The game does a terrible job explaining the significance of splitting your party properly

[nettan]

Mind you, this is coming from a first-timer, so the veterans here might not agree with me, but here goes.
- So right after finding Terra in Zozo you're asked to split the party to go to the Opera house and follow up with infiltrating Vector right after. I chose Gau along with Locke & Celes. I opted to keep the party "balanced" in case I had to swap to the other team along the way. Man, was this not balanced in the slightest. During the tougher fights in this whole arc you're down to Locke+whoever else you bring with you. Since Gau was relegated to being locked into Rage, that meant I had to rely on Locke to do most commands during combat. During Ultros fight, Locke got one-shot, and Gau was already locked into rage, so I had to sit watch a 3min fight unfold in which I resisted or dodged maybe 9/10 attacks. I doubt this is programmed and I reckon I just got lucky. At this point I started realizing my mistake and wanted to swap new ppl into the party, but NOPE, time for another couple of hours into Vector!
I got my arse absolutely handed to me. During the railroad part I used up every high-end consumable I had to stay alive and still had to reload multiple times. I also wiped on the mechanic arms holding the airship down due to getting stuck in a loop where Gau was locked into spell casting rage, healing one of the arms to the point of me not being able to bring it down.
When this whole ordeal was over with I breathed a sigh of relief and concluded that if I were ever to get a party splitting prompt again, I will look up a guide beforehand.
This section of the game should've been fun and engaging, but became tedious and unnecessarily tough due to my ignorance, and I dare call that bad game design.

Anyone else here pulling an equally big mistake with the party splits?

[landmine36]

Sounds more like your issue was you didn't use good rages, or learn any from the veldt, Gau is easily one of the most powerful characters in the game, especially in the WoB portion.

also you could have loaded your save file from before Ultros, since you were having trouble in that fight, go back to narshe and change your party out.

At no point in the game do you "swap" parties, except for very specific dungeons, and sequences, that will have you setup 2 or 3 parties not just 1 party since at this point it only makes you setup 1 party(you've already seen the multi party setup screen at the battle to defend Narshe, so you SHOULD be familiar with it by that point) you should be fully aware there is not group swapping, the closest exception is the choose a scenario section, and it's very laid out with what you have to work with.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Originally posted by netc0rd:

... I got my arse absolutely handed to me. During the railroad part I used up every high-end consumable I had to stay alive and still had to reload multiple times. ...

This was a lot less of an issue in the original game where, they had this really nifty feature that they implemented where, when you died / got a game over, it would reload your last save point BUT... you'd keep all of the experience & level ups & stat boosts that you gained while playing.

In that regard, the original version both respected your time better & also wouldn't allow you to get stuck in nearly broken situations like this. I am extremely disappointed that they removed that feature from this version of the game & I hope that they add it back in via an update - of course, for them to make that choice, they'd first have to remember it & realize WHY it was so important in the first place.



[Side-note: as an aspiring game developer, I'm going to be adding that feature into any of my own RPGs that I work on & Square Enix is responsible for the idea - I first encountered it in Super Mario RPG. If an (aspiring) indie-dev can recognize the importance of this feature, a professional game development company should be doing better in this regard & not discarding what was one of their best gameplay design mechanics that they came up with. ]

[Melodia]

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

[Side-note: as an aspiring game developer, I'm going to be adding that feature into any of my own RPGs that I work on & Square Enix is responsible for the idea - I first encountered it in Super Mario RPG. If an (aspiring) indie-dev can recognize the importance of this feature, a professional game development company should be doing better in this regard & not discarding what was one of their best gameplay design mechanics that they came up with. ]

:thepro:

I've seen many people deride this feature because "you lose out on stats from Espers".
And note that FFVI is the only game in the series that does that -- it's not even until 13 where they changed it from "game over, go to last save" and 13 just lets you retry if you lose (I forget what 15 does, I wanna say it's back to go to last save but it auto-saves frequently and you can save anywhere).
(Incidently FFMQ also has the 'retry if you lose mechanic which was probably implemented for difficulty reasons)
Regardless, what i'm saying here if I think that Square considered it a failed experimental feature. not a success in the wake of 'respcting the player'. I was, honestly, surprised at first that it wasn't in the PR but given all the changes the PRs actually have from the originals, and attempts to make them all have the same presentation, it's not too surprising.

[Minneyar]

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

I am extremely disappointed that they removed that feature from this version of the game & I hope that they add it back in via an update

That was probably a bug, actually. When the game "reloads" your last save after you die, it fails to clear certain flags from memory. The most well-known glitch is that it fails to clear the "has an airship" flag, so if you save as soon as you're outside of Narshe at the beginning of the game, play until you have an airship, and then die, now you'll be back at Narshe but have the airship. Similarly, keeping any XP you earned since you last saved was probably a glitch.

[deadbeef]

Why did you select only three characters for the trip? The game gives you no indication that you should use anything other than a full party. If the game DID expect you to have two, separate, "balanced" parties, and gave no indication of that, then that would be poor game design. But as it stands, you just assumed something, with no good reason for making that assumption.

During the opera house sequence, you could have hiked back to Narshe and filled up your party, and the game even told you as much when you were leaving Zozo. Although I will agree that the fact that you aren't given any ability to change your party out during the whole Vector sequence is not great design.

[Terra]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

I am extremely disappointed that they removed that feature from this version of the game & I hope that they add it back in via an update

That was probably a bug, actually. When the game "reloads" your last save after you die, it fails to clear certain flags from memory. The most well-known glitch is that it fails to clear the "has an airship" flag, so if you save as soon as you're outside of Narshe at the beginning of the game, play until you have an airship, and then die, now you'll be back at Narshe but have the airship. Similarly, keeping any XP you earned since you last saved was probably a glitch.

I think there was also a bug where if you happened to die like 60 times in a row, it'd corrupt your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ save.

I doubt they coded the same glitch into the new engine, but it was such a niche feature that very few people knew existed - seriously, the assumption was that if you got a game over you'd reload a save until the PS3/360 era. They probably just didn't go through the effort when a "reload from last save" prompt is basically the same thing.

[Leviathan]

Yeah, that's what happens when you don't use all your characters. You could choose a party of one person and the game difficulty is not going to scale down for you.

I like using Gau with Templar for an early rage. He gets Thundara which is really strong (at least until you get Ramuh). After Zozo he's still really useful but if you want more control you may want to avoid using him for now.

That said, before Zozo there is the one time you want to use only three characters. So that you can talk to Shadow.

[Melodia]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

That was probably a bug, actually.

While I'm not an expert, I have read lots about bugs in this game. And I've NEVER heard that this was any sort of bug -- and it's such an obvious behavior that at least by GBA it should have been fixed if it wasn't intended.

[Watcher Rat]

Gau is one of the more powerful characters through a lot of the game, but you do need to be careful with him early on, and make sure you test out enemy resistances and absorbs before committing to a rage. For reference, here is an easy, short list of rages I'd recommend having at any time on Gau, and what they do:

First Veldt visit:
-Lesser Lopros - Fireball, AOE fire attack that wrecks through a lot of the game.
-Stray Cat - The best single target rage. Cat Scratch does 8x physical damage (this used to be the most overpowered rage in the SNES version, but the thing that made it god mode is patched out here. It's still good though)
-Oversoul - Will o' the Wisp, single target fire attack, hits harder than Fireball for boss fights.
-Megalodoth - Snowstorm
-Trillium - Casts Bio much earlier than you can normally get it

Getting Lopros and Stray is the bare minimum, fire damage will carry you through the majority of the areas in the game except for a few exceptions, and Stray Cat is just awesome for anything with good magic defense.

After Vector:
-Destroyer - Casts ReRaise, which you will not get normally until much later.
-Chimera or Anguiform - Aqua Breath, can encounter near Thamasa before advancing the story there. Anguiform is encountered in the Serpent Trench just after the first Veldt visit.
-Briareus - Casts Cyclonic, same area for encounter.
-Fossil Dragon - Casts Sandstorm. Encountered in the desert near Albrook, and rarely near Kohlingen, careful, these are dangerous to fight early on. Use a phoenix down/life spell to one shot them to get them on the Veldt.
-Veil Dancer - Blizzara
-Hill Gigas - Magnitude 8 (both of these from Zozo)
-Aspiran - Gigavolt (Serpent Trench)

Getting these guys will give you a nice mix of abilities, but for most dungeons you'll still be using Lesser Lopros anyway.

Late game rages:

-Yojimbo - Final dungeon or Colosseum enemy, uses Shock which is one of the best AOE non-elemental attacks in the game. Not magic, so reflect ignores it.
-King Behemoth/Brontaur - Casts Firaga either single target or AOE
-Behemoth/Lunatys/Tyrannosaur - Casts Meteor, powerful non-elemental AOE magic that ignores Reflect status
-Brachiosaur - Casts Disaster, which inflicts Imp, Blind, Doom, Silence, Confuse, and Float to one/all targets. Note, this and Tyrannosaur are difficult mobs meant for late game grinding, read up before chasing them.
-Mover - Casts Meltdown (NOTE: DO NOT USE UNLESS PARTY HAS FIRE ABSORB OR YOU WILL DIE TOO)
Devil - Casts Thundaga
Warlock/Cherry - Casts Holy
Cloudwraith - Casts Flare
Peeper - Casts White Wind (this rage is a pain in the butt to get though)

Can get any others for completion sake, but I make sure to get those every time...with those in hand, Gau should have no problem winning you fights, especially if you get Yojimbo.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Originally posted by Melodia:

... I've seen many people deride this feature because "you lose out on stats from Espers". ...

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

...
Then just don't save, & do an actual reset. *lol*

iirc. that only applies for game overs during WoB anyways but even so, it's not like the stat boosts from espers were so significant that it mattered if you just level high enough.
...

Originally posted by Melodia:

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

...
iirc. that only applies for game overs during WoB anyways

What are you smoking?

Are you telling me that the stat increases already gained from espers didn't carry over after a game over?

Because it would seem the only reason for people to complain about "missing out on stats from espers" when getting a game over, would be if people were getting these game overs & continuing to play (without resetting) during the WoB, before getting espers.

It might not have carried over the "amount of spell learned" progress, but the actual stat-boosts from having espers equipped should have carried over with the rest of the level up data that was carrying over after game over.

[Melodia]

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

Are you telling me that the stat increases already gained from espers didn't carry over after a game over? :

Yes. Any stats gotten from esper level ups are reset, which is why, as I mentioned, people decry the feature.

[carnage_panda]

Sounds like a player issue, not a game issue.

[carnage_panda]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

I am extremely disappointed that they removed that feature from this version of the game & I hope that they add it back in via an update

That was probably a bug, actually. When the game "reloads" your last save after you die, it fails to clear certain flags from memory. The most well-known glitch is that it fails to clear the "has an airship" flag, so if you save as soon as you're outside of Narshe at the beginning of the game, play until you have an airship, and then die, now you'll be back at Narshe but have the airship. Similarly, keeping any XP you earned since you last saved was probably a glitch.

It's not a bug. It explains that in OG when you get the save point tutorial the first time the player touches a save point.

I think it was removed in this version, tho.

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

That was probably a bug, actually. When the game "reloads" your last save after you die, it fails to clear certain flags from memory. The most well-known glitch is that it fails to clear the "has an airship" flag, so if you save as soon as you're outside of Narshe at the beginning of the game, play until you have an airship, and then die, now you'll be back at Narshe but have the airship. Similarly, keeping any XP you earned since you last saved was probably a glitch.

Originally posted by carnage_panda:

...
It's not a bug. It explains that in OG when you get the save point tutorial the first time the player touches a save point.
...

Thank you for pointing this out - I thought I remembered reading that somewhere, perhaps in SMRPG but I couldn't find it; however, now that you've pointed this out, I was able to find it :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2cski7Q7M&t=23m43s

23 : 43

Originally posted by Melodia:

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

...
Are you telling me that the stat increases already gained from espers didn't carry over after a game over? :

Yes. Any stats gotten from esper level ups are reset, which is why, as I mentioned, people decry the feature.

It's weird that it would keep that separate when stats are stats. They'd have to be deliberately keeping that data in a separate variable for that sort of splitting it back out to occur on a game over, while the normal level up stats remain, so that's... weird.

[Melodia]

Originally posted by Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at:

It's weird that it would keep that separate when stats are stats. They'd have to be deliberately keeping that data in a separate variable for that sort of splitting it back out to occur on a game over, while the normal level up stats remain, so that's... weird.

THAT part could be a bug. As noted above, the mechanic was obviously intended.