|
Fedule posted:Yeah, the game does a lot of "getting better later". There's the prologue which will end, and the battle system which will eventually start introducing more options, and the party which you'll be able to change some day, and the linearity which will end at one point, and the endgame which will be over, and the postgame which you'll eventually be able to start making progress in. I honestly can't tell if you're being sincere or scathing.
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 19:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 13:25 |
|
|
Hobgoblin2099 posted:I honestly can't tell if you're being sincere or scathing. Both are fitting? the last 4 or 5 hours of this 50+ hour game are more fun than most other RPGs. Not even any kind of qualifier there, this game is very good at the end once you actually have control and the tube becomes a cone. It just takes way too long to get there, and for most people it's not worth it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 20:34
|
|
|
How is "fun" being quantified here, is it just the battles and upgrading that are the fun in the last few hours or are Fun Units being provided by some other aspect of the game at that point such as the story or actually so far I don't know what you do in this game besides fight battles, upgrade, and listen to a bad story. There doesn't seem to be the little minigame kind of thing that happens in other games like blitzball or triple triad or snowboarding or something.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 20:39
|
|
|
Rita Repulsa posted:actually so far I don't know what you do in this game besides fight battles, upgrade, and listen to a bad story. There doesn't seem to be the little minigame kind of thing that happens in other games like blitzball or triple triad or snowboarding or something. That's pretty much it, I think - there's one scene early on where you do something fun for a minute or so, and a chapter that plays more like other Final Fantasy games. Otherwise, I don't remember there being anything aside from battles, cutscenes, and roughly linear corridors.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 20:42
|
|
|
Rita Repulsa posted:How is "fun" being quantified here, is it just the battles and upgrading that are the fun in the last few hours or are Fun Units being provided by some other aspect of the game at that point such as the story or I could go on about FFXIII and "fun" for hours and hours but I won't. For now I'll just state my position, which is: This game makes a determined effort to seem like it is constantly entertaining you. This is most clearly borne out in the levelling up and item upgrading systems, but there are shades of it all throughout. At every turn FFXIII will loudly proclaim that you are entertained, because if it says it often enough you'll start believing it. Please start believing it. Some parts of FFXIII are Actually Fun, and by "some parts" I mostly mean "about 30% of the battles and one cutscene".
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 20:46
|
|
|
The problem (one of them at least) is that there's no attrition battle-to-battle. You're fully healed after every fight, which means that if a battle is to be challenging in any sense it has to, by itself, pose a danger of killing you, and the further you get in the game, the more this tends to translate into long, drawn out, not-fun battles.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 21:24
|
|
|
Fedule posted:Yeah, the game does a lot of "getting better later". There's the prologue which will end, and the battle system which will eventually start introducing more options, and the party which you'll be able to change some day, and the linearity which will end at one point, and the endgame which will be over, and the postgame which you'll eventually be able to start making progress in. I think this is pretty much a problem with the entirety of the JRPG genre at the moment. That they're tutorializing you on stuff even halfway through the game, holding back some pretty hefty tools and such when you could have used them much earlier. I mean, I understand if it's for brand new features, but the basic stuff you mentioned is what gets held off on more often than not.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 21:28
|
|
|
Instant Grat posted:The problem (one of them at least) is that there's no attrition battle-to-battle. You're fully healed after every fight, which means that if a battle is to be challenging in any sense it has to, by itself, pose a danger of killing you, and the further you get in the game, the more this tends to translate into long, drawn out, not-fun battles. I actually like that attrition is isolated to the insides of battles. I always hated games where you could get 90% of the way through the dungeon, run out of supplies, and then have to go back because you didn't know how long the dungeon was actually going to be, or whether the game would cutscene you out. There is no dodge button in (most) RPGs so the gradual wearing down of HP is kind of just irritating.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 21:40
|
|
|
Yeah, healing after every fight works in a game like FFXIII where you're just running down a tube the whole time. There's not really any "dungeon" to explore so to speak, and a lot of the reasoning behind having attrition between fights is to make dungeon crawling have a risk/reward factor. You need to prepare for the dangers of the dungeon, and as your supplies dwindle you have to make the choice between continuing on and risking death, or going back to resupply. XIII (for the most part, anyway) has none of that exploration factor: run forward, fight guys, run forward some more. Attrition between battles is just annoying in that kind of scenario.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 22:00
|
|
|
I'm not saying it's a bad idea in theory, I'm saying it's implemented poorly.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 22:13
|
|
|
Instant Grat posted:I'm not saying it's a bad idea in theory, I'm saying it's implemented poorly. Countdown until Artix says this verbatim in a video. Taking all bets.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 22:15
|
|
|
Gensuki posted:I actually like that attrition is isolated to the insides of battles. I always hated games where you could get 90% of the way through the dungeon, run out of supplies, and then have to go back because you didn't know how long the dungeon was actually going to be, or whether the game would cutscene you out. There is no dodge button in (most) RPGs so the gradual wearing down of HP is kind of just irritating. Thing is in jrpgs most of the time there's no dodging or anything in battles so the entire dungeon is a function of how prepared you are, and there's not really much to be said about that if everything refills. I mean, if you take out the challenge of preparation something else should be filling in as a challenge. I agree hp refilling automatically is kind of nice because otherwise you'd just use a potion or heal spell or some other unlimited healing item but something should be a limited resource you have to manage if the battles are logistics instead of reflexes. Like maybe HP refills and MP does not after battles and healing items are rare like in the first two zeboyd games. I've seen a number of approaches used. The problem just seems to be they removed extraneous decisions that had immediate answers but instead of replacing them with new more difficult decisions they just kind of left it empty.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2014 23:20
|
|
|
Is the player stuck controlling Lighting/Snow for now or is it pssible to play as Sazh during these opening bits? Over in the WKC LP, a Sow-Leonard comp was made. Snow doesn't seem toooo bad so far. Sure, he's a big dumb idiot who fucks up a lot, but at least he tries to do stuff. Unlike Leonard.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2014 03:36
|
|
|
DOOP posted:Is the player stuck controlling Lighting/Snow for now or is it pssible to play as Sazh during these opening bits? We will not be authorized to change the party leader until Chapter 9. Because of a Game Mechanic We Have Not Seen Yet, this is actually even dumber than it sounds right now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2014 03:53
|
|
|
Instant Grat posted:I'm not saying it's a bad idea in theory, I'm saying it's implemented poorly. Like most things in FF13, really. The problem with the health refilling mechanic in this game is that the game designers did not follow the logic behind it to its conclusion: Without any attrition mechanics and any major fight-to-fight customization options, it is completely pointless to make the player fight the same enemy group multiple times. And yet they do.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2014 14:10
|
|
|
Admiral H. Curtiss posted:The problem with the health refilling mechanic in this game is that the game designers did not follow the logic behind it to its conclusion: Without any attrition mechanics and any major fight-to-fight customization options, it is completely pointless to make the player fight the same enemy group multiple times. And yet they do. I can't imagine how you'd grind enough experience to level up your characters sufficiently if you could only fight any group of enemies once. Oh, wait...
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2014 15:17
|
|
|
Instant Grat posted:I'm not saying it's a bad idea in theory, I'm saying it's implemented poorly. This game summed up in 14 words. This game had potential, and it throws all that potential down the crapper as soon as it can. I still liked it though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2014 22:25
|
|
|
I really, really like how stripped-down FFXIII's combat system is, actually. It could have ended up much worse considering how many other things went horribly wrong in downsizing it to something resembling coherent. The result of a rigorous cutting process as it may be, I can respect it for boldly breaking the Attrition Theory prevalent and rarely succeeding in older games (just...loving Cure everyone after every fight, it's ONLY annoying), and showing that it can actually work very well. But then, yes, don't repeat encounters. It's completely pointless to do so. At least in the span of two minutes. It does work with the star system - if you get 4 stars against three mooks, then after five minutes you get another three mook fight to try for the five stars. However, three mooks followed by two is an absurd and ridiculously obvious waste of time. That's the biggest issue especially in the FFX comparison most of the time, actually - even when willing to immerse yourself, stuff like the linearity and the atrocious encounter design is almost impossible to not notice.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2014 23:25
|
|
|
Fedule posted:We will not be authorized to change the party leader until Chapter 9. Um, April Fool's was a few day ago. Nice try though. ... Wait, you're serious 
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 02:12
|
|
|
An hour, and entire hour of bland corridor running, tedious fights, and cutscenes. And yet the only way to find actual CONTEXT for any of it is in text files. Three scenes of Hope looking at Snow and mumbling, and I didn't get that he wanted revenge until a text file told me. What the poo poo?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 02:37
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:An hour, and entire hour of bland corridor running, tedious fights, and cutscenes. And yet the only way to find actual CONTEXT for any of it is in text files. Three scenes of Hope looking at Snow and mumbling, and I didn't get that he wanted revenge until a text file told me. While your complaint is not without merit, tomorrow's video will pound that particular plot point into your face with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Not to say that the game makes a very good first impression, but you would (mostly) have some basic answers to a lot of the questions re: The Purge, L'Cie, Hope/Snow, etc, within the first two hours.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 03:01
|
|
|
 Update 3: Sympathizing with Hope (Polsy) Music The Vestige Bestiary    Datalogs  quote:In Pursuit of Snow quote:Where Men Fear to Tread quote:Open Doors Beckon quote:In the Shadow of l'Cie quote:Saving the Enemy
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 16:08
|
|
|
Upcoming chapters will have some very nice music associated them, if nothing else. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 16:42
|
|
|
I want to say that I read somewhere that, if you're doing a no crystarium challenge run or something like that, there actually is a point in grinding the enemies before chapter 3, as they can drop shrouds if your star ranking is low (yes, low, not high). It sounds incredibly tedious but it's something, I guess. e: In fact: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/928790-final-fantasy-xiii/faqs/59596 go to section {B05}. e: I should finish watching the video before chiming in. But the point is that the Vanille/Hope area also drops shrouds. Admiral H. Curtiss fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Apr 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 16:52
|
|
|
Admiral H. Curtiss posted:I want to say that I read somewhere that, if you're doing a no crystarium challenge run or something like that, there actually is a point in grinding the enemies before chapter 3, as they can drop shrouds if your star ranking is low (yes, low, not high). The short version is that the less stars you get in a fight, the higher your chances of getting shrouds. Conversely, the more stars you get, the higher the chance you'll get rare drops; 2 stars or less, you can't get rare drops at all. Common drops aren't affected by star rating.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 17:00
|
|
|
"Let's not get our hopes up." And then Vanille immediately gets Hope to his feet, and nobody even tries to make a joke. Rated 1, unsubscribing. The formula for the score isn't really that complicated - the Points Per Second value depends on the enemy formation, and the Target Time depends on the party's skills and stats compared to the enemies' - if you manage to completely outclass an enemy, I think it's possible to have a Target Time so low that the opening animation of the fight takes almost the whole time, and anything other than a single attack that wipes out all the enemies is only worth three or four stars. You start with a base score of 10,000, and the difference between your fight time and the target, positive or negative, times the PPS value for the fight, plus twenty percent if you had initiative (I've never calculated whether the displayed PPS value incorporates that or not), is added to that. The result determines how many stars you get, and the only thing I don't know offhand is the exact cutoff for each star level. I'd say these early battles are a good introduction to the battle system if the battle system they were introducing you do bore any resemblance to the Final Fantasy XIII battle system. I guess it's there to teach you how to auto-battle, although I believe I saw a Manual selection in this video. Personally, I went with manual the entire game aside from a few moments when I really needed to act faster than I could select abilities, and I think the result was at least slightly more engaging than auto-battling the whole way through. I still wouldn't do it again, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 17:36
|
|
|
Okay, this is revealing of my own stupidity here, but what exactly is going on when Lightning is apologizing to the door?Fedule posted:We don't know. I understand it's not explained now, but I have played the game and I don't get it. Camel Pimp fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Apr 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 17:47
|
|
|
Camel Pimp posted:Okay, this is revealing of my own stupidity here, but what exactly is going on when Lightning is apologizing to the door? We don't know.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 17:50
|
|
|
Sacrarium sounds like a glass box you put priests in. Also, Zwerg is literally German for dwarf; what's with the anime/JRPG obsession with German, I have no idea. On a totally unrelated note, for some reason the battle theme strongly reminds me, of all things, Sonic 2006.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 18:16
|
|
|
So since you can apparently only control one party member directly, how good is the party AI once they have more things to do than spam attack or use potion? Also I think Snow would be so much more tolerable if he'd just shut the gently caress up about being the hero. I mean from what little I remember I'm pretty sure Snow has an understandable and powerful enough motivation to do what he's doing, but his whole "Your knight in shining armor has arrived  " routine is wearing thin. Granted I guess I should stop piling all the blame on Snow. Our entire cast of main characters right now is either too zany (Snow, Vanille, Sahz) or too brooding (Hope, Lightning) with no middle ground in characterization.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 18:23
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Sacrarium sounds like a glass box you put priests in. Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Apr 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 18:24
|
|
|
Sydin posted:Granted I guess I should stop piling all the blame on Snow. Our entire cast of main characters right now is either too zany (Snow, Vanille, Sahz) or too brooding (Hope, Lightning) with no middle ground in characterization. It kinda hits me that Vanille may be there just to make everyone else look more likable in comparison.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 18:26
|
|
|
Sydin posted:So since you can apparently only control one party member directly, how good is the party AI once they have more things to do than spam attack or use potion? It's very, very simple, which is both good and bad. I'll wait until the LP gets there to say anything too detailed, but what it boils down to is that it's so simplistic that it's easy to predict what the AI characters are going to in a given situation, to the point where you actually have a sort of indirect control over them. Edit: And "sacrarium" is a real word; it's the sink for holy stuff disposal in a Catholic church. 
Akratic Method fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Apr 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 18:29
|
|
|
Sydin posted:So since you can apparently only control one party member directly, how good is the party AI once they have more things to do than spam attack or use potion? The AI is generally relatively smart, in that as it uses stuff it learns what works and what doesn't and adjusts accordingly. If you already know things about the enemy, like if you've fought it before or use items that scan them, they'll adapt that information to their patterns. It's not perfect, as it has priorities on certain actions that you might not always want, but I think with the exception of one or two classes it's not really a major problem and they're quite decent (better than Persona AI, at the very least).
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 18:38
|
|
|
I want everyone to quickly ask themselves the question of "where is the party at the moment" and not answer it with "the Vestige, of course", as that just raises more questions. Who else gives up? I have watched the Pork Lift & wateyad LP, I have played the game myself and I just watched this, but I still have no idea. I mean I can guess based on what happens next, but so far it's been: large thing was dropped from the ceiling; everyone *gasp*s; MOTORBIKES!; we probably arrive...in there. Yes, we can gather that Serah is IN THERE, we know the name of it, but what is it, what purpose does it serve? I can only guess, as said, even with future knowledge. It's just so incredibly confusing. I had multiple experiences like this as the game progresses, by the way. Cutscenes more or less often enough literally teleport the the characters somewhere and they're like "oh, we're on the [bullshit term] now, how surprising!" Yes, it is. It's also confusing and requires more exposition just to get an idea of where the hell it is, what the hell it is and as the game is poo poo at exposition, that doesn't work half the time. Just utterly terrible. On the other hand, I never really got the hate for Vanille. She is...squeaky, yes. But I don't see her being creepy. Actually, hugging hope and putting a cheerful face on things is pretty much the best thing to do in that situation, I think. Far better than going "oh yeah I guess that is sad let me share your pain" - at least as a watcher, I appreciate that far more. Though I also absolutely adore Selphie (and Zell!) in FF8 for not being broody unhinged fuckwits like the entire rest of the planet's population; sometimes "Let's blow the place to smithereens  !" is exactly what I want from a character. Wait, in the context of JRPGs, that's pretty much all I could hope (ha!) for.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 18:58
|
|
|
Sydin posted:So since you can apparently only control one party member directly, how good is the party AI once they have more things to do than spam attack or use potion? The AI's pretty good, but it does like to alternate attacks if it can. That's not in itself a bad thing - if you're facing an enemy that's weak to fire and water, casting Fire-Water-Fire is more visually interesting than casting Fire-Fire-Fire, at least - but if you're facing an enemy that's weak to only fire and your Magic and Strength stats aren't too far apart, the AI will want to alternate magical fire attacks with physical fire attacks. The animations for switching from a magical to a physical attack and back again are a lot slower than those for performing several magical or physical attacks in a row. It's only really an issue if you're intensely aware of every half-second wasted in battle, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 19:14
|
|
|
Sydin posted:So since you can apparently only control one party member directly, how good is the party AI once they have more things to do than spam attack or use potion? Talking about the AI doesn't make too much sense without knowing the major "thing" about FF13's battle system, which we haven't gotten to yet. What we can talk about at the moment is that the AI is identical to the Auto-Battle command; or I assume it's probably more correct to say that the Auto-Battle does whatever the AI would do. This works most of the time, but has some strange implications once you actually get to long lategame boss battles. Also, the AI cannot use consumable resources, such as Items.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 19:16
|
|
|
Rith posted:The AI's pretty good, but it does like to alternate attacks if it can. That's not in itself a bad thing - if you're facing an enemy that's weak to fire and water, casting Fire-Water-Fire is more visually interesting than casting Fire-Fire-Fire, at least - but if you're facing an enemy that's weak to only fire and your Magic and Strength stats aren't too far apart, the AI will want to alternate magical fire attacks with physical fire attacks. The animations for switching from a magical to a physical attack and back again are a lot slower than those for performing several magical or physical attacks in a row. It's only really an issue if you're intensely aware of every half-second wasted in battle, though. Isn't switching attacks actively good for driving Stagger, as in "Fire-Water-Fire" is better than "Fire-Fire-Fire" against an enemy that's only weak to fire, even?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 19:17
|
|
|
Jesus christ people at this rate I might as well not even post the first two videos of Chapter 3, you guys are going to cover literally everything we said. I realize that there's not TOO much to say about Chapter 2, but come on.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 19:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 13:25 |
|
|
Nihilarian posted:Isn't Sacrarium a Sacri, Sacres, Sacrulen, Sacrum. But close enough.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2014 19:26
|
|