URGH THIS GAME IS SO FUCKING FRUSTRATING. I was clearing the fucking Yersa desert platform shit and my party gets wiped because some flying fireball 1 shots everyone before I can even run away from it, after one of my fucking AI controlled party members attacks it. What the fuck!?!?
I HATE it when a game forces you to have to go through something then come back later. Everything is set up in such a way that you can’t clear an area, but that you have to come back later, like with the fucking cluckatrice and other fucking similar bullshit like this fucking desert.
Yeah uh, here’s a tip. Set your party members to attack your target only, and stay the FUCK away from the elementals. I mean it. They’re neutral but they randomly flip out and kill people and you won’t be able to take them on until you’re level 35 or so.
Anyway, you might want to unlock 3 mist attacks for your 3 main guys. You can pull these crazy combos that dish out like 30k+ damage each but take ridiculous amount of time to complete, on the plus side enemies won’t attack when you’re doing this.
No, Sin, I’m a afraid that was your fault. By the time you get to Yensa, you should have come across several random NPCs repeating “watch out for the Elementals” or “don’t use magic near Elementals” over and over and over. There’s at least one of those guys per area describing the climate in which the Elementals come out and how to avoid them. And in any case, using Libra to see that the Salamand Entite was Level 45 should have been enough to tip you off on how dangerous it was.
Elementals are neutral, however they become hostile when they sense YOUR magic being used. Enemies can cast all the magic they want and nothing will happen, however, if you use even the smallest spell near one of those, they attack. Your characters will never attack neutral targets by themselves, which means that the Entite was already hostile before that.
As a rule, Elementals are MUCH stronger than their level suggests. At level 25, the Level 25 Elementals will fuck you before you know what hit you. I had to hit 35 before even having a shot at them.
They also come in two forms: Elementals and Entites. The first ones are small glowing clumps of shifting energy, while the second are big uniform spheres. Elementals are level 25 while Entites are level 45, with the exception of the Diakon Entite which is 25 for some reason.
I talk to the fucking villagers and I purposefully avoid the fucking elementals because of that. I also saw the stats on a similar fireball in the desert before and balked. I did nothing to warrant that attack. Do you want another trip to the free rp forum?
That would make me reconsider being in a community where I’m liable to get banned for doing nothing against the rules, and making a simple comment which any regular user would have no reason to be greatly infuriated over. If you want me out because of this, I’ll leave, but I think you are being oversensitive.
I have never seen an Elemental become hostile for no reason. I’ve tested it being near them for a good while, even following them around and even fighting enemies around them. It would make sense if game sets it so the creatures that are far stronger than what you can handle (Elementals, The Wild Saurian in Eastersand, etc) will not engage you for no reason unless you do something like attacking them, causing area damage that would hit them, or fulfilling any requirements that particular creature may have (in this case, casting magic). If I was mistaken, I apologise, I’ve just never seen it happen myself.
The game repeatedly warns you about Elementals so you will keep an eye on them. If anything, you are supposed to be scared of them, it helps add a little variety to the infinite number of areas with random critters that you have to travel through. If a creature you cannot handle becomes hostile for whatever reason, you run, and you can tell beforehand because the game warns you when an enemy is doing something. To make it simple, if the game suddenly says “Salamand Entite is casting Firaga”, that’s your cue to find the creature and run like hell towards the opposite direction like you’ve been told to do by all those NPCs. They do not appear out of nowhere (Unlike the goddamn reaper-critters in Nabudis >.<) so unless you aren’t paying any attention to the battlefield you should have plenty of time to retreat, especially since Entites are pretty darned slow.
No one will ban you. We will simply placate Sin with a fetching sheep or two…
Annnnnyyyyywaayyyyyy I myself picked the game up, but due to circumstances I can’t really play it yet (or Phantasy Star Universe, which I snagged at the same time). Tell me, what’s the equipment system like? I rather liked 9’s return to a more traditional system after 7 and 8 had left it far behind, but then 10 came along and did away with it once again.
At first glance, the equipment is absolutely normal. Weapons increase power, armor increases defense, etc. You buy them in shops or, rarely, get them from bazaar offers, though I haven’t really gotten anything too great from that yet. There are only a few particularities:
[ul]
[li]Aside from defense, Heavy Armor increases Attack, Light Armor increases HP and Mystic Armor increases Magic Power. Use whichever fits your character best.[/li][li]Only ranged weapons (Bows/Crossbows/Guns) can strike flying enemies.[/li][li]Strike-type weapons (Hammers/Axes) have very high attack power, but their damage is a bit random so they aren’t too reliable.[/li][li]Guns have shitty attack power, but they completely ignore defense, so it evens out.[/li][/ul]
There isn’t anything special with the equipment apart from that, however you need to learn the licenses for each set of weapon/armors before you get to use them, but it isn’t that bothersome if you spend judiciously. You can figure out this pretty quickly as you play.
As Walhalla pointed out, that particular elemental attacked me at random. It came from behind me on a ramp, when I was fighting stuff melee and then started shooting me down. I was in a dead end. GG.
Entite’s “magic sensitivity” range is pretty darn big, so basically if you can see them, they can feel you. If it really attacked you from behind, you probably did something to upset it before you saw it (like I said, they are slow, so it might have even happened away from there and it just followed you until it caught up). Also, simply the act of charging a spell is enough to trigger a response, even if you cancel it before it’s completed. I still think you just didn’t see it coming until it was too late.
To avoid these suprises, it pays to keep an eye on the upper left corner of the screen: Entites constantly cast Shell/Protect/Bravery (What the heck for? The never do physical strikes anyway) on themselves, so even if you can’t see where they are, the message should be enough to tell you they are within range.
By the way, to test it out, I went and stalked the Slamand Entite for five minutes. I fought stuff around it, triggered traps around it, used techniques and practically anything but attacking it or casting. Zero response. If they can really flip out at random, I’ve yet to see it, and I’ve been going around Elementals for a while now.
Now, on a random note to anyone who might has been playing the pirated version: Has anyone found the Lhusu Mine key that supposedly fell to the ocean? From the information I gathered, it should be in Phon Coast, but I’ve searched every last damn centimeter of beach with no results and nobody in the Hunt Camp is helping either.
On the upside, that was the only time I ended up getting fucked up the ass by surprise. So that’s pretty good. The game up to now is really well made but I find it really shallow. the story has interesting bits but I feel it hasn’t picked up and the thing is, since I’m half way through the game, that kinda worries me about its potential and disapoints me since I was hoping for better from the story. All it is has been up to now is a series of fetchquest that lack a general sense of direction and purpose. Who knows, it might hit me like a wall towards the end like FFX did and man do I ever love FFX. The Grand Kiltias of Bur-Omisace was just assassinated. The majority of characters are unidimensional up to now. The characters just lack intesnsity, life and feeling.
Overall though ,the game is utterly fucking massive. There’s just too much to do. That in itself is something that irritates me (as demonstrated) since I’m obsessive about completion before moving on to another place.
My party is Vaan with a 1h + shield, Fran with a bow and Basch with a shield and 1h axe. The axe is _really_worth using. The vast majority of his strikes are either as hard or harder (and by that I mean up to 400 damage harder) than Vaan’s and they have very similar specs. I tweaked my characters to have a lot of augments so they all have 30% increased swiftness, boosted strength, magic power and decreased spell cost, and over 2000 hp each for where they are. They’re killing machines, which is quite nice. Some of these hunts are nevertheless fucking ridiculous, but having a challenge is nice when its reasonable.
As an aside, everyone should have a few gambits that do “self protect” and stuff like that.
That’s precisely my problem with the story. I like the game, but the story itself seriously lacks power. Something DID happen recently that moved my interest a little, but it still feels empty.
Forget about competing areas at once. New segments open up in most dungeons after doing sidequests, and there are even more jobs besides for Hunts. It’s endless.
That’s the kind of thing that just drives up the walls. I need things to_end_.
To further emphasize my point from earlier, I’ll mention Jahara and Eryut village. Both villages are completely contrived and entirely unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. They are stepping stones, delays, part of the fetch quest. Jahara village especially. You go there and interact with people in shallow , meaningless ways and the whole thing sticks out like a sore thumb. That’s the consistency of the game up to now.
Edit: Having self-haste, regen and protect (ie auto all of those) and walking around in a field of monsters is absotutely fucking ridiculous. The destruction! It is so niiice. That and any ally esuna.
Edit 2: How the hell do I cast berserk on something not in my party (like a mindflayer)? Reflect then berserk? Please say no.
Hit L1 to switch to foes. Currently just finished the tomb, trying to go around and snare some of these rare monsters. I’m using Ashe (1H sword+shield), Balthier(gun), and Basch(spear) currently- I’m going to switch Ashe over to katanas later for some nice comboing.
You’re a couple hours away from using gambits. You’re going to meet some people when you leave the palace after doing your thing there. It’ll take a little bit longer, a couple more hours, to get more of a feel for it. You get more gambit slots on your license board and you buy the mostly useless gambit skills at shops.
How’re you finding the spears? How’s the damage? I was considering trying the katanas and ninja swords myself. What do you know about them?
Spears are really nice- they’re made to be the heavy damage weapon in the game. Basch’s damage with them is high but consistent (he would sometimes do better with an axe or hammer but that’s due to random damage). If you don’t mind someone not using gambits, berserk+axe is a real killer- I beat the first Demon Wall that way at level 20.
Ninja Swords are the best comboing weapon in the game with katanas slightly behind them. I haven’t actually gotten to use them yet- what I know about them is mainly through a friend of mine.