Cumulatively, yes.
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Lost progress woes (in Persona 5)
- Thread starter QuantumSquid
- Start date
Cumulatively, yes.
You may need to accept that this series is not for you if you feel that this game doesn't respect your time.
This is by far the most accommodating game in the series, probably a little too easy given it's pedigree. You should think of SMT as something closer to a Souls game rather a modern FF or DQ.
For example, I don't play Souls games because they frustrate me. I'm not asking the games to change, because the difficulty curve is what the fanbase craves.
This is by far the most accommodating game in the series, probably a little too easy given it's pedigree. You should think of SMT as something closer to a Souls game rather a modern FF or DQ.
For example, I don't play Souls games because they frustrate me. I'm not asking the games to change, because the difficulty curve is what the fanbase craves.
I did this a lot. Made some progress and slowly made my way back to the safe room to save before proceeding further.
In P5 it's extremely easy to get where you died in a matter of minutes since you can avoid all of the battles and skip the cutscenes, you might lose a few levels but in P5 on normal it's almost impossible not to be over leveled even without grinding. Unlike in other SMT games where you could actually lose hours gameplay and it would still take you about the same time to reach that point, i think it's a bit silly to bitch about P5 given how much it holds your hand. You could always just carry Goho-M's with you and when your palms are starting to sweat from not saving, pop a Goho and save, then fast travel back to where you were and you will see that it probably only took like 5 minutes to get back where you were from the earlier safe room.
Devilgunman
Member
This too. Or if you're too lazy to backtrack, just Goho-M to the entrance and save there.
AwakenedCloud
Member
The stealth mechanic in P5 practically guarantees a pre-emptive strike on the player's side it's borderline game breaking. For every one time things go wrong the other 99 times you have a free set of turns. Once you know the weaknesses of your foes, you can almost guarantee a damage free win, at least on normal. If anything is broken with P5, it's this.
Nah, it's not silly to bitch about something that is still an active frustration and worthless. So what if they made it less shitty, if it's still shitty? The challenge in JRPGs shouldn't be from the loss of progress but the tactics employed in the self contained battles.
Difficulty in most JRPGs shouldn't be in the potential loss of progress sure, but P5 is a dungeon crawler and thus part of its challenge isn't in traversing these dungeons, which is why receiving a penalty for making mistakes while going from point A to point B makes sense.
If you don't want to lose progress you play better and more carefully, that's it.
Oh I know, SMT IV was good and Apocalypse was great, but that feature is the one thing I despise about them because the game isn't balanced around them, so there's 0 tension in dungeons for me and the only times I felt I had to prepare for a battle was with bosses.
I really want to think they only did it because those were handheld only games, but I'd hate P6 and SMT V (and Deep Strange Journey?) to be like that. Persona 5 feels like a very fair middle ground which I didn't expect at all but appreciated a lot, though I guess they could add retries to Easy and Safety
If you don't want to lose progress you play better and more carefully, that's it.
Oh I know, SMT IV was good and Apocalypse was great, but that feature is the one thing I despise about them because the game isn't balanced around them, so there's 0 tension in dungeons for me and the only times I felt I had to prepare for a battle was with bosses.
I really want to think they only did it because those were handheld only games, but I'd hate P6 and SMT V (and Deep Strange Journey?) to be like that. Persona 5 feels like a very fair middle ground which I didn't expect at all but appreciated a lot, though I guess they could add retries to Easy and Safety
VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
I don't think I died once in Persona 5.
You learn to pre-emptively equip Personas based on what's in the area. And always ambush.
Use cover for risk free ambushes.
You learn to pre-emptively equip Personas based on what's in the area. And always ambush.
Use cover for risk free ambushes.
Having the ability of save the game everywhere would open up the game for save scumming, or kill any tension the game has left. I get that people are frustrated but pretty much all of the deaths in P5 can be avoided so i don't see that the death penalty should less harsh when it's the fault of the player and not the game.
hans_castorp
Member
I mean, if you get a game over, you like lose your progress. Isn't that how games are supposed to be?
P5 is already easy enough and they throw at you lots of save points during the dungeons.
P5 is already easy enough and they throw at you lots of save points during the dungeons.
To be clear, I meant the part of the stealth mechanic where the hiding points have a weirdly fixed camera angle and it's incredibly unclear whether your next movement is going to put you at different angle that lets you see the enemy, or just casually dump you right out on the open to be attacked. To be fair, that happens less after the first palace or so, but it's still baffling that they didn't let you rotate the camera more or telegraph turning corners on a piece of cover better (or let you crouch for the entirety of cover instead of just corners, besides).
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Member
45 minutes? lol man... I can lose 3 hours of progress and do it all over again cause the game is too good. Hahahah, you're really going to hate
OP
palace 7
UnlimitedRulebook
Member
It is frustrating when something like that happens but I don't understand the surprise. Backtracking to save after a certain period of time, not entering battle with HP low enough so enemies could 1 or 2 shot you, and always going for the pre-emptive strike should remedy any issues.
QuantumSquid
Member
Holy shit I just beat the palace that contains the area I mentioned in spoiler tags...
This game is awesome
This game is awesome
I don't​ understand this point. All the enemies respawn. What real "progress" are you saving when you have to fight them all again, taking you the same time and resources to get back where you were? Yeah, you've the EXP you earned, but by the same token, you'd be going back to the previous safe room time after time because you'd always hit a point where it's a risk to continue.
Feeling the OP, though, since yesterday. Got to the last area, and my MC died twice in different spots, making me lose a collective hour of my already-short weekend. I went and played FFXIV for three hours as a way to cool off because I was so mad. There wasn't a safe room for about 45 minutes into the dungeon, so there was no way to save up to that point.
Great game (besides a bunch of story issues), but especially being late-game, that sours my overall impression of it. And I don't care how shit Nocturne was; that doesn't improve my outlook.
Wasn't there a block full of mudo users? I remember vividly wiping so many times on one of the blocks because of that?
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Member
In P5 I dont actually mind game overs from death of the main character because it allows you to strategize around it. I know there are lucky crits that happen and status aliments but hey isn't that every rpg ever? If you don't want to die then plan your strategy better.
Laplasakos
Member
Last night, i lost 2 hours of progress in a palace. The fact that the game does not have any auto-save system even for the basics (level, money) at this day and age is really hilarious. Who had the bright idea to get a game over screen when MC dies? Like... why? Is that the case with the other Persona games too? First time playing a Persona game here so i am curious.
PensivePen
Member
Because the MC's ability to change personas is incredibly overpowered. You have the ability to make him practically invulnerable to any attack type on command. Making his death a failure state is both a balance check and a signpost to the player, that if they're putting the MC in a position where he can die they need to make better use of the persona system and pay attention to what types of attacks enemies use.
Wasn't part of the reason they tweaked almost all the flaws with SMTIV for Apocalypse because of western criticism? (World map, affinities, smirk changes, etc)
Also yeah, the stealth is totally rigged in favor of the player. I honestly thought that an enemy could see me if I was on the same side of an obstacle as them, but nope, you are invisible. However the camera around certain obstacles could get frustrating sometimes.
Yes, it is. This is part of Atlus difficulty. You have to expect to be caught off guard by stuff. Usually going prepared for what you are up against is most important, but saving often also is. In P5, my next goal would always be the next safe room. If something important happened (like a miniboss or something), I would go back and save immediately after.
Megaten (which Persona falls under the broad hat of) has being prepared for what you are up against as a central mechanic. Your Personas will always be most important. If a Persona is useless, fuse it. Even if you planned to use it for a special fusion, it might be worth it to just re-buy from the compendium when you need it.
Example: The third dungeon, you see lots of enemies using Hama, so you want resist, null, repel, or drain bless to not fall to instant kill.
CannonFodder52
Member
Is it bad game design in SH2 or RE4?
They use the save stations to add tension, so you have to question whether you even want to try progressing. It adds a lot of meaning to encounters and makes the dungeon feel threatening.
Dragon1893
Member
Yup.
There's a perfectly reasonable amount of safe rooms in each dungeons and going back to the last one never requires much effort.
Some people are just too lazy to do it and then cry about the game not respecting their time.
If you want zero risk when exploring dungeons then this franchise isn't for you.
WrenchNinja
Member
I don't understand how anyone can lose more than twenty minutes of progress with how many safe rooms there are available. It boggles my mind at how careless some of you are.
Honestly, I feel like they should have a separate option for this kind of stuff. Telling people to play on safe is a bit reductive, as it literally takes away all challenge from the game, not just punishments of death or whatever. Which means that person will never improve at the game and feel confident enough to go to the higher difficulties where the punishment for failure is harsher.
Make an hardcore mode, where you've got the game as it currently is. For those of us who have been playing the series for decades.
Have a casual option for other people such as new comers to the series. Where you can just retry after a death, or save anywhere, or something.
That way neither side has to compromise how they play their game.
Make an hardcore mode, where you've got the game as it currently is. For those of us who have been playing the series for decades.
Have a casual option for other people such as new comers to the series. Where you can just retry after a death, or save anywhere, or something.
That way neither side has to compromise how they play their game.
This, people will scream with their armchair game design and they will call you elitist for defending the mechanic. The last thing I want is dev dumbed down the future title just to get wider audience. Because at this point, P5 is already one of the easiest Megaten title.
It's every Persona game in the last 11 years.
This day and age is full of games where there's actually a penalty for getting yourself killed. Like the Souls series.
No SMT game or side series will be deeply changed because a piddling amount of people on NeoGAF have trouble using even save rooms properly.
While I don't want to sound dismissive, quite a few of the responses in this thread read like people being upset that this dungeon crawler is in fact a dungeon crawler and not final fantasy.
Giving the player the option to save anywhere or to restart battles will always take away most of the game's challenge as it directly negates two of the most important elements, resource conservation and risk management.
Giving the player the option to save anywhere or to restart battles will always take away most of the game's challenge as it directly negates two of the most important elements, resource conservation and risk management.
They're actually great design decisions that reflect the special nature of the protagonist compared to his allies, add tension to every regular battle, force players to think about their personas/items/battle strategies more carefully, but happen infrequently enough that they would only meaningfully impede the progress of the most careless players.
Thank god they don't listen to lowest common denominator whiners and make Persona like most every other JRPG.
It's not just Neogaf though, I saw bunch of post in other gaming communities complaining about Hama/Mudo and MC dead=game over, but mostly from those who are new to Megaten series. And popular game series like Skyrim already dumbed down, the amount of hand-holding is crazy compared to Morrowind.
It's 45 minutes, that's nothing in a 100 hour game. Especially when you consider that the 45 minute of progress will take at most 15-20 mins to catch up on when you don't the 2nd time around since you'll be better in the battles and also at avoiding enemies plus you don't have to watch or read the story sequences or spend time exploring. I can guarantee that it will take no time at all to get back to where you died.
If you still find it annoying then save your game even more frequently and be more careful with the encounters.
If you still find it annoying then save your game even more frequently and be more careful with the encounters.
Well not really, resource conservation is not affected because you'd keep it even if you retried, or reloaded - that state would be saved and in theory you could still be screwed if you didn't save enough resources for the fight. Risk management is a skill that can only be learned by knowing what the risks are. Which frankly is impossible by telling people to just play on safe mode.
One can argue safe takes literally everything away from the game, so why aren't you asking for that to be removed too?
Plus, it's an option, why are people so against options? If it allows more people to enjoy a game, then that's great. I won't use it, I've been enjoying SMT games perfectly fine for over a decade, but if more people play the game then more can be made and I can then also enjoy them more.
Do people really feel the amount of safe rooms in Palace 3 or 4 are reasonable? Even in 2 you have to go through long ass areas before arriving at one, not counting the time you lose trying to solve trial-and-error room puzzles. If you are 45min into there, have fun backtracking another 20min through two areas where all enemies respawned. Then backtrack again for another 20min to where you were. I wouldn't call that "plentiful saving opportunities".
Not to mention stuff like enemies randomly spawning after you activate buttons or respawning next to you because they were temporarily despawned as you took out another shadow in the area.
How do you prepare for crits and 1 more attacks on your MC from enemies that spawn right behind you? I think it's a bit insincere to pretend this game can not end in an unlucky game over to anyone who's "prepared".
Because this game CAN fuck you over, even when you are prepared.
Unless by "prepared" you mean reading a guide that will tell you when surprise enemies spawn and what type they are.
People even complained about lack of auto-saves in the Tokyo Mirage Sessions thread which let you manually save anywhere. And why not have it be an option anyway?
I get that people enjoy the Dark Souls variety of teaching you with harsh punishments - but how do I learn to avoid being brainwashed at a point in the game where I have no access to anti-brainwash accessories? It boils down to luck at that point.
It's not fun to be taught to rely on luck.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be risk/reward, but if the risk is based on a dice roll instead of a calculated "can I take 3 more shadows with as low SP as I have?" risk, where you can clearly blame yourself, that's BS.
And I say that as a Fire Emblem player that had game overs due to the MC dying from 2% crit rates on trash enemies.
Not to mention stuff like enemies randomly spawning after you activate buttons or respawning next to you because they were temporarily despawned as you took out another shadow in the area.
How do you prepare for crits and 1 more attacks on your MC from enemies that spawn right behind you? I think it's a bit insincere to pretend this game can not end in an unlucky game over to anyone who's "prepared".
Because this game CAN fuck you over, even when you are prepared.
Unless by "prepared" you mean reading a guide that will tell you when surprise enemies spawn and what type they are.
People even complained about lack of auto-saves in the Tokyo Mirage Sessions thread which let you manually save anywhere. And why not have it be an option anyway?
I get that people enjoy the Dark Souls variety of teaching you with harsh punishments - but how do I learn to avoid being brainwashed at a point in the game where I have no access to anti-brainwash accessories? It boils down to luck at that point.
It's not fun to be taught to rely on luck.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be risk/reward, but if the risk is based on a dice roll instead of a calculated "can I take 3 more shadows with as low SP as I have?" risk, where you can clearly blame yourself, that's BS.
And I say that as a Fire Emblem player that had game overs due to the MC dying from 2% crit rates on trash enemies.
FantasticMrSnake
Member
didn't you use the online slot? D:
oh god.., what did you do? at that point i would look up to start a new game+ from someonelses save
Losing 45 mins doesn't mean it'll take you just as long the 2nd time around. You don't spend time reading or exploring, or figuring out the mechanics or weakness the 2nd time around. You can literally just run as you are familiar with everything.
I thought I lost 1+ hour of "progress" in Dungeon 7 and when I played the 2nd time around I realised it wasn't really a progress at all as I could get to the same place in 10-15 mins tops and this time I even made sure to save properly by backtracking a bit which took me a minute at most.
Aren't PS4 save files tied to your PSN account?
mhayes86
Member
I back my shit up to an external drive after every session. I recommended a friend to do the same, or to the cloud with PS+, but he never did. One day his console's HDD got corrupted.
I wanted to backup my Xenoblade Chronicles X save data, but I think the Wii U combines the save data with the patches, so that's like 2GB. Also, Switch better allow for cloud saves or something in the future. I put 125 hours into BotW.