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

[Lyffstreamus]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong here either because I'm getting absolutely pwned in the beginning stages of the game. I've wrapped my mind around how the paradigm system works, and have a good understanding of each role but if I don't have a medic at all times right now I'm screwed. Even then, it's 50/50 I'll survive. ESPECIALLY if Lightning isn't in my party. Maybe I change paradigms too much? Maybe I'm not starting them out right? Maybe I'm not figuring out enemy weaknesses in battle as fast as I do usually, but I have NEVER had this problem with any Final Fantasy before this and I'm ultra annoyed to be quite honest.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong here either because I'm getting absolutely pwned in the beginning stages of the game. I've wrapped my mind around how the paradigm system works, and have a good understanding of each role but if I don't have a medic at all times right now I'm screwed. Even then, it's 50/50 I'll survive. ESPECIALLY if Lightning isn't in my party. Maybe I change paradigms too much? Maybe I'm not starting them out right? Maybe I'm not figuring out enemy weaknesses in battle as fast as I do usually, but I have NEVER had this problem with any Final Fantasy before this and I'm ultra annoyed to be quite honest.

Well, I can guarantee that this is a case of you 'doing it wrong'. I don't mean that as an insult of course XIII asks players to treat it differently from most traditional J-RPGs, and it can be difficult for some to transition. Regardless, I'll gladly offer some guidance if you can tell me how far you are, what parties you seem to have the most trouble using, and any examples you may have of fights that genuinely gave you trouble. FFXIII is significantly more difficult than most other FF games, but it's not because it's broken or anything. XIII isn't hard because it's hard. XIII is hard because by comparison most of the other games are so easy.

For now, I'll detail the most important mechanical ideas one needs to keep in mind when playing XIII. Hopefully that will at least get you going a bit.

1. Unless you're switching Paradigms so fast that you aren't even getting actions in, there's no such thing as switching too fast. In fact, there's a bit of a glitch you can exploit by switching, where it will fill up some of your ATB gauge during the switch, even though no actions can be taken during this time. That means you're essentially getting a free action in by exploiting time where your enemies can't do anything.

2. Whenever you have access to a Sentinel, oftentimes using them can massively reduce the need for a Medic. Each Role has different passive buffs it affords your party. So not only does a Sentinel block attacks, but just having a Sentinel out means that everyone in your party takes less damage, no matter what that Sentinel is doing. Another example would be that having a Saboteur out means that defuffs are easier to cast on enemies and last longer. And these passive buffs stack. So in the late game, if an enemy is about to use a team wiping area of effect attack, switching to a Sentinel/Sentinel/Sentinel party and blocking with everyone can negate almost all damage.

3. Staggering is the bread and butter of gameplay in XIII. You will not succeed if you don't focus on staggering. This means balanced teams are more important than using teams designed for raw damage... until the enemy is staggered. Different roles have different effects on the stagger gauge. Commandos may raise the stagger percentage a minuscule amount. But they also cause it to slow it's descent. Ravagers on the other hand do the opposite. They raise the stagger percentage extremely quickly, but that also makes it fall quicker. So balancing between the two is rather important. Others have other variances between these two extremes. Sentinels can slow the stagger gauge really well, but they only do so when they attack the enemy. Saboteurs are kind of the middle ground where the gauge rises okay and falls semi-slowly. Synergists and Medics can't effect the gauge, because they don't interface with the enemy. So you want to be careful if your current Paradigm has an excess of them. Spend too much time without attacking, and the gauge will reset. This means creating good Paradigms is a balance between keeping the gauge alive, keeping it going up, and taking care of your team.

4. Don't be afraid to experiment. XIII was intentionally designed to make it so that all abilities and options players have are useful from the beginning of the game to the end (minus a select few that weren't balanced terribly well). That's why you can retry fights if you die, and you don't have MP costs for your abilities. It's designed to make it so that the player is free to throw everything they have at enemies, without worrying about running out of things like MP, or risking dying and having to go back to the last save point, etc. However, this also means that enemies needed to be tougher to compensate.

Usually in J-RPGs, dungeons are balanced around player 'stamina', which is the general length of time the average party (at that part of the game) can explore and fight before they need to make it back to the safety of a town. This is based on the amount of money, level, stats, and abilities your average party should have at that point. Problem is, because there are so many factors, these games almost always balance encounters for the 'lowest common denominator' so to speak. They'll balance encounters so that players of a pretty low 'stamina' can make it through the dungeon and continue to progress. This means the average encounter difficulty is really low because they want to ensure that basically everyone can get through a dungeon without running out of MP and Ethers or whatever. XIII doesn't have to cater to this, because the lack of traditional levels, the general equipment balance which is designed so that all equipment can be used in the end-game, and the lack of restrictive mechanics like MP, means that players always have the means to take on any challenge. So every encounter can be a unique challenge if they want them to be, because the player is always prepared.

Importantly, they carried this over to ability design as well. Abilities in XIII are designed just like equipment... to be carried all the way to the end-game. Usually in a Final Fantasy, Fire is only useful until a short time after you get Fira. And Fira is only useful until a short time after you get Firaga. Usually your base attacks will do more damage than the previous spell by the time you get the next one. So by the end of the game, you have a bunch of abilities that just clog up menus because only the best of the best are worth using. With XIII, they scaled abilities much more drastically as your characters grow, so Fire still does decent damage when you get to the end. But beyond this, they also used what's known as 'orthogonal design' to further boost the usefulness of these abilities. Fire may do less damage than Fira. But it can also be cast quicker, and you can cast more in succession. Firaga may take longer to cast than Fira, and you can only cast two at once by the end-game, but it also is an area of effect attack so it will hit every enemy within a certain radius. On top of this, they all impact the stagger gauge differently. A single Fire raises the gauge less than Fira, and Fira less than Firaga. So the logical player would say "Cast a bunch of Fire at once to make up for this". And that's a good choice. However, that also means the gauge will fall super rapidly, since you just cast multiple spells at once. So sometimes using Fira or Firaga to gain a lot of stagger is preferable since it will also not effect the gauges fall rate near as negatively... if that makes sense. Point is, all of your abilities have different uses, rather than just being lesser or greater versions of another spell. This means strategy gets more interesting and complex as the game goes on, rather than just raising the stakes artificially like most other J-RPGs do. Your pool of valuable options actually grows, rather than essentially just staying the same as per usual.

Hopefully all of that makes sense. Despite what haters say, XIII is actually a really rewarding game when it comes to combat, and is much more balanced for strategy and challenge than previous titles. It's not perfect by any means. But if you're someone who plays J-RPGs for the strategy jsut as much as (or more than) you play it for the story, it's definitely worth learning.

 

[Lyffstreamus]

Well, I can guarantee that this is a case of you 'doing it wrong'. I don't mean that as an insult of course XIII asks players to treat it differently from most traditional J-RPGs, and it can be difficult for some to transition. Regardless, I'll gladly offer some guidance if you can tell me how far you are, what parties you seem to have the most trouble using, and any examples you may have of fights that genuinely gave you trouble. FFXIII is significantly more difficult than most other FF games, but it's not because it's broken or anything. XIII isn't hard because it's hard. XIII is hard because by comparison most of the other games are so easy.

For now, I'll detail the most important mechanical ideas one needs to keep in mind when playing XIII. Hopefully that will at least get you going a bit.

1. Unless you're switching Paradigms so fast that you aren't even getting actions in, there's no such thing as switching too fast. In fact, there's a bit of a glitch you can exploit by switching, where it will fill up some of your ATB gauge during the switch, even though no actions can be taken during this time. That means you're essentially getting a free action in by exploiting time where your enemies can do anything.

2. Whenever you have access to a Sentinel, oftentimes using them can massively reduce the need for a Medic. Each Role has different passive buffs it affords your party. So not only does a Sentinel block attacks, but just having a Sentinel out means that everyone in your party takes less damage, no matter what that Sentinel is doing. Another example would be that having a Saboteur out means that defuffs are easier to cast on enemies and last longer. And these passive buffs stack. So in the late game, if an enemy is about to use a team wiping area of effect attack, switching to a Sentinel/Sentinel/Sentinel party and blocking with everyone can negate almost all damage.

3. Staggering is the bread and butter of gameplay in XIII. You will not succeed if you don't focus on staggering. This means balanced teams are more important than using teams designed for raw damage... until the enemy is staggered. Different roles have different effects on the stagger gauge. Commandos may raise the stagger percentage a minuscule amount. But they also cause it to slow it's descent. Ravagers on the other hand do the opposite. They raise the stagger percentage extremely quickly, but that also makes it fall quicker. So balancing between the two is rather important. Others have other variances between these two extremes. Sentinels can slow the stagger gauge really well, but they only do so when they attack the enemy. Saboteurs are kind of the middle ground where the gauge rises okay and falls semi-slowly. Synergists and Medics can't effect the gauge, because they don't interface with the enemy. So you want to be careful if your current Paradigm has an excess of them. Spend too much time without attacking, and the gauge will reset. This means creating good Paradigms is a balance between keeping the gauge alive, keeping it going up, and taking care of your team.

4. Don't be afraid to experiment. XIII was intentionally designed to make it so that all abilities and options players have are useful from the beginning of the game to the end (minus a select few that weren't balanced terribly well). That's why you can retry fights if you die, and you don't have MP costs for your abilities. It's designed to make it so that the player is free to throw everything they have at enemies, without worrying about running out of things like MP, or risking dying and having to go back to the last save point, etc. However, this also means that enemies needed to be tougher to compensate.

Usually in J-RPGs, dungeons are balanced around player 'stamina', which is the general length of time the average party (at that part of the game) can explore and fight before they need to make it back to the safety of a town. This is based on the amount of money, level, stats, and abilities your average party should have at that point. Problem is, because there are so many factors, these games almost always balance encounters for the 'lowest common denominator' so to speak. They'll balance encounters so that players of a pretty low 'stamina' can make it through the dungeon and continue to progress. This means the average encounter difficulty is really low because they want to ensure that basically everyone can get through a dungeon without running out of MP and Ethers or whatever. XIII doesn't have to cater to this, because the lack of traditional levels, the general equipment balance which is designed so that all equipment can be used in the end-game, and the lack of restrictive mechanics like MP, means that players always have the means to take on any challenge. So every encounter can be a unique challenge if they want them to be, because the player is always prepared.

Importantly, they carried this over to ability design as well. Abilities in XIII are designed just like equipment... to be carried all the way to the end-game. Usually in a Final Fantasy, Fire is only useful until a short time after you get Fira. And Fira is only useful until a short time after you get Firaga. Usually your base attacks will do more damage than the previous spell by the time you get the next one. So by the end of the game, you have a bunch of abilities that just clog up menus because only the best of the best are worth using. With XIII, they scaled abilities much more drastically as your characters grow, so Fire still does decent damage when you get to the end. But beyond this, they also used what's known as 'orthogonal design' to further boost the usefulness of these abilities. Fire may do less damage than Fira. But it can also be cast quicker, and you can cast more in succession. Firaga may take longer to cast than Fira, and you can only cast two at once by the end-game, but it also is an area of effect attack so it will hit every enemy within a certain radius. On top of this, they all impact the stagger gauge differently. A single Fire raises the gauge less than Fira, and Fira less than Firaga. So the logical player would say "Cast a bunch of Fire at once to make up for this". And that's a good choice. However, that also means the gauge will fall super rapidly, since you just cast multiple spells at once. So sometimes using Fira or Firaga to gain a lot of stagger is preferable since it will also not effect the gauges fall rate near as negatively... if that makes sense. Point is, all of your abilities have different uses, rather than just being lesser or greater versions of another spell. This means strategy gets more interesting and complex as the game goes on, rather than just raising the stakes artificially like most other J-RPGs do. Your pool of valuable options actually grows, rather than essentially just staying the same as per usual.

Hopefully all of that makes sense. Despite what haters say, XIII is actually a really rewarding game when it comes to combat, and is much more balanced for strategy and challenge than previous titles. It's not perfect by any means. But if you're someone who plays J-RPGs for the strategy jsut as much as (or more than) you play it for the story, it's definitely worth learning.

I didn't take it as an insult at all and thank you! I actually haven't revisited this thread since I posted that but I HAVE been working on progressing in the game. The battles have gotten a LOT better and I see the challenge of them as rewarding to have improved upon. My own experience has been that it keeps me very much on my toes and once I fixed setting up battles correctly, using Libra, and harnessing the flow of it all, it's become my favorite in battle mechanics so far.

This comes from someone who tried the game when it came down and put it away due to it's linear nature. Though that does still bother me slightly, so many games now are like that that I can ignore it enough to enjoy the rest of it. It's been surprising to like it so much so far even if I know that a lot of judgement will come from it. It feels like a Final Fantasy to me and the battles are fun. I will continue to revisit your post for further assistance and I SO appreciate the time you took to help!

 

[tiornys]

I have a couple of quibbles here.

3. Staggering is the bread and butter of gameplay in XIII. You will not succeed if you don't focus on staggering.

Replace "staggering" with "damage multiplication" and I agree with this. Importantly, however, staggering is not the be-all and end-all of damage multiplication. In many scenarios it's unnecessary and inefficient when compared with other forms of damage multiplication (like using COMs enhanced with SYN buffs and spamming AoE abilities), while in other scenarios it's nowhere near sufficient for productive damage output--for example, many high HP enemies ask the average party to be stacking stagger with additional post-stagger chain building, plus buffs and/or debuffs.

On top of this, they all impact the stagger gauge differently. A single Fire raises the gauge less than Fira, and Fira less than Firaga. So the logical player would say "Cast a bunch of Fire at once to make up for this". And that's a good choice. However, that also means the gauge will fall super rapidly, since you just cast multiple spells at once.

The gist of your analysis here is good, but this specific point is dead wrong. Ravager abilities do not cause the chain to fall more quickly. They all add a small amount of positive chain duration (specifically, 0.9 seconds). Casting Firaga instead of 3 Fires actually adds less duration to the chain, and will cause the chain to fall off more rapidly than casting 3 Fires.

There are absolutely reasons to use Fira or Firaga, depending on the scenario. But this reason doesn't hold up.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I didn't take it as an insult at all and thank you! I actually haven't revisited this thread since I posted that but I HAVE been working on progressing in the game. The battles have gotten a LOT better and I see the challenge of them as rewarding to have improved upon. My own experience has been that it keeps me very much on my toes and once I fixed setting up battles correctly, using Libra, and harnessing the flow of it all, it's become my favorite in battle mechanics so far.

This comes from someone who tried the game when it came down and put it away due to it's linear nature. Though that does still bother me slightly, so many games now are like that that I can ignore it enough to enjoy the rest of it. It's been surprising to like it so much so far even if I know that a lot of judgement will come from it. It feels like a Final Fantasy to me and the battles are fun. I will continue to revisit your post for further assistance and I SO appreciate the time you took to help!

No problem I've spent a lot of time dissecting XIII over the years, since I think a decent amount of the hate it gets is undeserved. So I like to share whenever I can to hopefully get more people to try and enjoy the game for what it does do right.

I have a couple of quibbles here.

Replace "staggering" with "damage multiplication" and I agree with this. Importantly, however, staggering is not the be-all and end-all of damage multiplication. In many scenarios it's unnecessary and inefficient when compared with other forms of damage multiplication (like using COMs enhanced with SYN buffs and spamming AoE abilities), while in other scenarios it's nowhere near sufficient for productive damage output--for example, many high HP enemies ask the average party to be stacking stagger with additional post-stagger chain building, plus buffs and/or debuffs.

The gist of your analysis here is good, but this specific point is dead wrong. Ravager abilities do not cause the chain to fall more quickly. They all add a small amount of positive chain duration (specifically, 0.9 seconds). Casting Firaga instead of 3 Fires actually adds less duration to the chain, and will cause the chain to fall off more rapidly than casting 3 Fires.

There are absolutely reasons to use Fira or Firaga, depending on the scenario. But this reason doesn't hold up.

A: Yeah, I totally get what you're saying with damage multiplication But for someone who's having trouble with the early game, it's more about just understanding the fundamentals, of which Staggering is one. The player won't really need to experiment with more complex strategies centered around things like damage multiplication until practically post-game level stuff. So I felt it better to focus on the core of what the game asks from the player.

B: ...But Ravager abilities do cause the chain to fall more quickly. Hard to see during normal battle when several roles can be attacking at once. But it's easy to test by forcing your other members into a Commando role, and setting your party leader to Ravager. Build the gauge a decent amount, then let your two AI partners attack a bit all by themselves. It's descent will slow down. Then when they're both done attacking, spam a full set of six spells, and notice the descent speed back up. The gauge still goes up, but it falls faster.

I don't think they will cause it to fall faster (or at least much faster) than the base speed (base speed being the speed it will be set at after one spell, from reset), but if you just slowed the gauge with a Commando, it's descent will speed back up when using Ravager abilities afterward. They may add duration, but they augment the speed of descent too. All of this speaking specifically of pre-stagger of course. Once staggered, the length of time the gauge lasts depends on the last descent speed it was at, and the speed does not change. So at that point, balancing between raising the percentage and doing damage is generally your preference.

 

[tiornys]

B: ...But Ravager abilities do cause the chain to fall more quickly. Hard to see during normal battle when several roles can be attacking at once. But it's easy to test by forcing your other members into a Commando role, and setting your party leader to Ravager. Build the gauge a decent amount, then let your two AI partners attack a bit all by themselves. It's descent will slow down. Then when they're both done attacking, spam a full set of six spells, and notice the descent speed back up. The gauge still goes up, but it falls faster.

You are correctly describing the behavior of the chain gauge, but you are misinterpreting some of the details of what it's doing. Chain duration is constantly ticking down, and if you have a single Ravager attacking the time it takes them land their attacks virtually equals the duration added by those attacks, although this will vary depending on the individual character animation speeds. If you do your experiment with Snow as the Ravager casting Blizzards (fastest attacking animation in the game), you will see significantly slower decay afterwards than if you do the experiment with Sazh as the Ravager alternating between Fire and Flamestrike (one of the slowest animation sequences in the game). Either way, six Ravager attacks are adding 5.4 seconds of chain duration, but Snow spends significantly less than 5.4 seconds on casting six Blizzards while Sazh takes more than 5.4 seconds to do a Fire-Flamestrike-Fire-Flamestrike-Fire-Flamestrike sequence.

On top of this, there's the simple observation that the higher you get the chain gauge pre-stagger--no matter how you get it that high--the faster the gauge will appear to fall for the same chain duration because it's decaying across more of the gauge in the same amount of time. This has nothing to do with Ravagers except that Ravagers are usually involved with building the chain to high levels. There isn't a fast and easy way to observe this, but it could potentially be demonstrated by slowly building the chain with Commandos against a high HP high stagger point target.

Regardless, there's a very easy way to demonstrate that Ravagers do not speed up chain decay. If Ravagers sped up chain decay, then they would be unable to build chain on their own, and that is not what happens. If you take three Ravagers into battle, they are capable of maintaining the chain gauge as long as they can keep landing attacks fast enough. Having more ATB segments helps with this, as does Haste, as does sticking with faster animation sequences. By late chapter 11 you should be able to see this with any three Ravagers.

The difference is subtle, but it's a very important difference for designing good strategies. If you know that three Ravagers are perfectly capable of maintaining a starting boost in chain duration as long as they aren't getting interrupted, then you'll design and use your staggering paradigms differently than if you believe they must get help from COMs or SABs on a regular basis to maintain the chain.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

So let me see if I get this... The gauge looks like it's falling faster because Ravagers don't add as much time to the gauge as others. So the visual UI element will fall faster as they attack, because the time added doesn't easily make up for the time they're taking for each action. Yes? That makes sense. I mean, you could still essentially say that Ravagers make it fall faster and Commandos make it fall slower, though it's more indirect than direct. Ravagers make it fall faster because they don't add as much time.

And I'm guessing that means that the less duration the gauge has on it, the less duration it has during the stagger period, which is why during stagger it will deplete faster if you completely stagger an enemy just using Ravagers. What is the maximum duration the gauge can have? Is it different for each enemy?

 

[tiornys]

So let me see if I get this... The gauge looks like it's falling faster because Ravagers don't add as much time to the gauge as others. So the visual UI element will fall faster as they attack, because the time added doesn't easily make up for the time they're taking for each action. Yes? That makes sense. I mean, you could still essentially say that Ravagers make it fall faster and Commandos make it fall slower, though it's more indirect than direct. Ravagers make it fall faster because they don't add as much time.

Basically correct, yes. I dislike the semantics of "make it fall faster" because, as noted above, that phrasing incorrectly implies that Ravagers are incapable of maintaining/building a chain on their own. Yes, this is a little pedantic, but I have cause--I've run into resistance against the idea of using more Ravagers multiple times when giving advice to people on forums or during live streams of the game.

And I'm guessing that means that the less duration the gauge has on it, the less duration it has during the stagger period, which is why during stagger it will deplete faster if you completely stagger an enemy just using Ravagers. What is the maximum duration the gauge can have? Is it different for each enemy?

Yes, lower chain duration at point of stagger leads to lower stagger durations. Have to be careful here though, because this can easily be caused by other factors besides using only Ravagers, and it's also not always something that happens even if you do use Ravagers only.

Maximum chain duration is 30 seconds. It does not vary with enemy. Stagger duration = chain duration*2 + 8 seconds, max 45 seconds, so it only takes 18.5 seconds of chain duration to achieve a max length stagger. There are a lot of ways to build up that much chain duration, and it's even possible for Ravagers to do it on their own if circumstances are favorable.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

If it can work, the idea of resisting the use of more Ravagers is ridiculous. Granted, I don't know how 'on top of things' you have to be, and how specific the situation has to be to get it to work well for extended periods of time. But I myself have used Rav/Rav/Rav plenty of times for brief moments to build stagger quickly. Spam a full set of actions, switch to Com/Com/Com or something else to, well, to add time technically I guess, then switch back to Rav/Rav/Rav, and repeat. Or I've used it to get the gauge really high really quickly, and then sit on it without staggering while I smash the enemy to the ground using Commandos. I also use it all the time to get the percentage super high really quickly during stagger. It has plenty of uses even without knowing how to sustain it's use for extended periods of time.

 

[tiornys]

But I myself have used Rav/Rav/Rav plenty of times for brief moments to build stagger quickly. Spam a full set of actions, switch to Com/Com/Com or something else to, well, to add time technically I guess, then switch back to Rav/Rav/Rav, and repeat.

Assuming you started in COM/COM/COM (or similar) to build some initial duration, it's completely unnecessary to switch out of RAV/RAV/RAV before stagger. In other words, the sequence should be this: start in Cerberus for duration, then switch to Tri-disaster until stagger. Or, start in Tri-disaster, switch to Cerberus to build duration (for a full length stagger), shift back to Tri-disaster until stagger. Three RAVs are easily capable of maintaining the initial burst of chain duration and building on it. If your plan is to stagger, then you're wasting time if you spend more than a round in Cerberus.

Now, if you need to take a break to heal in something like Combat Clinic before you reach stagger, that could be a good reason to spend another round in Cerberus or similar before going back to Tri-disaster. But that's a different scenario.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

Well that's the thing. Situations that change the plan will always end up showing up. So that's more of a general example I was giving. I have no specific examples because I haven't been able to play all the way through the game myself since 2014, right before Lightning Returns came out. RIP Xbox 360 disc drive, lol. I would get them again for the PS3, but I know the second I do, they'll announce a PS4 trilogy port just like they did with Final Fantasy XII right after I played through and reviewed that on my YT channel, lol. But I digress.

 

[LovingOfLightning]

I'm on Chapter 13. I still haven't completed the game after getting it years ago! I like the levelling up near the end between Orphan's Cradle and at Gran Pulse. But part of the games charm for me is not the urge to finish it too soon. most of my abilities are level 4 so whatever is built up is being spent getting those up to level 4 or above.
This thread has inspired me to give it another go, but this time try and spend days back in Edenhall.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

I'm on Chapter 13. I still haven't completed the game after getting it years ago! I like the levelling up near the end between Orphan's Cradle and at Gran Pulse. But part of the games charm for me is not the urge to finish it too soon. most of my abilities are level 4 so whatever is built up is being spent getting those up to level 4 or above.
This thread has inspired me to give it another go, but this time try and spend days back in Edenhall.

Don't spend too much time grinding before you beat it, because your characters 'unlock potential' after beating the game, meaning their Crystariums grow even bigger. And there are better ways to grind after that.