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New FFXV battle system footage and details, playable characters clarified

Final Devil of War: Bayonetta Warriors Gaiden

Regardless of how good this turns out, I will end up being disappointed that it was not what I hoped the next Final Fantasy game would be. It could be game of the year, I could love it, but it is not Final Fantasy. As much as I disliked XIII, that was closer to what I expect from Final Fantasy. I really wish they had not named this a numbered Final Fantasy game.

Frankly, I'm particularly scared that it will be super popular and make them think this is the battle system everyone wants in Final Fantasy games.
 

Slowdive

Banned
wow...

Why is it that everytime they off this game it looks like it has a completely new battle system ?

Today looks much,much batter than what they've shown before.It looks closer to E3 2013.

I'm assuming the stuff shown in the TGS trailer is slower because Noctis is low level. At E3 2013 Nomura said Noctis was high level and could do a lot of faster/advanced moves.
 
From the interview they seem to be saying that they're trying to strike a balance so it can be played as an action game (with your success based on moment-to-moment action skill) and it can be played as an RPG (with your success based on how well you're prepared).
 
I am just very happy with how direct the questions were and how openly he addressed them. If this keeps up for all future live broadcasts and interviews, the PR cycle for this game will be very pleasant! Besides, if you are making a game you are proud of like Tabata says he is, you will be okay showing it off. Look at Kojima right now!
 

Skilletor

Member
It's a figure of speech. And it applies to KH just as well or even better than many other games that are accused of this. None of them are literally "press X to win" either.

I played/beat vanilla 1 and 2 when I was 12-13 on pride mode or w/e. If I'm not wrong the games are mostly about pressing a single button for context sensitive actions and attacks along with watching cool set pieces. Hence "press X to win". Difficulty was mostly low as well outside of a few things like Sephiroth. So sure, maybe the difficulty itself was upped in re-releases but I was referring more to the style of gameplay rather than how hard it was.

You're definitely wrong. Especially on higher difficulties.
 
wow...

Why is it that everytime they off this game it looks like it has a completely new battle system ?

Today looks much,much batter than what they've shown before.It looks closer to E3 2013.

Probably because this is more late game than the TGS trailer. So you'll probably start with a slower battle system until you get used with everything. And then you get the skills in this video.

I'm pretty sure I can see people complaining about how we don't get all the cool stuff from the beginning when the game comes out.
 
In this footage, the party members are attacking (not very frequently, it seems), but the HUD isn't showing their actions like it did in the TGS demo. Maybe the party AI/"gambits" are turned off in this video.

I still believe the "gambit"-like system is for other party members only, not Noctis.
 

HeelPower

Member
Probably because this is more late game than the TGS trailer. So you'll probably start with a slower battle system until you get used with everything. And then you get the skills in this video.
.

I'm assuming the stuff shown in the TGS trailer is slower because Noctis is low level. At E3 2013 Nomura said Noctis was high level and could do a lot of faster/advanced moves.

I am ready to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe its just a difficult system to put in words due to both gambit and action elements.

But if its difficult to make character switchtable then it must be a relatively involved battle system.

I wish they asked about character customization though.If its one character it needs to be customizable.
 

Ricker

Member
Looks ok I guess...I am not saying I wanted a traditional turn based FF game ,like the PS1 games but this look like DmC in the FF Universe...I hope we get options,you know like Dragon Inquisition where you can go real time or also pause the game and plan stuff,2 choices....
 

Valus

Member
Why would we even want to play as anyone other than Noctis? As cool as they look, that whole teleporting gimick would make Noctis standout hardcore versus the other guys. Wouldn't make much sense to use them.
 
I'm glad we are suddenly getting so much more info about this game. What do you guys think slowed development for so long? Tetsuya Nomura? Developing on PS3?
 

Dark_castle

Junior Member
I am ready to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe its just a difficult system to put in words due to both gambit and action elements.

But if its difficult to make character switchtable then it must be a relatively involved battle system.

I wish they asked about character customization though.If its one character it needs to be customizable.

They were mainly focusing on the combat system itself for today. I suppose in the near future Tabata will share new details on the game's customization aspects and the Gambit system and how they bring layers of depth to combat.
 

Koozek

Member
Lol. FF has always been one of the most casual JRPG franchises on the planet and that's partly why it's so much more popular than your Shin Megami Tensei's etc. You can play most FFs through with just choosing the Attack command 99,9% of the time (with some skills making the games even easier, if you bothered to use them).

And there's party management, customization & strategy in action RPG combat. I'm not super-happy about you having no direct control over the other party members, but these action RPG systems can still create fucktons of strategic situations. What weapons are the most efficient to use against particular enemies, which enemies should you focus on first when you're ganged up on, when do you attack and when to get as far away from the enemy as possible, how do you position yourself in relation to the bigger enemies (do you attack them from behind? Their legs? Their head? Torso?), is there cover you can get behind to shield yourself from gun-fire, fire spells and crap, should you use magic or conserve MP for the dodging mechanic, HP & MP management in general; when to heal and when to push on attacking etc. etc. A single battle against a big monster + a group of smaller enemies like a behemoth + soldiers could have fuckton more strategy than most battles in past FFs put together ("Choose Attack -> Choose Attack -> Choose Fire Spell against an ice enemy -> Choose Attack - > Choose Attack -> Choose Attack -> Cura All -> Choose Attack -> Choose Attack").

I played the "bonafide FF titles" from the past and I think people romanticize the strategic depth of older FF titles way too much. Outside of boss battles I rarely had to do anything else than using the attack button to win the fights in contrast to SMT for example.
We don't know how many possibilites we will have in terms of Party management and customization but just because the other party members are not playable doesn't mean that you can't customize their equipment and behaviour (especially if we'll get a Gambit-like system again).

To be honest, after playing LO I felt a bit better about Sakaguchi leaving since the combination of long drawn out battles and random encounters really killed the game for me.

I understand where you're coming from but I just wanted to point out that not all long-time FF fans feel like you do.

QFT.
Exactly what I think, too, as a huge FF, who played every main-line entry and their spin-offs. A deep battle system was NEVER the reason why I played FFs, lol. It's the art, music, production value, etc.
 
Why would we even want to play as anyone other than Noctis? As cool as they look, that whole teleporting gimick would make Noctis standout hardcore versus the other guys. Wouldn't make much sense to use them.

I agree 100%. Especially with how the world and level is designed around being able to teleport to high spots, it just makes little sense to use the others except for combat. And even then noctis would be more efficient.
 
They were mainly focusing on the combat system itself for today. I suppose in the near future Tabata will share new details on the game's customization aspects and the Gambit system and how they bring layers of depth to combat.

It's mostly to address concerns regarding the notable changes in the battle system, too.
 

HeelPower

Member
Or maybe Tabata looked at what they had, and the "experience" the staff has, and accepted that it was probably not a good idea to try and tackle third person shooting in a big game like this after all. :lol

Sometimes it's better not to have something at all, than to have something in a game and for it to be bad!

yeah..

He seems to be more focusing about accomplishing a solid foundation rather than branching out into really weak and garbage gameplay.

A focused direction is better than a strained unfocused mess ala RE6.

If that single character is customizable and involved then I can be ok with it to an extent.

Witcher and BloodBorne will be like that too, although I know character switching is a FF staple.

They were mainly focusing on the combat system itself for today. I suppose in the near future Tabata will share new details on the game's customization aspects and the Gambit system and how they bring layers of depth to combat.

yeah..

I am sure some fun stuff related to customization will be there..Hopefully we can change the way noctis looks and plays to a degree.
 

botty

Banned
I support the idea of only one playable character, too. As long as Noctis is able to have different ability paths then it should be fine. And it would also cut development time :)
 
Management.
FFXIII troubles.
FFXIV troubles.
So
t0XHtgJ.gif


Versus development in a nutshell?
 

Verendus

Banned
After watching the video, this looks like the same thing. They've removed the switch mechanic, and added jump. They didn't do a good job of showing off jump though. He jumped and that's it lol. They must still be working on it, but I imagine you'll be able to launch into attacks from jump too. This will make a big difference.

It also seems from the Q and A that it's still a case of being able to both press and hold attack. Press for manual hits, and hold to chain. He doesn't seem to imply that only hold is available for attack.

One question for those who can answer it as he compares the game to Type-0 saying you press a button to invoke a combo; how do you invoke a combo in Type-0 exactly? Do you press it once and this activates a combo, or do you have to keep pressing manually?

If that is indeed the case, and jump is in, this will be a variant of Kingdom Hearts pretty much. The biggest difference really came from that jump and hold to chain as a little extra. As manual presses seem to still be in, and jump is also in, this is going to feel quite similar.

I'm really happy to be honest. It feels like they removed the switch mechanic since they couldn't work around the limitations of it, but ultimately, they've stayed true to what Nomura was originally showing off with the combat. And short warp will do just fine to replace the switch if it works the way I'm imagining. I know they mentioned they're going to reveal the control layout, but I'm hoping they allow us to customise it if possible. I liked those trigger buttons and don't want those changed.

I remember reading in that demo thread that summons were controllable in Type-0, I'm now going to hope that's also the case here. It's been a long time since FFX, I want to control.
 

GaussTek

Member
...but at E3 last year the game was running on a prototype environment (Ebony). At TGS 2014 we showed the game running in the actual environment (Luminous). Right now we are in the process of migrating functions from the prototype into it. It will take time to migrate it all...

So they showed off an idealized version of the game at last year's E3, that was just running on a "prototype" environment, but the actual one is Luminous, and will take time to migrate all that stuff to it... why the hell they spent time doing that instead of developing all in Luminous from the beginning?
 
One question for those who can answer it as he compares the game to Type-0 saying you press a button to invoke a combo; how do you invoke a combo in Type-0 exactly? Do you press it once and this activates a combo, or do you have to keep pressing manually?
In Type 0 you can press a button for a single attack or hold it for a continuous chain of attacks.
 

Mr. RHC

Member
Great gifs, raven777.

Wonder what the people who complained about 'too slow combat' complain next about now that it is proven that there are smaller/lighter weapons which make combat much faster.

I don't recall people saying this at all.
 

Koozek

Member
After watching the video, this looks like the same thing. They've removed the switch mechanic, and added jump. They didn't do a good job of showing off jump though. He jumped and that's it lol. They must still be working on it, but I imagine you'll be able to launch into attacks from jump too. This will make a big difference.

It also seems from the Q and A that it's still a case of being able to both press and hold attack. Press for manual hits, and hold to chain. He doesn't seem to imply that only hold is available for attack.

One question for those who can answer it as he compares the game to Type-0 saying you press a button to invoke a combo; how do you invoke a combo in Type-0 exactly? Do you press it once and this activates a combo, or do you have to keep pressing manually?

If that is indeed the case, and jump is in, this will be a variant of Kingdom Hearts pretty much. The biggest difference really came from that jump and hold to chain as a little extra. As manual presses seem to still be in, and jump is also in, this is going to feel quite similar.

I'm really happy to be honest. It feels like they removed the switch mechanic since they couldn't work around the limitations of it, but ultimately, they've stayed true to what Nomura was originally showing off with the combat. And short warp will do just fine to replace the switch if it works the way I'm imagining. I know they mentioned they're going to reveal the control layout, but I'm hoping they allow us to customise it if possible. I liked those trigger buttons and don't want those changed.

I remember reading in that demo thread that summons were controllable in Type-0, I'm now going to hope that's also the case here. It's been a long time since FFX, I want to control.

Yeah, I'm optimistic, too! Regarding the summons, I think they will be huge AoE spells with tons of fancy particle effects. Doubt you'll be able to control them. We'll see.

Btw, Verendus, have you heard anything about what Kitase & Toriyama are working on, right now? On the FFXVI you mentioned or maybe really on FFVIIR?^^
 
I remember reading in that demo thread that summons were controllable in Type-0, I'm now going to hope that's also the case here. It's been a long time since FFX, I want to control.

In Type-0, you play as the summon.

Can't remember the exact lore behind it, but you basically temporarily sacrifice your playable character to summon your Eidolon, and you play as the Eidolon for a short amount of time until the summon expires, and your character come back to life.
 
One question for those who can answer it as he compares the game to Type-0 saying you press a button to invoke a combo; how do you invoke a combo in Type-0 exactly? Do you press it once and this activates a combo, or do you have to keep pressing manually?
You can mash attack to combo, or you can hold down to combo.
 
After watching the video, this looks like the same thing. They've removed the switch mechanic, and added jump. They didn't do a good job of showing off jump though. He jumped and that's it lol. They must still be working on it, but I imagine you'll be able to launch into attacks from jump too. This will make a big difference.

It also seems from the Q and A that it's still a case of being able to both press and hold attack. Press for manual hits, and hold to chain. He doesn't seem to imply that only hold is available for attack.

One question for those who can answer it as he compares the game to Type-0 saying you press a button to invoke a combo; how do you invoke a combo in Type-0 exactly? Do you press it once and this activates a combo, or do you have to keep pressing manually?

If that is indeed the case, and jump is in, this will be a variant of Kingdom Hearts pretty much. The biggest difference really came from that jump and hold to chain as a little extra. As manual presses seem to still be in, and jump is also in, this is going to feel quite similar.

I'm really happy to be honest. It feels like they removed the switch mechanic since they couldn't work around the limitations of it, but ultimately, they've stayed true to what Nomura was originally showing off with the combat. And short warp will do just fine to replace the switch if it works the way I'm imagining. I know they mentioned they're going to reveal the control layout, but I'm hoping they allow us to customise it if possible. I liked those trigger buttons and don't want those changed.

I remember reading in that demo thread that summons were controllable in Type-0, I'm now going to hope that's also the case here. It's been a long time since FFX, I want to control.
Well... I am glad to know that you feel positive about the combat here. It staying close to Nomura's vision minus char switching isn't that big of a deal breaker, if the end game combat is deep and satisfying.

So fucking hyped now.
 

ZenTzen

Member
So they showed off an idealized version of the game at last year's E3, that was just running on a "prototype" environment, but the actual one is Luminous, and will take time to migrate all that stuff to it... why the hell they spent time doing that instead of developing all in Luminous from the beginning?

because as they stated at e3 2013, luminous wasnt complete or in a good enough state to do that
 

Mortemis

Banned
You can jump! :D

Man, I'm not gonna say the battle system is great now or something like that, I just wanna play the game.

Time needs to move faster.
 
After watching the video, this looks like the same thing. They've removed the switch mechanic, and added jump. They didn't do a good job of showing off jump though. He jumped and that's it lol. They must still be working on it, but I imagine you'll be able to launch into attacks from jump too. This will make a big difference.

It also seems from the Q and A that it's still a case of being able to both press and hold attack. Press for manual hits, and hold to chain. He doesn't seem to imply that only hold is available for attack.

One question for those who can answer it as he compares the game to Type-0 saying you press a button to invoke a combo; how do you invoke a combo in Type-0 exactly? Do you press it once and this activates a combo, or do you have to keep pressing manually?

If that is indeed the case, and jump is in, this will be a variant of Kingdom Hearts pretty much. The biggest difference really came from that jump and hold to chain as a little extra. As manual presses seem to still be in, and jump is also in, this is going to feel quite similar.

I'm really happy to be honest. It feels like they removed the switch mechanic since they couldn't work around the limitations of it, but ultimately, they've stayed true to what Nomura was originally showing off with the combat. And short warp will do just fine to replace the switch if it works the way I'm imagining. I know they mentioned they're going to reveal the control layout, but I'm hoping they allow us to customise it if possible. I liked those trigger buttons and don't want those changed.

I remember reading in that demo thread that summons were controllable in Type-0, I'm now going to hope that's also the case here. It's been a long time since FFX, I want to control.
Every character has a basic combo, you can do that combo by mashing triangle.

Some of those characters (usually the ranged ones), can also do that by holding triangle. They'll do the basic combo, and then start again if you keep the button held down. If the character can move while attacking then you can move and hold the attack button as well.

It's just one combo though, you don't customize. Different combos have to be made manually. For instance: Rem can cancel her normal combo into a quick or heavy finisher (Triangle +Up or Triangle+Down), and cancel the finisher with a magic (with reduced casting time).

Not every character can do the combo by just holding triangle though. Trey uses a bow, if you hold the button he charges the shot instead.

tl;dr: holding is the exact same thing as mashing.
 
After watching the video, this looks like the same thing. They've removed the switch mechanic, and added jump. They didn't do a good job of showing off jump though. He jumped and that's it lol. They must still be working on it, but I imagine you'll be able to launch into attacks from jump too. This will make a big difference.

It also seems from the Q and A that it's still a case of being able to both press and hold attack. Press for manual hits, and hold to chain. He doesn't seem to imply that only hold is available for attack.

One question for those who can answer it as he compares the game to Type-0 saying you press a button to invoke a combo; how do you invoke a combo in Type-0 exactly? Do you press it once and this activates a combo, or do you have to keep pressing manually?

If that is indeed the case, and jump is in, this will be a variant of Kingdom Hearts pretty much. The biggest difference really came from that jump and hold to chain as a little extra. As manual presses seem to still be in, and jump is also in, this is going to feel quite similar.

I'm really happy to be honest. It feels like they removed the switch mechanic since they couldn't work around the limitations of it, but ultimately, they've stayed true to what Nomura was originally showing off with the combat. And short warp will do just fine to replace the switch if it works the way I'm imagining. I know they mentioned they're going to reveal the control layout, but I'm hoping they allow us to customise it if possible. I liked those trigger buttons and don't want those changed.

I remember reading in that demo thread that summons were controllable in Type-0, I'm now going to hope that's also the case here. It's been a long time since FFX, I want to control.

Maybe summons give you new swords/abilities? For instance: the ifrit summon grants you fire elemental sword damage with some special attacks with countdown timer or maybe we can control it like type-0 or it could work like KH does it.
 

BadWolf

Member
Holding will be great for getting through basic battles with weak/basic enemies or grinding, instead of picking attack over and over from the menu.
 

Dark_castle

Junior Member
I still dont why they went with holding a button for a combo instead of pressing it multiple times. That's such a huge thing for me.

Yeah, I think they should have demonstrated the ability to tap instead of hold. Duckroll and Verendus believed they're both available for us to choose, based on impression of the Q&A.
 

Verendus

Banned
In Type 0 you can press a button for a single attack or hold it for a continuous chain of attacks.
You can mash attack to combo, or you can hold down to combo.
Thanks for answering.

This sounds like all they've done is remove the weapon switch mechanic to customisation instead. It kind of makes sense if they couldn't work out an accessible way to cycle through more than two weapons. It also sounds like they've done the logical thing, and mashing is the same as holding so people can play how they want (though I may be jumping too far with this).

Well... I am glad to know that you feel positive about the combat here. It staying close to Nomura's vision minus char switching isn't that big of a deal breaker, if the end game combat is deep and satisfying.

So fucking hyped now.
I've always been pretty positive about it. I did say I think most people who get their hands on it will probably like this battle system, but wasn't too sure about people who wanted the KH system. With jump though, I think they'll be pleased too. I really don't see a huge amount of difference now. There's no command menu, and there does seem to be a significant difference in customisation, but from a playability perspective, it should feel familiar. Especially if we can jump into attacks and so forth, which seems like the logical thing with its inclusion.
 

GaussTek

Member
because as they stated at e3 2013, luminous wasnt complete or in a good enough state to do that

Basically you are saying that Luminous wasn't even at a "prototype" stage, as that "Ebony" prototype environment was more 'complete' to do that E3 demo? Jesus.

Just hope the game doesn't get "delayed" anymore because of technical issues with Luminous or something like that.
 

jackal27

Banned
Only playing as Noctis is indeed garbage despite what the FFXV Defense Force may say.

Still, these details help clear up a couple of concerns and give me a bit more hope in what they're making. Thanks to theninterviewer for having the guts to ask really hard questions without pulling any punches.
 
Summons like Leviathan will be interesting since it's entirely water-based.

My expectation of summons in FFXV :

Two kinds of summons:
- Small-to-mid sized summons (Shiva, Ifrit, Gilgamesh, Odin, etc)
- Giant sized summons (Leviathan, Alexander... Bahamut?, etc)

Summons like Bahamut/Leviathan/Alexander won't be available in normal combat, and only usable in selected set-pieces, if at all. Maybe you won't even have them as summons, but merely fight them as boss fights.

And small-to-mid sized summons where it'll either work like Type-0 ( you temporarily take control of summons whose purpose is to just spam their special moves until they expire ), or you summon an additional AI character to the field to support your team.
 

Slowdive

Banned
Only playing as Noctis is indeed garbage despite what the FFXV Defense Force may say.

Still, these details help clear up a couple of concerns and give me a bit more hope in what they're making. Thanks to theninterviewer for having the guts to ask really hard questions without pulling any punches.

It wasn't an interview, they were questions from fans I believe.
 
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