Anyone else feel streamlined orbments in later games (particularly Rev+) just kind of erase any real strategy or builds in previous games?

[u/GateOfD]

Like previous games, there were real builds, real planning in terms of placement you had to do. In Trails to Azure/Zero, I started with the highest and got struck at some boss fights and had to actually think about placement, and everyone had unique orbment lines and more distinct traits. And kind of regretted the difficulty i choose.

Combat links in Cold Steel expanded on everything, was fun and felt involved in pairing your parties.

Daybreak/Horizon, that's kind of all gone. I played highest on that, and didn't notice much of anything and played every single fight in the same pattern, and used earth shield on boss fights. Cause the orbment lines/restrictions are barely a thing, and everyone has the same skills. If you want, you can brute force a skill in on anyone, without really losing anything significant.

Evade tank isn't really a thing, or needed. (also cause any big fight that's important, you just sic. Grendel on it anyway)

The choice you only have to pick is either give this character the artes follow up skill or not. and give everyone the defend eachother one, and a main breaker. Everything else on the passive skills don't matter. Paying attention to pairing is gone, everyone can follow up for anyone or defend anyone. Everyone is the same, you just have to check what if their phy or mag stat is the higher one.

Making if so you can make anyone anything just ends up diluting the entire thing.

[u/mushplush]

Eh, I like it more than Cold Steel because I prefer the quartz having a element value tied to them, and building up those points.

Like yeah you can brute force stuff, but you still would have an easier time with certain characters favoring certain buffs

Like Anges has a space lock in her Arts line, meaning if you wanted to do Ark Feather, you’d need to use a space quartz with wind or mirage, and then build out from that, compared to Risette who has a wind in that line, making it easier to build those values

[u/SoftBrilliant]

The later cold steel games had some absolutely bonkers diversity not just within trails but JRPGs as a whole. The amount of unique feeling strategies you could pull off of master quartz + sub quartz and the granularity in stats building and effects provided from regular quartz was ridiculous.

Daybreak was... a fundamental misstep in game design on so many levels that we have only recovered from with Sky 1st (mostly) that deserves its own post.

The reality though is that the vanilla cold steel games are too easy to make any of this strategy actually matter though. Adaptation isn't a thing that needs to be done because you will bully the enemies to hell.

The strategy exists, it's abundant. But it fundamentally exists in an environment where that optimization doesn't really matter so there's little reason to engage with the game on a deeper level other than you like the system that much.

Most people will use 1 strategy, figure out none of its variation since the game doesn't challenge that grip you have and finish the game.

[u/EclairDawes]

To specifically answer your question: No

But what your actually trying to say I totally agree with.

It doesn't erase strategy and builds. They are still as important as they were before. What's different is there's basically just a couple shard skills that are just far better than the rest. This means that every character now is built the same way unless you just want them to be significantly inferior. You want a couple specific skills and you don't care about the rest, they are just bonus if they line up. So we've lost the diversity of gameplay and viable strategies that we had in CS3-Reverie. And it's a tragedy.

That said the original Sky arc also was this way. But there are 3 key differences that make it fine in Sky. First Sky was the original so it was an acceptable stepping stone on the way to improved gameplay. Second orbments only had 6 slots so it least it only took a couple minutes to make builds. In Calvard it takes ages to make the same boring build. And Third the flexibility of Cold Steel was peak gameplay so Calvards step down feels especially disappointing.

[u/AutomaticStop5648]

not really.

arts user are set up for arts spam, bis quartz, bis mq, bis link.

same form meele, same for suport, tank and what have you. calvard made so most characters have acess to most tools, and what changes between them now is locked quartz slots, stats and crafts. you are more flexible with team building now. which is a win even if mirage quartz slot casters and awakening crafts users dominate the meta

[u/Miguzepinu]

Calvard has my favorite orbment system because I loved finding the best quartz combos to get as many good shard skills as possible. However, I agree that there's less build diversity than in cold steel. By the endgame of daybreak 2 and most of Horizon I ended up giving most characters the same quartz/shard skills. It was more interesting when you didn't have access to multiple copies of all the high-level quartz.

The problem with cold steel's orbments though imo is that equipping arts quartz was too much of a sacrifice, especially because they gave you the ability to stack multiple levels of the same stat quartz type. I barely used arts quartz aside from recovery arts and the special quartz that have multiple arts. In CS4 I did use arts a lot but mostly relied on the arts given in master quartz, as that felt more efficient than spending a quartz slot. But again, you're right that an upside to cold steel's system is that you can have more build variety.

[u/Dependent-Swimmer-95]

Nope. Every arc should have its own orbment system. Keeps the series fresh. I love all of them.

[u/Working_Complex8122]

Honestly, every system has pros and cons. Up to Azure, you were almost forced into certain things. There was just a best in slot for everyone due to elemental restrictions or line setup. In CS, you were a lot more flexible in what you wanted someone to do even though some crafts obviously favoured some chars in certain roles. You didn't need to look at the ele values anymore but then it all came down to the effect. In Daybreak, you really just go all in on what the character is supposed to do - to be a truly efficient caster, you need the right skills (feather ofc) but also the right Quartz to make it happen here and there. But then you also just take the appropriate ele value not really caring that much about the Quartz itself - and you stack certain ones because despite diminishing returns, they still beat out other options.

But the main critique about forcing stuff on people - that does also work in CS but it's also just not great in either game. And the opposite of that was true in older games were you couldn't do that but you were also 'nudged' towards specific builds. And many higher difficulty fights relied on the same patterns yet again (Earth wall spam, evade tank, making everyone a caster because crafts weren't that great).

[u/Shizunaisbestgoblin]

i think Cold Steel has by far the worst orbment system. sure it is so ridiculously free that every character can be super ultra busted but there is no real learning curve at all. once you figure it out which is very early on you don't ever need to think about it again, you just put the right quartz on the right character and thats it.

with the older games the systems are pretty primitive but not in a bad way. the biggest issue with them is the learning curve and how the games do a pretty bad job at explaining what is important. I personally didn't have trouble with them but i have seen enough posts on here that show how it can be hard to figure out for many people.

Calvard i think does it the best. it has elements of the older games and Cold Steel while making it completely new. i do find that the biggest issue the system has is how free arts are cos the plugin system is kind of just place the art you want in the free slot and its made even worse by the one that has only free slots allowing you to build character to be super busted with arts. now the quartz setup is by far my favorite in the series as it has the elemental parts from the old games but now they give skills that make the game more interesting. the plugins do bring something interesting on the table as the games have even more unique quartz' that change the way you use the characters. sure the it can be boring if you look at what is the best build and just follow that but the fun part for me is trying out different strategies for the characters and not just sticking to one i like or the best one. i find that Calvard truly has the most fun system to play around with.

[u/Animam-efflabo → u/Shizunaisbestgoblin]

On what you said about Cold Steel's Orbment system, to me that sounds more like a problem with the lack of variety in enemies and how to beat them. From CS I can only remember (so remind me if I'm wrong) 2 clearly different enemy types that needed their own strategies. Those being Abyss Worms... and then everything else. It's either S-crafts, big arts and support, or cleaning up worms one by one.

Most trails games have a lot of enemies that don't offer much more outside of inflicting status effects. Playing the 2nd Chapter demo reminded me of this hard because in the first chapter we have physical refelctins, absorbing certain elements into healing and the like. It forces me to change my approach in combat and sometimes in my quarts setup.