Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Due to their high Magic Defense, it would require you to pump up Aika's Will with Icyl Seeds to reach a level where you could reliably one-shot the higher tier Loopers with Omega Psyclone (even with Will-increasing equipment taken into account, like the Focus Robe). Similarly, at least using South Ocean as the grinding spot, even after the hours required to reach 2500 enemies, you still don't get anywhere close to the over all level you would need to be getting 14 SP at the beginning of a battle to swap out for Rain of Swords.

Bosses in the latter half of the game don't take as many turns as you'd think outside of the bounty fights, but because those level with you, your relative strength is rather irrelevant for those. I can't say for sure since I haven't tested it, but I doubt moving the grinding spot to that location would result in any sizable difference in the battles after that point, even taking into account a larger than average amount of money for Paranta Seeds.

At the moment, what I'm doing for encounters is fighting anything I run into through the course of the game (which helps for both enemy count and reaching the three Swashbuckler Rating "checkpoints" in the game) and then grinding in South Ocean at the end of the run.

South Ocean has the second highest enemy to encounter ratio in the game (just barely losing out to Looper Land); said encounters can be easily cleared in one turn with Aika's Omega Psyclone (unlike Looper Land) and have a chance to drop a Black Map if you don't have one already.

Unfortunately, enemy to encounter ratio is the only thing I can use to measure encounter efficiency at the moment. It's quite possible that some areas in the game have higher encounter rates than others, which would affect grinding efficiency, but that sort of data hasn't been mined from the game that I can find and my attempts to contact the people that have successfully data mined the game in the past have met with no meaningful results.

I will be looking into your idea for the searchlights in the Grand Fortress, though, as I hadn't considered that. If the down time between encounters is quick, there's a decent number of enemies, and there's a good way at that point in the game to clear the battles quickly, that might be a worthwhile alternative. Might make the bounty fight right after that point a little less painful too.

I consider it getting them; partially because it "proves" that you met the requirements (several of my test runs I've THOUGHT I'd met the requirements, but had miscounted on enemies or ship battles at some point and had to go back and fix it) but also partially because otherwise you wouldn't really feel any... pay off, I guess, to the ~3-4 hours of grinding you have to do at the end of the game to reach 2500 enemies. Plus Air Pirate Vigoro meets all the requirements for an "actual boss fight" that I listed that Elcian doesn't qualify for.

...Also, I find it rather vindicating to show how easy said boss fight can be with the proper set-up. Resist gear in this game is SO broken.

From my notes:

What do I constitute as 100%?

-Vyse the Legend Rank --100% Discoveries Reported --100% Treasure Chests Opened --All Bounties Reported --Complete Doc/Maria/Piastol Side Quest

-The Three Secrets --All of the above, plus: --12 Non-Story Ship Battles --Kill All 4 Giant Monsters --Recruit All Crew Members --Kill 2500+ Enemies

-All Chams (Final Cupil)

Considering I'm the only one seriously routing 100% right now (that I'm aware of). This is the current working definition of the category. While I considered including Elcian, because the game does not treat it as a boss fight (normal fight music), it has no story segments, it doesn't count towards any of the achievements normally associated with 100%, it has no unique drops, and is a repeatable, untracked fight, I don't consider it necessary to do, similar to fully upgrading Crescent Isle.

I'm not above adding it in if it's something that people would consider necessary for the category, however.

I actually "finished" my theoretical notes the other day. Seeing as there isn't really a way to play the game on a handheld device, my only option during down time at work is to read FAQs, watch the Any% run, and watch YouTube videos for reference (mostly yours, actually). Granted, I feel like I got a lot done that way, but most of said notes need to be refined through actual gameplay, as evidenced by some of my recent blundering attempts on stream to get around to things.

But yeah, I noticed the issue with the 2500 kills. My initial thought was, "Well, okay, I guess you just can't run from anything until after you recruit Ryu-kan and defeat Vize the Legend." since those are the only two things reliant on Swashbuckler rating, but then I got to the old video where you went to Hamachou Island and it was something on the order of, "Ran 0 times, 1100-something enemies killed" and I was like, "Oh... oh ¤¤¤¤." I get the feeling that the White Map/Stealth Ring combo is just going to have very limited use in a 100% run.

But because you're more powerful at any given time in the 100% run, that also means we might need to re-evaluate where to use the Auras of Valor too. Outside of a godsend drop, you get three in a 100% run, vs. the Any%'s two, and I'm heavily contemplating using them in some of the bounty fights, especially the Ixa'ness Demons and Daikokuya.

I've actually been working on this off and on. My rough notes go up to a little after you get the Delphinus, but most of it is theoretical, as I don't have a lot of free time on my hands at the moment to actually sit down and play the game to test things.

Honestly, I think the biggest obstacle (other than stamina for finishing) is going to be figuring out how many battles you can feasibly run away from. Ideally you're going to want to be able to recruit Ryu-kan as soon as possible, but the current Any% route has a LOT of running away, which positively kills your Swashbuckler rating. In a 100% run you're going to want to be fighting a lot more battles anyway (to hit that 2500 enemies mark), but there are still plenty of fights you're just not going to want to do (for time or resource reasons). Fights with Grouders on Shrine Island or the soldiers on top of the train in the early game come readily to mind, but I'm sure there's quite a few others.

I saw mention in another topic that there was a Discord for people running this game. I'd love a more real-time way to discuss speedrunning this, so... a link, perhaps?