What Games are you playing 2015?

[Grefter]

TO PSP being the only one I have experience with, in that I found the twice as large party size helps a lot with adding more give in difficulty.  Also the rewind button lets you go noooope to missing critical 70% hits if you want to use it.

[hinode]

I technically had an easy time with my first FFT run (not counting time spent on friends' files), but that hardly counts when I'd already read the BMG front to back repeatedly before starting. Normal people won't do things like have an entire party make a beeline for Summon Magic ASAP after Auto-Potion/Gained JP-Up/(Teleport but I got that on one fight after spillover) or reroll for a bunch of ~70 brave/faith girls with Capricorn/Taurus for good compatability with all the game's Virgo bosses.

Incidentally we should mention Zodiac as something that can really screw up people haven't memorized the game's mechanics; even outside of min/max scenarios it can accidentally have a huge negative impact on healing/buffing magic and Ramza's sign can be a big deal for Riovanes, depending on his build.

[SnowFire]

Not much to say other than to entirely agree; I was taken aback by some of the "lolez" comments on FFT at the DL when I first got here.  I played it a bunch and still think that even vanilla FFT is entirely legit.  Also some of the power strats are either highly unintuitive (cheeze the game's AI with this one weird trick!) or are obvious-but-dangerous.  Like, sure, if you can beat up an enemy mid-charge, that's great.  But it's entirely possible to go in on a charging Velius and *not* kill him, then watch 2-3 people wipe to cyclops while the Archaic Demon cleanup crew occupies everyone else.  Sure you might still win but it'll be an epic "from hell's heart I stab at thee" from the survivors.  And while FFT does have some OP setups, they take enough work to get to and aren't foolproof.  (e.g. Blade Grasp is probably overpowered considering the large number of knights & archers the game throws at you, but it's also nearly worthless in some of the tougher battles, so.)

Anyway FFT is definitely harder than TOPSP.  TOPSX is hard to compare since the frustration / obscurity factor in that game is high but once you get past that it isn't quite as punishing.

Also re TO PSX, check out this bit of horror that I found while digging through boxes of my old stuff recently:

https://goo.gl/photos/re8PZvqtWi5KzmGu8

Yeah that's Prima's official strategy guide of worthlessness in there (came with my foolish purchase of the game over eBay).  I checked out its comments on C3 Neutral, and it helpfully noted that Cerye was probably gonna die.  No indication she was recruitable or anything.  Not much strategy in general, as best I could tell, for any of the maps!  Lots of editing errors or things that changed before release; e.g. referring to a character by a different name than shown in the freaking screenshot right above ("Leonardo", "Dolgaria", etc.)

While I'm at it, see who the new member of Nitori's dark alliance is here:
https://goo.gl/photos/BbTQZ7PxKAeQn7498

[superaielman]

Vandal Hearts kicked my ass around the block (I did reset for each character death on that playthrough though) and FFT I found to be a breeze on the first playthrough.

[Captain K]

I also got Sephiroth, but who the hell cares about him.

I do, only because he's the first character who matches a 5-star weapon I have.  Holy crap the synergy bonuses.  His auto-attack hits over 5000 on enemies in the elite dungeon.

[Sierra]

I had a fair amount of trouble first time through FFT. I probably wiped more in that than I did in, say, Bloodborne. Of course, I also reset a lot just from individual characters dying irretrievably because eww permadeath. I think the DL being full of fanatics who understand every intricate detail of the game's inner workings is a factor that tends to undersell its difficulty here. It's a highly breakable game but you're not likely to realize that without experience and/or some substantial foreknowledge. FF7 I always found stupid easy. FF8 I made a lot harder on myself the first time through by never bothering to understand how to abuse junctioning properly, and then running a high-level party anyway so I had a party with crap stats facing jacked up enemies. It took me two hours to kill Ultimecia. I am shame.

Arkham Knight: With my freeze bombs I will STOP~. Man I missed those things. Anyway this afternoon was all Riddler trophy hunting all the time. I don't know why I thought I'd get through these in one sitting, there's like 240~ of them.

I went and spoiled myself on *Spoilers* and yeah, was right the first time. Pretty obvious with just a casual knowledge of Batman history. Doesn't bother me much, the importance of surprise as a narrative tool is overstated in modern fiction, etc.

[Grefter]

Yeah I think a lot of the "lol this so EZEZ" you encounter at first exposure at the DL is more um intended for the DL general audience (or the Vancrewver) than general consumption, but definitely would be jarring without the context of the group because y'all mofos are stupid good at that shit.

[AndrewRogue]

There's probably also a bit of bias in that most RPG difficulty stems purely from understanding as opposed to execution.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I also got Sephiroth, but who the hell cares about him.

I do, only because he's the first character who matches a 5-star weapon I have.  Holy crap the synergy bonuses.  His auto-attack hits over 5000 on enemies in the elite dungeon.

Yeah, the stacked synergy stat bonanza is utterly insane. I'm yielding over 4k with Nanaki's basic physical and his weapon is considerably weaker than that -and- he's like at least 12 (not sure if that or 18) points of attack below Sephiroth.

[Meeplelard]

Tales of Xillia: Up to Nia Khera. 

I think I've figured out how they came up with Jude...they made him specifically to be the Anti-Lloyd.  Why, I don't know; this is long after Tales of Symphonia came out and they've had plenty of varying protagonists since.  Just really stands out to have a Tales protagonist who gets openly praised by both the Mr. Spock-like female lead, and the pseudo-bad ass Mercenary for his ability to use his brain.

Game also gets props for addressing something I was thinking during the "Alvin shoot that rock!" scene.  Namely "Wait, how did he know it'd attack that person!?"  well, the game fortunately does have Milla basically calling him out on it, and instead of the "I guess we just got lucky!" response that's the usual cliched reaction, Jude actually responds with how that situation could have still been beneficial to them, suggesting yes, he really DID think this plan through.  Well done, Tales of Xillia.

[Cotigo]

Vandal Hearts kicked my ass around the block (I did reset for each character death on that playthrough though) and FFT I found to be a breeze on the first playthrough.

Yeah this still makes no goddamn sense whatsoever.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Lullabies To Autobattle Vol. II - Was doing more Sephy event dungeons, but I'm in serious shortage of black power and today's daily dungeon is all about that. Time to restock.

Also, Manaspring II's ability charge restoration? Brings back a charge from -both- your equipped abilities. This is kinda broken. And, once the Summoner Record Materias become available, Summon abilities will simply skyrocket in usage. 2PB high-mult MT will largely trivialize trash mobs.

[Grefter]

Vandal Hearts scales with the main character's level specifically, FFT doesn't scale with your level outside of randoms (which are based on your average).  If Super leaned on the main a lot then VH might have been crazy brutal.

[Meeplelard]

It strikes me as hard for Ash to really get a high lead in a game like Vandal Hearts.  The weapon Triangle system alone seems like it'd immediately dick anyone who tried to focus heavily on one PC.  I also remember Ash being pretty average pre-Vandalier (wasn't he like a standard Sword-class who learned a handful of spells unique spells?)


I mean I guess it's possible, but strikes me as a game where it's far less likely to happen.  Contrast to something like Disgaea where early on it's possible for Laharl to steal a lot of kills and then he can just solo maps for pretty much 90% of the game. 

That said, the real reason super found Vandal Hearts so hard is basically stated in his post: He treated the game like most of us treat Fire Emblem.  He reset every-time someone died, adding an extra layer of difficulty, and I'll grant that it's very easy for someone to just get casually sniped and die in VH; luckily the game only penalizes you some cash when someone dies IIRC, and they're back on the next map.

[Scar]

Record keeper

124 of 128 quests complete...just the 5 star abilities left.

Also, today is black power day! Time to raid til I run out of energon.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy How Big, How Blue, How Autobattle - Still grindin'. There's a -lot- of stuff I can hone into R3 as soon as I have enough Power Orbs and Black Orbs, so I expect to be far better decked out for longer fights by the time Tuesday is over. R3 Drain, Blizzaga and Thundaga would be pretty aces. I am also one Greater Earth Orb away from Protectga, and that might be a priority as well. I need to raise White Mage's level for her Record Materia, though.

[Scar]

I got all those crappy mages to 50 by just using exp eggs.

I heard bard has a good passive too so I guess he is next.

[Dark Holy Elf]

That said, the real reason super found Vandal Hearts so hard is basically stated in his post: He treated the game like most of us treat Fire Emblem.  He reset every-time someone died, adding an extra layer of difficulty, and I'll grant that it's very easy for someone to just get casually sniped and die in VH; luckily the game only penalizes you some cash when someone dies IIRC, and they're back on the next map.

Yeah, pretty much. The revival cost is pretty damn trivial, too, so the only real reason to play VH that way is for for pride reasons. Also, FFT would most likely be even nastier if you reset every time someone fell to 0 HP!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I got all those crappy mages to 50 by just using exp eggs.

I heard bard has a good passive too so I guess he is next.

I did that with Black Mage, but right now my priority with them is Red XIII. White Mage will slave away on those Sunday XP dungeons until there's an event that gives me PCs I give precisely zero fucks about.

EDIT: Zealot sounds like a NORG-buster, a grinding facilitator and not much else. 60% power on the physical isn't good for OHKOing randoms and the penalty remains even against lone enemies.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

There's probably also a bit of bias in that most RPG difficulty stems purely from understanding as opposed to execution.

Also, FFT has an additional hurdle in the obfuscation of its mechanics and that's the translation.  Some of the mechanics are already rather on the arcane side and trying to figure out how things work through tutorials is an exercise in futility, so you basically have to dick around with each thing individually until you understand it.

[Fenrir]

I also played Vandal Hearts that way because I thought the game had permadeath (Just LOOK at these fountains of blood) and still found it easier than vanilla FFT



FFT :

So before this playthrough, I foolishly wanted to conserve resources so I only used White Mage instead of Chemist. Chemist is so much better, everybody was right. Damn. I am never using a fucking white mage again.

Knight I feel is very underrated around these parts. He's some kind of earlygame god and manages to stay pretty decent endgame. That's much better than a class that joins later, starts below average and stays below average (Samurai, dragoon. Arguably hippymancer, much as I hate to say it) He's just the absolute pits midgame and has bad mobility without other abilities, so he's one of the hardest SCCs, but in a regular playthrough in which you can constantly change classes he's fairly useful. It's not like you get punished in any way for not using him when he's crappy. Very cool hair too.

Time Mage is kind of the opposite. I'm sure he makes for a pretty good SCC, passives like Teleport are fantastic, but as a class he just kind of blows. The trademark haste can miss and lasts nowhere near long enough, the rest of the skillset isn't crazy (I'd rather have an oracle) and he looks like a fucking clown. When you try to bring a few people together to multicast Haste on them, there's always a black mage around to Thundara your face.

I did love having a mediator teleport to the top of the torture device in the executioner site then beginning to snipe everybody.
FFT (like Dark Souls) remains serious the whole time through, but manages to always have this lovely element of emergent humor which I'm very fond of.

Edit : Additional Rofel scene? Cool


RK: Awww Red 13's little attack paw and victory howl are so adorable
Thsi dog is the only character who cannot even equip a dagger though. He's going straight to the core class bench with the likes of Knight after this event (maybe after getting Sephiroth) The only reason he's still in my team is that I have some FF7 4*+ punch

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Red XIII shouldn't ever be bothered with if you don't get his unique weapon (he'll eventually get a second one that boosts his Mag! That's uh actually kinda neat with his skill load), he's like support-based Sephiroth.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Time Mage is mostly about Teleport being amazing and Short Charge being pretty good. Haste... yeah is only worth it if you can get 2-3 people with it (if you use it on one person it's like TOPSP's in that it doesn't actually get you more turns, at least typically) and can stay out of the range of any Wizards, but it becomes quite good if you do especially with good internal zodiac (yes, this is something I don't expect players to set up for, but it's nice if you do). Other than that they have some situational status stuff (Oracle's is better), Demi for boss-killing (Life Drain/Lich are better), or you can invest in Short Charge Meteor which is pretty crazy good but has a ridiculous JP investment, gets more practical with a bunch of propositions.*

Knight's certainly good enough in C1 but that's really about it. Geomancer is way better, +1 move and similar power and having the option of a 5-range backup is great, easily worth a bit of an HP hit. I don't see much reason Dragoon isn't better in C2 onwards itself, they have equal HP/power and you get an extra range so even before you start building Jump you're better at Knight's job than Knight. Knights pretty much need to be given some sort of secondary to have something useful to do when they're out of range or they'll suck, because they have trouble reaching targets. There's Item for healing needs but it does mean you often waste your first turn, and most other things which come to mind (Elemental, Punch Art) just leave me wondering why you don't go to one of those jobs instead.


*caveat that all my comments apply to PSX English FFT, WotL went back to the JP version of the game which has some fucked up balance like 5000 JP Fly. I think Meteor is junk in WotL for instance.

[jsh357]

Knights do get a huge boost in Chapter 4 with Excalibur since Auto-Haste is so godly, but they're obsolete even then if you're using Excalibur on Ramza or any other special character.  I'm probably a bit biased in even noticing this since I only play challenge runs.  The Knight class would have been a lot better or at least have its own niche if there was a defense stat in the game, I think.  It's likely they had one and removed it during development, but it was too late to save the Knight class.  I agree that Dragoons basically do their job better.

To me, the overall problem with FFT's balance is that you basically have to use self-imposed limitations or mods to make the game interesting after a playthrough or two (or even reading guides for that matter) since once you know about them there's no reason not to use Math Skill or Martial Arts Ninjas to murder everything, grinding requirement aside.  I mean, even just knowing that you can hire a 70 faith female character and make her a Wizard to do tons of damage early makes the game supremely easier.  So it's a 'hard' game for people new to it, but very easy once you have done research on the game.  I got a lot of replay value out of doing silly challenges, but after over a decade of hindsight, it's hard for me to say the game is well-balanced.  It feels really obtuse for new players but doesn't give veterans much of a challenge on its own. 

A perfect example of this disparity is the Oracle class.  Every time I read forum threads about the worst classes, I'll see some people say the Oracle is useless, but it's virtually a guarantee anyone saying that hasn't used this class to its full extent since Yin-Yang is probably one of the most broken spell sets in the game and sticks are magnificent weapons for mages.  However, it's unlikely that the average player is going to learn this since you have to go out of your way to experiment and get that knowledge, which the game doesn't do a great job encouraging by barely having any of certain classes represented by enemy teams, hiding spells behind JP walls, and handing you characters like Orlandu.

[Meeplelard]

Honestly, if FFT's mechanics weren't so all over the place, or the game gave you some sense how things worked, I don't think anyone would say Oracles suck.  IOWs, if the game had a list of "weapon based off this stat!", well, you'd see immediately how good sticks are.  Actual WP, runs off a Mage's good stat, and the same 2 Range advantage Spears have.  Suddenly Oracle is looking like a Physical fighter with a lot of status tools at their disposal, as well as being able to set up entirely around Magic damage while not compromising their physical damage.

I'm not saying the game needs to tell you it's formula, just a basic idea of what stats improve what weapons.  I think FF12 actually had a list like that, like it'd say "Katanas are based off Strength and magic!"  Sure, it doesn't tell you that Strength matters more and Magic is a secondary stat, but at least you know both stats play a role in that damage.