Post by blarghs in The reason I always stop playing is game balance.

Viewing post in The reason I always stop playing is game balance.

> I'm probably one of very few people trying to engage with the game outside of its porn elements.

There's a decent amount of us I think, but probably a minority yeah.

> This is especially true of non-guild combat members like Edwin against the apparition that contributes zilch

He contributes 50 extra hp, which is actually quite a lot at that point in the game, especially if you guard with him to reduce damage taken.

>but the game relies so heavily on bosses not targeting the wrong characters, because 9 times out of 10 they have the capacity to one shot someone.

Charlotte is very squishy to physical attacks yeah. That's why protect exists. The game can be a bit rng at times, but if you need more than a few tries against a boss due to rng, it's usually because you're not strong/skilled enough and are trying to brute force it (which is a valid tactic if and only if you think it is fun).

> Albrecht on nightmare who only randomly survives basically goblins. (Because in practice, enemy numbers are actually far higher than 30% stronger. If I have 19 defense and take 2 damage from a goblin, on nightmare I would be taking 14.) -Fixed missing paren

Maybe don't play on nightmare if you don't want a nightmarishly hard time? Albrecht is a scrub and you are rescuing him from goblins, surprise surprise he would lose to them without you.

>A physical attacker renders Charlotte obsolete. You either have to JUST protect her, or guard with her ad nauseam to the point that fights are easier if she *didn't* exist - but you always want characters along with you on quests in order to gain that experience. Don't you think it's a little silly they exist just to guard and be meat shields?

Charlotte adds a lot of attack boost with heat up, she does pretty good damage with fire, and characters gain the same amount of xp regardless of your choices. I think she is the most useful companion on nightmare (Paul is worst).

> I understand I often get ignored. I get pretty lengthy, but I think I try to be fair despite being opinionated.

Making length explanations is good, but from this post alone you come across more as a whiner who demands to play on the highest difficulty and while not being ready to step up your game to meet the bar. You're probably not supposed to be able to beat nightmare pure without ng+ bonuses AT ALL, and even with bonuses you have to play a very optimized way, and the rng can't be too harsh on you.

dragondeity46 days ago (2 edits)

I don't play on nightmare, I used them as examples for how quickly things scale beyond what is 'advertised'. Your assumption is weird considering I detailed what it was on normal then said 'imagine' what the differences are like in nightmare. Let me give you a reverse example, I was very lazily playing story mode at one time, exploring the opposite side of the balance. Obviously it is quite trivial thanks to 10x gold and workshops not elapsing time. So I was fighting a boss, underprepared compared to a higher difficulty, just using regular attacks to ease through it. They were only doing 1 damage after all. So a boss on story mode dealing 1 damage, you wouldn't think is about to kill me right? It winds up, sure, something to think about if I was playing seriously on a higher difficulty, but it was flashing yellow so I just decided to test out if I'd kill it. I didn't. So this story mode encounter that was dealing 1 damage, with its enhance and wind up uses pierce, one shotting me on story mode. *The point isn't whatever you think it is.* I'm using *examples* for how egregious many enemies multiply their damage and disregard your defense.

Frankly you were quite rude and misunderstood the broader points throughout (often even echoing my point that many allies exist just to guard as a damage sponge while ironically trying to disagree with me.)

> Charlotte is very squishy to physical attacks yeah. That's why protect exists.

Which I covered, didn't I? "You either have to JUST protect her" I was also referring to times where she isn't accompanied by John, where she doesn't have that protection outside of Aura or a slime, which just turns other characters in to protect-bots. Obviously heat up is good, I'm not an idiot. But again, if you don't ignore the broader point, her existence then makes John just a protect-bot. Notably you completely omitted a response to John and Paul's magic vulnerability you CAN'T effectively defend against, ESPECIALLY post-avaritia.

> The game can be a bit rng at times, but if you need more than a few tries against a boss due to rng, it's usually because you're not strong/skilled enough and are trying to brute force it (which is a valid tactic if and only if you think it is fun)

You are mistaken if you think that this isn't the case for me, but if you think it's good balance to still be susceptible to RNG even when you ARE strong enough, then we just disagree. No amount of real consistency can be achieved.

> He contributes 50 extra hp, which is actually quite a lot at that point in the game.

You know, except it's not because avaritia > dark attack > tactical crit generally one shots ANY ally through their guard, especially if they reach enhancement.

> step up your game to meet the bar.

Sure I'll just dodge the moves like I'm playing Elden Ring. Oh wait it's a turn based RPG where even the standard difficulties are quite grindy. There's no such thing as 'stepping up your game'. There's grinding for more stats (something that uses precious time) and relying on luck. Your tactical advantage dodges are luck. Flash bombs avoiding damage are luck. It's luck and grind all the way down, which contradict many of the timed events and rewards in the game.

> you come across more as a whiner

And yet I must be agreed with on some level because this post had likes, which are rare here, and the linked comment to the weekly release had at least 3 last I checked. Even one of the other threads posted today mentioned they play on story because of poor difficulty.

Getting personal with me over a game like this is some weird shit.

blarghs45 days ago(+1)

>You are mistaken if you think that this isn't the case for me, but if you think it's good balance to still be susceptible to RNG even when you ARE strong enough, then we just disagree. No amount of real consistency can be achieved.

Most RPGs are like this though. If the rng gives you a bad roll 10 times in a row, you often just lose and have to try again, no matter how prepared you are. If the RNG hating you was surviveable, it would make all the statistically normal outcomes easy.

>They were only doing 1 damage after all. So a boss on story mode dealing 1 damage, you wouldn't think is about to kill me right? It winds up, sure, something to think about if I was playing seriously on a higher difficulty, but it was flashing yellow so I just decided to test out if I'd kill it. I didn't. So this story mode encounter that was dealing 1 damage, with its enhance and wind up uses pierce, one shotting me on story mode. *The point isn't whatever you think it is.* I'm using *examples* for how egregious many enemies multiply their damage and disregard your defense.
It is true that damage threshold systems (as opposed to reduction) have this behavior. It's much less of an issue lategame, and I think it's also not a great argument. The stat boost on nightmare was not chosen randomly, it has been balanced with the systems that are in the game in mind. That 30% stat boost will almost always mean more than 30% more damage taken it at worst an issue in explaining how much harder nightmare is.

>Notably you completely omitted a response to John and Paul's magic vulnerability you CAN'T effectively defend against, ESPECIALLY post-avaritia.

Most enemies that use spells do so on a predictable turn, so you can guard against it.

>But again, if you don't ignore the broader point, her existence then makes John just a protect-bot.

Or you could protect with aura, or slime, or defend with charlotte and let the chips fall where they may. And once you get protect II, no one needs to spend 100% of the time protecting anyway.

>You know, except it's not because avaritia > dark attack > tactical crit generally one shots ANY ally through their guard, especially if they reach enhancement.

Great, he still absorbed a massive crit that could have killed Aura.

>Sure I'll just dodge the moves like I'm playing Elden Ring. Oh wait it's a turn based RPG where even the standard difficulties are quite grindy. There's no such thing as 'stepping up your game'. There's grinding for more stats (something that uses precious time) and relying on luck. Your tactical advantage dodges are luck. Flash bombs avoiding damage are luck. It's luck and grind all the way down, which contradict many of the timed events and rewards in the game.

What exactly is it that you find grindy? Enemies never respawn, and there's very few forced encounters, you can ignore/stealth a lot of them. There's a fixed and fairly small amount of skills and materials (especially gold). The only grind potential I can think of is workshop job and bartending. Those are indeed bad uses of time, as you mention. They're also not necessary, "no workshop or bartending" would barely qualify as a challenge run imo. Tactical advantage + flash bomb will mean that you dodge a large majority of hits. If a single hit kills you on normal, probably you have a bad strategy (like letting a buffed enemy hit you) or you are understatted for the fight. And unless you specifically enjoy a challenge, you should remove collar for the especially tricky fights.

As for skill expression, you are obviously correct that this is not a real time game, so quick reflexes will not help you. But there is a lot of optimization to do in using items, smithing the right materials, learning complementary skills, learning enemy attack patterns and reacting to them appropriately as well as planning your days for quick progression. Probably more things as well that I just can't think of right now.

>Even one of the other threads posted today mentioned they play on story because of poor difficulty.

I strongly disagree that the difficulty is poor. You and many others may not find it enjoyable, which is why story and casual exist. But personally this game has a really enjoyable difficulty.

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