This discussion about min/max'ers and "true" rpg'ers who want the immersion is ridiculous. First, they are not mutually exclusive and second, summarizing the difficulty / mechanics issue by this debate makes we wonder if you understand what you are talking about, and are not just whining for the sake of it.

To me, immersion includes difficulty. If i can roflstomp my way through a game where i'm supposed to fight those mega-super-evil world threatening badasses, and save the world by mashing a fucking joystick, i don't feel immersed. But to you this may be different, i get it. Just don't assume i'm some XBOC live teenager or wow official forum crybaby because i ask for more difficulty.

The game gets too easy from once you leave Cyseal, period. It has nothing to do with resistances or broken mechanics like leech and zombie.

I did my first playthrough on hard, without any prior research, no wiki or forum support. Took the 2 classes that looked the most fun, a bit about complementarity: warrior+mage. Started with my precious and anaconda and other ish... i didn't bother to change the attribute/ability points either as i planned on just testing the combo... well you get the point. Took Madora and Jahan at level 7 iirc. Had done the north / west beach and orcs + start of black cove before. Hardest part of the game tbh.

S&B warrior + pyro/geo mage as main, madora full 2h + jahan hydro/aero for support. I didn't know what i was doing so i ended up wasting points trying to build a paladin, putting aero with no int on madora, and all kind of mistakes a beginner makes. I never _tried_ to min/max. I wasn't looking up cookie cutter specs, ideal rgoup compositions and others. I just had my good sense and admittedly a good dose of RPG experience and built my characters how i felt would be the most optimal for their respective class/build.

I didn't use crafting except for weapon sharpening and skull enchant simply because i generally cba with it in every game. Did go for rubies very late game on one char to get past lava next to boreas. I didn't use lone wolf or leech or zombie or w/e. Built some BD and WP, weapon talents for melee, elem skills for mages and some utility like char and bartering + leadership. I only used glass cannon on my pyro/geo lategame just because i wanted to test it out and i didn't know what to do with my talent point. I ended up with a mage with less than 300HP at level 16-17 before figuring he would probably need some constitution. And still, i found it OP, but that's debatable I guess.

I ended up with WAY to powerful characters without even trying. I didn't min max or whatever. I just played the game the way it was offered to me, without any backup. Simply by taking advantage of the terrain with my geo/pyro build, encercling (is that a word?) ennemies, using teleport/feathers to feed madora, healing with jahan and tanking with my main, i had no problems. This is just basic understanding of the game, nothing that exceptional that they should make a hardcore mode just for me.

The game never posed a problem, at least in combat. I was challenging at times before leaving cyseal. Aftewards, not so much... chars could die, even alot during certain fights, but never did i get the feeling it was an uphill battle. And the very last portion of the game (HE, TotD and final fights) was an utter JOKE to anyone who has a functional brain (haven't tested it out since the patch, getting there on my 2nd pt).

For a game in hard mode, this is dissapointing. Whether you think an RPG should be about difficulty or immersion is irrelevant, a game SHOULD pose a challenge when you put it on hard. This does not affect your experience as you can play in normal. And honestly, it should have immersion PLUS difficulty for those who wish. But difficulty will always be subjective - the only constant is everyone gets gratification out of "beating" a game. But only if they had a challenge in the first place, or at least i hope so?

If i can "break" the game by following its rules and not trying anything cheesy, it means the game is broken, not my way of playing. Are we supposed to gimp ourselves to make the game more enjoyable? Should i dig up 100 pages of forum posts to find out what i can and cannot do before i even start a game?

That takes away my immersion smile


About the resistances / leech / zombie complaints: we're not talking about a "get the golden chocobo to get knights of the round table with hidden character vincent and mimic materia" cheesing the game. We're talking about "hey what does that do?" "okay my character cannot die anymore, this is op". So really it's the same issue, you can just run into them by testing and end up with OP chars. That's shitty balancing, that's it. Balancing is not only a PVP concept for MMO's, i get your point about the forums etc, but even for solo games it should be about posing a reasonable challenge to your audience - this is a game after all - and allowing us to de/increase the challenge based on personal preference allows us to not impact eachother's experience.

And frankly, if you need those tactics to beat the game in normal mode, i don't know what's wrong with you.

My opinion is that the main problem in combat is the AI. It is so fucking predictable and stupid it poses no challenge whatsoever.
- In a bad spot? Summon a few creatures and mobs forget about you for 1 or 2 rounds.
- Got 3 on 4 chars below 20% HP? No problem, they'll attack the one tank that has 100% anyway because he's closer.
- There's poison all below/around you? I could light it.. but no wait i think this a good moment to buff my party.
- Or simply run back & forth a few times without doin anything and end up with no action points (am i the only one that noticed this?)

It's a fact that the way the game is built, it's hard to let you have the epic feeling of becoming powerful over levels and adding cool skills and keeping the game challenging, because yes - meteor will instakill most of the mobs caught in the AOE and get you a free win - but what struck me is that the ennemies don't seem to have the same "arsenal" at their disposal when facing you.

Imagine casters attacking your 2 ranged characters at start of the fight with boulder bash + fireball? Imagine rogues porting behind you and stunning you? Mages going for rain then stunning your whole party during the same turn with a bolt? Rangers that actually mute your healer when your melee are low health, etc?

TL;DR
- immersion and difficulty are not mutually exclusive
- beating a game in the hardest difficulty mode without any effort is not acceptable.
- this game is (was?) too simple and no amount of nerfing to abilities will change that. It's the AI that needs improving.
- I type a lot.

WDYT?