[Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

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Wolkendrache
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Wolkendrache »

No, switching does not affect the stage rank, at least not in a direct way.
My guess is that you only ended less than 35 turns on positive terrain (or less than 45 for first Graska Gates battle).
Some S rank items have no use, tap your shoulders and move on...
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Sasarai10
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Sasarai10 »

Wolkendrache wrote:No, switching does not affect the stage rank, at least not in a direct way.
My guess is that you only ended less than 35 turns on positive terrain (or less than 45 for first Graska Gates battle).
Some S rank items have no use, tap your shoulders and move on...

So positive terrain counts too? Didn't know.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Antimatzist »

5 things count:
- turn number (the lower, the better)
- total damage
- average damage
- total EXP
- turns on own element (the more, the better)

You need a minimum (or maximum) amount of these for a high rank. As you can see, turns on your elements and turn number work against each other, but most of the time, it's more important to stay on your terrain than doing the whole thing in few turns.

Here some more info.
http://suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewtopic ... 23#p155223
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Sasarai10
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Sasarai10 »

So which is more essential among all?
Also does cancelling a magic spell might count as a penalty?
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by gildedtalon »

Turn number has the lowest priority
Damage received by your team needs to be kept as low as possible especially early on
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Antimatzist »

Cancelling a spell is basically a waste of time, so yes, it counts against this.

Turn number is, in most cases, the one you should "ignore". The elemental terraing and EXP are probably those which people tend to forget. I think somebody here (probably Wolkendrache) wrote tht the formula for EXP is something like number of enemies*500EXp; so for each enemy on the map, you need to gain a total of 500 EXP. This especially becomes harder at later levels, because laying elemental beads will give less EXP the higher the character's level (early on, it gives tons of EXP); the same is true for digging, stealing and probably the support abilities.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Sasarai10 »

gildedtalon wrote:Turn number has the lowest priority
Damage received by your team needs to be kept as low as possible especially early on
Then damn, why I scored only "A" in Cyclone Chamber? I was excellent I can say. I didn't count how many turns it took to take off those 3 Dragons, but I believe about 10 (perhaps). If not 10, 11-12 at most. I didn't receive much damage, no Units were defeated, I gained tons of EXP (more than 10000), I was 90% of the time on Fire Terrain (all my Units were Fire Type) and still I got "A". I don't understand what I did wrong. Not to mention my party was Level 35-38 and enemies were Level 40-44.

Was it because I used an Owl in order to reach one of the Dragons? If I didn't then it'd take me more turns for sure.

Or was it I switched once so I can cast a spell in order to deal some damage to one of the dragons? Or was it that one of those Lizards put one of my Units to sleep?

I couldn't do any better so what it takes to score "S" in Cyclone Chamber?
Antimatzist wrote:Cancelling a spell is basically a waste of time, so yes, it counts against this.

Turn number is, in most cases, the one you should "ignore". The elemental terraing and EXP are probably those which people tend to forget. I think somebody here (probably Wolkendrache) wrote tht the formula for EXP is something like number of enemies*500EXp; so for each enemy on the map, you need to gain a total of 500 EXP. This especially becomes harder at later levels, because laying elemental beads will give less EXP the higher the character's level (early on, it gives tons of EXP); the same is true for digging, stealing and probably the support abilities.
Actually casting elemental Force spell depends on enemies Level I believe. You will get way more EXP if you are Level 20 and enemies Level 30, than if you were Level 30 as well.

Same goes with support abilities or giving medicines as well, I've noticed. For example if Gary is Level 25 and "Backups" a Unit which's Level 30 he'll gain more EXP than Backuping a Unit which's Level 20. Or if you are Level 25 and you give Medicine to another Unit which is a higher Level than you, you will gain more EXP again.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Antimatzist »

From what I remember, EXP from beads gradually decreases, independent from the enemy's level. But I never really tried to find out the tmaths behind it.

Your owl certainly didn't do anything. Sleep doesn't influence your rating. Switching - I don't know if it maybe influences your EXP gained (if the character you switched out gathered a lot of EXP) or resets his other stats (total damage dealt etc.).

If you only got A again, then it's probably again that you didn't have enough turns on your own element. Especially for the Elemental Chambers, I found the turn ranking to be virtually non-existant; even getting all treasures with Rene was (often) not a problem.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Wolkendrache »

First of all, what’s a „turn“? Whenever it’s a character’s turn, no matter if friend or foe, and no matter what the character is doing (attack or wait or whatever), the turn count goes up by 1. So I guess it’s impossible to clear the cyclone chamber within 10 or 12 turns. You must clear the elemental chambers within 140 turns.

Some stages have a very low turn max for S rank, so don’t underestimate that criterion. In the following battles, if you want to get all chest and dig items, I recommend you to kill fast and don’t waste any time: Middleport Secret Room, El-Eal 1st battle, Merseto, Caleron 2nd battle, Haruna and Graska Palace.

I made a test just to confirm the stage rank formula. I used Obel Ruins level 1. My characters were Lv27, the enemies Lv28 or 29, I forgot. These are the requirements to get S rank there:
Turn count: 50 -> Be fast! I think there’s no way to get chest and dig items plus S rank. Attempt S rank either by ignoring those items or when you already got the items from that configuration earlier.
Total damage: 100 -> This means damage taken/suffered! There is no total damage dealt criterion! You may not suffer more than 100 damage. Healing and switching won’t help afaik. As you can see, the your levels (and the enemies’ levels) the harder to achieve S rank, unless you have plenty of awesome equipment.
Damage average: 70 -> This means damage dealt! And it’s the average of all actions that (can) deal damage. Putting negative terrain under a foe doesn’t count, it’s just a byproduct. If the enemy evades, it counts as an attack that dealt 0 damage. As you can see, waiting is better than dealing too few damage because waiting doesn’t count and thus doesn’t lower the average.
Positive terrain: 15 -> It says you must end a turn on positive terrain, so I don’t know if it helps to put positive terrain on your allies. This may be easy to achieve, but in levels like this one where turn count is low, it can be difficult to reach the positive terrain number while meeting the requirements for the other criteria at the same time.
Total experience -> 500 per enemy, so it depends on number of foes. I don’t know how reinforcements are handled, they probably count as well, but only if they appear. The safest way to get S rank is to use characters with lower levels by 1 or 2, but not lower than 3. If the enemies are between Lv24 and Lv26, then use Lv23 characters, and so on.

Results of 1st try (I only used 4 characters, 1 on owl)
Turns: 66 = B
Total damage: 0 = S
Damage average: 1028 = S (far more than required, good job Lazlo)
Positive terrain: 17 = S
Total experience (15 foes, I need 7500): 6200 = A
-> formula: (30+0+0+0+10)/5=8 -> stage rank A
That was bad luck, because if I had needed 1 turn less, I had got rank A in turn count, then the formula would have been (10+0+0+0+10)/5=4 -> S rank

Results of 2nd try (this time 8 characters to get the positive terrain count faster, 1 on owl)
Turns: 32 -> S
Total damage: 0 = S
Damage average: 642 = S (still far more than required)
Positive terrain: 15 = S
Total experience (12 foes, I need 6000): 8834 = S
-> formula: (0+0+0+0+0)/5=8 -> stage rank S of course. Notice that you can get A rank in 2 criteria and still get stage rank S, but if you get B rank in just 1 criterion, you can’t get stage rank S anymore.

Conclusion
Turn count: Generally easy to get S rank. If you try to get S rank as well as chest and dig items, then it can be difficult in some stages. But in most stages it’s still easy.
Total damage: That depends primarily on your strategy, and secondarily on defense stats. This is arguably the easiest to fulfill.
Damage average: Difficult in early game where you must rely on extra damage from coop-attacks. From mid-game onwards where you have plenty of ways to increase damage, it’s a piece of cake.
Positive terrain: Only if turn count is low, this might be a problem. It will probably happen more often that you finish a stage too quick.
Experience: As long as you don’t overlevel your characters, it’s easy. Take extra care for Kyril (required in every story battle) and Lazlo (makes difficult stages like Graska Palace easier to get S rank).

One more thing…
You can experience by either dealing/healing damage, or by everything else except waiting. In the former, the amount of experience gained depends on the level difference between character and target. If the level is equal or of the character has a higher level, you will get almost nothing. Killing an enemy gives extra Exp.
In the latter, it depends on the stage level, some virtual level, somehow linked to the average of the enemies’ levels on the one hand, but fixed on the other hand (doesn’t change if you kill all high level enemies or so). For example: if your enemies are Lv30, then the stage level is about Lv30, let’s say it is. A Lv30 character gets 15 Exp, a Lv29 character gets 110 Exp, a Lv28 character gets 155 Exp, a Lv27 character gets 190 Exp, and so on. There’s no way to get extra Exp, that’s why it’s harder to level a support character than a fighter.
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Sasarai10
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Sasarai10 »

Wolkendrache wrote:...
-By turns I mean...well you know what I mean. For example if there are 40 Units in total in a certain area, then after all 40 of them do their moves, I count it as 1 turn. Guess in Tactics it works differently.
-Thanks, Now I realize why I score only "B" in Level 1 (in 12 Skeletons and 1 Crab version). Even if I kill all enemies and get a crazy amount of EXP. I have dug everything and opened all treasure boxes in Obel Ruins from Level 1 to Level 5 though.
- Oh sh#t. And yeah I have great equipment, good Skills...but one reckless move (like not being in a positive terrain) might damage my character seriously.
- "-> formula: (30+0+0+0+10)/5=8 -> stage rank A" <- Can you explain this? What those zeros mean?
- As for dealing damage I often use Elemental Sword. It's 100% accurate, and now most characters have their 3rd Rune spell available.
- And Eugene as well. I use him as a tank thanks to his Firefly Rune.
- I don't do an S-Rank run now...but I thought it's a pity since I went through all these levels to reach Elemental Chamber and get just an "A".
- Another weird thing...I have scored "S" in Obel Ruins Level 2. I used those Owls so I can end it quicker, killed only 3-4 Skeletons, but still got an "S". Surprised, in a good way of course.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Wolkendrache »

Sasarai10 wrote:-By turns I mean...well you know what I mean. For example if there are 40 Units in total in a certain area, then after all 40 of them do their moves, I count it as 1 turn. Guess in Tactics it works differently.
Yeah, I know what you mean, something like “round“, but that doesn’t exist here. By the time Eugene has made 10 turns, Mizuki has probably done 14, so it doesn’t work. And most importantly, this is not how the official guide defines “turn”.
Sasarai10 wrote:- "-> formula: (30+0+0+0+10)/5=8 -> stage rank A" <- Can you explain this? What those zeros mean?
Not again. Just look it up on the previous page of this thread.
Sasarai10 wrote:- As for dealing damage I often use Elemental Sword. It's 100% accurate, and now most characters have their 3rd Rune spell available.
I don’t use it too often. If you are good at preparing terrain, most characters can do more damage without this spell. Only 1h sword users and those without weapon rune do really benefit from it. Characters under magic sword effect often destroy the terrain I prepared. I don’t like it.
Sasarai10 wrote:- And Eugene as well. I use him as a tank thanks to his Firefly Rune.
I avoid damage by killing the enemy, so I don’t need tanks, I only need fast killers. Eugene is to slow to be a killer. In Obel 5 he can be used as target for the golem arms, but only at levels higher than 30, when his PDf starts excelling (Golem arms ignore equipment bonus, only PDf counts).
Sasarai10 wrote:- Another weird thing...I have scored "S" in Obel Ruins Level 2. I used those Owls so I can end it quicker, killed only 3-4 Skeletons, but still got an "S". Surprised, in a good way of course.
It’s not weird, it’s basically the same I just did in Obel 1. You never need to kill everything in the ruins 1-5, but the fewer you kill, the more difficult to get enough Exp.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Sasarai10 »

OK I got it what turn means. So basically you have to finish battles as soon as possible, stay in your own terrain as much as possible, avoid being hit, and if an enemy comes to your way attack first?

Well problem here is those Skeletons who use fists. Their counter attack can be fatal. And Magic Sword attack is 100% successful. Even if you are on positive terrain and enemy is on negative terrain, they can evade or even worse counter it. And the higher their level, the more possible is to evade/counter. Even if you are high as well.

Never mind I gave up for now. After all many of my characters are almost at their 40s now. I want to finish the game, and of course dig up the items in last battle against Iskas (bringing Rene close to Iskas can be dangerous though.) . I will focus on my S-Rank hunt in a NG+ where I can start from low Levels again.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Antimatzist »

Wolkendrache, you're awesome for your thorough research. Now after many years I think we can conclude the "how do you get S ranks?" chapter, haha.

@Sasarai: S ranking in a NG+ will be easy for the first half of the game, but you also have to keep in mind that the later part of the game will still be equally hard to S rank. The EXP requirement is often killing it.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by Sasarai10 »

Yeah indeed. I remember I did it a few years ago as well. First battles against Sigurd or Steele were ridiculously easy. I think skills and equipment carry over, that's why. I'm not sure about Weapon Levels though.
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Re: [Guide] Stage Guide - S Rank criteria and Bonus Rewards

Post by gildedtalon »

Yeah, make sure all skill levels for your characters are maxed before going to new game+
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