Final Fantasy XV - 10 years in the making

FUUUUU

My only tactic so far is to use my chocobo to run away when I see a dropship and come back some other time. Pretty sure I’ve spaced out/resume collection quests over multiple days and whatnot this way.

Ha ha, you guys are playing Final Fantasy XV.

Seriously, though, please keep posting your thoughts if you stick with it, Scott. I know you went in pretty hopeful despite a lot of us kvetching about stuff. I’d be interested to know if it holds up for you in the long run.

-Tom

Now I’m a little better at the combat and I’m getting a little more into it I’m finding these random incursions less of an issue, and it definitely helps it’s fairly infrequent again. I went back to that quest and they spawned half a dozen times while I was trying to find that damned ore, and even watching a YT video of where to find that damned ore the guy in the video was also beset by Imperials, so I think that’s just a bugged area or something.

Still - here is how I deal with them now for 450 free XP and some free AP :)

https://youtu.be/a0Z807LTI6Y

I also have started finding some really interesting weapons, like a fire-core Greatsword and poisoned Assassin’s Blade daggers, so the loot is starting to open up a bit and be more interesting (plus I have a few Royal weapons too).

Overall, I’m enjoying it the more time I put into it. I still wish I was playing Final Fantasy XII Remastered, though. :)

Man, I’m really starting to dig this.

I figured out how to use Techniques, which are a lot of fun (I just assumed they were being used automatically by my companions, but the fact I have fine grain control over them and that they get better with use is really a nice touch). I spent some AP getting a few new ones for variety (and because one of them allows Ignis to enchant my weapon with whatever element our foes are weak against!)

I also unlocked Chocobos after an amazing hunt that had a great lead up and a satisfying battle - Chocobos are freaking great! Renting them is dirt cheap, I just poured like 10 days into them for only 1,000 and now whenever I want I can just summon them and ride around (which is a blast)?! I wish I’d done this mission earlier!

Also Promptus took a very cool picture during a battle where I’d used some Lightning and was mid-phase. Turned out to be just stunning, I think.

I had over 9,000xp after doing a few quests and some hunts so I spent all my gil on the 10k resort at the docks and doubled my xp, gaining 5 levels and going from 19-24. I spent all my points upgrading the Teamwork stuff because I’m finding that to be exciting and more and more efficient of that sounded like a good place to spend my sudden AP fortune.

Well, it’s still early yet for a Friday night, so back to it! :)

I’m playing this too and so far the more I play it also the more I like it.

I started to get a little jaded on side quests and got back into story around level 25 and so far I am still very impressed with the set pieces. I ended last night around level 32 mopping up and I think I may be ready to leave the first continent(?) tonight.

I’ll say this right now: if you haven’t watched Brotherhood and Kingsglaive yet, stop playing XV, watch them, and come back to the game. It filled in so much backstory and has made me appreciate the story elements in game considerably more so far. (so much so it should have been included with the game for viewing and I thought Kingsglaive was a great cgi movie)

(im holding off trying the carnival until i reach altissia in the real game first, its a disappointment its only around for 4 weeks)

I would love to watch those, but I lack the funds (and the wherewithal) to drop $20 on a movie just to watch it once. Can I rent them anywhere?

Plus at this point it’s not like I’m confused by anything in the story, I feel like I’m following events just fine. I just cleared chapter 10.

@Ponicus I don’t want to spoil anything, but I kind of fucked up once I went to the new area by boat (sounds like you are closing in on that) by spending too much time following the main story, and before I knew it I was back in the main game map… having not explored a single fucking thing. Frustrating. If you want to avoid that, just know that “entering negotiations” is the no turning back point. The game softly mentions that, but I didn’t understand at the time the implications.

I’m also like 10 levels above where I should be for the main story as I spent hours just doing side quests and hunts and stuff, and I was still challenged by the content in the main story. Not in any risk of losing though, I don’t believe. I’m mostly focused on the story as the side content, while fun, is no Witcher 3 and as such now I am so far above the main story in terms of levels, I’m just going to push to wrap that up I think.

I’m super confused how on earth I’m supposed to ever get these abilities that cost 333 or even in at least one case like 999 AP’s, I still get like… 3 when a guy levels up, and we level up quite a bit slower. Earning 3 or 4 in a fight, 3 or 4 for long rides in the car and on the chocobos, earning 3 when I camp, it all adds up I’ll grant you - but NOT to fucking hundreds and hundreds. WTF.

Also, DO NOT spend AP on the “gain XP while driving” type skills. It’s… 10. ten fucking xp It just makes me mad whenever I see that fucking 10 pop up on the screen. That cost me 99 fucking AP.

@Scotch_Lufkin Thank you for the advice. Yes I am exactly where you think I am. I really appreciate your spoiler-free advice about those gates and I wish they would be more explicit. Even the prior warning messages about not returning for some time were misleading because you weren’t actually gone that long in my opinion. :)

From what I have read about those crazy AP skills I have read there are grind-like post-game activities that may help to get those for you?

I bought Kingsglaive on sale on Amazon digital, if there was a way I could “lend” it to you I would, I’ll look into it.

Gah. No thanks. It’s not like the AP board is even all that exciting, I mean spending 99 AP’s just to get some more stats like Spirit or 333 AP’s just to gain more crystals when you draw them? Stuff like that is kind of lame. There are some that are really handy, but those are few and far between or VERY expensive (like 333 to gain two spells when you craft one) and if the AP gain never improves, I could save up from now to the end of the game and maybe get that skill… and ooooh, I’ll have TWO spells when I craft one! Hardly seems worth it.

I don’t dislike, nor am I impressed with, the Ascendancy board. Like most of FFXV, it’s competent but was done better in previous FF games (and nothing tops the thrill of unlocking new licenses and abilities in FFXII, anyway).

I ended up renting in for 99 cents during a deal on Amazon digital. Brotherhood is free on YouTube, though.

A Square-Enix employee passed on this AP farming video in a discussion about how to max out your party:

So that video makes me think they balanced AP costs around the idea that people (including the developers) would be grinding AP with these kinds of exploits, and rather let the 1% of the gamers playing do that and keep the AP costs balanced around what a normal player would see, they made over half the skills costs hundreds, almost thousands, of APs. That’s certainly one way to go.

I’m not sure if I’m crazy enough about the game to keep playing past the end game, but it’s disappointing that those cool 500+ AP cost skills I saw when I first launched the game are just well out of the range of my desire to play now that I’m almost 40 hours in. Unless I get that shield and go to down like in the video I guess, but I’m … erm, not in a position where that’s possible any longer, at least not until I wrap up the main story, at which time I’m unsure if I’ll keep playing or not.

There’s always something stupid about any given FF title, at least since X when I started playing them. Whether it’s ludicrous hunt targets that require a hint book to find, a ride-on-rails game with no sidequests at all, or the crazy assumption you will find the one weapon in the game that lets you exploit a system that otherwise is painfully slow to accrue points in, it’s always something.

So Chapter 13 is a dumpster fire. Who thought this was a good idea? It plays like a completely different game, and not in a good way. I won’t go into specifics, but I was having a lot of fun until I decided to start sticking with the main story. From the unpleasant and unsatisfying boss fight in Chapter 10, to the “go here and talk to X and then go here, fight Y, talk to Z” style linear progression in the main story (I can’t specify what bugs me about the main story without getting into spoiler territory - it’s actually not the story itself, which is fine and I’m eager to see how this all ends, but rather the structure of the quests themselves) this is a hot mess. I was having more fun traveling from outpost to outpost, building up AP and XP and getting stronger and stronger, and finding new cities and areas selling new weapons. I really want a different RPG than what this is, a lot of the time, I think.

And then Chapter 13. Or the first 2 hours (!) of it so far. Sadly according to a walk-through I decided to use to get through this as quickly as possible I still have a ways to go before I’m done with this chapter and into the final chapter, which I hope reverts back to “normal” gameplay. I guess we’ll see, I hope to get there tonight.

What you are saying reflects a lot of the non-spoiler stuff I have also read. The lead designer was quoted that they intentionally designed Chapter 13 the way it is and that based on feedback in a future ‘short term’ patch they were going to “fix it”, followed by more fleshed out story elements in the ‘mid term’ patch.
Even though I am enjoying it, I have a lot of other games to play, so I really hope it’s not going to let me down by investing so much time into it. :/

I’m pretty sure the chapter 13 rationale is:

“Well fuck, we’re out of budget, play hours are way too low, and the story doesn’t make any sense anymore. So, uh, how about a huge, boring, repetitious dungeon which plays by different rules from the rest of the game so everything you’ve done up to now is worthless?”

Final chapter is indeed normal, but it’s almost nonexistent unless you like grinding level 80 monsters and the like. And it pretty much disembowels what’s left of the story.

This is where I am. I’m soldering through because I hope it gets back to “normal” here shortly, but I don’t want to look up any spoilers because some of the story beats (one in particular half way through 13) are actually really fantastic and I am eager to find out where the story goes. I just hope the gameplay levels out again soon.

Also,

Jump scares.

Because that fucking fits with Final Fantasy!?

And that’s a wrap. The last part of chapter 13 somewhat made up for the dumb bits, but not entirely. I enjoyed the story quite a lot, and the end sequences were good, the final stages were also enjoyable and the enemies were appropriately incredible and challenging. I wrapped up at level 47 or so and I feel like I left about 75% of the game unexplored, in terms of side quests and hunts and unlocks and what not.

Overall, a good game. Not a fantastic game, and certainly not a fantastic Final Fantasy experience, but not bad. On Tom Chick’s scale I’d say it’s a 3. I’m tempted to dip a toe into the post game stuff, since that “normal” gameplay is exactly what I was having the most fun with. Delving into that may well push me higher, who knows.

Awesome. I’m moving ahead. It’s like a guilty pleasure… but definitely getting my fill. I’m about 30 hours in, level 35, and probably a night’s play away from reaching Altissia.