Are battles in XIII significantly more difficult than in previous games?

[Razberry Knight]

Hey complain abut FFX all you want! heck its not even my favorite. i know its flaws. i still enjoyed it though, so maybe some core aspects such as gameplay will be a problem to discuss. but yeah, if you hate how linear it was, or the story, or any other aspect of the game, then i'm not going to say "you're dishonest!" as long as you clearly present your reasons and why theres not enough redeeming qualities.

Also....many people bash on FFX. its not unheard of, its still most people's favorite oddly enough.

 

[Cardinal Copia]

May I just ask why you continue to go out of your way and spew that you hate FFX and that you think its not that good? Seriously. We get it already man. You hijacked a thread and voiced your OPINION plenty of times. Did you, or did you not say that "Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you should bleed all over it and it's fans"
And prior to this you called the fans of FFX a "bunch of hopeless fanboys"?
I find this..... Interesting.

 

[Jdeadevil]

In the meantime, notice that the subject hasn't changed and your statement is as arbitrary as it is ironic.

Well no, to be fair, I was just politely telling Sprout I missed his point regarding IGN. And you turned it back into another "You're all dishonest as fuck" post.

 

[C i d]

The next time the discussion goes off-topic, I am going to close this thread. Thank you for your understanding.

Please do not reply to this post. Any questions, PM me.

 

[Razberry Knight]

anyways...the game is easy....its not difficult at all.....

the majority is taken through paradigms, switching roles, and of course when you switch paradigms during an attack from the enemy, you even shave off a few points (really? who thought of this crap?). So through out the majority of the game, you switch to ravager in order to strike the biggest blows (it doesn't matter because even if you're not giving the strongest attacks you can bet the other two party members are). And once you take some damage you switch to medic and the party heals you.

you have 4 attacks per paradigm, and the key is paradigm shifts, not attacks. so it makes this literally the easiest final fantasy ever...up until you get to chapter 10 where it suddenly asks you to make the best of what the game had little to teach you. then it gets moderately harder, but not as engaging. things just get much more tedious and specific attacks suddenly start to matter...but not nearly as enough as the FF13 fans make it out to be.

 

[tiornys]

Wow this thread blew up in the past couple of days. I think I'm going to skip over most of it....

As I've said, it's not that it was a huge deal, it's just that it was one more thing on the never-ending list of things I disliked about the game. I wouldn't gripe about it if there was anything redeeming in the game, but sadly for me there was not. The weapons system annoyed me like pretty much everything else did.

The game had three major redeeming factors for me: depth of strategy in combat, impact of strategy on combat, and the internal balance of combat. If those aren't significant priorities for you in gaming, about the only other thing the game does exceptionally well is look pretty, and that's just not enough.

you have 4 attacks per paradigm, and the key is paradigm shifts, not attacks. so it makes this literally the easiest final fantasy ever...up until you get to chapter 10 where it suddenly asks you to make the best of what the game had little to teach you. then it gets moderately harder, but not as engaging. things just get much more tedious and specific attacks suddenly start to matter...but not nearly as enough as the FF13 fans make it out to be.

There's a lot more than you're implying in knowing which paradigm to shift to and when (not to mention having good paradigms available in the first place).

The game has a ton to teach you, and most of it is there to be learned during the first half of the game. However, the overall difficulty is low enough that you aren't forced to learn anything past a couple of basic strategies. Along these lines--and also contrary to what you're saying--the difficulty steadily increases as you progress from chapter to chapter. People tend to experience a "sudden jump" in difficulty when the strategies they're using drop below a certain efficiency threshold. Where exactly that is varies a lot from player to player; I've seen it happen anywhere from chapter 9 to chapter 13 (alternately, people complain about this when they start taking on stuff that's meant for later in the game, which only happens in chapter 11).

And yeah, those specific selections really do matter that much; they're a lot of why I can kill almost everything on the Archylte Steppe that most people struggle with upon first arrival. They're also the reason why battles don't become tedious for me: tedium results from repetitive, lengthy battles, and that doesn't happen when you're using a variety of strategies with strong execution to efficiently deal with everything you come across.

 

[Razberry Knight]

Wow this thread blew up in the past couple of days. I think I'm going to skip over most of it....


The game had three major redeeming factors for me: depth of strategy in combat, impact of strategy on combat, and the internal balance of combat. If those aren't significant priorities for you in gaming, about the only other thing the game does exceptionally well is look pretty, and that's just not enough.

to you these arent "redeeming" factors, they are just factors. redeeming implies it mke up for it. but still your only talking subjctively yet as if its fact.

youre making it look like he doesnt value those things just because you claim ff13 has it. thegame isnt bbalanced at all, neither is the depth of strategy nor the impact of it.


There's a lot more than you're implying in knowing which paradigm to shift to and when (not to mention having good paradigms available in the first place).

The game has a ton to teach yo

has NOTHING to teach you. the game is designed for strategy guide to teach ypu instead. the game does nothing to help ypu figure out which combination of attacks works best, which paradigm combinaion is the most effective and why. this games does NOTHING.

and most of it is there to be learned during the first half of the game. However, the overall difficulty is low enough that you aren't forced to learn anything past a couple of basic strategies. Along these lines--and also contrary to what you're saying--the difficulty steadily increases as you progress from chapter to chapter. People tend to experience a "sudden jump" in difficulty when the strategies they're using drop below a certain efficiency threshold. Where exactly that is varies a lot from player to player; I've seen it happen anywhere from chapter 9 to chapter 13 (alternately, people complain about this when they start taking on stuff that's meant for later in the game, which only happens in chapter 11).

thats not helping anyone. youre saying strategy is there but in reality the option to use a strategic move is there. HOWEVER, game teaches you nothing on how to optimise ypur attacks. and it has nothing to do with difficulty. the game does not make an effort to "teach" you these. you can claim the option is there but how to learn it naturally isnt. you look up a guide to teach you. and if you need a guide to figure out the best attacks, then it failed.


the game also is too fast paced in terms of vosuals that your attacks dont visibly appear to have much effect. in previous final fantasy, you could see it clear as day. i dont care if you claim you didnt have a prpblem with this. other ppl did.

And yeah, those specific selections really do matter that much; they're a lot of why I can kill almost everything on the Archylte Steppe that most people struggle with upon first arrival. They're also the reason why battles don't become tedious for me: tedium results from repetitive, lengthy battles, and that doesn't happen when you're using a variety of strategies with strong execution to efficiently deal with everything you come across.

all for the sake of ranking system not surviving. which makes this one of the easiest ff games out there.

 

[tiornys]

to you these arent "redeeming" factors, they are just factors. redeeming implies it mke up for it. but still your only talking subjctively yet as if its fact.

Yes, those are redeeming factors to me. Please don't claim that you know what's going on inside my head.

youre making it look like he doesnt value those things just because you claim ff13 has it.

That certainly wasn't the intent. He stated that he found no redeeming factors in the game, which is fine. I was simply sharing the things I personally did find redeeming.

thegame isnt bbalanced at all, neither is the depth of strategy nor the impact of it.

These factors are not subjective. You can objectively analyze how well the different abilities are balanced to each other, how well the characters are balanced to each other, how well the monsters are balanced to the expected character progression, how well the monsters are balanced to reasonable deviation in character progression, how well the monsters are balanced to unreasonable character progressions, and how well the different types of threats presented by the monsters are balanced to each other. On all of these metrics, FFXIII is superior.

The impact of improving your strategy can also be easily and objectively seen. Simply observe challenge play, speedrun play, and speed kills.

And yes, you can also objectively break down the battle system and analyze its depth. In fact, here, let me copy/paste my (still in-progress) essay that does exactly this (warning, this is long):

Spoiler

Elements of Strategy in FFXIII
A l’Cie’s guide to surviving soldiers, robots, and other miscellaneous hazardous entities​

At its most basic, the combat strategy in any RPG consists of two simultaneous pursuits: staying alive while defeating the enemy. In this essay, I will refer to the art of survival as “defense” and to the art of defeating the enemy as “offense”. I'll start with...

Offense

A quick comparison of the damage dealt by a single Attack and the average HP of your enemies leads to the following obvious conclusion: damage amplification is essential for efficient victories in FFXIII. Note the careful distinction between “damage amplification” and “staggering the enemy.” It is a common misconception to assume that the former implies the latter, but in fact the game offers a variety of methods for increasing your damage output. I will present them in rough order from most static to most dynamic.

First and most obvious: direct increases to your Strength and Magic stats. Crystarium nodes, +stat accessories, and weapon/accessory upgrades are all methods for improving your raw stats.
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Second: the Commando Role. The Commando role bonus multiplies your damage by 200% at level 1 and grows to 250% at level 5. The Commando ally bonus gives a small damage boost to the other characters, which is especially nice when using multiple Commandos at once.

Third: stat boosting status enhancements. Bravery and Faith multiply Strength and Magic respectively by 140%. These buffs are easy to acquire and long-lasting, with a base duration of 150 seconds. Later in the game, Bravera and Faithra offer a larger bonus--180%--but have much shorter duration with a base of 30 seconds.​

Fourth: damage boosting status ailments. Deprotect and Deshell subtract 89% from physical or magical resistance respectively, with negative resistance working as a positive multiplier (in most cases, they effectively multiply damage by 189%). These debuffs can be fairly fast to inflict depending on enemy resistances, and they last a decent amount of time (base 60 seconds multiplied by the chain gauge). Some enemies are immune to one or both of these status ailments.
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Fifth: elemental weakness exploitation. Hitting an enemy’s weakness with an attack of the appropriate element will double the damage of that attack (x200%). Attacks that lack an elemental property--notably the Commando’s Attack, Ruin, Blitz, and Ruinga--can be granted the Fire, Ice, Thunder, or Water element by using the appropriate En-spell (Enfire, Enfrost, etc.). En-spells also boost attacks that already have that element; these have their damage multiplied by 130%. Enemies who lack an elemental weakness can often be saddled with one by inflicting the Imperil status, although some enemies are immune to Imperil, and others are strong enough against all elements to avoid a weakness despite Imperil.
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Sixth: the chain gauge. The chain gauge multiplies damage by its current value. Whenever its value increases above 100%, the chain gauge gains a dynamic duration. The chain’s value and duration can be increased by COM, SAB, RAV, and SEN role abilities. COM abilities have small +chain and large +duration. Unsuccessful SAB abilities have moderate +chain and moderate +duration. Successful SAB abilities gain a bonus +chain and a large extra amount of +duration. RAV abilities have high +chain and small +duration, and the RAV role bonus increases the amount of chain added per hit. SEN counterattacks are similar to COM abilities, while successful Provoke and Challenge attempts add duration similar to successful SAB abilities. Most enemies have some amount of chain resistance which reduces the amount of chain added by each ability. Elemental resistances reduce the chain added by abilities with the appropriate element. The maximum value of the chain gauge is 999.9%, and the maximum duration is 30 seconds. If the duration reaches 0, the chain resets to 100%.

When an enemy’s chain gauge is raised to its stagger point, the value of the chain gauge increases by 100 (e.g. if an enemy staggers at 220%, the chain will immediately jump to 320%) and the enemy enters the staggered state. While staggered, an enemy loses all chain resistance, and all Keep values below 90 are reduced to 0. Certain enemies will also change numerous other properties while staggered. The duration of a stagger equals twice the duration of the chain at the time of stagger, plus 8 additional seconds, with a maximum of 45 seconds. Duration cannot be added after an enemy is staggered. When the stagger ends, the chain resets to 100%.

In addition to increasing damage, the chain gauge also multiplies the chance that status ailments are successfully inflicted and the duration of those status ailments.
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Seventh: conditional modifiers. Some weapon abilities, abilities synthesized by combinations of certain weapons and accessories, and Commando abilities can increase a character’s damage under various conditions. Many of these abilities belong to what I call the “Power Surge” group: High HP: Power Surge, Low HP: Power Surge, Critical: Power Surge (II), Ally KO: Power Surge (II), and Adrenaline. If more than one of these is active, their bonuses are added together before multiplying with other damage bonuses. Another group--the elemental damage group of Fire/Ice/Lightning/Water/Wind/Earth damage +20/30/50%--adds into the Commando role bonus instead of multiplying it. The Commando abilities Blindside, Ravage, Powerchain, Scourge, Smite, and Deathblow all modify a single attack when their conditions apply.
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Eighth: Daze. The Daze status will cause all attacks to deal double damage (x200%) while the target is Dazed. Normally, only one attack is doubled since it breaks the Daze status, but Daze does have a (short) minimum duration. Consequently, a SAB constantly inflicting Daze while other characters are attacking will effectively double the damage of the attacking characters.
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Combining Damage Multipliers

You may have noticed that most of the damage amplifiers in the game are multipliers. This means that they compound with each other; that is, the more multipliers you use, the more powerful your end result becomes. In an optimal scenario, combining as many damage multipliers as possible can amplify damage over 40,000%.

In practice, the majority of enemies will die rapidly after modest damage amplification around 500% to 800% over base. This is achievable in numerous ways. A Level 3 Commando with Bravery and Enfire will deal 615% damage with no chain; a mere 130% chain takes that to 800%. A level 3 COM hitting a target with Deprotect and 150% chain will deal 620% damage; 200% chain makes it 830%. A level 3 COM hitting a (staggered?) target at 250% chain is dealing 550% damage; 350% chain makes that 770%. The final damage percentages here are rounded down, so you’d actually see slightly higher totals.

At lower levels, or against tougher targets, somewhat higher amplification of 1000% to 1500% may be desired. If you are used to powers of 2, it can be helpful to think in terms of repeatedly doubling your damage, since many of the damage amplifiers double or nearly double your damage output. Figure that you want to double your base damage 2-3 times for an average target, with one more double being enough for most tougher targets.

In addition to the straight damage multipliers, you can also multiply the damage dealt to the enemy party by using area of effect attacks to damage multiple enemies at once. AoE abilities deal less damage for the cost than single target abilities, but you gain in overall damage as long as you're hitting at least two targets. This approach synergizes extremely well with Commandos, stat boosting status enhancements, and elemental exploitation. It is more difficult--but still possible--to use these strategies with damage boosting status ailments and the chain gauge. The first tends to involve a lot of extra randomness, while the latter requires you to build and maintain chain duration on multiple enemies (Quake is extremely effective for this). Note that these multi-target tactics are sometimes much more dangerous than using single-target tactics, and sometimes much safer than using single-target tactics. More on this below.

Ultimately, the question of which and how many multipliers to use depends on your party, the enemy party, and your relative level of development. When you are weak relative to the enemy, you can use more multipliers to compensate for your weak base stats. When you are strong relative to the enemy, you can ignore most multipliers since they’ll take more time to activate than they are worth.

Offensive Alternatives

Finally, there are a few methods of killing the enemy that don’t rely on damage multiplication at all. The Poison status deals damage equal to 1% of the enemy’s max HP every 3 seconds. Therefore, 300 seconds of Poison will kill any enemy, without needing any additional damage, no matter how large the enemy’s HP total. Poison is not very good against low HP enemies, but it’s a valuable contributor against high HP enemies.

Death is a full-ATB skill that only Vanille can learn. It carries a base 1% chance of killing most targets, +1% per other status ailment inflicted upon the target, modified by SAB role level (some enemies are immune to the instant Death effect). The ability can be used repeatedly, giving multiple chances for the low percentage chance to succeed. Death is never reliable, but it offers a way to kill certain enemies with lower development levels and/or an easier to execute strategy.

Lightning's eidolon, Odin, uses Zantetsuken as its finishing move. Zantetsuken will instantly kill any enemy, regardless of immunities, so long as that enemy's HP total is lower than

3 * PA * C^2

where PA is Odin's physical attack/Strength and C is the current chain multiplier (500% chain = chain multiplier of 5). When combined with mass chaining tactics (and sometimes a preemptive strike), Zantetsuken is excellent against numerous problematic enemy groups. It also has good utility against several bosses.

Defense

Now, let's discuss defensive measures. Just as the game features a variety of ways to amplify your damage, it also offers numerous ways to mitigate or avoid the damage dealt by your enemies. In rough order from passive to proactive:

First: the base HP stat. As with the base offensive stats, you can raise your base HP through the Crystarium. Certain Accessories (collectively, Bangles), can also raise your HP.
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Second: protective accessories: Accessories can add resilience by reducing the damage you take from certain attacks (Black Belt, Clay Ring), or by decreasing the chance that enemy status ailments successfully affect you (White Cape, Ribbon).
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Third: synthesized abilities. Damage Wall abilities subtract a set amount of damage from every hit and can be very powerful against multi-hit attacks. Ethereal Mantle and Magic Damper are extremely difficult to synthesize and only available to a couple of characters, but they offer complete invulnerability to physical and magical attacks respectively.
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Fourth: Medics. The Medic's abilities allow for reactive mitigation of enemy attacks. They have direct healing abilities to counter enemy damage output, the Esuna skill to counter any negative status ailments that the enemy inflicts on your characters, and the Raise skill to restore a fallen character to life.
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Fifth: Defensive Status Enhancements. Protective buffs serve as proactive mitigation of enemy attacks. Protect and Shell reduce incoming physical or magical damage (respectively) by 33% (more precisely, they multiply the damage by 67%). Protectra and Shellra halve incoming damage (50% multiplier) of the corresponding type, as do the Bar-spells (e.g. Barfire) for the applicable element. Veil multiplies the success rate of enemy status ailments by 50%.
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Sixth: Sentinels. Sentinels have high passive damage reduction and offer a small amount of damage reduction to their allies when present (the exact amounts depend on role level). They can take advantage of this by redirecting enemy attention to themselves with Provoke and Challenge. Entrench and Vendetta offer extra damage reduction and a small measure of offense in the form of delayed attacks, while Steelguard, Mediguard, and Elude greatly enhance the Sentinel's damage reduction while providing other defensive benefits. Fringeward acts as an extra damage shield for the party when the Sentinel is targeted by multi-target attacks while various other passive abilities enhance the Sentinel's survivability.
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Seventh: debilitating Saboteur abilities. Slow reduces the rate of incoming attacks by halving the rate of enemy ATB gauge recharge. Pain prevents an enemy from using physical actions, and Fog prevents an enemy from using magical actions. Some enemies can be shut down by only one of Pain or Fog; most can be shut down entirely by inflicting both. Daze prevents an enemy from taking any actions at all until it is next attacked, which is useful for buying time to heal and buff among other applications.
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Stacking defense

As with offense, combining these defensive measures results in much higher levels of resilience. However, since the goal with defense is to use as little as possible while ensuring survival, it's often the case that the employment of some of these measures allows you to reduce or eliminate the need to employ other measures. When given these choices, it is generally correct to choose the measures that are most supportive of or least disruptive to your offense. For example, the infliction of status ailments also builds a decent amount of chain and a large amount of chain duration. Higher base HP and/or damage reduction allows you to spend more time on offense between healing breaks. A Sentinel absorbing disruptive attacks frees up the rest of your party for unhindered offense.

Defense from Offense

And speaking of disruptive attacks, it's time to talk about the interactions between offense and defense, which means discussing cut, keep, and rise. These aspects of the battle system are never explicitly discussed during the game, but their effects are notable. Each action has an associated keep value that applies during the action; attacks (any offensive action) also have a cut value. Additionally, all party members and foes have a base keep that applies when they are not acting. Cut measures the ability of an action to interrupt another action; keep measures how difficult it is for an action to be interrupted. If the attack used to hit a target has higher cut than the target's current keep, the ability will interrupt the target. This will either cancel their action or prevent them from initiating an action during the hit. Note that your character’s physical abilities have higher cut and keep than their magical abilities (35 vs. 25), and that Sentinel abilities have extremely high keep (99).

Some attacks have a rise value—notably Launch, Ruinga, Aerora, and the RAV -ga spells. The higher the rise value, the higher an enemy will rise into the air (and the longer it will take before the enemy falls to the ground). Any hit against an airborne target will prevent the target from falling, and hitting with another rise ability can increase the height of the target. In order for rise to apply, the cut of the ability must be higher than the enemy’s keep. In addition, some enemies have rise resistance, and others are immune.

As noted above, when an enemy is staggered their base keep and the keep values of their abilities are reduced to 0, unless those keep values are greater than 89 (bosses and tougher enemies frequently have abilities--and sometimes even base keep--above the threshold). This means that most staggered enemies can have all actions interrupted by any attack, and can be thrown into the air by any attack with rise. A few enemies have their base keep reduced to 0 but have the keep of some or all abilities unaffected. These enemies can be held in check with rise abilities, or by having them constantly take hits so they are unable to initiate any actions.

Cut and keep can be manipulated by the status enhancement Vigilance and the status ailment Curse. Vigilance raises the beneficiary's cut and keep by 10 (the difference in between your characters’ physical and magical actions), while Curse lowers the target's cut and keep by 20 (keep cannot be raised above 89, and keep values greater than 89 are unaffected). Smart use of Vigilance and Curse either separately or in combination both protects your ability to execute your actions and, more importantly, opens up myriad opportunities to disrupt enemy actions through force and/or precise timing.

This explains my earlier statement that multi-target tactics are sometimes much safer and other times much more dangerous than single-target tactics. If the enemy's keep values are low and you can keep hitting them with a constant barrage of attacks, those enemies will be unable to execute any attacks against you. This is especially potent when using AoE attacks that have rise; tossing the enemy into the air increases the time you have to land another attack and continue disrupting them. On the other hand, if enemy keep values are high, they will be able to mount a continuous counteroffensive against you. In addition to the higher damage output you'll face (since you won't be reducing the number of enemies attacking you until you near the end of the fight), there's the added danger of having your actions disrupted, causing you to lose multiple ATB segments since all AoE attacks cost more extra ATB segments. When facing homogenous enemy groups, AoE tactics are superior if you can disrupt the enemy with your AoEs or if you can outlast their offense while killing them. Single target tactics are superior if you can't disrupt them and you can't maintain a nearly continuous assault. Mixed enemy groups obviously call for more complex decision trees, especially when dealing with enemies that are capable of using status enhancements and status ailments.

Pre-combat Considerations

So, with that “concise” summary of the various options during combat itself out of the way, it's time to look at strategy outside of combat. Your ability to employ these various offensive and defensive options is restricted by your choices in character development, party composition, leader selection, paradigm deck, and available equipment.

Character Development

Character development in this game does not offer a great deal of choice. Each character eventually learns a preset group of abilities and winds up at preset stat totals. However, the order in which you choose to learn these abilities and acquire these stats can vary quite a bit, and any playthrough which features minimal amounts of grinding will feature extremely relevant choices starting as early as chapter 4 (early acquisition of Sazh's Blitz makes it much easier to handle Bombs). A couple of examples: during Hope's leader section, he can pick up the offensive Quake (enabling multi-target strategies based on Fira and Blitz) or the versatile (but typically defensive) Accessory, but he won't have both until he's no longer the leader. Later, Ruinga (and to a lesser extent Firaga and Thundaga) can trivialize most early chapter 11 encounters, but you're unlikely to have it unless you prioritize it.

Obviously, these choices become irrelevant if you grind enough CP, but even grinders are unlikely to extensively develop the extremely expensive secondary roles. However, even minor dips into secondary roles can have a powerful effect on the strategies available to parties including those characters. Of particular note are Hope's Ruin to open Commando and Fang's Fire and Thunder to open Ravager. Also valuable at relatively low cost are Vanille's Attack and Ruin, Lightning's first 4 stages of SYN or SAB, Sazh's first 4 stages of SAB, and the Provoke ability (just to open the SEN role) for everyone that doesn't already have it.

Party Composition and Leader Selection

Even at full development, each character has a distinct ability set; consequently, different party compositions have access to different ability sets, and different parties are best suited to take on various challenges. For example, a party with multiple Blitz/Ruinga wielding Commandos allows you to crush even large groups of weaker enemies, but the lack of good healing causes trouble against tougher opponents. Conversely, using multiple strong healers is usually a waste, but can be very beneficial against bosses with high damage output. Therefore, optimal play demands party flexibility. A player who uses Lightning/Fang/Hope from the beginning of chapter 10 through the end of chapter 13 will have a very different (and usually worse) experience than the player who uses Lightning/Vanille/Sazh as his base party through chapters 10 and 11, employs specialized party configurations when facing bosses and certain tough encounters, then changes to a base of Fang/Lightning/Hope for most of chapters 12 and 13 while again mixing things up for the bosses and super enemies.

Selecting your leader has three effects on combat. First, it determines how easily you can lose to a sudden powerful attack or concentration of attacks. Second, it gives you direct tactical control over a certain ability set. And third, it determines which Eidolon you can Summon and what full-ATB skill you can use. The second tends to be the most important. If your strategy hinges on a certain status ailment being inflicted as quickly as possible, you should control the Saboteur that can inflict that status ailment. If your strategy only needs a certain set of status enhancements on a specific character, you might want to control the Synergist and cast them as efficiently as possible. Strategies based heavily on AoE disruption are much easier to pull off when you are controlling the character with the disruptive ability.

Paradigms and Paradigm Decks

No matter how well you've chosen your party and your leader, they won't be effective unless you give them an effective set of paradigms to use during combat. A paradigm deck can be thought of as a set of battle plans. A good deck delivers strong, cohesive plans that enable your characters to efficiently score a victory. A poor deck features conflicting plans and questionable orders that can cause your characters to lose their way. Thus, when building paradigms, it's best to consider how each character in that paradigm can best contribute to the overall advancement of your plans. An important piece of that contribution is the ally role bonus that each character gives to the other characters in the party. For example, paradigms like Discretion (COM/MED/MED) or Combat Clinic (MED/MED/SEN) tend to be much better at healing than something like Diversity (COM/RAV/MED), since the two Medics enhance each other's heals with role bonuses, further enhance each other's heals due to personal chain gauges, and consequently work more than twice as fast while the third character either maintains the chain or deflects enemy attention to prevent the healers from being interrupted. It's a lot more effective to take one round away from your offensive plans to heal up in Combat Clinic than it is to spend three rounds sort of healing, sort of building chain, and sort of dealing damage in Diversity.

Similarly, each paradigm in your deck should have a distinct purpose (or purposes) that complements the other paradigms in the deck. Ideally, your paradigms should allow each character to be contributing towards your short and/or long term plans as those plans constantly shift to meet changing battle conditions. Let me illustrate by analyzing a deck with questionable focus and discussing various ways to transform it into a deck with strong focus.

The official strategy guide recommends the following party and paradigm deck for chapter 10:

Lightning/Fang/Hope
RAV/COM/RAV – Relentless Assault
RAV/COM/MED – Diversity
COM/SEN/RAV – Delta Attack
COM/SEN/MED – Solidarity
MED/SEN/SYN – Protection
MED/SAB/SYN – Evened Odds

Setting aside my quibbles with this party selection, I see three fragments of three different decks. The first two paradigms imply an offensive approach, with a single-target chain building + damaging paradigm and a similar paradigm with a MED swapped in for healing. The next two paradigms imply a balanced approach, deploying a sentinel for protection while attacking, building chain, and healing. The last two paradigms go fully defensive, with the first turtling up while acquiring defensive buffs, and the second using a MED to stay alive while debilitating the enemy and acquiring defensive buffs.

This is a classic example of a deck that is trying to cover too many situations and thus fails to handle any of them in an efficient manner. Against weaker enemies we are locked into two paradigms, and we have no option for maximum damage output. Against strong enemies, we have no good way to rapidly build chain and no option for concentrated healing. Either way, we frequently encounter situations where at least one character is not performing as well as they could to support the current plan.

If most of the enemies in the area are strong enough to warrant fully defensive measures, then we should lose the two offensive paradigms for more variety in our balanced and defensive paradigms. Mystic Tower gives us a strong chain-building paradigm without sacrificing the protection of our SEN, and Combat Clinic gives us a focused healing paradigm. Taking this another step forward, I might consider that when most enemies are staggered, they are unable to attack. With that in mind, I can eliminate the mostly redundant Solidarity and replace it with Aggression (COM/COM/RAV) for much higher damage output once I've established control over the fight.

If, on the other hand, it's rare to need a fully defensive approach, then the two defensive paradigms should become balanced or offensive. Evened Odds could become Guerrilla (RAV/SAB/SYN) so Lightning can start building chain, taking advantage of the chain duration from Fang's SAB abilities and the full HP at the start of each battle (when I expect this paradigm to be used). Protection might change to Mystic Tower or Aggression, depending on whether I want to be more balanced or more offensive. Taking another step, I might replace Diversity and Solidarity with Decimation (RAV/COM/SYN) and Combat Clinic, concentrating my heals into one paradigm to open up the option of getting defensive buffs while establishing early chain. In cases where I chose Aggression, I probably want to commit to a highly offensive strategy by changing Delta Attack into Smart Bomb (RAV/SAB/RAV), giving me the option to employ buffs, debilitations, or both as the battle demands. That last set of changes, incidentally, brings us to the deck I personally like to employ in early chapter 9 (when this party is forced) and would probably also use if I had to use this party in chapter 10:

Lightning/Fang/Hope
RAV/COM/SYN – Decimation (default)
RAV/COM/RAV – Relentless Assault
COM/COM/RAV – Aggression
MED/SEN/MED – Combat Clinic
RAV/SAB/RAV – Smart Bomb
RAV/SAB/SYN – Guerrilla

Admittedly, this deck is not very well suited to tackling boss fights, but upon reaching a boss I easily can--and should!--reconfigure the deck to something where every paradigm is directly and explicitly chosen for fighting that specific boss (and I should probably consider altering my party and/or leader choices as well).

Another consideration when building paradigm decks is ATB refresh. Each time you shift paradigms, your party's ATB gauges are instantly filled as long as it's been at least 12 seconds since your last instant refill. This creates the potential for a situation where you want to shift paradigms for an ATB refresh but don't actually want to change your paradigm because it's the best choice for your current plans. You can enable this tactic by including duplicates of your most frequently used paradigms. I often do this early in the game when paradigm selection is limited (my typical deck in chapter 5 is 2xSlash and Burn, 2xDualcasting, Supersoldier, War&Peace), and I also use it for many boss fights.

Equipment and Resource Management

Once you've chosen your party, selected your leader, and configured your paradigm deck, it's time to enhance your battle plans with appropriate weapon and accessory selections. Most equipment should be chosen to either shore up a weakness or enhance a strength. For example, even with an aggressive paradigm setup, the chapter 10 Lightning/Fang/Hope party is somewhat weak on offense and quite stout on defense. I would likely choose to shore up their weak offense with +stat and Auto-buff accessories. I could do this by giving a Blessed Talisman and Shaman's Mark to Lightning, Morale Talisman and Brawler's Wristband to Fang, and Gold Bangle (Hope can always use more HP) and Shaman's Mark to Hope. Alternately, I could tweak that setup to indirectly add a solid amount of defense by giving Hope an Aurora Scarf instead of a Shaman's Mark. By giving him First Strike in a starting paradigm where he's a Synergist, I enable him to cast either Protect or Shell (as appropriate) on the entire party by the time Lightning and Fang finish one round of attacks (I really like to use this idea with Sazh for rapid Hastes across the party). Weapon choices would depend largely on whether or not I had upgraded anything, which brings me neatly to my next topic: resource management.

With automatic heals and no MP, FFXIII at first glance appears to be devoid of resource management outside of combat. However, gil, along with the upgrading components that are its close relatives, remains quite important to the game; indeed, gil is arguably more important than usual since it is relatively scarce in this game. The game offers gil and components through three primary avenues: enemy drops, treasure spheres, and mission/quest rewards. Upgrading most accessories makes them much more effective at what they do. Weapon upgrades offer enhanced stats without occupying accessory slots, improve various special abilities, and can ultimately grant an extra ATB segment to the wielder. Gil is usually used to purchase upgrade components, but it can also be used for consumables like Potions (very useful early in the game), Phoenix Down, items that remove status ailments, and eventually shrouds, or for purchasing extra accessories. Equipping upgraded weapons and upgraded defensive accessories is a lot like instantly gaining several levels.

The game's other primary resource is TP. With the possible exception of Stopga, every TP ability is quite useful in the hands of an experienced player. Libra opens up enemy info and allows your AI allies (and you!) to make much better decisions. Quake adds a large amount of chain duration (26.67 seconds--nearly max!) to every enemy. Renew is a strong heal that can be used regardless of your current role. Dispelga is a great way to level the field if the enemy has applied numerous buffs and/or status ailments. Summons are versatile. Offensively, they are excellent for dealing with fragile but highly damaging or disruptive enemies since Gestalt mode effectively offers free attacking time. Defensively, they represent a full party heal, and they can neutralize troublesome attacks since the party leader is immune to any attacks while they are initiating the Summon or entering Gestalt mode, and your other party members are invulnerable and untargetable while the Eidolon is on the battlefield. They also have some niche uses in specialized strategies.

Closing Comments

Thus, FFXIII offers multiple layers of strategy during combat by providing a variety of methods for enhancing damage, a separate set of methods for enhancing survival, and strong interactions between defensive and offensive play. It offers more layers outside of combat with various possible team configurations, thousands of relevant paradigm decks, numerous equipment options, some resource management, and a bit of character development. A lot of this is easily overlooked, especially by long-time Final Fantasy fans, for a variety of reasons. Buffs and debuffs were seldom relevant in the series, but they are extremely powerful in this game. Fail to experiment with them, and you've drastically reduced both your offensive and your defensive options. Team composition in previous games was usually a matter of preference, and you were generally rewarded for picking one team and sticking to it; here, team composition is a crucial strategic point and you are rewarded for a willingness to alter your team frequently to meet new challenges. Lock in your team, avoid buffs and debuffs, avoid the admittedly confusing upgrade system, and lock in your paradigm deck, and you've locked yourself away from most of the game's strategy. Hopefully, this post will help at least some people to see past those self-imposed limitations.

has NOTHING to teach you. the game is designed for strategy guide to teach ypu instead. the game does nothing to help ypu figure out which combination of attacks works best, which paradigm combinaion is the most effective and why. this games does NOTHING.

The game does plenty to help you figure out what works well and what works best if you pay attention during combat. The very first boss of the game demonstrates that some enemy attacks are capable of interrupting you and others are not. Early enemies demonstrate that you have the same capability: some enemies/enemy attacks can be disrupted, others cannot. Chapters 3 and 5 feature several encounters that demonstrate the power of AoE attacks, and if you've been slacking on that department, in chapter 7 you run into enemies that outright beg you to use multi-target chain/stagger techniques. I can keep offering up similar examples, because the game offers constant opportunity to learn and refine the various offensive and defensive strategic building blocks during the first 9 chapters. It also expects you to start putting the pieces together to build up more effective and more efficient strategies as you progress; when players fail to do this, they wind up hitting a perceived "spike" in difficulty at the point where their inefficient strategies cross the line into ineffectiveness. At that point it's difficult to figure out what went wrong, but to blame the game for doing nothing to prevent this is misguided and inaccurate.

 

[Razberry Knight]

their not redeeming qualities to you period. they are just qualities. and the reason why im going to stick woth that is because you refuse to say anything bad. therefore none of these qualities are "redeeming" the game. its called word chpice, not getting in your head.

dont say that wasnt your intent we have it quoted. its there. no room to lie. or would you rather i turn it into a signature?

and you can say its objective that the game is balanced, it really isnt. the fact that you relied onto the guide proves my point. ill take you seriously when the game actually directly teaches you these techniques. most of qualities you brimg up to "teach" you is based on things after chapter 10 but the point is that the game doesnt do a good job teaching you before to prepare you for the more difficult stuff. the game shouldve been about survival rom the beginning. not ranking system.

sorry but no..none of that was obvious not as you make it out to be. and for a final fantasy game that is the most obscure strategy. no long term fan is going to pick it up the way you did. mentioning the TP means nothing as if that wasnt in any other FF.even if you are paying attention its not that obvious and this is where things get tedious tyornis. not just because the goal is to switch paragdigms and attack to just get 4-5 stars (not survive) but the way battles are setup..the fact we have 2 AIs doing their own thing simultaeniously makes it didficult to actually analyze everything when everything is happening in real time. numbers pop out in big quantities and come and go really fast. hard to tell which attack did the most and from who. the other issue is the attacks come and go just as fast. ruin ruinra and ruinga sure looked different but they came so fast it didnt feel like they were much of a dfference. same with fire, fira and firaga.

in the beginning of the game it moves slowly....and even if you paradigm shift its not obvious that your attacks increase.

this is again an issue many people pointes out.

 

[tiornys]

their not redeeming qualities to you period. they are just qualities. and the reason why im going to stick woth that is because you refuse to say anything bad. therefore none of these qualities are "redeeming" the game. its called word chpice, not getting in your head.

What? Get out. Those qualities redeem the game, for me, from the lack of side content, lack of character customization, and minimal exploration aspects. Just because I've never bothered to explain my complete thoughts on the game here, you think I don't have them? Bullshit.

dont say that wasnt your intent we have it quoted. its there. no room to lie. or would you rather i turn it into a signature?

Are you just trying to troll here? It wasn't my intent. If it came across that way to Sheechiibii, then I owe Sheechiibii an apology, and I appreciate you pointing out the possible misinterpretation. I'm not sure why you feel it's necessary to treat these words as an attack.

and you can say its objective that the game is balanced, it really isnt. the fact that you relied onto the guide proves my point.

Where, exactly, do you think I'm relying on a guide? Most of what I know about the game comes from direct experience and experimentation, and that includes the entirety of my analysis of the game's balance.

ill take you seriously when the game actually directly teaches you these techniques. most of qualities you brimg up to "teach" you is based on things after chapter 10 but the point is that the game doesnt do a good job teaching you before to prepare you for the more difficult stuff. the game shouldve been about survival rom the beginning. not ranking system.

Tougher fights are quite capable of killing you from the end of chapter 2 onwards. As for direct teaching, do you really think it would have been better for the game to explicitly tell you everything about the game instead of letting you figure them out? Isn't that exactly what people (wrongfully) accuse the game of doing as is? No, I don't think the game should have been directly teaching you these things. If anything, it maybe should be doing less direct teaching, and I'm not talking about chapters 4-9 when I say that. Of course, I'm not at all sure that's a good answer either, since the stagger system does need some explanation, and people have been known to struggle on Manasvin Warmech even with the game basically screaming "use a Sentinel" in the pre-fight tutorial.

Mind you, I'm not saying that this stuff was obvious. Indeed, it clearly wasn't obvious enough; if it were, we wouldn't be having this argument in the first place. However, fixing it isn't a matter of just making things more obvious. They're already shoving things into your face by forcing you to control all the different characters and constantly putting you in scenarios where all of the good and easy to execute approaches involve using the character's unique roles. About the only thing they could have done was give even more (actual) tutorials. "Now cast Faith on your characters. Now have Vanille inflict Deshell on the enemy. See how you do damage at a reasonable rate! Good player!" *pat* *pat* *pat*. Yeah, that would go over really well. /sarcasm

Yes, the battle system is fast and complex with a lot of moving pieces, and yes, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. The same was true of FFX-2 and FFXII before FFXIII, it continues to be true of FFXIII-2 and LR:FFXIII, and the information we have suggests that FFXV will share these traits. I'm not sure what is the best way to educate the player with these types of battle systems, but I don't think the answer is more tutorials (see above), and I don't think the answer is harder challenges/emphasis on survival (see LR:FFXIII). FFX-2 and FFXIII-2 arguably did the best job at player education among these games, and the feature they share is that they handed the majority of the battle system to the player very early in the game. Maybe that's what FFXIII needed to do, but doing that is far from simple as it requires a complete revamp of the game's early chapters (which might have been good for a multitude of reasons, really).

Are there issues with FFXIII? Absolutely. But the issues that most people harp upon are, by and large, not the problems that FFXIII actually has. Lack of depth? Wrong. Too easy? Nope. Too difficult (yes, this also gets harped on)? Not it. Tedious, and boring? Half right, but not usually in the ways that these are meant. The actual problem is the combination of a steep learning curve, repetitive surface-level gameplay, and a ramping difficulty curve that expects the player to continually improve their efficiency. Fall behind the learning curve and you stop learning; stop learning, and you rely on repetitive play. As soon as the difficulty ramps beyond your level of efficiency, combat becomes lengthy as well as repetitive: i.e., tedious and boring. Conversely, if you stay/get on top of the learning curve, you can keep learning as the game progresses, keep moving on to more efficient strategies, and enjoy the dynamic, demanding, and rewarding battle system. This dichotomy informs much of the schism in the playerbase, because whichever side you're on, it's really hard to understand the other side's perspective.

Too linear? True, but not a problem; the problems behind this complaint are the dearth of exploration aspects (Oerba is the primary exception with numerous things to examine for backstory/lore), the lack of side content (Chocobo digging is nowhere near enough), and the lack of downtime between intense combat sequences. That last is also the primary issue behind the inaccurate "no towns!" complaint; the game does have towns, just not in ways that provide meaningful downtime. This is why we constantly have people "discovering" that FFX is just as linear as FFXIII and wondering why it's a bigger deal in FFXIII--it's not, really, it's that people have mislabeled the problem; FFX does exploration and side content way better within its linear structure, and breaks up the pacing with the cloisters and other interludes.

Unlikable characters? False, but it is true that we're introduced to the characters when they're under high stress and reacting poorly to that stress. It's not surprising that many players have trouble getting over their initial unfavorable impressions (or don't stick with the game long enough to even see their better aspects). Must read the datalog to understand the story? Not true, but the story does have almost as steep a learning curve as the combat system, in large part because it drops you into the middle of the action (in media res). Consequently, many people had trouble keeping up with everything, while others, presumably those who have watched and enjoyed other movies/books/games that use in media res storytelling--and thus aren't experiencing a meaningful difficult curve regarding story comprehension--have trouble understanding how anyone could be confused. And there we have another dichotomy to help split the fanbase.

We can't have a productive conversation about the game until we have a clear understanding of what the game does well and where it fails. We don't get anywhere when one side is all "no townz!" and the other side is all "yes, towns!", when one side is "crap combat!" and the other is "awesome combat!", or when one side is all "stupid datalog" and the other is "why bother with the datalog?", because in all cases the two sides are just talking past each other. Your experience with the combat system is valuable, because it illustrates the fact that problems exist and helps to demonstrate where they lay. However, your analysis of the combat system is flawed, because it's based on incomplete and insufficient information and a shallow understanding of what's really involved. My goal here is to counter your analysis without invalidating your experience, but that's hard to do when you continually insist on trying to invalidate my experience.

 

[Sheechiibii]

Are you just trying to troll here? It wasn't my intent. If it came across that way to Sheechiibii, then I owe Sheechiibii an apology, and I appreciate you pointing out the possible misinterpretation. I'm not sure why you feel it's necessary to treat these words as an attack.

Just wanted to say no it didn't come across that way to me I totally get that you found some parts of the game you really liked to make up for other parts of it you didn't enjoy so much. I wish I could say the same, I really do, and I'm glad you liked the game. Although I may come across as a total hater of FFXIII I really am pleased when other people enjoy it and while I found nothing to like in it, I think it's awesome that something I hate other people can love. Yay for preferences and differences.

 

[Mystical_Gaming]

Just wanted to say no it didn't come across that way to me I totally get that you found some parts of the game you really liked to make up for other parts of it you didn't enjoy so much. I wish I could say the same, I really do, and I'm glad you liked the game. Although I may come across as a total hater of FFXIII I really am pleased when other people enjoy it and while I found nothing to like in it, I think it's awesome that something I hate other people can love. Yay for preferences and differences.

For me there are many redeeming factors in FFXIII so I know tiornys not the only one that feels that way about this game. I would play this game again (and will). I know it has faults but no one can tell me "nothing is good in this game you are only fooling yourself". No, I really like FFXIII overall despite it's obvious flaws. I play plenty of games where I really hate features in them but that doesn't mean I'm going to just find the entire game worthless. As for the battle system and never having played a FF game it was pretty self explanatory to me how to find weakness in bosses and beat them. The librascope tells you "this is weak against them ... they are immune to this ... chain this for maximum effect". This was their first time for that battle system too so I'm sure they overlooked some aspects that could have been done better. All I know is my noob self was able to complete the game with minimal frustration despite hearing about a lot of others struggling with boss battles. I found some to be a challenge but was able to get through and progress eventually. I even knew that farming would be a smart move by the fact you can level up by fighting monsters so I took my sweet time to prepare for future bosses by farming a ton on Gran Pulse. It paid off in the end for sure.

But I guess what I am trying to say is the same thing you are, just in mirror mode: People may hate the things I like and I'm ok with this. Particularly FFXIII. I can't go anywhere without someone telling me on the internet whether it be a forum, youtube, or chat room on twitch.tv that I am wrong to like this game or I don't know what I am saying ... no I'm pretty sure I like this game, I have after invested over 100 hours into FFXIII alone. They can try and deny how I feel about it all they want but the fact remains no one can steal my enjoyment in the end.

 

[Ultimaja]

But I guess what I am trying to say is the same thing you are, just in mirror mode: People may hate the things I like and I'm ok with this. Particularly FFXIII. I can't go anywhere without someone telling me on the internet whether it be a forum, youtube, or chat room on twitch.tv that I am wrong to like this game or I don't know what I am saying ... no I'm pretty sure I like this game, I have after invested over 100 hours into FFXIII alone. They can try and deny how I feel about it all they want but the fact remains no one can steal my enjoyment in the end.

It's just become a bandwagon to bash on FFXIII. I really think that some people feel they are seen as better fans if they commit to badgering it, especially along the lines of difficulty.

After doing it for a while, some simply just has a hard time even conceding that the game had any difficulty at all, and not just with difficulty, but the strategy in battle and everything else as well.

And when realizing that, one sees the bombardment of the game for what it is. It can be very annoying to people with an honest assessment to the game, and those who enjoyed it- it's plain insulting to people who like it.

 

[Mystical_Gaming]

It's just become a bandwagon to bash on FFXIII. I really think that some people feel they are seen as better fans if they commit to badgering it, especially along the lines of difficulty.

After doing it for a while, some simply just has a hard time even conceding that the game had any difficulty at all, and not just with difficulty, but the strategy in battle and everything else as well.

And when realizing that, one sees the bombardment of the game for what it is. It can be very annoying to people with an honest assessment to the game, and those who enjoyed it- it's plain insulting to people who like it.

Yeah I totally understand why someone would dislike the FFXIII trilogy. Before I ever played a FF and picked up FFXIII I knew it wouldn't be accepted or I wouldn't be accepted either. I'm too new to this series and FFXIII is very different. I don't blame veterans of FF who grew up playing a very different type of game to be upset with the direction FFXIII went (battle system, story, and gameplay) ... but then I ask myself "why would someone invest so much time letting others know they hate it so much to the point they are imposing their opinion about the game on to others who hold a different view of it?". I mean why would someone click on a FFXIII youtube video that is showing the game in a positive light only to bash every comment that is not talking about FFXIII like it's the spawn of satan himself lol

It just begs the question if they really dislike it would it not be better to gear these concerns towards SE rather than a fanbase? Changing our viewpoint isn't going to help make the game they want. If anything it just makes our resolve for FFXIII stronger. For example I was under the impression this battle system thread was just to discuss and post our opinions of what we felt about the game, not so much trying to tell each other who is more right or wrong for what they feel was good and bad in the game.

I really can't express how much I feel for the veterans of FF. I am the same way with Halo for example. The series is very different now than it was and I literally have played Halo since day 1 of the first game way back in 2001 so believe me when I say I know how it feels to have a game series you love that used to be based on certain core mechanics all of the sudden be removed and changed. However as much as I 'hate' the newer Halos I don't go around spreading my dislike of them on fans. Instead I channel my concerns to the proper outlets ... like 343 studios who now is in command of Halo in hopes they an fix what is broken. Just like with FF Halo had a comapny change/mold and of curse different values get removed and added which of course changes the games they produce ... which in turn can upset veteran fans.

I guess what I am getting at is we're all FF fans, some older than others but we all found something in one of the FF games (whether the newest installment FFXIII or way back in FF1) that brought us here. In the end these are just video games for enjoyment and we shouldn't take it so serious to the point we need to submit allegiance to a particular FF game or we are "sworn enemies of the state" lol

 

[Mr. Revolution]

... but then I ask myself "why would someone invest so much time letting others know they hate it so much to the point they are imposing their opinion about the game on to others who hold a different view of it?". I mean why would someone click on a FFXIII youtube video that is showing the game in a positive light only to bash every comment that is not talking about FFXIII like it's the spawn of satan himself lol

It just begs the question if they really dislike it would it not be better to gear these concerns towards SE rather than a fanbase? Changing our viewpoint isn't going to help make the game they want. If anything it just makes our resolve for FFXIII stronger. For example I was under the impression this battle system thread was just to discuss and post our opinions of what we felt about the game, not so much trying to tell each other who is more right or wrong for what they feel was good and bad in the game.

At some point, it isn't about the game anymore. It has more to do with the insecurities and ego of the one obsessed with the dissemination of a polarized view. I don't want to single anyone out, so I won't be quoting anything in this thread, and indeed, what I'm about to say may or may not apply to this thread. I am merely replying to Mystical's comment, and to do so I would like to give a general psychoanalysis of the typical behaviors exhibited by individuals who have an incessant need to impress their viewpoints upon others.

When a person feels insecure regarding their own beliefs on an issue, they believe that they can give credence and legitimacy to their viewpoint if they can successfully sway the opinions of others. This type of person will repeatedly disseminate and perpetuate their views without acknowledging any weaknesses or fallacies when confronted by opponents. Indeed, this person will plow through any criticisms, regardless of their validity and coherence. Any scrutiny will be dismissed and may also be countered with faulty reasoning. The object is to prove that the person's viewpoint is infallible and should be shared by all.

This can lead to a bandwagon phenomenon, whereby like-minded, insecure peoples will congregate to pat each other on the back while simultaneously seeking legitimacy from others. The bandwagon phenomenon can happen for an assortment of other reasons as well. Some people lack the capacity to think critically for themselves or they lack the strength necessary to defend their own beliefs. Because of these reasons, those belonging to the former category will seek a person or persons to tell them what to believe. This way, they can have a sense of belonging while also obtaining an idea to rally behind. In essence, it gives them a sense of purpose and security; purpose because they now have something to believe and defend, and security because others believe the same thing. Those belonging to the latter category--the ones unable to defend their own views--simply parrot what other like-minded individuals have said elsewhere. If you ask one of these people why they believe what they do, they will be unable to give you a coherent, logical answer. You'll run into logical fallacies and communication breakdown when attempting to have a conversation to reconcile your differences on the subject because someone who is parroting the sentiments of others will lack the critical reasoning foundation necessary to engage in any such conversation.

Still others can be classified as trolls. If there is a truly controversial issue, some people will take advantage of the situation in order to derive pleasure from provoking emotional backlash from a sensitive target. In this situation, what you and the troll believe are completely irrelevant. The subject isn't the issue anymore, rather, your feelings are. The more defensive you become, the more enjoyment the troll will derive from the exchange and will thus be encouraged to fan the flames.

In addition, there are people who love to argue because they feel it gives them purpose in life. They will pick a topic popular with a specific person or group and artificially create and perpetuate a debate. This type of person will always maintain an opposing stance even when robbed of all credibility. The purpose here isn't to reach an understanding or achieve an alternate viewpoint; the purpose is to inflate the ego of the instigator.

There are many reasons why someone would choose to single you out because of your beliefs. Not everyone will fall into one of the categories I have listed, however. There are plenty of people that will argue in order to inform, to create positive change through debate, or to reach a consensus. Unfortunately, because of the anonymity awarded to posters on the internet, people with great insecurities or nefarious motives are free to extort you for their own satisfaction without the same accountability or repercussions they would face in a real-world scenario.

My bottom line is thus: no one should have to feel alienated or persecuted because of what they believe. If you love something and others disagree, there's nothing wrong with that. But if someone continues to harp on it, that says more about them than it does about you and what you love. The same can be said in reverse, too. If you dislike something and someone tries to coerce you into liking it or puts pressure on you to try and sway your views, it again has little to do with the actual subject at hand than it does the person responsible for the incessant pressure.

I feel a Final Fantasy quote is appropriate here. As Squall Leonhart once said, "There's no good or bad side. Just two sides holding different views." It's okay to like FFXIII. It's equally okay to not like FFXIII. Everyone is entitled to their viewpoints. We don't live in a universe governed by absolute truths; we live in a universe composed of numerous subjective truths. What's true for you, Mystical, won't necessarily be true for others. And likewise, what's true for others, won't necessarily be true for you. The problem is some people can respect varying opinions while others cannot. There are plenty of people in this world who want to believe in an objective reality, and because of this, they believe that the absolute truth of the matter is that you must either like or dislike X thing. Just avoid these people and stick to communities where you know you'll be accepted regardless of your viewpoints.

 

[Razberry Knight]

Are you just trying to troll here? It wasn't my intent. If it came across that way to Sheechiibii, then I owe Sheechiibii an apology, and I appreciate you pointing out the possible misinterpretation. I'm not sure why you feel it's necessary to treat these words as an attack.

yes it was your intent. we have it in quotes. and everything. its not that hard to miss.

Where, exactly, do you think I'm relying on a guide? Most of what I know about the game comes from direct experience and experimentation, and that includes the entirety of my analysis of the game's balance.

you're relying on the guide on which character takes which role best. something that we should learn hands on, and trust me when i say most of the "explanations" of how the game works aren't 100% clear. if you manage to figure it out, good for you, but this is a flaw in the game.

Tougher fights are quite capable of killing you from the end of chapter 2 onwards. As for direct teaching, do you really think it would have been better for the game to explicitly tell you everything about the game instead of letting you figure them out? Isn't that exactly what people (wrongfully) accuse the game of doing as is? No, I don't think the game should have been directly teaching you these things. If anything, it maybe should be doing less direct teaching, and I'm not talking about chapters 4-9 when I say that. Of course, I'm not at all sure that's a good answer either, since the stagger system does need some explanation, and people have been known to struggle on Manasvin Warmech even with the game basically screaming "use a Sentinel" in the pre-fight tutorial.

this is where i disagree.....i believe the game should've done a way better job of teaching you of the options it offered by making some of the specific strategies mandatory to survive. Chapter 2 is capable of killing you, but only if you're not taking advantage of the universal paradigm strategy.

Mind you, I'm not saying that this stuff was obvious. Indeed, it clearly wasn't obvious enough; if it were, we wouldn't be having this argument in the first place. However, fixing it isn't a matter of just making things more obvious. They're already shoving things into your face by forcing you to control all the different characters and constantly putting you in scenarios where all of the good and easy to execute approaches involve using the character's unique roles. About the only thing they could have done was give even more (actual) tutorials.

You originally DID say it was obvious. And i disagree completely. if this was "obvious" and my stance was stil the same, we would still be having this conversation. it should work in reverse. if it wasn't "obvious" why defend it for things that weren't?

Yes, the battle system is fast and complex with a lot of moving pieces, and yes, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. The same was true of FFX-2 and FFXII before FFXIII, it continues to be true of FFXIII-2 and LR:FFXIII, and the information we have suggests that FFXV will share these traits. I'm not sure what is the best way to educate the player with these types of battle systems, but I don't think the answer is more tutorials (see above), and I don't think the answer is harder challenges/emphasis on survival (see LR:FFXIII). FFX-2 and FFXIII-2 arguably did the best job at player education among these games, and the feature they share is that they handed the majority of the battle system to the player very early in the game. Maybe that's what FFXIII needed to do, but doing that is far from simple as it requires a complete revamp of the game's early chapters (which might have been good for a multitude of reasons, really).

I disagree completely on this, and a bit of over exaggeration when you compare FFXIII to the other games such as FFX-2, XII, and even XV.

FFX-2 may have been faster pace, but not difficult to handle. it was still complete control of your cast. so it may have been difficult, but nothing new we've seen before. However, FF12, may "resemble" FF13 in sense of faster pace and the option to control your entire cast. the attacks weren't limiting to "Paradigms" or anything resembling that. so its not a big issue. SO FF12 was still managable when seeing the attacks.

FF13 on the other hand was much more difficult. we get to see so many attacks happen simultaneously and several of the numbers were so large we couldn't see exactly what was going on.

FF15 is completely different type of gameplay then previous final fantasy. in fact its closest to kingdom hearts. and having experience with kingdom hearts, i can safely say that most of the battle system is more about accuracy on the hits, rather than which hit works best. but there most likely will be bosses that need specific attacks.

Are there issues with FFXIII? Absolutely. But the issues that most people harp upon are, by and large, not the problems that FFXIII actually has.

Its true, its just not true for you, because you didn't experience what others did or you didn't put any value into them. the fact that you don't want the game teaching us makes it even bigger gap between you and the common gamer, and yes, i'm going to single you out to the common FF gamer, if you insist on the game not teaching us these things properly.

the fact of the matter is, most of the gamers didn't even know the option was there, even by going through.

If many people are repeating the exact same issue, it has to be true to some degree and in some shape or fashion. And that's the heart of it all. There are a billion things i disagree with FF12 haters for, but i at least know to a degree that it is true, and i try to explain it to them that although that is there, there's a way to get out of it on their own. But there are things i agree with the haters. But for 13 the average Final Fantasy fan, would have to think up an entirely new way of playing, and not even able to figure it out entirely. There's no way we're suppose to know that certain paradigms work well together when their so divided. THeres no sign that a previous paradigm affects the next one. and if it is, its not obvious enough. the chain of attacks are so fast on the team member, you look like you're the slow one.

i'm ignoring everything else because thats not the place to talk about it. but just haphazardly saying "nope" and "not true" and "false" isn't helping your case. it only shows how you value your opinion over others.





my analysis of the game is based on what the game offers....not what it has, not whats technically there, but what the game "offers". theres a distinction to that word. I'm using the textbook definition of that word.

The game doesn't offer what you mentioned. Does it have it? maybe. It had to have it in some shape or fashion. but the problem is, the game didn't it offer it to the common gamer, it was vague and difficult to decipher, what was easy to decipher was that we use the strongest paradigms to hit hard, then we use the medic when we're weak. and i survived just fine even after Chapter 10. did my attacks get stronger after using .

Here's the question, if you recognize that it wasn't obvious enough, then why defend so hard on it? just to make ppl know it does "have" it?

theres no point defending ff13 in the fashion that you are doing if it also comes with a few fine prints.

if the game doesn't make it obvious that the option to see another side of the game is there, then i can't say it "offered" me this perspective that you constantly push that it has.

Just because you quoted Sheecibii's comment, that doesn't mean for a second you were referring to just her. I for one felt exactly what she did, so when you say you have to apology to people. i'm not asking you to do that, but recognize that you did what you did. and that comment isn't just for her, you know very well that comment applied to many other people who felt the exact same way.

and yes, this comment although directed toward you, i know full well that this applies to a lot of ff13 fans.

 

[spoonyrogdrumps]

It's just my opinion but I think people need to take a step back and compose themselves. A lot of people have found the game to be easy on many and most levels. However, the original poster suggests that some people might have difficulty understanding and using the mechanics of the game in your favor making it easier. I would want to approach this as a form of assistance rather than an argument. Others including myself can be helpful to those having a hard time with the games battle system. There are also plenty of guides and strategies to be found online. Some people might just want a little help and figure out the rest on their own. If anyone has any questions or needs help with the game feel free to ask me.
On a personal note I find that games are best experienced when you learn how to do it yourself. You feel a greater sense of reward and satisfaction as well as increasing your overall skills as a gamer.

 

[Razberry Knight]

i personally feel that the game should've made it "obvious" that these so-called "qualities" of the game even existed. some of the strategy is indeed bizarre and doesn't make sense exactly.

key attacks don't matter "as much". i would like to say "at all" because your character grows eventually, and its like saying "Leveling up" doesn't matter, which it does, but it dulls the game play status that any new attack you unlock matters, but choosing specific attacks dont (which is why ppl are trying out a no crystarium challenge).

LanguageSponge is wanting other people's experience, which in mine, i felt the game was easy. did i die a few times? yes. but i quickly caught up, it was just a matter of how long these battles were.

 

[tiornys]

you're relying on the guide on which character takes which role best. something that we should learn hands on, and trust me when i say most of the "explanations" of how the game works aren't 100% clear. if you manage to figure it out, good for you, but this is a flaw in the game.

You apparently managed to miss my complete disagreement with everything that I cited from the guide.

There's nothing else to say that doesn't boil down to either misinterpretation on your part or fundamental disagreements that won't be resolved; I don't see any point in repeating points I've already made and supported.

 

[Razberry Knight]

you can say that, but that can be said about the same for you.

but again. theres a pattern to this game, it opens up after chapter 10...but if you didn't figure out the obscure meaning then, you'll be forced to learn some minor tactics afterward, but not so minor because the game really doesn't provide you with a way to learn on your own and understand it on your own and it does become necessary. But to me, that tactic was just switching between paradigms better and choosing my stronger attacks faster (not choosing specific attacks that certain bosses are weak to)