Tales of Vesperia - to persist or not?

[Danbo Jambo]

Tactics seem none existant, and each fight just seems to de-volve into a button mash.

I know it might be pointless to bring it up at this point, but a lot of the tactics occur outside of combat. From what I remember, fiddling with the party AI is rather important in Vesperia, especially since the AI is rather stupid on its own. Choosing battle formations isn't important on Easy and Normal, but it might be important on Hard (never tried at that level), and it can at least set you up to avoid some problems against tougher bosses.

In combat, though, there is the ability to change what Artes your party members can use (which is critical when facing enemies that are weak or immune to certain types), and you can tell them directly which Artes to use and how to use them. This is probably the only way to really break from button mashing early on before getting Artes that specifically encourage more thoughtful attacks, and it is pretty much required to beat at least one boss.

But yeah, if you've already tried all that, then there's really nothing else to do.

Not pointless at all mate, I still enjoy discussing the game. You're right regards tactics, and I have fiddled with them too. I was more refering to in-combat tactics, all I ever found myself reverting to was spamming healing items & artes. I just didn't like the feel of it, and enemies seemed to go from decent challenges to piss easy as I levelled up, with what I actually did in the battle barely mattering. I never had a sense of "that win was down to me/my decisions/may actions/etc.".

That's why not hitting half the time stood out so much. It just felt as if I may as well level up and let the game play itself.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Not pointless at all mate, I still enjoy discussing the game. You're right regards tactics, and I have fiddled with them too. I was more refering to in-combat tactics, all I ever found myself reverting to was spamming healing items & artes. I just didn't like the feel of it, and enemies seemed to go from decent challenges to piss easy as I levelled up, with what I actually did in the battle barely mattering. I never had a sense of "that win was down to me/my decisions/may actions/etc.".

That's why not hitting half the time stood out so much. It just felt as if I may as well level up and let the game play itself.

Yeah, I'm not sure how long it takes before combat really goes beyond that. The aforementioned Gattuso fight might be the turning point, as that is the first truly difficult fight I remember where even after a lot of grinding to be slightly above his level I still struggled a lot. However, it may still require until the end of the first act before you commonly run into enemies tough enough that you have to consider things like "researching" them (basically just use the lens on every enemy you see and you get a bunch of stats), managing artes, and doing any considerable controlling of your party to make sure they use the right artes to take advantage of enemy weaknesses. However, at that point, you're getting to 15-20 hours in before really seeing the good stuff.

Even then, it is still an RPG, so leveling is always an option. However, I found that there came a point where the time investment necessary to level up wasn't worth it, so just trying to figure out the problem at my current level became the norm, but I also found that that point curved enemy levels better so grinding was less necessary. This is especially the case around the 35-40 hour mark where you'll start commonly running into major fights with all the big-name villains and/or some tougher monsters. By that point, the combat system is fully on display and is quite exciting, but I also enjoyed the combat relatively early on (about midway through the first act), so I'm not sure if that you'll find it as enjoyable. I'm not sure if the Gattuso fight was the real turning point where the combat went from average to good, but it was around there.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Yeah, I'm not sure how long it takes before combat really goes beyond that. The aforementioned Gattuso fight might be the turning point, as that is the first truly difficult fight I remember where even after a lot of grinding to be slightly above his level I still struggled a lot. However, it may still require until the end of the first act before you commonly run into enemies tough enough that you have to consider things like "researching" them (basically just use the lens on every enemy you see and you get a bunch of stats), managing artes, and doing any considerable controlling of your party to make sure they use the right artes to take advantage of enemy weaknesses. However, at that point, you're getting to 15-20 hours in before really seeing the good stuff.

Even then, it is still an RPG, so leveling is always an option. However, I found that there came a point where the time investment necessary to level up wasn't worth it, so just trying to figure out the problem at my current level became the norm, but I also found that that point curved enemy levels better so grinding was less necessary. This is especially the case around the 35-40 hour mark where you'll start commonly running into major fights with all the big-name villains and/or some tougher monsters. By that point, the combat system is fully on display and is quite exciting, but I also enjoyed the combat relatively early on (about midway through the first act), so I'm not sure if that you'll find it as enjoyable. I'm not sure if the Gattuso fight was the real turning point where the combat went from average to good, but it was around there.

How did you find the combat early-early-on? Did you still enjoy it to some degree up until the Gattuso fight?

 

[MysticSlayer]

How did you find the combat early-early-on? Did you still enjoy it to some degree up until the Gattuso fight?

I thought it felt good and was always excited whenever I faced a challenge. I probably wouldn't have called it a great combat system, but I found it better than most JRPGs. But I did find it very simple and tiring. It wasn't until later that I really began to enjoy combat, if for no other reason than they started throwing more fights at me that began to take advantage of the combat.

Granted, I never did pull off a really flashy combo. I think 50-60 hits was the most I could get, and even that was rare and required some special arte I forget the name of. Still, it was sort of fun trying to find a party setup that worked and looking for ways to maximize what they could do, even if button mashing was still sort of present.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

I thought it felt good and was always excited whenever I faced a challenge. I probably wouldn't have called it a great combat system, but I found it better than most JRPGs. But I did find it very simple and tiring. It wasn't until later that I really began to enjoy combat, if for no other reason than they started throwing more fights at me that began to take advantage of the combat.

Granted, I never did pull off a really flashy combo. I think 50-60 hits was the most I could get, and even that was rare and required some special arte I forget the name of. Still, it was sort of fun trying to find a party setup that worked and looking for ways to maximize what they could do, even if button mashing was still sort of present.

Thanks. I guess what I'm looking to see is whether there's any real satisfaction to the combat. Combo hits & suchlike don't really do much for me, I'm the kind of person who loves beating an opponent on SF2 with a weak attack, and who enjoyed DA:O's more considered, tension-based combat than DA:2's OTT action based combat.

Ah well. Fair play to those of you who enjoyed it!