Final Fantasy Twelve: Opening Game FAST LANE!!!

[GreywolfHunting]

Yes I know - you've probably heard all kinds of confusing claims like that already - stuff that turns out to be plain old common sense much later on.

This is not just about my own "TAKE" on how to accelerate the characters from the beginning - I invite everyone to jump in and kick their ideas around.

I've done three re-starts so far, and think I have a real jewel for you all.

(I'm the kind of nut that will backtrack Reks out of the palace in the opening scenes so that I can get him up to level four before the game kills him off, by finding more imperials to kill )

If you have looked at cheatmaps, and walkthroughs online, you can see that there are a number of really great Licenses that it would be good to have right from the beginning:

Three SPEED increases
Five BATTLE DAMAGE increases
Five HITPOINT increases
Four MAGIC POTENCY increases
Three licenses that reduce MP cost
There are also a number of licenses that improve Shield skills, ether, potion, Pheonix Down, and other stuff besides

All it takes is a way to scoop up a lot of LP (License Points) right from the start.

I noticed that all through the game (as far as I got anyway. I saw mention of treasure jars you SHOULD NOT open, and after a while I caved on that point) the amount of LP given was much the same regardless of how much loot or EXP points were awarded, so at the beginning I decided it was License Hunting Season! With me so far?

In other words - all things being equal - for the rest of the game you're going to get just as much LP per KILL, so you might as well pick a time and place early where you can kill off stuff without any trouble and put that time to good use - notwithstanding that later in the game you can get a golden amulet that doubles your LP gains. You can always REVISIT this same exploit later on in...

(LP is LP. Grab it if and when you need to...)

Once Vaan can kill wolves decently, the Estersand becomes a playground. After the big Ceremony when the gates open, this makes new areas available: East through the Estersand we can go as far as Nalbina Town, and north from there to the Village on the south shore of the Nebra, even though you may be only a lowly level three or four at the time! What I'm telling you will change every BIT of that (Chances are you'll make level fifteen or more before it's all over)

The town of Nalbina has better weapons and armor, and better spells than Rabanastre does - that is part of the exploit. "BATTLE-UP" with new skills and equipment, and the wolves can barely touch you.

*NOTE: Once you find stuff like that for sale in the game somewhere, it usually becomes available in Rabanastre too. That isn't true of the stuff in Nalbina Town, so that makes it well worth the trek...

But the cool part of it is that the areas next to that Village on the Nebra are ripe for the plucking if you want to go after huge long chains of the same creature, wolves - specifically!

THAT'S THE ENTIRE FOCUS HERE! Extreme "CHAIN HUNTING" to raise LP and maximum loot

After a while they stop respawning in an area that is worked over. To "CLEAN" an area is one thing, to "CLEANSE" it means to hammer it until nothing re-gens. You can work over one of the two desert areas next to the village until the wolves stop spawning - and then JUST MOVE TO THE AREA NEXT TO IT...

BUT IT GETS BETTER STILL

The same is true in reverse, while you are cleaning out the second area, the first one regenerates PREY

OBSERVATIONS:
1) Moving to an adjacent area does not break the "KILL CHAIN"
2) Moving to an adjacent area allows the one prior to regenerate but it depends on how high the chain of kills is, and/or your current level as to how long it is before creatures re-appear.
3) Touching a crystal resets everything
4) Entering a village or town resets the Chain (DEFINITE. I confirmed that - the chain will be busted.)

ALL you have to do is keep going back and forth between the two areas on a CHAIN HUNT. WOLVES ONLY, ignore and avoid everything else - especially the "GREEDEN". That thing is bloodthirsty at that stage

Cockatrices for example, will give up the chase pretty easily. When they do, they wander on back to wherever they were to begin with.

I have a picture of a 208-CHAIN wolf hunt that I need to figure out how to post. And there is no end in sight...

One of the effects of a chain that long also is that the goodies dropped by the late unlamented victims include SP and MP that continually restores Vaan

This means that I'm getting the big gold shields on kills and triple amounts of everything from the kills, so it's lucrative as well.

It also means that I have no use for potions, and could care less about casting "CURE"

All you have to do is be persistent and keep on raking in LP.

Next step is to find the shortest path on the LP MATRIX to get to the most important licenses

It is entirely possible to have more than 1400 hitpoints before you even do the Sunstone quest, not to mention all of the other upgrades that don't require a purchase in one of the shops. Oh but that's right - you'll be getting filthy rich with LOOT at the same time *ROFL*

Before you go to the Plains of Giza, TAKE A RIGHT!!! While it is helpful to have Penelo along, it cuts the EXP points in half, and an extra party member can be a pain.

CONVERSELY: I also noticed that if you have more than one party member available but you ONLY SELECT ONE in the party screen:
1) ALL available party members gain LP at the same rate.
2) Only the ACTIVE party member(s) gain experience points

I thought that was a real useful thing to know. I'm even thinking of eventually running through an entire game with JUST Vaan (SOLO) to see if the game can actually be beaten that way. I doubt it, because I bet there is a maximum level party members can reach.

Go out into the Estersand and try this exploit - I'm not kidding even a little bit. If you have all that stuff built up before you even do any main quests - you're going to blast through the rest of the game on wings of FIRE

ONE MORE NOTE: The level (and LP) of Penelo when she meets Vaan in the Giza Plains (and this is true of all other Characters that join your party) are EQUAL TO the level Vaan is when they join, and the LP they have at the time is the same as if they had gained the same amount as Vaan did in the meantime, but their first licenses and starting point in the LP MATRIX will be slightly different.

UPDATE: Just for kicks, I kept at it to see how many in a row I could wack. The grand total was 370 before it sorta petered out...
Presumably, saving the game at the village will start it all off again, I recommend saving more often than that.

More refinements:
I think the levels that are reached may have something to do with how often creatures are regenerated. After I made that 370-Chain run I noticed it took longer for more "PELT PROVIDERS" to appear, so I expanded the operating area. I go back and forth from the northwest Giza Plains to the South Nebra village. Ever since, I've had a constant flow of continuous prey without any problems

I am 15 hours into the game, level 12, I have four out of five HP upgrades, six each of the following in inventory:
Onion Arrows
Onion Bolts
Onion Shot
Onion Bombs

Silver Bows
Iron Swords

Leather Shields
Topkapi Hats
Kilimweave Shirts

- I also picked up a Chromed Leather somewhere, which is what Balthier has when he first appears.

I also got several shield block and other licenses, you can't help it. They are along a direct line to the critical licenses I want most.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW: Once you have 99 of any kind of loot - you need to find a merchant and dump it, or you can't get anymore of that kind. Therefore watch your loot inventory, and let THAT determine when to break the chain hunt.

Chains are broken when:
You enter a village or city
You save at a crystal
You touch a crystal

This means you have to plan your route to go around those, unless you are dumping loot...

PS on EDIT:
*Above this part of writing this, I had still not gone after the Sun Stone. I waited until I had all the HP, Damage, and Speed upgrades - then I rolled right on through to the Tomb of Raithwall like a bulldozer!!!
*You can run through some areas that have crystals, if you avoid the crystal itself. I noticed that in the Ogir Yensa Sandsea, where I ran through to the Nam Yensa Sandsea and still had a 100+ chain going

FOOTNOTE: I was once a member of the 3DO COMM.
I dunno if that will mean anything to anyone these days...

[GreywolfHunting]

PHASE TWO
"CHAIN-LOOTING for EFFECT"

At risk of seeming a spammer - I thought that this section ought to be a separate post. In my above, I showed how early chain-hunting in the game can break players out of the low levels and abilities that we all start out at in the game. It seems time consuming, but that's exactly what kind of a game we have here. It is GOING to take a bit of stubbornness to get to a point where the game begins to seriously ROCK! It's good though if it can be a bit less tedious and brain-deadeningly boring as doing the same stuff over and over gets to be after a while. The one thing that makes chain-hunting (or "CHAIN LOOTING", as I think of it) bearable is that you can directly see all of your abilities and loot levels climbing a lot faster than any other way. It helps a whole lot if you don't have to stay in the same place; changes of scenery are a Godsend...

With that in mind, once the basic licenses are gained, and your Characters ("CHARS") are at or around level fifteen - it's high time to blast off for a bit! Do the Sunstone quest, puree the Rogue Tomato (I still can't help thinking of it as "The Attack of the Killer Tomato"!!!), do the Garamsythe Sewers, Palace, Prison, and Escape quests. Go to the floating city, etc, etc... Once you find yourself at Raithwall's Tomb, it becomes time for chain looting at a different level. You now have several party members (three 'active' and one 'guest') and you need them to properly raid the Nam Yensa and the Ogir Yensa desert areas.

Urutan Yensa's like to cast "SILENCE" and "SLEEP" at your party. Sleep can be dealt with by either using up a lot of Alarm Clock items, or by ignoring it. Seriously - switch to a new party leader and forget about the missing member until they wake up.

SILENCED members are another story. We have to have people (except for the "GUEST") who can cast CURE or FIRST AID to maintain the party. But at the Tomb of Raithwall we meet a very helpful traveling merchant: "DYCE".

WARNING! This merchant will disappear after the tomb is cleared, so use him while he's around.
I know that from an earlier run-through that I keep saved so that I can load it to read maps and things.

DYCE offers at least four weapons that are absolutely fascinating:
1) Ancient Sword: This weapon has a fairly low (compared to what you already have) attack factor, but it has another attribute - "ON HIT/PETRIFY"
2) Chopper: Like the Ancient Sword, low attack. But THIS ONE's attribute is: "ON HIT/SAP" - causing additional CONTINUAL damage to a foe
3) Iron Hammers: At this point in the game, arguably the most powerful weapon so far in terms of shear attack rating
4) Assassins Dagger: Attack power 25 - but the attribute is "ON HIT/KO”!!! That means exactly what it says - a chance to KILL OFF with ONE HIT
*All four of these allow the use of a Shield in the off hand for extra defense

ARMOR goodies from Dyce include:
1) Rose Corsage: These make party members immune to "SILENCE". You want a half dozen of them no matter what...
2) Heavy Coat
3) Round Shield
4) Lambent Hat
* 2, 3, and 4 above are the best so far in the game
**There may be even more available at higher levels, but why stick around?

A further note on weapons - Flying Foes will be a problem from here on out, so a good distance weapon is needed (six of them, in fact). GUNS have high penetrating power, but for pure Attack Power, BOWS beat guns hands down! You should also be on the lookout for any kind of ammunition for guns and bows that is better than "ONION" grade ammo. Dyce sells "Killer Bows", the best so far. If you already have bows though, you can always wait until shortly after the Tomb of Raithwall because the "YOICHI BOW" that is available from a merchant in the Mosphoran Highwaste is the absolute best you will see for some time to come. But you're not there yet, so the Killer Bows are a good investment now.

THE BAZAAR:
The items in the Bazaar may seem like junk at first, but the stuff offered is more than it looks like. ANY TIME you see a BOW or ARCHERS EQUIPMENT offered in the Bazaar (or GUNS) buy them. The bow or gun may turn out to be lesser equipment, but the ammunition that comes with them can be used with better guns and bows.

Things like "Hollow Arrows" or Bamboo Arrows" which have the ability to cause POISON damage, also "SILENT SHOT" which inflicts SILENCE from whatever gun you use it with. Buy the guns and bows FOR THE AMMO! You can always sell off the bow or gun separately...

*By the way, the more levels you build up before saying goodbye to Dyce, the better stuff he has for sale. So if you don’t see something I mentioned try working up to level 20+ (or as high as necessary) on at least one of your chars…

BE WARNED that in the OGIR Yensa Sandsea there are two FIRE ELEMENTALS that each appear in a different area to the north and west on the Ogir Yensa map areas. You don't have a prayer yet of beating them, so you had better keep your "R2" button finger ready to flee if you spot one of them. The effects of being attacked by these so-called "Salamander Entities" at this point in the game are rather like having your whole party smacked with a gigantic fly-swatter... They look like huge orange balls of flame, and move very slowly. If you keep tabs on where they are (you'll see them a mile away) you can easily avoid them.

IN THE CENTER of the NAM Yensa Sandsea is an area you can only get to if you back off to the OGIR Yensa Sandsea and take a tunnel through a part of the Zertinen Caverns. That tunnel is mainly populated with the same green slime creatures that you encountered in the Garamsythe Sewers, and they will try to cast sleep. The tunnel entrance is specifically located in the map area titled: "Ogir-Yensa Sandsea/Central Junction"

The treasure at the end of that trip is totally NOT WORTH IT, and there are a variety of Urstrix (Giant Bird-like creatures) called "BAGOLY's" that will break your chain hunt (Like the slime creatures didn't already...). Still however, what adventurer worth their boots can resist filling out more areas of their maps?

At the upper connection to the Nam-Yensa Sandsea from the Ogir-Yensa there is a mini quest to eliminate a tortoid monster called the "URUTAN EATER" that will gain you a bunch of berries to use on a GARUDA later on. I found them next to needless, but for the sake of completion, why not...

At any rate ~
This pair of areas (the Ogir-Yensa and the Nam-Yensa) taken together are the best CHAIN LOOTING territory so far in the game. Urutans run in packs, and there are hordes of them.

Armed with ALL OF THIS, I hope you net your party members every single one of the "QUICKENINGS" in the game. You will need them the instant you set foot inside the Tomb of Raithwall, it's the only way past the first trap/monster inside it.

Keep this in mind too:
It doesn't matter WHAT quickenings you try to get for each party member - they are pre-determined. You can't get different ones for different party members, or change which ones are at which level no matter what you do. The best thing to do is send each party member after quickening tiles in different areas of the License Matrix at the same time, so that you don't waste time trying to get each party member to uncover the entire matrix.