Act 3 needs balancing - final boss severely undertuned

[Hocolim]

I all but one-shot all phases of the final boss with a 350k hit. My main party were around level 55-56, with level 20 weapons. I had only done 2-3 hours of side content after starting Act 3. I didn't use a contrived cheese build either. Just Maelle, stacking damage multipliers, with a party member applying a mark beforehand. Clearly, something has gone wrong with the balancing after you get the Pictos that lets you uncap your damage. Perhaps it should not be uncapped right away, but just raised to a higher number before you beat the final boss? That would be a quick fix.

The level of challenge on Expeditioner difficulty felt very appropriate before this. I was about to declare this as probably my favorite game ever after the first two acts, but only getting to see one or two attacks from the final boss really soured the ending for me... It didn't feel earned.

[Léon Scarlet]

You are supposed to do side content boss and lv up you know at this point

[Fenrir]

lol

the final boss isn't even supposed to be the challenge anyway

that's just what you do if you wanna finish the story

the real challenge is in the optional content (which you won't be clearing at 55-56 btw) since a lot of those bosses will just kick your **** in without thinking twice about it

since you were so disappointed with this boss fight, I suggest you start exploring the other areas and keep leveling until you're capable of fighting Simon, then we'll see if you're still singing the same tune, lol

good luck, bro

[Amritadyne]

Originally posted by Léon Scarlet:

You are supposed to do side content boss and lv up you know at this point

that does the opposite of solving OP's problem of the act being too easy.

[Leopanther]

If you want story bosses to be somewhat challenging, avoid doing much side content and go straight for the story stuff. Any extra leveling, higher level pictos and weapons, easily overpower the main encounters if you do too much optional stuff. There's full backtracking so you can still do all optional stuff even after finishing story.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by Amritadyne:

Originally posted by Léon Scarlet:

You are supposed to do side content boss and lv up you know at this point

that does the opposite of solving OP's problem of the act being too easy.

you do realize that all of the side content still counts as part of act 3, right...?

act 3 is still plenty challenging, he just chose to ignore 98% of it and went straight to the final boss, lol

EDIT: Hell, even the trash in Endless Tower is stronger than the final boss, so I'm not really sure what he expected here.

>ignores the most difficult content in the game
>surprised that the final boss is easy

well yeah, that mission literally picks up where you left off from act 2 and ONLY exists to be cleared to get the credits

after clearing act 2, you open up the second half of the game, so you'll be spending another 20-30 hours or so in just act 3 alone because of all the side content

[Amritadyne]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

Originally posted by Amritadyne:

that does the opposite of solving OP's problem of the act being too easy.

you do realize that all of the side content still counts as part of act 3, right...?

act 3 is still plenty challenging, he just chose to ignore 98% of it and went straight to the final boss, lol

EDIT: Hell, even the trash in Endless Tower is stronger than the final boss, so I'm not really sure what he expected here.

>ignores the most difficult content in the game
>surprised that the final boss is easy

well yeah, that mission literally picks up where you left off from act 2 and ONLY exists to be cleared to get the credits

after clearing act 2, you open up the second half of the game, so you'll be spending another 20-30 hours or so in just act 3 alone because of all the side content

Compared to Act 1 and Act 2 the story difficulty falls off a cliff even without doing side content. This dampens the impact of these story bosses, they're not as fun as in the other acts. That is a problem.

[Anon GM.]

Imagine crying over the face that the game gets easier. These nerds think they are entitled to a hard game that ruins it for everyone else another reason why dark souls ruined the gaming industry because sweat lords like you love spening 1 hour to get through 4 minutes of content.

[Credne]

Yeah, the balancing in act 3 is pretty off. Even act 2 was already too easy, honestly. They wanted to make sure that people who just want to rush the story could do it effortlessly I guess.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by Amritadyne:

Originally posted by Fenrir:

you do realize that all of the side content still counts as part of act 3, right...?

act 3 is still plenty challenging, he just chose to ignore 98% of it and went straight to the final boss, lol

EDIT: Hell, even the trash in Endless Tower is stronger than the final boss, so I'm not really sure what he expected here.

>ignores the most difficult content in the game
>surprised that the final boss is easy

well yeah, that mission literally picks up where you left off from act 2 and ONLY exists to be cleared to get the credits

after clearing act 2, you open up the second half of the game, so you'll be spending another 20-30 hours or so in just act 3 alone because of all the side content

Compared to Act 1 and Act 2 the story difficulty falls off a cliff even without doing side content. This dampens the impact of these story bosses, they're not as fun as in the other acts. That is a problem.

brother, none of the story bosses were difficult, lol

act 3 is no different

the side content has ALWAYS been more difficult from act 1 to 3

if you found a mime in act 1, you'd honestly be more likely to get your ass beat from that instead of the story boss you were about to encounter, lol

you can also get one shot by a petank later on, yet you'll survive the attacks of story bosses

I just think you didn't even bother doing any of the side content in this game and rushed through the story, tbh

[SeraphLance]

It would be nice if you could fight a souped-up version of the final boss, Star Ocean 2 style. Because yeah it's weird that the game throws tons of optional content at you and then expects you to do virtually none of it to still enjoy the final boss fight. Even Sephiroth scaled his fight in FF7 and this game has like 5x the endgame progression that did.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by SeraphLance:

It would be nice if you could fight a souped-up version of the final boss, Star Ocean 2 style. Because yeah it's weird that the game throws tons of optional content at you and then expects you to do virtually none of it to still enjoy the final boss fight. Even Sephiroth scaled his fight in FF7 and this game has like 5x the endgame progression that did.

I guess that'd be fine for the tower, but people need to realize that final boss isn't the biggest threat that world has to offer. There are far more dangerous entities lurking in that world and it kinda just shows that even though your entire team is scared to death of this guy, he's not even who or what you should be worried about most.

That's how dangerous this world truly is.

[.]

I skipped all side content in acts 2 and 3, and the final bosses for each act felt pretty challenging to me (playing on normal difficulty).

[SeraphLance]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

I guess that'd be fine for the tower, but people need to realize that final boss isn't the biggest threat that world has to offer. There are far more dangerous entities lurking in that world and it kinda just shows that even though your entire team is scared to death of this guy, he's not even who or what you should be worried about most.

That's how dangerous this world truly is.

I mean I don't think gameplay necessarily has to match lore, but if you're going with that angle there really isn't. The final boss is, for all intents and purposes, a literal god. Nothing else in the endgame should be able to compare with that.

The main issue I have is that it's so easy to overlevel and lose out on the gravitas of the final boss fight, and the only way to actually enjoy the fight as it was intended is to not actually play the mountain of content thrown in front of you.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by SeraphLance:

Originally posted by Fenrir:

I guess that'd be fine for the tower, but people need to realize that final boss isn't the biggest threat that world has to offer. There are far more dangerous entities lurking in that world and it kinda just shows that even though your entire team is scared to death of this guy, he's not even who or what you should be worried about most.

That's how dangerous this world truly is.

I mean I don't think gameplay necessarily has to match lore, but if you're going with that angle there really isn't. The final boss is, for all intents and purposes, a literal god. Nothing else in the endgame should be able to compare with that.

The main issue I have is that it's so easy to overlevel and lose out on the gravitas of the final boss fight, and the only way to actually enjoy the fight as it was intended is to not actually play the mountain of content thrown in front of you.

Actually, there are a handful of enemies which would be able to compare with that since it goes beyond what a literal god is capable of. For example, Simon is just an expeditioner, yet far more threatening than the final boss and it's not even close. There's a reason why Verso, Maelle, etc. can all stand up to threats like these.

[Amritadyne]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

Originally posted by Amritadyne:

Compared to Act 1 and Act 2 the story difficulty falls off a cliff even without doing side content. This dampens the impact of these story bosses, they're not as fun as in the other acts. That is a problem.

brother, none of the story bosses were difficult, lol

act 3 is no different

the side content has ALWAYS been more difficult from act 1 to 3

if you found a mime in act 1, you'd honestly be more likely to get your ass beat from that instead of the story boss you were about to encounter, lol

you can also get one shot by a petank later on, yet you'll survive the attacks of story bosses

I just think you didn't even bother doing any of the side content in this game and rushed through the story, tbh

instead of making baseless accusations can just check my playtime and achievements, i'm just disappointed the story bosses of act 3 were so undertuned that i couldn't see what they do without sandbagging.

additionally there was no optional boss in the game that offered a challenge either, Simon? don't make me laugh, not nearly enough HP to survive Maelle.