So, i can't just grind monsters?

[Enfyny]

I like jrpg, all of them and i also love to grind monsters, i like to discover what each monster can drop, what attacks they can use, rare hunting is also my favorite thing in many other games, so until i get everything from monster, i do not want to go further on the plot, it's just my game-style. So, as i heard, you can't just grind, you need to rush main quest, or monsters become stronger and that makes me sick. I like game art, battle-system is also looks interesting, but is it really impossible to play using method that I like and to complete the game?

[ArcRiseGen]

This game has something I like to call smart grinding. It's not that you shouldn't grind, it's that you shouldn't grind unnecessarily, primarily don't grind on weaker enemies. This game uses what is called Battle Rank (BR).

Think of BR as a level measurement where you have a BR (shown in the menu and at the end of fights) and enemies have a BR (invisible). The game wants the player to fight against enemies that are the same BR or at a higher BR than you in order for you to get better stats (taken from the SaGa series where stats are increased based on what is done in fights instead of levels increasing stats).

In a nutshell you want to fight enemies that are the same BR as you or at a higher BR than you. To tell the BR, look at the starting morale bar position when you engage enemies. If your BR is higher, then the morale bar will start with most of it being blue. If the BRs are same, then the morale starts in the middle. If your BR is lower, then the morale bar will be mostly red. You want the last two for optimal stats. However, Rare monsters when you first encounter them, for the most part, will be a higher BR than you. Feel free to try to kill them.

The game kind of punishes you in two ways if you grind on enemies that are a lower BR than you. One is that you get very few stats if your BR is too high comapred to the enemy's (Chain count plays a factor but in essence, you still dont' get as many stats). The other punishment is the enemies scale their attacks to higher levels. This happens because the game is assuming that your stats are higher than expected and tries to compensate it by increasing your BR while making enemies harder.

Regarding monster drops, you won't be able to do that from the start. Monster drops do have percentage based drops and everything but certain parts of the monsters cannot be obtained without getting the right Magazines. Magazines basically unlock more monster drops, usually used for later customizations. You usually get Magazines after completing certain Guild Tasks (like kill X number of Y monster, get X amount of Y items, etc.)

It's definitely not impossible but just try to avoid grinding on enemies that are weaker than you.

Also, do sidequests when you can, a bunch lock out after certain events. I always tell this to new people.

[PinkPаптҥэя]

The problem is how the BR system works in this game.
Every enemy union terminated raises BR by around 1/20 of a BR, regardless of how many turns or arts you use.
Stats however are raised according to your usage of arts.

So basically what you want is battles which provide the maximum usage of arts against the minimum number of enemy unions, which comes down to fighting rare, single union monsters.
Fight those at your heart's content, but avoid the regular mobs, which mostly can be defeated within one single turn and consist of multiple unions, which is very bad for the BR/Stats ratio.

What will happen if you fight these mobs all the time anyways?
Well, BR will rise much faster, which will diminish the gap between your party's BR and that of the enemies, making your party gain stats much slower, as has been said in ArcRiseGen's post above. In the end your party will be much weaker and you will have major troubles against the game's hardest bosses.

Here's an example how I play this game in a semi-low BR style. Avoid the 1-turn mobs but do pick the multi-turn fights:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=521281721

[SenMithrarin85]

Rule of the thumb is the morale bar. If its further to the left, then that means the enemies are strongee than you and thus fighting them will give you some decent stat gains. If its to the right, then you're stronger and thus fighting them will be either less effective for stats or a waste of time (unless you want their drops)

People confuse the BR system with making the game harder. Your BR affects 2 things:

1) The ammount of stat gains (you'll get less and less if you're fighitng weak enemies to often, thus fight stronger ones only)

2) How difficult it will be for new recruits to catch up. Every recruit has a "starting br". An example is Gabriel who starts at BR 12. This means if you hire him when your BR is 12 or less, he'll develop okay. If your BR is above 12, then he'll be less effective (and once your BR is too far above his, he'll be too weak).

[VileKiller]

OP, I think I've found a solution that's win-win.

So, you want to:

• Kill a ton of creatures.
  
• See all the loot they drop.
  
• and still min/max the game?

Start over, kill any creatures you want, but save before combat.
Single pull.
If you don't get a Talent Skill Up, reload from save.

This meets all your criteria.

[ToastedTilapia]

Like some of our veterans said, the BR system is a weird one that can punish grinding, but it doesn't mean you can't grind. It puts a slight limit to what you can do but with the proper knowledge you can succeed with your grinding addiction. Basically, any fight you participate in, you need to be using arts. If you aren't using arts, you're not going to get any stronger and eventually the curve of your enemy will surpass your progressive curve and your damage will barely shave off the scaling health of the Monsters.

As your BR increases, Monster's Health, Arts and Stats also get stronger. Monsters drop a certain amount of drops and it usually ranges between 1-4. In order to get monsters to drop more things, you need magazines which you can get from completing Guild Tasks and side quests.

My suggestion to you, if you want to grind a lot of monsters, try to not upgrade your weapons so that you can use as many arts as possible. The reason you don't want to have stronger weapons is because you can use the maximum amount of arts per battle meaning your BR is going to progress at the slowest possible rate per battle. Hope this gives you some more insight on the system and gives you a solution.

My other alternative is just to grind so much you'll get sick of grinding.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by SaucySalmon:

Like some of our veterans said, the BR system is a weird one that can punish grinding, but it doesn't mean you can't grind. It puts a slight limit to what you can do but with the proper knowledge you can succeed with your grinding addiction. Basically, any fight you participate in, you need to be using arts. If you aren't using arts, you're not going to get any stronger and eventually the curve of your enemy will surpass your progressive curve and your damage will barely shave off the scaling health of the Monsters.

As your BR increases, Monster's Health, Arts and Stats also get stronger. Monsters drop a certain amount of drops and it usually ranges between 1-4. In order to get monsters to drop more things, you need magazines which you can get from completing Guild Tasks and side quests.

My suggestion to you, if you want to grind a lot of monsters, try to not upgrade your weapons so that you can use as many arts as possible. The reason you don't want to have stronger weapons is because you can use the maximum amount of arts per battle meaning your BR is going to progress at the slowest possible rate per battle. Hope this gives you some more insight on the system and gives you a solution.

My other alternative is just to grind so much you'll get sick of grinding.

There's actually no need to grind at all. Even if you're doing a low BR run, no grinding is necessary as the only thing you'll be short of is money (easily taken care of via the vale of the gods harvest trick).

You did hit on one important thing though and thats not to upgrade your weapons until the Fallen at the earliest). As you said, the weaker your weapons are, the less damage you do and thus more arts you use. Defence is tied to weapons though, hence you will need to upgrade sometimes, just don't go overboard.

[Elvis]

Basically pretent you are playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion with it's horrible leveling system:

If you make for example and archer character and pick archery as a main skill, you will level fast and so will everything else = game gets much harder, possibly impossible.

OR you make an archer character and make sure ALL your skills are stuff you will NEVER use... cause that's good leveling design according so some :P

This is a wiki game. Next to nothing is explained in game. You shouldn't explore areas in case you accidentally fight a monster >.> So either play with a guide or do like me and just toss the game and play something more enjoyable and logical (I didn't like Oblivion either).

Personally for "simillar" style of jrpg games, with imo better combat systems, I could reccomend on PC: Pretty much any Final Fantasy game (X is best for it's combat), Divinity, Darkest Dungeon.

[Hans Moleman]

I don't relly understand how much overrated this BR-thing is.

I really like to simply play a game. If i had to use a guide to come by without any freedom i could even watch a movie.
On Xbox360 i had one run back than simply playing the game in my style running around exploring, doing all the quests and killing everything in my way and never had problems.
Not @Nest of Eagles (BR50+), not against The Fallen (BR150+), not against the seven (BR220+) and not against the conquerer (@BR300+).

Im doing the same right now @PC ...yep ok, my last run with this game was some time ago but even now i'm around BR90 and still on the "first disk".

So play and grind as you want, it won't be a problem, imo.

[PinkPаптҥэя]

Originally posted by Hans Maulwurf:

Not @Nest of Eagles (BR50+), not against The Fallen (BR150+), not against the seven (BR220+) and not against the conquerer (@BR300+).

Your numbers seem a bit odd, since 255 is the max. BR in this game.

Of course a playthough with this high BR is somehow possible, if everything else - skill/art development and weapon upgrades - is managed properly, still it's no good advice to give. And I can't imagine this being fun, fighting the same weak mobs over and over. Hundreds of one-turn battles...!

Getting your BR this high in the first half of the game WILL punish you, if you happen to have nothing to show for it and to be in need of grinding stats (e.g. for The Fallen) and have no grinding targets in the proper BR range left.

Originally posted by Hans Maulwurf:

I don't relly understand how much overrated this BR-thing is.

Comes from the XBOX version where BR gain actually was a major issue.
Has been vastly improved in the PC version, still advisable not to waste BR too often.