Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

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Shullen
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Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by Shullen »

So, I had a goal of obtaining 12 "Mangosh" when I set out for Pannu Yakuta castle. After fighting 175 "Devil Armors" (killing them first in every battle), I had come up with 2; however, I was more disappointed than surprised since I had read the drop % to be lower than 1%. :? Earlier in the game I noticed battle patterns on occasion in which when a saved file was loaded, the same enemies would be encountered afterward, sometimes on the same locations, but typically after a given number of steps. Not only that, but that some enemies when killed would drop the same item EVERY TIME when certain attacks were used, not just on them, but on EVERY enemy in the battle. Anyway, back to my experience at Pannu Yakuta. I opened all the treasure boxes in the castle, and before going up the stairs to face the dragon boss, decided I would try to discover such a pattern involving Devil Armors in order to obtain my objective (I sure wasn't going to go for 12 at a rate of 2 every 175 :| ). I had my game saved at the Burnt Village of the Elves and had been making the journey to the castle killing 25 Devil Armors a day (in an attempt to make it not TOO tedious), when I noticed I would encounter the same two goups of enemies between the village and castle: 2 groups of kobolds at 2 Mages and 3 Swordsmen each (which I would "Let Go"), every time I would reset and load my game. So then I started to pay attention to what enemies I would encounter once inside the castle, and they were: 4 Veteran Soldiers, 5 Veteran Soliders, 2 Veteran Soldiers, and then 1 Devil Armor along with 3 Devil Shields. This pattern was the same every time I loaded my saved file at the village regardless of whether or not I saved there after the battle (with the Devil Armor and Devil Shields). So, I pulled out a pencil and pad and set to writing down how my current party could kill the lone Devil Armor first, for example having my Hero use his "Deadly Fingertips" ability to take it out. My party consists of: Hero (lv.34), Valeria (lv.36), Victor (lv.34), Kuromimi (lv.36 w/ Fortune Rune), Gremio (lv.34 w/ Holy Crystal), & Kirkis (lv.34 w/ Fire Rune). At any rate, I had gone through several patterns when I came to one that dropped me a Mangosh after the battle. That battle pattern is: Valeria (Falcon Rune on Armor), Victor (Clone Rune on Armor), Kuromimi (defend), Hero (defend), Gremio (defend), & Kirkis (Firestorm). This would kill the Armor leaving the Shields which I would "Free Will". Having gotten a Mangosh (I was like a kid at Chirstmas :mrgreen: ), I went back to save at the village (encountering one more group of 5 kobolds, 2 Mage & 3 Swordsmen) along the way. After saving, I reset the game. After loading, I encountered the same pattern of enemies both between the village and in the castle. I fought the battle with the Devil Armor and Devil Shields in EXACTLY the same pattern as described above and got another Mangosh. Utilizing this pattern, I received 10 Mangosh in the time it took me to exit the castle, save, and then load my file back (around 20-25 minutes). After I had my desired 12, I decided to see if changing the battle pattern slightly would interrupt the Mangosh drop (for example, still killing the Devil Armor first via other means and then having my other party members use different attacks on the Shields rather than simply "Free Will"). The results? I disovered if I changed even ONE of my actions during the battle, I would NOT get the drop, even if I killed the Devil Armor in exactly the same way as described above and killed the remaining Shields differently (outside of using "Free Will" during the 2nd round). I also noticed that both the enemies in the battle and my characters would score a hit, miss, or get a critical in exactly the same manner every time I fought the battle (Valeria would always score a critical hit on the far Devil Shield during "Free Will" for example). Knowing that there are patterns like this that can be discovered has led me to the conclusion that the drop rates are actually not UNIVERSALLY random, but rather are determined by what actions your characters take in a SPECIFIC battle. Of course with all the possible actions within a 6 person party for example, there are a LOT of possible action combinations within a battle as you can imagine, not to mention not having the luxury of fighting the EXACT same battle each time you load your game (if outside an occasionally discovered pattern). Thus, I felt extremely fortunate to have been able to find the particular pattern for this item within this battle. :D I am interested if anyone else who is playing this via the console disk (and is close to this location/point within the game) can verify this pattern or if they have been able to pick out another pattern similar to this in reference to another item.
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ninjaluc79
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by ninjaluc79 »

Wall of Text. Observe some spacing to make your post more readable. Thanks.
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KFCrispy
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by KFCrispy »

haha yes hard to read, but it seems like Shullen's found some way to trigger drops by getting into the same enemy encounter patterns and repeating battle commands... not sure how global the application can be, because everybody will have different parties and slightly different stats that would require a lot testing until the exact steps are found for that specific situation. but if you do want to farm stuff, it's definitely worth looking into.

there are plenty of items that are such rare drops that it's worth it to try these steps to get the drops (Celadon Urns... not to mention I've maybe gotten Phero Rune and Ressurection Runes drops maybe twice in all of my playthroughs. and 0 Mangosh's!)
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ninjaluc79
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by ninjaluc79 »

I haven't gotten Mangoshes in all my playthroughs, either.
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Shullen
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by Shullen »

I agree that with all the variable possibilities that exist between party members and action commands, it would definitely take some work (and luck to find you have saved within a loop or pattern) to uncover a method like this for future items. Most people would probably not think it worth the time to find out; however, I thought that taking that time would be favorable to taking the time to simply wander and farm the usual way, especially for an item with such a low drop percentage. I will keep the forum posted of my potential future discoveries with the hope that someone may not only verify any patterns I have found, but will post similar patterns for other rare items. 8)
jasonjaned
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by jasonjaned »

I'm actually glad i found this topic by shullen; it gave me something to go by to try and figure out a pattern to this. I tried to do the same thing each time, by loading the game and resetting the pattern. For me, a specific attack pattern did not work each time i fought devil armors, but i noticed something else. I had defeated a group consisting of devil armor and 3 shields and had actually free willed it and killed the shields first cuz i had thought that i had gotten the kill order wrong.However this is what happened:

When i killed the shields first and finished the fight i recieved a chaos shield. So i decided to reload and do the fight again, but killing the enemies in the proper order, and boom i got a mangosh. Though i have not done further experimentation yet cuz i havent been playing for a couple of days, this leads me to believe that it was the fight itself that was predetermined to give me an item, with the only thing changing being the kill order. If this proves to be true, then it may even mean that items will drop at specific fights. This would not just help out with mangoshes, but with other items as well, if it is a guaranteed drop at a certain point. For example, if you were farming urns and you always got an item at the 8th fight, you could reload and ALWAYS get an item at the 8th fight. Also, what if you time it so that the 8th fight is a boss fight?(by winning the 7th fight and then fighting the boss). This would create guaranteed boss drops, including the infamous Goldlet from Gigantes. And again, it's not the specific monster, but the fight, meaning that if there are multiple types of enemies in the fight, you could guarantee which drop you want by choosing the right order to kill them.

I have barely experimented with this yet, but i'm going to and i think others should too. Remember this isn't a competition to see who comes with it first, so whether its me or someone else who goes out and does this first it doesnt matter. Let's just try and test this out and see if we can help each other out with this.

Wow, if this turns out to be true.....think of the mangoshes, the urns, wing boots, and so on and so forth. Guaranteed. And it would prove the drop rate meaningless :)
jasonjaned
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by jasonjaned »

Oh and sry for posting in such an old topic, but i don't think anybody cares if this in fact works. That's why i posted it regardless of how old this topic is.
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Punkaiser
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by Punkaiser »

As I always take advantage of save/load state to farm, what I notice isn't the number of fights which determine the drops/pattern. You can read more about steps I did to get the items on emulator : http://suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12823
By that way I mean, in the first fight I still can get the drop which you could say was supposed to be found in the 10th battle for exemple.

After doing that, I'm more inclined to the theory that the course of actions is the key to pattern. Let's say you do freewill in all 10 consecutive fights and get the rare drop in 10th battle then reload, repeating freewill in 10 battles and you notice that is the pattern as the drop appears in 10th battle as well. But if you reload, do something else like using spells, defend sometimes..etc..you probably won't get any item in the 10th fight, which you were expecting to have.
PerfectSystem
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by PerfectSystem »

Shullen wrote:So, I had a goal of obtaining 12 "Mangosh" when I set out for Pannu Yakuta castle. After fighting 175 "Devil Armors" (killing them first in every battle), I had come up with 2; however, I was more disappointed than surprised since I had read the drop % to be lower than 1%. :? Earlier in the game I noticed battle patterns on occasion in which when a saved file was loaded, the same enemies would be encountered afterward, sometimes on the same locations, but typically after a given number of steps. Not only that, but that some enemies when killed would drop the same item EVERY TIME when certain attacks were used, not just on them, but on EVERY enemy in the battle. Anyway, back to my experience at Pannu Yakuta. I opened all the treasure boxes in the castle, and before going up the stairs to face the dragon boss, decided I would try to discover such a pattern involving Devil Armors in order to obtain my objective (I sure wasn't going to go for 12 at a rate of 2 every 175 :| ). I had my game saved at the Burnt Village of the Elves and had been making the journey to the castle killing 25 Devil Armors a day (in an attempt to make it not TOO tedious), when I noticed I would encounter the same two goups of enemies between the village and castle: 2 groups of kobolds at 2 Mages and 3 Swordsmen each (which I would "Let Go"), every time I would reset and load my game. So then I started to pay attention to what enemies I would encounter once inside the castle, and they were: 4 Veteran Soldiers, 5 Veteran Soliders, 2 Veteran Soldiers, and then 1 Devil Armor along with 3 Devil Shields. This pattern was the same every time I loaded my saved file at the village regardless of whether or not I saved there after the battle (with the Devil Armor and Devil Shields). So, I pulled out a pencil and pad and set to writing down how my current party could kill the lone Devil Armor first, for example having my Hero use his "Deadly Fingertips" ability to take it out. My party consists of: Hero (lv.34), Valeria (lv.36), Victor (lv.34), Kuromimi (lv.36 w/ Fortune Rune), Gremio (lv.34 w/ Holy Crystal), & Kirkis (lv.34 w/ Fire Rune). At any rate, I had gone through several patterns when I came to one that dropped me a Mangosh after the battle. That battle pattern is: Valeria (Falcon Rune on Armor), Victor (Clone Rune on Armor), Kuromimi (defend), Hero (defend), Gremio (defend), & Kirkis (Firestorm). This would kill the Armor leaving the Shields which I would "Free Will". Having gotten a Mangosh (I was like a kid at Chirstmas :mrgreen: ), I went back to save at the village (encountering one more group of 5 kobolds, 2 Mage & 3 Swordsmen) along the way. After saving, I reset the game. After loading, I encountered the same pattern of enemies both between the village and in the castle. I fought the battle with the Devil Armor and Devil Shields in EXACTLY the same pattern as described above and got another Mangosh. Utilizing this pattern, I received 10 Mangosh in the time it took me to exit the castle, save, and then load my file back (around 20-25 minutes). After I had my desired 12, I decided to see if changing the battle pattern slightly would interrupt the Mangosh drop (for example, still killing the Devil Armor first via other means and then having my other party members use different attacks on the Shields rather than simply "Free Will"). The results? I disovered if I changed even ONE of my actions during the battle, I would NOT get the drop, even if I killed the Devil Armor in exactly the same way as described above and killed the remaining Shields differently (outside of using "Free Will" during the 2nd round). I also noticed that both the enemies in the battle and my characters would score a hit, miss, or get a critical in exactly the same manner every time I fought the battle (Valeria would always score a critical hit on the far Devil Shield during "Free Will" for example). Knowing that there are patterns like this that can be discovered has led me to the conclusion that the drop rates are actually not UNIVERSALLY random, but rather are determined by what actions your characters take in a SPECIFIC battle. Of course with all the possible actions within a 6 person party for example, there are a LOT of possible action combinations within a battle as you can imagine, not to mention not having the luxury of fighting the EXACT same battle each time you load your game (if outside an occasionally discovered pattern). Thus, I felt extremely fortunate to have been able to find the particular pattern for this item within this battle. :D I am interested if anyone else who is playing this via the console disk (and is close to this location/point within the game) can verify this pattern or if they have been able to pick out another pattern similar to this in reference to another item.
If you still post here, how many different patterns did you end up trying before getting the Mangosh to drop?

I am in the process of trying this method on a console, and can prove that the enemy encounter pattern is the same when I take the exact same walking path on the world map from the save point in the Burnt Village of the Elves to Pannu Yakuta. What I'm unsure of is whether or not this enemy encounter pattern is affected by the total number of steps I've taken on the world map or the exact path which I take; however, this isn't a huge concern nor a main point.

Now, when I enter what I deem to be a "hostile" area (a non-world map area where you can encounter enemies while walking around; or in this case in the castle proper and not in the "courtyard") in Pannu Yakuta, enemy groups which are encountered are the same every time and appear in the same order. They are merely separated by a preset numbers of steps. It appears as if the number of steps or path on the world map is really what determines things in a hostile area.

More specifically, on my way to Pannu Yakuta from the save point in the Burnt Village of the Elves using a very specific path, I encounter two groups of five Kobolds each (each consisting of three swordsmen and two mages). Once inside the castle of Pannu Yakuta I encounter (in this order) a group of four Veteran Soldiers, five Veteran Soldiers, two Veteran Soldiers, three Devil Shields / one Devil Armor, two Veteran Soldiers, and finally one lone Devil Armor.

My party consists of Tir by himself in an attempt to reduce the sheer number of combinations possible. I always "Let Go" every single encounter until I face the single Devil Armor. I have tried 27 possible combinations so far and have had no luck getting a Mangosh to drop. If anyone's interested, here are the combinations which I have tried so far:

1. Deadly Fingertips
-
2. Defend -> DF
3. Black Shadow -> DF
4. BS -> BS
5. BS -> Attack
6. BS -> Free Will
7. Attack -> DF
8. Attack -> BS
9. FW -> DF
10. FW -> BS
-
11. FW -> FW -> FW
12. Attack -> Attack -> Attack
13. Attack -> Attack -> FW
14. Attack -> FW -> Attack
15. FW -> Attack -> Attack
16. Attack -> FW -> FW
17. FW -> Attack -> FW
18. FW -> FW -> Attack
19. Defend -> Attack -> DF
20. Defend -> FW -> DF
21. Defend -> Attack -> BS
22. Defend -> FW -> BS
23. Defend -> BS -> DF
24. Defend -> BS -> Attack
25. Defend -> BS -> FW
26. Defend -> BS -> BS
27. Defend -> Defend -> DF

All of these combinations produce either a one, two, or three-turn kill (separated by the lone hyphens). If I wish to continue to try out more combinations, I would have to delve into four-turn kills (something that I am not too keen on given the lack of information on the game mechanics of Suikoden). I realize that I have only attempted to farm him for 27 combinations (discounting the previous encounters that I have had with the Devil Armor in my prior visits to Pannu Yakuta), but it is VERY arduous and painstaking to do this on a console.



Therefore, I have a few questions for the original poster, Punkaiser, and whatever community remains on these forums.


1. Shullen: I already asked this question above, but I'll restate the question. How many combinations did you yourself attempt while farming this enemy encounter pattern? On a console I find it to be grueling and very tedious. You must've been extremely lucky to get a Mangosh drop unless you had a determination of steel.


2. Shullen: when walking from the save point to Pannu Yakuta, did you take the exact same path or was it your step count which remained the same?


3.
Punkaiser wrote:8. Everyone defends, because i'm sure item drop chance refresh in every turn, but it won't refresh if you simply save then load state and do same thing in same turn, at least you could do same thing(defence) but must be in a new turn.
Quoted from this topic: http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... =8&t=12823 . You state that you are SURE that the drop chance refreshes every turn...does this mean that whether an enemy will drop an item or not is determined at the beginning of every turn and is set in stone until it refreshes the next turn? Or can changes in your team's actions in that turn affect this decision?

I am inclined to believe that actions can change the "chance" of a drop occuring (otherwise how do we explain Shullen getting lucky with a drop on the second turn after messing around with various combinations?), but you seem pretty sure of yourself in that topic.

It seems as if the game merely decides which pattern of encounters you will face in a given area, but then the battles are handled individually. If we combine what Punkaiser and Shullen are saying, then it seems as if the game decides whether an enemy will drop an item at the beginning of the turn but that outcome can be changed by the actions you take during the turn.


4. Is there any sort of "Battle Mechanics" guide out there somewhere for Suikoden, with detailed formulas on all of the stats, drop rates, etc.? I'm not sure how popular this game was back during its release, but I'm surprised that no one's at least hacked the game and gotten damage, critical, evasion, etc. formulas for this game and information on the more convoluted aspects of the game (elemental rune pieces, other such things which I am having trouble naming right now).


I would just like to know if anyone has any concrete evidence regarding how the game handles drops and whether or not player actions can actually affect the outcome of drops. Just farming in the blind like this is quite disheartening. I have no idea whether my method is even working because of the lack of extremely detailed information from Shullen and the claims which Punkaiser makes in his other topic. If the drop is determined at the beginning of the turn and cannot be changed otherwise, then I've technically only done three runs. This also means that Shullen got lucky with his turn 2 kill and that the game would decide on a battle-by-battle basis despite reloading the same enemy encounter pattern. However, if actions can affect the outcome of the drop then I just haven't hit the Mangosh after numerous encounters (probably 70+ in total between these 27 and the other encounters I've had during previous, regular, farming runs). But which is it? Or is it some obscure combination?

Additionally, if the game pre-determines the turn in which an item will be dropped, what's to say that it doesn't pre-determine a combination of actions which will also trigger a drop? If this is the case, I could get the drop on my 30th combination or on my 15,000th combination. Just thinking about it in that regard is baffling.

Going through 27 combinations at 4 - 5 minutes per run (not counting all of the previous times I've encountered and killed the Devil Armors while farming them the regular way) and having no real information on how the game works to back up this console method is very discouraging. Seems like Shullen just got extremely lucky with that Mangosh drop (unless, as I said above, he just grinded for hours after finding this pattern and killed another 150 Devil Armors).
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Punkaiser
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by Punkaiser »

PerfectSystem wrote: Everyone defends, because i'm sure item drop chance refresh in every turn, but it won't refresh if you simply save then load state and do same thing in same turn, at least you could do same thing(defence) but must be in a new turn.
Quoted from this topic: http://www.suikosource.com/phpBB3/viewt ... =8&t=12823 . You state that you are SURE that the drop chance refreshes every turn...does this mean that whether an enemy will drop an item or not is determined at the beginning of every turn and is set in stone until it refreshes the next turn? Or can changes in your team's actions in that turn affect this decision?
The drops really depend on the actions the characters take . Yea, there was a mistake in what I wrote (I will edit that soon), the drops set in stone as long as you repeat the set of actions in battle, so that isn't determined by turn.
PerfectSystem wrote:Or can changes in your team's actions in that turn affect this decision?
This is the right thing, as I tried for exemple: save state at the start of the turn,
<only Tir attacks and kill off the monster while other 5 defend>will lead to a different pattern to
load state<tir with other 4 defend and the 6th character finish the monster>
Although that doesn't ensure there would be a drop but surely the pattern would be changed which affect the drops.( As I already got the items I want this way, by changing the commands in the same turn)
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Sasarai10
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by Sasarai10 »

Wow gonna try it tomorrow...but i've defeated Kwanda and i've finished my business with Pannu Yakuta...hope this will not get things messed up.

Has anyone else,discovered any drop pattern for Persian Lamps in Lepant's mansion? Still having a hard time to get 6 of them...i have only 2 and i have killed 300+ of enemies up there.
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sporefrog
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by sporefrog »

ok,the following sounds a bit complicated,but its really very simple.you can abuse the game mechanic(lets call it RNG again,lol) for drop patterns.I try to explain,what I did to farm "infinite" defence rune pieces,and a few other items.
first of all,this only works with monsters in dungeons.I could never do this with monsters on the world map.and you must find the FIRST item by yourself,you can only manipulate the following drops of the same item:

I will explain the 100%drop pattern for the defense rune piece but this can be done with every other item:

-go into a town(sarady),save your game and do a hard reset(turn off the console).
-load the game and enter the dungeon(mt. tigerwolf),where you start fighting lets say 10-15 battles.
-ignore all other monsters(killer slime,slasher rabbit)and fight only the giant snails.
-if you DONT get a defense rune piece from the giant snails,hard reset and load the file again.

-if you would reenter the dungeon now,you would encounter the same monsters in the same order and you would of course not gain a item drop.so after loading,you must "manipulate" the RNG(random number generator) a bit.open your menu,give items to another character,change formation,...

-after changing the rng,save again and do another hard reset.
-now load the game and enter the dungeon.you should now encounter other enemies in another order.if you still not get the item,reset and repeat this process.

-IF you get the enemy drop,immediately go back to you save point,save and hard reset.
-when you load this data again,the rng is still the same,so you will encounter the same enemys again and the SAME enemy will drop the item again.and again...

there is only one very important thing:
after loading,do allways the same.that means,dont spend any time in your inventory before you get the item drop,enter allways the same battle commands,dont change formation,...as already said,allways do the same and you will get the item everytime.

its not very easy to describe,but once you know the trick,its easy and cool to get the same itemdrop ever 3-4 minute:-)
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ninjaluc79
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by ninjaluc79 »

Pretty tedious, but it's worth it.
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KFCrispy
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by KFCrispy »

or just use a cheat device and be done with it. there's no point of cheating with all this reloading and taking certain steps to manipulate the game's randomization all for the purpose of literally cheating in an item-- just do it directly.
highwind44029
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Re: Drop Pattern Discovered for "Mangosh"

Post by highwind44029 »

I tried to do this trick on getting Water Rune Pieces in Mt. Tigerwolf for McDohl, and it worked wonders!

This game manipulation is kind of interesting. I wonder if it works in the second installment. Sure would help in getting a lot those Double-Beat runes early.
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