Sell me on the battle system

[Predator Goose]

So up front I have to admit that I found Zestiria's battle system dull, repetitive, lacking in style.

I was looking forward to Berseria since a lot of the early hype seemed to be that it fixed most of the problems with Zestiria, especially the battle system. Which was why I was surprised when I fired up the demo and found...that it's mostly the same thing? What the hell?

There are a number of improvements in Berseria's system like the ability to map the artes yourself, or the system where you can steal enemy attacks. But the core things that eventually turned me off of Zestiria still seem to be there.

I'll freely admit that much of my complaints with the battle system stems from my inability to fit that much information in my head at a given time. The basic premise of the combo system is that each button will do a different thing based on what arte you have assigned to that button for that portion of the combo. In order to have free and flexible combos I have to keep in my head what hit I'm on, what artes I have on what buttons for that combo count, and what I want it to lead into. And then go through the arduous process of swapping skills in and out to find ideal setups/even just skill I like at that point in the combo. To say nothing of however weakness combos are going to work. It's... not fun to do that kind of work. Either I'm too stupid or too unmotivated and I can keep that much in my head for a video game. And if I leave it alone for a month? Gonna have a helluva time getting back into it since I'll have forgotten everything about my combo setups.

Realistically I'd probably just end up programming arte combos that are easy to remember - forgoing on the fly combos for prepackaged ones. Not really an ideal solution though since that just leads right into the problem of button mashing.


So what am I missing? How does everyone enjoy the combo system so much? Am I approaching it wrong?

[PapaBearPrime]

The series it self is kind of a button masher. The only difference I feel in this one, is the fact that they got rid of the directional artes, which ever Tales of game had besides this one.
The one thing to do while playing this game series is knowing where to hit and what is the best arte to use. Like I tell many people, try to look at the animation and it's reach, once you got that down, try to change things accordingly. I would show you myself but I don't know how to stream XD.
Edit: I suggest you try to play the older ones, if Zesty was the first one you ever played, then you could be off to a bad start. If you have a PS3 I really recommand you play Tales of Graces F or Xillia 1 and 2 (they are pretty cheap now). Or if you have a PS2 emulator, download Tales of the Abyss.

[Baalk]

Well if the monster are easy and the dificulty is normal, you can always mash keys and you will be fine. but set it on the hardest, at less on zestiria it made you goin with care.

Of course unless you farm OP weapons <- i don't like it much that sistem.

lastly we can't say this is the "Full" yet. we still need see more skills, arts etc

[Great Duck]

You learn it full hog so you can do this (Boss 30 seconds in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm5DL4zmNY0

(I'm kidding, OmegaEvolution isn't human- but he isn't the only one who learns these games that well either)

The only real middle ground is that the number of combos you can feasibly memorize is higher than you intially thought it was.

The worst that could happen is that you play Berseria like an older Tales game in which you only had basic attacks and four hand-picked specials at a time and that was it (unless you chose to allocate your team shortcut slots to your playable character's specials)... but then most of the Tales series is (satisfying) button-mashing, so back to square one.

[PapaBearPrime]

Originally posted by Great Duck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm5DL4zmNY0

(I'm kidding, OmegaEvolution is not human.)

There isn't much a middle ground, really, unless the number of combos you can comfortably memorize rises a bit as you play.

Graces/Zestiria/Berseria are actually some of the most fluid battle systems the series has ever had. Most Tales games gave you basic attacks and four inputs for special attacks, and that was it, if you wanted any more you either need to allocate your team-wide shortcut inputs to them or manually swap them out in the menu.

I swear, Omega can't be human, he makes everything seem like child's play XD.

[Raptor Jesus]

Sadly the battle system is more shallow than any recent release. The fact that skill directions are bound by the buttton leads to to be more of a mash fest than the other tales game.

[VoreTechz]

Play the demo. Let the game speak for itself. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

[VoreTechz]

Originally posted by PapaBearPrime:

If you have a PS3 I really recommand you play Tales of Graces F or Xillia 1 and 2 (they are pretty cheap now). Or if you have a PS2 emulator, download Tales of the Abyss.

I agree, Tales of Xillia was very good. Graces F is also good. :)

[Predator Goose]

I've got experience with older tales games, I've been a series fan since Destiny on the PS1. And I'm not worried about the difficulty level of the game. What I find "hard" about Zestiria's battle system was using it in a way that was engaging, entertaining, and flashy. For reasons I outlined above. Berseria appears to refine the Zestiria formula a bit, but not substantially.

I was hoping that Berseria was a larger departure from Zestiria. I made this thread because I did play the demo and the battle system of Berseria feels like an extremely close cousin to the Zestiria one, to the point that I was hoping that I was just missing something.

[Ceriss]

Problem for me with Zesitiria is that it was impossible to tell wtf was going on.

Every attack was this overly flashy mess of effects, could hardly tell what move I executed or what button I used to execute it.

I haven't played many Tales games at all but I left Zestiria unplayed, can't stand it.

Berseria at least seems much more comprehensible.

[SayakiArt]

Originally posted by Great Duck:

You learn it full hog so you can do this (Boss 30 seconds in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm5DL4zmNY0

(I'm kidding, OmegaEvolution isn't human- but he isn't the only one who learns these games that well either)

The only real middle ground is that the number of combos you can feasibly memorize is higher than you intially thought it was.

The worst that could happen is that you play Berseria like an older Tales game in which you only had basic attacks and four hand-picked specials at a time and that was it (unless you chose to allocate your team shortcut slots to your playable character's specials)... but then most of the Tales series is (satisfying) button-mashing, so back to square one.

noteable to say is,that you have to wearing the right gear/skills to pull this of for example casting time reduction,so this is stuff you can do waaay in the game.The demo is around level 25 where you cant do that.The demo doesnt even have all battle features included.

[WTFantastico]

No, my experience with the battle system has been the same as yours. The weakness system seems to reward pausing to set up pre-baked combos to cater to weaknesses, repeating them until the enemy dies, and the artes tree limits the amount of attacks you have at your disposal at any one time to 4 where it used to be 16+4 normal attack variants (sometimes many more, alla Patty of Vesperia).

I found the game to push the player more towards making and repeating combos rather than organically adapting to different battle situations on the fly, mostly because artes don't seem to create any different battle situations or significant effects to the enemies. Status effects are something, but they don't fundamentally change how you approach and attack the enemy once they're in place, they just assist your dps generally.

Previous Tales games asked the player to think about varied aspects of the combat system, like multiple enemy topple states, bounce height, aerial and ground recover speed, enemy weights, and much more. In those games, every arte would have a different effect on the enemy, and the player would need to learn to make decisions about what artes would be ideal to create the longest and most damaging combos, or what combos would be the safest. Any choice could, and often would, drastically change the options you'd have available to you. Whenever the player discovered a new facet of the battle system, it was, in my personal experience, a moment of elation, and following the roots of it through experimentation to discover just how many different things it affected was what kept fights interesting for me.

Look, I feel like I've thrown myself on too much of a tangent now, but these are the kinds of things I find missing in Berseria's combat system. It's totally possible that more depth exists in Berseria's gameplay than what I'm aware of, considering I've played the demo for just 2 hours, but with these previous Tales games I mentioned, it was obvious from the start that there was much more to the iceberg than what I initially saw. Unfortunately, that's something I just haven't felt with Berseria.

[Bamiji]

Originally posted by WTFantastico:

No, my experience with the battle system has been the same as yours. The weakness system seems to reward pausing to set up pre-baked combos to cater to weaknesses, repeating them until the enemy dies, and the artes tree limits the amount of attacks you have at your disposal at any one time to 4 where it used to be 16+4 normal attack variants (sometimes many more, alla Patty of Vesperia).

I found the game to push the player more towards making and repeating combos rather than organically adapting to different battle situations on the fly, mostly because artes don't seem to create any different battle situations or significant effects to the enemies. Status effects are something, but they don't fundamentally change how you approach and attack the enemy once they're in place, they just assist your dps generally.

Previous Tales games asked the player to think about varied aspects of the combat system, like multiple enemy topple states, bounce height, aerial and ground recover speed, enemy weights, and much more. In those games, every arte would have a different effect on the enemy, and the player would need to learn to make decisions about what artes would be ideal to create the longest and most damaging combos, or what combos would be the safest. Any choice could, and often would, drastically change the options you'd have available to you. Whenever the player discovered a new facet of the battle system, it was, in my personal experience, a moment of elation, and following the roots of it through experimentation to discover just how many different things it affected was what kept fights interesting for me.

Look, I feel like I've thrown myself on too much of a tangent now, but these are the kinds of things I find missing in Berseria's combat system. It's totally possible that more depth exists in Berseria's gameplay than what I'm aware of, considering I've played the demo for just 2 hours, but with these previous Tales games I mentioned, it was obvious from the start that there was much more to the iceberg than what I initially saw. Unfortunately, that's something I just haven't felt with Berseria.

Can't say I don't agree with you there @WTFantastico , I had these concerns as soon as I learned about the forced arte tree system. I think I might be skipping this one, or at least delaying it for a very long time. Not a fan of the pre-baked combo system, for pretty much all the reasons you already gave. They just had to go and break something that was good in the series, to make it easier for everyone to combo (I guess?) and now there's not much for me here, I think, sadly.
I've heard about the unlockable arte shortcuts, but it doesn't sound like they really change anything substantially.

[kqookqoo]

I bought this game and while the art/characters/story seem fine the battle system just seems awful so far.

I've played every tales game from Vesperia until now and this will be the last I buy until I'm sure they're making good games again. Zestiria and Berseria just don't have enough in the combat system to keep me entertained. The game reached it's peak at Xillia 2 for me (from a purely combat perspective) where there was many different attacks and artes with every character having unique abilities. Stringing together long and varied combos was what made the game for me and in the 2 most recent releases I'm just repeating the same attacks over and over. Zestiria was actually the first tales game I didn't finish.

[Hollow Snake]

here is my tip for remembering the combo setups: "Just assigning the arte based on their attribute accordingly to the button's color" - For instance:

- all "wind" related artes are assigned to GREEN button (A).
- all "water" related artes are assigned to BLUE button (X).
- all "fire" related artes are assigned to RED button (B).
- all "earth" related artes are assigned to YELLOW button (Y).

Because that is the game design's intention in beginning with.
For Martial artes (the GREY STAR), just assign any of your favorite ones to any button as you'd like, it actually doesn't matter in combat.
For "Malak" artes (magic) such as healing artes (Healing Circle, or "Resurrection",etc.) just assigned them to the second page which is trigger by holding Guard (LB) + (X,Y,A,B).

One thing I'd like to see improvement in Combo setup in the next Tales game would be to keep the assignment system like Berseria, and to increase the executed combo numbers, or making the combo flow fluently without a break. For example, instead you stop the combo at the max number of Souls, using the stamina bar like Zestiria to influent the flow of combat.

In general, I really love the combo setup in Berseria as it provides more freedom to make my own setups.

[♥♥♥♥ Goboctus]

One way to play is to just right click auto arte and toggle off all "bad" skills.