Project Octopath Traveller

[Glen-i]

18 minutes ago, Gourmet / Esperpento said:

I'm around level 70 and the True Final Boss is a True Nightmare that has cost me quite a few hours of my worthless life and I want to scream.

I'm right there with you. Got to the second form and then realised I forgot to put Saving Grace on my party.

I couldn't cope with the barrage of attacks with only 4,500 max HP.

10 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

The fact that there's no save point before the battle is a shocking lack of respect for the players time. Awful design.

Yep, totally dumb. If you're gonna have a boss that's almost 4 times as hard as anything else you've thought, at least make it reasonable to get back in there and give it another shot when you fail.

Even FF6 managed to get that right. I'm getting horrible flashbacks to how much I didn't enjoy the final boss of FF8.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Glen-i

[Gourmetsalt]

This is so sad. Glen, play Despacito for me, would you.

What I am going to do is to level up to 80-85, and beat it with headbutts.

[Dcubed]

17 hours ago, Glen-i said:

I'm right there with you. Got to the second form and then realised I forgot to put Saving Grace on my party.

I couldn't cope with the barrage of attacks with only 4,500 max HP.

Yep, totally dumb. If you're gonna have a boss that's almost 4 times as hard as anything else you've thought, at least make it reasonable to get back in there and give it another shot when you fail.

Even FF6 managed to get that right. I'm getting horrible flashbacks to how much I didn't enjoy the final boss of FF8.

I'm getting FF3 DS vibes from the True Final Boss here... Oh God, I can't forget the sheer rage I felt when I kept dying on that boss, where there was an entire final dungeon to get through, with 4 boss battles and absolutely ZERO save points all throughout! You could easily lose 3 or so hours of progress each time you tried! (And it was insanely hard to boot!)

[Grazza]

18 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

The fact that there's no save point before the battle is a shocking lack of respect for the players time. Awful design.

 

That's completely out of order.  I can't think of anything that justifies such a design.

 

Personally, I've completed Chapter 3 for everyone and have really hit the point where I would like my less-used characters to be of a higher level (as you have been saying).  I've found one of the optional bosses and want to beat them all before I tackle the Chapter 4 towns.  Trouble is, I'd prefer to employ some of the characters I haven't used much.  In something like Etrian Odyssey this wouldn't be a problem, as your resting characters get a lot of EXP in the later games, and even if they didn't all you need to do is slot them into a party, have them Defend and get the others to defeat some high-level enemies.  I'm not sure I could do that in this as, like Bravely Default, it has a strange system where battles are extra long and you need to use very specific, long-winded tactics.  It's a good game, but its shortcomings are becoming clear.

[Glen-i]

4 hours ago, Dcubed said:

I'm getting FF3 DS vibes from the True Final Boss here... Oh God, I can't forget the sheer rage I felt when I kept dying on that boss, where there was an entire final dungeon to get through, with 4 boss battles and absolutely ZERO save points all throughout! You could easily lose 3 or so hours of progress each time you tried! (And it was insanely hard to boot!)

That's a good comparison, but it's not quite that bad in OT.

Getting to the final boss is a piece of cake. It just takes a while.

[Grazza]

I'm at the point where I have access to the Advanced Job bosses and the Chapter 4 bosses.  I have found both much more difficult than the gameplay in the routes to them, and to honest I thought I was stuck, but I'm pleased to say I've just beaten Olberic's Chapter 4 boss.  He had approximately half the HP of one of the Advanced Job bosses, so if anyone is curious, I'd say Chapter 4 is designed to be done first.

 

Oh, and another thing, switching passive skills for boss fights makes a huge difference.  It's a shame you can only have four!  Olberic's Surpassing Power is essential, as otherwise you can only inflict 9,999, but just now I was doing about 25,000.  Why there's a limit on it in the first place I don't know!

Edited August 15, 2018 by Grazza

[RedShell]

The latest reward on My Nintendo might be of interest to some of you:

https://my.nintendo.com/rewards/53a28d0dea0d3175

[Hero-of-Time]

8 minutes ago, RedShell said:

The latest reward on My Nintendo might be of interest to some of you:

https://my.nintendo.com/rewards/53a28d0dea0d3175

Nice. I was wondering if we would get those. I think the US got them last month.

[Glen-i]

That's really nice.

Print all 8 and use them for all your games for the most confusing physical Switch library ever!

[Glen-i]

Done-ion Rings! Fair warning, this is gonna be long.

Spoiler

So, I'm sure you know how the final battle works, you make two parties out of the 8 characters. One team takes the first phase, then the other team does the final phase.

Here was my team buildup.

First Phase

H'aanit - Cleric

Therion - Apothecary

Primrose - Sorcerer

Cyrus - Merchant

Second Phase

Ophilia - Starseer

Tressa - Runelord

Alfyn - Warmaster

Olberic - Scholar

As far as skills go, everyone had Patience and Saving Grace. The third skill was either Physical Prowess or Elemental Edge. Fourth skill was Surpassing Power for my heavy hitters (Olberic, H'aanit and Alfyn), the rest had Resist Ailments (In hindsight, the second party didn't really need this, I was just being cautious).

Funnily enough, the second phase was easier than the first. You don't have to worry about status ailments that much. It also helped that Runelord Tressa is obscenely broken! Using a combo of Transfer Rune and Sidestep can make you impossible to hit with physical attacks, which that phase likes to use.

The hardest part of the second phase is the first few turns. Barrages of powerful attacks really lay on the pressure. Thankfully Ophilia could give everyone well over 7,000 HP with saving grace. Just had to focus on keeping that up while I slowly took out one section. After that, I got an opportunity to let Tressa cheat to victory and it was cake after that. When I got to the last, main section, I ended up killing it in four turns. Which was a bit anticlimactic.

Ophilia was used mostly for healing and using BP Boost to get everyone BP faster during downtime. Tressa's job was making everyone super ninja's until ithat was at 9 turns and then put the necessary Rune on everyone for obscene damage. Alfyn was all about concoct to give everyone even more BP and then spamming Winnehild's Battle Cry when he had full BP himself. Olberic was there to analyse weaknesses and then use Brand's Thunder when he had a chance. Thousand Spears was also handy for the last section.

The first phase was way worse. That one likes it's magic attacks and status ailments. The souls it summons are incredibly irritating to boot.

H'aanit was in the healer role, she has a bow that can sometimes lower Phys Def. So Arrow Storm was great for getting that to kick in. Once it did, the hunter divine skill was her main damage dealer. Therion was there mostly for Share SP to keep everyone stocked up and for emergency healing, which I had to fall back on a lot. Primrose was there just to bust through shield points, that's literally all she did. She did it well, mind... Well until the last few turns... More on that in a bit. Cyrus was there for analysis and dealing heavy magic damage. He wasn't doing quite as much damage as H'aanit, but 17,000 at full boost was still pretty good.

I had a really close shave on the last few turns on that phase. The boss summoned more souls (Because of course it did) but then immediately killed them all. This was new to me, I must have skipped this tactic by killing it too quick last time.

Unfortunately, it now could attack three times in one turn and had a permanent attack and magic boost. It then decided to really surprise me by petrifying Primrose and then immediately shattering her. Bye bye, Primrose. She wasn't coming back.

So no sorcerer and everyone else got whacked for over 5,000 damage. The only hope was to break it and then go full on clutch mode to kill it before it petrified anyone else.

Pulled it off right at the last moment. Bloody terrifying! I might have fist pumped to myself when that happened.

So yeah, that's my story of the hardest RPG final boss I've ever thought. It was a lot of fun and really satisfying when I finally pulled it off. Just a shame that it takes an hour just to get to the start of it...

Music is absolutely gorgeous though. Both phases. I want it in Smash, but that's not happening.

Now that I think about it, that whole "Suddenly, Petrification!" is quite a nice little nod to how Graham got turned into the boss in H'aanit's chapter 4. It's quite clever, really. Still evil though.

 

[Grazza]

Nice going, @Glen-i.  Some of that surprised me a great deal, especially the job combinations you came up with.  Does it really take that long to get to the boss, even if you flee battles?

 

Personally, I completed everyone's Chapter 4 a while ago and am tinkering around in the post-game.  I could really do with a better place to grind now, so I suppose I had better unlock the final dungeon.  How I actually do that is another matter!

 

One question - can you steal the stat-boosting Nuts anywhere?  I want to use the ones I have, but don't want to waste them until I can see what everyone is like at level 99.

[Glen-i]

1 minute ago, Grazza said:

Nice going, @Glen-i.  Some of that surprised me a great deal, especially the job combinations you came up with.  Does it really take that long to get to the boss, even if you flee battles?

 

Personally, I completed everyone's Chapter 4 a while ago and am tinkering around in the post-game.  I could really do with a better place to grind now, so I suppose I had better unlock the final dungeon.  How I actually do that is another matter!

 

One question - can you steal the stat-boosting Nuts anywhere?  I want to use the ones I have, but don't want to waste them until I can see what everyone is like at level 99.

There's no random encounters in the final dungeon, it's an 8-Boss Rush.

And you can't steal the nuts, sorry.

[Grazza]

On ‎29‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 3:40 PM, Glen-i said:

There's no random encounters in the final dungeon, it's an 8-Boss Rush.

 

Do you know of a good place to level-up?  I don't think I've found any caves that are greater than level 55.  Assuming you really need to be level 99 for the post-game boss, that's a huge discrepancy.

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, Grazza said:

 

Do you know of a good place to level-up?  I don't think I've found any caves that are greater than level 55.  Assuming you really need to be level 99 for the post-game boss, that's a huge discrepancy.

There's a place near Whispermill that's level 58.

You don't really need to be 99 though 70+ should be enough. Spam max boost Bewildering Grace for that shot at a 100 multiplier.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Glen-i

[MindFreak]

I got a gift card for this yesterday but it's just sold out everywhere I know of. And since it's a gift I want it physically. So now I'll just have to wait for it to show up again.

[MindFreak]

Got the game this Sunday and started it two days ago, have now clocked in about 3 hours. I started with Therion the Thief and have just now completed a large part of my second party ally, H'aanit the Hunter, chapter 1. I had hoped to just complete all chapters for one character at a time but that doesn't seem like a good strategy.

The game is stunningly beautiful, it really has something good going on there. The gameplay is also very nice, however, I'm a bit scared that the battles are mainly on autopilot and not really challenging. The boss for H'aanit just went on and on and it didn't really change much up...

Edited September 20, 2018 by MindFreak

[Ronnie]

3 hours ago, MindFreak said:

I had hoped to just complete all chapters for one character at a time but that doesn't seem like a good strategy.

You won't be able to do that I don't think. The game is made so that you do all (or a few) chapter 1s first, then move on to all the chapter 2s etc

[Grazza]

This game could really do with a free update.  Whilst I loved the main game, I don't think I've ever known such a slow post-game.  Assuming the max level is 99, having the highest grinding area set at 58 is odd.  And although it does have the equivalent of Metal Slimes and Liquid Metal Slimes, it could really do with some Metal King Slimes as well.  I do want to be level 99, as I'm finding the boss of the level 58 area too difficult at around level 85.

 

I have the Captain's Badge and the Extra EXP skill (or whatever it's called) but it's still incredibly slow.  Just a tweak to how much EXP you get post-game would make it a lot more enjoyable.

[MindFreak]

I've put about 7 hours into this now and have recruited Ophilia and Cyrus since last time, all my heroes are at about level 13-15, and I've naturally only been seeing Chapter 1s of the story so far.

Which is bothering me a bit. All beginnings are a bit dull and having to watch and play so many of them is a bit much. I am thinking about continuing Therion's plot as that recommends level 22 which is not too far away but I don't want to waste time on many underlevelled fight, but I also think that being too high level at the beginning of the remaining stories make them a bit too dull. So I'm considering what to do here - gather all remaining characters or continue with the story of the four I've got.

One more thing that bothers me is the path system in the world. You can't really explore the world as you are locked on specific paths.

Other than that, fights have become more enjoyable as I got more party members that can do different things, and having Cyrus on my team really helped me with discovering weaknesses faster.

[MindFreak]

Hmm. The game is starting to bore me a bit. I've got all characters now and am working on completing the stories for Therion, H'aanit, Cyrus and Ophilia, I need to complete chapter 3 of the two latter before going to all chapter 4s. I've spent a little more than 30 hours on it.

The game is good but the fragmented story really takes some enjoyment out of it for me, even though the individual stories are actually good. Furthermore, the battles are just way too long and there is no real way to speed them up. Fought a dragon yesterday and it took 40 minutes! Some bosses can also wipe my team completely because they can attack all characters at once and then attack a little more, meaning that the battles are relatively defensive overall. I haven't found all secondary jobs, though, that may speed up things a bit.

Each chapter is also really alike: go to a person, do a small task, be sent to a cave and beat the boss there. Rinse and repeat, 32 times... 

My goal is to complete chapter 4 of the first 4 and then just quickly level up one of the remaining at a time to finish their stories.

[Grazza]

41 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

I haven't found all secondary jobs, though, that may speed up things a bit.

 

That makes a big difference, as giving everyone a 2nd job really boosts the number of weapons they can use, and you can always have someone with the Scholar's spells, even at times when you aren't using Cyrus.

[Hero-of-Time]

A prequel has been announced........but only for mobile devices. The game also allows for 8 party members in battle at once.

This seems a bit of a slap in the face to Switch owners. S-E launch the brand on the Switch, get it recognised, build up a reputation for it and then they create a prequel but don't put it on the platform that got them success with the IP in the first place.

[Grazza]

6 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

A prequel has been announced........but only for mobile devices. The game also allows for 8 party members in battle at once.

 

That would have been great - no more party members missing out on EXP!

[MindFreak]

Yeah, a bit weird that they won't bring it to Switch at least. Surely, developing the game for Switch as well can't cost that much extra.

On a positive note, a new console game in the universe has been announced.

Quote

“For those of you waiting for a new console game, we apologize, but we’ll need more time for production, so in the meantime we hope you’ll enjoy this.”

Far off, but at least on the way. 

Also, Octopath Traveler has sold 1.5 million units worldwide.

https://www.siliconera.com/2019/03/08/octopath-travelers-official-twitter-account-mentions-a-new-console-game/

[Glen-i]

It's one of those gacha games, isn't it?

Eh, mobile can keep it.