Tips and Tricks Thread!

[Kriby]

Just compiling some helpful goodies I've found browsing around here into a single thread. If you know any good tips or tricks please share as well!

Customers have a price in mind when they look for an item. If you get close to their expected price you'll score a NearPin exp bonus, meaning you get 15 exp instead of the base 10. If you hit it on the dot (not sure how exact you have to be) you will score the JustPin bonus of 30 exp instead of the base 10!

When you're selling stuff, if your customers don't have to haggle you will start building a combo. The combo exp award grows like so:

2->4->8->16->32->64->128 (Max)

This combo bonus is in ADDITION to your base exp amount, or any Pin bonus that applies. This means the most exp you can make in a single transaction as far as I know is 30 + 128, for a whopping 158!

Once you figure out good haggle-less prices you can score a ton of extra exp for your merchant levels. This is how I found out merchant level 10 is max in the (newest) demo!

*If you sell an item far below its value you will -not- get the combo bonus, and break your chain!

It's a good idea to store at least one or two of the cheapest item of every type. That way if someone asks for an item you don't typically like to stock you won't break your combo. Offering a very expensive item to a customer asking for an item might mean you'll run over his budget and won't be able to sell that item for its full value.

When fighting mobs in a dungeon, killing the same kind of monster consecutively starts a chain. A chain grows up to 11 and seems to cap out there. I haven't confirmed the bonuses for chaining, but judging by the speed I levelled from 1->2 when chaining blue slimes I think it's a pretty hefty exp bonus.

**WANTED** What does shop atmosphere affect?

That's all I got for now ^^

[Rincewind]

**WANTED** What does shop atmosphere affect?

Short answer: It comes into play in the full version

Long(er) Answer: It affects how much cash people bring in, and what type of people visit the store. Gaudy shop = richer customers, and so on

[Doniazade]

Different customers have vastly different price levels they will accept, the young man can often accept markups up to like 128% while the little girl gets huffy when you have the audacity of trying to sell her something at 113% BP. This applies to buying as well, though in my experience ALL customers will accept 52% of base price. Some customers will accept prices under 40% base price. Experiment or check my FAQ for data on specific customers.

Near pin and pin bonuses are incredibly important. In the long run going for pins will help you more than going for maximum profit.

Customer relationship massively affects how much money the customers bring. The more they like you the more they buy for, which means that your relationship with your customers is very very important. When a customer emotes a heart it means they gained a relationship level(or that's the theory at least). All sales give you a certain amount of relationship progress though getting pins and just bonuses speeds up the process. Higher item modifiers("Apple +4") also give a rep bonus.

Chains are generally only worth it in the Hall of Trials and on specific mob types that give massive amounts of experience(i.e Knights in the demo). Trying to chain every mob type on every floor WILL drive you absolutely insane.

Try to clear Jade Way in one go. 6-15 runs are very profitable.

Exp and reputation are generally more important than direct profit because they increase your long-term profits. Just bonus chains and pin bonuses > haggling on every customer for 10% more cash. Without good relationship with your customers you'll find it impossible to sell stuff over 2-3k.

Stuff you put in the window determines what customers you get and can trigger special events. Try putting nothing but candy in the window.

Fusion recipes vary massively in how profitable they are. The 'best' level 1 fusions are Romantic's Cape, Azure Necklace, Mermaid Boots and Survival Knife.

This game is pretty damn complex. If you think you have it all figured out, you're wrong.

My FAQ:

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1RqChiJImA_N1ZnPEwPTmY5j3JFFPvc1G0mbQWnZ4YKY

My list of known items/recipes and other little goodies:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AjtKMuArlbP-dEw0V3IyRUdsemV1a3RIVlBvdWdkNEE&gid=0

[joshrl]

It not THAT out of date. 

[Doniazade]

Something I confirmed just now:

Item modifiers have different effects for different categories. For weapons it gives +X ATK except for staves which get +X MAG. Armor gets +DEF or +MDEF. In all cases it's simply 1 extra point per modifier level.

Food gets +20% effect per modifier level. Oranges restore 25 HP baseline. A +4 Orange restores 25*(1+0.2*4)=45 HP.

[Falk]

Stuff you put in the window determines what customers you get. Try putting nothing but candy in the window.

Is something special supposed to happen? The only thing of note is I got a woman asking if I had any food. Alongside the fact that the window showcases were candy, the side table was full of candy and the center table was also all candy, I suggested more candy to her and she said "Oh, so you do have one of these!"

...Women.

[Doniazade]

Gamepad tip:

If you're using a 360 gamepad your shoulder triggers won't work since the config program refuses to recognize them. You can work around this by using a program like Xpadder to bind those to trigger keystrokes - I have LT set as O and LT set as P. You can then open the config window and use the keyboard keybinds to bind the triggers to skills or whatever you want. Voila, working perfectly. Just remember to start Xpadder when you start the game or have it set to autostart.

I use the following binds:

A confirm/attack
B cancel/skill
X item details/skill select
Y skill 3
RT skill 1
LT skill 2
LB skill 4
RB skill 5
start = pause menu
click analog stick = change camera

It's really comfortable especially since you don't have to switch skills at all in dungeons which lets you use your skills much more fluidly as Charme.

[coolnspicy]

If you unlock Charme, which you should, as she's fast, and fun to play, fighting the tentacle monsters can be risky on low health. Which Charme often has, being a thief...

The safest way to fight them, and for that matter the bouncing mushrooms and wasps which are also a pain, is to face the monster and cast her ghost skill. Then you can happily fight at a distance without risk. If you time the hits right with tentacle monsters, you can kill them in one hit as you'll be hitting them from behind!

I thought it'd be really clever to put the image behind me and walk away from monsters while able to attack them to keep them away; don't try this. I realised after dying that hitting monsters moves them in the direction you're facing, not in the direction from which you damaged them. Which way are you facing while running away? So yeah: don't try to be clever like this.


Never throw away food; always eat it. If you're near a next floor portal and have lots of health, drop the food there so you can eat it just before you drop down. Try to keep some food on your inventory at all times; even walnut bread can safe your life. If you're on half health and only halfway to levelling, eat something. You'll probably need to anyway, so it's best not to wait until it's an emergency. If you're low on food, be really, really cautious: You'll likely need some food to fight Charme on Jade Way if your skills are as bad as mine!

If you're low on health and get hit, immediately pause to evaluate the situation properly. If you'll die in one more hit and think it's possible you will get hit, eat something.

[Doniazade]

Working on a FAQ/Tips And Tricks kind of page:

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1RqChiJImA_N1ZnPEwPTmY5j3JFFPvc1G0mbQWnZ4YKY

It's a bit sparse right now but it's getting there.

[Kriby]

From the "Just what will the adventurers equip?" thread by Keynote:

After reading the last few posts on the Recettear thread in the Somethingawful forums, it seems that not letting an adventurer pre-equip the 5th slot is intentional. Using Louie as an example, his default equip types are:

Swords
Armor
Shields
Scarves

Some equip types overlap each other. It doesnt make sense to wear both an "Armor" type and "Breastplates" type at the same time. Below are the possible "tiers" (for lack of a better word) with overlaps that Louie can use.

Swords
Armor <-> Breastplates <-> Clothes
Shields <-> Bracelets
Scarves

Hats <-> Helms
Charms
Shoes
Rings

In short, no adventurer will ever buy an item for his/her fifth slot, meaning there'll always be something you could bring along to the dungeon to help the adventurer (and potentially lose!)

Most likely different adventurers will equip and upgrade different kinds of equips by default.

[Doniazade]

Lots of stuff added to the FAQ! Please contribute/request stuff you would like included - I'm continuously adding stuff.

[Doniazade]

In short, no adventurer will ever buy an item for his/her fifth slot, meaning there'll always be something you could bring along to the dungeon to help the adventurer (and potentially lose!

This was a bug and will supposedly be fixed in the full version.

[dorbabil]

In the first floor of the hall of trials, green slimes are the only thing that spawns. If you run around killing them (and you don't get a slime spawn trap) until they stop spawning, it's not hard to get louie to level 5 or 6 before continuing on by getting a chain bonus of upwards of 15-20.

Mobs always spawn in the same spot as you originally find them. So if you're going to go for chain bonuses you can easily check your minimap to see if more of whatever you're killing have spawned yet or not. This also means there's a maximum to how many of each type of monster can spawn on a map, so it can benefit you to scout out first (no sense in trying to chain those knights, for example, if there's only going to be one or two spawn points for them).

[Kriby]

In short, no adventurer will ever buy an item for his/her fifth slot, meaning there'll always be something you could bring along to the dungeon to help the adventurer (and potentially lose!

This was a bug and will supposedly be fixed in the full version.

Could you post a linky to where it says that it's a bug?

[Keynote]

A post from SpaceDrake from the somethingawful forums:

Oh, before I go to bed

~"Adventurers (not) Equipping Accessories Sold To Them" glitch fixed internally and ready for deployment on launch day~

Much like the fix to the d-pads, this will be pushed out to the demo as well... at some point.

There goes my theory xP.