Some helpful tips for maxing out your production skills efficiently.
I thought I’d throw some helpful tips…so here. *This guide has area name spoilers for the first 2 arcs. None of the names have meaning except maybe a couple, so I spoiler tagged those just in case.
1. Collect Grass (they are all useful). Reach arc 2, grind Prince Points and pass the Nationalize Baths order. This will make baths free forever. (a lot of this can be used before then, but the bath cost amps up quite quickly, so it’s not as viable before then)
2. Turn the bathhouse into your own personal workshop. Put your forge, crafting station, chemical lab and whatever cooking stations you want here.
3. To max forging and crafting:
3-1a) For forging, make a bunch of Broadswords (short sword), using 1 iron each.
3-1b) For crafting, make a bunch of Small Shields, using 1 iron each.
3-2) Upgrade your Broadsword/Small Shield with grass, specifically:
- LV1 Green Grass, from Selphia Plains
- LV5 Purple Grass, from Selphia Plains
- LV8 Antidote Grass, from everywhere
- LV11 for Blue Grass, from Selphia Plains and Yokmir Forest
- LV23 Black Grass, from Obsidian Mansion
- LV29 Indigo Grass, from Maya Road
- LV39 Yellow Grass, from Autumn Road
- LV40 Red Grass, from Delirium Lava Ruins
- LV48 Orange Grass, from Sercerezo Hill
- LV65 White Grass, from Delirium Lava Ruins
*Don’t Upgrade past your skill LV.
**You get diminishing exp returns on using grass below your level, but you don’t need to immediately move to the next grass upon reaching that difficulty rating, since the RP cost is still prohibitive and the increased gains aren’t immediately noticeable.
***Once you’ve shipped a grass, it will be among the random selection to purchase in the flower shop, for 120g/each (less on sale). Just stock up like crazy. Arthur also sometimes sells them, at equal cost.
^You want the grass you are using to be next to the OK, so you can go between them with 1 button press. If using a controller, you can brush your thumb across both buttons to quickly load another grass and upgrade.
3) Upgrading without the needed RP will eat 1/4 of you health. You can upgrade 3 times by consuming health. Any more and you risk Jones taking 50% or more of your money. You might randomly get Nancy instead, who will heal you for free. Be careful.
4) Once at 1/4 health and no RP, walk a few steps, chat up Xiao Pai or Lin Fa and take a bath–recovering full HP and RP FOR FREE, and almost no time used (this also quickly levels up your bathing LV). With enough hearts you can party with them and do this all night if you want to. (I don’t recommend this though. Better to stop around 5:50AM, warp to your room and sleep, cause you also want to LVL up Sleep too!) I maxed crafting from LV0 in 1.5 days.
5) Maxing Medicine making and Cooking is slightly more arduous, since you can’t upgrade. Just bulk produce recipes with few ingredients that you can mass farm. For medicine, use Grass-needing recipes when possible. For cooking, just fill a field with whatever. When you can make Strawberry Juice, spam that (it’s a great money maker) until you can make Pineapple Juice (it’s the second best money maker after Golden Juice). Don’t forget the seasonal fields. They are permanently 1 season, so are useful for year-round whatever.
Extra
• Sleeping at 8:00PM is the same as sleeping at 5:59AM. As long as it is before 6AM, you are rested and get Sleep experience.
• You can kill a boss, have its loot drop, gain the RP, then use the Return spell BEFORE the barrier disappears to have the boss respawn when you next enter on the same day. Good for RP/drop farming.
• You can craft/forge up to 2x your max RP in cost. It fails after that. Relax Tea is very useful for temporarily increasing your max RP.
• Scarves can be used to slightly decrease the production cost also.
• Mass making equipment without the needed materials or forging/crafting with Scrap Iron will eventual produce Scrap Iron+, which decreases your inflicted damage to 1. Put into a weapon along with Raccoon Leaf and Glitta Argite (for increased range) will make a weapon that can hit the whole screen for 1 damage. In Leon Karnak, in a room on the right side are a bunch of Chipsqueeks (squirrels). Usually normal, occasionally a very slightly lighter coloured one appears. This legendary Mineral Squeek only has 4 HP *hint hint*. Damaging it causes it drop either 2-Fold Steel (when used in upgrading, doubles the last upgrade), or more rarely the almighty 10-Fold Steel (increases the last upgrade +800%). You. Want. These. If you use the Rail Strike arte a couple steps into the room, it will pull in all the enemies, hit them all 4+ times, and backstep you to the previous screen. Enter > Rail Strike > grab Fold Steel loot when it drops > repeat until sleep time.
- Gltta Argite comes from the Shining Tree. 2 screens left and 1 screen up from the Obsidian Mansion is a tree that you can interact with. It will randomly give a fruit tree seed or the Shining Tree seed.
- Raccoon Leaf comes from a boss in Sercerezo Hill only accessible during the first 5 days of each month. It is also the only way to get Sword/Shield/Dungeon seeds.
• When charging the hammer/axe to hit all rocks/wood in a wider area, repeatedly hitting after the initial will keep hitting EVERYTHING multiple times. Items start disappearing after 20ish.
• Forging and Crafting in this game is surprisingly deep. The “Be a Better Blacksmith” pinned topic on gamefaqs’s RF4 forum is VERY useful, and certainly worth a read.
