When does the battle system get good?

[square721bt]

I've been playing SMT games since Digital Devil Saga so I'm used to the press turn system, but not being able to switch your abilities during combat is such an obviously bad idea that I feel like another shoe has to drop? But I'm 19:13 in, in the first leg of the tournament. Does the combat system ever open up? I'm tired of going to a boss, finding that my archetype setup is wrong, killing myself, restarting, finding that the archetypes I need aren't leveled or they're leveled on the same character, going and grinding with the action battles.... it's so much wasted time and it's so incredibly not fun, why would they do this?

[Clown Reemus]

It doesn't, refund while you can. Check out Agarest Senki 1 and 2 if you are interested in a proper, in-depth battle system in a JRPG.

[Dregora]

I don't have a problem with it, but granted I play on normal. I've never felt limited or hampered at any boss aside from maybe less than a handful of mobs who conveniently counter all physical skills for example.

I can imagine this becomes a bigger problem on Hard and above, though. But it's not exactly hard to keep a lot of weaknesses around.. You can inherit certain skills to cover up whatever skill or elemental attack you naturally don't have, you've also got igniters you can equip that give you a variety of elemental attacks/buffs that you might lack and so on.

The possibilities do exist beyond just ''i use these 4 archetypes and that's all''. It's true sometimes you gotta switch up a little but at least on normal that's an incredibly rare occasion.

[dustin1280]

Weird, I played on hard with no boss or enemy guides and never had a problem beating bosses I was put up against. Sometimes I DID have to change archetypes and/or gear around, but ultimately I never had to grind really at all...

[Scyris]

I mean as you rank up Followers you can inherit up to 4 extra skills, so the AT's turn into being more stat buffers/synergy starters than anything else. They are very customizeable skill wise for the most part. I've never had to switch up my AT's for a boss or enemy yet and I am in brilhaven, I also play on hard as well. I just use the inherited skills system to full advantage. Strohl and Hulkenberg are both physical chars, so I try to inherit skills so they can hit the 3 physical weaknessess. These 2 chars make poor magic users thou, for elemental stuff My MC is a hybrid Str/mag, he has 20 base mag, and almost 30 str at lv 30, I have not added to agi, end or luck yet on him, as the base values seems to be high enough. You can also switch gear around, many items add alot to stats, like in Brilhaven you can buy accessories that are +9 to a stat. This can make even strohl or hulkenberg functionable as a magic user if you so desire. Npc sells a diff one each day, and you can buy multiple each day.

My main char at this point in the kreig castle area has like +7 to all stats from my gear alone I am using. +2 from merchant weap, +2 accessory, +1 from the tuxedo, and +2 all stat from a pair of boots I bought in the 2nd town. I also got the merchant social link at rank 4 atm so I can inherit 3 skills onto merchant, making it VERY adaptable. Its base skill is very good as well as Almighty damage cannot be negated or reflected or resisted in anyway, it also has a high crit chance. Also earns you a ton of money instakilling stuff in the overworld, so I get like a bonus of about 450 Reeve on top of whatever the enemy normally gives for killing it instantly in the overworld. Get me by a trance crystal even this early and I can earn 100k+ revee in a very short time, which this gain rate gets faster each level as it seems the merchant money bonus goes up by 15 for each char level you have. As a result I am fully geared, and can easly make 500k reeve in a short time period if I feel like it. Think I started the area I am in with less than 50k and I am at like 400-500k now in just raw reeve due to overworld mob killing with main char. Granted I do grind a bit, as my chars are level 30+ at this point. Just hit the 2nd Magla Hollow in the Kreig castle place.

[Tiasmoon]

I agree that combat switching should be a thing. Just have it take a turn point like party-member switching does.

Opening up the entire range of arch-types (except the one unique each has) leads to a lot of variety and choice of playstyle, but it also means the game isnt balanced with the team in mind anymore and is instead balanced around arch-types that you might not have leveled or equiped. Being able to switch in combat would atleast make the full-range of invested arch-types available for use.

[Scyris]

Originally posted by dustin1280:

Weird, I played on hard with no boss or enemy guides and never had a problem beating bosses I was put up against, sometimes I did have to change archetypes around, but ultimately I never had to grind really at all...

Thats been my experience, this game is honestly quite easy even on hard, compared to p3-5. Hell my 1st playthru of persona 3-5, I went on the highest difficulty and didn't really have much problems finishing the games.

[square721bt]

Originally posted by Dregora:

I don't have a problem with it, but granted I play on normal. I've never felt limited or hampered at any boss aside from maybe less than a handful of mobs who conveniently counter all physical skills for example.

I can imagine this becomes a bigger problem on Hard and above, though. But it's not exactly hard to keep a lot of weaknesses around.. You can inherit certain skills to cover up whatever skill or elemental attack you naturally don't have, you've also got igniters you can equip that give you a variety of elemental attacks/buffs that you might lack and so on.

The possibilities do exist beyond just ''i use these 4 archetypes and that's all''. It's true sometimes you gotta switch up a little but at least on normal that's an incredibly rare occasion.

Okay, well. You fight Zorba. Zorba has no weaknesses and resists all magic, and constantly summons mobs who are weak to fire and light, so to start, forget my mage that I've been using throughout the dungeon to hit weaknesses. You need a healer to heal and hit with light, a knight to take aggro/attacks and debuff defense, and a warrior to use that slash skill that sounds like it's not going to be great but turns out to be amazing because you need to do tons of physical as quickly as possible to Zorba because on a long enough timeline he wins by attrition. On hard you'll want a fire skill on one of your characters too because the action economy is very tight and you need to kill at least one zombie a turn to keep them from downing one of your characters - if you get a character down it's L3 because losing a turn plus another turn to heal will put you too far behind.

I hadn't been using warrior because the brawler seems to do just about everything it does except Slash but better, so I had to grind up warrior.

Then you fight the big human. You need a bunch of bludgeoning now and still fire, so you need to have a brawler and a knight because for whatever reason that's still the only way to debuff defense, and then someone who has at least one healing skill. This is a much easier fight, but I had been leveling both brawler and knight on hulkenburg so I had to burn a ton of incense to get Stohl's brawler up to snuff.

Then you have a fight out of bloody nowhere on the trail. The last boss I had fought was that human, so I'm still in brawler/healer/knight, but these guys are immune to all physical and weak to ice so fantasy is dead.

I don't understand - demon fusion was fun because it turned difficult encounters into a puzzle of fusing the right thing to be invincible to what you're fighting. You built up a team so that you can swap things in an out to be able to deal with multiple kinds of threats - having the right depth to your team was important too.

Now it's just... trial and error? What's the point of that? It's such an obviously bad change that I have to think that they're going to introduce something else to make this not bad? But I'm almost 20 hours in, you would think I would have seen all the cards by now.

[Scyris]

Originally posted by square721bt:

Originally posted by Dregora:

I don't have a problem with it, but granted I play on normal. I've never felt limited or hampered at any boss aside from maybe less than a handful of mobs who conveniently counter all physical skills for example.

I can imagine this becomes a bigger problem on Hard and above, though. But it's not exactly hard to keep a lot of weaknesses around.. You can inherit certain skills to cover up whatever skill or elemental attack you naturally don't have, you've also got igniters you can equip that give you a variety of elemental attacks/buffs that you might lack and so on.

The possibilities do exist beyond just ''i use these 4 archetypes and that's all''. It's true sometimes you gotta switch up a little but at least on normal that's an incredibly rare occasion.

Okay, well. You fight Zorba. Zorba has no weaknesses and resists all magic, and constantly summons mobs who are weak to fire and light, so to start, forget my mage that I've been using throughout the dungeon to hit weaknesses. You need a healer to heal and hit with light, a knight to take aggro/attacks and debuff defense, and a warrior to use that slash skill that sounds like it's not going to be great but turns out to be amazing because you need to do tons of physical as quickly as possible to Zorba because on a long enough timeline he wins by attrition. On hard you'll want a fire skill on one of your characters too because the action economy is very tight and you need to kill at least one zombie a turn to keep them from downing one of your characters - if you get a character down it's L3 because losing a turn plus another turn to heal will put you too far behind.

I hadn't been using warrior because the brawler seems to do just about everything it does except Slash but better, so I had to grind up warrior.

Then you fight the big human. You need a bunch of bludgeoning now and still fire, so you need to have a brawler and a knight because for whatever reason that's still the only way to debuff defense, and then someone who has at least one healing skill. This is a much easier fight, but I had been leveling both brawler and knight on hulkenburg so I had to burn a ton of incense to get Stohl's brawler up to snuff.

Then you have a fight out of bloody nowhere on the trail. The last boss I had fought was that human, so I'm still in brawler/healer/knight, but these guys are immune to all physical and weak to ice so fantasy is dead.

I don't understand - demon fusion was fun because it turned difficult encounters into a puzzle of fusing the right thing to be invincible to what you're fighting. You built up a team so that you can swap things in an out to be able to deal with multiple kinds of threats - having the right depth to your team was important too.

Now it's just... trial and error? What's the point of that? It's such an obviously bad change that I have to think that they're going to introduce something else to make this not bad? But I'm almost 20 hours in, you would think I would have seen all the cards by now.

Really I killed him easly with a mage, brawler, knight combo on hard, he was a complete joke. Never had a problem with him. You can pass turns you know, you don't need to attack every turn that comes up on the mage. I had medi set as a inheranted skill on my mage as well, so he could heal just fine. Game is all about abusing the inherited skill system to customize things. I'd use the mage mostly to heal and deal with his summons while the Knight and Brawler attacked him. Hammer of justice lands a 1 hit pierce weakness, so you can basically force any enemy that is not pierce repel or immune to have a pierce weakness for one attack. It also hits for like 500 on Zorba at level 20 chars after the weakness is applied. I can sometimes kill him without even needing to kill his summons as I can just kill him that fast, and its all by abusing the games systems it has.

I'm in kreig castle area atm, and strohl and Hulkenberg can both hit any physical weakness due to inherited skills, Hulkenberg is a tier 2 Knight class, she has Mediline, a party heal thats about twice as strong as Medi for the same mp cost, the only thing is it only heals people in the same row she is in. So Hulkenberg is basically my healer now as a magic knight if I need it, but she can also hit all physical elements at will as well. Main char is merchant, the Almighty skill it has costs money to use, and can bypass any reflect/block, and has a very high crit rate, its also Str based. I also have him with a slashing attack, and a piercing attack from gunner, so I can hit those weaknessess if needed, as well as Medi just incase. Crit with the almighty skil hits for 500-600 at this point in the game and it crits roughly 50% of the time for me. Sure it costs 500 Reeve a cast, but I get 500 revee just about by insta killing a single enemy in overworld combat with merchant set as MC's class.

Game isin't hard its just people seem to have skill issues where it comes to proper planning etc.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by square721bt:

On hard you'll want a fire skill on one of your characters too because the action economy is very tight and you need to kill at least one zombie a turn to keep them from downing one of your characters - if you get a character down it's L3 because losing a turn plus another turn to heal will put you too far behind.

Zorba is not immune to Physical attacks, and Pierce in particular, so "Hammer of Justice" (Knight + Brawler synthesis skill) deletes him without having to worry about zombos.

On that note, "Hammer of Justice" destroys any boss that does not Null, Repel or Drain pierce-based attacks, and a bit later you get "Magic Knight's Hammer" which deals even more damage and has Elec affinity.

Point being, study and get used to synthesis skills. Some of them can carry you even with a less-than-optimal choice of Archetypes.

[Syynx]

Originally posted by Clown Reemus:

It doesn't, refund while you can. Check out Agarest Senki 1 and 2 if you are interested in a proper, in-depth battle system in a JRPG.

This? https://store.steampowered.com/app/260130/Agarest_Generations_of_War_Zero/

[square721bt]

It sounds like you really ground a lot then, I went in with my archetypes at 8/14/14. It must have taken forever to get to 20.

[square721bt]

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

Originally posted by square721bt:

On hard you'll want a fire skill on one of your characters too because the action economy is very tight and you need to kill at least one zombie a turn to keep them from downing one of your characters - if you get a character down it's L3 because losing a turn plus another turn to heal will put you too far behind.

Zorba is not immune to Physical attacks, and Pierce in particular, so "Hammer of Justice" (Knight + Brawler synthesis skill) deletes him without having to worry about zombos.

On that note, "Hammer of Justice" destroys any boss that does not Null, Repel or Drain pierce-based attacks, and a bit later you get "Magic Knight's Hammer" which deals even more damage and has Elec affinity.

Point being, study and get used to synthesis skills. Some of them can carry you even with a less-than-optimal choice of Archetypes.

Oof, not the answer I was hoping for.

So it sounds like this game doesn’t ever get flexible, weaknesses don’t matter much, and it’s about finding the powerful phys skills and spamming them.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by square721bt:

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

Zorba is not immune to Physical attacks, and Pierce in particular, so "Hammer of Justice" (Knight + Brawler synthesis skill) deletes him without having to worry about zombos.

On that note, "Hammer of Justice" destroys any boss that does not Null, Repel or Drain pierce-based attacks, and a bit later you get "Magic Knight's Hammer" which deals even more damage and has Elec affinity.

Point being, study and get used to synthesis skills. Some of them can carry you even with a less-than-optimal choice of Archetypes.

Oof, not the answer I was hoping for.

So it sounds like this game doesn’t ever get flexible, weaknesses don’t matter much, and it’s about finding the powerful phys skills and spamming them.

It's as flexible as you want it to be. You can do things "fair and square", you can find some broken synergy and have the time of your life with it, you can intentionally limit yourself - whatever suits your fancy.

It's not any different in SMT and Persona games.

[Bush]

It doesn't become a Phys stacking fest until the end of the game - and that's only if you're doing it on Hard or Relentless (NG+), and are doing Apocalypse Dragon or Uber Louis (I don't know what he's actually called).

Check out the synthesis moves, those'll help. Or just lower the difficulty for that single fight if you don't feel like grinding to be more prepared.

[Clown Reemus]

Originally posted by Syynx:

Originally posted by Clown Reemus:

It doesn't, refund while you can. Check out Agarest Senki 1 and 2 if you are interested in a proper, in-depth battle system in a JRPG.

This? https://store.steampowered.com/app/260130/Agarest_Generations_of_War_Zero/

Yep, great series all things considered. Mixes high philosophical concepts with fantasy story... and even has romance and choices that lead to the "true ending". Like, I think it has the best of what Japanese games in the genre invented to date.