Is this thing supposed to be this difficult/grindy?

[AngelG No. 55]

The game was really, really harsh since the first stop at the Human Village.

Team 9 is a difficulty crescendo, with piling casualties, but even Rumia eventually fell. Unfortunately, come route 5, I wipe on Reimu.

This prompted me to overgrind like a complete madman - underleveled wilds notwithstanding - motivated by fear of finding another sticking point (or worse, Remilia). This grinding could only be described as obsessive - I didn't rule out having six Lv. 100s for the endgame.

Look!

I'm not kidding; this is my team before I've set foot on even Route 4, which is on the way to the Bamboo Forest and Eientei.


I had a 10 level advantage on the Myouren Temple trainers. And I still didn't feel satisfied or even comfortable.

This game was somehow bad enough for me to engage in sabotaging my enjoyment of it... and now I've dug myself into a hole. If I switch party members freely, I fall directly into "underleveled" territory and I start to suffer again. If I don't, I'll arrive at the endgame with outclassed and underpowered puppets.

TPDP frustrated me so much I nearly took out my anger on Touhoumon Unnamed by cheating to break it into a million pieces (namely, instant Lv. 100s and frozen enemy puppets for the ultimate roflstomp).

[CrucialTwinz]

Personally, after Reimu and then Remillia, the game kind of balances itself out, with a couple of odd situations (not really broken fights, just unique situations). I honestly didn't have much trouble past SDM, as from there you start getting access to alot of really strong late game options, such as Sakuya, Remillia, Flandre, Aya, Hatate, Momiji, to name some right at or after SDM. You can also pick up a Mokou in Bamboo Forest, a Youmu in Myouren, or even some strong 80 costs even earlier (namely the three fairies of light). Don't forget that cost determines level rate, as well as general stat allotment, so if you're having trouble honestly, switching your team up might be the better option. The E4 have good teams and good builds/stating, so you may want to make sure to change earlier than later if you feel you need to.

[AngelG No. 55]

Don't forget that cost determines level rate, as well as general stat allotment, so if you're having trouble honestly, switching your team up might be the better option. The E4 have good teams and good builds/stating, so you may want to make sure to change earlier than later if you feel you need to.

Switch, and then grind more... ugh. I'm already exhausted of grinding and wishing for an instant jump to level 100...

[CrucialTwinz]

The thing is, I didn't ever really grind (sans Remillia), as I always had one or two decently strong vs the trainers leading to the "boss" of an area that the rest of my team just kinda caught up. You have to realize that the lower level a puppet is, the more exp it gains from fights. At equal level or higher you hit the cap of exp you can gain from a certain puppet. That's why it feels so grindy to you. You're super over leveled for where you're at, and getting exp cap for the puppets there. Like I said, switching sooner, rather than later, would be a better decision for where you're at. Unless you're using nothing but waifu harem team. Then gl hf, ignore my advice.

[AngelG No. 55]

You have to realize that the lower level a puppet is, the more exp it gains from fights. At equal level or higher you hit the cap of exp you can gain from a certain puppet. That's why it feels so grindy to you. You're super over leveled for where you're at, and getting exp cap for the puppets there.

That's pretty obvious, but there's also the problem of the "new" puppets coming in underleveled and underpowered (e.g. in the Human Village, you have level 5-7 puppets for team 9 and their level 10-13 puppets). And unlike Pokemon, the grind targets aren't gonna be statistically inferior; they're gonna be even.

I'm sorry, mr. Twinz, but if you're gonna try to convince me TPDP is not a grind game, it's not going to work.

[AngelG No. 55]

Well, the only data point I have is what I did, and what I did was hit her with Suwako and use healing items. As long as she doesn't kill you in one hit, damage is steady. She actually ran out of uses of her Illusion attack and was forced to use Steel against Suwako who's strong against it.

Admittedly, if your starter is weak to steel or illusion, she's kind of horrible (althoguh at that point Suwako was one of my lowest level puppets because I didn't use her against Team 9). I think Keine, Nazrin, or Shinmyoumaru would likely be your best bets, if only because they're not weak against her.

... so if your starter sucks (weak to Steel/Illusion) you basically have to overgrind or spam healing items? Really? Unbelievable.

Starter choice is an illusion. Fact.

[Doesnt]

Who are you quoting there?

You can rout most of early-game with just Nazrin and Daiyousei on their own if you play them right. While starter choice can bite you with some characters (Renko, Maribel, Kokoro) you can get away with running pretty much anyone; Speed Suwako in particular is downright nasty. Long-term the game is actually easier if you use traditionally "bad" characters like Daiyousei because they have lower costs and get comically overleveled compared to "good" characters like most final/EX bosses, but due to the way the experience system works you can still run high-cost waifu-mons without penalizing yourself as long as you use them in battle often.

Also Kokoro is deceptively shit in late-game, I would advise replacing her with how soft you seem to be. Running Defense Alice will make your life a lot easier against the one big level spike that I'd expect to set you off as well, but there are other ways to get past that one.

Also also don't try to keep your entire team on the same level. It'll drive you nuts, just roll out with the newbie being slightly lower.

[AngelG No. 55]

Who are you quoting there?

An off-site friend who was trying to prove to me that TPDP is no grind.

You can rout most of early-game with just Nazrin and Daiyousei on their own if you play them right.

Dai, maybe, but Nazrin? This is pretty absurd. Unless you still have a few levels on your targets, Naz vs. Nature types is do-or-die.

Running Defense Alice will make your life a lot easier against the one big level spike that I'd expect to set you off as well.

Remilia.

Which I've described to that friend as a moment of "use Miko or die". For her I'd grind to 60 if I must; hell, I'd grind to 100 for Shinki at the endgame if I still bothered with this game. The lower your party's levels, the less sure-fire strategies are; levels are the only 100% strategy.

[AngelG No. 55]

Oh, and I never got to the historically rigged Pokemon RNG.

That Kogasa in the OP once landed 3 crits in a row.

Your odds of nailing the one in 1/16 three times in a row are (1/16)^3 = 0.000244140625 - 0.24%!!! That's less than 1/400 and is something in utter violation of statistics and averages.

On top of that, the crit count is far, far more inflated in favor of the AI than on my puppets.

"Bad luck"? No, it's just a lottery you cannot win.

[Doesnt]

That Kogasa in the OP once landed 3 crits in a row.

Your odds of nailing the one in 1/16 three times in a row are (1/16)^3 = 0.000244140625 - 0.24%!!! That's less than 1/400 and is something in utter violation of statistics and averages.

surprise

[AngelG No. 55]

I give up. Not only on TPDP, Touhoumon, or even Touhou, but on all of gaming.

I want a level of perfection that never comes; a lack of obstacles and trouble that simply does not exist without defeating their whole purpose. A refusal to work beyond knowing, a refusal to keep trying until it works, a refusal of odds less than 100%. And most damningly, a refusal to see beyond my dark, blurry worldview.

I do not have a mindset that aligns with the rigors of gaming, so I just quit.

[Rhetco]

video games are hard

[AngelG No. 55]

video games are hard

That they are, but I'm too soft for them.

[Kaltchrei]

Dai, maybe, but Nazrin? This is pretty absurd. Unless you still have a few levels on your targets, Naz vs. Nature types is do-or-die.

Nazrin's not really so bad at taking on the early nature types. Daiyousei's stab attack is fairly weak and comes off her worse attack stat anyways, and she's got a good chance to just outspeed most Wriggles outside of Wriggle's Wriggle. The real spot she shines is just taking down all the early darks. Even if the earth typing holds her back some, Keine can just ride the backline until she gets strong enough to contribute too.


Human Village is probably one of the scarier parts of the game due to the low choices, but all of the Route 1 catches can really just take over even if you've picked a bad starter for the job. Nazrin/Shinmyoumaru both pull off the steel role well, Daiyousei can handle Cirnos easily, and Chen is generally strong and fast with nice early resists. The real scary thing that comes early is just Reimu, especially if she manages to get an attack boost off Metal Needle. The fact that most of those early catches level quickly can help springboard your team into a fairly easy cruise for a long time. Just catching all of those at the start of the first route ends up with a team that can outmatch Reimu's:

http://imgur.com/a/pAtDX#0

I had a 10 level advantage on the Myouren Temple trainers. And I still didn't feel satisfied or even comfortable.

It's not actually rare for the speedy exp curve puppets to get far above other puppets fast. Trainers as a whole tend to be somewhat low outside of boss fights. The big drawback is that the fast exp puppets tend to be weaker and more gimmicky than the slow strong puppets. A 10 level advantage can really be cut down hard from that, seeing as you might not even have a stat advantage at all.

That's pretty obvious, but there's also the problem of the "new" puppets coming in underleveled and underpowered (e.g. in the Human Village, you have level 5-7 puppets for team 9 and their level 10-13 puppets). And unlike Pokemon, the grind targets aren't gonna be statistically inferior; they're gonna be even.

Seeing as everything on the team gains experience from a battle, it doesn't take very long for something to catch up to the rest of the team. If they're actually used in battle just once, they can gain extra experience from it too, which is a pretty strong change from needing to send something out on every pokemon like you'd normally need. Keine can really start contributing in Human Village right after just beating Cirno if she's decent enough to start, seeing as she gets one of the stronger early game attacks too.


Overall, once you get outside of earlygame's boss rush, everything just sort of slows down up until Remi decides to bully hard. It's really just those points, a couple of mountain fights, and then endgame that ends up being really spooky. Rather than grinding, just mixing a team up slightly can really help out if some members fall off hard, seeing as it's very easy to just get very ahead of most trainers. It's actually extremely possible to never need to touch a wild battle as long as you just explore areas well. Extra levels may not help as much as extra items, spell cards anyways, as the scary trainers tend to have good items and good movesets to make up for their lesser power.

[Pincher]

This game is definitely harder than any official Pokemon game but it's by no means "grindy"...
The only relatively hard fights are Remilia and Makai WITHOUT any sort of grinding XP... Use your head and make a team that isn't all weak to the same typing with a special wall and a physical wall to eat any puppet with scary numbers.

Nobody wants to hear your complaints on how bad your gaming experience was on a fan forum about the game; and shooting down suggestions with irrelevant reasons isn't accomplishing anything. They're just giving you options you clearly didn't think about while playing the game.
A Pokemon game when you one shot everything in the story with no challenge is no fun at all. This game did things right, by making the player THINK! and to devise a team/strategy to beat things.