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Final Fantasy XIII |OT|

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grumble said:
I also agree with that post. The micromanaging isn't really that fun. The macromanaging is far more entertaining.
I do find the battle system in this is a more entertaining execution of "playing the game for you" than 12 had by far. I think it's because of the macromanagement vs. micromanagement aspect - I found it more fun to have to pay attention to the flow of each battle than to setup a system whereby my characters would automatically do whatever I needed them to do in any battle, which (in 12) was really not that much other than attacking, magicking and healing anyways.
 

jiggle

Member
Gamer @ Heart said:
True. But i read online the high Magic that the wand has at its later levels still helps with casting a successful death spell.

then wouldn't it be better to use the trapezohedron on pearlwing then?
 

Giolon

Member
mr_nothin said:
Also, does anyone else feel like the weapons are an afterthought too? I've come across maybe 3 different weapons for each character and I've only changed their weapons once. After that, I just kept upgrading the same weapon. There's no reason for me to use any other weapon right now.

There's also no armor in this game right? Just "accessories"?
GAAAHHHH, the more I think about it....the more I realize how much has been cut.
FFX didn't have armor either, only weapons and accessories. I've found FFXIII's "Synthesis" system and deconstruction about as engaging as FFX's item customization once I delved into it. YMMV of course. Each character has 8 weapons I think - usually 1 balanced one, 1 weighted for STR, one for MAG, and then 4 or 5 with special effects like extended stagger duration or ATB regeneration on hit.

mr_nothin said:
Well I hate the route that they took. If they at least added FFXII's gambit system to the support characters and allowed you to choose your party (MUCH earlier in the game) then it would actually be decent.
They let you choose what classes (from a subset) your party comprises of at any given time. To me, that's not really any different than choosing from characters of a single class, especially when compared to many other RPGs where you only have a subset of your characters available at any given time anyway. It's certainly less restrictive than FFIV, one of my favorites, that dictates your party composition 100% at all times.
 
I rented the game for the 360 when it came out. Sadly, it didn't grab me.

I eventually bought it to try again (PS3) a week later (along with GoW3 and Resonance of Fate) and after getting more hours into it, I actually like it. Still trying to get use to the combat system and since I'm still relatively new to RPGs (just got back into them a few years back after not touching a RPG since PS1), I'm glad that the game guides you through the fighting mechanics.
 
jiggle said:
then wouldn't it be better to use the trapezohedron on pearlwing then?

The Improved Debuff I think more than makes up for the 100 or so points of difference is magic. Apparently, someone broke down the % chance of casting death.
 

Giolon

Member
jiggle said:
nirvana does not have any enfeebling bonus since all her weapons upgrade into it

Each version of a character's ultimate weapons inherits the characteristics of the weapon that was used to create it. i.e. a version of Nirvana does have Enfeeblement (rather Hindrance from the middle weapon), but another has Improved Debilitation II, etc.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Time to continue the Plat farming :D
 

Magnus

Member
It's hilarious and puzzling to see some regard the new battle system as wonderfully deep and complex (almost over-complicated), and others recognize it as the most shallow, obtuse and self-driven piece of AI garbage ever. Never imagined a mainstream FF would be this polarizing and differently received by an audience. :lol
 
mr_nothin said:
Also, does anyone else feel like the weapons are an afterthought too? I've come across maybe 3 different weapons for each character and I've only changed their weapons once. After that, I just kept upgrading the same weapon. There's no reason for me to use any other weapon right now.

The weapons are radically different actually. There are hidden (utterly stupid imo) item sets that grant you special bonuses. These include faster ATB filling and some other stuff. The more items of a particular set you have the more potent the effect of the bonus is.

Also, the weapons once upgraded can have vastly different stat improvements. Usually there is a weapon that favors strength over magic (and vice versa) and the others will be about even with different bonus effects.
 

expy

Banned
Platinum!!!! :D
e9vkbc.jpg
 

Giolon

Member
Woot! Just took out my first Adamantortoise w/o needing to use Death! Now to kill them w/o needing a Summon....

Still no Ingots or Traps though :(
 
Big turtle is down!

63 of 64 missions completed.

Giolon said:
Woot! Just took out my first Adamantortoise w/o needing to use Death! Now to kill them w/o needing a Summon....

Still no Ingots or Traps though :(

I had a nice 10 minute battle. It's really satisfying to beat them down.
 
Magnus said:
It's hilarious and puzzling to see some regard the new battle system as wonderfully deep and complex (almost over-complicated), and others recognize it as the most shallow, obtuse and self-driven piece of AI garbage ever. Never imagined a mainstream FF would be this polarizing and differently received by an audience. :lol

Dude, the last 2 games in the series have been polarizing as hell. FF11 was online and pretty much no non-WRPG/MMO fan liked FF12.
 
so i just got the ability to upgrade weapons/accessories.

pardon if it's been asked before, but how the hell does this work exactly? i'm confused after the tutorial and messing around with it. should i just be using the items that yield the most XP to the weapon, or does the specific item actual matter beyond that (such as the XP bonuses, which are seemingly random?)? and since i hate the idea of upgrading a weapon only to find a better one soon after, what are the thoughts on the timing for this process? and when i have something at 115/800 experience, has there been no tangible change? is it 800 or nothing, essentially?

i'd love some answers. thanks!
 

expy

Banned
rocksolidaudio said:
so i just got the ability to upgrade weapons/accessories.

pardon if it's been asked before, but how the hell does this work exactly? i'm confused after the tutorial and messing around with it. should i just be using the items that yield the most XP to the weapon, or does the specific item actual matter beyond that (such as the XP bonuses, which are seemingly random?)? and since i hate the idea of upgrading a weapon only to find a better one soon after, what are the thoughts on the timing for this process? and when i have something at 115/800 experience, has there been no tangible change? is it 800 or nothing, essentially?

i'd love some answers. thanks!
Save upgrading till you reach the end-game (ch.11 +) not worth dealing with it now, and you probably don't have the means to upgrade them substantially anyway at this point of the game.

As for the mechanics, you've got components that you use to up your multiplier (max multiplier is x3), that can be done economically later on when you're able to access more stores (and have more Gil). One you hit the 3x multiplier, there are eseveral items you'll be able to use (mainly 2-4 components) that level up weapons at a good rate and also give you the best exp/gil ratio.

You'll level your weapons through 3 tiers, first tier (default), 2nd tier, and final tier (their ultimate weapon). Each time you level up a tier to its maximum, it will get the Star * logo next to it, to upgrade that to the next tier, each weapon requires a certain catalyst (special components used only for upgrading tiers). Once the item is upgraded to the next tier, you redo multipliers and level that tier weapon to Star *, etc.etc.

Same for accessories, however, accessories tend to have less levels than weapons and require less exp to star.
 

Naeblish

Member
I think the "don't upgrade until chapter 11" is a huge design flaw. Gil and resources should be gained much easier so you could also upgrade stuff in the earlier chapters, and not be punished so hard for upgrading a weapon only to receive a better one later on. I had a lot of fun playing with the upgrade/dismantle feature until i read it can be a total waste of time/money if you choose the wrong stuff, because money/components are hard to come by.
 

expy

Banned
Vect said:
WTF.
Those Adamantoises got stronger after I beat
mission 63. Now that's lame.
They're
Long Gui
now.... :(
Even the smaller ones are tougher now "Shaolong Gui".
The only place you'll find an Adamantoise now, is by returning back to Eden.
 

Styles

Member
expy said:
They're
Long Gui
now.... :(
Even the smaller ones are tougher now "Shaolong Gui".
The only place you'll find an Adamantoise now, is by returning back to Eden.

Fuuuu----
My chances of getting the items and money I need have slimmed down even more.
:(
 

Styles

Member
expy said:
Rather than farming 6 Platinum ingots to buy a Dark Matter, just farm them off Shaolong Gui (drop rate is pretty high).
Also, running all the way to that mission stone is LONG! Rather just go to Eden and farm that one Adamantoise that respawns when you walk away far enough.

How do you defeat them? I assume you can't use the death trick on them?
 

expy

Banned
Vect said:
How do you defeat them? I assume you can't use the death trick on them?
No death trick, but you need to be sufficiently strong at that point. Besdies, Dark Matter is only used for 4 accessories and 1 of Sazh's weapons. You won't be needing Dark Matter for a long time.
 

Nose Master

Member
Really don't know if I'm gonna have the stomach to grind for hours/days to be able to beat the last ten or so hunts. Prolly just going to fish out some of the easier achievements (maxing out specific classes) and call it quits. Kind of stupid that there's such a monumental gap inbetween the first 50 missions and the last ten.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
expy said:
Rather than farming 6 Platinum ingots to buy a Dark Matter, just farm them off Shaolong Gui (drop rate is pretty high).
Also, running all the way to that mission stone is LONG! Rather just go to Eden and farm that one Adamantoise that respawns when you walk away far enough.
I haven't even started with the Dark Matters yet, that link is a great way of farming Traps and Plats. The running isn't long at all, considering you're pretty much guaranteed a Trap or a Plat and a Gold Ingot every day (210k or 60k and a Trap). Got 3 traps in 1 ½ hour now :)
 
mr_nothin said:
There's also no armor in this game right? Just "accessories"?
GAAAHHHH, the more I think about it....the more I realize how much has been cut.

FFX-2 was the same. You only got 2 accessory slots the whole game in X-2, unlike this game. In a lot of ways the battle system in XIII seems derived heavily from X-2 with elements of XII thrown in, the whole changing Dresspheres thing in X-2 is lot like Paradigm Shift in XIII except in XIII it's gone into hyperactive, and the automation of most party functions is almost like XII's Gambits except the pace of battle is so fast you don't really control much beyond switching Paradigms, and, well, I do switch Lightning to a Medic and manually input Cura because SHE NEVER USES IT AUTOMATICALLY. :lol
 

Amir0x

Banned
Animator said:
What is the star level for helter skelter? Would you say its worth upgrading?

Helter-Skelter is lvl 61. I'd say it's worth upgrading since through it you upgrade with Trap to get Omega Weapon, which has the highest str of any of her weapons. However, it's just a matter of preference... I think the Axis Blade is swell, if you combine with whistlewind scarf, you get big ATB bonuses that add up over time in a major way.

Mandoric said:
The real bonus of Dash Shoes is that they give your Enhancer time to waste three battle rounds Veiling up your party, and by the time Haste wears it's actually the AI's top priority.

Only Sazh has haste right now and fuck if I'm letting that weak fucker into my party!

Can't wait until Hope gets Haste.



Anyway, back to criticism for me!

Man though, the more you play the more the A.I. is fuck annoying. It's so dumb that you can force two commando's to attack same target unless it's the last enemy there. It's so dumb that I can prioritize which buffs/debuffs to cast first. For example on Ballius Mission 7, I just want Hope to cast Faith and Barthunder on each of my crew, but he runs down the litany of less important buffs that play virtually no role in the fight. And since killing Ballius in < 1 min 15 secs is a priority for five star, it's so goddamn irritating. It's so retarded that instead of Fang attacking with Flamestrike on a enemy that's weak vs. physical attacks AND fire, she mixes Fire -> Flamestrike -> Fire -> Flamestrike.

This is why gambits are needed.
 

Naeblish

Member
Amir0x said:
Helter-Skelter is lvl 61. I'd say it's worth upgrading since through it you upgrade with Trap to get Omega Weapon, which has the highest str of any of her weapons. However, it's just a matter of preference... I think the Axis Blade is swell, if you combine with whistlewind scarf, you get big ATB bonuses that add up over time in a major way.
I'm playing with a starred axis blade (first level), sprint shoes and whistlewind scarf, which gives me ATB +15%, first strike and haste. And i have to say, it made combat much more fun for me. It goes more fluent, your ATB bar fills much more rapidly which decreases the waiting time considerable. I'm planning on getting those 2 accessories for Fang and Hope too.

How much str and magic bonus are given by Bravery and (i believe) Faith? I was thinking of starting lightning out as Syn, using her first strike for buffs and then switch rav/com/rav.
 

luxarific

Nork unification denier
Got the Growth Egg and Genji Bracelet (from 51) last night. I have no idea how people were able to beat those missions pre-end game though. I was only able to five-star Neochu due to my beloved
death spell one-shotting him. But I was only able to pull off more than one cast of death because my HP and syn levels were high enough to let me survive for a few minutes. I have no idea how you'd get off more than one cast of death before dying pre-game. And the 51 boss doomed me at the end - was only able to three star him. Thank goodness for summons getting rid of the doom effect. Was only able to whittle him down because my HP was over 10K. Mad props to those who could kill him before end-game. I don't think I could have done it.

Amir0x said:
Man though, the more you play the more the A.I. is fuck annoying. It's so dumb that you can force two commando's to attack same target unless it's the last enemy there. It's so dumb that I can prioritize which buffs/debuffs to cast first. For example on Ballius Mission 7, I just want Hope to cast Faith and Barthunder on each of my crew, but he runs down the litany of less important buffs that play virtually no role in the fight. And since killing Ballius in < 1 min 15 secs is a priority for five star, it's so goddamn irritating. It's so retarded that instead of Fang attacking with Flamestrike on a enemy that's weak vs. physical attacks AND fire, she mixes Fire -> Flamestrike -> Fire -> Flamestrike.

This is why gambits are needed.

Cannot agree more. The battle system only shines when the AI chooses the right actions. But it consistently fails to do so (particularly for sab and syn actions). Even you've libra'ed the enemy completely, Hope will put the wrong elemental effect on your weapons. It just makes me want to throw my controller at the screen.
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
I was checking and some of the farming isn't sounding like a good time at all, lol. I do want to upgrade my weapons a bit more though.

Amir0x said:
Anyway, back to criticism for me!

Man though, the more you play the more the A.I. is fuck annoying. It's so dumb that you can force two commando's to attack same target unless it's the last enemy there. It's so dumb that I can prioritize which buffs/debuffs to cast first. For example on Ballius Mission 7, I just want Hope to cast Faith and Barthunder on each of my crew, but he runs down the litany of less important buffs that play virtually no role in the fight. And since killing Ballius in < 1 min 15 secs is a priority for five star, it's so goddamn irritating. It's so retarded that instead of Fang attacking with Flamestrike on a enemy that's weak vs. physical attacks AND fire, she mixes Fire -> Flamestrike -> Fire -> Flamestrike.

This is why gambits are needed.
Pretty much, I praised the AI earlier in the thread but now that higher level play is taking place it's showing its true colors.
 

Ricker

Member
Jamesfrom818 said:
As much as I like Gran Pulse, its such a momentum killer in this game. It just doesn't feel like it belongs.


At first yeah but what i`m doing is finding the missions one by one,unless there`s one close that`s the same class(so far they are all near each other kinda) and do those and fight everything on the way to slowly raise the CP...I might find a spot,like some mentionned to just grind CP,but for now I still plan on doing up to the Chocobo missions and then move on to finish the game.

I`m only gunning for a full upgrade on Lightning`s Gladius anyway,and the way it`s going now,i`m on mission 12,it looks like I might not be able to do that in this playthrough.(Gladius is level 20)
 
I think I'm out. I just finished
Hope's Eidolon battle
in Chapter 11 and I can't take anymore. I'd basically be forcing myself to finish the game at this point. Maybe after some time off I'll be able to come back and finish it.

And yeah I know this is right where the game is supposed to get "good", but I don't see a bunch of monster hunting missions in a semi-open area being enough to save the game from the boring linearity and vastly over-rated battle system (yeah, I said it). It's too little, too late. And the story and dialogue are painful....normally I can deal with that in JRPGs but it just stands out so badly here because the voice acting and cut scenes are so well done otherwise. It boggles my mind that Square took such a long development cycle to produce a game that pales in comparison to the excellent FF12. I skipped a few games in the series so I can't say that this is the worst Final Fantasy ever made, but it's certainly the worst one that I've played.
 
Can anyone tell me if I need to upgrade Tier 3 weapon to Star-level in order to dismantle it for 3 Traps, or can I simply dismantle it the moment after I evolve it to Tier 3?
 

lljride

Member
I know this is kind of a broad question, but what accessories should I make sure I get/max out for the tougher missions (51-64)? I spent a lot of time grinding Adamantoises last night and have about a million gil to spend, just not sure what I should concentrate on.

I already upgraded to the ultimate weapons for my main party (Light/Fang/Hope or Vanille).

Castor Krieg said:
Can anyone tell me if I need to upgrade Tier 3 weapon to Star-level in order to dismantle it for 3 Traps, or can I simply dismantle it the moment after I evolve it to Tier 3?

You have to upgrade to star first, took me about 1.5 million gil to buy enough materials.
 

orion434

Member
Castor Krieg said:
Can anyone tell me if I need to upgrade Tier 3 weapon to Star-level in order to dismantle it for 3 Traps, or can I simply dismantle it the moment after I evolve it to Tier 3?

You have to upgrade Them to MAX... otherwise it would be way to easy. You need ~ 1 million worth of Ultracompact Reactors to get it to max.
 

Pooya

Member
I don't have Frost and Zephyr rings (but I have the Gale ring), just tell me if there is a way to get these in ch11-13 or I'm out of luck. by the way I'm using this as a guide.
51723393.jpg
 

burgerdog

Member
luxarific said:
Got the Growth Egg and Genji Bracelet (from 51) last night. I have no idea how people were able to beat those missions pre-end game though. I was only able to five-star Neochu due to my beloved
death spell one-shotting him. But I was only able to pull off more than one cast of death because my HP and syn levels were high enough to let me survive for a few minutes. I have no idea how you'd get off more than one cast of death before dying pre-game. And the 51 boss doomed me at the end - was only able to three star him. Thank goodness for summons getting rid of the doom effect. Was only able to whittle him down because my HP was over 10K. Mad props to those who could kill him before end-game. I don't think I could have done it.
You only have 10k hp? I got the gloves last night as well and the fight only took me about 6 minutes or so. Snow has like 30k hp, I think I only healed him about 5 times total, he kept himself up with mediguard extremely well. Fang and Light just destroyed the boss meanwhile.
 

forgrim

Member
Beating it before postgame is fairly simple process since both those bosses heavily employ physical attacks. Just stack Snow with phys resist belts (~60% total resist) and you've got a tank that can survive attacus by himself, and a tank that survives the chus so you can deathspam the neochu
 

burgerdog

Member
Just got another trap, making it my 3rd one in about 1 hour. I'm starting to wonder about the whole break a kain's lance/nirvana thing. At this rate I'll have more traps than ingots to max my weapons out.
 

forgrim

Member
burgerdog said:
Just got another trap, making it my 3rd one in about 1 hour. I'm starting to wonder about the whole break a kain's lance/nirvana thing. At this rate I'll have more traps than ingots to max my weapons out.

Yes, I made a huge mistake, in my opinion, of maxing out a nirvana and dismantling it to get traps cuz in the end, at least for me, the bottle neck was gold, not the trapz. just farming adamantoises, i had 6 trapz, and still need 2 million gold to go to max out everything.

pro tip: when you get near the point where you can make all weapons, save in oerba, sell everything, make everything you didn't have, and go get the trophy. then just reload your save before the selling of everything and wallah, trophy + all ur crap back.
 

onken

Member
expy said:
They're
Long Gui
now.... :(
Even the smaller ones are tougher now "Shaolong Gui".
The only place you'll find an Adamantoise now, is by returning back to Eden.

No there's still one one on the great plains (centre-south area), though the one to the north turns into Long Gui. The little ones turn into nasty Xiao Long Gui.

burgerdog said:
Just got another trap, making it my 3rd one in about 1 hour. I'm starting to wonder about the whole break a kain's lance/nirvana thing. At this rate I'll have more traps than ingots to max my weapons out.

Yep don't do it. Get all your traps and your dark matters then switch best choices to good choices.
 

luxarific

Nork unification denier
burgerdog said:
You only have 10k hp? I got the gloves last night as well and the fight only took me about 6 minutes or so. Snow has like 30k hp, I think I only healed him about 5 times total, he kept himself up with mediguard extremely well. Fang and Light just destroyed the boss meanwhile.


Used Fang, Vanille and Hope. They were about 15-18 K.
Death
spell is a lifesaver and a great ticket to five-stars. :lol

I know some people have beaten it pre-end-game, and I doff my hat to them. My level 9 crysterium was filled out, but w/o the health upgrades you get after post-game, Neochu would have one-shot me for sure if I had tried it before finishing the game.

Will try to five-star mission 51 when I've upgraded my weapons. So far the only one with an ultimate is Fang. It took me 22 minutes at the 13-17K level (using Lighting, Fang and Vanille), so I only got three starred.

Will hold off on 63 until I can farm some more standard turtles.
 

Baha

Member
For those of you attempting you farm traps for tier 3 weapons, you will need 6 traps for the weapon portion of the every item trophy. Now, here's how you can drastically go from 2 traps to 6:

To do this, pick up a Mistilteinn, one of Vanille's weapons, buyable from
Plautus's Workshop for 11,000 gil. Along with this, you will need the
following materials:

159 Sturdy Bone \
89 Superconductor \ Total gil:
2 Particle Accelerator / 1,507,400 gil
28 Ultracompact Reactor /
1 Scarletite - (bought for 100,000 gil from "The Motherlode", or farmed
from enemies.
1 Trapezohedron


Now, use the following items to upgrade the Mistilteinn in this exact
order (for best cost effectiveness)

36 x Sturdy Bone
50 x Superconductor

1 x Scarletite

36 x Sturdy Bone
2 x Ultracompact Reactor
15 x Sturdy Bone
27 x Superconductor

1 x Trapezohedron

36 x Sturdy Bone
26 x Ultracompact Reactor
36 x Sturdy Bone
2 x Particle Accelerator
12 x Superconductor


The weapon should now be a maxed out Nirvana. Once you dismantle this, you will receive:

71 x Monstrous Fang
60 x Entrancing Tail
36 x Moonblossom Seed
10 x Tear of Woe
3 x Trapezohedron

This was taken from a random post I found via google, but it should be useful to those of you with the money and a trap who want to skip the farming. It's what I plan on doing when I reach the endgame section.
 
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