Tip on Raising Skill Levels in Rune Factory Frontier

This is a common trick used by veteran players of Harvest Moon and Rune Factory but it may be useful to post it here for beginners. The information is included in my Rune Factory Frontier Guides by the way.

You can raise your Skills with respect to a particular type of weapon or tool simply by equipping it and swinging it. In Rune Factory Frontier, there are two times during the day/night when this can be done with the greatest benefit and least sacrifice of valuable energy or time.

Remember that time does not pass whenever your character enters a building. You therefore can use any Weapon or Tool inside your own Farmhouse or in any other building while time stands still. Energy, however, WILL be used.

The two best opportunities to increase Weapons and Tools Skill Levels in this way are whenever you go to the Laga Springs Bathhouse and whenever you return to your Farmhouse at the very end of your day.

Whenever your character take a Bath at the Laga Springs Bathhouse, all Energy is restored and both Health and RP bars are refilled. It therefore is wasteful for your character ever to leap into the bath before he has used almost ALL of his HP and RP. To do this, equip any Tool or Weapon and use it in the Bathhouse until your energy reaches the flashing red indication that respresents dangerously low levels.
Remember that every Tool has its own specific Skill and that Weapons and Magic are two different skills as well. Often a player will focus on one to the exclusion of the other in combat situations... if so, equip the type of Weapon in which your Skill Levels are lowest whenever you go to the Laga Springs Bathhouse or return to your Farmhouse at the end of the day.

When all your chores and tasks are completed and you are ready to leap into bed, do not do so without expending whatever excess energy remains. Remember, however, that you need to go to bed before 1.00 a.m. if you wish to awaken at 6.00 a.m. with both HP and RP fully replenished. Provided you go to bed before 1.00 a.m., you can use your energy to the point where the red flashing indication is displayed and still awaken in good health at 6.00 a.m.

If you employ this strategy on a daily basis, increasing skill levels that otherwise are not used sufficiently, you will be able to increase ALL Skill Levels to maximum without any difficulty.

Help with Dialogue Appearance in Rune Factory Frontier

I'd like to enlist the help of any players who would be willing to log their results in Rune Factory Frontier with respect to the appearance of dialogue that involves skill levels. I would like to know what triggers its appearance, whether it is the actual skill Level attained by yoru character, heart level or simply the date and year.

For example, Bianca mentions that your cooking has improved. At the same time, a letter arrives from Tart expressing amazement at your Cooking ability. These both occurred at the beginning of Spring in the 2nd year in my game. Is this the case with respect to all players?

A number of characters similarly mentioned an increase in my character's ability in combat and Ganesha mentioned an improvement in my character's forging skills...

I would be very interested to know when these dialogues appeared in the games of other players.

Thanks!

When Ingredients are not Wasted in Rune Factory 2

Players who have spent some time in the Workshop slaving away over a hot forge or stove, wondering if the ingredients they have worked long and hard to collect will be wasted or not in an unsuccessful attempt to create a new item may or may not have noted the conditions under which your ingredients are returned to your Rucksack.

First, any unsuccessful attempt to create ANY item at the Forge or Workbench will not waste any ingredients. Your ingredients ALWAYS will be returned intact to your Rucksack if your attempt to create an item fails. The reason for this is because nothing is created in a failed attempt. Furthermore, the raw ingredients can sustain ‘damage’ and still be used again. A lump of ore that has been heated at the forge and yet has failed to become the desired item remains a lump of ore that can be used in another experiment.

In the Kitchen, however, a different set of rules prevails. There are two situations, each of which is subject to its own unique rule:

First, if you follow any recipe and it does not succeed because you have less than 100% chance of creating the dish, your ingredients will be lost as you will create a FAILED DISH. A FAILED DISH is an item and thus, the ingredients were used to create it. That is why they will not be returned to your Rucksack.

The other situation is when you use ingredients to create a dish that does not exist. In other words, when you use the WRONG ingredients in the Kitchen, your ingredients will NOT result in the creation of any item. In this situation, your ingredients will be returned to your rucksack intact.

An example of this would be when you sling a Yam into the Mixer by accident. You will see the 'FAILURE!' prompt and the Yam will reappear in your Rucksack. As there is no Recipe for pureed Yam, the Mixer will not accept the Yam. Do not forget, however, that ANY work conducted in the Workshop, however impossible it may be in terms of achieving a result, WILL USE ENERGY!

Finally, the more difficult the Recipe in terms of Skill Levels, the more experience it will bring, even if the result is unsuccessful. In other words, attempting a Recipe that has only 1% chance of success, whether in the Kitchen, the Forge, Workbench or Pharmacy will give you more experience towards the next Level of Skill than a Recipe that has 100% chance of success.

I do suggest that players attempt the easiest Recipes again and again when they first obtain their Workshop and fittings but once you have reached a decent level of Skill, you may wish to attempt very difficult Recipes with little chance of success in order to increase your Skill Levels more quickly with the most difficult Recipes in view. There are Recipes designated for maximum 99 Skill Levels.

Bear in mind the fact that the Skill Level assigned to any Recipe is the Level that guarantees a successful result, not the Level required to create the item successfully.

When your Heart is set on an Item in Rune Factory 2

I probably should add this as a postcript to an existing post about Weapons and Accessories but for those who like posts that deal only with ONE topic, I will keep it separate.

If your heart is set on a specific Weapon or Accessory in Rune Factory 2, but it is not sold by Tanya and you haven't the skill to make it yet, you have two options:

1. Make Weapons/Accessories that require LESS skill until you raise your experience level to the point where you do have sufficient skill to make the desired item; or...
2. Stubbornly attempt the project at your Forge or Workbench again and again until it is successful.

The first option is the obvious one, but the second actually is a possible choice. You may see a '0% success rate' when you first begin to attempt the project but that WILL change. Depending on your current Skill Level and the Skill Level required to create the item successfully, it may appear to take FOREVER before your attempts meet with success but success WILL occur at some point.

Remember that the Success Rate percentage displayed in the Forge or Workbench box when it reaches 100% is that required to gurantee success. At any lower percentage, that simply represents your chances of success when you attempt the project. At 0% success, you have NO chance of succeeding, but each attempt will increase your Skill levels.

Although the next percentage level from zero is only 1% success rate, the level after 1% is 10%, a significant increase. I have made many Weapons and Accessories successfully with nothing more than 10% success rate in the box.

It is a very tedious option, however, and I would recommend that players raise their skill levels by making items that have good success rate percentages, then upgrading them to Level 10 at the Forge or Workbench as advised in my General Guide. Using those upgraded items as ingredients to create better items will result in a new item with a higher Level than Level 1, so your labours will not have been wasted.

The only reason I have attempted Weapons or Accessories when I still had only a zero or 1% chance of succeeding was to use rare ingredients that I did not wish to store any longer. Storage space ALWAYS is a problem for me in Harvest Moon. It can be even more of a problem in a game like Rune Factory or Rune Factory 2, where War Trophies are not always Level 1 and therefore may not be stackable, even when they are the same generic types. That can be a problem both on the field of battle and at home. The Skill Seals that you obtain from Barrett in the 2nd Generation quickly can fill your Rucksack and leave your character with few empty slots when he/she goes out to fight. When you then obtain three items that are the same type but all at different levels, that makes your life even more difficult. Other players may not have a psychological problem where tossing out items is concerned, but I do. Trained by other Harvest Moon games NEVER to litter, it is difficult for me to toss out a Level 1 War Trophy or a piece of ore when there is no slot for it in my Rucksack. My packrat instincts further limit my choices.

In any event, the reason for this post is to assure players that, if they actually salivate at the prospect of obtaining a specific Weapon or Accessory when their Skill levels remain insufficient to create it, provided always that they have a supply of Rune Points in their field to restore energy levels lost a the Forge or the Workbench, they can attempt the ambitious project again and again and again, ad nauseum, until they emerge with the item of their dreams!

Easy Accessory Projects in Rune Factory 2

I believe I have discussed this in another post that deals with Lessons in the 2nd Generation of Rune Factory, but it may be useful, especially for Harvest Moon players with little experience in playing traditional RPG games, to continue this topic.

Rune Factory 2 includes all basic aspects of any Harvest Moon game such as farming, ranching, fishing, and mining as well as that of collecting items. The combat option, however, adds a new dimension to the 'collecting' aspect of the game.

Monsters who drop 'War Trophies' must be defeated in order to yield an item. They do not drop a Chest containing an item every time you defeat them, but it is a result that will occur periodically. Taking a Monster Ally with you into combat appears to increase your chances of obtaining War Trophies somewhat. It depends somewhat on the type of Monster as each has his/her own distinctive method of fighting. I have found the Wolves, both the Silver and Hunter varieties to be wonderful procurers of War Trophies in the Caves.

The purpose of this post, however, is to discuss Accessories rather than War Trophies.

A player with little experience of RPG games may underestimate the important of choosing the right weapon and equipment for combat in any given situation. He/she further may underestimate the need to raise experience and Skill Levels for the purpose of defeating Monsters (or taming them!)

Increasing skills in forging and creating Accessories are the key to obtaining the best weapons and equipment in Rune Factory 2. Although some weapons and accessories can be obtained by completing Requests, they are not the best that will become available to you provided you have sufficient skill levels to make them yourself.

A traditional Harvest Moon player with no RPG experience must learn how to interpret the descriptions of Weapons and Equipment in order to maximise success and minimise pain and loss.

For example, if you go to the Blacksmith to buy an Accessory, you may find the Field Gloves a little lacking in value if you do not pay close attention to your Statistics. After all, the item has zero Defence capability.

Field Gloves: Level 1, Defence 0
Protect your hands from blisters and calluses. No farmer should be without a pair.
STR up, BODY up

Is there any point in buying them, apart from their potential use as an ingredient in a Recipe to create something better?

In fact, by 'upgrading' the Field Gloves at your Workbench, you can make them into a rather marvelous Accessory in the early stages of the 2nd Generation.

You will find that there is an option to ‘upgrade’ basic items in the 2nd Generation. You can do this at the Forge or Workbench or you can trade over wi-fi with another player to increase the levels of your items. It is better to do it at your own Forge or Workbench for one simple but important reason: doing so will increase your own Skill Levels.

You will use materials each time you upgrade an item but the advantage in terms of increasing both Skill Levels and the power of the item itself are significant.

As the Field Gloves increases both Strength and Body, you will find the following effects with Level 7 Field Gloves. All it takes to upgrade the Field Gloves, by the way, is a single piece of CHEAP CLOTH.

Field Gloves: Level 7, Defence 6
Protect your hands from blisters and calluses. No farmer should be without a pair.
Increases STR and BODY: +5 STR +5 ATK +1 DEF +1 VIT

Another example of an easy upgrade is the ‘Cheap Bracelet’.
A Level 1 basic Cheap Bracelet has the following values:

Cheap Bracelet: 740G
Level 1; Defence: 1
Selling Price: 370G

Cheap Bracelet: Level 10, Defence 11

Each time you upgrade it at your Workbench, you will raise ALL values, including the Selling Price. You only need two pieces of Iron to perform an upgrade to this Bracelet. It is worth doing for the increase in your own Skill Levels if not for its own sake, although three upgrades to the Cheap Bracelet will increase its Defence point value to 4 and at the maximum level of upgrade, Level 10, as shown, it will give you 11 Defence Points!

When your Skill Levels increase a little, you should make upgrades to your Leather Boots. Only one piece of Bronze is required for each upgrade to the Leather Boots and each will raise your Defence by 1 Point.

Again, another reason for performing the Upgrades is to increase your Skills at the Workbench. Otherwise, you never will be able to make a ‘better’ class of Accessories.

Granted, a Silver or Gold Bracelet is superior to the Cheap Bracelet even before these superior Bracelets have been upgraded. It does require a far higher level of skill at the Workbench to create either, however, not to mention all the Gold and Silver in each.

Make maximum upgrades to the most basic low-level Weapons and Accessories to increase your Skill Levels as well as improving the only Weapons and Accessories available to you in the early stages of the 2nd Generation. As time passes, you will raise your Skill Levels to the point where you can create better items.

Meanwhile, Accessories with Defence Points really can make a big difference in combat. This may appear obvious to some, but all the emails I have received both with respect to the original Rune Factory and Rune Factory 2 have made it clear to me that a large percentage of players really are oblivious to the fundamental rules of an RPG game. They go into the Caves with a bsic weapon, no shield, and no Accessories and then wonder why their HP is reduced to zero before they can make any progress against their targets. Defence is as important in any RPG as your character's ability to Attack. Rune Factory and Rune Factory 2 may be 'Fantasy Harvest Moon' games with all the best elements of ANY Harvest Moon game, but they are RPGs as well.

Monsters in the 2nd Generation of Rune Factory 2

Some players expressed some concern that, if they spent too much time in the 1st Generation polishing their Skills, they would not find the 2nd Generation challenging enough in terms of combat.

Let me assure these players that this will NOT be the case by any means! I did not have my combat levels quite at maximum when I moved forward to the 2nd generation in my test game but, even so, my Skills were more than decent both in regular Weapons and in Magic. Nonetheless, there are Monsters in the 2nd Generation who could 'knock my socks off' as it were. I could defeat any Monster ultimately but it wasn't easy in every case.

It does appear that one will meet with the best success if one follows the Seasons in terms of exploring 2nd Generation Caves. That is how the game intended progression to occur and it does make sense, although you can change the order if you like. As a matter of fact, in my very first day in the 2nd Generation, I walked to the northern screen in the Trieste Forest rather carelessly and thereby encountered the 'Boss' Monster in the form of the Terror Tree. I actually was able to defeat him without any of the 2nd Generation Magic Spells like Cure... and indeed it does not affect the plot much to do things out of order. I didn't save the result, however, as I wanted to experience dialogues with characters BEFORE I bested that particular Monster.

There are 'ordinary' Monsters who can be more challenging than the 'Boss' Monsters actually. It is even more challenging when you wish to tame a Monster rather than defeat it.

The Blackbirds in the 2nd Generation will destroy stumps on your field for you but they are both very vicious and fast, with multiple attacks that can reduce your HP to zero in an instant if you fail to use 'Cure'. While engaged in petting them to try to tame them, you must endure punishing attacks. They are very useful, however, until you are able to increase your Forging Skills to the point where you can upgrade your Tools. Recipes in general take time to learn, as neither Mana nor Barreet will teach more than two lessons each day and the holiday is a true holiday in terms of School attendance. (I use the term 'Recipes' not only for Cooked Dishes but for the Forge and Pharmacy.)

I am updating my Rune Factory 2 General Guide with 2nd Generation material as quickly as I can. Among other things, I have added to the Bestiary...

It is only in the 2nd Generation that you can encounter the adorable Chipsqueek Monster. It is fitting that he was chosen as the plush toy for Rune Factory 2.

N.B. The miniature sword in the photograph has a damascus steel blade and carved mammoth ivory handle. I'm afraid that the blade has been neglected a little and needs to be both oiled and sharpened! It is a 'working' sword of tempered Damascus, even if it is sized for a pocket princeling or pocket Valkyrie.