Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

[ionic kite]

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||Ah good, we're running with the Waifu Squad. Lune, Sciel, and Monoco.||

[obtuse pond]

||It exists but it’s also like a one piece suit that doesn’t show much, which I think is the right call.||

[ionic kite]

Good

I didn't expect anything else tbh

[main olive]

Time to return to the expedition

[split canyon]

We Continue

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Visages||
||I wonder how far away I am from the end of act 2, maybe once I kill the Axons and make that weapon?||

[nova temple]

Are you asking or just musing?

[main olive]

Musing because it feels like a place for a clear cut but nothing in this game is a clear cut

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Oh he doesn’t even know what he just said ||

[halcyon elbow]

Act 1 ||Esquie's Nest|| ||Oh to have been a fly on the wall for Charlie Cox yelling "GET OUT OF MY WAAAAAAAAAAAY" in the recording booth lmao||

[nova temple]

post-Act 2 ||How did Expedition 70 get inside the Monolith to place these grapples they talk about in their journal? 🤔 ||

[potent tapir]

Post Act 2 || do we know anything about the barrier? It's possible it hasn't always been there. Or that they actually enacted whatever "plan a" that Verso had before we went on the Axon hunt. ||

[nova temple]

||These are possible, I suppose...||

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||I can't believe 10% of people have beaten Simon...||

[scarlet trout]

How many were pre nerf maelle

[wild jackal]

||I would be curious what percentage of that abused the bugged sword and pre-nerf Maelle damage. Half of the people who beat the game beating him legit seems a little unlikely.||

[scarlet trout]

Xbox has it at 2.42%

[nova temple]

Hmm

Maybe that's what it is

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Lumiere boss || || Sciel just basically one-shot Renoir phase 1 with a 500k hit and it wasn’t even supposed to be a really strong hit. I was just going to break him. Wasn’t even in twilight, he wasn’t marked. Dang ||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||How bugged was she? I can reach ~2M crits, which while substantial is nowhere near enough to trivialize Simon. Even 10M hits wouldn't make the fight easy||

[wild jackal]

||People were breaking 2.2 Billion.||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Lumiere boss || || Monoco just one-shot phase 2 with a 3-hit 250k per hit attack. Damn, Renoir only got one attack in ||

[nova temple]

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Lumiere boss || || Glad I did this first on PS5 where I struggled for hours because I was underpowered ||

[nova temple]

Yeah, at some point I started testing bossesb with weak hits, just to see how ham I can go. I ended up just skipping turns there 😅

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Lumiere boss || || Renoir start of phase 2 summoning the canvas and going into it still goes so freaking hard every time I see it though. Incredible moment. And the music just…. Chef’s kiss ||

[exotic ember]

Definitely fair haha

Absolutely perfection of a game

So hyped for ENDGAME

Act 3 || Lumiere || || Somehow messed up and forgot to have Monoco in my party for horse orb foot though oops ||

[nova temple]

There's a few of those, you miss am of them?

[exotic ember]

I only fought the one in that level this time around hmm. Didn’t know there were multiple

[nova temple]

Oh, I think I am wrong actually

[exotic ember]

Also act 3 || Lumiere post-final story boss || || Jennifer English’s delivery of the line “Verso stop. You can’t just decide this for everyone!” Is so good every time. ||

[nova temple]

I might be thinking of a different zone

[exotic ember]

Ahhh gotcha makes sense

[nova temple]

Jennifer English is too powerful

[exotic ember]

I’ll have to give BG3 another try some time for sure

[halcyon elbow]

Many are saying this

[exotic ember]

Honestly everyone in the voice cast for this game knocked it out of the park

[nova temple]

Also true

[exotic ember]

But also Esquie’s voice actor the most

[halcyon elbow]

Yknow I had kind of wondered if Charlie Cox was gonna end up in the all-too-common celebrity VA bucket of either basically no role or completely phoned in

That has unequivocally not happened here

[halcyon elbow]

Act 1 ||Stone Wave Cliffs|| ||Okay Expedition 50 gets the award for the funniest audio log in the history of video games||

[shell minnow]

Maelle has one of her burn applying moves she does that summons a heckton of swords into the air and then drives them all into the target, and I always go "ah yes, contre sixte"

She's red magey to meee :3

Lune is also a red mage b/c she does elemental magic (black magic) and big heals and rezzes (white magic)

everyone is actually a red mage in this game and that's why it's good

except for (act 2) ||Monoco, who is a blue mage||

[halcyon elbow]

Maelle has several abilities that just kind of summon magic rapiers at people

The basic one that puts you in the virtuoso form is one

[shell minnow]

Percée (the big sword that does big dam if they're marked) has Paladin vibes tho

GIANT SWORD FROM BENEATH is a paladin staple

[halcyon elbow]

Paladin is the Red Mage of tanks, checks out

[main olive]

I said I wasn't gonna play anymore today

But I lied to myself

[halcyon elbow]

Don't worry

No one is surprised

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Visages|| ||I beat the three masks, now it's time to face the real boss, I'm ready to get my ass beaten.||

[halcyon elbow]

Fighting the merchant has like

Top 3 battle themes in all video games

Unreal

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Sciel's friendship|| ||Did they... did she... did...||

||Oh god||

Act 2 ||After Visages boss|| ||Guess they can pull entire Pianos out of chroma now, I guess||

[nova temple]

so far

[nova temple]

||Out of pictos apparently||

[merry lance]

Man, I need to sit down and finish finishing the game so I can sit down and figure out which music I need to add to playlists

[main olive]

I need a bit of help because I got turbo lost

Act 2 ||Siréne|| ||I defeated the big sewing machine and then didn't know where to go so I started running back and now I have no clue where I am or where I need to go||

[halcyon elbow]

Okay [Act 1] ||Stone Cliff Waves|| ||I think Sandfall has out-Fromsofted Fromsoft with the Lampmaster||

[analog tiger]

Act 1 ||SCW || ||why?||

[halcyon elbow]

||It does everything I'd want a Fromsoft boss to do, and then is also narratively satisfying||

[analog tiger]

act 2 ||Sirene|| ||have you tried the grappling point?||

[analog tiger]

o I see

[main olive]

||I managed to run all the way back to the entrance of the map, warp back to the boss area and THEN I saw the grappling point||

[analog tiger]

LMAO oof

[halcyon elbow]

Act 1 ending I think? ||Hi Ben||

[nova temple]

issa Ben!

[nova temple]

||I like Lamplighter a lot as a fight! All the bosses are interesting, but Lamplighter feels like an A-tier||

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2! Camp ||Wow okay they are not shy at all about Verso being a direct replacement for Gustave||

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Siréne|| ||Current party member levels, and fashion because I couldn't resist dressing up Lune in that horrible getup||

[nova temple]

Hey, I was running that fit for her for a little bit!

[main olive]

The hair is fantastic, I'm tempted to make a build entirely based around lightning damage just because it looks like she got zapped by a cartoonish lightning bolt

[analog tiger]

Act 2 ||Sirene|| ||I love the outfit; the Frankenstein's Bride hair not so much||

[ionic kite]

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH I GOT THE KILL ON RENOIR WITH MAELLE USING A GRADIENT COUNTER THAT WAS SO COOOOOL||

This game is so awesome lmao

[nova temple]

Appropriate

[exotic ember]

I got a friend to try the game and he’s really into it. Apparently Sekiro is his favorite game and he’s seeing a lot of Sekiro DNA. I’m going to really have to try that out it seems

[hollow ruin]

alright, time to conquer the most difficult challenge in the game

act 2 ||gestral beach climbing course||

[dawn spindle]

Yourself?

Ah

[nova temple]

I mean, I'll say, I did it in two attempts

Oh, actually

[dawn spindle]

I was just ranting to my dad about this game and now I want tp go home and play

[nova temple]

which one?

[dawn spindle]

I only have one dad!
-# I know that wasn't to me.

[hollow ruin]

the tall one?

[nova temple]

The tower or the wall?

[fallow geode]

||getting over it: JRPG edition?||

[hollow ruin]

tower

the wall i did third time

[nova temple]

ah, okay

tower isn't bad at all

[hollow ruin]

well, i guess me trying it 50 times and failing is just me sucking then

[fallow geode]

ah damn
who are you doing it with?

[nova temple]

😮

[hollow ruin]

Maelle

[fallow geode]

hmm

horrible thought
imagine if mantling is FPS dependent

[hollow ruin]

well it seems my spite was an excellet motivator 😛

attempt 51: success

(act 3 outfit) ||i love the dancing gestrals, they feel as cheerful abotu me being out of this damn tower as i||

||you know what would be funny||

||if one of the random dancing gestrals kicked you down that hole in the middle||

||oh my gods, it's a Monoco swimsuit||

right. i knew that why is memory so crem

still, worth it

[nova temple]

What do you mean still worth it, it's why it's worth it!

[hollow ruin]

fair

act 3 ||world map boss|| ||i would like serpenphare to stop absorbing my AP, please and thank you||

[reef iron]

and I gotta say (act 3) same tag ||having a setup where everyone starts with 8-9 ap in a fight made that start a particular betrayal hahaha||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Going back through old levels to find the paint break stuff I missed. There’s a dead sprong in spring meadows behind where that first side boss was ||

Also Act 1 || Spring Meadows into Flying waters || is such a strong opening. Beautiful levels

Just absolutely gorgeous

And the music is so good in Act 1 || Spring Meadows ||

Act 3 || Flying Casino || || My god, this is a BOP ||

^ || Omg it kicks in even harder when you switch to Monoco and get into conversation ||

Omg

Same tags || Monoco suit. So DAPPER ||

[nova temple]

That's the outfit I've been running for him ever since 😄

[exotic ember]

I don’t blame you. I will be doing the same

I don’t want to leave this section because THE MUSIC

Oh yeah I’ve also officially beaten the game’s story twice now

[exotic ember]

Act 3. I've finally leaned into the wardrobe changes.

Act 3 || Maelle friendship || || Omg I completely forgot there was a third axon ||

[nova temple]

^ ||It's a nice little "oh, right, that was a thing"||

[merry lance]

Act 3 outfits ||For me, Monoco's had a clear outfit progression. Speedo -> Suit -> White Suit.||

[nova temple]

^ ||I thought about the white suit, but I just like the black one better||

[merry lance]

||Something about the lighting of it all makes the black suit feel crumpled and messy in a bad way, while the contrast of the white suit brings it all together for me||

[nova temple]

Act 3 exploration ||You know, I never actually looked at the Old Lumiere Axon...||

[merry lance]

Act 3 Exploration, ||The Reacher|| ||Yeah, with it being a redhead, I feel like it's supposed to be Alicia, and I guess it could be symbolic of the weight of the city being on her shoulders, but at the same time, from halfway through The Reacher, it really sounds like that is supposed to be Alicia, so...||

||Maybe that's the real secret. All of the Axons are Alicia, and that's why Verso is so confident she's the favourite.||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Golgra Fight || || I’m going to be here for a while ||

Getting better on my parries but still haven’t gotten a counter. Learning though

Nvm just got 4 counters in a row

Act 3 || Golgra fight || || Dang Monoco just did nearly 2 million damage with horse orb attack. Definitely the best damage dealer on my team right now ||

[nova temple]

||Hauler, not Reacher (Reacher is Alicia's).||

full game ||this Reddit post actually lines up with my thoughts pretty closely, https://www.reddit.com/r/expedition33/comments/1kcaijo/comment/mqitwxi/ ||

[nova temple]

lemme tell ya, trying that pre-act 3 was not smart

[exotic ember]

Oh lemme tell you, I did the same and I can’t agree more

[nova temple]

heh

I also found that it's super dependent on which attacks you get

Some I just found easier to counter

-# much like that boss I've been struggling with lately...

[exotic ember]

Fair. Her attacks overall aren’t the worst once you start to get a feel for them at least

Oh nvm she angry now

Adjusted my luminas and doubled my counter damage basically though

[merry lance]

Is it double, or is it x2.25?

[exotic ember]

Beats me

I tweaked a bunch of stuff haha

But anyways. Act 3 || Golgra || defeated!

Wait my god. Act 3 || Golgra || || This Monoco weapon is CRACKED ||

The build potential is wild there

Same tags || 30% damage increase every use of an upgraded skill with no cap. That’s so nutty ||

[nova temple]

Which weapon was it?

[exotic ember]

|| Sidaro ||

I may have to respec for this one

[nova temple]

Hmm, I don't have it 🤔

Is it one of those things where you have to defeat a boss with each character for per-character rewards?

[exotic ember]

Must be. Didn’t know that was a thing

Well damn, I’m going to be here a while

[nova temple]

Actually, that makes sense, because that's exactly how you get Medalum

[exotic ember]

Oh wow that weapon is also cracked

[halcyon elbow]

There's a voice log narrated by a character named "Ben" who I'm pretty sure is actually just Ben Starr doing the voice for it

He does have credit for "additional voices"

Also Act 2 general ||Here I am blown away by how much the open world layer opens up when Esquie can swim and all of a sudden I'm hit with "Esquie can't go underwater?||

This game is far larger than it leads with

[nova temple]

100%

And Act 3 opens up... maybe not more, but certainly more than I expected

[halcyon elbow]

||I am also convinced if they try and Final Fantasy Clair Obscur into a sort of anthology series that Esquie should just inexplicably be one of the recurring elements of Clair Obscur games||

[fallow geode]

||Him and the Gestrals||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Golgra || defeated with || Maelle || now

[nova temple]

When were you going to tell me that I can just grind lumina infinitely 😒

[exotic ember]

Wait, you can?

[fallow geode]

AFAIK there are some enemies that drop it directly?

[halcyon elbow]

There is some kind of endgame farm Paul Tassi keeps talking about

[nova temple]

There's a merchant I am just destroying mercilessly over and over again

drops weapon upgrade materials, lumina, and occasionally recoats

[fallow geode]

whomst

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||the one in Renoir's Drafts. It's probably not the only one, but this is one of the later-game merchants, so probably best loot if you can put together a build that makes it easy to farm||

[fallow geode]

only a little bit of gameplay away then

[exotic ember]

Lol

[fallow geode]

(I still haven't beaten the Act 2 ||Falling Leaves|| boss yet)

[nova temple]

I came here to grind out the last 10 levels 😅

[exotic ember]

I am super curious whether new game+ is tuned against a fully farmed endgame team or not

[nova temple]

nd then noticed I am getting actually useful drops

[main olive]

The expedition continues

[nova temple]

We had a golden opportunity to say "we continue"

and you squandered it

[halcyon elbow]

smh my damn head

[fallow geode]

we did?

[halcyon elbow]

"We" is Nick

[nova temple]

This is what Act 3 farming looks like

[exotic ember]

Beautiful

[main olive]

I prefer to freestyle it

[nova temple]

98...

[halcyon elbow]

Is there some trick to this ||volleyball thing? I swear this guy is sending them at me faster than my hit comes off cooldown||

[ionic kite]

I did it in I think four, but all of my failures were at the bottom

And primarily a result of impatience

[fallow geode]

||you can hit them sooner than you think, but not as soon as you'd like||

[exotic ember]

Nice

[nova temple]

more like ni.ce

heh

[exotic ember]

How

Is that a bug? Because I’m in the late 50s and my hp range is 1235-3987 currently lmfao

[fallow geode]

isn't that the XP bar?

[exotic ember]

Oh okay I’m dumb lmfao

[nova temple]

[halcyon elbow]

Is there like

Some stat that governs your overworld attack thing time or something?

I literally cannot hit it fast enough here

I hit the first one and then every consecutive one after hits before I can get the next attack off

[nova temple]

There isn't

But I've never struggled with it, so I think it's just a matter of getting a sense for what your reach is

[halcyon elbow]

It isn't an issue of reach

It is an issue of, the second hits the raft before my second attack will go off, regardless of aim

[nova temple]

Oh, for that

yeah, I don't know, that just sucks

[halcyon elbow]

I could theoretically let every other one through but he can take way more than twice the hits

[merry lance]

Try doing it at a lower framerate

[halcyon elbow]

Unironically might be the play

[merry lance]

The timing is definitely tight, but I don't think it was "can't hit twice in a row" tight

but I also didn't clear round 3, so...

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||Okay, so that's how people are earning this achievement. They just don't bother with the fight and one-shot Simon ||

[nova temple]

||wild ||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||The Abyss, Simon's journal, full game|| ||So it sounds like Simon was in loved with painted!Clea, then real!Clea entered the Canvas and give him power to defeat the Old Lumiere Axon. Simon eventually figures out that the Clea that helped him against the Axon was not "his" Clea, but by that point it was too late - real!Clea had already painted over Aline's version of her, and chucked her in the Flying Manor to paint Nevrons. Simon then meets Aline, who seems to convince him that if he can help her deal with her husband beneath the Monolith, she can help restore Clea back to him. Which is why we find him here, essentially in Renoir's prison... ||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || I have beaten Golgra with everybody now ||

[halcyon elbow]

Should I be feeling the need to go and farm a lot at the beginning of act 2?

I can't find anything I can newly access (to include the main story stuff) that isn't one shotting me on every character any time I miss a parry

I don't know if I'm underleveled or my build is bad

[scarlet trout]

Have you updated what pictos you have on?

[halcyon elbow]

Constantly

[dawn spindle]

I had the opposite issue so I upped the difficulty

[halcyon elbow]

I've been on expert the whole time

[dawn spindle]

Yeah, given it's you

[halcyon elbow]

And I feel like I've run into a very hard wall here like I'm doing something wrong

[dawn spindle]

didn't expect otherwise from the powergamer =P

[halcyon elbow]

https://tenor.com/view/umm-wait-nathan-fillion-gif-4809231

[scarlet trout]

Like if you’re using a lot of level 5 or lower pictos you’re going to be missing out on the stat bonuses

[halcyon elbow]

Most of the newer Pictos I have seem to be punishment Pictos

"Die on battle start" "Get more AP from parries but take double damage" type of thing

Which is very much not a way I like to play

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Sirene|| ||Don't do this to me, game||
||Also, This opens a lot of questions about Sciel, she... she said she didn't have kids at one point right? if I recall, and she has that huge scar...||

[scarlet trout]

You building any vitality

[ionic kite]

The die on battle start thing actually has synergies with it, and you can just revive them right away anyway

But they're not all like that

[halcyon elbow]

Yes

[ionic kite]

It's just that some of them have drawbacks for one reason or another

[halcyon elbow]

I don't have any real synergies I currently see

[ionic kite]

Not yet

But you will

[halcyon elbow]

Right but I don't now and now is where I'm having this massive difficulty spike problem

It is a worse-than-useless Pictos to me right now

[ionic kite]

Ahh okay I didn't read the context

[scarlet trout]

I’m trying to remember when you can get stuff like auto shell

[halcyon elbow]

I have autoshell on Lune

It doesn't matter

She gets oneshot anyway

Like

She has autoshell and 1k hp, she shouldn't be getting oneshot by everything new, right?

[scarlet trout]

1k hp is low still

[halcyon elbow]

So I'm underleveled?

20-25

[ionic kite]

Well, here's the thing. Levels aren't giving you, like, anything

[scarlet trout]

I think that’s a little under

[ionic kite]

Pictos are gonna be where you get most of your strength.

Saying that doesn't really help the problem

Unfortunately

[scarlet trout]

It’s still early enough where 20 pts in something can make a difference

[halcyon elbow]

So what's crazy about this to me is, I've done everything side I reasonably can that I'm aware of, which circles back around to the original question: should I feel like I need to be doing quite a bit of farming here?

Because I've done basically none

[nova temple]

she do be like that

[nova temple]

I feel like I was in my 20s when I got to Act 2

I also didn't know that pictos give stats when I got to Act 2, so I sure wasn't optimized for that either

I did immediately go back and explore the Act 1 general area for zones now accessible to me

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Sirene|| ||As you can see I had a really clutch fight with that boss||
||I was smart and when I found a Pictos that made me immune to charm I knew I had to equip that to everyone||

[nova temple]

but I've never just... farmed (except today's 90-99)

[halcyon elbow]

I've done most of this

And like even then the bosses that were oneshotting me before I did the final dungeon of act 1 are still doing the same now

[nova temple]

I did play on normal, so maybe hard is just meant to be that punishing? idk

[halcyon elbow]

I mean I don't actually think I should be struggling with act 2 mobs more than I struggled with the act 1 final boss?

It doesn't feel right at the very least

[nova temple]

Have you done any of the A2 story areas?

[halcyon elbow]

I literally cannot, that's what I'm saying

They're way way way harder

I wiped on the first encounter there like six times lmao

[nova temple]

hmm

[halcyon elbow]

I killed ||lampmaster|| in three pulls

So like

I dunno

[main olive]

I did spend an afternooon going over skills and stats and rebuilding everything I had, it improved my performance drastically, then I did it again and messed some characters, but then I reset them again and now they're performing way better than before

Because I was getting my ass beat severely

[halcyon elbow]

I've put everything I have into trying to keep Lune alive. She has 1k hp, which is twice what ||Verso|| has, has autoshell at the beginning of every match, and it makes no difference

She still gets one shot any time I miss a parry with her, to any act 2 mob

[scarlet trout]

What are your stat distributions for the characters? Not including pictos

[halcyon elbow]

Roughly 2-1 whatever their weapon stats are to the remaining stats

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Sciel's friendship|| ||No one told me there would be romance in this game! I'm not here to kiss people, I'm here to kick ass and take names||

[scarlet trout]

I ignored weapon stats until late act 3. I put everybody to 20 vitality put 15 into luck. Went to like 50 with speed then just put everything else into might

[fallow geode]

I think Defence is surprisingly strong

[scarlet trout]

Yeah

Idk if the level up amount of defense is enough to put that many points into but having some defense from pictos is great

[exotic ember]

I think might is surprisingly less than stellar compared to putting stats into your weapon’s attributes. Tested today switching my points from might into my weapon’s second attribute and power increased

[halcyon elbow]

Yeah I've been mostly ignoring Might

[exotic ember]

So I just pump into weapon stat attributes

[halcyon elbow]

Unless it is a weapon stat

[reef iron]

you should ignore might. if you're leveling up your attributes from your weapon, it'll level up might with it anyway

[exotic ember]

Yeah, though that has been kind of rare in my experience. Unless maybe I’m ignoring those weapons in the first place. Was surprised to see one today scale on might

[fallow geode]

oh yeah, for some reason some attributes affect multiple stats

[nova temple]

I went heavy in Luck/Might regardless of the weapon I was using 😅

[halcyon elbow]

Okay ||Verso|| still only has like 750hp

Got Lune up to 1200 and Maelle to 1k

I... am not super confident this will help

[nova temple]

In fact, I've done pretty much everything there is to do, and my attribute distributions are still kind of placeholder-y for a couple of characters because I never felt drawn to a specific weapon for them, so I didn't want to commit 😅

[scarlet trout]

Might was more of an early game stat for me because the weapon scaling isn’t that great and it allows for more weapon flexibility if I wanted to change

[nova temple]

Alright, let's go find that freaking mime

[halcyon elbow]

Maybe nothing could be more French about this game than you NG+ing so you can kill a mime

[nova temple]

[halcyon elbow]

Act 1 ending ||This game keeps giving me Gustave tooltips||

[nova temple]

NG+ ||Hey, wait a minute...||

Right, I forgot that the opening of the prologue is just Maelle ruthlessly and endlessly roasting Gustave

[fallow geode]

not spoilering that?

[nova temple]

Remembering to tag images is my bane 😔
Act 1 ||Having seen gestrals now, this is a nice touch||

[fallow geode]

what was your boon?

[nova temple]

remembering to tag text

[halcyon elbow]

I'm building around Mayhem on Lune in terms of skills and boy when that ability hits it hits

Right now the only thing that hits harder is Maelle's Virtose counterattacks, which are pegged to 9999

[nova temple]

how on earth did I miss this the first time...

[halcyon elbow]

I did wonder

It is kind of right there

[nova temple]

We are Mayhem enjoyers in this chat!

[halcyon elbow]

Sort of blends into the background though

[nova temple]

And I know I went to the area next to it, and looked around, because it looked like there should be something, with how flashy it was

Oh, fun, on-death effects + auto death pictos means you get to go under the mime's defense for a bit

[fallow geode]

I did my first time
thankfully I switched from Gamepass to Steam, so I played the prologue twice

[exotic ember]

I also missed it the first time

There are dozens of us

[halcyon elbow]

Why does Maelle have a sword called a plenum?

That's just like a real word

And it has nothing to do with swords generally or this sword in particular

[hollow ruin]

all her sword names end with -um, so maybe it's a coincidence

[nova temple]

full game

[halcyon elbow]

From yesterday's Clair-Obscur-characters-but-through-the-lens-of-FF-jobs, Maelle also gets the classic Paladin ability Cover (here called Egide, which I presume is French for a similar idea), but also gets Superbolide-but-for-damage-instead-of-invulnerability

[nova temple]

Alright, I think we are done

[obtuse pond]

You know, not sure I’ve ever really praised this in a piece of media before
But I like the amount of swearing in this game.
It’s just enough swearing to feel real without being too much.

[halcyon elbow]

The French know how to merde

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Falling Leaves Scavenger|| || Ask not how many attempts that took||

[fallow geode]

Act 2 Weapons ||That looks tasty. +300% on Genesis???||

[nova temple]

||When I was looking for a Lune weapon, I considered this one, but I feel like it wouldn't work too well. You need 4 Dark Stains to get the 300% damage buff, and you can only generate those randomly when you consume Stains. You might be able to get a 50-100% buff somewhat reliable from the Level 4 perk - but you'll need to be 2-3 turns in for that. Maybe that's worth it, double damage is still a substantial increased, but I think the 300% is a pipe dream||

[fallow geode]

|| 😔 yeah. It still doesn't beat out Free Shots = Free Stains||

Act 2 Overworld + possible Act 3?? ||Should I be attempting the Sprong right now? 9999 is doing pixels of its health bar||

[nova temple]

You should not

[fallow geode]

Same tags ||I think I might go aim to finish out Act 2 so I can get flight before I swim all the way back to act 1 areas for the rest of the coral I've missed||

||I get flight after Act 2, right?||

[nova temple]

Good plan, and yes

[fallow geode]

I have already become distracted

[nova temple]

This is the way

[shell minnow]

Okay Kon's catching up and I'm insecure about it so lets see what Act 3 has to offer

[merry lance]

Side content

[halcyon elbow]

https://tenor.com/view/minnmax-gif-22362742

Speaking of

Act 2 ||Forgotten Battlefield|| ||Dualliste is another goated fight||

The boss fights in this are exceptional

[fallow geode]

Act 2 ||Visages|| ||I am very confused. All the side passages have masks with cutscenes, but it seems no matter who I approach as, they all just play the same cutscene of snapping shut||

[fallow geode]

Same tags ||Figured it out, beat Anger's dungeon||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Serpenphare is mean ||

[nova temple]

Correct

[halcyon elbow]

As a heads up:

The game let me get onto one of those painted bridges before activating it, from the side you do not activate it on. The bridge was invisible. But then I went to camp on the bridge, and respawned under the bridge, and was invisibly walled at both ends. Lost about 20min

Very specific bug, but do be aware

[nova temple]

Yeah, Nick also ran into a similar thing, just without the camp bit

[exotic ember]

Got closer that time. Long fight lol

[nova temple]

It can be, yeah

Kind of needs a special build too

Or parts of one at least

[exotic ember]

Yeah I’ve got myself partially built for it. Didn’t want to go full rebuild since I just spent a bunch of time rebuilding after rebuilding each character one by one for || Golgra ||

Act 3 || Serpenphare || || Currently just built basically to steal and apply shields and get a bunch of AP on parry so that after 2 explosions the explosions get more consistent.

Just relies completely on not missing parries lol ||

[nova temple]

Mhm, unfortunately that's kind of the extent of it 😅

[exotic ember]

Gotcha, makes sense. Figured maybe later on I could do more big damage in opportunistic moments but perhaps that’s not right after all haha. Health pool does seem immense

At least compared to what I’ve fought so far

[nova temple]

Yeah, could be a later thing

[exotic ember]

Heh, nope

It’s a now thing

[nova temple]

I certainly did it as one of the last things

[exotic ember]

Sunk cost

[nova temple]

Heh

[exotic ember]

Especially after getting it to about 25%. I know I could do it haha

[nova temple]

Oh, yeah, the sunk cost is real now

[main olive]

We continue.

Act 2 ||Post Sirene|| ||Now I have this barrier breaker, time to see if I get instantly atomized by the paintress||

Act 2 ||Yeah but what if we fill Esquie with monster energy and cafeine||

Act 2 ||Post Sirene|| ||"In the shadow of the monolith" I wonder wat the monolith actually is, and why this old man is so insistent that what we're doing is wrong and actually bad||

Act 2 ||The Monolith|| ||I'm here, time to get some answers I hope.||

[exotic ember]

Act 3 || Serpanphare defeated! 🎉 ||

Really cool fight

I dug how it really changed how you had to approach things

Act 3 || Serpenphare ||| || Ended up tossing leadership on verso and another AP granting ability on Monoco ||

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 ||Monoco Station|| ||The Verso/Monoco banter is incredible||

||I also appreciate how well they're using Verso as a mirror for how the gommage has affected Lune, Sciel, and Maelle. Maelle is the most on-the-nose one, because she's so young and as a result has lost a lot in a short time, but expanding Lune's history to include not only her parents but also her older siblings and giving her a connection to Sophie, as well as Sciel is a widow to the gommage. And it is so casually slipped in there, but you see Verso notice||

||They also do this thing a lot where characters talk over each other. Gives all the dialogue a very natural feel||

[nova temple]

Mhm mhm

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||Damn expedition 60 and 70 really did reach really far||

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||y'know this fight would be funnier if I could actually see a damn thing||

[nova temple]

Damn, it's really snowing, huh

[halcyon elbow]

Man

I have not been having the platforming issues I'm seeing complained a lot about

On a related note, [Act 2 goof] ||Monoco's speedo is the best swim suit in the game so far and I do not see it getting topped||

[nova temple]

This, too, is correct

[halcyon elbow]

Yo

I just had Lune do 64,000 damage in one turn

[nova temple]

damn

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||It was against Renoir, I still didn't kill him that pull because it knocked him deep into phase 2 and he started doing stuff I hadn't seen before lmao||

||Did finally get him, though, and worked through the aftermath||

||I think they've done a very good job of managing the Verso thing. It was obvious something was going on there, but then also the game turns around fairly quickly that you know little about Lune and Maelle even now and almost nothing at all about Sciel, you really don't know a ton less about Verso. And it clearly wasn't a secret to Expedition 58. Generally just well-handled relative to how a lot of stories (especially TV) handles secrets and the resultant drama||

[nova temple]

^ ||I definitely would've liked more character scenes and camp chats to unpack all that, but what it does works well enough.||

[halcyon elbow]

||There's been a notable economy of dialogue at every step of the way, for sure. I'm not sure if that is an artistic choice or a a budgetary one, but I've been impressed with how much they've done with how little they've had (true in many more senses than just this, of course)||

[nova temple]

||I assumed budgetary - or otherwise, resource reasons - but what they've got, they've packed.||

[analog tiger]

language warning (general) https://youtu.be/yj6JbgMdrZo

[fallow geode]

It's funny because it's true

[pure forge]

DLC announced. /s

Expediton 60.

[exotic ember]

Why are they clothed? Not my expedition 60

[halcyon elbow]

Shot (Kepler is E33's publisher): https://x.com/kepler_interact/status/1922298442027561007

Kepler Interactive (@Kepler_Interact) on X

serious business meeting

X · May 13, 2025, 2:30 PM

Chaser: https://x.com/irunoart/status/1922340631231234270

Iruno 🎨🌸 | @irunoart.bsky.social 🦋 (@IrunoArt) on X

@expedition33 Very important business meeting. Urgent even 🧐

X · May 13, 2025, 5:18 PM

[merry lance]

Act 3 ||The Chosen Path|| ||Is the Chosen Path just the one set of fights?||

[hollow ruin]

same tags ||yes, and the reward behind the final door||

[merry lance]

Cool, thanks

[main olive]

Esquie shaped wine boot

[nova temple]

I guess I should label this Act 2 ||https://x.com/expedition33/status/1924477071905988778 ||

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33) on X

Found some footage in a folder labelled "Verso"

X · May 19, 2025, 2:47 PM

[merry lance]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||Man, I need like a Simon Phase 2 Trainer. Right now I can get there consistently, but phase 1 takes long enough that I can't really learn the new attacks that wipe my party...||

||(similarly, I wish they'd still give parry timing feedback after you die)||

[nova temple]

^ ||Yeah, he is not a friendly fight, I hit very similar walls; ended up cheesing it at the end||

[halcyon elbow]

This is Ben Starr having too much fun on the mocap set and then a Sandfall dev running with it for a goof

In one of the handful of interviews I've listened to recently Broche said that having an office where everyone is required to be in a minimum of 3 days a week has been really helpful because a lot of the office goofs they have end up making it into the game and contributing to the game's immaculate vibes

[nova temple]

Apparently the mocap actor is separate for many, if not all of these

[halcyon elbow]

I imagine they have several mocap actors for each role, especially stunts

Sometimes stunt guy and fight choreography guy will be different as well

[hollow ruin]

My understanding is that the mocap actor for Verso was the guy who voiced Esquie

and yeah, the follow-up tweet to this says this is actually Maxence Cazorla (Esquie's VA) dancing, not Ben Starr

[halcyon elbow]

Yknow what I believe they have similar energy

(It would take great convincing to get me to believe it wasn't Charlie Cox doing the mocap for Gustave though)

[hollow ruin]

Actually, Cazorla also mocapped Gustave, and some Renoir scenes, apparently

[halcyon elbow]

Way too many Charlie Coxisms in the face and body language

[nova temple]

I thought so too!

[halcyon elbow]

Why did they turn Gustave into Ned Flanders

What did he do to deserve that

[nova temple]

why you gotta call me out like that

[halcyon elbow]

Parrying covereth a multitude of sins

[main olive]

So far I've not parried anything since the tutorial

I just dodge

[hollow ruin]

i see you too follow the path of the dodge 🤝

i have not parried a single attack in over thirty hours

actually no, i think i may've once cause i mixed up the buttons

[main olive]

I did two consecutive perfect parry once

[halcyon elbow]

I'm exactly the opposite, I haven't dodged since the painter thing in the prologue

You can even parry when it tells you to dodge in the actual tutorial later

Counts that as a success

Its great too because especially Maelle is like, free damage cap hit when she gets attacked

Nobody else hits that hard except maybe ||Verso|| with high perfection

Also my current Lune build works a lot better when she gets attacked so I have more AP to work with

Parrying also fills the stagger bar pretty significantly actually

[hollow ruin]

yeah, but like... my laptop does not keep a stable enough framerate for those frame-perfect parries

[main olive]

I'm just bad at telling when the attack is parriable

characters have these long winded animations

[halcyon elbow]

Use the Force

Close your eyes

[reef iron]

there are some special kinds of attacks that require a specific response every now and then but other than those exceptions, everything is parriable

[halcyon elbow]

(There is a sound, unironically)

[reef iron]

turn off your targeting computer

[halcyon elbow]

It is a very subtle sound but it is there on just about every attack

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a0b682d7504a522592675c11b5645218

Getting the fully parry chain on some of the bosses' long attack chains is extremely satisfying

[nova temple]

audio cues is the way, if you can master that

I end up relying on visuals for some, audio for others

and others yet, I just kind of... learn the rhythm

[hollow ruin]

Yeah, I'm mostly using audio cues for dodges

which is frustrating, because in some fights (act 3 ||lampmaster in the painting workshop||...) those bug out on me and don't play sometimes

most of the time when i try to focus on visual clues, my brain is so focused on the process of "it's almost there - oh, it's there! - that means it's dodge time" that by the time my fingers get around to pressing dodge, I'm already dead

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 camp scene ||https://fixupx.com/jessecox/status/1924540756976664772 ||

Jesse Cox (@JesseCox)

I AM IN YOUR HEAD @The_Ben_Starr
︀︀
︀︀@expedition33

**💬 6 🔁 32 ❤️ 854 👁️ 30.5K **

▶ Play video

FixupX · May 19, 2025, 7:00 PM

Coxtradamus strikes again

[nova temple]

he is The One

[main olive]

We continue.

[nova temple]

Tomorrow comes.

[main olive]

I finished doing the ||Monoco|| build Feather mentioned the other day

insane support value

[shell minnow]

It's cracked!!

[main olive]

Act 2 ||This and using the Contortionist skill that deals damage and heals the whole team||

[halcyon elbow]

Hm I've been looking into it and it turns out the "low" "medium" "high" "extreme" denotations are quite poor indicators

[main olive]

All the buffs just chain off each other

and I'm sure there's more to stack here

[shell minnow]

Also re: parrying [Act 3] ||I just did the Danseuse 15 parries in a row challenge last night in Frozen Hearts and even as someone who DOES parry in fights it was a challenge||

[halcyon elbow]

There is a mod that replaces the existing text with the "multiplier", I guess damage can reasonably be calculated by how much of a character's basic attack it does, as well as what that multiplier would be if certain conditions are met

[shell minnow]

This is the way

[halcyon elbow]

I really like Blue Mages

(In single player games, I have no interest in 14's)

[nova temple]

That one was a little tricky

Mostly because it's so many hits

I am really good at parrying those, and she still took me like 5-6 tries to get down

[halcyon elbow]

Collecting all the Blue Mage spells in FFV is one of the reasons I like that game so much

Alright mes amis we also continue

Never mind we update drivers

Then we continue

[main olive]

I haven't updated my drivers since two thousand and seventeen

[halcyon elbow]

How

[main olive]

I'm joking, but I do mostly not update my drivers since I tend to just play very old games over and over or just league

Before this last time I updated my drivers was when I bought Cyberpunk 2077

I have a very old gtx 1060

it struggles

[halcyon elbow]

Just no-hit a mime and honestly feel pretty good about that

[nova temple]

Mimes are great for that

[main olive]

I think I'm going to reset a character again because I have an idea for a build

Act 2 ||Verso build|| ||I'm thinking of making an Agility based build to exploit the skill that deals extra damage the more speed difference between him and the enemy, and I'm wondering which agility weapon to use||

[nova temple]

Interesting

[main olive]

I think I'm cooking with this one

Question does "healing an ally" also apply if I heal myself or only if I heal someone else besides the caster

[nova temple]

I assume it's someone else

[fallow geode]

I do know that Lune has a skill for "heals 1-3 allys" that can target herself

and I'm 99% it procs any "On Ally Heal" Luminas

[halcyon elbow]

I think Nick is asking, would that proc a Pictos that also gives <bonus to healed target>

Ah yeah

You beat me to it

And yeah I believe it does

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith Tainted Lumiere|| ||It's Clair Obscur from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33!||

I started choking when I saw that enemy

[nova temple]

https://tenor.com/view/thats-it-yes-thats-it-that-right-there-omg-that-thats-what-i-mean-gif-17579879

[main olive]

First time was so hard second time got trivialized

Nice shields
Yoink

[halcyon elbow]

At the nicest flag

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Tainted Lumiere|| ||I beat the chroma out of Renoir, I know the music goes hard but this song is going straight into a playlist because it's fire||

[halcyon elbow]

Man

Getting a counterattack on an enemy you haven't seen before feels real good

[analog tiger]

post act 2 ||massive spoilers on the lyrics too||

[main olive]

It goes so, so hard
out of the bat

[nova temple]

I think there's... one other boss that uses this track?

Maybe two?

[nova temple]

||That's my secret, Cap naru, I am always dumdum and either don't hear or don't understand song spoilers||

[main olive]

Also
Act 2 ramblings
||Tainted Lumiere ending scene|| ||I think I'm putting together what the plot is, I feel like The Curator and the other weird ghosts are the real people that died(?) and Verso, Renoir (and potentially Maelle) are sort of clones painted into the world, fakes, Verso is the kid, Renoir is the curator(?) or the painter ghost, and Maelle is Alicia? or the Paintress, I'm not sure on this one, it doesn't fit entirely but I think I'm getting close||
React with popcorn if I said anything interesting

[nova temple]

https://tenor.com/view/lilnouns-nouns-lil-nouns-dao-noggles-gif-27131043

[main olive]

Here we go bois

[nova temple]

I'll give you a heads up, after this you are heading into like an hour of cutscenes & cinematics, with very little gameplay (and therefore very little opportunity to save)

[main olive]

Nice

A movie

[main olive]

First I need to win this fight

[nova temple]

That's also true

[main olive]

For some reason, the framerate on this area improved tremendously

On a low spec pc like mine you can really tell the difference between wobbly 50 somethings fps and crisp 60fps

[fallow geode]

Kojima did terrible things to the industry

[main olive]

I DID IT

YAY

NOOOOOOO

GRAAAAA

I may be getting my ass kicked, mon dieu

[halcyon elbow]

maelle-staring-into-the-middle-distance-in-the-menu.jpeg

[main olive]

Mes amis send dudes
I'm in a fight I need help

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 camp ||Verso and Monoco are now bound by a manly love of style||

||Which they would never admit to each other||

[nova temple]

💯

[main olive]

Anyone know a good spot to grind a bit because I made it to the tenth attempt and still can't win this

or should I rework my characters specifically for this fight

[merry lance]

If you're having a rough time, I'd recommend getting distracted by side content for a bit. I can't remember which of the Act 2 dungeons are Act 2 appropriate, but they do exist

Alternatively, post your builds so we can poorly nitpick them

[main olive]

Aight

[merry lance]

Act 2 Side Content ||Off the top of my head, I think Sinister Cave is accessible for you now, but just in general there's a lot to be gained from exploring if you've just been mainlining the story.||

Curating things a little, ||I think you probably aren't ready for Sprong, The Crows, Grosse Tete, or the ice zone that Grandis sends you on a quest to||

[main olive]

Here's my main team
[Act 2]

I feel like ||Monoco underperforms against chunky bosses, the chain of buffs help but after that he doesn't do much||

[halcyon elbow]

Recommend Moisonneuse Vendange and Cultist Slashes for damage

[main olive]

He's purely built as support, I don't think I have the resources to do the damage be high enough

[halcyon elbow]

I probably would not stack more buffs than what you can get off Pelerin Heal + Lumina

[main olive]

Also thr 9999 cap hurts me

[merry lance]

Vs. bosses, I don't think Custist Blood is it

[halcyon elbow]

Both of the abilities I mentioned are multihit

[main olive]

I think I'm going to rework Sciel to do chunky multihit damage, she has the skills for that

[merry lance]

Where you're at right now, Abbest Wind (?) is pretty useful

[halcyon elbow]

Do you have a Medalum for Maelle?

[main olive]

No

[halcyon elbow]

You should be able to get it from the "secret" Gestral fight club now

[main olive]

medalum ir melarum?

[halcyon elbow]

Just win out with her

[main olive]

aight on my way there

[halcyon elbow]

It starts her in Virtuose stance

The meme is to just Fleuret Fury on repeat, but I've found using Rain of Fire out of Virtuose stance and then getting back in with Swift Stride every so often keeps an extremely healthy and useful burn dot on chonkier enemies

[merry lance]

Oh, unless the stats are important, I'd take Energizing Start 4 off Sciel and take ES1 instead, then equip it on Monoco, dropping ES3

(buying in on ES1, you can probably find a more expensive one to equip in what you've got)

Oh, better yet, instead of ES4 Pictos, equip Energizing Turn

[halcyon elbow]

Building Maelle for Virtuose uptime really does just seem to be The Build, which makes sense because +200% damage is just substantially better than +50% damage with a 50% damage taken penalty

(That damage also affects her counters, by the way, so if you find yourself confident enough to try you can get a fairly decent amount of damage out of her just from the counter side of the house)

[merry lance]

Oh @main olive , which exact fight are you on?

[halcyon elbow]

As for Sciel I'm not gonna pretend to understand how she works at all lmao

[main olive]

Act 2 ||Peak of the Monolith||
||Paintress, second phase is beating me because I run our of resources by the last stretch||

[halcyon elbow]

We are Lune mains in this house

[merry lance]

Act 2 ||Peak of the Monolith|| ||Use Second Chance, it dropped from Renoir, and is busted||

[main olive]

I'm not getting any rewards because I already beat it with another character

[halcyon elbow]

I believe it is one of those where the fight drops for each character but you have to do it with each character

Ah, correction: duel the chief

With Maelle

[main olive]

Do I need to win?

[halcyon elbow]

Yes

[merry lance]

Unless that fight scales, that might be a bit of an ask

[main olive]

She's one shotting me last time I tried

Like one tap

[merry lance]

Yeah, it looks like it's probably not really an option right now

lemme pull up my game so I can see what the different weapons do...

Can you give us pics of your weapon options?

[main olive]

Yes

[merry lance]

Also, if you're having resource problems, I'd think hard about dropping some points into Defense, it still gives some offence power in the form of crit rate.

[halcyon elbow]

My understanding is also that Sciel is an excellent support, so you may want to swap her into that role and ||Monoco|| into damage, though that may be a bigger ask than you want

[halcyon elbow]

He can be pretty spicy though

[merry lance]

Excellent, thanks

[halcyon elbow]

For shields having Breaking Rules has kind of trumped any attempt to steal them

[merry lance]

Act 2 builds ||For Monoco, I personally find Ramasseaur Bonk invaluable, % break damage is kinda nuts||

||And I'd think hard about swapping Cultist Blood for Hexga Crush, especially if you take Breaking Rules on Maele, 5 turns of Defenceless is a lot||

[main olive]

Break build...

[halcyon elbow]

That do be another upside of Fleuret Fury high Virtuose uptime builds

They build break reasonably well but also the ability itself Breaks

[merry lance]

Act 2 builds ||If you can get a high crit rate on Monoco, I feel like Sakapatate Explosion could be pretty funny, it's 3 hits of "medium" lightning damage to random enemies, with an additional hit on crits. It looks like you get it from the catapult Sakapatates||

||As far as your weapons go, yours will certainly do the job. I think at that part I was using Chation on Sciel because it trivializes her mechanics, but I think I was also doing fast fights with lots of chunky parries, so that might not be the approach for you.||

[main olive]

It's getting late, the expedition will have to wait for tomorrow because even if I win I can't stay for the movies

[merry lance]

On a fresh attempt, you've got this!

Tomorrow comes!

[main olive]

For those who come after...

[halcyon elbow]

You can really crack open the AP economy huh

[halcyon elbow]

Hm I may have cooked too hard

Act 2 ||Sirène|| was a pushover

[nova temple]

heh, yeah, if you cook too hard, the second half of act 2 starts to fall off the difficulty curve a bit

Act 2 ||Old Lumiere|| ||I think Renoir was the last boss I felt was reasonably difficult for me until I got to the optional hard hard bosses||

[nova temple]

https://x.com/IrunoArt/status/1924528306772140317

Iruno 🎨🌸 | @irunoart.bsky.social 🦋 (@IrunoArt)

Been watching the interviews...

I'm sorry, Jennifer and Ben, your expressions were too good, I 𝙝𝙖𝙙 to draw them🤣

#Expedition33 #Verso #Maelle

X · May 19, 2025, 6:11 PM

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 ||Axons|| ||I think they were extremely vibe dungeons, but they were only okay as far as the bosses in this game go. I think maybe Sirene might have had some cool stuff to show if I hadn't killed here in like three turns||

Also the dungeons by this point in the game are broadly speaking much bigger than the early game had led me to believe

I think that's a function of the way their sort of Soulsy rest-at-the-bonfire-to-get-your-resources-back-but-also-respawn-non-boss-enemies thing works, but that probably means they needed to have the baseline resource count be a smidge higher

[halcyon elbow]

These two have been absolute clowns together on the promo tour and I love it

[nova temple]

I've seen a couple of streamers say that the normal/expert balance is wonky

where normal gets too easy (which I saw, I rarely needed to rest mid-dungeon), but going to expert feels like too big a jump

[halcyon elbow]

The only time on Expert I felt like I was really getting grilled was the very beginning of act 2

And that was broadly solved by completely dumping Might and getting defensive stats instead

I still have 0 Might on everyone and I don't see that changing

[nova temple]

Interesting

[halcyon elbow]

I do know that parries/perfect dodges only change their timings between Normal and Story

I do not think the parry windows need adjusting on Expert, though, so I don't think changing that would help that relationship if Normal is already too easy

Like, I wouldn't widen it for Normal and I wouldn't tighten it for Expert

But also against weaker trash mobs I can have Maelle just mow them down with free aim at this point and nobody else even gets a turn

[nova temple]

I was thinking more, of you are getting ground down throughout the dungeons, just from accidental damage, maybe there is an issue in expert doing too much damage, or enemies having too much health, as either would allow for more damage to trickle down

[halcyon elbow]

It isn't really a strain on my resources at all unless the enemies are particularly chonky

Any enemy Maelle can kill with three shots or less is AP neutral or better, so she gets basically an inifnite turn as long as she can meet that condition

Fun fact I thought for the longest time from the box art that Maelle was a rifle user and was confused when she shows up with a rapier in the tutorial

Just, the way she's depicted as holding it and it is glowing gold, it looks like a gun

I guess this is a normal way to carry a rapier?

[nova temple]

she does like to dramatically run her fingers along the length of the blade

I see it though, it's kinda funky

[halcyon elbow]

https://youtu.be/nF4pHlsbiD4

Some contextless places here but otherwise safe

[obtuse pond]

Yeah I like playing with a lot of health+defense and Lune constantly healing with Typhoon. Makes it so even if I’m overleveled I still get to see all of a boss’ stuff, also allows me to make mistakes.

[halcyon elbow]

Well and importantly I do not feel like I am missing any damage by not leveling Might

I mean maybe I could optimize out a little more but as mentioned previously I'm kind of facerolling these later-in-act-2 bosses

I'm also using Typhoon, but not for the heals, I'm using it to disseminate AP and to a lesser extent buffs

[halcyon elbow]

https://x.com/expedition33/status/1924801188903440845

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33)

The Art Book comes.

X · May 20, 2025, 12:15 PM

[nova temple]

If only it said "Tomorrow (the art book) comes" 😔

Hopefully the art book doesn't come for the ones who come after 😔

[dawn spindle]

time to hide my wallet

[nova temple]

Yeeeah, unfortunately I'll be buying this 😔

[halcyon elbow]

I nearly pinged you with a "relevant to your interests"

[nova temple]

Brother, this was on my radar since I saw https://x.com/Pixnlove/status/1924797251219775821 . I might not know a single word of French, but l'artbook officiel wasn't that hard to sus out

Editions Pix'n Love (@Pixnlove)

Pix'n Love, @Kepler_Interact et @SandfallGames sont heureux d'annoncer l'arrivée, en 2025, de l'artbook officiel Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 ! 📕 On brûle d'impatience à l'idée de vous en dire plus sur ce magnifique projet ! 😊 RDV prochainement...

@expedition33

X · May 20, 2025, 12:00 PM

[exotic ember]

Oh well yep that will 100% be purchased

There’s also official merch now https://store.ign.com/pages/official-clair-obscur-expedition-33-merchandise

[hollow ruin]

oh man, if i used tote bags, i'd totally buy an esquie tote bag

as is, i think i'll wiat for the plushie

[exotic ember]

Likewise. Tempted to grab it anyways to use as a beach bag or grocery bag or something

[nova temple]

I did consider getting some of those...

[exotic ember]

My birthday is coming up and my girlfriend has been asking for gift ideas so I sent over a bunch 😂

[shell minnow]

I can only imagine that "l'artbook" is the kind of loanword that would send the Académie Française into hives

[halcyon elbow]

For as much as this game is absolutely a love letter to France I think there's probably a lot about it that would send the Académie Française into hives

Which might be the most French thing of all

[nova temple]

nodnod

[merry lance]

Finished up with finishing up with Clair Obscur
Now to move on to video essays

[nova temple]

Don't forget the music analyses too!

[merry lance]

And the soundtrack names!

[nova temple]

Prologue ||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RnWiaLz4ss ||

[fallow geode]

I'm never going to unsee that space between two characters that are otherwise close together

[nova temple]

I respect them for not dueling with their facecams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxKnW9PuS-M it's really really funny watching the cast try to learn how to swear in French

[main olive]

Those are probably super expensive

I think the swearing in french mixed with swears in English is what the founding fathers intended, perfectly balanced

[merry lance]

It's what the Fathers of Confederation would've wanted.

Unfortunately, their territorial ambitions fell short, and France continues to not be part of Canada

[halcyon elbow]

Bullying Englishmen by making them say French swears has to be some kind of life goals

The "we don't talk about ||Verso||" thing in the advertising is very funny to me

Jennifer English called him "mysterious and important" and then copped to watching a lot of Severance

[main olive]

We continue

let's see if I can finish Act 2 tonight

and watch the movie

[merry lance]

Believe in the me that believes in you!

[nova temple]

Don't believe in the me who is skeptical

[main olive]

My strat is bashing my head against this problem until it breaks

I DID IT

Act 2 ||Please tell me this fight only has two phases||

Act 2 ||Peak of the monolith|| ||Why did... why did she heal me...||

[main olive]

"WHAT?" I say at this game for the tenth time in a row mid cinematic

Mistborn 1/Epilogue ||Alicia|| ||So we've been Lord Rulered, I'm still not fully grasping who's real and who's painted or what happened, so everyone died and the paintress made clones?||

what

Wait WHAT

[halcyon elbow]

Good to know I have a lot of wait what in my nearish future

[main olive]

This is getting into "hold on a minute" territory

I'm going to draw a map about this because there's so many things being mentioned

[shell minnow]

Welcome, have fun

Did your several cutscenes play in sequence

[main olive]

Yes I guess?

Post Act 2 Cinematic Managerie ||At first we celebrated, then Verso read the letter, we all got Gommaged, then I woke as Alicia in what I guess is "the real world" and we have a sister? and then re-entered the painting because Papa is still inside and so is... Verso's soul? it seems Alicia lost herself when she got into the painting and has been living as Maelle, they're one and the same to an extent I guess?||

Act 3 ||Beginning|| ||I'm trying to map this out because hoo wee||

[nova temple]

You've got most of it

[halcyon elbow]

Knowing as I do that the three act structure is a thing, [act 2] ||Inside the Monolith|| ||This is a bizarre and nearly sinister time for memberberries||

[nova temple]

Oh, you are there already, huh

[halcyon elbow]

This game has me by the throat right now

[nova temple]

It do be like that

[main olive]

I was just where you are Kon so I'm still feeling it on my throat

this story is going places

wheee

and also whooo

[halcyon elbow]

More whee than whoo right now and that is making me nervous

[nova temple]

Can't wheee without some whooo

[shell minnow]

Rip me not being in last place anymore 😭

[merry lance]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||I can't help but wonder, how much of a coincidence is it that Simon is missing the same arm as Gustave? Was there an early plan for them to be the same/similar person? ||

||Does Aline's subconcious just have a thing for taking swordsmen's non-dominant arm at the elbow?||

[halcyon elbow]

Did you really think it was going to last

[nova temple]

||My assumption was that it's just thematic somehow, I didn't think hard about it, but that's interesting. In a world where almost everyone is made-up, it's a valid question though, intelligent design is real inside the Canvas||

[main olive]

I took a while 😭

[shell minnow]

I'm bad at playing games!!

[merry lance]

Act 3 ||The Abyss|| ||Also obligatory "I'm just glad I only had to fight him with one arm"||

Act 3 all ||I'm also broadly curious about the timeline, and some of the people involved. Like, it's at least half plausible that Simon was also part of Expedition 00. Was he based on an actual person? Julie's log calls her trip "Search and Rescue", so I assume she was part of Expedition 00, was she based on someone OG Verso was close with? Did any of the original Lumierans know something was up?||

[main olive]

any tips now that I've started Act 3

[merry lance]

Act 3 beginning ||Don't do that dungeon you spawned beside, it'll be rough for now||

[reef iron]

act 3 ||try leveling in a place called frozen hearts (the other side of monoco's station in the snowy mountains) for a bit, around levels 50-60||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Oh, I think they just thought there might be other people out there - like, not all of Lumiere for yeeted into the sea, Expedition 0 probably wanted to see what happened||

Bah, Discord is not loading messages for me 😔

Or is slow at least

[merry lance]

(Grey safe, Argent not-but-I-guess-actually-is)

Act 3 beginning ||Tbh, I'd say before doing any dungeons, unlock Painted Power so everyone can swing for more than cap||

[reef iron]

oh i mean

i think that's just a given

argent has gotten all achievos he's very safe

[merry lance]

I meant for Nick, Argent was continuing my thread, which wasn't Nick safe, but had the same labels as you

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 ||Inside the Monolith|| ||Does it... even make sense that there is an Expedition here? I haven't found their log yet but like how||

[merry lance]

Also, now that I'm done, I've gotta say, it was absolutely the right call for me to have some nostalgic fun with Oblivion before I let this suck all the oxygen out of the room my gaming brain lives in

[nova temple]

It does - or it can, at least. But it's a good question

[halcyon elbow]

Man the Petank sound design is unreal

A lot of the sound is

Their sound guy is underappreciated

[main olive]

New discovery

stat caps at 99

[nova temple]

Indeed

[main olive]

Expeditioners need bedtime too

[merry lance]

Tomorrow Comes

Or is it today?

[halcyon elbow]

Choices have been made

Several cutscenes are playing in sequence

[halcyon elbow]

An hour was a decent estimate

This I think was what they needed to nail for this story to work, and I think they got it

This is a story extremely reliant on its setup and how it pays that setup off. Does it make sense? Is it compelling? Does it cheapen what came before? Is what's next as important to the audience as what came before? I think any less quality execution could have foundered on any number of shoals and they just didn't mess it up

(I say that like I can offer a final verdict, but I feel like I can safely say they're out of the woods. They'd really have to massively fumble the ending without the same problems to stumble over that they had in the previous act)

[exotic ember]

They wheewhoowheewhoo the player masterfully

[exotic ember]

Act 2 OST - I don’t remember running across this song in game but this is 🔥

[merry lance]

@boreal galleon from #1342603794370007050 message
I don't know if I'd say it's necessary, but the UI is very much designed with a controller in mind, and I've heard rumors of KBM having just enough of an input delay to be painful

[boreal galleon]

okay thanks!

[merry lance]

(The spoiler policy is the same in here as elsewhere, so it should be safe for you to be in here, and I'm sure many of us would enjoy it if you're the game liveblogging type)

(The tagging convention we've settled on is <act number> ||<dungeon context>|| ||<actual post content>||)

[nova temple]

I 100%'d the game with KBM

It's really not bad

some of the controls, mostly UI, are a little clunky, and if there is an input delay, it's certainly not constant

[boreal galleon]

Okay, thank you. I really prefer kbm so I was wondering haha

[halcyon elbow]

I am fairly comfortable with both inputs in general and controller definitely seems like the cozier choice

[halcyon elbow]

Alright

I have had a vision

I have cracked the code

I have seen through the Matrix

The serious take [FFXIV spoilers/Act 3]: ||Boy this game has a ton of Shadowbringers in it. Dealing with grief through an act of quasi-necromancy of staggering proportions, and the consequences it has for others||

The meme take [also FFXIV spoilers/Act 3]: ||Emet is a whole unhappy marriage unto himself. Hythlodeus is Verso. WoL and Ryne sort of combine into Maelle. Lune and Sciel are the twins. The Monolith is the Crystal Tower, and Lumiere is Amourot. The odd man out really is Gustave, and you could maybe shove him in the Minfilia category if you really wanted to||

[merry lance]

(Don't forget to label where in this game you're at)

[halcyon elbow]

Call it general

[reef iron]

i would say act 3

that requires some act 3 information

[fallow geode]

speaking as an Act 2 lad, yeah it does

[halcyon elbow]

Act 3 goofs ||Expedition 60.... refused to wear clothing?||

[merry lance]

Act 3 ||In their inarguable wisdom, they realized armour and clothing was just slowing them down||

[nova temple]

^ Act 3 ||An expedition full of Chads and Chadettes 🥺 ||

[halcyon elbow]

Act 3 ||I adore how optional how much of this feels||

[nova temple]

Act 3 ||Feels weird! You can just... go end the game!||

[halcyon elbow]

Okay 206k single turn single target feels pretty good

For people using Lune, it is worth noting that both Hell and Lightning Dance actually do more damage than Elemental Genesis while properly Stained, even though Elemental Genesis has the more restrictive Stain requirement and says "extreme" damage

[nova temple]

Hmm

sounds fake

[halcyon elbow]

The tooltips are... bad

[nova temple]

https://tenor.com/view/game-of-thrones-go-t-dothraki-itisknown-khaleesi-gif-5465236

[nova temple]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJuAUt8tfB9/?igsh=MXg5NmgxcTNobXhoMg==

migui.balbino

"É só desviar ou aparar poxa" O que mais me pega sao os inimigos chroma e vcs?

"You just have to dodge or parry dude" the chroma enemies are my real pain. How about you?

#clairobscur #expedition33 #humor

Likes

7059

Instagram

[halcyon elbow]

I actually love how they've used the existing game models with altered animations and juiced stats as world bosses like that

[nova temple]

Gives you a lot of bosses to fight

[halcyon elbow]

Act 3 ||Gradiant attack learned: GOMMAGE??????||

[nova temple]

Yesss

Act 3 ||I know we've technically seen her do it, but getting it at an ability feels really satisfying. I love gommageing some fools||

[halcyon elbow]

Tics Tacs

Not to be confused (auditorally) with Tick Tock or (graphically) with Tic Tacs

[nova temple]

Hmm?

[halcyon elbow]

Its the name of one of the dungeon tracks

It sounds like she's saying Tick Tock though

[nova temple]

Ah, musical content

[halcyon elbow]

Truly a staggering number of little side dungeons

And all of them have like 6-8 bespoke tracks (including combat)

[nova temple]

Oh yeah, skipping the side content skips like 2/3 of the game

[halcyon elbow]

I don't think you really can on Expert anyway

You need the tools

I mean

Sure there are some parry gods out there or whatever

But even then some fights can stat check you with shields

If an enemy that can cast shields goes way more often than you do and you don't have a real solution for shielded enemies you can kind of just get locked out of a fight

[nova temple]

Mm, yeah, I could see that

[halcyon elbow]

"I don't get enough turns to reasonably participate in this fight" is usually how I know I need to leave and come back later

[nova temple]

So much fun when a boss goes four times for each one of your turns

[main olive]

I'm grinding in a level that said DANGER

getting a lot of xp and money but what I think I need to find are better pictosi

what do i do with all this money, I forgot where the merchants were

I have like 200K

[reef iron]

that's small potatoes

you need more money

[main olive]

MORE MONEY?

There was so much I wanted to buy in early game but didn't have money, I want to go back and purchase that

guess It's time to redo old maps

[nova temple]

Some pictos cost like 150k

Weapons too, though I think all the ones I ended up losing were drops of rewards

[main olive]

oh noes

I need to find a job

to afford my pictos

[nova temple]

Heh

Income does go up, so it's not too bad

I just had to accept that I can't just buy everything the moment I see it

Except for cosmetics, of course, they are mandatory

[main olive]

Today I can't play

but tomorrow comes

[halcyon elbow]

Nick did you finish act 3?

[main olive]

No I barely just started

[halcyon elbow]

Whoops I meant act 2

[main olive]

Ah yeah, I finished act 2

goes hard

I was expecting more cinematics

[halcyon elbow]

You should he able to ||fly|| and just find stuff

[main olive]

yeah I'm gonna go and gather some early game pictos I missed

||I don't have Energizing Start 2 for example but I have 1 and 3 and 4 I think||

[nova temple]

I had missed that one too, actually

[halcyon elbow]

Ooo the lower ones are strictly better anyway

They cost less lumina

[nova temple]

Mhm

But if you want to stack, you don't have a lot of options

[main olive]

I have sad news to make, I stopped dodging and started parrying

it's really incredible how it cracks open the ap economy

[halcyon elbow]

Some attacks are really there to give you more AP, especially in boss fights

So many ways to stack buffs for landing parries and counterattacks too

[main olive]

Grinding the same enemy over and over forced me to use that time learning how to identify parry windows easier

the window was larger than I expected

[halcyon elbow]

Wait [act 3 goofs] ||they really did just give Verso a Clive outfit huh lmao||

[halcyon elbow]

I just brute forced learning on the mime in Lumiere and the practice duels against Maelle

[merry lance]

Now you can start thinking about advanced parrying, where you intentionally eat a hit so you don't counterattack the thing that absorbs your weapon element

[halcyon elbow]

Mhmm

Why would you do this, you ask?

Because when you parry, the dodge button no longer exists

Sometimes you parry anyway, to establish dominance

[nova temple]

Hm.

[halcyon elbow]

Its possible its a coincidence

[main olive]

Verso is used as a short for "Verse" as in "universe" in Spanish

it is a funny coincidence though

[halcyon elbow]

Its also just an Italian word

But actually that's Ben Starr's Cosmere fandom account

[main olive]

In this context?

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 ||Yes, actually, it is used in that context by Visages||

||Talking about the front and the back of every mask||

[reef iron]

act 2 ||recto, verso - front of a canvas, back of a canvas||

[main olive]

I meant the context of it being a social media @

[reef iron]

oh i mean, the more meanings and contexts a word like that exists in, the less i'm surprised to see it around

[main olive]

I know French
Well I don't but French is similar to Italian and Italian is similar to Spanish! same thing.
Act 2

||Though in Spanish we use Dorso and Anverso for that||

I can never escape linguistics

Also Fun fact
Act 2
||Verso in Argentina is a word used to describe when someone is telling you a lie or a tall tale, like something made up||

[halcyon elbow]

Oh I was big memeing

[main olive]

Act 3 beginning
||Which makes the plot of Act 3 really funny in retrospect for my brain that was constantly understanding Verso as "a lie"||

[halcyon elbow]

https://youtube.com/shorts/sjyfMC077WE

[nova temple]

she can't stop winning

probably because of the easy mode

[halcyon elbow]

Act 2 ending ||https://youtube.com/shorts/oJmMNxVBiS0 ||

[analog tiger]

AH brazilian jumpscare

[analog tiger]

you can build Maelle to deal with shields (and get an extra turn after the shield if you do things in the right order and party member speeds are in)

I love when enemies have shields because it's free AP

plus you have free aim shots and counters to eat shields

[halcyon elbow]

I'm at a point in the game where that kind of doesn't happen to me anymore

And like

Imagine needing more AP

I'm struggling to spend it all at this point

Lune turns on Typhoon and its a ton of free AP for everyone

[analog tiger]

o huh that is cool

linguistics is fun

[halcyon elbow]

Not just Typhoon but that's the most reliable source

I get AP for just playing the game

[exotic ember]

Not sure how to spoiler tag this/if it needs to be spoiler tagged. Area is in act 1 space so you can run into it but probably want to fight it in act 3 || But then they turned one into a sheep ||

[exotic ember]

You can without being a parry god. It’s just a matter of stubbornness

[halcyon elbow]

Oh I know I've done it

[exotic ember]

But yeah the PS5 playthrough I was kind of underleveled/underpowered since I didn’t do the side content and I also rushed through most of act 1 because I was trying to get caught up to where I was on PC in order to see where the story went. So it made the fights brutally difficult. And then when I went back to playing on PC fights were so much easier in part because I had already struggled to learn parry windows but also because I was much higher level and dealt way more damage. And I also actually bought lumina upgrade materials on PC.

On the PS5 run I was so hesitant to spend money on anything but weapons and pictos

I do think the experience leveled me up as a player a bunch for sure, but I’m definitely far from a parry god. I just bashed my head against a wall enough times 🙃

So many bosses took hours upon hours to beat

Even the other day on PC I took on act 3 || Golgra ||. || Beat her with all of my party members, all around level 60. Probably took around 3-4 hours? A lot of that time was spent getting down the parry windows to beat her the first time ||

[nova temple]

This is incredibly funny to me because weapons and pictos are what I was most reluctant to spend money on

[halcyon elbow]

I do have to say I'm deeply impressed by this game's difficulty curve

[exotic ember]

Lmfao yeah I was like “wow I will absolutely almost never use it. Sold”

Just because I wasn’t sure I’d want to come back and find a merchant again.

Spoiler alert, I need to go back to the merchants again at least on PS5 for all story relevant levels and for all act 1 levels on PC, since I skipped lumina upgrades and uhhh…. I need those

[halcyon elbow]

At the cleanup-before-you-go-end-the-game phase there's often a weird dynamic where you either curb stomp something or you get curb stomped until you get The Endgame Build and then you curb stomp everything

I've gotten ~20 levels in this phase of the game and at pretty much every step of the way there's been a good amount of stuff that has felt appropriate for me to be doing

Offering a healthy challenge

[nova temple]

Yeah, that matches my experience too

[shell minnow]

This is unfathomable to me

Why would you not want THINGS

[halcyon elbow]

(Almost as if they played the game start to finish several times and balanced the curve)

[shell minnow]

Things that do things!

[nova temple]

Why would I buy new weapons when I already have the best weapons, or new pictos when I am never going to play the builds they support??

[shell minnow]

I can look at a hairstyle and go "uggo, I'd never put that on" but what if I run into a boss that desperately needs me to have that specific weapon and I left it behind!!!

[exotic ember]

I really need to get back to the endgame content. Was going to do so last night but pokerogue kind of ate my evening accidentally. At this point I may switch back to PS5 for consistency. Just means I need to go back and do a bunch of stuff first + re-do a few things I did on PC

[nova temple]

My Lune doesn't need healer weapons!!

[halcyon elbow]

Lune heals just fine without them

[nova temple]

Lune needs to spend her turns mowing down the enemy lineup, not heal

best defense, etc.

[exotic ember]

My build doesn’t want heals. At death’s door wants me <10% health on every character

Still bought all the healing stuff. Just in case

[halcyon elbow]

I turned in the expedition logs to that guy who wants them, I'd been hoarding them because I didn't realize he gives a boatload of Lumina

He gave me like 180 lmao

[merry lance]

See, for me, I'm hesitant to buy weapons and pictos because they can be drops, while cosmetics won't and lumina are useful either way

[nova temple]

hah, yeah, I also got a bunch once

[halcyon elbow]

I have some of the death's door stuff on but more as a "hey maybe this will tip the scales in a fight that is going badly" rather than building around it

And I'm likely to clear a lot of that out once I pick up Cheater

[exotic ember]

Fair. Cheater is expensive. Don’t got the lumina for that right now haha

I use shield for survivability if I’m getting hit a bunch and need some buffer to practice parry timings more between the countless, countless death screens

Since I try to keep my team at 1 HP lol

[halcyon elbow]

I was genuinely worried that taking the 9999 cap off was going to ruin endgame scaling but kind of on the contrary endgame scaling feels built around having the very cheap lumina on

Keeps powergamers from unintentionally ruining their own experience in acts 1 and 2 and then rewards them in act 3 but also gives something to do with that powergaming

Genuinely a lot of attention and care went into this system (other than Might being a dead stat lmao)

[merry lance]

I think Might might still be better for DPR scaling up until like rank B

[halcyon elbow]

I have 0 might on all characters and have no damage problems at all

[nova temple]

I was Might-focused most of my game, actually

Maybe it wasn't optimal but it worked well for me, progression felt good

[merry lance]

Same

I only respecced for the some of the toughest act 3 content

[dawn spindle]

I do have a bunch of might and no damage problems

[halcyon elbow]

It does help that I'm not using any Might weapons, though those are relatively rare anyway

[halcyon elbow]

I expect so, Might only gives you damage

The problem is just about every other stat also gives you damage, in addition to giving you something else

[reef iron]

it's not that might is a dead stat, it's that you get might from other sources than stat attribution

[dawn spindle]

Yes, those are different things

[halcyon elbow]

To this point, I do get damage elsewhere but damage synergies are relatively easy to come by. Meanwhile, from stat allocation I go more often, I crit more, and I'm harder to kill and only really need one survivability Pictos slotted to minimize getting oneshot

Really is nothing worse than looking over at the turn order bar and seeing the boss' smug face looking at you four times in a row

[nova temple]

Yeah, the "damage synergies are easy to come by" is a good point

[halcyon elbow]

https://x.com/preachgaming/status/1925537707633029430

Mike (@PreachGaming)

📆 What started as a joke turned into our community spamming '33' so much you did it 7777 times

⚠️ Then you took it all they way back down, and as that day ticked over...

🎨 Well it turns out we'll be playing the amazing Expedition 33 on MONDAY!

X · May 22, 2025, 1:02 PM

[obtuse pond]

The difficulty curve is one of my only serious complaints about the game tbh

[nova temple]

https://x.com/expedition33/status/1925507927260950580

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33)

Expeditioners,

Earlier this year, our Collector’s Edition sold out way faster than we expected. We know a lot of you missed out, so we’ve spent the time since then putting something together with @Laced_audio.

Presenting: the Monolith Set.

It includes all the physical merch

X · May 22, 2025, 11:03 AM

[exotic ember]

That’s amazing news

We go whee. Wallet goes whoo

[nova temple]

[merry lance]

The only problem I had with the difficulty curve is that most of the main story content becomes trivial if you try to do all the side content

[nova temple]

Yeah, but that feels almost unbalanceable, unless you make the main story have dynamic difficulty

[merry lance]

Yep

Or actually lock the post game content to the post game

[halcyon elbow]

For me, I did about as much side content as I could and "trivialized" meant anywhere between 1-5 pulls for most of the latter half of act 2 as opposed to 10+ for most stuff before that

Which like

I dunno I've experienced way worse trivializations

It feels like they actually played the game and had a good idea of how much doing side content was going to affect the game experience, at the very least

[reef iron]

all but general ||there is really only the finale of the "main story content" that becomes trivial, so it's more like the final boss and not a whole act that "most of the main story content" ||

[nova temple]

Oh, speaking of final boss...

spoilers for full game, game all, entire game, game ending spoilers, spoilers for spoilers

[obtuse pond]

The thing I tried to do was come back to the optional content when it was at the same difficulty as the main content I was currently on, but that involved a lot of backtracking and a decent amount of guess work that often wasn’t fully accurate and I’d overshoot or undershoot.

[halcyon elbow]

That's true (I wish they'd give a suggested level number rather than just the red/blue distinction) but I also think that's a quantity issue as much as anything

I haven't run into a place yet where I didn't feel like there was something I could reasonably do

Except the top of act 2 and that was solved by changing my build

[analog tiger]

LMAO

[main olive]

Y'know what soundtrack I like from this game (other than THE SONG)
the one that says clair obscur in the lyrics

[halcyon elbow]

Many such tracks, as it happens

[main olive]

Really

[halcyon elbow]

I think about half the tracks in the game with vocals in them say "clair obscur" in them somewhere

[main olive]

I'm talking about a specific track that has this like strong piano notes