Problems, Problems, Problems

[Northcrest]

I just started FFX about 3 days ago and I have gotten very into it. I'm starting to get really good a blitz ball. During the normal quest my characters are really weak and kind of messed up. I got the best weapons money can buy at the part at about where you just get Rikku. So far though my highest character has 1850 hp and my weakest has 320 which is Rikku. I'm just wondering about when I can start doing sidequest and what my stats should be with each of my characters. I also want to know how I can maintain a good average stats for every parts of the game. Any advice would sure help at this moment.

[Shin Gouken]

Rikkus HP climbs very quickly when you start to level her. I personally would not try to level all the characters. You'll waste time because tbh (and i think this includes most people) you'll find yourself using just 3-4 of them later in the game anyway.

I would level Yuna if i was you. First play through you will probabley need your aeons and their stats grow with yunas. Also Auron too as he is a fantastic physical attacker, and if you cast haste on him or take him down Tidus's part of the sphere grid, the strength and speed combined will be devestating (Quick hit rocks )

EDIT: If your not going to level rikku, have someone learn the steal and use commands

[Ender]

I'm still on my first playthrough of the game, but many of the more significant sidequests have to wait until near the end of the main story. The lack of the ability for exploration/discovery in that regard is one of the very few poor aspects of otherwise phenomenal gameplay IMO.

Some things to keep an eye out for are each character's ultimate weapon, and the items that unlock them, crests, which you can find during the course of play, and sigils, which require mini-games of sorts, some of which you can do during the course of the game. If you're interested, I'm sure somebody who knows better can feed you what you need to do for each.

Also, you can just fight lots of battles and progress along the sphere grid until they get easy. And then move on. That's the surefire way to assure that you're 'leveled up' appropriately in any RPG.

One of the cooler things about the game that I've found is that if you're *really* digging the game, you can find challenges that will require you to spend dozens of hours of 'leveling'--there are some optional battles against super monsters that seem to me to be verging on the impossible (though I suppose they're not).

[Tavrobel]

I just started FFX about 3 days ago and I have gotten very into it. I'm starting to get really good a blitz ball. During the normal quest my characters are really weak and kind of messed up. I got the best weapons money can buy at the part at about where you just get Rikku. So far though my highest character has 1850 hp and my weakest has 320 which is Rikku. I'm just wondering about when I can start doing sidequest and what my stats should be with each of my characters. I also want to know how I can maintain a good average stats for every parts of the game. Any advice would sure help at this moment.

Your stats are already too high. Your characters should only have JUST broken 1000 by the time you get to the Thunder Plains. You can boost Rikku's HP by setting down some HP Spheres, but she gets a rather reasonable boost (~700) within 5 levels. If you are having problems with enemies with these stats, you may need to reconsider playing video games, period.

Side-quests can't really be done in entirety (you can do snippets of a part of a quest, only to find that you have to do it again all over) until you get to the Airship. You're about halfway there. FFX is far too linear to be able to do anything freely until the Airship. Just keep going on with the plot. That's all you can do at this point.

Since your stats are so high, I would agree that you could basically scrap a bunch of the characters. You'll only need three for the rest of the game if you keep going on as you are. Normally I would tell you to restart the game, you're screwed; but, since this is your first playthrough, I'll cut you some slack.

[Hambone]

Joseph, Rikku's base h.p is 360, not 320. Just train her a little bit and her h.p. will skyrocket. Don't worry. Just set goals on the sphere grid for 3 CHARACTERS. THREE. (For example: have Yuna learn Holy before fighting Yunalesca, have Auron learn Armor Break before Evrae, etc.) I recommend using Auron, Tidus, Yuna, and sometimes Lulu (until she learns flare) for the rest of the game. Don't focus on side quests yet either, just get into the game.

Tav, how is he screwed? If anything, overleveling is good.

[Ender]

@Tavrobel:

Not everyone has an intuitive grasp of the mechanics of RPGs...why should somebody be deprived of enjoyment of a game when a little more HP and/or firepower can get them by?

I personally find this game a lot more tactical battle-wise than many of its predecessors--one of the reasons I like it so much. Until you build up your melee characters of choice, just hacking at every monster you find with the standard "Attack" function that worked just fine in FFVII, VIII, and IX, makes the game a lot more difficult than usual.

@Omega Cloud:

Contrary to what others have written, If you are having difficulty I would suggest developing all of your characters until they reach the end of their "section" of the grid. At that point, much later, you can focus on three or four characters by moving them to other sections of the grid to pick up abilities that other characters have. The reason being that each character (with the possible exceptions of Kimarhi and Rikku depending on how you develop them) have abilities that can be utilized to make the fights significantly easier, and you can't move some characters to the requisite portions of the grid until you pick up certain rarer spheres later, at least not without wasting huge numbers of levels.

Some suggestions:

-Wakka's Dark/Sleep/Silence Attacks and Busters are invaluable. If an enemy casts magic at you, hit it with a Silence Attack to shut it up for 3 rounds, or a Silence Buster for a single round if the first won't take. Enemies with strong physical attacks can be hit with Dark or Sleep.

-Use Auron's Power and Magic Breaks, as well as his Armor and Mental Breaks you can pick up later. Power Break will reduce the amount of physical damage an enemy can do, and Magic Break the amount of magic damage. The Armor and Mental breaks allow your own physical and magical attacks, respectively, to be more effective.

-Use Wakka against flying enemies (typically have wings).
-Use Tidus against fast enemies (many look like lizards or wolves)
-Use Auron against armored enemies--most of his swords have the 'Piercing' ability which lets you do normal damage against them.
-Use Lulu against Flans and Elementals. Use spells of the opposing magical property: Fire opposes Ice and Thunder/Lightning opposes water.

-Make use of the Sensor ability. You only need one character in battle with it--and they don't even need to fight--just switch them in using L1 to check out the info and reswitch them for the character of your choice. You can learn the monster's HP and elemental strengths and weaknesses that way. Under the Current HP/Max HP part are often little grids..."1.5" indicates that they take 1.5 times the damage from that elemental property. "/" indicates that they are immune to that elemental property. "1/2" indicates that they are resistant and take half damage from that elemental property. And "+" indicates that they absorb that elemental property (a red oval is for fire, yellow for thunder/lightning, blue for water, and white for ice). When an enemy has an elemental weakness bring Lulu into battle and have her cast the appropriate magic. You can also switch your weapons as appropriate...Press Right while in the combat menu and then select weapons with the appropriate elemental property attached.

-Keep in mind that Yuna's Aeon's also have spells. If you use her Aeon's often, sometimes magic spells are better than their attack options.

-As far as I can tell, your character's agility determines the attack order when a battle starts. It is an advantage to keep you characters with the highest agility (ie NOT Auron) as your first three characters. You can then switch out those characters for slower characters without sacrificing your early attacks.

-Any character who takes an action in battle receives AP. If you find that certain characters are weak or underdeveloped, you can put them in the front three so you don't miss the opportunity for them to take place in the battle by killing all the enemies before you can switch them in.

-Keep an eye on all the equipment you get--many items with the same name have varying properties that makes some versions better than others. Soon after getting Rikku you can customize them if they have open slots. However, you'll need to steal many of these items until much later--you can keep Rikku in your first three and have her steal as her first action and then switch her out on her next turn, since she will often get two moves before your enemies get theirs.

I appologize if I insulted your intelligence in any way. Since I don't know how much you are familiar with, I thought I'd recommend whatever came to mind. This is not the type of game you can muscle your way through, but if you think tactically it need not be difficult.

[Tavrobel]

Tav, how is he screwed? If anything, overleveling is good.

Overlevelling is always bad, except in the rare case where level does play a role. For example, in Diablo II, you HAVE to be level 20 before you can progress past the Ancients; or even in WoW, where the game STARTS at 60 and that the lower levels are just to give people a sense of accomplishment.

It robs the game of a challenge, as is what is usually intended of a game of the Single Player type. Now if this were an RTS game or FPS, the campaign or main plot is mostly just to get the person skilled enough to play against others. But an RPG by its very nature is plot oriented, and challenge conquering.

Not everyone has an intuitive grasp of the mechanics of RPGs...why should somebody be deprived of enjoyment of a game when a little more HP and/or firepower can get them by?

I personally find this game a lot more tactical battle-wise than many of its predecessors--one of the reasons I like it so much. Until you build up your melee characters of choice, just hacking at every monster you find with the standard "Attack" function that worked just fine in FFVII, VIII, and IX, makes the game a lot more difficult than usual.

A real problem, isn't it? Refer to above.

As Ender, you have mentioned before, the main flaw of FFX is its strictness; linearity, and lack of a freedom of movement. Case in point, the demand of the game is such that one that over levelling causes one to gravitate toward a character whose abilities conquer all. For some, this is all physical DPS, and for some, all Magic.

Assuming you read the first part, if FFX is intended to be a challenge, then the challenge of the game is to play with all of the characters. Overlevelling in this case is bad, as even you have yourself said that people should use three characters, as opposed to seven. People ditch less "useful" characters for the ones that they prefer more. You can still hack away at enemies using "Attack," something I have found people will do at higher levels.

[Ender]

@Tavrobel

I would think that the point of any game is to entertain the player.

IF a player is entertained by the challenge, so be it. I am one of those that used all of the characters, rushed through the main story (was upset that the ability to do sidequests during that time was minimal) and am now building up to face the uber enemies from the Ruins and battle arena since I have found them to be some of the most interesting battles in the FF series.

But I recognize that a game can be ruined for some people if they are having too difficult a go of it, because their entertainment comes more from appreciating the story, setting, puzzles, whatever. IF that's the case for the OP, I think it's silly to suggest that he just not play--as we have now both pointed out, the game can be made easy--enough so that whatever a player enjoys about playing the game besides the battles can be appreciated. As you have pointed out, the game can be made challenging as well. Heck, you could fight with the weakest weapons possible, not summon Aeons, and not move on the sphere grid if you wanted. One of the characteristics of the FF games is that the difficulty is generally what you make it, provided you have time to invest. I could be wrong, but I don't think the overall _purpose_ of the FF games is to be challenging. But that's just my opinion. I respect that that's how you view your game playing, but I don't think everybody views games that way.

[Renmiri]

Over leveling makes the game more fun for me. The thunder plains is good place to do it. Use Rikku to steal a lot of those light curtains and other stuff, they will be very handy later

[d£v!l'$ ph0£n!x]

if uve been playing blitzball like you say you should have attack reels. USE IT!!! it's usefulness canot be overestimated

[TheSpoonyBard]

Your stats are already too high. Your characters should only have JUST broken 1000 by the time you get to the Thunder Plains.

Auron had 1,030 HP just after Luca. Did I screw up? Should I restart?

[Hambone]

Tav, how is he screwed? If anything, overleveling is good.

Overlevelling is always bad, except in the rare case where level does play a role. For example, in Diablo II, you HAVE to be level 20 before you can progress past the Ancients; or even in WoW, where the game STARTS at 60 and that the lower levels are just to give people a sense of accomplishment.

It robs the game of a challenge, as is what is usually intended of a game of the Single Player type. Now if this were an RTS game or FPS, the campaign or main plot is mostly just to get the person skilled enough to play against others. But an RPG by its very nature is plot oriented, and challenge conquering.

Honestly, I'd rather be confident with my stats and get really into the story than always whine before a boss fight and get discouraged and not play anymore if I lose.

[Tavrobel]

Your stats are already too high. Your characters should only have JUST broken 1000 by the time you get to the Thunder Plains.

Auron had 1,030 HP just after Luca. Did I screw up? Should I restart?

He doesn't even start with 1000 HP. BTW yes, you did. And yes, you should. I expected better out of you.

EDIT: Okay, he does, but that's not the point. What I had originally planned was that when you responded I would insert a quote of the definition of "facetous," but then I was foiled by my own notes.

Honestly, I'd rather be confident with my stats and get really into the story than always whine before a boss fight and get discouraged and not play anymore if I lose.

How unfortunate that if your strategy is one that will get you killed that you will switch to a new one or think of a different strategy. Curses, curses upon the human brain! Let not your adaptivity grow to full bloom. Thinking is thoughtcrime. And punishable by death or re-education. Ohh, if only the human need to adapt and to survive would not take over, but alas! It would seem it has failed... some of us. Stare on, stare on, at the shadows in the cave. They will keep us comfortable in our knowledge that we are in fact, in control of our own world, when it is fire that controls our perception.

[Renmiri]

Your stats are already too high. Your characters should only have JUST broken 1000 by the time you get to the Thunder Plains.

Auron had 1,030 HP just after Luca. Did I screw up? Should I restart?

That depends. Are you the kind of gamer that hates killing a fiend with one blow and having easy boss fights ? If yes, restart.

If not, enjoy the POWER and pwn those fiends baby!

[Tavrobel]

Your stats are already too high. Your characters should only have JUST broken 1000 by the time you get to the Thunder Plains.

Auron had 1,030 HP just after Luca. Did I screw up? Should I restart?

That depends. Are you the kind of gamer that hates killing a fiend with one blow and having easy boss fights ? If yes, restart.

If not, enjoy the POWER and pwn those fiends baby!

No, fight off the influence of EVIL! Struggle like an honorable man, do not be tempted by power! The honor and glory is to those who are able to fight on, even when there is no hope!