[Megaten Discussion] Elizabeth added to P4A; P4's cast is already dead.

Frozenzen

Wyvern wrote: »

The deranged stat distribution methods aren't exactly helping, either. You've got people like Fumi and Jungo whose stats are so laser-focused that you're pretty much gimping yourself by not using them (but I haven't been given a reason to like them very much in terms of personality or story), but a calculator could vomit on a character sheet and produce something less abysmal than Daichi or Hinako entirely by chance.

The agi based physical attacks makes hinakos stat distribution make sense. In day 6 she was oneshotting entire groups with one attack unless they repelled/drained physical thanks to pierce+phys boost and the hits based on agi on every mob attack.

Drez

Are NG+ playthroughs of DS1 relatively fast?

Frozenzen

Very fast, especially if you do amanes path to unlock metatron, or get some other demon with victory cry to clear everything without hassle.

Blackjack

I can't even...

you don't like Jungo?

how is that a thing

Rexpop

Blackjack wrote: »

I can't even...

you don't like Jungo?

how is that a thing

Seriously. He rescues a kitten! And then names it Jungo!

Spoiler:

Or something else, I guess, if you're crazy.

Maddoc

Hinako is, statistically speaking, the best physical attacker in the game. And Daichi is at least third or maybe tied for second for Agi-based physical attackers.

So that's sort of a weird complaint about stat distributions.

Yamato or Io would have been much better examples of horrible stat distributions.

Wyvern

Frozenzen wrote: »

Wyvern wrote: »

The deranged stat distribution methods aren't exactly helping, either. You've got people like Fumi and Jungo whose stats are so laser-focused that you're pretty much gimping yourself by not using them (but I haven't been given a reason to like them very much in terms of personality or story), but a calculator could vomit on a character sheet and produce something less abysmal than Daichi or Hinako entirely by chance.

The agi based physical attacks makes hinakos stat distribution make sense. In day 6 she was oneshotting entire groups with one attack unless they repelled/drained physical thanks to pierce+phys boost and the hits based on agi on every mob attack.

Really? I guess they get better once you have more skills, then. 'Cause right now I'm looking at people who are level 27 with 13 strength in a situation where

1) the next weakest physical attacker is Makoto with 17 (and even her damage output doesn't seem to be super-impressive compared to other party members and the better demons).

2) the agility-based mages are as fast or faster in addition to having 15-ish magic (and they can regularly hit elemental weaknesses).

3) 13 has not registered as an impressive offensive stat on a decently-fused demon in at least 10 levels.

I don't even have Ares Aid cracked yet, though, so maybe I should be giving the physical humans a little more slack. Actually, now that I think of it, Nekomata has been one of my star demons for a while even though she fused with a so-so 12 strength because of how furiously she shreds with Multi-Hit. Maybe 13 agility is enough to start getting real returns out of it (I remember 10 definitely wasn't, but 15-16 seems to cut it on demons).

Blackjack wrote: »

I can't even...

you don't like Jungo?

how is that a thing

Well, bear in mind I've only known him for like half a day so far. But to date he's been kind of a one-note guy. All I've seen from him is lots and lots of chuwanwhatever. And punches. (And he's neither the first nor the last character to indulge in food-based gratitude in this game.)

Spoiler:

Admittedly the little scene with him and Airi at the very end of Day 3 was kind of adorable.

Bursar

Man, I don't like Jungo, and I put most of the words in his mouth in the Fate scenes. The cat Jungo, though, is a different story (He moves in mysterious ways). Then again, I didn't actually get to play with Jungo at the time. Having him murder a million demons for you is sure to give you a better impression than having him talk about chawanmushi all the damn time.

Frozenzen

Wyvern wrote: »

Frozenzen wrote: »

Wyvern wrote: »

The deranged stat distribution methods aren't exactly helping, either. You've got people like Fumi and Jungo whose stats are so laser-focused that you're pretty much gimping yourself by not using them (but I haven't been given a reason to like them very much in terms of personality or story), but a calculator could vomit on a character sheet and produce something less abysmal than Daichi or Hinako entirely by chance.

The agi based physical attacks makes hinakos stat distribution make sense. In day 6 she was oneshotting entire groups with one attack unless they repelled/drained physical thanks to pierce+phys boost and the hits based on agi on every mob attack.

Really? I guess they get better once you have more skills, then. 'Cause right now I'm looking at people who are level 27 with 13 strength in a situation where

1) the next weakest physical attacker is Makoto with 17 (and even her damage output doesn't seem to be super-impressive compared to other party members and the better demons).

2) the agility-based mages are as fast or faster in addition to having 15-ish magic (and they can regularly hit elemental weaknesses).

3) 13 has not registered as an impressive offensive stat on a decently-fused demon in at least 10 levels.

Well, I barely used her until day 6/7 after thinking physical attackers had been bad in general for a while since I ran magic mc/fumi/otome/airi most of the time. It turns out once you reach some arbitrary breakpoint multihit is insanely good, and pierce takes care of null and resist. This is in the 40s though, so maybe it's just not good earlier.

Main is still shredding more using dance+amp/boost element to whatever is more dangerous on the map at the time. But MC should destroy everything, so all is right in the world.

Drez

One thing that bothers me about DS1 is how casually

Spoiler:

Atsuro so casually considers enslaving and controlling demons. Isn't that kind of shitty? I like how Devil Survivor kinda-sorta discussed the morality of dominating demons to some degree.

Teriferin

I only realized the absurd power of Hinako on day 7. Multistrike+Crit Up+Ares Aid allows her to one shot any team that doesn't repel physical. She can do thousands of points of damage. The other demons on her team were just there to keep Hinako at full health/mp, because they'd never even get to take an action in non boss fights.

Wyvern

Drez wrote: »

One thing that bothers me about DS1 is how casually

Spoiler:

Atsuro so casually considers enslaving and controlling demons. Isn't that kind of shitty? I like how Devil Survivor kinda-sorta discussed the morality of dominating demons to some degree.

Spoiler:

Well, it's not like the demons don't sell themselves into slavery casually enough. I don't know what Macca is, but it must be pretty important to them. What bothered ME about the plan is how shortsighted it was in human terms. The gap in power between people who have demons and people who don't would be larger than with any form of weapon or authority ever to have existed in human history, and we treat each other terribly enough by abusing the kinds power we already have. There's no way there'd be a happy ending to that story even if the demons never broke free and wreaked havoc on their own.

At the very least he has the good sense to listen when you tell him that it's a terrible idea.

Frozenzen

Wyvern wrote: »

Drez wrote: »

One thing that bothers me about DS1 is how casually

Spoiler:

Atsuro so casually considers enslaving and controlling demons. Isn't that kind of shitty? I like how Devil Survivor kinda-sorta discussed the morality of dominating demons to some degree.

Spoiler:

Well, it's not like the demons don't sell themselves into slavery casually enough. I don't know what Macca is, but it must be pretty important to them. What bothered ME about the plan is how shortsighted it was in human terms. The gap in power between people who have demons and people who don't would be larger than with any form of weapon or authority ever to have existed in human history, and we treat each other terribly enough by abusing the kinds power we already have. There's no way there'd be a happy ending to that story even if the demons never broke free and wreaked havoc on their own.

At the very least he has the good sense to listen when you tell him that it's a terrible idea.

Spoiler:

Well, I always considered this to be the best ending, seeing as how you can either become the king of hell, gods little executioner, or hide under a rock and hope it doesn't happen again. The last option covers both Gins and Yuzus endings for me. While Yuzu is a total failure, Gin simply postpones the problem for later. At least with Atsuros ending you can fight back at once if it would happen again. The morality of enslaving demons never struck me, as they are established as either already selling themselves into slavery, or giant assholes who take what they want. And I simply figured that Japan would conquer large parts of the world until demon summoning tech spread, and then you'd have a power balance again with nukes+demons instead of just nukes.

cj iwakura

Jungo and Fumi, now that's some interesting shipping.

cj iwakura

Steel Angel

Wyvern wrote: »

Drez wrote: »

One thing that bothers me about DS1 is how casually

Spoiler:

Atsuro so casually considers enslaving and controlling demons. Isn't that kind of shitty? I like how Devil Survivor kinda-sorta discussed the morality of dominating demons to some degree.

Spoiler:

Well, it's not like the demons don't sell themselves into slavery casually enough. I don't know what Macca is, but it must be pretty important to them. What bothered ME about the plan is how shortsighted it was in human terms. The gap in power between people who have demons and people who don't would be larger than with any form of weapon or authority ever to have existed in human history, and we treat each other terribly enough by abusing the kinds power we already have. There's no way there'd be a happy ending to that story even if the demons never broke free and wreaked havoc on their own.

At the very least he has the good sense to listen when you tell him that it's a terrible idea.

Regarding how strong tamers and demons are compared to people without powers but with enough guns, ammo, and sharp or blunt objects:

Spoiler:

One thing that's not particularly well established in Devil Survivor is how effective conventional weaponry is against non-boss level demons and demon tamers. In most SMT games where you have access to firearms, they're effective enough if not ideal (barring anything that repels physical, but there are fire and electricity based weapons too). The soldiers in DS games that also are demon tamers seem to keep their guns even when they're at a power level that lets them punch demons into submission as far as I remember and that's a considerable amount of weight and time for maintenance for something not effective. I would posit that an out of control demon tamer could be dealt with effectively enough with several long distance rifle shots and that there are more people able to help do that than there are rogue tamers. All speculation partially based on what's really likely just sprite reuse.

cj iwakura

Very nice.

The Anonymous

cj iwakura wrote: »

Very nice.

Is the biggest understatement of the year.

Gaming-Freak

So basically, if Elizabeth loses, she pulls a Slayer?

Wyvern

Steel Angel wrote: »

Wyvern wrote: »

Drez wrote: »

One thing that bothers me about DS1 is how casually

Spoiler:

Atsuro so casually considers enslaving and controlling demons. Isn't that kind of shitty? I like how Devil Survivor kinda-sorta discussed the morality of dominating demons to some degree.

Spoiler:

Well, it's not like the demons don't sell themselves into slavery casually enough. I don't know what Macca is, but it must be pretty important to them. What bothered ME about the plan is how shortsighted it was in human terms. The gap in power between people who have demons and people who don't would be larger than with any form of weapon or authority ever to have existed in human history, and we treat each other terribly enough by abusing the kinds power we already have. There's no way there'd be a happy ending to that story even if the demons never broke free and wreaked havoc on their own.

At the very least he has the good sense to listen when you tell him that it's a terrible idea.

Regarding how strong tamers and demons are compared to people without powers but with enough guns, ammo, and sharp or blunt objects:

Spoiler:

One thing that's not particularly well established in Devil Survivor is how effective conventional weaponry is against non-boss level demons and demon tamers. In most SMT games where you have access to firearms, they're effective enough if not ideal (barring anything that repels physical, but there are fire and electricity based weapons too). The soldiers in DS games that also are demon tamers seem to keep their guns even when they're at a power level that lets them punch demons into submission as far as I remember and that's a considerable amount of weight and time for maintenance for something not effective. I would posit that an out of control demon tamer could be dealt with effectively enough with several long distance rifle shots and that there are more people able to help do that than there are rogue tamers. All speculation partially based on what's really likely just sprite reuse.

Spoiler:

If I recall correctly, it was very explicitly established in Devil Survivor 1 that the demons were impervious to all earthly weapons and forces, period. They just flat-out don't interact normally with the laws of physics. Even the nuke wasn't going to kill them. The only reason demon tamers can hurt them is because the COMPs partially phase-shift them into the demons' plane of existence or something weird like that. And I guess that extends to firearms that they're holding, which is kind of odd, but then again you kill a god with mistletoe in this game, so we just kind of have to accept that the attacking is a little abstract sometimes.

I have no idea if the same mechanism that allows you to hurt the demons also grants you some protection against normal attacks; it never came up. A prolific demon tamer could still seal themselves in a citadel somewhere and send their minions to go out and terrorize the countryside, though, so it's not super-relevant to the point I was making.

Tcheldor

DS 2 Notes

Something to make clear. USE TAILWIND. You can crack this skill rather early and it's +5 agi for the team. You combine this with anyone with high agi, Joe for a while, then Hinako, or whomever, and give them a team of multiattack/multistrike moves.

When str is low you put +paralyze (or stone when you get it) on their attacks to just destroy the target. I had a team multistrike and we always went first and killed everything.

MC was my holy dance/drain god, but hinako destroyed things too.

Drez

So far, the biggest difficulties I've experienced in DS1 are when you have to protect someone else.

I wish you could bind neutrals/friendlies.

cj iwakura

So P3FES supposedly hits the PSN as a PS2 classic next week for $9.99.

Hmm. Do those work on PSP?

Even if not, FES in HD is tempting.

Xenogears of Bore

No, they only work on the triple.

Chrysis

Looks like the DDS PSN release is delayed as well. SCEJ is taking its time apparently.

cj iwakura

That game only needs one trophy added: kill Hitoshura.

(Platinum for proper, Gold for Red Star.)

DeMoN

cj iwakura wrote: »

So P3FES supposedly hits the PSN as a PS2 classic next week for $9.99.

Hmm. Do those work on PSP?

Even if not, FES in HD is tempting.

Ps2 classics aren't really HD. I don't think they are even widescreen.

vagrant_winds

DeMoN wrote: »

cj iwakura wrote: »

So P3FES supposedly hits the PSN as a PS2 classic next week for $9.99.

Hmm. Do those work on PSP?

Even if not, FES in HD is tempting.

Ps2 classics aren't really HD. I don't think they are even widescreen.

Unless the PS2 game itself has a widescreen option.

Drez

cj iwakura wrote: »

So P3FES supposedly hits the PSN as a PS2 classic next week for $9.99.

Hmm. Do those work on PSP?

Even if not, FES in HD is tempting.

If so, I would end up buying P3 for a fourth time. Just for the hell of it.

I would prefer to see Nocturne on PSN since I never beat that one.

Drez

cj iwakura wrote: »

That game only needs one trophy added: kill Hitoshura.

(Platinum for proper, Gold for Red Star.)

What's the "proper" way to kill him anyway? I can't even fathom doing it any other way.

I forget some of the mechanics, but isn't there a guaranteed Gaia Rage after every demon cycle?

Syphyre

IIRC, after any of hito's demons stay alive for over 30 turns, they heal him full. (Any of them can do this). This is why you can't leave them alive, and have to suffer Gaia Rages. Red Star strategy involves making the fairy run OOM, so that when she casts Diarahan, it fails due to low mana. At this point you just start wailing on Hito, and never have to worry about Gaia rages again. You only need to suffer one Gaia rage when the second set of demons fairy is in comes out.

"Proper" is letting normal demon cycles happen, and not doing the OOM method, and thus suffering...what, 4-6 Gaia Rages? I forget about how many you have to avoid in the fight now.

Drez

Syphyre wrote: »

IIRC, after any of hito's demons stay alive for over 30 turns, they heal him full. (Any of them can do this). This is why you can't leave them alive, and have to suffer Gaia Rages. Red Star strategy involves making the fairy run OOM, so that when she casts Diarahan, it fails due to low mana. At this point you just start wailing on Hito, and never have to worry about Gaia rages again. You only need to suffer one Gaia rage when the second set of demons fairy is in comes out.

"Proper" is letting normal demon cycles happen, and not doing the OOM method, and thus suffering...what, 4-6 Gaia Rages? I forget about how many you have to avoid in the fight now.

Yeah I calculated the red star strategy at some point to the turn number (with some variance thanks to fucking Javelin Rain mutes) but I lost that post.

Point being: I beat Hitoshura with like a level 82 Serph. There's some luck involved.

EVOL

Sorry for being OT but does anybody know how long it usually takes for Play-Asia to ship? It's been 10 bloody days since I ordered Devil Survivor 2 and the status is still 'preparing order'. What the fuck?

hoodie13

PS2 classics are only Euro/Japan, right?

Drez

hoodie13 wrote: »

PS2 classics are only Euro/Japan, right?

No, but NA and EU (and JP) all have different sets of PS2 Classics. For instance, I know DDS has been announced as a PS2 Classics title in EU, but not in NA. And to be honest, I'm not even sure there are PS2 Classics in JP, but I assume there are.

Frozenzen

EVOL wrote: »

Sorry for being OT but does anybody know how long it usually takes for Play-Asia to ship? It's been 10 bloody days since I ordered Devil Survivor 2 and the status is still 'preparing order'. What the fuck?

Did you order anything else? And which kind of shipping did you select. With the slowest shipping it takes forever to just send it as well for them, so lately I just chose the fedex option and it actually arrives decently fast.

But sometimes they are just hella' slow for some reason, I remember EO3 taking nearly a month to get here with like 10 days shipping.

Wyvern

Oh god, this is awful. I started Day 5 of DS2 and I've suddenly hit a brick wall in my fusion plans. Every fusion requires two demons that can't be bought at auction, and each of those demons are also made of two demons that I can't buy. And to make matters worse, like 90% of the recipes are drawing from the same tiny pool of races, and it's stuff like Megamis and Tyrants and stuff that I can't spare because I need them.

Am I supposed to be cloning my Divine and Kishin and other high-value demons en masse from the Compendium and just accepting that every demon I fuse from now on is going to cost at least 20,000 macca? Because that seems like the only option I have left.

Frozenzen

At day six and seven I sacrificed a fair few long runners to make new demons, although I managed to get some new better ones out of it .

I do use the compendium a fair bit though to rebuy things, mainly tyrants since they are very important to fuel dance and megido spam. In the end I had to get rid of quite a few demons that didn't have any resistance to physical since there is a large chance of dying otherwise.

Gaming-Freak

cj iwakura wrote: »

So P3FES supposedly hits the PSN as a PS2 classic next week for $9.99.

Hmm. Do those work on PSP?

Even if not, FES in HD is tempting.

.... Words cannot begin to describe the level of happiness I have right now.... until I have to deal with the retarded AI again. "No! He only lost 53 HP, why are you using Diarahan!?"

....Good times.

heenato

Gaming-Freak wrote: »

.... Words cannot begin to describe the level of happiness I have right now.... until I have to deal with the retarded AI again. "No! He only lost 53 HP, why are you using Diarahan!?"

....Good times.

Because Yukari overwrites diarama with diarahan, I believe.