FFXIII-2

[miokomioko]

I honestly never understood why they removed the (incredibly useful) ability to do that between 12 and 13. I wonder if the decision ever came across their plate, what negative aspect could have possibly outweighed it...

[Nevex]

I can think of two reasons:

1)Full ATB skills abuse. Can you imagine Lightning, Hope and Sazh spamming their unique RAV skills all with Random Instant Chain equipped? And let's not even talk about how broken Death+AO1 or Highwind+AO1+Cold Blood would be.

2)Phoenix Down spam. They're instant, restore like 80% HP and with at least 2 SENs with the Reprieve skill (leaves the character at 1 HP if an attack would have otherwise killed him/her if he/she had at least 30% HP) you're completely invincible.

I'm surprised that people can't see how broken the battle system would become if that restriction wasn't present. Sometimes it's better to give up a bit of freedom in order to have a working and balanced battle system, which was one of FFXIII's strong points.

[miokomioko]

Those things could have been easily modified to be non-exploitable if leader switching was possible. They simply decided that it was going to part of the pre-battle strategy to decide who was leader, along with your equipment and Paradigm deck.

The problem is, that there was very little point to ever choosing a less survivable character as party leader until you get their "ultimate" abilities at the end of the game.

[KoD]

Could still have 1player death system,
Simply think of the Chars as A, B & C, A Would be your Leader, Your able to switch between A, B & C but while your on B, and A dies you losse the battle, So your not switching who your leader is but switching who your playing as! thow as above you'd never have your weakest player as Leader, Else forced to have him as leader,

[Elcura]

I don't care what the theme/setting is, or the game play, MC death is silly... especially if you can revive other party members without any detrimental effects. Even if not switching characters is some form of maintaining balance, it's still not an excuse when you could simply have the AI revive you. I can only imagine the parties despair as Lightning or Vanille as party leaders hit the floor.

[Eaglestrike]

I don't care what the theme/setting is, or the game play, MC death is silly... especially if you can revive other party members without any detrimental effects. Even if not switching characters is some form of maintaining balance, it's still not an excuse when you could simply have the AI revive you. I can only imagine the parties despair as Lightning or Vanille as party leaders hit the floor.

I am 100% completely ok with all these aspects of the FFXIII battle system because SE is actually trying something new and different each game still. And this is rare in gaming. If we took out everything "silly" or "not right" in every battle system we'd eventually come to one single RPG battle system and never stray from it and I never want to be in such a situation unless it's Tactics Ogre.

[Elcura]

I am 100% completely ok with all these aspects of the FFXIII battle system because SE is actually trying something new and different each game still. And this is rare in gaming. If we took out everything "silly" or "not right" in every battle system we'd eventually come to one single RPG battle system and never stray from it and I never want to be in such a situation unless it's Tactics Ogre.

Being different and making stupid decisions aren't the same thing. You can still have your battle system without stupid quirks that no one likes. By the way, Persona already tried the 1 character control and MC death already. Guess what? It's stupid there too.

It's not about being unique and different or blending all RPGs into some stupid mold that should never be broken. I'm not saying I hate the XIII battle system, I'm saying I hate this particular part of the battle system. Suddenly an attack that can 1 hit K.O turns into an uncontrollable game of luck, and if you lose there's no do over. Yet, if that attack is on someone else, you don't give a shit because you can just revive the person who died.

[Kurokikaze]

It's not about being unique and different or blending all RPGs into some stupid mold that should never be broken. I'm not saying I hate the XIII battle system, I'm saying I hate this particular part of the battle system. Suddenly an attack that can 1 hit K.O turns into an uncontrollable game of luck, and if you lose there's no do over. Yet, if that attack is on someone else, you don't give a shit because you can just revive the person who died.

Tonberries in FFXIII come to mind. Although I'm not certain their Knife attack can proc Death.

[Elcura]

I can only remember 2 true instant death attacks, one from those crystal Cie'th and one from Orphan. But it also stands for certain attacks that get power ups during certain conditions that deal a ridiculous amount of damage. Those situations usually aren't a big deal, unless it targets the wrong party member...

[Spira]

actually with regard to that XIII was especially annoying..
No matter how many stupid cherub crowns you wear you're not gonna get 100% immunity to death.

in fact, status warding accessories were ALL useless because they pulled the whole % bullshit instead of offering real protection. If at the end of the day the mastered accessories can't provide any assured protection against statuses at all, they have no effective value, and you might as well not use them. add to that you could easily switch in a MED or use some items to recover them twice as fast - accessories should have been there so you DIDN'T have to do any of that.
that part of the accessory system was just stupid.

[Ansems]

>_> All this trash talking makes me wanna play.
I enjoyed XIII as a whole, and I'm eagerly waiting for XIII-2. I hope its as diverse as XIII is.

[Eaglestrike]

Being different and making stupid decisions aren't the same thing. You can still have your battle system without stupid quirks that no one likes. By the way, Persona already tried the 1 character control and MC death already. Guess what? It's stupid there too.

It's not about being unique and different or blending all RPGs into some stupid mold that should never be broken. I'm not saying I hate the XIII battle system, I'm saying I hate this particular part of the battle system. Suddenly an attack that can 1 hit K.O turns into an uncontrollable game of luck, and if you lose there's no do over. Yet, if that attack is on someone else, you don't give a shit because you can just revive the person who died.

It worked to balance out their system. I thought it added a good touch of difficulty having to be very careful about your character's hp. I never got deathed by Orphan, or anything that I can remember. And I'm about 7 Cie'th missions from killing everything in the game (multiple times over). I also used Lightning at my main character 95% of the time.

[Nevex]

Yeah it were just those Cieths and Orphan who had OHKO attacks.
Honestly it wasn't a big deal since neither of those two enemies were particularly hard.
On the other hand Persona 3 and 4 had a fuckton of enemies spamming multi-target death attacks and still had the MC dies = game over stuff going on.

To be fair I can see how they could have worked around that aspect, but if they chose to do so they'd have to nerf a ton of abilities and/or raise enemies' HP by a significant margin to balance things out.

After the horror of FFX endgame battles (enemies with millions of HP that can easily oneshot your party members, phoenix down spam, only reliable source of damage is Quick Hit with Celestial weapons equipped and you're litereally forced to have Yuna+Rikku in your party all the time) I'd take the current FFXIII battle system over something like that anyday.

[Spira]

I don't think X's endgame was that bad.. I played NA instead on Intl tho, so no dark aeons or penance.
Quick hit was the best ability because monsters usually countered overdrives, but I think ultimately Wakka and Rikku were the best assets to this. Wakka for attack reels and Rikku for hyper mighty G spam..
Time saved worth the overdrie spamming.
Only annoying massive life monster was really neslug cos of his immunity and how long spell animation takes...

What we don't need tho is another yiazmat... Wasn't that much of a real challenge than a time waster

[miokomioko]

What we don't need tho is another yiazmat... Wasn't that much of a real challenge than a time waster

What kept Yiazmat as kinda' fun/exciting for me, rather than a giant time sink, was the ability to escape the battle and come back later if I got bored of it. That, and I didn't build my Gambits in XII to completely self-sustain themselves as I found it fun to interject during the "oshit" moments and manually regain control. However, pure endurance matches like the aforementioned Neslug and such are mind-numbing... especially when you're forced to use one or two abilities the entire fight because of absolutely stupid counterattacks.

[Elcura]

It worked to balance out their system. I thought it added a good touch of difficulty having to be very careful about your character's hp. I never got deathed by Orphan, or anything that I can remember. And I'm about 7 Cie'th missions from killing everything in the game (multiple times over). I also used Lightning at my main character 95% of the time.

You have to be careful about your character's HP even without MC death. And also, a 1 hit K.O includes normal attacks too.

Yeah it were just those Cieths and Orphan who had OHKO attacks.
Honestly it wasn't a big deal since neither of those two enemies were particularly hard.
On the other hand Persona 3 and 4 had a fuckton of enemies spamming multi-target death attacks and still had the MC dies = game over stuff going on.

To be fair I can see how they could have worked around that aspect, but if they chose to do so they'd have to nerf a ton of abilities and/or raise enemies' HP by a significant margin to balance things out.

After the horror of FFX endgame battles (enemies with millions of HP that can easily oneshot your party members, phoenix down spam, only reliable source of damage is Quick Hit with Celestial weapons equipped and you're litereally forced to have Yuna+Rikku in your party all the time) I'd take the current FFXIII battle system over something like that anyday.

It would be business as usual balancing the game to work with MC death. It's not difficulty in the least, it's just arbitrary. There's nothing to endure or struggle with, it's just over. I dunno why you think MC death is something intrinsic that XIII's battle system can't live without, they hardly need to be mutual.

[Spira]

i think MC death isnt that bad...
in fact I'm one to think that it keeps the challenge of battles interesting, because its not like dying is a big deal anyway (hello retry!).. There actually are a lot of battles out there in XIII that easily spell death to MC if not handled well - i can't remember too many, but most of the motorcycle enemies had that charge move and gatling gun i think, which is as good as a '1-hit' KO as long as you weren't somehow over leveled (not possible earlier on) or didn't set a Sentinel in advance..

it was one of the things I felt they didn't implement enough of...
however there were a few too many stagger-only before damage could be done monsters... (i hate scalebeasts)

[Kurokikaze]

it was one of the things I felt they didn't implement enough of...
however there were a few too many stagger-only before damage could be done monsters... (i hate scalebeasts)

This is literally every boss and mission (assuming you're not overleveled).

Fighting Attacus with MC death was so lame. Had to pray that it didn't target me when it used Meditate.

[Nevex]

This is literally every boss and mission (assuming you're not overleveled).

Fighting Attacus with MC death was so lame. Had to pray that it didn't target me when it used Meditate.

I just had Snow solo-tank it with Mediguard with full damage reduction accessories and his weapon that improves guard skills equipped while Light and Fang went full offensive. It's one of the few battles in the game where SEN really shines.

[Kurokikaze]

Heh yeah I can see that working well.

I just went in with everyone wearing -physical gear (plus buff shrouds) and RAV/RAV/RAV to get its chain gauge above 700. After that switched between COM/COM/RAV and COM/COM/MED as necessary. Never got to use Meditate after that. lol