So how did we go from the fun of limiters to the frustrating ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t that are titan stars?

[Ambry]

In Bastion and Transistor I could add all the gods and limiters for a bit more fun and added rewards, but now we have those mind-numblingly unbalanced stars that make the AI impossible to beat for barely any added reward. What happened?

[Lios]

It's all about getting good at the game, and i mean it in no insulting way, the base game is so easy that when some titans are turned on not only the rules go in their favor but also the AI jumps up in difficulty, the player may feel overwhelmed.

Learn some tricks:
instead of moving only one character at a time, ghet them into position in the side lines, if the enemies go for the positioned one instead of the ball carrier, then just go for the pyre, if not bait them and then switch to the positioned one.
If you have the ball and someone is coming up to you just trow it at them to reset their aura so you can banish them .
Some characters are so fast that just running and jumping makes you soar over half the field.
some characters with big auras can just use it as field control, just hide near a corner and let your aura do the work while you use a different character.
Use the broken items that you have, the one that restores your pyre when you damage theyrs is one of them and especially effective on the fast characters.

[Ambry]

Honestly I'd agree with you if only the controls were fluid enough, which they aren't.

With all titan stars active you're expected to have quick reflexes, which I do have, but when there are so many clunky delays before actions such as tossing the ball or jumping after casting, causing your frantic clicking or key pressing result in no action or activating it too late only to cancel it immediately, while the AI just does it all in the fraction of a second flawlessly, I don't see how you're expected to be able to prevail by any other way than cheesing the game by rushing through the map with your fastest character straight to the pyre, and restart the rite as many times as needed until you get a lucky enough streak.

I like a bit of challenge but if I was a masochist I'd be playing on hard difficulty, not normal.
And regardless of all of that, I wouldn't even mind the crazy difficulty if the boost in enlightment was worth it. But +22% enlightment for having to spend 500% as much time on a rite? Yeah, ♥♥♥♥ that.

Edit: typos

[cpiitzer]

Hard mode is where you want to go for a more challenging AI and more exciting games. The titan stars are meant to be used selectively in the campaign - turning them all on is a bad idea, and it's not even necessary if you want to get your party members to enlightenment level 5. (In my campaign, I got all but Rukey and Jodariel to level 5 without turning on more than 3 at a time.)

Regarding the chunky delays after casting: those exist even for the AI, there's just an animation backswing after the cast is finished.

[Elvis]

Locking character due to fatigue and titan star just allowing the AI to do stupid fast stuff it what make me downvote this game, it's clearly not been designed with the intet to use. I'm now stuck in a rite with just 3 character as able picks (rest are fatigued), the AI is just stupid (can't banish them all due to instant respawn, compared to the 2 sec one they have normaly).
The hight of stupidity in this currect rite (the last 10 or so have just been more and more stupid) is that they fliers (the bird team) can just land in my presense zones, pick up the orb, pass it and sometimes they decide to die after that, sometimes they just fly off instead.

[Elvis]

Originally posted by cpiitzer:

Regarding the chunky delays after casting: those exist even for the AI, there's just an animation backswing after the cast is finished.

No they do NOT.

I've seen tripple passes and scoring during 1 jump.
I've seen intant passes to characters offscreen instantly scoring, the orb didn't even move.
I've seen 3 enemies being banished at the same time passing to their instant respawning selfs... I've seen frigging self passes...

The ONLY way you even have a CHANCE in Hard max Titans is cause the AI is stupid.

[cpiitzer]

Well, the game isn't meant to be played with all the Titan Stars on, really. There's a reason 6 is what you need for the achievement. Turn off a few. 3-4 is all you really need to max Enlightenment on every character.

And the Yslach star allows for some pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ behavior on the AI's part, I agree, but that's what you pay for the 8% XP bonus.

Regarding the respawn thing - pretty sure if a respawn is triggered on death (via Gilman's mastery when the entire team is banished or Shax's activation) it automatically passes to living character, whether AI or player.