Offline Challenge, Strategy Differences?

[PJ]

Me and a few of my friends are gonna try to do offline challenge. Although it's mostly for the crazy prizes (And I REALLY need Blue Ring http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif), I'm gonna try to get them to be semi-decent Challenge players (I'm no expert, but I know Kyle needs some major work http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif As well as Jason).

So I'm wondering if there would be some challenge strategy differences for offline.

For example, when one player would go off to get items and the others would warp ahead to the next area online, since you can't go ahead offline, would we just skip those items, or slow down to get them? (Not necesarrily TA, though)

And since we're offline, there's no damage cancel right? (That's one huge plus)

[Mixfortune]

Since you're going for the clear, and since it also seems like you're doing it with only 3 people (unless the 4th just wasn't mentioned), 2 of which "aren't that good at it", and you're dealing with EP2 challenge mode...

I'd say, start off by getting the items. As you don't have a full team, and 2/3rds of that team "need work", you may very well need them.

Since you're going for clear, don't press yourself too much for time. I find for less experienced cmoders, especially with EP2, it's much better to actually CLEAR the stage rather than make sacrifices for a better time. The reason that is is because EP2 Cmode stages individually tend to be more difficult to beat than EP1 Cmode stages. For less experienced players it'd be better to clear when you can, and then go back to stages with particularly high times and attempt those again.

The thing is, since you're not even going for S Rank anyways, and trying for the rings instead, you shouldn't feel as pressured for time. That's probably one of the good things about offline EP2 S Rank weapons being the same as the offline EP1 S Rank weapons... not having to worry about getting offline EP2 S Rank.

[Ryna]

I would recommend trying to get most of the items, while instilling good cmode values into your fellow players.

One thing you do need to keep in mind is that the game can slowdown a lot in e2c4 while the clock continues to run in realtime. http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_disapprove.gif That will increase your time a bit, but you should still be able to under 5 hours with enough practice.

[Sitka]

My two cents:

If you have some patient friends, plan on running the stages a few times to get the feel of them and learn the spawns/puzzles/strategies. Print out the maps and Yellow5's thread on TA strategies and keep them in front of you as you play.

There are several areas that can take loads of time if you're not sure where to go or the best strategy to tackle them. You just might find yourself in a frustrating loop of running in circles while trying to find the correct door or portal.

Once you have a good feel for the maps/strategies/routes and such, now you can start working on improving your time. I can remember when we first started trying, and failing, on E2C3 and E2C4. We did so many things wrong until we began to learn from our mistakes and improve. We're finally starting to run some decent times, but it took a lot of work to get there.

So good luck. Offline action with friends is fun if you can handle the split screen stuff. Just be patient as you play through the first several times.

[PJ]

Just an update, since we finally did the first stage of Episode 2 C1 http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

I didn't expect to clear the stage the first time through, but we even managed a decent time. 1'00'48" Big problems being fighting unnecessary enemies, random slowdown, the map (THAT was frustrating x_X) and Area 4.

Our team was HUcast (My brother), HUcaseal (Jason), HUmar (Kyle) and FOnewearl (Me). My brother has never done challenge, Jason has done Ep1 C1-3 online with Boxer and Kyle has completed all of Episode 1 before.

Since I have the most part of the maps in my head (Not down to exact, though) I was leading everyone. The only thing I didn't know was when you have the decoy gates (Area 6 I think) and I was lucky to guess them all right. We managed to get a Resta for both me and Kyle, picked up one of the extra scapes (Kyle died once in Area 6, and then he ran out of mates at Barba Ray, so he used both).

Anyways, it was a lot of fun and hopefully we can do my favourite Episode 2 stage tomorrow http://pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

EDIT: Also note, Yellow5's videos were a big help, mainly for the buttons in Area 3 since I never knew which ones to press.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SUPAH_CHAO on 2005-05-09 16:48 ]</font>