Hello everyone!

I am new to the game overall as you can tell from my not so great times in FR any%, but messing around in NG+ I think I managed to find something that might make brand missions consistent. I noticed that the brands don't change between days so long as there aren't any battles, and that they only change after a 4-chain if you use unbranded pins and have no clothes on. You can watch me messing around with it here () but feel free to go and mess around with it and see if its replicatable or if I just got insanely lucky. I was able to replicate it a decent amount of times so I do think its consistent and could shake the route up for DS and FR at least a little.

Huge shout out to magicalmace for labbing this, as this is a significant time save. I can confirm that the brands can be manipulated before the brand walls. Here's what we know with 100% certainty:

• The brand map does not change when the days change.

• The brand map changes under certain conditions after a fight with a results screen. (Dodge Beat fights don't affect it.)

• For FR, this could mean that there's a way to reliably skip both the NP (W2D3) and DB (W2D5) brand walls. Setting up the NP skip can be done while farming Tektite. Setting up the DB skip involves doing the AMX 4-chain wall at Scramble Crossing.

• For DS, skipping the NP wall is clunky, as Tin Pin Custom and Ichimonji are obtained at the end of W2D2. But the DB skip is good and will be incorporated into the run.

And this is what needs testing:

• It appears as though doing the W2D3 Cadoi 3-chain with unbranded pins and no clothes does not affect the map. For FR, this is the only fight that needs to be done on D3 before the NP wall, as the Pop Pendulum wall is cleared by getting the pin on D2.

• Is it possible to manipulate the Scramble Crossing brand to NP/DB without fighting there?