Zeus wrote:Sine, Rent is just running into what I've been complaining all along about: the "my way or the highway" game design. Likely what he's doing is using certain people outside of their strengths and not playing the status game it forces you to play. To me, Vanille and Pussy don't exist (I hate the characters more than anything) so I don't use the Synergist role at all. The game wants you to very, very badly, especially against bosses.
This isn't true at all. For example, I've played with Vanille, Sazh, and Hope before as a magic team. (All three of them with magic-heavy weapons.) One would think "Well, that isn't a balanced team", but it works well. I've found that the Tri-Diaster makes up for the lack of Commando, since there is so much attacking going on that the fast retraction on the stagger still doesn't factor in. (You still need to time some of the hits to make sure that it's not going to go back to 100%.)
"But, they are weak characters." Yes, but this is where the "useless" skill Synergist comes in. For bosses, I do a SYN/SYN/SAB set up, and I have every status effect in no time.
The problem is that you can't just play any way you want. The magic set up requires a different strategy, as I've described. It would be like say "well, I can just play three medics" and expect to do any damage. I've played full COM/COM/COM set ups, like Fang, Lightning, Snow and they kick ass for a lot of things, but it's a different method of playing, than say a full magic team, or a balanced team. You have to make up for the weaknesses, like a magic's lack of HP, or a COM's lack of good healing. If you can't find the strategy for them, either try something else with your paradigms or switch your characters a bit, or level up, or upgrade.
This isn't any different than any other RPG, but other RPGs are really fucking easy. Shit, I didn't see you whine so f-u-c-k-i-n-g mindnumbing hard over FFT, and that game is one of the hardest RPGs out there.
Zeus wrote:To me, Vanille and Pussy don't exist (I hate the characters more than anything) so I don't use the Synergist role at all.
So you don't play the characters, because you don't like their personality? That's stupid.
Zeus wrote:It almost forces you to use that and Saboteur or you die. And if you decide to use Lightning instead of Pussy as your healer you're at a bit of a disadvantage there too. Sure she's a good attacker (decent in both Ravage and Commando) but they really want you to use Pussy since he's such an integral part of the storyline (that's one of the main weaknesses of the story, he's an atrocious character). That's why he's a very strong Synergist and Healer and they designed the game to be played around using those paradigms.
Well, you need to use all of the paradigms you have available. You can't just put everybody on COM all the time and whine that you're not killing anything. If you're playing somebody like Light/Fang/Snow, then you need to make up for the lack of healing with stuff like Sentinel. SEN blocks a good portion of damage to make a weak healer better. If you have Fang, use her SAB ability; she's not purely an attack drone.
And if you have Sazh, you're a fucking idiot if you're not using his SYN abilities. He has HASTE for god's sake! If the battle is going to last more than a minute, it takes like 5-8 seconds to have them Haste all three of your members. See, if you play right, you can not use Vanille/Hope at all.
I switch out popular characters with unpopular characters all the time, just for the variety. And I've found that you can play with ANYBODY. You just have to match up strengths and weaknesses, and use your head.
Zeus wrote:Then there's the whole upgrading and obtaining more items to upgrade thing. If you don't sit there and spend some time on doing that properly and balancing (and changing up) your equipment, you get beat down pretty hard. Not everyone wants to sit there and figure out what material works with what and to break down stuff to get materials.....it's honestly boring. But the game REALLY encourages you to do that, to the point of making it an extreme chore to advance if you don't.
So, you're also complaining because you're not upgrading your weapons and accessories? Does that mean when you playing a standard RPGs you scoff at the shops and say "Fuck those...I'm going to go through the whole game using only the level one weapons. And if it doesn't work, then the game is broken, not my methodology."
Is that seriously what you're trying to say? Shit, it's not a hard system:
1. Sell items you don't want.
2. Buy/find organic and technological parts
3. Upgrade something with organic until it's at 3X, and then dump a stack of something technological.
Why is that hard?
Zeus wrote:Also, Rent, right at the beginning of the Pulse area, after Pussy gets his summon, there's a valley that has those glob creatures. You fight either 2 or 3 at a time and you get something like 900 CP for each one you kill. And they're not particularly tough. They do respawn so if you want to grind, that's a good place to grind
The best place to grind are six Cryos in an optional area of the Ma'ba'asdaser. You have to hop back unto Atomos to get there. There is also a good area right before the Atomos with a Phlanx and four robot things. You can sneak/PS on them very easily, quake, and kill the Phalanx. Because of the TP gain, you will always have Quake available.
I haven't gotten there yet, but the best place for money in the game is near the end, but BEFORE you beat the game. I hate shit like that, but that's why I've checked certain FAQs before I've finished it (while avoiding the story references).
RentCavalier wrote:Half the enemies in the tunnels have elemental weaknesses that only the two mage characters (Vanille and Hope) can hit, and I'm not *using* Vanille and Hope, I'm using Fang, Lightning and Sazh. And even doing it right and staggering everyone and getting a rhythm, the Pulse enemies just take every hit I give them and barely even flinch. I've upgraded my weapons as best as I can afford and it isn't helping much. Not only that, but all this trouble I'm having is so that I can grind levels--which is tedious in and of itself, but moreso because the enemies have gotten progressively and progressively harder to kill, to the point where even doing everything right, I'm still climbing uphill.
Again, you have to play smart with your group. I've found that even with the enemies with elemental weaknesses, sometimes my weapons on COM hit harder, anyway. I use STR rings a lot on people like Light, Snow, Fang, as well as STR offset weapons. If nothing else, just get everybody on RAV/RAV/RAV, even if you're not having all three people hit their weaknesses, then stagger, then COM/COM/COM. Like I said with Zeus, really really really use HASTE with Sazh.
And yes, the difficulty curve jumps a bit when you first get to Pulse, especially if you just jump into the story line. It's even harder that you're not playing certain people and you're not familiar with the strategy. If you about to drop the game, then just bite the bullet and put in some magic people in the group for a bit, then switch back to your old group. Then you can try again to figure out the best ways to play that group.
It's not that it's impossible to play with the characters you have, but you have to adapt to their strength and weaknesses. Sometimes, that requires some experimentation and trial and error. But that's the beauty of the game. The alternative with be one of those boring fucking RPGs that I would drop halfway through. I like the challenge, and I like having a strategy puzzle to solve.
I would also avoid the extra branches of classes for the time being. They are expensive and don't have a lot of HP/MAG/STR etc. I did give Fang a little bit in RAV, but that was to get her to join the RAV/RAV/RAV efforts. Once you have maxed out the other ones (or are comfortable with their HP/STR/MAG), you can move towards them.
my party will subsequently get beat up and laughed at in a cutscene.
