I wish this game was more linear

[meiam]

Non linearity is cool and all, but it doesn't makes the game much better and it introduce two big issues:

1- The story has almost no character interaction (and plenty of problem). This is just 8 different stories, the character barely ever talk to each others or react to what's happening outside their individual story. And you have plenty of weird stuff, like Therion always working alone... except when a bunch of people he never seen before show up and he just invite them along for the ride to rob a manor.

2- Balance is non existent. The player may or may not recruit all 8 characters, they may or may not do all the optional dungeon and they may or may not grab all the class shrine. And that's just for chapter 1 to 2 transition. You then repeat this for other chapters (with the OP secret class shrine) and you have an insane level/equipment range possible. It's pretty much impossible to balance for that.

[Cyiel]

Therion working with others is not so weird, he said it during some interactions, that sometimes he goes "working alone". The game is linear in the sens that you need to do 4 chapters to end the story of a character and you need to do every chapter (+ some quests) to get the final dungeon which will give you the whole thing about the Octopath. (by the way each letter of Octopath is the first letter of a character)


Talking about "balance" in a solo game doesn't make any sense. You should talk about difficulty curve. The difficulty is made for a player who don't grind/don't use secret job/don't use Bewildering Grace/don't try to steal the 1% broken weapon. So basically, an "any% walktrough". And the "danger level" scale up with the number of chapters you did, so there is a "balance", a scaling.

[让你不爽的事我顺手就做了]

..

[wei270]

yeah i miss the good old times in treasure of rudras where you run in to your other parties, and accidently ♥♥♥♥♥ them over.

[Citronvand]

While I do like the game it feels like it was initially made for 8 different playthroughs and then later they decided you should have all the party members together. Of course, I may change my mind because I have only done a couple of chapter 2 stories so far.

Gameplay: A party of 4.
Story segments: The character is always alone.
^These 2 should have been the same in my opinion.

[Citronvand]

Originally posted by Cyiel:

Talking about "balance" in a solo game doesn't make any sense. You should talk about difficulty curve.

It is not just the difficulty curve. Singleplayer games needs balance but a different kind. You can have for instance OP stuff in singleplayer games, unlike multiplayer games, but the OP stuff should require effort. Effort such as time, skill, knowledge or just outright luck (ex: rare enemy).

Getting a strong pokemon for H'aanit requires effort. First you have to find it (knowledge and/or time), then you have to hurt it while not killing it (skill) and then you have to capture it which may not be 100% (luck), at least for the strong ones. Getting a weak monster requires much less effort. This could be considered good balance even though the monster itself could be very strong.

You can also balance around pros and cons. Forbidden weapons which are very strong also has negative stats to balance it out. They are also limited/rare and expensive. This is also good balance.

[meiam]

Originally posted by Sogreth:

This game makes it hard to actually sit down and have a long play session. I get rather bored of it (and I'm right where you are, just doing my chapter 2s).

I'm reeeeeally hoping something changes in the later chapters. So far, for Chapters 1&2, you do some talking, use your Path Action, then do a dungeon. If all the chapters are like this...That's kind of disappointing.

And aside from the "party banter" (which isn't anything special), it's almost like each character is just travelling alone and doing their own thing. The game doesn't make you feel like you're in a party.

I was the same, hoping it'll improve. It won't. If you don't love it by chapter 2 it's not getting any better. The only difference is you'll eventually get 4 new classes which are broken and make a mockery of the gameplay.

The character are always "alone" and you get more and more weird instance, like character getting "outnumber" by a group of 4 enemy, then the fight start and there's only 3 of them and 4 of you...

The only thing is that when you finish all 8 story there's a small sorta secret side quest that loosely (and very loosely) tie all the story together. Except they completely ♥♥♥♥ it up, you get in the dungeon, the door close and you can't get out or save, fight 8 boss and then when you get to the final one it tell you you need to form 2 party of 4 character. Considering everyone almost certainly has a main party and then the 4 other character you don't use that's a real ♥♥♥♥ move. So I did the only sensible thing and uninstalled.

[no1schmo]

I find myself agreeing. I'm not hating the game, but I'm a little disappointed. I have to approach it like an old Dragon Quest game where the story is basically some barely-there flavor text. Therion is also a problem; none of the other characters except possibly Primrose, maybe, would agree to help a thief do his thieving. Also, some of the characters have quests that, you would think, would require them rushing, but nah, let's go do your sightseeing, Alfyn! Two of the characters don't even have a destination when they leave town, but the map conveniently tells me where they have to go, which is odd. I do wonder if it was supposed to be like a Romancing Saga-type game instead, although even those are annoying (I don't really understand the appeal of traveling mostly the same world multiple times with characters that have no chemistry). Overall, I don't really see an advantage to this structure compared to a more traditional JRPG, unless you just really don't like story in your game.

[Shyguymask]

Worth copypasting:

In Pokemon, a child runs away from home at the age of 10 or so, single-handedly defeats a large criminal organization and is able to fit his/her whole bike inside a school bag and more. In FF7, characters are able to survive attacks such as explosions and crushes that would instantly kill people in real life, but then in a cutscene one of the main characters gets stabbed by a measly sword and dies permanently just like that. In Zelda, equipping the Iron Boots makes you too heavy to swim in water, but putting them in your pocket suddenly makes them weightless. It's called video game logic and it applies to Octopath as well. Sometimes, video game logic can even be necessary in a way. Imagine if Tressa had a bodyguard named Olberic? Do you realize how much that would change the story? They would need to almost completely change the cutscenes or else the story would end up making EVEN LESS sense. It's really weird seeing this "It's only bad when [x] does it" bias against Octopath.

[no1schmo]

Not seeing how that was worth copy/pasting; it doesn't relate to the conversation.

[Shyguymask]

Originally posted by no1schmo:

Not seeing how that was worth copy/pasting; it doesn't relate to the conversation.

It perfectly relates to the conversation. I keep seeing complains about Therion "working with others" and blah blah despite his character when it's just another case of video game logic when there are many cases that are even stupider.

[no1schmo]

Originally posted by Shyguymask:

Originally posted by no1schmo:

Not seeing how that was worth copy/pasting; it doesn't relate to the conversation.

It perfectly relates to the conversation. I keep seeing complains about Therion "working with others" and blah blah despite his character when it's just another case of video game logic when there are many cases that are even stupider.

Because it is. Nothing you said undermines that, especially not purely gameplay mechanics or gameplay/story segregation. Which, at best, leaves you with the argument "Pokemon has a stupider story!" Okay. Yes it does. And? At least Pokemon barely has a story which is basically just an excuse to get you moving, and is designed to be ridiculous, which is nothing like Octopath Traveler which has extensive dialogue, moral lessons, character motivations...which it chucks out the window because bad writing. Your argument is practically solipsistic.

[Shyguymask]

Originally posted by no1schmo:

Originally posted by Shyguymask:

It perfectly relates to the conversation. I keep seeing complains about Therion "working with others" and blah blah despite his character when it's just another case of video game logic when there are many cases that are even stupider.

Because it is. Nothing you said undermines that, especially not purely gameplay mechanics or gameplay/story segregation. Which, at best, leaves you with the argument "Pokemon has a stupider story!" Okay. Yes it does. And? At least Pokemon barely has a story which is basically just an excuse to get you moving, and is designed to be ridiculous, which is nothing like Octopath Traveler which has extensive dialogue, moral lessons, character motivations...which it chucks out the window because bad writing. Your argument is practically solipsistic.

What about Final Fantasy 7 for example?

[no1schmo]

I already covered that; gameplay/story segregation. That is simply unavoidable in nearly all genres of video games. Combat is necessarily not very realistic in about a million ways; the very concept of "HP" for example, where you can fight just as well on the brink of death as you can at any other time, is ludicrous. But that doesn't mean it justifies making the plot stupid or the characters contradictory messes. That's a similar logic I see to when people justify bad characters or poor stories because "It's science-fiction, bro! It has spaceships, which aren't real, so it's okay for the writing to be juvenile!"

[meiam]

The only reason all the story are completely segregated from each others is because they wanted the game to be non linear, but it being non linear as no advantages and only downsides.

If having the story being so at odd with the format would have given something in return that would have been fine. Yeah FF game have crazy fight where stupid stuff happen like bahamut zero nuking the earth from space, but that makes the fight cool with awesome visual.

On the other side if octopath traveler had been linear it would have forced the dev to make the character interact with each others which would have been a good thing, making the story and character more interesting in addition to removing all the weird inconsistency and make the gameplay more consistent.

[Citronvand]

Originally posted by meiam:

The only reason all the story are completely segregated from each others is because they wanted the game to be non linear, but it being non linear as no advantages and only downsides.

They could still have it fairly non-linear. Here's what I would do:

Option A

1. Pick your character as usual
2. Do your chapter 1 as usual
3. Before you can do any chapter 2 you have to complete everyone's chapter 1 first (this is important for later)
4. When you encounter a new character you will play that character's chapter 1 ONLY as the new character, not as a party. This way the story makes sense (Therion for instance) and you don't have to make loads of different story variations that would have made sense depending on which characters you had at that point.
5. Because of point 3 the game knows that all the characters are together, that way the you can incorporate the different party members into chapter 2, 3 & 4. So they're there for the actual story segments and not just party banter. You can't do this in the current game because you would have had to have TONS of different variations depending on which characters you picked up. But because of point 3 you only need 1 variation, the one that include all party members.

Option B

Alternatively you could make each story completely seperate, as in they never team up with each other but they instead have their unique party members. H'aanit could for instance have monsters as party-members instead, Therion could be completely solo which makes sense for his character e.t.c. The story is already told as if they are alone so no changes needed there. But you do need to make major gameplay changes. I personally think it would be interesting to have 8 different playstyles.