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Persona Community Thread |OT8| Coming Winter 2014

And I'm the kind of person who just saves over the one slot over and over again. I might save in a second slot if I might be headed into a point of no return, but I've always been really confused about the type of people who obsessively save their games in a new file every single time.
not often but i sometimes alternate between 2 saves in case i royally fuck up then save afterwards.
 

DryvBy

Member
Important things to note:

P5 still being reiterated as a 2015 release.
That EU Squeenix P5 post is false as suspected. Most likely a placeholder by amazon based on P4 Vanilla.

I really hope 2015 is accurate. It's one of the top games I want this year.
 
So guys now I've just started playing P3F for the first time (my first persona game too), are there any essential tips I should keep in mind to get the most out of my play through?

Thanks!
 
So guys now I've just started playing P3F for the first time (my first persona game too), are there any essential tips I should keep in mind to get the most out of my play through?

Thanks!

Don't worry about doing or seeing everything on your first run, just go at your own pace. Hang out with people you like, don't be shy about fusing away your personas, and make use of tactics in battle. Reach the blockade floors in Tartarus before each full moon (the HUD keeps track of this for you) and you shouldn't have any trouble with the storyline bosses.

My personal easymode party is
Yukari/Akihiko/Mitsuru
but ofc you can use whoever you want.
 

Andrefpvs

Member
And I'm the kind of person who just saves over the one slot over and over again. I might save in a second slot if I might be headed into a point of no return, but I've always been really confused about the type of people who obsessively save their games in a new file every single time.

Yikes, nice way to take what I said and exaggerate it to ridiculous levels.

I went to the trouble of explaining (via multiple examples) why I need multiple save slots for people like yourself who may not understand it. It's your choice to remain confused.
 

daevious

Member
Yikes, nice way to take what I said and exaggerate it to ridiculous levels.

I went to the trouble of explaining (via multiple examples) why I need multiple save slots for people like yourself who may not understand it. It's your choice to remain confused.

I didn't mean to come off as rude, sorry about that.

Honestly, I've attempted to keep save files to redo important parts or to parts of games that I liked, but I tend to completely forget what they're supposed to be about by the time I get back to those files. :p
 

Andrefpvs

Member
I didn't mean to come off as rude, sorry about that.

Honestly, I've attempted to keep save files to redo important parts or to parts of games that I liked, but I tend to completely forget what they're supposed to be about by the time I get back to those files. :p

It's okay, sorry to have replied defensively as well :)


I get what you mean, that also happens to me sometimes. But I do end up loading most of those saves after I finish the game a couple of times. Even when choosing different options in New Game +, if I kept a single save file I'd need to replay the game many more times to see everything I wanted to see. For example, in Persona 4:

Code:
Sun Social Link:

                           |--- Friends route
              |--- Music---|
              |            |--- Lovers route
Choose club---|
              |            |--- Friends route
              |--- Drama---|
                           |--- Lovers route

If I create two extra saves when choosing to be friends or lovers, I'd only need two playthroughs instead of four to see all outcomes. But I understand that not everyone thinks like this. It's a personal preference.


In a way, I just think it's silly to have arbitrary restrictions. Like, why 16 save slots, when the platform supports near unlimited save files? It may have made sense on PS2 with 8MB Memory Cards, but they kept the same limit in P4G and PQ, despite expandable storage media.
 

Jachaos

Member
So guys now I've just started playing P3F for the first time (my first persona game too), are there any essential tips I should keep in mind to get the most out of my play through?

Thanks!

What Ludger said. Don't worry about doing everything you could as you can't do it all. The day to day gameplay you should already be on your way to getting the most out of it. Simply by exploring and doing what you want. What might be tougher in some cases is the dungeons.

Basically, fuse Personas of varying resistances/weaknesses and roles. Have one with healing skills, buffs and debuffs, have enough Personas to cover all possible weaknesses if possible (you won't go up against the first boss having Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind on a single Persona, but you could have those across a few different Personas). You should switch Persona during battle whenever you need it. It doesn't matter if you don't focus on one for leveling purposes as you'll always get experience as a character and Personas level up slower than you do. This is to encourage fusing often. As a character, only your HP and MP are tied to your level. The rest of your stats - strength for physical attacks, magic for elemental attacks, endurance for defence, agility for hit/evasion rate and luck for evasion and crits - those are all tied to your currently equipped Persona. So if you're level 10 but still roling with Oprheus level 4, well you're pretty much level 4 as far as stats go. Your level 10 is there so you can fuse level 10 Personas.

I'll also add that you should not be afraid of using buffs/debuffs (skills like Rakunda - decreases an enemy's defense for 3 turns). They make boss battles much easier. If you lower the boss' hit/evasion, attack or defense then you'll have a much better chance of beating it. Buffs increase by 1.5x your stats and debuffs decrease by 1.5x the enemy's.
 
What Ludger said. Don't worry about doing everything you could as you can't do it all. The day to day gameplay you should already be on your way to getting the most out of it. Simply by exploring and doing what you want. What might be tougher in some cases is the dungeons.

Basically, fuse Personas of varying resistances/weaknesses and roles. Have one with healing skills, buffs and debuffs, have enough Personas to cover all possible weaknesses if possible (you won't go up against the first boss having Fire, Ice, Elec and Wind on a single Persona, but you could have those across a few different Personas). You should switch Persona during battle whenever you need it. It doesn't matter if you don't focus on one for leveling purposes as you'll always get experience as a character and Personas level up slower than you do. This is to encourage fusing often. As a character, only your HP and MP are tied to your level. The rest of your stats - strength for physical attacks, magic for elemental attacks, endurance for defence, agility for hit/evasion rate and luck for evasion and crits - those are all tied to your currently equipped Persona. So if you're level 10 but still roling with Oprheus level 4, well you're pretty much level 4 as far as stats go. Your level 10 is there so you can fuse level 10 Personas.

I'll also add that you should not be afraid of using buffs/debuffs (skills like Rakunda - decreases an enemy's defense for 3 turns). They make boss battles much easier. If you lower the boss' hit/evasion, attack or defense then you'll have a much better chance of beating it. Buffs increase by 1.5x your stats and debuffs decrease by 1.5x the enemy's.

Okay, so the only parameters determined by the character level are HP & SP, Charm, Academics and courage are a separate thing, and all the attributes that matter for battle are determined by the persona level - does this mean that my attack strength etc. depend on which persona is currently assigned to me, so really I want to keep getting new personas and fusing them so that the average level of my personas increases at a similar rate to mine - have I understood correctly?
 

Weiss

Banned
Still believe in 2015. If not, I got Battlefront, Fallout 4, and Dancing All Night to tie me up.

I think a December release for both Japan and NA is the most likely outcome at this point. The way Atlus USA has been swearing up and down that it's coming 2015 and not "soon", it'd be suicide for them to back out on it.
 

Sophia

Member
Okay, so the only parameters determined by the character level are HP & SP, Charm, Academics and courage are a separate thing, and all the attributes that matter for battle are determined by the persona level - does this mean that my attack strength etc. depend on which persona is currently assigned to me, so really I want to keep getting new personas and fusing them so that the average level of my personas increases at a similar rate to mine - have I understood correctly?

Yes, your stats are determined by the currently assigned Persona.

Your regular attack is determined by the combination of your equipped weapon and the Strength stat of your Persona. Your defense is determined by your equipped armor and the Endurance stat.

Persona skills however are determined solely by the stats of your Persona. Weapons and Armor play no factor there unless they have a special attribute. Keep this in mind when fusing. You don't want to give physical skills to a Persona that has a low strength stat, for example.

As for the stats themselves:

Strength affects physical skills.
Magic effects elemental skills + almighty skills + healing.
Endurance is your defense.
Agility affects the turn order, your evasion, and your accuracy.
Luck effects critical change, and effectiveness of status effects and instant kills.

In general, in Persona 3 and Persona 4, individual levels matters fairly little. One point in any specific stat is not going to turn the tide of battles significantly. What matters is your Persona, their overall stats, the abilities they have, and the resistances they have. If you can't win a fight, often the key is switching up your Personas on hand. As Jachaos, switch Personas as often as you need to, don't be afraid to fuse, and don't get too attached to a specific Persona.
 

CorvoSol

Member
The miracle was right in front of us all along.

DrlR11n.jpg
 
I think a December release for both Japan and NA is the most likely outcome at this point. The way Atlus USA has been swearing up and down that it's coming 2015 and not "soon", it'd be suicide for them to back out on it.

Considering that Atlus USA is seemingly worthless to the eyes of JPN office, I seriously doubt they have much of a choice or even a voice in trying to prevent a delay.

I always believed the insistence on a 2015 release date was a way for USA to have deniable culpability.
 
Considering that Atlus USA is seemingly worthless to the eyes of JPN office, I seriously doubt they have much of a choice or even a voice in trying to prevent a delay.

I always believed the insistence on a 2015 release date was a way for USA to have deniable culpability.

Or you know, it's actually going to come out in 2015...

No reason to look into it that much, especially since we really don't have any clue about what's going on backstage.

Atlus NA and Japan are both big boys, they can communicate with each other and make a plan together.
 

Sophia

Member
Considering that Atlus USA is seemingly worthless to the eyes of JPN office, I seriously doubt they have much of a choice or even a voice in trying to prevent a delay.

I always believed the insistence on a 2015 release date was a way for USA to have deniable culpability.

You know, I've seen you repeat this a lot. Is there any actual evidence for this? Because it's going to look bad for you if you somehow get proven really wrong.
 

Jachaos

Member
Okay, so the only parameters determined by the character level are HP & SP, Charm, Academics and courage are a separate thing, and all the attributes that matter for battle are determined by the persona level - does this mean that my attack strength etc. depend on which persona is currently assigned to me, so really I want to keep getting new personas and fusing them so that the average level of my personas increases at a similar rate to mine - have I understood correctly?

Sophia's already said pretty much everything needed, I'll just add that unlike HP and SP, the stats for Charm, Academics and Courage really are separate things and have no effect on battle whatsoever. Let's call them social stats. In Persona 3 they let you start some S. Links that require you to have max Courage for example. In Persona 4 they go further by having five stats instead of three and they let you pick extra dialogue options - you can even ask someone's number straight out very early on and the only way to pick that option is to be on a NewGame+ where your social stats from your past playthrough transfer over.

In Persona 3 you don't have to worry about that, even the S. Links that require you to max out Charm or whatever are balanced so you can do them on a blind first run.
 

Dantis

Member
Did you miss the quote I posted from a former Atlus USA staffer who said just that?

Did he actually or is this one of your weird things where you heavily misread text?

Link plz.

The Trauma Team development points to the exact opposite of this. Atlus US has significant input upon development, as I recall. Various other things have also indicated otherwise.
 

Sophia

Member
Did you miss the quote I posted from a former Atlus USA staffer who said just that?

I saw it back when it was first posted, but it's hardly evidence. Their name wasn't attached to it if I recall right, and former staff members (especially ones who had a poor experience) are more likely to say negative stuff or exaggerate the news. There's not even a way to prove they were a former Atlus USA staff member.

The Trauma Team development points to the exact opposite of this. Atlus US has significant input upon development, as I recall. Various other things have also indicated otherwise.

There's also the relationship with Sting Entertainment, which as far as I can tell was born out of Atlus USA localizing their games. Given how that progressed (Atlus USA started localizing their English titles > several titles later on are now being published by Atlus in Japan) I can't see that as a situation where Atlus USA had no say in it.
 

Mobile Suit Gooch

Grundle: The Awakening
I went ahead and downgraded my P4: Dancing all-night to the regular edition. I don't need the extra stuff since I have that P5 DVD and Soundtrack.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Did he actually or is this one of your weird things where you heavily misread text?

Link plz.

The Trauma Team development points to the exact opposite of this. Atlus US has significant input upon development, as I recall. Various other things have also indicated otherwise.

I saw it back when it was first posted, but it's hardly evidence. Their name wasn't attached to it if I recall right, and former staff members (especially ones who had a poor experience) are more likely to say negative stuff or exaggerate the news. There's not even a way to prove they were a former Atlus USA staff member.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=168213918&postcount=17236

Because then Atlus JP would have to admit that it has a market outside of Japan, and give their US branch some respect.

He posts at another MB I frequent, and he's been there for years. Take my word, or don't. I'd rather not betray his identity. PM me if you must.

He said it around the time of E3.
 

Lunar15

Member
Regardless of what the real situation is, the complaints about "Atlus Japan hating Atlus USA" come off as really weird. Not only is it hyperbole based on very little meaningful information (surprise, in a corporate environment, a lot of marketing communication sucks!) it's also only really anger about a release date for a game that isn't finished by the team making it in Japan.

The team will finish it when it finishes it. The company will market it when it markets it. The game will release when it releases. The weird aggression over how and when they do things is strange. I can understand disappointment to a degree, but it's the anger that really makes me scratch my head.

Also, I could understand some of the complaints about the US vs. the Japanese audience if the Japanese market had a release date. As it stands we're all in the same boat. If I went and asked the president of Atlus in Japan when it was coming out, he'd probably say 2015 too. There doesn't seem to be any special treatment outside of that one trailer we all watched anyway and will eventually be released to everyone at some point.
 

Sophia

Member
Lunar pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

I won't deny that I'm a bit disappointed with how Atlus has handled Persona 5's marketing. But I do think it's incredibly disingenuous to go around saying "ATLUS JAPAN HATES THEIR USA DIVISION!!!" based entirely off the post of one anonymous person on a message board that ya'll aren't even willing to provide a source for in public. It's just not cool, especially when it keeps getting repeated over and over as if it were some holy fact.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Lunar pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

I won't deny that I'm a bit disappointed with how Atlus has handled Persona 5's marketing. But I do think it's incredibly disingenuous to go around saying "ATLUS JAPAN HATES THEIR USA DIVISION!!!" based entirely off the post of one anonymous person on a message board that ya'll aren't even willing to provide a source for in public. :\

He wasn't anonymous. Did you read what I said?
 

Sophia

Member
He wasn't anonymous. Did you read what I said?

I read what you said. You refused to disclose the identity of the person and you refused to even link to a source for it. That's anonymous. And if you feel that strongly about that person's identity that you don't want to betray it, then it's probably not a wise idea to keep bringing it up. :\
 

Lunar15

Member
He wasn't anonymous. Did you read what I said?

I'm going to go to the next step and assume he is someone who previously worked at Atlus USA. I work with a lot of US branches of Japanese gaming companies, and it's definitely tough across all of them. The great irony is that Atlus USA is actually pretty awesome and does a pretty good job with localization, social media, and marketing, especially considering the niche they cater to. And no, I'm not just saying this because I'm a fan, but because I know this industry. I know how it works. You get some companies that don't do jack shit and never let their PR teams say a peep about anything... and that doesn't even have to be a Japanese company. Happens all the time with US companies.

Forcing a team to adhere to a statement of "it's coming in 2015" has really nothing to do with the fact that they don't get any respect or anything like that, it's just how marketing communication works. I'd much rather the team stick to that line than give a date, only to deal with massive headaches with retailers and advertising agencies when it has to get pushed back one month later. Makes it easier on me!

I also know how big, bloated, and useless most game marketing campaigns are. Even the long-tail ones that start a year out and blast stuff. It's not always effective. You've got to know your market and know your budget. I'm not going to defend all the moves Atlus has made, particularly with PV2, but really other than that, we'll get the marketing vindication we so crave. It'll come eventually.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
I read what you said. You refused to disclose the identity of the person and you refused to even link to a source for it. That's anonymous. And if you feel that strongly about that person's identity that you don't want to betray it, then it's probably not a wise idea to keep bringing it up. :\

Hey, Dantis wanted a link, I provided it. If you want me to confirm it, PM me.
 
I went ahead and downgraded my P4: Dancing all-night to the regular edition. I don't need the extra stuff since I have that P5 DVD and Soundtrack.

I probably should do the same, but I'm lazy and want my Teddie pouch. Also kinda curious to see what the Vita skin will look like on the DAN Vita, but I doubt I'll put it on.

I did, however, cancel my extra copy on Amazon so I just have my Best Buy preorder, which is discounted anyways.
 

Sophia

Member
Could totally happen. But if the company feels comfortable saying 2015, I feel comfortable believing it. It's the most factual thing we have to go on, despite any other beliefs about how long localization may or may not take that we may have.

I'm willing to believe in a 2015 release date myself given Atlus USA's much quicker turnabout on most recent projects. As you noted above, there's no actual release date for Japan either. Realistically given the rumored launch window from the SEGA Sammy report, it's either going to release in 2015, or be delayed in Japan too.
 

Sophia

Member

I said most silly. :p

Most of their projects in the last three years have been around one to four months, which is really not that bad of a turnaround time. Persona Q, Soul Hackers, and Untold 2 seem to be the exceptions. Obviously I'm only counting internally developed titles.
 

FluxWaveZ

Member
I said most silly. :p

Most of their projects in the last three years have been around one to four months, which is really not that bad of a turnaround time. Persona Q, Soul Hackers, and Untold 2 seem to be the exceptions. Obviously I'm only counting internally developed titles.

Ha, I was just referring to the word "turnabout."

Yeah, Atlus have indeed had a lot of quick localization projects.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
The turnaround on SMTIV, especially given how much text it has, was phenomenal. SH had a great dub, too, not phoned in like I feared. It's some of their best work.
 

Sophia

Member
Ha, I was just referring to the word "turnabout."

Yeah, Atlus have indeed had a lot of quick localization projects.

The turnaround on SMTIV, especially given how much text it has, was phenomenal. SH had a great dub, too, not phoned in like I feared. It's some of their best work.

Yeah. SMT IV especially gives me reason to believe we'll see it in 2015. That was their mainline title and Persona 5 is even bigger than that.

I can't agree with Flux on the marketing tho, obviously. ;p
 

atlusprime

Atlus PR
So did they ever say anything about p4dan us dlc cost yet? That one atlus pr dude said they were if there were no problems.

There was a problem. prices maybe next week. Oh, and I can't remember if it was Flux or CrimsonFist who asked, but I've been told that none of the actual music has been localized. So I'm assuming that includes any of the DLC songs.
 
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