FF13 and its crystarium thing?

joe123

FortuneChip wrote: »

I've got about six hours under my belt now. Curious about one little thing, maybe someone with more hours can let me know. The Crystal levelling system, at present I find it a little redundant, as I seem to easily pick up CP and quickly learn all available abilities for each role, so there's no real strategy involved. When you start to unlock all roles for each character, do you need to put more thought into levelling decisions?

Read this in the FF13 first impressions thread but in fear of reading any spoilers I said id start its own thread as ive been wondering the same thing.

Am I doing it wrong or is it just level up everything for everyone in the all the different classes? At first I was like "right im going to make hope a medic" but I realised I quickly maxed out all the available medic slots so had no option but to just go into all the classes such as ravager and sab so basically all my characters are learning the same skills.

Also it says Level 1 for them all. Is the game locking stuff so I cant grind or what?

Id much rather have my characters learn different things....

johnny_ultimate

I had the same concerns but the CP amounts take a fairly sudden leap around the six or seven hour mark (with Razh and Vanille anyway) so there is a little more strategy involved. Given the way the game has played out so far, it is pretty much a necessity to have all you characters more balanced than just one skill. Having one character as a medic all the time is pointless - at least increase their Ravenger skills as well so that they'll chip away at the enemy when they don't need to heal (which is a lot of the time), and only switch to the appropriate healing paradigm when needed.

As for constant Lv.1, you do get to upgrade higher once you have levelled up a certain amount in each role (so far I only have Lightning as Lv. 2 Commando). I'm not sure what triggers the ability to upgrade that far though - might be a specific story or gameplay moment you have to pass, as the game opens up more upgrading options at every new chapter or story break.

Raze_them_all

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I had the same concerns but the CP amounts take a fairly sudden leap around the six or seven hour mark (with Razh and Vanille anyway) so there is a little more strategy involved. Given the way the game has played out so far, it is pretty much a necessity to have all you characters more balanced than just one skill. Having one character as a medic all the time is pointless - at least increase their Ravenger skills as well so that they'll chip away at the enemy when they don't need to heal (which is a lot of the time), and only switch to the appropriate healing paradigm when needed.

As for constant Lv.1, you do get to upgrade higher once you have levelled up a certain amount in each role (so far I only have Lightning as Lv. 2 Commando). I'm not sure what triggers the ability to upgrade that far though - might be a specific story or gameplay moment you have to pass, as the game opens up more upgrading options at every new chapter or story break.

You'll end up levelling up them all. You end up filling them all up well before yer next level up. Am on level 9 at the min, almost have all them done.

Lemegeton

its a joke. by far the worst character development/levelling up mechanic i have seen in an rpg

joe123

Anyone further into the game (ive just started disc 3) does the crystarium thing open up any further or is it just max out everything in every class the whole time and wait for the next level to be unlocked?

There is no planning to it at all, you just teach everyone every available skill?

Lemegeton

joe123 wrote: »

Anyone further into the game (ive just started disc 3) does the crystarium thing open up any further or is it just max out everything in every class the whole time and wait for the next level to be unlocked?

There is no planning to it at all, you just teach everyone every available skill?

nope its the same linear ****e the whole way. you just get new roles available for each character further in but thats all. through all the previews people were saying that it was an extension of the sphere grid from X. thats a load of bollocks. asthetically they are similar but mechanically they are worlds apart. Square seriously ****ed up on this one.

Ajfunky

Well technically its very similar to the ffx sphere grid, except you arent given the choice to deviate until disc 3. Having known this i might have saved up more cp!

I wouldnt say its linear though, i mean if you really wanted to, you could make lightning a great senitintel/synergist, or sazh a saboteur medic, it would just take longer as its not the type of character that square set them out to be. Granted, it tries to restrict the characters at the beginning, but i think this helps in shaping each character as opposed to you ending up with 6 mages etc.

Memnoch

I found the CP costs high enough once I got to Gran Pulse that I did not want to waste CP on roles other than the 3 original ones that were open to each character. So I'm happy enough there. Still I don't really see a need to use anyone other than my favorite party of 3, which kinda sucks a little, but doesn't bother me too much as I always used Cloud, Barret and Cid in 7.

Gummy Panda

What is your favourite party of three?

Raze_them_all

Memnoch wrote: »

I found the CP costs high enough once I got to Gran Pulse that I did not want to waste CP on roles other than the 3 original ones that were open to each character. So I'm happy enough there. Still I don't really see a need to use anyone other than my favorite party of 3, which kinda sucks a little, but doesn't bother me too much as I always used Cloud, Barret and Cid in 7.

You'll have to do it if you want to finish off the stones/get the heavyweight achievement!