What's MP management like in SMTV?

[benj]

I played SMTIV a long time ago and loved it, but I remember it got pretty easy when you could buy the app that restores the party's MP as you walk. Is this game any stricter with MP healing?

[Jouchebag]

Originally posted by sleepy:

I played SMTIV a long time ago and loved it, but I remember it got pretty easy when you could buy the app that restores the party's MP as you walk. Is this game any stricter with MP healing?

So it's not forced upon you, right? You had a choice not to use it?

SMT has smartly placed the balance in the player's hands with the modern games. Giving things like difficulty options or features you could simply choose not to use so that the game can be played by a wider audience at the challenge level they want to play it at.

You don't get gamer street cred for beating an SMT game these days. There aren't any cliques of people going around touting how they kicked DDS or Nocturne's ass anymore. The games can be notched down (or up) to make the player comfortable.

[benj]

Originally posted by Jouchebag:

Originally posted by sleepy:

I played SMTIV a long time ago and loved it, but I remember it got pretty easy when you could buy the app that restores the party's MP as you walk. Is this game any stricter with MP healing?

So it's not forced upon you, right? You had a choice not to use it?

SMT has smartly placed the balance in the player's hands with the modern games. Giving things like difficulty options or features you could simply choose not to use so that the game can be played by a wider audience at the challenge level they want to play it at.

You don't get gamer street cred for beating an SMT game these days. There aren't any cliques of people going around touting how they kicked DDS or Nocturne's ass anymore. The games can be notched down (or up) to make the player comfortable.

You make a good point about it being optional. I don’t care about gamer cred, I just enjoy SMT more when it’s challenging is all. If this game has something similar to the apps, I’ll try to avoid using that kind of stuff this time.

[shekeirnah]

Originally posted by sleepy:

I played SMTIV a long time ago and loved it, but I remember it got pretty easy when you could buy the app that restores the party's MP as you walk. Is this game any stricter with MP healing?

Can't speak on if they've changed anything in VV, but it was crap in V sadly. At the start spells cost about 25% of your MP and you have to spend the equivalent of app points from IV to incrementally lower the cost for each element by increasing your affinity with it. This was also gated off behind specific minibosses so you can't get good MP reduction early, and the highest tier of buffs/healing cost like 150MP+ even at max affinity. Finally, no way of reliably grinding MP recovery items but you can instantly teleport to the healing spring and there are light recovery items in the world (and, eventually, skills) so it's never too bad on the overworld but some bosses are a slog.
TL;DR more tedious than IV at first but manageable by the second or third Da'at, but no more fusing Surt with Bufu skills or having Salvation and Luster Candy on everyone at the final boss :(

[benj]

Originally posted by shekeirnah:

Can't speak on if they've changed anything in VV, but it was crap in V sadly. At the start spells cost about 25% of your MP and you have to spend the equivalent of app points from IV to incrementally lower the cost for each element by increasing your affinity with it. This was also gated off behind specific minibosses so you can't get good MP reduction early, and the highest tier of buffs/healing cost like 150MP+ even at max affinity. Finally, no way of reliably grinding MP recovery items but you can instantly teleport to the healing spring and there are light recovery items in the world (and, eventually, skills) so it's never too bad on the overworld but some bosses are a slog.

I see...so normal battles still don't wear you down too much, but those high costs will definitely make longer fights pretty dicey. The affinity thing sounds interesting, sounds like there might be some tough choices to make if I go with a magic-focused MC!

[shekeirnah]

Originally posted by sleepy:

Originally posted by shekeirnah:

Can't speak on if they've changed anything in VV, but it was crap in V sadly. At the start spells cost about 25% of your MP and you have to spend the equivalent of app points from IV to incrementally lower the cost for each element by increasing your affinity with it. This was also gated off behind specific minibosses so you can't get good MP reduction early, and the highest tier of buffs/healing cost like 150MP+ even at max affinity. Finally, no way of reliably grinding MP recovery items but you can instantly teleport to the healing spring and there are light recovery items in the world (and, eventually, skills) so it's never too bad on the overworld but some bosses are a slog.

I see...so normal battles still don't wear you down too much, but those high costs will definitely make longer fights pretty dicey. The affinity thing sounds interesting, sounds like there might be some tough choices to make if I go with a magic-focused MC!

Yeah, pretty much! They essentially make it riskier to use spells more powerful than your average level and to generalise your demons rather than specialising, but they've simplified press turn so it's less punishing to switch demons in and out, and there are new super moves you can cast unique to each race (enemy attacks do 1dmg for a turn, 3x dmg, all skills cost 1mp etc) so there is diversity to the battles but, like IV with the MP regen, one ability particularly is far more useful than all the others so you'll have to avoid it to keep it challenging. No spoilers though! But if you've beat IV you'll smoke V just because you can guard now and block weaknesses lol.

[Stoibs]

Not sure if this was what you were asking about either in regards to MP, but in the original Switch version (Who know what they've changed here..) there were little collectable orbs you could run over scattered all over the world too, which recovered amounts of HP/MP/The aforementioned Super Move meter etc.

If you were particularly stingy and wanted to play it super safe/ration recovery items etc. you could fast travel back to various areas in which you've memorized their spawn locations and fill up at will ;)

Also worth noting that Physical Skills cost MP in this also, not HP.

[benj]

Originally posted by Stoibs:

Not sure if this was what you were asking about either in regards to MP, but in the original Switch version (Who know what they've changed here..) there were little collectable orbs you could run over scattered all over the world too, which recovered amounts of HP/MP/The aforementioned Super Move meter etc.

If you were particularly stingy and wanted to play it super safe/ration recovery items etc. you could fast travel back to various areas in which you've memorized their spawn locations and fill up at will ;)

Also worth noting that Physical Skills cost MP in this also, not HP.

That's cool, I won't wanna spend too much time farming them but I like how Atlus has been coming up with little things like this to interact with while exploring.

[Everchosen]

Early game it's a pain in the ass, mid to late game it depends. Certain demons struggle with MP more than others.

Currently trying to finish the SMT 5 before Vengance hits, and most of the time I am either almost out of MP by the end of a boss fight, or i have to swap out demons because they did run out of MP.

I'm generally fighting bosses slightly under leveled or at the appropriate level and it seems balanced. During general exploration it really doesn't matter as you can always port back to the little checkpoint thingies and restore at will more or less.

[TSVStriFe]

Skills in SMTV are quite pricey imo. SMTIV had way cheaper skills, especially later down the road when they're higher + (Same can be said in SMTV, but it costs more effort).