No more farming xp?

[AlfalfaLily]

Seems like the arena farming got patched. Can't gain xp from archers anymore. How are we supposed to progress the story with our underleveled units? I got units at levels 2 and 3, while all the enemies are level 6. This is on ludicrous difficulty.

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by comdr6:

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

Barny is a star at making high leadership cavalry units regardless of whether you arena farmed... I never did and still ended up with LDR 50-60 Cavalry by the midgame...just make smart usage of his charge and hit and run abilities and stop charging him into pikeman squads...

It's pretty much the same as how, when the game was just released, people would complain about light infantry units being useless because ppl slept on the ambushmechanic (great to see you nerfed this a bit dev...ambushing anywhere simply because you started on rough terrain was a tad too OP xD)

I don't build calvary armies. The 8 heavy squadrons I run (3 'Sentinel/Centurion', 3 'Paladin', 2 'Champ/Zwei (w/Devon) are designed to counter the ambush mechanic among other things. It's not possible @ LDR 62 without save scumming. One run where I ground my heavy leaders to LDR 76 before CH. 10, they did not get to LDR 92 (9 units) until CH. 26. Grinding every leader to hold seven units @ CH. 10 (LDR 88, 82, 76) improved survivability and countered the game's RNG, the calvary charges of the last chapters (and my terrible luck). Now we have to choose between completing the tech tree or having an army to even get to the last chapters.

Yes, the heavy squads are not invincible, my Sentinel squad's check by CH.26 by the lead knight squad a few updates ago is why I ground to LDR 88 before this update. I'm using a salvaged save to test if this strategy still holds in this update.

So I guess you didn't understand the hint then....
1) Give Barny lot's of cavalry
2) When cavalry has sufficient LDR, remove them
3) Make squads using that cavalry
4) Demote > Promote them to just about any class you want...

Sure it's a tad expensive but you can have LDR 50-60 Squads that way early in the midgame...The fact Barny trains cavalry doesn't mean those units have to STAY cavalry after you swapped them out...

[Luciferos]

Originally posted by Dancing Dragon Games:

Originally posted by AlfalfaLily:

Is this pre-patch info? Grinding is no longer a feature. I am playing ludicrous permadeath difficulty and stuck at Chapter 5 (right after you lose Jules, Sybil, and Barnabas). All enemies at this stage are level 6. All my units, except MC, Stefan, and Diana, are level 1 and 2.

Theoretically, a player can be permanently stuck at this state with no options to progress.

How are you defining grinding? Yes we removed infinitely eating arrows, and that's it, that's not really grinding

Just the .02 of a player who never picked this game up until buying and downloading it after the Legends release, but it seems that instead of just completely removing XP from getting attacked by a certain kind of attack, it should instead rapidly fall off per squad each Chapter or Arena. I.E. first received arrow volley is treated normally, second provides limited XP, and nothing after that. This would not really penalize players who just play the game normally compared to previous modes, while removing infinite grinding.

I can see why you would do it this way, though. Easier to just change some multiplier to 0 in code rather than writing new code to store how many arrow volleys each unit receives to check against on later attacks.

Also, it is notable that most other tactics RPGs feature some source of unlimited grinding. I actually like that this game has a lot of chapters and no filler random battle content (save for optional Arena tokens).

Originally posted by Dancing Dragon Games:

Also, levels adapt to story progress, it's the most generous xp system I've ever seen in a game that plays like Fire Emblem

Arena rewards you with plenty of catch up mechanics as well

Not to be pedantic, but since tactics RPGs, including Fire Emblem, generally allow some method of unlimited XP grinding, disallowing it can't really be described as the 'most generous' XP system. It may be *better* or more fun, but definitionally it would be less generous.

Also forgive my ignorance if I am mistaken as a new player, but Arena tokens are purely RNG. It's randomized whether you have any access at all to said catch-up mechanics. Ergo the concern a few players in this thread are levying: not that Ludicrous mode is hard but rather that, due to the lack of some source of grinding, if you make a mistake or have a bad battle, it becomes possible to reach a point in the story where you can explicitly no longer progress - you become unable to win the next battle and have no other outlet to bulk up, effectively creating a true Game Over situation that is generally anathema to this sort of RPG.

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Originally posted by Luciferos:

Originally posted by Dancing Dragon Games:

How are you defining grinding? Yes we removed infinitely eating arrows, and that's it, that's not really grinding

Easier to just change some multiplier to 0 in code rather than writing new code

That's not what happens. We actually did put plenty of thought and nuance into how to apply this change. Your real experience is probably much better than your theoretical experience.

[Lampros]

I don't think this was a good decision, as some people like to grind, and they should be able to play the game in the fashion they enjoy.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Luciferos:

Just the .02 of a player who never picked this game up until buying and downloading it after the Legends release, but it seems that instead of just completely removing XP from getting attacked by a certain kind of attack, it should instead rapidly fall off per squad each Chapter or Arena. I.E. first received arrow volley is treated normally, second provides limited XP, and nothing after that. This would not really penalize players who just play the game normally compared to previous modes, while removing infinite grinding.

That is pretty much how it works in this game.

I tested it. The first few times you get shot at in an arena you get XP. But if you just stand there, after a few volleys the gain drops to 0.

But if you then go and attack the archers you get XP again. And then if you wait to get shot at by the other archer squad, you skill get a little bit of XP. And then it falls back to 0.

So it's working exactly as you describe: If you play the game normally you get XP when you expect. If you stand still for 10 turns waiting to get shot at, you get nothing much.

Seems like it works pretty well.

Originally posted by Luciferos:

Not to be pedantic, but since tactics RPGs, including Fire Emblem, generally allow some method of unlimited XP grinding, disallowing it can't really be described as the 'most generous' XP system. It may be *better* or more fun, but definitionally it would be less generous.

I don't know. If my boss tells me "You can work 100 hours this week and I'll pay you minimum wage for each and every one of them!" I won't describe him as generous even if that means a higher total earnings.

Meanwhile, this game says "Oh, you came in 2 hours late? In that case we'll pay you more to make up for the time you lost."

That seems pretty generous to me. :-)

Also forgive my ignorance if I am mistaken as a new player, but Arena tokens are purely RNG. It's randomized whether you have any access at all to said catch-up mechanics.

Yes, arenas seem pretty random and since they boost power your power level is somewhat random tool.

But arenas aren't the catch up mechanic. The catch up mechanic is that a low level unit fighting high level enemies will gain several levels in a single round of fighting.

Especially effective, if you need to catch up: Split your squads a little. Put some high-level guys to tank for the newbies, put a couple of newbies in your elite squads. Soon, they will all be elites.

it becomes possible to reach a point in the story where you can explicitly no longer progress - you become unable to win the next battle and have no other outlet to bulk up, effectively creating a true Game Over situation that is generally anathema to this sort of RPG.

If that happens on "ludicrous" that seems fair to me. After all, that is the difficulty that was added for the players who complained warlord permadeath was way too easy.

If it happens on captain difficulty without permadeath, it would be a problem.

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Originally posted by Lampros:

I don't think this was a good decision, as some people like to grind, and they should be able to play the game in the fashion they enjoy.

We agree that players should be able to play the game in the fashion they enjoy, which is reflected in just about everything about the game.

Sitting and eating arrows for a thousand turns is not grinding, it's unfun, boring, broken

You can do infinite cycles of NG+ forever, that's literally infinite grinding now

[EatTheCookie]

To be honest, arena farming was not the problem.
Leadership, loyalty, random stats of units, and team composition are the problems.
The arena grind was the fix for all of them.
Yes, low level units get a lot of experience but they die from a random sneeze as well. Basically, everything you get in the second half of the game can not reliably survive a common battle. And on top of that the player is supposed to manage 100+ units constantly checking their stats and exp.
So, creating a desired squad, leveling it up in the arena, and using it for a mission later did make a lot of sense. But, it was nerfed twice, by removing exp and effectively by removing arena tokens from market. As one could expect, some players are not happy. And it could be fixed in a lot of ways.

P.S.
Good game anyway.

P.P.S.
"Sitting and eating arrows for a thousand turns ..., it's unfun, boring, broken" is the definition of grinding.

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by EatTheCookie:

To be honest, arena farming was not the problem.
Leadership, loyalty, random stats of units, and team composition are the problems.
The arena grind was the fix for all of them.
Yes, low level units get a lot of experience but they die from a random sneeze as well. Basically, everything you get in the second half of the game can not reliably survive a common battle. And on top of that the player is supposed to manage 100+ units constantly checking their stats and exp.
So, creating a desired squad, leveling it up in the arena, and using it for a mission later did make a lot of sense. But, it was nerfed twice, by removing exp and effectively by removing arena tokens from market. As one could expect, some players are not happy. And it could be fixed in a lot of ways.

P.S.
Good game anyway.

P.P.S.
"Sitting and eating arrows for a thousand turns ..., it's unfun, boring, broken" is the definition of grinding.

I disagree on your P.p.s.
I'm a veteran Disgaea player (as in over 30K hrs of it) and there's a difference between farming the arena via the tickets without the strat and doing it with the strat. I have to side with the devs on this one... the previous mechanic by just building a squad immune to arrow barrages and then just fielding it to just eat attacks turn after turn in order to focus farm LDR + Exp is an EXPLOIT-grind. The nuance there being that the devs never intended for this to be possible. In the final couple of chapters you can buy all the tokens you want to build up all the stats you want.... THERE it's intended.

If you want to exploit like that; just use cheat engine to modify the stats to your wishes.

MIND I have nothing against people who did this before the devs patched it out but as it was clearly an exploit the devs never intended to be possible I don't think those people should complain about the "hole being plugged" now either

[Ambiul]

Originally posted by EatTheCookie:

But, it was nerfed twice, by removing exp and effectively by removing arena tokens from market.

Were arena tokens removed from the market in the Hotfix 1.10.03 patch or am I misunderstanding this? I am on 1.10.02 and arena tokens definitely show up in the market. I'll wait on upgrading to 10.03 to gather up tokens if that's the case.

[AlfalfaLily]

Originally posted by Luciferos:

Also forgive my ignorance if I am mistaken as a new player, but Arena tokens are purely RNG. It's randomized whether you have any access at all to said catch-up mechanics. Ergo the concern a few players in this thread are levying: not that Ludicrous mode is hard but rather that, due to the lack of some source of grinding, if you make a mistake or have a bad battle, it becomes possible to reach a point in the story where you can explicitly no longer progress - you become unable to win the next battle and have no other outlet to bulk up, effectively creating a true Game Over situation that is generally anathema to this sort of RPG.

This is exactly my concern. If this decision is intentional, then I'll suck it up and just start a new game again. However, the constant need to restart due to failure to min-max or optimize would be considered more "unfun" than grinding endless arrows to the face, in my opinion.

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Originally posted by Ambiul:

Originally posted by EatTheCookie:

But, it was nerfed twice, by removing exp and effectively by removing arena tokens from market.

Were arena tokens removed from the market in the Hotfix 1.10.03 patch or am I misunderstanding this? I am on 1.10.02 and arena tokens definitely show up in the market. I'll wait on upgrading to 10.03 to gather up tokens if that's the case.

No change to that

[AlfalfaLily]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

it becomes possible to reach a point in the story where you can explicitly no longer progress - you become unable to win the next battle and have no other outlet to bulk up, effectively creating a true Game Over situation that is generally anathema to this sort of RPG.

If that happens on "ludicrous" that seems fair to me. After all, that is the difficulty that was added for the players who complained warlord permadeath was way too easy.

If it happens on captain difficulty without permadeath, it would be a problem.

I'd like to correct @Luciferos on the statement, "it becomes possible to reach a point in the story where you can explicitly no longer progress." It is actually extremely probable, not just possible. Luck plays a large role in this difficulty. I don't know if you've tried Chapter 5 on ludicrous NG (not NG+). Is it even possible to make S rank for that mission? If you did manage to beat Chapter 5 on Ludicrous with S rank from a new start, please provide some insight. I'd like some tips on how you got through it.

[Ambiul]

Originally posted by AlfalfaLily:

Originally posted by Luciferos:

Also forgive my ignorance if I am mistaken as a new player, but Arena tokens are purely RNG. It's randomized whether you have any access at all to said catch-up mechanics. Ergo the concern a few players in this thread are levying: not that Ludicrous mode is hard but rather that, due to the lack of some source of grinding, if you make a mistake or have a bad battle, it becomes possible to reach a point in the story where you can explicitly no longer progress - you become unable to win the next battle and have no other outlet to bulk up, effectively creating a true Game Over situation that is generally anathema to this sort of RPG.

This is exactly my concern. If this decision is intentional, then I'll suck it up and just start a new game again. However, the constant need to restart due to failure to min-max or optimize would be considered more "unfun" than grinding endless arrows to the face, in my opinion.

I understand what you are saying, but, as a fan of roguelikes, I can tell you a lot of people are ok with (and even enjoy) the restart-until-the-perfect-early-RNG method to beating the most difficult levels. Some of them are literally unbeatable on the hardest level unless you find a "broken" game mechanic like the endless-arrows-to-the-face. The developers then patch that and a lot of people enjoy constantly dying until the find the next "broken" or perfect-RNG tactic to win. I don't know if the developers plan for Ludicrous to be nearly impossible to S-rank, but I guarantee some player out there will find another way to or enjoy the process of finding a way to.

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Originally posted by AlfalfaLily:

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

If that happens on "ludicrous" that seems fair to me. After all, that is the difficulty that was added for the players who complained warlord permadeath was way too easy.

If it happens on captain difficulty without permadeath, it would be a problem.

I'd like to correct @Luciferos on the statement, "it becomes possible to reach a point in the story where you can explicitly no longer progress." It is actually extremely probable, not just possible. Luck plays a large role in this difficulty. I don't know if you've tried Chapter 5 on ludicrous NG (not NG+). Is it even possible to make S rank for that mission? If you did manage to beat Chapter 5 on Ludicrous with S rank from a new start, please provide some insight. I'd like some tips on how you got through it.

I wouldn't agree that it's "extremely probable" because that reads like over 90% of people who play Ludicrous will get soft locked and game over. It's probably more like less than 5%. If you're going into Ludicrous as your first play at that point we devs have done our jobs in warning players about the opportunity to train up on easier difficulties, and that ludicrous is just that, ludicrous.

As far as beating Chapter 5, it's tough - what I did was throw a throw away squad at him. Attack with Protag or Diana, then shuffle out the weaker squad, let Dirk kill the disposable one. Have Abigayle nearby to heal up your elite squads, and go in again.

[farhorizon]

I was 1 turn off S-ranking chapter 5 without really planning squads for that encounter. If I were to play through again, pretty sure I could S rank it by focusing squads for that battle the way folks have for the chapter 12 achievement. Or just playing a little tighter & not spending as much on temple revives.