A lacking battle system

[Aldourien]

tl;dr
To me it seems like half of the entire battle system becomes obsolete when fighting anything other than trash mobs.

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The Break system feels great when fighting trash mobs, finishing them left and right even when they are many levels above myself.
It's when I fight Elite, Gigantos, and Bosses where I notice some problems:

First, you can't combo these enemies unlike older titles.
The only control you have over these enemies are their weak spots, or one specific Break Boost, which puts them down for two or three seconds to let you get a few hits in before they get up.

Second, you cannot issue specific strategies to individual party members. This means ranged party members will get really close and cozy with dangerous enemies, or your other melee member stands afar and throws their one or two ranged skills.

Third, during the Lord battles there are many and large particle effects which obscures up to 80% of the screen space.
This makes it very hard to spot, and consequently react, to which attack is coming next.

Fourth, these enemies have next to no wind-up for their attacks, jump off-screen often and quickly, teleport or charge across the entire battlefield.
E.g. Alpha Reaper has a very fast spin attack which strikes 360° around him, can jump out of your line of sight and onto a frailer party member. Meanwhile only Kisara's Break Boost can down it, along with breaking it's weak point, but only for a few seconds. You may get one blazing sword strike during that time, but then you have to stay away until the Break Boost recharges. You can't pin them down otherwise.

Fifth, these particular fights encourages passivity and waiting because of the previous points. This causes every fight to take long time to finish.
Since it is easy to get caught in an infinite (like the 3rd lord) or getting instantly KO'd by one strong sweeping attack it encourages you to stay at a distance until the effective Boost Break is active again. It becomes an unnecessary risk to engage in melee until that point. Even when you dodge and trigger a counter attack it is better not to take it since it doesn't stagger and risking you to be KO'd anyway. Every single boss/giganto/elite fight feel like a scripted cutscene in a sense.

Sixth, these enemies have enormous health pools compared to your weapon damage.
This makes all these battles feel like a drawn-out slog. Especially when you cannot get close enough to attack, let alone charge your blazing sword, without being KO'd quickly while they aren't downed.

I've just recently cleared the third Lord and don't feel encouraged at all to continue when I know how the battle system only 'feels good' when I fight trash mobs.

[Tiasmoon]

You can still perform combos, you just cant do it brainlessly like is the case in trash fights. On bosses you have to rely on dodging attacks and learning the boss attack patterns.

I find in this game aggressive plays are rewarded a lot more. Bosses and enemies in general have a lot of ranged or charge attacks that can be problematic if you drag the fight out too much.

Evading + counterattack mechanics as well as high mobility moves make it easier to be on the offense then defense.

Against humanoid bosses its mostly the case of ''not knowing how to play the game''.
Against beasts those jump around way too much, but they can also be downed normally. And using Alphen to do just that even kind of feels like exploiting.. it makes it way too easy to just ignore most of the mechanics for that fight.



If you disagree and you ''definately know how to play the game well'', I'd say try the arena/training grounds for a bit:

Its possible to beat the level 40 ones at level 20 (takes forever tho, due to damage) but it requires a lot of skill on the melee characters, some skill on Shionne, and a lot of patience with very little skill on Rinwell.

Iirc I beat 2~ others around level 25~30, but it wasnt easy.

You probably wont be able to do any of them (I could only beat Rinwells at that point, which took me 16 minutes) but it will atleast give you a good indicator of how good you understand the combat system.


ps: any monster that can be downed by a special characters boost, can also be downed by Alphens boost. (in fact, his boost can down basically anything that isnt a story humanoid.. its kind of OP) Only during specific story fights is a special character boost required. (like Rinwell on 4th lord)

[Aldourien]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

You can still perform combos, you just cant do it brainlessly like is the case in trash fights. On bosses you have to rely on dodging attacks and learning the boss attack patterns.

I think you and I may have differing definitions on what a 'combo' is.
Elites, Bosses, and Gigantos cannot be put into hitstun by attacks and artes. Therefore you cannot combo them, nor launch them into the air to continue said combo.
If you have played a 2D fighting game you probably know what a 'true combo' is.

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Evading + counterattack mechanics as well as high mobility moves make it easier to be on the offense then defense.

See my previous point:

Originally posted by Aldourien:

Since it is easy to get caught in an infinite (like the 3rd lord) or getting instantly KO'd by one strong sweeping attack it encourages you to stay at a distance until the effective Boost Break is active again. It becomes an unnecessary risk to engage in melee until that point. Even when you dodge and trigger a counter attack it is better not to take it since it doesn't stagger and risking you to be KO'd anyway.

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

any monster that can be downed by a special characters boost, can also be downed by Alphens boost. (in fact, his boost can down basically anything that isnt a story humanoid.. its kind of OP)

Alright, I'll grant that I did not know about this. It still changes very little since the enemy gets up only after a few seconds, and you still have to wait a fairly lengthy amount of time until those Boost Breaks charge up again. The enemy will have plenty of time to break your casters during that time.

Edit: If you claim Alphen's Boost Break feels like an exploit and lets you ignore half of the other mechanics, it only strengthens my argument that the battle system is lacking.

[Uzkniso o.o]

The only control you have over these enemies are their weak spots

Yup, also, it's annoying that some of these enemies lose their weak spot(s) later in the game.

Second, you cannot issue specific strategies to individual party members.

I don't understand why they ditched the epic strategy options that were in Berseria: there were so many options to make use of. Arise strategic options are lacking at best.

Sixth, these enemies have enormous health pools compared to your weapon damage.

Correct, but you overcome this by leveling up - be at the boss level and you should have no problem. At least I didn't, once I leveled.

All in all I do have some recommendations, since it sounds like you are playing on max difficulty:

- always cook meals before boss fights (best ones would likely be defense oriented, like the elemental defense boost)
- make sure you are using decent accessories (for AI controlled party members it's better to use defense oriented stats as they cannot dodge properly)
- always use the best gear that you can
- don't use skills with long animations if you are unsure of what the boss/mob is going to do next: play strategically
- setup your strategy so that it involves using gels and life bottles (I found it impossible to play without the usage of these items on max difficulty) and make sure that the party members use their buffs (Rinwell can buff penetration/attack while Dohalim can buff defense)

I had very little problems playing and finishing the game when I did all that.

[Aldourien]

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

Correct, but you overcome this by leveling up - be at the boss level and you should have no problem. At least I didn't, once I leveled.

All in all I do have some recommendations, since it sounds like you are playing on max difficulty:

- always cook meals before boss fights (best ones would likely be defense oriented, like the elemental defense boost)
- make sure you are using decent accessories (for AI controlled party members it's better to use defense oriented stats as they cannot dodge properly)
- always use the best gear that you can
- don't use skills with long animations if you are unsure of what the boss/mob is going to do next: play strategically
- setup your strategy so that it involves using gels and life bottles (I found it impossible to play without the usage of these items on max difficulty) and make sure that the party members use their buffs (Rinwell can buff penetration/attack while Dohalim can buff defense)

I had very little problems playing and finishing the game when I did all that.

Thank you. I am doing these very same things you pointed out, and yet it feels like an enormous slog.
I've set up custom strategies, and I have to constantly pause and switch between passive and aggressive strategies for the few times the boss pauses or becomes downed.

[Uzkniso o.o]

Elites, Bosses, and Gigantos cannot be put into hitstun by attacks and artes. Therefore you cannot combo them, nor launch them into the air to continue said combo.

What you mean is - bosses/gigantos do not have a break meter (blue bar that fills up for an insta-kill). And that is pretty lame, I wish, too, that this was handled differently - maybe make it harder for the blue bar to fill up, but also harder to lose it? Not sure what to do about no-air-combo, though. There's so many "no fun allowed" restrictions in place, when you think about it.

The enemy will have plenty of time to break your casters during that time.

The increase/decrease aggro on accessories helps with that problem to an extent. I mean, you can't give the AI more brain lmao.

If you claim Alphen's Boost Break feels like an exploit and lets you ignore half of the other mechanics, it only strengthens my argument that the battle system is lacking.

It only feels "broken" when you have an accessory with 4x8% BG increase, which allows for near constant spam.

I've set up custom strategies, and I have to constantly pause and switch between passive and aggressive strategies for the few times the boss pauses or becomes downed.

Hmmm, strange. I have always only used one custom strategy that I made (and I only added to it once more party members got unlocked).

Another tip for strategy: I found that it helps to set each character that can heal themselves (so everyone except for Rinwell and Alphen) to do so, once their own HP is at 50%. I have found that the AI has stopped dying as much with that setting. Example: own HP 50% or less/Guardian field (that's Kisara)/CP 1% or more.

I think you should try making your own custom strategy, that is, if you want.

[Aldourien]

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

Elites, Bosses, and Gigantos cannot be put into hitstun by attacks and artes. Therefore you cannot combo them, nor launch them into the air to continue said combo.

What you mean is - bosses/gigantos do not have a break meter (blue bar that fills up for an insta-kill). And that is pretty lame, I wish, too, that this was handled differently - maybe make it harder for the blue bar to fill up, but also harder to lose it?

No. I'm talking about true combos specifically, not the break meter. I'm fine with the bosses not being defeated by Boost Striking like you do with trash mobs.
Basically, going back to how older games work you can hitstun bosses and combo them for a period of time until you either drop the combo, they go into a 'forced down'-position, or go into Overlimit. That could work in Arise too.

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

The increase/decrease aggro on accessories helps with that problem to an extent. I mean, you can't give the AI more brain lmao.

I've only found 'Aggro Down S' so far, and that is not nearly enough to stop them from drawing aggro.

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

If you claim Alphen's Boost Break feels like an exploit and lets you ignore half of the other mechanics, it only strengthens my argument that the battle system is lacking.

It only feels "broken" when you have an accessory with 4x8% BG increase, which allows for near constant spam.

Sounds very late game when you find level4+ accessories. I'm nowhere near that point.

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

I've set up custom strategies.

I think you should try making your own custom strategy, that is, if you want.

I'll leave this alone.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Aldourien:

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

You can still perform combos, you just cant do it brainlessly like is the case in trash fights. On bosses you have to rely on dodging attacks and learning the boss attack patterns.

I think you and I may have differing definitions on what a 'combo' is.
Elites, Bosses, and Gigantos cannot be put into hitstun by attacks and artes. Therefore you cannot combo them, nor launch them into the air to continue said combo.
If you have played a 2D fighting game you probably know what a 'true combo' is.

Actually, if your penetration is too low that applies to most, or perhaps even any monster in the game.

You can use that defination of a combo if you want, but if you have played 2D fighting games you should know that if these were easily possible in this kind of game, it would completely break the difficulty and any challenge the game might have.

What are bosses going to do against you, if they cant act?

It reminds me of the last boss in Dual Savior Justice(?) where I just hitstunned them into oblivion. Otherwise it would have been an incredibly hard fight.

I say leave that kind of gameplay for 2D fighting games, and dont bring it over to 3D action games.

Originally posted by Aldourien:

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Evading + counterattack mechanics as well as high mobility moves make it easier to be on the offense then defense.

See my previous point:

Originally posted by Aldourien:

Since it is easy to get caught in an infinite (like the 3rd lord) or getting instantly KO'd by one strong sweeping attack it encourages you to stay at a distance until the effective Boost Break is active again. It becomes an unnecessary risk to engage in melee until that point. Even when you dodge and trigger a counter attack it is better not to take it since it doesn't stagger and risking you to be KO'd anyway.

Bosses have attack patterns and very specific moves. You can learn those and know when to dodge or reposition, and when its safer.

Yes, it wont hit stun them if you counter attack. But you can still deal damage if you learn to avoid their attacks, and the evasion system and timing is very forgiving in this game. It will straight up give you easy damage avoidance and free damage output. (as well as AG restoration etc, later on)

Ofcourse, it does require learning the game mechanics better.

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

any monster that can be downed by a special characters boost, can also be downed by Alphens boost. (in fact, his boost can down basically anything that isnt a story humanoid.. its kind of OP)

Alright, I'll grant that I did not know about this.[/quote]

This game has the easy to learn, hard to master kind of combat.

Again: try out the training grounds, to see how well you really understand the combat (or character specific) mechanics. You'll find the game more enjoyable I think, if you know how to play the characters better. It was the case for me, and I already liked the combat a lot.


Personally, I find the combat to much more engaging during boss fights. Against trash you cant really use evading well as there are too many monsters and its too chaotic. As for comboing: its really just mindless spam for the most part.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Aldourien:

Originally posted by Uzkniso o.o:

It only feels "broken" when you have an accessory with 4x8% BG increase, which allows for near constant spam.

Sounds very late game when you find level4+ accessories. I'm nowhere near that point.

Its very powerful long before that point. You just have to time it better since your BG doesnt increase as fast. Also, worth noting that the HP cost of Alphens boost doesnt matter if he isnt on the field, since it wont reduce his HP below 1. (in fact, with the right passives having him at 1HP will just increase his Attack more)

[Aldourien]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Originally posted by Aldourien:

I think you and I may have differing definitions on what a 'combo' is.
Elites, Bosses, and Gigantos cannot be put into hitstun by attacks and artes. Therefore you cannot combo them, nor launch them into the air to continue said combo.
If you have played a 2D fighting game you probably know what a 'true combo' is.

Actually, if your penetration is too low that applies to most, or perhaps even any monster in the game.

You can use that defination of a combo if you want, but if you have played 2D fighting games you should know that if these were easily possible in this kind of game, it would completely break the difficulty and any challenge the game might have.

What are bosses going to do against you, if they cant act?

You clearly haven't played any older 'Tales of' game. If you had you'd know what Abyssion or Traitor to Heaven are like.

My Alphen performs crits almost all the time, this is not an issue of penetration. This issue is inherently within the game's design.
Try playing the game on a higher difficulty than Normal and see how it is when you are a few levels lower than the intended target.

Also, definition.

[Id3alistic]

The battle system was fun at first, then just becomes a big chore.

[MegasonicZX]

I feel like there's potential for the battle system to be great, I just feel like they sort of undercooked it here with how little a lot of the rules seem to carry over throughout the whole game and certain mechanics within it being pretty shallow due to that (looking at you boost strikes).

I've long made peace with the fact that this is probably the direction that the series will be going in from now on so i'm hoping that they at least do more with it to bring back some of that Tales charm while still improving on the weaker aspects instead of doubling down on them.

[CatPerson]

Originally posted by Id3alistic:

The battle system was fun at first, then just becomes a big chore.

I still like it, but I've never cared about being "optimal" or micro-managing AI actions much and during story I only played on Moderate. I just sorta work around the AI/accept what they do.

That said ... I still love it in short bursts. There were a couple times when the dungeons were too long (none of them are very long relative to other games, just saying long for this game) where yeah, it started to slog because it feels too repetitious without frequent breaks.

I don't have any solutions or debate points re: quality of the battle system but re: ranged AI using the opposite type of skills, just go into their artes list and uncheck anything you don't want them ever using during a major fight.

With Rinwell I might uncheck all her artes that have the sword icon, for example. That at least keeps her from running in super close most of the time.

[Tiasmoon]

Learning how to play Rinwell was confusing at first. Didnt realise she had a lot of melee range Artes too.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Aldourien:

This issue is inherently within the game's design.

Try playing the game on a higher difficulty than Normal and see how it is when you are a few levels lower than the intended target.

Ah yes, inherently within the game design when you say its too risky to go into melee range.
Okay then.


Again: go try the training ground. See if you actually know how to play this game.
I think the result will be very humbling.

Beating the melee challenges at level 20 is a lot better for posturing then ''do you even play above normal''

Well without DLCs. Unsure how much easier those would make them.


..Speaking of difficulty, do you play on Unknown?

[Aldourien]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Originally posted by Aldourien:

My Alphen performs crits almost all the time, this is not an issue of penetration. This issue is inherently within the game's design.

Try playing the game on a higher difficulty than Normal and see how it is when you are a few levels lower than the intended target.

Ah yes, inherently within the game design when you say its too risky to go into melee range.
Okay then.


Again: go try the training ground. See if you actually know how to play this game.
I think the result will be very humbling.

Beating the melee challenges at level 20 is a lot better for posturing then ''do you even play above normal''

Well without DLCs. Unsure how much easier those would make them.


..Speaking of difficulty, do you play on Unknown?

You remove the text which gives context to what the issue stems from? Just to make a strawman's argument? For shame. I fixed that for you in this quote.

Yes, it's inherently designed that it becomes a lot more risky to engage in melee when you cannot hitstun bosses, elites, and gigantos. It's called a consequence, from the latin word 'consequens' which means 'resulting' or 'ensuing'.

I play on Hard, and yes, I have been to the Training Ground and beaten both early challenges. They are not hard because you can hitstun the enemies unlike the bosses which is part of the topic in this thread. Unlike you I don't have a problem fighting multiple enemies at once. Stop trying to change the subject.