Bravely Default 2 Final-Demo Discussion

[vanguard333]

Recently, Square Enix released a final demo for Bravely Default 2. Unlike the previous demo (and basically all previous Bravely Default demos), it is a section of chapter one of the game rather than a self-contained side-story. You also can't save; instead you play the section for up to five hours, and any subsequent playthroughs have to start from scratch. So, here's a thread for discussing it, as well as the changes that have been made since the first demo.

 

Right away, I can say that, as they said in their demo-feedback video, a lot of the guesswork has been taken away, which is very useful. However, I have noticed a few gameplay changes that weren't mentioned in the feedback video, and that I'm not fond of. The biggest one would be some of the changes to various abilities:

Unlike the previous demo, a lot of the vanguard and monk abilities now cost HP to use, including shield bash. And it's not a small amount of HP either; shield bash costs 10% of the user's maximum HP, and that's the smallest HP cost, with some abilities costing as costing as 35% of max HP. Why? Why was this done? I guess I can kind-of understand it for a class like monk, but Vanguard is basically supposed to be a tank! Why does the tank; the unit that's supposed to soak up damage from enemies, have abilities that require sacrificing their own HP to use? That makes no sense at all. 

 

What do you think?

[LoneStar]

You can save, it's just that your playtime has a limit. I'm not sure what you mean there.

The HP cost thing is weird, but I'm guessing its to replace using up BP for skills. Then with the way the battle flows your next character can heal them if you want. I haven't seen too much yet like skills costing BP or not.

I'm at the part where you go to the ruin so I'll have some more opinions later.

Edited December 25, 2020 by LoneStar

[Punished Dayni]

I went as far as the bard fight, proceeded to get blown back and pulled back. The HP costs are probably too high, but it does give healing a particular importance.

Yes saving still exists, but I have no idea where in the town you save.

[vanguard333]

10 hours ago, LoneStar said:

You can save, it's just that your playtime has a limit. I'm not sure what you mean there.

I meant that, once the playtime is up, you have to start again (or at least that's what the demo said; I didn't get far enough to use up the playtime yet). That's what I meant. Sorry that I wasn't more clear. 

 

10 hours ago, LoneStar said:

The HP cost thing is weird, but I'm guessing its to replace using up BP for skills. Then with the way the battle flows your next character can heal them if you want. I haven't seen too much yet like skills costing BP or not.

The thing is, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall moves like shield bash costing BP in the first demo. 

In any case, I'm more willing to sacrifice BP than HP; I tend to stay away from HP-sacrificing moves and classes that place emphasis on them. This just means I'm less incentivized to use the main tank job. 

 

3 hours ago, Christmas Dayni said:

I went as far as the bard fight, proceeded to get blown back and pulled back. The HP costs are probably too high, but it does give healing a particular importance.

I think there's already something that makes healing important: enemy damage. I'll admit that I've never played a Bravely Default game in full before (I only tried the demo for Bravely Second), but I try to always have someone who can heal my party in party-based RPGs like this because I never fully know what I'll be up against and the expression "plans rarely survive first contact with the enemy" does apply in these kinds of games. You need to figure out your opponent: how they fight, what they're weak to, etc., and in that time, your party is taking damage.

At least, that's how I think about it. Plus, as I said, I understand it for a job like monk; it emphasizes that they're a glass cannon; a fragile speeder. But not for Vanguard. Speaking as a vanguard (🥁🥁), I don't see how sacrificing HP helps with, well, surviving enemy attacks.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

In any case, I'm more willing to sacrifice BP than HP; I tend to stay away from HP-sacrificing moves and classes that place emphasis on them. This just means I'm less incentivized to use the main tank job. 

i have not played this new demo for Bravely Default 2, but i do have completed both the first Bravely Default and Bravely Second before, so i know how the gameplay mechanics along with some classes have been changed and eventually nerfed through these games.

for example: in the first game, Dark Knight was way too broken simply because you could just spam Rage with the Drain spell active from a Blood Blade, dealing insane amounts of damage per turn while also healing up at the same time.

that got nerfed a lot in Bravely Second due to new limitations on the Drain spell usage, but my guess is that they're trying to make their new games overall more challenging regardless of the stage you're currently at(either early, mid or late game), rather than just making you go full auto-battle whenever you're bored like it happened with the previous titles.

however, the problem of nerfs is that if they're not done carefully, you risk to mess up entire mechanics just for the sake of "balance", wich in my opinion is something that single-player non-competitive games shouldn't bother with too much.

then again, that's just a demo, so there's still time for changes. as long as they keep all previous Jobs with subclasses, it's probably gonna be a fun ride nonetheless.

[Zanarkin]

2 hours ago, 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ said:

however, the problem of nerfs is that if they're not done carefully, you risk to mess up entire mechanics just for the sake of "balance", wich in my opinion is something that single-player non-competitive games shouldn't bother with too much.

Idk it felt pretty cheap to learn monk's fire debuff could be stacked allowing a party of 3 monks and 1 black mage to destroy the super bosses in the demo. Yeah I struggled with the bosses and i felt good when i managed to kill them. But it felt cheap to watch others breeze through a fight like that. Not saying the game shouldn't have cheese strats, but i am saying cheese strats should have at least some shortcomings. Or at least not make using other classes feel like you are actively shooting yourself in the foot (which can be fun in second or third playthroughs but a lot of people don't have time for that)

Edited December 25, 2020 by Zanarkin

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

10 hours ago, Zanarkin said:

Idk it felt pretty cheap to learn monk's fire debuff could be stacked allowing a party of 3 monks and 1 black mage to destroy the super bosses in the demo. Yeah I struggled with the bosses and i felt good when i managed to kill them. But it felt cheap to watch others breeze through a fight like that. Not saying the game shouldn't have cheese strats, but i am saying cheese strats should have at least some shortcomings. Or at least not make using other classes feel like you are actively shooting yourself in the foot (which can be fun in second or third playthroughs but a lot of people don't have time for that)

i wonder if they'll keep the old spot-pass player cards, getting nukes once in a while with 999.999 damage between stacked stats, attributes and weaknesses was quite entertaining.

 

anyway, i think that's probably one of the most traditional gimmicks of old school JRPGS, where you have to find out the enemy weaknesses by trial and error, to the point it feels more like playing with a puzzle game rather than a RPG.

if i'm not mistaken, a very old example of that would be Shinryu from Final Fantasy 5(SNES/GBA), a secret boss battle where you had to use only specific abilities/spells in order to kill it.

as you said, that's actually limiting player options as to how to approach and deal with some enemies, wich can be quite frustrating at times and doesn't really add much in terms of strategy once you've figured out what to do and when to do it.

i agree that every class should always be viable, but with this kind of titles once you get to late/post-game content usually it ends up that way.

it might be mostly because the game's difficulty scaling through the story tends to stay on "normal/acceptable" levels in order for everyone to complete the game, then if you want some challenges there's always additional/secret bosses.

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 12/24/2020 at 7:42 PM, vanguard333 said:

And it's not a small amount of HP either; shield bash costs 10% of the user's maximum HP, and that's the smallest HP cost, with some abilities costing as costing as 35% of max HP.

SMT has used HP-consuming physical skills before, and still does in some cases. In Devil Survivor 2, it capped at 25% (with the exception of the "consume all but 1 HP and deal it as damage to the enemy" Final Hit), and it capped at 25% for Persona 5 as well looking at its skill data. SMTIII Nocturne did go as high as 40% for some extreme skills, but Nocturne is a much older game than either of those two, the first with HP-cost skills I think. The lowest in DS2 is 3% of maximum HP.

Sounds like BDII's numbers could use some tweaking, especially if there are yet unseen skills that go past 35%.

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

SMT has used HP-consuming physical skills before, and still does in some cases. In Devil Survivor 2, it capped at 25% (with the exception of the "consume all but 1 HP and deal it as damage to the enemy" Final Hit), and it capped at 25% for Persona 5 as well looking at its skill data. SMTIII Nocturne did go as high as 40% for some extreme skills, but Nocturne is a much older game than either of those two, the first with HP-cost skills I think. The lowest in DS2 is 3% of maximum HP.

Sounds like BDII's numbers could use some tweaking, especially if there are yet unseen skills that go past 35%.

I haven't played any of those games that you mentioned.

Honestly, I just think the HP cost should be dropped for the vanguard at least. I don't really see HP-cost making sense for an RPG character class outside of something like a berserker or a blood mage; classes that basically may as well have as their description, "These guys are willing to sacrifice their own physical health and well-being for more power". I said I can kind-of see it for the monk job, but even there, I only really understand it in terms of gameplay and not what I would think of when I think "monk", even in terms of an RPG class.

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I haven't played any of those games that you mentioned.

If you as an FE fan still have a 3DS, the Devil Survivor games as being somewhere between a typical turn-based RPG and an SRPG are worth considering. Digitally they aren't too expensive for North American gamers. Games can be a little dark if you're opposed to that, but Devil Survivor 2 blends in a good bit of lighthearted anime junk too.

For Shin Megami Tensei games, sacrificing some HP to deal damage isn't a huge deal, it does mean you want healers on hand, but why wouldn't you want that already? And the benefit is that brute force classes, which usually have low maximum MP values, aren't crippled by that stat, HP costs still provide some restrain on use over making them totally cost-free. HP costs won't inherently result in the user dying to one ordinary hit after a single use of a skill, partly because physical-oriented demons tend to have HP to spare compared to more fragile magic-oriented ones. The HP cost didn't stop me from wrecking Nocturne enemies with Deadly Fury or DS2's with Deathbound and Multi-Strike.

The above said, no defensive skills cost HP in SMT, so Vanguard here in BDII sounds like an oddity. Especially if it had a "redirect damage allies were meant to take to this unit" skill, wherein every point of HP would already be invaluable for all the pain the class would be taking on.

-And to make it clear, I'm not saying HP-based skills for physical units is the one true way to go. I acknowledge and enjoy other forms of cost. My statements are but to say they can work fairly well, not necessary a marvelous idea, but a functional idea.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[vanguard333]

4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If you as an FE fan still have a 3DS, the Devil Survivor games as being somewhere between a typical turn-based RPG and an SRPG are worth considering. Digitally they aren't too expensive for North American gamers. Games can be a little dark if you're opposed to that, but Devil Survivor 2 blends in a good bit of lighthearted anime junk too.

I see. I might consider it if I weren't already trying to finish a bunch of other games, including Ys VIII, Super Mario Galaxy (3D All-Stars), Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Fire Emblem: Three Houses (still only on my second playthrough), and World of Light in Smash Bros. Ultimate. 

…I've been very busy with university...

 

4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The above said, no defensive skills cost HP in SMT, so Vanguard here in BDII sounds like an oddity. Especially if it had a "redirect damage allies were meant to take to this unit" skill, wherein every point of HP would already be invaluable for all the pain the class would be taking on.

Vanguard does indeed have a "take an ally's damage for them" ability if I recall correctly. 

 

4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

-And to make it clear, I'm not saying HP-based skills for physical units is the one true way to go. I acknowledge and enjoy other forms of cost. My statements are but to say they can work fairly well, not necessary a marvelous idea, but a functional idea.

Oh; I completely understand. I do believe HP cost is a functional idea. I was just saying that I think it, like almost any form of cost, is one that's best with a fitting context. 

[Zanarkin]

I played the demo up to the bard fight yesterday. Played it on hard and I have to say I found the HP costs really good. The costs made sure i couldn't over use nukes without putting myself in danger or exhausting the healer. I was also really glad to find out they nerfed the stacking ability of debuffs and buffs which to me was one of the gripes i had with the last demo.

I was also glad to see the addition of resource regen abilities. Having my Black mage or White mage regen mana after every turn was really good at letting them stay in the fight. I thought making it time of day dependent added a fun way of choosing when I tackle a dungeon.

Overall i think they did a really good job in balancing the game and skills. Obviously i haven't played all of it, but i did like seeing a lot of the changes they made to the classes and I think it is quite the improvement over the last demo.