Final Fantasy XIII - Gen. Discussion & Info

Is there a concern over missing things like the targeting beacons? I know I didn't get full info on that when I saw it early on. I thought you only needed full info on 100 enemies and I figured that wasn't nearly all of them. Or is that just for completist type people (above and beyond the trophies)?

Also, since upgrading weapons is so damn expensive what should I concentrate on now? I think I'm in chapter 9. I've been avoiding most upgrades but I'd like to get some of them done to make the boss fights easier (though I haven't had too much trouble so far). Are there particular weapons you need to upgrade to transfigure or do they all change to something else? If so, is there a spoiler-free list of ones that would be good to do?

I also have no idea what you people mean by all these missions - and why the concern on getting 5 stars on them - is that a trophy as well? I've been avoiding even lists of trophies because of spoilers. I did read something briefly in a trophy guide that said none are missable and you can get them all after beating the game so that's why I haven't been too concerned. But to cut down grinding later I thought I should get a better start on weapon upgrading at the very least.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']Then tell me a proper setup that doesn't involve Omega Weapons please.

I found some...interesting strategies for Missions 62 and 64. I won't try them yet. I'm actually more inclined to do 64 over 62 because of the whole turtle swapping mechanic. But the videos show that a weaker team than my own at the moment got 5-stars on them both.[/QUOTE]

Take down the tortoises if you still have them available. Less HP. The way I did it was a team of Fang/Lightning/Hope. Fang needs to learn one Ravager spell. Hope should know Ruin as well.

Start with Syn/Sab/Syn. Hope will cast haste on everyone. Use Fang to cast Protectra on everyone so his stomps don't do as much damage. Once everyone has Protectra, switch to Rav/Rav/Rav and build up his first leg. Switch to Com/Med/Med. I had to get it to 350% stagger to kill it with one Highwind. Repeat for the second leg. I didn't have to put any debuffs on it once it fell, but it might help. Use Rav/Rav/Rav to build it up to 900% and then switch everyone to Com/Com/Com. You should be able to kill it in one stagger.

For mission 62, I had maxed out characters and I still needed to upgrade like, 9 Witch's Bracelets or whatever gives you magic defense. It still wasn't all that easy. Those will help for Mission 64, too.


[quote name='io']Is there a concern over missing things like the targeting beacons? I know I didn't get full info on that when I saw it early on. I thought you only needed full info on 100 enemies and I figured that wasn't nearly all of them. Or is that just for completist type people (above and beyond the trophies)?

Also, since upgrading weapons is so damn expensive what should I concentrate on now? I think I'm in chapter 9. I've been avoiding most upgrades but I'd like to get some of them done to make the boss fights easier (though I haven't had too much trouble so far). Are there particular weapons you need to upgrade to transfigure or do they all change to something else? If so, is there a spoiler-free list of ones that would be good to do?

I also have no idea what you people mean by all these missions - and why the concern on getting 5 stars on them - is that a trophy as well? I've been avoiding even lists of trophies because of spoilers. I did read something briefly in a trophy guide that said none are missable and you can get them all after beating the game so that's why I haven't been too concerned. But to cut down grinding later I thought I should get a better start on weapon upgrading at the very least.[/QUOTE]

Targeting beacons are for hardcore, above and beyond people.

I would recommend waiting until Chapter 11 to upgrade any weapons, but to find out which is best you're going to have to look at a list of them. You said you don't want any spoilers so I won't recommend any.

Let's just say you'll see what people are talking about in Chapter 11.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']Then tell me a proper setup that doesn't involve Omega Weapons please.

I found some...interesting strategies for Missions 62 and 64. I won't try them yet. I'm actually more inclined to do 64 over 62 because of the whole turtle swapping mechanic. But the videos show that a weaker team than my own at the moment got 5-stars on them both.[/QUOTE]

I know the strategy you are thinking of for Mission 64... it works, but it's slow, and I actually started losing interest and didn't Tortoise in time for his Wicked Whirl and died (because I wasn't paying attention, mostly).

I enjoyed the fights like Mission 62, to me it took strategy and good prep, and didn't drag on for 10 - 15 minutes. I never used any guides or anything for 62, just a ton of Witch Bracelet's, haha.
 
Mission 62 is a joke, you spam slow on them until it sticks, then switch to 3x RAV to stagger and kill one immediately. Obviously switch to some COMs when the chain gauge is high enough.

You'll be able to get it down fine if you just use Renew to heal instead of Shifting to MEDs. The key is to slow + nuke the shit out of one though, if you let both cast for a bit you're gonna die.

Mission 64 = poison, that's about it.
 
I just beat Mission 55 to get the growth egg by spamming death, took 7 hours total. First time the neochu died but the small ones killed me.
 
[quote name='Trakan']
I would recommend waiting until Chapter 11 to upgrade any weapons, but to find out which is best you're going to have to look at a list of them. You said you don't want any spoilers so I won't recommend any.

Let's just say you'll see what people are talking about in Chapter 11.[/QUOTE]

Well, after that cryptic comment I had to go look at an upgrade FAQ (which is pretty spoiler-free). It seems you do have to upgrade every weapon to get the treasure hunter trophy so it wasn't a total waste what I've done so far. What the guide made me realize is that I've only done a fraction of 1 percent of the upgrading I will need to do though ;). I also wasted some upgrades on accessories that didn't need them - oh well, didn't do too much of that,
 
[quote name='Trakan']Take down the tortoises if you still have them available. Less HP. The way I did it was a team of Fang/Lightning/Hope. Fang needs to learn one Ravager spell. Hope should know Ruin as well.

Start with Syn/Sab/Syn. Hope will cast haste on everyone. Use Fang to cast Protectra on everyone so his stomps don't do as much damage. Once everyone has Protectra, switch to Rav/Rav/Rav and build up his first leg. Switch to Com/Med/Med. I had to get it to 350% stagger to kill it with one Highwind. Repeat for the second leg. I didn't have to put any debuffs on it once it fell, but it might help. Use Rav/Rav/Rav to build it up to 900% and then switch everyone to Com/Com/Com. You should be able to kill it in one stagger.

For mission 62, I had maxed out characters and I still needed to upgrade like, 9 Witch's Bracelets or whatever gives you magic defense. It still wasn't all that easy. Those will help for Mission 64, too.[/QUOTE]

What does Lightning need to know as a Sab before I try this? My leveling scheme for the latter 3 roles has been to tackle each one individually, but I will deviate from that if it means leveling up quicker.
 
[quote name='KingBroly']What does Lightning need to know as a Sab before I try this? My leveling scheme for the latter 3 roles has been to tackle each one individually, but I will deviate from that if it means leveling up quicker.[/QUOTE]

I can't think of why I used her as a SAB. Half of the time she wasn't even able to put any debuffs on the legs. You can try her as a SYN or MED.
 
Vanille + Fang are really the best two to use for turtles since they both have the more powerful SYN spells, and both are amazing as a SAB if you use their corresponding weapons. Less time you waste trying to debuff the thing, more time you can beat on it!

Plus, if they're both SYN Vanille will buff the defensive buffs while you put Haste/Offensive ones on your party.
 
I guess I'm not powerful enough. It takes me until about 475% stagger to take down one leg with Deprotect on it. After that, it goes completely downhill. Or perhaps I have a bad item setup.
 
Ok guys just beat the game, and now I don't know what to do. I was grinding like crazy on the 2 dudes fighting each other, gives you 13k w/ growth egg. Now I've maxed all characters 3 main roles.

What can I do now? I have a ton of money and I've upgraded a lot of weapons, I don't think I can take adamantoises now. Is there a more efficient place to grind? Can I grind and get some good items as well, so its as efficient as the 2 dudes? Please lemme know, thanks. I did a ton of the missions too.
 
There's pretty much no real benefit to maxing out the other 3 roles in terms of pure stats. It's useful if you want to use specific paradigms like triple COM or triple SEN, but your HP/STR/MAG isn't going to increase much.

Best thing you can do is spam Death/summon on turtles until you get your first Trap. Once you get it, max out a Kain's Lance so you can farm them without death.
 
Won't I lower my time req. if I upgrade Kain's lance? Or will it still be high enough that I'll be able to beat a tortoise in that time?
 
So this game gets better by the 20 mark? The gameplay is awful so far and they weren't kidding about spamming X through battles, because I'm so bored just having two attacks. They REALLY dumbed the battle system down and I'm one of the few who loved FFXII's system. I can already see that the focus was to make the game more casual-friendly and reduce downtime, but my god they treat you like a child with their first push-block toy.

I can definitely see why this game got such mixed reviews, because it's not scoring any points for the run here, tap X, run there, ad naseum. And let's be honest: was there really a need to rate your battle? I really don't care that I was able to press X faster than the time they expected. . .
 
[quote name='IRHari']Won't I lower my time req. if I upgrade Kain's lance? Or will it still be high enough that I'll be able to beat a tortoise in that time?[/QUOTE]

You'll be able to beat a tortoise in 2-3 minutes and the expected time is 20, so yeah, you'll be fine.

[quote name='Jodou']So this game gets better by the 20 mark? The gameplay is awful so far and they weren't kidding about spamming X through battles, because I'm so bored just having two attacks. They REALLY dumbed the battle system down and I'm one of the few who loved FFXII's system. I can already see that the focus was to make the game more casual-friendly and reduce downtime, but my god they treat you like a child with their first push-block toy.

I can definitely see why this game got such mixed reviews, because it's not scoring any points for the run here, tap X, run there, ad naseum. And let's be honest: was there really a need to rate your battle? I really don't care that I was able to press X faster than the time they expected. . .[/QUOTE]

Yeah, because choosing attack 5 times or choosing 5 spells manually would be all that different, right? The battle system is much faster in this game and it suits the game well. They let you choose auto so that it's faster and to keep up. If you had to manually pick attacks/spells with all three characters it would take forever.

I don't really get the "game is too linear" complaints either. The game is just as linear as the "open world" FF games. You could only go certain places in those games in relation to your level, so while it was "open world" there was really only so much freedom.
 
I'm farming Mission 7 trying to get a trio of Sprint Shoes, but he just will not drop a Crown or Tiara. Have killed gotten the mission, killed him, and repeated about 40 times now and not a single drop. Have both a Connosseur and Collector's Catalogue equipped on Fang (who is leading) - just horrible luck or am I doing something wrong?
 
I just found a nice trick about Traps
Get Kain's Lance, dismantle it for 3. Since it's not doing me much good right now, I'll go ahead and dismantle it.
It'll save me some grief because now I can go ahead and do Missions 62/64 without delay.
 
Was just bad luck I guess. Did about 30 runs, got 2 Crowns in a row, did 15-20 more and got my last one. 3 Sprint Shoes, 2 Tiaras. Little more farming to go. I think I'm going insane thinking of wanting to have 1 of each level of each weapon too, heh.
 
Sprint shoes were never worth it to me long term. It helped casting Death on Neochu/Adamantortoises, but Haste only lasts like a minute with them. Just have a team member cast haste using your first paradigm and it will last much longer.
 
Still havin' problems killin Adamantortoises (TOISES are harder, they have a lot of ornaments on their back...theyve got about 5 mil as opposed to an easier 3mil).

I've got a lvl 48 kain's lance on fang, a mid level ultima weapon on light, and the boomerang for hope that extends buffs. all chars have their main roles maxed, and they're about level 2 on their secondaries. i'm not sure what i should do at this point, once i get the tortoises legs down, i cant kill them in the time they're staggered. even with genjis glove, my highwind only takes away half their life. i try to beat them to half life normally and then highwind but it doesn't end up working...any suggestions?

EDIT: Found a strategy that I copied almost word for word, cept I used Light instead of Vanille. I should note I also threw on two maxed earth resist rings, and I still almost died lol. Credit goes to Cyradis @ Gamefaqs:
Cyradis
Posted 3/25/2010 5:46:24 AM
message detailI'll give you my strat.

Fang/Hope/Vanille
A) COM/SYN/MED
B) RAV/MED/RAV
C) SAB/SYN/SAB
D) RAV/RAV/RAV
E) COM/COM/COM

(having commando maxed out helps a lot, but at least have ruin on hope and vanille)

This is how the fight goes:

One round of attacks against left leg with A.
Switch to B, wait till leg is broken to about 600%
Switch back to A, Highwind left leg. Left leg is now dead.

One round of attacks against right leg with A
Switch to B, wait till leg is broken to about 600%
Switch back to A, Highwind right leg. Right leg is now dead.

Switch to C. Either auto-battle or spam imperil at it until the adamantoise has Imperil/Deshell/Deprotect (Shouldnt take more than two rounds)

Switch to D. Break to 999%

Switch to E. Adamantoise will die.
 
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[quote name='IRHari']Still havin' problems killin Adamantortoises (TOISES are harder, they have a lot of ornaments on their back...theyve got about 5 mil as opposed to an easier 3mil).

I've got a lvl 48 kain's lance on fang, a mid level ultima weapon on light, and the boomerang for hope that extends buffs. all chars have their main roles maxed, and they're about level 2 on their secondaries. i'm not sure what i should do at this point, once i get the tortoises legs down, i cant kill them in the time they're staggered. even with genjis glove, my highwind only takes away half their life. i try to beat them to half life normally and then highwind but it doesn't end up working...any suggestions?[/QUOTE]

Are you that broke that you can't max out the Kain's Lance? Every point of STR helps, especially when buffed/debuffed/staggered. You should be using COM/RAV/RAV after putting ALL debuffs on the turtle and bringing the stagger gauge to 800%+.

You really have time to get it to a max of 999%, if you don't it's because you don't have Imperil on the mob. When it's really high, if you have anyone capable of switching to COM, do it. Even if it's a Role Level 1 COM, it'll increase the damage output of your party by a lot.

Make sure you have haste/brave/faith on everyone BEFORE you make him fall, so that the buffs don't fall off when he's staggered and down.

You really, really don't need amazing stats to kill him in one phase. Your strat. has to be wrong...
 
see my edit above, I found a pretty good strategy.

@KingBroly
hope you haven't dismantled kain's lance yet. That was really the only ultimate weapon I had, and I think I pretty mcuh was in the same boat as you in regards to other equipment and crystal levels. I found the strategy laid out in my post above and it seems to work really really well. I recommend it if you get kain's lance again.
 
[quote name='Rodimus']Can you go back to Gran Pulse after Chapter 11?[/QUOTE]


Chapter 13 and after you beat the game, you can go back to Chapter 11 & 12.
 
damnit...I've killed at least 30 toises/tortoises legit (no death spam) and 0 traps...I've gotten a bunch of plat ingots...anything I'm doing wrong? I've got one of each catalog equipped.

I'm farming the toises in Eden...supposedly it has a higher chance to drop traps.
 
[quote name='IRHari']I'm farming the toises in Eden...supposedly it has a higher chance to drop traps.[/QUOTE]

That's false. They all have the same drop rate, it's just faster to farm the ones in Eden as opposed to Archylte Steppe.

As for what you're doing wrong? Nothing. It's all based on dumb luck. I recieved one trap eventually, not sure how many kills it took me (probably a couple dozen). I haven't really played it much since then, so my "luck" can't really be gauged beyond that.
 
So after playing this for a couple more hours it's still boring. The combat is just not that engaging to a player of my stature and bosses have been complete pushovers so far. I really think they oversimplified the flow of combat to the point where it it requires very little input once you have a plan. In fact, the game punishes you for thinking too much because of the retarded rating system. I keep finding myself wanting to carefully execute orders, but I end up just spamming auto-battle because I'll get a shitty score otherwise.

That's ass-backwards for what used to be Final Fantasy and I hope they throw it out for Versus. Can't judge a book by its cover, but this one has already lost in competition with the better installments IMHO.
 
[quote name='Jodou']So after playing this for a couple more hours it's still boring. The combat is just not that engaging to a player of my stature and bosses have been complete pushovers so far. I really think they oversimplified the flow of combat to the point where it it requires very little input once you have a plan. In fact, the game punishes you for thinking too much because of the retarded rating system. I keep finding myself wanting to carefully execute orders, but I end up just spamming auto-battle because I'll get a shitty score otherwise.

That's ass-backwards for what used to be Final Fantasy and I hope they throw it out for Versus. Can't judge a book by its cover, but this one has already lost in competition with the better installments IMHO.[/QUOTE]

Keep spamming auto battle later on see how that works out.
 
I can't believe people still complain about turn-based RPG battle mechanics being boring. Been pressing X for what, 15 years now, and finally it's no longer fun. Really?

ANYONE who thinks this isn't FF is completely retarded. You obviously have no recollection of what a FF game is or consists of. Here's a hint though, it's not trying to compete with the other titles in the series.
 
[quote name='PrinnyOtaku']I can't believe people still complain about turn-based RPG battle mechanics being boring. Been pressing X for what, 15 years now, and finally it's no longer fun. Really?

ANYONE who thinks this isn't FF is completely retarded. You obviously have no recollection of what a FF game is or consists of. Here's a hint though, it's not trying to compete with the other titles in the series.[/QUOTE]

I agree 100%
 
[quote name='PrinnyOtaku']I can't believe people still complain about turn-based RPG battle mechanics being boring. Been pressing X for what, 15 years now, and finally it's no longer fun. Really?[/QUOTE]

quote of the day for me.
 
[quote name='PrinnyOtaku']I can't believe people still complain about turn-based RPG battle mechanics being boring. Been pressing X for what, 15 years now, and finally it's no longer fun. Really?

ANYONE who thinks this isn't FF is completely retarded. You obviously have no recollection of what a FF game is or consists of. Here's a hint though, it's not trying to compete with the other titles in the series.[/QUOTE]

Kudos to you!!

On a different note, the difficulty level definitely seems to increase in Chapter 11. I guess your meant to skip over a lot of the battles and return to them later on, but sheesh I got my ass handed to me by some of these monsters.
 
I was getting my ass handed to me too in chapter 11 by some monsters, then continued on to the elevator portion and leveled up there. The game seemed to get easier from there, 1.5-2 hours running up and down the elevator for an easy 100,000 Cp or so.
 
[quote name='PrinnyOtaku']I can't believe people still complain about turn-based RPG battle mechanics being boring. Been pressing X for what, 15 years now, and finally it's no longer fun. Really?

ANYONE who thinks this isn't FF is completely retarded. You obviously have no recollection of what a FF game is or consists of. Here's a hint though, it's not trying to compete with the other titles in the series.[/QUOTE]

Early final fantasy all you had to do was hold X and it would select last action, wish they had that option for this game for autobattle instead of hitting X.
 
[quote name='IRHari']see my edit above, I found a pretty good strategy.

@KingBroly
hope you haven't dismantled kain's lance yet. That was really the only ultimate weapon I had, and I think I pretty mcuh was in the same boat as you in regards to other equipment and crystal levels. I found the strategy laid out in my post above and it seems to work really really well. I recommend it if you get kain's lance again.[/QUOTE]

I did, but I quickly got it back. I haven't played it today, though. The game is just ticking me off, so I figured I needed some time away from it before I go back to level grinding. I tried using a starred Kain's Lance against the thing, and it didn't die when I used Highwind on it. So clearly I had nothing to lose. I still have the save file for it if I wanted to go back, but I don't.
 
[quote name='PrinnyOtaku']I can't believe people still complain about turn-based RPG battle mechanics being boring. Been pressing X for what, 15 years now, and finally it's no longer fun. Really?[/QUOTE]
When I can literally close my eyes and win a battle by tapping X, then yes it's boring. The game has some redeeming qualities and a few innovations that really do help the series, but after five chapters I've yet to hit anything that has made me think outside of reading what the libra scan says. I think my biggest problem is that Demon's Souls has spoiled me rotten with challenging encounters and I'm looking for that same quality in FFXIII.

Sounds like that doesn't happen until the end of the game, but I'm hopeful. Furthermore. . .
 
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Except Demon's Souls controlled like ass. So you're basically choosing between a game where it "plays itself" and a game where the controls fight against what you want to do. If DS had the level of polish any FF does, it would've been an amazing game. Not to mention, that game's Libra is basically memorizing the patrol paths and few attacks each mob had. Once you got that down, it was pretty much jerking the controls so you can effectively dodge and attack (which was ~hard, but moreso because of the controls imo). In both cases it's about trial and error, try something and see if it works or not.

I not gonna back this statement up since it's a waste of time, but Action RPG (real-time, moreso if FP) and turn-based RPGs are not the same genre, at all.
 
I love turn-based combat in fact I prefer it. But I'm torn with the combat in FFXIII. I applaud the change and ultimately combat is satisfying. There's a fair share of strategy when fighting bosses & some of the more powerful enemies, beating them is rewarding. However I found a Commando/Ravenger/Ravenger team can get through most of the grunt battles without a problem. The combat is a bit too fast for my tastes forcing me to be on auto-pilot with no real control over anything outside of choosing my Paradigms.

I will say one of my favorite things about the game is the amount of detail in the environments. I like to sit there for a few moments and just take in the scenery. Visually it doesn't disappoint.
 
I think I hit a sorta major bug here. Snow is basically near max right (Lv.5 in 5 of 6 roles) and he only has 11,000+ HP while everyone else is near 20-25k. Am I missing something here?
 
So are most of the discussions going on in this thread for power players and trophies?

I'm about halfway through Chapter 10, I beat a boss and my CP costs expanded to 4k per gem from about 1k. I know a lot of things open up in Chapter 11, but I want to have an idea of what I'm getting into.

I'm really just a "content tourist" - I'm playing the game for the story and the graphics and because I enjoy the battle system, but after I spend 45 hours on it and see the end credits I'll probably move onto something else.

I was just wondering - how much of all this extra stuff is necessary to complete the game? How deep should I be getting into the upgrade system? (I haven't touched it yet). If I kill everything the game puts in front of me, will there be a lot of grinding when the game ramps up?

I'm really enjoying the game so far, I actually like the linearity and how the game keeps pushing the story forward. But when the game opens up I don't want to be stuck killing the same mobs for 5 hours when I can keep moving instead.
 
You don't have to grind at all, just keep going forward and use the right strats. You can finish the game without maxing the Crystarium and any extras.

I didn't touch upgrading, mark missions, or any optional areas until I cleared the storyline.
 
I got 2 Traps and 3 Ingots in about 3 hours just now. I have 5 Traps, so I don't have to farm for anymore. Onto Mission 62 without maxed characters (although I'm almost there) and without Ultimate Weapons!
 
[quote name='benwah']Sorry I've played this game through, and done 80% of the missions, but what are the traps you are talking about?[/QUOTE]

Trapezohedron. They're used to make each characters tier 3 weapons.

As for where they drop, it's only from Adamantoise/Adamantortoise/Long Gui/Shaolong Gui if I remember correctly. Drop rate is pretty low, so a Connoisseur Catalog is recommended. You'll want a Collector's Catalog too since they drop Platinum Ingots that sell for 150k each.
 
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