XP bug:

if the current XP cost for a skill is 30, and you have 40+ XP, it'll spend 40 as though the cost had risen before the skill was actually obtained. (those numbers are just examples, it happens no matter the current cost i think!)

as far as i can tell this always happens, with all characters. kinda sucks when you fight a boss and your XP jumps from "almost there" to "surplus" because there's no way to avoid waste.

author=Craze

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XP bug:

if the current XP cost for a skill is 30, and you have 40+ XP, it'll spend 40 as though the cost had risen before the skill was actually obtained. (those numbers are just examples, it happens no matter the current cost i think!)

as far as i can tell this always happens, with all characters. kinda sucks when you fight a boss and your XP jumps from "almost there" to "surplus" because there's no way to avoid waste.

Woah, surprised nobody picked up on this before. I'll take care of it.

Actually, I posted something like this in your last blog. I noticed it on my third playthrough.

I've had encounters on the fifth floor of a Normal six-floor run crash before entering battle three times so far. Two times were on the 'ruin' level Triopolis Trifecta Triumverate (sic; 'triumvirate,' from Latin for 'three man'), the third was on the ice level Czarina's Fortress. The crash was consistent on the first two times; both times, when I came up the stairs and fought the bottom tunnel skeleton, it would crash and give me a system message. I don't have that save or the message it gave me, sadly, and I didn't spend the hour to test whether it happened if I fought something else first. It did happen even after quicksaving and loading the quicksave on that floor, though.

I do have the message on the Czarina Fortress crash, though. This crash happened on the skeleton right before the blue wall button.

"Script 'YEM Battle Engine Melody IV' line 2096: NoMethodError occured

undefined method 'viewport B' for nil:NilClass"

If possible, could you note the skill cooldowns somewhere in-game? That really impacts some purchasing decisions, but the game structure means you can't exactly save and check most of the time.

I'm not sure if it's intended behavior, but... If you one-shot Czarina (Stratego + Bane Machine + Attack buff + Lava Lane does about 3600), she says her standard "PUNCH YOU" line about five times in a row. I know that's because it's triggered by passing HP benchmarks, though, and it is kind of funny when it happens, so I don't really mind.

My general impressions on power levels so far:
Top: Jesse, Vaunea

Good: Seth, Marcia, Carmilla, Terra, Wish, Olsen, Ulyssa

Weak: Ersatz, Leon, Garret, Jasper

Bottom: Nadia, Padrick, Myra

My thoughts, in more detail. (Apologies if I sound like a jerk, I tend to be blunt when I'm doing analysis.)

Stratego is absurd, and Bane Machine perhaps even more so; Stratego has more widespread applications, but Bane Machine annihilates a single enemy, especially with Lava Lane. Jesse lacks variety, but Fire seems to be the best element to specialize in from the enemies so far. Vaunea's stuns are useful and quite cheap on energy.

Seth, Carmilla, and Wish have a lot of elemental variety; Seth starts with more variety than some characters can ever get! Seth and Carmilla in particular hit very hard, while Wish is just generally good. Terra's a little slow to start, but get her to Charge and her cooldown woes are alleviated significantly. Ulyssa is Shutdown Queen, especially once you get the physical stun for single-target damage. Olsen's just generally solid; she lacks variety, but what she does have is good. Marcia is, again, just generally solid. Physical is consistently good, and so is Wind, mostly because the basic Wind attack spell is amazing.

Ersatz... Well, Tundra is absurd, and his earth/light selection is pretty decent. But Earth is pretty common, and he starts out with absolutely no variety. Defense debuffs are good but not that good. Tundra is good enough that he gets used consistently anyway if it works on the present enemies. Garret has a good skill selection, but he has no offensive ability whatsoever to start, since he can't hit weaknesses; it makes using him unpleasant for a while unless he's on a very offensive team. The fact Leon does the most damage to things that murder him, and that doing that damage makes them murder him specifically more often, is kind of a problem. He doesn't do enough damage to offset that. And Jasper starts out horribly, horribly inferior to Seth, and that pretty much never changes. He's Seth with a worse starting Darkness skill and slightly better physical, but physical is something that's dime a dozen. He feels like party filler.

The bsaic Wind attack spell is amazing! But Nadia has nothing other than Wind and support. Sure, you can reduce the MP costs of others, but since the Wind spell is so good, you're probably going to buy it with most of the characters who can have it. That makes Nadia pointless outside of helping to one-turn the poor worm boss. Padrick has Garret's problem, but Garret starts with an actual moveset, if an uninspiring one. Padrick starts out almost as a joke character. Again, Impact is good but not that good. If Padrick has Garret's problem, though, Myra is the poster child. I'm sure she's very good if you can get the skills! (The lightning and ice spells in particular are damn good.) But her starting moveset is atrocious. Her one attack does good damage, but it also has a Cooldown of 5 or so; it means that, on average, she does the least damage by a big, big margin. If she had a second attack instead of one of her other two skills, she'd be significantly better off, especially if it was one of the aforementioned 'damn good' skills. HP is much harder to restore than energy, so I think you'd be safe chopping a turn off of the cooldowns of the HP cast skills.

I'm enjoying it so far, though the crashes are kind of disheartening; that's pretty much been how all six or so of my games have ended. That's the risk of playing a demo, though.

author=Einander
Olsen's just generally solid; she lacks variety, but what she does have is good.

"she"

Dude, I just ran into a bug that REALLY FUCKING PISSED ME OFF!

After I finished my SECOND run (I did a 3-floor run, and then a MUCH tougher 6-floor run after it) I sold off tons of not-so-good equipment and built a huge pile of Oren and was using it to purchase a shit ton of Essences and outfit all 16 of my party members exactly right...after spending maybe 20 minutes customizing the first six characters, I realized that my Essences had inexplicably disappeared. Not just unequipped, but were GONE! Along with all the Oren I spent on them.

What gives?

if the current XP cost for a skill is 30, and you have 40+ XP, it'll spend 40 as though the cost had risen before the skill was actually obtained. (those numbers are just examples, it happens no matter the current cost i think!)

I noticed this as well, and it also pissed me off.