RxBandits123

Besides playing lost odyssey for about 10 hours i've really only played action rpgs aside from Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age. Maybe Im just not that good at these games but there always comes a boss that stops me in my tracks and annoys me to no end. In final fantasy 13 there is no difficulty level so if your stuck you cant switch to a lower difficutly setting like in dragon age (except for changing the battle speed to slow which helps a little). In these games when you are stuck they force you to grind until you can level up more and grinding to me is the least amount of fun I can have playing a game.

I am stuck on the chapter 9 boss battle with Barthandelus. I know how to beat him and I would be able to beat him if it weren't for the death clock the game puts on you if you take to long on this battle. And this battle takes about 20 or so minutes so having to start over starts to get tiresome after a while. I have played it now 6 times which is the equivalent of 2 hours. After being able to figure out how to stop his Destructo attack which takes out about 1300 hp and killing you instantly unless you have a sentinal or are buffed up, i just cant deal enough damage before the death clock ends. Maybe these types of games are not really for me but having played a battle for 25 minutes and then the game throws in a death clock is pretty unforgiving. Also the fact that the boss throws out the destructo attack every 1 minute or so and putting me in defensive mode so i cant deal damage sucks even more. I have heard that you can deal damage to him while he is charging so it lowers the damage of his destructo attack but that kills me everytime.
I have been switching between com/rav/rav to com/sent/med to med/sent/syn to switch between offensive and defensive attacks but I just cant deal enough damage (which is about 500,000 hp altogether) before the clock runs out.
I wonder if anyone else has been stuck on this like me and making about to just give up. and if anyone else has a few pointers that would also be greatly appreciated such as the best line up. I have switched between lightning/snow/vanille and light/vanille/sazh. I guess i could just go grind back and forth on the bridge before to help level up more but i already am at level 3 on most of the characters.

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Monolith

Thats like saying "I don't like Simulations. They are too complicated". Seriously, there really is no point to even discuss this. Its all opinion and personal taste.

Play something else if you don't like it.

booB

I don't know what to tell you, except that turn-based RPGs have always had this component to them. If they didn't, they would either be strategy games (requiring smart use of tactics to win battles), or they would have no challenge whatsoever. In action RPGs, obviously, the challenge comes from the action gameplay.

It makes sense if you think about it: in order to get better at fighting, your characters have to "practice". Also, I agree with Monolith... if this sort of gameplay annoys you, you probably should be playing something else.

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DustyShinigami

Well, this kind of gameplay doesn't bother me - it's just not my main preference.

And after RxBandits123's discription of that boss battle, all I can say is... "eep". I'm really not looking forward to that.

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Fantasysci5

I can understand your frustration. I don't mind turn-based, like the wonderful Disciples Gold, and although I'm not a big fan of real-time RPG, I do like it. There's one that mixes the two called "Septerra Core" that absolutely drives me crazy, like you. It's not really the bosses, but the constant running around and fighting the same kinds of enemies. And if you leave the area and come back, oh, guess what? They're there again. It really annoys me, because the story is really interesting, but into the 10th hour of straight gameplay like that, where it takes a good few minutes to get through one group, and have to fight more like that, I just gave up. At least with true turn based RPGs, you can strategize.

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HaroldO

I don't know about FF XIII which I haven't tried but I think that does not applies to the genre as whole. It used to in early games but in the last decade and a half most games like this don't actually require much or any grinding and just progressing normally through the game is enough to get the experience points you need to beat the challenges. The more you grind, easier the game but very few games today force you to do so in other to progress.

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thejobloshow

If it's any consolation, FFXIII is a weak game.

RxBandits123

i might of exaggerated my feelings a little bit and i have suprisingly enjoyed playing this game til this point (23 hours in). I was pretty much trying to get across that i am actually enjoying this game but i feel like i've hit a brick wall.

I've always had a stereotype in my head how these games were like without actually ever playing one and even though this game starts off a little weak it grew on me.

I really started to like the combat and paradigm system (which i guess i would have to like because this game is pretty much battle then cutscene) and the story picks up about 10 hours in. After fighting the boss 3 more times today I feel like I will eventually be able to beat him and am probably not gonna give up just yet. It just annoys me that im not very good at this game but i am still having fun with it.

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Little Writer

I haven't played FF13 and since it's PS3 it'll be a while yet, but my experience with FF bosses is quite similar. You'll go through the regular game easy enough, and then this boss completely murdelizes you.

That happened in this game's predecessor, FF12, with the Elder Wyrm. Then on my second playthrough, that boss wasn't a problem at all. So what did I do different? I didn't use the transport crystals. I walked everywhere I had to go, taking on enemies along the way. Stats went up and I didn't have to grind in one particular place to go further in the game. If the boss blocking my path still was too strong, I'd go do some hunts first.

But from what I've heard, FF13's linearity doesn't have that many possibilities and freedom, so I can see how it might become longwinded and repetitive.

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RxBandits123

Little winter, I actually did go back and grind a little and I was suprised a little with how much exp points you get doing the same battle over and over again. I remember in lost odyssesy when i tried to replay a few battles the exp points significantly decreased.

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RxBandits123

This battle actually made me learn how to properly play this game cause til this point the game pretty much is holding your hand. I just beat him by leveling all my weapons up by 8 levels.

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SamandMax

When he starts charging up destructo, go into an aggressive shift and have everyone just start pounding away at him. There should be a moment where he gets hurts and screams and after that the destructo move will do a lot less damage. As long as you always have at least one person attacking, even when you're healing, you should be able to squeak by although it is a very, very tough boss.

All of the bosses get much harder from here on out so be ready for a lot more difficult moments like this coming up. Leveling up is important but choosing the right paradigm shifts and classes is what really determines how easy or hard a fight can be. There was a boss in Chapter 10 that killed me repeatedly until I started using a Saboteur class and then I beat him no problem. If you're having trouble with a fight, just keep trying different strategies, the simplest change to your shifts can make all the difference.

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RxBandits123

yeah, switching up different strategies is definitely effective. I am at the end of chapter 11 right now and it doesn't matter how impossible a boss is, they always have some sort of weakness be it a sabuteor or sentinel mix. Before the boss fight in chapter 10 you could possible fake having a strategy and just wing it.

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Burns11

Calling guessing the mix that they designed the boss to be beaten with a strategy is rather silly.

RxBandits123

yeah i guess it is kinda silly...I didn't mean that exactly just that you could stick with just one paradigm in the beginning and probably win if you level up good. But towards the end you really need to know different strategies to win. I know I sound like a noob right now and thats because i am when it comes to games like this.

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Monolith

Just like the Try and Fail attitude a lot of Adventure and Action games have? What makes a lot of RPG's great including the FF series is that you can sort of tell what sort of enemy your opponent is by the way they look, additional information found in the world, or just by going through a test battle. Nothing silly about it. RTS games can be the same way. You won't know how a certain unit reacts until you use it.

Yasdnil

I agree with Monolith; gaming is a personal experience. I find strategy games really tricky and so don't play them because they annoy me. End of story.

Burns11

I've played the game, as well as many others, and the way this game works is just garbage. Most games, you can go into the fight and work out how to win on the fly, not here, you don't guess right away and you are retrying. Also, there is nothing about the way something looks that would give you a clue.

That's not really a condemnation of the genre, it's a condemnation of FFXIII, though I will admit that the way JRPGs are going is a sour direction.

As far as the RTS comment goes, while I'm not a big RTS guy, every one I had ever played stuck to, not only general troop type conventions, but also explicitly told you beforehand what individual unit's strengths and weaknesses were in the description. So, if you chose to go in blind and use trial and error, that was your decision and not a decision made for you.

Hammerite

I just remember Final Fantasy X, and not even getting halfway because of that mad fucking boss in (I think) the temple of Zanarkand.
If I still have my old save (from probably around 3 years ago :O), I might give it another shot.

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Little Writer

You mean Yunalesca. She was hard, all right, but what a battle! Loved it!

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