Father Servo

[Ⱇⱃⰰⱀ iliti Вран]

So, what are my odds of beating Father Servo level 50 and 60 at the current level of 14? I managed to get rid of his level 40 form in about 15 minutes with minimal damage by spamming Pod Laser and Virtuous Treaty ranged attacks. Just out of curiosity, what are my odds of beating the other 2 battles with my current set-up? Healing items aren't neccessary since I play on Hard so it's pretty much a simple no-hit battle.

[Aemony]

No real reason to do it. Just wait till route B and finish it then. You don’t gain anything by doing it early.

[Ⱇⱃⰰⱀ iliti Вран]

Perhaps, I simply prefer finishing quests as soon as I get them available. Would I at least get a sweet amount of EXP points? Level 40 one gave me a level and half, which wasn't that bad considering it took me about 15 minutes.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by God Emperor Vran:

Perhaps, I simply prefer finishing quests as soon as I get them available. Would I at least get a sweet amount of EXP points? Level 40 one gave me a level and half, which wasn't that bad considering it took me about 15 minutes.

There are just some quest you will not be able to finish on route A. Apart from father servo the parade quest is equally impossible. If you did not do that yet, that one has you defend a bunch of helpless robots against an onslaught of level 40+ ones, 20-30+ units.
There is no way to do that on route A as you lose if the defenseless robots gets destroyed.
I had problem keeping them alive with level 50 on route B.

Some of those quests are clearly meant to be finished on later routes.
As for Father Servo, someone i know beat his level 60 form with level 30. And that took him like 45 minutes straight. So i really dont think its worthwhile to try on level 14.
I also think you cant even get all the items he demands for the final fights before route B.

[FurtivePygmy]

Just level up to 30-40 and beat him easily. After you beat Adam for the first time, visit the crater and slay respawning enemies there. Overclock chips are overpowered. Try full-upgraded spears and large swords with a charge attack chip. Combat bracers, which you receive from Masamune, also deal significant damage. Or equip iron pipe and cypress stick for lulz.

[Aemony]

Originally posted by Chyavanprash:

Just level up to 30-40 and beat him easily. After you beat Adam for the first time, visit the crater and slay respawning enemies there. Overclock chips are overpowered. Try full-upgraded spears and large swords with a charge attack chip. Combat bracers, which you receive from Masamune, also deal significant damage. Or equip iron pipe and cypress stick for lulz.

This is not recommended. Being overleveled takes half the fun out of the game as enemies don't scale with you. Route B and C will be a boring cakewalk if you overlevel using the infinite respawn areas of route A.

[FurtivePygmy]

Originally posted by Aemony:

Originally posted by Chyavanprash:

Just level up to 30-40 and beat him easily. After you beat Adam for the first time, visit the crater and slay respawning enemies there. Overclock chips are overpowered. Try full-upgraded spears and large swords with a charge attack chip. Combat bracers, which you receive from Masamune, also deal significant damage. Or equip iron pipe and cypress stick for lulz.

This is not recommended. Being overleveled takes half the fun out of the game as enemies don't scale with you. Route B and C will be a boring cakewalk if you overlevel using the infinite respawn areas of route A.

Don't want to finish route A . 2B is in my heart. Btw trying to get all +8 chips and upgraded weapons, but lacking funds all the time. The crater spot is pretty good for grinding and leveling.

[Ⱇⱃⰰⱀ iliti Вран]

Originally posted by Aemony:

Being overleveled takes half the fun out of the game as enemies don't scale with you. Route B and C will be a boring cakewalk if you overlevel using the infinite respawn areas of route A.

I'm playing on Hard currently so I can switch to very hard at any moment if the game gets too easy. Does overleveling really change that much? I haven't noticed much of a difference in the past 10 levels regarding the damage output, can't say much about HP since most of the enemies get to one/two shot me either way so it doesn't make much of a difference either way. I'm enjoying the game difficulty so far although I do find it a bit unpleasant how huge damage enemies have, especially those who are my level or higher.

[Aemony]

The game have no level scaling at all during regular gameplay, and the damage seems to be partially based on the level differentiation, so enemies 8 levels or more below you will hardly do any damage on you, while you'll basically kill them in a couple of hits.

The shmup sections however scale with the level of the player, with an outright percentage-based damage, so when you overlevel you usually end up with enemies that can barely kill you in "regular" combat alongside enemies that 1-shot you in shmup sections.

The difficulty setting doesn't really change anything beyond how many hits you can take before you die (basically it increases the damage percentage that already exists when YOU get hit), which have a minor effect on the combat itself (basically it means to just dodge more, something you should already be doing to the best of your ability).

Very Hard is a 1 hit kill, regardless of level difference. It makes the levels completely meaningless to begin with. Hard is usually a 1-2 hits kill, until you level up above 10 levels or so from your enemy, where the numbers of hits you can take increases more and more. Throw in a few healing chips and you can usually counteract the damage you take within a second or so as well.

But then we also throw in the fact that enemies are capped (except for shmups) in the different routes as well. Route A have enemies between lvl 1-30, route B have enemies between lvl 32-48, and route C's enemies are all level 50, with the occasional unique boss at a higher level.

What it all boils down to is a system that really isn't balanced for anything particular as soon as you go beyond the Normal difficulty or a level differentiation above 8 or so. You'll already be extremely overleveled at the end of route C if you're a completionist, even without actually having farmed anything. Even without doing all side quests and such you'll usually be quite higher leveled than your opponents. That, combined with the experience of the combat system and when to time your dodges will mean most players will have a cake walk throughout most of route C.

I myself was like lvl 80-85 or so when I completed the game. That's 30 levels higher than practically all enemies of route C, and even playing the game on Hard rarely made it challenging. Changing the game to Very Hard does, as I mentioned, throw the level system out entirely and kills you in one hit regardless of level difference. Great fun that is... >_<

The way the game handles difficulty and the lack of proper level scaling or any kind of changes to the gameplay beyond the damage percentage that is applied when the player is hit, is actually the weakest element of the game. I am of the opinion that the game would benefit a lot by removing the levels entirely and make the difficulty levels more engaging and dynamic. As they're right now they can basically be summarized as:

• Easy - Cakewalk at all levels. Equip one or more of the Auto chips and the game plays itself.
  
  
• Normal - The "balanced" core experience, as long as you stick within 8 levels or so of the intended leveling experience. Have a diminishing return the longer you play the game (and level beyond that 8-level barrier).
  
  Can also make the game extremely annoying for those who progress through story alone and never focuses on the levels themselves, as they can get in a situation where they finish route A at a too low level, only to find the very first enemies of route B to be too high for them to damage effectively. Which in turn makes the game extremely punishable for no apparent reason.
  
  
• Hard - No lock-on mode available. Ups the damage percentage on the player so that they die quicker. No other real change. Only way to *barely* feel any sort of adrenaline rush when you're overleveled.
  
  
• Very Hard - Insta-KO on hit regardless of levels. Just... boring.

[Ⱇⱃⰰⱀ iliti Вран]

I see, thank you very much for the comment, I actually didn't know most of those. So to conclude, there's basically no point in going to Very Hard difficulty since it won't really matter, and changing difficulty provides no EXP / reward bonuses ( I guess), so I should stick with what I got then?
All right, seems more than reasonable, thank you very much, I really do appreciate the efforts.

[Aemony]

Originally posted by God Emperor Vran:

I see, thank you very much for the comment, I actually didn't know most of those. So to conclude, there's basically no point in going to Very Hard difficulty since it won't really matter, and changing difficulty provides no EXP / reward bonuses ( I guess), so I should stick with what I got then?
All right, seems more than reasonable, thank you very much, I really do appreciate the efforts.

Yeah, nothing else changes between Normal and Hard beyond the lock-on mode being unavailable on Hard, and the damage you take is increased. No extra rewards or EXP, no change in AI, nothing. Same with Very Hard (where each hit is an instant KO).

So if you're already challenged by playing on Hard then keep playing on Hard, although do not exploit any of the infinite respawn areas as those would just end up removing that challenge all together. You'll most likely still find yourself overleveled eventually and OP as hell at the end of the game.