In general for Tales games, once you start a New Game Plus, you're taken to a 'grade shop' where you exchange grade (in Graces, it's earned by doing certain things like clearing the game, having a certain amount of titles, not using Life bottles or gels, etc; in some other Tales games, Grade is earned by how well you do in battle and it's accumulative) for certain bonuses to begin your NG+ playthrough with. Such bonuses are retaining your titles earned, retaining artes usage, getting damage multipliers (up to 10x damage), getting EXP multipliers which will either slow down or speed up your level growth, etc. NG+ is just supposed to be either easier or harder depending on what you pick in the Grade Shop.
In Graces, you get access new dungeons and new bosses by just playing your clear save (so select your clear save from the load menu and you'll be taken to the final save point before the final boss and then you'll unlock some postgame content like the EX dungeon Zone Cage or other bosses). You may also play the Future Arc with your clear save if you select it from the Extras menu on the title screen (this arc takes place 6 months since the game ends).
Yeah, I went through most the percentages and tried to figure out the most bang for your buck ones. Figured it and Arcane Bottle would be nice to have maxed anyway. These two, Hourglass, and All-Divide all seem to be the best Eleth Cost / % Chance rates. I liked the two bottles since 10% with Book of Fortune isn't all that rare really and 1440 Energy (Fortune, Duplication) is easily doable.
My goal is Platinum before ... Wednesday (Legend of Grimrock) but I have a feeling I won't manage that Hell, I might not beat future by then.
I imagine that I might stay in Future Arc more than I did the first time since I want to get Narikiri titles for a few people. I might take the bottle method into consideration, then. I hadn't thought of doing that before. Thanks.
I have no idea how I did it, honestly. I basically saved at
Eleth Research Lab
, grinded for a bit to get Soul Orbs, finished the dungeon, got to the next dungeon and then went to Soul Orb/drop grind without saving.
For those who know the area, I went by _four_ save points, all of which with skits. That I saw. And never saved. Somehow.
So ... yeah, wut? Ugh, it was pretty bad and I just sat there staring at it in disbelief. Granted, I don't think it was actually six full hours of playing but still. Sheesh, what the hell was I doing lol.
When you mentioned the area, I thought it was going to be the part of the dungeon where if
you screw up a lot and you're almost certain to die if you have 1 HP at the beginning of the battle
.
I've done that too, though (ex: don't save for hours). I'm probably so used to autosave or sleep mode on portables that I don't think about it much. But in a way, I'm glad this game doesn't have autosave so that I don't screw up dualization or something.
Oh hey, me too. I usually go for his A-Artes more because I can easily switch and adapt to enemies' weaknesses and perhaps double-up on it (ex: Strike -> Nimble Fang (Demon Fist) -> Phantom Pulse -> Heaven's Wrath against humans). I try to end with a B-Arte if it's possible, though. I have the CC to spare for that.
Just before going into the last dungeon, I wanted to find a bunch of hidden areas and do side stuff. So I go to the beach resort, watch the scenes there, get a few of the titles in the strahta towns, go town jumping to each inn to turn in overdue requests to fill out the titles, go to the Oswell area...then I stumble upon this wonderful Shuttle Crash site. There is a fight here that is easy as hell, then at the end there's an explosion that killed my party about 4 times over. This is not considered a boss, it's considered a normal enemy, so there's no way to just reset the battle. And it turns out that due to the ease in using the shuttle to warp around, I haven't saved in a looooong time.
Just before going into the last dungeon, I wanted to find a bunch of hidden areas and do side stuff. So I go to the beach resort, watch the scenes there, get a few of the titles in the strahta towns, go town jumping to each inn to turn in overdue requests to fill out the titles, go to the Oswell area...then I stumble upon this wonderful Shuttle Crash site. There is a fight here that is easy as hell, then at the end there's an explosion that killed my party about 4 times over. This is not considered a boss, it's considered a normal enemy, so there's no way to just reset the battle. And it turns out that due to the ease in using the shuttle to warp around, I haven't saved in a looooong time.
Yeah I died a bunch of times there too. I think I had to set the difficulty down and use an all divide to survive it. The titles that reduce damage by 50% when it's over 1000 or something like that should help you survive it.
I imagine that I might stay in Future Arc more than I did the first time since I want to get Narikiri titles for a few people. I might take the bottle method into consideration, then. I hadn't thought of doing that before. Thanks.
The Item Drop titles and +Material Drop food helps too (Potato Salad, Radish Steak is what I use). I basically don't go a single fight without a drop. Hell, I think I have ~10 of all the Accel weapons.
...okay, I actually don't know if they all stack but it makes me feel better to have like 7 sources of +Material drops.
What. :lol
When you mentioned the area, I thought it was going to be the part of the dungeon where if
you screw up a lot and you're almost certain to die if you have 1 HP at the beginning of the battle
That actually wasn't bad at all. Until that bridge at the end. Dear lord haha, such a surprise after the
rest of the dungeon being that one piddly little laser
.
Oh hey, me too. I usually go for his A-Artes more because I can easily switch and adapt to enemies' weaknesses and perhaps double-up on it (ex: Strike -> Nimble Fang (Demon Fist) -> Phantom Pulse -> Heaven's Wrath against humans). I try to end with a B-Arte if it's possible, though. I have the CC to spare for that.
I'm too focused on hitting 30 or 50 Hit combos to activate food to do the B-Arte finishers :x I still have one 100 Hit Combo title to get too so that's been my focus. Well, when I remember that I still need that title :|
Hubert is who I used most, though I feel most comfortable with Asbel when I'm in a group of casters (which is my current arrangement). On that note, future Arc
Richard isn't all that fun to control. His A-Artes don't combo well at all (long delays in his 4CCs) but his spells are fun
. I just like Cheria best of the casters though I tend to let her get AI controlled since the AI heals better than me.
Infernal Torrent and frost slash move are what I spam when I go into b-arte and dont need to exploit a weakness. The others I've gotten so far are a bunch of mehs.
Yeah I died a bunch of times there too. I think I had to set the difficulty down and use an all divide to survive it. The titles that reduce damage by 50% when it's over 1000 or something like that should help you survive it.
From what I noticed playing, Cheria and Hubert are probably the best characters in the game. Accel mode makes a few characters a lot more functional than they otherwise would be, too.
Cheria is godly. I'm sick of her whining about how useless she is in cutscenes and skits. Her A-Artes are overpowered (ranged, AoE, quick recovery), her healing is amazing, and her attack spells are all useful in their own ways. Future arc spoilers:
With 3 to 4 Cherias on your team, things get crazy. If anyone has played Priston Tale, it basically feels like the equivalent of playing with a bunch of Priestesses in that game. Goddamn Divine Lightning everywhere.
I found Hubert's Scarlet Salvo, Flare Shot, and Rolling Thunderbolt to be his best moves. Beast Blaster(?) is also one of his better "spells". His A-Artes are quite versatile, but some have trouble connecting on particular enemies. You'll eventually learn what works best in certain situations. He's especially useful for managing combos, whether you want to end things quickly, hit an enemy from far away, or draw out attacks while other members are recharging. His first Mystic Arte is also nice for random battles since it has a pretty wide AoE, so he's a great character for the player to control. Oh, I forgot that he can also heal himself at the end of combos... Half of his B-Artes are crap, though, so they're easy to ignore. And don't forget that he has two shot chains when you're feeling lazy and have a boatload of CC to burn.
The other characters are good in their own ways, but I didn't use them as much.
Future arc spoilers:
I was really excited to get Richard back, but I found a lot of his A-Artes to be rather unsafe. He does have access to a few very nice spells. The green biting spell is his best--spam that sucker nonstop. His powerful spells are great but would've been more useful if his A-Artes were ranged. If his Accel mode weren't so good, he'd probably be worse than Malik.
God damn, fuck this optional boss and fuck Cheria for not getting it through her thick skull that "B-Only + Passive + Always Heal" means to ALWAYS FUCKING HEAL, not run up to fucking Wolverine's face and let him slice you with your claws 9 times.
Generally, if they get too close, I switch to them and make them move the hell back... then switch back. No deaths during the Rock Gagan fight at all as a result. Malik and Cheria barely got hit.
The Item Drop titles and +Material Drop food helps too (Potato Salad, Radish Steak is what I use). I basically don't go a single fight without a drop. Hell, I think I have ~10 of all the Accel weapons.
...okay, I actually don't know if they all stack but it makes me feel better to have like 7 sources of +Material drops.
I usually felt that because I was on Chaos, I didn't always need the extra drop food, but if it makes a dramatic difference, I might elect to use it.
branny said:
From what I noticed playing, Cheria and Hubert are probably the best characters in the game. Accel mode makes a few characters a lot more functional than they otherwise would be, too.
Cheria is godly. I'm sick of her whining about how useless she is in cutscenes and skits. Her A-Artes are overpowered (ranged, AoE, quick recovery), her healing is amazing, and her attack spells are all useful in their own ways. Future arc spoilers:
With 3 to 4 Cherias on your team, things get crazy. If anyone has played Priston Tale, it basically feels like the equivalent of playing with a bunch of Priestesses in that game. Goddamn Divine Lightning everywhere.
lol, I thought I was the only person who stuck multiple Cherias in a party for the damage comboing. Her A-Artes are among my favourites too since she doesn't take a vast amount of time to recover from attacking, and they're more powerful than you'd think.
And Hubert's amazing for comboing. Once you get over his lower defense, he's fantastic to use manually.
Generally, if they get too close, I switch to them and make them move the hell back... then switch back. No deaths during the Rock Gagan fight at all as a result. Malik and Cheria barely got hit.
I just switched her out for Pascal with a group of Pascal, Malik, Asbel, and Sophie (with me controlling Pascal), and I actually got the boss in its critical stages. Unlike Cheria, Sophie actually could dodge fairly well and had the sense to not start up an obscenely long spell right in front of the boss.
Of course, why the AI was dumb enough to get themselves killed by his Instant Kill AOE attack out of like 8 out my life bottles, is an entirely separate, yet extremely frustrating issue.
The AI also loves to run away juuust far enough so that enemies will interrupt them at the very end of their cast time. And if you're playing a caster, your AI party members will always love to wait until you're almost finished casting a super important spell to cancel it with some Mystic Arte you could've sworn you disabled.
I'd kill for this game to have FFXII-style gambits.
The AI also loves to run away juuust far enough so that enemies will interrupt them at the very end of their cast time. And if you're playing a caster, your AI party members will always love to wait until you're almost finished casting a super important spell to cancel it with some Mystic Arte you could've sworn you disabled.
I'd kill for this game to have FFXII-style gambits.
No kidding. Hell, any RPG with AI companions really needs gambit-style customization (although I have to commend this game for making it pretty easy to switch party members via D-Pad on the fly). Unlike how FFXII was much slower paced, such customization can't really be regulated to the argument "Well, it'll just play itself!" When considering that the complexity in Graces F is definitely up in a number of regards (and to the point where I can't just use stop-gap measures like in other Tales games, like stunlocking bosses or just setting certain spells to shortcuts simply because there wasn't actually a start-up time, etc), I find the limited Strategy section pretty lacking.
But I managed to beat the boss.
It was crazy ol' Bryce, by the way.
Pascal, Asbel, Malik, and Sophie worked out pretty well. The boss always aggro'd Pascal the moment she even started to cast a spell, which allowed him to try to pursue Pascal to the extent of eating Malik's spells and Asbel's artes to the face, followed by Pascal's A-Artes. Things started to get out of hand towards the end of the battle because the boss just started to get massive invincibility frames and a OHKO attack. Luckily, if the party members are far away from it, they usually won't run into it (which was.. not quite the case in my prior attempt).
Worked out much better than my previous attempts with Hubert, Asbel, Cheria, and Sophie. Hubert would have been good at locking the boss down for a time, but he had no defense and the boss never, ever aggro'd him. Instead, each and every time, he would just aim for the low-hanging fruit of the party (Cheria). 100% of the time where I found the match to be a lost cause, it was down to Sophie and the boss, with Sophie managing to dodge the boss for a long time even with the same strategy settings as Cheria ("ALWAYS HEAL YOU DOLTS"). 100% of the time, Cheria would be the first to fall within the first 10 seconds due to not moving, moving up to the boss and not attacking, or trying to heal when she was right next to the boss.
Basically, Pascal and Malik are my MVPs, and Cheria is going to be on my shit-list for several hours.
Oh right maybe, but I use up every single thing on the right stick for spells. I don't get why they don't let you use Up and Down as two seperate buttons when you have to press the B arte with them.
Oh, I understand. There is no reason why Graces didn't have these sorts of things for better control:
For example, Rebirth's allows you to look at your player characters on each line and modify how far from the enemy they are. It also allows you to customize the AI movement strategy, Attack Frequency, and Arte Usage Conditions. I'd go into depth regarding how many options there are for movement strategy (ex: attack enemies on the same line, attack enemies in the back, fight on lines with allies positioned in the back, etc) and how if you move some people along some lines they get stat boosts, etc, but this thread isn't about that.
This screen is just from the very beginning of the game (during the second battle for those who know about it) since I just wanted to grab one that didn't spoil anything, so those definitely aren't the normal strategies or characters I'd usually employ... especially since people aren't getting the stat boosts I want them to.
I liked how Vesperia handled it here, where I can move people around.
And the AI menu (not my shot, but apparently someone on GAF posted this, so thanks to that GAF member who posted this because it's very convenient!!) handles things nicely.
The "Position" marker is what I'm referring to. When I tell people to just stay back and cast spells, that's what I want them to do (ex: Free Move, Keep Formation, Keep Distance and Flexible are great).
I had talked about how Xillia has AI use items before, so the menu for it is below since I think people are interested. As you can see, you can prioritize the items you want the AI to use should you check the "use items" box off. Column 4 is how much of an item you want to keep in reserve. Column 5 is how much of the item you have left in your inventory. Column 3 is item conditions (HP/TP remaining when you'd like the AI to use it, or during some sort of status effect; for life bottle it's: use when 1 ally is dead, use when 2 allies are dead, use when 3 allies are dead.)
No kidding. Hell, any RPG with AI companions really needs gambit-style customization (although I have to commend this game for making it pretty easy to switch party members via D-Pad on the fly). Unlike how FFXII was much slower paced, such customization can't really be regulated to the argument "Well, it'll just play itself!" When considering that the complexity in Graces F is definitely up in a number of regards (and to the point where I can't just use stop-gap measures like in other Tales games, like stunlocking bosses or just setting certain spells to shortcuts simply because there wasn't actually a start-up time, etc), I find the limited Strategy section pretty lacking.
But I managed to beat the boss.
It was crazy ol' Bryce, by the way.
Pascal, Asbel, Malik, and Sophie worked out pretty well. The boss always aggro'd Pascal the moment she even started to cast a spell, which allowed him to try to pursue Pascal to the extent of eating Malik's spells and Asbel's artes to the face, followed by Pascal's A-Artes. Things started to get out of hand towards the end of the battle because the boss just started to get massive invincibility frames and a OHKO attack. Luckily, if the party members are far away from it, they usually won't run into it (which was.. not quite the case in my prior attempt).
Worked out much better than my previous attempts with Hubert, Asbel, Cheria, and Sophie. Hubert would have been good at locking the boss down for a time, but he had no defense and the boss never, ever aggro'd him. Instead, each and every time, he would just aim for the low-hanging fruit of the party (Cheria). 100% of the time where I found the match to be a lost cause, it was down to Sophie and the boss, with Sophie managing to dodge the boss for a long time even with the same strategy settings as Cheria ("ALWAYS HEAL YOU DOLTS"). 100% of the time, Cheria would be the first to fall within the first 10 seconds due to not moving, moving up to the boss and not attacking, or trying to heal when she was right next to the boss.
Basically, Pascal and Malik are my MVPs, and Cheria is going to be on my shit-list for several hours.
Malik is insanely awesome. I feel like not many people use and I can't see why. His spells are so awesome. Big areas and tons of damage, and some (Culling Flare) are great for combos too. Maybe I'm just a Malik fanboy.
Asbel isn't even in my party most of the time lol
I am currently useing Pascal as my main (though if a battle gets tough I switch to sophie as I mained her most of the game).
I really need to finish the game already, I just
got an airship to go around the world
so I figure I am close to the final battle before the future arc, i've been doing random side stuff for a while now, I will likely just continue on unless I learn of something I really should do before the final battle.
Malik is insanely awesome. I feel like not many people use and I can't see why. His spells are so awesome. Big areas and tons of damage, and some (Culling Flare) are great for combos too. Maybe I'm just a Malik fanboy.
Oh, I understand. There is no reason why Graces didn't have these sorts of things for better control:
For example, Rebirth's allows you to look at your player characters on each line and modify how far from the enemy they are. It also allows you to customize the AI movement strategy, Attack Frequency, and Arte Usage Conditions. I'd go into depth regarding how many options there are for movement strategy (ex: attack enemies on the same line, attack enemies in the back, fight on lines with allies positioned in the back, etc) and how if you move some people along some lines they get stat boosts, etc, but this thread isn't about that.
This screen is just from the very beginning of the game (during the second battle for those who know about it) since I just wanted to grab one that didn't spoil anything, so those definitely aren't the normal strategies or characters I'd usually employ... especially since people aren't getting the stat boosts I want them to.
I liked how Vesperia handled it here, where I can move people around.
And the AI menu (not my shot, but apparently someone on GAF posted this, so thanks to that GAF member who posted this because it's very convenient!!) handles things nicely.
The "Position" marker is what I'm referring to. When I tell people to just stay back and cast spells, that's what I want them to do (ex: Free Move, Keep Formation, Keep Distance and Flexible are great).
Abyss has its own positioning system too:
And Xillia handles formations using a grid system.
I had talked about how Xillia has AI use items before, so the menu for it is below since I think people are interested. As you can see, you can prioritize the items you want the AI to use should you check the "use items" box off. Column 4 is how much of an item you want to keep in reserve. Column 5 is how much of the item you have left in your inventory. Column 3 is item conditions (HP/TP remaining when you'd like the AI to use it, or during some sort of status effect; for life bottle it's: use when 1 ally is dead, use when 2 allies are dead, use when 3 allies are dead.)
Gambits would be nice in Tales, though. I liked using them in FFXII.
This post is totally awesome! It really makes you wonder why Tales Studio didn't include something like this. Even Symphonia and Dawn of the New World had it.
This post is totally awesome! It really makes you wonder why Tales Studio didn't include something like this. Even Symphonia and Dawn of the New World had it.
Still, one should expect some consistency and shared ideas between teams, even if the approach and focus are different.
I guess it doesn't matter anymore, since there is no Tales Studio anymore and probably no more teams, just leads directing people.
Still, one should expect some consistency and shared ideas between teams, even if the approach and focus are different.
I guess it doesn't matter anymore, since there is no Tales Studio anymore and probably no more teams, just leads directing people.
Anyone know where I can find Bizarre clumps, Haughty natured shards, and how to make a magical mirror. These inn requests are becoming rather annoying now lol. Not to mention the fact that it's very annoying how the collector's book doesn't actually tell you where you can get the item. Lame.
Well, you don't use Haughty shards to get to Haughty Quality typically (unless you're going down in Quality tiers). What's the current Quality of the item?
Generally, if they get too close, I switch to them and make them move the hell back... then switch back. No deaths during the Rock Gagan fight at all as a result. Malik and Cheria barely got hit.
I tend to put the blame on the Bandai Namco producers for not ensuring that concepts are shared and improvements on series traditions are kept intact between different developers (titles, cooking, multiplayer, soloing, AI settings...). The difference between ToI DS (developed by Alfa System) and ToIR Vita (developed by 7th Chord) for example is pretty mind blowing, especially since the former had some very nice ideas that could be built upon in later games. Instead nearly all of it was thrown out.
Not even close. Did floor 1 of Zhonecage yesterday... floor 2 is just destroying me. Is the second floor really supposed to be such a huge jump up in difficulty?
Kinda figured I had to do that given that it's really quick to switch around, move them back and switch back. It wasn't too bad.
Though I can see how people would believe that this method is rather cumbersome.
I tend to put the blame on the Bandai Namco producers for not ensuring that concepts are shared and improvements on series traditions are kept intact between different developers (titles, cooking, multiplayer, soloing, AI settings...). The difference between ToI DS (developed by Alfa System) and ToIR Vita (developed by 7th Chord) for example is pretty mind blowing, especially since the former had some very nice ideas that could be built upon in later games. Instead nearly all of it was thrown out.
Yeah, it's kind of surprising that some of this stuff isn't shared between the teams (and I don't think this would be a huge deal now at this point in time given the state of the teams... or 'team' now).
Actually, before hearing about Tales of Graces' battle system info, I thought it might extend on Rebirth's formation system in terms of granting characters bonuses depending on where you place them on the field. But this ultimately wasn't possible. I thought it was a little unfortunate that formations didn't seem to matter.
Finally died for the first time a few nights back. Just took the boat to the other continent and was fighting some monsters. Progressed to the next screen and got my ass handed to me by the first encounter Can't wait until I'm strong enough to come back and kill them.
So i am going try and platinum this game since i am having allot of fun .
I don't normally care about that stuff to tell the truth .
Going beat the FA again to make this easy on my 3rd run for the platinum .
I play Sophie , Cheria , Asbel and Pascal change every few hours when i fell like it .
You could always juggle it on and off with Legend of Grimrock. >.>
Inn Requests don't really take that long. It's just the part where you have to get the shards to make the weapons for it that I found cumbersome the first time around. And if you already beat the final boss on Chaos, the lower difficulties will feel like a cakewalk.
And also, don't forget that (final boss spoilers)
when you beat Zone Cage that you should beat the final boss again for another trophy.
Hell, I might not beat future by then.
