A little confused on "Keep your HP up"

[Holy Athena]

I'm playing through this game for the second time (Didn't finish it last time, came back half a year later so I'm restarting). However I have a question.

Why does "Keep your HP up" not always show up? Especially during the most critical times it seems. Seems like a bad flaw, or design when your party has 3 different ways to heal itself, yet not a single "heal yourself" or "keep your HP up" option appears when your at 25% hp and are probably gonna die on the next round.

I've got enough AP, I've got 30 herbs that heal, and 25 that can raise. Even when my party dies the option to raise them is rarely ever available. (I've seen it only once). So I guess what my question is... Is there anything "special" that triggers these part from low HP? Or is there a reason why I'm magically not able to heal myself or use my herbs despite having them?

[lirmont]

Any option depends on some combination of the class of the leader, the organization of the battle (deadlocked/not deadlocked), the global morale, the local morale, the availability of items (many abilities require more than one type of component), the availability of AP, the individual status of each character (groggy, silenced, paralyzed, poisoned), and, of course, actually having abilities to use (re: you can have a mountain of curative items and not know how to use them; alternatively, you can turn arts on and off individually or by group).

Early game, forcing that particular option usually means getting units that all have some form of healing into one unit. There are more than enough units you can purchase that have such abilities (be it from guilds or the generic Athlum recruitment NPC). Late game, one unit is usually able to take a union from nearly 0 hp to full hp, but having more available may be able to heal two unions at a given time. Additionally, some enemies can instakill a single unit in a union. If that happens to be your only healer, you're out of luck. Having several units with access to vivication-capable arts can also help prevent the "Botched!" status from requiring another union's intervention.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by lirmont:

Any option depends on some combination of the class of the leader, the organization of the battle (deadlocked/not deadlocked), the global morale, the local morale, the availability of items (many abilities require more than one type of component), the availability of AP, the individual status of each character (groggy, silenced, paralyzed, poisoned), and, of course, actually having abilities to use (re: you can have a mountain of curative items and not know how to use them; alternatively, you can turn arts on and off individually or by group).

Early game, forcing that particular option usually means getting units that all have some form of healing into one unit. There are more than enough units you can purchase that have such abilities (be it from guilds or the generic Athlum recruitment NPC). Late game, one unit is usually able to take a union from nearly 0 hp to full hp, but having more available may be able to heal two unions at a given time. Additionally, some enemies can instakill a single unit in a union. If that happens to be your only healer, you're out of luck. Having several units with access to vivication-capable arts can also help prevent the "Botched!" status from requiring another union's intervention.

I kinda knew all that already, but I'm just wondering....

Situation A: Both Squads are deadlocked. Both squads have 2 people that can heal, another that can use herbs. Both have 40 AP+ available.

Squad A: is at 90% hp, Squad B is at 20% HP...

Squad A gets a "keep your HP up". Squad B doesn't.....

What is causing this? (Yes this is an actual situation I had).

[lirmont]

List the classes of the leaders.

[Zloth]

Originally posted by Mistress Athena:

I've got enough AP, I've got 30 herbs that heal, and 25 that can raise.

Just to make sure all the bases are covered... Every herb power actually requires TWO herbs. The first heal power needs cureleaf and relaxing herb. The first vivication needs restoleaf and relaxing herb. If you've got no relaxing herbs then neither power will show up no matter what the situation is.

Also, herbs never require any AP. Same with all the other item based powers.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by Zloth:

Originally posted by Mistress Athena:

I've got enough AP, I've got 30 herbs that heal, and 25 that can raise.

Just to make sure all the bases are covered... Every herb power actually requires TWO herbs. The first heal power needs cureleaf and relaxing herb. The first vivication needs restoleaf and relaxing herb. If you've got no relaxing herbs then neither power will show up no matter what the situation is.

Also, herbs never require any AP. Same with all the other item based powers.

I have all the proper herbs.

[Holy Athena]

nvm. I've jsut realized that this game is completely garbage when it comes to prioritizing anything to do with heals. This is unfortunate, since the major flaw of this game is the healing.

When you have boss battles where your morale bar is permenantly all the way down, the few times you actually get a chance to heal, the AI is too stupid to prioritize properly.

9/10 times if your low on HP with 10% hp left, AND you have a status effect down on your party, it'll get rid of the status down instead of healing.

ftl.....

[Zloth]

Well, if you're going to just blame the game and make up lies for evidence, there's not much point in trying to help you.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by Zloth:

Well, if you're going to just blame the game and make up lies for evidence, there's not much point in trying to help you.

lol? please don't try to help me if your going to accuse me of something stupid....

[zombie2nd]

I think it's completely random but

• You'll get recovery command more often (not always) when
  your union's leader have a "medic" skill
  e.g. one of these classes :
  scout, hunter, healer, bishop or scholar.
  
  
• Disable some unuse arts may help recovery commands appear.
  for example disable all arts except a single attack art and recovery arts
  
  
• When a medic union stays out of deathlock,
  "Recover your Health!" command always appears.
  (imo this is the most effective way to keep your hp high
  because the command always appears)

[billy]

I find they will often heal if you select 'play by ear'. and there health is low , sometimes even healing other groups.

While expereince and knowledge of the game obviously helps , the combat is way to obtuse.

No matter how much of an expert you are sometimes the choices available make no sense and leave you confused . why they couldnt let you pick or pick a role i dont know. Having said that it does make the game different from all the others.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by billy:

I find they will often heal if you select 'play by ear'. and there health is low , sometimes even healing other groups.

While expereince and knowledge of the game obviously helps , the combat is way to obtuse.

No matter how much of an expert you are sometimes the choices available make no sense and leave you confused . why they couldnt let you pick or pick a role i dont know. Having said that it does make the game different from all the others.

After playing alot more, I found this was my staple way to always have them h eal themselves, and having 1 group with a healer as the main leader, and setting them to "play by ear" 24/7, heals all around.

[dietz.martin]

There are other "stupid" combat options, well not stupid by themself, but in their selection. I had lots of occasions where I had the same description twice in the list. Sometimes you could tell that the two "Heal yourself" options are different as one breaks the "Blockade" (or "deadlock" in the English version if I interpret the other posts correctly) and the other doesn't, but also I had a lot of "Attack with martial arts" (or however it is translated correctly) twice with the only difference in AP cost. So the description itself does not tell enough what to expect in the next round when giving this command.

Then: You can tell that the attack should use mystic arts, but the choice of the spell is left to the protagonist, and so Rush many times used unuseful spells against the enemy. Sometimes an acid attack that could kill more than one group was cheaper in AP then the simple lightning attack against a single enemy.

And what about that "Go for the leader" option? None of these attacks ever managed to kill a single enemy from a group, not speaking of taking out the leader to spread chaos in the enemy group.


Or: a group that was far way from an enemy group could use ranged attacks against this enemy, another group, also full of spellthrowers but much nearer to the same enemy, could only advance.

A group "free" of being deadlocked by enemies and normally capable of giving the "kiss of life" is not given the choice to revive another group (near the end of the game where every group had at least one to give the kiss of life and a second one who could revive with herbs, I had to repeat some fights because of such "unlogic" game decisions).

To summarize: Although there might be logic behind which options the game offers or how it calculates the AP costs, that logic is not clear enough to the gamer. This is a big design flaw that causes much frustration. How is a player thought to plan a fight and use his ressources wise when he can't rely on being able to give a specific command the next round? And I'm not talking about planning spells and then being silenced. A round-based RPG is meant to be played strategic, but if you can only decide for the current round, you're not acting, your only reacting to what the game gives you, and that removes the immersion necessary to identify with the protagonist, one of the main elements of every RPG (I hope that the J in JRPG, indicating Japanese RPG, does not mean that this element of identifying with the protagonist is missing due to cultral differences in gaming).

Just an opinon, but based on many years of playing (western) RPGs.

Regards

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by dietz.martin:

There are other "stupid" combat options, well not stupid by themself, but in their selection. I had lots of occasions where I had the same description twice in the list. Sometimes you could tell that the two "Heal yourself" options are different as one breaks the "Blockade" (or "deadlock" in the English version if I interpret the other posts correctly) and the other doesn't, but also I had a lot of "Attack with martial arts" (or however it is translated correctly) twice with the only difference in AP cost. So the description itself does not tell enough what to expect in the next round when giving this command.

Then: You can tell that the attack should use mystic arts, but the choice of the spell is left to the protagonist, and so Rush many times used unuseful spells against the enemy. Sometimes an acid attack that could kill more than one group was cheaper in AP then the simple lightning attack against a single enemy.

And what about that "Go for the leader" option? None of these attacks ever managed to kill a single enemy from a group, not speaking of taking out the leader to spread chaos in the enemy group.


Or: a group that was far way from an enemy group could use ranged attacks against this enemy, another group, also full of spellthrowers but much nearer to the same enemy, could only advance.

A group "free" of being deadlocked by enemies and normally capable of giving the "kiss of life" is not given the choice to revive another group (near the end of the game where every group had at least one to give the kiss of life and a second one who could revive with herbs, I had to repeat some fights because of such "unlogic" game decisions).

To summarize: Although there might be logic behind which options the game offers or how it calculates the AP costs, that logic is not clear enough to the gamer. This is a big design flaw that causes much frustration. How is a player thought to plan a fight and use his ressources wise when he can't rely on being able to give a specific command the next round? And I'm not talking about planning spells and then being silenced. A round-based RPG is meant to be played strategic, but if you can only decide for the current round, you're not acting, your only reacting to what the game gives you, and that removes the immersion necessary to identify with the protagonist, one of the main elements of every RPG (I hope that the J in JRPG, indicating Japanese RPG, does not mean that this element of identifying with the protagonist is missing due to cultral differences in gaming).

Just an opinon, but based on many years of playing (western) RPGs.

Regards

That's kinda what I was pointing at myself, though I still really love the game, and your choices can still influence, not ever knowing exactly what choices you're gonna get the next round does really take away some of the "control" the player has over strategy.

[Zloth]

Originally posted by dietz.martin:

...but also I had a lot of "Attack with martial arts" (or however it is translated correctly) twice with the only difference in AP cost. So the description itself does not tell enough what to expect in the next round when giving this command.

No, it doesn't. But if you push the Z key it will tell you exactly what they will do. Check the various combat videos right here on Steam and you'll see several examples.

And what about that "Go for the leader" option? None of these attacks ever managed to kill a single enemy from a group, not speaking of taking out the leader to spread chaos in the enemy group.

That command is best if you've got people doing strong, single-target attacks. If you're just using area-of-effect attacks anyway then it makes no difference.

To summarize: Although there might be logic behind which options the game offers or how it calculates the AP costs, that logic is not clear enough to the gamer. This is a big design flaw that causes much frustration.

Frustrating? Sometimes. Flaw? Nope...

How is a player thought to plan a fight and use his ressources wise when he can't rely on being able to give a specific command the next round?

That would be why it's a feature. You can't be certain what you'll get next round. You can INFLUENCE what you'll get by picking leaders and flat-out turning off specific arts you don't want to use but you can never be certain. That's what makes the battles in this game fun over the long term!

If you were able to pick any power you wanted then it wouldn't take you long to optimize a party even as big as these. The battles would settle down into a routine where they all attack with pretty much the same powers every single time, barring status effects. With the system the way it is, though, you have to think every single turn for every single squad to evaluate how to best use the commands that showed up. If your psychology is such that all you can see are the commands you DIDN'T get then the game will be astoundingly frustrating - you've got to look at what you DID get and figure out how best to use what you got.

...your only reacting to what the game gives you...

Only? No, not only. You've still got to decide which unions to go after first, decide how your squads should be set up, and other such things. You are certainly doing a lot more reacting than long term planning, though.

...and that removes the immersion necessary to identify with the protagonist...

!?!? Huh? First of all, there are quite a few protagonists. Second of all, the main protagonist isn't big on careful planning or doing anything terribly smart. I doubt Rush could handle checkers, never mind chess.

The difference between western and Japanese RPGs is somewhat fuzzy. You typically don't have control over the personality of a character in a JRPG while you'll be given some choice in a western RPG (even if those choices just mean slightly different dialog). Battle systems are so varied in both styles of RPG that I don't think any features belong to either side exclusively.