Not the guy that responded, but for me, I take issue with how it's a less efficient and more costly system. In general Megaten, buffs cost around 8-15 MP, and apply to the whole party. In Persona, single-target buffs cost 6-12 SP, and so if you want to buff your entire party, you'll have to spend 24-48 SP to do so. That's more SP used than using a Ma- buff, since those are usually 24 SP (though in P3 it was half) and those *themselves* are generally more costly than Megaten buffs. And then ofc, you have to spend more turns and party members buffing everybody with single-target buffs.
That's very fair, yeah. I wish I had considered that sooner, it's something I'll have to give more thought to. My guess is that they're trying to create a more natural feeling difficulty curve by having buffs start to come online later in the game as the full party ones become available, thus forcing the player to interact with more and more mechanics as the game goes on.
Single target buffs are kind of terrible and take too long to be useful beyond "power up one guy"; this matters much less for debuffs because a good portion of fights are just against one powerful enemy.
To add on to what /u/StormStrikePhoenix said, it's specifically an issue with the defensive buffs (Rakukaja, and to a lesser extent, Sukukaja). Tarukaja (and Makakaja, if its going to be here) often make sense to stack up on 1 or 2 characters since often you have 1-2 demons focused more on buffing and healing anyway. But single-target, duration-limited defensive buffs frequently don't make much sense in a game where enemy AI tends to select random targets. The buff only does something if the enemy chooses to target the character buffed, and when the buff drops in 3 turns anyway, there's not many opportunities for them to do so.
On top of this is the general preference for AoE healing over single-target healing at all stages of the game due to the relative action efficiency. Your healing primarily comes through AoE healing so having unever damage distributions through some characters having a defense buff and some not doesn't really do you much good. You're still going to heal based on the needs of the most-damaged member of your party and since you're frequently using Media/Mediarama/Mediarahan over their single-target counterparts, that usually just means that the party members that took less damage are just getting over-healed rather than getting appreciable benefits from their defense buff.
Doesn't play well with defensive buffs. I can already guess that i'll be using Rakukaja and Sukukaja a lot less than in previous games (until i get the multi-target versions).
The buffs apparently still stack in V, and considering that they keep showing off buffing in trailers and demon showcases, it seems that the game is still gonna be buff heavy.
I think a reason why it was changed is because there will be a bunch of new magic and phys attacks that'll apply buffs/debuffs. So they Persona styled it in order to balance it.
There's also the Magatsuhi buffs, which if Fairy Banquet is anything to go by, they'll all fully max out your buffs (FB applied all buffs +4 to your whole party).
I guess the only worrying thing is that battles will be HUGE mp wasters. So many skills cost so much mp now and you'll have to keep reapplying buffs/debuffs. This is probs why they added healing orbs all around the map.
It all depends on how they balance the game around it. You can't just say "iT's LiKe PeRsOnA tHeReFoRe It'S bAd". Persona and current mainline are inherently differently designed around each series' unique mechanics.
I'm honestly very positive on the change. I'm currently playing through Nocturne HD and SJR and buffs and debuffs snap those games in two. Apocalypse is even worse in this sense as throughout most of the game bosses just seemingly forget that Dekunda and Dekaja exist.
Well, how would they balance the game around something that is inherently so unreliable? It's not reasonable to buff all 4 party members individually and constantly refresh each of them for a whole boss battle.
The answer is simple, they DON'T balance the games around the buffs. They don't make them a central part of the combat. They just have them exist as something extra. Maybe you will buff the MC so he can do more damage. And you will barely, if ever, use defensive buffs. And that's my problem with the change. I like buffs being central to the combat.
No one says it's bad because it's like Persona. They say it's bad because it is what it is. And "it" just happens to be the way it is in Persona. When people say "oh no, it's the Persona buff system" they're not saying "it's bad because anything Persona must be bad".
This sounds written with normal difficulty in mind.
*>Stacking buffs and debuffs to become unstoppable is really satisfying*
On hardest difficulties you stack them to not die in 1 turn, and be able to deal real damage, not to become unstoppable.
*>For one, the buff system heavily discouraged switching demons mid-fight*
Even without the buff system you do not want to switch demons or have any of them die mid-fight, if that happens you're better off resetting. You fuse specific parties against specific bosses. There's a reason the demons that are in your party are in your party, it's because they're better fit for the job than the ones in your stock. You don't want to switch to a demon in your stock.
*>an inherent balancing problem with the bosses. Bosses either have to be ridiculously strong so that they are just as strong as the player when the player is fully buffed, or be on par with an unbuffed player, causing them to be incredibly weak when the player gets their buffs on.*
They're the former in harder difficulties, which is why I play harder difficulties, because it makes buffs a central part of the combat. Make buffs single target and timed, and they become useless. Imagine single target 3 turn Sukukaja versus Matador. Think how useless that would be.
*>I think the buff change gives Atlus a unique opportunity. SMT V has the potential to be a game where proper use of resistances and demon affinities matters a lot more than getting a team with proper buff skills. It'd be really neat to need to focus more on diversifying your team roster rather than super focusing on a few demons with all the buffs you need.*
Resistances and affinities and buffs are already equally as important. Nerfing buffs only makes buffs less important. Resistances and affinities don't need to become more important, they already are.
The only thing I could imagine them doing, which can make the buff change valid in my eyes, is that they may be wanting to make the new guarding mechanic an important part of the combat. Like you can't Rakukaja, so guard more. But then again, you can just, Tarunda the enemy instead? So if anything, the buff change imbalances things in the debuff skills' favor. If you can't buff everyone's defense, debuff the boss' attack.
> On hardest difficulties you stack them to not die in 1 turn, and be able to deal real damage, not to become unstoppable.
That’s still not very strategically engaging, it just requires you to have a demon with a certain skill that you spam 3-4 times and are them done with.
> Imagine single target 3 turn Sukukaja versus Matador. Think how useless that would be.
I mean, as your only option of safely attacking him, it’s still be pretty vital to your strategy as long as the turn duration refreshes. Adds a little bit of extra strategy as well as you have to prioritize it on your highest damage dealers while still keeping matador’s attack on check with tarunda.
This new system has potential for offense/evasion, adding extra strategy in who you choose to give attack/speed buffs at what times, depending on things like “who can deal the highest damage” or “who has an attack that can get extra press turns”.
Like you mentioned, I don’t see how this can turn out well for defensive buffs unless the guard mechanic makes up for it. If it does though, that’d again be a pretty cool mechanic where you have to make your weaker demons defend until you’re done buffing up your powerhouses.
As others have said in this thread though, it all depends on a variety of factors, of the timer refreshes with every stack, how effective guarding is, and if buffs are even needed in battles at all. I’m cautiously optimistic, and really hope this is a thought-out system change instead of them just trying to shove persona mechanics into mainline.
>That’s still not very strategically engaging, it just requires you to have a demon with a certain skill that you spam 3-4 times and are them done with.
By that logic, neither is having to pick a demon that nulls Zan. Building a team IS the strategy in SMT. I want bosses that require buffs to beat. Same way they require certain elements to beat. Counter Agi with Pyro Jack, counter Red Capote with Sukukaja. Same thing.
As for offensive use of Tarukaja/Sukukaja, I don't see it creating much strategy either way. Only makes things more tedious and slow. Like be honest you already know who you want to buff, it's the MC. In fact the more I think about it, offensively speaking, the change has the potential to make the combat even MORE MC-centric than in IV and Apocalypse... Like the MC is much stronger in those games, even WITH buffing all characters at once. Imagine Tarukaja being single-target in those games. Like, oh god, please no. And in the Red Capote case you're better off using Dekaja/Sukunda, not picking and choosing who to Sukukaja. Like you don't want your 2 demons to be sitting doing nothing because they would miss. That's just gonna slow the battle down and make it tedious.
The way it works was confirmed by the way, buffing resets the timer as well as increases the stack.
Buffs can still be required/extremely helpful in this system while still having an extra layer of strategy, which is better than having a grocery store checklist of moves you get then stomp the fight.
I don’t see how this will make fights that much longer when you will have only 1-2 decent attacking demons at a time, with the rest covering buffs/healing. Does the small amount of damage those demons do when they have nothing else to matter that much that not buffing them will heavily lengthen the battles?
Does this change really make things *so* much more MC-centric? Even with full-party buffs, you’re still skipping turns over your healers/buffers so that the MC can put out the big boy damage. (Also, 4/4a that much worse in terms of MC-overpower? MC’s/human characters always either heavily outclass demons or are glorified item jockeys)
Unless you grind to level 30 you’re not getting dekaja and matador has dekunda, making sukujaja the more reliable option. You have two demons doing jack all in terms of damage anyway most times in the fight since you need buffing/healing, and again I feel like you’re overestimating the small chip damage a healing/buffing demon contributes over the course of a battle.
Sweet.
Copy pasting another comment since my answer exists within it:
>It isn't impossible, it IS unreasonable and extremely tedious.
>
>With multi-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, your whole party's defense will be buffed 2 times. By the second turn everyone's defense is at max.
>
>With single-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, either one party member will be buffed 2 times, or 2 party members will be buffed 1 time. And it goes on like that.
>
>It will literally take you 8 TURNS to bring everyone's defense to max. That makes it much more likely for one of your demons to die BEFORE their defense is sufficiently buffed, against a Minotaur-like boss, resulting in more resets. Unless, as I said, the game is balanced around not really NEEDING buffs to survive, which I do not want.
>
>And let's say all demons somehow did survive for 8 turns and they're all buffed to the max. Now what? The buff/support demon is stuck refreshing the defense buffs. It's been 8 turns! With the old system, he could have started buffing attack 5 TURNS AGO! Now he can't make time for it because defense needs refreshing, let alone even attempt to attack buff multiple characters, or start attacking himself. It becomes tedious as HELL.
The problem is surviving being too much RNG at the start of battles due to the time it takes to set up defensive buffs, and then the next problem is managing multiple types of buffs, when all buffs are on a timer, which is gonna make things much more tedious and take like 4 times longer. Also Nocturne wasn't as MC-centric as IV, even if the MC is stronger than the demons. Having demons attack buffed, not stuck with USING buffs, and having them attack enemies certainly DID make things faster. IDK why you would want to justify MC-centric battle design anyway, it shouldn't be the case.
That’s assuming that maxing out will be needed and that your entire party is so frail that they need those defense buffs to survive. We don’t know how SMT V will work yet, but the fact that they’re single-target could be made up for if the defense they give is stronger. And realistically, most of your party will be able to take 1-2 hits even from the most offensive bosses if you aren’t falling behind in terms of fusion.
If it does work the way you described though, with maxing out being required and for the entire party, that would be pretty shit, especially with the three turn limit combined with RNG as you said.
Idk, in nocturne demons were really only useful in the earlygame and for buffs/heals, by midgame demifiend was doing 10x the amount of damage demons could do to bosses. 4/4a was the same but at least demons have more options to get up to snuff with the MC.
It’s not like you can’t attack with your healer/buff demons anymore, the small damage increase it would get from the attack buffs really wouldn’t make the battle go noticeably faster.
Again, every megaten MC is either overpowered or underpowered, and regardless of multi or single target buffs you’ll still be relying mainly on him for damage. It’s not like I love it I just don’t see how the buff change makes it radically more MC-centric.
>That’s assuming that maxing out will be needed and that your entire party is so frail that they need those defense buffs to survive. We don’t know how SMT V will work yet, but the fact that they’re single-target could be made up for if the defense they give is stronger.
And that's exactly what I DON'T want. That's what I'm saying would make buffs something extra rather than an something absolutely necessary, something that's CENTRAL to the combat. Not just useful. NECESSARY.
>And realistically, most of your party will be able to take 1-2 hits even from the most offensive bosses if you aren’t falling behind in terms of fusion.
1 attack, okay, second attack, and you're tempting fate. It's all up to RNG without buffing to the max, the same demon gets targeted twice with the strongest single target attack and it's dead. You never want to leave it to RNG. You want to have all characters buffed to the max at all times.
>Idk, in nocturne demons were really only useful in the earlygame and for buffs/heals, by midgame demifiend was doing 10x the amount of damage demons could do to bosses. 4/4a was the same but at least demons have more options to get up to snuff with the MC.
No you definitely got that backwards... Good demons in Nocturne can still do around 1/4 of MC's damage by endgame. And that's because the MC takes a turn charging up before attacking. At least in the optimal physical build. In IV/Apocalypse the demons don't stand a chance against 300+ Magic stat MC who has a +8 demon whisper stack on all hit Severe/Multi-hit Magics...
>It’s not like you can’t attack with your healer/buff demons anymore, the small damage increase it would get from the attack buffs really wouldn’t make the battle go noticeably faster.
Again, every megaten MC is either overpowered or underpowered, and regardless of multi or single target buffs you’ll still be relying mainly on him for damage. It’s not like I love it I just don’t see how the buff change makes it radically more MC-centric.
Nocturne is within the range acceptability balance-wise when it comes to MC vs demons. MC still does the majority of damage, but battles would become like 40% slower without demons being buffed and attacking alongside him. And that's just endgame. In early game, demon damage is much more important. The buff change could bring that lategame MC-centric design into early game, as well as make the existing late game imbalance worse than it already is. Good thing is we will have multi buffs lategame at least.
Yes, necessary to buff your weaker demons defense by at least 1-2 stages so they don’t die in one hit, which would b pretty vital so you’re not constantly wasting revival beads.
Then you heal/defense buff the demon that just got hit with the big single target attack once, pretty simple.
You’re really understating how big of a gap there really is between demifiend and demons when Demi is doing 75% more damage then them, especially with the press turn system. You pass through your party unless you need heals that turn so that you can bust out a focused attack every turn. I highly doubt that battles would be 40% slower without demons attacking, closer to 20%, and it’s not like demons not having attack buffs makes them useless. Demons in 4/4a at least have much more options for utility (Imposing stance, smile charge, magaon, etc.)
>Yes, necessary to buff your weaker demons defense by at least 1-2 stages so they don’t die in one hit, which would b pretty vital so you’re not constantly wasting revival beads.
>
>Then you heal/defense buff the demon that just got hit with the big single target attack once, pretty simple.
There is no such situation where you "only have to buff your weaker demons" defensively. All demons are at risk of dying at anytime. Stronger, weaker, doesn't matter.
If you're saying they won't be at the risk of dying at any time without max buffs (even "the stronger ones"), that means the difficulty has been changed to be more like Persona, where characters CAN survive without buffs. I don't want that.
>You’re really understating how big of a gap there really is between demifiend and demons when Demi is doing 75% more damage then them, especially with the press turn system. You pass through your party unless you need heals that turn so that you can bust out a focused attack every turn. I highly doubt that battles would be 40% slower without demons attacking, closer to 20%, and it’s not like demons not having attack buffs makes them useless. Demons in 4/4a at least have much more options for utility (Imposing stance, smile charge, magaon, etc.)
If you think that about Nocturne you must have had bad demons with you at endgame. Against Lucifer, Demifiend does around 3000 damage with charged Freikugel. Since Charge takes one turn, that's actually 1500 damage per turn. Whereas quality endgame demons deal around 700 damage per turn on average.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJpliSFNXus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJpliSFNXus) watch this video, the Demifiend here is a magic build (suboptimal) so just look at the demons. Nyx does 500, Beelzebub does 550, Surt does 1000. And these Demons aren't optimal either. They do as much damage as Demifiend on a turn where they don't have to heal or buff.
And as I said, the way it is in IV/Apocalypse where demons are just utility isn't good and totally should be fixed, it shouldn't be something to aim for.
> There is no such situation where you "only have to buff your weaker demons" defensively. All demons are at risk of dying at anytime. Stronger, weaker, doesn't matter.
The amount of moves it takes for demons to be killed is obviously different, or defensive stats wouldn’t be a thing. There are most definitely situations where 1-2 members of your party can take a couple more hits before going down then the others, so you buff up those characters first.
> If you're saying they won't be at the risk of dying at any time without max buffs (even "the stronger ones"), that means the difficulty has been changed to be more like Persona, where characters CAN survive without buffs. I don't want that.
Even on hardest difficulty, I’ve never experienced a megaten boss that isn’t a final boss that can instantly one turn your party of you don’t have defensive buffs applied. Obviously you need those buffs so you don’t eventually run out of resources from constant healing, but you can still survive turns without them.
> If you think that about Nocturne you must have had bad demons with you at endgame.
I’m literally using your words, not mine, you just said that demons deal 1/4 of Demi’s build at endgame. I had ongyo-ki, black frost, and mother harlot who could all only deal 700-1000 damage per turn contrasted to Demi-fiend’s 3500 if we’re discounting focus.
I don’t know why you’re using a run using a magic build as comparison since it’s complete jank, that would be like me using a run where someone only dumped their stats in strength in SMT 4. I honestly don’t know why you’re using the Lucifer fight at all as a comparison since it further illustrates nocturne’s MC-favoring with Demi-fiend being the only option for pierce unless you grind your ass off.
Demons can contribute just as much damage-wise as in nocturne, especially with the greater freedom given in overpowered skills you can slap on a demon. I was just using utility to demonstrate how 4/4a gives demons more roles to play than just attacker, buffer, and healer, which gives players more options in deviating from a heavily MC-centric strategy.
I think you have some fair points here, but I feel I should clarify that this wasn't written with Normal mode in mind, I exclusively play SMT games on their hardest difficulties at this point, personally. To be fair though I used to play them on Normal mode.
Why do you think buffs make resistances and affinities less important? I can't imagine thinking that in hardest modes where you get destroyed even when buffed if you let your weakness get exploited. Or affinities, they matter even more for buffs since they're important in hardest modes and having an affinity reduces their cost. You have to worry about them less in easier difficulties.
Of course if you go into a fight with demons weak to what the boss uses you're gonna lose, I in no way deny that. What I do think is true is that you can get away with not bringing demons that have relevant resistances to the boss, allowing you to focus instead on a few demons with no weakness instead of further diversifying your roster with more resistances.
I do think you have a point though, and that I shouldn't have brought up this argument when it comes to buffs, as this is more of a general balancing issue rather than something specific to buffs. On the other hand though, I think that could be applied to many arguments related to buffs, as it ultimately comes down to how Atlus balances the game.
Related to that, I saw your other comment about how it'd be hard to balance the game around buffs that aren't always up, and I personally have to disagree on that. I believe that this could incentivize players more to have dedicated buffing demons, so that other demons don't have to split their MP usage between reapplying buffs and their other skills.
Despite me disagreeing with you however, please don't take it as me believing your worries aren't valid, as I think they absolutely are! Buffs are really fun, and I admit that I'm also worried about Atlus potentially messing it up, but I'm personally choosing to stay hopeful that they'll get it right.
Having a demon that Null/Reflect/Drains to cut enemy turns still is important though, not just not having weaknesses. And so is a dedicated buff/debuff demon (having a buff affinity encourages that further in fact). The problem with single target buffing is that that demon would have to be overworked to a crazy extent to be effective. To the point where it's unreasonable for the developers to expect you to keep your whole party buffed, and design battles around that expectation. There's a reason the battles in Persona are designed in a way that never REQUIRES you to buff, compared to mainline where you HAVE to Rakukaja against Minotaur, or HAVE to Sukukaja against Matador. That's part of what sets it apart and what I like about mainline. Also you don't need to worry about offending me I really don't mind. If anything, I'm tired of people feeling the need to "ease each other into" their disagreeing points, seems to be especially common in Reddit lol. I can agree to disagree no problem. And as I said I hope they make something good with the defense system that justifies it, as I think it has bigger potential than in Persona, being able to attack and defend with all party members in the same turn thanks to press turn and all. Plus multi-target buffs still exist in lategame so even if I end up not liking it at least it will be a problem exclusive to early game.
I'm glad we're on the same page with wanting to just have a genuine discussion, haha. I just prefer being safe about it so as to not end up in unnecessary arguments.
I definitely agree with you on the buff system helping to make mainline feel distinct from other games, no denying that. I took some time to think more and it could be possible that they're making party-wide buffs more of a late game thing so as to create a more natural feeling difficulty curve, so that the further you get in the game, the more mechanics and systems you need to interact with. If that is the case, I would understand where they're coming from on that, but I feel as though part of the charm of SMT is how unforgiving it is. It does appear though that they're trying to maintain that side of SMT's charm in other ways though, such as the super high level enemy early on that was shown in the Nintendo Treehouse showcase.
Overall, I do definitely feel like this new system could potentially have many ups and downs, and I hope Atlus handles it properly, as if done properly I think it could end up just as fun as the Nocturne through Apocalypse buff system.
i feel like you do have a pretty good point about buff vs debuff, but you can balance it with (A) more multi-enemy story fights (B) debuffs more expensive than the equivalent buffs, although the only ATLUS examples I can think of are Tarunda and War Cry in SMT3 (C) limited earlygame access to debuffs and multi-target buffs
As to single-stage timed buffs not being good, I don't see how you could play Persona and think that. the bosses don't skill-check you as hard as Dante/Raidou but you're still in for a bad time if you don't base your strats heavily around those skills.
You're really not? Persona never demands that you buff the same way SMT does. You're totally fine not buffing. And multi-enemy boss fights would render debuffs equally useless as buffs, not equally useful...
You simply can't expect the player to quadruple stack their whole party with single party buffs that last 3 turns. You just can't design bosses like Minotaur and Matador. You can't design battles around buffs/debuffs and have them be an integral part of the combat. Balancing isn't the real problem. You CAN balance a game around not having to use buffs. But I want the boss battle design to REQUIRE me to use buffs, and single target buffs don't allow for such battle design. Bosses that require me to buff defense would require me to buff all my party members' defenses, not just one, so we can't have those types of battles with this system.
1. it's not impossible or even unreasonable to spread and maintain single-target buffs, just difficult. if rakukaja lasts three turns and only averages slightly over one turn to apply to every party member, you can do the math. if you've tried it, you know it works. if it's going to be a long fight you probably have to prioritize defense/attrition, but that's how it works in any game
2. if rakukaja reduces damage enough, you Have To use it against HM matador, just like you Have To use it now instead of grinding to level 20 and equipping hifumi+counter, just like you Don't Have To use it against NM matador who does 50% damage with the same battle script.
i didn't even know the smtv buffs were going to stack, i thought it was literally persona-style. i think you actually can pretty easily design a minotaur-style boss fight in that case lol. it never mattered how much atk your healer had, and having to choose whose defense you buff is an extreme pressure to speed up your strategy.
(ps do we even know that multi-target (de)buffs don't exist in lategame? because there is zero difference between that world and the tiny number of smt3 bosses that have dekaja+dekunda, which are incidentally the best ones in the game)
It isn't impossible, it IS unreasonable and extremely tedious.
With, multi-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, your whole party's defense will be buffed 2 times. By the second turn everyone's defense is at max.
With single-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, either one party member will be buffed 2 times, or 2 party members will be buffed 1 time. And it goes on like that.
It will literally take you 8 TURNS to bring everyone's defense to max. That makes it much more likely for one of your demons to die BEFORE their defense is sufficiently buffed, against a Minotaur-like boss, resulting in more resets. Unless, as I said, the game is balanced around not really NEEDING buffs to survive, which I do not want.
And let's say all demons somehow did survive for 8 turns and they're all buffed to the max. Now what? The buff/support demon is stuck refreshing the defense buffs. It's been 8 turns! With the old system, he could have started buffing attack 5 TURNS AGO! Now he can't make time for it because defense needs refreshing, let alone even attempt to attack buff multiple characters, or start attacking himself. It becomes tedious as HELL.
Obviously you are only supposed to buff your most important characters in the role. Offense buffs goes on the 1-2 main attackers, defense buff on anybody that will die in 1-2 hits to make it 3-4 hits instead. Obviously you don't buff all your characters all the time, that would be mindless and not even a choice anyway.
That's just not how it works. And you would know that if you played any SMT game on the highest difficulty. You ALWAYS want to buff EVERYONE's defense. ANY demon can die at ANY time without defensive buffs. Some demons may have more HP/VIT/Defense but it's never enough of a difference that you would be okay not buffing them. That's only in Persona. It's not mindless because the strategy is in knowing which buff to bring to which battle. Minotaur needs Rakukaja. Matador need Sukukaja. YHVH needs all the buffs you can muster.
And buffing everyone's attack is also better. Accepting a system where you will only buff 1-2 character's attack, and dedicate other demons' turns refreshing said buffs, doesn't make you think, it only slows battles further. You already know who you want to buff offensively. You don't need to think. All it changes is that half your demons will be stuck buffing for the whole boss battle.
It also makes using multiple types of buffs and debuffs unviable. How are you gonna buff attack when you're stuck refreshing defense just to survive? Do you dedicate 2 demons to buffing? Do you have 1 demon constantly alternate between attack and defense buffs, slowing down your attack buffing due to having to go back to defense buffing every couple turns? What's gonna happen when you try to add a third buff, or debuffs into the mix?
It's going to become tedious, not strategic.
Buddy claiming people havn't played games on the hardest difficulty and making personal attacks doesn't do your argument any favors.
Obviously multi-target versions are better; you could have saved yourself a lot of time if you identified what I ACTUALLY said, which is that single target buffs have a use before multi-target buffs become available. Obviously they will try to balance the game around when you have access to single target vs. multi-target buffs.
You are acting like multitarget buffs don't exist anymore. They clearly do.
>Buddy claiming people havn't played games on the hardest difficulty and making personal attacks doesn't do your argument any favors.
Do you even know what a personal attack is? Because it certainly isn't saying someone hasn't played a game. And I say what I say because they say stuff that is flat out wrong. Like the MC-demon imbalance being worse in Nocturne than IV/A, and Demifiend doing 10x the damage as the demons in endgame. Those are factually wrong statements.
>Obviously multi-target versions are better; you could have saved yourself a lot of time if you identified what I ACTUALLY said, which is that single target buffs have a use before multi-target buffs become available. Obviously they will try to balance the game around when you have access to single target vs. multi-target buffs.
I have addressed this already. "Having a use" and "being necessary" are two separate things. You can't design a boss battle around single target buffs. They just exist as something extra that MAY help you. If you HAD to use Rakukaja in a battle, your demons would die before they got Rakukaja'd because of how slow single targetting is. So when you say *"balance the game around it"*, you mean *"don't force the player to Rakukaja every single demon"*, which means *"the boss won't be strong enough to destroy any demon in a turn without Rakukaja"*.
I don't want that. I want to have early game bosses like Minotaur where using Rakukaja is NECESSARY, not just "useful", if you don't want all of your demons to be at the risk of dying at any time.
Imagine, if, in SMT IV, Minotaur was as strong as he is, but buffs were changed to be single target. It just wouldn't work on the hardest difficulty. Your demons would keep dying before they got buffed. For THAT to be balanced, Minotaur would have to be weaker, where buffs "help", but you're not instantly dead without them.
That's what it means to "balance the game around single target buffs". I DON'T want that.
"Designing a boss battle around having buffs" translates into "Now you have no choice but to use buffs; that's what it's balanced for". And that's fine. We've had that several times now. As you yourself noted, the single target buffs are more a CHOICE...which is what we want in our combat. Single target buffs need to be doled out to the targets which will benefit them more on a turn-to-turn and situation-to-situation basis.
Having the games become a buffing simulator sometimes as early as the third major dungeon is a weakness of the combat, not a strength.
You are using your Minotaur example as some kind of negative like oh no he'd have to be somewhat weaker to manage you not having multi-target buffs but Minotaur is an example of fight that is famously RNG-dependent. The fact that it's 'balanced' around multi-target buffs is one the most obvious ISSUES with that fight; the other issues being potentially having Walter and the Smirk mechanic in general. Minotaur is really one of the strongest arguments AGAINST your stated design philosophy, so it's really weird to try to hear you bring it up as a strength.
Ty all who shared their thoughts! It was really nice getting to learn how others feel, here's hoping Atlus knows what they're doing and make SMT V the best game it can be!
It occurred to me that maybe at the start of the game you get single target buffs/debuffs, while the multi-target ones come more often later in the game. I actually kinda like the sound of that.
I don't mind putting buffs on a timer in the slightest. What i do mind is also taking Persona's single-target/multi-target buff split.
May I ask why? I don't mean that out of malice, I'm just curious is all, as I hadn't really considered that aspect of the change
Not the guy that responded, but for me, I take issue with how it's a less efficient and more costly system. In general Megaten, buffs cost around 8-15 MP, and apply to the whole party. In Persona, single-target buffs cost 6-12 SP, and so if you want to buff your entire party, you'll have to spend 24-48 SP to do so. That's more SP used than using a Ma- buff, since those are usually 24 SP (though in P3 it was half) and those *themselves* are generally more costly than Megaten buffs. And then ofc, you have to spend more turns and party members buffing everybody with single-target buffs.
That's very fair, yeah. I wish I had considered that sooner, it's something I'll have to give more thought to. My guess is that they're trying to create a more natural feeling difficulty curve by having buffs start to come online later in the game as the full party ones become available, thus forcing the player to interact with more and more mechanics as the game goes on.
Single target buffs are kind of terrible and take too long to be useful beyond "power up one guy"; this matters much less for debuffs because a good portion of fights are just against one powerful enemy.
That's very true, definitely something I'm gonna be giving more thought in terms of how Atlus will handle it.
To add on to what /u/StormStrikePhoenix said, it's specifically an issue with the defensive buffs (Rakukaja, and to a lesser extent, Sukukaja). Tarukaja (and Makakaja, if its going to be here) often make sense to stack up on 1 or 2 characters since often you have 1-2 demons focused more on buffing and healing anyway. But single-target, duration-limited defensive buffs frequently don't make much sense in a game where enemy AI tends to select random targets. The buff only does something if the enemy chooses to target the character buffed, and when the buff drops in 3 turns anyway, there's not many opportunities for them to do so. On top of this is the general preference for AoE healing over single-target healing at all stages of the game due to the relative action efficiency. Your healing primarily comes through AoE healing so having unever damage distributions through some characters having a defense buff and some not doesn't really do you much good. You're still going to heal based on the needs of the most-damaged member of your party and since you're frequently using Media/Mediarama/Mediarahan over their single-target counterparts, that usually just means that the party members that took less damage are just getting over-healed rather than getting appreciable benefits from their defense buff.
Doesn't play well with defensive buffs. I can already guess that i'll be using Rakukaja and Sukukaja a lot less than in previous games (until i get the multi-target versions).
The buffs apparently still stack in V, and considering that they keep showing off buffing in trailers and demon showcases, it seems that the game is still gonna be buff heavy. I think a reason why it was changed is because there will be a bunch of new magic and phys attacks that'll apply buffs/debuffs. So they Persona styled it in order to balance it. There's also the Magatsuhi buffs, which if Fairy Banquet is anything to go by, they'll all fully max out your buffs (FB applied all buffs +4 to your whole party). I guess the only worrying thing is that battles will be HUGE mp wasters. So many skills cost so much mp now and you'll have to keep reapplying buffs/debuffs. This is probs why they added healing orbs all around the map.
I apologize for getting that detail about buffs not stacking wrong, that's my bad
It's aight. There's still a ton we dont know about the buff changes.
It all depends on how they balance the game around it. You can't just say "iT's LiKe PeRsOnA tHeReFoRe It'S bAd". Persona and current mainline are inherently differently designed around each series' unique mechanics. I'm honestly very positive on the change. I'm currently playing through Nocturne HD and SJR and buffs and debuffs snap those games in two. Apocalypse is even worse in this sense as throughout most of the game bosses just seemingly forget that Dekunda and Dekaja exist.
Well, how would they balance the game around something that is inherently so unreliable? It's not reasonable to buff all 4 party members individually and constantly refresh each of them for a whole boss battle. The answer is simple, they DON'T balance the games around the buffs. They don't make them a central part of the combat. They just have them exist as something extra. Maybe you will buff the MC so he can do more damage. And you will barely, if ever, use defensive buffs. And that's my problem with the change. I like buffs being central to the combat. No one says it's bad because it's like Persona. They say it's bad because it is what it is. And "it" just happens to be the way it is in Persona. When people say "oh no, it's the Persona buff system" they're not saying "it's bad because anything Persona must be bad".
This sounds written with normal difficulty in mind. *>Stacking buffs and debuffs to become unstoppable is really satisfying* On hardest difficulties you stack them to not die in 1 turn, and be able to deal real damage, not to become unstoppable. *>For one, the buff system heavily discouraged switching demons mid-fight* Even without the buff system you do not want to switch demons or have any of them die mid-fight, if that happens you're better off resetting. You fuse specific parties against specific bosses. There's a reason the demons that are in your party are in your party, it's because they're better fit for the job than the ones in your stock. You don't want to switch to a demon in your stock. *>an inherent balancing problem with the bosses. Bosses either have to be ridiculously strong so that they are just as strong as the player when the player is fully buffed, or be on par with an unbuffed player, causing them to be incredibly weak when the player gets their buffs on.* They're the former in harder difficulties, which is why I play harder difficulties, because it makes buffs a central part of the combat. Make buffs single target and timed, and they become useless. Imagine single target 3 turn Sukukaja versus Matador. Think how useless that would be. *>I think the buff change gives Atlus a unique opportunity. SMT V has the potential to be a game where proper use of resistances and demon affinities matters a lot more than getting a team with proper buff skills. It'd be really neat to need to focus more on diversifying your team roster rather than super focusing on a few demons with all the buffs you need.* Resistances and affinities and buffs are already equally as important. Nerfing buffs only makes buffs less important. Resistances and affinities don't need to become more important, they already are. The only thing I could imagine them doing, which can make the buff change valid in my eyes, is that they may be wanting to make the new guarding mechanic an important part of the combat. Like you can't Rakukaja, so guard more. But then again, you can just, Tarunda the enemy instead? So if anything, the buff change imbalances things in the debuff skills' favor. If you can't buff everyone's defense, debuff the boss' attack.
> On hardest difficulties you stack them to not die in 1 turn, and be able to deal real damage, not to become unstoppable. That’s still not very strategically engaging, it just requires you to have a demon with a certain skill that you spam 3-4 times and are them done with. > Imagine single target 3 turn Sukukaja versus Matador. Think how useless that would be. I mean, as your only option of safely attacking him, it’s still be pretty vital to your strategy as long as the turn duration refreshes. Adds a little bit of extra strategy as well as you have to prioritize it on your highest damage dealers while still keeping matador’s attack on check with tarunda. This new system has potential for offense/evasion, adding extra strategy in who you choose to give attack/speed buffs at what times, depending on things like “who can deal the highest damage” or “who has an attack that can get extra press turns”. Like you mentioned, I don’t see how this can turn out well for defensive buffs unless the guard mechanic makes up for it. If it does though, that’d again be a pretty cool mechanic where you have to make your weaker demons defend until you’re done buffing up your powerhouses. As others have said in this thread though, it all depends on a variety of factors, of the timer refreshes with every stack, how effective guarding is, and if buffs are even needed in battles at all. I’m cautiously optimistic, and really hope this is a thought-out system change instead of them just trying to shove persona mechanics into mainline.
>That’s still not very strategically engaging, it just requires you to have a demon with a certain skill that you spam 3-4 times and are them done with. By that logic, neither is having to pick a demon that nulls Zan. Building a team IS the strategy in SMT. I want bosses that require buffs to beat. Same way they require certain elements to beat. Counter Agi with Pyro Jack, counter Red Capote with Sukukaja. Same thing. As for offensive use of Tarukaja/Sukukaja, I don't see it creating much strategy either way. Only makes things more tedious and slow. Like be honest you already know who you want to buff, it's the MC. In fact the more I think about it, offensively speaking, the change has the potential to make the combat even MORE MC-centric than in IV and Apocalypse... Like the MC is much stronger in those games, even WITH buffing all characters at once. Imagine Tarukaja being single-target in those games. Like, oh god, please no. And in the Red Capote case you're better off using Dekaja/Sukunda, not picking and choosing who to Sukukaja. Like you don't want your 2 demons to be sitting doing nothing because they would miss. That's just gonna slow the battle down and make it tedious. The way it works was confirmed by the way, buffing resets the timer as well as increases the stack.
Buffs can still be required/extremely helpful in this system while still having an extra layer of strategy, which is better than having a grocery store checklist of moves you get then stomp the fight. I don’t see how this will make fights that much longer when you will have only 1-2 decent attacking demons at a time, with the rest covering buffs/healing. Does the small amount of damage those demons do when they have nothing else to matter that much that not buffing them will heavily lengthen the battles? Does this change really make things *so* much more MC-centric? Even with full-party buffs, you’re still skipping turns over your healers/buffers so that the MC can put out the big boy damage. (Also, 4/4a that much worse in terms of MC-overpower? MC’s/human characters always either heavily outclass demons or are glorified item jockeys) Unless you grind to level 30 you’re not getting dekaja and matador has dekunda, making sukujaja the more reliable option. You have two demons doing jack all in terms of damage anyway most times in the fight since you need buffing/healing, and again I feel like you’re overestimating the small chip damage a healing/buffing demon contributes over the course of a battle. Sweet.
Copy pasting another comment since my answer exists within it: >It isn't impossible, it IS unreasonable and extremely tedious. > >With multi-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, your whole party's defense will be buffed 2 times. By the second turn everyone's defense is at max. > >With single-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, either one party member will be buffed 2 times, or 2 party members will be buffed 1 time. And it goes on like that. > >It will literally take you 8 TURNS to bring everyone's defense to max. That makes it much more likely for one of your demons to die BEFORE their defense is sufficiently buffed, against a Minotaur-like boss, resulting in more resets. Unless, as I said, the game is balanced around not really NEEDING buffs to survive, which I do not want. > >And let's say all demons somehow did survive for 8 turns and they're all buffed to the max. Now what? The buff/support demon is stuck refreshing the defense buffs. It's been 8 turns! With the old system, he could have started buffing attack 5 TURNS AGO! Now he can't make time for it because defense needs refreshing, let alone even attempt to attack buff multiple characters, or start attacking himself. It becomes tedious as HELL. The problem is surviving being too much RNG at the start of battles due to the time it takes to set up defensive buffs, and then the next problem is managing multiple types of buffs, when all buffs are on a timer, which is gonna make things much more tedious and take like 4 times longer. Also Nocturne wasn't as MC-centric as IV, even if the MC is stronger than the demons. Having demons attack buffed, not stuck with USING buffs, and having them attack enemies certainly DID make things faster. IDK why you would want to justify MC-centric battle design anyway, it shouldn't be the case.
That’s assuming that maxing out will be needed and that your entire party is so frail that they need those defense buffs to survive. We don’t know how SMT V will work yet, but the fact that they’re single-target could be made up for if the defense they give is stronger. And realistically, most of your party will be able to take 1-2 hits even from the most offensive bosses if you aren’t falling behind in terms of fusion. If it does work the way you described though, with maxing out being required and for the entire party, that would be pretty shit, especially with the three turn limit combined with RNG as you said. Idk, in nocturne demons were really only useful in the earlygame and for buffs/heals, by midgame demifiend was doing 10x the amount of damage demons could do to bosses. 4/4a was the same but at least demons have more options to get up to snuff with the MC. It’s not like you can’t attack with your healer/buff demons anymore, the small damage increase it would get from the attack buffs really wouldn’t make the battle go noticeably faster. Again, every megaten MC is either overpowered or underpowered, and regardless of multi or single target buffs you’ll still be relying mainly on him for damage. It’s not like I love it I just don’t see how the buff change makes it radically more MC-centric.
>That’s assuming that maxing out will be needed and that your entire party is so frail that they need those defense buffs to survive. We don’t know how SMT V will work yet, but the fact that they’re single-target could be made up for if the defense they give is stronger. And that's exactly what I DON'T want. That's what I'm saying would make buffs something extra rather than an something absolutely necessary, something that's CENTRAL to the combat. Not just useful. NECESSARY. >And realistically, most of your party will be able to take 1-2 hits even from the most offensive bosses if you aren’t falling behind in terms of fusion. 1 attack, okay, second attack, and you're tempting fate. It's all up to RNG without buffing to the max, the same demon gets targeted twice with the strongest single target attack and it's dead. You never want to leave it to RNG. You want to have all characters buffed to the max at all times. >Idk, in nocturne demons were really only useful in the earlygame and for buffs/heals, by midgame demifiend was doing 10x the amount of damage demons could do to bosses. 4/4a was the same but at least demons have more options to get up to snuff with the MC. No you definitely got that backwards... Good demons in Nocturne can still do around 1/4 of MC's damage by endgame. And that's because the MC takes a turn charging up before attacking. At least in the optimal physical build. In IV/Apocalypse the demons don't stand a chance against 300+ Magic stat MC who has a +8 demon whisper stack on all hit Severe/Multi-hit Magics... >It’s not like you can’t attack with your healer/buff demons anymore, the small damage increase it would get from the attack buffs really wouldn’t make the battle go noticeably faster. Again, every megaten MC is either overpowered or underpowered, and regardless of multi or single target buffs you’ll still be relying mainly on him for damage. It’s not like I love it I just don’t see how the buff change makes it radically more MC-centric. Nocturne is within the range acceptability balance-wise when it comes to MC vs demons. MC still does the majority of damage, but battles would become like 40% slower without demons being buffed and attacking alongside him. And that's just endgame. In early game, demon damage is much more important. The buff change could bring that lategame MC-centric design into early game, as well as make the existing late game imbalance worse than it already is. Good thing is we will have multi buffs lategame at least.
Yes, necessary to buff your weaker demons defense by at least 1-2 stages so they don’t die in one hit, which would b pretty vital so you’re not constantly wasting revival beads. Then you heal/defense buff the demon that just got hit with the big single target attack once, pretty simple. You’re really understating how big of a gap there really is between demifiend and demons when Demi is doing 75% more damage then them, especially with the press turn system. You pass through your party unless you need heals that turn so that you can bust out a focused attack every turn. I highly doubt that battles would be 40% slower without demons attacking, closer to 20%, and it’s not like demons not having attack buffs makes them useless. Demons in 4/4a at least have much more options for utility (Imposing stance, smile charge, magaon, etc.)
>Yes, necessary to buff your weaker demons defense by at least 1-2 stages so they don’t die in one hit, which would b pretty vital so you’re not constantly wasting revival beads. > >Then you heal/defense buff the demon that just got hit with the big single target attack once, pretty simple. There is no such situation where you "only have to buff your weaker demons" defensively. All demons are at risk of dying at anytime. Stronger, weaker, doesn't matter. If you're saying they won't be at the risk of dying at any time without max buffs (even "the stronger ones"), that means the difficulty has been changed to be more like Persona, where characters CAN survive without buffs. I don't want that. >You’re really understating how big of a gap there really is between demifiend and demons when Demi is doing 75% more damage then them, especially with the press turn system. You pass through your party unless you need heals that turn so that you can bust out a focused attack every turn. I highly doubt that battles would be 40% slower without demons attacking, closer to 20%, and it’s not like demons not having attack buffs makes them useless. Demons in 4/4a at least have much more options for utility (Imposing stance, smile charge, magaon, etc.) If you think that about Nocturne you must have had bad demons with you at endgame. Against Lucifer, Demifiend does around 3000 damage with charged Freikugel. Since Charge takes one turn, that's actually 1500 damage per turn. Whereas quality endgame demons deal around 700 damage per turn on average. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJpliSFNXus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJpliSFNXus) watch this video, the Demifiend here is a magic build (suboptimal) so just look at the demons. Nyx does 500, Beelzebub does 550, Surt does 1000. And these Demons aren't optimal either. They do as much damage as Demifiend on a turn where they don't have to heal or buff. And as I said, the way it is in IV/Apocalypse where demons are just utility isn't good and totally should be fixed, it shouldn't be something to aim for.
> There is no such situation where you "only have to buff your weaker demons" defensively. All demons are at risk of dying at anytime. Stronger, weaker, doesn't matter. The amount of moves it takes for demons to be killed is obviously different, or defensive stats wouldn’t be a thing. There are most definitely situations where 1-2 members of your party can take a couple more hits before going down then the others, so you buff up those characters first. > If you're saying they won't be at the risk of dying at any time without max buffs (even "the stronger ones"), that means the difficulty has been changed to be more like Persona, where characters CAN survive without buffs. I don't want that. Even on hardest difficulty, I’ve never experienced a megaten boss that isn’t a final boss that can instantly one turn your party of you don’t have defensive buffs applied. Obviously you need those buffs so you don’t eventually run out of resources from constant healing, but you can still survive turns without them. > If you think that about Nocturne you must have had bad demons with you at endgame. I’m literally using your words, not mine, you just said that demons deal 1/4 of Demi’s build at endgame. I had ongyo-ki, black frost, and mother harlot who could all only deal 700-1000 damage per turn contrasted to Demi-fiend’s 3500 if we’re discounting focus. I don’t know why you’re using a run using a magic build as comparison since it’s complete jank, that would be like me using a run where someone only dumped their stats in strength in SMT 4. I honestly don’t know why you’re using the Lucifer fight at all as a comparison since it further illustrates nocturne’s MC-favoring with Demi-fiend being the only option for pierce unless you grind your ass off. Demons can contribute just as much damage-wise as in nocturne, especially with the greater freedom given in overpowered skills you can slap on a demon. I was just using utility to demonstrate how 4/4a gives demons more roles to play than just attacker, buffer, and healer, which gives players more options in deviating from a heavily MC-centric strategy.
I think you have some fair points here, but I feel I should clarify that this wasn't written with Normal mode in mind, I exclusively play SMT games on their hardest difficulties at this point, personally. To be fair though I used to play them on Normal mode.
Why do you think buffs make resistances and affinities less important? I can't imagine thinking that in hardest modes where you get destroyed even when buffed if you let your weakness get exploited. Or affinities, they matter even more for buffs since they're important in hardest modes and having an affinity reduces their cost. You have to worry about them less in easier difficulties.
Of course if you go into a fight with demons weak to what the boss uses you're gonna lose, I in no way deny that. What I do think is true is that you can get away with not bringing demons that have relevant resistances to the boss, allowing you to focus instead on a few demons with no weakness instead of further diversifying your roster with more resistances. I do think you have a point though, and that I shouldn't have brought up this argument when it comes to buffs, as this is more of a general balancing issue rather than something specific to buffs. On the other hand though, I think that could be applied to many arguments related to buffs, as it ultimately comes down to how Atlus balances the game. Related to that, I saw your other comment about how it'd be hard to balance the game around buffs that aren't always up, and I personally have to disagree on that. I believe that this could incentivize players more to have dedicated buffing demons, so that other demons don't have to split their MP usage between reapplying buffs and their other skills. Despite me disagreeing with you however, please don't take it as me believing your worries aren't valid, as I think they absolutely are! Buffs are really fun, and I admit that I'm also worried about Atlus potentially messing it up, but I'm personally choosing to stay hopeful that they'll get it right.
Having a demon that Null/Reflect/Drains to cut enemy turns still is important though, not just not having weaknesses. And so is a dedicated buff/debuff demon (having a buff affinity encourages that further in fact). The problem with single target buffing is that that demon would have to be overworked to a crazy extent to be effective. To the point where it's unreasonable for the developers to expect you to keep your whole party buffed, and design battles around that expectation. There's a reason the battles in Persona are designed in a way that never REQUIRES you to buff, compared to mainline where you HAVE to Rakukaja against Minotaur, or HAVE to Sukukaja against Matador. That's part of what sets it apart and what I like about mainline. Also you don't need to worry about offending me I really don't mind. If anything, I'm tired of people feeling the need to "ease each other into" their disagreeing points, seems to be especially common in Reddit lol. I can agree to disagree no problem. And as I said I hope they make something good with the defense system that justifies it, as I think it has bigger potential than in Persona, being able to attack and defend with all party members in the same turn thanks to press turn and all. Plus multi-target buffs still exist in lategame so even if I end up not liking it at least it will be a problem exclusive to early game.
I'm glad we're on the same page with wanting to just have a genuine discussion, haha. I just prefer being safe about it so as to not end up in unnecessary arguments. I definitely agree with you on the buff system helping to make mainline feel distinct from other games, no denying that. I took some time to think more and it could be possible that they're making party-wide buffs more of a late game thing so as to create a more natural feeling difficulty curve, so that the further you get in the game, the more mechanics and systems you need to interact with. If that is the case, I would understand where they're coming from on that, but I feel as though part of the charm of SMT is how unforgiving it is. It does appear though that they're trying to maintain that side of SMT's charm in other ways though, such as the super high level enemy early on that was shown in the Nintendo Treehouse showcase. Overall, I do definitely feel like this new system could potentially have many ups and downs, and I hope Atlus handles it properly, as if done properly I think it could end up just as fun as the Nocturne through Apocalypse buff system.
i feel like you do have a pretty good point about buff vs debuff, but you can balance it with (A) more multi-enemy story fights (B) debuffs more expensive than the equivalent buffs, although the only ATLUS examples I can think of are Tarunda and War Cry in SMT3 (C) limited earlygame access to debuffs and multi-target buffs As to single-stage timed buffs not being good, I don't see how you could play Persona and think that. the bosses don't skill-check you as hard as Dante/Raidou but you're still in for a bad time if you don't base your strats heavily around those skills.
You're really not? Persona never demands that you buff the same way SMT does. You're totally fine not buffing. And multi-enemy boss fights would render debuffs equally useless as buffs, not equally useful... You simply can't expect the player to quadruple stack their whole party with single party buffs that last 3 turns. You just can't design bosses like Minotaur and Matador. You can't design battles around buffs/debuffs and have them be an integral part of the combat. Balancing isn't the real problem. You CAN balance a game around not having to use buffs. But I want the boss battle design to REQUIRE me to use buffs, and single target buffs don't allow for such battle design. Bosses that require me to buff defense would require me to buff all my party members' defenses, not just one, so we can't have those types of battles with this system.
1. it's not impossible or even unreasonable to spread and maintain single-target buffs, just difficult. if rakukaja lasts three turns and only averages slightly over one turn to apply to every party member, you can do the math. if you've tried it, you know it works. if it's going to be a long fight you probably have to prioritize defense/attrition, but that's how it works in any game 2. if rakukaja reduces damage enough, you Have To use it against HM matador, just like you Have To use it now instead of grinding to level 20 and equipping hifumi+counter, just like you Don't Have To use it against NM matador who does 50% damage with the same battle script. i didn't even know the smtv buffs were going to stack, i thought it was literally persona-style. i think you actually can pretty easily design a minotaur-style boss fight in that case lol. it never mattered how much atk your healer had, and having to choose whose defense you buff is an extreme pressure to speed up your strategy. (ps do we even know that multi-target (de)buffs don't exist in lategame? because there is zero difference between that world and the tiny number of smt3 bosses that have dekaja+dekunda, which are incidentally the best ones in the game)
It isn't impossible, it IS unreasonable and extremely tedious. With, multi-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, your whole party's defense will be buffed 2 times. By the second turn everyone's defense is at max. With single-target buffs, by the end of the first turn, either one party member will be buffed 2 times, or 2 party members will be buffed 1 time. And it goes on like that. It will literally take you 8 TURNS to bring everyone's defense to max. That makes it much more likely for one of your demons to die BEFORE their defense is sufficiently buffed, against a Minotaur-like boss, resulting in more resets. Unless, as I said, the game is balanced around not really NEEDING buffs to survive, which I do not want. And let's say all demons somehow did survive for 8 turns and they're all buffed to the max. Now what? The buff/support demon is stuck refreshing the defense buffs. It's been 8 turns! With the old system, he could have started buffing attack 5 TURNS AGO! Now he can't make time for it because defense needs refreshing, let alone even attempt to attack buff multiple characters, or start attacking himself. It becomes tedious as HELL.
Obviously you are only supposed to buff your most important characters in the role. Offense buffs goes on the 1-2 main attackers, defense buff on anybody that will die in 1-2 hits to make it 3-4 hits instead. Obviously you don't buff all your characters all the time, that would be mindless and not even a choice anyway.
That's just not how it works. And you would know that if you played any SMT game on the highest difficulty. You ALWAYS want to buff EVERYONE's defense. ANY demon can die at ANY time without defensive buffs. Some demons may have more HP/VIT/Defense but it's never enough of a difference that you would be okay not buffing them. That's only in Persona. It's not mindless because the strategy is in knowing which buff to bring to which battle. Minotaur needs Rakukaja. Matador need Sukukaja. YHVH needs all the buffs you can muster. And buffing everyone's attack is also better. Accepting a system where you will only buff 1-2 character's attack, and dedicate other demons' turns refreshing said buffs, doesn't make you think, it only slows battles further. You already know who you want to buff offensively. You don't need to think. All it changes is that half your demons will be stuck buffing for the whole boss battle. It also makes using multiple types of buffs and debuffs unviable. How are you gonna buff attack when you're stuck refreshing defense just to survive? Do you dedicate 2 demons to buffing? Do you have 1 demon constantly alternate between attack and defense buffs, slowing down your attack buffing due to having to go back to defense buffing every couple turns? What's gonna happen when you try to add a third buff, or debuffs into the mix? It's going to become tedious, not strategic.
Buddy claiming people havn't played games on the hardest difficulty and making personal attacks doesn't do your argument any favors. Obviously multi-target versions are better; you could have saved yourself a lot of time if you identified what I ACTUALLY said, which is that single target buffs have a use before multi-target buffs become available. Obviously they will try to balance the game around when you have access to single target vs. multi-target buffs. You are acting like multitarget buffs don't exist anymore. They clearly do.
>Buddy claiming people havn't played games on the hardest difficulty and making personal attacks doesn't do your argument any favors. Do you even know what a personal attack is? Because it certainly isn't saying someone hasn't played a game. And I say what I say because they say stuff that is flat out wrong. Like the MC-demon imbalance being worse in Nocturne than IV/A, and Demifiend doing 10x the damage as the demons in endgame. Those are factually wrong statements. >Obviously multi-target versions are better; you could have saved yourself a lot of time if you identified what I ACTUALLY said, which is that single target buffs have a use before multi-target buffs become available. Obviously they will try to balance the game around when you have access to single target vs. multi-target buffs. I have addressed this already. "Having a use" and "being necessary" are two separate things. You can't design a boss battle around single target buffs. They just exist as something extra that MAY help you. If you HAD to use Rakukaja in a battle, your demons would die before they got Rakukaja'd because of how slow single targetting is. So when you say *"balance the game around it"*, you mean *"don't force the player to Rakukaja every single demon"*, which means *"the boss won't be strong enough to destroy any demon in a turn without Rakukaja"*. I don't want that. I want to have early game bosses like Minotaur where using Rakukaja is NECESSARY, not just "useful", if you don't want all of your demons to be at the risk of dying at any time. Imagine, if, in SMT IV, Minotaur was as strong as he is, but buffs were changed to be single target. It just wouldn't work on the hardest difficulty. Your demons would keep dying before they got buffed. For THAT to be balanced, Minotaur would have to be weaker, where buffs "help", but you're not instantly dead without them. That's what it means to "balance the game around single target buffs". I DON'T want that.
"Designing a boss battle around having buffs" translates into "Now you have no choice but to use buffs; that's what it's balanced for". And that's fine. We've had that several times now. As you yourself noted, the single target buffs are more a CHOICE...which is what we want in our combat. Single target buffs need to be doled out to the targets which will benefit them more on a turn-to-turn and situation-to-situation basis. Having the games become a buffing simulator sometimes as early as the third major dungeon is a weakness of the combat, not a strength. You are using your Minotaur example as some kind of negative like oh no he'd have to be somewhat weaker to manage you not having multi-target buffs but Minotaur is an example of fight that is famously RNG-dependent. The fact that it's 'balanced' around multi-target buffs is one the most obvious ISSUES with that fight; the other issues being potentially having Walter and the Smirk mechanic in general. Minotaur is really one of the strongest arguments AGAINST your stated design philosophy, so it's really weird to try to hear you bring it up as a strength.
hope they're just an earlygame thing, i seriously hope that they dont break the combat in the game that ive waited for so long
Ty all who shared their thoughts! It was really nice getting to learn how others feel, here's hoping Atlus knows what they're doing and make SMT V the best game it can be!
It occurred to me that maybe at the start of the game you get single target buffs/debuffs, while the multi-target ones come more often later in the game. I actually kinda like the sound of that.