Anyone else think combat is just kind of a mess?

[Jesus vs. Dracula]

I'm 10 hours in and blowing through the turn-based combat with no real strategy, just selecting attacks and healing when I need to. Just seems like a bunch of gameplay systems thrown together with no real thought put in to how they interact. I'd like to be wrong, however. What is the gameplay loop supposed to be? Is there a strategy I haven't uncovered yet? Thanks.

[Reitschuster]

No.
The combat is pretty good, and allows you to employ versatile strategies and tactics to your preference, particularly with the shards system, with which you can highly customize characters along with equipment and quartz to employ tactics that most resonate with you.

[steven]

Yeah, you are pretty wrong.
The combat system is pretty good, thx to shards, equipement, exploiting weaknesses, custom arts, delaying turns, afflictions...

- The allies you made all participates in some strats thx to their stats, like Agnes for Art Attacks builds, Van for DPS builds, someone else for Evasion/Crit, fat def tanking, fast speed.... with some weaknesses. Managing them is a key for some battles.
- Delaying turns, stealing their bonuses or using afflictions is other strats.

If you find it stupid with no strategy, crank the difficulty up or stop farming like a donkey ? Playing on Easy and being overleveled doesn't require any brain and strategies, like in any game.
I assure you some battles on Hard or Nightmare are really tough without the proper settings, the right strategy or the right arts (final boss of the first chapter for example).

If you say that, i think you have never played the previous Trails games (or any turn-based game)
Some of the battles where brutal af and going with no strats doesn't work at all

[Jesus vs. Dracula]

Originally posted by steven:

Yeah, you are pretty wrong.
The combat system is pretty good, thx to shards, equipement, exploiting weaknesses, custom arts, delaying turns, afflictions...

- The allies you made all participates in some strats thx to their stats, like Agnes for Art Attacks builds, Van for DPS builds, someone else for Evasion/Crit, fat def tanking, fast speed.... with some weaknesses. Managing them is a key for some battles.
- Delaying turns, stealing their bonuses or using afflictions is other strats.

If you find it stupid with no strategy, crank the difficulty up or stop farming like a donkey ? Playing on Easy and being overleveled doesn't require any brain and strategies, like in any game.
I assure you some battles on Hard or Nightmare are really tough without the proper settings, the right strategy or the right arts (final boss of the first chapter for example).

If you say that, i think you have never played the previous Trails games (or any turn-based game)
Some of the battles where brutal af and going with no strats doesn't work at all

Maybe I'm interpreting your post wrong, but you make some hearty assumptions that come across as pretty crass. I've beaten four Trails games and all of their combat systems had a definite rhythm. I went into each battle knowing what I was trying to accomplish and knew exactly how their gameplay systems would help me get there. In this game I feel like I'm just issuing commands and healing when necessary.

Like I said, maybe I've got you wrong and you're trying to help. In that case, do you think things start to come together the further you get into the game?

[afterthought.btw]

I mean, it's kind of hard to answer given what you have said: you haven't even said what difficulty level you are playing at, or if you have done any grinding.

All I can suggest is that if you are finding it too easy on nightmare, then avoid the normal mods and don't fight them (which gets your levels up), and only try fighting the mandatory bosses. That'll force you to learn the battle systems and the exp modifiers stop you getting too low level to progress without grinding.

Wouldn't usually advise it for a first playthrough with an unfamiliar system, but if you are blowing through it then knock yourself out.

[steven]

As dude above me said : more informations pls, we don't read your mind. (and we can't see your profile !)

I had to make assumptions based on your text. And from what i saw, you were more the crying newbie than an older player.
It was wrong, ok, my apologies if the text offended you but i can't make essential datas appear from thin air...

So questions (to not make other wrong hypothesis and have a start to help) :

- Where are you (chapter, day....) ? Can't judge a game with 10 hrs and some small fries enemies
- What difficulty ? Crank it up ?
- Are you overleveled (see the enemies lvl for references) ? Farm less ?
- Do you use a lot of arts / craft / only one of them ? Coz like all previous games, one is ten times better than the other
- Do you use S craft a lot? Coz Van S Craft > Van S Craft > Battle over is a little bit stupid....
Using other dps sources is more challenging.
- Are you up to date with gears ? If so, try not. Less def / dmg = harder = more strategic
- Do you use Delay ? Steal Bonuses from enemies ? Use afflictions ? Have good quartz going with this mindset ? Do you equip accessories according to the next important battle coming or just don't give af ? (like anti fear, anti freeze....)
Going full strengh works, but if you can use these, tactics and strategies appear a little bit more.
- Do you use your characters stats and build them accordingly (eva/crit/tank/Arts Dmg....) or you just go full strenght with craft / S craft spam and cya next time ?

Just answering a few of them can help us answer you better than my previous answer XD

[Koby]

Daybreak is very similar to past games in that the early game is the hardest bit as you have few quartz options, but once you do get nice things, the game becomes a cakewalk. By chapter 3 you're pretty much able to S-Craft spam your way out of every single battle if you're playing on normal mode.

So yeah cranking the difficulty up to Nightmare is pretty much always the recommended route if you want anything resembling the requirement of any strategy. Most fights then just become taking Van off to the side and tossing coins for the aggro on him and then Arts spam with the others while S-Breaking for the bonus stats and popping S-Crafts from time to time to boost the S-Break meter.

[Diabolical Taco]

I'm close to the end and I've had exactly one fight where I had to employ any kind of real strategy, and this is on nightmare first run. That's not to say the combat is a mess, rather it's quite enjoyable especially combining quartz for bonuses, but I'd be lying if I said I've had to really think outside the box for much of anything. I don't even bother with baiting with Van. CS2 nightmare is still the easiest nightmare first run game I've found in the series, I mean, I was literally one-shotting late game bosses, and that's not something I can do in Daybreak. However, battle pacing in Daybreak is fantastic as well as some of the systems such as how boost works; I'd just enjoy a little more if anything had a prayer against me.

[Endora]

I'm at chap. 3 of my own Nightmare run (yeah, I prefer to focus on the story before going to the challenge) and, yes, if even I think it's easy so it really is, but it's not a mess, lets say that we have a lot of options but the bosses aren't that balanced for it. However, I'm afraid that I'll have serious problems with the 2 last bosses of the game, i'll have to rethink my strategy for them.

[Azurain]

The problem isn't that the systems are a mess, they work together as intended.
The problem is this has got to be the easiest game in the series to date, which I assume comes from the fact that they changed a fair few things compared to the previous titles even if the core is the same.

Van having access to a 90% taunt from the start of the game that costs only 20cp and seems immune to even All Cancel effects means the party takes massively reduced damage and even when they do the damage is fairly weak.
I'm in ch5 on nightmare and just AoEing everything to the ground with next to no risk of dying to bosses because even if they do get an scraft off it either lands only on Van or barely does over 50% hp to the rest.

My guess is that the changes made to the battle system and the added difficulty of balancing for short bursts of power from S-boost as opposed to the gradual curve of power from master quartz made them overcompensate the difficulty and we'll have to wait and see how daybreak 2/Farewell get balanced in response. But the systems themselves work as they always have in the series.

[Jesus vs. Dracula]

See, I had heard in reviews that this was one of the harder games in the series, so I just started on normal. Will definitely be bumping it up to hard, the same level I played the other games at. Just assumed it would get harder the further I got into it.

To answer other questions, I'm on September 7th, helping a certain someone find a certain someone in a certain village (probably not that far in for 10 hours of playtime but I like to stop and smell the roses). Also I don't use many Arts, they seem underpowered and unnecessary at the moment. I'm not over leveled (level 9 I believe, don't fight anyone I don't have to). I don't really use S Crafts but I do use shard boosts, but like I said I've been expecting the game to get harder due to the reviews.

Thanks for your help, guys.

[CalokAndQkourQcuarante]

Always found it weird when people said Cold Steel and Daybreak were easier, because I always found them much harder than Sky or Crossbell, with much more need to think about what I'm doing. Maybe subconsciously I started getting tired of the combat and put less focus into setup so the fights ended up being harder? Idk.

It's harder than Zero at the very least.

[Diabolical Taco]

Originally posted by CalokAndQkourQcuarante:

Always found it weird when people said Cold Steel and Daybreak were easier, because I always found them much harder than Sky or Crossbell, with much more need to think about what I'm doing. Maybe subconsciously I started getting tired of the combat and put less focus into setup so the fights ended up being harder? Idk.

It's harder than Zero at the very least.

If playing all on nightmare? No way Daybreak nor CS is tougher than Sky and Crossbell. I've never put so little effort into beating the ever-loving snot out of nearly everything as I have in CS and Daybreak. It's partial quartz and accessory setup for sure, but it's also smart usage of s-craft and the extreme ability to abuse delay and impede. On top of that, every single CS game can be broken. It's a little different depending on which title it is.

I'm not going to give the various methods away here, but even Daybreak has a few easy ways to considerable bend the system to the players' will. This is just my personal theory because I don't know how everyone else plays, but I'd wager some folks hang onto their CP way too much or horde something else thinking that saving it for a rainy day is the right thing to do. The only exception to that might be zeram for a just in case.

[Asmis]

Daybreak 1 is the easiest trails game for me.

[steven]

Originally posted by Jesus vs. Dracula:

See, I had heard in reviews that this was one of the harder games in the series, so I just started on normal. Will definitely be bumping it up to hard, the same level I played the other games at. Just assumed it would get harder the further I got into it.

To answer other questions, I'm on September 7th, helping a certain someone find a certain someone in a certain village (probably not that far in for 10 hours of playtime but I like to stop and smell the roses). Also I don't use many Arts, they seem underpowered and unnecessary at the moment. I'm not over leveled (level 9 I believe, don't fight anyone I don't have to). I don't really use S Crafts but I do use shard boosts, but like I said I've been expecting the game to get harder due to the reviews.

Yep, here is the problem, playing on normal coz of reviews so the game is boring and has no depth. Go hard or nightmare.
Yeah, the game is not the hardest of the serie nor the easiest, like the clown fiesta CS / Reverie battles and quartz was. However, some battle can surprise you or beat your ass a little.

One thing : fk reviews and what they say about difficulty and story.
Make your own review and opinion. If you wanted to play on hard first, play on hard first.
If ppl don't like the game but you find it ok, it's your choice.
How many games ppl skip or like because some random ass dudes in reviews say it's bad or the best game ever or whatever...

You are not at the end of Chapter one, and as i said, only bosses are a problem and need either full strengh or minor tactics.
This final boss wiped me at least twice on Hard (and i used items for the first time lol) and needed me to target the right ppl first and use some def tactics and arts instead of going in full strengh like a donkey (it works fine if you spam Van S craft, but it's was not really challenging nor really interesting).

For the levels, yeah you are ok, they give lot of xp for trash mobs on normal, so you can skip fights. You can be at least 2-4 level behind and still obliterate everything.
On hard, better beginning to kill some enemies on sight (for level and sephith).

Arts are busted in Daybreak (at least for me).
I'm dealing more damage with Agnes Arts than with Van Crafts.
Maybe not at the start of the game coz not enough good quartz and no good Arts but next chapters, you should use Arts more.

[Jesus vs. Dracula]

Originally posted by steven:

Originally posted by Jesus vs. Dracula:

See, I had heard in reviews that this was one of the harder games in the series, so I just started on normal. Will definitely be bumping it up to hard, the same level I played the other games at. Just assumed it would get harder the further I got into it.

To answer other questions, I'm on September 7th, helping a certain someone find a certain someone in a certain village (probably not that far in for 10 hours of playtime but I like to stop and smell the roses). Also I don't use many Arts, they seem underpowered and unnecessary at the moment. I'm not over leveled (level 9 I believe, don't fight anyone I don't have to). I don't really use S Crafts but I do use shard boosts, but like I said I've been expecting the game to get harder due to the reviews.

Yep, here is the problem, playing on normal coz of reviews so the game is boring and has no depth. Go hard or nightmare.
Yeah, the game is not the hardest of the serie nor the easiest, like the clown fiesta CS / Reverie battles and quartz was. However, some battle can surprise you or beat your ass a little.

One thing : fk reviews and what they say about difficulty and story.
Make your own review and opinion. If you wanted to play on hard first, play on hard first.
If ppl don't like the game but you find it ok, it's your choice.
How many games ppl skip or like because some random ass dudes in reviews say it's bad or the best game ever or whatever...

You are not at the end of Chapter one, and as i said, only bosses are a problem and need either full strengh or minor tactics.
This final boss wiped me at least twice on Hard (and i used items for the first time lol) and needed me to target the right ppl first and use some def tactics and arts instead of going in full strengh like a donkey (it works fine if you spam Van S craft, but it's was not really challenging nor really interesting).

For the levels, yeah you are ok, they give lot of xp for trash mobs on normal, so you can skip fights. You can be at least 2-4 level behind and still obliterate everything.
On hard, better beginning to kill some enemies on sight (for level and sephith).

Arts are busted in Daybreak (at least for me).
I'm dealing more damage with Agnes Arts than with Van Crafts.
Maybe not at the start of the game coz not enough good quartz and no good Arts but next chapters, you should use Arts more.

Thank you. Haven't had much time to play this weekend but am definitely looking forward to things now.