Potentially Confusing Things Explained
That quest to raise friendship levels to 5?
Doug's friendship will be capped at 3 hearts for a good while. It's not a bug. Despite the quest appearing early, you won't be able to complete it for a long time until you complete the 2nd arc, which is well after you unlock the Floating thing (keeping it vague so no spoilers), so don't worry too much about it.
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Mildly irritating that he's just capped at three this entire time.
A number of people are at 9 and one's at 10 already.
Doug needs to get his act together! |
Soil. How does it work. Like seriously.
This subject deserves a post of it's own. See my
Soil and Crop Stats Guide.
But the key takeaways are:
- HP = needs to be above 0 or plants will disappear (use fertilizers)
- Growth = faster growth (use formulas)
- Growth+ = increase quality of crop (use greenifiers)
Screw soil. I'm just going to farm how I like, when I like.
As long as the health of your soil is above 0, go for it. If your soil health is 0, plants won't grow, or they'll die instantly.
Farming different crops on different plots will just mean your plots will level and gain stats at different rates. Understanding how soil works simply allows you to control how your crops turn out in terms of level, size and grow time.
Typhoon late Spring or early Summer
A particularly bad RNG typhoon will destroy the crops you've been leveling, your trees, your house, your family, your kids - ok not really. But the damage can be real. I had a typhoon destroy about 90% of my crops, including all my trees. This is when I restarted the game and looked up how to protect myself.
You won't be able to reload a save to avoid the typhoon, but you can reload for different damage outcome.
Effort A) You can keep your plants safe BEFORE the typhoon by using Wettable Powder* to increase your Soil's defense stat**.
If you have the
Chemistry Set, you can craft this level 30 item with
Charm Blue and Cherry Grass.
Effort B) If you've progressed enough in the storyline (this is hard to do unless you nose to the grindstone), you can unlock it at the Flower Shop, though it sells for 2,000g, and you need 2 powders for every 2x2 plot you wish to protect, so it can get pretty expensive at 4,000g a plot.
Effort C) You can ship your higher level crops and complete the quests that ask you to ship higher level crops so that the shops will start selling higher level seeds for your respective crops and effectively serve as a backup of your cultivating progress. Then, around late spring, early summer, be careful which seeds you plant.
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Defense at 32 will help keep the worst of it out, but well-
aimed typhoon RNG will still harm your plots. |
*Wettable Powder increases the Defense stat on a 2x2 plot of land. You can use the magnifying glass from the Flower shop to see the defense on each 2x2 square of land.
**You need 32 defense (two uses of Wettable Powder), to qualify to fend off one -8 hp "attack" from the typhoon. If your soil's defense drops below 32 defense points during the typhoon, it is once again susceptible to debris destroying your crops and trees.
Dungeon Seed, Sword Seed, Shield Seed -- Where Get?
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| Map of Sercerezo Hill added by user snowsiren on Rune Factory Wiki |
1) If you've unlocked Sercerezo Hill AND the current in-game date is between the 1st and 5th of the season, go to C4 shown on the map above, and the path south to D3 should be unblocked.
2) Beat the boss to get a Dungeon Seed. Plant this in a field. Best to plant in plot with decent stats to keep it safe and to get the most out of it later when you use it.
Spoilers on how to reach boss: To reach the boss, even if these are not true, jump down the pits that indicate: you are a woman, you can cook, you are a sight to behold.
3) When the seed is ready, complete the Field Dungeon and the boss will drop either a Sword or Shield Seed.
4) Armed with the seeds, you know what you must do.
Runey Weather...
...is where you see a bunch of colorful runeys rise up from all over the screen. This increases the growth rate multiplier for all your crops by 4 for that day, cutting down on total grow time of your crops.
It is my understanding that all crop effects occur at once at 6am, so This weather does not seem to increase rune spawns, crops or seeds and has no other discovered effects.
What are Free Farming Shoes?
Relatively early in Accessory Crafting, you may come across these shoes. Wearing these shoes allow you to plant seeds without the 2x2 grids within each plot to constrain where your seeds scatter.
Using Free Farming shoes, sources say it is possible to grow:
- two gigantic crops on a single plot instead of one,
- four trees on a plot and still have space to walk between the trees instead of four trees and no walking space,
- your crops into different patterns and shapes for simply visual pleasure.
However, I have not personally verified these yet (still working on finishing the story first).
Twinkle Tree. What Is It Good For?
They're the only way you can you get the Glitta Augite ore, one of the two range-increasing item upgrades (the other being Raccoon Leaf which you get much later).
Chop it for lumber and there's a moderate chance the Glitta will drop. As long as you ensure the tree's HP (not to be confused with the tree's soil's HP -- see
my Soil Guide to learn how to distinguish between the two) doesn't hit 0, you can keep tapping that tree.
My party member has a treasure icon over their head, but I don't see any chests.
This means there's a hidden item somewhere near them. Poke around near where they were standing when this happened until you see a red cursor mark that you can interact with. Finding hidden items levels up your hidden item skill.
General Tips
Know Your Control Shortcuts
- L + R + Start : Soft reset to main menu.
- Hold R : Puts you into walk mode to sneak past most monsters.
- Hold A : Continuously pick up more items identical to the one you're holding. Good for clearing fields of sticks, weeds, etc.
- Hold Y : During conversations to speed through them.
- From your notebook in the bottom left touch screen, press L for calendar, R for shipping list.
Sleeping Explained
- Sleep before 1am to gain sleep skill experience.
- Sleep before 6am to fully replenish HP/RP the next day.
- Sleeping after 5:59am will give you the fatigue status.
- Sleeping late after getting fatigue status from lack of sleep (as to from items or monsters) will give you a cold.
Raven's Shop - Skip the Farm and Just Buy It
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Raven will sell anything from low level to boss drops - as long as
you've shipped at least one of it. |
The game doesn't tell you, but after you've shipped an item, there is a chance Raven will begin selling it at the item's sell price. Don't want to farm Old Bandages? Hard to come by Invisible Stone? Ship one and she might just begin selling them (at full price).
This goes for boss drops too, but boss drops often carry a much heftier price tag.
Arthur's Shop - Basically the Black Market
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At this point in the game, I had just upgraded to a 370ish ATK weapon.
And then I saw this. |
Arthur will sell items even if you have not shipped them -- including advanced armor and weaponry that can really help you
slingshot ahead in the storyline without waiting for your crafting and forging levels to catch up.
Early to mid-game, be sure to redeem your
Play Coins when you do catch him in his office. I generally accept the offer if the going rate is above 220 gold per Play Coin because what else am I going to do with my capped out Play Coins?
Shady guy Arthur is,
you'll rarely find him in his office when you need him. Get that slimy git to work by having him join your party, drag him into his office, and talk to him.
All kidding aside though, Arthur's a great guy.
Higher Level Seeds at Shops
Once you've completed the quest to unlock higher level seeds you can
ship a higher level crop or seed to be able to buy seeds at a higher level. The quest will be something like "Ship a Level 2/6/10 crop."
E.g. You ship a level 7 turnip. You should be able to buy level 7 turnip seeds provided you completed the respective quest.
Leveling trees requires you to scythe the tree and ship the leveld up seeds. You can harvest the fruits before scything and still obtain seeds.
Things to Save
- Withered grass. Use other cheap grasses for your fertilizer bin, but save these to increase your soil's HP, cause corn and clover are expensive and hard to come by.
- Charm Blue and Cherry Grass. Ship one as you increase their levels to increase the seed levels at the Flower Shop, but if you plan on protecting your crops and trees from Typhoon, you'll need these to craft Wettable Powder at your Chemistry Lab.
- Lumber and Material Stone. I grab these when I see them, save them up, and still find myself badly wanting after a few Orders. Mostly for convenience upgrades like expansions for Monster Barn, Farm, Room, Storage Chest...etc.
Monsters to Tame
How to tame:
- Have a monster barn with space open (four to a room).
- Brush monster 15 times (or until music note stops appearing when brushing)
- Use item produced by monster on monster for max efficiency (can obtain by killing other monsters prior to attempt).
Alternatively, use any cheap junk laying around like rocks, grasses. Lower success chance, but works.
- Keep feeding monster items until speech bubble yields a Heart permanently.
In order of appearance, I found these to be most helpful.
Selphia Plains
Buffamoo x4 (Milk) Used very often in cooking.
Cluckadoodle x4 (Egg) Used very often in cooking.
Wooly (Wool) x1 A single one eventually yields 2-6 high level wool daily with clipping. Great for upgrade spamming to level forge/crafting.
Yokmir Cave
Killer Ant x1 (Pretty Carapace) Can spam crafts for leveling. Can release when not useful.
Yokmir Cave
Hornet x2-4 (Honey) Sells for 600-1000g. Good money until cooking reaches ~40ish. Can release some later in the game when the honey is less useful.
Silver Wolf (Wolf Fang) Can spam crafts for leveling.
Obsidian Mansion
Spider (Spider Thread) x1 Can spam crafts and upgrades for leveling. Can release later when less useful or upgraded monster.
Delirium Lava Ruins or Sercerezo Hill
Flower Lion or Flower Blossom x1 (Root) Hard to find early game, needed for a number of crafts.
Making Ends Meet Early to Late Game
- Play Coin exchange from Arthur for 2k-3.5k a day when you catch him in the office
- Honey from a Hornet
nets 700-1k each, daily.
- Cooking lvl 19 via Pot: [ Milk + [Chemistry level 5: Apple for Sweet Powder] ] for Yogurt
800-900 each and levels cooking
- Cooking lvl 28 via Frying Pan: [Egg + Milk] for Omelette
850-1k each and levels your cooking.
- Cooking lvl 20 via Oven: Yam
240-300 each. Yam harvests in large quantities and grows fast. Save your yam, and if you have extra RP before bed, spam it on these.
If you run out of rune points, there are rune flowers east of the Summer Fields and two south of the City.
After I got my cooking around level 52, this tip marked my emergence from poverty because I had to buy telecommunicators cause they were shiny. Ok, but really, this tip was very agreeable:
"I buy all of the carrots, potatoes, rice, curry powder, oil, and flour I can from Blossom's shop (in equal amounts of course.)
I then cook it into curry rice in my pot. (recipe: Rice, Curry powder, Carrot, Potato. Lvl 54)
I cook the curry rice with one flour and one oil in my frying pan and poof. Curry bread. (lvl 59 recipe) Total price to create: 4670 g each
Curry bread sells for 6k at lvl 1 to the box.
Leveled potatoes and carrots can increase the profit margin, assuming you're able to overcome all of the lvl 1 flour, oil, rice, and curry powder bits.
Myself... I sell them at my shop for a tidy markup, making about 9k each and effectively doubling the money invested, all while raising my cooking and bartering skills. Fun times." - Caidryn
Potatoes are super quick to grow and harvest in large quantities as well, so those came at a large discount. And I had carrots. I stock up the rest of the materials during one of Blossom's 10% sales.
Then I made use of that rune crystals mine near Autumn Field a whole lot cause at level 52, each Curry Rice ate a chunk of my Rune, but also satisfyingly leveled my cooking a whole lot as well.
I ground Curry Rice til around level 56 before switching to Curry Bread and made bank at the next festival.
Growing Giant Crops
Say you want a giant-sized Turnip. Use your magnifying glass and identify a 2x2 plot of soil that has the highest "Sz." (size) stat. This plot will give you the best success chance at a giant crop.
Plant the same crop in all four plots - regardless of seed level. After they've all matured and are ready to harvest, let them sit for several days longer. With luck and care (you'll still need to water them), you'll have a giant crop.
Gigantizer isn't necessary, but will greatly enhance the gigantizing process.
Tricks and Not Really Cheats
Fight Bosses More Than Once a Day
If you're reading this, you probably already know this major one. If you down a boss and use the Escape spell just after a boss drops (or doesn't) their items, but before the barriers keeping you from leaving the room disappears, you can farm the boss over and over for loot.
Immortality
Once you've unlocked the aptly named Revival Cave*, go to the room past the bone dragon boss where various grasses grow and look for the item Ayngondaia Lawn. Having this in your inventory will revive you the next time you die from causes like overusing RP while crafting or peddling, and therefore HP.
I have been transported back to the clinic while the flower was in my inventory in dungeons, however. Not sure exactly what this flower covers.
This item seems to be a semi-rare spawn.
*From the Autumn Road save point, go south twice, west once, north.
Check your Crop/Soil Stats With Other Tools
If you upgrade any tool at the Forge with a Magnifying glass, you don't have to switch between, say, your scythe and magnifying glass all the time.
Advanced Cheating
You can make all your romantic interests your girl/boyfriend simultaneously. Even if you ask one to be your boy/girlfriend while two of your current ones are sitting across the table from them eating lunch. Yay.
After establishing about four relationships, however, it appears to be a lot more difficult to take on the last fifth and sixth. This basically allows you to see all the candidate's dialogue/dates without playing the game six times or breaking up with each one.
Full List of Eliza's Requests
So you can accomplish them ahead of time for when they unlock.
From Ganhur on
fogu forum:
Get out on the Right Side of the Bed
Save before bed if and if you don't like the weather that day, soft reset (Left + Right + Start) and the weather may change.
Exceptions are Typhoons, Runey weather, and festival days, which are predetermined/hardcoded for your game.
You can also do this if you're not happy with the number of seeds that drop, the number of fruit that spawn on your trees or if a number of withered plants appear.
Reuse Field Dungeons and Twinkle Trees indefinitely
Till withered grass, corn and/or clover into the plots containing these to ensure that the CROP Health Point is high to save on time growing another.
10k Gold Mushroom
From the Idra Hill save point, go east twice.
There is a chance the HIDDEN mushroom (not a visible drop) that sells for 10k near the big mushroom at the top right, just above the west exit. If you can't find it, try bringing a pet or person so the little red chest indicator will tell you if it's there.
Some source says you can leave the screen and come back and it might respawn, but the mushroom did not respawn after multiple tries. If it does, but just has a very low respawn rate, it doesn't seem to be worth the time wasted running between screens.
Regardless, the 10k is really useful up until end-game if you happen to be in the area.
More to come later as I remember/discover.
