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The Saga games have always had a unique approach to character progression. Needless to say,Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Sevenhas a similarly off-beat approach to leveling. And it wouldn’t be a Saga game if that approach wasn’t utterly opaque and consistently baffling.
However, that’s why I’m here. I ran a series of tests and was able to get, what I believe to be, a complete understanding of how leveling works in Romancing Saga 2. I’ll walk you through all my findings and help you understand how to best manage your party’s strength, their technique gain, and the gradual increase in enemy strength.
How Technique Point Distribution Works
When you complete a battle, each combatant will receive the same amount of Technique Points (for the most part, at least).The amount of times a character uses an attack type will determine how much of that character’s share of the TP goes to which technique type.If a character uses their sword five times, their bow three times, and water magic once, their sword technique will receive 50% of their Technique Points, their bow will receive 30%, and their water magic will receive the remaining 10%.
Specialization will complicate matters a smidgen,your characters will increase their mastery faster when they are naturally proficient with a weapon or magic type.
It is important to note thatparty size does not affect the amount of Technique Points gained.That means that a character will earn the same share of Technique Points even in a situation where the party has fewer than five members. This does, unfortunately, mean that you can’t power level individual troops.The amount of Technique Points shown at the end of a battle isn’t split, each party member gains that amount.There is only one thing that will lower that amount, and we’ll cover it in the next section.
How Participation Factors Into Technique Point Distribution
This is an odd one. If a character acts once and then dies, they will be given their full share of experience points. This is true for action-stealing status effects as well, such as paralyze, stun, or petrification. However,defending will reduce a character’s Technique Point takeaway proportionally.
Let’s say that our Mercenary, Ryan, solely attacked with their sword and gained 100 Technique points to put toward their swordsmanship. Now, if we go back in time, and redo that exact same battle, but this time, have Ryan block half of the time, at the end of the battle they would only gain 50 Technique points toward their swordsmanship.Functionally, using the defend command factors into the equation in the same way that using a different weapon type would. The defend action is given a share of your gained Technique Points, which are then lost.
Keep in mind that abilities such as Parry or Counter will be seen as techniques, so they will not hurt TP gain in the same way that the Defend command does.
One thing to note is that it doesn’t matter how effective a skill is.If a character heals an ally with full HP or uses an attack that an enemy is strong against, it will be treated the exact same as an ability that one-shots an enemy. As long as a character is contributing, there will be no impact on their Technique Point gain.
Hybrid Skills And Hybrid Magic
One of the most powerful tools every class will have at their disposal are the techniques that also have an elemental alignment. Cross Cut is a sword attack that will also apply holy damage. However, while it counts as both a sword attack and holy magic attack, at the end of a battle,the character who used Cross Cut willonlygain Technique Points for that weapon type, not the magic element it is aligned with.
However, the same is not true for hybrid spells.Cyclone Squeeze is both an air and a water spell. So, if you use it,your TP will be split between the two magic types at the end of a battle.
How To Balance Enemy Strength
Strength is relative. As you improve your characters and develop their skill sets, they will increase their damage output, but every battle will also increase the number of total battles you have engaged in. This number will determine how powerful enemies are.Truth be told, their strength will increase faster than yours does (for a large part of the game, at least). What balances this out is your ever-improving equipment.dddd
One of Mr. S' abilities will occasionally double the Technique Points you gain at the end of battle. That is huge, and will help you notch out a small advantage against the ever-growing enemy strength,so make sure you look for Mr. S whenever you enter into a new area!
This does mean that you will typically be better off avoiding combat encounters.Though, there is a balancing act, as you will only obtain certain skills by using abilities in battle. Where that balance lies for you is something you will probably need to figure out for yourself.Just ensure you aren’t clearing out dungeons and youshouldbe fine.
Since enemy strength will be determined by battles engaged in, you are doing yourself a disservice if you escape from battle. You will increase every monster’s strength globally, while your party’s strength will remain the same.
Glimmering New Abilities
Naturally, gaining new, more powerful abilities is also part of the process when improving your troops. Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven does you a favor here and will indicate which skill you need to use in order to glimmer a new skill with a light bulb.The brighter the bulb, the closer you are to getting a new technique. Enemy strength will also affect how close you are to obtaining a new technique.
However, as I already said in the Enemy Strength section, all the techniques in the world aren’t going to be able to save you if you have enhanced enemy strength too high. So, make sure to balance out what attacks you are using.Sometimes you will be better off dragging fights out in an attempt to glimmer new abilities. Just make sure you don’t waste all your BP in the process.
