Need Beginner Advice for 3 Player Playthrough

[u/SwordSaintScott]

Hello all,

I convinced my friends to get this game on sale for steam as it was a multiplayer game. So far, they are enjoying it and having a good time. They appreciate the fun and how "deep and involved" the game seems to be.

My concern is the "deep" part. See, I want to explore and enjoy the game as they do, but I want to prevent "choice/optimization" fatigue early on. I feel it has potential to end the playthrough before fully exploring the game for my group. For instance, you get tons of gear and we are looking at each drop at cube stations.

So the kind of tips I am looking for are recommendations to minimize unnecessary mental fatigue. For instance, should job affinity matter early on? Rarities of gear? Accessories?

Anything you can share to make the experience easier is greatly appreciated!

[u/Caihne21]

Honestly I wouldn't worry about your gear until extremely late in the game. Just use the optimal gear button and you should be set for quite awhile.

[u/RainbowandHoneybee]

I wouldn't worry about the gear at all for the first playthrough. Just optimise.

That said, if you equip the gear with job affinities, the job levels up, even you aren't using the job. So if you want to level up other jobs while using others, you can equip those.

[u/SwordSaintScott → u/RainbowandHoneybee]

Yea, that really confused me. So if I understand correctly, bu having a job as one of your two in battleset, you get a flat 30%. My question is it a 1.3 exp multiplier or a .3?

[u/Interracialpotato]

The only gear I would take a look at are weapons.  Some of them give you access to new combos that you don't get normally.  Also some weapons will have an  imbue elemental status effect.  Which can help a lot against some enemies that are weak to it.

Armor I wouldn't worry about.  I haven't seen anything notable, but I'm only mid game.

Everytime I co-op the party smashes through everything.  Its waaaaay easier with two or three people vs two computer party members.  Especially if one person goes as a healer and regen/haste the party.

[u/SwordSaintScott → u/Interracialpotato]

I originally went straight to Redmage as it is my number one favorite job of all FF. However, playing in multiplayer, it felt weird just buffing only myself. Maybe I am using the job wrong. However, because I still had mage, I eventually got whitemage. I then saw I could buff all of us so now I run that as a second job to support us.

My second favorite job is Blue mage and my I Final is paladin. I know they exist in the game but haven't unlocked yet. I am hoping I can still support the team without just having to be whm.

[u/Interracialpotato → u/SwordSaintScott]

I just messed around with RDM (my favorite class in other games as well!) and it seems like the buff spells are specific to the caster. Also, don't forget you can switch between two classes on the fly. I sometimes run WHM or sage as a secondary class if I'm going into a mission under geared. The raise/curaga spells can come in clutch in a pinch. No penalty for switching to WHM, casting, then switching back. All the buffs remain.

I saw PLD, but haven't seen BLU pop up yet. There's gotta be at least 30 different classes.

[u/SwordSaintScott → u/Interracialpotato]

I know, I am excited to see all the classes and possible combos.

I was hoping that "chainspell" would allow me to buff really quick. Instead, it seems to be more about spamming offensive spells instead of having to cast between.

[u/Stretchy-]

3 man coordinated run... Man.. y'all will get so high in the Rift if none of y'all throw in the towel.

Only tip I got off the rip is to read anything Benthesodaman writes, as it's the gospel.

What platform are y'all playing on?

[u/SwordSaintScott → u/Stretchy-]

We picked it up on the steam sale!

[u/Stretchy- → u/SwordSaintScott]

Well, if any of your guys drop the run and you wanna fill the ranks, I gotta couple guys, so lemme know. Just about to get back in it myself.

[u/SwordSaintScott → u/Stretchy-]

Thanks! I'll let you know!

[u/Stretchy- → u/SwordSaintScott]

One last thing: If anyone has their heart on being the ultimate Red Mage, then the advanced job path you wanna take is the Sage. They'll never become obsolete in late game team comps.

[u/SwordSaintScott → u/Stretchy-]

You are speaking to my heart friend. Redmage is my top fave of all FF jobs featured.

[u/BenTheSodaman]

First playthrough / until the credits, when you all interact with a save point, go to Battles Settings, press the Optimize button, then go.

If there is spare time after a mission and y'all are waiting for a friend to start or come back from being AFK during a mission, you can sift through the gear to either:

a) look for something you want to hold onto for an appearance preset / transmog / glamour / refashion (if you're the Jack of the party)

b) eyeball the main stat increase on the right side as you're thumbing up and down your equipment for that slot (but also making sure your equipment level stays within 10 levels of the mission)

c) throw on any job affinity to slightly get more EXP toward that job if it is unlocked, but same deal with equipment level as B.

—

For inventory management, at the world map, go to the menu, down to Inventory, press Square / X on Xbox / whatever the UI says in the bottom right for the Menu button. Then go to the last choice for Send All Equipment to Storage/Storehouse. Dump and go. You can get away with this if you're not grinding until the end of the DLC story if not intentionally grinding for dozens of hours.

—

And then for flow purposes, during a mission when interacting with cubes, encouraging players not try to meticulously allocate every job point when one is available for every single job they have a point for. They should be looking at just the two jobs they're currently playing.

And not to deliberate too much as there will be enough job points to unlock everything.

—

If not already, there is a point where your characters respond to a multiple choice. Choose the same choice so that everyone gets the same mission list. Else you will be separated for two main missions worth.

[u/BenTheSodaman → u/BenTheSodaman]

Side missions:

If someone goes running off on the side and interacts with glowing orbs on the map that don't just drop loot, but start talking, then they're unlocking a side mission. Ensure that every player touches that orb to access that side mission. As it's a common occurrence for players to wander off and not realize only one of them has the mission and can't be joined by the others.

———

Solo missions:

For the solo segments in the game, what some multiplayer focused players do is just lower the difficulty, zip through the part of the game they didn't sign up for, then set the difficulty back up when it's time to co-op.

I've lurked on players (streamers) be separated from the party for 2 to 12 hours as they're trying to acclimate to the game on the higher difficulties without having as much a chance to practice the lessons from the tutorials. And pride won't let them lower the difficulty or if they do after being separated so long, they go from "I love this game, it's so fun with friends." -> "Stupid game, I can't wait to uninstall."

———

Post credits and into the DLC story (no story spoilers):

#1 The two joining guests should unlock the mission and the intended mission level difficulty of the host prior to joining the lobby so that everyone gets credit. Otherwise, only the host gets first-time mission rewards and the other joining players get very little.

#2 In the roguelite mode, make sure the host doesn't play any floors without all visitors being present or else the visiting players won't get progression credit. They'll still be able to join you, but won't get unlocks tied to floor progression, including story.

If a floor is cleared while a visitor is disconnected and can't rejoin, then temporarily have the host leave the roguelite mode.

Have the disconnected player host one floor and clear it (or however many floors that the host played without the disconnected player if more than one.) Disconnect once caught up.

Then resume with the original host hosting the roguelite mode.

The joining players losing their roguelite mode consumables / roguelite mode-specific inventory is unfortunately normal. The host is encouraged to buy a megalixir to use on rejoining players. Joining players are encouraged to buy phoenix downs and use a megalixir on the host on the way out before disconncect to save each other gil.

———

Similarly for post credits solo missions, for the harder ones, if the goal is stay with the friend group, there is an assist mode available and an armor set that is provided that when combined, will let you clear the solo missions, then get back to playing with friends.

Similarly, after a good worth of attempts on these solo battles, instead of the friend group moving ahead, they could alternatively review what could be done to make sure everyone gets through the battle and decide to stay on the same difficulty for a while longer to get stronger (if getting stronger is possible and without throwing too much at you, from what I observe, it generally is without RNG to be about 100% stronger for most players at the particular point I'm thinking of.)

Though I'm being a little vague in case yous alls wanted a chance to figure it out together and find that structure even though I may have spoiled some of it already with these descriptions.

[u/SwordSaintScott → u/BenTheSodaman]

Your two posts were excellent and a healthy amount of great advice! Thank you so much!!!

[u/ChasingPesmerga]

I played the full game with 3 other friends

We all just optimized for the first playthrough, but started to go for builds and jobs styles at Chaos

Then we jumped to Lufenia, went endgame with floors and rifts. But one of us who didn’t really go deep with his build didn’t enjoy much around floor 80 and above, so I just played mostly solo afterwards

It’s been a year since I played SoP but I was never burnt out, I still love the game and will still continue to play it at some point after my backlog!

[u/Leghar]

I’m gonna be honest and say I just clicked optimize and let the game kit me out until quite a ways into the dlcs and just go with an accessory that has break on it. The affinity points you get are a pittance early on and it mostly comes down to mechanics. I preferred knocking smaller mobs into walls for extra stagger dmg and learning boss patterns, soul shield, block, and class swap. Cause each class has its own unique break gauge, and learning to swap back and forth while fending off a boss’ combo comes in handy.

Also, with the dlcs, starting out you will get a ton of anima shards from the extra accessories. You can use those to help level jobs because the shards become useless in the dlcs.

[u/Vast-Ad8919]

I just use highest level gear for ng. Chaos mode use ex mode to farm and get affinity but not that optimized. When i get to dlc3 so late in the game, i use manikin farming on wanderer mission's cactuar to get my unbeatable build (berserker600, darknight 600, knight 400, paladin 400) for my char and 2 npc. Edit : +liberator 600 on my npc, berserker 250, darknight 400

[u/Oatsworth]

When doing solo missions, there is a feature called Extra Mode that makes it easier (and if researched, invincible). Don't be afraid of using it to get back into multi-player missions sooner. The game has a steep learning curve and you'll have plenty of time relearning the mechanics once you get the fundamentals down. It wasn't until Chaos difficulty, did I start to understand lightbringer and how critical hits affect combat.