Those that have payed off loan, How many playthroughs did it take?

[vazzaroth]

I'm try to figure out if I want to keep trying to beat the loan on my 2nd playthrough that Im on now, or start a 3rd and totally dominate and pass easily.

I'm the type who enjoys a good challenge more than just a win, and I'm hesitant because, between my heroes and access to amazing stock, I know the 3rd playthrough will not only be repeat story content for most of it, I'm going to be able to just blaze through pretty much uncontested and that does not appeal to me at all.

So anyway, I'm just wondering how incompetent I apparently am compared to other players here, and how many actually managed to get it on their first playthrough. Also, a first "loop" on a new save file after you already had experience playing the game totally doesn't count. Also Also, if you looked up a bunch of stuff on the internet, that doesn't count either :P

[Kyun]

Once, without reloading a save. Due to this and not knowing the game inside and out, I had 750k at the end of the 5th week. Semi-sloppy work, since people usually seem to get at least 1~2m. Probably because my combos were broken so many times, resulting in an awfully low Merchant level.

Then again, first playthrough without savescumming.

[RealFolkBlues]

I did 3 tries on the demo before release, then passed the best save on to the final version, and managed to pay the debt in the first loop. Barely. VERY barely @_@ last week was hell.

[Aerowind]

I beat the demo three times and using that knowledge more or less just breezed through the main game on my first loop.

[vazzaroth]

I figured people had gone crazy on the demo. I just played through it once... well unless you count failing the first payment and reloading a save. I was saving myself for the full game. :D

[Vaemer-Riit]

I failed on the first loop (20,000pix to low) but easily beat the 2nd loop.

[Aerowind]

Well, to be fair, I barely passed on my first demo run and I only went to the dungeons once. The second was because I wanted to try now that I knew what the hell I was doing. The third was to unlock Charme as early as possible to play around with her.

[vazzaroth]

Well, to be fair, I barely passed on my first demo run and I only went to the dungeons once. The second was because I wanted to try now that I knew what the hell I was doing. The third was to unlock Charme as early as possible to play around with her.

I wish I knew I could unlock Charme in the demo (or met her), I probably would have done the same.

Also, due to complicated circumstances, even 5 days before my last payment, I STILL haven't unlocked her...

[Aerowind]

Ouch.

I only knew you could unlock Charme in the demo because of these forums. Otherwise I would have just gone on being oblivious.

Though I do have to wonder how you can still not have her in the fifth week. Unless you're just not doing any dungeons.

[Cantisque]

I failed the 200k payment due to overdoing the dungeons. On the second loop though, I had no troubles, had 1.4mil by the time the 500k payment came up.
All you have to do is spend all your money on items if you can't meet the repayment, then when the loop starts over, you'll still have them.

[Taerdin]

I beat it in my first playthrough (first loop).

I didn't use my demo save, and managed to actually get Caillou in my first week in the main game.

I think I did quite well (accidentally). But when I hit the 500k mark for the last week I didn't try to earn more, I just did some dungeons for fun until it ended. So I dont have an impressive pix ending or anything.

[Txh0881]

I beat it on my first playthrough, but that was only because I got lucky on the final payment because of a combination of high precious metal prices and a precious metal popularity boom with housewives a day before the payment was due. I would have failed miserably if not for that.

[Levi]

I restarted the game on the second week and then won my second playthrough. I reloaded like crazy though. Now that I know better I think I could probably beat a playthrough without reloading through.

[vazzaroth]

Ouch.

I only knew you could unlock Charme in the demo because of these forums. Otherwise I would have just gone on being oblivious.

Though I do have to wonder how you can still not have her in the fifth week. Unless you're just not doing any dungeons.


Basically, on the second playthrough, I played boss rush a few times, and it never occurred to me that I actually needed to beat the 3rd floor like normal (Since it was already unlocked) until I went from floor 1-15 in the Amber way. Unfortunately, it was in the 4th week so she just started to come in near the end.


Anyway, I'm at least glad to see the majority of people either just scraped by in 1 playthrough or took 2. I'm about to finish my 2nd armed with new knowledge about manipulating fluctuating prices, I think. I know there's plenty of people who are going to post their 9 million pix total in 3 days or w/e, but at least it doesn't sound like my experience is TOO out of the ordinary.

[fnord3125]

I haven't quite finished, but I'm approaching the final payment and I believe I'll manage. I'm on the first loop.

I've done quite a bit of dungeon delving, but I am in the bad habit of save scumming. I refuse to not reload if I die in a dungeon, and I will frequently even reload when I'm doing shopping days if something annoys me (like everyone in town deciding it's time to try to sell me food when food is priced up). So yeah, I'm cheating, but I'm also not playing optimally.

[Farlong]

2nd loop helped me a lot. I had no chance on the first try.

[Hound_Archon]

I returned the loan on the first try, although it was a very close call (and I played the demo a lot).

[Vulkans]

I got it on the first try, by exploiting and getting very lucky with blue/red opportunities.

[Aphileon]

http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn121/AphileonUD_Rogue/Whataday.png

I finished out my playthrough with that wonderful day.

[Kailieann]

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a375/Kailieann/reclear.jpg

In my defense, though, I really half-assed the entire last week. Could've done better if I'd put some effort into it.

[NanostrikeX]

Took me 1 loop. After I learned how much excessive dungeon-delving gimps your income, it was much easier.

[foolish__fool]

I failed week 2 the first time since I was terrible at dungeons but kept trying to do them. I was on track to have the same thing happen a second time, but stopped doing dungeons and everything went uphill from there.

[Koishi]

Beat it in the first playthrough with about 250k left afterwards. Didn't do any reloading of saves except for due to dying in dungeons.

[stryk3r]

I completed it on the third attempt. Would have beaten it on the second, but I lost due to food prices crashing right after I bought up a ton of it.

[Scudzz]

1-2 million!?! Well, I suck then :). I beat it on my first playthrough, but only just. Payed off the 500k with only 20k to spare. Went from 370k to 520k on the last day, it was nerve racking ^^.

Only got a true card from Louie, cause I didn't see having time to level up all the different adventurers. I did use Elan a good amount as well, though.

[aiyaka]

I finished on the 2nd loop, missed the 200k payment by about 19k.

When I did finish I was sorta annoyed to find out about true cards because if I had known about them I would have used Nagi a bit more than Louie and Charme. D:

[Heegu]

Just one. Sell high buy low don't touch dungeons. Easymode.

[NanostrikeX]

Ouch.

I only knew you could unlock Charme in the demo because of these forums. Otherwise I would have just gone on being oblivious.

Though I do have to wonder how you can still not have her in the fifth week. Unless you're just not doing any dungeons.

That's exactly it: Not doing dungeons. A lot of people absolutely avoid the dungeons until they get Louie equipped out to what they think is good (Especially if they've had a defeat!) and thus never really explore the dungeons.

[Ariolander]

Just one. Sell high buy low don't touch dungeons. Easymode.

QFT


Got it on my first run though. Didn't miss a payment and finished with 160k to spare. (Would have been more but kept stocking up on double cheap weapons)

After the initial dungeon I never went back. The entire thing was done with market manipulation and about 13 hours time. Ended up with Merchant Level 36 or so simply because I sold so much.

People underestimate the power of your merchant level and leveling relationships. Unlike adventure level you can't see your relationship level but it makes a significant difference on your customers.

Simply because my relationship level I have been able to sell Little Girls items priced as high as 50-60k without them flinching.

Also with a high merchant level you can buy items with higher profit margins. Taking advantage of market fluctuations I was able to pull +400k in a single day, 150k of that in a single advance order.

There is nothing like a Famine + Desert craze combo. My store was flooded with women who wanted sweets (during a high value food period) and I sold 8 melons for 27k each and 6 cakes for 10k each +Vending Machine of cheap stuff in a single time slice once.

Run your item shop your fist time around and then when you have your hero of choice with the best non-fusion equipment available go grind those dungeons. Can always do the dungeons in New Game+ or Endless Mode. Right now its money that matters.

[StarlightGamer]

I got through on the first attempt. I thought the 200k and 500k payments were going to be tough, since I had very bad luck with price decreases and the game kept most armor and weapon prices in the blue for the third and fourth weeks, but I ended up being able to double the 200k payment and get 800k for the last one.

I sold things for 50%/110%/220%, except to little girls (50%/105%/210%) and Prime (50%/100%/200%), and bought things for 33%/66%/133%. I think I was at merchant level 27 at the end. I also had all three dungeons completed, but I agree with the general opinion that dungeon running isn't a good way to make money. If dungeon running took only one slice of time, it would probably be a lot more profitable. And maybe redesign boss runs to let you run through the bosses as many times as you want/can during an outing. Or just lock them during the main campaign, since it would be suicide to do boss runs before Endless.

[luciferosX]

I messed up once at the 200,000 week. I restarted then and from then on it was easy because I didn't do anymore dungeon crawling. If all you do is buy low and sell high, the game's pretty easy.

[MithranArkanere]

My first playthourgh was in one go.


I bought when blue, sold when red, and ALWAYS took advantage of shopping fads. Dungeos are a waste of time, by the way.
After that, I used all my cash to buy lots of expensive stuff, and started a New Game+.

I'm testing if I can get more than one True Business Card.

[TheCosmicCheese]

I currently have 2 true business cards, working on my third now :D

With some rather phenomenal luck, it looks like my third true business card is going to be Griff :O

On topic, I completed the game on my first playthrough, but a few weeks were close. Last week was looking pretty bad, but then, Ding, all weapons expensive. Omg I have a huge stockpile of weapons. Cha-ching. Then the next day ALL armor is expensive. Yeah I cleared out a ton of my stockpile and made way over what I needed. I spent the last three days watching town events instead of merchanting :P

[The 9th Sage]

I'm on my second...there was no way I was going to make the very last payment when it came down to it. This time I'm charging in all crystal swords swinging though.

I was also incredibly lucky a little while ago...I had 3 pending orders for two treasures a piece, and about three days before all of them were due precious metal prices decreased so I stocked up, and before the orders were actually due the prices increased above the normal amount. :D Made a killing from all of that. I'd also picked up some priced down armor and shields that later benefitted from the increase in price (like that pearl shield, silver armor...etc).

I don't think I'll ever get that lucky again. :) I'm also doing better anyway...I had Charme and Caillou in the second week because Caillou came in on like the second or third day and I'd already been lucky enough to earlier get a Slime Liver (which I hadn't been able to get on my first playthrough) so I had everything he needed. His reaction was priceless. :P That and I had enough good stuff to sell that I could adventure with Louie long enough to get to Charme without worrying about making the payment.

[DarkJeff]

The first time I played the game, I had about 200pix by the first payment. :P
I restarted rather than finish the day, which I regret, since I could have kept my stuff and seen Recette's heartbreakingly awesome game-over screen. :(

[Ardbug]

I got out of debt with 37k to spare on 1st loop, I didnt think I would make it.

[IDED2010]

I paid it on loop two first run I failed the second payment first time as didnt realise it had increased by over double lol.

[Zefar]

I had a bold plan at the end of the first week. I'd abuse the system with keeping items so instead of trying to sell anything I kept everything and bought up for like 30k(all I had XD) on the last week. I also had Fusion items as well.

After that I cleared the 500k mark with 200k extra. I'm now just up at 860k or something as I bought a lot of things on sale which I'm going to sell at red prices.

[Mave.ts]

3. Died once at 80k (I had 79,5 lol), then twice at 200k. Now I made 500k, with 300k left.

[trb251986]

Made it on my 3rd loop. 1st time died at 80k, then 2nd time 200k. I would have died at 500k on the 3rd loop, but I got lucky with dorians decreased in value for a day, then a huge price increase the next with a popularity increase for sweets on top of that. That took me from 350k all the way to about 650k. I'm loving endless mode! =)

[Aphileon]

Off topic but all the people talking about the True Cards, what exactly do they do? I have the standard Louie and Arma's right now.

[Kamirose]

Off topic but all the people talking about the True Cards, what exactly do they do? I have the standard Louie and Arma's right now.

IIRC they allow you to start with the character (not having to unlock them) in new game+ and Survival(?).

[Nethlem]

Never played the demo and finished my first loop with like 130k left. Also didn't "abuse" save/load ;)

[Syrinx]

Played badly in the demo, and had read some tips on forums before playing the full game (like how to get just combos). Managed to pay off the loan on the first loop, had 2k pix left. : D

[viila]

Made it on loop 2.

I bounced the 30k payment due to the dungeon item loss mechanic being surprise sprung on me (Tear explains it only after you're in the dungeon with your equipment). I had equipped Louie with as good gear as I could and when I died I had to write off 10 000 pix which really hurt when it was pretty much all of my money and large chunk of stock. :(

Once I got to the last week on the second loop, I had bad luck of having most of the items blue for most of the week, so I ran out of time to sell it all. On the last hour of the last day I was still about 100k short, so in desperation I sold everything I had to the guild hall, which came to total 500,814 pix and I made it!

[BlueLegion]

im on the 3rd loop. on the first loop i did a lot of marketing mistakes. i could have gotten it in the 2nd loop, but i didnt pay attention to the payment dates and messed it up.