Do You Find That Most FF Titles Have Easy Monster Battles?

[Alexander]

The reason I ask is that my brother and I were at EB Games earlier today and business was a little slow so we got to talking with the store employee and FF came up. We were discussing monsters that we hate. (My choice was the Malboro.) He then made an interesting remark. He said that the FF series for the most part, had battles that ended way too quickly. He went on to say that most monsters are killed with just one blow. He felt that this was dumb. A one-hit-kill before the monster retaliates was boring and predictable. I see where he's coming from, but the outcome of a battle depends on many factors. The strength of the party, it's individual members, the strength of the monster, etc. I'm interested to know what you all think about his remarks. Do you agree?


EDIT: This applies to regular monsters, not bosses and such.

 

[Thule Esperada]

I think that Final Fantasy random encounters usually consist of two types: easy mobs and strong abominations. Mobs consist of several weak enemies that are easy to beat and give small rewards. Abominations, like Malboro, Behemoth or Tonberry, are typically rare monsters that are tough to beat but give better rewards in turn. I think it works well however, due to the games' length. If every encounter was a gruelling test of skill, the exp and other reward would have to be increased in response or it would become exhausting due to the increased time spent in battles. By having the player fight numerous short battles against weaker foes, exp and stat growth feels more pleasant. It allows the games to be played at a more leisurely pace. This also makes bosses stand out more, making them more memorable in my opinion.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

Apologies for the length. I just figured I'd try to explain this in full detail.

I would agree with that employee that battles in Final Fantasy aren't challenging, but not necessarily for the same reasons, nor would I present the same solution. This problem is actually my biggest issue with the series (and the J-RPG genre in general). I'd say on average, about 30% of your time is spent in battle. With that much time being spent on combat, you would hope that more of it is actually meaningful and engaging. Otherwise you're left asking why it's there in the first place. If most battles aren't important, engaging, or difficult, why not just get rid of those battles and make the truly challenging encounters give you more/better rewards? All those easy battles do, is serves to pad length at that point.

The goal should be to make as much of a player's time engaging and interesting as you can, while (usually, but not always) trying to limit the exhaustion it can cause. The only exceptions are experimental games that are specifically trying to bore or troll players, etc.

The reality is that -for how much fans of J-RPGs roar about the strategy the genre takes- most of that strategy is false. It feels strategic, because the mechanics are reminiscent of more strategic pursuits like chess or other board games. But 95% of the battles you face in most J-RPGs have a super easy/cheap (cost wise) solution. This is actually an enormous topic that deals with everything from basic statistical balance, to how things like abilities and MP are designed, to how the game handles AI, and predictable player patterns. I'm only touching on a tiny bit of it here. Suffice it to say though that most normal battles are indeed really dumbed down. They almost always serve no other purpose other than to give the player something, anything to play, and to give them a way to level up for the next boss. Most battles can be won using nothing but basic Attack/Cure, which in game design is sometimes called a Foo Strategy (a strategy that you get early on, but will almost always trump more complex or powerful strategies because the power of these other strategies doesn't outweigh the skill/cost required to use them). Heck, realistically most of the bosses are even rather easy, and can be bested with little more than Attack/Cure.

The thing is, the solution isn't to make battles longer. Yiazmat from FFXII is an extremely long battle, but that length changes nothing in terms of difficulty; the battle isn't actually more challenging than others because of the length. It just has superficially higher stakes. As such, a loss during battles like that can be extremely frustrating. Some people also think that the solution is to essentially over-design battles. Most of the Dark Aeons and other International content in FFX is over-designed. The only way to realistically beat these battles is with a very specific strategic setup, super strict minimum stats, and even sometimes a bit of luck. The solution players are left with is to grind, grind, grind, or beat their heads against the wall until they get lucky. Unless the pieces to this strategic puzzle are made clear enough and are taught throughout the game, it just ends up feeling like you're spending more time getting into the developer's head than actually strategizing. Besides, most people play J-RPGs for freedom of strategy; they don't want to play it like a puzzle game with singular solutions.

There are ways around this, but they're often considered "catering to casuals", or too different to be "Final Fantasy enough". People start throwing around phrases like 'this game would've been great if it wasn't called Final Fantasy'... as if the name itself changes the gameplay at all. Beyond that though, the solutions feel like they require a ton more work during development, because designers can't rely on padded stats to hide the unbalanced nature of their combat scenarios. Therefore, it's often easier for them to just do it the way they've always done it. But changing these things can make a big difference for the better, despite fan outcry.

For example, Final Fantasy XIII was really smart with how it structured many of its battle mechanics. It got rid of MP, and healed characters after each battle. This meant that every single battle could safely expect that the player always had the resources to beat the next enemy mob (unless they were running from battles all the time, but that's the player's problem). Therefore, if they wanted to, they could ratchet up the challenge of each battle, without making any battle excessively long. If you pay attention, you'll notice that enemies in XIII can hit rather hard, and use status effects/debuffs way more often than usual. On the flip side, the player is free to use any of their abilities without worrying about using too much MP... because there is no MP. It encourages experimentation, and means the designers had to create combat scenarios that took all of the player's potential options into account. They couldn't say "Well, X-attack takes so much MP that we don't have to worry about most players using that in this battle.". Though everyone thinks these changes were solely done to make it easier for new players, they also serve to give the dev team more freedom in how hard they made battles. They don't need to worry about players maybe being too low of a level, or not having this or that ability, or being unlikely to waste MP on so-and-so attack.

Using this design philosophy as the basis for combat can allow for every battle to be a challenge, without needing to pad length at all. Another change XIII made that supported this, was allowing players to restart battles if they lose, rather than going back to the last save point. There's realistically no reason to punish players with something that's normally un-fun, unless the game is designed around that idea like Dark Souls. And even in cases like that, punishments should always be engaging in some way. Sending players to retread the same exact part of the game, collecting all the same items, etc., without some incentive (like recollecting their lost souls in Dark Souls) just makes no sense. So allowing players to restart instantly further gives them reason to try new tactics, and allows the designers to include fewer 'easy way out' Foo Strategies for the player.

The other change XIII made relates to how player abilities work. Abilities scale much better than normal, and are designed in a more orthogonal fashion. Orthogonal game design is that which multiplies use of a mechanic, rather than just adding to it or replacing it. Attack options should all each have fundamentally different design, not just be a greater or lesser version of something else. In a previous Final Fantasy, Fire became obsolete once you got Fira. And Fira did the same when you got Firaga. They were all exactly the same; one was just stronger than the other. XIII gives these abilities inherent elements that maintain their usefulness for the whole game. Fire does the least amount of damage, but you can charge up to six of them up in a single 'turn'. Fira can only be cast three times in a single turn, but it's more powerful, and it has a bit of an Area of Effect to it so it can damage multiple enemies at once. And Firaga can only be cast twice per turn maximum, but it's the most powerful by far, and has a huge AoE.

XIII also has the added benefit of this orthogonal design bleeding into the Stagger system unique to it. Six Fire spells will definitely raise the enemy Stagger Gauge much more than three Fira's or two Firaga's, despite a single Fira or Firaga raising the gauge more than a single Fire spell. But because of the way Black Magic causes the gauge to deplete more rapidly the more spells you cast in succession, it's not always smartest to cast that many spells at once. Sometimes it's smarter to sacrifice the extra gauge buildup for a gauge that lowers slower.

Granted, this is sort of a minimalist version of orthogonal design. Fira is the same thing as Blizzara; it just uses fire rather than ice as an elemental strength. More direct orthogonal design would focus on multiple 'differences in kind'. Maybe fire spells also cause burn damage over time, while ice spells slow enemies down, on top of the other unique characteristics. It's also much more difficult to design/balance for, but it's also really great if these design elements aren't solely linear. Every more powerful fire spell being slower to cast, but having a wider AoE is linear. Having Fire burn enemies, while Firaga melts away their weapons (as a terrible example, lol) is non-linear in terms of mechanical design.

Once you get a stronger summon, or spell, or command, your others become useless in most J-RPGs. Neo Bahamut is rendered obsolete when you get Bahamut ZERO. And nearly everything is rendered useless when you get KotR. But that doesn't even apply just to end game 'super' attacks, as shown above with the Fire example. Regardless it's true that once you get ultimate weapons/attacks, everything else is pointless. That means your final useful ability count is usually no bigger than the amount you started with. This holds true more or less for the whole game. It's all just about replacing options rather than adding options. Therefore, battles stay at the same difficulty level, if not just getting even easier.

So yes, I think battles in FF games -and most J-RPGs- are too easy. I think they could be more challenging, without becoming tedious. But first, players need to be willing to not cry foul the second something changes mechanically. Restarting battles doesn't just benefit casuals... it helps everyone.