Hey Sup Forums how, badly did I fuck up? I've never played a persona...

Hey Sup Forums how, badly did I fuck up? I've never played a persona, shin megami tensei or any of the other games in this extended franchise before, so obviously I really don't know shit about how the series and mechanics works.

I've recently been playing Persona 5 a lot, and I really like it. However, after reading an off hand comment from someone, I realised I may have fucked up big time.

So, I've been bonding with the characters as much as I can, but whenever the game said "I don't think my bond with blank will increase" I took that to mean that at that point in the story that characters bond literally cannot increase, and so I've done other things instead.

Is that incorrect? Could I have been increasing bonds more this whole time? Am I a fucking retard?

Yes, that means you just have to spend some time two or three times to get to the next level.

it just means the next time you socialise with them they won't level up as you won't earn enough points from it.

there are "checkpoints" in the story which unlock social bonding progress but you never know if you either need to hang out with them a few times first to unlock the next soul level or if it won't progress no matter what you do until you try it a few times.

I know this is true for Sojiro past rank 4, but who else does it apply to.

Chihaya, I don't know about the rest.

OP, in order to progress a Social Link to the next rank, you need to have a certain amount of points. Now, the points...

First of all, you aren't told how many points you need for a given rank, it's hidden from the player, however, there are ways to ensure you get the most points possible. The two ways to do this are

1. Have a persona on you whose arcana matches that of the social link you are engaging with

2. Answer their questions correctly/ make them happy. You'll notice little musical notes above their head when you do this. 2 notes means 2 points, etc. If you get enough points you should hear a little audio cue also. If you don't get enough points during the social link scene, you will have to hang out with them to earn the points to make up for it. In this situation, having a matching persona will also effect how many points you get. Sometimes it is impossible to get enough points during the scene even if you do everything perfectly, so from time to time you will have to use time doing this

Get Fortune to 7 as fast as possible and never have to worry about that again.

Not OP, but I thought this might be the most appropriate out of all the P5 threads to ask:
How exactly does Chihaya's fortune telling works?

In this and the previous games praying at the shrine just adds a couple of points to the SL of your choice and advances time.
Chihaya's readings though don't take any time and they also can bump up the Confidants that wasn't ready to advance to the point when they can, all in the same day.

I've heard it boosts the Confidant point gain at the day you use her services. But if that was the case, then it wouldn't have any effect on the Confidants that weren't ready to advance, would it?
Is it also a flat increase in confidant points, like the shrine? It doesn't show up the blue music notes popping up though.
Also, is it permanent? For example, if I visit her on a day when the confidant I want to advance isn't available, the next time I can hang out with that person, will it be already ready to advance, or is it temporary and works only on the same day?

It's a flat increase but I don't know if the increase is influenced by having a Persona of the same arcana. Pretty sure it's permanent since I've used it on days the link wasn't a available and was able to advance the next day.

>get hit by a fear spell on the dark maze
Oh, MC is shaken, meh, whatever, bitch.
>get hit again
>get instakilled.
Whelp, I guess you could say that I NEVER SAW IT CO-MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

It is permanent, so it stacks. She even outright tells you when you can advance to the next link level, and you can even do it right away if they're available.

Spam the fuck out of fortune telling and use the affinity fortune as much as possible.

I missed having a Chariot Persona ONCE during a Ryuji event, and ended up 3 ranks behind on a character by the end of the game.

Literally everything else went perfectly; that's all it takes to fuck you.

Keep personas matching the arcana you want to rank with on you, spam fortune telling, and hope for the best.

>fails to recognize fear -> ghastly wail combo
This is your first Megaten game, isn't it?

Sweet. I'm gonna make a better use of her services and my free time in general on the second playthrough. I could probably even go for a fresh 100% run, but not until after NG+.

I played P3 and P4 like 10 years ago, cut me some slack.

Rank up the teacher and the fortune lady asap so you can sometimes use your nights for confidants.

Without them, Curfew Cat will shit on you the entire game.

>doing spaceport
>like 90% of the public is shouting for me to murder that guy
>saying shit like "he should just die"
>guy dies
>"Oh geez, I said he should die but not like die die."

Fucking hell, I mean I could believe the japanese public acting like this, but come on?

If you spend time doing other stuff like increasing stats and not just grinding mementos then you're fine. You just have a lot of back to back SLinking to be done. Also just go level to fortune bitch and you never have to get that message again.

Shoo shoo, sleep goblin!

Here's the most important protip to anyone knew to Persona games: Get your MC a persona through fusion that has access to most if not all elemental spells so you can always exploit weaknesses

That's the point where things start becoming suspicious and plot stuff starts happening.

>get a mementos request
>spend a day doing it
>get another request a couple of days later

Just wait till you have a few of them available.

That's a thing of the past, we have Baton Pass now, and with high enough 123 confidant - party swap in battle at any time.

Are any of them timed? Like I had one of a yandere chick that was always hanging out near the library. I did it ASAP because they made it sound like she'd actually kill her 'lover' making me fail the request..

I was at the end of the game, and whenever I got a new request I always though "this is it, this must be the last one". But it turns out lots of SLs come to a roadblock at lvl 7-8 and send you to Mementos too.
Do request coming from Mishima unlock at certain day of the year, or only after you cleared enough old requests?

Nah. The worst that can happen is that some of them will lock you out of progressing on certain social links until you do them. You get most of those when you reach their level 8, though.

Certain days of the year. The very last non-social link request comes on 12/10

It's simple OP, increasing SL links work on a point system. They're basically levels, and the music notes over the character are XP.
So, if you're being told that you won't increase your link this time, you will still get points for that character.

Hanging out with people when you can't increase their link is pretty good in this game, because you can hang out with them at various places (for example the amusement park, china town etc.) and you will sometimes get gifts from your friends that you can use to decorate your room (+ their SL points of course).
As an example: if you hang out with Ann and go clothes shopping with her, she buys you a Rise Idol poster.

That's right before Shido's Palace, right? I'm currently working on the plat and I really don't wanna go truly to the end, but I think Fool 10 and maybe Magician 10 also require me to beat the last proper Palace, right? (needed for maxing all confidants in one playthrough trophy)

>falling for the magic meme
don't give bad advice

Yes and yea those two don't max out till pretty much the end of the game, so you may as well finish a second play through

Fool and Magician are story related. Just be sure to get everything done like 1 week before christmas (because of the fucking retarded exams).

Oh well, might as well finish it then, thanks!

>mfw I realize training increased max HP in New Game+

Holy fuck.

I only realized this because I had a night with literally nothing to do.

I really wish you could keep the Phantom Thieves poster into NG+. You get it so goddamn late in the game.

Just make sure you read Mishima's text messages. Some require you to work part time jobs a couple of times before they become full requests. Just keep an eye on your request menu.

It's a case of wasted potential.
I don't get why the café only gets used as the hideout at the very end of the game. It's retarded. All they had to do is move the cutscene where he finds the calling card like 2 weeks after the pyramid palace.

No. However you need to do some and get Mishima's confidant up to certain levels to get some of the newer ones. Which can bite people because no one wants to hang out with Mishima.

>they pick a crowded hallway in a train station as their hideout

for what purpose

I mean I guess it's convenient because vending machines and stores and shit


but it doesn't seem comfy or a good area to discuss important shit with


the attic is probably the coolest place for the hideout because it seems like something a group of thieves would operate out of

Doesn't it get used for the last 2 Palaces? I don't think that's too bad. It does make you wonder why they never tried it earlier, and instead had one OUT IN FUCKING PUBLIC WHERE EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU FOR FUCKS SAKE!

Does P5 still do that stupid shit where you can still waste time with them even though you can't get more rank?

see
It's much better now, and honestly, I prefer those scenes to some of the confidant rank up scenes.

>no one wants to hang out with Mishima
Regardless of what you think of him, his Confidant bonuses are top tier. I can suffer a bit to get 100% exp gain for characters not in the party, so my OCD wouldn't have to nag me about all characters not being the same level.
In P3/4 I used to rotate party memebers to level them up evenly, but the protagonist always ended up being ridiculously ahead of everyone, because you can't remove him from the party.

The increase is really minimal though.

flat increase

I usually do it if it says you won't rank up if you hang out with them.

Nah, I think only the last one + Mementos final run. I'm talking about the café proper, not the attic.

I know the thing about points and such, but I was aking about cases where you can't get next level until a certain point in story.
If at those times you spend too much time with someone you just waste time as you can't bank friendship points.

>social linkan
>try to give a gift that fits the character for example incense to the hippy girl
>she doesnt like it
>this happens numerous times
>get frustrated enough to look up a guide
>the gifts shes likes are random shit not relevant to her story or design at all

nice.

You do in 5 though. The points roll over. So you can bank as many as you want.

I like Mishima, he has some actual character depth and nice arch in his story.

They didn't use the cafe proper until then because Sojiro didn't know they were the Phantom Thieves until really late in the game. It would've been potentially dangerous to do so there at the time, since they didn't know how he'd react.

I'm pretty sure I've heard that the points don't roll over.

>gifts
Never even bothered with those.

>get pudding
>give pudding to teacher
>she doesn't like it
and people say she's a waifu.
That's my point, reread It doesn't matter when he finds it out, as long as it's after the medjed thing. Thus it might as well be right after it, don't you think? Waiting an extra 3 months doesn't add anything to the story.

Maybe they just didn't feel like intruding on the business, then? You generally meet up during what would be business hours, and his clientele probably wouldn't want to share a space with a huge group of teenagers.

With hindsight fresh 100% is probably trivial in P5.
I think my attempt to max all social links failed for three reasons.
First I was stupid and didn't use the flower/sunday juice/diner until I heard online about how good they are way too late. Also in the last two palaces I waited between finding the treasure and sending the calling card, thus wasting days that I could have used to hang out with my teammates.

Changing those things I might have gotten max social links on first playthrough.

You can also gift them stuff for extra points but you need the right gift

So I just got this game. Should I play on Normal or Hard? I want to be forced to make smart decisions, but I don't want to have to do a ton of grinding or deal with a lot of bullshit.

Normal's not a cakewalk but it's not exactly challenging either.

You can change the difficulty at almost any time (outside of battle of course). So do whatever you want.
I played on normal and you don't *need* any grinding as long as you kill everything in sight and don't run away (and don't use ryujis shitty instakill ability)

Can you somehow choose to not use Ryujis instakill?

Nope, only option is not using him or not ambushing
I wish I didn't get that rank

No.

Definitely Hard, I found it to be perfectly balanced and fairly challenging and I never grind in these games.

On Hard the game is going to be much more difficult at the beginning and get easier later. Just make sure you ambush everything and accept Lucky punch as your lord and savior.

test

Difficulty doesn't mean much for the vast majority of the game. You start nearly every regular fight with an ambush, and the style of gameplay means letting them get any attacks off at all is too much risk. Most deaths come from a lucky insta-kill spell on the MC or having the entire party brainwashed or something. So dealing 20% less damage and taking 60% more never really factors into the equation.

Now bosses, on the other hand, can be a serious threat on Hard while they're mostly a cakewalk on normal.

>give pudding
>expected something more expensive
Then again Kawakami buys engraved rings so she's at least willing to spend money on MC.

Played on hard. Never died against any bosses and was below average level towards the end and was still able to max stats and had only 4 links not max. Felt like the right difficulty.

>fortune teller
>avoiding romantic relationship
>"why do you come out here and why did you help me" bullshit
>options are "I love you" and "I just like getting my fortune read"
>not "I wanted to help a friend" or some shit
I feel like a dick but I'm already banging teacher.

>not using him
Instakill activates whether or not he's in your active party, unfortunately.

By not doing finishing his Confidant until december, obviously.

Difficulty in Persona is strange anyway. I feel like the beginning was a lot harder than the rest of the game. I died like 2 times at Kamoshidas castle to some random mook. At the beginning you only have trash with like 3 skills, at the end you're using literally Satan or something similar.

Hey all, seeing this as a possible thread to help with newbies, I got the free healing item dlc and was wondering if it's okay to sell that Soma for 50k yen? I'm at the point where I've finally met Iwai and can buy gear but I'm only at about 6k yen total, just hoping I don't make a mistake sellign this item since it seems pretty powerful?

Don't do it. You'll be rolling in money soon enough. You only get like three of those the entire game.

>was below average level towards the end
That's because casuals farm the Reaper via flu abuse until they get bored, so they end up grossly overleveled by the end of the game and fuck up the average numbers.

I felt same with doctor when your options are to be like "shitty lie" and "I love you".

>I feel like the beginning was a lot harder than the rest of the game.
That's every Megaten game though. Early game is always hardest, then mid game is cakewalk and then final boss might turn things up a bit.

NEVER SELL SOMA IN ANYTHING SMT RELATED

Ok thank you for the advice, had a bad feeling about it seeing as how much you can get for it. Glad I asked, I'll just try to gear up what I can for my first big foray

Does anyone know if extra points stock up if you go over the amount needed for the next rank, like when giving someone a gift or using the fortune teller to improve a certain relationship?

Or do the extra points just disappear and reset every time you level up a social link?

>Rivers in the Desert

Thanks dude, will keep that in mind

I sold mine. Never regretted it and I ended up with some decent starting dosh.

cute bird

Never buy gear. Weapons add shit for damage to your regular attacks, and physical spells are determined entirely by persona stats. Same with armor, where the defense value adds almost nothing and you'll get tons of free shit from Mementos anyway.

The only thing you should really buy are SP Adhesives from the doctor. Rank 7 makes them cost 50k. That's the only thing I'd consider selling the Soma for to grab early, but by the time you get to rank 7 you're probably right at the second palace and have Sun's rank 2 bonus to use for money farming.

Wouldn't be a brave new world without it.

A single day in Meme-ntos would have given you the same amount of cash.

That song is miracle of science, worlds first audio-viagra.

They stock up. It's like if you added 15 and subtracted 10 every time you had a social link event.

yeah, i just wanted to ask to see if it's generally okay to do, I get that it won't ruin my gameplay if i did but at least I know I'm okay with my starting dosh

Yeah I've just now got to the aprt where I can buy from characters so I'm a bit overwhelmed with what to do, I'll try to read up on what to buy and when

Sold mine. But then again I'm not a newbie and could survive without it.
Sell it on your own volition.

>When vocals are added to beneath the mask.

in my mind using it right at the start gave me a decent boost right away. Im one of those guys who never use their somas/megaelixers anyway so it was fine.

True but I was already below average at spaceship.

>Shiki-Ouji with Apt Pupil and Lucky Punch
Welcome to easy mode

I've never owned one myself, but I love seeing cute videos and pics of them, had no idea they could be like this

I mean, some make sense at least.

Like, Makoto will like a the book cover since she's studious, classical music set because that figures, and the bike figure because obvious.
Likewise Futaba will also like the bike figure, albeit because she's a collector rather than a particular liking for bikes.
Ohya, a reporter, will like the high-quality pen you can get.
And most of the fashionable stuff Ann will like, given her status as a model.

But yeah, most of them don't make sense or have any particular logic to them.

How'd these two weirdos become my favorite party members?

Thanks, was never sure if I was throwing away extra points.

Yeah that is what worried me, I've actually not played an SMT title since Nocturne, just hadn't had a chance to but wanted to with this latest Persona, so I'm trying to ease myself back into the gameplay. I got totally rekt by two pyrojacks and then some bicorns, that's how overwelmed i was at the start