Enemy health needs to be nerfed

[Robyn DeezNutz]

And no, this isn't a "enemies are too hard/game is too hard" rant thread. I mean that it takes way too long to kill even just the regular enemies. I just got passed Serpent Queen and came to realize that I was actively trying to avoid fights along the way. Its not that I find the encounters difficult, but rather I'm finding it quicker to just straight up try to get around them. I mean, the fact that I don't even find the fights difficult makes me wonder if I'm too over-leveled right now, even though I wasn't really grinding. They're boring. Fighting regular enemies is starting to get boring, which is a problem.

What drew me to this game in the first place is how similar it is to Valkyrie Profile. I LOVED that game. Not because the story was all that good, cuz it wasn't, but because the gameplay was just so much fun. I didn't get tired of fighting regular mobs, cuz it was a blast to chain attacks and specials. Here, though... as much as I hate to say it, it gets pretty boring, to the point where I just try to skip fights where I can. I don't know if nerfing health will fix the issue, cuz it probably wouldn't do anything about the regular fights feeling tedious, but maybe it can help.

[Eibon]

I've found that enemy HP is actually fairly insubstantial, outside mini-boss enemies (the trees, tanks, etc., which have a large HP bar appear beneath them). The problem comes when you have to kill each enemy individually.

Getting the first strike outside of battle clumps the enemies up, at which point you can immediately start comboing and damaging all of them, even with largely single-target characters.

Using early game characters, Ajna, Ginseng, Tungar, and Phoebe can likely destroy a pack of enemies without much trouble. Phoebe, especially, has very good damage output for single targets, and her neutral attack pierces while her up attack can hit multiple enemies in a small area.

Later on, Ajna and any aerial character, along with Ginseng, can rack up lots of damage quickly if you launch with Ajna first, combo with Ajna and the aerial character, and then finish with Ginseng's neutral attack. And, of course, Leilani is absolutely bonkers good, as she can damage basically everything at once and draw them in so others can attack them.

[Robyn DeezNutz]

Originally posted by Eibon:

I've found that enemy HP is actually fairly insubstantial, outside mini-boss enemies (the trees, tanks, etc., which have a large HP bar appear beneath them). The problem comes when you have to kill each enemy individually.

Getting the first strike outside of battle clumps the enemies up, at which point you can immediately start comboing and damaging all of them, even with largely single-target characters.

Using early game characters, Ajna, Ginseng, Tungar, and Phoebe can likely destroy a pack of enemies without much trouble. Phoebe, especially, has very good damage output for single targets, and her neutral attack pierces while her up attack can hit multiple enemies in a small area.

Later on, Ajna and any aerial character, along with Ginseng, can rack up lots of damage quickly if you launch with Ajna first, combo with Ajna and the aerial character, and then finish with Ginseng's neutral attack. And, of course, Leilani is absolutely bonkers good, as she can damage basically everything at once and draw them in so others can attack them.

You're absolutely right about the whole individual enemy thing. The first time attacking is def the best time to try to bring them all down, but when they separate... I find myself sighing in exasperation when I see 4 or 5 of them split up. That's when I know its gonna be a while. I have not ran into Leilani yet, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out.

[Eibon]

Originally posted by Kuroda Nakamura:

You're absolutely right about the whole individual enemy thing. The first time attacking is def the best time to try to bring them all down, but when they separate... I find myself sighing in exasperation when I see 4 or 5 of them split up. That's when I know its gonna be a while. I have not ran into Leilani yet, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out.

IIRC, Leilani appears at the docks in the Iron Kingdom after you finish the story quest there. I haven't played at all with Tungar (I just know he's the early game AOE character), but so far Leilani is the only character I've played with that actively clumps enemies up for easier combos on all of them.

Given how important that is to clearing things quickly, that's frustrating. I will say that it kinda trivializes most fights, though, and not in a good way. It feels far less rewarding to pull off because it's requires minimal skill in both planning and execution. Lettin' the Beyblade rip, though, is still pretty fun, however.

Which is to say, longer fights may be tedious after a while, but as someone who really enjoyed figuring out how to play the 4D Chess game of properly comboing with 4 characters at once, it took a lot of the challenge out of that, so I might just go back to using largely single-target characters.

[mcdatho]

no pls, dont nerf

[Bankai9212]

if OP has an issue now, wait till he deals with the damage reflection/magic absorption enemies.

[avil]

At some point you may start finishing a fight within one turn of your team. I don't think enemies need a health nerf.

[Robyn DeezNutz]

Originally posted by Bankai9212:

if OP has an issue now, wait till he deals with the damage reflection/magic absorption enemies.

Oh, I came across them already. They're easy. Thanks for your concern.

[Alzorath]

You can 100% tell the people that used their ringsels on defense vs those that used them on offense - each one of those upgrades makes a massive difference in gameplay experience - so if you go defense, you end up having the slowest spongiest nonsense ever, but have zero problems with bosses - if you go offense, you end up decimating everything, but the bosses can knock you out if you can't get them early (usually only optional ones being significant though).

They honestly should've gone with a hybrid system - where levels provided a bigger boost than they do now to those factors, and ringsels boost them less.

[TemmieNeko]

Originally posted by Alzorath:

You can 100% tell the people that used their ringsels on defense vs those that used them on offense - each one of those upgrades makes a massive difference in gameplay experience - so if you go defense, you end up having the slowest spongiest nonsense ever, but have zero problems with bosses - if you go offense, you end up decimating everything, but the bosses can knock you out if you can't get them early (usually only optional ones being significant though).

They honestly should've gone with a hybrid system - where levels provided a bigger boost than they do now to those factors, and ringsels boost them less.

mauybe they couldve balanced things etter bny making the ringsles a BNIT LESS COMMON. i collected at least 12 just yb travelling through an area, not even looking for them.
that's lazy, to me.
reminds me of breathj of the wild. 900 KORKOS! WHEW! yes, and 99.999% oif them are right out in the open, leaving discovering them little more than " neat "
the game drastically alters when you get the extra attacksa, and you don't even need the defenseive ones - but the game sure as heck wants you to get defense first.

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by TemmieNeko:

Originally posted by Alzorath:

You can 100% tell the people that used their ringsels on defense vs those that used them on offense - each one of those upgrades makes a massive difference in gameplay experience - so if you go defense, you end up having the slowest spongiest nonsense ever, but have zero problems with bosses - if you go offense, you end up decimating everything, but the bosses can knock you out if you can't get them early (usually only optional ones being significant though).

They honestly should've gone with a hybrid system - where levels provided a bigger boost than they do now to those factors, and ringsels boost them less.

mauybe they couldve balanced things etter bny making the ringsles a BNIT LESS COMMON. i collected at least 12 just yb travelling through an area, not even looking for them.
that's lazy, to me.
reminds me of breathj of the wild. 900 KORKOS! WHEW! yes, and 99.999% oif them are right out in the open, leaving discovering them little more than " neat "
the game drastically alters when you get the extra attacksa, and you don't even need the defenseive ones - but the game sure as heck wants you to get defense first.

Once you get to level 4 or 5 defense you can remove healers since you can perfect block to restore health. Honestly 3 offense is what you need, 4 and 5 enemies rarely attack anymore.

[View The Phenom]

HP is the only advantage enemies have in combat. They're slow, unable to deal significant damage and have defenses that are trivial to circumvent. Nerfing enemies that pose no threat is not the solution to the balance problem.

If you nerf their HP, you may as well take combat encounters out of the game completely. Otherwise, they'll just die in one turn of combat to every team composition imaginable.

[Breezy]

my assumption is that the spike in sponginess of enemies in mid game vs the lack of in late is there to force players to learn optimization of the game mechanics (with the various team comps that exist) and once you have that the late game just exist to act as just about every other rpg, a power fantasy. So long as you got a good juggle into a super, you're taking out your enemies.

i guess the other assumption is the only people using the training room are fighting game players XD

tho i might be reading too much into it and it could just be awkward balancing

[Cruelty]

Enemy HP doesn't seem to be a problem at all for me, just fight wisely, make sure you aren't whiffing any attacks, because you can VERY easily whiff attacks, and waste a lot of damage. Also make sure you're not healing enemies by mistake, Ajna's lvl 3 super will heal a lot of enemies in Tai Krung City. And so will Thorani's attacks / puddles. Also, make sure to initiate combat first, with any kind of attack and do a combo IMMEDIATELY because all enemies are grouped up instantly do deal about half HP to all of them. Honestly, I think they need to make all enemies attack faster, and I don't mean the attack animation I mean the speed at which they choose to do an attack. It would also be kinda cool if enemies could potentially combo break, kinda like a legend of dragoon slow mo and hit a button at the right time or something. But yeah, regular encounters need to become more interesting imo. Because they're way to easy to cheese. And I haven't put ANY ringsils in defense yet, I've put them all in offense and I already have all attack pips unlocked lol.

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by View The Phenom:

HP is the only advantage enemies have in combat. They're slow, unable to deal significant damage and have defenses that are trivial to circumvent. Nerfing enemies that pose no threat is not the solution to the balance problem.

If you nerf their HP, you may as well take combat encounters out of the game completely. Otherwise, they'll just die in one turn of combat to every team composition imaginable.

They could give them more attacks or turns.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Interestingly enough, the bonus boss actually seems to be well-balanced-ish. Maybe a bit overtuned even (mostly on That One Attack, you know the one), but it is a bonus boss and I tried to fight it before finishing all Resolution Quests so I might be underleveled. But compared to how the rest of the game seems to just be wrong, I can't help but wonder if they had a correctly tuned baseline but then the story mode got nerfed or something.