her Face with Money Bundles" for +3 Life Gems, and then got Achievement 48 "Novice Explorer" for another +3 Life Gem. Being sure to pick that up along the way with the highest base HP character, Komachi, in tow with enough Magic Library levels to overcome the following bosses for 4 more Life Gems: Youmu, NG+ Alaya-Vijana, Komachi, then Hina to get to 6F super early for a First Aid Kit and the Guardian subclass. Using all of this puts Komachi's base HP at 314 which gives her an insanely high HP count for 6F. From here I made it to 12F and stopped her level at 47, right before the fight with the celestial, and she has a whooping 10680 HP even without HP boosting equipment (8370 without level up investment). Taking off the First Aid Kit left Komachi with a still hefty 9034 HP (7378 w/o lv. bonuses). Unfortunately I wasn't perfectly optimized in gem usage, because I actually forgot to give Komachi most of the Life Gems I could have with some more numbers for a potential 11k, because I haven't got the Achievement 28 which I did for the second test.

For the next playthrough test, I did the exact same set up but instead of using a First Aid Kit, I used the Shoes of Happiness on Komachi from 5F and optimized bosses with Hands-On Experience for the most EXP gains, and went for a trick beating 6F Tenshi + Yuugi FOE for Achievement 60 netting an EXP Egg way earlier than is possible. Komachi at level 47 was only 7332 HP (5022 w/o lv. bonus) at the same place in 12F despite me keeping her HP growth items the same as the above test, and this was with me bumping her base stat up to 314 with First Aid Kit, because without it she had 6215 HP (4257 w/o bonus). Despite having the save files to prove the argument, it came back with a counter that if growth rate exists, then wouldn't gems, subclasses, and skill point ups be enough? I haven't been able to actually disprove that remaining argument there enough to know if EXP eggs here won't eventually, by the end of Plus Disk, win out over the First Aid Kit method I've been sticking with for all this time, and spending an entire playthrough just to prove this wrong isn't as easy for me to do with a busy schedule, and I am not exactly familiar with diving into the game's data or code.

In a nutshell, is the wiki right to use the term "growth rate" or is it actually it a misnomer and thus EXP boosting items are better in the end if you stick with them? There is isn't a lot of concrete information on this that speaks conclusively on the nature of this underlying mechanic, and I wanted to make a public effort for an answer. If anyone with an insider look into the game has any clue about this, I'd really like to know! If anyone is interested to have a look for themselves at the proof, for the sake of posterity, I do have the save files I used in case anyone wants to see the technical side and proof of what I did. But just know I use the fan-created save file that gives me the Plus Disk characters since I didn't like that the NG+ didn't let me have those characters at the start, and also am still using the DLSite version as implied before without experience with the Steam converter as I don't own the Steam version yet.

Thanks in advance, and thank you folks here for all your the hard work over the years, especially the still amazing achievement of getting a game's fan translation official for Steam like that! I really want to support the scene for the game here and see about giving back to one of the coolest Touhou fan games I've played here. Apologizes for bumping this thread so long after the last post, as I imagine people have moved on or are on Discord. I suppose I wanted an open forum of eyes on this as Discord's a bit far n' away from being the completely public sphere I was after, and also having text limits even with Nitro.

[qazmlpok]

That's a pretty long post and I'm not certain I understand all of it. However, the way stats work is fully understood. I have the formulas, and I have a python program that can reproduce everyone's stats exactly from a save file. So I'm positive it works.

Every character has a different starting value for each base stat. This can only be increased by:

• Using Gems/Jewels
• Boost skills (and boost 2, etc)
• Subclasses, and certain character skills
• Temporarily by wearing items (like first aid kit, or Egg)

Nothing else has any effect. Gems etc are permanent, at least until you do a full reset with a Tome of Reincarnation. Items last until you remove the item. It does not matter when you apply any of these items, the effect is the same. Your stats can also be seen on the Status page if you press Z twice. And this number will be the same whether you give character X boost skills/items at level 1 or at level 1000.

If you want the exact formulas for the final stats:

• HP: (level + 6) * growth + 10
• ATK/DEF/MAG/MND: (level + 4) * growth + 4
• SPD: (level + 10) * (growth / 32.0)

"level" is the character's level. "growth" is the stat growth/base stat/whatever you want to call it. This is after factoring in all gems, boost skills, etc - it's just the number found on the character page, then divided by 10 because items show 1.5 when they mean 15 for whatever reason.

This is also without multipliers from library levels or items; if you want to check the math without resetting characters, library levels are a 2% boost, bonus points are a 3% boost, items are whatever they say they are. These are all additive.

[DeityDiz93]

Thank you for the quick reply! What probably made my post harder to follow is one small accident on my part with my two save file example of Komachi's HP. I tested in the two save files between Magic Library levels and the first file w/o EXP optimizing had her leveled up to 200 in HP of course I forgot she had 100 HP Magic Library levels instead of 200 on the EXP file; leading to that huge HP discrepancy in my post. Turns out that's on me because I made a typo in my notes which while making this test run file, I had hit 1 instead of 2 for the "200 levels need". As you can probably tell, screwed up my thinking that Komachi at 314 base HP under the EXP rules didn't reach 10,680 HP at level 47, which once leveled to 200, matched the counterpart first test save, extremely sorry for that slip up! There would be nothing to prove between the two save files now beside me I was just being dumb and the calculations check out from your post, so that's all good.

Essentially what your explanation told me is that the term "growth rate" is a nebulous term from the wiki; it has contributed to a misunderstanding on how stats actually work because the wiki is written to make people take "growth rate" at face value, it's all over character profiles there. Seems all base stat values do is affect how the final stats are calculated here, when I thought it was something akin to permanent effort values from Pokemon, that's where my thinking was. The link to the wiki page I gave claims stats are affected by floors which I've never been able to find proof on either, so I wonder what that's about since that didn't work in deleveled testing on a further along file? Anyways, I got my in-a-nutshell question answered with this response, its a resounding yes to going for EXP items being the right course and to avoid the trap of base stat boosting items and subclasses, giving no gains that can't be undone. Much like how you mentioned +1.5 base value boost items actually give +15 on the base stat screen, growth rate as a term there probably isn't needed as it caused more than just I confusion from a casual player perspective. A player on the wiki their Parsee or Kaguya a First Aid Kit, not realizing EXP boosting items probably suit them better, especially Kagu, so as to not fall behind due to a slower leveling rate. What this knowledge does now is, prevent me from wasting a lot of time grinding stat gems for every character through final boss refights letting a macro run overnight, then slapping the Transcendent subclass on every unit thinking they'd be getting a huge stat boost per level while grinding from an increased "growth rate", but that all did nothing I see. :V

This actually great news for me that I'm happy to know, because this will help me optimize future playthroughs, so you have my thanks! With nothing to suggest permanent stat gains or growth, this would seem to give merit to the idea that grinding ought to be done with Keine's Historian's School in the backrow, one Diva with Song of Delight in front, and bolstered by a frontliner scoring defeats with an Angel Slime Hat. That hat boost also seeming to apply for the entire party though it leave the main user without a boost from it if no defeats are scored I noticed in testing. This would mean backline support from Keine, Diva's Frontline boost, and Angel Slime Hat defeats going that it's possible for 3 frontliners with Hands-On Experience + Growth/Training Eggs to gain between +56% to +96% EXP gained in battle depending on number of enemy defeats. Motivated Heart units behind those three also get +44% to +84% EXP respectively too, and this doesn't count Mr. Midnight stuff or Nazrin's EXP booster which could get to pretty crazy numbers if abused, though Nazrin isn't part of my teams normally so I wouldn't use her boost unless using a Myouren team. I could see this turning around a few low EXP characters or making already fast leveling rates on some character just absolutely ridiculous which could be an powerful new thing to try, so I'm going to take that EXP optimized save all the way, see how it ends up compared to my last Plus Disk endgame file.

Much appreciated for this!

[kael070]

I tried to revisit my laby 2 save but for some reason the _out translation stopped working, any ideas? on japanese it works fine so its not a save corruption issue at least...

[qazmlpok]

Did you modify any files (i.e. upgrade to the latest patch) since you last ran it? Or is this a case of "it used to work, I didn't change anything, now it doesn't work"?

The error means there's some file it can't open. Make sure the working Japanese version is the same as the English patch you used. If there are any Japanese characters in the parent folder names, try moving it somewhere with only English characters.

[kael070]

Thanks for your insightful aswer qazmlpok, ended up finding the issue but not understanding it, at all...

Turns out I had the touhou games folder on my desktop so I ended up moving it to documents so my auto backup solution would also back them without me having to add a new source and destination for the desktop touhou folder...

But for some reason Labyrinth of Touhou 2 _out .exe refuses to work in any folder that is inside the documents directory, it works on downloads, Music, Root of C, anywhere except Documents... I seriously don't know what the hell anymore... I thought it could have been a path too long kind of error but even root Documents folder didn't work (root User folder worked though, and on my desktop the game runs on Documents subfolder but at 144 hz, so most things run at x3 speed lol)

[Tori]

Man I was managing to scrape by alright for a while but I got to Hina and I can't do anything much against her, she is WAY too hard, I don't understand how I'm supposed to beat her. I've done about everything I can do at this point in the game, besides leveling character skills (aside from the item and gold ones Rinnosuke has) because the game won't let me reset skills so since I don't know what skills to level I better not level any because it's permanent. I read the guide on how to beat Hina on https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Labyrinth_of_Touhou_2/Dungeons/5F#Hina_Kagiyama and I made sure I was caught up to Hina in levels and I still couldn't even come close to beating her. I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

[neemoos]

[...] the game won't let me reset skills so since I don't know what skills to level I better not level any because it's permanent.

No, you can reset your character skills at the Magic Library with the "Skill Reset" option. You don't need to use a Tome of Reincarnation, that's just if you want to take back any money or special items (the consumables from the shrine) you've spent on that character. Also, in general, I'd advise against spending on characters' spell cards early on, a lot of passives are pretty useful.

As for Hina, I don't think I have much to add to what the wiki recommends. Komachi is a pretty strong attacker for this fight (she can deal a lot of damage with her counters alone, and since a lot of your characters are getting wiped, you'll probably be seeing it quite often). Also, try respecing your level up stats in the shrine, this game favors a more min-max approach, so focus on 1-2 stats instead of spreading them out. As the wiki mentions, Parsee is a great tank for this fight, so spend all level up points into her MND, since Hina only uses attacks that target it. Equips for her should focus on HP, MND and FIR affinity, since that's Hina's most threatening move against Parsee. Another general advice is to try to switch your characters more efficiently (ATB management is huge in this game, at least for the vast majority of it). Some characters have skills that help a lot with that: Rinnosuke, Rin, characters with Instant Attack (you should have Momiji and Chen by this point) can "refresh" someone's ATB by switching them back and forth, etc.