New difficulty option?

[Nintonito]

I know for a fact this wasn't added on console until FF13-2. Is it the same as FF13-2? Are achievements affected? I'm considering using it because on 360 i stopped at pulse from the ridiculous difficulty spike.

[talgaby]

Yes, there is easy mode, although it's used for farming mostly. No, it doesn't affect achievements. If you have difficulty with the fights it's usually not easy mode that is needed but a re-evaluation of strategy.
Or, as I saw in a lot of cases around here, the need to start using any form of strategy other than holding auto-battle on a COM/RAV/MED paradigm and hope the party outlasts the enemies.

[Nintonito]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Yes, there is easy mode, although it's used for farming mostly. No, it doesn't affect achievements. If you have difficulty with the fights it's usually not easy mode that is needed but a re-evaluation of strategy.
Or, as I saw in a lot of cases around here, the need to start using any form of strategy other than holding auto-battle on a COM/RAV/MED paradigm and hope the party outlasts the enemies.

That wasn't my issue. Gran pulse (chapter 11) is just a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty spike, and the sudden change in level design and structure is ridiculous. I spent 10 hours in those first few open zones getting cie'th missions done, until I couldn't take the constant grinding and ass whoping anymore.

[talgaby]

Hm, I still suspect your strategy may have been faulty. The stone missions are on your current level up to the point until you have to start backtracking after beating the chapter boss. Until then the oretoises are meant to be impossible and the large critters like behemoths very challenging to the point it's better to avoid them. The rest of the mobs you should be able to take on.

[Nintonito]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Hm, I still suspect your strategy may have been faulty. The stone missions are on your current level up to the point until you have to start backtracking after beating the chapter boss. Until then the oretoises are meant to be impossible and the large critters like behemoths very challenging to the point it's better to avoid them. The rest of the mobs you should be able to take on.

Well after some research apparently I was over leveling, and should have tried moving on already. I was using 4 paradigms, RAV/RAV/COM. MED/MED/SEN, MED/MED/RAV, and RAV/SEN/MED. I got stuck initially in the caves at the beginning of pulse, and assuming I was underleveled, and did a ton of grinding. I may give it another shot. Just to confirm, easy doesn't disable ANY of the achievements. I may use it on PC just to speed things up. I didn't need it in 13-2 though.

[talgaby]

SAB and SYN are in a close fight on which is the most important role: the lack of both and the small, 4-paradigm setup indicates that you just barely moved past the Hold A stage of strategies in the game.
Try using Fang and/or Vanille as SAB starters, Sazh and/or Hope as SYN starters and you'll instantly feel the difference in difficulty in your favour. Having a SYN haste and protect or buff the party while you demolish all defences or slow/curse/disable enemies can mean short and MED-less wins against the seemingly toughest of opponents.
After all adamantortoises and adamanchelids can actually be farmed for money and CP in chapter 9, if you want to, despite their status of seemingly being post-game monsters.

Also, yes, you can do all achievements on Easy. The game doesn't track which settings you use, you can even try and get the 5-star related achievements on slow speed (although that is quite difficult).

[Nintonito]

Originally posted by talgaby:

SAB and SYN are in a close fight on which is the most important role: the lack of both and the small, 4-paradigm setup indicates that you just barely moved past the Hold A stage of strategies in the game.
Try using Fang and/or Vanille as SAB starters, Sazh and/or Hope as SYN starters and you'll instantly feel the difference in difficulty in your favour. Having a SYN haste and protect or buff the party while you demolish all defences or slow/curse/disable enemies can mean short and MED-less wins against the seemingly toughest of opponents.
After all adamantortoises and adamanchelids can actually be farmed for money and CP in chapter 9, if you want to, despite their status of seemingly being post-game monsters.

Also, yes, you can do all achievements on Easy. The game doesn't track which settings you use, you can even try and get the 5-star related achievements on slow speed (although that is quite difficult).

I'm well aware that SAB and SYN are the most important. Haven't quite fleshed out the skills and gear yet so I removed them from rotation. Definitely going to fix that going forward on PC

[0bsidianFire]

Starting from Chapter 11 I found that Sentinels became a lot more useful in the long run then Medics (preventing damage vs. healing damage) and that Sabators can keep the chain gauge up the same way Comandos can. I typically use Fang/Lightning/Snow and my most used setups are SAB/RAV/SEN, COM/RAV/SEN, COM/MED/SEN and COM/RAV/RAV. The other two I use are SAB/MED/SEN and COM/MED/RAV. I usually start out with SAB/RAV/SEN and stay there until I've got two or less enemies (or until all the enemies are hit with status effects). Then I'll switch to COM/RAV/RAV and hopfully stay there until the end of battle. If my health starts getting low, COM/MED/RAV is the way to go.

[Nintonito]

Originally posted by 0bsidianFire:

Starting from Chapter 11 I found that Sentinels became a lot more useful in the long run then Medics (preventing damage vs. healing damage) and that Sabators can keep the chain gauge up the same way Comandos can. I typically use Fang/Lightning/Snow and my most used setups are SAB/RAV/SEN, COM/RAV/SEN, COM/MED/SEN and COM/RAV/RAV. The other two I use are SAB/MED/SEN and COM/MED/RAV. I usually start out with SAB/RAV/SEN and stay there until I've got two or less enemies (or until all the enemies are hit with status effects). Then I'll switch to COM/RAV/RAV and hopfully stay there until the end of battle. If my health starts getting low, COM/MED/RAV is the way to go.

Yeah I definitely agree with that. Sentinels get much more useful. Only time I used sentinels before that was on edolins and the chapter 8(9?) boss

[tiornys]

It's a common misconception that chapter 11 has a massive difficulty spike. If you completely skip over missions and try to pursue the storyline directly, there is a small difficulty jump (you're skipping one area in the difficulty curve). The perceived spike is caused by the fact that early chapter 11 happens to be the spot where the basic stagger/kill/heal strategies become painfully inefficient.

Mind you, these basic strategies have been outdated since chapter 4 or so, becoming gradually more and more inefficient compared with intermediate and advanced strategies. The game is easy enough that you can keep getting by with basic strategies, but I bet you started to have noticeably long combats somewhere around chapter 7 and had some painfully long combats in chapters 9 and 10.

Now is the time to set yourself to catching up on the strategic points that the game expected you to be picking up in the earlier chapters (like the power of SABs and SYNs, especially in combination, the utility of the SEN role, how to fight multiple enemies at once in an effective manner, etc.). The quicker you catch up to the learning curve, the more likely it is you'll be able to enjoy the game going forward.

[MancSoulja]

Originally posted by Nintonito:

Originally posted by talgaby:

Yes, there is easy mode, although it's used for farming mostly. No, it doesn't affect achievements. If you have difficulty with the fights it's usually not easy mode that is needed but a re-evaluation of strategy.
Or, as I saw in a lot of cases around here, the need to start using any form of strategy other than holding auto-battle on a COM/RAV/MED paradigm and hope the party outlasts the enemies.

That wasn't my issue. Gran pulse (chapter 11) is just a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty spike, and the sudden change in level design and structure is ridiculous. I spent 10 hours in those first few open zones getting cie'th missions done, until I couldn't take the constant grinding and ass whoping anymore.

When you get to Pulse, forget everything and head straight to Taejin's Tower. Spend a couple of hours running round there and by the time you get out, you'll be much stronger.

[Nintonito]

Originally posted by tiornys:

It's a common misconception that chapter 11 has a massive difficulty spike. If you completely skip over missions and try to pursue the storyline directly, there is a small difficulty jump (you're skipping one area in the difficulty curve). The perceived spike is caused by the fact that early chapter 11 happens to be the spot where the basic stagger/kill/heal strategies become painfully inefficient.

Mind you, these basic strategies have been outdated since chapter 4 or so, becoming gradually more and more inefficient compared with intermediate and advanced strategies. The game is easy enough that you can keep getting by with basic strategies, but I bet you started to have noticeably long combats somewhere around chapter 7 and had some painfully long combats in chapters 9 and 10.

Now is the time to set yourself to catching up on the strategic points that the game expected you to be picking up in the earlier chapters (like the power of SABs and SYNs, especially in combination, the utility of the SEN role, how to fight multiple enemies at once in an effective manner, etc.). The quicker you catch up to the learning curve, the more likely it is you'll be able to enjoy the game going forward.

I think my main issue was I actually tried to get all the cieth missions done before moving on. Some of them were clearly meant for higher levels characters. I also underleveled in chapter 7 and 8 (due to very stupid thinking) and now I'm feeling the consequences.

[tiornys]

Missions 1-15 are very doable at normal development levels for reaching Pulse. So are missions 17-20, and then 21-26 are actually required by the storyline. I'm not sure why they made mission 16 such an outlier (and technically it is still doable with resource expenditure--a Summon, possibly shroud use), but that's the only early mission that I'd say is clearly meant for higher level characters.

[Nintonito]

Originally posted by tiornys:

Missions 1-15 are very doable at normal development levels for reaching Pulse. So are missions 17-20, and then 21-26 are actually required by the storyline. I'm not sure why they made mission 16 such an outlier (and technically it is still doable with resource expenditure--a Summon, possibly shroud use), but that's the only early mission that I'd say is clearly meant for higher level characters.

Well I've completed up to 14 I think. Didn't know 21-26 were required, I'll keep that in mind. I assume those missions are in Taijin's tower, because it seems like they are switching mission paradigms completely (was gonna make a pun off that, but it wasn't worth it)

[tiornys]

Missions 21-26 are in Taejin's Tower, yes.

[Nintonito]

Originally posted by tiornys:

Missions 21-26 are in Taejin's Tower, yes.

Alright well I'm nearly there. Completely destroyed vanille's edolin, and I guess i was overpowered. Set up a couple of buff paradigms, going smoothly so far. I guess I just got overwhelmed by the sudden freedom.