Hard difficulty for a noob?

[D-Jak]

First time playing a Persona game. I also never really played a jRPG, tried a few (e.g. Lost Odyssey on Xbox). I am, however, experienced in turn-based RPGs.

I am literally at the very beginning, just went to the 5th floor of Tartarus. Playing on normal, I feel the fights are trivial at this point. Can this be considered still the "tutorial" area and will the difficulty spike up? Or can I change to hard already?

I like a challenge in my games, especially in tactical turn-based games where I don't have to rely on my terrible reflexes. I do, however, also remember Lost Odyssey, which was pretty hard down the road and became frustrating. I also want the urge to actually need to use items and not just spam weak, weak, all out attack.

And how does the difficulty change the fights? Just more HP and damage for enemies?

Thanks!

[viktorhallo]

if you are experienced in turn based games. and want a challenge or want to grind-try to get alot of personas or want to engange with the RPG systems you should probably go merciless. merciless is comparable to 90s turn based games, roguelike turn based games or other slightly hard turn based games.

anyone who do anything other than the bare minimum or engages in any of the games system will feel zero challenge on normal. and possibly even on hard.

and yes its mainly the enemies health and damage that are changed + lower exp gain they are however smarter apparently and try to go for your weaknesses on harder difficultys.

[D-Jak]

Originally posted by viktorhallo:

if you are experienced in turn based games. and want a challenge or want to grind-try to get alot of personas or want to engange with the RPG systems you should probably go merciless. merciless is comparable to 90s turn based games, roguelike turn based games or other slightly hard turn based games.

anyone who do anything other than the bare minimum or engages in any of the games system will feel zero challenge on normal. and possibly even on hard.

and yes its mainly the enemies health and damage that are changed + lower exp gain they are however smarter apparently and try to go for your weaknesses on harder difficultys.

Wait, you get less XP on harder difficulties? Isn't that just imposing grind?

[archonsod]

Originally posted by D-Jak:

I am literally at the very beginning, just went to the 5th floor of Tartarus. Playing on normal, I feel the fights are trivial at this point. Can this be considered still the "tutorial" area and will the difficulty spike up? Or can I change to hard already?

Until you unlock the second area of Tartarus you're still very much in a tutorial level of difficulty and facing some fairly simple enemies (in fact IIRC the last tutorial about a basic feature occurs around floor 63). Though of course, you can always shift the difficulty up and then bump it back down if things get too hard.

I also want the urge to actually need to use items and not just spam weak, weak, all out attack.

Probably won't happen for a while yet. Thing about the early game is you're facing a pretty limited selection of enemies who are largely matched to a weakness that can be exploited by at least one character in your party. So weak, weak all out is the way to go. The first boss will change that up since it's your introduction to enemies who don't have a weakness.
It's a bit after that you might start leaning on items more as enemies that use status effects start turning up and it starts becoming important not just which skills your party has, but who specifically has them.

And how does the difficulty change the fights? Just more HP and damage for enemies?

Shadow detection range increases, you get a damage nerf, they get a damage bonus and they're more likely to hit you where it hurts. It's less forgiving rather than more difficult as such.

[D-Jak]

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by D-Jak:

I am literally at the very beginning, just went to the 5th floor of Tartarus. Playing on normal, I feel the fights are trivial at this point. Can this be considered still the "tutorial" area and will the difficulty spike up? Or can I change to hard already?

Until you unlock the second area of Tartarus you're still very much in a tutorial level of difficulty and facing some fairly simple enemies (in fact IIRC the last tutorial about a basic feature occurs around floor 63). Though of course, you can always shift the difficulty up and then bump it back down if things get too hard.

I also want the urge to actually need to use items and not just spam weak, weak, all out attack.

Probably won't happen for a while yet. Thing about the early game is you're facing a pretty limited selection of enemies who are largely matched to a weakness that can be exploited by at least one character in your party. So weak, weak all out is the way to go. The first boss will change that up since it's your introduction to enemies who don't have a weakness.
It's a bit after that you might start leaning on items more as enemies that use status effects start turning up and it starts becoming important not just which skills your party has, but who specifically has them.

And how does the difficulty change the fights? Just more HP and damage for enemies?

Shadow detection range increases, you get a damage nerf, they get a damage bonus and they're more likely to hit you where it hurts. It's less forgiving rather than more difficult as such.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

As far as I read in the forum, normal difficulty actually becomes even easier the more you progress since you get more abilites like shift etc. If that's true, I might actually restart tonight on hard and see how it goes.

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by archonsod:

Originally posted by D-Jak:

I am literally at the very beginning, just went to the 5th floor of Tartarus. Playing on normal, I feel the fights are trivial at this point. Can this be considered still the "tutorial" area and will the difficulty spike up? Or can I change to hard already?

Until you unlock the second area of Tartarus you're still very much in a tutorial level of difficulty and facing some fairly simple enemies (in fact IIRC the last tutorial about a basic feature occurs around floor 63). Though of course, you can always shift the difficulty up and then bump it back down if things get too hard.

I also want the urge to actually need to use items and not just spam weak, weak, all out attack.

Probably won't happen for a while yet. Thing about the early game is you're facing a pretty limited selection of enemies who are largely matched to a weakness that can be exploited by at least one character in your party. So weak, weak all out is the way to go. The first boss will change that up since it's your introduction to enemies who don't have a weakness.
It's a bit after that you might start leaning on items more as enemies that use status effects start turning up and it starts becoming important not just which skills your party has, but who specifically has them.

And how does the difficulty change the fights? Just more HP and damage for enemies?

Shadow detection range increases, you get a damage nerf, they get a damage bonus and they're more likely to hit you where it hurts. It's less forgiving rather than more difficult as such.

Actually; I'm on floor 100+ and I just got trapfloor tutorials (Dark floors) ... so THAT part of your statement is untrue and if you don't think that's a basic feature then Monad Doors certainly is....
That ALSO leads me to comment that said Monad Doors AND the jump from 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th area's are huge jumps in difficulties when you newly arrive on those floors. Enemies will easily survive up to 4 All-out attacks, certain enemies will start using insta-kill spells of BOTH light and dark variety (making finding an outright immunity to it rather hard) and will not miss downing an ally with their weakness and then outright slaughter them using attacks like Cruel Assault or nuke your party with Megido/megidola,megidolao

[D-Jak]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

Originally posted by archonsod:

Until you unlock the second area of Tartarus you're still very much in a tutorial level of difficulty and facing some fairly simple enemies (in fact IIRC the last tutorial about a basic feature occurs around floor 63). Though of course, you can always shift the difficulty up and then bump it back down if things get too hard.

Probably won't happen for a while yet. Thing about the early game is you're facing a pretty limited selection of enemies who are largely matched to a weakness that can be exploited by at least one character in your party. So weak, weak all out is the way to go. The first boss will change that up since it's your introduction to enemies who don't have a weakness.
It's a bit after that you might start leaning on items more as enemies that use status effects start turning up and it starts becoming important not just which skills your party has, but who specifically has them.

Shadow detection range increases, you get a damage nerf, they get a damage bonus and they're more likely to hit you where it hurts. It's less forgiving rather than more difficult as such.

Actually; I'm on floor 100+ and I just got trapfloor tutorials (Dark floors) ... so THAT part of your statement is untrue and if you don't think that's a basic feature then Monad Doors certainly is....
That ALSO leads me to comment that said Monad Doors AND the jump from 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th area's are huge jumps in difficulties when you newly arrive on those floors. Enemies will easily survive up to 4 All-out attacks, certain enemies will start using insta-kill spells of BOTH light and dark variety (making finding an outright immunity to it rather hard) and will not miss downing an ally with their weakness and then outright slaughter them using attacks like Cruel Assault or nuke your party with Megido/megidola,megidolao

What difficulty are you talking about?

And how many floors are there in Tartarus?

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by D-Jak:

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

Actually; I'm on floor 100+ and I just got trapfloor tutorials (Dark floors) ... so THAT part of your statement is untrue and if you don't think that's a basic feature then Monad Doors certainly is....
That ALSO leads me to comment that said Monad Doors AND the jump from 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th area's are huge jumps in difficulties when you newly arrive on those floors. Enemies will easily survive up to 4 All-out attacks, certain enemies will start using insta-kill spells of BOTH light and dark variety (making finding an outright immunity to it rather hard) and will not miss downing an ally with their weakness and then outright slaughter them using attacks like Cruel Assault or nuke your party with Megido/megidola,megidolao

What difficulty are you talking about?

And how many floors are there in Tartarus?

I'm on floor 131 atm
I think there are 264 in total (excluding Monad doors)
And I'm playing on normal

I was an OG persona fan, purposely did not look up any of the changes made to THIS version and dreading stuff like Sickness, Trapfloors with instant Reaper Summonings+Darkness and the fatigue system elected to start on normal... in hindsight a mistake. I COULD change to hard but I find certain enemies are a breeze on normal whereas other fights can become quite frustrating... Some of the enemies in Tartarus are actually harder than the boss you face directly before it....especially when it comes to Monad doors..
Instead I think I'll go to merciless directly when I hit NG+

[D-Jak]

So I did restart and switch to hard. I think it was the right decision. I still steam rolled everything up to the first full moon boss fight. There I needed two tries, first try time ran out. It was still fairly easy.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Overeagerdragon:

Actually; I'm on floor 100+ and I just got trapfloor tutorials (Dark floors) ... so THAT part of your statement is untrue and if you don't think that's a basic feature then Monad Doors certainly is....

Monad doors (and tunnels for that matter) are optional, so I wouldn't consider them basic. Trap floors are effectively just playing with the reaper summoning mechanics (I'm also not sure if any of them are guaranteed or if they're all RNG, in which case it may be possible you won't actually see one all game).