I think that is more a problem that the game shouldn't spawn an enemy right behind you when you get no chance to hide or prevent being ambushed. I do think that's something that should be fixed but I think the unfairness there is it doesn't let you use the mechanic to prevent from getting ambushed that it so much encourages.
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Game Over when MC dies in Persona is a terrible mechanic. Why is this still a thing?
- Thread starter Jeffrey
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I think that is more a problem that the game shouldn't spawn an enemy right behind you when you get no chance to hide or prevent being ambushed. I do think that's something that should be fixed but I think the unfairness there is it doesn't let you use the mechanic to prevent from getting ambushed that it so much encourages.
Its kind of dumb in this game, there are situations that will just genuinely be pure luck and be out of control of the player, something as simple as getting a crit'd on the MC and have the enemy do a 1 more to finish off.
Its much better on games like FE where all the variables are known to the player, or Devil Survivor where this even applied to the opponents and there was a risk/reward thing going on eliminating the opponent's Human Summoner to get rid of the unit's party at once, but you get less EXP that way.
SMTIVA while still being somewhat easy thanks to being able to save anywhere, and having basically no game overs, it balanced it off by making the boss battles much more challenging, there some bosses in where one couldn't rely on the tried and true "debuff enemy attack, buff party defense) tactic because some of them would have some gimmicks to counter that.
Its much better on games like FE where all the variables are known to the player, or Devil Survivor where this even applied to the opponents and there was a risk/reward thing going on eliminating the opponent's Human Summoner to get rid of the unit's party at once, but you get less EXP that way.
SMTIVA while still being somewhat easy thanks to being able to save anywhere, and having basically no game overs, it balanced it off by making the boss battles much more challenging, there some bosses in where one couldn't rely on the tried and true "debuff enemy attack, buff party defense) tactic because some of them would have some gimmicks to counter that.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
I would agree if the game didn't end when only the MC is dead, which is the point of this thread. Morgana had a Recarm spell with my name all over it if the game had just let me.
While I think it is a difficult mechanic with insta-death it feels decently balanced in Persona 5 compared to P3 or P4 where I lost my MC way more often on Hard (I lost once in P5 to a insta kill). One of the problems it does have is it is more punishing at the start and less punishing at the end.
Might have been nice if they disable it on Easy for people who struggle/aren't interested in the challenges.
It fits the game's core combat structure of "Don't hastily engage enemies".
Might have been nice if they disable it on Easy for people who struggle/aren't interested in the challenges.
It fits the game's core combat structure of "Don't hastily engage enemies".
It's really not hard to avoid. Persona 5 is a very easy game. This is one of its few challenging aspects. Just have MC guard when you're up against an enemy that you aren't sure how they attack and figure out what it can do. In reality, you'll likely be overleveled anyways and be able to survive it.
The in game logic is that you literally are telling them what to do at any time (if you have direct command on, and let's be honest, why wouldn't you), so you're dead and cant tell them to. I know, it's stupid.
The real reason tho, i believe it's to make the experience more personal, you die and you DIE.
Elaugaufein
Member
Its usually tolerable but getting ambushed by groups of enemies with (Ma) hama /mudo (on) can lead to some pretty unstoppable deaths unless you perpetually only use Persona that null Light and Dark.
It usually happens to me like once a game and it never stops feeling unfair (In P4 the group and mass hit effect burnt through all my items and team member defenses). I see one of the DLC accessories in this nulls both.
It usually happens to me like once a game and it never stops feeling unfair (In P4 the group and mass hit effect burnt through all my items and team member defenses). I see one of the DLC accessories in this nulls both.
I haven't played P5 yet, but in P3/P4 it is absolutely possible to die and lose progress through no fault of your own. An example that happened to me:
In Yukiko's dungeon, open a door and encounter a sub-boss. (Avenger Knight?) No way to get a preemptive attack. Knight gets first attack:
Crits Yosuke, one-hit KO, "One more!"
Crits Chie, one-hit KO, "One more!"
Crits main character, one-hit KO, Game Over.
Of course, even changing it so that a full party wipe is needed for a Game Over wouldn't have prevented this.
In Yukiko's dungeon, open a door and encounter a sub-boss. (Avenger Knight?) No way to get a preemptive attack. Knight gets first attack:
Crits Yosuke, one-hit KO, "One more!"
Crits Chie, one-hit KO, "One more!"
Crits main character, one-hit KO, Game Over.
Of course, even changing it so that a full party wipe is needed for a Game Over wouldn't have prevented this.
Good news about P5, if it was a boss or sub-boss battle, the game allows you to re-start the battle so you don't lose your progress.
If it was a random mook favored by the RNG gods you're shit out of luck tho.
Empyrean Heaven
Member
Because the main character is supposed to be you. If you die, the game no longer continues, right? It's refreshingly personal and realistic.
mugurumakensei
Member
Eh, this game is second only to P4 Golden in being the easiest. It just has some mechanics that are becoming more and more archaic. Auto-saving on sleeping and auto-saves upon entering stretches that take a long time before a player encounters another safe room would go a long way to remedying the issue.
SoulUnison
Banned
This drives me even more crazy than it did in 3 and 4 considering how "Use a Revival Item" seems to override anything else in the party's AI when another non-Main Character party member is down.
ethomaz
Banned
You where clear not strong enough to fight this boss
I don't remember any boss fight where he killed me with one-hit and I played P4 on hard only.
I agree that the game is easy overall, which makes all the "get good" posts seem moronic.
I definitely think there's a big contingent of this thread who are defending the design decision because they think it makes the game harder...
In some cases it does... especially boss battles, where keeping the MC alive adds some strategic consideration to the fight. I don't think people mind this mechanism as much in the boss fights precisely because you get the auto-restart. Most of the complaints center around the random mobs who can kill the MC in a round.
In those cases, it really doesn't add challenge because you have no ability to input actions before the MC dies. It's pure trial and error gameplay where you get arbitrarily jumped by monsters due to bad controls or when you encounter a mob for the first time without having any resistance equipped and have no idea it can kill your MC in one round.
I have had no other issue with the game's difficulty so far, and I've only died one time outside of boss battles... I just happened to die in one round due to a random death spell the one time it happened because of a stealth respawn glitch.
Definitely frustrating. Definitely bad design.
Wait, why didn't you save before a boss? Did p4 have that strong presence warning thing, or am I misremembering?
Sumio Mondo
Member
Yeah, it's all RNG/agility/luck based sometimes. You'll be glad to hear that you can retry bosses and most mini-bosses from their battle rather than lose shitloads of progress, thank god.
Why or how is the Persona 5 character more of an avatar for the player than the one in Devil Survivor 1, Devil Survivor 2, or SMT4A?
This is a problem that the SMT series has already fixed, but the Persona team seems like it is out of the loop. Same thing goes for better compendium/search mechanics that newer releases have used.
No, my point is that whole spawning it behind you and not giving you a chance is the unfair part. Even if the mc doesn't die it could easily set you back a lot more rather than letting you do it the way the game encourages you. If the game is going to set itself up to be really punishing if you don't sneak right it shouldn't put you In an impossible to sneak situation. The game does set you up to allow you to protect your mc when it is operating within the parameters it expects you to go by (sneak properly).
If i recall correctly, they do this once per area with a casket, i think they even leave the casket busted for you to see it.
Also, some enemies kinda spawn at random in mementos and palaces while you're in an area, but im not sure what triggers this.
Nope, I wasn't leaving the area to a save point, and was getting respawns (around the puzzle with the ballista).
From what I've seen I think that random respawn is like a pathing reset or something. I've seen shadows teleport before with the same effect.
ethomaz
Banned
Yes... the game tells you before each boss room.
Funny thing, I assumed that using continues would lead to a bad ending or something, so I didn't use any until the final dungeon.
soundtrack
Member
That's a pretty bad analogy. In chess can you take out the king on your first move?
BouncyFrag
Member
It bugged me at first but the MC once you level up and figure out how different personas outright block certain attacks is quite powerful.
DarkConfidant
Member
But it's not chess. In so many ways.
Also, nobody questioned whether it was or wasn't up to the developer. We just were critical of it, which is okay.
It's okay to criticize work.
Woah! That's way too much nuance! You calm down!
The King also isn't an overwhelmingly versatile piece either, so hard comparisons are pointless. That said, lose the King and you lose the game, which was the crux of their point. The same applies to P5.
How much does luck affect the outcome of a chess game?
Yeah, this is pretty annoying. That coupled with the space between save rooms means one sudden blast from an enemy can cause you to lose a decent chunk of gametime. A fight could be going just fine with all of my party healthy, but then a boss will crit the shit out of my character and bam - game over.
I don't know how to play chess, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to roll a D20 before you move a piece.
soundtrack
Member
I understand that the rules are the same. My point was that chess actually gives you a game's length of chances to defend the king, whereas in P5 you can get one-shotted in a battle in the first turn -- this literally happened to me last night. I just think game mechanics like this should be a little more fair, but I guess it's difficult to do when there's a fair amount of RNG involved.
I've already same thing as you pages ago but it seems the people defending that shitty mechanic never played more than 2 rpgs in their life or at least inferior to 10. They don't even know that in Baldur's gate serie you don't have a game over when Mc dies or Dragon Age...
People are just blindly in love with P5 because for a lot it must be their first rpg ever since they don't know at all that other rpgs don't have that shitty mechanic and are still challenging.
StereoVsn
Member
I don't think it's just pathing teleports. I think there is a RE spawn bug somewhere in there.
I have had shadows spawn behind me after Stealth kill. I have seen shadows spawn after exiting safe room door right next to me. I have also seen respawns in rooms without going to a different area through a door load.
IMO, a single quicksave save should be allowed ala Dragon Quest games inside the dungeon. Or Atlus can fix the issues with Stealth spawns and cameras.
Jeronimo Jones
Member
I don't like it when it happens either, so I prioritize protecting the MC (if I have a chance).
Last time it happened, I was just running through shadows and then a new random enemy hit the whole party with some status effect where I couldn't fight back for a few turns and was already low on health. Felt a little unfair to get a game over, but most of the time the combat has been pretty easy.
Last time it happened, I was just running through shadows and then a new random enemy hit the whole party with some status effect where I couldn't fight back for a few turns and was already low on health. Felt a little unfair to get a game over, but most of the time the combat has been pretty easy.
To be fair, you're only getting one-shotted if you're getting ambushed which you can (almost always) prevent. Even the Mudo-using enemies in the first dungeon are weak to gun and easily taken down, and landing an ambush of your own gives you ample opportunity to prepare and against most enemies.
Nope, it's just not a big deal. I don't think it absolutely has to stay, autosaves could be an alternative, but I think it's fine that a game does something differently. A mechanic being frustrating doesn't make it terrible or even bad.
I've played BG and Dragon Age and dozens of other RPGs, btw, so your condescension is off the mark.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
Just wanted to clarify that status ailments in our game are not random. Enemies have hidden HP totals for each ailment type. When you bring that total to 0, the ailment succeeds (and for ailments that aren't permanent, the ailment HP is reset at a higher value). Got the idea from the Dark Souls series.
Necro900
Member
Doesn't p5 have the restart from the beginning of the floor option on normal difficulty like p4? If yes, how can you lose hours of progress?
Also, as someone who initially struggled with p4, I've come to understand that the majority of issues players encounter in persona games comes from being underleveled and from insisting on playing the game like all other jrpgs (as in, mindlessly attacking without caring about buffs/debuffs/weaknesses).
Keep your guard up and study your enemies, that's the beauty of the series. If you hate this, then maybe it's not for you.
Also, as someone who initially struggled with p4, I've come to understand that the majority of issues players encounter in persona games comes from being underleveled and from insisting on playing the game like all other jrpgs (as in, mindlessly attacking without caring about buffs/debuffs/weaknesses).
Keep your guard up and study your enemies, that's the beauty of the series. If you hate this, then maybe it's not for you.
TetraGenesis
Member
Except this is objectively untrue for both games and woefully misinformed.
It does not. P5 doesn't have "floors" in the traditional sense. If you're not backtracking to save rooms you could potentially lose hours of progress depending on the pace of your play.
You can restart boss battles if you lose during them. That's the biggest concession.
And if you don't ambush every single enemy they may get the first turn and insta-kill your MC or exploit a weakness to pile on "1 Mores" and focus on your MC until he is dead. A regular enemy. Before you've even had a turn.
It's far more manageable in Normal but in Hard this can happen quite a bit.
Wow I haven't bumped into that mechanic since the Shining Force games. It sucked then an I'm sure it'd suck now...
wtf? I looked up what mudo is and no just no. I've long cried out agains instant death moves so putting them in the very first area is just plain awful. Was kinda bummed when checking around on PSN for demos last week an not seeing one for this game but ya know what its fine. This ones definitely not for me!
WrenchNinja
Member
Mudo has a very low chance of actually hitting you. It's not as big a deal as you think it is.