Here’s the continuation of our conversation:
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@“MDS-02”#p92335 By the time you’re getting any class to creator, you’ll have reasons to get others there, or will have been somewhat on the way anyways. Time sucks to look out for are a few challenges in the wood cutting and mining lives that require mining a certain number of mining or logging points, so unlocking those and just chopping or mining when it comes up will make it not a sudden hit after you’re done with earlier areas (the tally is universally tracked). The other hit is in cooking and tailoring where one of the life challenges requires you to get to level 15 in particular skills. By the time you’re facing that there is a shop that lets you purchase an accessory that can help, which cost some special stuff, but will help you not need to grind quite as much.
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@“whatsarobot”#p92338 okay, i think i’m starting to see how it comes together. like i said, i’ve just now started the woodcutting and mining lives, which i’m sort of proud of, because i had the intuition to do that all by my lonesome. it happened because i scaled to the top of that ice mountain to holler at the napdragon, and along the way i kept running into mining and chopping points that i couldn’t do anything with! “i have missed something,” i thought to myself.
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> anyway i’ve since spent some time slumming on gamefaqs, which i am not proud of. i hope you won’t mind me asking you questions in the future about this game.
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> full disclosure: i was at Tokyo Disneyland yesterday, and even with all that happening around me, i still found myself thinking about Fantasy Life. so, uh, yeah. it’s got me good.
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> one thing i learned over there at the gamefaqs is, people are real serious about only putting stats into either strength or (i think?) vitality. in the early game, stats don’t seem to matter all that much, but would you agree that i should dump all my points into strength, and go the paladin/blacksmith/carpenter route (with gathering skills) until post-game? my take is, i can probably just dabble around with any lives i want without too much of a penalty. but maybe i’m wrong?
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> i also know that i need to currently be the Life for which i’m hoping to get quest credit when reporting to that Life’s master. (did that sentence make sense? i hope so.)
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> one other thing i’ve been wondering about: is there any real reason to do more than one of the combat classes? that’s where i can see my stats potentially becoming an issue.
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> hope you won’t mind answering yet more of my Fantasy Life questions lol.
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@“MDS-02”#p92372 Yeah don’t sweat stats. (Vit does build max hp which is generally nice) Any gamefaq tip about how to approach builds is viewing the game as completion = enjoyment. It seems like you’re getting the right idea, which is that the point of the game is to enjoy your time with it. I am trying to avoid spoiling too much but just know that you can’t really mess up. Their advice is pointing towards some critical path of “progression” along some gathering/craft/combat dps maximization, which can be sorted when you decide it’s important. Because this is one of the few games that permits you to not sweat that, my suggestion is to let yourself just do what feels in line with your character and the things you enjoy doing. If you feel a drive that the destination is the point then you do the build they suggest, but you seem to be enjoying the journey - that’s what the game wants you to do and won’t screw you for it.
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> And yeah to cash in your credits for life quests, must be that life. However, the flagging of completing life quests can happen in other lives except for ones that say “As a ____ do xxx”. Nearly all combat quests are that way, so like killing bandits is a quest for paladins, and won’t be triggerable as any other class. Things like gathering (aside from cashing in certain bounties) can be done as any class, so like if you have unlocked woodcutting and are a paladin, you can complete the ‘gather ten oak logs’ quest, but not the ‘cash in a elder oak bounty’ quest while playing as a paladin. To then get the life credit for them you need to swap to woodcutter. Hopefully that makes some sense.
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> For doing multiple combat lives, it’s just for variety’s sake. Since you can’t swap classes on the fly, being more than one is just about wanting to spend time with a different gameplay style. Pretending this game is sword art online gets you a long way.
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> It’s true that if you’re playin archer and you put a bunch of dex in, you won’t be strong as a paladin, but as you say, stats are small for dps relative to gear early on, so any stat spread is mostly fine. If you find yourself feeling stuck and like unable to complete stuff on your current life rank, let me know. The main imbalances are in a few of the mage and archer quests which put you against a tougher-than-reasonable enemy around the expert rank. Otherwise you can mostly progress with moderate gearing up.
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> Lay on the questions! This is one of my top ten most essential games so I’m more than happy to be any sort of guide.
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@“whatsarobot”#p92373 wow, this is great! thanks for clearing some stuff up for me and confirming that i’m meeting the game on its own terms.
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> very much appreciate you being my buddy on this journey. you’re even making me curious about Sword Art Online, which i barely know anything about!
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@“MDS-02”#p92375 ah nothing major on SAO, just like a living game world with a never-defined set of boundaries. For me imagining that the depth of the pool of fantasy life was actually infinite made me just have a ton of fun, even if the reality is that you definitely can scrape the edges. Playing within the pool and thinking it’s an ocean was just a great escape for me.
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@“whatsarobot”#p92376 nice analogy. by contrast, it seems like the folks over at GameFAQs are more interested in measuring the size and depth of the pool, as well as the exact volume of water it contains. nothing wrong with that, i guess, but i think your approach sounds a whole lot more fun.
