FFXIII-2

[Hyan]

That's all fine and dandy but it should at least be understood that there is a price to pay for lacking a cap. If that's alright then good.

What's inevitable though is that the opinions will be polarized (those who want the franchise to keep evolving its gameplay and be more challenging and those who just want the game to not challenge them in any other aspect but the time required to grind).

[Tyrath]

I don't think having a cap makes a game harder. If anything it stifles the difficulty because the devs can't make anything too hard because they are trying to cater to all gameplay styles. Having a cap did not make FFXIII hard. I had trouble on one boss throughout the entire game.

Not having a cap allows you to make harder bosses and let's the player choose how difficult you want it to be. Grinding is not the difficulty setting of the game. But it lets you decide if you want to grind and make things easier or if you want to try things at lower levels for a challenge. I realize you can do the same thing in a capped game, but since it's capped the overall difficulties of the enemies have to be lowered because players never have the option to level up too far if they are having trouble.

[Hyan]

I don't think having a cap makes a game harder. If anything it stifles the difficulty because the devs can't make anything too hard because they are trying to cater to all gameplay styles. Having a cap did not make FFXIII hard. I had trouble on one boss throughout the entire game.

That's why you give the player difficulty levels to choose from. The point is to make the designers be aware of the variables and design the encounter accordingly. Having too many variables will make it impossible for them to keep the challenge, because they can't know how strong you are at the time of the fight. Having three (for example..) controllable difficulty settings makes it significantly easier than having a scale with countless possible variables. You also don't have to grind to make the game easier, nor specifically try to avoid grinding in fear of overleveling (which is troublesome because the player doesn't even know when he is past the intended level or significantly below it).

[Tyrath]

Yeah I have no idea why FF games don't use difficulty settings. I was speaking of what seems viable in the absence of that simple fix.

[Nevex]

I honestly had no trouble with XIII, I don't see how some on this board think it's so challenging.

It's because alot enemies (for FF standards) had access to some nasty surprises that could easily turn the tides of the battle in the blink of an eye.

I'm just going to name a few cases:
-Those ninja/bird things that enjoy spamming buffs/debuffs are easy to go unnoticed until it's too late. They only need to get Bravery on one of their friends and deprotect on one of your characters to get them into KO range
-Gatling fucking Gun from those motorcycle things during chapter 7
-PSICOM soldiers during chapter 9. Especially those with that damn bazooka who knocked your party down while their allies massacred you
-The first time Doom was used was a shock because Bart had a lot of HP and was a very offense-oriented boss so I played defensively which was a completely wrong approach
-Eidolons in general other than Shiva (which was a tutorial fight) required good timing because they could punish you badly if you simply spammed stuff

Of course all of the above is true if 1. it's your first playthrough and 2. you don't overgrind but every game is like this anyway.
Overall I was pleased at how regular enemies and bosses alike kept me on my toes during my first playthrough.

[Hyan]

Yeah I have no idea why FF games don't use difficulty settings. I was speaking of what seems viable in the absence of that simple fix.

XIII has an Easy difficulty, XIII-2 has it too... granted, XIII got it post-release. That's pretty stupid of you to say though, instead of suggesting a difficulty setting you want them to do something ass-backwards? Either way a cap is necessary in retaining the intended difficulty.

In XIII's case some design choices allowed them to make the normal monsters actually fight back from time to time too, like the instant retry and having every fight start from the same status quo (full hp/mp). While you can keep thinking that the game isn't any more difficult than the rest of them these design choices are pretty obvious ways to design the game's fights better and it showed. Too bad it's mostly thrown out of the window with XIII-2 and that's thanks to the idiots who keep thinking there's no downside to not having a level cap in place.

[Mugmug]

Why even bother with level caps? Just remove leveling up altogether.

Every character should just have a static amount of HP/MP, and as you enter a new chapter the game automatically gives you new abilities.

Welcome to Chapter 2!
* Lightning learns __________
* Sazh learns ____________
* etc

No need to give +HP/MP since you'll have set stats/abilities for every battle. This way the game will always be challenging! This is the same thing as a level cap but better! They can control ever variable to ensure bosses are tough!

[Tyrath]

XIII has an Easy difficulty, XIII-2 has it too... granted, XIII got it post-release. That's pretty stupid of you to say though, instead of suggesting a difficulty setting you want them to do something ass-backwards? Either way a cap is necessary in retaining the intended difficulty.

I'm not saying what they should or shouldn't do. I'm saying SINCE they don't have difficulty settings non cap is superior to cap for difficulty because it allows them to make stronger enemies in a non cap setting. lern2read.

[Ratatapa]

Why even bother with level caps? Just remove leveling up altogether.

Every character should just have a static amount of HP/MP, and as you enter a new chapter the game automatically gives you new abilities.

Welcome to Chapter 2!
* Lightning learns __________
* Sazh learns ____________
* etc

No need to give +HP/MP since you'll have set stats/abilities for every battle. This way the game will always be challenging! This is the same thing as a level cap but better! They can control ever variable to ensure bosses are tough!

Every FF had a kind of LV cap

FFVII you could lv your Fire/restore/ice to max in Midgar but would tkae a fucking while
FFIX you were stuck to get better equipment to get better magic, ok you chould still get lv 99 with first gear at start but would still take forever

[Gokulo]

Except that exactly means there wasn't a level cap. You were free to spend as much time as you wanted to power-house your characters, even if you didn't have access to every stuff (items/skills) from the beginning (which is reasonable). One of my plays of VII I leveled to like LV.40+ before leaving the Mithril Cave, because using E.Skill made it easy as hell. In XIII you hit a cap and that's that, you've got to move the story forward.

[Hyan]

I'm not saying what they should or shouldn't do. I'm saying SINCE they don't have difficulty settings non cap is superior to cap for difficulty because it allows them to make stronger enemies in a non cap setting. lern2read.

Except they do have difficulty settings, jesus fuck you are being dense.

Every character should just have a static amount of HP/MP, and as you enter a new chapter the game automatically gives you new abilities.

Yeah I'd rather earn my abilities (like in every other game lulz). But whatever dude. You couldn't sound more butthurt though.

[The Stig]

FFXIII having a "cap" was a blessing. At the time I was spending a couple of week's at a friend's when the game was released. We aimed to beat it before I left.

My friend was one of those types that loves to grind. i.e. in FF8 he was level 100 before getting to Ifrit.

If I had to sit there and wait for him to grind I'd be leaving his house way before we got anywhere lol

[vadre]

Not to break up the current convo, just thought some people would like to see the scenario ultimania cover:

http://www.ff-xiii.net/images/media/...-2-Artwork.jpg

Pretty neat, a bit low res and some bits are cut off to make a wallpaper though. Serah looks like she has some pretty epic balancing skills, or she's flying.

[Nevex]

Except that exactly means there wasn't a level cap. You were free to spend as much time as you wanted to power-house your characters, even if you didn't have access to every stuff (items/skills) from the beginning (which is reasonable). One of my plays of VII I leveled to like LV.40+ before leaving the Mithril Cave, because using E.Skill made it easy as hell. In XIII you hit a cap and that's that, you've got to move the story forward.

Honestly though, how many times did you actually hit the crystarium cap? After chapter 4 I couldn't hit it anymore and I was fighting every single enemy I came across.
The map layout was mostly linear and there was no reason to go back and fight respawns so I just kept moving forward to see how the plot developed.

I could see the caps being a big problem if it followed the standard non-linear formula with random encounters because that would essentially waste your time with useless battles, but it didn't really bother me in FFXIII.
Besides once secondary roles unlock this problem doesn't apply anymore since you're going to take a long time maxing them if you don't want to wait until postgame.

Anyway back to FFXIII-2 I have read complaints about the lack of level caps (lol) because it makes grinding way too easy, therefore making the game a lot less challenging.
I remember FFXII having that problem since it was so easy to oneshot everything on your way thanks to Haste/Berserk/Bravery gambits. I was like level 40 by time I reached Mt. Bur Omisace and I wasn't even trying to grind.

[Alkar]

Honestly though, how many times did you actually hit the crystarium cap? After chapter 4 I couldn't hit it anymore and I was fighting every single enemy I came across.
The map layout was mostly linear and there was no reason to go back and fight respawns so I just kept moving forward to see how the plot developed.

I could see the caps being a big problem if it followed the standard non-linear formula with random encounters because that would essentially waste your time with useless battles, but it didn't really bother me in FFXIII.
Besides once secondary roles unlock this problem doesn't apply anymore since you're going to take a long time maxing them if you don't want to wait until postgame.

Anyway back to FFXIII-2 I have read complaints about the lack of level caps (lol) because it makes grinding way too easy, therefore making the game a lot less challenging.
I remember FFXII having that problem since it was so easy to oneshot everything on your way thanks to Haste/Berserk/Bravery gambits. I was like level 40 by time I reached Mt. Bur Omisace and I wasn't even trying to grind.

Simply shows that SE shouldn't listen to complaints completely and just decide a direction for their games. Fans will NEVER be happy no matter what you do.
Everyone is wasting so much time arguing the pros and cons all the time instead of just enjoying the games. It's become impossible to please some people because they have insane expectations and if you don't meet them your game simply sucks.

[Gokulo]

To clarify, I'm not really complaining about one or the other, cause I didn't really mind. I'm not the person that always spends too much time grinding before endgame so it wasn't really hurting me. Had fun playing, all that matters

[Elcura]

Honestly though, how many times did you actually hit the crystarium cap? After chapter 4 I couldn't hit it anymore and I was fighting every single enemy I came across.
The map layout was mostly linear and there was no reason to go back and fight respawns so I just kept moving forward to see how the plot developed.

Easy to hit the cap if you farm for weapons/items around chapters 7 and...10? I think. I capped my crystarium lots of times during my play through. I didn't really mind though, game was still fun and decently challenging at times. Let's be honest, RPGs aren't exactly horribly difficult even at their most punishing settings. Most of the time the main story is just that, a story. If it's challenging and all that it's fine with me. But personally, I always expect the hardest challenges to be post game, which is why I never usually care if the last boss is easy.

[Tyrath]

Yeah, I don't really remember having trouble capping crystariums per chapter. I fought all the enemies along the way an then with a tiny bit of farming it was usually done.

[Hyan]

No, they usually don't. Having an easy setting in FFXIII also doesn't fix your own complaint about game not being challenging enough. Quit being stupid.

I'm not talking about going back to VII and implementing a level cap (but if they did that they might as well implement the difficulty settings...) or any other pre-historic FF. I'm talking about the current games (which have a difficulty setting), and you would too if you weren't trying to save face so desperately.

By your logic we can still choose to make XIII harder by not leveling. So while a Hard difficulty would be the best option a level cap doesn't mean you can't make the game more difficult.

[Mugmug]

Level cap, or no level cap future Final Fantasys will most likely continue to be easy. It's a popular franchise and they want to make the games accessible to casual gamers. I do agree that they should make Easy/Normal/Hard/Expert modes for future games.

Until that day comes I'll just continue to do low level playthroughs for fun. I would try and No Crystarium Run if I had a save file up to GPulse already

On topic:

I have very low expectations for XIII-2, so hopefully I won't be disappointed. The demo was kind of cool.