Final Fantasy XIII [PS3, X360]

[Phil]

Well, I'm shocked to say, but I nearly lost all motivation to play this one any further. Just got to grand pulse (well the huge landscape anyway) and I'm shocked at how much stronger everything has become. Also, upgrading is becoming difficult - 4000 to upgrade an ability WTF? Or up to 10000-20000 if it's from a class that isn't default to the character? Most enemies give you around 1000cp per battle....

Am I supposed to avoid this all together for the moment? The king bahamut is very difficult (haven't beat him yet) because he can wipe out a character in one hit if there's no protect and it's a bit too ridiculous even if possible)...

 

[rabidrabbit]

Well, I'm shocked to say, but I nearly lost all motivation to play this one any further. Just got to grand pulse (well the huge landscape anyway) and I'm shocked at how much stronger everything has become. Also, upgrading is becoming difficult - 4000 to upgrade an ability WTF? Or up to 10000-20000 if it's from a class that isn't default to the character? Most enemies give you around 1000cp per battle....

Am I supposed to avoid this all together for the moment? The king bahamut is very difficult (haven't beat him yet) because he can wipe out a character in one hit if there's no protect and it's a bit too ridiculous even if possible)...

Those were my feelings exactly when I first got there
Avoid the big Bahamuts and those giant turtle like things (Adamantoises?), most other creatures should be defeatable, at least in the initial open field area.
While advancing in the crystarium takes much more points than before, the creatures also give you more points, also do those hunts while exploring for good rewards.
Trust me, you'll feel better after the initial shock

 

[rabidrabbit]

Um.. have I missed something, but are you able to switch between all the six characters during battle once you're far enough in the game.
I think I read so somewhere.
I just reached Gran Pulse and didn't come across such a feature.
I know you can now freely assemble your party of three from the six in between battles, but during a battle, is that possible?

 

[Sigfried1977]

^Nope. You can select your group members. equipment and Paradigm setup before a battle and that's it.

 

[Ons::lob::]

Sweet, my party is now fit enough to take down Adamatoises without the need for summons in a single stagger. Delivering the final blow with Highwind just when the the poor heavy is about to get up again feels quite empowering.
Now if they only were kind enough to drop those damn Traps.

Wow, I still have to use the summon and blitz set-up to take them down.

Spoiler

How long did it take for you to get to that point? My main group is light fang and hope...light and fang have their final weapons, but I have to switch out hope for sazh to use the blitz/summon cheese. All my characters main roles are maxed and they're almost maxed in one secondary role. Character with the lowest health is hope at something like 16k.

 

[patsu]

The Neochu is by far the biggest pain...UGH. Of course, I'm still in lv9 of the Crystarium, and I haven't finished the game yet

I think I might do it. Really I just want to beat the second form of the last boss with a 5 star rating.

You can go up to level 9 in the Crystarium ? I am only at level 4-5 right now. The Neochu was ok for me so far. Takes a long time to kill.

I take it back. Ochu was relatively easy. Neochu is indeed a pain in the butt.

I tried to instant stagger him by equipping Sprint Shoe (star), Speed Sash (star), Lion Heart (star), Survivalist Catalog lvl 1, but no dice. I got the "Random: Instant Chain", and "Quick Stagger" attributes.

EDIT:

^Nope. You can select your group members. equipment and Paradigm setup before a battle and that's it.

Is there a way to set up the Paradigm such that say... Vanille always spam death (without controlling her manually) ?

 

[patsu]

Ah... I think I have done all I want to do in FFXIII ^_^

Couldn't complete quite a few difficult sidequests, but I can lay down most, if not all, of the other enemies rather easily now. To reach the "next level", I'd have to grind a lot more for CP and $$$.

Time to fire up GoW3 !

EDIT: Took me 81+ hours to get here.

 

[nightshade]

20 hours in & I'm right now at Chapter 10 (playing only on weekends :| ), I am near the start of the chapter, killed off few enemies & then saved. What I wanna know is..Is this a long chapter ? Cause chapter 9 was pretty long considering some little bits of grinding I did (easily defeated the boss ) and I don't want to go through another weekend to get to Chapter 11. I just can't wait to see Pulse !

On a side note, I like everything in the game but sometimes I get bored/tired of fighting constant waves of enemies since the frequency of cutscenes are reduced drastically & there isn't really anything to explore as of now. It makes me want to take a break from the game every now & then.

 

[patsu]

Chapter 10 has similar length to other chapters.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Is there a way to set up the Paradigm such that say... Vanille always spam death (without controlling her manually) ?

Nope, you can only use abilities like that by yourself.
By the way, later in the game the cool thing about Death isn't it's potential for instant K.O.s (that's just far too unreliable), but it's insane damage dealing potential. With a staggered, deprotected and deshelled foe as well as a Vanille with Faithra and good equipment, you can deal 999.999 damage with a single cast of Death. Unlike Fang's Highwind, Death doesn't revert the chain bar back to zero either. It's the singe most damaging attack in the whole game basically.

 

[patsu]

Yeah, I was hoping to see Vanille evolve to that stage. But I ran out of time. Does she need an Ultimate weapon to deal that kind of damage ?

In my party, only [strike]Vanille[/strike] Lightning has an Ultimate weapon. The rest has a star'ed weapon but I didn't find the right catalyst to transform them to the next level. The Adamant-whatchamacallit costs $2 million bucks. And the other one costs $850,000.

I tried going after the giant turtle for its drop, but it's too powerful. The smaller turtles were cake walk.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I think she does. I have a star-ed Belladonna Wand and she seems to top out at roughly 650K. That's not too shabby either.

 

[patsu]

For people who are still levelling up their characters, a GAF poster found an XP calculator which may come in handy:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=928790&topic=54042267

I put together an Excel workbook that will, among other things, help you calculate how much experience a weapon needs until it is maxed out (Level *). You select the weapon from a list and type in the numbers from the upgrade screen in the game. It also has data on all the weapons and components and some other stuff. Hopefully somebody finds this useful.

 

[nightshade]

Gran Pulse is a sight to behold !!
One question, can I do the Cieth stone missions later after I finish the game ?
I have one more question,after I finish the game can I revisit EVERY area in Gran Pulse that's available to me now [this includes areas that you enter during a mission or just random exploration] ?

The difficulty spike is considerable in Chapter 11.

 

[patsu]

Yes, you can come back after the game and visit every area, or even open new areas.

 

[nightshade]

If I decide to go to Oerba village now will it be a point of no return [ie. until I finish the story]...or can I get back to the plains even after that ?

 

[patsu]

You can always get back by backtracking.

If you complete the Teleportable Cie'th stone side quest in Oerba village, you can teleport back to Gran Pulse too.

Finally, if you make it past Oerba village, you will find portals back to Gran Pulse before and after the final boss fight.

 

[nightshade]

That's all I need to know...thanks a lot !
I'll now try to finish off some Cieth Stone missions & then proceed to the story area for now.

 

[patsu]

Ha ha, I had the same exact question when I was in Gran Pulse.

Hurry up ! I want to see your reaction when you fire up Demon's Souls. 8^P

 

[tha_con]

So does anyone know if accessories stack between team members? i.e. if I use the Survivalist Catalog on all 3 team members will it stack, or is it a waste of 2 accessory slots?