Jinn
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2007
- Messages
- 4,957
So I think I've found the best way to play this game in a nicely challenging way. I don't normally adhere to blatant self-limitations/alterations in a game system, but I believe this game deserves special consideration. Admittedly, I feel the developers bit off more than they could chew with the eight different starting points for characters. I admire their dedication to not having a completely level-scaled system, but it has its many problems. For any new player who wants the optimal challenge without silly self-impositions like solo runs, or single job runs, I think this is a nice compromise.
"Evasive Maneuvers" Skill: It's essential to acquire this passive Scholar job skill as soon as possible. It reduces random encounter rates, which ultimately slows your level progression in a natural way. This is really just the ingame "Hard Mode." You can get this skill with Cyrus' default job, or decide who you want to dual-class as Scholar in your party and seek out the Scholar temple as soon as possible. It's the first passive skill that unlocks for Scholar.
Two Separate Parties of Four: You are urged from the beginning to collect each individual party member, play through their starting story, and fight every battle that comes your way. You should do that, but it's going to involve some patience from the player and an interest in the world being presented to you. While you're doing this, stick to a primary first party while switching out someone for their origin story each time. This will get each new character you don't want in your initial party to about level 6-7, while your main party gains the experience they need to tackle the 2nd chapters coming. You can decide pretty easily with basic knowledge as an RPG player which members you want in party 1 or party 2 with a quick glance at their class names. I decided who I wanted in my first party mainly arbitrarily by looking at the characters on the world map and assuming what part they would play. Either way, the dual-job system allows for a fair amount of freedom in your party composition regardless. By the time you get around to starting to play with your second party, they are going to be extremely under-leveled, but you should have a lot of leftover equipment to set them up with. At that point, you'll be able to level them quickly to the point where you can set off without being overpowered juggernauts. With your parties separated in such a way, you'll basically just be going to each character's 2nd chapter before you move on to each character's 3rd, and 4th, ie - you'll be completing chapters as a party rather than b-lining through a single character's story.
So with these two simple approaches, you'll essentially be setting the game to "Hard." The reason I wanted to post this was because when you're not over-leveled this game's combat absolutely shines, both in normal encounters and boss battles. It is worth balancing this game for yourself, because there is a ton of fun to be had that would be woefully overlooked if you just steam-rolled everything. Acquire really needs to actually add a Hard option in their next game, or figure out a better way to balance it to avoid over-empowering the player in such an open world without them realizing how its happening. With all that said, even when I've been overpowered in a few areas of the game, I've still been having a great time, which says a lot about the solid foundation this game has despite its problems.
"Evasive Maneuvers" Skill: It's essential to acquire this passive Scholar job skill as soon as possible. It reduces random encounter rates, which ultimately slows your level progression in a natural way. This is really just the ingame "Hard Mode." You can get this skill with Cyrus' default job, or decide who you want to dual-class as Scholar in your party and seek out the Scholar temple as soon as possible. It's the first passive skill that unlocks for Scholar.
Two Separate Parties of Four: You are urged from the beginning to collect each individual party member, play through their starting story, and fight every battle that comes your way. You should do that, but it's going to involve some patience from the player and an interest in the world being presented to you. While you're doing this, stick to a primary first party while switching out someone for their origin story each time. This will get each new character you don't want in your initial party to about level 6-7, while your main party gains the experience they need to tackle the 2nd chapters coming. You can decide pretty easily with basic knowledge as an RPG player which members you want in party 1 or party 2 with a quick glance at their class names. I decided who I wanted in my first party mainly arbitrarily by looking at the characters on the world map and assuming what part they would play. Either way, the dual-job system allows for a fair amount of freedom in your party composition regardless. By the time you get around to starting to play with your second party, they are going to be extremely under-leveled, but you should have a lot of leftover equipment to set them up with. At that point, you'll be able to level them quickly to the point where you can set off without being overpowered juggernauts. With your parties separated in such a way, you'll basically just be going to each character's 2nd chapter before you move on to each character's 3rd, and 4th, ie - you'll be completing chapters as a party rather than b-lining through a single character's story.
So with these two simple approaches, you'll essentially be setting the game to "Hard." The reason I wanted to post this was because when you're not over-leveled this game's combat absolutely shines, both in normal encounters and boss battles. It is worth balancing this game for yourself, because there is a ton of fun to be had that would be woefully overlooked if you just steam-rolled everything. Acquire really needs to actually add a Hard option in their next game, or figure out a better way to balance it to avoid over-empowering the player in such an open world without them realizing how its happening. With all that said, even when I've been overpowered in a few areas of the game, I've still been having a great time, which says a lot about the solid foundation this game has despite its problems.
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