Why are field encounters so hard?

[azuarc]

Boss battles are fine. You strategize. You plan around the attacks. And bosses don't actually hit that hard.

But enemies in the field? They freaking slaughter you. Enter a new area. Fight one of an enemy and think, "okay no big deal." Then you have to fight two of them, and you barely pull through. The game goes, "ya like that? Try 3." And it's simply not fun any more.

I can't even grind because this game doesn't have a leveling system. Leaving the city, the group found a statue and got some kind of power-up from that, so I guess I'm supposed to find those, but I neither have seen another statue nor the special water used to pray at them.

What exactly am I supposed to do here? Is there much stronger armor in the game that I don't know about so enemies don't hit me for 40 or group-wide 20 when I only have about 100 HP per character?

[luvckay]

I agree for the most part. Some of the enemies are so hard when there are more than one.

Are you utilizing the anvil to upgrade your weapons and armors regularly?
Also, make sure you are learning and leveling up your skills. There are a lot of passives and status upgrade that buff your party.
Also, status effects and debuffs are basically king in this game. You can put any enemies, including bosses, in all the status effects and debuffs.
One thing I always do when there are a lot of enemies that are annoying to deal with, I use Glenn's Ultra Move to instantly debuff them, so they do less damage and take more damage from me. Buffing the party is also crucial, as it ensures maximum damage.

Hope my two cents help :)

[azuarc]

I fiddled with the anvil a little. It didn't feel like it did much, but I did socket whatever crystals I could.

As for leveling up skills, don't they just level themselves eventually? I've had a couple go to level 2 on their own and most of the others are a good chunk of the way there. Still, the difference is like an extra 10% of whatever effect, which doesn't feel very meaningful. Am I underestimating?

I have been using Glenn's move, but sometimes I wait until I'm cornered by the overdrive bar to push it back down because that inevitably happens no matter how well I plan. No, game, I do not want to use a triple purple line move -- stealing does not help me survive combat!

[kyuzou]

simple answer is farming crystals, and make sure your carries (usually sienna and glenn early game) are well socketed (3 on each piece of gear). keep trying to level these 12 gems until you get them to level 10.
that statue that gave you "some kind of powerup", is actually a subclass which you equip on one of your heroes (not sure if you already knew that), first is warrior which is great cuz it gives glenn an aoe attack and gives you a 30% attack bonus. If you max an ability/passive from a subclass, you don't need to keep the emblem equiped as your hero will basically remember it forever, so my suggestion would be to place it on Sienna first and give her the 30% attack bonus using your stored up SP or w/e its called, so you can max out that passive and transfer the emblem to glenn so he can passively level up the Attack bonus passive and the aoe at the same time.
if you need help farming, next to the warrior statue is a great early game place to farm, just telport to the crystal next to the statue and head slightly north to fight 5 pigs, keep running away until a shiny 1 spawns and kill them with aoes for a guaranteed 10+ sp, teleport again then rinse and repeat.
and don't forget about your reward board, always try to extend the chain as much as you can, since that is a major source of "levels" in this game

[azuarc]

I never encountered a warrior statue. The one I got was the cleric statue.

What's the reward board? Sounds like it's related to the adventurer's guild, but I'm supposed to travel to the city in the north before I can join the adventurer's guild.

[kyuzou]

before you leave fransport some guy talks to you (blue pig looking guy i think) and he teaches you about it, press L2 and it should bring it up, or you can open it from the menu i think
warrior statue should be the first u get as i recall, its in the rohan fields close to the village of basil (west / south west)

[luvckay]

Originally posted by azuarc:

I fiddled with the anvil a little. It didn't feel like it did much, but I did socket whatever crystals I could.

As for leveling up skills, don't they just level themselves eventually? I've had a couple go to level 2 on their own and most of the others are a good chunk of the way there. Still, the difference is like an extra 10% of whatever effect, which doesn't feel very meaningful. Am I underestimating?

I have been using Glenn's move, but sometimes I wait until I'm cornered by the overdrive bar to push it back down because that inevitably happens no matter how well I plan. No, game, I do not want to use a triple purple line move -- stealing does not help me survive combat!

Leveling up and learning skills as well. Skills leveling up themselves, but you can also spend SP so they level up immediately. Most skills increase their latency and utility after leveling up, some are only TP difference.
Learning skills are quite important, as a lot of passives coupled with crystals provide a lot of great boosts.

For overdrive bar, this can be annoying, but can also be strategic. You can also switch characters in, and utilize their skills along with lowering the bar (switching lowers the bars).

The only annoying part about the bar is during the Sky Armor fights. I do not like that design very much. Other than that, having a fairly diverse pool of skills for each characters are quite beneficial in many ways.

[azuarc]

Originally posted by luvckay:

For overdrive bar, this can be annoying, but can also be strategic. You can also switch characters in, and utilize their skills along with lowering the bar (switching lowers the bars).

I think I've seen all there is to see at the current point in the game with respect to the overdrive bar. I have six total characters, so two of them can't even swap. Those that can, I have certainly used swapping. I've used the ultra moves to drop it down in a pinch. I've recognized there are even items that you can burn a turn on if you want to do more than just hit defend. This is a part of the game that it does a perfectly fine job of explaining...it's just that sometimes the sequence of events is just plain unfair. You try to aim for abilities that will lower the gauge when you can, but when it hits on back-to-back move types that aren't useful, you genuinely end up wasting turns when you're already just struggling to get by. Actions are the most precious commodity in a JRPG's battle system, and you're just...throwing them away for no effect sometimes.

Anyway, I haven't played this game in a couple days, but I should probably give it another look and see if I can find that reward board and the warrior statue. (Although I'm pretty sure I don't have any prayer water, either.)

[kyuzou]

reward board gives you both lvls and water for statues, it should be pretty easy completing a lot of the early chains since you already have 6 chars (you probably already completed some but you just didn't know about it)

[luvckay]

Originally posted by azuarc:

Originally posted by luvckay:

For overdrive bar, this can be annoying, but can also be strategic. You can also switch characters in, and utilize their skills along with lowering the bar (switching lowers the bars).

I think I've seen all there is to see at the current point in the game with respect to the overdrive bar. I have six total characters, so two of them can't even swap. Those that can, I have certainly used swapping. I've used the ultra moves to drop it down in a pinch. I've recognized there are even items that you can burn a turn on if you want to do more than just hit defend. This is a part of the game that it does a perfectly fine job of explaining...it's just that sometimes the sequence of events is just plain unfair. You try to aim for abilities that will lower the gauge when you can, but when it hits on back-to-back move types that aren't useful, you genuinely end up wasting turns when you're already just struggling to get by. Actions are the most precious commodity in a JRPG's battle system, and you're just...throwing them away for no effect sometimes.

Anyway, I haven't played this game in a couple days, but I should probably give it another look and see if I can find that reward board and the warrior statue. (Although I'm pretty sure I don't have any prayer water, either.)

Yes, that is one of the major complaint about this game, and totally fair point.
With that being said, I find myself less and less depending on lowering the bar later, as I was able to simply brute force it through :D It can be done pretty easily later.

[azuarc]

I suppose I should report back that the forest (3rd biome) was tremendously easier when I came back. Not sure if that was because I accessed the reward board or grabbed the warrior relic or something else entirely, but the difficulty felt reasonable rather than brutal.

[kyuzou]

it is quite an easy game if you just know what to do, it has annoying mechanics and needless rng sure, but is still a simple game.
glad that life is easier for u now

[Songbird]

Blade Reflection gives you an entire free turn of combat against the vast majority of enemies in the game. You can use it to set up something like Third Eye > elemental debuffs > jump, or getting a huge agility lead and attack down debuffs, or whatever your plan is. It makes the game pretty easy even with max difficulty sliders.

The early game is the hardest part of the game, since you lack the ability to immediately blitz through encounters. The 5 slorse fight for the warrior statue is insanely overtuned for when it's first available and is close to impossible (if it is possible at all) on max difficulty settings unless you come back later, since slorses are not balanced around appearing in large groups and push overdrive insanely high with each turn.

[sorethroat]

I love JRPGs where every encounters are uniquely designed.
This and Fear and Hunger: Termina (I prefer Termina than the first FnH aesthetically and thematically) are what JRPGs should strive to be, not repetitive boring stuff like Octopath or Sea of Stars.

[Songbird]

Upgrading armor has a pretty minimal effect on your ability to stay alive, like in most RPGs. Look to debuff enemy offense instead when possible. (Offense down/up is significantly stronger than defense down/up due to how the game calculates damage.) Applying regen and using the Cleric class's party heal with Victor early on helps you stay alive. Work on your offense as well; combining oil and fire or dry and water are effects that are available very early and allow you to kill enemies quickly.

I personally thought the game was pretty balanced overall on max difficulty settings, aside from the Warrior emblem fight, the class emblem fight in the archipelago with like eight crabs, the veggie optional boss fight, and the furnace enemies in the mines if you don't know their weakness (which most players learn after the mines.) I did manage to beat the furnace enemies and crabs after enough attempts, but the others I had to come back for after getting a little stronger. (There are some other fights that obviously kick your ass to the point of impossibility if you attempt them right away, like Tak the Yak or the double dragon fights in the forest, but these are pretty clearly signposted, and you can just run away.)

[azuarc]

Originally posted by sorethroat:

I love JRPGs where every encounters are uniquely designed.
This and Fear and Hunger: Termina (I prefer Termina than the first FnH aesthetically and thematically) are what JRPGs should strive to be, not repetitive boring stuff like Octopath or Sea of Stars.

I dunno. Cosmic Star Heroine does this right. I don't think Chained Echoes does.

Originally posted by Songbird:

Upgrading armor has a pretty minimal effect on your ability to stay alive, like in most RPGs.

Armor definitely has an effect in most games. While players tend to focus on offense over defense, ignoring defense is a surefire way to get crapped on in a typical JRPG.