Too much?

[geebs.livejournal.com]

So I've finally finished up WO completely- everyone at level 99 and max proficiency, with their PIs and 4ths with maxed out stats. That being said, how many people actually do play and max out everyone? I ask because over dinner with my roommate the other day, we were talking about games, and how I kinda soured him on the Warriors series because I would play it all the time. He was all, you should stick with a few characters and be done.

I know a lot of people have a select few they play, but I legitimately liked playing as most of the characters. I mean the DW games, I could count the people I didn't like playing as on one hand. Lu Meng and Zhang Jiao just suck, and I'm not too keen on Dong Zhou, Huang Gai, Pang Tong, and Huang Zhong either. (I guess that's 6, but its still closer to one hand than two) And even then, honestly, Pang Tong's WO incarnation isn't bad (I like his jump charge where he surfs his staff in the air), and there was a time when Huang Zhong wasn't too bad, I think they nerfed his arrows as the series went on.

SW2, Shingen and Hideyoshi were the only two I least liked playing as. I mean, they were hilarious in the games, I just didn't like being them. Though in WO I think they made it so Hideyoshi actually did damage (I've one shot-ed Lu Bu with him!), and had a great r1 special, but they ruin it by giving him that awful voice. And Shingen's not actually a bad character, his moveset just isn't my cup of tea. So truthfully, I liked all the SW2 characters. And as far as the SW series as a whole, Yoshimoto's the only one I hate playing as, but I've only played the WO-version of him, I hear he's actually good in SW2:XL. And speaking of, I'm dying to play Toshiie and Kojiro, but the other characters seem interesting enough to play as well.

But 42 out of 48 in DW, and 24 out of 26 in SW2 (or 29 out of 32 in SW2:XL), at that point, why not play everyone? Especially since the game requires you to play everyone at least a couple of times to unlock certain things.

Comments

[turdburgler.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the game, honestly.

WO came together in my mind, adding elements from many of the previous games, as well as some new ones, making me WANT to get everything for once. WO is the only game of all of them so far that I've gotten anywhere NEAR close to maxing all of the characters out, and I think I will actually probably manage to do so for once this time.

It probably simply comes down to time/effort commitment for WO, because it's just not that high compared to the other/previous games.

For WO:

1) You don't have to be stuck playing a stage solely as a character you hate. It helps to switch them out sometimes with others on your 3-person-team that you do like.

2) You have to play each character through 3 stages at least, even the characters you hate, to unlock all the skills.

3) And after doing just that (unlocking all their skills), they should be somewhere around 4-5 proficiency. To get them to max proficiency requires only one more stage (assuming Acclaim is decently high and equipped), so... may as well just get it over and done with, right? Right.

4) Once you have the max proficiency thing nailed for characters you hate, you can just level them up the rest of the way without actually having to play them anymore by using GP/XP. And since you end up overflowing with XP/GP once most of the skills are obtained, you're forced to use it or lose it anyway. Kinda makes the decision for you, really.

5) You can acquire characters' (whom you hate) fourth weapons without actually having to play them in the stage. (equip two chars you don't like playing as, as tag-alongs, while you play your favorite character through your stage of choice on HARD mode)

6) The gallery is very enticing -- it makes me want to get PIs (and other reqmnts) for all the characters, even the ones I hate, just to unlock the gallery pictures because they can be set as a backgrounds. Even if I'm not going to use them as backgrounds, ever. It may also help that the 360 has a 1-up on the PS2 where the gallery is concerned, and I want to see what the interesting extra stuff I get with the 360 version is. :D

7) No more random item-farming in HARD mode wasting endless amounts of time and XP for not much gain. This makes me enjoy the game much more because I've always hated playing in HARD mode, and I hate doing so for something you probably will not get 19/20 times of playing through the stage. (every game but SW2 made HARD mode ridiculously insanely difficult, and I don't like losing, especially when it's Not My Fault (tm) or My Commander's An Idiot (tm)).


I can probably think of more, but I'll stop here. :P

[geebs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not having to do all that random item farming was a boon. As I've said before, despite the insane amount of time spent playing DW4/5, I still didn't get all the items to +20. I think the important ones were- the tiger and tortoise amulets and the speed scroll, but there were a few in the 15 to 19 range.

SW2, there's still some random farming, trying to learn all the skills for everyone. But here in WO, there's none of that sort of thing. I mean, the weapon drops are kinda random, but with weapon fusion its easy to eventually get the slots to whatever you want and maxed.

[turdburgler.livejournal.com]

Well, for the SW2 skills-farming though, you know in any given stage exactly which officers can give you the skills you need (that you can steal). The only random aspect to it is whether or not you manage to steal it that particular time or not. And if you don't manage to? Reload, try again. You don't have to finish the stage to see if you got it that time.

For the DW games, you not only have to hope and pray that this random item you just got was got an ice orb, but that it's also a level 20 one, too. And you won't know until you finish the stage. Too much random for me. Too many things need to come together in order for you to get everything to max properly in a system like that. I just can't sink that much time into the games, to do what is necessary to achieve the max for everything.

I'm not sure why I just randomly stopped playing SW2. Perhaps because there was nothing tangible and interesting left to achieve after unlocking everyone, all the special skills / bodyguards / horses, and making Honda insanely maxed-out powerful?

It was also just too much, too much, having to play everyone in SW2 each through their own story mode of 5 or 6 stages. Especially with some stages being unendingly long to play (Sekigahara? Osaka Castle? Edo Castle?). SW2 has too many characters now for that.

The lack of an excessive number of stages (and army sides of those stages) to unlock in WO freed up some time to actually achieve maximum for everything/everyone else in that game. In my mind, at least.

[geebs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sw2 skill farming is a hell of a lot less random than item farming in DW, because at least you know who exactly has them, and if you get it as soon as you kill the officer. So there's somewhat less frustration.

But that's all I had left in SW2, skills. I'm not so insane as to want to max out every single bodyguard, and not just the best in class ones. I heard they jacked up the learn percentage a lot in the harder difficulties in XL, so I might just wait until that comes out to max out the skills I have left to max out.

But with everyone more or less maxed in SW2, I can spend more time on the new characters. The 5th weapons are really more "alternate 4ths" as their base damage is the same as the 4ths. And with you being able to edit weapons in XL anyways, I guess the only real difference is the look. Still, it seems there's more useful new content in SW2:xl then there was in previous xl games.

[naoe-prodigy.livejournal.com]

My brother and I are... not elitist, per se, but that's the best word I can think of. Every DW we own we max out, completely. Every item is level 20, every character is maxed out, we have every rare item, so forth. (And man, those books sucked to get...)

Somehow we managed to overlook WO, and I just bought it TODAY. So my brother and I are going to hack that out while we wait for DW6. And yes, we'll probably hash out everyone and max out everything. It's just how we roll. :3