Since when was not power-levelling a bad thing?

[Chevalier noir]

Dark Souls, if you don't get the Drake Sword, you cannot win. It is a very early weapon that does 200 damage (the closest weapon at that point does 110) that you get by shooting a dragon's tail 20 times. If you fail to do so, you will not be doing enough damage to the enemies to survive. This is at a point where most enemies can kill you in just a few hits, so every extra swing you need to take is a big deal.

This is totally untrue. Massive exaggeration. I'd know, I never got it on my first character.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

In the Pokemon games I go through an win with a combination of type advantages, status effects and critical hits. I get to the elite 4 with a team of around level 38-42 led by a level 45 or so.

 

[demoman_chaos]

This is totally untrue. Massive exaggeration. I'd know, I never got it on my first character.

Without the Drake Sword, you just don't do enough damage to enemies. The next best weapons only do around 100 damage. With those it takes quite a few hits to down even lowly crossbowmen.

The only other thing that comes close early on is Astoria's Straight Sword, which you need to be a cleric with the Master Key to to get and be able to use it early on. Even then, that thing is only really useful for poking (despite having magic damage it doesn't seem to do much slashing damage).

 

[Biosophilogical]

About FFX. I always used to have trouble with Yunalesca, so when I played through again, I looked it up, and the person was like "By now, you should have quick hit on Tidus, so use your skill spheres to give it to characters X and Y. Also, you should have Holy." It was absurd.

And for Skyrim, do the enemies still scale? I've heard a lot about the game (good and bad) and even played a couple hours at a mates place (loving the graphics, but the lower amount of customisation did make me reminisce about Oblivion).

Don't remember when you get quick hit, but Holy at Yunalesca is a bit overkill I think.

As for Skyrim, yes they still level with you so some extent, but in a different matter. In the beging you might meet only Dragnr in ruins, but later you meet more of the tougher Restless Draugnr and so on.

Not sure what you mean about the customization lacking in skyrim?

They are both at the end of Tidus's/Yuna's sphere grid paths, and when I was playing really enthusiastically (never running away from battles, making the Besaid dash directly after you get the first Jecht Sphere so that I wouldn't need to deal with Dark Valefor) I was about 12 spots away from Quick Hit.

As for Skyrim. You don't get pants as separate clothing (which upset me), I couldn't see any stats to upgrade except stamina/magick/health, there are only three 'signs' (thief, mage or warrior), and there were less skills (one-handed and two-handed, as opposed to hand-to-hand, blade, blunt, no athletics and agility, etc).

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

About FFX. I always used to have trouble with Yunalesca, so when I played through again, I looked it up, and the person was like "By now, you should have quick hit on Tidus, so use your skill spheres to give it to characters X and Y. Also, you should have Holy." It was absurd.

And for Skyrim, do the enemies still scale? I've heard a lot about the game (good and bad) and even played a couple hours at a mates place (loving the graphics, but the lower amount of customisation did make me reminisce about Oblivion).

Don't remember when you get quick hit, but Holy at Yunalesca is a bit overkill I think.

As for Skyrim, yes they still level with you so some extent, but in a different matter. In the beging you might meet only Dragnr in ruins, but later you meet more of the tougher Restless Draugnr and so on.

Not sure what you mean about the customization lacking in skyrim?

They are both at the end of Tidus's/Yuna's sphere grid paths, and when I was playing really enthusiastically (never running away from battles, making the Besaid dash directly after you get the first Jecht Sphere so that I wouldn't need to deal with Dark Valefor) I was about 12 spots away from Quick Hit.

As for Skyrim. You don't get pants as separate clothing (which upset me), I couldn't see any stats to upgrade except stamina/magick/health, there are only three 'signs' (thief, mage or warrior), and there were less skills (one-handed and two-handed, as opposed to hand-to-hand, blade, blunt, no athletics and agility, etc).

There's heaps of signs. You just need to go out and find the stones. My Fave is the atronarch stone. 50% spell absorption in exchange for halved magicka regen. Also I'd argue perks give us more customization than we have ever had in an ES game.

 

[darkcalling]

I generally avoid powerleveling if I can help it but some games my mild game-related ocd kicks in. I HAVE to get all the side quests (unless doing one locks out another or something) All my characters HAVE to have the best possible weapons and armor I can buy (not find, I'm not crazy enough to grind for armor that drops off ONE enemy in ONE dungeon) so some games turn into hell for me.

Exit Fate (excellent freeware rpg) did that to me. 75 characters and I HAD to get them all the best upgrades. I was so overleveled that even the final boss wasn't much of a challenge. (still satisfying to steamroll it though)

Suikoden IV was doing this to me too but then the game started randomly freezing after battles making the game pretty close to unwinnable and certainly ungrindable. (more a problem of it being a used game on an older console than the of game itself. It wasn't in the best shape.) So I escaped that time sink.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Oh, geez. Final Fantasy Tactics was terrible about this. There are several battles where you'd simply get curbstomped if you hadn't spent some time training and racking up abilities.

Wiegraf says hello.
Fuck him and his 25% Instant Kill tech in Chapter 1. And fuck him again when he becomes one of the biggest roadblocks in the game at the end of Chapter 3.

 

[Smeggs]

Rule of thumb, if you fight all the random battles, you'll never need to grind for the main story bosses in ant FF game.

Your rule of thumb is flawed.

I still remember how brutally I got my ass handed to me in FFX by that giant bug thing on the cliff before Sin attacks.

 

[Alphonse_Lamperouge]

This is totally untrue. Massive exaggeration. I'd know, I never got it on my first character.

Without the Drake Sword, you just don't do enough damage to enemies. The next best weapons only do around 100 damage. With those it takes quite a few hits to down even lowly crossbowmen.

The only other thing that comes close early on is Astoria's Straight Sword, which you need to be a cleric with the Master Key to to get and be able to use it early on. Even then, that thing is only really useful for poking (despite having magic damage it doesn't seem to do much slashing damage).

man, you are just so wrong. or you must just be terrible at the game. i knew about the drake sword, but didnt get it because i feel everything before and including blight town is easy as it is. and if by ''quite a few'' you mean 2-3 then yes it does take quite a few hits to down an enemy. this is Dark Souls, not Mario Party.

 

[Smeggs]

Oh, geez. Final Fantasy Tactics was terrible about this. There are several battles where you'd simply get curbstomped if you hadn't spent some time training and racking up abilities.

Wiegraf says hello.
Fuck him and his 25% Instant Kill tech in Chapter 1. And fuck him again when he becomes one of the biggest roadblocks in the game at the end of Chapter 3.

I literally had no possible chance of defeating Weigraf. The game would not allow me to travel back to another spot on the map to level up, I was trapped there in an infinite loop of simply being murdered. Absolutely no chance of my team killing him. To this day I have never gotten past that battle.

Horrible game design right there. Just like whoever did the translation/spelling check.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Dark Souls, if you don't get the Drake Sword, you cannot win. It is a very early weapon that does 200 damage (the closest weapon at that point does 110) that you get by shooting a dragon's tail 20 times. If you fail to do so, you will not be doing enough damage to the enemies to survive. This is at a point where most enemies can kill you in just a few hits, so every extra swing you need to take is a big deal.

Yeah, no it isn't.

The Drake Sword turns on easy mode for half the game.

 

[Farther than stars]

Something like that happened to me in Falout 3. I actually went straight to Rivet City, because it seemed like a cool place. But when there, I advanced the story line before I'd ever been to GNR. And that was fine because that's the kind of freedom in advancing the story that Bethesda is so known for an gives you a personal experience as well.
It was a hell of a chore finding the route to GNR though, now that its marker had been taken off my map for the next main story quest. And I don't read up on games during my first playthrough. Especially in story-based games I feel that takes away a lot of the fun.

 

[AugustFall]

Oh, geez. Final Fantasy Tactics was terrible about this. There are several battles where you'd simply get curbstomped if you hadn't spent some time training and racking up abilities.

Other than that, about the only time when I got smacked in the face for not grinding was Pokemon Blue. I managed to make it all the way to the Final Four more-or-less on the strength of one 'mon. There I discovered that a sole Blastoise cannot take on five trainers in a row. After a few tries, I realized that I had to back out into the world an build up an actual team. That took a while.

Yeah my first FFT run through died out when I got stuck at a point I couldn't beat and had nowhere to level. Literally had to restart the game.

Plentiful saving on my subsequent runthroughs lol.

In comparison with other games though. I liked grinding in FFT, the combat was fun as hell and the party system was amazing. I just wish all the Story Characters weren't so much better than my recruits . I named them and everything!

 

[Biosophilogical]

This is totally untrue. Massive exaggeration. I'd know, I never got it on my first character.

Without the Drake Sword, you just don't do enough damage to enemies. The next best weapons only do around 100 damage. With those it takes quite a few hits to down even lowly crossbowmen.

The only other thing that comes close early on is Astoria's Straight Sword, which you need to be a cleric with the Master Key to to get and be able to use it early on. Even then, that thing is only really useful for poking (despite having magic damage it doesn't seem to do much slashing damage).

man, you are just so wrong. or you must just be terrible at the game. i knew about the drake sword, but didnt get it because i feel everything before and including blight town is easy as it is. and if by ''quite a few'' you mean 2-3 then yes it does take quite a few hits to down an enemy. this is Dark Souls, not Mario Party.

Come on guys, chill a little. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and on my first few attempts I used the Drake sword because I didn't have a good grasp of scaling and upgrading.

The drake sword is absolutely brilliant to help people get started, 'grab a foothold' if you will, so that they can then begin upgrading weapons. I think we can all agree that if you don't have a fair chunk of experience, the first part of Dark Souls can be ... less than welcoming (pre-patch that is. I started a new character and it is far too easy. The Balder Knights aren't even hard anymore).

 

[demoman_chaos]

man, you are just so wrong. or you must just be terrible at the game. i knew about the drake sword, but didnt get it because i feel everything before and including blight town is easy as it is. and if by ''quite a few'' you mean 2-3 then yes it does take quite a few hits to down an enemy. this is Dark Souls, not Mario Party.

On my first character, I failed to get it and couldn't beat the Bell Tower boss. I did well against the first, but then the fire spammy fuck kept fire spamming me to death (often the first gargoyle would see him doing it, see how much fun he was having with it, and join in). Once I got the Drake Sword (and learned that going human allowed you to summon Knight Solitaire), I was able to kick their arses.

Also considering at the time you don't have any weapon upgrades unless you go off the level path towards the forest (which is where I first went, they hid the stairs to the Bell Tower very well) or you know about the semi-well hidden fellow in the ruins, and your best weapon will be the halberd which does 110.

While you aren't totally fucked without it, there is no denying it makes a very significant difference in the early part of the game.

 

[Biosophilogical]

man, you are just so wrong. or you must just be terrible at the game. i knew about the drake sword, but didnt get it because i feel everything before and including blight town is easy as it is. and if by ''quite a few'' you mean 2-3 then yes it does take quite a few hits to down an enemy. this is Dark Souls, not Mario Party.

On my first character, I failed to get it and couldn't beat the Bell Tower boss. I did well against the first, but then the fire spammy fuck kept fire spamming me to death (often the first gargoyle would see him doing it, see how much fun he was having with it, and join in). Once I got the Drake Sword (and learned that going human allowed you to summon Knight Solitaire), I was able to kick their arses.

Also considering at the time you don't have any weapon upgrades unless you go off the level path towards the forest (which is where I first went, they hid the stairs to the Bell Tower very well) or you know about the semi-well hidden fellow in the ruins, and your best weapon will be the halberd which does 110.

While you aren't totally fucked without it, there is no denying it makes a very significant difference in the early part of the game.

Hahahah! Yeah, on my first character (a thief) I didn't know how to make them bleed (They can bleed, but it takes a level of offense that I wasn't skilled enough for), so I was pinging away at about 12 damage a hit with my un-upgraded bandit's knife (how strange that the Thief and Hollow Thieves both have the Bandit's knife, but the Bandit has an axe, if I'm not mistaken).

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

I've always hated power leveling but I put up with it. Spending hours repeating the same fights just isn't fun for me.